The Demon's Call

by Philip C Anderson

  Rejin led Trent to an elevator, the doors of which opened when they arrived. “A royal attendant will help you on the manor’s main floor.” She showed teeth when she smiled this time. “Thanks again.”

  “Pleasure,” said Trent, and he stepped aboard. The doors closed, and the carriage climbed to the royal house.

  The foyer’s ceiling raised three stories above him when he walked off the lift on the manor’s far-east side. Trent felt out of place in the gilded halls—Good. Women, men, and urlans all hurried across the floor, heading for service stairs around the room or banks of elevators and dumbwaiters off to Trent’s right, carrying trays or carting covered goods or escorting guests.

  “Mr. Geno,” an affectedly taut voice to Trent’s left said. The man it belonged to wore a floor-length coat over a button-down and slacks. “Apologies for any misunderstandings upon your arrival.”

  “Nothing done.”

  The serviceman bowed his head and turned. “After me, if you will.” As they crossed the receiving foyers, the man went on. “Other guests, particularly those of the royal son’s personal invite, have arrived earlier than we expected, and it put rather a knot in less technical utilities. It’s not every day the king premiates time to a farmer, and those not used to your presence and without knowledge of your identity, especially at the non-residential facilities”—

  “It’s fine,” Trent said. “Really.”

  “Sir.”

  Trent didn’t recognize this one. Churning service staff ensured the unknown stayed that way, and royals liked their secrets. Men and women took classes for years just to work at the castle, and their tenure here prepared them for a life of personal service outside the royal investiture. This serviceman would cycle out in two months—no more than six—and so long as he didn’t disgrace himself, he had a nice career waiting for him outside Arnin. Perhaps even outside Keep.

  A door off the main floor led to a tight hallway that ran behind the main elevator shafts. They passed a guard as they headed inside, and Trent counted the doors they walked by, dodging around other wait staff even as the serviceman and he stayed to the passage’s left side. Next to each door, a black nub protruded from the wall above an access terminal. In front of the twenty-second, the attendant stopped and pulled at the identification card attached to his shoulder.

  “Your receiving room will be across the hall once you exit the elevator,” he said, swiping his hand past the door’s panel. “Thank you for your service to the scepter.” The man bowed and left Trent at the open door.

  Trent’s gaze twitched to the camera bulb over the terminal display as he stepped on, and he tried to mollify the tiny dose of adrenaline that congested his gut. The door closed before he’d turned fully.

  “… I don’t give a bloody tot if my ass is the last one you need to kiss,” said a man as the elevator doors opened on an upper floor to a wide hallway. Trent looked toward the speaker. The king wore a black turtleneck and the same-colored jeans and spoke with another man as they headed down the hall. They stopped in front of the room the serviceman had designated to Trent.

  “Dragons nest on those cliffs,” the king said. His voice came in a husky tenor. “They’ll demolish any aircraft that come near them for half the year. I’ve already given my opinions on this to the council. The skies are theirs.”

  The other man wore a suit with no tie and stood with his right hand in his pocket. His accent matched the angular features across his face. “Your Majesty, I thought if I could talk to you in person, I could iterate the finer points of the deal. We’d relocate the dragons—humanely. We’d hoped your relationship with them might ease”—

  The king held up his left hand. “Even if I were to discuss this today, you can’t talk dragon-dealings without one present. That’s what pissed them off the last time, remember? Gods alive, did you come here to opine trade or to celebrate my son’s last childhood birthday?”

  The guest smiled. “I can’t do both?” He looked past the king at Trent.

  His Majesty turned. “Ah-ha—a friendly face.” He walked to Trent, pulled him into a hug, and lowered his voice to say, “How are you, Trent? Hope things are well.”

  “Fine, your Majesty.”

  The other gentleman’s face fell into a scowl, and he followed the king. He extended his hand to Trent once his Majesty had stepped aside. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting.”

  “Hi,” said Trent. He shook the man’s hand. Though he didn’t recognize the man himself, he did recognize a dignitary of the electorate. “I’m his pumpkin farmer.”

