King of Chaos

by Dave Gross

  The vamp flinched, maybe thinking it would burst into flames or start choking on poison.

  But there was nothing. I hadn't cast a spell. I'd only blown paper dust in its face.

  The vamp hit me straight in the chest, hard as a mule's kick—and I know what I'm talking about when I say that.

  The blow threw me back into a couple other guys. We hit the gunwales tangled together. We all moaned, but when I tried to get up I really felt it, like the vamp had put a hole right through me.

  Now I can take a punch. Desna knows I've taken plenty before. This one knocked more than the wind out of me. I half expected to hear my heart splash into the river behind us.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gray blur of Arni racing toward the vamp.

  "No!" I tried calling him off, but he didn't listen. He don't like seeing me or the boss get hit.

  "Arnisant, down!" At the sound of his master's voice, the wolfhound flattened his body on the deck.

  A whooping sound cut through the air. A whirling silver flash passed through the vamp's neck. Black-red spray covered the deck between the monster and me. Its head tumbled off and slid toward me through the gore. Startled eyes looked up at me where it came to a rest between my knees. Its body collapsed a second later.

  The Shadowless Sword flew back to the boss. He caught it with a casual gesture. As the hilt touched his palm, I saw a glimmer of magic. He'd done some spell I'd never seen before. Maybe he'd been doing more than "diplomacy" with Kyonin's other queen last winter, and the scaly old gal had taught him a few new tricks. Probably she'd just let him loose in the library, but I can dream, can't I?

  He wiped the blood on the cloth hanging from his scabbard before putting the sword away. I saw a gleam in his eye. He was proud of his stunt. Couldn't blame him for that. It was a pretty slick move.

  The crewmen were helping each other stand up. One or two were hurt pretty bad, but everybody was alive. That was something that didn't happen to us all the time. Desna smiled.

  Zora Gorcha offered me a hand up. Behind her, some of her crew were waking the other guy a vamp shook by the throat. He looked thin and gray, but he was alive, with no bite marks anywhere I could see.

  When she saw that all her men had survived and her boat wasn't on fire, Zora grabbed my face and planted a garlicky smooch on my lips. My knees went all weak, but not from the kiss. Not even from the garlic.

  I'd taken one hell of a hit from that vamp.

  "The Count Jeggare, I am thinking he saved your life." Zora laughed as she looked me up and down. "Tell me again, Radovan, which of you is bodyguard?"

  Chapter Three

  The Splinter

  Varian

  It's a foot of mud out there. The least you could do is get me a phony pony." Radovan lounged in my accustomed place on the rear bench, while I sat on the forward seat. Even inside the carriage, it was best for him to remain as far as possible from the horses while our hirelings released them from their harnesses.

  "Conjure one yourself." I pushed four riffle scrolls across the polished surface of the map table.

  "Come on, boss. Last time I gave myself hooves, and that just ain't right." Beneath the table, Arnisant whined. "See? Arni agrees with me."

  "You will have fewer mishaps the more you focus your attention on the desired effect. And I know perfectly well that you nudged Arnisant under the table."

  "Poke my little buddy to win an argument? Never!" Radovan shifted guiltily in his seat.

  "Little? If you continue to overfeed him, he will soon be larger than you." Beneath the table, Arnisant settled his heavy head on my foot. Seeing the dog loom over a pair of Ustalavic wolfhounds in Tymon assured me that he was exceptionally tall even for his enormous breed, but Radovan had spoiled him while awaiting my return to Riverspire in Kyonin. If he had devoted as much energy to exercising the dog as he had to chasing elven women, Arnisant would have been slim as a whippet. "Also, this is not an argument."

  "I'm no wizard."

  "Indeed not. That is what makes your gift so precious. We should have begun testing far sooner." For that omission I blamed myself, but we had enjoyed precious little time for reflection since leaving Egorian two years earlier. In fact, I thought, enough time had passed that I might safely return, if not for recent diversions and obligations.

  "Come on, boss. I could use a break from these tests." He pushed up the sleeve of his new dark leather jacket. I felt a pang of guilt to see the wounds on the coppery skin of his forearm.

