Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Four men approached warily, Béarn’s familiar blue and tan fading into the gloom. Two clutched poleaxes and the others swords. The tallest glared. “Don’t move.”

  Ra-khir rolled his gaze down the corridor, seeing movement but unable to differentiate friend from guards. He realized his mistake then. He had believed the maze opened onto the wall directly right of the main entrance and now understood it was catercorner. Rather than working around it, he had dragged them directly to the main entrance. Darris’ extensive knowledge of the catacombs had proved of little value when it came to negotiating the dungeon itself. Apparently, the simple layout was not part of his training. The irony rankled. Like a general leading armies in intricate strategies without learning how to wield a sword. Ra-khir held out his weaponless hands in surrender.

  * * *

  At the first sound of a guard’s voice, Tae had shinnied up the bars of an empty cell. Height gave him vantage as well as security. The guards would focus on Ra-khir and Darris, unlikely to search above their heads, at least not until they had subdued the others.

  Tae remained still, well-versed at subterfuge and effectively hidden among the smoky shadows. Unlike the massive party of elves, he had entered Béarn with his usual quiet caution, searching for signs of his companions. The difficulty he encountered warned him of their need for caution. He had finally discovered Darris and Ra-khir as they slipped toward the castle under cover of darkness. Brief snatches of conversation, and their bearing, revealed their intentions well enough. He had kept himself concealed, afraid of Ra-khir’s reaction. The circumstances of their parting would have required extensive explanation that would have delayed or sabotaged this mission. Now, Tae wished he had confronted his friends. Either they would not have come or, at least, they would have had his expertise to draw upon and might not have gotten caught.

  As the guards led Ra-khir and Darris through the corridors, their official calls to one another announcing their every move, Tae silently worked his way along the cells. Most of the prisoners had awakened, watching guards march through the hallways, some escorting their new prisoners. Caught up in the distraction, they did not notice as the small, quiet figure worked his way above their line of sight. He did not need to go far. Within a few cells, Tae identified the broad, red-haired Erythanian who was Ra-khir’s father. The captain sat, listening more than watching, obviously awakened by the commotion. Ra-khir and Darris had passed him in the gloom, without either party noticing it.

  The noises of prisoners and guards grew more distant as they hauled away a quiet Ra-khir and a resisting Darris. Tae did not wait, using the distraction to his advantage. Seeing no prisoners in the neighboring cells, he lowered himself cautiously, trying not to aggravate his wounds or startle the knight-captain into revealing his presence. Finally, he clambered to the floor, his face scarcely above the level of the sitting Erythanian’s. Even more than with Ra-khir and himself, the difference in their heights was tremendous.

  Calculating the pitch of his voice by the resounding echoes around him, Tae addressed Kedrin. “Follow me. Quickly.” He jabbed a homemade tool into the lock, twisting until he felt the satisfying jolt of its unlatching.

  “Who are you?” Kedrin asked, his voice reaching only Tae’s ears. Clearly, he was familiar with the pattern of sound and echoes.

  “A friend of Ra-khir. Talk later.” Tae swung the cell door open in a manner designed to minimize squealing. It made less noise than he expected and even that was lost beneath the sound of a cell door slamming. He left an opening just wide enough for the knight-captain to slip through.

  But Kedrin did not follow.

  Tae’s heart rate quickened, acknowledging the danger inherent in every passing moment as well as every word. “Hurry, please. The fate of Béarn depends on you.”

  Kedrin shuffled a single step, then stopped, shaking his head sadly. “I can’t.”

  Tae gaped, scarcely able to believe he had heard correctly. “Are you hurt?”

  “I can’t betray my country and my honor. King Kohleran sentenced me here, and I won’t disobey him.”

  Tae conveyed his frustration with a groan. “We don’t have time for this.” He glanced about, licking his lips though the pervading dampness kept them moist. Remember, he’s Ra-khir’s father. Think like Ra-khir. Precious seconds ticked away as Tae recalled his many sessions discussing honor with Ra-khir. Think insane. “Look, we both know you were framed. I can prove I had a hand in that. So if you don’t come forward with the truth, I will.” Tae stared fiercely, defiantly. Ra-khir had explained Kedrin’s reasons for not defending himself at the trial, and the information Tae could reveal would destroy Baltraine and the hierarchy Kedrin had sacrificed himself to maintain. Like Kedrin, Tae had no way to know his knowledge threatened a prime minister already dead.

