The Demon's Call

by Philip C Anderson

  “Order,” Alerix said. They didn’t quiet. “Order!” he then yelled and stomped his armored heel into the ground. Apart from a table in the back-right corner from them, those in the restaurant hushed. “We’ll all have time to air our grievances. Believe you me, I have more than most of you. But now’s not the time to let old wounds and disorder sow anarchy among our ranks.”

  “Where were you, Pender?” a man said from a table near stained-glass windows on the restaurant’s north wall. The depiction of a Mother Goose painted his sheened armor fitful shades of blue and red. His voice came to them like a crab scuttling across sand. “You, the Warden of Karhaal, speak of disorder, but even you couldn’t find the Grand Master. Surely you must have suspected him dead to abandon your post.”

  “I didn’t leave mine until you voted Manifeld into his seat. What in the hells was I supposed to do?”

  “Could have stayed and helped. Most of us did ‘til just a couple years ago. Pretended things were always just a day away from returning to normal.”

  “And you leaving helped,” said Alerix.

  “No less than you”—

  “If you’re going to assign blame,” Russ said, “let it lay upon me. Alerix wouldn’t have left Karhaal were it not for my departure, and you—any of you—wouldn’t have elected Manifeld to fill my Seat in-proxy had I been there.”

  “Where you were supposed to be,” a scowling Karlian said from a table to Russ’s left, close enough that Russell saw the flecks of puce in his dark eyes.

  “No,” said Russ, shaking his head. “I was right where I was supposed to be.”

  The man squinted. His mouth hung open, but he spoke no more.

  “People told us about the demon getting into Karhaal,” another Karlian said. Concern corroded her voice. She looked hardly old enough to have passed her trials. Her golden hair burned for the light that shined in the window behind her. “How did that happen? I mean, are we facing something different this time?”

  “Yes,” Russ said. “And no. I’m not sure how the demon at Karhaal got in. The apothecary is looking into it”—

  “The apothecary?” another girl said from a table in the middle. “Shouldn’t the quartermaster be doing something?”

  “They’re the same person, genius,” said Grenn.

  “What?” The girl seemed honestly nonplussed.

  “I have the quartermaster looking into how it happened,” Russ said. “You’re right that they shouldn’t have been able to get inside, but I know why it happened. The demon was after me and knew where I was, and it being able to cross onto holy ground can only mean one thing—that they have grown in power. An escalation.”

  “But Karhaal,” said a man. “The Bastion of Light—they’ve never gotten inside, despite myriad escalations. Does ‘holy’ mean nothing anymore? If so, how can we be sure of anything?”

  “Besides,” another said, “why would the demons want you? You’ve done fuck-all for the last twenty years.”

  Russ couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. “I am the Grand Master whether I’ve been here. To the demons, if not you, that means something. Just a week ago, a mastered demon came to my farm—I’m a pumpkin farmer, by the way.” This earned a few laughs, mostly groans and derisive cuts, from the Order. “I used that lesser to gain entrance to the nether, and there I met this new—whatever she is—for the first time. When I tried to banish her”—Russell breathed—“she toyed with the Light.”

  Gasps lit the air around the hall. “Toyed? You mean it didn’t”—

  “Still harmed her, but no, it didn’t kill her. She’s followed me since, and now she intends to end us, starting with me, as their imperative has always been.” He considered whether to tell them about M’keth, but Russ didn’t even know where the avatar stayed in terms of power, whether he could come back fully.

  “So where were you the past few days?” a hooded Priest asked to the left, above him. “We came here to see the Grand Master for ourselves, only for your people to tell us you were—resting.”

  Russ looked to Grenn and Willa, behind him and to his left. “Did they?”

  “Ken—Kendra told us to not say anything until you woke up,” Willa said, her voice carrying as little as she could manage.

  Russ huffed. “And what if I hadn’t?”

  “We’d deal with that if we had to,” said Grenn.

  Russ let his gaze linger on them, then he turned back to the crowd. He swallowed hard, pruning what to tell them of his trek into the forest. “I’d just come from a hive. The hive of this War, I think. A few thousand miles north of Keep.”

