The Demon King (8 page)

“The council said no, and Aerie House especially said no. But Hanalea, she had a mind of her own. She disliked Bayar, who was an old man to her, cold and heartless as any snake. And she fancied young Alger, who was as handsome as she was beautiful. She run off with him, and they holed up in the Spirits with his allies—an army of wizards from Waterlow House and some of his friends—the best and brightest wizards of a generation.

“Alger proclaimed himself king and married Hanalea. The council couldn’t put up with that, so the other wizard houses marched on Waterlow and laid siege to their hold. Anyone could see it was a lost cause, but not this boy. He was a longtime student of dark magic, and he thought he could conjure a spell that would end the siege and scare the council off.

“Hanalea tried to talk him out of it. She wanted to give herself up to Aerie House, but he was headstrong and wouldn’t listen.” Lucius smiled sadly. “Boy was a fool for love. Too much power and too little knowledge. They was together only three months.”

Han shifted impatiently. Stories about Hanalea and her many suitors were like lengths of old cloth, so worn down by the telling, you couldn’t tell one from another or even see the individual threads anymore.

Lucius stared into space, his milky blue eyes like painted-over windows that hid what lay within. Han was good at reading people—he had to be—but he could never read Lucius.

“So? What happened?” Han asked dutifully.

Lucius flinched, as if he’d forgotten Han was there. “They killed him, a’course. After. They took him to Aerie House and tortured him for days and forced that young girl to listen to his screams. But it was too late. The damage was done.”

Han blinked, caught by surprise. “What damage? What are you talking about?”

Lucius raised bushy eyebrows. “The Breaking, a’course. You’ve heard of that?” he asked sarcastically.

“I’ve heard of the Breaking,” Han said irritably. “What’s that got to…” His voice trailed off and he stared at Lucius, wondering if the old man had sipped a little too much product. “Hold on. You’re talking about the Demon King?” He whispered the last two words, which people tended to do, and resisted the urge to make a sign against evil.

“His name was Alger,” Lucius said softly, his whole body slumping into a puddle of wrinkled skin and drab cloth.

The sun went behind a cloud, and it was suddenly cold on the creek bank. Han shivered and drew his jacket closer around him.

Lucius’s unfortunate Alger Waterlow was the Demon King? Not possible.

The Demon King was the monster in every scary story. The devil you wouldn’t name for fear of calling him to you. The one that waited in the dark down a crooked street for bad children to come his way.

“That’s not true!” Han burst out, fueled by righteous indignation and a lifetime of stories. “The Demon King stole Hanalea away on her wedding night. He chained her in his dungeon when she refused him. He tortured her with dark sorcery, trying to win her heart. When she resisted, he broke the world.”

“He was a boy,” Lucius muttered, fumbling for his flask. “They were in love.”

“He was a monster,” Han countered, shying a rock into the creek. “She destroyed him.” He’d seen the frieze in the temple at Fellsmarch. It was called The Triumph of Hanalea and consisted of a series of scenes: Hanalea in chains, defying the Demon King. Hanalea, beautiful and terrible, holding the world together with green magic as the Demon King tried to shatter it. Hanalea standing over the Demon King’s lifeless body, a sword in her hand.

If it’s carved in stone, it has to be true, Han thought.

“They killed him,” Lucius said. “And that released a destructive power like the world has never known, before or since.” He sighed, shaking his head, as if it hadn’t been the Demon King’s fault at all.

“Afterward, the wizards meant to marry Hanalea off to Kinley Bayar.” The old man sat up straighter, his eyes oddly clear and focused. His usually quavery voice rang out like a temple orator’s, and his highland accent fell away. “But they had their hands full. The world was breaking, crumbling into chaos. Earthquakes shook their castles down. Flames erupted from the ground. The oceans boiled away and forests turned to ash. Night fell and stayed for months, lit only by the fires that burned day and night. The air was too thick to breathe. Nothing they conjured would stop it. Finally they had to turn to the clans for help.”

