The Demon's Call

by Philip C Anderson

  “Good seeing you, Trent.” Denard joined his friends. Elein took his hand in hers, and they headed for the next group of guests who felt warranted a junior royal audience.

  Trent looked around. Others fleetingly glanced at him, spoke behind their hands to their neighbors. Now matter how small or benign the reason, he hated the attention.

  “That’s impressive,” Chrissa said. She grabbed a pumpkin toasty from an automaton that floated through the air and took a small bite.

  “Shut up,” Trent said through half a smile. “Not trying to impress you. Or anyone.”

  Chrissa chortled. “Ya do anyway. It’s just what ya are.”

  “Not once you get to know me.”

  “No.” Chrissa shook her head. “You act like ya don’t care what other people think, but you keep everything so far buried that”—she saw the dull expression that spread across Trent’s face and flicked her middle finger over her brow to sign dissatisfaction. “You just end up pushing people away anyway. I think you like it that way.”

  “I prefer nothing about this life. It feels like a bad dream. Has for years.”

  “Some good parts, though.”

  They sat in silence for a minute. Trent finished his drink.

  “You talk like you knew him,” Chrissa said. “Ya did, didn’t ya?”

  “Everyone felt like they did,” said Trent. He couldn’t keep the wear from his voice.

  “Then learn from him. Stop torturing yourself for something that happened in your past.” She touched his arm. “You’re allowed to move on. From whatever it was.”

  Trent knocked on the bar. Chrissa sounded a lot like a friend he’d had, one he’d spent time with after the War when nothing could console him. Half a minute later, the bartender refilled his glass. “There are things you can’t move on from, and if I learned anything from Jeom, it’s that nothing ever happens as it should. Or could.” And he would never learn to expect things going wrong.

  “I don’t think you’re as mysterious as you think you are.”

  “That may be.” Trent gulped his second cup. His throat burned well after he swallowed. “Might not see me for a while.”

  “Are ya gonna deliver your pumpkins at night now?”

  “No. Need time to think more than anything. Tonight’s been strange.”

  “Strange how?” She spun her near-empty bottle in little circles by its neck. “Let me guess: can’t say?” Her eyes narrowed. “Won’t say?”

  “If what I’ve seen is true, then I’m almost finished. Somehow.”

  Chrissa tapped on the bar with her fingernails. “What about me?”

  Trent waved the bartender away. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Sure ya did.” Chrissa hopped off the stool and looked up at him, suddenly demure. “I’m aware this wasn’t a—thing, whatever ya wanna call it. But it was fun while it happened.”

  Trent didn’t respond.

  A sadness spread over her face even as she smiled. She leaned against Trent and kissed him on the jaw. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself”—a mischievous glint flecked her eye—“pumpkin farmer.”

  She walked away before Trent said anything, and as he left, he settled on the fact he hadn’t wanted to.

  6

  His wife lived, of that Trent felt sure while he waited in the relative silence of the Tower at the base of Mazim Hill. Others had queued for the portal service, either in their work clothes heading home or in formal attire ducking early from the party.

  “Sorry for the delay,” the attendant said to the group in front of Trent. The man spoke with a muddy tenor. “An ash storm north of us is causing disruption to our Ley lines, and we’re having difficulties establishing connection to your destination. We could connect you through Wairut to the southwest and cut around the storm if you’re amenable, but we may not have a direct route for some time.”

  The people in front of Trent spoke a dialect of New Magornian that the East had resurrected and codified. No doubt to Trent, they had come around the world only on royal invite to pay token homage to their king.

  In passable Plainari, a woman asked, “What is delay?”

  “Dragons will be dragons, my lady.”

  The group exchanged a few terse sayings, then the woman responded. “We will wait for portal straight.” She lightly rolled her ‘r’s.

  “In that case, if you’d step aside, please,” the Leynar said, “we’ll inform you when one is available.”

  They muttered amongst themselves as they moved to a seating area where two other groups already waited. Trent stood next in line.

