The Demon's Call

by Philip C Anderson

  Trent marshaled Raverord, who bucked at their stop. From the albune’s mind came the idea, not in words, of chase.

  If anything’s chasing us, Trent thought, it’s not coming for you. He looked behind them. They’d left the forest well behind them, yet still a presence called to him, attracted his vision, pulled him between the city and a place far away. His thoughts did little to calm his mount, who tossed his head and huffed intermittently as he stamped in place.

  “Try not to get lost in selfish thought,” Trent said. “Remember why we’re here.”

  “How could I forget?” said Grenn, perhaps sharper than he’d wanted. His words painted a picture of discontent to which Trent didn’t subjoin himself.

  As they neared the city, the buildings on its western bank rose above them and stretched into the clean sky. Tanvarn’s capitol building towered above all else in front of them, reflecting sunlight against its burnished-gold coating. Its body split into three wings, off which water overflowed from colossal walkways on its roof. The Hills-over-Tanvarn sat low to the north, their mounds covered in low buildings and tiers of farmland that checkered the green with brown and deep red.

  Not long after they made it to the valley floor, Trent spied a black speck flitting across the firmament. Dragons didn’t patrol this far west during Peacetime—he hadn’t seen his first until his second year as a recruit—yet there it flew, in a holding pattern of sorts, gliding against a zephyr off the mountains. Trent lost sight of it for the waxing day.

  They passed through a suburb on the valley floor called Unily, a collection of low buildings—the tallest no more than twelve stories—that spread for tens of miles around a statue of the valley’s namesake, Yon Sandrin. Cacti had closed their night-blooms, the scents of which—a mix of wheat grass and lemon—lingered in the still air.

  Trent tucked his scarf into a side-pocket on his saddle as they joined traffic on Unily’s other side. Even as they neared the city, Raverord would go out of his way, to Trent’s chagrin, to stomp on massive diamondbacks that slithered over the desert sands, their heads severed from their bodies by his claws quicker than the snakes could react, left for the carrion that soared high above.

  An hour later, past midday, they turned onto a highway that served the city’s front street and arrived at the Leynar Tower. A cheerful fellow waited at the door to welcome them.

  “Welcome to Tanvarn, my sirs,” he said, laughing as the mounts stormed past. Raverord slathered at the respite, damning the heat as Trent dismounted.

  The hand took Trent’s reins and said, “There ya go, boy,” in a thick voice from behind the wiry shock of hair on his face. He stroked Rav’s neck with a pudgy hand. “Ooh, you’re one of Ranold’s, aren’t ya? What an adventure you’re on.”

  “I might speak with your Portal Master,” said Trent. He pulled a silver piece from his pouch and handed it to Raverord’s tender.

  The man pointed toward the Leynar helping Grenn with Lorithena. “Avlin. He’s your man.” Trent unstrapped Uniquity from Rav’s side before the Leynar led the albune away.

  “She’ll need in the same stall with that one,” Grenn said, nodding toward Raverord and his guide. “Also”—he pulled a piece of silver from a pouch on his belt and handed it to the Portal Master—“get ‘em something good.”

  “Your patronage is noted,” said Avlin, though his expression spoiled when Grenn turned.

  A slim young woman came to help Willa with Bertrin, who had dumped his rider to the floor when he sat fully on his ass. “Is this one Bertrin?” the girl said, amused. She’d cut her robe into two pieces—a willowy cut-off blouse and a skirt that hemmed high on her legs.

  Willa nodded as she got up. “I just need the duffle off him.” Bertrin had laid fully on the ground, and though his eyes gave away his attentiveness, he rested his head on his paws and watched the Leynar pull his reins from under him while Willa wiped herself off and got her effects.

  The girl spoke through a bemused smile. “Come on. What, you think you’re too pretty to walk to a stall?”

  Bertrin wheezed, obstinate and unmoving.

  “I’m heading inside,” Willa told Trent. “Figure it’s the best place to start.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll also try to get through to the Undertaker and inform the leadership of our arrigh—arrival.”

  Trent nodded. Willa looked like she almost said more. She headed further into the Tower and turned out of sight.

  Grenn watched her leave. “I’ll be, uh, heading for the Liscerring offices.” He sounded yearningly more official—Trent couldn’t think of another word for it—his voice deeper than normal. “Might stop around town, get to know some of the locals.”

  “Right,” Trent said, chuckling.

  Grenn nodded and shouldered his hammer.

  Goddess help me if I’m chasing shadows, Trent thought while he watched him leave. He had been sure on their way into the city, but the reasoning for his supposition now seemed baseless, and he wished he could consult Sieku. The urlan would no doubt tell him how stretching his hypothesis had been. Of everyone on Coroth, Kendra being the Fleecer sounded fanciful if not ridiculous, especially with how conveniently that served him. But he had no other cane to lean on, so he asked the Portal Master where he could find “… the Fleecer in Tanvarn.”

