Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  She was, as I’ve remarked, ambitious, which was good for someone serving any high member of court. She was also very qualified, although she’d only discovered the talent in her thirties, and was still very much hot and cold in her capabilities. Sometimes she could cast a spell I thought the emperor himself would marvel at; other times she appeared the crassest beginner.

  I might have found an older, male sorcerer, but he would no more likely have had experience with military magic than Seer Sinait. Magic had changed and was still changing since Seer Tenedos had taken the throne, and too often older, more staid men found it impossible to accept these new ideas — starting with the principal that sorcery was every bit as important as any other military skill, no longer a by-the-way, while-you’re-at-it thing that served, at best, to call up rainstorms to drench the enemy or send discouragement spells when the foe had already weakened.

  But while Sinait learned her field, and explored the new arena of Kallio, I was fairly helpless.

  I needed help, help from the emperor.

  Back in Nicias, Tenedos had told me he wished to try something new in the event I needed to communicate with him directly, instead of using coded messages, couriers, and, from Kallio’s borders on, heliographs.

  He wanted to use the Seeing Bowl, which was the second magical ritual I’d ever attended in my life, long ago in Kait. Tenedos had told me this device depended less on equipment than on training. He wasn’t sure if it would work or not, since one end of the link would be in the hands of a non-sorcerer, but it was worth trying.

  “I’m hoping,” he said, “proximity produces perfection. You’ve been around me, and my magic, long enough to hope there’s been some fertilization.”

  I doubted that — the stupidest man I’d ever met was someone who’d spent half a lifetime cleaning the chalkboards at a great lycee.

  “Be silent, unbeliever. Magic needs no skeptics. Remember you used my spell in the castle yard to bring up … that creature who destroyed Chardin Sher. That worked, did it not?

  “Besides, what have we to lose? If this works, we’ll save the life of more than one dispatch rider who would have been waylaid by those bastard partisans who interdict my highways.”

  He gave me exact instructions and had me rehearse them a dozen times. Twice the Bowl worked, but I still felt no confidence, since the seer was hanging over my shoulder. What would happen when some thousand miles separated us?

  I had a separate room set aside in the castle, and guards set at the door, with orders to admit no one but myself. This was one of the emperor’s orders. No one, not Seer Sinait, not even Reufern, was to know of this unless he ordered otherwise. I had asked why the prince shouldn’t be told. Tenedos hesitated.

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Damastes,” he said finally. “I want my brother to learn to govern, and if he knows he can call on my wisdom, such as it is, any time there’s a problem, well, I might as well go to Kallio and rule those shitheels myself.

  “I’ll add, even though I don’t think I need to, the caution applies to you as well. You’re capable of reaching decisions without me, so the Bowl is only to be used in the event of an extreme emergency.”

  “If it works at all,” I said.

  “Damastes!”

  “Sorry, sir. I’ll not doubt its wonders ever again.”

  Yet I did just that as I took a bolt of black velvet from a case and unrolled it on the floor. The velvet had strange characters in different colors of thread woven into it. Onto it I placed the Bowl, which was actually a wide tray with a raised lip. Into the tray I poured mercury from a bottle until it covered the bottom of the tray.

  I set up three braziers around the Bowl and sprinkled exact amounts of incense into each one, then lit them with a small taper. Three candles were set between the braziers and also lit. I unrolled a scroll, and read the few words that were written on it, then I put the scroll aside. Finally, I held my hands out, palms down with the fingertips curled over the tray, and moved them back and forth in a pattern he’d taught me.

  Nothing happened.

  I repeated the motions. There was still nothing but shimmering gray mercury. I muttered an oath, not surprised that magic wasn’t for me, but still a bit angry at making a fool of myself. Of course it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. Damastes á Cimabue was a soldier, not a damned wizard!

  I started to bundle the pieces up, then remembered a final suggestion. “If it does not work at first,” the emperor had said, “try at night. Try within an hour or two of midnight. The skies will be clear, and for some reason the night favors magic.

  “I shall not be sleeping,” he said. “I find it hard to sleep these days,” and for just an instant I heard self-pity in his tones, then he grinned. “If I’m not alone, of course, I’ll be too busy to even know you were trying to contact me.”

  Once again I thought, What could I lose by trying? I came back after the castle was quiet and settling down for sleep. Again I lit the candles, found fresh incense for the braziers, said the words, and moved my hands in that certain pattern. Once, twice — it wasn’t working — and then the mirror became silver, and I was looking at the emperor himself!

  He was sitting at his desk, buried in papers, as I’d seen him all too often in the depths of the night. He must have felt my presence, if that is the correct way to describe it, for he looked up, then jumped to his feet, grinning.

  “Damastes! It works!”

  His voice came hollowly, then as clearly as if we were in the same room.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I assume,” Tenedos said, “this is not an experimental use of the Seeing Bowl. You have problems?”

  “Sir, it’s a mess. From top to bottom.”

  “My brother?”

  “He’s doing the best he can.”

  “But it’s not good enough?”

  I didn’t answer. Tenedos frowned. “So the situation is as chaotic as others reported. Can it be fixed?”