  "Very well." Important as they were, I was loath to continue the painful experiments without a better understanding of his unique condition.

  Logic suggested that only the sign for the devil known as Fell Viridio would currently have an effect. From his scorpionlike attributes, I surmised poison would be his sigil, but topical applications had resulted in no atypical reaction.

  The problem might have been dosage. I had begun to suspect that only a fatal application of the activating agent would release the devils who had over the course of centuries designed Radovan's bloodline to produce their portal to our world. "We shall suspend our experiments until such time as we can enlist a healer to stand ready," I said. "But you have nothing to lose from activating a riffle scroll."

  "Hooves."

  "A fleeting inconvenience in the pursuit of an invaluable advantage."

  "I loved those boots."

  "Perhaps you fail to appreciate how rare it is for someone untrained in the arcane arts to wield this ability. As you yourself might put it, you have a knack." It was almost the truth. To hear Radovan tell it, his attempts with the riffle scrolls were as likely to produce bizarre unintended effects as they were to succeed. Unless he was exaggerating—always likely when he spoke of women or his own misfortunes—he was proving every bit as unlucky as he was lucky.

  "Yeah? Like your ‘knack' for letting your sword fly around on its own?"

  "Ah, that." I thought of how my last fencing master would have admonished me for throwing my weapon. Vencarlo Orsini was the epitome of tradition, and he had demonstrated only scorn for combining spells with swordplay. "It is a skill I learned—in theory, anyway—at the Acadamae. I assumed I could never employ it because of my ...Well, my particular disability."

  "The puking."

  "Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes. Yet as you can see from my example, persistence has its rewards." Radovan's resistance to studying his own condition puzzled me. At over three times his age, I was surely the proverbial old dog, not he, yet I had never lost my appetite for knowledge. "The matter at hand is not my use of an apprentice's trick, but your knack for activating my riffle scrolls."

  "I think that vampire knocked the knack right out of me." He rubbed his chest. It was unlike Radovan to complain of a physical injury, even one so profound as the enervating touch of a vampire. However, I had to allow that I had noticed a general malaise about him since his wound. "Boss, we should have gone after your old pal."

  "Kasiya was never a friend, not even in life. And nothing would please me more than reducing him to ashes, but not at the cost of drawing down the full wrath of the Anaphexis."

  "We could beat the hell out of those mooks."

  "Do not be so certain. Besides, should they reveal the secret of your ancestry, Prince Aduard would have your head to eliminate even the remotest possibility that you could mount a challenge to his claim. In any event, this fanciful speculation is moot if we do not succeed in our present mission."

  "So there's no time to waste." He pushed the scrolls back across the table, his little smile suggesting he thought he had won an argument. "You get me a pony."

  "Each of these scrolls represents a chance for you to do it yourself. Are you not always saying Lady Luck smiles on you?" I pushed them back, thinking again that as often as Radovan used his favorite oath, "Desna smiles," he just as often cried—

  "Desna weeps! I've tried plenty. You got to do it for me."

  "No. If you cannot do it yourself, you
can trudge through the mud to the Looter's Market."

  Radovan picked up a scroll and held it between his fingers and palm, just as he had seen me do hundreds of times before. He leaned back on the carriage seat and eyed me skeptically. "You've got another one in your pocket, don't you? When these don't work, you'll set me up, right?"

  I shook my head.

  "All right, here goes nothing." He put his thumb on the edge of one of the scrolls.

  "Not in here!" I lunged from my seat, hand upon the carriage door, my heart pounding at the prospect of a phantom horse suddenly appearing inside the carriage.

  Radovan laughed. "You should see the look on your face."

  I composed myself. "Very amusing."

  "When I get to the market, you want I should go ahead and hire the ones I like?" My reaction to his prank had obviously lifted his spirits.

  "As many as eight, plus a scout if you can find one."

  "All right." Radovan sniffed one riffle scroll while securing the others in pockets concealed in his jacket. "Could be a while, if I have to walk."

  "I expect to see you riding back before dusk."

