by Wil Ogden
CHAPTER 4: DARIEN
Darien, ecstatic at having the Key in his possession patronizingly thanked Julivel for the service. But he didn’t trust the man not to wait in ambush, so Darien left the table first. The largest of his guards carried the chest. As they pushed their way through the crowd, some idiot dropped a purse of coins. The chaos of people diving to the floor in hopes for a spare silver did not hamper his guards; they simply shoved everyone in their path aside. The doorman threatened them as they stepped into the street, but Darien just laughed at the mortal. He led his guards around the corner into the alley.
He pulled the portal parchment from his shirt and unrolled it, revealing complex sigils around a large black circle. He set the box containing the gem into the circle. Once the box was safely back in Demia, Darien burned the scroll.
He and his guards then ceased their projection into the mortal realms. The clothing the demons been wearing fell to the street as the demons faded out of the world. In the blink of an eye Darien was standing beside the box in his chambers in Demia. He donned his best robes then gestured for one of his guards to pick the box up and headed out into the hallway.
Arriving in his lord’s throne room, Darien and his cohorts shifted back into their natural forms. For his guards, it meant their horns, tails and wings appeared. For Darien his skin color shifted to the color of damp coal. He turned and bowed before the demon on the throne, his master, Lord Murdread.
With a deep resonant growl, Lord Murdread asked, “You brought the Key?”
“I did.” Darien gestured for the guard carrying the chest to step forward. Darien approached and touched the symbols on the lock, releasing the latch. When he lifted the lid, it fell to the floor; the hinge pins had been removed. Panic overcame him as he realized the chest was empty. Darien dared not turn and face his Lord with the bad news.
“I sense failure,” Murdread said, standing from his throne. “Where is the Key?” He took a great flaming sword from behind the throne and strode slowly towards Darien. “Shall I send you back to the spawning pits so you can spend the next dozen centuries regaining your rank?”
Darien fell to the floor and groveled. “I made the mistake of entrusting a lesser demon to bear the stone. I deserve any punishment my lord would inflict upon me.”
Murdread raised his fiery blade and cut, not at Darien, but at the guard holding the box. The guard managed to raise the iron chest to meet Lord Murdread’s assault, but the blade passed through the chest as if it were made of paper and continued straight through the guard, cutting it from shoulder to hip. The guard would respawn as a rankless demon in the pits, but it would no longer be part of Murdread's household.
Darien cowered, “Please, my lord, I had an alternate plan in case this one failed.”
Resting his sword on his shoulder, Murdread simply looked at Darien.
Quickly inventing a plan, Darien sputtered words, hoping to pull a remnant of a plan from them, “The Vulak, we can get to them, use them. We can steer the gem into the hands of one of our powerful mortal followers.”
“You cannot project yourself to that mortal realm again for two of three parts of a millennia.” Murdread stepped back towards his throne and fell into it, shaking the hall. “How will you communicate to the Vulak? I only trusted you to project because you are my most intelligent underling. I know of none else who can deal with mortals effectively.”
“Vulak are a simple race,” Darien said. “I can send an imp and they will be impressed enough to follow a simple order. But I have to get the gem out of the city. I have a plan for that as well. I cannot project myself to the mortal realm, but I cannot refuse a proper summons by a powerful magician. This is only a setback. We know where the gem is. If we can’t get it into a powerful ally’s hands, we can at least get it out of the protections of a city.”
“I am only allowing you to exist after this failure because you are my most powerful underling, but I will not hesitate to demote you all the way back to the pits if you fail me again.” Murdread then laughed. “Demons of your rank do not always survive such loss in rank.”
“My plan is flawless,” Darien said. He crawled to his feet then bowed. He turned to his remaining guards and said, “Clean up this mess. Find Kirvel and send him to my office.” He left the room as quickly as he could without running, afraid to gaze again upon his master’s wrath.
