Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Kedrin slumped to the floor, Braison’s last proclamation like an arrow in his heart. Knight’s honor would not allow him to doubt the king’s decision, and his personal respect for King Kohleran only doubled his certainty. Reconciling Braison’s descriptions to the world Denevier and Baltraine had presented over recent months seemed impossible. Baltraine betrayed me? The realization was its own answer, undeniably true in at least one sense. The prime minister/regent had deliberately entrapped him with a crime they both knew he never committed. The memory returned in vivid detail. Baltraine had arranged for Kedrin to meet him in a hallway, then started an argument. Kedrin’s knife, awarded to him with his captain’s title, had disappeared days earlier. Baltraine returned it to Kedrin at that time. Then, as Kedrin clasped his knife to sheathe it, Baltraine revealed its presence to his guards and claimed Kedrin had drawn it to harm him.

  Yet Baltraine had changed in the months since the incident. He had seemed genuinely sorry, confiding his fears and stresses and requesting advice from the knight-captain turned prisoner. Months earlier, he had even granted Kedrin his freedom, a privilege the knight-captain had reluctantly declined. He had done so for the good of the kingdom, to maintain the citizenry’s trust in the king’s judgments and choice of regent. King Kohleran had rendered the verdict against Kedrin. Therefore, in Kedrin’s mind, he was guilty.

  The foundation of Kedrin’s understanding collapsed beneath Braison’s revelations. The King Kohleran whom Kedrin knew would never have used Knights of Erythane as executioners nor slaughtered a hundred of his people at once. The support the knight-captain had insisted his knights sustain for Kohleran’s regent might be based on lies and misconceptions. Here, Kedrin did find precedent where he had not been before. Some three and a quarter centuries ago, before the staff-test assured the king’s naiveté and neutrality, Morhane the Betrayer had usurped the throne from his brother Valar and murdered all but one of Valar’s line. The bard and the Knights of Erythane had supported Morhane, as their loyalty and honor decreed. Yet when Valar’s youngest son, Sterrane, returned to claim the crown rightfully his, the knights and bard had assisted the proper king and turned against the uncle they had once protected.

  Kedrin sighed, the coldness of the stone floor seeping through his clothing. He could draw few comparisons between that situation and his own. The king’s recovery, a miracle, compounded the situation. If Baltraine still ruled Béarn, Kedrin might have considered turning Béarn’s most loyal against him. The king’s return, however, placed Béarn back into proper hands, those of a benevolent king supported by the gods and their test. It made no sense that Béarn should further succumb to chaos now, at a time when peace and propriety had returned.

  Knight-Captain Kedrin mulled the problem over for hours, thoughts shattering always into paradox. Once he sorted the myriad ideas barraging him at once, he believed he would find the answer to a colossal ethical dilemma, the solution to which might confound scholars and knights for centuries. Yet the answers would not come.

  *Men of honor cannot draw conclusions when they are missing the facts.* The thought trickled into Kedrin’s head, wholly foreign.

  Kedrin straightened abruptly, only then realizing how near his considerations had dragged him toward sleep. “What?” he said, before he could stop himself. Surely the words had originated in his own mind, from the boundary between awareness and dream.

  *You’re missing the knowledge you need for enlightenment.* No doubt about it this time, the source was alien.

  Kedrin rose, then knelt. *Are you a god?*

  No reply.

  Kedrin cleared his throat, preparing to speak the question aloud. Before he could, the contact wafted to him again. *I am the voice of Mam’s castle. I give the sage his knowledge and have done so for his predecessors through the ages.*

  The castle speaks to the sage? Kedrin had never heard such a thing, though it made sense. The sage of Béarn never left his tower, yet he’d managed to gather and hoard all the kingdom’s knowledge. Even the king found access difficult. The sage’s servants rotated through court and attended the decrees of nobles and king; others brought the sage information as well. If the walls spoke to him, the servants seemed unnecessary.

