The Demons We See

by Krista D. Ball

  He grunted, pleased with himself. “It’s always hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake with you.”

  “You know what, Walter? Go fuck a goat,” Allegra snarled. She stood up and spoke as she walked across the room toward the door. “I regret even thinking you were mature enough to put aside our past differences…”

  Walter grabbed her by the arm to stop her steps. “You killed my child.”

  “I did nothing of the kind,” Allegra shot back. “You were about to leave on your grand adventure as a rebel. What was I supposed to do? Stay here and raise a child that could be used as leverage against you? No.”

  “That was my child,” Walter snarled, tightening his grip on her arm.

  “If you don’t let go of my arm right this second, I will scream,” Allegra said in a very calm voice. “And once Captain Rainier storms in here and hears that you assaulted me after I extended you safe passage, you will find yourself drugged and in chains being dragged to those mines that you fear so much.”

  Walter let go of her, pushing her a little in the process. She’d expected it, however, and didn’t lose her footing. “I hate you so much.”

  “I don’t care,” Allegra said. “Will you help me?”

  Walter looked away before saying, “Yes. Damn it all to the abyss, yes, I’ll help.”

  “Good,” Allegra said, her voice hard. “Now, get out of my sight. And if you ever touch me again or accuse me of murder, I will make you regret the day you laid in my bed. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Like a crystal wine goblet,” he said, once more giving her a wild flurry of his hands as he bowed.

  Demons in the Dark

  The Woods Near Borro Abbey

  Walter examined the black smudge on the tree. He didn’t dare get too close. He frantically looked about him, but he was too far into the thick trees to be seen through the forest growth. It was merely him and the demon mark.

  The third one this week. The first time, he’d assumed it had been an accident. The second? Clearly one left here from ages ago. This one, newly-appeared along the path he walked every morning, was not a coincidence. Someone was actively attempting the summoning of demons.

  Walter had no suspects. The ability to create summoning portals, triggered only by the presence of an elemental mage, was rare knowledge. So rare that not even he held it. He considered himself amongst the rare elementalists for knowing how to close summoning gates and how to handle demons. He’d defeated seven demons, if one could call a creature the size of a man’s hand a demon. But, in Walter’s opinion, where there were small, so too were there large.

  Elemental mages who held firm beliefs in the faith often choose to die over trying to summon up their untrained and untapped abilities for fear of opening a portal into the abyss. It was rubbish taught by ignorant priests, but that teaching brought about countless deaths when a good earth tremor could have saved their lives. Or ended torturous agony swiftly.

  Walter wondered at the purpose of these markings. He couldn’t imagine any elemental mage with this level of skill and ancient knowledge willing to sacrifice the potential for peace. There was a reason for these symbols to be around Borro Abbey. He’d get to the bottom of it. First, though, he’d get rid of this before some hapless idiot ruined the thin chance they all had at peace.

  Chapter 17

  Over-wintering at Borro Abbey had always been a quiet affair for Allegra. Those days were long over. At first, the annoyances were minimal, a blur of the same conversation over and over, with only minor variations. Sometimes, Allegra thought she was reading from a play, for surely it was impossible to be this similar.

  She’d sit in a room of disputing this or that. Sometimes, they were brothers. Sometimes, neighbors. Sometimes, both. It didn’t matter. She’d urge for calm. They’d argue. She’d urge for calm again. She’d be ignored.

  “Gentlemen! We are getting nowhere,” she’d say with the last of her patience.

  “But he said that!” one would protest

  “That was twenty years ago!” the other would defend.

  “And I want an apology!” one would demand.

  “Never!” the other would insist.

  With the last tethers of sanity, Allegra would ask, “Then, gentlemen, why are we here?”

  One such time was between three brothers. Each controlled a small city-state smaller than her own property. However, together, all three men held a small territory that was home to four thousand citizens. They owned mostly coal mines, but there were a couple of tiny copper mines, plus their freshwater fishery, their agricultural concerns, and all told the three brothers ran a thriving, if insular, community.

  Of course, because they were brothers, the petty arguments that got in the way of progress weighed down any compromise Allegra could offer.

  “Just because you were always Father’s favorite doesn’t mean you’ll get your own way here,” Godfrey, the eldest son, accused.

  Josken, the youngest who excelled at eye rolling, said, “Father’s been dead for twenty years.”

  “And you’re still acting like he’s alive!” Godfrey said.

  Allegra looked at Sabastian, the middle brother, a silent man whose mouth was curled in a perpetual smirk, and asked, “Do you have anything to add?”

  “Not at all, Your Excellency. I plan for them to argue themselves into an early grave and then unite the three cities into a small nation.”

  For three days, the brothers argued as if they were the only concerns on Allegra’s mind. Three precious days of work were wasted trying solely at the urging of four different cardinals, including Cardinal Giso, who said in his letter that he was going to invent new laws to have the brothers arrested if she didn’t solve their problems.

  By the fourth day, Allegra decided Giso was on to something. “Gentlemen, I have listened to your concerns for half a week now. I suggest we discuss the actual issue at hand, which is to find a resolution, even temporary, as your bickering is affecting the mages in your cities.”

