Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  The winds quickened, their crescendoing roar wiping out even Colbey’s ability to mindspeak. Unable to question, he shoved aside the Staff of Chaos’ threat. He had spent a lifetime surviving battles even he believed would kill him. Always he gave his all to the war, and always he had triumphed. He had already committed himself to personal destruction. The prospect did not frighten him, nor would he ever prove a willing victim.

  The whirlwind grew erratic. The air became alternately cold and tepid, icy and fiery, never at one temperature long enough to do more than register. Flotsam wove through the currents, its flight capricious and lacking logic. Blurry shapes whipped through Colbey’s vision in an instant, unidentifiable and replaced, unpredictable moments later, with others. Darkness descended on him, colors knifing patternlessly through the chaos-stuff. Colbey’s reason upended. Directions disappeared, and he could not have guessed his position. He lost track of his own limbs, and he seemed to float without form amid thought-provoking emptiness.

  A sudden surge of panic stabbed Colbey as his being fragmented toward nothingness. He clung to his thoughts as shards snapped free, drifting. He recognized the stray floating bits now: pieces of himself breaking away from the whole that should not exist in such a place. He concentrated, attempting to draw images of self in his mind, even as memory dispersed and he struggled with an understanding that had once seemed too deeply rooted to dispel. I am—The rest would not come. Colbey hurled all that remained toward the central dot that still remained of his focus. I am . . . he started again, struggling frantically for comprehension. Other ideas came, celestial concepts of stars as bodies instead of lights, worlds beyond the nine, and diseases controlled by creatures too small for human vision. Fascination gripped him, and the urge to follow revelations once beyond his barest inkling loomed strong. He fought the need with understanding. If he lost self amid the chaos, he would cease to exist.

  I am Colbey. Managing the name added enormous power to his efforts. Colbey threw what remained of himself into the task, ignoring all else in chaos’ soup. He had lost form, clinging to a last bastion of thought that seemed impossibly small and weak. Colbey . . . Calistinsson . . . Thorsson. He clawed frantically for his dispersing parts, dragging back memory of the body. He knew every muscle, every vein, and every tendon in intimate detail; becoming the most competent swordsman he could had depended upon that understanding. Even the clarity to which he had learned himself scarcely proved enough. By the tiniest fragments, his person drew back toward itself, re-forming the familiar body and soul. The effort exhausted him, yet intensity and need drove him beyond fatigue, as it had so many times in the past. He could not afford to lose any battle, this one least of all. He ignored all around him. No danger could surpass the urgency of self-destruction.

  Colbey drew more of himself together, and the process grew simpler as he became more practiced. At length, he became whole again, adding only the last, necessary piece: the Staff of Chaos. Finally, he allowed tiredness to touch him, his mind gliding naturally to the vision of a blade. The staff appeared in his hand, though he knew it only by the touch of its contact. To his eyes, it resembled his longsword. Colbey smiled at an irony that did not seem to bother the staff at all.

  Once having undergone the reconstruction, Colbey found clinging to his substance simple, no longer requiring the fully focused attention. More cautiously now, he examined his surroundings. They remained shapeless, formless, and ever-changing. Light and darkness tumbled through one another, like kittens playing. Though oriented to self, Colbey found no similar grounding for anything of chaos. Direction lost meaning, even concepts as basic as up and down. He assigned them randomly, the artificial constructs meaningless yet assisting his bearings.

  *Demon,* the staff sent.

  Colbey’s vision carved slightly more distinct shadow from a patch of darkness, even as the creature descended upon him. An undefined appendage lashed out, and he met it with a deft stroke of the staff-sword. The blade cleaved the member, and it dispersed into chaos’ soup. A stab for the central core met resistance, and the creature dissolved. *Doesn’t it know we’re on the same side?*

  *Side?* The staff conveyed with a word the absence of the law-based concept of loyalty. It explained further, *Demons evolve from scraps of law that leak into our world. Form is unnatural for chaos, and it resents the intrusion. Always angry and uncomfortable, demons kill anything they find. Unless they’re called to law’s world, that usually consists only of one another.*

  *You’re a demon,* Colbey reminded.

