“Yeah.” Cal smiled, admiring the kid’s good instincts. “Thanks for not turning out dumb.”
“Huh?”
“I’m in a lot of hot water for losing you thirteen years ago,” Cal admitted. “It was my responsibility to raise you safe and make sure you understood the world you came from. Your family has a long history. I was supposed to prepare you to run a kingdom. Two kingdoms, in fact … your mother has only two younger sisters, and her father is the archduke of Bradaan. Your grandmother died giving birth to your youngest aunt, and the archduke vowed never to remarry. So no trueborn sons means you would inherit that kingdom independent of the continental accord that governs our continent.”
“From the way you talk, though, Aandor is the prize,” said Daniel.
“We all love our own nations, Daniel.”
“What’s it like there?” Daniel asked. “I mean, you use a sword, so what’s closest with regards to here?”
“Fifteenth-century Europe. Objectively speaking, Aandor is more progressive, the most advanced of the Twelve Kingdoms … by the standards of our world, of course. It’s no accident that Aandor became the seat of an empire that ruled over eleven other kingdoms many years ago. There was a long peace that helped everyone thrive. A rising tide lifts all boats. In many ways, we are trying to reclaim that golden era, but without war and conquest as it originally had been done. So it became a breeding contest instead, and subsequently a cold war.”
“And we were winning?”
“It’s not like others haven’t come close. I won’t lie to you, Daniel … Aandor is just as guilty of sabotaging other kingdoms’ efforts in the past. Each of the twelve houses is distinct; the families have character traits, and those traits and beliefs would influence the entire empire if a particular family attained dominance. So alliances have been formed between families and kingdoms who are similar enough in their ethical, moral, and economic beliefs. No one wants to be ruled by someone whose beliefs diametrically oppose their own.”
“So you guys still have suits of armor and all that?” the boy asked.
“Yes.”
“Jousts?”
“Yes.”
“Awesome!”
“There’s some fine literature and music, too. Our maidens are fair and unspoiled … mostly. We also have cholera, plague, death by infections, and we butcher civilians during war. This is not Disney’s Magic Kingdom. No real place is perfect.”
“Can’t we change that? With what we know?”
“Some of it. Aandor is not a place that embraces rapid change. We’ve been in the ‘fifteenth century’ for three hundred years. The laws of physics work slightly different there. We never developed gunpowder. We have true magic that, honestly, most people will never experience in their lifetimes. Most who do are scared of it and never want to encounter it again.”
“When are we going back?” Daniel asked.
“That’s what the argument’s about. I don’t want you going back too soon. Everyone will be pulling you in a different direction, seeking favors, wanting boons, ingratiating themselves. Even your own parents’ agendas may not be in sync. You don’t know anything of our history, politics, or culture. You might offend without realizing it and start off on a bad foot. I want to give you a few years to catch up. That’s what I meant by ‘thanks for not being dumb.’ I have faith in you, Daniel. You’re not spoiled. You’re a survivor, extremely loyal, and you don’t back down from bullies. I can actually see that new golden age of peace and prosperity under your rule.”
“We don’t want to fuck it up,” said Malcolm, joining in. He had a scotch on the rocks in hand, but his eyes were all business.
“Are our five minutes up already?” Cal asked.
“I get that he’s your charge, Cal. And as role models go, he could do a lot worse than you. But I have a ton of resources I’m ready to commit—I just want assurances of what I will receive for that help.”
“You took an oath, Malcolm.”
“Aye, I did—to fight for the prince with ax and shield. My oath says nothing of my vast wealth and enterprises. Pull that oath thing on me again, and that’s all you’ll have—my ax and shield.”
“What do you want?” Daniel asked the billionaire.
“My people came into existence in the mountains of Farrenheil near the western border of Nurvenheim and the Unclaimed Lands. We’d been there for generations mining, smelting, crafting—since before dwarv and man branched apart. Those mountains made us who we are today. And because we are different, impure—we were pushed out. I want your commitment to recognize these mountains as belonging to the dwarvs. Aandor is in a full-scale war regardless of whether it’s winning or not. So commit your armies to march on Farrenheil at some future point to route them from our mountains. We want our mines back … we want to go home.”
