And then Valentina began to quiver, for thoughts of her syphilitic affliction had now jarred something loose among her guilt-bound memories.

She had at last remembered the face-the touch-the sweating grasp like so many others shed known. The same boorishness, braggadocio. Another virile specimen who would ply her the way he just knew she was born to be plied. She remembered all but the name of Fernandez. And she knew what she must do.

"Shem-" she said, fighting for control. "Shem, you must send me back to my friends. I have an-an unfinished quest."

"No," he protested. "Did you not listen? I told you they were doomed. Something is happening in that tortured nexus of worlds. You cannot go back there!"

"But why?" Valentinas eyes went wide with apprehension.

"Because the gateways are closing in this place. That fortress is enfolding back into its center. All inside it will share the fate of the meddlers who fashioned it so perversely."

"What do you mean?"

"Theyll be compressed-crushed within it."

"Shem-you must do something!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

They were naked sacrifices for the entertainment of a leering cosmos.

To the perspective of the inhabitants of the Fortress of the Dead, Wunderknecht and a.s.sa.s.sin alike, it seemed as though theyd been jolted by the whim of some capricious G.o.d, their tilting grounds wrenched apart, such that they stood in awe aboard chunks of flying debris in an immense ether-bound arena.

Just as things had appeared to revert to normality, there had been a jarring impact, knocking them all off their feet. When they had gathered their senses, they found themselves floating in a shimmering, murky void on fifty-foot sections of the exploded castle. The jagged segments drifted slowly on straight lines-vertical, horizontal, and skewed-pa.s.sing one another until each reached the edges of their mist-bordered sphere of containment. Moving through the barrier, they would find themselves momentarily disoriented, realizing finally that they had resumed their inexorable course at the extreme opposite end of the line from which theyd begun.

But the next pa.s.s brought each piece of castle ground or wall or turret nearer to the others than the last. And nearer to the trembling center of that sphere. It was a shrinking, spherical arena, with a dreadful core that looked like a living void. A hungering darkness.

For a brief interval all thought of combat was forgotten.

Gonji stood with his swords lashed to his back, his retrieved bow hanging limply in one hand, peering outward from a chunk of middle bailey ground bordered on one side by a sheared-off section of the main gatehouses tall inner towers. He scanned the incredible phenomenon with less sense of doom than of wonder. He could make out figures on the truncated air vessels, but none seemed near enough to engage, whether friend or foe. His ma.s.s of debris was on an outer plane, cutting a short arc from the enveloping sphere, but growing larger with each pa.s.s as he moved toward the center.

But Gonji and his band all soon noticed what occurred when a fragment reached the exact center of the sphere: It dissolved into nothingness, as if fed from front to rear into an invisible devouring maw.

Gonji could make out two figures on a horizontal path near the center, racing about in frenzy on the bakehouse roof. He recognized Simon first, then saw that it was Cardenas with him. They had perceived their peril and were frantically searching for a means to survival. Gonji could only watch helplessly, from perhaps hundreds of yards away.

He saw Simons leap down onto a section of marble floor that pa.s.sed below. Cardenas lost his nerve, waiting until the next agonizing pa.s.s to drop down through twenty feet of air, nearly missing the banquet hall section, shrilling with terror as Simon grabbed him, near an edge, and pulled him to safety.

And then a crossbow quarrel shattered on the wall behind the samurai. Gonji searched below him-the undead murderer Jurgen Kleinhenz was reloading from a fractured piece of the kitchens and larders.

"No steadier hand than a dead one," Gonji taunted, nocking, aiming and planting a shaft in Kleinhenzs chest-with no effect save moral victory.

There would be no truce with the undead, even in these mutually destructive circ.u.mstances.

Kleinhenz pa.s.sed through the barrier, his perch reappearing far above, the killer well covered. No opportunity to try anything else.

Gonji looked back to where Simon and Cardenas crouched near Klank LoPrestis dead body, and the samurai gnashed his teeth in anger. The ground theyd occupied before had now diminished weirdly in perspective as it neared the arenas deadly center. Another chambers broken wall descended past Gonjis viewpoint on an oblique angle. On the floor was the corpse of Na.s.sim Patel, his head in grisly ruin.

Luigi Leone had come face-to-face with the savage Ottef Abu-Nissar just before the ma.s.sive shock that heralded the unfolding of the castle. When he recovered his senses, he flicked horrified one-eyed glances from his amazing circ.u.mstances to his strangely inert opponent. Abu-Nissars cat had strayed too far from him and now occupied a different purchase: the crenellated disc of a turret below them.

Abu-Nissar lay still, and the trembling Leone drew his sword and began to slash at the unmoving form, hoping desperately that hacking it to pieces would prove lastingly effective.

