Trafficking in Demons

by Michael Angel

  “Oh, of course. This must be that super-secret project the Court Wizard has been working on for the King. And it’s not a spell per se, it’s a magically charged object.”

  Galen looked up, startled. “How did you come upon this knowledge?”

  Liam appeared to chew over what to say next. “It is hard to describe. I suppose that I haven’t quite finished growing into my power. My ability to hear and see through the creatures of the forest continues to expand. I even get intermittent flashes from trees, and high flying birds. There were some that reacted with great fear to what you were doing, Wizard.”

  “Fear of what, exactly?” I asked.

  “Why, the sounds of explosions. A couple rocked an entire mountaintop.”

  Shaw and I turned to look at our centaur friend who blushed furiously. So, Liam was on to something. I wasn’t quite sure whether I was starting to tread on dangerous ground, though. If Fitzwilliam wanted to keep his project a secret, then he probably had good enough reason.

  “I must ask,” Liam stated formally. “The explosions were high above this land. Very high. In fact, they were up at the summit where you and Dayna fought Rocky, the Old Man of the Mountain.”

  The Wizard swallowed hard. “They were indeed, Protector.”

  “Is it as I fear, that the stone demon has returned?”

  Galen shook his head. “Thank the Gods, no.”

  “Then what was it? Magic that can shake a mountain to its roots is dangerous. Even we of the fey know that much.”

  “Nay, friend fayleene,” Shaw urged. “Do not tempt thy friend to break an oath once sworn.”

  “Has an oath been sworn?” I asked.

  The drake blinked in astonishment. “‘Tis a good point, now that thou hast brought it up. I assumed that one hath been taken, given all the talk of secrecy.”

  Shaw turned his attention to Galen. The Wizard shook his head with a sigh.

  “The King asked me not to speak of it, for the good of Andeluvia,” Galen admitted. “Yet a request, even from a monarch, is not the same thing as a sworn oath. And I can think of no other three beings who I trust more with the interests of this land.

  “Late last summer, just before Dayna was sent with Grimshaw to the Reykajar Aerie, the King summoned me to begin work on a project of ‘most urgent importance’. He wanted me to create a magical weapon. One that could slay dragons.”

  “The explosion was from a weapon, then?” Liam asked, amazed. “I doubt that any sword, lance, mace, or arrow could have done that.”

  “The item I worked on was not to be drawn from Andeluvian designs.” The wizard fixed me in his glance. “They were to be based upon weapons from the Land of Angels. Dayna’s world.”

  A chill ran down my back at the news. Was I inadvertently kicking off some kind of ‘gunpowder revolution’ in Andeluvia? Even more surprising was that Fitzwilliam had approved of this. Until now, he’d kept close to the recommendations of Albess Thea – to sharply limit the amount of technology that came through from my world to this one.

  However, I did glean one positive thing out of all this.

  “I guess…that the King listened to me,” I said, wonder evident in my voice. “He took my reports about Sirrahon and the Creatures of the Dark seriously. And much earlier than I suspected!”

  Galen nodded. “The King cannot voice his support for you in public, or many on the court would shake the firmament to block his efforts out of spite. But you should know something else. His Majesty trusts you more than you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A few months after you managed to return Albess Thea to power, King Fitzwilliam and I were working late one night on some necessary dispatches to both Reaches. He had been imbibing wine throughout the evening to calm his nerves. At that time, when he was both tired and slightly inebriated, he said something I found rather curious. The next morning, I tried to question him about it, but he assured me that I misremembered our conversation. Then he pointedly dismissed me from his presence.”

  “Could you have, ah, misremembered?”

  The Wizard gave me a withering look. “Doubtful at best.”

  Shaw snapped his beak in frustration. “Then thou must not keep thy friends hovering in mid-air! Speak to us, centaur!”

