The Demon Lord

by Peter Morwood

  Stripping off his right-hand glove, he knelt and pressed his fingers to the soldier’s neck where the skin was already cold, and clammy with perspiration. The pulse was slow, irregular and weak like the uneven, shallow breathing, and soon to stop. There was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do, except – he reached up toward the chieftain’s bier to shift the candle closer – make sure the lord’s-man didn’t die in the dark. But those gasps for breath stopped before the candle moved.

  Aldric held his own breath for a few seconds, then straightened up. It was time to leave this place, but first he lifted the red rose which had lain undisturbed throughout the fighting. Its fragrance was as potent as before, still too excessive to be pleasant, but at least it didn’t stink of fresh-spilled blood. Then, just as he had touched the soldier, he reached out with those same fingertips and laid them on the chieftain’s dry brown skull. It had the slight slickness of polished wood or an old book-binding.

  “Lord of the mound,” he said, as if making a salutation. “Did they leave your hawks and hounds and horses here, and chosen warriors to guard your goods and ease your loneliness? You’ll have more company from this night on.”

  Aldric had hoped for magic, or an answer to the many riddles which troubled him. He had found only pain, and the echoes of nightmare, and corpses. After a duck of the head halfway between a bow and a dismissal, he turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The reflex jerk of one leg awoke her, wrenched sweating and wild-eyed out of a dreadful dream of endless falling. There was no warm interval of drowsiness; one minute she was deep in restless sleep, the next shocked wide awake. The moon shone into her eyes through a crack where the bedroom shutters didn't meet, and for an instant the young woman thought she had somehow lost all of one day and night. Then she realised, with a relief concealed by the darkness, that its disc wasn’t yet at full.

  Sedna ar Gethin was the present consort of Lord Crisen Geruath, and a sorcerer of great though undefined ability. Not that any who lived in Seghar town beneath the shadow of their Overlord’s lowering citadel were rash enough to use the word. An over-forthright merchant from Tergoves wondered aloud about what talents she might have besides those of an ordinary mistress, pronounced the word with an emphatic inflection that made it Talents – and next day in the public square a team of oxen pulled him apart.

  The Imperial punishment for sorcery was just as savage, so Crisen’s response to that dangerous speculation was at least understandable. Men of power and privilege in the Imperial provinces closer to Drakkesborg could do as they pleased with magic, protected by what they were or who they knew, but that didn’t apply to petty noblemen out on the Jevaiden plateau. Such noblemen needed to avoid attention by any means they could, and it was a measure of how things stood in the Empire that a brutal execution without trial no longer caused comment.

  Sedna sat up and curled her legs beneath her. Sleep would prove elusive for a while, and she could remember enough of her dream to be glad of it. When the quilt slipped from her shoulders and the night air chilled her sweaty skin, the shiver it provoked came from more than just the cold, for it was a sensation uncomfortably close to one experienced earlier that night. She snuggled lower again, moving with care so as not to waken Crisen, but the cool draught had already disturbed the Overlord’s son.

  He muttered something to his pillow and rolled over, clawing still more of the quilt from Sedna’s limbs. She glared at him, debated what to do while her skin grew even colder, then reached a decision and swung both legs out of bed as she reached for her discarded robe. It was cream silk, lined with a costly apricot satin whose weight made it cling to her body as if both silk and skin were oiled. All of that was in Crisen’s mind when he bought it but, far more important tonight, the lining made it warm.

  Sedna was slight, almost thin, with all the implied plainness that word suggested in a country which liked its women well-curved. But she was neither thin nor plain, nor even merely pretty: there was all the translucent beauty of an exquisite porcelain figurine in her slender form. Straight black hair emphasised her height, for no blade had touched it in years and now, worn as she preferred it as a single long horsetail tied back with silken cord, it flowed in a glossy raven sheet for the full length of her spine and beyond. Its darkness, and the deep brown of her long-lashed eyes, accentuated a face which never tanned even when she was out of doors all day. She seemed little more than that innocent child now, for all her willowy elegance, yet any who believed it were deeply mistaken.

