by Garon Whited
“So there you have it,” I concluded. “You can either be a vassal lord to a church that views you as a tool for conquest, or you can be a semi-independent lord with worldly riches and a pleasant afterlife. No, don’t say anything. Look around Carrillon, ask questions, find out for yourself. Then decide—and do not tell me. Tell the Queen. She is in absolute, unquestioned charge of the kingdom.” I nodded at the grey sashes and gestured toward the archway. “You two. Please escort Prince Tannos to the Palace and turn him over—with instructions—to the palace guard.”
They saluted. I opened a gate and they hustled the prince through without a word. I turned back to Heydyl and Beltar.
“Heydyl. Are you okay?”
“Ah… yes?”
“You still look a little green. Turn around.” I walked around him so he didn’t have to have the remains in sight. “Now, since I’ve had to do that, I’m going to use it as another lesson. Think you can pay attention?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“All right.” I went to one knee in front of him and took him gently by the shoulders. “What you just witnessed was me doing something awful. I know it was, and it was probably worse than I should have allowed myself. That’s my problem. Your problem is to be a better man than that. It’s the most important quality I look for in a knight—to be a better man than I. To be more tolerant, more patient, more forgiving. That doesn’t mean to be a pushover, or to disregard wickedness and evil, but to be discerning regarding the difference between stupid, pig-headed people and true evil.
“It might help to regard me as evil. An evil,” I added, “that knows it’s evil, and doesn’t want to be. Which is why I keep emphasizing how you—and Beltar, and everyone else—must be better than I am. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know,” Heydyl admitted. “I’m no knight.”
“Not yet, no,” I agreed. “But answer me this. Do you want to be?”
“I don’t know if I can, my lord.”
“That’s okay,” I reassured him, nodding. “You don’t have to. I believe you can, but that doesn’t matter. You have to believe in yourself, and you have to decide for yourself.” I stood up and handed my backup sword to Beltar. He took it, glanced at Heydyl and asked the question with his eyes.
“Hang on to it,” I said. “He will be worthy of it if he decides to be.” Beltar nodded. He clapped Heydyl on the shoulder and the two of them left, taking the rest of the grey sashes with them, leaving me alone with the mess.
Mary rejoined me, carrying a bucket.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Much. The kitchen directed me to a slaughterhouse in town.” She held up the bucket. “They don’t do it on an industrial scale, not like they do with technology. The guys with the knives are also willing to do custom orders.”
“Ah. No drink-puke-drink cycle?”
“Nope. Straight blood, fresh from the throat. I brought you a bucket.”
“I was wondering if it was for me.” She put it down and I stuck a hand in the blood. The level of the bucket immediately dropped.
“I hear you’ve been busy.”
“Oh?”
“Lyraneyn is about to be formally inducted as the latest county or duchy or whatever?”
“Possibly. It’s Lissette’s problem. I simply crush all resistance to the Dark Queen’s will.”
“So I hear. –hey!”
“What?”
“If anyone around here is a Dark Queen, it’s me.” Mary pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “Lissette is the Bright Queen.”
“Ah, yes. Sorry. I was thinking of the Demon King and suchlike. So much to keep straight…”
“So, what’s next?”
I removed my hand from the now-empty bucket.
“Now you get to watch me on the mirror while I have a discussion with the Prince of Hyceteyn.”
“Sweet. You’ll make a circular gesture when you want the gate?”
“Think you can open it?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“How sure is ‘pretty sure’?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m sure.”
“You fill me with confidence,” I grumbled.
Mary ran the scrying mirror over the palace of Hyceteyn, hunting for someplace close to the private quarters, but not actively under observation. She showed me around the palace in the process so I could at least find the right rooms.
We settled on a door down the hall from the scry-shielded quarters. I would enter the room, Mary would close the gate, and I’d turn around to open the door to the hall. Sadly, there was no good way to sneak up on the two guards at the door at the end of the hall. There was nothing between my door and them, so using a blend-in spell wouldn’t work; guards notice you when you approach them. I didn’t want to throw around too many spells, either. Someone might notice before I was ready to be noticed. By preference, I’d rather not be noticed at all.
Fortunately, I have other resources.
Mary handled the gate quite well. It opened perfectly and I slipped through the moment it snapped into place. She shut it down and I looked for the scrying sensor. Yes, there it was. Good. Mary could watch from the hall.
I cracked the door open, quietly, and peeked up the hallway. Two guards, both bored, stood to either side of the door. Oil lamps rested on shelves behind them, in the corners, and maybe six candles were spaced along the hallway leading to them. Forty feet? Fifty? It was a good setup and hard for anyone to bypass in sneaking up on them.
My tendrils slithered out along the floor, invisible to mortal eyes, stretching down through the shadows. I brushed them over the life force of each guard, getting a feel for them, carefully leeching away a bit of vitality, then a bit more, until they were both weary enough to be leaning in the corners under the lamps.