  Kedrin’s eyes widened. For the first time, Tae noticed their color, a blue so pale they appeared nearly white. “You’re lying.”

  Inwardly, Tae cringed at the next words he had to speak, though he showed no outward sign. Kedrin had named the wrong action bluff. “Baltraine paid me to steal your dagger.” He watched Kedrin carefully for evidence of coming violence.

  Kedrin stiffened, but his expression seemed more shocked than angry.

  “I’m sorry. It was wrong.” Tae did not elaborate his motivations further. Time constrained him to as few words as possible. “Come on.”

  Kedrin lowed his head. “I can’t.”

  Tae tried another tack. “King Kohleran is dead.”

  “I know. And an elf impersonates him. But it was the king who sentenced me, before his death. Not the elf.”

  Tae knew nothing of the deception, but he did not reveal his surprise. Ignorance would make him look weak at a time when he needed strength. The noises at the other side of the prison lessened, and he had no experience on which to predict future actions. Obviously, the guards would need to report to a superior and make decisions about Ra-khir and Darris. That might wind up bringing more enemies into the dungeon. He never doubted his own ability to escape; Kedrin, however, would have absolutely no knowledge of stealth. One thing seemed certain: Tae measured security in moments that swiftly disappeared as he wasted them trying to convince a knight overburdened with honor of the obvious. The necessary logic refused to come, so Tae turned elsewhere, to the mystical bond between fathers and sons. Hostility left a bitter taste in his mouth as his relationship with his own father rose to his mind, unbidden. For now, he shoved that aside. “Do you trust Ra-khir?”

  “What?”

  Tae dove for the jugular. “Do you trust your son? Your only son?” He did not wait for an answer, but tenaciously attacked, never leaving Kedrin an opening to consider. The answer, he made clear, should require no thought. “Because if you don’t, you cast aspersions on yourself.” A dull ache pounded through Tae, and he continued through gritted teeth. Images of his own father paraded through his mind’s eye, and he fought down the emotion that might taint the only words he had to convince. “On everything you’ve ever taught. If you can’t trust your son to uphold your honor, then, Sir Kedrin, you have no son.”

  “I trust Ra-khir.” Under the circumstances, Kedrin could answer no other way. “Why?”

  “Because that man the guards just caught . . .”

  Kedrin nodded warily, then went still in mid-motion as realization dawned. “Ra-khir?”

  “He came for you,” Tae explained. “You know he wouldn’t have done that if it violated his honor. Or yours.”

  “Ra-khir.” Kedrin drifted toward the bars like a man entranced and gripped them, though his gaze sought details through the darkness behind his cell.

  “Béarn needs you free. I’ll explain when we have the time.” Once I figure out what’s going on. “Right now, you just have to trust Ra-khir. And, now, me.”

  Kedrin remained desperately silent.

  Tae had run out of strategies, as well as time. “Are you with me?”

  A long pause followed, during which the consummate man of honor
weighed options with an integrity Tae could scarcely comprehend. “I’m with you,” Kedrin said, at length, gathering a book and stylus. “And I hope my son recognizes the loyal friend he has in you.”

  Tae smiled at the irony.

  * * *

  Tae led Kedrin in a quiet sneak around the wall of the cell block, cringing at every heavy fall of the knight-captain’s feet. The whispers of the prisoners and shouts of the guards drowned any noise they made, but he worried for the tromp of boot against stone or the betrayal of prisoners envious of their freedom. Under other circumstances, Tae might have released them all. The diversion they could create for him, as well as the loyalty the act would inspire, could serve him well. Yet the realization that his father would have done exactly that, organizing those he released into his band, made the idea unpalatable. Nor would Kedrin’s honor have allowed such a thing.