  “Mr. Geno,” said the Leynar before Trent spoke. “Her Grace told me to expect you. Where is it you’re heading?”

  “Adjust.”

  “Local.” His voice turned upbeat at that. “With me, if you will.” The Leynar waggled as he walked, and his silvery robes kicked in front of him with each step. In his middle age, specks of gray poked through the mane of brown that swam around his head. “It’s a relief having a portal as simple as yours—makes us look like we know what we’re doing and that we’re actually doing something.” He exhaled. “The dragons picked a fine day to kick up”—he checked his watch—"but if it’s any indication, their nesting roosts are coming to peck about five days earlier than last year. And on such a propitious occasion.”

  “Indication of what?” asked Trent.

  “Indeed.” The Leynar swung his arms as he dodged around Leynars with and without charges and other travelers.

  They turned a corner and passed a stable of creatures that looked like horses but had paws instead of hooves and no snouts on their faces. Their eyes glowed as though enriched by cybernetics, but nature had granted them theirs. Wooly fur covered their bodies. ‘Albune rentals – see attendant for details,’ a sign read. One shook its head at Trent’s sight.

  Around the next corner, with the smell of fresh straw behind them, a slew of people all waited in cordoned lines. A few held tickets; others spoke with attendants, trying to secure travel.

  “His Majesty saw fit to allocate our resources to tending with the fallout from the ash storm,” said the Leynar. “Luckily for you, you don’t have to fend for such procurement.”

  To their right, a flash of light drew Trent’s attention, and from it, a man bowled into the middle of those waiting in line and fell.

  “What in the hells?” the Leynar said. He stepped past Trent toward the commotion. Another appeared, a young girl, who toppled onto the fallen man, screaming a high-pitched shriek that spoke only of pain. “Oh gods, an errant portal.” The attendant sounded both parts annoyed and bored. He raised his voice. “Everyone get away from them.”

  Worried gasps filled the air as those near the screaming girl pushed against those behind them, and in their hurry they almost tripped over themselves. In the middle of the lines, a portal stuttered into phase and threw three more onto the other two— two with yellow hair and a redhead. The way behind them closed, and the last one through picked herself off the ground. Her eyes opened wide in surprise as she looked around. A torn blouse exposed her right breast, and her pencil skirt had ridden up her hips.

  “Gratta!” she yelled and pulled the crying girl against her body.

  With the commotion past them, those who stood in line had quieted and looked on with pity. An aura hung from the girl’s elbow in place of her arm. Sobs painted her screams a new color.

  Trent’s attendant pointed at two Leynars behind the counter. “Get an isolinch unit here, quick as you can.” He then turned his full attention to the group of strays. His eyes traced the leftover magic that still hung in the air as he stepped toward them in stutter-steps. He spoke to the woman with the child in her arms. “Madam.”

  The woman looked at him, scared.

  “Is this your daughter?”

  “My sister,” she said. Her accent curved around the words in an obtuse accent from well south of them.

  “She has suffered an isolinch. I need t
o know where your point of origin is.”

  The woman’s face paled. She shook her head. Her frizzy red hair fluttered over her freckled cheeks.

  “Ogden,” the first man through said. He stood from down on one knee and nearly fell forward before he caught himself with a half-step, after which he kept what weight he could off his left foot. A smile rearranged his face, and he swept a tangle of dark hair over his head and straightened and re-tucked his too-large button-down, as though making himself more presentable mattered. “Ve”—muck caught in his throat and cleared to a raspy baritone when he swallowed—“are from Ogden.”

  The other two through the portal had stood as well. The man held his right leg stiff and kept his back pressed against the other woman’s. Their eyes tracked quickly from one person to the next as they tapped their fingers in rapid gestures. Veins on the young woman’s wrists and hands glowed silver-blue; the same artifacts blazed from the man’s upper arms and snaked onto his chest. In their deviant journey, the woman’s blouse had come untucked and her ponytail had come undone. She pushed a wild lock from the left side of her face behind her ear. The handle of a vibro-blade peeked from the waistband of her pants.

