The Demon's Call

by Philip C Anderson

  The tent folded itself down when Trent left it that morning. Grenn tended a pan of bacon and herbed potatoes that smelled on the wrong side of charring.

  “Burned the bacon,” Trent said when he picked up a piece of meat a few minutes later. He held it between two fingers. The meat didn’t sag, and when he broke it half, shards chinked on his plate.

  Grenn crunched on his own across the fire. “Gotta get that crisp.”

  Despite his treatment of the potatoes, they’d only just browned and tasted rustic, if a little woody, and good.

  When Grenn hefted the saddlebags onto Lorithena’s back later that morning, he leaned against the albune, grabbing at his lower back. Trent couldn’t understand what Grenn said when he whispered, but his armor actuated around his middle and allowed him to draw a full breath and arch his spine.

  They guided their mounts toward the clearing’s northern edge, where Trent scanned the horizon for any landmark of his city. But either the ash occluded his sight, or they hadn’t ridden as far north as he thought. To the northwest, stone steppes rose from the plains and led into Southern Buckaby, where the early Karlians had mined the very stone and brick that made up the holy place’s streets and monuments.

  He opened a global positioning application on his tablet. The screen flickered, and for it, Trent half-expected to find motes floating in the air around them.

  “Any idea what you’re gonna say when we get there?” Grenn asked while they waited in the last of their morning’s quiet.

  “Only thing I can say,” Trent said, looking at his first morning in a world that edged a precipice of badly-branded normality—a morning that filled him with renewed purpose among all else.

  “Oh hey, I’m Russell Hollowman,” Grenn said, doing a bad imitation, “and shit’s fucked, yo.” He laughed when he saw Trent, who cast an unimpressed scowl. “Better believe it.”

  “People almost never appreciate the truth unless it says somethin they like.”

  “Isn’t that right,” Grenn said, staring across the distance.

  When thirty seconds had passed for nothing, Trent closed everything on his screen, equipped his helmet, and mounted Raverord.

  The farther north they rode, the more the landscape around them turned to true winter. A gray veil pushed from the southeast against the dragon-storm and washed out the sun until the great disk disappeared almost entirely for the clouds. What Trent first took for ash turned to snow as the canopy threatened to enshroud them.

  The first Karlians they saw had reached a suburb of Vqenna called Beedle just before they did. A coat of snow crunched under their steeds’ feet as they made their way through the town’s light traffic. Toward the northern horizon, the basilica at Karhaal finally pushed through the haze to gleam faintly in the weak mid-morning sun. It stretched into the sky as bastion and beacon, tall enough to pierce the high clouds.

  They took down their helmets to talk.

  “I’ve spoken with some of our coadjutors in Yarnle,” the older of the pair said in a deep contralto. Her armor sheened dark red and steamed in the light snowfall. “Having to head clear ‘round south to get past the storm. They’ll end up coming in from the west after they pass the equator.” She regarded Trent and Grenn with onyx eyes. Jaw-length blonde hair covered the left side of her very square face. “Where are you coming from?”

  “Keep,” Grenn said. “Barely made it to Munsrow before the storm got to it.”

  “Ah.” The blonde directed an amused look at Grenn.

  They turned onto a street that fed toward the main thoroughfare, a road they would follow all the way to Karhaal rather than blazing through open country, and she went on. “During the War, you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a demon. I believe the king at his word, but if they’re back, where are they?”

  Grenn shrugged. “Maybe we got the jump this time. Like we’re pre-Redater or whatever in this War.”

  “Didn’t see any action back then,” she said, unbothered. “Just got off my training wheels when Jeom died. That new guy, this Hollowman—guess he might still be alive, what with the king and all. Did you see the broadcast?”

  “No,” Grenn said. “Didn’t need to.”

  “Really? I have to wonder from whom his Majesty received this critical information. Nothing like causing a worldwide shit-storm on a hunch. And then needing to get to Karhaal through this whole Ley line mess. Wouldn’t have made it from Faahraon”—her accent rounded the last syllable—“were it not for Griselda.” She patted her cassowary on the side of its chest. The beast nipped at her hand and swayed to the left while it walked, then righted itself and shook out its head.

