The Kingdoms of Evil (4 page)

Chapter the Second

In which the Ultimate Fiend Receives an Unwelcome Visitor

Freetrick awoke in darkness.

He rolled over in his bed and tried to activate the lighting fixture in the ceiling. When nothing happened, Freetrick sat up. He tried the lights again, then gestured to open the blinds. Nothing.

Had the spell gone bad? What the hell time was
it?

He fumbled around his bedside table for his magic mirror, found it, and scratched the activation code across it. The metal buzzed angrily under his fingers, and a queasy, reddish light shown from its surface.

Squinting, Freetrick brought the mirror closer to his face and the light resolved into words…

Your Malevolence
Error
…
644
King Feerborg, under the Maelstrom
Cannot
read
Despot of Skrea,
detection of magical incursion
Evil Despot of Skrea
This spell has
performed an illegal operation
Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil,
cease operation or pray to your god
Evil Evil
pray to your god.

The mutated error codes pulsed somber red light with every beat of his heart. Freetrick blinked hard, trying to wake up, looked down at the hands holding the mirror, and nearly screamed out loud.

Freetrick's finger, his hand, his whole body was white. Not pale tan or pink, but
white
. There was even a faint blue tinge in the shadows. And...he brought his hand up… were his nails
pointed
?

What the struck-out hell had happened to him? Then Freetrick looked again at the mirror's now blank and reflective surface, and this time he did scream.

Freetrick's face matched the rest of his body, the skin smooth and ghastly. The basic shape---he rubbed at his cheeks with panic-tingling fingers---the basic shape seemed unchanged. But…Freetrick tilted the mirror. Had his eyebrows always been so sharp? Certainly his hairline had not been a widow's peak before today.

Fighting panic, Freetrick leaned further toward the mirror. Something else was wrong. More wrong than just skin or hair color. His eyes... Freetrick squinted, but he could see no iris, no sclera, just shiny, inky blackness, as if someone had replaced his eyeballs with polished globes of jet. The lack of pupils dampened his expression, made him look cold and alien, even to himself.

Freetrick tried to see the brown his eyes ought to be under that under the inky blankness. It didn't help that everything was so blurry. He squinted harder, focusing until pain needled the inside of his forehead.

Another flash of heat, and again twin sparks stretched from his upper to his lower lids. Hot tingles flashed up Freetrick's arms and legs as the sparks jumped a third time, then again, until a continuous band of hot, blue light bisected each eye.

Now the face staring back at him from the mirror was not simply odd, it was malevolent, with slitted snake pupils like jags of lightning across a pitch black sky.

"No!" Freetrick gasped at his reflection, the face that belonged to a monster, to something out of the Kingdoms of Evil. "No!" The mirror dropped from his senseless fingers. H
e hurled himself out of the bed.

As he stood, Freetrick realized he was naked. His entire body was the same matte white as his hands.
Clothes will cover it up
, thought Freetrick incoherently, and rocked toward his dresser.

It looked wrong. Freetrick squinted, and realized the problem wasn't just the dresser. When he held his fingertips in front of his eyes they looked all right, but anything much farther than six inches from his nose became indistinct and blurry.

What the
gibbering hell
was happening?

Freetrick shut his eyes hard, then opened them. The desk, dresser, and postered walls of his dorm room refused to resolve into focus. Had his vision spells failed too? That would explain his sudden nearsightedness, but how could all of this magic to go wrong at once? And the white skin? It was impossible!

Freetrick fumbled open his dresser and pulled out his underwear, jerkin, and hose. For a moment the clothes' familiar scent and texture against his skin dimmed the panic rising in his chest.

But as Freetrick smoothed his tunic over his chest, he noticed the irregular, dark stains that spotted the cloth. Squinting his unfocused eyes, he saw cloudy blotches like oily handprints all over his clothing.

What was this stuff? Aside from something that stained clothing

Freetrick reached down and pulled a corner of his tunic closer his eyes for a better look.

Darkness shot out of his fingers and spread across the fabric, turning the blue cloth a dull and ashy gray. Freetrick hissed in surprise and let go, but when he looked down, he could see the rest of his clothes slowly changing as his skin rubbed against them from the inside. His hose were already nearly black at the knees and hips, and when he pinched the altered material between his fingers, it felt thinner, more fragile.

"It's like I'm sweating acid," mumbled Freetrick, looking down at the bed where he had been sleeping. Yes, in the center of the bed, where he had lain, the fabric had worn away to almost nothing. Another hour of sleep and he might have dissolved parts of the bed. Again he brought his white, claw-tipped hands to his face, and this time he could actually see the dark, corrosive vapor wafting from his pores.

Terror slammed into Freetrick like a brick in a sock. His heart pounded, his teeth chattered, his breath came in short, gagging gasps. He pinched at his skin, ran his hands through his hair, rubbed his blurry eyes, nothing changed.

Freetrick ran toward his door with nothing in his mind but blind panic, and grasped the knob.

