Over the course of several minutes, the mist continued to build, growing deeper and covering the remains of the corpse, then mounting higher. When it reached about four feet deep, it shuddered, sucked in on itself, and formed an apparently-solid, physical body. It stood on the table over the remains.
Things are generally pretty ugly. This was no exception. It didn’t have eyes that I could identify, for one thing. The head was really just a smooth, tapered tentacle, maybe ten feet long, where a neck would normally start. While it had shoulders, it had three of them, with clawed hands at the ends of its double-elbowed arms. It had no thumbs, but the hands had six fingers, radially distributed. For legs, it had one large, coiled appendage, like a snake pretending to be a spring. I wasn’t sure if it could simply extend into a vertical column, or if it had to retain some semblance of a coil. The whole thing was done in black, with patchy bits of gloss and matte; it didn’t look carapacious, but finely scaled, like a snake. The smell was faint but unmistakably that of a manifested Thing: acidic, acrid, almost eye-watering. It put me in mind of burnt hair and scorched onions.
I don’t know how it spoke; maybe it simply vibrated.
“I see you have slain my vessel,” it said, calmly. “Shall we bargain, then, for my freedom?”
Everyone looked at me.
For my part, I gave it some thought—almost a quarter of a second.
“No,” I told it, and nodded to T’yl, Tort, and Thomen. They raised their hands and chanted at the diagram, shrinking the area of the containment spell and starting the process of burning out the creature.
“Wait!” it shrieked. “You will want to know my master!”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but not from you.”
“I know what he wants!”
“And I don’t care,” I countered, in a sarcastic singsong.
“He wants
you!
” it shouted.
“I knew that already,” I replied. “You don’t know anything more than I already know,” I lied. For all I knew, it might, but I could never trust it to tell me anything useful or true.
“The Queen of Vathula is his pawn,” it tried, as cracks started to run along its skin, reddish-orange and smoking. “I will tell you of his hold over her!”
“No, you won’t.”
“I will tell you of two fathers that birthed a dark thing. This thing stands behind my master!” it screamed, desperately. That certainly sounded interesting, but entirely too metaphorical. It was tempting, I admit, but poetic crap doesn’t tell me anything definite, and misinterpretations are the worst kind of lies; the one doing the misinterpreting tells the lie to himself, which makes it much harder to shake.
“No,” I repeated, “you won’t.”
The Thing screamed again, cracking apart in lines of bloody fire. It crumbled into a vortex of smoke and ashes, whirling in on itself as the containment shrank, smaller and smaller, and the spell of destruction continued to obliterate it. It spun faster, diminishing into nothing, and the interior of the containment spell narrowed into a solid, monolithic block, leaving no room for anything.
It was instructive to watch, but I noticed something. As an observer, I didn’t need to split my attention between the spell and the Thing. I saw that the Thing was being destroyed in a material sense. The essence of the Thing, however, was being forced out of the world, squeezed out of normal space and, presumably, into the non-space outside the world. This bothers me. When I kill a demonic monster, does it really die? Or is it an energy-state being that simply escapes until it can form a new avatar?
Someday, I’ll find out. Then I’ll build something to
really
kill them. One in particular, if it’s still alive. I really hope it isn’t.
T’yl, Tort, and Thomen lowered their hands, wiped away sweat, sat down. It was very instructive to watch them work together to perform that spell. You never know when you might need a good demon-banishing ritual. The only drawback I could see was that it only worked on demons outside their hosts. Well, it would probably work on a demon inside a sorcerer or other container, too, but it would be pretty awful for the container. Definitely not an exorcism to use on anyone you want alive at the end of it.
“Fine work, everyone,” I told them. “Since I see that the corpse has conveniently disintegrated, what say we get this place cleaned up, my sand table back in business, and ourselves taken upstairs for lunch? I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
“It is well past lunchtime, Sire,” Torvil pointed out.
“Dinner?”
“Should be soon, Sire.”
