***
The Baron accepted their company graciously upon learning of their desperation. He was not the kind of man to pass up opportune folk. Business is a simple matter of reason and judgment. Weighing and accepting a measured risk of investment for a moderate return. Those under dire circumstances however, could often produce a great much profit, with limited investment.
The rotund Baron greeted them in his foyer with three armed guards. The fine soft furniture in the room was rich with needlepoint design. They had been imported from somewhere far off that the Baron couldn’t recollect, but he had got them at a good price.
“I hear that you have need of an urgent favor.”
Raunst sat on the edge of his seat with his hands together, elbows resting on his knees. “We have come to trade for horses; I wouldn’t say our need is urgent.”
"He did." The Baron singled out Jake. Jake shrugged. “Where is it that you mean to go?”
“Enfiris.”
“The ruins. Treasure hunters?”
Raunst took the lead on negotiations. “I have an interest in the antiquities there, consider me a historian.”
“I am many things but I am no fool. Few historians come calling to me with heavy armor and swords. That makes you either noble guards on some knightly quest or mercenaries. Or maybe outlaws?”
“Our business there is our own.” Psydra echoed.
“Very well, I can deal with historians, its not good business for me to pry, but I shall require some manner of payment up front.”
“Name your price.” Psydra said.
The Baron gave a curt grin. “Seventy coin.”
“That’s robbery!” Jake jumped out of his chair.
Raunst motioned him to sit. “I can offer you twenty coins, and an offer of eighty more on our return.”
“I don’t expect people to return. I must insist on payment now.
"If our quest were of noble purpose, to defeat a monster. Would that better our price?" Raunst asked.
The Baron waived his hand at one of his guards. "I am thirsty." He then turned to Raunst looking over the four travellers again. "No."
Psydra could hold her tongue no more. “You fool, don’t you see that Xero is about to be on your doorstep? Will you trade with him the way you do us?”
“Psydra!” Charles said.
“I do and have.” The Baron's voice stayed level and full.
“You trade with that devil?” Psydra's face turned“ flush.
"I speak ill of no one that pays me up front. I am a business man after all. These petty quarrels drive sales. Everyone needs something, a horse, a sword, slaves, wine, it all has a price. And it all needs a vender.” The Baron gave a tiny bow.
Raunst felt they were nearing an impass. “What else can we provide to you as payment?”
The Baron's eyes shifted to Psydra. His narrow lips folded in around the edges toward his crinkled nose. His silver white teeth glimmered in the glaring evening sun shining in from the window. Raunst stood, spat on the floor and walked out. The other three walked out behind him.
Just beyond the gates of the Baron’s homestead the four huddled together. The group reviewed the house and the stables. The greedy man had saved far too much on repairs and had many loose gate panels to show for it. Although the entrance and escape would pose little challenge, the four knew it best to wait for the cover of darkness.
They spent what coin they had and bought provisions to fill their knapsacks. By that time, the full dark of night had set in.
The sky was cloudy, but the moon had yet to rise. A low mist crept in from the sea hanging in thick patches in the air. The company moved to the fence down by the stables. The house was up another three hundred yards. A single watchman had duty over the horses. Raunst crept up from behind. Ten paces from the man the guard growled, but didn’t move otherwise. The guard’s head laid off to one side. He was already asleep.
The clamor of horses woke the guard. The four galloped past. The guard sprang to his feet and toppled over, finding his legs had been bound as he slept. The light of lanterns emerged from the house in the distance. Raunst and his companions hurried away into the darkness. The faint echo of the Baron’s curses fell on their ears then faded below the thunderous run of the horses.
IV: The Demon Stirs Within
Raunst could barely calm himself to rest along the way. He pushed them hard on their two day trek, as did Psydra. They arrived at the empty ruins of Enfiris in the early morning hours. The great parapets had been long overrun with wild vines. Trees grew up through the walls and the derelect cottages scattered before the ancient castle.
The four entered through the gates of the palace, one side of the heavy doors fully collapsed next to the stone wall. Raunst could see the glory it must have been in the past, years ago when the flags were flown proudly. The stone would have been freshly whitewashed.
With his eyes closed, he imagined what his ancestors must have felt riding into this great fortress. The blue cape he wore blew gently in the breeze. The horse came to a halt. Raunst returned to the present and dismounted with the others. Psydra led the way through an open door.