It turned under his fingers.

The door rattled.

Freetrick leapt back, every nerve jangling.

And the door opened.

A figure stood at Freetrick's doorway, impossibly tall and thin.

Even as Freetrick stumbled backward, he squinted, trying to focus his reduced vision on the—it must be a man in his…cloak? Leather cape? The garment covered the entire body, rising from the ground in a cone of thick, dark material to open just under the chin into a high, hooked collar. Above the collar hung a face: pale, sharp, and cruel, shadows dark under deep-set eyes and jutting cheekbones. Looking even further upward, Freetrick could make out a sort of crown or headdress above the visitor's forehead, a branching thing like pale antlers or spikes that brushed against the ceiling, making the person seem even taller than he was.

Yellow teeth bared themselves in a hiss of indrawn breath.

"Oh, Malevolence, oh Fiend Most Feared." The voice was deep, yet thin, the wheeze of a man being strangled, the whisper of cobwebs dragged over the face of a corpse. "It is more honor than this most unworthy servant deserves to be permitted simply to exist in the presence of the Most Hideously Exalted Majesty."

"Wh—" Freetrick's breath whistled through paralyzed lips. Had its headdress antlers thing just
twitched?
"Who are you?"

Shadows writhed across the man's face. "ssSkreekirrkaakh," he hissed. "At your service, Fiend."

"Guh?" stammered Freetrick. Malevolence?

"ssSkreekirrkaakh," came the reply, like the bones of dead fingers scratching against a grave stone, "but this unworthy servant had the honor of being addressed by the most vicious predecessor of the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend, He from whose Hands the Blood Never Dried, as… 'Mr. Skree.'"

"Oh," said Freetrick, his brain struggling to analyze the situation.

Mr. Skree hissed as he drew in breath, "Might this unworthily groveling worm humbly inquire if he might be permitted to enter the lair of the Evil One Most Low?"

"Um." Freetrick stared up at Mr. Skree. Those antlers
had
moved just now.

"It would be impossible for such a creature as this to presume, Fiend," said Mr. Skree, apparently referring to himself, "but there is a matter of the utmost importance to discuss."

Memory swept across Freetrick's numb mind. Darkness—or storm clouds?—rising in a column around him. An explosion. He shook his head. "It's about that letter I got yesterday."

Mr. Skree bowed bonelessly. "Yess."

Wait!
His brain screamed, but Freetrick said. "All right."

A set of long, pale fingers curled around the bottom edge of the door lintel and Mr. Skree's face pushed toward him. The tall man ducked. No, he…dangled like a broken marionette.

The monster, Mr. Skree, entered the room. And it was too late to shut the door.

Mr. Skree was not wearing a cloak. The many-branched thing over his head was not a crown. And he did not stand, Freetrick saw, he
hung
.

A long neck curled snakelike from the head up into a small, round body, from which four limbs reached, pale fingers and toes spreading out like a crown of antlers above the monster's head to grip the ceiling with grotesque, rounded pads. Another pair of limbs, no,
wings
, extended down to the floor in imitation of a leather cloak.

"What are
you…" But of course Freetrick knew
that
, didn't he? "…doing here?" He finished. Were there any weapons in his room? Did he know any spells he could use to fight this thing off? Would any of those spells work?

"This suppurating minion has come, Malevolence, to take the Ultimate Fiend home." Mr. Skree hissed: the whisper of an axe murderer.

"You're not taking me anywhere," said Freetrick.

Cadaverous digits scrabbling over the ceiling, the monster flowed through the air toward him. "But the unwashed masses cry out for the disciplining sting of Evil's lash, oh Iron-Hearted Sovereign."

"No, thank you," Freetrick meant to sound firm, but his voice broke when he fetched up against his desk, "I'm sure you can find someone else to handle the…lash."

"But, Fiend, the great work of the House of Death has yet to be completed. How will the shadow of Skrea spread to cover the corners of this world if its Despot continues to—" Eyes the color of boiled toenails seemed to sweep through the dormitory walls to indicate Eldritch College, Byblos City, the entire Rationalist Union from the ocean to the mountains, "…
languish
in this place?"

"Yes?" said Freetrick.

"This humble servant is of course unworthy to contradict a personage of such awesome power as the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend."

"Oh," said Freetrick, surprised, "well. Good. I'll stay here then. You go away now."

Mr. Skree blinked with a sound like tearing cellophane. "Oh He Who Blocks all Warmth from the Ground, the infamy of the mighty Despot of Skrea is well known to the pitiful Do-Gooders that cower in the cursed light west of the mountains. And though this insufficiently souciant servitor is wholly prepared to be disemboweled for pointing out the limitations of the wrathful might of the Ultimate Fiend, as pitiful as the enemies of Evil might be, in their sniveling cowardice they will never allow the hideous forces at your command to run unchecked on their virgin soil. Once the forces of light are arrayed against us---"