His plan had been flawless. He’d hired the most reputable mortal among those who earned their living in the shadows, and he’d ensorcelled him to make sure the key was not only found and stolen, but delivered. The inn he’d chosen for the exchange was noted as the safest place from thieves and he hadn’t taken his eyes off Julivel. If he ever encountered that mortal again, he swore to make the suffering last weeks. Darien smiled at the thoughts of how he would punish the betraying rogue. If he couldn’t torture the mortal, someday Julivel would die, and his soul would come to Demia and Darien would claim it and torture it forever.
He stepped into the hall towards his quarters and bumped into another demon. “Watch where I’m going you…” Darien recognized whom he’d bumped into before he could add an insult. Lady Glacia, a rival lord to Murdread, blocked the hall. Darien dropped to the floor, and spouted as many apologies as he could. He knew he should be confronting her, asking her what she was doing in Murdread’s fortress, but she was one of the Hundred, the most powerful lords in Demia. He’d seen her freeze a demon solid and chip pieces away and didn’t want to find out what that felt like.
“Get up, Darien,” Glacia said.
Her voice was like a purr to Darien’s ears almost as pleasing to hear as her body was to admire, but Darien didn’t dare look below her neck when she could notice. He stood slowly and stepped away from the demoness. Finding a spot on the wall to study, Darien said, “Milady, what brings you here.”
“I’m merely trying to offer my help.” She leaned her black scaled wings against the wall and stretched her bare coppery arms over her head. “I know what you’re after and I have some hounds and a houndskeeper who are available to project to the mortal realm you just came from.”
“You mean to take the gem for yourself,” Darien said, daring to accuse the Lady Glacia.
“No, I have no interest in a mortal world. I already possess the best property in all of Demia, but to get Murdread off this little plot would give me a prime staging ground if I ever choose to challenge Osiris for the Crown. That’s something far beyond Murdread’s aspirations and the Mortal world is far below mine.”
“I see.” Darien nodded. Her plan made sense. “But why talk to me and not my lord? Surely the best alliance is between lords.”
“Murdread, unlike you, is an idiot. You understand how my help is beneficial to both of us. Murdread would never get beyond his suspicion that I’m after what he’s after. So, I work with you and Murdread never needs to know.”
“Can I think about it?”
“No.” Glacia stepped away from the wall and turned her back to Darien and started walking. “If you don’t want my help, I don’t want to waste my time selling it.”
Darien watched her take a few steps before chasing after her. “I agree to your plan. Let’s send your hounds.”
Without looking back towards Darien, Glacia said, “Running makes you look weak, desperate.” She then stopped and turned, stopping Darien at the end of her ice crystal staff. She caught his gaze with her golden eyes, “I’ll send the hounds, for my reasons, I am not your friend or your ally in this.”
“I understand. I don’t care as long as my goals are reached.” Darien tried to seem aloof, but his eyes kept darting to the dangerous end of her staff which threatened him less than a handbreadth from his chin.
In a deep, quiet moan, Glacia said, “Remember this is our secret.” She winked and spun. Her tail swayed gently as she walked away. Then it suddenly snapped like a whip. “Your eyes have no business down there, underling,” her voice sang teasingly.
Darien tried to lift his gaze a
way. Some assets of a Lord were infinitely beyond even his high rank.
CHAPTER 5: PANTROS
Pantros drank alone at the end of the bar. The mug in front of him contained only water, but he wondered if perhaps this were a day for wine. The lunch crowd had come and gone and his sister, Tara, sat at the other end of the bar counting the till.
“How’d we do? “ Dale, the cook, asked as he stepped out from the kitchen.
“You’ll get paid,” Tara said, “We pull a profit, always just enough to get by. But, what more do we need?”
“True,” Dale said, filling a mug with beer from a cask behind the bar. When Tara raised an eyebrow at him he explained, “This stuff the Goldenwind clan brings in makes a strong tasting beer bread.” He took a sip then headed back to the kitchen.
