Rage of a Demon King (28 page)

“That’s bad.”

“It means Nicky’s going to have to fight warships and will do little damage to the fleet even if he wins.”

“That is bad.” Anthony sniffed at the air. “Do you smell something?”

“No. Why?”

“Just asking,” said Anthony as he sniffed again.

“Swing this back a little.” Anthony did as Calis bade, and when Calis again said, “Hold it here,” he stopped. Calis said, “The Queen’s got a circle of warships around her craft, and . . .” He paused a moment. “That’s odd.”

“What?”

“Take a look.”

Anthony got up with some theatrical groaning and moved to look over Calis’s shoulder. “Gods and fishes!”

“What do you see?”

“I see a demon sitting on a throne.”

Calis said, “Looks like Lady Clovis to me.”

“Well, you’re not a magician,” said Anthony. He took out a bag of powder and said, “Sniff this.”

Calis did as Anthony instructed, and suddenly sneezed. “What was that?”

“Sorry, one of the ingredients is pepper. Don’t wipe your eyes.”

Trying to blink away teas, Calis looked through the lens. For a moment he could see two figures upon the dais in the center of the ship, the illusion of the Emerald Queen and the demon. “That might explain what happened to Pug.”

“I’d like someone to explain to me what happened to Pug,” said Anthony. “I’m a simple magician. Truth to tell, I haven’t worked very hard at it since I got my title.”

“That’s what comes of marrying into nobility,” said Calis.

“There’s little call for magic when you’ve got estates to manage.”

“You’ve filled in for Pug admirably so far,” said Calis dryly. “Think you could drop down there and dispose of that creature?”

Anthony closed his eyes and incanted a silent phrase, then he made a loud snorting noise as he smelled deeply. He made a face and said, “No, and I doubt Pug could either.”

“Really, why?”

“Because I may not have as much power as Pug or be as clever as some of those fellows down at Stardock, but one thing I’m very good at is smelling magic.”

“Smelling magic?”

“Don’t ask. Secrets of the trade and all that.”

“Anyway, you were saying?”

Anthony said, “I’m serious; I can smell the reek all the way up here, and we’re miles away. Something big went off around that ship, and it could have been Pug. If what I smell lingering is what’s left over, it was a magical exchange of tremendous powers. Given that creature is still there, and Pug’s nowhere to be seen, we can only assume the worst.”

Calis sighed. “That seems to be the way things have been working, hasn’t it?”

“Can we leave? I’m getting cold.”

“In a while. Move this thing back to the left; I want to look down across the southwestern horizon if you can manage that.”

“It’s like a glass; you can see only as far as you could with your own eyes from this perspective, if your own eyes could see that far. For what you’re asking, you need a crystal, and I neglected to bring one. Besides, if I had a crystal, which I don’t, the first person who turns it on that creature is likely to get his eyes blistered for trying.”

“Well, as far that way”—Calis pointed—“as you can manage.”

Anthony did as he was asked, and heard a satisfied “Ah” from Calis.

“What?” asked the magician.

“The Queen sends a skirmish line up the northern coast toward Tulan. But she only lightly guards her southern flank.”

“Well, there’re a lot of deserted islands and the Trollhome Mountains to the south of the Straits. I doubt she fears a troll navy, as they haven’t evidenced one in recent memory.”

“No, but Keshian Elarial is but a week’s sailing down the far Keshian coast, and Li Meth is only two days’ travel to the west of her vanguard. And those deserted islands are just the place for pirates to hide.”

Anthony was silent a moment. Then he said, “James?”

“Most certainly. He’s been spreading rumors for months of a treasure fleet from a fabled land coming this way.”

“He is a sneaky bastard, isn’t he?”

Calis said, “I think I see sails.” He extended his hand to the southeast. “Please move the lens that way.”

“I get a headache every time I do.”

“Please,” Calis repeated.

“Very well.” Anthony did as he was asked, and Calis said, “It’s a raiding fleet from Durbin and Li Meth! Must be a hundred warships!” He laughed. “It must be every Keshian pirate between Elarial and Durbin.”

Anthony looked. “And a few of them appear to be irritated to discover they have neighbors visiting.”

“The captains of Durbin are not exactly what you’d call welcome guests in Li Meth, as often as not. Move the lens over there, please.”