  “I assume so. Nothing is a complete wreck.”

  Tenedos half-smiled. “One of your many virtues is your constant optimism, Damastes. Very well. I’ll assume the problem can be resolved. My next question — can it be resolved with my brother still in charge?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so, sir. But I need some help.”

  There was relief on Tenedos’s face.

  “Thank Saionji,” he said. “Kallio must be pacified, and quickly. Now, what do I provide to make your task easier?”

  I told him what I needed: a section of skilled police agents who could provide the answers we needed to strike to the center of the madness.

  “I’ll do better than that,” Tenedos said grimly. “I’ll send you Kutulu, and he’ll bring his team with him.”

  He noted my surprise.

  “I said Kallio must be brought to heel,” he said. “The hour draws close.”

  “What is going on?” I asked, worried that something had transpired since I’d left Nicias.

  “I cannot answer that directly,” he said. “Magicians can hear other magicians. But I will give you a clue: Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia. We must be ready to confront it.”

  I began to say something, and he held up a hand.

  “No more. Kutulu will leave as soon as he can ready himself. I’ll order a fast packet to take him upriver to Entotto. He’ll go on fast from there, by horse, with no supply train.”

  “I’ll have two squadrons of the Ureyan Lancers waiting at the Kallian border as escort.”

  “No,” Tenedos said. “Post them along the main road, as a screening force. Kutulu will have his own troops. I’ll send a heliograph at dawn to Renan, and have the Tenth Hussars come south to meet him at Entotto. They’ll join your command as reinforcements.”

  I blinked. Like the Lancers, the Tenth was an elite border regiment. For the emperor to strip them from Urey, where their normal duties were keeping the rapacious Men of the Hills from raiding the province, reaffirmed what he said was the seriousn
ess of the situation.

  “One thing you must do, while waiting his arrival,” the emperor continued. “Find a local wizard, one who was high in the councils of Chardin Sher. Ask him why our magic is so unsuccessful at predicting what is happening in Kallio. I want that question answered, and I don’t care how gently or harshly you ask it. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and the emperor looked “past” me, beyond his Bowl. His eyebrows lifted in surprise, then he quickly controlled his expression.

  “Is there anything more, Damastes?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then if you’ll excuse me, I have a late conference that’s very important.”

  I stood, saluted, and made the motions of negation. As the silvered mirror blanked to gray, I heard the ghost of a giggle across the leagues.

  I had never heard a giggle from his wife, the Baroness Rasenna. Rather, she had a wonderfully sensual low laugh I’d always delighted in. Most likely I was wrong, for it took a remarkably evil imagination to think a man couldn’t meet a woman other than his wife at a late hour in his private chambers without lewdness as the intent. On the other hand, I recollected Laish Tenedos’s fondness, when single, for bedding every beauty within range, and I’d always marveled at how successful Rasenna had been in keeping him faithful since their marriage, after he’d taken the throne. Lately I’d heard gossip about Tenedos’s displeasure with Rasenna for not having given him an heir, but I’d seen no such signs myself.

  Not that it mattered whether the woman I’d heard was Rasenna or someone else — an emperor could futter whoever he wished, and it was none of my concern.

  I was dwelling on this probably imaginary happening because I didn’t want to think about the real surprise.

  Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia. Beyond Kait to the north was Maisir, ruled by the great king Bairan. Numantia had always been at peace with Maisir, although Tenedos had once told me “Kings always look beyond their borders. I do, so why shouldn’t I expect that of others?”

  But Maisir was huge, nearly half again as big as Numantia, with millions of people of many cultures and a great standing army. I didn’t know which was worse — King Bairan having designs on Numantia, or the emperor Tenedos wishing to expand his own borders. What reason either nation might have for conflict was completely unknown.

  I suddenly thought, or, rather hoped, I was seeing gloom in everything. First the emperor was being unfaithful, then there were problems with Maisir …

  Pfah! as Tenedos was want to say when thoroughly disgusted. There is a time for thought and a time to shut off the mind.

  Marán was sleeping, lying on her side in the high-framed bronze bed. She’d kicked a leg over the coverlet, and I admired the sleek curve of her calf and thigh on the silken sheet, lit by our bedchamber’s two candles. She rolled onto her back as the door clicked shut. One hand moved down between her legs, and a smile came to her lips.

  I remembered a game we’d played from time to time, a game she’d taught me, learned from her great friend Amiel, Countess Kalvedon.

  I silently undressed, then crept to one of her trunks, made to sit on end like a bureau once we arrived at a destination. I found four long scarves and tied a loop in the end of each of them. I slipped one over each of her wrists and ankles, and snugged them.

  Very gently I drew her arms up, until they were extended at full length. If Marán awoke, she gave no sign, but her smile was a bit broader.

  Quickly I tied her hands to the bedstead, then seized one ankle scarf and lifted her leg straight up, until her buttocks were almost clear of the bed. I tied a quick hitch to the top of the headboard.

  Now she allowed herself to awake, and struggled, thrashing about as I seized her other leg, lifted it, and tied that scarf to the opposite side of the headboard.