Disappointment flamed within Han. How had they strayed so far afield from his original question about wizardry? He’d asked a serious question, and been repaid with this dreamer’s tale. He’d wasted half the morning on the creek bank, the unwilling victim of an old man’s fantasies. Now Mam would skin him alive for being so late.

“Thanks for the story and all,” Han said, “but I’ve got to go. He scrambled to his feet and slid his backpack over one shoulder. “I’ll pick up the bottles at the dog run.”

“Sit, boy!” Lucius commanded. “You got this story started, now you got to hear me out.”

Fuming, Han settled back on the creek bank. He’d never signed on for a monologue.

When Lucius was satisfied he’d held his audience, he continued. “The clans recognized the lineage of queens, so Hanalea acted as go-between. Think of what that must’ve been like. Negotiating with the clans on behalf of your sweetheart’s murderers.” Lucius smiled sadly. “But Hanalea had grown up. She was strong and smart as well as beautiful. She reclaimed the power of the Gray Wolf line. What grew out of those talks was the Naéming.”

Lucius ticked off the tenets of the Naéming on his gnarled fingers. “In exchange for healing the world, the clans put wizards on a short leash. High magic and wizards were forbidden in the Spirits. They’re confined to the Vale and the flatlands. The clan speakers have temples in Fellsmarch, and the queens got to go to temple once a week to learn the true faith. The Wizard Council chooses the most powerful wizard in the Fells as High Wizard and head of the council, but he is magically bound to the land and the queen, and ruled by her. The queens are fostered in the camps as children.” Lucius smiled faintly. “And wizards ain’t allowed to marry our queens anymore, because that gives them too much power.”

“Hanalea agreed to that?” Han said. Guess they put the queen on a short leash too, he thought.

Lucius nodded, as if he’d read Han’s mind. “The queen of the Fells is both the most powerful and the least free person in the entire queendom. She is a slave to duty once she comes of age.”

“But she’s the queen,” Han said. “Can’t she do whatever she wants?”

“Hanalea had learned the price of following her heart,” Lucius said. He paused, his face settling into sorrowful folds. “So she bent her knee for the greater good, and married somebody she didn’t love.”

Han frowned. The stories always ended with the destruction of the Demon King and the triumph of Hanalea. “So, who did she marry, then? Bayar was a wizard, so…?”

Lucius shook his head. “Poor Kinley Bayar met with an accident soon after the Breaking. She married somebody else.” After the rich details of the story so far, he seemed rather sketchy on that point.

Han stood again, then hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other, compelled to say something. “You know, Lucius, I’m practically grown. I’m too old for fairy stories.”

For a long moment the old man didn’t respond. “Don’t ask for the truth, boy, unless you’re ready to hear it,” Lucius said, staring sightlessly out at Old Woman Creek. “Just remember what I said. Keep the amulet hid, and stay out of the way of the Bayars. They got too much power as it is. If they find out you have it, they’ll kill you for it.”

FELLSMARCH

The city of Fellsmarch nestled at the edge of the Vale, a fertile valley where the Dyrnnewater shouldered its way between the rocky cliffs of Hanalea and the rippling skirts of Alyssa, her sister peak. The Spirit-dwelling clan often referred to residents of the Vale as flatlanders. The Valefolk in turn looked down on the city of Delphi and the plains of Arden to the south.

The Vale gleamed like an emerald set high in the mountains—protected by the frowning peaks said to be the dwelling places of long-dead upland queens. It was warmed year-round by thermal springs that bubbled under the ground and broke through fissures in the earth.

True flatlanders—citizens of Tamron and the kingdom of Arden beyond Southgate—whispered that the Spirit Mountains were haunted by demons and witches and dragons and other fearsome things—that the very ground was poison to any invader.

Highlanders did nothing to dispel this notion.

