Speak to the Devil

by Dave Duncan

  A voice behind him said, “May the Lord be with you, Brother.”

  He turned so fast that he lost his balance, tripped on a discarded boot, and toppled back onto the bed. Sunk in the mattress, he stared up in horror at the two men standing over him, their heads wreathed in the shining nimbus of sanctity. One was Brother Lodnicka, his master from Koupel. The other, even worse, was a tall, skeletal man of around fifty, with a silver fringe around his tonsure; he wore the Dominican garb of a black cloak over a white habit. Even after five years he was easily remembered as Father Azuolas.

  Marek opened his mouth to scream. His tongue was seized by invisible fingers and dragged out between his teeth, as if he were a horse being immobilized by a farrier. He could not call on his Voices for help.

  Azuolas had a smile to breed nightmares. “We grew tired of waiting for your return, my son.”

  “You were supposed to come back and tell us when you found Wulfgang.” Lodnicka was shorter and older, but massive and still immensely powerful, as Marek had learned under the lash. He had been a quarryman until the Church detected his talent and recruited him.

  “Did you find him, Marek?” the monk asked.

  Marek shook his head and then nodded.

  “He seems a little confused, Brother,” Azuolas said. “Does this bother you, my son?”

  Marek’s tongue was yanked painfully hard. He nodded and made urgent noises.

  “Of course we are not permitted to use violence except in self-defense, but gentle restraint is permissible. Indeed, I seem to recall that you had to be restrained a few times when we first met, some years ago. Ah, you remember also. I must warn you that resistance may be dangerous, although hurting you is not my desire or intent. So I shall give you back your tongue, but you must promise not to call on your Voices. Agreed?”

  Marek nodded, having no choice. His tongue was released.

  “Now, who was that young man who left here a few moments ago, the one you addressed as ‘Wulf’?”

  Marek swallowed a few times. Standing, or even sitting upright, he would not feel so vulnerable as he did engulfed in the soft feather mattress, helplessly tipped back on his elbows. “My brother Wulfgang, Father.”

  Any minute Wulf would walk in and be taken by surprise. He would be rendered powerless and dragged off to be tried for Satanism.

  “And you and your brother were planning to go and murder a certain Father Vilhelmas. How would you rate this as a sin, my son? Venial or mortal?”

  How did they know this? Marek had been a fool to think he could outwit the Church. “Justice, Father. He is a Speaker and a traitor to his king. He murdered the previous count and—”

  “But this is not your concern. If you have reason to suspect him of wrongdoing, then your correct course is to report him to Brother Lodnicka. Instead you plot murder? You see how quickly you are perverted when you speak with the devil, Marek?”

  “Vilhelmas is a schismatic, of the Orthodox Rite!”

  Azuolas barely shrugged. “He is misguided, then, but that will be charged against his soul, not yours. We may have arrived just in time to save you from an eternity in the fires of hell, my son. Brother, you brought the bridles?”

  “Yes, Father.” The monk produced two iron contraptions he had been holding behind his back.

  The friar held up a hand to stay him. “Some more questions first. When Wulfgang came to Koupel on Sunday, Marek, I understand that he did not display a nimbus. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Father.” Marek struggled off the bed so he could stand erect, but he still had to look up to the two men. Azuolas moved closer to the door, as if to cut off any attempt to escape.

  “And does he now? Have a nimbus, I mean?”

  Marek said. “No, Father.”

  “You are certain of that?” the Dominican demanded suspiciously. “I have your oath on it?”

  How much had he seen?

  “Yes, Father. He glows when he calls on Satan to perform his black arts, that is all. Not otherwise.” Now Marek was a perjurer, but they couldn’t do anything to him much worse than what they were planning already.

  “So he is still no more than a Four or Five, as that listing was explained to you?”

  “Yes, Father.” Fours or Fives were obviously much less dangerous than whatever Wulf was now.

  “So why did you not come back to Koupel and report?” the monk asked angrily. “As you were instructed to do and swore you would?”