  “Then we can destroy it,” a large man said from a booth along the first floor’s edge. In his haste to stand, his chair screeched against the floor. “We can stop this invasion before it even gets started. If what we need is Priestly power, we’ve already got that, more than enough. Let my Lycans”—

  Russ raised his hand. “They’ve had years to prepare for this, hidden and unchecked. They’re already marching for us.”

  The man watched him in perturbed silence. He consulted a moment with those at his table. A woman there shook her head, then the man returned his attention to Russ. “How are you aware of their movements?”

  Grenn answered: “What in the hells else would they be doing”—

  “She told me,” said Russ. “You may call me forsaken for this, for knowing the mind of this new master who would see us dead. But she’s coming at dawn, and if we don’t stop her, Tanvarn will be the Redater of this War. We can’t abandon our promise to this world. Not when it needs us most.”

  “You did,” a girl said to his right.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about? This entire forum is about your dereliction.”

  “The world doesn’t need a Grand Master during Peace. If I’d abandoned my duty, I wouldn’t be standing here in front of you now. And everyone would be blissfully unaware of a party of demons coming to rape and pillage Tanvarn.”

  “You still abandoned your post,” a woman said from the balcony.

  A man from the middle of the hall joined her opinion. “And if you’d been at your Seat, we might have detected this sooner.”

  “Maybe,” said Russ, unconcerned. But even fixing the past can’t change what we face.

  “Then you’ve doomed us all.”

  Russ nodded. “Maybe.”

  A small roar of voices all spoke at once, and this time Russ made nothing of what they said in the growing bedlam.

  Then one question rang from the back of the hall: “Are you actually going to answer anything?”

  Alerix answered in kind. “He has.” He stomped his foot. Doom. Silence returned to them. “We can’t change what happened.” His voice had become a whip. “Goddess knows I wish that were possible. Many a night have I laid awake, wishing I could prevent all this. The Grand Master is generous to assign blame only to himself, for there was much most any of us could have done in his stead. But we didn’t, and his departure and our laze affected everyone—not just here, not just of the Order.

  “This is not a dick-measuring contest of who feels more wronged or who’s less at fault. If you think it is, then get the fuck out of this forum, relinquish your armor, and never darken our halls again. All we can do is move forward and forget about what should have been or almost was.” He waited, and Russ watched for anyone to move. No one did. “Look at the runes across your Grand Master’s arms.”

  Russ pushed the sleeves over his elbows and made an uncertain spectacle of himself as hundreds of gazes pressed upon him.

  “The demons are here,” Alerix said, “and they come for us.”

  “He’s right,” a familiar voice said. Russ hadn’t noticed her before, but Georina sat a table with Revlina near the booths on the northern wall. “I saw the one in the courtyard myself.”

  Russ nodded at her in silent acknowledgement. “As individuals, you can do as you please. Goddess knows I did. But as the Order, as members of Karli�
�s sacred alliance, we can’t. If you fight with me—with me, not for me—you’re riding not with a Grand Master. Just another man, one who messed up years ago. I can’t make things right, can’t undo all the trespasses I’ve committed, but still we have our mission. Where the Light cannot go, we do in its stead to protect those who can’t guard themselves.

  “But make no mistake, it’s different this time. They mean for my fall to trigger a concession—that everyone on Coroth will see their new power and simply dwindle for it. I call upon you now, all of you, to stand with me and fight this most mighty evil to ever walk Coroth.”

  Russ waited. His heart fluttered when no one responded. They whispered, but none answered him. How to make them understand?

  He turned to Alerix, who leaned against the door frame behind him, his arms crossed. “Alerix Pender, will you accept my call and join me on the morrow?”

  The Warden stared at him with a discerning gaze, then he righted himself and said, “Aye.” He raised his voice. “I made the vow, and so I shall keep it.”

  Without Russ’s proffering, a couple chairs scooted from their table, and he turned to see who stood.

  “I stand with you,” Georina said. Her voice carried well through the room.

