Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  Now I really began laughing, and a smile came and went on his face.

  “At any rate,” I said, “it’s certainly good to see you. And I’m quite surprised you’re here.”

  “Why? You’re one of my few friends. I’m just sorry I was laid up for such a long time. Why wouldn’t I visit you?”

  “For one thing, the emperor isn’t thinking fondly of me.”

  “What of that? I know — and so does he, really — you’re not a threat to the realm, in spite of your differences in Kallio.”

  “I wouldn’t think he’d be pleased to see you visit anyone who’s in disgrace.”

  “Perhaps not. But I didn’t choose to serve a man who’s ruled by his emotions. If the emperor uses a moment of logic, he’ll dismiss the matter.”

  “Well …” I let my voice trail off, then slightly changed the subject. “Does he still have you chasing thus-far-invisible Maisirians?”

  Kutulu frowned, nodded.

  “And have you found any more evidence than you had before of King Bairan’s evil plots?”

  “None. But the emperor persists in his belief.” Kutulu shook his head. “Now, does that make what I said a few minutes ago, about imperial logic, meaningless?”

  “As you said once before, the emperor’s mind moves in ways we’re not privy to,” I said.

  “I did, didn’t I?” Kutulu hesitated. “Actually, there was another, more important reason I came. And even though it’s somewhat threatening, I think your wife should be aware of what I’m going to say.”

  I went to the door.

  “Never mind,” Kutulu said, with that wisp of a smile. “I’ll call her.”

  He walked to the waterfall painting concealing the spyhole and spoke to it. “Countess Agramónte, would you join us?” There was a hiccup of surprise from behind the picture, and I turned red. Marán’s face was even redder when she came into the room a few moments later.

  Kutulu shook his head. “Why you should be embarrassed is quite beyond me. Why shouldn’t you have, and use, a device such as that? I would.”

  “Because,” Marán managed, “it’s considered the height of rudeness to eavesdrop.”

  “Not in my world,” Kutulu said. “Not in my profession. At any rate,” he went on, “I don’t know if Damastes told you that our friends the Tovieti are on the rise once more.”

  “No … Wait, yes he did.” Marán remembered. “In Kallio. But I didn’t pay much attention. We had … more pressing worries, as I recall.”

  “Well, they’re as active now as they were when the emperor sent me to Polycittara,” Kutulu said. “In fact, busier. That’s what’s worrying the emperor. He’s had me drop my other concerns to concentrate on them, specifically whether they’re being financed by Maisir.” Maisir again! Kutulu saw my expression. “He’s wondering if King Bairan is their paymaster, just as Chardin Sher was for a time. By the way, of course everything I’m saying must not be repeated. I haven’t found any evidence yet. But it would be logical.”

  “I don’t see why this pertains to us,” I said.

  “Two weeks ago, I arrested a cell leader, and she had greater knowledge of the organization and its plans than any one I’d interrogated before. She told me the Tovieti’s offensive is divided into two prongs. The first, and longest-ranged, is to continue murdering in the hopes that the emperor will tighten the screws and enact repressive laws. That will anger the populace, the anger will feed off the repression — back and forth until there is another rising, which won’t fail.

  “Their second, more immediate plan is selective assassination of the emperor’s leaders. I asked her for names, and she said the campaign was still being discussed. But she did say the Tovieti targets would be men like, and I’m quoting her precisely, ‘that gods-damned yellow-haired devil Damastes the Fair, the one who rode us down before and helped the emperor slay Thak. He’s one, and so’s his, pardon me, countess, solid gold bitch of a wife.’ ”

  “But … but why? Why us? Why me?” Marán said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  “Because you’re better, richer, smarter than they are, maybe? I don’t know. Doesn’t the peasant always hate his better?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said, remembering the peasants I’d labored with as a boy, not much richer and at least as hungry as they were.

  “I wouldn’t really know,” Kutulu said. “My parents were shopkeepers, and I don’t remember anyone hating us, or us hating anyone.