  Having relegated the stylus to his pocket, Kedrin held the book, safely tucked against his left armpit. Tae quickened their pace, breath catching in his throat with every noise. The guards’ shouts remained mostly indecipherable, but he still managed to glean information from phrases plucked from the whole. They had imprisoned Ra-khir and Darris in central cells, having identified the former but not the latter. Tae guessed Ra-khir had recited name and title while Darris remained more circumspect. Some of the guards had left for reinforcements. Questioning would surely follow; and Tae hoped that Béarn, now beneath the rule of elves, would not turn to their methods of obtaining information. The thought of Ra-khir and Darris being tortured made him wince.

  Boots pounded suddenly through the prison again. A chill invaded Tae, and he went abruptly still. Despite the odd acoustics of Béarn’s dungeon, he still managed to separate individuals and determine location. Guards raced up every aisle, surely seeking other infiltrators. Like me. Tae forced himself to move, heart slamming like a blacksmith’s hammer. Kedrin would not fight guards, so escape lay in his own barely competent hands. He dared not fight, and Kedrin’s presence made evasion impossible.

  Tae grabbed Kedrin’s arm and pulled. The Knight of Erythane lowered his head to his companion’s level.

  “Run for the catacombs,” Tae hissed.

  Kedrin stiffened, though he continued walking briskly. “The catacombs? That’s sure suicide.”

  “Trust me,” Tae returned, with as much forcefulness as a whisper allowed.

  Then the time for argument ended. Two guards pounded around the final corner and directly into their path. Tae did not wait for their presences to register and the guards to slow. He flung himself at their feet, jackknifing his body between one’s ankles as he seized the other’s legs. The first collapsed, momentum sliding him down the hallway. The other teetered, regained his balance, then stumbled into his companion and tumbled to the floor as well. A flailing arm crashed against Tae’s head. He blundered sideways, careening into a wall, his thoughts spinning. Agony slammed through his chest wound. He sensed more than saw Kedrin dart past.

  “Intruders!” one of the downed guards yelled, twisting and lunging for Tae simultaneously. “Aisle seven.”

  Tae jerked his legs, avoiding the grab but losing his own balance in the process. He scrambled toward the corner, betrayed by his own wild movement. He plummeted to the floor, impact aching through ribs and limbs, old injuries protesting. Desperate, he scurried blindly, throwing his lower body sideways to avoid capture. No resistance touched his legs, but unexpected hands clamped suddenly on his wrists.

  Guards’ voices echoed through the confines. “Seal the exit! Block seven!”

  Hauled abruptly to his feet, Tae stared frantically at his captor. Kedrin’s blue-white eyes met his. “Come on.” He freed Tae’s wrists.

  Thank gods. Tae barreled down the hallway and around the corner, the clomp of Kedrin’s feet a reassuring constant at his side. They careened around the corner, desperately scanning the darkness ahead.

  Figures blustered toward them, too late to corner them in aisle seven. Tae saw the gaping blackness of the entrance to the catacombs to his left. Straight ahead, the guards raced toward them. “Row ten!” one screamed, voice reverberating into spooky, unintelligible sound.

  Tae calculated as he ran. The guards would surely beat them to the exit, but he could think of no better plan. He sprinted toward freedom, praying.

  Footfalls seemed to come from all directions. Tae lowered his head, tensing for a tackle and prepared to battle in a savage frenzy. Twice imprisoned, crammed into cells that seemed airless, anticipating the agony a vengeful king and bitter elves could inflict upon him, he would never survive another capture. If Béarn did not slaughter him, his own terror might.

  The guards ahead tensed, fanning out to barricade the corridor with massive, mailed bodies. Anticipating a run for the main exit, they stopped well before the opening to the catacombs.

  There’s our miracle. Tae rushed the guards. Need drove him to turn as swiftly as possible, but years of covering his intentions allowed him to bluff. He waited until he came fully upon the opening before diving inside. Kedrin followed on his heels.

  “You’d better know what you’re doing,” Kedrin mumbled as they scuttled through the first three turns.

  Gasping for breath and suffering reawakened pain, Tae gave no reply.

  “They’re in the maze!” a guard exclaimed, his bass voice magnified to ear-splitting echoes by the tunnels.

  Tae jerked to a halt, sweat clammy on his limbs and trickling down the back of his neck. He paused, pressing his back against a wall and allowing his breathing to settle to a quiet pant.

  “You, you, you, you, you, and you stay here. If they come back out, kill them.”