  The elector laughed. “Someone who can secure audience with his Majesty on such an auspicious day must do more than grow delicacies.”

  “And he’s a personal friend,” said the king, “which makes him more useful than your lot.”

  “Mm hmm.” The politician’s smile left his face. “I apologize for bothering you today. Your Majesty.” He bowed his head, then left them.

  “Thank you for your service,” the king said. He walked into the receiving room.

  Mother-of-pearl and notes of gold covered three of its walls. Furnishers had replaced the fourth with a whole-wall window that looked over Keep from sixty stories high.

  “Thanks for seeing me today, your Majesty,” Trent said.

  “Gods, away with the titles,” said Brech. He swiped his right hand through the shock of black hair on his head to clear it from his face. “And nonsense about thanking me.”

  The door shut behind Trent. “Sure.”

  “I hope you don’t mind the haste,” Brech said from behind a counter. He pulled up two glasses and a bottle of clear liquor. “Pinny’s been working with decorators the past three weeks. I’ve not had a moment to myself since”—he looked toward a corner where the wall met the ceiling—“shit, I can’t remember.” He sloshed liquor into either cup, then set the bottle aside, uncapped.

  “Brief is fine by me.” Trent stopped next to a pair of couches that faced each other and took the glass Brech offered him.

  The king swallowed a mouthful of his drink and breathed. “So how are they? Did you bring your best for Denard?”

  Trent set his glass on a side table next to the couches. “I filled the trailer full. A little over seventeen tons. Handpicked them myself.”

  Brech smiled. “Outdid yourself. He’ll be thrilled. Designed the whole menu for tonight around them.”

  “No hard frosts got through the heating. I hope they taste all right.”

  “Well you’ll find out for yourself,” Brech said, matter-of-fact. “He asked me to extend an invitation to you. Would be a damn shame if you didn’t get to see what he’s got the artists cooking up.” He checked his watch before he sipped more from his glass.

  “I shouldn’t. I’ve got to get most of this harvest to market tomorrow.”

  “Come on,” said the king, unconcerned. “Deni’s looking forward to seeing you. Ya know he loves your stories about life around the War.” Brech leaned toward him. “Even fancies he could be a Karlian lately. Wants some of these tattoos we’ve all got.”

  “He’s”—Trent paused. “Seventeen.”

  “And?”

  “So he’s—young.”

  “And a pansy-ass, is that what you mean?” Brech laughed. “We all were before the War and look what it did to us. Just let the kid be a kid.”

  “A privileged seventeen-year-old prince.” Trent smirked. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “Ah.” Brech drew out the syllable, and he nudged Trent with his arm. “Tell me you wouldn’t have more fun here tonight than back in Adjust.”

  Trent swiped his right hand over his shoulder to sign he had no good reason. The door behind them opened.

  “Pinny,” Brech said, looking past Trent. The king’s wife, a woman of olive complexion, had styled her dark hair in braids that tied off in front of either shoulder. She wore a black skirt that hung almost to the floor and a periwinkle blouse that shrugged off her left shoulder.

 
; “Trent,” she said. “So wonderful you’ve arrived.”

  “Tell him he should stay for the party,” said Brech.

  “Oh, absolutely. You must.”

  “As I was about to tell Brech,” said Trent, “I’m not sure how appropriate it would be for me to attend.”

  “Nonsense. Without your labor, the entire dinner wouldn’t be possible. Deni made sure of it.”

  “That’s kind, your Grace, but”—Trent grasped for a reason to not stay and looked down his body—“I didn’t bring anything to wear.”

  “That’s an awfully poor excuse,” the queen said, almost offhand. “We have a tailor, you know. And besides, Denard would love to see you there.”

  The king gestured at his wife’s words.

  Trent peered into her eyes. They sparkled with an unaccountable viscosity, her irises almost as black as her pupils. The tattoo on the inside of his left elbow warmed when she touched his arm. He kept his face plain. The Goddess must have graced his plans this day.

