Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Kinya drew in a deep breath. “You won’t succeed him?”

  Tae wondered if he was missing something. “I think you would serve that purpose better.”

  “Me?” Kinya seemed genuinely startled, loosing the air he had gathered in an undignified burst rather than the sigh he had surely intended. “No. I’m quite happy with my current position, thank you very much.”

  “My father has plenty of good years left in him.”

  “A normal life span is not a guarantee in this business.”

  That’s right, Kinya. Try to sell me on the glamour. “But the business has changed, remember? He’s like a king now.”

  Kinya still chose deference over smiling, but his eyes revealed sardonic humor. “It’s not as different as it might seem, Tae. The most humane king in the best of circumstances still has enemies. Some people will cry around mouthfuls of cream and honey. The battle doesn’t end when the new king takes his throne.”

  Tae considered information he had never had the upbringing to wonder about previously. The more he learned, the less he envied the lifestyles of royalty. “I’m sure there’s some young punk as feisty as me eager to take my father’s place.”

  “Many,” Kinya admitted. “Their desire alone makes them fools. Your father believes in you. That, by itself, proves your worth. He thinks you inherited his talent for handling people. I do, too.”

  You’re both wrong. Tae’s thoughts slipped to Kevral and the losing war he waged against a Knight of Erythane. Eventually, he had won Ra-khir’s trust, but he believed that more a matter of the knight’s forgiveness than his own ability to win friends.

  Kinya must have read incredulity on Tae’s face. “Tae Kahn, the ability to lead, and to influence, does not come to anyone without work and practice. What I meant was that we see potential.”

  For the first time since his father had driven him from the East, Tae opened his mind to the possibility. And it frightened him.

  * * *

  Eleven elves joined Captain’s mission, frolicking through the spring sunshine with a natural joy he had not witnessed since Alfheim’s destruction. They laughed and capered, cloaks swirling around their delicate forms like wraiths. As woodlands filled more of the gap between the high king’s city and themselves, they bandied bits of magic into colorful games and shared themselves with one another in a delightful abandon that Captain never joined. The light elfin language floated like birdsong on a day so like the pleasant weatherlessness he had known as a youth. Only Khy’barreth stood woodenly apart, rarely blinking.

  Two weeks of travel had brought them farther into Westland territory, without a glimpse of a single human along the way. Their signs remained strong: broken branches hanging limply, sticks crushed to powder beneath heavy footfalls, and plants mashed into crooked array. Clearly, the Easterners had gone, taking quiet leave of the territory they had once paid for with the lives of countless innocents. Originally, Captain had planned to head directly to Santagithi, to relieve the suffering of the king’s own parents, though he worried for the lives of many more cut off from supplies for months. Now, he saw no reason not to head first to Pudar’s great city. It seemed likely their own networks of scouts had already identified the Easterners’ departure, but the aggressiveness of the marauders might have prevented even the stealthiest spies from performing their duties. Eventually, Pudar would discover its new freedom, but not soon enough to save those on the brink of starvation or withering for the need of studied healers. A quick visit and exchange of information might shorten the time those most desperate needed to wait.

  Captain passed this decision to his followers, and they shared the news with those too absorbed by their games to listen. The gentle chaos of the elves pleased him, and he only then realized how much he had missed it. He let them play, wandering alone among the brush and leaves, seeking the lonely solace of a bygone age. He had lived millennia on the open sea, his only companion the Sea Seraph, now wayward flotsam on the sea. Despite the bustle of Béarn and its many changes, he had spent much of his time alone, brooding the second loss of this one true love.

  Captain glided between trunks, leaving the giggles of his companions behind. Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of him, tan and yellow tunic a bright contrast to the duller greens and browns of the forest. Limbs more sinewy than muscular complemented a torso that seemed too narrow for a warrior. The wind fluttered feathery locks around a face marked with scars, and blue-gray eyes glared out from familiar features. Captain found his eyes drawn to the belt supporting a single sword. Though one of the newcomer’s hands rested against a trunk and the other hung casually at his side, nowhere near the hilt, Captain could not help fearing for his safety. “Colbey,” he gasped.

