by Joe Jackson
Aeligos agreed in infernal, which prompted Danilynn to correct him on something to do with his grammar. They both chuckled, and Kari couldn’t help but smile at how fast Aeligos picked things up. With everyone in agreement, the friends began to enjoy their breakfast.
Chapter IX – Complications
Kari’s days felt fruitless. While the others found the tomes they were looking for after a few days, Kari had no opportunities to speak with any of the kings. It seemed impossible, with the number of commoners and rivals’ retainers that requested their attention on a daily basis – which was to say nothing of the fact that the Council sessions themselves took nearly all day. Kari wanted one of her friends to listen in on the sessions – many of the city’s residents did so – but she was leery about being too conspicuous, so she simply had them research instead. Eliza showed Kari around those parts of the city she had any business visiting, but that had taken only a single day.
The days felt like they passed too quickly despite the fact that Kari had very little to do herself. She supposed she could spend time with Danilynn and Aeligos to see how much of the infernal tongue she could learn herself, but Aeligos’ concerns about slowing down everyone’s progress rang much truer for Kari. She didn’t pick things up anywhere near as quickly as her brother-in-law, and she knew without a doubt that they’d probably all end up frustrated trying to get her acquainted with a completely alien tongue. Eli seemed to have found ways to be of help to their companions, but Kari assumed that was more out of his desire to be close to Danilynn in such a dangerous place than due to his work ethic.
Kari went to the palace on the fourth day of the Council’s session, having decided to go and speak directly with Celigus. He wasn’t involved in the plan directly, so Kari didn’t think it would seem too suspicious if anyone saw them talking. She wasn’t sure if he’d be willing or able to tell her anything, and suspected she might even receive a verbal lashing for ignoring his advice on whether or not to even come to Mehr’Durillia. Whatever the case, though, he was the one king on the entire Council who Kari believed she could put even an ounce of trust in.
Padding through the foyer, Kari made her way around to the teleportation dais that would hopefully take her to Celigus’ personal chambers. It was still early; once Kari had gotten used to the change in time, it had been fairly simple to get accustomed to rising with the dawn here in Anthraxis. She got ready and came to the palace before any of her companions had even risen. The meeting hall floor below was deserted, and there were only a couple of the incubi standing here and there on the main level. Kari took advantage of the deserted foyer and strode with confidence toward the rear dais.
Kari came to a stop, suddenly quite still when she beheld the scene before her. There, at the base of the dais, was King Morduri, speaking with Emma in hushed tones. The mallasti was dressed in that beautiful, intricate robe again, while Morduri wore only his trousers and a bow across his shoulders. Kari wondered if he had gone out hunting, but she knew little of the lay of the land beyond Anthraxis’ walls. She could see little from the city – even when she had sat up on Morduri’s balcony – that suggested there might be good hunting nearby. As she thought on it, though, Kari wondered if she was thinking of the right kind of hunting.
The elestram king and mallasti slave sharing a long and – so far as Kari could tell, given the differences between their species and her own – passionate kiss nearly stopped her heart. She backed away and out of sight around the corner of the wall, hoping neither of them had seen her while their attention was on each other. A relationship between Morduri and Emma could mean a number of things, but Kari was fairly certain none of them were good. Her immediate reaction was to feel betrayed; was Emma a part of this plot now, too? Did this all have to do with Kari being Salvation’s Dawn, and nothing to do with humiliating Sekassus? Was it all, in fact, a trap – perhaps of the Overking’s design – meant to lure Kari out to a place where she had no defenses whatsoever?
Anger welled up in Kari’s chest, and though she reminded herself not to do anything rash when dealing with a demon king, she turned the corner and strode toward them. She would let her presence act as all the confrontation she needed, hopefully without her having to say a word. When she passed the dividing wall and into sight of the teleportation dais, Morduri had taken Emma by the hand and was leading her up onto the pad. “Your Lordship,” Kari called.
Morduri turned toward Kari and blinked very slowly when he saw her. He said nothing immediately, but there was barely a trace of patience in the depths of those amethyst eyes. He turned and glanced at Emma, whose own gaze had fallen to the floor. When the elestram turned back to Kari, he sighed and asked, “Yes? What is it?”
“I was hoping to speak with you, if you have the time,” Kari said. She really had little to say to him, but seeing these two together aggravated her far more than it probably should have. If she had to go up to his bedroom and babble at him for an hour to keep him away from Emma, Kari felt like it would be more than worth her time to do so.
“I don’t,” he said. “And frankly, I have nothing more to say to you than I already have. Now, I have but scant hours before the day’s session begins, and plan to spend that the way I see fit. I suggest, if you still haven’t managed to reach a decision, that you spend more time with your friends, and less pestering me.”
Kari was shocked at his sudden change in manners, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure exactly why. He was a demon king, after all. She watched him step onto the dais with Emma, and there was a brief moment where the mallasti met Kari’s gaze. She expected to see smugness or even a triumphant gleam in the girl’s glowing orange orbs, but that was not what Kari saw at all. Kari couldn’t claim to have any real knowledge of the mannerisms of her demonic enemies, but she still felt quite certain that what she saw in Emma’s eyes was shame.