I moved at the speed of dark, silent as a breeze, closing the distance in an eyeblink and jerking hard on the energies within their flesh. They both tried to lurch to their feet, but even the surge of panic couldn’t make up for the whirlpool of vital energy draining from them. They collapsed at almost exactly the same time. I caught one by the collar and pinned the other to the wall with my foot to keep them from clattering as they fell.
This also resulted in me standing there, awkward and off-balance, while trying not to make any noise. It was such a cool-looking maneuver in my imagination. With some silent cursing, I hopped around on one foot, shifting, using one guard as a counterweight and my foot on the other for balance. I eventually put them both on the floor with relative quiet. If I’d been thinking, I’d have prepared a silence spell. Live and learn.
The door, of course, was locked. It was also magically protected against tampering. It took a few minutes of fiddling to find the alarm connection and disable it, looping it back around on itself. It wasn’t magician work—too simple. A court wizard, perhaps. Then it was tendrils again to draw the bolts and gently lift the bar. Wrap tendrils around the hinges to squeeze them, minimize their vibrations and noise…
I dragged the unconscious guards inside and closed the door. Missing guards are bad, but seeing collapsed guards raises the alarm much more quickly. Maybe it’s only a difference of a few seconds, but sometimes a few seconds make all the difference.
The prince’s quarters were family quarters. Nicely arranged, too, and delightfully informal. Cloth dolls and wooden wagons told me a lot about the children in the area. There was a private dining room, complete with infant-friendly high chair. It was a good place to stash unconscious guards, so I did. As I searched, I risked a little magic to put a sound-muffling spell on the children’s doors. They didn’t need to be disturbed by what was about to happen.
The Prince slept with his wife in a big, four-poster thing, complete with curtains. They both wore gold pendants with the usual religious image. I clipped through the thin chain with what I laughingly call my fingernails—the chains were nonmagical gold—and removed the amulets. I drained some vitality from the lady to ensure a sound sleep, the
n ran tendrils through the bed and pillows. Sure enough, I found hidden weapons. Well, when you’re a head of state, you need to have every little edge, I suppose. I removed these with great care, then examined the headboard and the wall. No secret compartments, no hidden mechanisms.
The bell-pull for servants, on the other hand, could be a problem. I cut the velvety rope, high up, careful not to pull on it. This length of cord I tied to an upper crossbeam of the bed, letting it hang approximately where it had before.
I put one hand over his mouth and the other on his chest. He woke up fast, eyes snapping wide, and he flailed a bit. One hand went under the pillow for the missing dagger, the other grabbed the bell-pull, yanking on it. The rope gave a satisfying, deep-toned thrum! noise, probably a resonance effect from the bed. Very nice.
“You might want to hold still,” I suggested, and poked him gently in the chest with five fingernails. It wasn’t a coincidence the five points surrounded his heart. I may not have known where elves keep their blood-pumps, but humans are another matter. He took the hint and held still, glaring at me in the dark. I couldn’t have been more than a shadow to him, so he didn’t know what I was.
“I’ve had a difficult night,” I told him. “I’ve had an unpleasant discussion with Prince Tannos of Lyraneyn, a short and even more unpleasant discussion with his master, Prelate Fatuous, Fanatic, Faltos, something like that. I have an army to kill—annoying at best—and I’m interrupting other important business to attend to it. And you, prince, are acting as a pawn in service to the Church of Light. I’m disappointed in you.
“Now, if I take my hand away, can you talk quietly? I’d rather not rip your heart out, if you don’t mind. Your wife will be distraught to find it missing in the morning.”
He nodded, slightly. I removed my hand from his mouth, but not the one from his chest.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“My friends call me ‘Halar,’ but I’m probably better known as the Demon King. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Vetidius. Is my wife…?”
“Nobody’s dead,” I reassured him. “Sleeping, yes. Dead, no. And to set your mind at ease, your children won’t even know I’ve been here. Hopefully, your wife won’t, either. I’m trying to keep this visit private, between you and me.” I applied a little pressure with my fingertalons. “Now thank me for that.”
“Thank you.”
“Very good. So, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to send for a servant. You’re going to write out and send orders for your forces to abandon their invasion of Karvalen and return immediately. The peasants will go back to their farms, the mercenaries will be dismissed, and your men-at-arms will resume peacetime duties. Got all that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. In return, I’ll tell you how to make gobs of money, have a long and happy life, expire peacefully at a great old age, and proceed to a pleasant eternity. How’s that sound?”
He looked at me with an odd expression. His spirit wasn’t disbelieving, exactly, but he was both skeptical and interested.
“I’ll listen,” he agreed. I removed my fingernails from his chest.
“You woke up from a dream and made your decision. Go out into the front rooms, ring for a servant, and take care of business. I’ll sit right here, watching you and listening. Please don’t try to be deceitful. I can smell that sort of thing. Are we clear?”
He glanced at his wife, still sleeping. I could see the gears turning in his head, the implications, the possibilities.
“I understand.”
“Good.” I helped him out of bed and sat down on it, folded my legs tailor-fashion, and generated a small, floating light like a candle. He gasped at his first look at the monster.
“I’ll wait right here for you,” I told him. I also handed him the medallions. “You may want to melt these down for the gold,” I added. “They’re not helping you. In the broader sense of things, they’re using you.”