  Kedrin had not intended to communicate his thoughts, but the voice apparently read them. *There is logic to chronicling perception and fiction as well as fact. Truth and honor cannot always be coordinated. Properly credited, lies serve a purpose, though rarely one the liar intends.*

  No longer believing he conversed with a god, Kedrin returned to a sitting position. *And you give the sage?*

  *Truth. Only truth. For good or ill.*

  *Do you speak to others besides the sage?*

  *Until today, no. I am speaking with you.*

  *Why me?*

  *You are a man of honor, and you need enlightenment.*

  *Not for the first time.*

  *Nor the last,* the voice concurred.

  *So why now?* Kedrin asked.

  *My power is growing. Until now, I had little understanding of what I was or my purpose. I saw a need to supply truth to he who records Béarn’s history, and I did so.*

  *And now?*

  *I’m still not sure,* the voice admitted. *But I know I represent truth. And honor. As do you. Do you trust me?*

  Kedrin considered, finding answer in his heart and in his mind. *Yes. I believe I do.*

  *Then listen closely. What I have to tell you may stretch your faith to its limit or beyond.*

  Kedrin refused to lie. *Then I will surely need time to think about what you tell me, to draw my own conclusions, and to question my confidence in you.*

  *A fair concession,* the voice agreed. *At least, for now.*

  Kedrin returned to a corner of his cell, resting his back against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair, shuffling the too-long, red-blond strands back into proper position. Stunningly handsome features became lost to the gloom of his cell.

  *King Kohleran is dead. . . .*

  CHAPTER 3

  Mountain Trails

  All forces must have opposition to exist.

  —Colbey Calistinsson

  Though of little help in the battle against the demon, Captain’s magic proved invaluable to the four humans and one cat aboard the crudely-lashed raft. Their makeshift sailboat landed swiftly, aided by Captain’s command of wave and wind. Familiar mountains filled the horizon, and trees stunted and twisted by rocky soil struggled to form a sparse, scraggly forest. Matrinka gazed upon the scenery while Rantire sprang first from the raft, scouting the surrounding area for evidence of danger. Apparently satisfied, she assisted Griff, leaving the others to debark at their own risk.

  *Single-minded, isn’t she?* Mior sent, while Darris and Captain steadied the raft for Matrinka’s descent.

  Matrinka explained away Rantire’s behavior with a single word. *Renshai.* A trickle of joy managed to slip through her sorrow. She recognized the pattern of mountains. “We’re only a day or two from Béarn.”

  Rantire shook back shaggy bronze hair. “Fields of Wrath are straight north.” She named the Renshai settlement. “Two days east of Béarn. Three to four days if we go through the Fields and take the Road of Kings.”

  The longer route Rantire described held its advantages. At the Fields of Wrath, they could gather Renshai allies. Matrinka saw merit, too, in arriving via the legendary route by which King Sterrane was spirited from Béarn during his uncle’s purge and by which he returned to claim his throne. It never hurt to invoke ancient faith and custom. Yet Matrinka’s exhaustion and concern for her injured friends would not allow her to add even a moment to their journey. Colbey’s interest in their mission suggested that the three-month safe gap between the king’s death and the heir’s staff-test might be drawing to a close. Need took precedence over a grand entrance. “I think we should get to Béarn as quickly as possible.”

  Nods bobbed through the party. No one relished a four-day journey on foot after all they had survived.
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  Grief assailed Matrinka again, this time at the thought of the grandfather she loved so dearly. She had visited King Kohleran regularly as illness coarsened and whitened his black mane, as his flesh withered, and as his skin turned a sallow yellow. Still, when she thought of him, she pictured the robust, gentle bear of a man who had bounced her on his knee and told her heroic tales of the great kings and queens who preceded him. Her mind mourned the loss of three friends: Ra-khir, Tae, and Kevral. Without a sail-raft or Captain to control its course, it seemed unlikely any of them could survive the ocean. Even if they did, making landfall before dehydration drove them to seawater poisoning seemed desperately hopeless. Her heart, however, refused to acknowledge their deaths. Until she saw their bodies, they still lived.

  “There’s a stream this way,” Captain announced, pointing. He had drawn the raft to shore and tended it, surely from habit rather than any intention to reuse it.

