Keiran held on in return, nodding. He gave no mind to Jerris’ embrace, needing it for the time being and appreciating the gesture. “Aye.”
Jerris moved back and put his hands on the prince’s shoulders, meeting his gaze until he was reassured that Keiran was, even if just for the moment, all right. “Relax and let’s just get through the next few days. I’ll be with you the whole time. No more tangles with Peirte either, all right?”
Keiran gave a tired nod, forbidding himself from getting into the thoughts of what human blood would do to him mentally. His chronic fear that it would turn him into a monster wasn’t something he felt he could handle. He simply had to have faith that Jerris would take care of him, and when the time did come, would still stand by him. “As long as you’re with me, I’ll be okay. I’m sorry. I just got a little overwhelmed.”
Jerris squeezed with his hands before backing up and landing in the other chair again. He settled back and closed his eyes, feeling utterly drained after the night’s events. “I know, and it’s all right. We all love you, even if you are an insufferable pain in the ass. I’ll see to you, Keir. Always have.”
“I know,” Keiran whispered back, looking to the fire once more and lacing his hands together against his stomach. “I trust you.”
Chapter 5
Peirte was still fuming when he returned to his room. With the door closed and locked behind him, he went to the cabinet and got the bottle that contained the demon out. If Ivan had left that morning to head out to scout the area around Maris, then the huntsman would surely be there already. It was time to get down to business. There needed to be a white stag for the huntsman to find.
After putting in a few small details to the massive design on his floor, he stood back and examined it for several moments. Countless sigils, runes, and shapes were all meticulously drawn out, forming the containment circle. Satisfied that he’d done it properly, Peirte sat and cleared his mind for a few minutes. Once he felt that he’d calmed enough to do what he needed, he moved over to the circle with the bottle in hand.
The demon inside was slamming against the glass, having fed on the anger and emotion that had just taken place out in the corridor. It was agitated now and needed to get out. Peirte set the bottle in the middle of the containment circle and watched the brightened glow emanating from within. He knew that the demon, like many, fed off of negative emotions and what had just transpired had gotten the creature riled up. Having the demon already energized didn’t bother the councillor. He figured it could put that energy toward what needed to be done.
He bent down and pulled the cork from the bottle, leaving it sitting in the center of the floor. Peirte stepped into a small circle within the design and closed his eyes, before uttering one quiet word. “Emerge.”
The glow in the bottle dimmed for a moment, and it fell over onto its side on the stone floor with a musical clink. It spun around a slowly a few times and rocked on its side for several tense moments. Then, a white vapor poured out of the opening, pooling on the floor. Peirte watched and remained perfectly still, never having freed a familiar before. Slowly, the gas seemed to solidify into a mass with substance, growing a little taller until it took on a shape vaguely like a cat. The white creature looked up at Peirte with red eyes. Had it not been released from the bottle within a containment circle, it would have run away instantly, as it was not yet bonded to Peirte or worse, would have killed him outright.
The councillor felt a nervous smile come to his lips. He drew in a long, steady breath and clasped his hands to his chest, never letting his sights stray from the demon. “I am Peirte Methaius, I am your master. I have released you and you will do my bidding.”
The cat-like form opened its mouth, revealing multiple rows of semitransparent teeth. They dripped with some vile poison that hit the stone floor in hissing droplets. It grew in stature, until it was tall enough to be eye level with the councillor. The body slimmed and shifted proportions, becoming vaguely like that of human female, supported on beastly digitigrade legs which ended in hooves. Her skin was sheet white, but she had an impressive crown of long hair, red enough to rival Jerris’. Her stern, crimson gaze never wavered from the councillor, a whip-like tail slicing the air behind her.
Peirte’s eyes widened at once. He’d not been expecting it to be a female entity, and there was a moment of worry on his part. The female creatures of this sort were the hardest to control. They had peculiar strengths and nasty little habits of not always playing within the rules. However, this was the creature he’d captured, and he would make the best of it.
The demon responded after completing the shape shifting, her clawed hands clenching repeatedly at her sides. “And what is your bidding? What tasks have you for me?”
Giving a slow nod, Peirte realized he could feel the demon’s words being spoken directly into his mind. She had successfully linked up with him, a bond that would keep her in his servitude at least in the short run. The ability to control this demon’s actions would ultimately dictate if his plan worked out or not.
He gathered his thoughts and started to envision the places and people that the demon would need to interact with, knowing she would see them in his mind’s eye. “I have a few tasks for you. The first is to take a bag of gold to the huntsman Ivan’s home and place it beneath his bed. Take his scent from the place and go forth to find him in the forest near the Maris Trading Post.”
The demon shifted her weight from one leg to the other, hooves scraping on the stone floor with a dull sound. Her gracile neck arched, tipping her head forward as she studied the images she was reading from the councillor’s mind. “I see the house, I see the huntsman, this is simple.”
“When you find Ivan in the forest, you are to appear to him as a white stag. He must see you clearly, and he must believe you to be a real deer. When that is done, there will be another man hiding in the area. I don’t know his identity, but he is an assassin.” Peirte felt the demon actually picking through his memories to assure her that he didn’t know who the second man was. Demons were naturally suspicious.
