The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War)

by Brian J Moses

  “I know that,” Maran replied quietly, losing none of his intensity in his patience.

  He has learned much in his exile, Sedel thought quietly. We made the right decision.

  “This is the audience you were granted instead,” Sedel said, then continued in a straight-forward manner. “Your brother was assassinated by factions within this very city who feel the El’Eleisha dynasty has ruled long enough. You are aware of political dissension, I’m sure, for it has not changed since the days of your own intended ascension to the throne. We believe whoever is responsible has backing from exiled Do, but at the very least they are receiving aid of some sort from the outside. We have been unable to discover the source of their support, nor have we been able to track them inside the city, which is what has led us to suspect the Do. Specifically, Shadowweavers. Only they would have the skill to elude us, but even master Weavers cannot maintain the Mist of Shadows indefinitely and would at some point pass through a shadow-lighted area, and we would find them.” Sedel grimaced in frustration. “But we have found nothing, and we believe their next move is likely to come soon.”

  “What is their next move?”

  “Can you not guess?” Sedel asked harshly. “They will hunt your father and your sister and your son, and they will slaughter them all. We think your father is next, and then your son and sister will be easy pickings for them, or so they think. They cannot realize the training your son has received. He is very near mastery already in both Shadow and Light, and he is more than capable of defending himself.”

  “But my father has no such protection.”

  “You’re right, he doesn’t.”

  Maran stared at him.

  “You serpent. You fatherless son of a Shadow-spawned whore!” Maran spat. “You’re using my father as bait.”

  “There is a greater good served…”

  “A greater good?” Maran practically shouted in a momentary loss of composure. “What if something goes wrong?” Maran asked, only slightly more calmly. “Are you going to just accept the loss of our nation’s monarch, my father, as a casualty of war? Acceptable losses?”

  “Your son is more than ready – and in the predicted state of war far more capable – to lead this nation than your father is,” Sedel said, then stared impassively at Maran.

  Understanding dawned with horror in Maran’s mind.

  “You want him to die,” Maran whispered. “You want my son to take the throne, so you’re willing to sacrifice my father. How will it happen?” he asked harshly. “Will you promise him invisible protection to lure in the enemy and only offer a token resistance before allowing them to butcher the king? Or will you just not show up? Will you betray him? You may as well save them the trouble and stab him in the back yourself.”

  Sedel’s fist lashed out into Maran’s head where his ear was missing and sent him reeling to the floor. Maran staggered to his knees and received Sedel’s boot in his ribs. Coughing, he stumbled back and found the other elf crouched over him with a knife to his throat.

  “I love your father as surely as I love both you and your son,” Sedel said menacingly. “When the time comes, I will lay down my own life before I allow them to take your father’s. I swear on my soul’s hope of rebirth this is so. I loathe this necessity nearly as much as you must, but I must look ahead to the future of our nation. You have had the luxury of not watching a beloved monarch slip ever so slowly into twilight as night descends upon him. You have not had to see his enemies slavering around him like jackals, and you have not been burdened with the knowledge that to save a nation, a man beloved of your heart must be willingly let to die. You have been gone for too long and no longer see the truths that once made you so promising. The nation must be served first, and individual lives must come second.

  “I will give my life in defense of your father, whom I love, because I cannot do otherwise and live with myself in the new world that will result from his death. There is a greater good served in his death, and you can play a part in that. You must play a part, if your son is to survive.”

  Maran’s blind anger faded, and he glared at Sedel.

  “We do not know how the attack on your father will come, or when it will come,” Sedel continued with less ferocity, “and if there is a way to preserve the nation and avoid his death, I will take that path without hesitation. But whether I succeed or fail, you must be at your son’s side to ensure his survival. He has more natural talent, yes, but you have the experience and skills necessary to see him through. His guards can deal with most threats, but you are the only one strong enough to protect him from the Do assassins who will doubtlessly come for him.”

  “When this is over…” Maran began.