“Even better. People can see I’m still alive, then. Someone help me scoop sand, please.” Kammen did so. Thomen, Tort, and T’yl rested; Seldar, Torvil, and the twins continued to stand guard. I wondered if I was going to be stuck with overeager bodyguards from now on. I hoped not. There are things I need to do, and, as much as I love these guys, they’re still mortal; they can’t keep up.
Of course, at the moment I was the one who couldn’t keep up. I took every opportunity to sit down and rest. Being stabbed through the heart—even with magical surgeons on hand—really takes it out of you. I didn’t want to get my heart rate up; it ached enough as it was.
Once we had the sand back in the bed of the table, I had to answer questions about it. I did so while sketching fresh symbols around the rim. The temporary, working diagrams in chalk were badly affected, unfortunately, so I had to wash and restore at the same time.
Since I had to test the new spell-scribbles anyway, that led to a small demonstration. Tort seemed very interested, probably because she helped me take apart a few scrying spells and some spells for altering the shape of objects. T’yl wasn’t so interested; it was a novelty, but not much else to him.
“So, that’s what Mochara looks like,” I said, demonstrating. “If you look closely, you can probably make out the fishing boats coming in. The image is a bit grainy, but that’s only to be expected.”
No one got the joke, of course.
“Are these people on the city wall?” Thomen asked, peering closely at it. I looked at it with him and he pointed, carefully not touching the sand. It wouldn’t have bothered the table or his finger, but I appreciated his care.
“Yes, that’s right. They’re hard to make out at this scale—we’re looking at the whole of Mochara, so they’re relatively tiny. Hang on.” I let the sand crumble to flatness and adjusted the view. Once I had it centered on the seaward gate, I brought the sand up again. “There.”
Having zoomed in to view the gate and everything within about fifty yards of it, the city guards were much more recognizable. Faces were hard to make out, but miniature, sandy figures moved along the top of the wall. Boats drew up on the beach; sandy people marched basket after basket of fish up the stairs and into the town.
I thought it was a marvel. Nobody else seemed that impressed. Oh, well; I wasn’t done with it.
With the demonstration over, we headed up. T’yl and Thomen went to their separate quarters; the twins kept following Seldar; it was apparently his day to be shadowed. Tort and my two zealous bodyguards came with me to the Royal Chambers.
Yeah, this was going to be a problem.
Dinner went well. People seemed quite pleased about my survival, which is always gratifying. People also wanted to know if we were going to have a war with someone. Apparently, when someone tries to assassinate a king, a war is pretty much
de rigueur
.
I tried to downplay that. No, not immediately; we’re not ready for a war. There was still a lot to do to determine who was really responsible. A simple counter-assassination might be in order. Stuff like that.
We really weren’t ready for a war. Defending the city? We might be able to do that. But marching out to meet an enemy in the field? Assaulting a city? No. We didn’t have the manpower for that, and I was extremely unhappy with the state of our logistics—if I’m going to put men in the field, they’re going to have every possible edge in equipment. And training. And… well, everything I can think of. I don’t like sending people to do my fighting for me, but if I have to, they’re going to overmatch the enemy in every way I can think of.
I think I dislike being a king, just on general principles, but that lack of the personal touch is what really annoys me about the job.
The evening’s entertainment included the duo with the enchanted instruments, as well as a juggler, some dancers, and a wizard who put together a show using the smoke from the firepits as a spell-sculpted medium. Very nice, all of them. I beckoned Tyma over when she and her father finished their performance. She took her father to his seat, then came up to the table and curtseyed before me. I motioned her around the table to me and she circled it.
“Majesty?” she asked, curtseying again beside my chair.
“I had an interesting conversation with the court wizard of Baret, today.”
“I am pleased for Your Majesty. All conversations should be interesting.”
“It seems someone has been spreading songs and tales of my doings.”
“I would expect so, Your Majesty. You are a figure out of legend, after all,” she said. I noticed she was on her best behavior. Maybe because this was a formal occasion, rather than a personal meeting. That might do it.
