by D. H. Aire
Gallen shook his head, “So, you’re bound to this jewel, are you?”
I AM YOUR SERVANT IN ALL THINGS AS LONG AS YOU CONTROL THE CHARM THAT CARRIES MY EXISTENCE.
“You know something, Alfuster?” remarked Gallen. “I don’t really trust this thing. Perhaps, I should just break this charm and be done with it.”
NO! “No!” The Prince and his pet demon cried together.
MASTER! I CAN GRANT YOU WEALTH AND POWER BEYOND THY IMAGININGS! It reached out at caressed Gallen’s soul, working to fan the foul human’s desire for it.
Terhun frowned seeing an eerie expression cross Gallen’s face, quickly repressed, then returned. The Prince actually smiled at the sight of it. “We could be partners, you and I,” the Prince offered with only a trace of insincerity.
Andre shouted, “Fight it, Gallen! They’re all lies! Clume knows nothing about such things! He killed my parents— my whole family!”
The Prince frowned, puzzled, even as he yelled, “Shut up! This is none of your concern!”
It was Ruke who saw the odd look in Gallen’s eyes as she fought to see past whatever desires were offered her inner self. It was Ruke who, while helping Terhun keep his feet, said, “Gallen, what is the First Rule of the Pack?”
There was an ethereal moan then from the welling shape of shadow. Gallen’s eyes opened wide, “WE ARE YOUR FAMILY!”
Ruke glanced at Andre as they both breathed a sigh of relief. Terhun was not fooled. A battle fought did not a war win...
Gallen seemed to know that, too, as the Prince shifted his weight ever so slightly. Something was now in his hand. “Defend me from the Prince!” she cried as the blade in the Prince’s hand was raised and thrown at her heart.
Several things happened at once. Gabriol, his face waxen, sprung the hidden panel and took careful aim— then cast his dagger unerringly.
The demon shot across the room and ignored the direct threat to the lad. Instead, traitorously, it encompassed the Prince, who gasped in a silent scream. His eyes bulged even as he gestured futilely at the charm upheld in the urchin’s hand.
Gallen tried to dive aside as the Prince’s blade arched toward him then gaped as it stopped before him in mid-air. The welling darkness shrieked even as an enchanted blade reached its trapped victim’s heart. Gabriol sighed, shoulders slumped. “I warned you that it would try to take your soul as it did the others...”
Its kill stolen, the soul of Alfuster Clume, once called “the Prince” escaped his pet demon’s hunger. His body fell slack and smoking to the floor. Tears fell from Gabriol’s cheeks. The darkness turned briefly to Gallen as the door behind them burst open. Uncanny light instantly flooded the chamber. The demon cringed, recoiling, as it tried to flee itself of the all-encompassing light that was not as any other light known. The edges of shadow quickly faded into oblivion.
The very cracks and crevices were glowing with the uncanny light, which banished even shadows it by rights should have cast. The chamber became its prison. It swung about even as the man bearing the brilliantly glowing staff shouted, “Out of here, quickly!”
From within the now lit hidden passage, Gabriol gaped, then hastily fled back the way he had come. Terhun, Ruke and Andre raced toward the door even as the guards, themselves, realized their peril and forgot their stunned paralysis.
They weren’t fast enough for the desperate demon. It overtook the pair in an instant. Their screams were suddenly silenced as its darkness created emptiness around them, drawing from them their souls to feast. Their lifeless husks dropped, smoking behind the darkness, which had attained a momentary stability against the light now that it had, at last, properly fed. It confronted the dazed Gallen, who grimly clutched the charm.
MASTER! COMMAND ME BUT TO MY PROPER PLACE BEFORE I CAUSE FURTHER HARM! PLEASE, MASTER!
Unsure of what to do, Gallen stared at the man he had known only as Jeo the Merchant. “You don’t control him,” he warned. “He’ll let you send him back as is his nature— but once within he’ll be safe from us.”
MASTER, PLEASE! I KNOW YOUR SECRET NOW! I SAW IT IN YOUR MEMORIES! I CAN BRING AN END TO YOUR CURSE!
