by Joseph Malik
“I’ve heard of this man,” said Edwin, in a tone that suggested he was putting it all together. “He’s a demon.”
“I’ve heard him called worse,” said Saril.
“You don’t understand,” said Edwin. “I was there, at the meeting.”
Saril gave him his full attention. “What meeting?”
“When they dispatched Crius Lotavaugus to the demon world. He was to bring back demon advisors for a war. This is one of them.”
Saril stood. “Lieutenant!” he shouted. Jarrod came running.
“Tell him what you told me,” Saril said to Edwin.
“You’re the demon,” Edwin said proudly to Jarrod.
Jarrod looked at Saril, who ground his jaw.
“You’re the one from Sabbaghian’s world,” Edwin continued. “Master Crius summoned you from the demon realm. You’re not human. You’re unnatural.”
“Explains a lot,” Saril grumbled.
“Crius,” said Jarrod, looking at Saril directly, “did not summon me. He came to my house and had a drink, and asked me if I’d come fight for Gateskeep to kick Ulo’s ass. I said sure, it sounded fun.”
“Now that, I believe,” said Saril, after a moment of thought.
“But you’re a demon,” said Edwin.
Saril, and now Bevio, looked at Jarrod.
“For lack of a more convenient term,” said Jarrod. “Yes.”
Jarrod’s makeshift circus took a breather in a meadow looking across to the Silver Gate, a waterfall the size of a mountain that formed the headwaters of a mighty river and marked the entrance to The Stronghold. Beneath it, the Bridge Between the Worlds thumbed its nose at imagination; impossibly long, impossibly high above the river, and shrouded in mist with the waterfall thundering over it. The sun broke between gathering clouds every so often on this side of the bridge—across the river the clouds swirled, blacker and more violent than he’d ever seen, as if the storm front stopped right at the border—and every so often the bridge would explode into rainbows as a sunbeam passed through the spray.
His men hadn’t said much to him in the past few days. He knew that they’d heard rumors of Sabbaghian being a demon. Everyone had.
But the idea that Jarrod was brought here to fight a demon, being one himself, was a bit of a shock.
Saril flopped down in the grass beside him. “We’ve been talking,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” said Jarrod.
“If you’re a demon, and Sabbaghian is a demon, and if you were brought here to kill him—”
“I wasn’t brought here to kill him,” interrupted Jarrod. “I was brought here to play a great game against him. With your armies, against Gavria’s armies. Sabbaghian on one side, me on the other. That’s an important distinction. I am not an assassin.”
“Whatever,” said Saril. “You’re on our side. You’re my friend. This doesn’t change that. You’re our leader, and this doesn’t change that either. You’re a Lieutenant in the Order of the Stallion and the smartest, toughest man I’ve ever met, and this changes none of that. I don’t care if you come from the moon, Jarrod. I’ll follow you.” He looked over at the others. “We all will.”
There was a new and granitic sternness to Saril; something slower, older, a stoicism that made him seem twenty years his own senior and ready to kick the world in the balls. Where had this guy come from and where had he been ten days ago? This was the man Jarrod needed right now.
Jack perked, looking down the road ahead of them. “Sire?” he said to Jarrod.
Jarrod shook from his reverie. “What’s up?”
“Banners,” Jack said. “Gateskeep banners. Your order.”
“At the gate?” asked Saril.
“On foot, sire,” said Jack.
“Everybody saddle up,” Jarrod said. “Break’s over. Let’s go do this thing.”
Jarrod knew it was Carter from three hundred yards away. There were no other seven-footers on this planet.
Carter, in warm clothes and a black fur cape, met him with open arms. Jarrod swung down from Perseus, crouching with an oomph as he landed. “I didn’t think you’d figure it out,” he said.
“The trick was the timing,” Carter admitted. “We’ve been here since this morning. God, that’s a big horse.”
“Do you have any food?” Jarrod asked.
Behind Carter were two knights of the Stallion in black mail and many weapons. They saluted Jarrod. Behind them all, in his usual shambling clothes, was Crius. “I wouldn’t figure you’d miss this,” Jarrod said to Crius.