  “But that’s another matter. I thought I’d best warn you. I wish the emperor would change his opinion of you and restore your Red Lancers. This palace is hard to defend properly.”

  “We have watchmen.”

  Kutulu was about to say something, but I shook my head slightly, and he kept silent. “Be careful, both of you,” he said, instead. He got to his feet, then realized he was still clutching the parcel. “Oh. Yes. Here’s a present. For both of you. No, please open it after I’ve left.” He seemed in a hurry to leave, and we escorted him out. He had only two warders to escort him.

  “Kutulu,” I said, “perhaps I should return the warning. You’re a finer target for those madmen than I.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But who knows what I look like? Or remembers my face?”

  “A question for you,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a certain Domina Obbia Trochu?” I described him.

  Kutulu’s face blanked, and he furrowed his brow, as if in deep thought. “No,” he said blandly. “I don’t believe I have. Should I?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said dryly. “Not unless you want to.”

  Kutulu didn’t ask for an explanation, but climbed into the saddle. “I really like your home,” he said. “Perhaps, one day, if the emperor decides …” His voice trailed away. He tapped his horse’s reins and went off down the winding road to the street beyond the gates.

  “That is a truly odd little man,” Marán said.

  “He is,” I agreed. “Shall we see what present an odd man buys?”

  It was an expensively worked wooden box. Inside were a dozen differently scented bars of soap.

  “Oh dear,” Marán said. “Has he no social graces? I’ve known men challenged to a death duel for such an insult.”

  “Would you challenge the Serpent Who Never Sleeps?” I asked. “Besides, perhaps he’s right. Maybe we do need a bath.”

  Marán eyed me. “I suspect you, sir, of having ulterior motives.”

  I rounded my eyes and tried to look innocent.

  • • •

  One of the more secluded parts of the Water Palace was a series of falls, ponds, and rapids running through small glades and mossy gardens. Some of the ponds were icy cold, others sent steam roiling into the chill night wind. All were lit with various-colored lamps, hidden in glass-fronted underwater alcoves.

  “Why do we start up here, instead of where it’s warm?” Marán said. “This is arctic!”

  “Sybarite! Do you want to always do things the easy way?”

  “Of course.” Marán wore a soft cotton robe, and I had a towel around my waist.

  “Ah, my love, you’re such an ascetic sort,” she murmured. “Here I am, freezing my tits off, and you have nothing but that towel.” She opened her robe, and, indeed, her dark brown nipples were standing hard and firm. “See?”

  I quickly bent and bit one. She squealed, then took a bar of Kutulu’s soap from the pocket of her robe. She’d had one of her maids drive a hole in it, and tied a silk cord through the center. She hung the soap around her neck. “Now, you filthy creature, you’ll have to work for your bath,” and she dove into the pool. An instant later, she surfaced. “Shit, it’s even colder in here than out there,” she yelped.

  I plunged after her. It was cold, as frigid as any stream cascading through a mountain valley in Urey. I surfaced, shivering and treading water, and slowly moving closer to her.

  “Ah-ah. I see your treachery,” she said and dove, swimming hard. I went after her, following the foam and the
flail of her feet. I was reaching for her ankle when I realized she’d made it to one of the falls, and then the current took me and sent me tumbling over the lip. I fell five feet and splashed into another pond, this as warm as the other was cold.

  I let myself drift to the bottom, then languidly swam back to the surface. Marán floated on her back, looking up at the sky. The hard diamonds of the stars shone down. The steam from the water twined white serpents around us.

  “I guess … most times … this isn’t that bad a world,” she said softly.

  “There could be worse,” I agreed.

  “Are we possibly doing something wrong?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m serious. Maybe we shouldn’t be mewed up, here, sulking as we’ve been since we got back from Kallio.”

  “That’s what Yonge accused me of doing. Do you have a suggestion?”

  “Well, the Time of Storms begins next week. Should we have a grand party? Invite everyone who’s anyone — including the emperor?”

  I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But that’s one way to take the battle to the enemy.”

