Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (42 page)

"Do you feel it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Feel what?"

"Something familiar," he snapped, moving away
toward an exit from the chamber. "Hold things here while I investigate."

Conan Doyle had felt it on at least two other occasions
since arriving in the Underworld, a presence of power not native to this death
realm, a presence that brought about a tingling sensation at the back of his
neck, and the disquieting feeling that they were being watched, maybe herded in
a certain direction. At first he’d chalked it up to his own, quite active
paranoia, but each time he caught wind of it, his suspicions grew. He felt it
now here within the corpse of Hades, a familiar electricity that drew him away
from the safety provided by the voice of Orpheus to a passage that would lead
him to the unknown beyond the chamber.

The feeling grew as he cautiously walked the winding path,
the song of Orpheus growing fainter in the distance. As he rounded a bend,
Conan Doyle stopped, a spell of defense ready as he saw a figure lying upon its
side in the path ahead. Cautiously he approached, studying the crumpled figure
for any sign of movement.

Conan Doyle squatted down beside the body and was startled
to see that it was the last of the Erinyes. She was quite dead, as were the
snakes that had attempted to flee their host upon her demise. He rolled her
onto her back and watched as a ghostly wisp of smoke trailed up from the
fist-sized hole burnt into her chest. Conan Doyle reached down and touched the
edges of the blackened wound, letting some of ash collect on his finger. He
brought it to his nose and sniffed. It smelled of power.

An ancient and terrible magick had been unleashed upon the
last of the Furies, a spell that he was certain had not been performed by any
in his company, or even the enemy. By the acrid aroma of the residue, Conan
Doyle knew this was magick of a darker nature, wielded with the utmost
precision, that could only be attributed to a sorcerer with enough knowledge
and strength to master such fearsome power — an arch mage of the highest
order and discipline.

He could think of only one such mage.

The Fury had been struck down before the entrance into
another chamber, the passage having been at one time covered in a thick
membranous skin. The covering had been torn, and as he approached the rip,
Conan Doyle could hear the sounds of movement from within the chamber beyond.

Stretching the opening wider, Conan Doyle forced his way
into the room behind and gasped at what he saw. It was a workshop of sorts, but
nothing like the hot, clanging place Squire worked his weapons. This was not a
workplace for hobgoblins or even members of the human race. This was the
workshop of a god, a massive chamber cluttered with the enormous tools of the
metalsmith and laden with gigantic swords and armor that had been crafted for
the true gods of Olympus. No sword was smaller than Conan Doyle himself.

The mage stepped farther into the vast chamber, marveling at
the sights before him; an intricately carved golden throne obviously meant for
a king, a winged chariot, beautiful jewelry spilling from countless metal
chests, weapons, and armor. There was animal statuary so wondrously sculpted
that he could have sworn they were living breathing things. Everywhere Conan
Doyle looked there was something so fantastic that it nearly took his breath
away.

Once upon a time, this workshop had been the pride of
Olympus, its fires forming the treasure of the gods. But like the Furies, the
craftsman himself had relocated to the corpse city within the remains of Hades.

This was the workshop of Hephaestus, god of fire and patron
of craftsmen. Not the most powerful god in the Greek pantheon, but among the
most respected and best loved.

There came the sound of clatter and the mutter of an angry
voice from deeper in the workshop, and Conan Doyle remembered that he was not alone.
Cautiously he made his way closer. He could feel it again in the air, the
familiar crackle of primordial forces reminding him that he was in the presence
of awesome power.

He came around the gigantic bronze sculpture of a bull to
see the figure of man dressed in a charcoal gray suit, as if he’d come from a
wedding or maybe even a funeral. The man’s back was to him, but Conan Doyle
knew immediately who it was. It was as if the magick was saying his name over
and over again.

Sanguedolce. Sweetblood. Sweetblood the mage.

"Lorenzo," Conan Doyle called out, but the man did
not respond.

He continued to rummage about, grumbling beneath his breath
as he furiously searched for something among the creations of Hephaestus.

"I should have known you had something to do with this,"
Conan Doyle said, cautiously approaching the man. "Gull couldn’t have come
up with anything quite this elaborate on his own."