Gallen felt as if struck as that promise echoed through his mind. Andre listened from the doorway behind the mage and the woman at his side, while the dwarf jostled her as he, too, tried getting a better view of what was taking place inside.
Raising up the charm , Gallen asked, “What must I say?”
The creature burned with triumph.
“No!” Andre screamed.
“Now,” whispered her lord and Se’and threw the strangely discolored blade with every ounce of strength and skill she possessed.
The demon shrieked and threw itself into the path of the blade speeding toward Gallen. The blade clove through the otherly darkness and the creature felt a coldness pass through it so intense that it knew oblivion beckoned.
Fri’il rushed up the stairs even as Raven noticed something wrong with one of the steps. She cried out in metal warning as Fri’il foot keyed the hidden ward.
Magery shifted.
George heard Raven’s cry and turned away without seeing the blade tear through the ethereal creature and strike the charm in Gallen’s hand. The runes fountained outward as the enchanted stone met the blade’s anti-magical alloy.
Gallen was thrown backward as the demon burst outward in a flow of impossibly frigid air. The urchin gasped, eyes blurring before the insane image of freed spirits rushing like wisps into the fading uncanny light, not unlike moths to a candle’s flame.
George ran, knowing that Se’and was madly following. He hurried down the main steps, then quickly halted. He took several breaths, closed his eyes and went into rapport. ‘How could you be so stupid!’ he mentally exclaimed.
Raven covered her head with her paws in embarrassment, sending her foster father a hasty, ‘I’m sorry! She just got ahead of me!’
:She’s fine, George,: Staff assured him. :This is a bordello, after all. They would not want to accidentally injure a paying customer.:
‘Uh, I feel stuck... What is this place,’ whispered a distant and chagrinned voice.
‘Fri’il, congratulations, you’ve successfully keyed the house wards. And you most assuredly are stuck,’ George mentally acknowledged.
‘Get me…’ George scanned the wards, then with the computer staff’s assistance twisted them just so, “…out of here!” she shouted worriedly.
He grabbed her up and hugged her. “You could have gotten yourself killed, girl!”
Se’and breathed a sigh of relief. After seeing the young woman glowing, paralyzed in mid-stride, she had feared the worst. “She’s all right?”
George nodded, “Luckily it was a fairly innocuous spell.” Then he shook the young woman, “Whatever were you thinking!”
Clawd and the other urchins heard the noise outside and scampered behind the bar. Raven sensed the change and growled a warning.
Se’and glanced over her shoulder, motioning Stievan, who had paused at the top of the stair. He nodded and scampered back.
The cloaked figure came out of the mist as the Imperial squad moved to enter the building. His mind danced with visions the Summoning provided. He nodded; the man was equal to elvin magery.
Master Stenh raised his hands and gestured, the elvin chant skipping off his tongue. He sighed, the spell complete.
George paused to observe the spell.
:It is not the house wards, George.:
‘I know. Seems we’ve had company.’
:Intriguing spell, do you not think?: Staff mused, probing the most minutely observable motion.
“You all right?” Andre asked Gallen, helping him rise.
“What?” half deafened by the explosive ending of the demon.
Gallen looked at Andre’s gown and frowned, “How do you plan to explain that to the others?”
Ruke glanced at Andre, who frowned. “I’m certainly not going to say anything.”
Juels just stared at
Andre, nodding, “I’ll see what I can find for you to wear!” He moved back toward the door, then was turned back by Terhun.
“Something’s up! Head into that hidden passage!”
Tett and Spiro broke the last lock as the Priest was urging the freed half-naked children to come with them.
Ebb hurried back up the stair, “Can’t go that way. Imperials at the door!”
“There’s another way out,” offered Hart, “there’s a hidden passage way through there.” He pointed even as the wall panel swung inward seemingly on its own.
Clawd glanced out at them, Cle’or smiling behind him, “I think we can take this all the way to the cellar, where my young friend, here, tells me there may be some escape tunnels.”
