Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3)

by Brian J Moses

  “Perklet helped deliver the twins,” Alessa said, motioning to Bradley and Anolla. “I had such a frightful time with them, but he came back with their father from some trip or another and helped me through it. Such a dear man.”

  Perklet blushed and stammered a few quiet words that no one really heard.

  “So, are you boys just here for a bite, or do you have time to stop for the night?” Alessa asked, turning to address the room at large.

  “You don’t need your room back, do you, Garnet?” Brad asked apprehensively. “I mean, Anolla and I have sort of split it and Bronk has the whole living room to himself now, but…”

  “Is there just the one room, still?” Flasch asked, surprised enough to break out of his study of anything in the room but Anolla.

  “Local custom, dear,” Alessa said. “Children only get their own room after a certain age, what with needing a bit more privacy. The rest of the children share the common room until they move up and either take over the elder sibling’s room or have their own added. For the longest time, only Garet and I had a room of our own. Now with the twins, Anolla and Brad have to share, since they weren’t willing to split up.”

  “Twins stick together, mom,” Anolla said, smiling.

  Alessa beamed back at her daughter, then turned to Kala, “You know, dear, when Garet and I first moved to his family’s farm, we had intended on building our own home. We had a spot picked out a bit closer to the pond, but then his poor mother passed before we’d been here a week, and we settled in here instead. He grew up in that very room Garnet used.” She sighed a bit wistfully. “If any of the children come back here to settle in, maybe they can use that spot instead. It seems a waste to let such perfect grounds go to waste.”

  Garet hugged his tiny wife and smiled lovingly down at her. She smiled back, and it was as if the room itself became a little brighter and warmer.

  “So,” Brad began hesitantly, “I mean, the room…”

  Garnet shook his head, and Brad let out a small sigh of relief.

  “We really can’t stay too long, mom,” Garnet said apologetically. “I just couldn’t stand to finally get out this direction and then not stop by, but we’ve got sort of a large force on the move, and both dad and I need to be there.”

  “Oh, well then,” Alessa said without losing her cheerful demeanor, “just have a seat, and I’ll be right back out with some pies.”

  “Pies?” Trames said brightly. He had already finished off a third of the jar of honey.

  “Kishiberry, just like you said you like, Mr. Trames,” Alessa said. “It’s Vinnemanth, but they’re not as ripe as I’d like. They just don’t seem to be growing as well this year as they usually do. Heaven knows they taste horrible by themselves, but they do make for excellent pie stuff.”

  Trames smiled contentedly, then suddenly broke into a little sing-song voice:

  “Some things swim

  and some things fly;

  Some things walk,

  and some things pie.

  “Some things cluck

  and some things sigh;

  Some things neigh,

  and some things pie.

  “Now I don’t cluck

  and I can’t fly;

  But if I was a kishiberry,

  I’d just pie.”

  Alessa clapped her hands. “That was lovely, Mr. Trames,” she said, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  All the newcomers in the room stared at Trames in perplexity, no doubt unsure what to make of him. Bronk, Bradley, and Anolla had already experienced Trames’s eccentricities; he had treated them all with three or four songs over the past two days. There was no telling what would trigger one of the little ditties, which Trames appeared to make up on the spot about whatever happened to come into his strange head. Kala had been taking care of the older man for the last three months, and she hadn’t noticed any real pattern in their occurrence.

  Brican caught her eye again and nodded with his chin toward Trames.

  “Is he a few cats short of a litter?” Brican asked.

  Kala shrugged. “Trames is Trames. Sometimes he makes as much sense as a gay eunuch, while other times he’s fairly lucid and almost acts normal.”

  “I sure hope this isn’t normal,” Brican kythed.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Kala added blithely.

  Then Alessa returned with an enormous tray laden with food, and they all sat down around the expansive dining table and started in on the wonderfully aromatic pies.

  - 3 -

  Garnet kicked Flasch under the table and threw him a warning glance.

  “Relay from Flasch,” Brican kythed to Garnet with an amused tone, “he wants to know what that was for.”