“I will smell death on him easily enough,” she hissed, her tail starting to swing with more vigor.
Peirte nodded and envisioned Keiran. “You are to consult with the assassin, to find out where his best location for a kill shot for Prince Keiran Sipesh would be made. When the prince arrives in the area, you will appear again as a white stag and lead him into the assassin’s killing field.”
Though the demon’s face wasn’t such that she could smile, there was an overwhelming sense of anticipation and ecstasy that twisted her features. The prospect of being present for an assassination made her writhe in eager hunger. Untimely deaths were the greatest feeding opportunities for creatures like her.
The councillor gave a faint smile of his own, feeling the desire of the demon growing toward the mission. He decided to allow her one last piece of fun out of the experience. “When the prince has been shot, do not let the assassin leave the area. Do not allow him to be captured by the prince’s guards. You may kill him yourself before returning to me for further instruction.”
Giving a growl of enthusiasm toward what she was given direction to do, the demon nodded and finally broke eye contact with the councillor. “When I act, you will see what I see, you will feel what I feel.”
“I expect as much,” Peirte replied, well versed in what was ideally supposed to happen while controlling a familiar. He pointed slowly toward a bag of gold sitting in his window sill, ready to get the demon on task. “I release you to go do these things now.”
The demon’s eyes targeted the bag, as the design on the floor shifted and parted, making a pathway to the window the beast could safely traverse. She stalked to the window and hooked the bag’s string handle over one of her claws, lifting it up. Turning, she gave Peirte one last nod before she disintegrated into a white vapor, quickly spilling through the gap in the window and vanishing from sight.
Peirte slouched and instan
tly gave a sigh of relief. The circle closed again on the floor, before the last charge of magic seemed to fade from the air. He moved to sit right where he’d been standing, putting his head in his hands. The demon’s touch into his brain had left him tired and dizzy, but the prospect of being able to witness Keiran’s death through the demon’s eyes got the better of him and he laughed. Eventually, his laughter trailed off as he slipped into a trance, seeing what the demon did as she drifted through the trees down the hillside, and to the huntsman’s cottage.
The demon remained vaporous and slipped beneath the crude door to the structure and slid across the floor. Under Ivan’s bed, her misty form swirled, the bag of gold materializing exactly as it had been in Peirte’s room.
The first task completed, the vapor oozed between the floorboards of the house and emerged again in the forest. She moved with incredible speed through the trees. There was a fog that had covered the land near the Maris Trading Post, into which the demon disappeared completely.
* * *
Ivan had gotten to the area the night before and had searched, but he gave up after a time. He thought that the councillor had simply gone insane. When the sun first broke through the trees, shining between two mountain peaks, the huntsman decided it was time to head back. He’d carried out his part of the deal, and already had a fair reward for doing so.
After kicking out the remaining embers of his camp fire, Ivan moved to get onto his horse. The animal grew restless and sidestepped, keeping him from mounting. Following the horse’s attention, Ivan turned around to look across the clearing he’d spent the night in.
Into a beam of the early morning sun, stepped a deer. The golden dawn light reflected off the animal’s snowy coat, making it glow. It froze and stood completely still, turning its head toward the huntsman. There wasn’t a hint of color anywhere on the stag other than its red eyes.
Ivan moved a few steps forward, eyes wide. The deer was huge, its antlers as wide as Ivan’s arm span would have been. The councillor had been right. “My God…”
The deer remained where it was for several long moments, simply flicking an ear as it let Ivan look on. Satisfied that the impression had been made, the deer shook its head, before turning and bounding off into the trees and underbrush, disappearing from view.
It took a while before Ivan snapped back into action, hastily getting onto his horse and heading to the castle. He was mired in disbelief, but he’d seen it with his own eyes. Surely, Keiran would need to come after this stag. Though he still had misgivings about the prince, the fact that the deer’s presence had been foretold and he’d seen it changed something for him.
* * *
The prince had eventually fallen into a fitful sleep after his encounter with Peirte the night before, only to rise in the morning and find that he was wanted for consultation. He felt like death but allowed himself to be dragged down to the throne room to get to work.
He’d nursed one of Corina’s medicinal drinks after another throughout the day. His head was killing him, and his stomach had never quite settled back to normal. His color was bad, and his hands were unsteady. It had proven to be all he could manage to stay upright in the seat, listening as more planners were paraded before him. Keiran couldn’t have honestly given a damn about most of it, but he forced himself to come off as pleasant as possible.
Jerris remained at his side throughout it all, and he was sitting on the steps that led up to the throne, bored out of his mind. The fact that this was the sort of thing Keiran was going to do day in and day out didn’t evoke any feelings of envy in the guard at all. He was sorely tempted to slip out and do other things, but he felt like Keiran needed him around.
Servants were also filing in and out of the room, as the castle was being cleaned from top to bottom on Corina’s order. The old king hadn’t allowed much to be done in the throne room in a long while, and it was in desperate need of work. Thana was near the fireplace, scraping out the multiple layers of ash there and dumping them into a bucket. She was oblivious to Keiran’s repeated glances, absorbed in her task.