Calis watched as the lens swung around to an orientation slightly north of west. “Ah, the Quegans!”

“How far?”

“Two days, maybe, if I judge the magnification.”

Anthony waved his hand and the lens vanished. “Good. Now can we go home?”

“Yes. I need to see my father. If something has happened to Pug he’s the most likely to know about it.” Silently he thought that his father would also know if something had happened to Miranda. Nakor had indicated that Pug and Miranda were together, and something about the little man’s silence after he said that set Calis’s mind to worry.

Calis reached into his cloak and pulled out an old-looking metal sphere. He motioned for Anthony to stand next to him, and the magician put one hand upon his friend’s arm and activated a lever in the side of the sphere with his thumb.

Instantly they passed through the void, and found themselves, feeling slightly disoriented, standing in the rear courtyard at Castle Crydee. Three figures stood waiting.

“What did you see?” asked Duke Marcus. He was a man nearly equal in height to Calis, and once he had been powerfully built, but while age showed little on the half-elf, on the fifty-year-old Duke it was starting to take a toll. Marcus was still a robust man, but some of his muscle had turned to fat and his hair was now completely grey.

Beside him stood two women, one obviously Marcus’s sister by the family resemblance. She had a straight nose, like her brother’s, and her eyes were even, unblinking, and despite the lines of age and sun, a striking brown. She was also strong-looking for her age. Lady Margaret, the Duke’s sister and Anthony’s wife, said, “Anthony?”

He smiled as he said, “It’s cold up there, dear, even at this time of the year.”

Marcus smiled. “So you got where you wanted to go?”

“Let’s have a drink and we’ll talk,” suggested the magician.

The third person greeting them, the Duchess Abigail, said, “There’s a meal waiting. We didn’t know how long you’d be.” Marcus’s wife lacked his or his sister’s outward signs of vitality, but her step was quick and her slight figure hinted at a dancer’s lithe strength. She smiled quickly as she motioned for Calis and her brother-in-law to come through the rear entrance to the castle.

“Wasn’t much to see, really,” said Anthony. “The battle’s not yet begun.” Glancing toward the height of the sun, he added, “It will not begin until tomorrow. How far away did you say the Quegans were? Two days?” he asked Calis.

“Quegans?” asked Margaret.

“We’ll explain everything inside,” said Calis.

They mounted the steps to the central keep. For Calis, Crydee had been his second home. His grandparents had lived here, years before, and his father had spent his childhood working in the kitchen and playing in the courtyard of the castle.

The castle had been gutted in the sacking of the Far Coast, thirty years earlier, when Calis had taken his first trip to the distant continent. Then he had been a simple observer, on behalf of his mother and father, but he had returned since several times, much to his sorrow and regret.

They moved down the long hall to the dining hall. A table long enough to seat a score of dinner guests formed the top of three sides of a square, in the old court fashion. The Duke and his wife would dine at the center of the top table, while guests and court
officials would be seated in descending order of rank from there to the farthest seat.

Calis glanced around the hall. Brightly colored banners hung where once ancient and faded ones had been displayed. Calis remembered them from his childhood. They had been the war trophies of the first three Dukes of Crydee.

“It’s never the same, is it?” asked Marcus.

“No.”

“How’s Father?” asked Margaret.

“He’s fine,” said Calis. “At least, he was the last time I saw him, which was more than a year ago. But his life is easy and I expect he’s unchanged. Had anything happened, Mother would have sent you word immediately.”

“I know,” Margaret said. “It’s just we miss him.”

Marcus said, “Yes, but it’s better to have him there, happy and living, than here, in the burial vault.”

Calis said, “Well, when this business is done, you could go visit. Mother and Tomas would certainly welcome you.”

Marcus smiled and Calis said, “Do that more often; it makes you look like Martin.”

A corner of the left and head tables had been set, at Marcus’s instructions, so the five of them could gather close. Wine, ale, hot food and cold waited.

Anthony said, “Ah, a little wine will warm me up.”

Abigail said, “It’s still early, so not too much, else you’ll be asleep before the festival is half-over.”

Marcus indicated they should sit. “We need to hurry, for I need to be in the courtyard at high noon to see things started.”