  “They wouldn’t be affected if he didn’t keep freeing them!” Godfrey said, jabbing an accusatory finger at Josken.

  Sabastian nodded.

  Josken, for his part, merely shrugged. “I believe in freedom for all of the Lord Almighty’s children.”

  “Horseshit,” Godfrey and Sabastian said in unison.

  “Your Excellency, my brother here is purposely raiding my mines and stealing my slaves. I am legally allowed to have them. And then he is freeing them, to be hired by him!” Godfrey accused.

  “Do you deny any of this?” Allegra asked.

  Josken grinned. “On the contrary, I welcome the opportunity to publicly state that there is no slavery in my fare city and that we are able to run our mines and our farms.”

  “You have two tiny coal mines! That’s it!” Godfrey exclaimed.

  “I am very happy to do everything in my power to release these individuals from the grips of cruel men.”

  “Jos, please. You’re selling them back to Godfrey when he has a labor shortage!” Sabastian said.

  “You misunderstand. I am acting as broker. I find them apprenticeship positions, where they are required to work for a certain number of years. After that, they have a trade and income.”

  Allegra narrowed her eyes. “Indentured servitude. You are freeing Godfrey’s mage slaves to put them into indentured servitude.”

  “They aren’t slaves anymore.”

  “And your pockets are lined by the finder’s fees,” Sabastian said.

  “Which I use to then liberate more slaves.”

  “Enough,” Allegra said, raising her hands. “Enough.”

  She sat there and stared at these three heartless men. She didn’t know what exactly she was tempted to do, but she suspected it involved having them put into stocks at their own mines. Starvation was rampant throughout all of Amadore’s child apprentice programs; nowhere was safe from the abuses that the program dish
ed out. While she didn’t want anyone to be a slave, she also didn’t want them rescued, only to be dumped into a servitude where there was no guarantee they’d come out alive at the end, let alone with a useful trade.

  “This petty bickering is getting us nowhere,” Allegra said. When the brothers began to object, she raised a hand. “You want to know why mages are revolting in your land? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because you treat them like unthinking creatures. You treat them like property and not people.”

  “They are my property,” Godfrey said.

  “What is the life expectancy in one of your mines for an elemental?”

  Godfrey looked confused. “I don’t know.”

  “According to your ledgers, it’s ten months.”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “A person is declared an elemental, even if they are not, and then they are sent to live out the rest of their lives in the dark. And, in your mines, it’s ten months.”

  “Mining is dangerous work, Your Ladyship. You cannot possibly understand the—”

  “Please explain it to me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Please explain to me why mines without elementals have a life expectancy of decades, whereas your mages don’t even make it a year.”

  “As I’ve tried to say, the details are complex…”

  “Again, explain them to me.”

  “What’s she’s asking for, Godfrey, is for you to admit you don’t even let your supposed elementals up in the fresh air. They sleep and work down in the tunnels. Many kill themselves after only a few weeks. Others end up so exhausted they cause accidents. Others do it on purpose. Sometimes, it’s just an accident, since mining is dangerous,” Sabastian said. “Oh, did you think I didn’t know about how your mines were ran?”

  “So, are those the work conditions for your elemental slaves?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Right. And you, Josken? Anything to add.”

  “This isn’t the issue. The issue is…”

  “The issue,” Allegra said, very firmly, “is that there have been three riots in the last three months in each of your cities. Neighboring militia has had to come help quell the unrest which lasted several days during the last event. Now, tell me, is the standard working conditions helping or hindering your pockets?”

  “I don’t think you understand…” Godfrey said.

  “You aren’t here to think. That is my job.”

  Allegra’s resolution was swift. The brothers had to implement basic humane living conditions for the mining slaves. That meant no sleeping underground. They were allowed to come up on a schedule set by the Cathedral Mining Commission, ran by Nathan under Serafina’s watching eye.

  They were angry, but accepted her ruling. It was her job after all, though she suspected she was the first to actually do the job.

  And on it went.

  One particular county had seen near-continuous rioting and had sent a representative of the noble whose lands were being affected. The mages sent one of their leaders, but he was ambushed on the journey. The noble had the gall to say to Allegra’s face that of course he had the leader killed; he was sure he was saving her the trouble.

  Allegra would have arrested him on the spot if there was any possible way she could justify in the eyes of the law having a noble, and the cousin of the prince, arrested. Since he had not murdered the man himself in cold blood, there was nothing she could do.

  Except, of course, order him to release all of his slaves over the age of fifty and under twelve. He flew into a rage over that and slapped her across the face. For that she could have him arrested, which she did. The king was so embarrassed that he donated half of his cousin’s lands to the office of the Arbiter of Justice, which Serafina appointed agents to auction off what was possible and turn the estate into a monastery and a school. Some of the funds from the auction were used to compensate the released mages, to help them re-establish new lives. The rest of the funds would eventually make their way to the Cathedral Mining Commission. Nathan and Serafina already used over a thousand gold sovereigns of Allegra’s personal salary to hire several of their mage friends as mine inspectors, accountants, and managers.