  Sedna ar Gethin was neither child nor innocent; she was Vreijek, a sorcerer, and a long way from home.

  The smells of burnt ymeth and stale wine lingered in the bedroom; Sedna wrinkled her nose with distaste and wished herself more than ever back in Vreijaur, or anywhere far from here and now. She looked down at the muffled bulk of Crisen’s sleeping body, staring in a dispassionate way which would have annoyed him intensely if he was awake and aware of it.

  Despite his ferocious notions of justice he didn’t seem a bad man, at least no worse than most in his situation. He was ambitious of course, but then so many were. Sedna was just as ambitious, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. But she felt sure there was no real evil in him, unlike several of the men encountered in this same fortress during recent months.

  Lord-Commander Voord for one, who slept in a guest-room in the same wing of the citadel, not far enough away for Sedna’s peace of mind. That one might not sleep at all, just sit bolt upright in a high-backed chair with his unblinking pale eyes fixed on nothing, no more needing to close them than a lizard. There was something reptilian about him, something cold and patient. Sedna didn’t know why so young a man held such high rank and no desire to find out. Ignorance of Voord’s doings was an advantage when one had to speak to him, an ordeal so far kept to an absolute minimum. The Eldheisart frightened her.

  Sedna wrapped the lined robe close about her and tied it in place before she walked towards the casement and swung one shutter wide. With the contrast between in bed and out less pronounced, the night air became refreshing rather than chilly and she drew it deep into her lungs as a man might inhale the fragrant smoke of his pipe. The dream still troubled her, with an uneasy feeling that there was more behind it than a simple nightmare, and the moonlight cast too many shadows. She pronounced the Invocation of Fire, gestured with one hand towards an oil-lamp, and with a small, sharp crack its wick ignited. Sedna was a sorcerer indeed, and one considerably skilled in the Art Magic. A less careful, less capable wizard could have set the entire table aflame.

  There had been death in her dream, the violent ending of several lives, but where, and who, and why should it concern her? She knew, like someone aware they have no ear for music, that she wasn’t given to precognition or visions, but a squirm of suspicion turned her gaze on sleeping Crisen. Sedna couldn’t have said why, even to herself, but nonetheless she knew.

  He always showed interest in her magics, as any man might dabble in matters that interested his lover. As that Tergovan merchant learned too late, Crisen’s rank and status also shielded her from the legal consequences. Yet more than once she found her books disturbed. There was no reason for complaint; none were damaged, and curiosity was reason enough. But now, her misgivings aroused, Sedna began to see connections which hadn’t been clear enough before.

  How many other times had it happened? How many times was everything tidied afterwards with much more care, so she never knew what had been read?

  It was enough to find her well-thumbed copy of The Grey Book of Sangellan taken from its case then replaced with its place-tag moved from ‘Herblore’ – a proper subject for here in the forest country – to ‘Shape-shifting’, which interested her not at all. More ominously, her rarest and most expensive grimoire – a hand-bound, handwritten Jouvaine translation of the proscribed Vlechan work Enciervanul Doamnisoar – ‘On the Summoning of Demons’ – had also been moved, and when she saw it, one hasp of the reputed woman’s-hide
cover was still not snapped completely shut.

  Sedna noticed that intrusion straight away, for she had bought the volume at a high price when opportunity arose, and since that time hadn’t opened it except to check that all its pages were in place. It was a book for possession, not use, and certainly not for idle browsing by the unwary.

  At first the realisation that someone was looking between its covers merely irritated her. Now it disturbed her. The phrase ‘forbidden knowledge’ was much over-used by the ignorant, but with Enciervanul Doamnisoar it was plain truth. And there were the usual stories and rumours of what happened to the translator a year and a day after he completed his self-appointed task…

  Sedna needed to check her books, and though she would rather have waited until daylight, it had to be done right now if she was to have any peace of mind. She opened the bedroom door just enough to let her out and then, with a backward glance towards the still-sleeping Crisen, squeezed through the crack and pulled it shut behind her.