  “When this is over, one or both of us will be dead, and it won’t matter,” Sedel said with finality.

  - 3 -

  The others listened in silence as Maran related the tale of his meeting with the unknown elf. Maran had received permission to tell them much of what he’d been told, with the exception of anything to do with Maran’s family, or the name and nature of the Do’Fidel. Maran also voluntarily omitted Sedel’s name – false though it was – and his determination to sacrifice himself for his king; some things were not meant for others to know or understand.

  When he was finished, they sat in a somber silence for several minutes digesting what the shadowy elf had told them. Finally it was Perklet, of all people, who broke the silence.

  “Perhaps that explains some of what we heard today,” the quiet Green paladin said. They all looked at him and waited patiently while he flushed at the sudden attention. “Nuse, Moreen, and I sat in a bar with two of your invisible friends at our side translating conversations for us. Not the best way to pick up information, to be sure, but they wanted a new perspective from us and we had to know what was being said, so we made do.

  “Anyway, during a brawl that broke out between two elves, someone was knocked down and their head split open from a splintered chair,” Perklet said. “I knelt and healed him discreetly, and no one noticed. He said some things, as did his companion who picked him up, that our translator didn’t think much of at first. They said, ‘The father follows the son, the sun follows the night, and the stars rule the sky.’”

  “It’s a reference from an elven play,” Maran said, nodding.

  “That’s what the translator said, but it just struck me as odd, and I remembered I’d heard something very similar between two elves earlier,” Perklet said insistently, “and I started wondering. Your brother was just slain, and if your father is the next target, the father will follow the son. The stars could be these Do rebels hoping to gain power. His friend murmured something about being in no condition to act, and cursed him for being stupid and getting hurt.”

  “It’s thin,” Hoil said skeptically. “There’s nothing about the sun following the night that fits.” Perklet looked crest-fallen.

  “There was more to it,” Moreen said, breaking in. “His friend mumbled a few other things that were hard to hear and our translators could only catch snatches, but the words king and prince were almost definitely said. Looked at in the light of a conspiracy, it almost sounds like a code, like a sign and countersign.”

  “It could have been from the same play, but I’m beginning to believe you,” Maran said grimly. “If nothing else, it’s an odd reference to be made so blithely.”

  “That’s what we thought when our translators explained it to us,” Moreen said, “and we also had a few questions we wanted to ask you, Maran, rather than our invisible escorts.”

  “Such as?”

  “Where have your friends been looking for these unknown invaders?” she asked.

  “In just about every home, office, building, nook, and cranny in every city on the island,” Maran replied in frustration. “In particular, there’s not a level of this city they haven’t searched thoroughly.”

  “What about beneath the levels?” Moreen asked pointedly. Beside her, Nuse nodded in support, hi
s eyes thoughtful.

  Maran stared at her.

  “You keep telling us what wonderful cities you elves build on these branches you make grow together to make solid walls and solid floors, but what’s to stop someone from making something beneath one of these levels, hiding in the shadows?” Nuse continued, picking up on Moreen’s line of thinking. “Think about it.”

  “I don’t have to think about it,” Maran said, now angry at himself. “My associates have been doing it for centuries. Elven society is conditioned to avoid the shadow whenever possible, and the concept of going beneath the levels to where there is no light at all is an anathema to the elven psyche. It’s an aversion the Do have carefully fostered ever since they first started moving back into the cities and concealing their presence. Maybe that conditioning worked a little too well, though. I believe you may very well have hit upon a social blindness that backfired on its instigators.”

  Maran cursed softly. “Surely they thought of that, but would they have searched as thoroughly…” He trailed off in thought. He pulled a black balaclava from a hidden pocket and slipped it over his head.

  “You must excuse me for a moment,” he said and abruptly disappeared from sight.