“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to not do that without telling me?”
“It would take some persuading, Your Majesty. How long would you keep me in a dungeon? Or would you resort to flaying?” she asked. I couldn’t tell if she was joking.
“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking of looking at your father’s eyes. How horrible would it be if I restored his sight and forbade either of you to ever tell anyone I did it?”
Tyma’s face was a study in contradictions. Clearly, she was all for the idea of getting her father’s sight back, but to never tell anyone about it was almost too much to bear. I recognized in her some of the fire in Linnaeus; she wanted to sing songs, write poems, and basically be the equivalent of the star reporter for the national news.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Bring your father over after dinner. I’ll look at his eyes and see if I can fix them. We can talk about it then.”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” she agreed, relieved to not have to make that decision immediately. She took it as a dismissal and went off to, presumably, discuss it with her dad.
I handled a few other items of appointment scheduling during dinner and, for the most part, enjoyed it. I was especially pleased to see the twins, Malana and Malena, dancing. They weren’t dancing with each other, but with a succession of partners, which wasn’t surprising. They’re young, but for this culture, not
too
young. Back home, they might be starting high school.
The thing that really pleased me was the lack of any outward signs of nerve damage. Their timing was good, their coordination was good, and their movements were steady and sure.
Torvil and Kammen got more than one dance. Seldar, on the other hand, seemed to have a partner. However, at no point was I left alone; one of them was always standing behind my chair, presumably ready to leap forward over the table and bisect someone.
I excused myself during the sunset; Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar excused themselves with me and escorted me to my chambers.
While I sat naked in the waterfall and let the transformation wash away, I considered just how difficult my daytime life was likely to be with three zealots as bodyguards. At night, they could probably be persuaded to lay off; it’s hard to assassinate a vampire. During the day, though…
There’s no biological reason to sigh when you don’t have to breathe, but sometimes it just feels like the right thing to do.
First things first. I dried and dressed, then went back to dinner with my escorts. As I presided over dinner, a servant—one of the girls who used to live in the beggars’ district of Mochara, I believe—brought me goblet with blood in it. It tasted like chicken.
I also discovered that I have a drinking problem. A new drinking problem. I can’t really drink blood from a cup. It keeps trying to crawl over the edge and flow over me. When I took the goblet from her, the blood immediately started to shift. Since I could smell the blood, I quickly moved to drink it. About two-thirds of it went into my mouth; the rest splashed my face and sank into the skin. I don’t think it looked too awful; I hid most of it behind the goblet as I drank. When I was done, there wasn’t even a trace of blood left on my clothes.
If I ever have to eat someone in a technological universe, the forensics squad is going to hate me.
She brought me another one, apparently under the impression I was thirsty. I had her set it down on the table, about arm’s length away, and I rested a finger on the rim. Blood flowed up the side of the cup and flowed over my finger and hand, soaking in as it went. The flow made it almost to my wrist before the cup was empty. Good enough, even if I did feel like an escapee from the planet Ork.
With dinner duties completed, I met with Tyma and her father, Minaren. A quick examination showed that Minaren was blind because of cloudy lenses—the corneas, I think. Cataracts? Possibly. I always thought cataracts were some sort of cloudy gel inside the eye itself. Then again, I’m a physics teacher, not a biologist or opto-… opthal-… eye doctor. I guess cataracts could be a stain on the corneas; it looked like my great-aunt’s eye when she had cataracts, but I never had it explained to me.
I copied my own corneas and pasted the pattern into his. The lenses cleared rapidly as the spell effected changes in his eyes. He blinked at me.
“You may not see too clearly,” I cautioned him. “Blurry vision may be the best you can hope for. But at least you can see.”
“I can see very well,” he said, quietly. He had such a wonderful voice. I’d heard him sing, and it was a delight to just listen to him talk. He seemed, if not amazed, at least lost in wonder. What is it like to go blind, then have it all come back into focus?
“Good. Now, for the favor I want to ask in return.”