“Uh, how big is our army?” Daniel asked Cal.
“Exactly,” Cal said, as though his point had been made. “Daniel doesn’t even know what resources his kingdom has,” Cal said to Mal. “Yet you want him to commit to treaties. We know even less about the kingdom after the invasion. The whole army could be wiped out—cities, villages.”
“I want a good-faith commitment, Cal. Nothing written in blood.”
“You know that’s not fair, given—”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
Cal and Malcolm looked at the boy, each like they weren’t sure what they’d heard.
“What?” asked Mal.
“I said yes,” Daniel repeated. “I agree to this commitment. The mountains to the west of Fahrvergnügen…”
“Farrenheil.”
Daniel nodded and gesticulated in accord. “Whatever … they belong to the Dwarfs…”
“Dwarvs,” Malcolm said, stressing the ah sound and the V. “D-wah-arvzz.”
“Sure,” Daniel added.
Cal’s lips became a thin line of reproach. “Daniel, you can’t—”
“Sure I can. I’m a prince, not a candidate. You guys are going around in circles here, driving a lot of people nuts with no results.” The others in the room perked up at the change in the conversation.
“Yes, but—”
“Miss…,” Daniel called out to Lelani and motioned for her to join them. “Who am I?”
“You’re Grand Duke Danel of Aandor, Blood of Ten Kings, Prince of the Realm, and Regent of the Empire of Aandor,” Lelani said.
“So either I can make this decision now, and end this squabbling, or I’m really just a glorified hostage in a very nice hotel room.”
Malcolm laughed. “I like him!” he bellowed.
“Daniel, the age of ascension is sixteen,” Cal said. “Your father the archduke still runs Aandor.”
“That’s not really the point. I know I’m not in charge, but if we have the resources to help Malcolm’s people get their mountain back, we should commit to this to access whatever assets he can bring to bear now. If we don’t, we can’t very well blame him for not helping.
“Look … I’m a geek; I’ve played enough strategy games to know holding back resources at a crucial time only costs you more in the long run. There’s a time to make like a squirrel and store your nuts, and then there’s the times you have to commit to the larger plan, take a leap of faith. This situation is a no-brainer. Another kingdom invaded my home, captured my parents, killed my subjects—man it’s weird to say that—and tried to kill me. They evicted Malcolm’s people from their ancestral home. So are we realistically close to negotiating a peace with them? Or prepared to let them go home and say No hard feelings? No, right?
“We have to take the fight back to their country, otherwise we’re a bunch of wusses and they’re just going to try again. So either we lose and it doesn’t matter, or we win and one of our conditions of surrender is the dwarvs get their home back. We don’t really have anything to lose by giving Mr. Robbe his good faith commitment. There’s only upside here.”
Cal scratched his head. There was a gaggle of things Daniel ha
d not considered, but overall, it wasn’t bad ball-park logic. Did I just get bamboozled by a kid just shy of fourteen?
“Mal, you know this doesn’t hold water back home,” Cal said. “I can’t believe you’d leverage this situation to your personal advantage…”
“Look around you,” Malcolm said, pointing out the opulent suite in the middle of Manhattan. “No one makes it to my station in life without leveraging opportunities that come his or her way. I have competitors cursing my name from Miami to Seattle. I’m the gay billionaire bastard from hell. The kid wants to commit to my conditions. I take him at his word. He gets anything he needs from me. So what are we doing right now … Today?”
The two went at it again; this time it was Cal’s cheeks that turned crimson with vehement objection. It was about to come to blows, but Scott pulled Malcolm back while Lelani and Colby worked on Callum. When they, too, were at risk of being engulfed by the maelstrom, Reverend Grey interceded and cast a calming blessing over the room. This was the full extent of a cleric’s soothe without physical contact. It worked until Mal, a few moments later, threatened to lop Allyn’s hands off if he ever manipulated his emotions with magic again. Allyn took umbrage to the accusation of using magic like a common wizard, and a new round of bickering ensued.