Sweetblood slowly glanced up from Hephaestus’s hoard. "Ah,
Arthur," the mage said with the slightest hint of a smile. "It’s
about time you got here, I was beginning to worry."

Conan Doyle seethed. All of this, from beginning to end, had
been a part of some scheme of Sweetblood’s. Even Gull, the poor, mad, twisted
bastard, had been manipulated. Sanguedolce had been his teacher and mentor in
the mystic arts until the man’s sudden disappearance in the early part of the
twentieth century. Conan Doyle and Gull had both been his students. They knew
better than anyone that Sweetblood was the most powerful mage in the world, but
he was also cunning.

"What have you done, Lorenzo? What is it that you so
desire that you had to orchestrate all of this?"

Sanguedolce waved off his inquiry, continuing to search. "Give
me a hand, Arthur. I need you to help me find something." He picked up a
bronze helmet, studied it momentarily, and then tossed it over his shoulder
where it noisily clattered to the ground. "You’re good at that, aren’t
you? Finding things that don’t wish to be found?"

Conan Doyle fumed.

Sweetblood had secreted himself away in a hidden chamber,
gone missing by choice, creating a magical chrysalis that would mask his power
while he was entombed within. He claimed to have discovered a creature of
unimaginable evil and power, out in the farthest reaches of space. The DemoGorgon.
The evil had sensed him, had located him, and Sanguedolce claimed that his
power would act like a beacon, drawing the DemoGorgon to Earth by its hunger to
feed upon Sanguedolce’s innate magick. The sorcerer had hidden in hopes that
that unimaginable evil making its way across the universe would lose interest
if his power were not there to entice it.

For the safety of the world, and all those who lived upon
it, Sanguedolce had not wanted to be found. But Conan Doyle had done just that,
searched for his former mentor and located him. The chrysalis had been
shattered in the process, the mage was released from his self-imposed
confinement, and now, according to Sweetblood, his power was drawing the
voracious DemoGorgon ever closer.

Conan Doyle knew Sweetblood blamed him, and he accepted some
of the responsibility. But if the arrogant bastard had bothered to inform his
students, they might have avoided the doom that now seemed inevitable.

"Since your revival, I’ve made frequent attempts to
contact you, to discuss the impending threat and to apologize for my
misunderstanding of your —"

"Misunderstanding?" Sanguedolce interrupted. "Is
that what you’re calling it?" He moved away from a wall stacked with
crates overflowing with golden chains. "An evil the likes of which this
world has never seen moving inexorably toward the planet because of your . .
misunderstanding
."

The last word rolled off his tongue with disdain.

Conan Doyle longed to lash out against the his former
teacher, to remind him that his own pursuits of forbidden power had been what
had captured the attentions of the DemoGorgon in the first place, but he held
his tongue. Now was not the time.

"What are you searching for, Lorenzo?" he asked
again.

Sweetblood had returned to his objective, carefully moving
about the room, delving into every nook and cranny. "Use your head,
Arthur. What in Heaven’s name could I want here? With the DemoGorgon on the
way, what might be useful to me if I want to create something, a weapon,
anything that might prove useful in combating it?"

Conan Doyle understood. Even before his question had left
his lips, he had come to the answer. The idea of it made him catch his breath. "You’ve
come for the Forge of Hephaestus. All of this has been about the Forge, about
fighting the DemoGorgon."

"Don’t worry," Sanguedolce said, laughing softly. "It’s
not some sudden noble urge. When the evil comes, it is going to come after me
first. If I can destroy it, the salvaging of this pitiable, corrupted world
will be only a by-product."

He focused now on a particular section of bare wall, oddly
free from clutter. "What have we here?" he asked, laying the flat of
his hand against the wall — all muscle and membrane — tilting his
head to one side as if listening. "Yes," the arch mage hissed,
stepping back away from the wall and extending his arms. "This might very
well be it."

Sweetblood weaved a pattern in the air and it took
crackling, sparkling form. The pattern seared itself into the wall, and it fell
away to dust, disintegrating in an instant. There was a room hidden on the
other side.

