by John Hook
“Guido will join us when we are up there, but as an observer only. The Manitors are apparently part of a council. There are bargains and protocols underlying how they act. He says the Manitor over there will not harm us but will allow his Shade to do so.”
“So if we can defeat the Shade, the Manitor just walks away?”
“That’s not clear.”
“The big guy never is. Why don’t you just show up with him?”
“He keeps his own schedule. I’m in on all of this whether you want me here or not.”
The troops were armed with sharpened wood spears, bows and arrows and clubs. Izzy had been in charge of making the archery equipment and had trained most of the archers. A few captains carried handmade short swords with the blades sheathed in a wooden club. Taka and Kyo had made a few extra. They were slow work as we still had no manufacturing capability. I had my short sword tucked in my belt, as did Kyo. Kyo had made a long sword for herself and had offered me one but I had declined. I did okay at fighting for a writer with a fantasy body. However, the long sword required real skill, which I wasn’t about to stop and learn.
“I guess we are ready to go.”
Suddenly a shadow fell over me. I spun around. My chest muscles pulled tight. Kyo was already in a fighting stance. Baron Steel floated slowly to the ground. His black skin was skin, not the powdery metal. His hair was long and straggly. His face was relaxed, but there was a slight smirk on his lips.
He stepped off his platform and stood studying us.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Guido was suddenly there. Baron Steel, looked at him and nodded.
“Relax. I am in another’s territory. I know the protocols of the council.” He looked again at Guido. “I’m sure you do too.”
He walked over to me. He sniffed.
“Ah, yes, good. You have the power this time.” He looked my face up and down so close I was afraid he was going to kiss me. “It’s really too bad you don’t know how to use it.”
He stepped away and walked over to the troops. They glared at him.
“Quite an army.” He turned to me. “And loyal, I’ll bet. Grateful for their opportunity to live as free humans.”
He walked by the troops with his hands behind his back as if he were reviewing them.
“They should be grateful. Everything human was burned from my soul when I got here. So I grasped at what power I could find.”
He turned back to me, walking back up the line of troops.
“What is too bad is that they cannot see that they will lose everything following you.”
He spun on one of our soldiers. As if dropped from the sky, Kyo landed between Baron Steel and the young soldier. She had her long sword drawn and poised to make a cut. She had frozen, her eyes locked on his. I hadn’t even seen her move away from beside me.
“And what will you do with that, my lady.”
Baron Steel’s skin was now hard, black powdery metal, even his face.
“Can your weapons do anything against magic like this?”
“You need to leave now,” Guido said in a low measured voice.
Baron Steel turned. He was flesh again. He knew Kyo wouldn’t cut him from behind. This wasn’t a real battle. It was propaganda.
He stepped onto his platform and began to rise up.
“The only magic Quentin Case has, he doesn’t know how to harness. You have a great gift. Human freedom. Do not let him squander it for his own selfish gain. When we meet again, you will all die!”
And with that, he sailed off across the sky.
I looked at the troops.
“He was trying to scare you, but I won’t lie. We may be up against some tough odds.”
“I’m thinking they must be getting a little worried about us to put on a show like that.” One young archer yelled back at me. I saw the troop morale instantly boost as they rallied around the comment.
I looked at Kyo. She looked excited.
“I’m beginning to think we can do this.”
18.
We retraced our route to Zaccora. The geography was such that it was really the only route between Rockvale and Zaccora. Anything else would have been too steep and rugged. I formed a forward team of myself, Blaise, Kyo, Saripha and three soldiers. Kyo had handpicked the three to make sure Rox and Saripha remained defended if Kyo, Blaise or I had to scout off trail. Two of them were archers and hung slightly back. The other had one of Kyo’s handcrafted short swords, and walked just behind.
The rest of the column were traveling further back, partly because it took them longer to do their checks and follow and partly because it made sense to have a small forward party doing reconnaissance. We expected to find more demons in the mountain passes and valley. We knew the Demon King was becoming increasingly interested in Rockvale and this was the only way they could come. Kyo would periodically take to the trees and scout ahead, spot them and we would be able to surround them and take them down. On one occasion we found a larger party. Rather than risk it, we slipped around them and sent one of the archers back to tell the larger column to take them out.
As Blaise and I walked along quietly, I decided it was time to find out who I was fighting beside.
“I have to know. What did you mean when you said you expected to end up here? Who were you in life?”
Blaise looked at me. Something clouded his eyes and the light became very cold.
“You sure you want to know?”
“Yes, I do. Trust is hard to come by here, and I trust you. But I need to know if there are agendas I don’t know about. Secrets make me nervous.”
Blaise looked at Kyo. His face lightened again. A lot of interest had been passing back and forth there.
“If I tell, do I get a date when this over?”
“If we survive, you might anyway. But you won’t get around the bases if you’re not willing to share.”
“How about I make a few observations and guesses?” I offered.
