The Sea Peoples(96)

The mind of the Yellow King, John thought.

The really disturbing thing about it wasn’t that he was in the mind of a mad demon . . .

No, that is disturbing, John thought. That is very disturbing.

What was even more disturbing was that he wasn’t sure he was just seeing images, part of the Yellow King’s imaginings. He was pretty sure that the people in that strange version of New York had been just that, people. People who were somehow trapped here forever, or at least until the Day of Judgement. He didn’t know how the theology of it all worked, but he did know this was a fair working facsimile of damnation.

At the center of the town was a lopsided square leading down to a river, with a tall building topped by a spire like a church, and on its top the three-armed Yellow Sign.

“I don’t like this,” Deor began.

John bit back a: No shit! I don’t either!

Deor meant something specific. Light pulsed through the stained-glass windows of the not-church, along with chanting—a guttural chorus he couldn’t quite make out. Then the great carved doors swung open and he could:

“Uoht! Uoht! Uoht!”

Worshippers came out in a boiling mob; or at least he thought it was a mob, until he realized that they were dancing, a jerking chaotic mass that moved to the drone of pipes and the maddeningly irregular pulse of a drum. The dancers were naked save for bestial masks, all distorted; a raven with a curved beak, a bull’s-head with antlers, a rabbit that wept tears of red. They lashed each other as the flagellants on the road had, and their screams melded into the music.

“Uoht! Uoht! Uoht!”

After the dancers came more naked figures chained to a wheeled platform with barbed links, their faces painted white on one side and black on the other, scrambling forward on their hands and knees. A tall black pillar sat in the middle of the platform, and its head had been carved into . . .

It’s not really like a dog, John thought.

He liked dogs, and found their faces appealing in a dopey, enthusiastic, childlike fashion. Dogs were more honest than men, too. They didn’t pretend to like you if you treated them well, they actually did, and would treat you as if you were their blood kin and liege lord rolled into one.

It looks more like a bat. There’s a reason the old painters used bat-faces for demons. This looks like the Adversary trying to copy a dog.

Whoever had carved it knew their work. The needle teeth weren’t too regular, and they had stains the way a working carnivore’s did. The broad ribbed ears and the flared convoluted nostrils were delicately pink veined in crimson and black, and the black bristly hairs of the muzzle seemed to almost bristle. . . .

They did. The eyes opened, and they were as black as the bristling fur. The pupils were like . . . No, they were the three-limbed Yellow Sign, but they were alive, and full of wicked intelligence and a living will to harm that struck like a hammer of hot wind. The columnar . . . body? Was it bending, mistlike?

“Uoht! Uoht! Uoht!”

The votaries screamed the name. John realized his mouth was open and he was making small mewing noises, rather like this grandmother’s Persian cats when they were unhappy with a thunderstorm or catapult-practice in Castle Todenangst. The difference was that he knew that running back and forth moaning wouldn’t do him any good at all. But it was so tempting!

“Now that we’ve been formally introduced to Mr. Uoht, let’s run like buggery!” Pip said crisply, her melodically accented soprano steady. Then she muttered: “At least there aren’t tentacles.”

Whatever that means, John thought. Well, it’s nice to know the mother of my children—even then the words brought an odd mixture of pride and something quite like fear—has plenty of courage to pass on. At least as much as I!

“Fuckin’ second the motion,” Toa rasped; he had his spear up and was backing away step by step. “Bad doggie!”

“Down to the water,” Deor said. “Toa, Thora and Pip, you lead and get us a boat ready. Prince John, Alan, with me.”

That was sensible; Pip was a highly competent ship’s captain, Toa was her second in command, and Thora had spent a lot of time on boats. She was also a ferociously able fighter—not that Pip wasn’t formidable too, but Thora was equipped and trained for a straight-on slugging match in a way she wasn’t. One look at Toa was usually enough to intimidate, though you couldn’t be sure here, and he was also one of the strongest men John had ever met and like an otter in the water.

But I really wish it wasn’t so sensible for me to hold the rearguard. Roland won immortal fame at Roncevalles and died there . . . on the other hand he’d be dead now anyway, wouldn’t he? Buck up, John. This part will sound good in the chanson. It’s good I’ve been sharing my musical plans with Deor—he could make it if . . . if necessary.

The votaries were more or less ignoring the five of them, as most of the people . . . sort of people . . . here had. The dog-bat-thing wasn’t. It seemed to have a little trouble finding them, for which John thanked God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; also the Virgin and the whole bright company of the Saints—literally, and wished he could work the rosary that lay against his skin under the arming doublet.

And maybe that’s why it can’t find us easily, John thought. God’s hand is over us. I’m not worthy . . . but who is? Praise God for His infinite mercy!