  The longer Marek could spin out the conversation, the better the chance that he would still be able to do some good in the struggle when Wulf returned. “When I got here my brother healed my back, and I couldn’t face the pain that the journey would cause me.”

  Lodnicka smiled, showing long yellow teeth. “You have worse to face than that now, Brother Marek. I may gag him, Father?”

  “Go ahead. And hurry. We must be ready for the other child of Satan when he returns.”

  Lodnicka dropped one of the iron bridles on the floor and held out the other. “Put it on, Brother. You know how. It isn’t hard.”

  Yes, Marek knew how. On occasion he had spent days at a time locked in one of the horrible things, for penance, unable to call on his Voices for help. He had nightmares about them sometimes.

  “No!” he said. “Please not. I promise I won’t Speak.”

  But the monk just smiled, and Marek’s hands took the contraption and raised it to his face without any instructions from him. Even when the metal pressed against his lips he did not resist, for then there would be a struggle for control and the bridle might break his teeth. He opened his mouth to accept the clumsy and foul-tasting tongue plate. He was a puppet, being moved by Lodnicka. His hands pulled the clasps around to the back of his head, and his feet turned him around so that the monk could close the hasp.

  The click of the padlock was followed at once by a stunning explosion. Father Azuolas hurled himself onto the bed, facedown. Marek stared in bewilderment at the red foam spurting from a hole in the Dominican’s back, the surging bloodstain spreading over his clothes. Brother Lodnicka uttered a roar of fury and whirled around to meet Wulf’s attack.

  CHAPTER 32

  Wulf had worked hard to seem to enjoy the banquet. To sulk or mope would have been unthinkable, giving Anton cause to gloat and increasing Madlenka’s distress. He had shared one wistful smile with her at the beginning to show that he felt no bitterness, and since then he never once looked at her, or even at Otto, who was sitting between them.

  Dali Notivova proved to be good company, once he had been tactfully assured that none of the Magnuses would try to take his new title away from him. He had a couple of years’ mercenary experience, which he was willing to share in exchange for some well-edited stories of the new count’s youth. So the talk was good, with a bit of effort. The food was indifferent. The beer was weak and had absolutely no effect on a man whose beloved had been forced into marriage with another. Wulf thought he could have drunk a barrel of it and stayed both sober and somber.

  That he was still capable of swift decisions proved to be good fortune when the trumpet sounded and Marek ran screaming across the floor. Wulf saw a man with a limp enter and caught just a glimpse of a nimbus on the one behind him. The Church’s enforcers had found him; he was trapped. Go! Go where?

  —Just go!

  Then he had gone, into darkness in a cold, silent place. Unbalanced by the sudden move, he staggered, banged his leg on the edge of a stool, and steadied himself before he fell. His eyes adapted and found a faint light from barred windows, enough to show that he was in the seneschal’s counting room, which had flashed into his mind as a safe and private refuge. He had made the transition so fast that he wasn’t sure just what he had done, and had to think back and analyze it. He had gotten there by … how, exactly? Not by calling on his Voices. There had been no time for that.

  “Holy St. Helena, hear my prayer.”

  Silence.

  Alarmed, he tried again. “Holy St. Victorinus, an
swer me, I beg you.”

  Still silence. No Light.

  Again he tried, and again there was no response. Were the Voices angry at him? Would they return after he had worried a while, or would he would never hear from them again?

  He could worry about that later. Meanwhile, what was happening upstairs in the hall with enemy Speakers on the loose? If they came from the Church, then Marek was in danger, and if they were Wends, then his brothers were. Moving cautiously in the gloom, he made his way to the door, and was not surprised to find it locked. Could he repeat his miracle entry and magic himself back to the hall? Was it safe? What was going on? He needed to see!

  Then he recalled that strange vision of Dobkov that he had been granted just two days ago.

  —Look.

