*
Lord Balan tapped his hoof against the flagstones of the courtyard and the silver spark flashing in the darkness produced a strobe effect. Despite that he could not see Danavod at all, for at night the Great Black Dragon was wholly invisible. Balan’s arms were folded, and he was scowling.
“It has nothing to do with any lack of faith in you, Balan.” Danavod’s sibilant voice came from everywhere in general and nowhere in particular.
“Then why is there a horde of your Shugak blundering through my city?” the devil snapped.
Hot, acidic breath washed over Balan’s back. He turned around but there was still nothing there.
“Because you have not yet found what I seek, though you have had two days.”
“It took two days for your hobble-whatsits to get here! You sent them in before ever you came yourself.”
“Call it insurance,” Danavod’s voice came from elsewhere.
“Nice policy,” Balan snorted. “A thousand jack-booted thugs and bouncing frogmen? The whole lot of them could blunder into one bored Cambion and get themselves all killed.”
“Be a dear and see that does not happen, Balan,” Danavod said. “I would hate to have to bring in another thousand.”
Balan grumbled, but there was no reasoning with the Wyrm. He stalked out of the courtyard with head and tail both shaking in disgust.
He strode far down a hallway before summoning Poltus with a word. This time the Spiny Devil appeared instantly at his shoulder.
“My Lord?”
“Send someone to talk to the leaders of this Shugak ‘expedition’,” Balan growled. “Try to keep them from wandering into something they can’t handle. Not that they can handle much. Stupid frogs.”
“Their forces have divided, my Lord. There are at least ten companies of them in various parts of the city. One is already approaching the palace.”
“Then send ten of your brethren to talk to them, you pointy-headed dolt.”
Balan expected Poltus to disappear but the little devil only closed its eyes and hovered in place, communing in an instant with the others of its kind. Balan stopped walking as he hadn’t really been going anywhere specific. He had already finished reading the little devil’s notes on Lamia, gleaned from the old Ettacean books and scrolls housed in the library within the palace.
Poltus opened its beady red eyes. “Done, my Lord.”
“There is something else?”
“Perhaps. It would depend on what you want to know.”
Balan looked back down the hall in the direction of the courtyard. He probably had several hours before Danavod would want to speak to him again, for while devils did not sleep, Dragons did. The Black Wyrm would surely rest now while it was dark and she was only semi-corporeal, invulnerable to attack. Balan would not have to worry about answering any more questions before dawn. It might be time enough to play out the diabolic scheming Danavod rightly suspected of him.
“My quarters,” Balan said. Poltus bowed in the air and disappeared, but Balan walked down the hall as far as the next corner, turned it, and strode out into a different room several floors away.
Poltus was already there, speaking to Uella who was sprawled out across the richly appointed bed, her indelicately delectable female form encased in a leather body suit that might as well have been shiny black paint. The leathery wings sprouting from her shoulders were folded against her back, and her beautiful face wore as always a cunning slant to arched eyebrows and a cruel turn to her ruby lips. For some unfathomable reason she had dyed most of her long hair green, leaving only streaks of blonde in the tumbling mass of it. Her eyes had bright red pupils, and a glassy sheen.
“Is he mad?” the succubus was just asking Poltus. She did not sound particularly worried, but perhaps eager.
“A little bit,” Balan said as he entered the room from around the corner to a sitting area. He stopped with a spark from his hoof and crossed his arms. Uella grinned at him broadly, showing her fangs.
“Hiya, boss.” She stretched out the last sibilant sound, with the tip of her forked tongue between her teeth. Balan sighed at her.
“Did I or did I not tell you to just watch the Wizard? To make sure he didn’t get killed?”
Uella rolled her eyes and groaned, then flopped onto her back though the presence of her wings made her arch her spine sharply. She beat her fists and kicked her heels against the covers, tearing them a bit with the spiked heel of one thigh-high boot. The heel was long enough to stab somebody, which was probably the point.
“But it was soooo boring! Everybody else gets to pile up bodies, and I’m supposed to just watch five idiot monkeys stumbling around? Really, Balan.”