  Kedrin’s fingers touched Tae’s arm, then seized it. His breath huffed warm against Tae’s cheek as he spoke. “Was that your plan?”

  “To sneak back into the dungeon?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” Tae replied.

  Kedrin remained quiet a few moments, clearly considering. “Then what is your plan?” He continued to clasp Tae’s arm, apparently concerned about losing him in the pitch-black corridor.

  “Forge on.”

  The grip on Tae’s arm tightened nearly to pain. “Are you aware it’s a hopeless maze? No one has ever successfully negotiated it. The few prisoners who tried to escape died there.”

  “I know,” Tae returned, though he did not. He had surmised it easily enough when he followed Darris and Ra-khir. The memory returned in a vivid rush of terror. Once his eyes had failed him, only sound could guide him. He listened until his ears ached. When Ra-khir and Darris spoke, he had trailed them easily. Mostly, however, they had moved in uneasy silence. He had staked his life on the occasional scuff of a boot against stone or the faint rustle of fabric and, at times, worried that he chased rats instead of companions. “The man captured with your son is the bard of Béarn.”

  “The bard?” Joy entered Kedrin’s tone. “Darris?”

  Tae nodded, realizing an instant later that Kedrin could not see his response. “Darris,” he confirmed aloud. “And the bard always knows the way through the catacombs.”

  “Really.” Kedrin did not question, nor did his tone imply doubt. “If anyone would, the bard would.” Tae sensed movement through the knight’s touch. “But how does that help us? Surely, he didn’t teach you.” He emphasized “teach” rather than “you,” clearly trying not to imply that Tae was personally unworthy, simply that security would not allow the bard to explain such a thing to anyone. Even trapped in an impossible situation and hunted by guards that he would, ordinarily, consider peers, Kedrin would not forsake his manners.

  “No,” Tae admitted, doubting he would have the patience or memory to learn, even if Darris did deign to teach him. Breathing came easily now, and the anguish in his chest settled to dull throbbing. “But we came in this way.” The darkness swallowed his grin. “And I marked the way.”

  Kedrin stiffened, the moisture on his palm washing cold against Tae’s skin. “You’ve o
pened the way for criminals to escape.”

  Tae snorted, as much at the idea that his handiwork could do so as at Kedrin’s concern about the future of Béarn’s dungeon when so much more lay at stake. “A week or so from now, my slashes through the moss will have disappeared; and I plan to pick up the things I dropped along the way. I don’t own enough not to find every bit precious.”

  Kedrin released Tae’s arm. “Let’s go . . .” He paused, apparently waiting for Tae to fill in his name. When he did not, Kedrin finished lamely, “. . . friend of Ra-khir.”

  “Tae,” Tae supplied, groping the wall for any sign of his work. He had scored the passage in desperate haste, afraid to lose track of Darris and become irrevocably lost. Now, he worried that he might already have condemned himself and the knight-captain to that fate. No one could find them if they strayed, not even Darris who, presumably, knew only the correct route. After negotiating it once, Tae realized even learning that would prove beyond any other human he knew. “To get us out of here, I’m going to have to pay full attention to looking and feeling. I can’t chat. I tend to move quietly, so you may want to keep close to me. I can’t go as fast as Darris, so I doubt I’ll lose you. Better be careful, though.”

  “I’ll save my questions,” Kedrin promised, his intonation implying he had thousands.

  The journey through Béarn’s catacombs stretched into an aeon. Cold air twined through the corridors from a source Tae did not consider, drying the sweat that seemed determined to coat every part of his body. Kedrin followed wordlessly, occasionally touching Tae to ascertain his position, rarely calling out when he lost all evidence of the Easterner in the gloom. The tedium of trailing through a maze at a snail’s pace surely irritated the knight, but he made no sign. Tae envied the Erythanian’s boredom. The effort of searching floors, walls, and ceilings for hasty scratches and discarded belongings kept his mind empty and his emotions in knots. Five times, he feared he had lost his way completely, and panic surged through him in a wave that drove him to choose a direction at random. Always, he resisted the urge, bullying through shock to reexamine small details. Guessing would seal their doom, and the hours wasted hunting for marks would prove well worth the frustration.