Buey drifted by, still sorting himself out, quaking with disorientation. He was on the overturned ceiling of a bedchamber, shards of gla.s.s from a chandelier all about him.

"Hang him, Leone!" Buey was shouting, recognizing who it was. "Strangle him."

Ahmed Il-Mohar descended on a bizarre perch-the steps of the central keep, about eighty feet above and to the right of the right-angled wall of the ward on which Leone hacked frantically.

"No, he must be hanged!" the Moris...o...b..llowed across the ether, concurring with Buey.

Ahmed eased toward the jaggedly crumbled edge of the stairs, then scrambled back again when he saw the ghastly, fathomless s.p.a.ce beneath him. He hugged an ashlar block to forestall his vertigo. His staircases course drew him nearer to Leone, but as he pa.s.sed he forgot the scene rising past him now and could think only of the proximity of his own death.

Sergeant Orozco believed himself trapped in a nightmare. He recovered consciousness, his head caked with blood, every joint aching from his fall. He was in a now-exposed dungeon chamber, tipped slightly such that the drop into an abyss, below, yawned up at him. Fighting back a seizure of nervous tremors, he took stock of his situation. He saw the flatter, broader crag of stone-jutted land looming up below him like a rising leviathan. He would have to jump outward to make it. Quickly, before the moment pa.s.sed- He leaped, slamming down among the headstones of the graveyard that had occupied the grounds beyond the barbican.

Breathing heavily, heart thumping, he saw Wiemer clutching Lola around the neck on a strangely listing portion of the banquet hall gallery. It was wobbling slightly, like a spun platter. Rubbing his eyes, still refusing to believe the physical evidence of his bizarre environment, Orozco took aim with a pistol.

It had to be risked. The woman was likely lost anyway. And why not try it? None of this was real. He steadied his hand on top of an ancient gravestone. Clack. The pistol was empty. Orozco swore, as he vaguely recalled discharging it earlier.

This was not a dream. His mind screamed in rejection of it. But it was all too real.

He saw Cardenas on the banquet floor. Saw the leaping form of the now lupine Simon Sardonis, bounding atop a floating piece of the outer bailey wall to try to give chase to a temple cat and its a.s.sa.s.sin, several fragments away.

Orozco shook his head and licked his parched lips.

"Cardenas!" he blared, seeing the man hefting a pistol. "This one, Cardenas! Shoot this one!"

And then he lost his view of Wiemer and Lola, who screamed as she was wrenched back by her hair again.

Cardenas looked up to the chunk of gallery that drifted by in a pattern that would cross the crumbled banquet halls, where he clung. He dimly heard Orozcos shouts, wishing he could be left alone to die, caring nothing now for these people who had led him away as a captive, torn him from his family.

But in his bitterness he wished pa.s.sionately to lash out at something, someone in this grotesque nightmare. It might as well be one of the undead a.s.sa.s.sins. His wheel-lock pistol clutched in a sweating fist, he drew a bead.

But then he saw that Wiemer used Lola for a shield, and he was moved by concern for the woman. Shaking as he was, he knew he couldnt chance the shot. They pa.s.sed by, Wiemer holding a grimacing Lola tighter and hissing his unholy laughter, as Cardenas withheld fire.

The solicitor cursed, then saw two deadly visions: Abu-Nissars scrabbling temple cat traversed a course toward its lifeless charge-chopped to pieces by Leone-that would soon bring it into Cardenas range. Secondly, the banquet hall chunk he occupied would soon pa.s.s through the spheres devouring center, taking him and Klank LoPrestis corpse with it.

Cardenas raced about the rough-edged floor, saw the rising roof of the granary, thirty feet below. Shrieking a prayer for deliverance, he threw himself atop the thatched roof, crashing partway through, knocking the wind out of him. But he was safe from the center for now.

He pa.s.sed through the misty barrier at the spheres edge, found himself moving upward through utter blackness for a long time, babbling in terror. He gasped with relief to pa.s.s back into the arena again but almost at once caught sight of the walking corpse Fernandez, who exchanged crossbow fire with an unseen archer. Then the gallery was descending toward Cardenas, though farther away now. He heard shouting-a shot behind him somewhere.

Sergeant Orozco was pa.s.sing him on the far side of the gallery portion. He saw the sergeant aim and fire a pistol, cursing. He had missed his shot.

Now Wiemer was returning, much closer to Cardenas now, holding a knife at Lolas throat, searching his late banquet-hall vessel for him. He saw the dead killers alarm in not finding him there. Cardenas laughed inside. He had fooled the dead creature. He had him dead to rights.