  “And me convincing you we needed to leave,” the younger of them said. She wore metal plates as armor on her arms, but her greaves didn’t connect to her breastplate. She’d tucked her cloak around her legs and had taken off her riding helmet. Wavy red hair peeked from under her hood.

  The older scoffed. “As though you were any more convinced before the king made his show. The Grand Master, as far as anyone knows, is dead, and perhaps to think otherwise is to give the world over to madness and disorder. Can you imagine what they’ll say about Russell Hollowman in history codices?” She shook her head. “It’ll take more to convince me.”

  “More what?” Trent said. “More than the rune burnin on your arm?” He remembered this one from before the end of the War, when Jeom had given him oversight duty for new recruits in the Grand Master’s absence. His distaste for any form of clerical work had bled over to his treatment of the young Karlians. None too many had liked him—something Jeom had told him to not worry about. The woman’s name escaped him, but he thought it started with a ‘J.’

  “Come on,” the younger of them said. “It’s at least dissonant to say the Grand Master’s dead.”

  But the blonde argued: “His absence makes it the same to say he’s”—

  “What’s your name?” Trent asked of her. “Swear I recognize you. Just can’t place it exactly.”

  “Georina. Assigned to Faahraon since just after the War. Haven’t been back to Karhaal but a half-dozen times since. Wouldn’t surprise me if hardly anyone recognized me.”

  “I know what you mean,” Trent said.

  “What did you do? After the War, I mean.” Georina gestured at Trent’s armor. “Those marks tell a story few can.”

  “Until yesterday I farmed pumpkins.”

  Georina laughed. “A pumpkin farmer. Dear Goddess, a man of your talents?”

  “It was a retirement, of sorts.”

  “Eh, if anyone deserved it, your lot did. What you faced”—Georina sighed—“I don’t envy you. My mother, beside herself with grief when I heard the Call. For me, though? No safer place than Karhaal—a relief compared to school and wondering if demons were going to raid your town next.”

  They rode together until they reached the outskirts of Vqenna, the city that encircled the holy place. Snow cloaked the buildings in thick shawls. Trent slowed to look at them. Paint flaked across their faces, and despite the blanket of snow, tall grass and weeds waved with the wind, growing through cracks in pavement, errant in abandoned parks and alleyways.

  “What are you slowing for?” Georina asked.

  “Need a minute,” Trent said. He stopped fully and nodded for them to go on. “Been a while since I saw this place. Don’t wait up.”

  Georina cast a quizzical gaze his way. Her cassowary snaked under her, restless at the stop. A few seconds later, her countenance fell, and she and her counterpart continued onward.

  The scene reminded Trent vaguely of post-raid neighborhoods he’d walked through, trying desperately to find survivors. “Where’d everyone go?” When he’d left, even homes this far from the capitol fetched above-market on rent, and now they didn’t even mind to shutter the places—pock-marked ghosts from a barely-passed age. Dormant electrical lines incised the buildings’ sides.

  “They left,” Grenn said. “The Chamberlain’s been—I don’t want to
say demented. Insane’s not the right word, either. But taxes, tariffs, philosophical differences between Leynar and Priests. Between lifers and deathers. The last twenty years took its toll.”

  Trent felt his face grow hot, and he turned. The basilica towered above them, framed by the multi-story homes that no longer served their purpose. His gut tugged at him, and for his own sake, he wouldn’t let his mind codify exactly why.

  “Imagine,” Grenn said, reigning up beside him. He chuckled. “You could have been Grand Master of all this.”

  “Not much to be Grand Master of.” Trent said it, but he knew it an untruth, at least ironically—not much to be Grand Master of, only because I wasn’t here. But maybe, even if he had been, this would have happened anyway. He’d done nothing but follow orders and kill during his time in the Order. Grand Mastering, he’d thought, had been outside of his skillset. Over the years, he’d pondered what he would have done, given what he heard from the Tower or in passing around Keep: Yarnle needing Karlians because of a Warlock uprising almost six years back, Arnin pushing for the unification between the Leynar and Karlians a few months later; he’d convinced himself at times that deciding such things might have been easy, maybe trivial, compared to what he faced during the War. Yet what would he have done with hard decisions, when one choice or another hadn’t been so clear-cut? And so much more had happened because of his absence.