  Colbey studied the elf a moment, as if trying to read the emotion behind that shocked identification. “Are you sorry to see me, too?”

  Captain grinned, the expression more natural on his face. “Not at all. I’m always glad to see an old friend. You just startled me.”

  Colbey nodded his understanding.

  Captain had lived among humans long enough to guess that most would take Colbey’s “too” as meaning he wished he had not run into the elf. Captain knew better. “Are you still causing trouble so that some would rather avoid your presence?”

  “Yes,” Colbey admitted, almost sheepishly. “Apparently, I’m not welcome in Asgard any longer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Colbey shrugged, as if he found it no big loss. “I never really tried to fit in.”

  “With all due respect to those I’m blaspheming . . .” Captain subtly reminded Colbey of the danger to himself. “. . . I don’t suppose anyone really tries to fit in there. Understandably strong personalities.”

  Colbey finally smiled. “I can always count on you to see the big picture. You were the only one on Midgard who believed in me.”

  Captain knew Colbey referred to his time carrying the Staff of Law. Nevertheless, he teased. “Spoken like a true immortal. Referring to events hundreds of years past without bothering with preamble.” He meant the words as a joke, yet Colbey cringed, as if wounded. Not wishing to hurt anyone, especially a friend, Captain changed the direction of the conversation. “I was selected and trained to be nonjudgmental. Remember, I served goodness yet ferried Wizards who represented the extremes of neutrality and evil as well.”

  “I remember,” Colbey said.

  Captain suspected Colbey had come for more reason than a chance to chat, but elfin patience kept him from pressing. In time, Colbey would get to his point. Captain said, “The gods tolerate a lot from one another. As far as I know, they’ve only banished one other.”

  “Loki,” Colbey supplied.

  “Of course. What did you do?”

  Colbey mulled the words a moment before saying, “Much the same, actually.”

  Captain recoiled a full step backward without realizing he had moved. “Oh. That surprises me about as much as their casting you out no longer does. You killed the most beloved of Odin’s sons?”

  Colbey shifted position slightly, still balanced for movement in any direction. Captain felt certain that the caution was habit and had nothing to do with himself. “I killed no one. My crime is wielding this.” He drew his sword in a single motion, slow for Colbey yet still terrifyingly fast.

  Abruptly menaced, Captain retreated several more steps. As his gaze trained fanatically on the sword, he watched it mutate, elongating and thinning until it held the shape of a sanded pole. “The Staff of Chaos, I presume?” He intended a casual delivery but detected a squeak that revealed his trepidation.

  “Not my first choice, I admit, but someone had to wield it.”

  Captain offered proper suggestion, forcing himself not to judge. “A mortal, perhaps?”

  “My original idea, too,” Colbey admitted. “Yet an elf has law and, for reasons I still can’t figure out, law far outpowers chaos in staff-form.”

  “Dh’arlo’mé?” Discomfort swelled nearly to p
anic. The damage Dh’arlo’mé could do, to elves and mankind alike, with near infinite power went beyond Captain’s imagining. He had contemplated the world’s annihilation once, before the first Ragnarok. To do so again might plunge him permanently into madness.

  “Who else?”

  “Oh, no.” Though clean and simple, the expletive expressed all of Captain’s worries. “I have to warn him—”

  “It’s too late for that, Captain. He’s bonded.”

  Captain fought hopelessness. “Why didn’t you—” He broke off. “Why didn’t Frey—” He stopped questioning the ways of gods.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Colbey looked beyond Captain. “Dh’arlo’mé wouldn’t have listened, and you know the danger of immortals affecting events on Midgard.”

  Captain had served the Northern Sorceress too long not to understand. The gentle touch of a god’s hand could send the worlds spinning out of control.

  “If it makes you feel better, Frey appears to favor the lysalf. He disowned Dh’arlo’mé.”

  The words meant little to Captain, only confirming what he already assumed. “It’ll make my followers happy.”