  "Yeah, yeah." Before leaving the carriage, Radovan retrieved his curved Chelish blade from the table and snapped it securely into the sheath hidden in the spine of his jacket. The grip hung down like the stub of a tail. Much as he liked to boast that he lacked the most common features of typical hellspawn—horns and a tail—Radovan took a perverse delight in drawing attention to his infernal heritage through his particular fashion sense.

  After Radovan's departure, I lifted the curtain to peer out at him. He took shelter beneath the dripping eaves of the stable and squinted at the far end, where my men tended to the six enormous bay horses that had drawn the Red Carriage to the village of Gundrun. They squealed at Radovan's scent, hating him on sight as all equines do.

  Radovan responded with his favorite vulgar gesture, index and least fingers extended on either side of his throat: the tines. He stuck out his long tongue for good measure, an addition that always caused me to wince in distaste.

  He looked around to ensure no one else was watching him. Gritting his teeth, he pointed the scroll at an open space and thumbed the edge.

  The pages snapped open, but no glamour appeared. He summoned no phantom steed.

  Radovan pried open the scroll. Even through the carriage window, I could see the pages were now blank. While he had failed to summon a mount, he had expended the scroll's magic, even if obviously not in the manner intended. That much was promising.

  Suddenly he turned to look directly at me, and I spied the result of his magical malfunction: his front teeth, unappealing at the best of times, had grown thick and square as a horse's.

  Smothering my unbidden laughter, I dropped the curtain too late.

  "I can't do it with you watching!" he shouted. His oversized horse teeth caused him a ridiculous speech impediment. As he recognized his condition, he brayed, "Desna weeps!"

  Taking my satchel, I exited the other side of the Red Carriage with Arnisant at my heel.

  Across from the stable stood a half-collapsed inn, the ragged remains of its upper floor shored up with crude repairs. Above the entrance hung a rack of antlers, now broken to stubs and covered in blue-gray mold. We had heard the tale of the Gilded Antlers at Clefthorn Lodge. Since demons demolished most of the upper floor decades ago, the people of Gundrun called their lone tavern the Splinter.

  A loud curse from the stables suggested that Radovan's second attempt to conjure a phantom steed was no more successful than his first. I bent to peer under the carriage, only to see him glaring back at me. His teeth were back to normal, but he sucked at his fingers as the flaming ruin of the second riffle scroll sizzled on the damp ground.

  "Quit watching, I told you!"

  Arnisant and I retreated into the Splinter.

  The tavern smelled of wood smoke, roast boar, sweet beer, spiced mead, and sweat. At our appearance, the chatter of the common room subsided except for the strains of a harp and a husky female voice trailing off in her song. The residents of the tavern looked up as we entered.

  They were predominantly Kellids, a wind-burned people with dark hair and eyes the color of clear skies and old steel. They wore furs cinched with leather harnesses, although a few of the men went bare-chested to show off tattoos or war paint. Some of the women appeared equally formidable: tall, lean, and muscular. None sat more than an arm's length away from a dagger on the table or an axe leaning against the wall.

  For the passage from the river to Gundrun, I had enlisted only men from the River Kingdoms, knowing the resentment Sarkorians reserved for Ustalavs, whom they still cursed for the Bloodwater Betrayals. Radovan knew not to mention his human heritage in Gundrun, although I feared his infernal features would inspire even more fear and hatred.

  I need not have worried. So close to the Worldwound, one naturally expects to see a few of the demonblooded, but I was surprised to see them mingling so casually with the untainted humans. One man with insect eyes might have been fully half demon. Surreptitiously drawing the Shadowless Sword an inch from its scabbard, I confirmed that neither he nor any of the other guests lay under the guise of an illusion.

  I released the sword as the one-armed proprietor emerged from behind his bar to greet me. He made a fair approximation of a Chelish bow, evoking chuckles from his regulars. "Welcome to my humble establishment, Your Excellency. My name is Whalt, and I'm at your service. One word of caution: even one-handed, I can still out-pour and outdrink any barkeep in Gundrun."

  Some of the tavern patrons laughed gamely at his remark. For my benefit, the harper called out the obvious punch line: "That's because you're the only barkeep in Gundrun!"

