Black Tattoo, The Read online

  "Svatog?" barked Shargle. "Svatog? Haaaah! He'll make mincemeat out of you!"

  "Arse!" belched the blancmange firmly. "Qat's got what it takes, ain't you, Qat?"

  The coin things were falling thick and fast now, and the air of the great hall sang with the high ringing sound of their impacts. The shark continued to circle overhead, and the babbling of the gladiators was reaching a crescendo again. So far, to Jack's relief, no coin had yet landed in his bowl. He turned to look at Inanna — and had a surprise.

  She too was staring up at what was going on. But her whole posture had changed completely. Just then, Jack thought, she looked for all the world like a kid in class with her hand up, begging for the chance to answer some question that the teacher has asked. The whole of her massive blue body seemed to be straining upward: her whole being seemed to be begging the golden shoal that spiraled and glittered above them, begging them to notice her.

  She wants it, thought Jack, her earlier words coming back to him. She wants the chance to fight, But then—

  Plink!

  A coin dropped into Shargle's bowl. And then—

  Plink!

  Something flashed past Jack's eyes.

  Jack knew what it was, with a terrible certainty, without having to look. And when he did look, he wasn't wrong.

  There it was, still shivering to a stop at the bottom of his bowl: Jack's own coin. The Chinj had been right. His number was up. And in the center of the coin was a word.

  "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" yelled both Shargle's heads at once.

  "Fresh meat and Shargle," Jack heard — barked, burped, and burbled by a multitude of mouths as word spread up and down the table. "Fresh meat and Shargle!" "Fresh meat and Shargle!"

  "HEEEEEEEEEEE hee hee hee hee!" croaked Shargle, oily tears coursing down all four of his brown cheeks. "OOOOOh ho. No, that's too good. Hoo-HOO!"

  The sound of the coins falling from above was drowned out now as, for a moment, it felt like every single demon in the room was laughing at Jack.

  "Oh, fresh meat!" Shargle crowed, wiping his eyes on his coils. "You wont believe what's in store for you. Just you wait! Why, I'll—"

  But anything else the worm would have said was suddenly cut off by a terrible bellow from Inanna.

  "NO!" she screamed suddenly. "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

  As the whole of the room fell instantly, horribly silent, Jack looked up just in time to see the great shark, with three sinuous flicks of its body, rushing through the air back up to where it had come from. The golden shoal of fish things, their task completed, wasn't far behind. Already they too were vanishing back into the rose-shaped opening high above, right behind their master.

  "NOOOOOOO!" shrieked Inanna again, her voice suddenly cracking with a despair that was terrible to hear. "Choose me!" she implored, straining up as her jelly chair struggled to hold her back. "CHOOSE ME!"

  But the golden cloud was gone. The bright light of the wall's opening was blotted out as it closed. No more coin things were going to be dropped that night, even Jack could tell that. Now there was absolute silence in the room, as every single one of the thousands of gladiators waited to see what she'd do next.

  Inanna closed her eyes, and for another moment her whole body was limp. The she flung back her arms and exploded up out of her chair and onto her feet.

  "It's a FIX!" she roared. "A FIX, I tell you!"

  Jelly stuff was spreading and tightening around her, struggling to get her under control. Nonetheless, her words had spread around the hall of gladiators.

  "Fix!" echoed the blancmange monster as the octopus began slamming its tentacles on the table.

  "FIX!" roared the vast mass of demons with one voice. "FIX! FIX! "

  Jack felt the jelly stuff that held him tightening the hardest it had yet, pressing and crushing in on him. The whole floor of the dining hall seemed to have gone soft and wet, as more and more of the stuff rushed to contain what was starting to look like a full-scale riot.

  SILENCE! Gukumat's voice thundered in Jack's head, ringing in his brain and making big ugly blue flashes in front of his eyes. And indeed, the room did seem to be getting quieter, as each and every creature in it suddenly found itself locked in its own personal struggle with what held it.

  You will all return to your cells, said the voice.

  "Yeah?" someone yelled back. "And who'd going to make us?"