  “Among other things, his Majesty and I had been discussing the poor state of this kingdom’s finances. I brought up your recent induction into the Order of the Weasel, asking specifically if it was a wise decision to saddle his newest knight with such a burden.” Galen looked thoughtful. “His Majesty said in reply, ‘I have placed Dame Chrissie where she can influence events at the right time, should anything ever happen to me’.”

  Fayleene and griffin turned to stare at me, expecting an answer.

  And I for one wished that I had the answer to this latest riddle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What did King Fitzwilliam mean?

  In a sense, this newest revelation shook me even more than when Thea had called me a Hero. At least being a ‘Hero’ to someone like the Albess was somewhat vague. It was a huge responsibility that I took seriously, sure. But since it was a nebulous thing, like ‘thwarting pre-existing prophecy’, it put a limit on what I needed to worry about.

  But being placed where I could ‘influence events at the right time’ if anything happened to the King? That pretty much defined performance pressure to me. And that made my already fragile temper finally snap.

  “That sounds like I’m meant to do something very specific!” I objected. I stood, shaking my hands in frustration. “How am I supposed to know what to do if the King is…I don’t know, indisposed?”

  “I’m afraid that I don’t know the answer–” Galen tried to say.

  I rolled right over Galen’s objection as I swung into a full-on rant. “Has Fitzwilliam gone batty? What is he thinking? I’m a Dame, not a Lord! Most of the court doesn’t even like me, I’ve got the largest debt in the kingdom on my back, and I’ve been stuck in an order with a buck-toothed mascot that stinks of mothballs!”

  “Are you quite done?” the Wizard inquired.

  I slumped back against the edge of the table. “I suppose so. But you can’t blame me for wanting to shake Fitzwilliam down for more information.”

  Galen gave me a chilly look. “I cannot fathom what must be done, but I must insist that you forego speaking to the King. Since he refused to acknowledge our conversation the next morning, I believe that it was a ‘slip’. Something that was not meant for anyone’s ears. Pressing him on that point would destroy the trust he has built with me.”

  I was about to voice another objection, but the Wizard’s firm-but-gentle reminder got through to me. It was annoying, but he was right. There were bigger things at stake here than my pet peeves.

  “And by extension, damaging the trust he has in you would affect the peace that he’s made with the centaurs,” I agreed ruefully. “Not to mention the peace he’s made with my restoring Magnus to his people’s throne.”

  “Agreed,” Liam put in. “I swear never to speak of this topic again, and I suggest that we all do the same. Save in the grimmest of need, what information we have must remain secret.”

  Shaw nodded. “I second thy notion, and so swear.”

  “I shall be the third,” Galen announced. “I so swear.”

  “And it looks like I’m outvoted on this issue,” I said, though with a heavy heart. “Well, you’ve all trusted my judgement more times than I can count. I would be a poor friend if I didn’t trust yours in return. I so swear.”

  Liam made one of his impossibly charming bows to me, followed by Shaw’s brusque one and Galen’s simply incline of the head. I pinched the bridge of my nose for a moment and decided to take a different tack. There was still a good deal I needed to learn from the Court Wizard at this point.

  I turned back to Galen. “Well, if we can’t discuss what King Fitzwilliam expects me to do, then at the very least, I want to hear more about this weapons project he had
you on.”

  The Wizard rubbed his chin. “Apparently, the King was rather impressed with the performance of your world’s firearm, and wanted to harness its type of killing power.”

  “That’s interesting, because Fitzwilliam and Thea are in strong agreement that no more of these weapons should cross into your world, if possible. After all, only one rifle in the right hands ended up removing his father from office and almost causing a war.”

  “Aye,” Shaw put in. “I shudder to think what a dozen of thy world’s firearms could do to a lance of griffin warriors. Or a company of trained, mounted knights.”

  “He is quite aware of the danger,” Galen agreed. “Yet he feels that, so long as two conditions are met, the risk is a worthwhile one. First, such weapons must be kept under royal control. Second, he feels the first condition can be met if the weapons are relatively large.”

