Vaughn Heppner - Assassin of the Damned

If a pivot stood here in the wall…

I went to the opposite side as the iron coins. I ran my fingers along the base, the ceiling, the corner. Ah, I noticed footprints and followed them to a niche in a sidewall. There was a candleholder in it. I tugged. It resisted. The bottom of the candleholder had a cunning hinge, hard to see right away. I tugged harder. It moved, and something clicked. I hurried to the wall and pushed. It swiveled on a hidden pivot, and I thought counterweights . My end went in. The other end swung outward, and I saw how the wall had shoved the iron coins. The alchemists had been cunning artificers.

Ah! There were the paw and hoof prints. I entered the secret room, and my shin brushed a stretched wire. There came a soft click. To the sides, steel cords twanged.

I would have died there, but I was the Darkling. Before I understood my danger, before my mind recognized the threat, I threw myself toward the floor with catlike reflexes. A crossbow bolt hissed overhead. Another kissed my leathers. The third punched into my thigh. It slued my leg that way and pivoted my torso the other.

I clamped my teeth together at the pain. Whoever had designed the trap had taken into account someone like me.

The bolt had missed bone and entered into the fleshy back of my thigh. I slithered to the wall, but the trap had swung it shut. I leaned against the wall and felt my thigh. My night-vision was useless in a pitch-black room. The bolt had sunk deeply. I clutched it, and yanked.

A groan tore from my throat. Thankfully, it was a smooth-pointed bolt, not barbed. I pressed the flesh against bone. Sticky substance oozed out, but it wasn’t blood. In a matter of seconds, the oozing stopped.

I found the tripwire and slid my hand to one end. I discovered a mechanism, and by fiddling, reopened the wall. I limped outside and bathed in the healing moonlight.

Erasmo must have known about the trap beforehand. That he knew implied that he and the alchemists had been partners. How deep had the conspiracy run?

I shook my head. What did it matter now?

I tested my leg. It was stiff, sore and partly healed. I limped into the Alchemist Shop, followed the trail, clicked the candle and warily entered the secret room. I used flint and tinder and lit an old torch. There were cages in here. Each held a chained skeleton inside. I followed the dusty trail. The corridor led past doors. One room had stacks of iron ingots. Another had thumbscrews and racks. I ignored the doors thereafter. The corridor led to stone steps sized for giants. They led down.

A faint stir of air startled me. I drew my knife and limped down the stairs. They curved and went farther than I expected. They ended at damp soil where ancient barrels held a meeting. I lifted the torch. At the end of the cellar, timbers shored up the earth like a mineshaft. Not more caves. I hated caves.

Tracks showed me they had used the mineshaft. Screwing up my resolve, I followed after them. My shoulders hunched of their own accord and my muscles tightened. I moved warily. Lorelei had spoken about doors to another Earth, a ruined place. Maybe she had really meant a gateway to Hell. Several twists later brought me before an ironbound door. Its hinges were as long as my forearm. I remembered Erasmo had told the knight he had to bring a key. Maybe the key had been for this door.

I sheathed my knife and limped to the door. The handle was icy cold and a terrible sense of doom filled me, of wrongness. I shrank back. I hated the door. It was profoundly evil. If Lorelei was right, Erasmo had used it once and returned with the plague. He had begun the hideous dying in Perugia. If Lorelei was right, a dead Earth waited on the other side, together with an olden trumpet of doom. How could there be other Earths?

“He stole your wife,” I whispered.

I snarled, and tugged at the door. It was stuck fast. I looked around and wormed the end of my torch into a rocky crack. Then I put both hands on the handle, and I heaved. The door slid open an inch. I yanked again, and used my newfound strength, the one that had allowed me to lift a wagon full of corpses. The heavy door slid open several more inches. I peered through the narrow opening. There was nothing but swirling blackness on the other side-a strange vertigo that hurt my eyes.

I retrieved the torch and thrust it through. The tunnel was cast into pitch-blackness. I pulled the torch back, but the flame was out. I put my hand where the flame had been, but didn’t feel any heat. I touched the charred wood. The flame had gone out long ago.

I tossed the guttered torch aside and listened to it clatter. Then I plunged through the door, the gateway to a dead Earth.

I landed on sand and rolled. I scrambled upright, drew my knife and whirled around. With shocked horror, I saw nothing but dreary sand with the ghastliness of salt. The sand shifted in slow tides. Far on the bleak horizon were the Alps. Yet they lacked snow or any sign of greenery. To the left I spied a razed town, its ruined towers the sole sentinels of this shifting desolation. The worst was the sky. A vast and looming moon filled a quarter of it. The moon was a burnt husk, and despite its abominable size only gave off faint light. Then a comet blazed or a falling star. It burned in the heavens and I heard a distant roar before it vanished into the horizon. Seconds later the ground shook, maybe at its impact. Other fiery stars streaked overhead, illuminating this fallen world.

How could I return without a door? How could Erasmo return? Or had the door been a trap?

Then I noticed a haze before me. A particularly intense comet illuminated it. It was the door.

I backed away and almost tripped over a man. He lay staked down, with his ankles and wrists cruelly bound with wire. His eyes bulged in death. He had bitten off his tongue. With sick loathing, I recognized him. It was Erasmo’s father. The implications were perverse.

I sheathed my knife. The heavens roared and light filled the sky. I slumped at the dazzling display. It was too bright. The impact exploded upon my ears and the ground trembled like an earthquake. Moments later, the air shrieked and the heat became unbearable.

I struggled to control my terror. I was Prince Gian Baglioni of Perugia, a patron of the arts and a member of the ongoing Renaissance. I had reason. I must use it. So I scrambled after Erasmo’s tracks. Sand had already drifted into them or been blasted into them. This was a desperate place. Erasmo was mad or indeed consumed with lust for power.

The first angel must have long ago winded his trumpet, along with the second, third and fourth angels blowing theirs. Wrath and judgment had fallen on this world. The comets must be the finishing act, the period that capped this Earth’s doom.

I followed their tracks and ran, until in the distance I saw specks. One speck was bigger than the others, the black knight on his horse, no doubt.

Three times comet-born blasts hurled me from my feet. The endless tides of this dreadful world worked to obliterate every sign of life. When I rose from the third blast, the specks were gone.

I hurried, fed a trickle of strength from this world’s bloated moon. Finally, I came to a huge fissure, a cyclopean zigzag in the sands. Had the others entered the fissure? Faint tracks said yes.

I slipped over the edge. Fortunately, the way was not straight down, and soon I trudged at a steep angle. I passed smaller fissures, jagged scarps and gray boulders. The falling stars that passed overhead briefly lit the area like a dim sun. I followed paw-prints and boot marks. There were no more hoof prints, however. The horse hadn’t entered the fissure. Of that, I was certain. I wondered what had happened to it.

An agonized howl focused my attention. I moved from nook to scarp to boulder. The ground trembled. Rocks loosened and rattled downward. Air screamed across the fissure like a colossus blowing pipes. We were all insane to be here.