  “You all right?” Grenn asked.

  “Yeah. Just didn’t realize this place could be so quiet.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence.

  At Karhaal’s main gate near its eastern end, Trent retracted the armor on his left arm and showed the glowing rune-tattoo at the crook of his elbow to one of the Karlians manning gate-access.

  “Name and origin, please,” the guard said in a quick drawl.

  “Trent Geno. Keep.”

  The guard smiled at him. “That’s a good one, let’s see here”—he looked over Trent’s armor and hammer; surprise raised his eyebrows—“General. Haven’t seen many of the old crew arrive yet.” The guard scanned the screen strapped to his left hand and swiped a few fingers across its surface. “Sorry, sir, your name again.”

  “Trent Geno.” He made sure to enunciate.

  Grenn had already moved toward the gate, past the process with the other custodian.

  “Er, I don’t know if this is a problem with the system,” said the man helping Trent, “but I’m not seeing a Trent Geno in Keep.”

  Trent paused. “I’m retired.”

  “Sure, sure.” The Karlian raised a finger to his right temple, then tapped at the air in front of him. “If I could get an identification placard.”

  Trent stood in the saddle and reached for a pouch around Raverord’s neck. “Course.” A solid piece of hardened glass had his picture and information printed into it. He handed it to the guard.

  “Oh,” the man said, and he chortled. “A ‘G.’ I was trying to spell it with a ‘J.’” He scanned Trent’s glass. “There we are.”

  “Also got some freight,” Trent said. He took back his placard. “For the apothecary, I assume.”

  “Uh.” The man looked over his screen. “You’re connecting through Munsrow, correct?”

  Trent nodded, but the guard didn’t see him. “Yeah.”

  “Excellent, sir. The apothecary’s been waiting on that for a couple weeks now. Great of you to transport it for him.”

  Trent frowned, unsure of the Karlian’s meaning. “I also need a meeting with the Chamberlain.”

  The guard clicked his cheek. “The Chamberlain’s busy, as you can imagine. That might be tricky.”

  “It’s official royal business.” Trent tugged at the ring on his belt and showed it to the man, who guided Trent’s hand closer.

  “Huh. How did you receive this?”

  “Does that matter?”

  The man’s brow creased, and he stared past Trent down the avenue. “Oh,” he said, stretching the word to fill the time he took to form his next response. “Give me a moment, please.” He turned and raised his right hand to his ear. Trent couldn’t hear what he said, but the conversation proved a short one. “Chamberlain Manifeld will see you as soon as possible.” His speech turned into a spiel. “Please stable your albune at the Tower and make the hand there aware of your shipment. As always, welcome home.”

  Trent notched the ring onto his belt as the ancient wood in front of him creaked opened and admitted him and Grenn to Karhaal. He remembered the last time he’d passed one of the city’s gates, disguised as a crone to smuggle himself out of a side-entrance, one he could have reached by many of the streets and alleys they now passed. But much unlike him, his city hadn’t changed, at least at a glance.

  Three miles, to the inch, they came to the Spoke, a city square of sorts, and they turned down a street almost across from them that led to the Tower. Its ivory walls stretched toward the sky in sovereign likeness of the Bastion.

  “There’s a good boy,” the young woman who helped him said. She petted Raverord across his neck and fixed a thatch of fur that hung in front of his nose. The beast’s eyes illuminated the girl’s freckled face. Her hair hung behind her head in a loose braid the color of summer soil, and her armor almost tasted its copper color.

  “Most of this is freight for the apothecary,” said Trent as he unlashed his hammer from the albune’s side. “Just—be careful with it. I’m not sure exactly what’s in there.”

  “I’ll make sure it gets to him.” Raverord stretched as she scratched over his shoulder and down his front legs. “Such a strong boy getting all this stuff here, aren’t you?”