  Darris turned the elf a startled glance. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I hear it.” Captain tapped his right ear with a long finger. He addressed the unspoken question next. “No, I’ve never been here before.”

  “Let’s go.” Rantire focused on fact rather than method. No curse bound her to wonder over Captain’s knowledge.

  They all scrambled in the indicated direction, stumbling over craggy ground. The need to watch each step hampered what would otherwise become a mad dash to water. At length, the high-pitched babbling of a stream reached Matrinka’s hearing as well. Picking her way around a wall of stone that Rantire had already vaulted, she discovered a mountain stream twining through the rocks. Matrinka ran to it and knelt, dipping her hands and sucking down palmfuls of water. Its coldness seeped down her throat, aching; yet the pain seemed a small price to pay to slake a day and night of thirst. Finally, they all finished, water that had seemed too precious to waste now dribbling through their fingers or deliberately splashed onto salt-rimed faces. Then, casting about through pebbly terrain nearly devoid of vegetation, they discovered a trail heading in the right direction.

  A quaver in Matrinka’s chest revealed an excitement that embarrassed her. It seemed evil to cast aside total absorption with friends recently lost, yet the joy of returning home would not be wholly denied. Her first journey outside of Béarn had proved more formidable than she ever anticipated. She had watched friends slaughter bandits and assassins. She had nursed loved ones back from the brink of death. She had stepped between bickering allies even as their taunts nearly turned to blows, and she had suffered the burden of choosing sides in disputes without winners.

  Immersed in her thoughts, Matrinka scarcely noticed the narrow path skirting the mountains. Rantire took the lead, Griff following a few paces behind her. Darris and Matrinka came next, accustomed to enjoying each other’s company in silence. Darris’ need to break into song for explanations kept him quiet, and his bard’s-curse inquisitiveness turned his attention on every twig, leaf, and shift in the breeze. His songs revealed the intensity of his concentration. With a few flicks of his fingers over an instrument or wavers in the pitch of his voice, he could simulate nature with peerless competence. More often than not, his choices evoked images as strong as reality without exactly duplicating the sound. A word or two created an image. Matrinka’s hush stemmed more from adolescent awkwardness, though the two had learned to appreciate their quiet moments together, communicating more with silence than most could with words. Mior rode on Matrinka’s shoulders.

  Captain chose the back of the party for reasons he did not share with the others, though Matrinka believed she understood. Tears glazed eyes that already seemed more stone than flesh. They sparkled in the sunlight, convex stretches of yellow without shading or line. Captain had much reason for regret. He had become outcast, hunted by his people who formerly knew nothing of dissent. More than once she heard him whisper a phrase to himself that Rantire had hurled at him in outrage: “There may well come a time, Captain, when you need to choose between what’s right for your people and your loyalty to them. When that time comes, the world may rest on your decision.” That time had come and gone, and Captain had chosen. He had helped the party to free Griff and, while that decision seemed simple and obvious to Matrinka, it had clearly injured the old elf.

  As the party snaked through a narrow, high-walled basin toward a slitlike opening leading into another valley, Rantire stopped abruptly, shoving Griff against a cliff face. “Were we expecting others?” she whispered.

  Matrinka froze, dread crawling through her. She knew of no town in this area, and travelers always chose the trade routes farther north. It seemed unlikely they would find anyone else stumbling through the mountains.

  Darris stepped in front of Matrinka, instinctively shielding her. “Others?” he repeated, cautiously moving toward Rantire. She stepped aside to allow him a glimpse through the opening. Darris craned his neck around her, then stiffened.

  Matrinka held her breath.

  “Easterners,” Darris explained, the word stabbing coldly through Matrinka. Their journey through the eastern part of the Westlands had been fraught with attacks by Easterners determined to prevent all travel. She shifted forward hesitantly. On tiptoe, she could almost see over Darris’ head, and a jump granted her a brief panorama. At least a dozen men lined the pathway, dark-haired and swarthy like Béarnides and Easterners. Their smaller size fit the latter. They faced the opposite direction, understandably expecting any threat to come from the city—not an isolated stretch of mountains.