  “Our tailor could fit you into something in a quarter-hour,” she added.

  Trent considered, scratching his chin. “I can’t say no now, I suppose. Not after two royal invitations.”

  Brech clapped his shoulder. “You’re damn right you can’t.” He emptied his glass and checked his watch again. “Now what was it you needed of me today?”

  Trent exhaled. “You’ve been outbid for the mid-spring and late-summer stocks.”

  Brech’s brow furrowed. “By whom?”

  Trent said nothing.

  “The damn Krislians.” Brech set his glass on the side table. “It’s them, I know it is.”

  “Won’t go into specifics, but because you placed your order first, if you at least match, you lock in ‘A’ stock position.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Fourteen percent per unit. But even if you don’t, those two harvests are looking to yield over a quarter-million tons, and”—

  “Well that’s nothing,” said Pinny, waving her hand like batting at a bug. “Of course we can match it. Now stop being silly. There’s still much to do, and the party starts in”—she looked to a clock on the eastern wall behind them—“goodness, less than two hours. Don’t mean to rush us off, but these things have a way of piling up right near the end.”

  Brech crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s unacceptable that you thought you even had to ask.”

  “Yes,” Pinny said, “it’s—curious.”

  “I make no assumptions about your Highnesses,” said Trent.

  “Any bidding war is one we’ll win,” said the king. He held out his hand. “As you told Sheero, you’re my pumpkin farmer.”

  “It’s my pleasure.” Trent shook the king’s hand and bowed. “Your Majesty.”

  Brech scoffed. “Thank you for your service.”

  “To the scepter,” said the queen. “Now if you’ll follow me, the tailor’s quarters are right upstairs. We can get you out of”—she grabbed his coat’s lapels, looked up and down his body, and tutted—“these rags.”

  “Oh, Pinny,” Brech said when his wife turned to leave. “Has the caged lightning arrived yet?”

  “Heavens no. It got to Rolyat just an hour ago. And the bugs are well behind them.”

  Brech sighed. “Of course.”

  A hurrying service girl almost ran into them outside. She bowed to the queen. “Beg your pardon, your Grace.” The young woman wore a dress hemmed to just above her knees with full sleeves and a wide collar. She stepped aside and waited for Pinny and Trent to pass before she entered the receiving room. “Your Majesty, the Tower requires your urgent”—the door shut.

  Trent followed Pinny down the hall. Barren walls blinked at him like the whites of a great beast’s eyes. Couriers and servicemen went their own ways, coming in and out of different rooms, otherwise hurrying to their destinations and making note of the queen’s presence by bowing or curtseying as she passed. A young woman handed Pinny a piece of paper just before they rounded the corner to a staircase.

  Her Grace spoke while she read. “I apologize for the attenuated visit, Trent.”

  “No reason to, your Grace.”

  They entered a spiraling stair, where the queen handed the paper to a passing serviceman, who didn’t look at its contents before he folded in neatly in half and stuck it in a pocket inside his coat. A woman waited for them to exit the well, after which she entered and descended.

  “I would love to hear how you get the pumpkins to grow this time of year, by the way. I’ve had the garden staff try—with those starters you gave Denard a few years past—and even in artificial conditions, they’re stubborn.” The queen smiled at him. “And of course, Uncle Trent’s are so much better.”

  “It’s volcanic soil. From a small range on Aisilmapua’s southern mountain. Zri Ldin, is it?”

  “Kuikyopi. That’s the southern one. Overdue for an eruption if I remember correctly.”

  “Ah, I can never keep those straight.”

  “Easy. Zri Lidn stands tall and thin, Kuikyopi sits shallowly.”

  “Neat,” said Trent, trying not to commit it to memory. “Soil from a range on Kuikyopi. And a magic touch, of course.”

  “I’m sure.” They turned onto the floor’s main hallway. “People talk about you, you know, how you’re one of the only farmers they’ve seen who actually walks and tends their fields. Wouldn’t tell me exactly where from—the soil, I mean?”

  “Don’t think so.” Trent smirked at her. “I’d be out of a job.”

