“It seems my first guess was wrong,” said Storm quietly. “This is Hell Wing, after all, merely hidden and disguised by this ... transformation. The lock quite clearly bears the prison’s official mark. Presumably the door leads to what was originally one of the cells.”
“Any idea what’s in there?” asked Winter softly.
“Something magical, but that’s all I can tell. Might be alive, might not. Again, there’s so much stray magic floating around, my Sight can’t see through it.”
“Then why not just open the door and take a look?” said Hawk bluntly. “I’ve had it up to here with sneaking around, and I’m just in the mood to hit something. All we have to do is kick the door in, and then fill the gap so that whatever’s in there can’t escape.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Fisher. “Who gets to kick the door in?”
“I do,” said Barber. “I’m still the point man.”
He looked at Winter, and she nodded. Barber moved silently back to the door and the others formed up behind him, weapons at the ready. Barber took a firm grip on his sword, lifted his left boot, and slammed it hard against the door. The heavy door swung inward on groaning hinges, revealing half of the small, gloomy cell. Barber hit the door again and it swung all the way open. Everybody tensed, ready for any sudden sound or movement, but nothing happened. The cell wasn’t much bigger than a privy, and it smelled much the same. The only illumination was the silver glow falling in from the corridor outside, but it was more than enough to show that the cell was completely empty. There was no bed or other furnishings—only some filthy straw on the floor.
Some of the tension went out of Hawk, and he lowered his axe. “Looks like you got it wrong this time, Storm; no one’s home. Whoever or whatever used to be locked up in here is long gone now.”
“With a trusting nature like yours, Captain, I’m astonished you’ve lasted as long as you have,” the sorcerer said acidly. “The cell’s occupant is quite likely still here, held by its geas, even though the lock has been broken. You just can’t see it, that’s all.”
Anyone else would have blushed. As it was, Hawk spent a moment looking down at his boots before nodding briefly to the sorcerer and then staring into the cell with renewed interest. “Right. I’d forgotten about Who Knows, the invisible creature. You’re sure the geas is still controlling it?”
“Of course!” snapped Storm. “If it wasn’t, the creature would have attacked us by now.”
“Not necessarily,” said Winter slowly. “It might just be waiting for us to lower our guard. Which presents us with something of a problem. If it isn’t still held by its geas, we can’t afford to just turn our backs and walk away. It might come after us. The reports I saw described it as immensely strong and entirely malevolent.”
“Which means,” said Barber, “someone’s going to have to go into that cell and check the thing’s actually there.”
“Good idea,” said Fisher. “Hawk, just pop in and check it out, would you?”
Hawk looked at her. “You pop in and check it out. Do I look crazy?”
“Good point.”
“I’ll do it,” said Barber.
“No you won’t,” said Winter quickly. “No one’s going into that cell. I can’t afford to lose any of you. Barber, hand me an incendiary.”
Barber smiled briefly, and reached into a leather pouch at his belt. He brought out a small smooth stone that glowed a dull, sullen red in the gloom, like a coal that had been left too long in the fire, and handed it carefully to Winter. She hefted it briefly, and then tossed it casually from hand to hand while staring into the apparently empty cell. Barber winced. Winter turned to Hawk and Fisher, and gestured with the glowing stone.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen one of these before. It’s something new the Guard sorcerers came up with. We’re field-testing them. Each incendiary is a moment taken out of time from an exploding volcano; an instant of appalling heat and violence fixed in time like an insect trapped in amber. All I have to do is say the right Word, throw the damn thing as far as I can, and a few seconds later the spell collapses, releasing all that heat and violence. Which is pretty unfortunate for anything that happens to be in the vicinity at the time. If Who Knows is in that cell, it’s about to get a very nasty surprise. Stand ready, people. As soon as I throw this thing, I want that door slammed shut fast and everyone out of the way of the blast.”
“What kind of range does it cover?” said Hawk.
“That’s one of the things we’re testing.”
“I had a suspicion you were going to say something like that.”