  He could see! He saw just as if he were up in the hall. He felt as if he were peering through a peephole, as he had in the earlier vision, and his view was strangely jumpy. He was standing, apparently, above the high table, looking at four intruders standing in the center, facing in his direction but blocked from coming any closer by a line of young men, the knights of Cardice. One of the four wore a nimbus; his black gown and hat and his oversized pectoral cross showing that he was a cleric of some kind.

  The peephole shifted, to show Marek back at his seat. It kept shifting: right, left, right, up, down. Then it switched completely, showing Wulf the hall from the side, looking across to where he had been sitting a minute ago. The tables there had been overturned since he left, and the floor was a midden of food, dishes, spilled wine, and happily scavenging dogs. Again, his view was restricted and would never keep still, as the owner of the eyes he was looking through kept moving them. His peephole was also much lower than it had been, so it might belong to Marek. He was seeing through Marek’s eyes. And hearing through his ears.

  “…your rudeness,” one of the intruders said, “we have brought a gift for your lady, a bolt of fine silk from distant Cathay. Marijus?”

  Madlenka had mentioned Sir Marijus Vranov, one of the Hound’s sons. The leader of this invasion must be the count himself. Again a shift, back up to the vantage point at the head table. There were the rest of his brothers, towering over the bishop and the dowager countess. Fair Madlenka in her steeple hat was the tallest of all.

  Another lurch in viewpoint. Very high, so now he must be seeing through Anton’s eyes. He tried to look at where he felt he had just come from—almost certainly from Marek’s vantage point—but still could not control what he was seeing and hearing. The eyes reported to him as well as to their rightful owner, but they took only their owner’s orders. Wulf felt as if he were speaking, but the voice he heard was Anton’s.

  Flip! again, and now he was one of the visitors, looking past the glowering knights. Much of this leapfrogging would soon nauseate him, but any new skill needed practice. If all high-rank Speakers could do this, that explained how these Pelrelmians had known that there was a banquet in progress and exactly when to intrude. It explained all sorts of things.

  One of the the intruders slipped past the knights and headed for the high table—a youth, carrying something. He spoke with Madlenka, under Anton’s glare, and gave her a squirming puppy. She gave him a basket of cakes in exchange.

  Wulf was inside Marek again when Vilhelmas’s aura blazed extra bright and the four uninvited guests vanished.

  Ha! So the invasion was over, leaving the question of what its purpose had been. It might have been an admission of weakness. If Vranov had gone to all that trouble just to utter a fake curse and frighten the townsfolk of Gallant, then perhaps he and his Wend friends were having more difficulty than they had expected in bringing in their Dragon. The castle’s defenses would be weakened if most of the population fled. Or the intention might been something worse, which Anton’s quick action in blocking their approach had prevented.

  So Vilhelmas did not need to Speak aloud to work his miracles or witchcraft, and now Wulf did not either. He must have moved up another rank. He wondered how far this new Seeing talent could reach. Could he consciously control it and peer out of anyone’s eyes? Branka’s, say, down in Dobkov? That would feel like the worst form of snooping. How about Count Vranov’s? Yes! He was looking straight at Vilhelmas, who was leering triumphantly through his beard and raising a beer stein as if about to propose a toast.

  Wulf withdrew quickly in case his spying was detected, back to the silent dark of the counting room. But now his duty was obvious—he must use his new skills to track down that Pelrelmian Speaker and kill him. That move alone might win the war, if the Wends did not have another Speaker handy. And it ought to be done quickly. He would have to ask for Anton’s approval, though.

  He knelt and said a formal prayer to his Voices. As before, there was no response at all. Had he offended them in some way? They had moved him out of the hall to safety, but he had not asked them for that blessing, nor had he spoken aloud. He had … he had thought a command, or a wish. He had better try it again, for if they would not help him somehow, he would be locked in until morning, at which time he would have a lot of explaining to do.

  —Limbo! Wulf stepped through where the door ought to be. Fortunately the corridor was deserted and a bronze lantern on a hook cast enough light for him to see where he was going. His first attempt to free the lamp from its captivity burned his fingers, so he used his hat as a glove. Then he hurried off, back to the hall to find Anton.