But then he glimpsed the temple cat falling-sailing down from above him like a bat, in a ghostly ballet, eerily slow, its limbs outspread. And on the periphery he saw Lola make her move, twisting out of Wiemers grasp to throw herself down on the gallery floor as they pa.s.sed, very near. Wiemer snarled and went for her with the knife.

Cardenas made his decision. He held the pistol in both hands and fired the pa.s.sing shot just as Wiemer took shocked note of his new position. The a.s.sa.s.sin was thrown back against the gallery wall, as Lola shrieked and shrieked hysterically, venting both revulsion and relief.

But then one of the snarling demon-cats slammed onto the granary roof near Cardenas, shook itself and charged at him with ferocious vengefulness. Cardenas brought out his dagger and braced for its charge. But the powerful beast bowled him over and found the unprotected flesh of his throat.

The solicitor from Barbasos last conscious thought was a crib memory of the broad moon-face of his paternal grandmother, looming down at him. And then vision and memory and breath were all stilled at once.

Having found the courage to leap, Ahmed, and the temple cat, arrived on Leones side-tipped bailey wall at almost the same time.

Leone and the Morisco angled their blades at the beast, keeping it at bay. The creatures were heart-freezingly lithe. Like a huge feline shape composed of fuming, sinuous smoke with lethal edges all a-gleam. Until they struck, with that awful predatory ma.s.s that seemed to form in the material world only when needed for savage mayhem.

Neither man possessed a pistol now. And Abu-Nissar was reviving, his severed parts rejoining, though displaying the hundred slash-marks of Leones concerted effort. He rose behind the embattled fighters, to hiss in ghoulish glee. His familiar had again brought him back to blasphemous life.

"Engage the killer, senor," Ahmed said. "I will deal with this creature."

"Hes too fast," Leone said. "Anyway, I havent got any rope. Well have to kill that devil-cat."

They lunged alternately at the temple cat, their timid thrusts falling short or evaded by the lithe creature. It was somewhat injured, though, either from its long fall from the granary to the bailey wall, or from a fellow warriors shaft or lead ball. Its limp was echoed in Abu-Nissar, who nonetheless came at them, minaciously tossing his scimitar from hand to hand.

Luigi steeled himself with several quick breaths and, abandoning all reason, tried to drop-kick the temple cat in a madly desperate move hed often seen his dead friend Klank employ. But the cat lurched back effortlessly from the plunging swordsman and his wildly flashing blade.

Luigi nearly fell off the wall and into the abyss, his momentum carrying him between two merlons, from where he snared a one-armed purchase and sucked in a ragged breath, peering down into endless s.p.a.ce below. He was helpless, as the temple cat came for him.

With a great bellow, Buey leapt down and across from the pa.s.sing bedchamber, arms circling like windmill vanes, to drop behind the stalking Abu-Nissar. The temple cat saw this new menace and growled, turned from the dangling Leone. It launched low at Buey as he stumbled back onto his haunches with the force of his landing. The big man shook his head, stunned. He recovered, roaring, to barely ward off the cat with his saber and batting coil of rope.

Ahmed joined him, charging the cat. It tossed menacingly, to and fro, between them for a moment. Parts of it appeared to shred, like wisps of black smoke-it was leaking something vital, and now more vicious for the wounds.

In a trice it chose to attack Ahmed, barreling him backward, clawing at him. But the screaming Moriscos blade staved off its searching jaws, and an instant later Luigi Leone came on with a fierce howl, his good eye blazing with fury as he slashed down, cutting open the scrambling cat in a spray of blood-from up close more like steam-saving Ahmeds life.

The evil familiar curled into a defensive ball, all fang and claw, as it lay bleeding a vaporous substance that dissipated in the air, hissing its hatred at them from a dark corner beneath a merlon.

In his teeth-clenching rage, Buey never took note of the crossbow bolt, fired by Kleinhenz from a nearby drifting loft, which narrowly missed The Ox, clattering amidst the ruins of the castle allure. He forgot his rope as he raked the scimitar from Abu-Nissars now limp-hanging arm and caught the Butcher of Oran about the throat with a powerful hand.

"Hang him! For G.o.ds sake, use the rope!" Luigi was shouting.

But Buey dropped his sword and broke Abu-Nissars grip on his wrist, then caught the undead killer about the throat from behind with a huge forearm, squeezing, crushing... Bueys eyes bulged with strain and hatred, as he bellowed at the struggling a.s.sa.s.sin the names of the friends hed lost to these defeaters of the grave.

"Youre no problem, are you, hombre?" Buey ground out as he clamped ever tighter, his ma.s.sive thews now approximating the effect of the discarded rope. "This is one of my specialties-this is for what you did to little-Pa-tel!"

With a tremendous wrench and a sickening snap that caused both Luigi and Ahmed to wince, Buey broke the Arabs neck. He held his grip for a long time, paralyzed with loathing, wishing for the moment to be repeated again and again.