In the blink of an eye, the demon king and the mallasti slave disappeared, whisked away to his personal chambers above. Kari very briefly entertained the thought of following them and interrupting, but she knew that could lead only to disaster. Whether Lord Morduri took offense enough to kill Kari on the spot, or simply refuse to help her whatsoever, it wouldn’t be a smart thing to do at all. As angry as she was, Kari kept in mind that she had found some semblance of trustworthiness and “goodwill” from the demon king, and that she shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that unless she had more than a hunch to go on.
Kari stepped up onto the dais herself, but nothing happened immediately. She thought of Celigus, and almost as soon as the image of him crossed her mind, she found herself in a dimly-lit cylindrical room, exactly like when Emma took her to see Morduri. The door didn’t open, so Kari cleared her throat and said, “Karian Vanador, requesting to see Lord Chinchala.”
There was a long delay, but then the doorway to the room slid aside, and Kari stepped into a bedroom that was much more lavishly decorated than the one belonging to Morduri. The elestram king had only a bed with a couple of nightstands and shelves of books, while Celigus’ chamber more closely resembled that of an emperor. Everything – from the intricately carved, mahogany four-poster bed that was large enough for probably half a dozen or more people of Kari’s size, to the triple mirror-adorned dresser that said he frequently had female visitors, to the maps covered in tick-marks and arrows that adorned the flat wall that separated bed and bath chambers – said that this was the personal chamber of someone powerful and important.
Celigus wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and Kari wondered if she was going to end up in a bath with a demon king for the second time in a week. She started forward slowly, as if the eight foot, muscular demon king might be hiding behind one of the narrow posts of his bed, or else underneath it. Once she made it several paces into the room, she could see that he was standing out on the balcony in the light of the sunrise. Kari hesitated a moment, not sure if she should approach him without his beckoning to her, but she assumed if he had let her into his chamber, he wanted her to come
speak to him.
Kari hardly reached the open glass doors to the balcony before the demon king, leaning out against the railing, said, “I’m curious what it is about people from Citaria that they simply do not listen to me.” Kari balked, stuttering for a second, and Celigus straightened out and turned to face her. “Didn’t I tell you not to come here?”
“Did you really think a one-word answer was going to sway me?” Kari managed.
The demon king looked toward the door to the bath chamber for a few drawn-out seconds before turning his attention back to her. “No, I suppose I didn’t,” he said. “You’re stubborn and bull-headed, just like your boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Kari repeated, but then it dawned on her. “Kris? He’s not my boyfriend, and never has been, and I am not bull-headed and stubborn. I don’t think he is, either.”
“Right,” Celigus said with a sarcastic nod. “He asked that you be assigned to his brigade because he needed your tactical advice, and wanted one of the best demonhunters in the world to be stationed up in the mountains, away from the bulk of the fighting. You can’t possibly be so dense that you would believe that.”
“Don’t call me stupid,” Kari spat.
“I didn’t call you stupid, I called you bull-headed and stubborn,” he returned. “If you were stupid, you wouldn’t realize what I said was true. The fact that you simply try to pretend it’s not means you’re stubborn.” He chuckled lightly through his nose when Kari folded her arms across her chest. “Now, what did you come up here for?”
“Advice, though now I don’t think I really even want it,” she said, wanting to walk away from him, but a little afraid to, regardless of his alliance with her world’s pantheon.
“Bull-headed and stubborn,” he said again, and he let forth something between a sigh and a laugh. “I told you not to come here because I knew this was exactly what was going to happen. Let me guess: you’re confused, you’re not sure who you can trust or how much, and now you’re not sure this whole thing isn’t just a trap, yes?” Kari nodded grudgingly. “They’ve got their hooks in you, Kari. And now it’s honestly too late to turn back. Even if you leave now and go back home, they know what entices you, and how to manipulate you into walking right into their clutches.”
“Why are you so damned secretive?” Kari barked. “If you had just talked to me ahead of time, I might have avoided this mess in the first place.”
“I told you not to come,” Celigus said, hiking up his short trousers a bit before he took a seat in a metal chair on the balcony. “As far as being secretive, as I’m sure Eliza explained, there are things I can tell you and things I can’t. There’s a vast difference between living on your world and striking a truce with your gods and your people, and giving away the secrets of my peers and people. The former makes me a potential pawn; the latter makes me a traitor. Quite frankly, Kari, you and your friends are not worth dying for.”
Kari was about to mutter a sarcastic Oh thanks, but she bit it back. “When I met with Lord Morduri, he said the bath chambers were the only places in the city where no one could overhear our conversation. Is that true?”
“Lady Koursturaux is in the bath chamber; we will not be using it any time soon,” the demon king returned. He looked upward toward the other balconies, but there didn’t appear to be any other kings in sight on this side of the tower. “We have about as much privacy here as we can expect anywhere outside of my personal palace or the bath chamber, so speak your mind.”