“I like elves,” Crius admitted. He offered a greeting in Elvish to Kaeili, who returned it.
“This is truly inspired, Sir Jarrod,” said Crius. “Absolutely brilliant thinking. The king is impressed.”
“Send him my fuckin’ regards,” griped Edwin. “You’re gonna let me hang, Crius? For this pointy-eared little piece of tail? You’re a bag of shit, you know that?”
“Oh, can I please beat him up?” asked Carter, his eyes merry.
“You’d have to stand in line, Chancellor,” suggested Crius.
Kaeili conversed with Crius at some length.
Crius became animated toward the last bit of his conversation with Kaeili, and then closed his eyes for what Jarrod figured was a minute and seemed to go to sleep standing up.
“We are in for a treat,” said Crius, shaking himself awake.
A knot of figures had appeared on the far side of the bridge, and slowly grew larger. They were, Jarrod saw as they approached, multicolored. To say the least.
“What,” said Carter, “the hell. . .”
Nine small, slender men in the most fantastic armor Carter and Jarrod had ever seen—Gothic, fluted armor in explosions of colors mimicking flowers on a spring morning and detailed with silver and gold—waved and called out in bubbling voices that Jarrod couldn’t understand: a cross between Gaelic and gargling.
They were on foot, and moving unbelievably fast for being in so much armor.
As they crossed the bridge and spilled out onto land, Jarrod could see that their armor was brightly-dyed, embossed leather, fluted and molded into scales and horns. Even their helmets were leather, and each was shaped and carved into a gargoyle-like visage, some with wings, some with horns, all with fangs.
They approached, and Kaeili greeted them, as did Crius.
Each of the Faerie knights shook hands with each of the humans. They were small and slender, and beyond graceful in their movements. Under the visors, Jarrod could see nothing but huge violet eyes.
A knight in orange and cornflower armor shed his helmet. He could have been Kaeili’s brother, as his skin was tan, and his hair was rockstar long and blond with brown streaks, and his eyes had the same sad turn to the corners.
“Akiel of Corimann,” Crius introduced. “A prince of the Faerie.”
Akiel shook Jarrod’s hand. His hand was warm and firm. “You brought her?” he asked. Like Kaeili, he had pointed, cat-like canines. Jarrod wondered if all elves did.
“Sir Jarrod the Merciful, Knight Lieutenant in the King’s Order of the Stallion, Your Grace,” said Jarrod. “Yes. This man,” he motioned to Edwin, “we render to you for justice.”
“For slaving?” said Akiel, looking Edwin over. “They must really not like you.”
“We have our reasons, Your Grace,” said Jarrod.
“So I would think,” said the elf. “But explain to me these reasons, lest I puzzle over this for the rest of my days.”
Jarrod looked back at Carter, who nodded.
“Gavria and Ulorak are arming the gbatu,” said Jarrod. And it was that simple. “This man is helping.”
The prince’s demeanor shifted into something that made Jarrod uneasy. “What kind of arms?”
“Mail for the sheth. Good swords. Steel axes.”
“To what end?” the prince demanded, turning to Edwin.
Edwin wasn’t talking.
&nb
sp; “A misguided attempt to distract Falconsrealm’s forces, Your Grace,” Carter stepped in. “We think—we believe—that this actually bodes worse for your people than for ours. Sir Jarrod, here, believed that this act of benevolence would gain audience with someone from your people who could carry the message. We had no idea you, yourself, would come. We’re honored by your presence.”
“They have hundreds of princes,” spat Edwin. “Every third elf is a prince or a princess. Hell, that little hole of mine was technically a princess.”
Jarrod shoved him off his saddle. Edwin hit, rolled, then jumped up and ran for it, up the hill.
“Fuck!” said Jarrod. He’d never catch him in armor.
“I got this,” said Carter. He unpinned his cape, took a deep breath, and exploded after Edwin in a linebacker’s sprint. His boots left divots.