The priest grinned, “There most certainly are.” He glanced meaningfully at the two dwarves.
Spiro averred to a surprised Tett, “The children will be hidden among our people. They are none too tall and I’ve an idea how to get them there.”
Tett gaped, “We can’t!”
Spiro pointed at the half-drugged children around them, “I’ll not leave innocents in a place like this— and we’ve so convenient an opportunity, at hand.”
Eyes wide, Tett shrugged as he realized what the other meant. It might just work; after all, who could protest a large family of dwarves moving to new quarters in the Sixth
Tier, but Geofrei would likely find it rather unamusing.
That thought pleased his dwarven fancy. He struggled to keep thinking of that as they ushered the frightened children through the dark hidden passages and the warren below.
Ebb signaled the Pack to leave from an upper window, then noticed that Harl had made no move to precede him.
“You’re comin’, aren’t ya?”
The adolescent shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Ebb. Not where you’re going, at least.”
“You’s gotta!
“Good luck to you, Ebb,” and with that the young man raced down the hall.
“Ebb! Come on!” one of his Rats urged.
Tears in his eyes he followed, helping to reseal the panel behind them.
“Harlequinn, what are you doing here?”
The young man had passed through the warren with a traveler’s ease. He looked at the grief stricken man before him, dagger to hand, as he entered the hidden cellar that was Gabriol’s home. “I asked you, what you’re doing here?”
“Packing your bags, I see... Where are you going?”
“With any luck, faraway from this place.”
“I saw Alfuster’s body, Gabe. It was your dagger…”
Gabriol barked, “…Of course, I killed him. Better his bloody father end his life than that Demon take him!”
“You killed Andre’s family for Alfuster, didn’t you?”
Nodding, he half turned his back, ever wary. “I was a ‘Dagger’ then. Their deaths brought an entire Territory in the District into his control.”
“But you spared their child...”
Chuckling bitterly, “It’s incredible she’s survived as she has... But I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. It— it did not go as we planned. I just couldn’t kill her. She had found a place to hide and as the others left, I realized she had been watching it all… I worked too hard to advance my son’s ambitions to steal another parent’s last hope, so.”
Harl swallowed, then cautiously approached the older man and reached out to the grief. “I understand,” he whispered as Gabriol hugged him fiercely. “But now it is time for you to do what must be done. You must become the Prince.”
“You’re dreaming, lad.”
“If I’m dreaming, it’s because of you,” Harlequinn murmured.
Sighing, the man looked into the eyes of the adolescent, who had somehow retained innocence, though he had been victim for so long. “It could never work.”
“What harm in trying?” Harlequinn mused as Gabriol stared at him.
The older man turned and hesitated, “I’ll need a Madame for the ladies.”
“I’ve always thought Madame Harlequinn sounded rather nice.”
Gabriol shook his head, oddly certain that the scheme could work with no one the wiser about Harlequinn, either.
Yates and his men were rushing into the building, barely across the threshold. Subjective time slowed, an hour past unnoted before Yates’ foot or that of any of his men reached the other side.
Part Three:
Posting Apprentices
1
Bags packed, Aaprin, Revit, and Terus had waited in the Great Hall, while their Masters called for the assigned apprentices until, at last, they were the only ones left.
Master Donnialt entered. He oddly placed a charm at the door and bespoke the elvin phrase that could be neither quite heard nor interpreted. The charm flared into brilliance.
Aaprin and the boys gaped. “Leave the bags here,” Donnialt ordered, hustling them toward the back entrance.
“But…” Revit muttered, staring at the image of himself and his companions they left behind them.
“No time for questions. Come on!”
“Hmm,” mused Aaprin, who took a deep breath, grabbing Revit and Terus by the arms hurrying them after the impatient Master of Apprentices.
So began the oddest exit from the Academy they ever might have imagined.
“No questions,” Donnialt repeatedly urged with worried glances over his shoulder. A private coach passed through the Academy arches and halted before the rear kitchen storage area.