  The albune groaned.

  A voice tittered from above. Exposed wooden beams stretched from wall to wall, and on one, a couple of serrens, their fur wiry and black, whistled to a sparrow that roosted there. The bird tweeted in kind. One of the serrens pulled a handful of seeds from a pocket in its fur and set them on the beam near the tweeter’s nest before the two skittered toward the stable’s other end and left through a high window.

  Trent pointed toward the rafters. “You’ve got”—

  “Fuck off, man,” Grenn said. “It’s your job.” The guy who helped him held out his hand and waited, his face decidedly plain.

  The girl tending to Raverord looked their way. “Tavit, come on. They’re Karlians.”

  Tavit’s mask cracked into a smile, and he chuckled. “Doesn’t mean this one should get the work for free.” He nudged Grenn in the side with his uncovered arm. Armor colored a yellowed shade of green covered the rest of his body. His voice stretched into a scratchy tenor. “How was Keep, man?” He flicked his eyebrows. “Lots o’ tail, how ‘bout it?”

  Grenn smiled, but he looked uneasy, like he wanted to banter but tore himself between duty and tales for the present company.

  “Don’t let me stop ya,” Trent said. “Just make sure this stuff gets where it needs to.”

  Grenn nodded, though he didn’t seem thrilled. “I will.”

  “Let’s get this little girl unloaded and to a stall,” Tavit said as they walked toward the stable’s other end with Lorithena. “And then you can tell me about all the stalls you’ve unloaded in.” He laughed for the startled look on Grenn’s face.

  “Goddess, Tavit. Not in front of—Trent.”

  “What, he your pops or something? Ha!”

  “I would stay and help,” Trent said to the Karlian who helped him, “but I have a pressing meeting scheduled.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the young woman said, lifting the saddle bags off Raverord’s back easily enough, most of the weight on her right arm. Her uncovered left arm looked toned and well-muscled. “I can handle all this.”

  “Thanks.” He meant it as he shouldered his hammer and left.

  On his way toward the Spoke on Tower Street, Trent passed a bar that, with how many he saw inside, seemed an unofficial meeting place amongst the new guard. He remembered how young he’d been the first he walked the holy streets
, and a trained reverence coursed through him as he passed under the strings of lit bulbs that spanned the city in a connected line. Though he’d convinced himself he didn’t miss being here, idle thoughts of all the opportunities he’d lost for his absence passed him by. He couldn’t trade the years, and he didn’t have clear enough judgment to know if he would, given the chance, but nostalgia painted even the chaff too rosy a red as he trotted through the brick streets, past blaring full-window storefronts and magic shops that extended several stories high—but only on the inside. At one meeting of streets, a small footpath led diagonally between them, a magical avenue of shacks that led gods-knew-where. Those hadn’t been here before, with their run-down wood-slat faces that peeked at him from their windy ways.

  At the temple steps, he stopped and looked up at the obelisk, the Bastion at Karhaal. It stretched impossibly high, white bricks as tall as buildings stacked and laid atop one another until they reached the sky. The first time he saw it, his party had come from the west and caught sight of it as it slid into view over the horizon. The dragons’ storm had hardly blustered that year, but still it had rent enough magic to deliver the world a mini fantasy age and necessitate travel on albunes. They’d passed just north of Crowe’s Weald, where they picked up their last recruit from a village—barely more than a hundred-thousand—on the forest-country’s outskirts in Pratsin.

  A dwarf, who had worn armor of onyx and green, reined alongside a young man named Russ. He hadn’t been a real dwarf as the codices told of them—his rascally features spread smoothly over his face, as human as any of them, and his body simply looked miniaturized rather than deformed by the warp that made dwarves’ hands too large for gloves and their legs as crooked as bows. But dwarf blood no doubt ran through his veins in small part: The coffers at Karhaal hadn’t seen such a surplus as when he’d tended their books as quartermaster. The little man somehow dragnetted prices on iron and gold and copper and platinum and silica such that he almost made a profit just shipping them to and from the city.