  They stared at each other in silence, not knowing what to do or say. After a few awkward moments, they heard a loud scream right outside their door, and the wood rattled against the lock. Birch immediately placed himself between the door and Moreen and laid a hand on his sword while Perklet and Nuse took flanking positions on either side of him. There was a loud pounding, as of someone trying to break down the door, then it stopped with a choking gurgle of sound. Then the door opened, despite being locked from inside, and Maran stood there with two bodies at his feet. One was of an elven guard, the other was an elf wrapped in black clothing and missing an ear.

  Maran looked at them grimly.

  “It’s started.”

  Chapter 17

  If we stand on the backs of those who come before us, we must pay for their sins. If we stand upon their corpses, we must pay for our own.

  - Jared jo’Raneth,

  “A Coming of Angels: The Epiphany” (34 AL)

  - 1 -

  “Birch, Hoil, come with me now!” Maran barked from the doorway.

  “Where…”

  “There is no time to explain,” Maran said sharply. “Both of you. Now!”

  Birch drew his sword and turned to Nuse and Perklet.

  “Gentlemen, I need you to stay here and protect Moreen,” he said. “Take whatever steps you deem necessary, but keep her safe. Selti, stay here,” Birch ordered. The gray dakkan nodded sullenly, but obeyed.

  “Our life before hers, brother,” Nuse said soberly. The three paladins joined hands.

  “For God and for man. For Life,” they said as one.

  Birch took one of Moreen’s hands and clasped it tightly. She mouthed, “I love you,” as he squeezed her hand and turned away.

  Birch followed Maran and Hoil into the hallway and found he had to run to keep up with the fleet-footed elf. Maran wielded a dagger in each hand, and his eyes were coldly murderous. Birch watched every corridor carefully as they passed, but he saw no other elves.

  “What’s happening, Maran?” Hoil dared to ask.

  “They’ve begun their attack on my family,” Maran said. “I just spoke with a guard sympathetic to my companions, and my sister is dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was almost an accident,” Maran said emotionlessly. “She stumbled onto a group of the intruders while they were dressing themselves in guards’ uniforms, and she screamed in warning. The false guards slit her throat, but it was too late. I don’t think they were quite ready to attack, so now their schedule is upset, which we can use to our advantage. This is being done by experts, and it might have been over before we knew it began if not for her chance blunder.”

  Maran turned to look down a hallway, and Birch saw a deep, burning rage in the elf’s eyes: the only outward sign of the fury seething within him. Hoil looked at the elf and shivered.

  Twice they encountered elves who immediately attacked Maran. The first time he slit two throats and disemboweled one before Birch or Hoil could even catch up to him, and by then there was little left to do. At the second encounter, Maran merely knocked the men unconscious and quickly had them moved into a large room nearby.

  “These are loyal guards,” Maran explained. “They just mistook me for an intruder.”

  “Which brings up a good point,” Hoil said. “That’s all well and good for you to know the difference somehow, but what about us? No offense, but a loyal elven guard looks much the same as a traitor in a uniform.”

  “For now, focus on incapacitation, and let me worry about the difference,” Maran replied. “Just…”

  He suddenly spun and deflected the straight-bladed end of a halven, diverting the weapon into the wood of the door. The attack came from outside the room, and Birch pushed past Hoil to position himself to back up their elven companion. Maran ducked to the side, pivoted on one foot, then kicked out. One blow caught his assailant on the wrist, the other in his belly, driving him back out of sight before Birch could see him.

  “Hold, El’Siran,” Maran said sharply. “I serve the king.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I am he who was once El’Maran,” Maran replied, removing his balaclava. “You once brought my brother and me dry clothing after we fell off a chiplin into the Si’risha’mi River. I serve my father, the king.”

  Finally Siran came into view, holding his twin-bladed sword at the ready as he advanced into the room. He stared at Maran’s missing ear, then he nodded and looked at Birch and Hoil.

  “You are together?”

  Birch wasn’t sure which of them he was asking, but all three nodded at once.

  “Then I must trust you,” Siran said. “Where are you coming from?”