Uella rolled up to her hands and knees, tossed some of her green-and-blonde mane over a trim shoulder, and set her red mouth in a pout.
“You can’t think of anything more fun to make me do?”
“Are those ears?” Balan asked, wide eyed.
Uella brought a pale hand with bright red nails to a string of severed ears that were strung around her neck.
“These?”
“Yes, those.”
“Oh, I’ve had these for years.”
“They’re still dripping blood!”
Uella shrugged and batted her eyes. The thoughtless ease with which demons were able to lie, even when there was no point to it, was a constant source of vexation for a proper devil. Sometimes it was a source of envy.
Balan sighed and turned to Poltus.
“Just tell me already.”
“Lady Uella slew the three soldiers earlier today, but she had the Circle Wizard brought here alive.“
“And the pretty girl,” Uella chirped. “You should see her, Balan. She’s just like a little doll.”
“What about the book?” Balan asked Poltus, doing his best to ignore the succubus for the time being.
“We have that as well, and I have read as much of it as I can. Though that was not very much.”
Balan frowned at the hovering fiend.
“You can read any language, Poltus. So can I. So can we all. What is the problem?”
“That only holds true for languages as they are commonly spoken and written, my Lord. The book in question is inscribed in an incantation script, a magical language in which words and phrases may be imbued with spell power. The language of this book is that of Old Tull, for it is the work of Kanderamath himself.”
Balan knew the name even though it had belonged to a monkey. That was the old Witch King who had caused Vod‘Adia to Open in the first place, and so indirectly brought Balan and his kind, and Uella’s kind as well, here.
“It is the spell book of an archmage?” Balan asked.
“Not precisely, Lord. There are only three spells inscribed within it. Fairly standard teleportation forms with only slight variations among them, near as I can tell.”
“And the rest of it?”
Poltus sighed. “It appears to be a sort of commentary on a far older scroll, fragments of which are preserved within Kanderamath’s text. This original is written in an ancient form of Kantan, which I can read, though understanding the fragments is a different matter. They are a chaotic hodge-podge of existential theorizing and tribal superstitions concerning the Three Nodes, including the one located here, and their relation to the magic of this world.”
Uella had curled up on the bed, shaking out her wings to cover her like blankets. She started snoring very loudly.
“This stuff is important, dear,” Balan said at her.
“Hmm. Old books. Fascinating.”
Balan turned away from her with a look of resignation.
“The Node,” he said to Poltus. “That’s the big archway in the center tower that doesn’t do anything?”
“Yes, Lord. Though I imagine it did do something at one time. Probably about the same period during which the Kantan scroll was written.”
Balan narrowed his red eyes, and his diabolic brain sifted through what he knew. The Great
Dragon Danavod was afraid of what a Circle Wizard could do with this book, for if the Sable City of Vod’Adia was again severed from this world she stood to lose an enormous source of wealth. Wealth was the measure by which the Great Dragons kept score among themselves. Devils kept score in different ways. Vod’Adia was a convenient place for them to gather souls, but hardly a necessary one.
“The Circle Wizard,” Balan said. “He can read the entire book, correct?”
Poltus did not look wholly confident. “Perhaps. We scrutinized the man’s mind while he was unconscious and without defense, and found him to be of only modest ability, at the most. He is certainly no Kanderamath.”
“That does not mean that he could not undo what the Witch King wrought here.”
Uella rolled back over, propping herself up on wings and elbows.
“You‘re going to cut this city off from its world?” she asked with a small frown. “Why? Don’t you and the Black Dragon have a deal?”
“More than a deal, we have signed a contract with Danavod.” Balan grinned widely, revealing his own fangs. “And that always works out so well for the other party.”
Uella grinned back at him. “You’re so damned sexy when you’re evil. Just for the hell of it.”
Poltus cleared its little throat. “Pardon me, my Lord, but the contract does present certain obstacles to you, or to any of our kind, taking direct action.”
Balan looked sideways at the little devil.
“You know, a good number two would have figured out a way around that by now.”
Poltus permitted itself to look lofty.
“Yes indeed, Lord. So would an evil one.”
The Sable City Page 82