  You misunderstand, said Gukumat. That was not a request.

  And at that moment, the pressure on Jack's body reached a climactic, terrible intensity. He felt like his brain was threatening to squeeze out of his eye sockets, much as the blancmange creature's had done earlier when it was trying to frighten him. He felt a hideous, bulging, ripping sensation —

  —then darkness.

  WEAPONS

  The Scourge stopped walking and looked around. Apart from the way they'd come, three more vast corridors led away from the crossroads: ahead, left and right.

  The floor of the room they were standing in was marble, the center inlaid with a subtly repeating pattern of black and white tiles — but Charlie wasn't looking at the floor. The high ceilings were covered in lurid paintings depicting scenes from demon history in full and revolting detail — but Charlie wasn't looking at these, or at the giant fluted stone pillars that flanked the corridors either. He was looking at the Scourge.

  "Up one more floor, I think," it said.

  "We've been up about twelve already," Charlie pointed out.

  "Seven, actually." The demon turned to him and held out its hands. "Ready?"

  "Of course I'm ready."

  "Well then," said the Scourge — and with that, they lifted smoothly into the air.

  Charlie watched the pattern on the floor shrink beneath his feet and scowled.

  "Look," he said, as yet another colossal balcony hove into view all around them, "are you going to tell me what we're looking for or what?"

  They swung away to one side, lifting effortlessly over the balcony's wrought-stone parapet.

  "Weapons," the Scourge replied, as they came to rest soundlessly on one of the huge marble slabs that made up the floor on this level. "To kill the Emperor, we're going to need weapons — though it seems a little unfair to call them that. We're looking for Ashmon and Heshmim—"

  "Ash-what and Hesh-who?"

  "My familiars," finished the demon.

  The Scourge turned and set off toward the nearest of the pillars, which seemed to continue exactly from where the ones on the floor below had stopped. It bent to examine the large blank slab of polished black rock that was attached to the pillar's base. Charlie heard a soft flump! Then the surface of the slab began to fill up from right to left with line upon line of intricate, inch-high letters. The letters were red and seemed to flicker like tiny flames.

  "Hey," said Charlie, coming over for a look. "That's kind of cool. What's it say?"

  The letters vanished.

  "It says," said the Scourge, "that if you can be patient for just a little longer, we are almost there. This way, I think," it added, and set off down the corridor.

  "We are now," the Scourge announced, "in a part of the palace known as the Halls of Ages. To my knowledge, the Emperors of Hell have never once thrown anything away: the Halls of Ages are where everything is kept."

  "Sounds like my house," said Charlie.

  "This whole section of the palace is a network of halls and corridors like these. To either side of us are rooms containing all manner of wonders — an incalculably valuable physical record of the whole of Hell's history.

  "Which is why no one comes up here," said Charlie.

  "Precisely," said the demon. "Ah," it added, suddenly coming to a stop at the foot of yet another enormous pillar, which looked exactly the same as the others. "I believe we've arrived."

  "Yeah?"

  "Oh, yes," said the Scourge, with a small shudder of pleasure, "most definitely." It made a gesture in front of the column, and a section of solid fluted marble wobbled for a
moment, then vanished, to reveal a surprisingly ordinary-looking door, with a small brass doorknob.

  "After you, Charlie," said the Scourge.

  "All right," said Charlie dubiously. He grasped the cool metal, turned it, and the door swung open to reveal a small dusty room. At its center stood a solid-looking dark wooden desk, on which stood the green-shaded brass reading lamp that was the room's only light. Sitting at this desk, still holding the book he'd been reading, was a startled-looking elderly man in a rumpled tweed suit with patches on the elbows.

  "Kh-Khentimentu," the man stammered out finally.

  "Godfrey!" said the Scourge. "So good to see you."

  "L-Likewise!" lied Godfrey, standing up.

  "Charlie, Godfrey."

  "Hi," said Charlie.

  "Oh!" Godfrey looked at the Scourge. "He isn't another... is he?"