Recognition hit Kari as squarely as a backhand. “Lady Koursturaux shares a floor with you? I thought Lord Morduri said you all share floors with someone you get on well with?”
Celigus turned so that their eyes met. “Eliza explained to you what a kast’wa is, yes?” he asked, and Kari nodded. “Lady Koursturaux is my kast’wa.”
Kari balked again. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?” she barked.
He gestured toward her gruffly. “For exactly this reason,” he said. “She’s not my wife, Kari. I have no control over her, and no say in how she conducts her affairs. If she wants to have a child, I’ll probably be the one she has it with, and we tend to entertain each other when we come here for the Council sessions, and sometimes in between. But we are not lovers or spouses; politically, we have nothing to do with each other. If I’d told you that she was my kast’wa up front, whether you understood the meaning of the word or not, you would’ve asked me to ‘put in a good word’ or some such nonsense. In that regard, she wouldn’t listen to me any more than you have.”
Kari turned and looked over the balcony railing. This was precisely the sort of thing that made her hate politics and being considered a noble on her own world. How much nastier it was in this realm, and so much trickier for her to try to grasp. Political marriages, as Aeligos had mentioned before they came, were nothing new or strange to Citaria; but what these demon kings considered a “political mating” was just baffling. It sounded like the sort of thing that would cause more wars and strife than it ever solved, but then, Kari surmised, maybe that was the point.
Turning back to the demon king, Kari asked, “But you could tell me about her, couldn’t you? Or about Lord Morduri, or Lord Emanitar, or even Lord Sekassus?”
Celigus turned toward the door to the bath chamber again for a few moments before he sat back and answered. “I will tell you this and no more: you can trust their plan to get you this syrinthian girl you’re trying to rescue, but that’s where the plan ends. From the moment she’s in your possession, you’re on your own. No one is going to come rescue you if you’re not out of Sorelizar in less than seven days.”
Kari nodded. “And is there any reason to believe I won’t be?”
“They don’t call him Sekassus the Calculating because he plays with numbers,” Celigus answered. “If you think escaping his realm will be as straightforward as walking to the border of the Overking’s realm, you’ve sold yourself quite short. My peers on the Council who’ve decided to help you put a lot of work into getting you to Sorelizar and negotiating for the release of this syrinthian girl; if you haven’t put a similar amount of work into getting out of Sorelizar, you’re probably going to die. Sorry if you expected me to say otherwise.”
“But it won’t be impossible?”
“Improbable, but not impossible,” Celigus agreed. “You’ve been through a lot in your two lifetimes, Kari, but nothing like this. These next few weeks will be the longest of your dual lives; take care that they are not also the last.”
“I just hope this girl is worth the trouble,” Kari said in preparation to leave.
“Don’t count on that,” the demon king said. “She’s been imprisoned since she was just a child; don’t expect that she’s going to be able to tell you anything, much less secrets about Lord Sekassus or his plans.”
That wasn’t what Kari wanted to hear, but she had resolved to see to Se’sasha’s rescue regardless of whether the girl could – or would – tell her Order anything. When the conversation halted, the demon king glanced at Kari sideways and dismissed her with a casual wave of his hand. She made sure to thank him for his time, not even really considering how nice it was to have a demon king she could talk to casually. Morduri had allowed her to speak to him so, but even still, Kari hadn’t been free to truly speak her mind.
Kari made her way back to the lift and returned to the foyer. She went back to the inn, and roused her companions who weren’t up yet. After breakfast, she went to the library with them, to go over the maps and other reference materials they could find, desperate to find several alternate routes out of Sorelizar if it turned out Sekassus pulled some trickery to try to delay or otherwise entrap her.
There were only two real options aside from heading south toward the Overking’s realm: to head east, back to Emanitar’s realm of Tess’Vorg; or to go north into Arku’s realm, Si’Dorra. Si’Dorra was a terrible alternative, but was still better than the prospect of being captured by Sekassus. Going west to Mas’tolinor was
out of the question per Koursturaux’ orders, so going back east seemed like the best option. Which, Kari knew – even before Aeligos pointed it out – was precisely the reason Sekassus would make that the most difficult path, aside from the one to the Overking’s realm. Despite all the warning signs, Kari understood that her best option, should Sekassus attempt some trickery, was to go to the worst option: Si’Dorra.
Kari stewed over the prospect for the last couple of days of the Council session. She had made the decision to go forward with the plan, in some small part due to Celigus’ suggestion, but more because Danilynn and Eli had made an oath, and Kari wanted to help them see it through. She let Eliza and her friends know of her decision, and had her companions prepare to meet King Morduri after the final day of the Council session.
*****
Just as Eliza had said, the Council session ended after seven days. Most of the kings left immediately, creating an incredible scene as nearly a quarter of those within the city all left at the same time. Entourages made their way to the gates behind the generally tall and majestic kings, and Kari made a cursory headcount of fourteen kings from a safe enough distance that even King Sekassus wouldn’t see her. That left the Overking and one other, not including Morduri, whom Kari hadn’t seen yet. She waited another half-hour after the other kings had made their egress before she got antsy and went to inquire about Morduri at the palace.