  “Tell him to quit ogling my sister,” Garnet replied. “She’s not a dancer at Aunt Delia’s.”

  Flasch jumped guiltily as he received Garnet’s reply, and he glared sullenly at the Red paladin.

  “So,” Garnet said out loud, looking at Kala and Trames, “I’m to understand you two were waiting for us to show up. May I ask both how and why?”

  “You may ask,” Trames said politely, then he put another spoon-full of pie in his mouth and chewed happily while staring expectantly at Garnet.

  Garnet snorted softly in amusement.

  “Alright then,” he said. “How did you know we were coming, and why were you waiting for us?”

  Kala answered when Trames showed no sign of swallowing his food.

  “It was Trames who decided to come here,” she said, “but don’t ask me how he knew. He just up and announced one day we would be leaving on a journey to someplace special, and we were going to meet someone who would take us there.”

  Trames finally swallowed and then laughed boyishly. “A little birdie told me,” he said.

  Garnet stared at him. He turned to look at Kala with a raised eyebrow.

  “I am Trames’s ganashir,” Kala said. “In our village, those who can’t take care of themselves are assigned a caretaker to see to their needs, keep them company, and protect them from harm – even from themselves, if necessary. His last ganashir got married, so I was assigned to look after him about three months ago.”

  “Where is your village?” Garnet asked.

  “Deep in the northern Cataran Mountains in the nation you call Sella,” Kala replied.

  “We knew someone who grew up there,” Danner said. “He grew up during the last Merishank War.”

  “Things have calmed down since then,” Kala assured him. “We tend to be very isolated, which most of our people prefer. Our village is a very peaceful sort of place.”

  “Peaceful, and yet you carry a sword,” Flasch pointed out. “Not the sort of thing one sees on many women. At least not anywhere I’ve been.”

  “We practice the art of taekiri,” Kala said coolly, “and have developed it to a very refined state.”

  Flasch gave a rueful sort of smile. “You know, if we had our Orange friend Marc here, I’m sure he’d know what taekiri is, but I’m afraid I’m at something of a loss.”

  Across the table from Flasch, Anolla suddenly stretched, throwing her arms wide and slightly emphasizing her bosom. The effect on Flasch was immediate, and his eyes very nearly popped out of his skull. Garnet gave him another sharp kick under the table.

  Sister, he mouthed slowly when Flasch looked at him.

  Sorry, the Violet paladin mouthed back, then deliberately looked back toward Kala.

  “Taekiri is a style of fighting,” Garet was explaining to them all, “popular in the southeast regions around Tal Horam and Talla. It’s also very popular amongst elves who don’t prefer the halven. It’s typically two single-edged, curved blades: the shorter blade, the wakizashi, which you noticed, Flasch, and a longer blade which is no doubt safely somewhere other than on your person, right, miss Kala?”

  Kala nodded.

  “It is impolite to carry the katana indoors,” Kala said.

  “A woman swordsman,” Flasch said, sha
king his head. “That seems unnatural somehow.”

  “I’ve been trained with a sword, too, Flasch,” Anolla said in a too-sweet voice. “Bradley taught me.”

  “Somehow that’s even worse,” Flasch muttered, and Garnet was sure almost nobody had heard his friend’s comment. Garet, meanwhile, was looking at his middle son with a dark glare that demanded a few explanations.

  “Flasch doesn’t mean to be insulting,” Danner said to Kala, whose eyes glittered dangerously. “It’s just that in his world, which really only sometimes overlaps with where the rest of us live, a woman might learn how to use a sword, but there’s really no such thing as a swordswoman. Apparently that doesn’t seem to be the case where you’re from.”

  Kala flushed slightly.

  “Most women are not trained in my village,” she admitted, “and those that are rarely become as proficient as the men. I am something of an oddity, and I fear many of them are pleased to see me gone with Trames.”

  “You’re just a kishiberry, Kala,” Trames said, “and kishiberries pie. That’s all they do. If you try to fly, you’ll fall. If you try to walk, you’ll trip.”