  Three seconds passed. Then Crisen Geruath sat up.

  *

  The Overlord’s son had granted his lady two rooms for her own private use, one as a library and the other, a great cellar underneath the oldest part of Seghar citadel, somewhere she could practice her sorcery without disturbance or unwelcome notice. It was there she made entertaining magics for Crisen’s amusement, like invoking an elemental spirit to present him with great red summer roses. Why roses she never knew, but roses he had wanted and roses he got, even at the waning of winter when snow still clothed the Jevaiden in drifts six feet deep.

  Once, and once only – she detested necromancy – Sedna had called up a spirit of Crisen’s ancestors. Despite insisting she perform the spell, its result hadn’t pleased him. The Geruath line was far less exalted than they claimed, littered with by-blows and low-caste bastards, and though such secrets were common among the new aristocracy elevated by support for the Grand Warlords, being common didn’t make them any more palatable. The old Drusalan nobility who supported the Emperors treated illegitimacy as a mere human failing, but that opinion was reinforced by generations of lordship. Only families such as Crisen’s were over-sensitive about the misbehaviour of men and women long dead.

  Sedna sometimes wondered what lords had preceded the Geruaths. It was clear they had supported the wrong side, so they no longer ruled Seghar, and she wasn’t foolhardy enough to ask to ask what had become of them. But she could guess, and as she padded through the darkened corridors of the citadel with the echoes of that dream still troubling her mind, she realised she might have been terribly wrong about Crisen. Yes, he lacked the aura of sophisticated cruelty that Lord-Commander Voord wore like a cloak, but he could be dangerous enough, his ambition would make sure of that. And when his sense of rank and importance was questioned, the Three Gods had better guard those who did it.

  Sedna considered her own unspoken words and despite her worries they brought a sour smile to her face. Unspoken was safest in this place. It was typical of the Drusalan Empire that its rulers should want to influence what people believed, what gods they prayed to and what Afterlives they went to, as if one life wasn’t trouble enough. She wasn’t religious. Few sorcerers were, knowing what they did about the nature of things, but Imperial meddling with spiritual matters angered her more than any of its other petty interferences. Rumour had it that radical Drusalan priests were demanding the Teshirin sect be denounced as heretics. If that happened the Imperial legions could go from one end of Vreijaur and Jouvann to the other, killing one in every three of the population.

  There was a certain macabre aptness to the number.

  From what she knew of the Alban, they were much wiser. They revered their ancestors as part of each clan’s history, rather than what they had or hadn’t been or done, and they prayed to a God represented by the sun they called the Light of Heaven. It was strange that a people bound by oaths and honour-codes which sometimes seemed more than half in love with death, should pay so much respect to a symbol of life. Or maybe not so strange at all.

  There were few sounds so late at night in Seghar’s citadel, and no patrolling sentries. Except in time of war Crisen’s retainers were servants more than soldiers, and Voord’s personal guard, the only real military force for twenty miles, were in barracks on the other side of the sprawling fortress. But although the halls and corridors were quiet Sedna was mistaken to assume she was alone and unwise to let her concentration. For she was wrong in her assumption, twice over.

  She crossed one last gallery and stopped outside her library door, glancing warily from side to side before removing its key from the concealed cache under one glazed tile of the elaborate mosaic floor. The lock turned with only the faintest clicking from its mechanism, and the well-greased door swung silently open to admit her. It re-locked in equal silence from within and Sedna drew a heavy curtain so no light along its edges could betray her presence. Only then did she conjure flame into the lamps and candles – all of them, for she was growing to hate the thought of shadows. They caught with a sequential crackling like dry reeds flung onto a fire, their scented oils and waxes filling the room with pleasant blended perfumes.

  In the provinces a library might mean three or four handwritten volumes and a dozen printed works, maybe a score of books in all. This one was different. It was on a scale to match the great Imperial cities, not just a room devoted to books but a room full of them, with shelves from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. It held an emperor’s ransom in paper, parchment and painted silk, tooled-leather tomes and fragile scrolls in lacquer cases, with books common, books rare and books priceless all jostling for prominence. Most had come from the famous shop at The Four Cranes in Ternon, and didn’t need kept under lock and key except for their value to any discerning thief bold enough to rob this fortress.