  “I didn’t know they had begun rebuilding in Ogden yet,” said the Leynar.

  “You can imagine why we’re leaving, then.” The man smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

  The Leynar’s voice turned stern. “Then that’s where I can find this girl’s arm?”

  The leader watched the man to whom he spoke. His smile faded slightly. “Possibly.”

  Silence stretched between them for three seconds, then the Leynar spoke to the other two attendants in a Ley dialect.

  Before they acted on his order, the blonde and her partner unsheathed their blades—for her, a dagger in either hand; for him, a sword from the right leg of his pants. The steel hummed with tightly-wound energy, and electricity zipped between them when they ignited the steel. She lunged at the nearer of the Leynars. A woman near them screamed.

  Gratta’s sister yipped. “Stop!”

  The first man through only half-turned before they all froze.

  Growling anger laced the guide’s voice when next he spoke. “Is everyone all right?”

  Trent looked around. The errant party had hurt no one, despite how quickly they’d moved. The point of the blonde’s dagger hung inches from the closer Leynar’s jaw.

  “Take them to holding.” Trent’s attendant continued toward where he had been leading him. “Clean up that aberrance. And for the gods’ sake, find that girl’s arm if you can.” He lowered his voice before he added. “Cripes, this is the last thing we fucking needed.”

  The Leynars incanted, and the five they’d frozen raised into the air as though suspended on a stage. Travelers parted for them to pass. Even once the Leynars had, those in line stayed away from the wayward magic. Trent watched for a second before he caught up with the man he followed.

  “Nice little defense mechanism we have thanks to the Tower,” the Leynar said. He held the door open to a stall. Trent walked past him. “Unlucky for them, though. They’d have probably gotten away with whatever they’re doing if not for the storm.”

  The room’s occupant stood when he saw the graying Leynar. “Portal Master.” He pulled a pill from either ear and held them in his right fist. “Apologies. I dint know I’d have charges tonight. Have we gotten connected?”

  “Nothing doing so far. And I think we just saw our last.”

  A worried look daubed the younger Leynar’s face. “Is that what the commotion was? No one got isol’d, did they?” He shifted where he stood.

  “No need to worry about it, my boy, it’s all being sorted.” He gestured to Trent. “Mr. Geno is a special guest, not on the itinerary. Think you can conjure up one to Adjust?”

  “Adjust,” the portaler said, relieved. “I’ll get right to it.” He opened a drawer in front of him and rifled through it.

  The Portal Master turned to Trent. “You’re in—capable—hands. Wonderful to help you, Mr. Geno.” He smiled and left.

  Like the rest of the Tower, this room intoned the prosperity of the empire, as did the rest of Arnin. Tinged with notes of gold and, in this case, sapphire across its alabaster walls, Trent thought the Castle meant for the effect to arrest those who stopped through, arriving or departing. ‘Realize where you are,’ it seemed to say. Bookshelves covered an entire wall, their bounty leather-bound and gold-lettered.

  “The dragons have kicked up their magic,” the portaler said. He walked to one end of the room with a staff and drew a six-foot line across the floor, which burned dark blue where he marked.

  “Happened all the time during the War,” said Trent. “I get it.”

  “The War.” The Leynar stopped a few seconds. His face bunched while he thought, then he shrugged. “Guess they would have. Don’t much like demons, do they?” His staff stood by itself when he let go of it, and he picked up a trinket from the desk, something Trent had never learned the proper name of. “Stay back, sir. Very easy to mess this part up.”

  Trent stepped back half a pace. His new attendant uttered what sounded like ‘mana’ repeatedly and at different pitches as he ran his fingers and the talisman along the line he’d drawn. It turned dingy, and motes gathered and coalesced into runes that hung in the air. The room hummed with middling magic, like a thousand benevolent gnats.

  “Ah.” The man righted himself. “Where to exactly?”

  “Anywhere in town would be fine. Not a big place.”