“Dog! Go!” said Peric, pointing at Edwin. Carter caught Edwin, wrapped him up in both arms, and rolled, body-slamming him hard enough that grass and petals flew.
Dog was there a moment later. He observed the tussle, which was brief, and as Carter trapped Edwin’s arm in a figure-4, Dog latched his mouth around Edwin’s entire forehead and applied light pressure.
Edwin stopped struggling.
Carter marched him back to the group. Dog nipped at Edwin’s heels. Edwin kicked at Dog, and Carter elbowed him in the head. “That dog’s a better man than you are,” said Carter.
Akiel turned to Jarrod, the show over, and continued. “I appreciate what you’ve done. It will not go unmentioned.” He looked behind Jarrod. “You spent all your provisions getting up here. Did you intend to starve to death on your return?”
“I was hoping we could bag a deer,” said Jarrod. “But otherwise, you’re correct, Your Grace.”
“Our wizards can send you home,” said Akiel.
“Could your wizards just send me a sandwich and a beer?” asked Jarrod. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
Akiel laughed.
“If you can ride till nightfall, Lieutenant, we can provide much more than a sandwich and a beer.”
Carter, Crius, and the knights hadn’t brought horses. Neither had the elves. Jarrod and his team moved at a crawl so as not to outstrip them.
“I thought you had a pegasus,” said Jarrod, in English.
“Would you ride a horse half a mile up in the air?”
“Jesus, no,” said Jarrod.
“Right? It’s been horsemanship, nonstop, for the past few months. I’m getting there.”
“We had to disband the yeomanry this morning,” Carter told Jarrod, returning to the local language. “And it looks like we have to rescind the declaration of war.”
Jarrod asked Carter, “Why don’t we just have Crius zap us into Ulo’s nest from here? We’ll kill the fucker, grab the princess, zap back, and call it a day.”
“Yeah, we talked about that,” said Carter. “It doesn’t work that way. He can only make a doorway to someplace he’s been before. Like, he’d never been to the Silver Gate itself, but he’d seen it, so he could get as far as the place where he’d been standing when he’d seen it.”
“Bullshit,” said Jarrod. “He appeared on my doorstep.”
“Yeah,” said Carter. “He took me home, too. How did he do that?”
Jarrod thought for a minute. “Wait, no. He reads minds. That’s how he was able to talk with us on Earth, remember? He was reading my mind when he sent me home to get my gear.”
“He showed up on Earth before that, though,” said Carter. “He’d never been there before.”
“He showed up at a Renaissance Faire,” said Jarrod. “He was probably guessing what it would look like.”
“So, we find somebody who’s been to The Silver Palace,” said Carter, “and then Crius can read his mind. How hard can that be?”
Edwin, on horseback, shouted for Jarrod’s attention.
“What?” Jarrod snapped.
Edwin leaned back in his saddle, as smug as Jarrod had ever seen a man. “I’ve been there,” said Edwin. “I’ve been to the throne room at The Silver Palace.”
Crius looked at Jarrod, who looked at Carter. Everyone looked to Akiel, who looked back to Edwin, who was looking pretty damned pleased with himself.
“Spare my life,” said Edwin with a shrug and a roll of his eyes, “And maybe, maybe, I’ll let the wizard, here—”
“I’ve got it,” acknowledged Crius. “Very clear. You guys want to go now, or wait until after dinner?”
“Son of a bitch!” Edwin shouted.
“Were you not listening? Or do you not understand how telepathy works?” asked Jarrod.
“We’re going to have to get in there,” said Carter, “find her, kill him, and make a break for it, which means either fleeing into Gavria—not the best idea—or scaling the Teeth of the World and then tear-assing across the Shieldlands with an army chasing us and the princess over my shoulder.”
“We’re probably gonna die,” Jarrod admitted.
“But you’ll do it anyway,” said Akiel. “I can tell.”
“Oh, without a doubt,” said Jarrod. “But we’re going out in style. Crius, you’d mentioned at the outset that I could go back home and re-equip. How big of a deal is that for you?”
Crius groaned. “I’d have to rest, fully rest, for a day on either side of your journey.”