  Revlina bowed her head. “At your service, Grand Master,” she said in her quiet way.

  “Willa Ophel,” Russ said, turning to his accompaniment. “What says the Undertaker’s teachings?”

  Willa’s brow creased, but when she spoke, no trace of it remained. “We all serve the same Light, feel the same Call, make the same pledge.” Her voice came in perfect measure, calculated. “The words you spoke after your trials are the same we speak at ours. If what you ask for is solidarity, the Priests would be the last to breach their faith.”

  Russ looked to Grenn, who said, “You make the choice. I answer your call.”

  A girl to Grenn’s left watched him, and she stood. “I accept your call, Grand Master.”

  The door squeaked open behind them. “Who had the lemon-crusted chicken?” a waiter asked. The silence must have deafened him. “Shit, this”—he backed out of the room.

  Russ found a familiar face on a woman who stood above in lithe Karlian armor. A hood hung over her head and half-obscured scars she’d earned during a skirmish just south of the equator. The plan had been a quick in-and-out—getting a doting official’s once-removed cousin out of harm’s way.

  She acknowledged his gaze with a nod and spoke with an accent from Yarnle—perhaps Aisilmapua. “I did not vote for ya. But de Mother Karli put ya in dis Seat. If ya will sit upon it, I will follow.”

  A door opened at the side of the dining hall, and three Karlians exited. Alerix met their departure with a huff. But at a table near the back, a retinue of Karlians and Priests all stood at once.

  “The Iron Lycans accept the Master’s call,” the mountainous man said. He stood with his hands clasped in front of his body, his face a stoic mask. Dark eyes pierced the distance between him and Russ.

  The Grand Master nodded. Others in the hall declared phrasings of acquiescence to his call. A steady trickle left. The words they used came as more than just parlance. He would never convince most that what he’d done had been right, but their pledges to him, as did their pledges to the Goddess, bound them in inexorable duty they couldn’t shirk.

  Two in the last group declined silently, their glaives tucked under their cloaks as they left, but even for their departure, nearly two-thirds of the dining hall had contracted themselves.

  He swept his gaze over all who stood. “Karli’i narthe regix ne veruc,” he said in the language of the Light.

  In what constituted a chorus, his militia replied, “Regix pas roxe.”

  “Thank you all. Be ready in the morning.”

  The crowd returned to their neighbors and those at their tables, and a buzz ladled into the dining room. Already, Russell’s mind ran through possible tactics, contingencies, and stopgaps, commissioning reconnaissance, deputizing Order members, and getting a forward camp setup—away from the city. That had to be the priority: getting their people and the possible theater away from Tanvarn. He needed to speak with Alerix.

  Next to the Warden stood a woman—a city guard from Keep. Chrome threads ran through her crisp button down and slacks that pressed over her nimble legs. Black hair hung around her head, cut in length to between her jaw and earlobes. She held her helmet under her arm and abruptly turned her attention from Alerix to Russell.

  “Grand Master.” She took off her sunglasses to reveal grass-green eyes and cleared her throat before she continued in enunciated Plainari. “I’m an emissary from Arnin, Passa Rovenstirk. The king has sent me to help—at your command.”

  Russ frowned at her. “The king? Why?”

  “He’d like to explain that to you himself. His Majesty requests your presence in a comm.”

  “Now?”

  “At your earliest convenience, sir. There is no rush, he wanted me to assure you.”

  “Sure.” Russ lowered his voice. “Give me a quarter-hour to confer with my people.”

  Passa nodded. “The set up awaits you in room one-oh-seven.” She handed him a personal keycard, then stepped back and looked past his shoulder.

  “Grand Master,” a deep voice said behind him. Russ turned and craned his neck to look at the man’s face. A kempt yet wiry beard of graying brown covered his rigid jowl, and his voice sounded like it ran through gravel, throaty and constrained by his accent. “Name’s Barius.” He extended his arm toward Russ, who shook the man’s gauntleted hand. “I am founder of the Iron Lycans. Our expertise is yours.”