  They all stared at Trames.

  “When a kishiberry tries to do more, it’s like trying to get richer milk by feeding gold nuggets to a cow.”

  Bronk frowned. “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Exactly,” Trames said and smiled triumphantly.

  Flasch looked at Garnet and smiled. “You know, I think I like this guy.”

  “You would.” Garnet cleared his throat deliberately. “I hate to bring things back to the point…”

  “But you’re going to anyway,” Flasch said. Garnet glanced at Danner, who obligingly reached over and smacked Flasch upside the head.

  “You say Trames wanted to come with us,” Garnet asked Kala, who nodded. Garnet shifted his attention to the older man. “Why do you want to go with us, Trames? Do you even know where we’re going?”

  “To Heaven, of course,” Trames said simply, “and I’ve never been there.”

  “So why do you want to go?”

  “I just told you,” Trames said. “Weren’t you listening?”

  Garnet blinked and actually had to think back on the last things the bizarre older man had said. By the time he’d parsed out the answer, three other conversations had started and the moment was passed. Somehow he couldn’t help but feel he’d been verbally sparring with an insane person and had been soundly beaten.

  Chapter 13

  Follow a road exactly to its end, and it will lead you exactly nowhere.

  - Trames,

  “O Musings” (976 AM)

  - 1 -

  They stayed at Garet’s farm for the rest of the afternoon until the sun began inching toward the distant horizon. Finally, they’d delayed to a point where they knew they’d have to ride back in the dark and would arrive after dinner was already over.

  “It’ll be cold trail rations for us tonight,” Flasch said cheerfully as he studiously avoided looking at Garnet’s sister. It seemed no matter where he went in the small house, she was somewhere just close enough to be in sight, and Flasch had to force himself not to stare.

  By Sin and San, she was beautiful! She made all the other women Flasch had seen pale in comparison, but there was something strange about her beauty. Flasch had seen plenty of women who looked prettier, but not more attractive somehow. Even Deeta suddenly began to fade slightly from his thoughts. Only a few days ago, Flasch had wondered again whether or not he was in love with the voluptuous dancer, but somehow now he didn’t have to wonder. He knew he wasn’t.

  Flasch also wasn’t in love with Anolla, nor anything approaching it – he was sure of that. Even if he thought that, he was smart enough and self-aware enough to know it could only be based on her physical beauty, and that was lust, not love. He had certainly felt that before! But there was something strange about the way Anolla looked. She wore no obvious makeup and no adornments, and while it was obvious she’d brushed herself up and had taken special care of her appearance, there was nothing artful about her looks at all.

  It stumped him and left him unable to say more than about two words to her before his tongue suddenly grafted itself to the roof of his mouth.

  After they all split up to prepare a few things for the return trip, Flasch hurriedly left the house and took a stroll outside, hoping to avoid Anolla altogether. He went around back and found a clear area on the ground where he could sit to think and pray.

  He mouthed a few formula prayers he found comforting, then launched into a lengthy, one-sided conversation as he quite often did when praying. Heartfelt prayers were very personal for him, and he rarely did so when anyone else was around. Flasch felt that when he was alone and in earnest, when he spoke to God it felt like there really was someone listening to him. He gave thanks for what he considered the many blessings in his life, he talked about his doubts and fears about the upcoming campaign, and then he inevitably came to a discussion of his suddenly twisted emotions.

  The conversation moved along at the speed of his thoughts, and while he often got side-tracked on some tangent, he mangled his way through his thoughts and emotions, hoping and asking for some sort of resolution. He left his thoughts open, as always hoping for some definite response, and when he was finished, he sat in silence for a long moment settling his thoughts. Flasch received no divine insight, he heard no heavenly voice giving him advice, but somehow he felt better having voiced his thoughts to a higher power. He went through another formula prayer, then said his Amen[16] and slowly began to straighten.

  The sound of voices from within the house stopped him. The window nearest him was halfway open, and he heard a man and a woman talking in low tones. He’d been so absorbed in his prayers, he hadn’t heard them until now. Curiosity overcame discretion and privacy, and Flasch sat motionless and strained to overhear the voices.