  That makes sense, I thought. A potential assassin could wander right into the Royal Court with a handgun tucked into a pocket. That sort of problem couldn’t be replicated with an artillery piece.

  “Additionally,” he continued, “it was felt that a larger weapon would more aptly suit the Kingdom’s defense. After all, we are talking about defense from dragons, not an invading army of humans. Or human-sized creatures.”

  I still didn’t like the idea of gunpowder-type weapons appearing in Andeluvia. My own world’s history was writ in blood from this type of weapon. My job dealt with a lot more of its results than I cared to admit. However, I did my best to withhold judgement. The fate of this kingdom, this world, was very much up for grabs. When it came right down to it, I wasn’t above looking for new weapons to defend it with.

  “I know that you’ve used scrying spells to view my world before,” I allowed. “Did you find something to base your design on?”

  “I did, and came up with a working design.” Galen’s voice held a touch of pride, I thought. “I came up with a type of ‘cannon’ with some basic designs. For example, a hollowed-out tube of bronze cast as a single piece for the muzzle. Bracings to handle the recoil. And a mixture of elements to make a variant of your world’s ‘gunpowder’. It works as an amazingly effective propellant for any projectile.”

  “Which explains the explosions heard by the forest creatures.”

  “Indubitably. I was unable to measure the exit velocity of a hand-sized shell, but the impact turned a large boulder into so much rock powder. I am confident that this device should be able to penetrate a dragon’s scaly hide. And what’s more, this type of powder cannot be ignited by any source of flame or heat.”

  “It can’t?”

  The wizard shook his head. “Fitzwilliam did not want a recipe that could be duplicated by any layabout charcoal burner. Rather, the mixture can only be ignited by magic. A specific spell to trigger the powder via magic rune sigils pressed up against a bag of propellant.”

  Something tickled the back of my skull, forcing me to pay attention. It only took a moment to realize what that little nudge was getting at. And all of a sudden I started to get yet another sinking feeling.

  “Galen,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Can you draw me some of these rune sigils?”

  “That would be easy enough, as I only needed one to trigger the propellant.” With a clop of hooves he trotted past me, picked up a piece of chalk, and drew it on a free spot on the board.

  The mark he sketched looked like an Egyptian ankh, only with an extra couple of hash marks added. I’d seen that mark before. Imprinted on the base of a shell casing.

  A shell casing I’d found at the crime scene inside Mose Wainwright’s house.

  I looked up from the mark and straight at the Court Wizard.

  “I’ve seen that mark before. In my world. Yesterday morning, at the scene of a particularly gruesome murder.”

  Galen’s eyebrows disappeared into his dark, shaggy bangs in surprise. He tried to speak, failed, then cleared his throat before he tried again.

  “Pray tell, how?” he asked. “That is not a conventional rune of power, nor is it from the ancient texts such as the ones in the Codex of the Bellus Draconum. It is a wizarding mark.”

  “One couldst be kind,” Shaw grumped, “by telling thy friends who are not wizards what that means.”

  “It means that the mark only exists, only has ‘meaning’, because a wizard created it. In this case, I was the wizard who did so.” He paused to wipe at the beads of sweat that had popped out on his brow. “Only someone who has access to my texts could have taken it up, and I keep them locked in a saddle bag or my laboratory at all times.”

  “Hast thou considered that an ethereal being could pass through thy bags and locks?”

  Galen rubbed his chin. “My wards should be protection against most any being, though I am unclear of their effect on Ethereals."

  “One moment,” Liam said.

  The Protector of the Forest lowered his head and closed his eyes. His mouth moved as he murmured an incantation, and for a split second, his antlers glowed with the release of magical power. It was amazing to see, at least for me. When I’d first met him, this kind of magic would have taken a lot longer for him to perform, and it would have tired him out for the rest of the morning.

  Liam opened his eyes as the spell dissipated. The sunlight from my open window caught the edge of his green iris, making it sparkle. He shook his head.