Han’s teacher, Jemson, claimed that before the coming of the wizards and the breaking of the world, the Seven Realms were one great queendom ruled from Fellsmarch. Grain from Arden and Bruinswallow and Tamron filled her bread baskets. Fish from the coasts, and game from the Spirits, and gems and minerals from the mountains added to her prosperity. The queen and her court were patrons of the arts, and the city built music halls, libraries, temples, and theaters all over the queendom.

Though it had fallen on hard times in recent years, the city of Fellsmarch still hung raggedly on the bones of its glorious past. It was studded with elaborate buildings that predated the Breaking. Fellsmarch Castle had somehow escaped the wide-spread destruction, as had the temples of the speakers and other public buildings.

So when Han rounded the last curve of the Spirit Trail and looked down on the city of his birth, an urban forest of temple spires and gold-leafed domes greeted him, gleaming in the last rays of the dying sun. He couldn’t help thinking it looked better from a distance.

Lording over all was Fellsmarch Castle, with its soaring towers, a monument of marble and stone. It stood isolated, surrounded by the Dyrnnewater, untouchable as those who lived within its walls.

The City of Light, it was called, despite its long winter nights. There was even a period of time, around solstice, that the sun never rose at all. But on every other day, the sun flamed over Eastgate in the morning and kindled Westgate at the end of the day.

The Spirit Trail snaked down into the city and emptied into the first of a series of squares, the legacy of some long-ago royal architect. Connecting the squares was the Way of the Queens, the broad boulevard that ran the length of the city and ended at Fellsmarch Castle.

Han did not follow the Way of the Queens. Like it or not, he had business in Southbridge. He turned off into a series of ever-narrowing streets, burrowing deeply into a part of the city the queen never traveled to. As he left the Way behind, the buildings grew shabbier. People swarmed the streets, pinch-faced and wary-looking, prey and predators. Garbage moldered in the gutters and spilled out of bins.

The air reeked with the mingled stinks of cooking cabbage, wood smoke, privies and slop jars dumped into the street. It would be worse come summer, when the heat thickened the air into a dangerous soup that gave babies the croup and set old people coughing up blood.

At Southbridge Market, Han managed to unload the snagwort for a decent price, considering it was worthless. He could’ve sold it at Ragmarket, but didn’t want to risk it so close to home, where someone might remember him.

Leaving the market, he put on his street face and strode quickly and purposefully past the fancy girls and grifters and street-corner thugs that would be on you at any sign of weakness or fear. “Hey, boy,” a woman called, and he ignored her, as he ignored the glittery nobleman who tried to entice him into an alley.

Southbridge was the infection that festered under the seemingly healthy skin of the city. You didn’t go there at night unless you were big and well armed, and surrounded by big, well-armed friends. But daytime was safe if you used your head and kept aware of your surroundings. He wanted to clear Southbridge before it got dark.

To be fair, some might call Han’s own neighborhood a dangersome place. But in Ragmarket he knew who to watch out for and where they stayed. He only needed a few steps on anyone to disappear into the labyrinth of streets and alleys he knew so well. No one would find him in Ragmarket if he didn’t want to be found.

His destination was The Keg and Crown, a decrepit tavern that clung like a mussel to the river’s edge. The bank underneath had been undercut by centuries of spring floods, and it always seemed in imminent danger of tipping into the river. His timing was good—the common room was just filling up with the evening trade. He’d be out of the way before things got too rowdy.

Han handed Lucius’s bottles to Matieu, the tavern keeper, and received a heavy purse in return.

Matieu stowed the bottles in the back bar, out of reach of his more aggressive customers. “Is that all you have? I’ll have this lot sold in a day. Goes down smooth as water, it does.”

“Have a heart. I can only carry so much, you know,” Han said, pulling a pitiful face and working his aching shoulders with his fingers.

Every tavern in Fellsmarch clamored for Lucius’s trade. Lucius could triple his production and sell it all, but he chose not to.

Matieu eyed him speculatively, then groped under his massive belly for his purse. Extracting a coin, he pressed it into Han’s hand, closing his fingers over it. A princess coin, by the shape and weight of it, called a “girlie” on the street. “Maybe you could speak to him. Convince him to send more bottles my way.”