  “…just bring him back safely,” the woman said, and Flasch recognized Alessa’s voice, which immediately identified the man as Garet.

  “I’ll look after him,” Garet said, his voice a gentle rumble, “and I expect he’ll look after me, too, Mama. Garnet is smarter, stronger, and better than I ever was. We did well in that one, I think.”

  “Too well,” Alessa said. “It’s precisely because he’s so good that I’m worried. I don’t want him getting it in his head that he’s too good and finding out otherwise the hard way. San, I don’t want him anywhere near this awful war, but I know I can’t stop him anymore than I could have stopped you. And I won’t try. I just…”

  “I know, Mama,” Garet said gently, and Flasch heard a rustle of cloth and guessed the big man was hugging his wife to him. “I know. I was so proud when Garnet decided to follow me, but my heart lurches every time I even think about him being out there. I can only trust in his good sense and his training to keep him safe. He’s got a purpose, our son, and I think God’s got an eye out for him.”

  “God doesn’t love him like I do,” Alessa said fiercely. “He’s not his mother.”

  Garet chuckled softly.

  “True enough,” he said. “I’ll bring him back safely, Mama, I promise.”

  Another rustle of cloth.

  “You come back to me, too,” Alessa said, tears in her voice. “Come back to me, you great big, lovable fool.”

  Flasch heard the sound of gentle weeping and decided it was time he moved on. He crept away soundlessly, both awed and humbled by the display of emotion he’d overheard. Suddenly, his own tangled issues and concerns paled in comparison to what he’d witnessed, and he paused for a moment to wonder at his own reaction.

  When he went back inside, he looked at Anolla and smiled pleasantly, then turned to his pack and started stowing his gear, still absorbed in his thoughts.

  - 2 -

  Hoil wandered aimlessly through the sprawling camp, restless without quite knowing why. Or rather, he knew exactly why he was anxious, but he was trying desperately not to let
his hopes shine through or get the best of him. When Siran had first appeared and suggested he accompany the elven force on some journey, Hoil had been adamant in his refusal to just up and leave his business. Going legitimate was a difficult undertaking and a gradual change, but he’d made a promise to his brother, and Hoil was determined to keep it. With the people Hoil had working for him, though, it was a constant battle toward legitimacy, and he had to maintain a constant vigil to make sure one of his employees wasn’t trying to reinterpret Hoil’s orders.

  But then Hoil had read a personal letter Saran had brought to him, one that had not been signed in any way. When Hoil complained, “No one signed it,” he immediately clamped his mouth shut and reversed his decision not to go. Hoil had dropped everything in the lap of his stunned second-hand and left within the hour to accompany the elves. Indeed, no one had signed it, and “no one” had pointed out a possibility Hoil found impossible to ignore. The former thief had silently blessed the note’s author for his foresight and intelligence.

  “It’s why I hired the pointy-eared sneak in the first place,” he grumbled good-naturedly to himself.

  Hoil picked his way through the impossibly neat camp of the elves – who apparently pitched no tents, used no sleeping rolls, and slept in single-file ranks with their weapons by their sides – and made his way through the chaos of the paladin encampment. He nearly tripped over three men sprawled haphazardly in the shadows, and only Hoil’s natural grace and reflexes saved him from sprawling face-first into a stack of lances leaning precariously against each other. He silently cursed his way through the camp until he at last reached the fires of Shadow Company.

  The denarae on sentry had known of his coming long before he was visible, Hoil knew. He had learned something of their abilities, but his son had never explained the full scope of denarae mind-reading. Hoil admitted he was curious… for reasons that weren’t entirely financial, but close.

  With no set destination in mind, Hoil wandered through the orderly camp of the denarae until he spotted Alicia sitting at a small fire by herself. Most of the other women were busy cleaning the utensils from the evening’s dinner, a task Alicia normally oversaw each night, which made her isolation somewhat puzzling to Hoil.