  He heard the riot before he reached it. A torrent of people was flowing down the staircase he needed, all heading to the castle door. From upstairs came weeping and cries of pain and occasional bellows from Vlad and others trying to impose order.

  Wulf stood back against the wall and sought out Count Vranov again. Now he was sitting in a circle of men around a crackling fire in some sort of timber building, lit by lanterns, reeking of smoke and men and beer. His son Marijus was there, and Father Vilhelmas, the glow of his nimbus apparently invisible to everyone else. Someone was singing a song and the rest were joining in the chorus. The Wends seemed to be celebrating.

  Back in Castle Gallant, the tumult was dying as order was restored. Wulf started up the stairs.

  Receiving Anton’s permission to proceed was no surprise. Many leaders would have refused to dabble in Satanism, but Anton had taken that plunge days ago, at the royal hunt. Others might have maintained that a priest must be treated as a noncombatant, and sacrosanct, but Vilhelmas had cast away that defense when he led the attack on Long Valley.

  Wulf had not expected Marek to want to join in. At first he pretended not to hear, but Marek was persistent and followed him all the way to the Orchard Room. The idea of a monk or friar helping to bushwhack a priest was bizarre, unthinkable; which raised the question of why such a deed would be any more forgivable when done by a layman. Had Wulf already been perverted by the devil’s voices? Had his saints fled from him because of that? He needed time to think about this; he was starting to regret his impetuous offer to Anton.

  Even worse, if possible, was being questioned by Marek about his mysterious disappearance from the hall. How could he explain it when he didn’t know the answer himself? He was so far ahead of Marek now that even to describe his new powers must seem like hurtful bragging. Whatever the monks had done to Marek at Koupel, they seemed to have stunted his ability to Speak. He had managed a couple of minor miracles, but none of Wulf’s encouragements had helped him progress beyond the level he had reached before he left Dobkov, five years ago. Was it possible that people could only advance up the ranks by their own efforts? Was that why both the Voices and the monks declined to answer questions?

  So Wulf refused to answer questions.

  He began calculating what he would need. Outdoor clothes, a sword, a dagger. Assassination was always less risky when done from a distance and Vilhelmas’s current companions were almost certainly men-at-arms. A quick trip through limbo, a point-blank shot, and an even faster escape … Yes, a crossbow would be the best weapon.

  He knew w
here the armory was. He promised to find Marek a sword, and made his way there.

  The armory was locked, of course, but no light showed under the door and locks were no longer a problem. The windows, although protected by massive iron bars, were large; he could see reasonably well by the lights in the bailey.

  The racks held a bewildering choice of crossbows: wood, bone, or steel; old and new, small and large. He chose the best he could see, a full-sized military bow of shiny steel with a hand crank. Locating the stores of strings, quivers, and quarrels took longer. Then he had to string the bow, setting the tiller vertical and putting a foot in the stirrup to hold it steady on the floor. Spanning the bow with the crank required a few minutes’ hard work, but not the monstrous strength needed to draw a longbow. He hooked the string over the nut and fastened it with the pin so it would be safe to carry it like that. He dropped four quarrels in a quiver, although there was little chance that he would have time to reload.

  His own sword was upstairs. He chose a shorter one for Marek and slung it on a baldric.

  Carrying a spanned bow indoors was antisocial behavior that would invite questions. He took a quick glance through Marek’s eyes to make sure that he was still alone and saw two men with halos looming over him. Wulf had always sympathized with his brother’s lack of stature, but experiencing it directly like this was a shock. It must be like living in a world of Vlads and Antons.

  “…still no more than a Four or Five, as that listing was explained to you?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Right! —Limbo … Wulf emerged in the corridor outside the door of the Orchard room, took a bolt from his quiver, and loaded it into the groove of the bow. He pulled out the safety pin. Before he could open the door, one of the men backed away from Marek so that he stood directly on the other side of it. Wulf squeezed the trigger.