  “Let’s try it, then. Stupid soldiers,” she added. “They can’t find any other analogy besides whacking people with swords.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve got other whackers around.”

  “Oh?” She swam to me, and we kissed, friendly at first, then our tongues twined together. Finally I broke away, swam to a submerged rock, and sat on it, the water coming to mid-chest. Marán lazily followed, and put her head on my shoulder, the rest of her body floating.

  “Sometimes we let the world be too much with us,” I said.

  “I know. I love you, Damastes.”

  “I love you, Marán.”

  Words that had been said again and again, but always sounded new.

  “Come on,” she said. “Otherwise we’ll just sit here until we melt, and never get around to serious fucking.”

  I waded after her, then we slid down a narrow chute into a small lagoon, this one blood-warm with a mossy ledge, illuminated by small tapers. Marán handed me the soap, and I began lathering her, first her back, down her legs, then she turned, and I slowly soaped her stomach, her breasts. Her breathing came faster and she lay back on the moss, her legs parting.

  I turned her on her side and put her right heel on my right shoulder. I soaped my cock, then slid it into her. She sighed, and I began moving, slowly, deeply inside her, as my hands caressed her soap-slippery breasts and back. She arced back and forth, her leg trying to pull me down on her.

  She turned, until she was lying on her stomach, pillowed her face on her arms, and I bent over her, feeling her soft buttocks move against me, her feet on the ledge, pushing up, as we moved in a common rhythm, harder, faster, and the small tapers blossomed into twin suns.

  SEVEN

  THE YELLOW SILK CORD

  The card read:

  Dear Baron Damastes & Countess Agramónte,

  My thanks for your gracious invitation. But pressing affairs of the greatest import will not allow me to attend your beguilement. My most sincere apologies.

  T

  Marán studied it carefully.

  “Well?” I finally asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s not good that he didn’t refer to you as tribune or Damastes, but on the other hand it’s good that he didn’t call you Count, but used the title the state gave you, even though it was the Rule of Ten’s actual doing. It’s not good that it’s a printed card, but it’s good that he seems to have signed it himself.” The emperor had recently begun signing his missives with a single initial. “But it’s not good at all that he waited until two hours before the party before sending it.”

  I shook my head. These elaborate dictates of etiquette were quite beyond me.

  “At least he didn’t just ignore the invitation,” Marán said thoughtfully. “But then I wouldn’t expect him to ignore anything from any Agramónte. I guess we just wait, and see what comes next.”

  I felt several species of a fool, standing in the great hall of the Water Palace, flanked by stone-faced retainers in the Agramónte family livery of plush dark green coats and breeches, with vests of bright red whipcord, with gold buckles and buttons. I was in full dress uniform and decorations, but without arms.

  Marán wore a white lace top, V-necked, with pearls worked into the fabric in a triangular pattern. Her skirt was flaring black silk, with black pearl panels in the same pattern. Her hair was coiled atop her head, and she wore a black lace headdress over it. She wore no jewelry except a necklace of precious stones, each a slightly different shade, the whole a dazzling color wheel. She looked about the grand ballroom, frowning.

  “So far,” she said, “it appears a disaster.”

  “It’s early yet,” I said. “Not much more than an hour after the time on the invitation. You taught me no one but a bumpkin, an ancient, or a fool ever materializes on time.” Marán tried a smile, but it was a poor attempt. There were, so far, only a handful of people here, and those the sorts who’ll attend any event, so long as they’re given food and drink, plus the usual knot of hangers-on who judge an event by the prestige of who’s putting it on, no more.

  Amiel bustled up to Marán. Not knowing anything of the dressmaker’s skills, I thought her dress was two garments in one. They both clung tightly to her dancer’s body and were cut high at the neck and ankle. But if this makes Countess Kalvedon sound modestly clad, she was anything but. The first, inner dress, was made of deep red and clear silk. Over that was a sea-green and clear second garment, the clear patches almost but not quite congruent with the other. She wore nothing underneath them, and each time she moved a flash of tanned naked flesh glimmered. Like Marán, she shaved her sex, but unlike Marán she lightly rouged her nipples. In a different mood, and if she weren’t my wife’s friend, interesting thoughts might have come.