Winter lifted the stone to her mouth, whispered something, and then tossed the incendiary into the cell. She stepped quickly back and to one side. Hawk and Barber slammed the cell door shut and put their backs to the wall on either side of it. A moment later, the door was blown clean off its hinges by a blast of superheated air and hurled into the corridor. Hawk put up an arm to protect his face from the sudden, intense heat, and a glaring crimson light filled the corridor. The wooden door frame burst into flames, and the cobwebs on the corridor wall opposite scorched and blackened in an instant. In the heart of the leaping flames that filled the cell something dark and shapeless thrashed and screamed and was finally still. The temperature in the corridor grew intolerably hot, and Hawk backed away down the corridor, mopping at the sweat that ran down his face. The others moved with him, and he was about to suggest they all run like hell for the gateway, when the flames suddenly died away. The crimson glare disappeared, and the temperature dropped as quickly as it had risen. There was a vile smell on the smoky air, but the only sound was the quiet crackling of the flames as they consumed the door frame. Hawk moved slowly forward and peered cautiously into the cell. The walls were blackened with soot, and smoke hung heavily on the still air, but there was no sign of the cell’s occupant, dead or alive.
“Think we got it?” asked Fisher, just behind him.
Hawk shrugged. “Who knows? But we’d better hope so. If the incendiary didn’t kill it, I’d hate to think of the mood it must be in.”
“It’s dead,” said Storm shortly. “I felt it die.”
“Handy things, those incendiaries,” said Hawk casually as he and Fisher turned back to face the others. “How long do you think it’ll be before they’re released to the rest of the Guard?”
“Hopefully never, in your case,” said Storm. “Given your reputation for death and destruction.”
“You don’t want to believe everything you hear,” said Hawk.
“Just the bad bits,” said Fisher.
Hawk looked at her reproachfully. Winter coughed behind a raised hand. “Let’s move it, people. We’ve got a lot more ground to cover yet. Barber, take the point again. Everyone else as before. Let’s go.”
They moved on down the corridor, and the sourceless silver glow moved with them. Hawk glanced back over his shoulder, expecting to see the burning door frame glowing in the gloom, but there was only the darkness, deep and impenetrable. Hawk turned away, and didn’t look back again. The corridor seemed to go on forever, and without any way of judging how far they’d come, Hawk began to lose his sense of time. It seemed like they’d been walking for hours, but still the corridor stretched away before them, the only sound the quiet slapping of their boots on the stone floor. The dense growth of filthy matted cobwebs on the walls and ceiling grew steadily thicker, making the corridor seem increasingly narrow. Storm had to bend forward to avoid brushing the cobwebs with his head. All of them were careful to avoid touching the stuff. It looked diseased.
They finally came to another cell, with the door standing slightly open, as before. Storm stared at it for a long time, but was finally forced to admit he couldn’t See anything anymore. Magic was running loose in Hell Wing, and he had become as blind as the rest of them. In the end, Barber kicked the door in, and he and Hawk charged in with weapons at the ready. The cell looked much like the last one, save for a canvas on an easel standing in t
he middle of the room, facing the back wall. Averting their eyes from the painting, Hawk and Barber checked the cell thoroughly, but there was nothing else there. Winter directed the others to stay out in the corridor and told Hawk to inspect the canvas. If it was what they thought it was, his single eye should help protect him from the painting’s curse. Barber stood by, carefully watching Hawk rather than the painting, so that if anything went wrong he could pull Hawk away before the curse could affect him. That was the theory, anyway.
Hawk glanced out the cell door, and nodded reassuringly to Fisher. She wasn’t fooled, but gave him a smile anyway. Hawk stepped in front of the easel, and looked for the first time at Messerschmann’s Portrait. The scene was a bleak and open plain, arid and fractured, with no trace of life anywhere, save for the single figure of a man in the foreground. The man stared wildly out of the Portrait, so close it seemed Hawk could almost reach out and touch him. He was wearing a torn and ragged prison uniform, and his face was twisted with terror and madness.
“Damn,” said Hawk, hardly aware he’d spoken aloud. “It’s got out.”