Blaise grinned. “Oh, good. A game.”
“I’ve never seen anyone watch like you do. Kyo is pretty good, but you are always watching. What’s more, you notice things most people don’t. And you are calm in almost all situations.”
“Hate to get worked up. Sweat will ruin my expensive suit.”
“You don’t even get worked up when you kill. I still can’t figure out how you were surrounded by so many dark men and escaped, actually killing two of them.”
“You don’t let go of stuff, do you?”
“As a good deal of Hell has found out.”
“Bet that angel whatever-she-is be pretty mad you’re you again.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“You want me to tell you how to do my magic tricks.”
“I’m betting I still won’t be able to do them. There is something different about you.”
“So what do you think it is?” He smiled. He was enjoying the game.
“The precision makes me think sniper or assassin.”
“Occasionally, but I never really liked weapons much.”
“You’re a spy of some kind.”
“More like a trained spy pet. I was part of a little side project the NSA had.”
“Side project?”
“Yeah, I was smart enough in college, they recruited me. Sounded exciting, better than going back home after college. I liked puzzles, had a good head for numbers. They put me in crypto.”
“So that’s it? Working for the NSA means you should end up in Hell?”
“Nah. They can be a little overzealous and disrespectful of individual rights, but most of them are patriots trying to do the right thing to protect folks.”
“So there was this side project,” Kyo nudged.
“They began to notice that what gave me skill at puzzles and cryptology had broader aspects. They decided to use me for other—ah— applications. A team took me aside and pretty soon I was traveling all over the world and living a pretty fancy James Bond
lifestyle. I was young, this was cool, I didn’t question much.”
“What did you do for them?”
“They would show me maps, satellite imagery, computer networks, even stuff I didn’t understand like sonar sounds. I would tell them what the pattern was.”
“The pattern?”
“Yes, patterns. I don’t understand it any more than they did. Where most people see objects and events, I just see patterns. Everywhere, in all things. I can calculate complex patterns in my head, things most people wouldn’t even see as being related, and determine the consequences of making a change in that pattern.”
“So five or six guys surround you, you aren’t working on defending yourself. You are finding the pattern in their movements and you find the gap in their pattern and step through it.”
“About sums it up.”
“It’s like a running back who finds that one crack of daylight in the opposition’s front line and he’s gone before they can turn around and grab him.”
“Nice talent,” Kyo admired. “You obviously retained it here.”
“Seems natural to land with you folks—gives me lots of opportunity to use it.”
“So why the deep dark secret?” I asked.
Blaise’s face became shadowed again.
“I take it not all went well,” I guessed.
“You might say that. I was young and naïve and didn’t realize I was being worked by a counter-intelligence unit with a Chinese master. Every time I gave them a pattern, good people died. Sometimes a lot.”
“You were working for the bad guys?”
“They kept me isolated, happy and inflated my ego. I never saw the blood on my hands. They pulled the trigger, but unwittingly I told them where to point.”
His face became stormy and then settled back down.
“Not really your fault.”
“Why? I knew people might die because of what I did. I just thought it would be the bad guys. Somehow, seeing how easily I was played, makes me wonder what the difference is.”
“Your conscience,” Kyo said.
“I was a weapon. I just didn’t know where I was being aimed.”
“You found out.”
“They slipped up. They were always good at not giving me too much of the pattern. Then, one time, they were careless.”
“You wouldn’t go along with it.”
“Ironically, I told them to go to Hell.”
“What happened?”
Blaise face lit up with genuine amusement for the first time during this entire conversation.
“I ended up here.”
When we entered Zaccora, people either looked at our small army with a mixture of curiosity and fear or they kept their distance. I tried waving and smiling, but that seemed to scare them more. Where possible, we took care to let them know we were friends. At one point, a woman slipped and fell as we approached. One of our female soldiers helped her up. The Zaccoran woman, surprised and grateful for the gentleness, walked off a little less fearful than she had been before. She was puzzled too. It was still clear, understandably, that she wasn’t ready to trust us.
We passed the Dirty Glass. I saw the bartender come up to the front window as we passed. I saw him turn white and run to the back.
“Why don’t people trust us?”
“These people don’t trust anyone.”
“I see your point. Guess they don’t know we plan to liberate them.”
“I think they consider that the long odds,” Kyo commented.
“Plus, they don’t know their liberators won’t be as bad,” Blaise added.
“Not a lot of optimism in this place.”
We reached the town square. On instinct, I halted the troops before entering the square. I really needed to try to get what I wanted with diplomacy. Everything else was going to be messy. Symbols were everything and I knew that the tradition-bound dark men would consider armed soldiers crossing into their side of the city without permission an act of aggression.
As before, dark men came out of every alley. Their clubs were at their sides. For now they were simply making a show of force. They weren’t approaching us in a threatening way. They just took up positions, stopping halfway across the square, blocking our way.