  But a few had come from other sources, and they were locked away from prying eyes and fingers in the one object which spoiled an otherwise lovely room. At first glance the place looked scholarly and comfortable, somewhere philosophers could debate obscure points of reasoning over a dish of honeyed fruit and a glass or three of wine. Two incongruities gave the lie to that gentle image. One was a casket made of dull blued steel, the other an enormous velvet curtain stretching half the length of the end wall. Sedna walked to the casket, almost as tall as herself and etched with minute detailed figures, then hesitated while she gathered up the courage to look inside.

  Its key went everywhere with her, built into the massive ring which dominated the centre knuckles of her left hand. The key, and the casket it fitted, were made at her own considerable expense in the foundries of Egisburg, then installed here quite openly. Her excuse both then and now was safety, a sound reason for locking any door, and Crisen didn’t question it. Also, more importantly to her mind, she possessed the only key. Sedna unsnapped a jewelled catch to release its elaborate wards from the body of the ring, inserted that key into the lock and, after a complex sequence of twists and pressures, the iron door opened.

  If she had been less worried or more observant, she might have noticed miniscule scratches round the keyhole’s outer rim and a thin film of metal-flecked grease on the key as she withdrew it; telltale signs that the lock had been picked. But she did not, for at that point she hesitated. All her other actions were swift and sure, yet now something stopped her reaching into the casket. Fear, perhaps, or simply an unwillingness to learn at last what foreboding had brought her here.

  Sedna put both hands inside and withdrew the bulk of Enciervanul Doamnisoar, repelled as always by the smooth, sleek contact of its flawless leather cover. According to legend it was the skin of a virgin girl, flayed with flint while she still lived then tanned to the softness of a lady’s glove as binding for this most terrible of grimoires. According to legend…

  “Pigskin, probably,” Sedna muttered as she laid the book down on a lectern. She said something of the sort on every occasion she touched the book, although Father, Mother and Maiden all witness
how few those occasions had been. Despite that reassuring scepticism she still wanted to wipe an unseen residue of suffering from her hands. It was several minutes before she unsnapped the three bronze hasps which held the covers shut, and longer still before she opened them.

  When she did so, she found there was no need to search through its pages. The book was doing that all by itself. Logically it was because any thick volume tended to fall open at weak points in the binding of its spine. But logic had no place where magic was involved. The leaves flicked past with a tiny sound like mice behind wainscoting, fast at first then slowing down as if an unseen reader neared a place they sought.

  The pages stopped.

  And that was when the hostile eyes watching through a hidden spy-port saw Sedna gasp with fear and press her knuckles to her teeth.

  *

  Aldric emerged into the clearing again, into shadows thrown by the surrounding trees which had barely advanced from where he last saw them. He had been inside the mound for less than twenty minutes. It had seemed longer. It had been longer.

  Three lives longer…

  A human figure, or at least a vague silhouette of one, black against the moon-silvered grass, was watching him from beneath the lightning-blasted tree. Though he couldn’t see its eyes he could sense them on him, and also sense something else that might be relief, disbelief or even annoyance. Aldric couldn’t tell. His hand moved to the holstered telek, but he recognised the silhouette of Evthan’s lanky frame and forced himself to relax and even wear a thin smile on a face where it didn’t fit. False bravado was becoming a habit, a playacting affectation. The smile dissolved.

  As he drew closer he made out more details, and they didn’t match what he expected to see. Once his anger at the lack of alarm or help faded away, Aldric imagined reasons to justify it. He was prepared for Evthan dead, Evthan injured, or at least Evthan taking cover from a superior number of armed men. Even that demonstration of caution close to cowardice wouldn’t have irritated him as much as the reality, which was Evthan unhurt, Evthan unruffled, Evthan not even out of breath with his bow unstrung and his quiver laced shut.