Pantros knew that Dale wasn’t making beer bread but so did Tara. What Tara didn’t know was that Pantros slipped a few coins into the till most days to make sure the inn stayed profitable. His reason for wanting the wine wasn’t to celebrate his wealth, but to drown his indecision over whether or not to tell Tara about it.
James and Bouncer, the doormen, stepped into the Inn. It was still a little early for their shift, but the beer wasn’t the only benefit of working at the Hedgehog. Any soup that didn’t get finished off by the lunch crowd got finished off by the doormen. Bouncer filled a mug with water and took the seat next to Pantros.
James hobbled over and filled a mug with whiskey before joining Pantros and Bouncer at the end of the bar. Pantros held back a chuckle when the two doormen tried to slyly switch mugs. The Matderi, as a race, valued their masculinity, and James couldn’t be seen as weak by drinking only water. But even with an ancient scarred war hammer as a crutch, whiskey would hamper James’ balance. Bouncer, having muscles the size of Pantros, could nurse a whole mug of whiskey over the course of a night and never be affected by it.
Tara waved at them. “I’ll go tell Dale to send out the rest of the soup and see if we need anything before the dinner crowd shows up.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
With a gentle nudge, Bouncer asked Pantros, “What was that all about last night?”
“What do you mean?” Pantros exaggerated his innocent face. He never thought for a second that he’d fool Bouncer.
“You took something from someone and had that someone not been so rude, I’d have called you on it last night.”
James thumped his mug onto the bar. “And you were sloppy. Well, not that I actually saw you take anything, but coins in a crowd? That could have gotten very dangerous.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Pantros knew they knew, but admitting guilt never came to anything good.
Bouncer sighed and shook his head. “I’d hate to be the one to tell Tara you broke the rules of the house. I know you’ve had it rough since your buddy left, and it seems like you take it harder every day. I hear about people losing things. Rich, dangerous people lose valuable things from places that things don’t normally get lost from. Like the safe of a certain Pirate Prince.”
Pantros smiled. That had been a tough burglary, but the money had been more than worth it. Maybe Pantros had been taking bigger risks since Bryan left.
Placing a hand on Pantros’ shoulder, Bouncer continued. “I am off topic now, but the point is that by taking it to the point where you are stealing in the one place you swore never to steal from, you’re going too far.”
James leaned in and asked, “So, was it your missing friend or a large reward that caused you to ply your skills where you oughtn’t.”
“I’m not admitting to anything,” Pantros said, reaching into a concealed pocket under his armpit. “Let’s just say that someone hired someone else for a specific item to be removed from a certain rude gem merchant. And that hired talent was not only paid, but got to keep the gem as well.” He set the stone on the table.
“Pretty,” said Bouncer.
“By the Gods,” muttered James. “I know what that is.”
“It’s a big ruby,” Pantros said. “Or maybe a sapphire. It changes color sometimes.”
“No, lad,” James said, hobbling closer to the gem. “That is…” He stopped talking when Tara screamed from the kitchen. The door to the kitchen flew open and Tara and Dale rushed out into the taproom. “What’s wrong?” James asked.
A creature resembling a hairless wolf as tall at the shoulders as a man bound into the room, tearing the kitchen door from the hinges. It turned away from where Tara and Dale cowered and charged towards the three men at the end of the bar.
Pantros grabbed the gem and slipped it back into its pocket. “Run,” he shouted and dove over the bar and sprinted to the stairs.
James hopped off his barstool and leaned against it, raising his war hammer over his head while Bouncer ran over to Tara and Dale, placing himself between them and the beast.
The beast’s claws tore into the wood floor as it spun and followed Pantros towards the stairs.
“Run, Pan!” Tara yelled.
Pantros didn’t want to take the beast up to the guest rooms, so he stopped and leapt from the stairs, passing over the creature. The beast rose up and swatted Pantros from the air, tearing his shirt from his body and throwing him into the bar.