  “A start.”

  The conversation lapsed into silence, with Captain still certain Colbey had not broached the purpose of his coming. He doubted the Renshai would answer, but he asked the burning question anyway. “Have you bonded with chaos?”

  “I began the process.”

  “Oh,” Captain said, hoping his disappointment did not leak through his tone.

  “Then I withdrew.”

  “Oh?” Captain repeated. “Is that possible?”

  Colbey made a vague gesture. “Apparently.” He sighed deeply. “I’m not sure I made the right decision.”

  Captain nodded encouragement. He trusted Colbey’s judgment on such a matter more than his own.

  “Law and I will battle. No avoiding that. And chaos will fall, with law or with me.”

  Captain continued nodding, not quite seeing the problem yet. The Cardinal Wizards had often addressed him riddles that he mulled during his long, lonely times upon the sea. Those he solved had brought tremendous self-satisfaction, but nearly as often the meaning remained obscure.

  “Either way, extreme chaos is destroyed, but one guarantees my destruction as well. Only one assures the ruin of extreme law.”

  Captain believed he understood. “Unless both extremes die, we lose the world.”

  Now it was Colbey’s turn to nod.

  “If you bond, the forces defeat one another. You and Dh’arlo’mé die. If you don’t bond, you have a chance to survive.”

  “Possibly at the cost of leaving extreme law. And stagnating the world into oblivion.”

  The problem became crystal clear to Captain, the solution less so. He did not know whether Colbey solicited his advice, but he would not give any. In the past, Colbey had not always followed the path of the wise, but when it came to matters of the balance, his intuition seemed as solid as any logic.

  Colbey condensed the whole into a sentence. “My selfishness may doom the worlds.”

  “I do not think,” Captain said carefully, “that wishing to save oneself is selfish.”

  Colbey laughed. “Isn’t that the very definition?”

  “No,” Captain refused to concede. “It’s easy enough for anyone moral to see the reason in sacrificing one for many, such as when an overburdened ship will sink if one onboard is not drowned. But—”

  The icy blue-gray eyes met Captain’s amber ones.

  “But,” Captain repeated. “The world doesn’t work in perfect theoreticals. We never know for certain that a ship will sink, only that it might. I, for one, would rather risk all aboard than chance murdering one without cause.”

  “You’ve always done things differently, Captain.”

  The Captain’s grin encompassed his entire face and felt at home there. “And so, Colbey Calistinsson, have you.”

  “Touché.”

  Captain beamed at his victory, yet worried over it as well. “Don’t listen to the ramblings of an ancient elf. You’ve never wavered in your convictions before. The decision, Colbey, is rightly your own.”

  “Yes,” Colbey returned thoughtfully. “Of course. My doubts were born of terrifying reality, when I realized an action of mine on one world influenced another.”

  “Welcome to Asgard.”

  The staff in Colbey’s hand warped again, returning, swordlike, to its scabbard without any obvious attention from its champion. “It’s different, though. Without binding, I have no control at all over the aftereffects of my actions.”

  Nothing remained for Captain to say. “What can I do to help?”

  “Only this.” Colbey’s hard eyes seemed to pin the elf in place. “Whatever the outcome of the battle, believe I took the course I thought right. And did my best.”

  “Colbey.” Captain kept his voice rock steady, hoping Colbey could read the sincerity behind the words. “With or without this visit, I would never have believed otherwise.”

  CHAPTER 33

  A Mother’s Love

  Renshai violence is swift and merciless, but never without cause.

  —Arak’bar Tulamii Dhor

  Over the ensuing weeks, affairs of state kept Tae too preoccupied for anything more than a casual stroll around the inner corridors of Stalmize’s castle. His father did not find even that much freedom, days filled with urgent messages and pleas and nights pounded into a deep slumber that left little time for personal brooding. Tae watched as the castle’s hallway fineries disappeared, leaving rectangular, or more decorative, discolorations on the walls where they once perched. Neither Kahn missed the luxuries, and the favors these trinkets bought for individuals or masses seemed worth turning the castle corridors from garish to a simple elegance. Though Tae felt it unnecessary, his father assured him they had more than enough to spare.