  “No ethereal being has left a magic spoor within the confines of this palace since Destry’s last visit,” he pronounced. “I am sure of it.”

  “At least that narrows it down,” I said. “There’s no physical or magical way that someone could have seen Galen’s notes here in Fitzwilliam’s palace. That leaves the testing grounds.”

  “I performed my tests atop a wide, open summit,” the Wizard pointed out. “There is precious little there that a person could possibly hide behind for at least sixty yards in every direction.”

  “That may still be close enough. At that distance, a pair of high-powered binoculars might be able to make out details, like a hand-carved rune. Say, if you were handling the projectiles as you were putting them into your weapon for testing.”

  The centaur reddened. “Then that may have been where it happened.”

  “And what’s more, the only person we know of who can use magic, is familiar with Andeluvia, and has a company devoted to weapons development in my world…is Grayson Archer.”

  “It does seem likely,” Galen agreed. “Do you think he’s linked to the murder you described?”

  “I have my suspicions.” I related the details of my visit to the crime scene.

  Liam looked repulsed by my description of the body. Shaw seemed unimpressed that there were no signs of struggle. Galen listened in a detached, clinical manner right until I mentioned the part where my medallion had gone ice cold.

  “That is most definitely a sign of a magic-infused item crossing a magic barrier. Specifically, a barrier that someone did not want crossed.”

  “But why would someone like Wainwright have that?” I objected. “Archer’s the only person I’ve come across who knows magic in my world.”

  Galen’s lips twitched. “Perchance you would like us to look into this matter more closely?”

  I thought about that for a second. The Wainwright house had been cordoned off as a crime scene, but Detective Vega hadn’t assigned any security detail. And the house itself was pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

  “Now that I think about it, I could use someone who can interpret runes on site. I’ll probably also need someone who can track magical spoor.” Liam’s ears perked up for a moment. “And of course, I need a griffin’s might to protect us all from any mishap.”

  Shaw raked the rug with his talons. “Thy wish is granted!”

  “I too shall come.” Liam’s forehoof made a clack as he stamped his emphasis.

  “My magic is offered and ready for service,” Galen stated smoothly. “Just say the word.”

  “Then let’s go
,” I said. “We’re heading back to my world. I want some of these questions settled one way or another.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A blaze of flashbulb whiteness and the stink of ozone blotted out my senses for one heart-stopping moment before the familiar ‘bump’ underfoot at the very instant of arrival indicated we were on solid ground. The whiteness faded away, to be replaced by the familiar golden sparkle of Southern California sunshine.

  The four of us had arrived at the parking circle outside the Wainwright house. I swayed on my feet, but steadied myself in a moment. My stomach didn’t feel like I’d downed a quarter pound hamburger and then taken a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl, either.

  “That…was a shade better than awful,” I remarked to Galen.

  “Is it now?” The Wizard looked slightly abashed. “After the Battle of the Oxine, King Magnus took me aside and suggested some slight adjustments to my transport spell. The last time I charged your medallion, I made sure to utilize them.”

  “I vote to keep whatever new spell you’ve concocted,” Liam said, bobbing his antlers. “For once, I don’t feel like the grass I ate last evening is trying to make its escape.”

  “Was…was my prior version of the spell that injurious to one’s wellbeing?” Galen asked plaintively.

  Grimshaw rubbed the underside of his beak with a furry paw, considering. “Thy former spell brought back a memory of youth. When I was but a hatchling, I doth recall eating a batch of rotting fish. Mine own nest was fouled for a week!”

  “It was that bad?”

  “Nay, ‘twas not. Almost, but not quite. ‘Tis a close match, though.”

  “Guys, let’s focus,” I broke in, before this line of conversation got any worse. Looking around, I found to my relief that my assumptions about the state of the house appeared to be correct. The crime scene tape barrier had been joined by a tacked-up notice from the LAPD to ‘keep out’. But that was all that had changed.