  "Another what, Godfrey?"

  "You know," said Godfrey, with a coy smile. "Human."

  "He is human," said the Scourge. "Yes."

  "Oh, but — fascinating! Really?"

  "Really." The Scourge sighed. "Godfrey, time is rather against us. Ashmon and Heshmim — are they here?"

  "Right," said Godfrey, suddenly nervous again. 'Yes, Yes, of course." He got up and went over to the wall of small dark wooden drawers that lined the room from floor to ceiling. He reached into one, extracted something, and put it on the desk in front of Charlie.

  "There we are," he said. "All present and correct."

  "At last," said the Scourge in a quiet, breathy voice. "Go on, Charlie. Pick them up."

  Charlie frowned. The two objects on the table were cylindrical and of equal size: two batons of perfect black, each maybe eight inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. Frankly, they didn't look very impressive. Still, Charlie shrugged and did as he was told, picking up one in each hand.

  Instantly, he froze, horrified. At the first contact with his skin, the two strange object seemed to melt, becoming oily and greasy in his hands. They were warm too, a sudden animal warmth that Charlie didn't like one bit. He made to drop them — and nothing happened! He shook his hands, palm down, over the surface of the desk, only to find that the two black objects clung to him obstinately. In another second they had lost their shape completely, running out and around his palms, a sudden oily welter of hot wet blackness that strung in ropy strands between his fingers, gluing them together. Now the stuff was running up his arms, two humped mounds of inky black, slithering round his shoulders, wriggling down his back, and playing in his hair.

  "What the Hell?" he said.

  "I present to you," said the Scourge, "Ashmon and Hashmim. Ashmon and Heshmim? This is Charlie." At the demon's words, the two blacknesses suddenly sucked back into themselves, and all that was left were two small ferretlike creatures. They sat on Charlie's hands, staring at him intently with sharp, shining eyes.

  "Heshmim will defend you," said the Scourge. "At a thought from you — or before you can even think it — Heshmim will transform himself into shields or armor strong enough to repel almost any attack. Heshmim will also clothe you, with better than any of the rough garments you brought with you from your world."

  "Ashmon," the Scourge went on, "is for attack. He will assume the shape and properties of any weapon you can imagine."

  "Not in here, though," put in Godfrey quickly. "Yes, practice with them later."

  "You will find, Charlie," said the Scourge, "that a steady purpose and a strong will are not all that are required to rule. Sometimes—"

  Hiss, flick, WHAM!

  An object like a three-foot-long black javelin had struck, quivering, in the wall behind Godfrey, some three millimeters to the right of his left ear. The javelin thing remained in the wall for another moment, then melted as Ashmon reassumed his ferret shape and scampered back to his place on Charlie's right hand.

  "Eep," said Godfrey.

  "Sometimes," said the Scourge, "you have to act."

  "Coooooool," said Charlie.

  "You may go out into the passage and get used to each other. Godfrey and I have to talk."

  "Sure," said Charlie. He was up and out of the door in about a nanosecond.

  The demon and the librarian turned to face each other.

  "So," said God. "How've you, ah — been?"

  "Much better, thank you," said the Scourge. "Now."

  "It's, er, nice to see you!" said the librarian with obvious effort.

  "Really?"

  "Yes," said God. "Yes, of course it is! Er, why wouldn't it be?"

  "I didn't think you would've expected to see me again," said the Scourge slowly. "My return from exile on that little... experiment of yours must be something of a shock to you, I would imagine."

  "Wh-what do you mean?" asked God.

  The demon didn't answer.

  "N-now hold on just a second!" said God, stammering again. "You know perfectly well that I had nothing to do with what happened to you — nothing whatsoever! You were exiled on Earth because no one knew the place existed, but it might just as well have been anywhere! You were bound by a power far greater than mine, as you well know, so how you could even think that I—

  "Godfrey," said the Scourge, "shut up."

  God did as he was told.