  The staff radiated a nonphysical concept strangely similar to a human shrug. *I’m contained chaos with purpose. Call me as you will. Demon is a word and words, by definition, are law-constructs.* It broke off to warn, *More demons.*

  Colbey’s eyes carved three of the creatures from the twinkling, ceaseless background. He charged in with bold exuberance, his war cry shattered to alternately echoing and muffled noise. The staff-sword slashed through semi-substances scarcely differentiable from background. He shattered the first at the farthest extent of sword range. Another impaled itself on Colbey’s stop-thrust. The third plowed through, slamming into Colbey with the power of a galloping horse. Colbey collapsed, tumbling through the soup, barely gaining his feet in time to face twenty appendages gouging for him. He hacked at these, severing four in a stroke, then looping back to tear through sixteen more. A final jab dispersed the creature. Shoulder bruised by the impact, Colbey crouched, surveying the area for more. *How many of these are there?*

  The Staff of Chaos sent a concept of potential infinity. *The ones deeper have larger amounts of law. Would you like to meet them?*

  Nothing could hold Colbey from a challenge. *Yes. But not this time. I’ll work my way up, thank you.*

  *Strategy.* The staff mumbled the word like a curse. *Logic.*

  *I am a creature of law,* Colbey reminded.

  *For now.*

  Colbey did not argue. The staff had a point. Colbey would need to lead chaos against law, yet he saw no means to organize that which held no loyalty or predictability. The task seemed beyond impossible.

  *Demon,* the staff sent again.

  Colbey battled the fifth only mindlessly, the ease of the attack not requiring concentration. He definitely faced the weakest of chaos creatures. He recalled his battles with demons on man’s world, and much of what he knew found focus. Even the weakest of demons had given him a desperate battle there, strengthened by the very law they claimed to despise. It gave them more intense form, allowed for them to haul their genius into tactic. He remembered, too, stories about the worst of demons, the kraell who terrorized their own kind. He had killed one once and nearly lost the war himself, his facial scar a reminder of that conflict. If he faced them in their own world, he might find them easier to beat. And while his sense of fairness and his joy of battle drove him to fight them at their strongest, the situation called for the opposite. He had not yet bonded with chaos enough to place all of lawkind into danger for his own pleasure.

  *Let’s take a walk,* Colbey suggested.

  *A walk?*

  *An amble. Whatever you do here. I need to survey my kingdom.*

  *Your kingdom?* A liberal dose of mockery suffused the staff’s words, though Colbey meant nothing funny.

  He kept the last thought to himself, Who would have believed an ancient prophecy so literal? Perhaps I must truly become the Golden Prince of Demons. For once, the title did not seem insult.

  CHAPTER 21

  Love’s Hold

  If you strive for personal skill, you do not need praise.

  You can rely on self and sword alone.

  —Colbey Calistinsson

  The odor of mulching leaves, the splash of air against Ra-khir’s hot face, and the powerful surge of the horse beneath him brought fond memories flooding back. He crouched over his gray’s neck, pike clutched in his fist, eyes locked on the ring dangling from the wooden stand. He sighted along the straight, heavy pole, the bobbing of i
ts tip no longer a distraction. He had learned to anticipate, and naturally correct for, the bounce of the horse’s hooves, to remain steady in the saddle, and to ignore the tickle of sweat beneath armor and padding. What had once seemed like too little time to properly aim had become comfortably workable. He drove the tip of the pike home. The ring jerked free, rattling down the blue-and gold-striped shaft.

  “Yes,” Ra-khir whispered his triumph only to himself, allowing no trace of pride to enter his demeanor. He listened for Armsman Edwin’s reaction, having grown accustomed to his teacher’s patterns. A smile conveyed approval, a single clap more, and a double clap revealed Edwin’s delight. He slowed his mount to a trot, reined it in a half-circle, and headed back toward his peers.

  Hearty applause filled Ra-khir’s ears, and he suppressed a grin. He had heard Edwin give a series of claps for complicated maneuvers expertly performed, but he and his apprentice peers had never earned such enthusiasm before. He raised his head, only then realizing the sound came from his right, not ahead. He glanced to the rail to find half a dozen adolescent girls perched there, all cheering his success. Two young boys sat quietly nearby.