They walked down a long passageway. The rains had worn through the ceiling long ago. The morning light peaked through above, casting a pink hue on the crumbling stone wall. The passage emerged into a large chamber, a ruined long table and chairs lay on the ground. More bits of roof and broken stone littered the floor.
Climbing through the debris, Psydra passed down another hallway to a solid oak door that hung on rusted iron hinges. It had defied the elements longer than any other door they had come to so far. She pulled open the heavy door. The four slipped inside.
The room was lit by the sun pouring several stained glass windows. Each pane depicted a separate demonic figure. It struck him as odd in two ways. First, it was strange to see such darkness displayed so boldly, even now people withheld such displays for fear of invoking darkness. Secondly, the beasts were each depicted in a collected and noble stance. These windows appeared to be almost in honor of the demons. Not the way he would expect to see them represented in the home of his ancestors, who had fought against the demons.
The rest of the room was lined with shelves for books, although many of the shelves were empty. Littered mainly with cobwebs, dust and piles of dead insects. As he conitnued to look around, Raunst distinguished that this room, unlike all the others, appeared mostly undamaged by time.
“This was the great library at Enfiris. This is where your mother came and studied the journals of your ancestors. There are other books here, some placed by the great TecDemon, presumably for the study of his heirs.”
“What about those?” Raunst pointed to the five windows.
Psydra explained from what she had read. “The Demon lords, Peros, Guanich, Carzinine, Daerdek and Arradeel. This place is as much about them as it is you. The five master demons once ruled all, again and again the people waged war to be free, and again and again they failed. The dark armies and minions of the demon lords had free reign and people lived in terror or slavery. The orc and ogre tribes still pass on the legends. Many of the clan races do.
“Gaunich, the world eater, declared himself lord and master of the other four demon lords. This sowed the first seeds of dissent among them. A single human champion rose up during this time and drove them all out of this world. It was the power of the medallion. Even these histories don’t say where the medallion came from, only where it went. The medallion passed down for generations through a druid tribe. For the better of the last one thousand years, that is where it stayed.
“Seven generations ago, one of the clan races known as the Nathawk all but eliminated the druid people. They sought the amulet's power. Your ancestor, TecDemon defeated them. He spent the rest of his life hunting down the real source behind the Nathawk attack.”
“Who was that?”
“Te
cDemon wrote that it was Gaunich, returned to this world.”
“This is all in the books here?”
Psydra handed him a leather bound tome, the paper frail and thin. The ink in the pages had run very little. Raunst began to read. The words drew him in, page after page reciting the stories that Psydra had told. The written text engaged him more deeply than her recounting. Raunst could almost hear the voice of his ancestor speaking directly to him. The final entry was abrupt, set in a different tone than the others.
“What does he mean? ‘I see now that it was you that was in my palace and in my heart. You made me so that I may unmake you.’”
“I don’t know.” Psydra thought over her years of study at their parent’s side. “My father said that it was a warning.”
“A warning of what?” Raunst asked.
“A warning for you. Your mother thought so as well. It made it that much harder for her to ever bring you close to this.”
He could see the hesitation in her. “There is something else?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Psydra extended her hand to an object behind him. Raunst, Jake and Charles all moved over to study the object. In the center of the room sat a stone column ten feet in height. The column was comprised of seven equally sized cylindrical blocks. The top cylinder was engraved 'Sarai TecDemon' and had a man’s face in chiseled detail next to it. Each stone below did the same. The faces and names continued to the bottom two stones, only the surname “TecDemon” was engraved. No first names. The last image was not of a man though, but of a baby. The baby dangled in mid air, placed directly between two massive jaws lined with razor teeth.
“Is this supposed to be me?”
“Consumed by the world eater.”
“I don’t understand,” Raunst twisted his head looking at the detail in the image, hunting for a hidden means to decipher it.
“There is more to these ruins than the library, we should split up. They have been covered top to bottom in the past, but we will look again.” Psydra tried to sound confident, but even her head waivered as she spoke. The grave reality of her desperation had set in. “Raunst, I’ll show you to the throne room.”
Psydra and Raunst alone made their way to the throne room. Jake and Charles split up to search other areas of the deserted keep. The throne room, like the library, had done well under the stress of the elements over time. Art murals ran along the full breadth of the walls. The murals were dotted with holes in many places, presumably where valuable gems or precious metals had been stolen from years ago. The throne itself, also of a presumed value, was no longer in place. The raised stone floor at the rear of the room, as did great painted wings on the mural, indicated clearly where it the throne once sat. Two great wood tables lined each wall. Windows segregated the murals. The ruler here could clearly see all that lay beyond from this high room in the keep.