  “I know of no one here by that title,” he said, stroking Lorithena’s neck as he led her to where the hand had stalled Raverord. “There’s a good girl.” He handed her off to the Leynar and turned his attention to Trent. “Though if Karhaal’s sent you, I can only imagine you’re trying to find the Lich.”

  “Is that what she’s called?”

  Avlin nodded.

  “Come on, man,” the Leynar handling Bertrin said, her charmed demeanor evaporating. “Don’t be an asshole.” The albune only huffed.

  “Why?” Trent asked of the Portal Master.

  “Something people thought was funny.” He accompanied Trent toward the stable’s front entrance, the one that led further into the city. “Halfway in the alphabet between ‘B’ and ‘W.’ There’s no need to worry, though. She’s not practicing necromancy or anything. We’d have intervened far before that happened.”

  “I’ve heard the authorities aren’t doing well here. A few too many issues for Karhaal’s liking.”

  “I presume that’s why you’re in Tanvarn,” said the Master of Portals, his tone as thin as his face. He brushed a piece of straw hair from his high cheekbone. “The Karlians at the temples would have suited the work they’ve assigned you, yet your leadership deemed it prudent to send special investigators. The Tower is fine, of that I can assure you. It’s the laypeople and their problems that aren’t, but we can’t pretend to interdict every time there’s a non-magical complaint. We’d lose our ability to take care of the problems we can. High Tower has told us to not intervene until criticalities occur.”

  “Is that a strict rule?” asked Trent. “What would constitute such a thing?”

  “The Capitol yields each satellite to its own discretions.”

  “Wonder why Karhaal’s received enough complaints to uproot two Karlians from Keep, then. We even have a Priest with us, I’m sure you saw.”

  “From Keep?” The Leynar’s brow furrowed. “I’m surprised they would have pulled their best in on this. The Lich is doing nothing illegal, the Beast is unsubstantiated, and the Liscerring debacle is hardly even a scandal. Are you here for something else? The convention, perhaps? Regardless, I’d heard the Chamberlain was going to call a session.” He stopped at the entrance. “Is that not the case now?”

  Trent shook his head. “Scuffed quorum that I’m aware. But you seem well informed. Funny how this Tower’s discretion places them outside the municipal interest.”

  “I can imagine how it looks to an outsider—believe me, we understand the optics—but do remember, also, that gossip is in our name. If there’s any around, it’s because we spread it.”

  “Sounds like a decent way t
o transmit misinformation.”

  Avlin checked his watch. “There’s a large party coming in from Stasix in a few minutes. Before this conversation runs in circles, I’ll bid you good morrow.” The Portal Master bowed and headed the way they’d come.

  “Sir,” Trent said.

  The man stopped, half-turned, and waited. He stood like he’d strapped a dowel to his back and held his hands in front of him, his shoulders rolled forward.

  “The Lich’s place of business?”

  “Ask a cabbie. I’m sure they’ll know where to take you. And good luck gaining audience. I hear she’s not taking visitors presently.”

  Trent stared at him. Not in Tanvarn a quarter-hour… “Good luck with your rumors.”

  “No luck needed, Grand Master,” said Avlin. “I’m sure you’d blush if you just opened your ears for the craic going around about you and yours.”

  4

  Outside, a weary breeze served as the only hint that winter’s breath might have etched the Lower City, but the depths of the season probably never even came. A washed-out blue sky hung overhead, and the desert-sun beat upon Trent as he weaved between others on the sidewalk. A shopping complex rose thirty-or-so stories next to him, each floor hodge-podge on the one below. It ran all the way to where Tower Street—aptly named—met with Altin Parkway, a grand avenue that fed toward the docks at the river and farther across into the Upper City. Apartments faced him on the next street, their rows of windows neat and numbered in the hundreds.

  Trent raised his arm, and a taxi pulled out of traffic and stopped at the curb in front of him.

  “Where ya heading?” an urlan asked.

  “Do you know where the—the Lich lives?” Trent said, settling himself in a cabin seat. “The Fleecer is another name I’ve heard.”

  “It’s fine.” The urlan’s accent rounded his long vowels. “Know who you’re talking about.” He merged back into traffic. “Just a few minutes, and you’ll have all the curatives you could want. Though a man o’ the Order like yourself, I’d wonder why you need Tanvarn for what ails you. Unless you’re here for somethin a little more personal.”

  “Strictly business.”

  “Sure,” the cabbie said. He raised his right hand to gesture placation. “Don’t haftuh say no more. None o’ my business. Learned to not ask too deepuh questions a long time ago. Probably dint notice, my left arm ain’t the same color as my right.”

  Trent looked around the driver’s body. His left arm rested against his side, his hand curled into a fist on his lap. It twitched every few seconds without pattern, red against the silver his makers had given him.

  “Long story, believe me, though the short of it focuses on a gorgeous Leynar I met a few years ago. Excuse the phrasing, but she blew me straight outta my gourd and left me leakin on the street. Thought I was gonna die. But I made a little deal with an—after-market specialist—and now I’m fine.” He raised his left arm and extended his fingers. They creaked under their strain before his hand balled into a fist again and dropped to his lap.