“Hey, there’s some sort of parade going on in the street,” Clarisse said, standing at the window. “Is the circus in town?”
Balzac waded through the group to the window. His face turned ashen. It was the first honest emotion Cal had seen on the man since being reintroduced to him. Clarisse opened the window. They heard the increasing honking of horns as gridlock settled in and sirens in the distance. Police flashers came on in several directions—and then … screams. Everyone situated him or herself at one window or another to witness the anarchy outside. Cal got a good look at Clarisse’s animals. It wasn’t the circus. It was Malcolm being right yet again. Cal caught his sergeant’s stare—their arguments suspended until further notice.
“My God,” Reverend Grey said. “What—what are those?”
“Incoming!” Cal shouted.
CHAPTER 35
THE WAITING GAME
There were no further updates from North Carolina. Cat waited in the common area surrounded by Dorn, Hesz, Lhars, Oulfsan, Tom the minion, and Ilyana, the other female prisoner. Despite Balzac’s boasts of his influence with Farrenheil, Dorn was furious that he’d tried to kill Catherine. He wanted to possess Prince Danel’s bloody corpse before deciding her fate. She would remain among them until Krebe returned. All communication with the farm ceased after Dorn gave the order to kill the boy.
The tension in the room increased tenfold. Cat had no knowledge of her husband’s fate. Perhaps they were deep in the country out of cell tower range—or sunspots were screwing with the satellites.
Ilyana sat gagged on the floor against the couch, her hands and feet tied with rope. Symian had acquired her in the meat packing district on the west side of Manhattan late one night—she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. That was one of the dangers of living in New York. It was Cat’s job to take care of her needs.
Like too many of her countrywomen, Ilyana came to the U.S. illegally from Russia to pursue a pole-dancing career. It was more than cliché—it was epidemic. The cotton rag in American money must slide softer on flesh compared with other currencies, Cat thought. There was something off about the girl Cat couldn’t quite put her finger on. Symian had targeted his victim well—her few friends were also here illegally and not inclined to go to the police about her disappearance. God help her Russian handlers if they tried to retrieve her; Hesz and Kraten would cut them to pieces.
Cat felt protective of Ilyana, but was stretched thin because she still had to tend to Tory. His crying became unbearable at one point … Hesz simply shut the bedroom door and instructed Cat to ignore him. Dorn declined to mention his plans for Ilyana. Catherine wished she could do magic—she wanted to cast a protective shield over everyone.
The clock ticked by slowly. Hesz read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, a book Cat had on her own bucket list. Perhaps he’d loan it to her before slitting her throat, she wondered. There was a deep, sharp intelligence behind Hesz’s bright blue eyes that belied his size and ugly mug. He was detached, patient, calm in a way none of the others was. The more time Cat spent around him, the more certain she was that he was not a zealot to Dorn’s agenda. Some other motive drove that giant brain and for now it was aligned with hurting her friends and family. Dorn was reading some very old parchments over a table stocked with Bunsen burners, a microscope, beakers, flasks, test tubes, powders, liquids, still coils, prongs, and the such. A small lead can with the radiation warning sat among the items.
As he read, Dorn popped back prescription pills like they were M&M’s, and his henchmen looked down, away, or at each other whenever their master did this, like a choreographed routine. Dorn’s health waned. His puffy eyes were glassy; his golden hair had lost its luster and thinned, sallow skin gave him a malnourished sheen. Cat wondered if the pills caused his decline or were holding him together.
Symian and Kraten returned with bags full of items to replace the ones they lost to Lelani in Central Park. Daniel had been seconds from death as of the last update, and all hoped Dorn would not need to use one of his special spells. It said something about the risk when Dorn’s own people were hoping against it.
“The lay pool is gone,” said Symian. His voice, soft yet stern, was like that of a father telling his wife their child had died.
“Gone?” repeated Dorn.