The Academy Archivist disembarked out the far door as they hurriedly entered. The archivist, Master Amnor greeted the cook’s assistant effusively, “Oh, my dear chap, what culinary delights I found this day.”
Distracted, the assistant never noticed the coachman’s rush to depart— or the worried look in the man’s eyes.
Master Donnialt gestured them all to silence, never once conferring with the driver as the coach made its way back out the Academy archway and down the busy street. Frowning, Revit and Terus finally found the temerity to ask at once, “What is going on, Master?”
“Where are we going, Master?”
“You’re being assigned outside the Hall as you were told,” was Donnialt’s only reply.
Aaprin peered out the draped window, in growing concern at their strange exit. It was quickly apparent as the coach turned down a side street that their passage through the Tier was going to be as round about as their leaving the Hall had been.
“Aaprin, sit back and don’t do that!” Donnialt commanded worriedly. Revit and Terus looked at each other and moved to casually touch hands. “No magic, either!” Donnialt rasped. The boys hastily complied.
Sometime later, Donnialt took a deep breath. “The three of you pose a particular problem...”
Aaprin sighed ruefully, while the boys put on expressions of utter innocence. “Master,” Aaprin said, “that still does not explain…”
“You are to be apprenticed and there are those who have less pleasant plans for you.” He sighed. “You are in great danger. Your gifts pose ‘theological’ problems. Master Grendel would see you sent to the Northlands. Master Stenh has other ideas. You must trust me... The route may be circuitous and strange, but you’ll get no better chance at learning to master your skills.”
Revit glanced sidelong through the edge of the window drapes. “It sure has gotten dark out there.”
Donnialt paled, pulling his Guild medallion from about his neck. He stared into it a moment, taking a relieved breath. “Whatever it is, it is not focused upon us. The ether is, however, suitably disturbed to aid in our little escapade.”
Terus elbowed Aaprin, straight-faced, “Look what you’ve gotten us into this time.”
The coach halted and the driver called through the grate, “Change here, Sir.”
Donnialt hustled them out. The door opened to the back of a cart covered in straw. A Guildsman opened the concealed space and rasped, “Inside, quickly!” Revit hesitated even as Donnialt picked hi
m up bodily and tossed him within. Terus chose not to complain as Aaprin crowded in after him. “It should just be big enough for the three of them, Sir.”
Three gazes peered out of the compartment’s darkness at Donnialt, who murmured, “This is where we part company, lads. You’ll be safe. Arrangements have been made. You have to trust me.”
Revit and Terus did not know what to think, yet Aaprin felt a sense of rightness about this. “Mage trail,” he muttered.
Donnialt worriedly nodded. “We must go, Sir!” hissed the coachman anxiously. “We can only throw them off so long.”
The Master gazed at the boys. “I shall see you, soon,” he promised, half-heartedly.
Warning the boys to be as quiet as possible, the Guilder closed the concealed box. Faint light drifting in through the air holes, Terus squirmed uncomfortably. Revit merely gazed at Aaprin, “This won’t throw off a mage trail.”
“At least this will confuse human watchers...” The coach hurried off and their cart lurched forward, lumbering. They were on their way.
“There!”
Meltran glared at his fleeing quarry, then chanted the spell. A wheel sheared off its spoke, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt. The mage and his henchmen hurried “to help” with unsavory smiles.
Donnialt pale and half-dazed struggled out of the coach door. “Are you hurt, milord?” Meltran asked insincerely as his fellows assisted the other visible occupants from the coach.
“Here, let me look at him,” Meltran frowned gazing at the aged elfblood healer, who hurried to kneel at Donnialt’s feet, while his companion, the coach’s only other occupant rushed to the side of the coachman, who had taken a bad fall.
“Master Ofran?” Meltran murmured in uneasy recognition. “Ah, Meltran, be a good lad and fetch the City Guard... I do believe Donnialt may have a concussion.”
Taking a respectful breath, Meltran gestured his men back and bowed, “As your lordship wishes.”
Ofran smiled thinly back at the softly moaning Donnialt as the mage hastily complied. Donnialt’s next moan sound awfully like a laugh.