  “I’m sure we can use it,” Russ said.

  “Use it well.” Barius’s tone and the twinkle in his eyes read more as warnings than suggestions. “We’re used to running more private investigations, but I’m sure we can be of service.”

  As the wolf departed, Russ said to Alerix, who stood next to him, “Sounds like they’d make a good scouting party.”

  “Aye. With freelancers, though, I wonder if our money’ll prove good enough for them. They’ll expect payment eventually.”

  “Even here?”

  Alerix shrugged.

  “Grand Master…” a young Priest said, calling upon his time. A queue had formed behind her.

  “Grand Master…” so it came until Grenn stepped between Russ and the line. It had only grown over the last forty minutes.

  “That’ll be all,” Grenn said, authority affecting his voice. “The Grand Master has important affairs to which he must attend.”

  It gladdened Russ that the young Karlian had at least a small measure of clout within the Order. Those in line listened to him, and Russ and Alerix left to walk the halls of Rhine’s first floor.

  “That was hardly all of them,” Alerix said. They stepped aside to let a couple pass by them. “But it’ll be enough. Has to be, I suppose.”

  “They’re doing what they think is right,” said Russ, thinking of those who had left, “where their duty calls them.”

  “More will come ‘round, once they’ve brushed the chips off their shoulders. It’s honestly more than we could have asked for right now, considering your absolute lack of political capital.”

  They made a circuit of the first floor while they discussed potentialities. “… We’ll need a member of the old guard teamed with one of the new in as many instances as we can,” Alerix told him. “These new ones are still fundamentally recruits—as green as they can be for Wartime. For the Peace, they were fine, but not now.”

  “Talked to one who didn’t even know how to do a throw.” A mild piece of guilt broke off within Russ as soon as he said it—he would never want Grenn to know he used him as an example for inadequacy.

  Alerix let out a creaky guffaw. “Goddess, we might really be done, won’t we?”

  “I’ll need your full appraisal”—Russ spoke quietly as they approached room one-oh-seven for a second time—“as soon as I’m out of this comm. You’
ve a better grasp on stratagem—always did. Put that Warden mind of yours to work.”

  Alerix nodded. “What do you think the king wants of you?” While he spoke, his fingers tapped against his thumb.

  “Either a talking to or counsel. Either way, it won’t take long.”

  With his hand inches from the door, a crash resounded down the hall, and across the lobby, from the entrance to the kitchen, a brown blur bounded toward them. A man followed, checked either way, then leapt after Burth. He landed on him and raised the blade he held. Burth shrieked. Even Russ covered his ears as the serren extricated himself from the man’s grip. The chef screamed against the piercing noise, and before he even stood again, Burth had hidden himself behind Russ’s leg, panting.

  Willa came from the eatery. Her concern melted, and she simpered. “Burth, you weren’t in the kitchens again, were you?”

  The cook approached, holding his cleaver in both hands, looking crazed for his out-of-place toupee and bulging black eyes. “Where is it? The rat. Show yourself!” His apron hung half untied around his thin waist.

  Russ looked down at Burth. “He wouldn’t be tryin to find you, right?”

  Burth shook his head so quickly that his face became a smear. His ears hung down his back, and his eyes had become saucers on his face.

  “You,” the cook said, finding the serren. A thin moustache traced his upper lip. “It’s been three days now. I told you I would take a finger if I caught you again.”

  Burth squeezed Russ’s calf and kept himself as much out of the man’s sight as he could.

  “You don’t need to take anything,” Russ said, holding up his hand. His tone bordered on placation. “He’s harmless.”

  “That”—the chef moved his body like a cobra, trying to find the best angle to get at the cowering creature—“is a rodent. I will have him spoiling my food no longer.”

  “Serrens can’t spoi—spoil food,” said Willa. “They’re exceptionally clean.”

  “He damn well can!” The cook swiped at the beast.

  Russ sidestepped. “Hey.”

  The chef slashed again and caught the back of Russ’s pant leg, and Burth hopped behind the other, yipping in his panic.