I turned to Blaise. “Stay with the troops. Your call what you do with them. Your pattern reading should be handy here. If we don’t come back and you see anything that looks like an attack posture from the dark men...”
“I’ll do what needs doing.”
“If they decide to attack, it will probably mean there is no longer a reason for a rescue.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure the kids are okay.”
I stepped into the square with Kyo, Saripha and Rox. One of the dark men stepped out to meet us with two others behind him. We met halfway between the two gatherings.
“Why are you bringing armed troops? Roland won’t like that.”
“We need to talk to Roland.”
“What about them?” He nodded at Blaise and the troops.
“They’ll stay where they are and not bother you.”
“We have patrols later.”
“Not until we talk to Roland.”
He looked at the troops again, unsure.
“They’ll stop you. No taking people for the demons tonight. Let me talk to Roland and let him give you your orders. Any other way is going to be hard, even if you win.”
The dark man looked at me. He knew I made sense, but he didn’t like it. The dark men weren’t used to opposition, particularly armed opposition. He knew he didn’t know how good we were.
I sighed. “Come on, we can dance like this a long time. You talk tough, I talk tough or I crack a joke to show you how not scared I am. It wastes a lot of time. Take me to Roland.”
The dark man stood there deadpan as long as he could stand it, then said: “Follow me.” Luckily, they couldn’t tell that the thin short staffs in Kyo’s and my belt were deadly weapons, so they didn’t take them. The dark man led us away with an escort of five others. All the other troops stayed where they were, watching Blaise and the troops from Rockvale.
Roland was in a large workroom in the headquarters building. He had a long table on which he kept a crude map of the city, hand drawn with charcoal and pigments on a thick woven grass sheet. He was surrounded by others who made reports to him which caused him to make changes to the symbols on the map—obviously, his staff making spot reports. He looked up as we entered. It was hard to read his expression. He motioned everyone else out of the room and told our escorts they could stay outside.
“Quentin.” Roland nodded. “Glad to see you are okay.”
Roland turned to Saripha, curious.
“I knew I was going up against the big guns, so I brought Saripha for reinforcements.”
Saripha met Roland’s eyes. “Don’t mind him. I’m Saripha.”
“I never do. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
He turned back to me.
“What are you up to, Quentin? My scouts say you entered the city with a small but substantial group of armed men and women.”
“About that. I need to return to Haven.”
“You know the drill. We can take you in and see if the Demon King will grant you passage twice. Don’t know how he’ll react. Never seen someone try to go there twice.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t want to ask his permission this time.”
Roland looked at Rox. She gave him her “not giving anything away” smile and winked.
“You know I can’t let you do that. I thought you understood even if you don’t like it. We will not endanger our arrangement with the demons. We will not endanger our people.”
“No. You’ll endanger other people instead. I’m giving you a way out.”
“How?”
“You add the strength of your dark men to our force. We march into the demon city and kill their Demon King.”
“Maybe we do and maybe we don’t. That’s the trou
ble. There are too many unknowns to predict victory. And if we fail, our people will pay. You want to go to Haven, go. I’m betting you can find your way going around the city.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a Shade, a Manitor and maybe an angel to deal with up there. I need a very large show of force to handle everything else, and I need to cut off the demons from the south.”
“Your needs are not my primary concern, you may have noticed.”
“Then I am going to have to make it your concern.”
Roland looked at me. His eyes had a steely glint. He was beginning to remember why his respect for me was so grudging.
“You are in no position to make demands. May I remind you, you are in our land?”
Saripha suddenly spoke. Her voice was quiet, her words measured.
“Quentin. Roland. Why don’t we try this a different way. I sense that both of you have similar traits. You are both stubborn and principled.”
I looked at Saripha. I realized she was right. I had jumped down too hard.
“For the moment, let’s not start with what we will or won’t do. Let’s see if there is a plan that would make Quentin’s goal achievable and then evaluate that plan.”
Roland thought for a moment. He cooled down some, but he was still determined.
“With all due respect, Saripha, we have lived with this imbalance for some time. The demons are too well protected to be sure of victory.”
“When did war ever become safe? And when did safety come at any cost?” I asked.
“You need to leave, Quentin.”
“Roland, this is crazy. You are sacrificing other people for your own comfort. I know down deep you know how wrong that is. Do you really not think you and I and both our armies combined couldn’t take on a city of demons who have become lazy with their expectations of blind obedience?”
“That’s it… I don’t know.”
“And you never will. You have to want it worse than they do. And honestly, you have to do the right thing.”
“I don’t have to do any…”
“Listen to me, Roland. We can figure this out. We even have longer range weapons we can share with you. What’s going to happen if we don’t do this is we are going to have a fight on our hands. The Rockvale troops are going to put together and protect an insurgency in Zaccora against you. Those people you have been exploiting? I bet if I put a weapon in their hands and a fighting force in front of them, they are going to find they like drawing dark men blood. It’s going to be a mess and the only ones who will win will be the demons.”