The prince was finding her to be a greater distraction from his work than his headache or other problems. Actually, she was a good distraction from his headache and other problems, and he repeatedly had to shake himself out of his assorted daydreams.
Keiran’s attention was grabbed away from watching the girl work when the huntsman strode into the room. “Ivan, I hope you have some good news for me.”
The huntsman nodded and pulled off his riding hat, clutching it before his chest. He knelt down, still reeling from his near-religious experience that morning. “Aye, I have. I saw a stag, Prince. A white stag.”
There was a hush in the room, all eyes turning toward the prince. Thana stood up and turned, her hands moving to grip at the bag tied around her waist. Her eyes were wide, lips slightly parted.
Keiran forced himself up to his feet, moving down the stairs. Like everyone present, he’d been privy to the legend that stated Tordania’s greatest king, indeed the very savior of their country, would find a white deer on his hunt. The look of shock that lingered on the huntsman’s face hammered home the fact he was telling the truth.
He stopped right before Ivan. “Rise.”
Ivan scrambled up immediately, meeting the prince’s gaze. “I saw it with my own eyes, otherwise, I never would have believed it. A massive beast, out near the abandoned Maris Trading Post.”
“It’s been ages since there was any report of white deer,” Keiran said, half to himself. There was excitement welling up past his illness, sparking a smile. “It’s a good omen.”
Jerris got up as well, moving to stand beside the prince, examining the huntsman with a slightly more critical eye. Keiran may have been eager to jump at the chance of going after this animal, but the guard needed more assurance that it was real. The nagging disquiet he’d been feeling for several days now was rearing its head badly. “You’re sure it was a white stag? Not some illusion of light or… or something else?”
The huntsman turned to Jerris, his sincerity gushing forward. He looked right into the guard’s eyes and nodded. “Aye, white as the snow. Came out from the trees and looked right at me. Stood there for several minutes. There is absolutely no doubt of what I saw.”
Keiran turned and looked at his companion, putting a hand on Jerris’ shoulder. “If I can find that animal, you know what it means?”
“Aye, I do,” Jerris said back quietly. He really had no reason to doubt Ivan. The man didn’t give off any signals that he was being dishonest. Having a friend that was not only the prince but a vampire was one thing. Now, he was going to turn out to be some sort of prophetic fulfillment? Jerris gave a sigh of resignation, the world seeming more and more unbelievable.
The prince gave a nod and dropped his hand away, looking at Ivan again. “I don’t go out for the hunt for two more days. Will it stay in that area? What are my chances?”
Ivan looked to the side, thinking for a moment. “It’s full rut right now. The stags stay with the herds of females this time of year. There was a large number of does around that area. He’s not going anywhere unless a bigger male runs him off, and I’m telling you, there are no bigger males.”
Keiran nodded and slowly retreated back to the throne, sitting down and looking around the room. Everyone seemed to be staring back, making him a little uncomfortable. His eyes met Thana’s and lingered for a moment. “Two days, then we’ll see if I can find this stag. Ivan, will you accompany my hunting party?”
The huntsman froze. Peirte hadn’t given him any order either way in regards to accompanying the prince. Part of him said not to go, and he opted to listen to instinct. “I’m not sure I’m up to making the trip out there and back again. I wouldn’t want to slow you down. I have all faith that you and your men will be able to find him again. He stands out mightily from the others. As much as it hurts my pride to say so, Prince, you’ve become just as good a hunter as I am.”
Keiran g
ave a nod and settled back, offering Ivan a smile at the compliment. “I thank you, Ivan. There will be a place of honor for you at the table during the banquet for this. If you could draw out a map to the approximate location of the stag in regards to the trading post, I’d be grateful.”
The hunter nodded and bowed again. “I will go do so immediately, Prince. If you’ll excuse me, I can go sit in the library and get it done for you now.”
The prince waved him off, before reaching down and picking up the goblet he’d set on the ground next to the throne earlier. He swirled the contents of the cup and stared down into it, trying to figure out exactly how he felt about this news. As much as he reviled what he had to do on the hunts, they did provide a vital source of blood for him that had staved off his absolute need for human blood. The prospect of seeing a white stag fascinated him. Frankly, it was one of those things that while possible, had always seemed like just a bit of folklore. It’d be a shame to kill it, but what had to be done would be, and if it helped his status amongst the people he was destined to lead, all the better. Keiran was willing to take any help he could get.
Thana had listened to the entire exchange in silence. The news of the white stag had given her a shock, as she had been studying the legend for a long while. To think that Keiran might finally be the one to bring the country into some sort of golden age was wonderful, but not entirely a surprise. It had always been her opinion that he was someone special. She gave the prince a final glance before taking up the bucket of ashes and hurrying out of the room.
Keiran heard her move off and watched her go, his cheeks burning. He’d noticed that she’d listened to what had been said. He figured it was just her interest in hearing about such a unique animal. The prince had no clue that she’d been more intrigued with him.
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