Long after the temple-cat familiar had wafted away in ghostly tendrils of silver-black mist, Buey still held his death-grip, as if he feared the reanimated a.s.sa.s.sin would presently return.

Orozco saw Kleinhenz fire the crossbow at Buey, wincing to see how near the shot came to skewering his friend. Rubbing his palms together in frustration, he watched Kleinhenz float downward to safety amidst his embracing kitchen larders, wondering how many more a.s.sa.s.sins remained. He saw the strangely altered Simon Sardonis, bounding among the floating, crisscrossing ruins with superhuman leaps, trying vainly to reach the remaining cats. Simon trailed b.l.o.o.d.y strips of clothing and bandages, like some apparition from a freshly erupted grave.

Kissing his wheel-lock pistol and praying for some reachable target, Orozco pa.s.sed through the ethereal barrier of luminescent mist again, and wound up beholding the approach of those fragments hed left behind.

Circles, round and round, he was thinking in scattershot flashes. We sail straight and make circles...

He heard Gonji above him, shouting something, tried to establish contact, and failed. Saw the evil duellist Polidori atop a turret, posing like a pompous conqueror, some distance away.

Vaguely, Sergeant Orozco was aware that he was drifting nearer the center of this bewildering chess game, his piece soon to be wiped from the board.

Die like a man, like a soldier-for your G.o.d and your king-well-for your G.o.d, anyway...

He swallowed dryly and brought up his pistol when he saw the kitchens descending within range. Perhaps a shot at the G.o.dd.a.m.n cat. Perhaps not...

The wall containing Buey, Ahmed, and Luigi Leone would pa.s.s the killers airborne fragment first. Maybe they would draw Kleinhenzs attention. Or his temple cats. Orozcos eyebrows arched to see how near those two shifting bodies came, nearly colliding on this pa.s.s.

He saw Buey leap out of concealment, coiled rope in hand, to land on the kitchen fragment as someone lent him cover fire from a barking, fuming pistol.

He could hear the struggle, the growling of the monster cat. His nerve ends flared as he strained up to see, the larders plunging near.

The creature was on Bueys back, clawing and tearing, talons slashing out of dark swirling mist, as the big man roared and twisted mightily, pulling at the rope that was taut about Kleinhenzs neck.

Bueys face was shredded at the left cheek, his thick forearm jammed between the temple cats now very solidified jaws, when he fell between the larders on Orozcos side.

"Carlos," Buey cried raggedly, throwing the end of the rope toward the sergeant. For an instant, Orozco saw the rope slipping away. Then he lurched out over the nothingness of the air-bound arena and caught the hemp a scant foot from its end.

He threw himself backward. Kleinhenz yanked back stronger, determined not to return to the grave hed earned by his s.a.d.i.s.tic barbarity. Orozco lost his footing, skidded toward the brink of the graveyard. His shot-weakened leg caught the facing of a headstone, hooked it as he swore and strained and pulled until his hands bled. He felt the slack as Kleinhenz tripped, coiled it frantically about his arm. Scrambling to his knees, he looped the rope about the headstone as the a.s.sa.s.sin gave a powerful tug that trapped the sergeants arm against it. Orozco cried out in pain but held, face pressed against the slab as he felt the sudden heavy tug and crushing pressure.

Kleinhenz was dragged off his wedge of rock and wood to dangle out over the ether. Orozco wriggled his arm free and hurriedly tied off the rope. He inched to the parapet. Kleinhenz was pulling himself up, hand over hand, slowly, inexorably. The dead would not die easily.

He looked down, saw Kleinhenzs familiar cat leaning out from the larders, pawing out uselessly. Saw Bueys downed form. The creature would kill him in its vengeful rage, if indeed it hadnt already.

Locating his pistol, the sergeant rushed to the brink, leaned over, hissed a prayer. Aimed and fired. He cursed the cloud of black smoke that obscured his vision.

A moment later he laughed aloud, his curse brushed aside by an outcry of thanksgiving. The cat lay splayed on a larder lid, softly shimmering, as if with escaping steam.

Kleinhenzs neck snapped like kindling, the rope singing with the sudden rigid vibration.

But Orozco could not judge Bueys state. Then he saw Gonjis leap-and Simons-and the surging cat-the a.s.sa.s.sins back up on that turret- And then it was all lost to view.

"Dont kill it, Simon!" Gonji grated, seeing the transformed lycanthrope, fangs bared, confront the blackly fulminating temple cat, the two circling each other warily. "Dont kill it...yet."

He glared at Polidori, who snuck glances at the two beasts, Simon and his lava-eyed temple cat. His swagger had fled before concern for his familiar.