The Kingdoms of Evil (7 page)

There. A handle, slickly smooth and curved like a tusk, but definitely a door handle! The carriage couldn't be going very fast. And even if he fell and broke an arm, he'd be in a better situation than the current one, surely. With a flailing lunge, Freetrick threw himself onto the handle and shoved outward.

Fresh air! Freetrick caught a glimpse of rolling yellow hills and a pallid blue sky. He had just enough time to think,
I'm still in The Rationalist Union!
before a black curtain swept before the glimpse of freedom.

It was a cape…no, it was an enormous, bat-like wing. Freetrick could see sunlight shining through the webbed skin, the dark blood vessels within. Tiny, transparent hairs covered its surface. Mr. Skree was perched outside, guarding the exits.

"
Eeeh…eeeh…eeeeh
" The carriage rocked and screamed.

Long, swollen-jointed digits flexed, and the membrane closed over Freetrick, pushing him gently back into the depths of the carriage.

"This unworthy servant commits unforgivable transgression by daring to touch the flesh of the Lord of Torments without leave." Mr. Skree sighed like a hopeless leper in a frozen ditch. "Swift and cruel retribution would of course be eminently justifiable."

Freetrick cried out and tried to push against the wing, but Bloodbyrn's arms had already slid around his waist. "Hush, now, Mr. Skree," she said as she pulled Freetrick inexorably across the leather, away from the door. "If my lord has you executed for so daring, you may die in agonized contentment, knowing you performed your duty."

Freetrick wondered if speaking would help the situation. "What?" Or perhaps yelling would be better. "Let me out!" Or thrashing. Now there was an idea. Freetrick struck out, and was rewarded with a furious gasp from Bloodbyrn.

"Mmph! I see then that I must—" But Freetrick had stopped listening. As Bloodbyrn's grip slackened, he scooted back across the cushions. Mr. Skree's wings still blocked the door, but the bones that supported them looked thin. If he could push off hard enough, Freetrick knew he would be able to break through. He gritted his teeth and braced his feet against the tilted floor of the carriage. Ready to shove.

There was a soft murmur behind him, a ripple under him...

Freetrick pushed off, then sank backward. He gasped as he felt the cushions under him flex. The cushions that lined his side of the carriage were moving, swelling nightmarishly around his legs and hips, trapping him in sweaty flesh.

"Gibbering struck-out hell!" Freetrick swore as he sank downward, like a cracker engulfed in a fat man's belly-folds. "Help!" Freetrick tugged at the tightening embrace of the cushion, and something very close to his ear went "meep!"

Horrified, Freetrick managed to get his head around in time to see one squarish corner of the cushion rise up over his shoulder, then curve down toward his shuddering face. Folds in the red fabric…the flesh…smoothed out, and two eyes, small, round, and beetle-black, blinked at him.

"Meep," it said again.

"
Ughh
!" Freetrick responded.

"My lord," said Bloodbyrn, "meet the Futon." There was a decisive click as she reached across him and pulled the door shut. "No, do not kick the Futon, my lord."

Freetrick kicked again. The folds quivered around him like a…well, like a huge, square, animate futon cushion. Button eyes glinted, and a square mouth opened, lined with triangular white teeth, each the size of a fingernail. "Meep!"

Freetrick made another embarrassing noise.

"There," said Bloodbyrn. She rose from her seat across from Freetrick and slid into place on top of the cocooned Freetrick, her uncomfortable underwear sinking into the quivering surface of the monster.

"Now my lord will remain where he is safe.
Safe
," Bloodbyrn repeated, brushing her metal-tipped fingers through Freetrick's hair, "from the soldiers of Good." She tapped Freetrick's forehead with a metal-coated fingernail. "For, though political expediency might dictate that they escort us from their god's lands, I, for one, am not confident that these so-called 'Proctors' can be depended upon to ignore their Do-Gooder imperative and fall upon us to destroy the Despot and Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend, Feerborg, himself."

"Who?" Freetrick tried to wrench himself out from under from the terrible woman. The elastic folds of the Futon tugged him relentlessly back.

She turned sideways on his lap, looking at him with a puzzled expression. "The Rationalists, my lord?"

"No," said Freetrick, "the other guy. King…Feerborg?" The name sounded familiar; Freetrick was sure he had heard it recently. But so much of the past day was confused.

"Feerborg?" Bloodbyrn repeated, her expression puzzled, "Why, that is
you
, my lord."

"Huh?"

"If his Malevolence would excuse the interruption," Freetrick's head jerked sideways at Mr. Skree's chill wheeze. There was a blurry latticework carved into the wall of the carriage behind him. Behind it, light shone past the dangling silhouette of the monster. "'Feerborg' is the name to which the cowering masses of our enemies may refer as they describe the source of their manifold torments."

"No I'm not! Wait," Freetrick paused a moment to decode the sentence, "I mean, no it isn't! I mean my name isn't Feerborg, I'm
Freetrick
. Freetrick Feend!" He turned his eyes up to Bloodbyrn. Hope sprung wild in his heart. "You guys want someone named Feerborg? Well that isn't me. You've got the wrong guy! Now let me go while there's still time to sort out this mess!"

Bloodbyrn sighed and leaned back across his lap, resting her back against the side of the carriage, still playing with his hair. "And amongst the Rationalists, too," she said, "who put such stock in the true names of things. My lord, have you never examined your own name, so-called Freetrick Feend?"