  At the end of the hall, they entered a room with a ceiling that vaulted three stories high. Clothes, all in various makes and cuts, from uniforms to street wear to formal garb, hung on shelves and inside display cases around the workshop. Choice fabrics, from Algene silk to Dawrlo rough-spun, filled racks that climbed the high walls, arranged by color and pattern.

  A woman stood at a cutting table, garbed in a short-sleeved sweatshirt and slacks, marking a piece of pink linen so thin that the table showed through underneath it. She turned when the queen and Trent entered. “Your Grace,” she said and stuck the marker behind her left ear before she curtsied. Her dark hair hung behind her neck in a shorn ponytail. A piercing studded her nose, and a small loop hooked through the outside of her left eyebrow.

  “Chrissa,” said Pinny. “How are the final alterations going?”

  “Finished everything.” Chrissa lifted a dress off a rack to her left and held it against her body. “But this un—I’ve never seen a woman so enhanced.” The dress’s chest teemed across her body, yet the waist barely covered her own. “I had to graft fabric to finish the modifications.”

  “Wonderful,” Pinny said, then she spoke to Trent. “See? The best.”

  “It would seem,” he said.

  “I was just about to send these out,” said Chrissa. She bowed her head. “It’s really nothing.”

  “Please,” said the queen. “Anyway, my dear, this is Trent Geno. He’s come wholly unprepared for the party tonight and, as you can see, he desperately needs your help.”

  The tailor politely smiled at Trent. “It would seem.”

  Pinny turned. “You’re in her hands now—highly capable.” She, like Brech, clapped Trent on his left shoulder. “Again, thank you for your service. I’m really glad you could make it tonight.”

  “Your Grace,” Trent said before Pinny left the room.

  The queen turned, her eyebrows raised. She held her right hand in front of her chest, tapping her thumb against her fingers in rapid gestures.

  “I’ll need back in Adjust. Tonight.”

  Pinny waved her hand. “Nothing our Leynars can’t handle.” She giggled and left, and the door shut behind her.

  “To the scepter,” Chrissa said, imitating the queen. She mock-giggled. “What the fuck was that?”

  Trent shrugged as he took off his coat.

  “Gods, she acts like she fuckin knows everything.”

  “She doesn’t,” said Trent, dism
issive. He folded his coat over his arm and fiddled for the two wrapped boxes inside a pocket.

  “You look scuffed.” Chrissa helped him out of the vest he’d put on that morning and laid it and the coat on a table behind her. She checked the coat’s tag. “You call this dressing down, though? A two-hundred piece coat?”

  “It costs that much because it doesn’t look like a two-hundred piece coat.”

  “Cripes,” she said, shaking her head. “You coulda just bought a shitty one.”

  “Then how would I impress you?”

  Chrissa rolled her eyes.

  Trent held out a box for her. “I’m giving one of these to Therrance when I go back down to the docks. Remember what I told you to do with it?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She tossed it toward the coat before she turned to Trent and unbuckled his belt.

  He tossed the other box toward the first, then returned his attention to the woman in front of him. He ran his right hand up her arm. No runes marked her body—a child of a different time—but cybernetic enrichments, fibrous silvered-metal and lodes of oscillating light, wormed through her skin.

  “Hand-delivered by the queen,” said Chrissa, “just like you said.” A coy smile played across her lips. She turned Trent’s left arm over, ran her thumb over his runes. It unnerved him when she marveled at his inked skin, an affection that not even magic could rid him of. “Gods, I’ll never get tired o’ seein these. It’s like you just had ‘em done.”

  “Damned things.” Trent’s entire body itched. When he tried to pull his arm away from her, Chrissa held on.

  Thirty-two minutes later, after Chrissa had measured him fully, Trent stepped into the pants she’d tailored before he arrived. “Lucky there are no cameras in here.”

  “No luck.” Chrissa rested her head on her hand as she watched him dress. “Just a perk of bein favored. Plus, I’ve got naked people in here all the time.”

  “All the time? Sounds fun.”