The background scene had been painted with staggering realism. Hawk could almost feel the oppressive heat wafting out of the painting at him. The figure in the foreground was so alive he seemed almost to be moving, drawing closer.... Suddenly Hawk was falling, and he put out his hands instinctively to break his fall. His palms slapped hard against the cold stone floor of the cell, and he was suddenly shocked into awareness again. His gaze fell on the Portrait, and he scrabbled backwards across the floor away from it, his gaze averted, until his back was pressed against the far cell wall.
“Take it easy,” said Fisher, kneeling down beside him. “Barber spotted something was wrong, and pulled you away from the Portrait when you wouldn’t answer him. You feeling all right now?”
“Sure,” said Hawk quickly. “Fine. Help me up, would you?”
Fisher and Barber got him on his feet again, and he smiled his thanks and waved them away. He was careful not even to glance in the Portrait’s direction as he left the cell to make his report to Winter.
“Whatever was in the Portrait originally has got out and is running loose somewhere in Hell Wing. One of the rioters has taken its place. Is there any way we can get him out?”
“Only by replacing him with someone else,” said Storm. “That’s the way the curse works.”
“Then there’s nothing more we can do here,” said Winter. “If you’ve fully recovered, Captain, I think we should move on.”
Hawk nodded quickly, and the SWAT team set off down the corridor again.
“At least we’ve got one less rioter to worry about,” said Hawk after a while. The others looked at him. “Just trying to look on the bright side,” he explained.
“Nice try,” said Winter. “Hang on to that cheerfulness. You’re going to need it. From what I’ve heard, we’d be better off facing a dozen rioters with the plague than the Portrait’s original occupant. It might have been human once, but its time in the Portrait changed it. Now it’s a nightmare in flesh and blood, every evil thought you ever had given shape and form, and it’s running loose in Hell Wing with us. So. along with all our other problems, we’re going to have to track it down and kill it before we leave. Assuming it can be killed.”
“Are you always this optimistic?” asked Fisher.
Winter snorted. “If there was any room for optimism, they wouldn’t have called us in.”
“Something’s coming,” said Storm suddenly. “I can’t see it, but I can feel it. Something powerful ...”
Winter barked orders, and the SWAT team fell quickly into a defensive formation, with Barber, Hawk, and Fisher at the point, weapons at the ready. Hawk glanced thoughtfully at Barber. Now that there was finally a chance at some action, the weaponmaster had come fully alive. His dark eyes were fixed eagerly on the gloom ahead, and his grin was disturbingly wolfish. A sudden conviction rooted itself in Hawk that Barber would look just the same if the order ever came down for the weaponmaster to go after him or Fisher. Barber didn’t give a damn for the law or for justice. He was just a man born to kill, a butcher waiting to be unleashed, and to him one target was as good as any other. There was no room in a man like Barber for conscience or ethics.
A sudden sound caught Hawk’s attention, and his thoughts snapped back to the situation at hand. Something was coming towards them out of the darkness. Hawk’s grip tightened on his axe. Footsteps sounded distinctly in the gloom, drawing steadily closer. There were two separate sets of footsteps, and Hawk smiled and relaxed a little. It was only a couple of rioters. But the more he listened, the more it seemed to him there was something wrong with the footsteps. They were too slow, too steady, and they seemed to echo unnaturally long on the quiet. The air was tense, and Hawk could feel his hackles rising. There was something bad hidden in the darkness, something he didn’t want to see. A slight breeze blew out of the gloom towards him. It smelt of dust and sulphur.
“They’re coming,” said Storm softly. “The chaos bringers, the lords of entropy. The dust and ruins of reality. The Brimstone Boys.”
Hawk glared at the sorcerer, and then back at the darkness. Storm had sounded shaken, almost unnerved. If just the approach of the Brimstone Boys was enough to rattle a hardened SWAT man, Hawk had a strong feeling he didn’t want to face them with nothing but his axe. He fell back a step and glanced across at Winter.
“Might I suggest this would be a good time to try out another of those incendiary things?”