  Tae had sensed the unspoken proposition beneath Weile’s reassurance. Anything they gave away, their thieves could reobtain. Yet later, Tae wondered whether Weile had meant any such thing. The truth of the original statement was driven home the day he saw the treasure room their predecessor, King Midonner, had acquired. Opening the door had sent mounds of gold, gems, and jewelry collapsing toward the corridor in a glittering, multicolored wave. The clatter of coins had seemed deafening, and the casual bounce and roll of diamonds, rubies, and sapphires seemed near to sacrilege.

  Now Weile and his bodyguards, Tae, Kinya, and two others most trusted sat in a large but simply furnished room receiving the many spies and messengers in an endless chain. They had chosen this room for its shape, a shallow rectangle with two exits on the same side and a window on the other. Tae supposed it had once served as a library. It contained a table near the window that held bowls of fruit and carafes of water for the moments they managed to eat. Their six chairs formed a semicircle, facing the wall between the doors and an empty chair set there. Weile sat at the center, Alsrusett and Daxan standing and attentive nearby. Kinya and Tae occupied the chairs at Weile’s either hand, and the last two sat on either end.

  The right-hand door opened for the seventh time that morning, and a wiry, nondescript man stepped across the threshold. He strode straight for the only unoccupied chair, the one between the doors, and took his seat. Only then, he glanced furtively about, clearly unnerved by the audience. “I’ve got information about the interloper.”

  Weile leaned forward with obvious interest. They all knew he referred to the stranger who had come to Stalmize two days earlier, alarming the populace with claims that a curse had struck their women barren. “What do you know, Jeffrin?”

  “He’s about my height.”

  Tae estimated average, like everything about Jeffrin.

  “Stooped. Skinny. He wore a cowl over his head, but his eyes sort of floated in the darkness. Green, like a cat’s. Couple people saw long fingers usually hidden by the sleeves. Notably long.”

  Weile sat back, nodding slightly. They ha
d already heard most of the description. Tae suspected they could trust Jeffrin’s details more than earlier reports. Time would allow him to sort reliable witnesses from flustered townsfolk. The more people who separately claimed to have seen a certain feature, the more likely it truly existed.

  “Gentle voice,” Jeffrin continued. “Soft and high. Northern in pitch and caliber.”

  “Northern?” The possibility of finally tracing the origins of the stranger piqued Weile’s interest again. “Are you sure?”

  Jeffrin made a throwaway gesture to indicate that nothing was ever certain. “Leightar said to tell you he thinks it might have been one of . . .” His gaze measured Weile’s face. “. . . them?”

  Them? Tae looked to his father for clarification. He had his own theory, that the new description suggested an elf.

  Weile shrugged. “Is that all, Jeffrin?”

  Jeffrin nodded, dark hair slipping into standard, Eastern-brown eyes. “That’s all, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Weile turned his attention back to the door through which Jeffrin had entered.

  Taking his cue from the con man at the end of the semicircle, the informant rose and trotted to the exit. There, Tae knew, a man outside would reward him and assign him another task.

  The door had scarcely shut behind Jeffrin when the next man entered. Lean and lanky, he shuffled toward the seat. Once in place, he turned a scarred face toward his leader. He did not await acknowledgment to speak. “Satisfaction among the masses has slipped. We’re squashing rumors that the sterility plague is Sheriva’s punishment for a non-noble on Stalmize’s throne.”

  A light flashed through Weile’s eyes, and he glanced at Kinya before speaking. “Has it been nipped?”

  The man smiled cruelly. “Mostly handled. Not expecting any real problems there.”

  “Thank you,” Weile said. “And the . . . situation?”

  The man shook his head. Even Tae could tell something bothered him. “Unsanctioned theft’s way down. Murder almost nonexistent. There’s been a sudden, definite surge in kidnapping.”

  Weile groaned. “Let me guess. Pregnant women, children, and women who have borne many babies.”