  The Scourge planted its liquid hands on the desk: they pooled there, at the end of its arms, glinting green in the light from the lamp. "If I knew for certain," it began, leaning over the man in the chair. "If I had so much as a shred of proof, Godrey, that you had anything to do with my imprisonment on that world you created — do you know what I'd do to you?"

  God looked up at it.

  "N-no," he said.

  "No," echoed the Scourge. "You don't. But believe me, it would be far from pleasant. After all, I've had a very long time to work it out."

  There was a pause.

  "So," said God. "Oh, dear."

  "With that human boy as my vessel," said the Scourge, gesturing out toward the passageway, "I will kill the current Emperor and take my rightful place on the throne. Then, Godfrey, I will do what I originally set out to do."

  "But surely," said God, "you can't still want to—?"

  "I will awaken the Dragon," the Scourge told him, "and the Dragon will destroy the universe. All Creation shall be returned to the Void, and pure emptiness will reign once more.

  "And this time," it added, standing up, "nothing is going to stop me."

  THE PATH OF VENGEANCE

  Esme had lived above the theater her whole life. She knew every inch of it, every creak in every floorboard. The Sons of the Scorpion Flail had set sentries in case she came back, but they might as well not have bothered: Esme move through the passageways like a ghost, in silence and darkness.

  Look in my room, Raymond's voice echoed. There's something for you.

  Part of Esme had been expecting that Raymond's room might have changed somehow. But of course it looked exactly the same.

  It was full of him. Full of memories. There was his regimental photo from his SAS days, taken so long ago now that the Raymond in that picture was almost unrecognizable. Above that were his certificates from his years of brutal budo training with the Tokyo Riot Police. In the corner by the wardrobe, his outsized practice armor stood like the abandoned carapace of some giant insect that had molted and moved on.

  She found what she was looking for easily enough, under the bed.

  It was a rectangular narrow flight case — black, with steel-reinforced corners. The case was four feet long, a foot wide, and six inches deep.

  When you're ready, when you know what to do, you use it.

  Esme flipped the catches. As she lifted the lid, she was holding her breath. For a moment, she stared at what she saw, eyes wide, drinking it in. Then, still hardly daring to breathe, Esme reached into the case and lifted out what it contained. A strange sensation of pleasure spread up her arms and shivered through her whole body as she felt its weight.

  At first glance, it looked a lot like her trainin
g sword — her bokken. The scabbard was made of the same plain, dark wood, and the overall dimensions of the sword were exactly the same too. But there was something unusual, she noticed, about the sword's tsuba. The disc of metal, which divides your opponent's blade from simply sliding down yours and wounding your sword hand, was thicker than usual: a flat but solid-looking gold-colored lump, four inches in diameter at its widest points, cast roughly, but clearly, into the unmistakable shape of...

  "A butterfly," said Esme aloud — and for a moment, then, she almost lost it.

  Don't be soft, said Raymond's voice in her head. Put it on.

  With a hard sniff, Esme slung the sword across her back. She adjusted the strap until it fit snugly and the grip lay close to her right hand. Then, reaching up without looking, Esme released the small catch that held the guard against the scabbard. It gave out a soft but deeply satisfying click.

  In a fluid movement, she drew the sword. The soft hiss as it slid from the sheath was followed by a high, singing hum as the blade reverberated.

  "Oh," she said. "Oh, Dad. It's beautiful."

  Turning her wrists, she let the light from Raymond's bed-side lamp play along the sword's edge. The warm glare traced the length of the blade from guard to tip: two feet eight inches of cold curved steel.

  It was a pigeon sword — formed by Raymond's own peculiar process. For extra strength, it had been ground down and reshaped — Seven times is my record, she remembered him saying. It was the life's work of a master swordsmith, and it had been created just for her.

  She let the sword dip once, twice in the air, in tiny, controlled chopping movements. The weapon, as Raymond had no doubt planned, was fractionally lighter than her training sword: it felt absolutely right in her hands.

  "How do I look?" Esme asked aloud.

  Deadly, Raymond's voice replied fervently. Bloody deadly.

  The tears were coming freely now, but she smiled.