Winter nodded sharply and gestured to Barber. He took another of the glowing stones from his pouch, whispered the activating Word, and threw the stone into the darkness. They all tensed, waiting for the explosion, but nothing happened. Storm laughed brusquely, a bleak, unpleasant sound.
“That won’t stop them. They control reality, run rings round the warp and weft of space itself. Cause and effect run backwards where they look. They’re the Brimstone Boys; they undo natural laws, turn certainties into whims and maybes.”
“Then do something!” snapped Winter. “Use your magic. You’re supposed to be a top-level sorcerer, dammit! You didn’t sound this worried when you first told us about them.”
“I didn’t know,” whispered Storm, staring unseeingly at the gloom. “I couldn’t know. They’re too big. Too powerful. There’s nothing we can do.”
Winter grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him back out of the way. “His nerve’s gone,” she said shortly to the others. “The Brimstone Boys must have got to him somehow. I’m not taking any chances with these bastards. The minute you see them, kill them.”
“We’re supposed to take these creatures alive, remember?” said Barber mildly.
“To hell with that,” Winter snapped. “Anything that can take out an experienced sorcerer like Storm so easily is too dangerous to mess about with.”
Hawk nodded, and he and Fisher moved forward to stand on either side of Barber. The weaponmaster was quivering slightly, like a hound straining at the leash, or a horse readying for a charge, but his sword hand was perfectly steady. Hawk glared into the darkness, and then looked down suddenly. The corridor floor seemed to be shifting subtly under his feet, stretching and contracting. His boots were sinking into the solid stone floor as though it had turned to mud. He looked across at Barber and Fisher to see if they’d noticed it too, and was shocked to discover that they were now yards away, as though the corridor had somehow expanded vastly while he wasn’t looking. He jerked his boots free from the sticky stone, and backed away. The ceiling was impossibly far above him, and the wall was running with boiling water that steamed and spat at him. Birds were singing, harsh and raucous, and somewhere children screamed in agony. The light changed to golden summer sunlight, suffusing the air like bitter honey. Hawk smelled dust and sulphur, so strong he could hardly breathe. And out of the darkness, stepping slow and somber, came the Brimstone Boys.
They might have been human once, but now they were impossibly, obscene
ly old. Their bodies were twisted and withered, turned in upon themselves by time, and there were gaping holes in their anatomy where skin and bone had rotted away to dust and nothingness. Their wrinkled skin was grey and colorless, and tore when movement stretched it. Their faces were the worst. Their lips were gone, and their impossibly wide smiles were crammed with huge blocky teeth like bony chisels. Blood ran constantly from their dirty yellow eyes and dropped from their awful smiles, spattering their ancient tattered skin.
Barber shouted something incoherent, and launched himself at the nearest figure. His sword flew in a deadly pattern, but the blade didn’t even come close to touching the creature. Barber strained and struggled, but it was as though he and the ancient figures, only a few feet apart, lived in separate worlds, where they could see each other but not touch. Fisher drew a knife from her boot and threw it at the other figure. The knife tumbled end over end, shrinking slowly as though crossing some impossible distance but still not reaching its target. The withered creature looked at Fisher with its bleeding eyes, and she cried out as she began to sink into the floor. Despite all her struggles to resist, the flagstones sucked her down into themselves like a treacherous marsh. She struck at the floor with her sword, and sparks flew as the steel blade hit solid stone.
Hawk ran towards her, but she seemed to recede into the distance as he ran. He pushed himself harder, but the faster he ran, the further away she seemed to be. Somewhere between the two of them, Barber sobbed with helpless rage as he struggled futilely to touch the Brimstone Boys with his sword. Hawk could vaguely hear Winter shouting something, but all he could think of was Fisher. The stone floor was lapping up around her shoulders. The light was growing dimmer. Sounds echoed strangely. And then something gold and shining flew slowly past him, gleaming richly in the fading light, and landed on the floor between the Brimstone Boys. They looked down at it, and despite himself, Hawk’s gaze was drawn to it too. It was a pocket watch.