The Redemption of Desmeres

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Thanks to my association with the D’Karon, however brief, I fail this particular test.”

  “So for all I know, you could be this Epidime character right now.”

  “Yes. For all you know, I could be. Unsettling, isn’t it.”

  “Come here,” she said. She held his chin. “Look at me.”

  Genara gazed deep into his eyes. It wasn’t a look of longing or adoration. It was a measurement, a test. The sort of look that caused the spirit and mind to twist and turn uncomfortably. She continued staring into his eyes until a look of certainty came to hers.

  “You’re alone in there… I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh?” he said. “Are you an expert on demonic possession now?”

  “No. I’m an expert in eyes. A window to the soul, that’s what Father always said. I’ve not yet a man or woman who could lie to me without their eyes betraying them.”

  “A handy skill, that,” Desmeres said.

  #

  Anrack leaned heavily on his cane and surveyed the damage. It was telling that, when Desmeres yelled his taunting warning to take cover, most of his men had. This had kept casualties to a minimum. Two men had broken arms, a third had a broken leg, and there were numerous likely sprains and minor burns. He himself had a pain up his left side which suggested something in his chest was either broken or nearly so, and the throbbing remnants of Desmeres’s first attempt to burn him alive had been re-inflamed. It was similarly lucky that the horses had been startled by the early portions of combat, because it meant they’d been entirely spared the effects of the massive demonstration of Desmeres's alchemy knowledge.

  He stood at the edge of the crater in the ground where the bag had once sat. It was a gouge half Anrack’s height into the ground, revealing rich black soil that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. Bits of the dirt and stone had a glassy look. Most of the larger pieces were shattered to jagged bits. Pieces of stone peppered the countryside and a few were still embedded in his armor. Somewhere toward the middle of the infested field, a slumped bit of broken earth marked the final resting place of the one man in his current squad who knew how to use the D’Karon tools, and buried with him was the tool itself.

  “So much power…” he said.

  The injured commander slipped the sword from his belt and admired it. This, at least, he had earned from the clash. Without a doubt it was the finest weapon he had ever held, and it gave him no small amount of satisfaction knowing that Desmeres would smolder with anger at the thought of it hanging on his belt.

  “Who among you has served in the Elite the longest?” he called without looking up.

  “I have, sir,” came the reply.

  He turned. The man who had stepped forward was indeed one of the men under his command who was nearest to his own age.

  “Are you injured?” Anrack asked.

  “Not badly, Commander.”

  “Good. Select five of the healthiest remaining men and horses and do your best to follow Desmeres’s trail. Do not attempt to confront him. We clearly require greater resources than the queen has seen fit to provide if we wish to apprehend him alive or dead. But if you find he has settled for a long-term stay somewhere, send a messenger with the location so that I can bring a proper force. I shall return to the capital with the injured men and have a word with Queen Caya about expanding and equipping our force.”

  “Yes, Commander,” the soldier responded.

  Anrack lingered for a moment longer, sword in hand.

  “Entwell… Within our own borders, a place with the training to make this weapon.” He looked to the crater. “And magic of that potency… And all of this time Desmeres knew of it. If he’d shared it with the proper people, the Alliance Army could have won this war. We could have beaten the blasted Tressons instead of enduring this false peace.”

  He slipped the sword back into its scabbard.

  “Perhaps we still can beat them.” He smiled. “Perhaps we will.”

  Chapter 5

  Desmeres and Genara sat beside each other in front of a meager fire. For the first time since they’d begun traveling together, they’d chosen to make camp in the wilderness rather than finding a town. In point of fact, chosen might have been too strong a word. After clashing with the Elite and killing one to avoid capture in his storehouse, Desmeres reasoned the soldiers might be just a bit more dedicated to capturing them. Keeping their heads down and their faces hidden had thus become preferable to spending the night in an inn. So they had found some cover from the wind, dipped into the meager provisions Desmeres had brought along, and begun to cook a long overdue meal while sitting on makeshift chairs fashioned from some of the sturdier chests and boxes they’d rescued from the storehouse.

  “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so exhausted at midday,” Genara said.

  They had continued riding for six long hours, leaving the sun high overhead by the time their horses wisely decided a good long rest was in order. The journey had taken them to the outskirts of Ravenwood. If one had to pitch camp while on the run, Ravenwood was a fine place to do it. Plenty of trees for cover and firewood, excellent hunting—and, most importantly, it was large and dense enough to easily lose a pursuer if one were to present itself.

  It wasn’t a perfect hiding place, however. Dowser, who had been kind enough to doze through most of the past few hours, was positively vibrating with excitement and curiosity over the symphony of new scents carried by the breeze. While the food cooked, Desmeres began some basic obedience training, but his results were so far limited to barely keeping the puppy from setting himself on fire in his attempts to inspect the bubbling cooking pot.

  “If you think you are tired now, try serving as the partner of an assassin. Day and night have a way of trading places when one makes one's living in the seedier professions. Though I would have expected most of your money would be made at night.”

  “You keep making snide remarks about my profession and you’ll be laughing out the other side of your face.”