“Send word to the king to stand the forces down,” said Jarrod. “Tell him his Special Operations detachment will have Adielle home in twenty-three days, and if we don’t, there’ll be nothing left to risk so start the war anyway.”
“You’re telling the king what to do?” asked Edwin. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m an officer in the Order of the Stallion,” said Jarrod. “I rescue princesses for a living. Do you have any dragons around for me to kill? Because I do that, too.”
The elves called it Sanctuary.
The meadow on the far side of the Silver Gate was one of the most perfect places Jarrod had ever seen. Manicured in the devil-may-care-yet-how-did-you-manage-that manner of a Japanese garden, every flower and berry seemed both ideally placed and yet carefree. Roots grew out of the spongy turf in the shadows of fruit trees, shaped through what must have been eons into benches, armchairs, and even soft moss beds under woven lean-tos. Fires crackled in pits and stone fireplaces and several dozen elves lounged, most of them surrounded by gear for excursion: packs, walking sticks, bows. Jarrod half-expected to see Clannad shooting a video.
The elves, alien and balletic, rose to come meet the humans. They left their weapons.
Jarrod shook many hands and forgot most of their names when a young Faerie woman, mind-shatteringly beautiful and smelling for all the world like fruit punch Jolly Ranchers, hugged him to her and kissed his cheek.
“Welcome,” she said. “Call me Karra.”
Her eyes were mostly blue and her hair was mostly blonde, because she had braided the dark stripes into wiry dreadlocks with feathers tied at the ends. The result was both wild and delicate, a dangerous feral creature suspended in that moment where young women are softly, breathtakingly beautiful.
Some things are too perfect for the world they live in.
She kissed him on the other cheek. “Welcome,” she said again.
“Can we stay here?” asked Jarrod.
“No, it’s too perilous,” quipped Carter as two Faerie women wearing spectacularly little led him to a mossy bench and put a wooden cup of something in his hand.
Akiel gestured around the glen. “You may not cross the next mountains into the Stronghold, but you may stay here as long as you like. We’ll provide you food, we’ll see to your animals,” here, he looked at Edwin, then nodded to the Faerie knights. “And we will return this one to the river.”
Four of the brightly-armored knights pulled Edwin from his horse and dragged him out of sight. In moments, his screams were indiscernible from the birdsong.
Carter whistled a few bars of the Oompa Loompa theme. “Couldn’t happen to a sweeter guy,” he said, taking a drink. “Sangria?” he asked the girl who’d handed it to him. “For me?”
“Wine and juice,” she said. “It refreshes.”
“Yes,” Carter agreed. “Yes, it does.”
Karra let go of Jarrod’s hand as Kaeili came to them and hugged him close. “I must go,” she said. “I have much healing to do, and I can’t do it here. I will never forget you.”
“This will fade,” said Jarrod.
“You will never fade from me,” she said, and in five steps she had entered the tree line and was gone.
Karra brought Jarrod a wooden plate heaped with chunks of rare meat and some sort of aggregate berries, and a huge stone cup of wine, and begged him to sit by the fire and talk. “I never get to speak your language,” she said. Her Falconsrealm dialect was excellent though the consonants were hard and overpronounced. “And your people tell the best stories.”
She ate a piece of the meat, then fed one to him. It was soft and hot and lightly flavored, charred rare with lavender and salt.
“Don’t let ‘em kill me yet, buddy,” Jarrod told the skies. “Give me a couple of days, right here, to plan this thing. Then they can bring it heavy. I swear.”
She handed him the wine. “To whom do you speak?”
“An old friend,” said Jarrod.
The sangria was amazing. Chunks of berries floated in it.
She wrapped her hands around his on the cup, and his pulse sprinted at her touch. Holding his hands, she pulled the cup to her lips and took a long drink, then put it back to his with a smile and a flash of incisors. “Shed your armor, sire,” she suggested. “Nothing here will harm you.”
3-6-9-8-7-4.
Jarrod had intentionally chosen his alarm sequence so that he could punch it in drunk. On the keypad, it drew a J.