  Again, not a great solution, but it had stopped the rioting. Cardinal Vanida’s supposed hysterics over this solution were just a bonus.

  Word had spread quickly that Allegra would grant individual freedom to any slave who asked her for it. Further, any slave who made it to Borro Abbey would be protected by the Arbiter. Hundreds risked their lives to make the treacherous journey up the mountainside.

  The first time it happened, it had been two men. Both were suffering extreme frostbite, and later died from their injuries. But they lived long enough for Allegra to declare them freemen before they succumbed. Twice more this happened within a week.

  Alarmed, Allegra asked for word to be spread for none to attempt the journey to Borro until the spring. The mountain slopes were too dangerous for those not accustomed to the trek or lacked appropriate clothing and equipment. Stanton assigned guards at several abbeys within a day’s ride, along the highway, in hopes that they would seek refuge there. Those abbeys were all run by abolitionists, or at least friends of abolition, and Allegra trusted them to not be tempted by coin nor threat.

  Queen Portia did not look kindly upon this. Cartossa’s ruler issued new orders that free mages were to travel with papers at all times or be imprisoned as runaway slaves. Allegra’s letters were rarely answered. If they were, they were clearly written by Portia’s advisors and not the Queen herself.

  All this crackdown did was put pressure on the Amadore side of the border, as free mages escaped Cartossa’s militia. Due to standing agreements between the neighboring countries, Cartossa militia was allowed to cross Amadore’s border in the pursuit of dangerous elementals and enlist local assistance. Soon, anyone caught leaving Cartossa risked the label of elemental mage. So more risked the journey to Borro to obtain a holy seal.

  After the deaths of three free mages who froze during the night trying to reach Allegra, she dispatched Nathan with letters bearing her seal. She granted temporary powers to several local monasteries and abbeys to act on her stead to give sanctuary to anyone who asked, no matter their actual or accused status. She hoped they could make the journey to Borro in the spring when it would not risk their lives. With any luck, she would have gotten through to Queen Portia and the measures reduced.

  Risk they did, however. Hundreds of Cartossa’s mages crossed the border and dragged themselves through snow storms on their trek through the foothills of the Borro Mountain range. Most of the fleeing mages—be they slave or free—eventually converged on St. Croix Abbey, less than a day’s carriage ride in good weather from Borro. Fighting broke out as the taste of freedom mixed with desperation. Several mages were arrested by local authorities, on suspicion of elemental magic. Cathedral guards, led by Martin of the Holy Father’s Own Consorts, tried to bring order but they failed in the face of the local militia’s hatred of magic coupled with the desperate crowd’s pressing needs. A wayward stone stuck the Marquis of St. Croix’s wife, killing her before she even hit the ground. There was no stopping what came next.

  Mother Ruth, Bishop of St. Croix Abbey, stepped into the fray. Allegra remembered her to be a frail, tiny woman, with steel-gray hair and an imperial nose that always looked too large for her tiny features. Martin’s report said she walked out there into the middle of the unfolding riot, head held high like she’d known something the others didn’t.

  And she did, all right. Mother Ruth stamped one tiny foot to the ground of the snow-covered marketplace and the earth split in half. She repeated the gesture, separating the Cathedral guards from the mob. But her efforts put her with the element of the mob that wanted the damned demon-summoners away from their righteous little town.

  Mages, slaves, locals, Cathedral guards, and the militia were all forced to helplessly watch as the mob bu
rned Mother Ruth alive, unable to cross the fissures she’d created. A Cathedral guard, hitherto unknown to be even a mage, blew a gust of wind from his mouth toward Mother Ruth’s pyre. Martin and several other witnesses had thought the guard was hoping to put out the flame, but instead he fueled the fire. The blast incinerated Mother Ruth and spread to the crowd. Dozens were burned alive. In the commotion, the guard escaped.

  Overnight, Mother Ruth became the symbol of the mage rebellion. They had found their martyr. Allegra had teased Walter that she’d thought he would always end up on that pyre, and not some unknown backwater bishop, but even she had no mirth in her voice. For, again, they both knew what would come next: reprisals.

  Couriers bundled against the mountain winter risked hide and hair to deliver the constant stream of updates, letters, missives, and pleas for assistance. Allegra did all she could from her abbey’s warmth, but they were not equipped to drag a military force throughout the lands stopping the slaughter of mages by ignorant villagers, nor the slaughter of aristocrats by enraged mages. All she could do was write letters, her soul dying a little more each time at her choice of staying here as opposed to Orsini, where the lowland climate would have made travel somewhat easier.

  But her arrogance had wanted her to be near Cartossa’s border. There she’d been so sure the war would break out. Instead, it was breaking out all over and she was powerless to stop it. It was that mounting fear that the violence would spread that caused the first wave of refugees.

  Father Michael called them pilgrims because, as he said, the word gave the people more dignity than migrant or refugee, but that is what they were in Allegra’s eyes. Twice, small pockets of them came, often arriving half dead from frost. Twice, they’d accepted them, for what else could they do? It had been the folly of her edicts that had caused these people to come. It was four days later, however, that Allegra accepted in her heart that the war had already started and that waiting for an acknowledgment of the words was doing none of them any good.