“Well, I could try, but he has a lot of long-standing customers, you know…” Han shrugged his shoulders. He’d spotted a plate of meat buns on the sideboard. His sister, Mari, loved meat buns. “Uh…Matieu. Got any plans for those buns?”

Han left The Keg and Crown whistling, a girlie richer, with four pork buns wrapped in a napkin. It was shaping up to be a good day after all.

He turned down Brickmaker’s Alley, heading for the bridge over the Dyrnnewater that would take him into Ragmarket. He was nearly through when the light died in the passageway, as if a cloud had passed before the sun.

He looked ahead to see that the exit from the alley was now corked with two bodies.

A familiar voice reverberated off the stone buildings to either side. “Well, now, what have we here? A Ragger on our turf?”

Bones. It was Shiv Connor and his Southies.

Han spun around, meaning to beat it back the way he came, and found two more grinning Southies blocking his escape. This meeting wasn’t random, then. They’d been laying for him, had chosen this place on purpose.

There were six Southies altogether, four boys and two girlies, ranging in age from a year or two younger than Han to a year older. He’d have no room to maneuver in the narrow alleyway, no way to protect his back. It was a mark of respect, recognition of his name in Southbridge.

That was one way to look at it.

In the old days, he’d have had his seconds with him. He’d never have allowed himself to get in a fix like this.

He thought of saying he wasn’t with the Raggers anymore, but that would just mark him as an easy victim, someone without protection or turf of his own.

Han’s hand found the hilt of his knife and he pulled it free, palming it, though he knew it would do him no good. If he was stripped of his purse and badly beaten, that’d be a lucky outcome.

Han put his back to the alley wall. “Just passing through,” he said, lifting his chin, feigning a confidence he didn’t feel. “Meaning no disrespect.”

“Yeah? Well, I mark it different, Cuffs.” Shiv and his gang formed a loose semicircle around Han. The streetlord was redheaded and blue-eyed, his face pale and beardless as a fancy girl’s, marked only by the purple gang symbol on his right cheek and an old knife scar that dragged his left eye down at the corner.

Shiv wasn’t big, and he was no older than Han. He ruled by virtue of his skill with a blade and his willingness to cut your heart out while you slept. Or any other time. A complete lack of a conscience made him powerful.

Shiv’s blade glittered in the light that leaked from the street. His hands were scarred; he’d been badged as a thief by the bluejackets before he’d smartened up. He was the best blade man in Southbridge, and the only one better in Ragmarket was a girlie—Cat Tyburn—who’d replaced Han as streetlord of the Raggers.

“You been doing business in Southbridge, and we want a whack of the takings. You’ve been told,” Shiv said. The rest of the Southies jostled forward, grinning.

“Look, I’m not the bag man,” Han said, falling into his old patter flash. “Who’d trust me with that kind of plate? I just deliver. They settle up on their own.”

“Product, then,” Shiv said, and the other Southies nodded enthusiastically. Like Shiv would be sharing.

Han kept his eyes on Shiv’s blade, adjusting his stance accordingly. “Lucius won’t pay a tariff or a dawb. And if I short anybody, I’m gone.”

“Fine by me,” Shiv said, grinning. “He’ll need somebody to take over. No reason it can’t be us.”

Oh yeah? Han thought. Lucius is particular about who he partners with. But now wasn’t the time to say it. “All right,” he said grudgingly, as if giving in. “Let me talk to him and I’ll see what we can work out.”

Shiv smiled. “Smart boy,” he said.

That must’ve been some sort of signal, because suddenly they were all over him. Shiv’s blade slashed up toward Han’s face, and when he parried that, those on either side seized his arms, slamming his wrist against the wall until he dropped his knife. Then an older boy, a southern islander, took to smashing Han’s head against the wall, and Han knew he’d be done, maybe for good, if the boy kept that up. So he went limp, dragging him to the ground. Shiv kicked him hard in the ribs and somebody else punched him in the face. Nasty but not deadly.