He clearly had trouble understanding “gone” as a concept. Dorn put fingers to his temple and tried to rub away a migraine. Cat was familiar with the pain—more than a headache, migraines fogged the thoughts, and light and sound bludgeoned you like solid objects.
“The witch,” Symian continued. He looked to Cat when he said this, as though it were her doing—like Lelani belonged to her. Symian was the most otherworldly of the rogue’s gallery: yellow where the whites of his eyes should have been with ink black pupils, grayish skin, and canine incisors. His hair was jet black and rough, like printer cartridge toner that had clumped together. How he moved through New York masked by only a ball cap, hoodie, and scarf was beyond understanding. He would never get away with it in another city. New York was still the best place on earth to be utterly alone.
“The lay line was gone when we returned,” he explained. “The pool all but dried out. We took what was left, but that spot will not replenish.”
“Where pray tell is there another source in this gods-forsaken city?” asked Dorn.
“It took us days to find that one, my lord. If we had a cleric…”
“Curse us for not including one when we went to kill, pillage, and rape people,” said Dorn sarcastically.
“There is a theory that magic can inspire laymen to accomplish great feats in its vicinity. I can search…”
So the all-powerful Lord Dorn was out of gas with no station in sight. Desperation would only make him more dangerous. Cat wanted—no needed—a break in the news from North Carolina. She was as antsy as her captors.
Oulfsan stood—that familiar preswitch look came upon him.
“My lord…,” he cried.
All in the room watched, like the man was about to explode. The switch that was normally instantaneous was drawn out this time. His face started the tiniest of expressions, an unfinished movement that looked to Catherine like the beginnings of terror. Then the man went blank. Oulfsan teetered forward like a chopped tree and hit the carpet hard. They turned him over—he breathed shallowly, his nose was a swollen broken mess, and his stare was hollow—no one was home.
“What happened?” asked Hesz.
“Was Krebe unconscious in North Carolina?” Symian queried.
“Even unconscious, he would have awoken alert on this end of the switch,” said Dorn. “Such was the nature of their curse.”
“Then Krebe is…,”
said Kraten.
“Krebe is dead,” Dorn confirmed. He popped another pill and pounded on his temples.
CHAPTER 36
WE USED TO BE FRIENDS
1
Dorn looked over the last of his men on this world. His migraine had escalated—only two Treximets remained. If he did not get home soon, he would die a failure, forgotten in a foreign land. How did it come to this?
No matter what, the Kingdom of Aandor could not be allowed to reclaim its rule over the other nations of the old empire. Farrenheil had worked assiduously for centuries to create a paradise free of the lesser races—those creatures that at one time or another had hunted men, or worse, in their disdain, failed to help when it had been in their power to do so; to allow the ogres, trolls, gnolls, frost giants, goblins, kobolds, and myriad of other races prey on men. The elevation of inferior races, a sharing of man’s knowledge, their power, their magic, was an invitation to doom the purity and dominance of mankind on his world. This could not be allowed. If Dorn had to die, he would not go alone. Prince Danel would accompany him into the afterlife—a fair price for ripping Dorn from his beloved Farrenheil … from Lara.
Strategizing through his migraine was like swimming against a strong current in icy waters. Dorn pointed at Ilyana and barked, “Prepare her!”
Dorn put on a full-length apron and long surgical gloves. He began mixing components for the compound. In a large five-hundred-milliliter beaker he put in water for oxygen and hydrogen, graphite dust for carbon, liquid nitrogen, calcium tablets, red phosphorus powder, potassium, sulfur, sodium, and all the remaining minor elements of life. Small bits of plants, weeds, tubers, fungi went in next—beside the beaker he set one of his mana stones and then lit the burner. The concoction soon boiled into a dark muddy green. Dorn opened two wrappings of sealed wax paper. In one, long white hair strands from a polar bear in Central Park, in the other the shorter gray strands of a wolf. The spell called for the hair of a single beast with follicles still attached. One beast. Dorn dumped both sets into the boiling mixture. In the reflection on a beaker he saw Symian wince.
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