"No secrets can remain hidden forever,"
Sanguedolce said with a twinkle in his icy blue eyes. "We’ve learned that,
haven’t we, Arthur?"

Something moved swiftly within the darkness of the hidden
chamber and Conan Doyle reacted instinctively, leaping across the room to
tackle Sanguedolce, knocking him to the ground.

"Have you lost your —" The arch mage began
just as the sword blade swung out from the darkness, cleaving the space where
Sanguedolce had just stood.

"If the Forge is as valuable as you say," Conan
Doyle said, climbing from atop his mentor. "Only a fool would assume it’s
been left unguarded."

The creature that emerged from the hole in that wall was at
least ten feet high. It was a warrior, but not of flesh and blood. Not of bone
and sinew. The guardian of the Forge was fashioned from bronze, a mechanical
man, and he wielded an enormous sword. Fire from Hephaestus’s Forge burned in
the empty hollows of its eyes and mouth.

The creation of Hephaestus turned its head and let out a
battle cry very much like rending metal, launching its attack upon them. The
automaton moved stiffly, and Conan Doyle wondered whether the wondrous device
wasn’t feeling the effects of time’s cruel passage.

Conan Doyle ducked beneath a swipe of the sword’s blade and
dove at a pile of weaponry, hoping to find something to stave off the bronze
robot’s attack. He needed a moment to collect his thoughts, to summon a spell
that would destroy the guardian. The blade he raised was little more than a
dagger to the gods, but it made an unwieldy sword for an ordinary man. He
managed to lift a piece of unfinished armor plating and use it as a cruel
shield, blocking the bronze guardian’s sword as it come down toward him. The
force of the blow nearly drove him to his knees. Conan Doyle lashed out with
his own blade, hacking away at the metal man with little effect.

The guardian’s attack was relentless, and Conan Doyle could
barely gather his thoughts enough to strike back. It was all he could do to
defend himself. Magick was his only hope. When next the automaton raised his
sword, Conan Doyle found the opportunity to unleash his spell.

The guardian roared, fiery sparks spilling from the sides of
its open mouth as it brought the blade down again. Conan Doyle dropped his own
weapon and raised his hand, shouting the final words of the incantation. The
air bent and distorted as invisible power jumped the distance between them, and
then the ancient machine was blasted backward into the many, carefully balanced
crates of jewelry. The wooden boxes teetered and swayed, tumbling down upon
Hephaestus’s bronze sentry, burying him beneath a deluge of handcrafted
baubles.

Dust undisturbed for countless millennia billowed in the air
and Conan Doyle squinted through the roiling haze for a sign of his foe. As the
dust began to settle, he saw that the guardian had been buried beneath the
avalanche; only a bronze hand sticking out from the rubble.

Conan Doyle dropped his makeshift shield onto a nearby pile
of assorted weaponry and glanced about for Sanguedolce.

The bronze automaton erupted up from the wreckage, tossing
it aside as if it were no more bothersome than collected raindrops.

The guardian reached for him, its large, segmented fingers
closing in a vise-like grip upon his shoulders and neck. Conan Doyle gasped. Explosions
of color danced before his eyes as his brain cried out for oxygen, and he
feebly struggled to wrench those fingers from his throat.

A resounding clap of thunder filled the room, and Conan
Doyle dropped heavily, painfully to the ground, precious gulps of air filling
his greedy lungs. As his vision cleared, he saw that the mechanical man still
loomed above him, arms extended, segmented fingers bent into claws, but now
something was missing. Stunned, Conan Doyle gazed at the empty space above the
mechanical sentry’s shoulders where it’s head had been. All that remained was a
jagged, smoking stump.

Conan Doyle picked himself up, rubbing the feeling back into
his neck.

"Quickly now, man," he heard Sanguedolce call, and
he glanced up sharply to find the arch mage standing at the ragged entrance. His
hand still glowed white from the forces he had just released against the
guardian of the Forge, and he gestured for Conan Doyle to join him.

"I’m going to require your assistance if we’re to take
the Forge from the Underworld."

Conan Doyle stumbled toward the hole blown into the chamber.
"Are you certain this is wise?"