Finally he was yanked upright by the arms and held there while Shiv patted him down. Han resisted the temptation to spit in his face or kick him where it counted. He still hoped to survive the day.

“Where’s your stash?” Shiv demanded, turning out Han’s pockets. “Where’s all those diamonds and rubies and gold pieces everybody talks about?”

It would do no good to tell Shiv that the legendary stash never existed, save in street tales. “It’s gone,” Han said. “Spent, stolen, and given out in shares. I got nothing.”

“You got these.” Shiv scraped back Han’s sleeves, exposing the silver cuffs. “I heard you was a fancy boy, Cuffs.” Seizing Han’s right forearm, Shiv yanked at the bracelet, practically dislocating Han’s wrist. Furious, the gang leader pressed the tip of his knife into Han’s throat, and Han felt blood trickling under his shirt. “Take ’em off.”

The cuffs had been Han’s trademark during his time as streetlord of the Raggers. Shiv wanted them as trophy.

“They don’t come off,” Han said, knowing with a numbing certainty that he was about to die.

“No?” Shiv breathed, his face inches from Han’s, alive with anticipation, tears leaking from his damaged left eye. “That’s a shame. I’ll take off your hands, then, and see if they’ll slide over the stumps.” He looked around at his audience, and the other Southies laughed in a ragged sort of way. “But don’t worry, Stumps. We’ll give you begging rights this side of the bridge. For a cut of the takings, that is.” His laughter was shrill and slightly mad, like an out-of-tune song.

Shiv withdrew his knife from Han’s throat and continued the search, giving him time to think about it. He found Han’s purse and cut it free, taking a little skin with it. Stuffing the swag under his shirt, he grabbed Han’s carry bag and began sorting through it, tossing his trade goods on the ground. Han’s spirits sank even lower. There was no way Shiv would overlook Matieu’s purse. And no way Han could make up that kind of money.

It wouldn’t be his problem after he bled to death.

But it wasn’t Matieu’s purse that Shiv pulled out of the bag. It was Bayar’s amulet in its leather wrapping.

“What you got here, Cuffs?” Shiv asked, his eyes alight with interest. “Something pricy, I hope?” He unfolded the leather and poked it with his finger.

Green light rippled through the alleyway, burning Han’s eyes, temporarily blinding him. With an ear-splitting blast, Shiv and the Southies were flung back against the opposite wall like rag dolls, smacking the stone with a solid thud. Han went down hard, ears ringing.

He rolled to his knees. The amulet, apparently undamaged, lay on the ground just in front of him, still emitting an eerie green glow. After a moment’s hesitation, Han dropped the leather wrapping over it and slid it back into his carry bag.

As he scrambled to his feet, he heard shouted orders and boots pounding over the cobblestones at the Southie end of the alley. He looked back. A clot of blue-jacketed soldiers jammed the entryway. The Queen’s Guard. Han had a history with the Guard. Time to be gone.

He glanced at Shiv, who had heaved himself upright, shaking his head dazedly, surrounded by his cronies. No way to get his own purse back, but he still had Matieu’s, and the Guard might slow the Southies down. It was a chance to come away alive. He’d take it.

Han sprinted down the alley, away from the guard and toward the river. Behind him, he could hear screamed threats and orders to halt. He thought about taking refuge in Southbridge Temple at the west end of the bridge, but decided he’d better try and get clean away. He cleared the alley, ran past the temple close, fought his way through the line for the bridge, and pounded his way across. He didn’t stop running until he was well into Ragger turf. Then he took a circuitous route, careful to make sure no one was following.

Finally he turned onto Cobble Street, limping over the uneven pavers. Now that he felt safe, he surveyed the damage. He hurt all over. The skin stretched tight over the right side of his face said it was swelling, and he could scarcely see out of his right eye. A sharp pain in his side suggested a rib was broken. He carefully explored the back of his head with his fingers. His hair was matted with blood, and there was a goose egg–sized lump rising.