  Her eyes were open.

  “I have you now,” I hissed, in my best imitation of a villain in a spectacle.

  Her mouth opened.

  “Do not scream, or I’ll be forced to gag you.”

  Her tongue came out, slowly, to sensuously lick her lips.

  “You can’t move, can you?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m at your mercy.”

  “I can do anything I want, can’t I?”

  “Anything. I deserve your punishment in any way you wish.”

  I climbed onto the bed, pinched one nipple, then the other. She gasped, and pushed her breasts against my hands. I knelt between her thighs, ran my tongue up her sex, then into her. Her thighs tensed against my cheeks as I moved, and she groaned.

  I kept moving in and out of her, as her gasping grew louder and quicker. Her hips began rotating. “Oh yes, oh yes, oh please yes,” she moaned, but I paid no heed. Her hips jerked up, she squealed, and tremors ran through her body. I didn’t stop caressing her with my tongue until the trembling slowed, then I rose over her.

  “Now,” I said, “now I’ll make you really come.”

  I slid the head of my cock just into her wetness, then held still. She tried to move against me, but I moved back.

  “Please,” she said. “Please fuck me. Fuck me hard!”

  “Like this?” I took her thighs in both hands, and pulled her to me, driving full into her, and she cried out again. I came back, then forward, moving hard, brutally, and each time she shrieked in near-wordless ecstasy, sometimes my name, sometimes obscenities. I held as long as I could, but at last let go, and with a great shout spattered inside her, feeling the Wheel’s turning not far distant.

  I was half-lying across her, braced on my hands, when I came back to myself. Marán slowly opened her eyes.

  “Let me taste you now.”

  I slipped out of her and moved under her legs until I crouched next to her head. She turned toward me, slipped her tongue out, and licked the head of my cock. “I am still your prisoner, Great Tribune,” she said. “I demand more severe penalties,” she added and took me in her mouth.

  Between then and dawn, I cannot recollect having one coherent thought, especially about emperors and kings.

  • • •

  The emperor’s command to find and interrogate a high-ranking magician became a wearying task. Most of the Kallian seers had died either in the civil war or when the demon brought down Chardin Sher’s final redoubt. The survivors, as far as I was able to discover, had either fled the province or were hiding, and I suspected finding a sorcerer who didn’t want to be found might be like looking for a black cat after midnight on a moonless night.

  But eventually I found one. Much to my embarrassment, he was in my own — or, rather, Prince Reufern’s own — dungeon. According to his file, he was less a practicing magician than a philosopher and teacher. But he had been a friend of Mikael of the Spirits, Mikael Yanthlus, Chardin Sher’s magician, and might help me understand those who would rise against their rulers.

  He was Arimondi Hami, a respected member of Kallio’s highest intellectual circle. He was imprisoned because he refused to acknowledge Numantian authority and, worse, he’d been very vocal about his treason.

  I’d often wondered how a magician, even a fairly minor one, could be held captive. Hami wasn’t kept in some dank, slimy underground cell, but in a very clean, very sterile chamber directly below the citadel’s guard room, and his cell was searched at unpredictable intervals, at least once a week. He had been permitted pen, paper, and any books he wished except those dealing with sorcery. He could have any visitor on the prince’s approved list. His food was prepared by his own chef, and his clothing consisted of freshly woven woolen or cotton robes, without adornment. Any request was carefully examined by Seer Edwy, so he could never assemble the materials for an escape spell.

  A mere scholar instead of a great wizard he may have been, but I still had two guards with drawn swords behind the chair I ushered him into, their orders to seize him if anything went awry, or kill him if that couldn’t be done. He lo
oked at the soldiers and trembled slightly. I asked him to be seated and inquired if he would care for a glass of wine.

  “I would, Tribune á Cimabue,” he said, and his voice had the mellow tone of a born orator.

  I poured and handed him a goblet.

  “You are not drinking with me?”

  “I drink but rarely,” I told him honestly. “I never came to favor the taste of alcohol, and its effects on me are embarrassing.”

  He looked skeptical. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Two men with swords … you won’t share my wine … it would be easy to think that you’ve unwoven the skein that’s puzzled Prince Reufern and those who came before him.”

  “I was never the finest student, Seer Hami,” I said. “Too often my teachers were able to fuddle me, as often for their own pleasure as to bring home a point. I liked it little then, I like it less now. Please explain.”

  The scholar peered at me. “I assumed, when the guards brought me here, you’d decided to have me killed.”

  “Why would I do a thing like that? You may be a traitor, but you’ve done little except talk dissent.”

  “Which it’s my understanding can get a man shortened by a head in these times.”

  “Not by me,” I said. “Nor by anyone under my command. I need something else. But why do you think I planned to kill you? What is this skein you talked about?”

  Hami drained his glass and smiled. “That is a good vintage, Tribune. Perhaps I may have another?”

  I refilled his glass.

  “The skein is the web of confusion about my fate. Consider it: I have refused to acknowledge the authority of the Seer Laish Tenedos, who’s styled himself emperor. I hold the rightful rulers of Numantia are the Rule of Ten.”