  “Come now, sir, I’ve been to Adjust. All of Keep, actually—from the corner past the Rine, to the sandbars in the Ptolithe Channel—not a part of this country I’m unfamiliar with. Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll get you a step away.”

  Trent signed indifference. “I’m headin to Cups first thing.”

  Vacancy spread across the portaler’s face. “Cups.” He nodded and turned. “Course.” Silence stifled the room before he spread his arms and continued speaking under his breath. Specks of magic rose from the floor, anchored themselves on nothing at his command, and blended into a veil. One second, Trent saw through the sheer material, and in the next, a painting hung in front of him that showed a plain slice of Heyday Street in Adjust. Splotches of unconsolidated ether floated across the construction in aura-like bodies.

  “Just need to fix a few things.” The Leynar pulled at the edges like stretching a canvas over a frame; he folded the corners taut, pushed the bottom edge all the way to the ground, and tried to make the border as even as he could. Then he walked around to the other side and disappeared. In a spot just off-center, the portal’s physiology pushed outward and twisted before it sprung and reformed. A few more spots coiled across the fabric, the texture of which hummed with accession when the last of them bounced into place.

  “There we are,” the Leynar said. He walked through the portal from the other side and appraised his own work. “Much better.” A notebook of lined paper and a pen flew to his hands when he reached for them on the table. After almost fumbling them, he opened the book and wrote notes across three lines. “You look fancy, sir. Must be important—to have gotten an invite tonight, I mean.”

  “No,” Trent said as he looked through the portal. The screen didn’t lead precisely where he’d requested, but it would get him close enough that it didn’t matter. He walked toward it and inspected the border himself.

  A Leynar had once told him, “… that’s what’s tricky about portals: dangerous even at the best of times. If they don’t reach the ground, you can take off a foot; if you don’t pull your limbs in they can take off an arm. And if they’re not properly focused, they’ll just cut a part right out the middle of ya.” The man had laughed. “Now, we have the technology to either put you together again or rebuild you, but it’s gonna hurt for every dumb second you’re apart from yourself.”

  Taking portals served as an exercise in chance. Trent had seen unsafe portals. Though shabby, he wouldn’t call this
one unsafe—shoddy work for anyone who called themselves a portaler, but workable for what it served. The air from its other side smelled of damp soil and produce—what he thought of as home.

  He turned to the man behind him. “Pretty good work.”

  “Thank you. Can I quote you on that, sir?” The Leynar’s face remained plain, and Trent couldn’t be sure whether the portaler joked with him. “Well then”—at that the man snapped his book shut—“twenty-one-fifty-seven to Heyday Street, Adjust.” Before Trent stepped through the portal, he added, “We get a lotta important people comin through here. I’m sure you’re one of ‘em, if ya don’t mind me saying.”

  He probably wants to tell his friends who he portaled, Trent thought. So before he bulled through, he told the young man the truth: “I’m the king’s pumpkin farmer.”

  Confusion stretched across the portaler’s face. Trent didn’t wait for him to respond before he stepped through to Heyday Street, where he shielded his face from a headlight as a vehicle turned the corner in front of him. When Trent looked behind him, the portal had vanished.

  Up the street and around the next corner, Trent pushed open a hinged door and walked into Cups. A fire breathed in the hearth of the one-room lounge and coated the inside with a glow of quiet orange.

  “Heh thuh, Trent,” the proprietor said.

  Trent raised his right hand in a lazy gesture and headed toward the bar. One other person patronized, sitting on the side of the barroom away from the fire.

  “Good seeing you up, Will,” Trent said to the man behind the bar.

  “Ya know how it is. Get sick, get better, that’s life. Fancy yuhself a couple fingers?”

  “Sure.”

  Willace grunted when he bent over and rummaged under the counter. Glass clinked against glass, and one fell and rolled across the ground. The bartender kicked at it as he righted himself. His face beamed red, and his gut peeked out from under his t-shirt when he turned in the narrow space to reach for a bottle of auburn spirits. He didn’t seem to mind it, and he set the bottle and drinking glass on the bar. “Madge is performing tonight.”