  “Who did the illusion?” she said.

  “Our own Seer Sinait,” Marán said, a spark coming into her voice. “Isn’t it marvelous?” It was. Marán had held to her idea of a party celebrating the beginning of the Time of Storms. The weather was cooperating, and a tropical monsoon had swirled down from the northern sea. To match it, Sinait had created a storm within the ballroom — drifting clouds, some dark with rain, others climbing high with the threat of great winds; occasional flashes of lightning and barely audible clashes of thunder. But this storm rode across the ballroom at waist level, so it was easy to imagine oneself a godling, or perhaps a manifestation of one of the greater gods, floating through the heavens.

  “I especially like — ” Amiel broke off as her husband, Pelso, came up. She smiled tightly, then excused herself for the punch bowl. It was most clear the two were here solely because of their liking for Marán and myself. If either had his preference, they would have been on the other side of the city, and perhaps the world, from each other.

  Count Kalvedon bowed. “May I steal your wife, Damastes? She might be willing to dance with me.” Without waiting for a response, he took Marán’s hand and led her off. There were no more than half a dozen couples on the floor.

  I decided anything was better than standing here, and found Seer Sinait, who wore her usual brown, but now her garb was hand-loomed lamb’s wool. I danced with her, and complimented her spell. “I wish I could do something more,” she said. “Such as cast some sort of spell that’d work on Nicias’s lords and ladies as honey does for ants. I despise seeing your lady feeling as she does.”

  “So do I,” I agreed. “Any suggestions?”

  “My only one would involve a certain someone who’s behaving like a spoiled brat, but I won’t chance your vows by using his name.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all.”

  I danced with two other women, then with Amiel. She danced well, as if we were one, and very closely. Pelso had disappeared, having made as much of an appearance as politeness required. “Pity that bastard left,” she whisper
ed.

  “Ah?”

  “If he were still here, maybe I’d try to make him jealous.”

  “How? With whom?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe with you. Remember, there’s many in Nicias who think we had an affair anyway.” Amiel, when I’d first fallen in love with Marán, had done us a wonderful service, acting as what she called an “apron,” so everyone would think I was carrying on with her. “I could start dancing with you like … like this.” She slid her leg between mine, and moved her hips back and forth. “Sooner or later, someone would notice.”

  “Stop that!”

  “Why?” she said. “It feels good.”

  “Maybe too good,” I said, feeling my cock stir a bit.

  She laughed, a bit forcedly, but did as requested. “Poor Damastes,” she said. “Madly in love with his wife, and a man who keeps his vows. You don’t drink, you don’t use any herbs … you two will probably end up being the longest-married in all Nicias.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “How utterly dull,” Amiel said. “But I suppose we each have burdens to bear.”

  I admired her for trying to improve my mood, but it wasn’t working. I was about to try some half-witted sally, when the orchestra finished a number. In the momentary hush a laugh brayed across the room. I didn’t need to look to see if a donkey had wandered into the room. The laugh could only belong to Count Mijurtin, perhaps as useless a being as Saionji had ever let return from the Wheel.

  At one time, his family had been among the noblest in Nicias, even having two members on the Rule of Ten over the centuries. But that was long ago. Now the count was the only survivor of the line. He’d married a commoner — the rumor was his laundrywoman, to avoid having to pay her bill. The two lived in a few rooms of the family mansion that had once been in a fashionable part of Nicias, near the river, that was now a slum. The rest of the house was abandoned for the rats to glide among the rotting family memories.

  Not that anyone ever felt pity for Mijurtin. He was arrogant enough to be an Agramónte, thought himself clever when he was merely rude, was a tale-teller and a false gossip. No one ever invited him to anything, but there he’d be, in the finery of ten years ago, from dusk until the last servant yawned him out at dawn.