  “Our quarters, but more important is where we’re going,” Maran said. “My father is in danger, as is the prince.”

  “The king must be protected,” Siran said immediately.

  “Agreed,” Maran replied. “You know where he can be found? Good. Hoil, Birch, follow Siran and help protect my father. I go to protect the prince.”

  “But…” Hoil began.

  “The Do can turn invisible and strike from concealment,” Maran said urgently, cutting him off. “The king has adequate defense against their kind, but I fear he will be overwhelmed if his defenders must face Do and other, more visible traitors. I trust the Elan’Vital to deal with mundane enemies for my s…nephew, but he lacks my father’s protection and will need me to deal with the Do.”

  Suddenly Siran pitched face-first into the room with a cry of surprise. Birch looked quickly about, but saw no one. Maran threw a hand up and leapt forward. He battled seemingly with the air, but metal rang on metal, and Birch saw sparks fly from where the blade appeared to meet nothing at all. Then Birch’s eyes burned fiercely, and two other elves suddenly appeared in his vision, outlined with a reddish-orange haze. Birch had experienced something similar during his encounter in Den-Furral with the room full of invisible demons, and it only took him a second to adjust to his enhanced vision.

  A glowing black orb hung in the air where Maran had gestured, and Birch assumed it was allowing the elf to see his assailants. The two attackers had forced Maran back into the room and were beginning to spread out to come at him from alternate sides. Hoil pulled Siran out of the way and looked frantically about, trying to see some sign of what was going on.

  Another elf with a similar fiery tinged aura had already crept into the room and now circled Maran warily. Just as he was about to strike the unsuspecting elf, Birch leapt forward and drove his sword into the invisible elf’s side. He followed up quickly with a swing that left the elf in a bleeding, still invisible hulk on the floor. The elf’s chest still rose and fell in shallow breaths.

  The attack drew the attention of one elf attacking Maran, who immediately
capitalized on the distraction and stabbed the man in the throat. Maran finished his other opponent a moment later, then stared at the third man Birch had taken down.

  “Wings and demons,” Hoil swore as the two elves Maran had killed suddenly became visible. With cold practicality, Siran calmly stabbed both men in the heart.

  Maran looked up at Birch. “How?”

  “My eyes.”

  “Then come with me,” Maran said. “I will likely need your help, and if you can see them, your vision may be more reliable than my own senses. I can hide myself, but for me to make a light that will let me see them, it would also reveal me.”

  “Hold still,” Birch said, reaching toward the elven ex-prince. “This may feel a bit uncomfortable, and may not even work.”

  Birch gripped Maran’s head in both hands and locked eyes with him, concentrating on what he wanted to happen. The Gray paladin had done the same thing with Garet during the battle at the dwarven capital, acting purely on instinct, and he was certain he could make it work again. There was a flash of heat and light from Birch’s eyes, and Maran cried out and pulled away. Then he stared at the ground in wonder.

  “You can see him?” Birch asked, pointing to the third elf who still clung to life.

  “Red outline? Yes.”

  “Good. Siran, Hoil, you too.”

  Birch duplicated the trick with his brother and the elven guard. Siran quickly scanned his surroundings with his newly enhanced vision and caught sight of the remaining elf slumped on the floor. With cold practicality, he stabbed the defenseless elf in the heart, and the red glow around him faded as he became visible to the unaided eye.

  “Anyone you see with that red aura is invisible, but that doesn’t mean they’re your enemy,” Maran warned. “There are Do at work here acting to protect the king. In particular, you will find one at his side who is to be trusted above all others. Now go, Siran, Hoil. Protect my father.”

  Maran had only a moment’s hesitation about what he’d said to Siran about Do protecting the King. The implication was, of course, that the king knowingly employed the services of the forbidden outcasts. He was confident in the elven captain’s loyalty, however, and the fact that Maran was still alive proved it. Siran would never have let him leave the room alive had he not put his loyalty to the king above Maran’s presence as one of the Do.