  He chuckled. “Did I touch a nerve?”

  “You’re practically sitting on my nerves. I’m not sure this Oriech character knows his stuff if he’d single you out for something heroic.”

  “Something tells me he’s not as selective as you might think. When a job needs to be done, you can’t always afford to find the perfect person to do it. Sometimes you have to make do with what you’ve got.”

  “Times must be tough, then,” she muttered.

  Genara slipped off her gloves and blew into her hands, then leaned down and snapped her fingers. Dowser had spent the last few minutes unraveling the mysteries of a tangle of weeds near their fire and ignoring Desmeres’s commands. At the sound of her snapping fingers, he turned and galloped over to Genara. When he was near enough, Genara pulled him forward and buried her hands in his plush fur.

  “At least he’s worked out what snapping means. That’s some progress,” Desmeres said. “Training this beast is going to be a greater challenge than I’d anticipated.”

  “If you’d asked me before our little encounter with the Elite, I would have told you the little pup wouldn’t have been good for anything besides drooling, making trouble, and being a hand-warmer.” She brushed at the singed bit of fur from the battle. “He did save the day back there, though. Even if he did it through pure stupidity.”

  “You’d be surprised how often pure stupidity has saved the day over the years. Ignorance and bravery are interchangeable. But enough philosophy. We’ve got problems to solve. We’ll start with the simple ones. Food. I’m not the best hunter, but I’m confident I could keep us fed here in the forest. The horses are another matter. I’ve only got enough feed for another day or so, so we’ll have to find a proper stable if we are hoping to get much use out of them.”

  “What about your legs?” she asked.

  “They’ll need attention if I’m hoping to get much use out of them as well.”

  He tugged up the leg of his mis-matched
pair of trousers. After his previous pair had been shredded along with his legs, he’d had to swap them for thinner pair that weren’t nearly as well suited to the cold. The layers of bandage beneath them made up for that. He adjusted the rather gruesome-looking wound dressing and slid the leg back into place.

  “At least the cold is a blessing. They’re more or less numb.”

  A light breeze rolled through the campsite and Dowser, as he’d done off and on since their battle, burst into a long, energetic howl.

  “We’ll have to train him out of that in a hurry if we’re going to stay ahead of the Elite,” he said, snapping his fingers to distract the dog.

  Dowser bounded over and gave a few more short howls. When he quieted down, Desmeres ruffled his fur and praised him. He paused, then pulled the collar he’d fashioned a bit to reveal the coin affixed to it.

  “And then there’s the issue of Epidime.”

  “Right…” Genara said. “Call it wishful thinking but… are we sure he’s the one after you? Maybe it was someone else you fought. Someone who would stay dead. You don’t even know if he’s really still around.”

  “If there’s a chance, then it’s something we’ve got to plan for. Myranda obviously has her concerns about him, or she wouldn’t have minted those coins so quickly.” When Dowser remained silent, Desmeres fed him a hunk of dried meat. “If we are going to protect ourselves from him, we are going to need to know what he wants and why he wants it. That will allow us to predict his actions, and thus stay ahead of him.”

  Genara stood and slipped her gloves back on to tend to the pot sitting among the coals.

  “What… exactly are you cooking?” she asked.

  “Beans,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And water.”

  “You aren’t much of a cook, are you?”

  “A man can only have so many skills. Now if we can stay focused?”

  “Right, right. Epidime.” She scratched her head and took a seat again. “What do we know? You think he was one of the Elites. And the Elite is after you. Probably not a coincidence.”

  “Knowing Epidime, he probably found a way to manipulate them into it. The new question becomes why Epidime would want me. Do you recall what Anrack said? When he mentioned Master Weste?”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “He was a stealth master in Entwell some years ago.”

  “Entwell… right, right. The, err. The training ground that’s supposedly on the other side of the Cave of the Beast. … Good heavens, these last few weeks taught me a tremendous amount of dubious information…”

  “As far as I know, the only people who have been to Entwell and now call the Northern Alliance home are Myranda, Deacon, Myn, Lain, and me. Master Weste was from before Myranda and Myn’s time there. I know for a fact I didn’t mention it, and Deacon would know better than to mention it as well. But Lain was host to Epidime for a time. I’m quite sure that information came from his head.”

  “And now Anrack knows. You think he might have, err… taken over Anrack?”

  “No. Why he hasn’t done so is anyone’s guess, but if he’d taken over Anrack, that chaos in the field would not have gone our way as easily as it did.”

  “Seems odd he’d share that information then. I’ve dealt with my share of men in a position of power, and the ones that stay in power aren’t the kind to spread information around. They’re all about secrets.”

  “Exactly. Which means if Anrack knows, it’s because Epidime wants him to know. Epidime wants Anrack to be obsessed with Entwell. It wouldn’t take a master manipulator to reason that once a lifelong soldier and aspiring general like Anrack learned of the martial potential of Entwell, he would want to go there. A few tantalizing mentions and examples were probably all it took.”