He took the medallions and weighed them in his hand. He eyed me while bouncing them on his palm.
“What did you mean about being a pawn?” he asked.
“The Church is using you as their tool. They don’t want you to be an independent state. They want you to ruin yourself and Karvalen so they can dominate everything.”
Prince Vetidius fingered the medallions for a moment more, thinking. At last, he snapped his hand closed over them and pulled on a robe. He shuffled out. I wrapped a tendril around him, following him with it, feeling his spirit without feeding on it. I also stretched my hearing and listened.
Summon servant… dig out parchment and pen… scribble… let servant in, order him to wait… scribble some more… consider sending other messages, or sending a fake one… discard idea, finish writing… sand, blot… wax, stamp with seal… fold up, more wax, stamp again… hand to servant, order it sent by fast riders… close door, lock door… stop outside the bedroom… breathe… gather courage… face the monster…
The door opened and Vetidius came in.
“Well done,” I told him. “You’re a wise man.”
“What now?”
“Now? It depends. If you had to go visit Actareyn, who would you leave in charge?”
“Normally, I’d have Marak for that.”
“Your seneschal?”
“Prime minister.”
“Normally?”
“Prelate Kybern,” he replied, “has been worming his way into an unofficial position as my chief religious advisor.”
“Oh? Do you not like this?” I asked. Vetidius shrugged.
“My wife is more devout than I. I haven’t cared overmuch who she keeps as a pet at court. I simply don’t like Kybern.”
“All right. You write orders to Marak to mind the place while you’re gone—a few days, I think—and I’ll have a word with Kybern.”
“Before you do anything… what are you trying to accomplish?”
“I’m offering you a chance to negotiate with the Bright Queen instead of the Lord of Light. A mortal queen with a kingdom to run, subjects to care for, and prosperity to generate. Someone who wants you to have a good life, not someone who views you as a useful tool in a game of gods.”
“When you say ‘negotiate’,” he began, and stopped.
“I mean just that. Talk to Queen Lissette and find out what you can get out of it. I don’t generally have anything to do with it.” Vetidius was instantly relieved. I could see it inside him.
“What assurance do I have we can… negotiate?”
“Instead of being stuffed in a dungeon or killed out of hand?”
“Yes.”
“I could offer you my word, if it means anything to you. No,” I protested, before he could speak, “don’t say anything. I can also point out I’m trying to save lives by this visit—yours, your family’s, and your people’s lives. Additionally, I know you aren’t to blame for this, and so does the Queen. While none of that is proof, I think it should at least earn the benefit of the doubt, maybe a little trust. Don’t you?”
The Prince thought about it. I can’t say I blame him for his caution.
“All right,” he said, at last. “When the army returns, I’ll arrange for a trip. She’ll be expecting me?”
I paused to think. I could drag him back with me through a gate, then shove him on through to Carrillon. On the other hand, it would be more dignified for him to arrive under his own steam. Did I want to force it now? Or could I trust him? He seemed sincere in his intent, but give him two days and some browbeating by his wife and a priest… would he still follow through?
You never know. At least the order recalling his portion of the army was already on the way. Even if countermanding orders rode out after breakfast, there would still be hours of chaos and confusion, not to mention horrible effects on troop morale. Nothing makes a soldier lose heart like a commander who can’t make up his mind.
Besides, I’ve been kind of touchy, unreasonable, and violent lately. Maybe a nice ges
ture on my part was called for.
“Do you have a magic mirror—or a wizard who knows the spells—to call the Palace at Carrillon?”
“No. At least, I don’t have such a mirror. I’ve heard of them, of course, and always wanted one, but they’re never for sale.”
“And your wizard?”
“Useful, but no magician. Magicians want more than steady work and comfortable quarters.”
“All right. I’ll let her know you plan to visit. You’ll be received with all honors.”
“As a prince?”
“Let’s say so. We’re—excuse me. You and Lissette will be negotiating terms for the formal integration of Hyceteyn into the Kingdom of Karvalen. And let me assure you, the only downside is, perhaps, a bit of pride. The upside is peace and prosperity. And while we’re on the subject, tell me something. Do you care more about being a prince—rather than a duke, or count, or whatever—than about the welfare of those under your care? Because I’ll tell you up front, Lissette is more concerned with ruling wisely and justly and sometimes mercifully than she is with being Grand High Royal Whatever. It does good things for those under her rule, from peasant to prince.”
Vetidius considered carefully. He didn’t answer immediately. I like that in a ruler.
“It won’t be easy,” he replied. “My own court will be less open to change.”
“Fair enough. If Kybern will be a problem, I can kill him for you. It would be no trouble.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Vetidius replied, mildly. He seemed startled on the inside but he kept it from his face.
“If you say so, I believe you. Thank you for being so reasonable about all this. Is there anything I can do for you in return?”
“Not that I can think of,” he lied. If he had a wish, it was for me to leave. I could see it in his spirit.
“Then I’ll be on my way. Nice to have met you.”
“Likewise.”
Diplomacy: The art of polite lies.