“There’s not much to tell,” said Calis as he broke off a hunk of bread. “Things are pretty much as we expected, with one change.”

“What?” asked the Duke.

“Where the Emerald Queen was supposed to be sitting, in the middle of the biggest ship in the fleet, a very ugly demon squatted. Looked like he had some sort of mystic chain of control around the neck of all the ‘advisers’ who surrounded him . . . or it . . . whatever.”

“A demon!” Marcus’s face showed surprise.

“Well, we knew there were some involved, after that last business down in Novindus I told you about.”

“But we thought they were destroying the Pantathians, not controlling them.”

Anthony sipped his wine. “Maybe there are different demons.”

“Maybe so,” said Calis as he took a gulp of wine. “Humans certainly come with enough politics to keep the world at war eternally. Who says demons can’t have politics?”

“Not I,” said Marcus.

“Well, I’m off. I’ve got to talk to Mother,” said Calis, rising. “And you have a festival to start. If my sense of timing is right, it’s nearly noon and the populace will not be pleased if you’re late.” He stuck out his hand. “Thanks for the help, Marcus. Can I have the loan of a horse?”

“Aren’t you going to use that Tsurani transport thing to get to Elvandar?” said Anthony.

Calis tossed it to him. “You keep it. You know how to use it better than I, magician. And use it you must. Rest tonight, then back to that peak we used
first thing in the morning. Take Marcus, and observe the battle. If you need to get word to me in a hurry, send a runner to the banks of the river Crydee. I can be back here in a week.

“I’ll ride, and if Pug or Miranda is at Elvandar, they can get me back to Krondor. If not, I’ll return this way and use that thing.”

Macus said, “Good-bye, Calis. Your visits are far too rare.”

Margaret and Abigail both kissed him on the cheek, and Anthony shook his hand.

Marcus signaled for a squire to escort Calis to the stable and give him whichever mount he chose. Then the Duke of Crydee and his family hurried to the main entrance of the castle to begin the Banapis festival for another year.

At sundown, farmers and citizens who lived outside the walls of the city began to trickle through the gate. The guards stood idly by, watching only with cursory attentiveness. Erik held Kitty in a close embrace, deep in the shadows of a nearby alley.

“I love you,” Kitty whispered into his chest.

“I love you, too,” Erik said.

“Will you come for me?”

“Always,” said Erik. “No matter what, I’ll find you.”

As the lamps were lit and those shops still trying to conduct business opened their doors to reveal the light inside, the sound of traffic increased. While the celebration would last long into the night, there were more sober souls who knew that come dawn there would be work to be done, and that to be at their best the next day would require a good night’s sleep.

Erik held Kitty away from him a moment. A dark wig peeked out from under the plain hood of a farmer’s cloak of homespun. The dress she had selected was equally nondescript. To any who failed to inspect her closely, she looked like nothing more than another common farmer’s daughter on her way home with her family. A small bag was clutched under the cloak, and in it Kitty carried a modest fortune in gold coins, as much of Erik’s personal wealth as he could put his hands on in short order. She also carried a pair of daggers.

“If something goes wrong, get to my mother in Ravensburg.” He grinned. “Just tell her you’re my wife and stand back.”

Kitty put her head on his chest again, and said, “Your wife.”

Neither of them could believe it. They had simply walked into the temple of Sung the Pure and joined a line of other couples who had come to be wed. Impulsive marriages on Banapis were hardly uncommon, and after the priest had asked pointedly if they were intoxicated and how long they had known each other, he had consented to marry them. The ceremony had been brief, less than five minutes, and they had been hustled outside by an acolyte seeking to make room for the next pair.

Erik said, “You have to be ready.”

“I know,” said Kitty. She understood that at any instant a group of farmers was likely to come though whom Erik judged appropriate and she would have to act without hesitation. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” Then fiercely he said, “But I don’t want you to die, either.”

“I don’t want you to die,” she answered, and he
could feel her tears fall on his bare arm. “Damn. I hate crying.”

“Then stop it!” he said lightly.

She started to say something, but he said, “Now!”

Without even a kiss good-bye, she turned and walked out of the side street, up to a young woman who was walking next to a hay wagon, upon which rode a half-dozen children. An old man drove the wagon, and behind it walked another three men and a woman.