"This is all a mistake." Freetrick whispered desperately.

"Nonsense," said Bloodbyrn.

"...forgive the contraction, fiend," came Mr. Skree's murmur from behind them.

"Did not the Power of the First God find you? Is my lord's skin not as white as a corpse's, his eyes as black as the void between the foolish stars?" Bloodbyrn's finger brushed Freetrick's face, and his skin prickled. "Oh no, my lord. There has been no mistake."

"…a thousand pardons…"

"Now," Bloodbyrn's eyes narrowed. "I am aware that you have lived long amongst the Do-Gooders, but you are free now, safe with like-minded villains." She tapped his forehead again. It was like being struck between the eyes with a tiny fireplace poker. "And honestly I grow tired of your apparent timidity."

"…Again we beg the Ruler of Nightmare to forgive the criticism."

"In conclusion, the time has come to abandon your old persona and don your new role as Despot of Evil." Bloodbyrn clapped her hands together and nodded at him. "So. Speak now."

"Eeeeh…eeeh…eeeh," said the carriage under them.

"Speak, I say!"

Freetrick swallowed. For the first time he thought how small his chances of escape might actually be, and the realization yawned below him, as sweaty and suffocating as the Futon. He tried to control his breathing and squinted up at Bloodbyrn's face, now less than a handbreadth from his own. Set above wide cheekbones in a dainty face, her kohl-lined eyes seemed huge. Huge and strange: light-irised like a Warrior Maiden's, but…orange. And all that would have been off-putting enough without the multiple, painful-looking piercings, as well as an expression that did nothing to sooth his fear. And the two handfuls of creamy breast her posture thrust at his chin.

A barbed hook rose with one of her eyebrows and her teeth flashed. "Does my lord see something he desires? What would he do to…take what he wants?"

Freetrick blinked. Could she possibly be saying what he thought she was saying?

Her smile disappeared. "Would my lord stare so at a Dark Lady?" Bloodbyrn drew her hand back, and for the last time in his life, the movement did not put Freetrick in mind of a rearing rattle-snake: a warning of intense and
imminent
pain. "It is unbefitting."

"What? Oh, I'm sorr---," stammered Freetrick automatically.

Then her hand slammed into his cheek with the force of a pistol shot.

Freetrick could do nothing but stare at her in shock as Bloodbyrn smiled and then reached down to slide a metal claw up the angle of the jaw she had just tried to dislocate. Her fingers tightened over his jaw, and Bloodbyrn yanked his head downward. Freetrick got another view of her heaving, pale bosom. "You admire them now," her voice was as smooth and deadly as a scorpion's stinger, "but soon I will teach you to fear them."

Freetrick screamed silently.

Bloodbyrn shoved his head back up. "Well?" her smile grew eager, "what do you have to say to
that
, my lord?"

"I…" What did she expect from him? Freetrick could think of absolutely no way to respond to her. "I…"

"Yes? You what?" She demanded, voice rising, "You cannot defend yourself? You are a spineless worm, writhing under my boot-heel? You are squinting at me in an entirely unbefitting manner? Out with it!"

Freetrick swallowed, trying to figure out what response would make her go away. He couldn't think fast enough.

Bloodbyrn's tined fingers closed over Freetrick's earlobe. "Defend yourself, Tempest take you! Oh,
exsanguination
." Bloodbyrn flung herself back into her own seat, vanishing into the blurry shadows. "Oh, forgive my asperity, my lord, Mr. Skree, but the situation leaves me at a loss."

Not at a loss for words, obviously. Freetrick wished he could rub his throbbing ear.

Mr. Skree made a sort of lisped death rattle that was probably meant to be a soothing hush. "My lady. We must not fault the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend. Yet the mind of the Dark Lord remains ignorant of the mighty and terrible heritage bequeathed him by the twisted tree of his genealogy."

"Well, we must begin at some point to instruct our lord on the basics of proper behavior." Lace slithered over leather and Bloodbyrn was suddenly across from him, leaning forward. "So. I shall strike you again the next time you gaze upon me inappropriately, my lord, then I await my lord's response, and we shall continue the game from there."

Freetrick tried to wriggle away from her, but Bloodbyrn only leaned further toward him.

The carriage rocked and screamed under them. The red light-globe swung on its chain. Freetrick's face stung where she had slapped him, and his body sweltered under the sweaty folds of the Futon.

"Or," said Bloodbyrn, "we can, of course,
talk
."

Freetrick swallowed. "Bloodbyrn," he said. "Make this monster release me."

"All right, my lord." The direct command seemed to work. Bloodbyrn pursed her lips, then nodded. "Only down to the hips, I think," she patted the Futon.

Freetrick grimaced as the boneless monster squirmed down his torso, until Freetrick could pull his hands free.

Freetrick sighed in pleasure as the air hit his sweaty forearms, then said "guh?" in consternation as he looked down at his body. "Did you people
dress
me while I was unconscious?"

"Of course we did," Bloodbyrn said as Freetrick examined the thumb-width strips of cloth that now bound him, mummy-like, from waist to elbows, "We could hardly allow my lord to remain in his rotting Do-Gooder clothing, could we? My lord's current accoutrement is made of viler stuff, indeed."

There was a moan from Mr. Skree outside. "This worthless and unworthy laborer fully expects to be strangled with his own intestines for failing to anticipate the need for formal attire that could be worn while in the grip of the Futon."