Bouncer dove at the beast wrapping his arms around the creature’s ribs. They rolled together across the floor to land at James’ feet. With a single swing of his hammer, James crushed the creature’s skull and the beast fell limp. A blue flame engulfed the creature's body. Bouncer jumped off before the flames could burn him.
By the time Pantros got to his feet and stepped over to join Bouncer and James, the beast was gone, without even a scorch mark on the floor. He was about to ask what it was when James said, “I hate fighting demons. No one ever believes the tales and there are no trophies to prove your valor.”
“That was a demon?” Pantros asked.
“It was a hellhound,” James hobbled back to the bar and took a deep drink from Bouncer’s mug of whiskey. “Son, you’ve got enemies in low places.”
“The man who hired me, he said to make sure that Darien didn’t get to keep the gem. Darien’s probably the one who sent this thing.”
“Yes, the beast was after the gem,” Bouncer said. Picking Pantros’ shirt up from the floor, He dug the gem out of its pocket. “It grabbed at the gem, taking Pantros’ shirt in the process.”
“It didn’t even scratch the boy with those claws.” James waved his hammer at Pantros’ bare chest. “Demons are wily and very strong and quick. If it had been out for blood, one of us would be dead.”
“Where did that gem come from?” Tara asked, taking the stone from Bouncer’s hand, she stepped up close to her brother. “Pan, I thought you said you were just into petty theft, little things, silver coins and the like.”
Pantros dropped his gaze to the floor. “I took a job to take this gem, it seemed to pay well. No one said anything about demons being after the gem though.”
“Demons would be after that,” James said. “Like I said, I know what it is.”
Pantros, with everyone else turned to look at James. The Matderi climbed onto a barstool and said, “In Grabarden, where I grew up we have this big magical gate that we don’t use. It takes keys and each key opens to another magic gate somewhere else. We don’t use it because we lost all our keys, but when I was a young, I saw the key to Melnith. It was a white stone of the same cut as the gem you hold.
“There were other keys, each to a different city, and some to cities across the oceans. But there were tales of keys that would open gates to places not of this world. There was supposed to be a diamond to open a door straight to paradise and a nightstone that opened a door straight to hell.”
“This is a nightstone?” Pantros asked, taking the gem from his sister and looking at it closely.
“That is a nightstone. It's a ruby that formed in a natural convex of magical energies. It's a never-ending source of power. By itself, just by its size, a nightstone like that would be worth
the whole city of Grabarden. And there are whole buildings of solid gold in that city. But because it’s a key to hell, it’s worth far more than that.”
“I could sell it and be rich?”
“You’d damn us all. The demons know of it and want it. I don’t know what a direct door to hell would do for them, but I have to think it would be bad for us. All of us. Every living thing on Mealth.”
“What do I do with it then?” Pantros asked. “I don’t want to keep it if it’s just going to mean I have to fight off demons every day for the rest of my life.”
James upended his flagon and drained the last of his drink. “The Archmage of Vehlos is the Keeper of the Keys. It was in his possession that I saw the key to Melnith. He brought it down so we could open the gate for a very large shipment of ore. He’d be the one to take it and keep it safe. He’s powerful enough to defend against any demons.”
Pantros folded the gem back into its pouch and tucked it into the pocket inside his shirt. “Vehlos is far. Six weeks by boat, longer if we walk.”
“You’re going to want to walk,” James said. “Demons can pop up anywhere and after a couple pop up at sea, the captain will throw whatever is causing them overboard. That would be you.”
“You talk like you’re not coming with me?” Pantros had hoped the Matderi, who seemed too familiar with the gem and its meaning, would accompany him.
“Boy, I’m lame.” James tapped his bad leg with the shaft of his hammer. “I don’t walk anywhere. Maybe Bouncer will accompany you if you think you need muscle.”
Pantros’ sister Tara objected loudly. “No,” she said. “I need Bouncer here. With me and Pantros gone, I’ll need all my loyal help to remain here.”