The Black Tattoo (28 page)

"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
."