  “So it’s a safe assumption that if Anrack wants to go there, it’s because Epidime wants to go there.”

  “It’s as good a theory as any, but if he wanted to go there, why not just go? He must know at least where it is. Lain has been there and back more than once, and spent a few years there. If he got anything from Lain’s head at all, he at least must have worked out where to find the place.”

  “Obviously there’s some reason he can’t, or he doesn’t want to go himself.”

  “A mortal would certainly have reason enough to avoid it. The Cave of the Beast is no simple path to navigate. It’s claimed far, far more people than it’s delivered.”

  “Funny, I always thought that beast was a myth.”

  “It is a myth. The cave itself is the threat. Twisting pathways, rising waters. It’s passable for only a small portion of each year, and if one doesn’t find the way to Entwell quickly enough, it is quite possible to become stranded inside.”

  “But if Epidime is a spirit, he could just pass through the whole mountain.”

  Desmeres sat back and tipped his head. “Perhaps not…”

  “Oh?”

  “I was never much interested in what they were doing on the Wizard’s Side of Entwell, but one can’t be raised there and avoid at least overhearing some of their constant debates. The mountain—a fair stretch of the Eastern Mountains, in fact—is riddled with flakes of the same gems wizards use for their staffs and the like. It makes it positively confounding to magic. I understand the effect continues to lesser but still substantial degree all around the village.”

  “Why would something inside the mountain affect the area around it?”

  “If you cup your ear to the east, you might still hear Cresh and Solomon arguing about that. As best I can recall, the latest theory before my departure involved the mountain developing some sort of will of its own after trapping so many souls within its bowls. All I know is it’s kept Entwell hidden from even those actively seeking it, and makes entering and leaving through even mystic means profoundly difficult. It took someone like Ether to manage it.”

  “Ether. The shapeshifter? One of the Guardians of the Realm? She’s from Entwell?”

  “She was summoned there, yes.”

  “You left her off the list from before.”

  “… So I did. I’m glad you’re paying attention.”

  “As you demonstrated, sometimes people seeking my services seem more interested in being listened to than the other activities. I always tell the girls to pick that skill up. Unfortunately, the problem with telling someone to learn to listen is, if they actually need to learn, then they don’t listen to you tell them to.”

  “Fascinating… But—”

  “I know, I know. ‘Stay focused.’ Epidime might not be able to get to Entwell any more easily than a mortal.”

  “Correct. But that doesn’t explain much. After all, he could simply select a suitable host and navigate the cave the same as anyone else.”

  “You’re a suitable host, aren’t you? Couldn’t that be why he wants you?”

  “I’m certainly able, but there’s no reason it would have to be me.”

  “Sure there is. You’ve been through the cave before. You know the way.”

  “I suppose that’s a reason, but why go through the trouble? Every person in Entwell who wasn’t born there arrived via the cave. It is dangerous, certainly, but what difference does that make to a creature for whom death is cheap?”

  “Are you honestly asking that question?”

  “Yes. Why, am I missing something?”

  She looked at him flatly. “Imagine you’re Epidime. You’re this powerful wizard spirit thing. You can go from body to body, flitting wherever you chose and never having to worry about being kept out of anywhere you want to be. Now you learn of this mountain you can’t get through. For the first time, there’s a place you can’t go. Wouldn’t that drive you mad?”

  “That’s one of many excellent reasons why he would want to go to Entwell. As I understand it, he may have an unhealthy obsession with Myranda for the same reason. She was able to fully resist him. But that doesn’t explain why he would want me in order to go there.”
<
br />   “I wasn’t done. So again, you’re Epidime. Never once have you encountered anything that could keep you out. But once you find it, you realize you’ve also found something that could keep you in. Sure, if he kills whatever body he uses to try to get there, he won’t cease to be. But what if he is trapped? Surely the very thought of being trapped at all would be terrifying to him. And he could possibly be trapped forever.”

  “Interesting. Epidime could be frightened of the cave. He might want me so that he can be absolutely certain he can find his way through. I know from when I served under him that he’d not been able to fully mine Lain’s mind. If he’d failed to extract a reliable memory of the path through the cave…”

  “The pieces fit, right?”

  “It would explain why he doesn’t outright kill me. He can’t risk losing the information. Yes… That might be as close as we’re going to get to working out his plans.”

  “And now that you think you know what he’s up to, how exactly does that help you?”

  “It tells me that I’m as safe as a baby in his mother’s arms just as long as I can keep him out of my head. He wouldn’t dare kill me, nor can he afford to have me killed. It also means that for the rest of my days I’ll have to cope with the fact that every single set of eyes pointed in my direction could have Epidime staring out from within. That suits me fine.”

  “Does it now? That’s odd, because I’d thought you were at least moderately sane. Learning I would be the eternal target of some sort of demon would most certainly not suit me fine at all.”

  He smiled and wrung his fingers for warmth. “Come now, Genara. You told me that you were a good listener. Why did I come to you all those days ago?”

  “You were out of sorts and needed a shoulder to cry on. You decided you needed a new distraction.”

  “A new purpose,” he corrected.