  Neither sight seemed unusual. Erythanian boys often gathered to watch the knights work, emulating their honor and prancing about as if to copy their swordplay. Before Ra-khir had joined the search for Griff, he had grown accustomed to young women watching him work. The apprentices had practiced since first light, and he had not noticed spectators gathering, so intent was he on capturing the ring.

  The sideways look proved Ra-khir’s undoing. His horse shied from something in its path, and the sudden movement, though not broad, claimed his balance. Ra-khir tumbled from the saddle. He struck the ground an instant later, pain thudding through his hip and breath momentarily dashed from his lungs. He gasped once, then his diaphragm reexpanded and he normalized his breathing. The gray stood beside him, nuzzling his armor as if to ask how his rider got all the way down there.

  Stupid. Ra-khir had remained seated through bucking and through simulated combat and could scarcely imagine how such a minor movement could have unhorsed him. He climbed back into the saddle, as gracefully as the armor allowed, and settled back into place. The second smattering of applause from his makeshift audience flushed his cheeks. Riding back to the armsman, he dismounted and executed as formal and respectful a bow as the armor allowed. Mud spattered his helm and face.

  Armsman Edwin met Ra-khir with raised brows and a tolerant expression. The hard brown eyes studied the apprentice from beneath a perfectly straight fringe of sandy bangs. Pursed, his bountiful lips appeared enormous, and his cheekbones tightened to the point of gauntness. With slow deliberateness, he raised both hands, then placed the palms soundlessly together. “You would have earned a real one had you not paused to admire your audience.”

  Ra-khir lowered his head sheepishly and hoped the helmet kept his face in shadow. He felt as if his cheeks had caught fire. His classmates honored their teacher too much to laugh, but Ra-khir knew he would pay for his lapse with merciless teasing later.

  Edwin let Ra-khir off the hook, turning his attention to the next student in line while the one after set another ring in reasonably proper position. Ra-khir handed his trophy to the fourth knight-in-training, meeting mischievous blue eyes that revealed pestering thoughts taking place behind them. The youngster winked, and Ra-khir managed a strained smile before retiring to the end of the line. The idea of his companions’ good-natured ribbing did not bother him; their games had become tiresome. Before he had left on his mission, he had joined their boisterous fun. Though it skirted the ponderous lectures on honor, the knights overlooked the apprentices’ horseplay and practical jokes, so long as they remained harmless and only among one another. Though two of Ra-khir’s six peers were the same boys he had wrestled and taunted in his own time, he no longer felt comfortable among them. Their antics seemed childish, and only the lessons of the armsman and the other knights felt right.

  The apprentices rode through the ring exercise three more times, and only Ra-khir skewered every one, managing to earn a double clap. As the morning practice drew to a close, Ra-khir held the day’s record with seven successes and two misses, his closest competitor succeeding at only five and two never catching a ring. Though pleased, Ra-khir said nothing, refusing to gloat. His honor would not allow it, even in playful jest.

  “That’s all for the day,” Edwin announced as the last apprentice returned to the group. “Tomorrow: free-form sword.” He gave Ra-khir a humbling look, a reminder that, for all his accomplishment with pike, sword was his weakest skill.

  Ra-khir said nothing. Though bound from teaching Renshai maneuvers, Kevral had still given him many lessons, intentionally and otherwise. Some might go against the knight’s regular training, but that would not matter. So long as he did not violate the honor, free-form competition left him leeway.

  Sir Edwin mounted his muscled, white charger, the blue and gold ribbons spotless in its mane. “Until tomorrow, knights-in-training.”

  “Until tomorrow, Armsman,” the seven called back in unison.

  Sir Edwin rode from the practice grounds, and Ra-khir watched the haughty stallion and his tall rider until they disappeared over the crest of a hill.