  Whalt grinned, exposing large yellowed teeth. His courtesy seemed sincere enough, and he had troubled himself to learn the correct manner in which to address a count of Cheliax. A wreath of gray-white hair surrounded his spotted pate, and his blue-gray eyes seemed both keen and friendly. On the wall behind the bar I noticed a sundered shield, a semicircular absence suggesting that a large fiend had bitten through its steel-reinforced wood. The bite mark matched the point at which Whalt's arm had been severed. I recognized its pattern from all-too-recent firsthand observation of a particularly loathsome fiend.

  "Is it Whalt the barkeep?" I said. "Or Whalt the slayer of swamp demons?"

  He grimaced in appreciation of my deduction. "That it was, a swamp demon exactly. Kala keeps promising to make me a song about it one day. For that clever guess, I'll buy your first drink myself. But no, I didn't slay the one that took my arm. For all I know, it's still swimming along the West Sellen, choking on my strong left hand."

  "You fought at Drezen."

  Whalt blinked. "You know your Sarkorian history, Excellency. But one free drink is all you'll have from me."

  "I shall buy the drinks tonight. A round for the house." The patrons raised a hue and toasted me with tankards the size of helms. Their cheer presented as good an opportunity as I could have wished for my inquiry. "And a purse of gold to the man who can guide me into Storasta."

  The cheers faltered, and the patrons turned away. The harper looked at me a moment, then plucked the strings and began chanting "The Song of Sarkoris."

  I knew the mournful epic all too well. My opinion of the piece must have shown on my face, for Whalt chuckled.

  "Are you still wanting to buy that round?"

  "Yes, but only if Kala changes the tune." The attentive musician cocked her head. The scars on her face suggested she knew battles through more than their songs. "Play me ‘The Ballad of Prince Zhakar.'"

  "Everyone dies in that one, too, Your Excellency."

  "But they die bravely, and it has a better melody." I tossed her a coin. She caught it neatly and changed her tune.

  I indicated a vacant table near a shuttered window. "Bring a platter of that roast boar, along with a goblet of your best red wine. Also a plate of whatever wholesome vegetables you have. I shall
rest here to await a message from Clanliege Martolls Clefthorn."

  "Ah," said Whalt. "In that case, you might prefer to order the bottle."

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "Martolls never even saw a hurry from a distance. You'll be a long time waiting." He returned to his bar.

  I took the seat nearest the window and opened the shutter to peek out. The drivers had finished stabling the horses. One stood guard beside the carriage while the others entered the tavern for their respite. I saw no sign of Radovan. If he had left hoofprints behind, whether from a phantom steed or a riffle-scroll mishap, the rain had already churned them away.

  Arnisant sat on the floor beside me as I set out the contents of my satchel. I opened my maps of Sarkoris, both those from before the opening of the Worldwound—not coincidentally at the moment of the great god Aroden's death—and those created by crusaders and Pathfinders over the past century. Soon I would add my own observations to the ever-changing cartography of the land.

  After opening my journal to resume my personal chronicle, I began to reach for my writing kit but paused. Instead I removed the four letters from my coat pocket and laid them before me in order of precedence.

  The first bore the Imperial Seal of Cheliax stamped in crimson wax. To Her Infernal Majestrix, Abrogail II, I owed my ultimate allegiance. The message from her counselors commanded me to search the ruins of Lost Sarkoris for the Lexicon of Paradox. Since the wards confining the demons to the Worldwound had failed, the queen's sorcerers hoped the dire rituals within the Lexicon would prove potent against the inevitable encroachment of the Abyss on the borders of the Empire. In the meantime, the decimation of the lands between Cheliax and the Worldwound would dilute the strength of the horde and simultaneously improve the Empire's relative strength.

  The message from Kyonin arrived on pale green parchment and bore the seals of both Queen Telandia and her cousin, Prince Amarandlon. No doubt she had forced him to act as her clerk as a punishment. Since few beings in the world are more subtle—or more vengeful—than an elf lord, I considered the message with the utmost skepticism.