***
The sky sickened me. It blazed with titanic flames. It made the tower hot like a desert. The vast flames cycled through colors: yellow, orange, red and purple. They flickered like lewd dancers, erotic one moment like sinuous women, and then they leered like perverted sadists the next. The sky was not one continuous flame or band of fire. Each licking flame was its own individual, a gargantuan thing.
Behind them was darkness, the night. I found no source for these flames. It made the air hazy. It felt as if I had stepped into the antechamber of Hell.
I was on the roof of a three-storey building. The inner tower was like a city with many low brick houses. They squatted close together, seemed to huddle in misery. I’d seen altered men in all their various forms. None of them looked up at the flames. They hurried with heads down and those that had them with shoulders hunched.
Why hadn’t I seen the flames from the outside? I’d felt the heat. What had caused the rumbles? This was more of Erasmo’s evil sorcery. Just as bad, I felt from time to time as if some of the flames glanced at me. It made me feel conspicuous, as if I had done something wrong. I remembered the living flame on the doomed Earth. Was he the family dwarf?
Luckily for me, the flames weren’t the sun. As bright as they were, they didn’t leech my strength.
I desperately needed information. I needed to find my daughter, my wife and son. But first, I needed to find Erasmo. An assassin had one stroke. His skills demanded that he place it exactly right the first time. He would likely never get a second chance. I’d failed the first stroke against Erasmo in the otherworldly cave, and had almost died. I should have died there on that dead Earth. Now I had that rarest of things among assassins, a second chance. If I failed again, I would likely fail forever. And my family would remain his prisoner forever. I needed information to guide my single stroke into exactly the right chest.
The low buildings huddled in misery. Towers rose in places, six of them. Roads linked each, and the roads made a familiar pattern. I remembered the pattern Orlando had made in Perugia. Erasmo had used the pattern to journey from here to there. The gargantuan Tower of the East stood in the center of the other towers. All roads or lines led to it.
High in the main tower light blazed from a window. Now that I studied them more closely, it seemed as if the giant flames in the sky bowed down toward the window. The moment I recognized that, one flame shifted unnaturally. Its tip dipped low, and for a moment, I imagined it had eyes. Our eyes met, and the flame licked back-in shock perhaps.
Those weren’t flames, but demons, or some other supernatural beings. They were here…I don’t know why. I had two suspicions. One, they might help Erasmo blow the trumpet. Two, maybe in some manner they helped him heal from my cut.
I lowered my eyes. Maybe it was sacrilegious to look up at them.
Ah. There was the sign. That’s what I wanted. A door opened in one of the lesser towers. I had questions. I doubted altered men could tell me. Now a sorcerer, one of Erasmo’s magician henchmen, could likely give me useful answers. A sorcerer darted into that tower.
I dropped from my perch and landed like a cat. Then I used shadows and kept up my hood. Few altered men were aboard. Many were likely outside the castle fighting. I hoped Signor Orlando was out there, and both the lycanthropes, too.
The giant flames crackled. They poured heat. Whenever I stepped out of shadows, I felt the scrutiny of the sky. I should have known the Tower of the East would be a door into some strange evil. This was Erasmo’s place of power.
I hurried from shadows and toward the foot of a tower. I stepped onto one of the main roads. A shock struck me, a current of power.
I leaped off the road. The feeling stopped. What was that? I needed answers. I needed them fast. I resolutely stepped onto the road. The shock flowed through me again. It made my teeth ache. I strode to the door and hammered on it with my fist. I banged impatiently. I kept at it. The current numbed my feet. It was making my eyelids heavy.
The door swung open. A beefy altered man glowered. He was the biggest I’d seen. He wore a cloak, a cap, but his features were inhuman. He had a snout like a wolf and a black tongue. I shoved him aside as I stepped in. I slammed the door behind me. The current stopped.
I stood in an atrium. There were busts everywhere and they were all of me. These had the spade-shaped beard and Erasmo’s evil stare. Tapestries hung in places. They showed hellish scenes of leering succubae and other abominations. In some of them Erasmo strode as a conqueror. In others, he was a vile celebrant. When I say Erasmo, they were all images of me.
What was his fascination with me? I’d hated it before. Now I resented it. It was a personal affront. If he was going to be a Lord of Hell, he should do it with his own features. He shouldn’t smear my name and likeness throughout all eternity.
“Who are you?” the altered man growled.
I stabbed him, dragged him to a closet and shoved him in. Then I yanked down a tapestry, sopped some of the blood and threw that after him.
There were more rooms. They were empty. Finally, I found stars. I bounded up. They went in a spiral and kept going what seemed forever.
I ran and grew enraged that Erasmo looked like me. He’d stolen my former life. He’d taken my wife and children. They had to be here somewhere.
After a long climb, a door waited above. It looked heavy. Part of me wished to throw my shoulder against it and batter it down. The wiser part, the cunning part, slowed, stopped and soon tested it. It was open. I pushed ever so slowly.
***
The room was huge. It contained rugs, cushioned chairs and an open hearth in the center. Black coals and ashes smoldered there now. There were cabinets with wine and decanters. There were tables with spiced chicken, apples, pears, ham, meat pies and cakes. Plates lay on tables. Greasy bones lay on those, hunks of bread and half-filled glasses. There had been a feast, a party maybe.
A lone occupant rose from the head of one of the tables. He set a gnawed bone on the silken tablecloth. He was hairy, eight feet tall and had clawed hands. It was the chief of the lycanthropes in human form. A long blue cloak hung at his back. It was fastened near his hulking shoulder with a sapphire flower of exotic design. His green eyes were hot and poisonous, and greedy for pain. He tilted his face, and he sniffed.
“You’ve been with the sea creatures,” he said.
“I was in Perugia. Do you remember?”
He shrugged.
“You feared me then,” I said. “Your brothers of the fang said I was a dead thing.”
“We feared you before you ran from us. We fear nothing that runs away.”
“I won’t run now. Go ahead and call your brother.”
He sniffed again, more carefully. A slow smile stretched his lips. “You made a mistake coming here,” he said. “You lack silver weapons.”
I kicked the door shut and dropped the bar. “Do you remember the smile I gave your brother when I cut under his chin?”
He picked up a sword, a whippy, flexible thing over five feet long. It looked sharp, deadly. I’d never seen a sword like that. It had a jeweled pommel.
“This is how we duel in my world,” he said. “Tonight, I gain rank in the civilized manner.”
“You?” I asked. “Civilized? Is that a jest?”
He slashed the sword. The tip whipped back and forth with deadly swishes. He hurled his chair from him and stepped away from the table.
“Erasmo della Rovere has style,” he said. “He is a superior being. He ordered a proper sword forged for a true warrior. With it, I will cut out your heart and give him half. The other half I’ll gnaw. I will thereby gain your strength.”
“You’ll need it.”
“I will hew your head with a swipe. I will pack your head in salt and take it with me when I return home. There I will let the pups piss on your face and I will tell them the story about how I slew the killer-in-the-dark.”