  By the time Ra-khir turned back, the youngest of the group, a quiet boy of sixteen, had headed to gather his gear. The way the others hung back cued Ra-khir to a prank. With a deep sigh, he followed the youngest toward the piled pikes. The sixteen-year-old reached them first, pulling his own from amidst the others. The mound shifted. As his point came free, something moved. Anticipating a joke, Ra-khir only stiffened. The boy caught a corner of the eye glimpse of the dead rooster one of the others had slipped over the tip of his weapon. Startled, he gasped, prancing backward, and tripped over the shaft of his pike. He tumbled to the ground, rolling and glancing behind him simultaneously.

  The other apprentices burst into laughter, and even some of the girls watching snickered.

  The sixteen-year-old recovered control, shaking the chicken from his pike. “Oh, real funny.”

  The others continued laughing as they finished the practice field cleanup, packing away personal and shared gear. Ra-khir worked methodically, intentionally slow. As the others departed, in singles and groups, he remained behind to practice. With his father in Béarn and his mother unwilling to see him, he felt in no particular hurry to return to Kedrin’s empty cottage. Danger had kept him close to Kevral, Tae, Darris, and Matrinka day and night for months. Now he suffered a hollow feeling far beyond the hunger pangs that came of a small, hurried breakfast and skipping lunch.

  Ra-khir stripped to his padding, wiping sweat and mud from the pieces of his armor before placing them carefully in his pack. After an especially grueling workout, the apprentices would sometimes disrobe to undergarments or nakedness on their practice field, but spectators removed this option. Instead, he took his time, hoping the tedium of watching a man clean and arrange pieces of leather and metal would bore any remaining outsiders into leaving. Under other circumstances, he might have given the young boys the thrill of learning a few moves from a real apprentice knight. But tonight he had neither the emotional nor physical energy to do so.

  Only after Ra-khir had packed all of his equipment and freed his sword from the bundle did he bother to glance around again. His horse grazed the field, white mane trickling down its gray neck. The sun sank toward the western horizon, trailing multicolored arches that merged into a solid pink above him. Three girls remained near the wooden rail that surrounded the knight’s practice field. They studied him, exchanging whispers. One tossed back a cascade of dark hair and struck a seductive pose: back arched and one leg raised.

  Ra-khir acknowledged them with a patient nod, then launched into a sword practice with the dedication of Kevral to nightly svergelse. He lost himself in the breeze of the sword passing around him, letting the advice of armsman, father, and Renshai fill his mind. The field seemed to disappear, leaving on
ly himself, his sword, and the grass beneath his feet. As he repeated a sequence Edwin had taught, his thoughts slipped to golden images of Kevral. He could never match her grace, but he could not help picturing her mired in a deadly dance with her blades skipping around her. For several moments, the image brought him peace. Hunger and fatigue finally caught up with him, and he reluctantly ended the session.

  Panting and sweating, he longed for the clean clothes still snug in his pack. He looked up. The sun had slid far enough to dull the sky to pewter. The three young women had drawn nearer, still watching him. Ra-khir closed his eyes, bracing himself for the politeness the situation demanded yet wishing they would leave him alone.

  They nudged one another. The one he had noticed previously approached, again tossing back waist-length hair. Pursing her lips as if to kiss the air, she looked at him sidelong and shook her hair again. “Hello, Ra-khir,” she said.

  Ra-khir removed a lightly-oiled rag from his pocket and cleaned his sword, though the dryness of the day and lack of a target made the job mostly unnecessary. A bead of sweat from his hand had dribbled past the crossguard. “Hello,” he replied properly. He continued working, turning her enough attention to fulfill propriety without demonstrating false interest.

  “Don’t you remember me, Ra-khir?”

  Ra-khir did not, but the question forced him to examine her a bit more closely. She sported the plump curves that denoted beauty in the West and breasts large beyond proportion. The green-brown eyes and features did not spark more than superficial memory. He believed he had seen her before, but her name escaped him. “I’m sorry. I don’t,” he admitted.

  She tossed back her hair again, shaking her head so that the silky strands slid across one another. “Asha. We’ve met once or twice here before.”

  Ra-khir nodded to acknowledge her explanation. He rarely recalled spectators, never paid them much attention. Kevral had proved a remarkable exception, though he had, at first, mistaken her for a boy. She had not come to watch him, rather to belittle him. Their relationship had, thankfully, come a long way since that time.