  “Enemies?” Rantire asked.

  “Probably,” Darris returned. “I believe someone . . .”

  Rantire needed nothing more than the confirmation. “Guard Griff.” Her sword sprang from its sheath, and she charged the Easterners with an ear-shattering war cry.

  Matrinka retreated, fear slamming her heart into a wild rhythm. Darris’ hand clapped to his own hilt, but he did not draw or attack. Instead, he herded Griff and Matrinka behind him, blocking pass and charges with his body. Once, Renshai had ridiculed him as a coward for this strategy. Now, the differences once again became apparent. Renshai honor would not allow Rantire even to take advantage of surprise. Her battle howls sent every Easterner spinning to meet her. Nevertheless, two fell dead before their swords cleared their sheaths. The others raged toward her.

  Matrinka shielded her eyes from the clash that followed, the chime of steel painful in her ears. Soon, the cadence of sword pounding sword turned from curse to need. As long as that sound persisted, Rantire lived.

  “Captain, can you do anything?” Darris asked over the sounds of the battle. Though just in front of Matrinka, his voice seemed weak and distant beneath the din of battle.

  “Nothing magic that will help much,” Captain responded. “I can lead us back to the raft.”

  Matrinka opened her eyes. Darris shook his head vigorously. “No good.” His jaw set. “I’m going to have to go in and help.”

  “No.” Matrinka seized his arm, hoping she had not stopped him purely for selfish reasons. “There’re too many. What good is it if both of you die and leave us defenseless?”

  Darris glanced from Matrinka to Griff to Captain. Of the three, only the elf might know anything about warfare. He looked back at Rantire.

  Matrinka could not help following his gaze. The Renshai slashed and parried, sword a silver blur, never in one place for longer than an instant. Bodies littered the ground nearby, yet the tide of Easterners seemed endless. Suddenly, Rantire gasped in pain. The call that followed galvanized Darris. “Modi!” Matrinka winced. Renshai saved that shout for emergency, when second wind became necessary. Either someone had broken through her defenses or exhaustion threatened to defeat her.

  Darris broke free before Matrinka could stop him. He galloped toward the battle, his sword freed only an instant before Easterners closed around him.

  “Darris, no!” Matrinka had raced halfway to him before logic intervened. Without weapon or training, she had no hope of surviva
l.

  *Matrinka, stop! What are you doing?* Panic came clearly through Mior’s contact. The cat sprang from her mistress’ shoulders and bounced several paces back the way they had come.

  “MODI!” Rantire shouted again, with frenzied joy. Death in glorious combat meant more to Renshai than winning. She disappeared beneath a press of Easterners, several of whom collapsed beneath blows Matrinka could no longer see.

  Beyond rationality, Matrinka gave Mior no answer. The concept of danger seemed remote and dilute, keeping her from rushing to Darris’ side yet not strong enough to send her back. Restless, yet unable to move in either direction, she pranced a frantic circle.

  *STOP!* The mental call slammed Matrinka’s consciousness. It was not Mior.

  *STOP!* The command came again, surely originating from Captain. Only elves could communicate in this fashion.

  To Matrinka’s astonishment, the Easterners obeyed. The crowd surrounding Rantire stilled, some heads flicking about, apparently seeking the source of the khohlar. Darris’ opponents froze, swords locked with his. The bard kept his eyes on the Easterners, but he did not violate the momentary truce. Matrinka looked back. Mior sat between her and the crags that had once shielded them from the enemies’ view. The orange-and-black-striped tail lashed furiously. At the opening stood Griff and Captain. Matrinka read concern in every line of Griff’s face, and Captain’s usually stalwart features clearly showed surprise.

  The elf pressed his unexpected success. *Lay down your arms.*

  The Easterners continued to glance around warily. Some fixed their attention on Captain. Others looked toward one of their own, apparently the leader, who nodded. Those on the fringes of the battle sheathed their weapons. Matrinka believed the count nearer to thirty now, of whom at least eight lay, motionless or moaning, on the ground. She still could not see Rantire.