Raunst moved around the room checking nooks and crannies. He scratched at the floor where the throne once sat, no secret compartments or loose stones.
“I’m going to go spot the other two and I’ll check right back. If we get separated we can meet out front at noon. Watch where you step, some of the wooden floors here are set to give way.” Psydra had one foot out the door when she finished.
Raunst waived her off, intent on his quest. Whether or not the medallion rested within these tattered walls made no difference to him. He was consumed with a desire to hunt. Like a bloodhound on the chase he could almost smell it. There was something here, it excited him, deep in the pitfalls of his own mind. In the darkest places an illumination was shining back at him. An image emerged before him, a man. Raunst could no longer place himself in a dream or reality. He stood from his place on the floor and extended a hand out to touch the figure in front of him. The stranger stood in a light suit wearing a serene look on his face and didn’t rush to speak.
Raunst had never met this man before, but he could feel that the two were not strangers.
“I have waited for you some great time, Raunst Baltir.” Sarai TecDemon’s lips moved in small motions, but his words came out bold and crisp. “One hundred and seventy two years is no easy task for someone.”
The voice too was foreign yet common to him. Raunst felt it in his heart but asked anyway, “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” Sarai TecDemon’s bond with the boy was strong, the magic link purposely tuned to him many years ago.
Raunst spoke plainly, “You are TecDemon, Duke of Teclesea.”
TecDemon gave a humble nod. “There are things you must know, so listen to me closely. My time will come to me quick, now that we have met.”
“I don’t understand,” Raunst said.
“Sadly there isn’t time to tell you all. I will share what I can.” TecDemon’s appearance at first had been a man no more than ten years Raunt’s senior. As he spoke, his hair began to gnarl and gray in front of the boy.
“A thousand years ago when the great war against the demon lords and their armies, Gaunich, strongest of the demon lords, was banished by the dark spellcraft of the other four. The human tribes united in an offensive. Among them was a single champion, a young boy not of nobility, but of tremendous valor. He alone commanded the demon’s own dark magic.
“Using ancient demon rites would seal the demon lords into a container of elegant yet simple earthly materials. The medallion is this prison. He also wielded a weapon of tremendous power whose wounds were strong enough to bring a demon lord to his knees. The Onyxite sword that you now carry is this blade. Its power is tremendous in your hands. This will not only aide you but others fighting with you as well.”
“What do you mean?”
TecDemon’s face withered further into old age. His words became softer and warbled with a tender feebleness.
“As descendants of the champion, we can hear the voices within the medallion. So too did the man’s and the demon’s thought intermix.”
“It’s in me.” Raunst could feel it. It had been growing stronger every step he took toward Enfirus. In the throne it was the itch he could not scratch, tearing at him to hammer away at the stone with his naked fists to uncover its hidden whereabouts.
“After the four demon lords were banished, their spells and powers weakened over time. The horde clans lost power, humans, elves, dwarves, and other tribes now free became kingdoms and nations. They days of the demon lords had passed. But the magic of the four also faded the barrier protecting our world from Gaunich faded as well. I was very young when his legion of monsters attacked me, and it was then I found this power. Over time of wearing the medallion, I learned more of the story, as the thoughts of the demons still haunt it.”
“Where is it?”
The feeble old TecDemon became faint. The young Raunst caught his failing body as it collapsed. His legs and arms turned dry and then to dust. TecDemon’s magic spiraled to its end.
He whispered, “Xero has come to answer Gaunich’s call. The monster is what he truly hunts, returning to his master. Xero must be stopped before the two are united. When I could not defeat Guanich I used an ancient demon spell to maintain my life until suitable heir arrived to fill this need. I did not know then it would be this long.”
“How do I defeat him?”
“Go to where it began, south. Cross the Nortll river and then head straight through the pass on the trade road. From there, go east. Just beyond the hill crest there is an old stone marker and an overgrown road. Teclesea.”
“The medallion is there?”
The form faded to dust in his arms. The dust faded into nothing. Raunst sat on the floor, legs crossed in deep contemplation when Psydra returned. He looked to her with a blank stare. Psydra jumped back. For a moment she swore she saw the same fire she had seen in Xero’s eyes many times before.
Psydra must have been mistaken, for his cool blue eyes had an even more gentle quality than she w
as used to. In one way or another, Raunst had changed.
“What happened?” She asked.
The Demon Legacy Page 6