  They passed a transit station, a brutal building of concrete with a huge awning at its corner. Thousands of people gathered there, and Trent felt the immensity of their humanity as his cab passed and headed further into the Lower City. His terminal vibrated against his hip. He checked the alert: his messages to Sieku had finally sent.

  “Got a convention coming in from Dawrlo,” the driver said when he noticed Trent paying them more attention than him. “Some came by river just last night, and more are gettin shipped in by the hour.”

  Trent didn’t respond; he just let the urlan speak.

  “… Turns out, at the end o’ the day, if you wait for the light to turn white, it can save you a lotta trouble down the street.” He laughed as he pulled his car toward a curb, and Trent wondered what the long of the urlan’s story would have been, the short having taken the whole drive even with a rushed ending. “Here we are, friend. That’ll be eight piece sixty-three.”

  Trent pulled out a ten-piece and passed it to the urlan before he stepped off the transport. The cabbie’s hand hung over a change dispenser that attached to his left hip, and he looked expectantly at Trent.

  “Keep the change.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The driver slipped the coin into a slot between his legs, where it chinked against others. “The place you’re lookin for is around the corner.”

  “Thanks again.”

  Rundown apartments lined the street, which stunk of cheap confection and fatty meat. A smokestack two blocks down billowed white smoke, and further on, a few kids chased a lighted ball down the sidewalk and hit it over the road to another group. They whooped each time they made a good pass or narrowly dodged a passing car.

  “The dragons already came to peck, ya may already have heard,” a young man holding a bundle of data sticks called out as Trent passed him. “But for all else ya may notta heard, get ya news from within the storm right here ‘fore anywhere else. What’s goin on at Karhaal? Hear what the scepter hasn’t told us since their revelation two nights past. And more comin outta Pratsin”—

  Trent ducked under an array of solar cells that audibly hummed when he got close enough to them. At a cross-street—more of a narrow alley—he followed the voices to his left and found what he sought around the next corner.

  A crowd gathered outside an ornate exposed-brick house—establishment, as Trent had known Leynars to call their work outside the Towers. The woman of the place held palaver with them. She wore an oversized t-shirt that hung off her right shoulder, a bandana over her graying hair, and baggy pants, the right leg of which she’d rolled up to her knee. Her door stood cracked open behind her.

  “But why is it going to cost so much?” a man asked. “Wasn’t a quarter that three months ago.”

  “Supply and demand,” the Lich said. Her eyes tucked under her brow, and her cheeks looked hollow, sunken. “What do you expect me to do? Lose money just so you all can feel a little better?”

  “Don’t trivialize our pain,” a man on the crowd’s far side said.

  “You can have a heart,” said another, a woman near the front of the mob.

  “I don’t run a charity,” the Fleecer said, “and I’m not a doctor.” She sounded tired. “No one subsidizes the cost of my doing business.”

  “What’s causing these prices, though?” a man asked. “I’m running out oil for my hair, and my girlfriend’s breasts are shrinking now because we can’t afford the cream she needs. What in the hells am I supposed to do if we run out o’ that?”

  “Pay up. But don’t complain to me when you can’t. This—this Beast—is eating up my supply lines. My couriers are too scared to travel alone—travel at all, really. I’ve had a shipment stuck in Rallorean for three weeks, and with the storm to the east, I can’t even get portals in.” The Fleecer threw her hands away from her. “And you’ve seen the authorities, sniffing around here like there’s something to find.”

  “Why can’t you go deal with the Beast yourself?” a man said. He’d rolled his track pants to the top of his socks and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, despite a pair of sunglasses resting on his beanie. “An investigator told me it’s nothing to worry about, but when Eleen can’t sleep because she sees it everywhere she goes, it becomes my problem. A lot of us depend on you, and when we can’t, those who rely on us can’t, either.”

  “Sounds like your daughter”—

  “Girlfriend. Gods, do you even remember me?”

  “Of course I do. I misspoke. Your girlfriend has an over-active imagination. That’s your problem, not mine, and it has nothing to do with the Beast—which, may I add, no one has proven exists yet.”

  “Convenient for you, isn’t it?” a woman yelled from near the back of the throng.

  “For everyone,” said the witch. “Do you all seriously want a wild demon stalking our streets? From what I understand, the last reported sighting was—what?—a week, week-and-a-half ago? Maybe it’s gone”�
�

  “That doesn’t matter!” a man shouted. The crowd erupted and all spoke at once.

  Trent watched the uproar with detachment. Leynars loved this kind of thing, especially when they caused it—others depending on them. A cart bumped into him. A young woman in a scarf and wide hat caught up to it.

  “Turnips?” she said.

  Trent checked goods in her cart—just a pile of turnips. He shook his head.

  “Shut up!” the Lich yelled, and her voice pierced through the noise with ease. Between shock and incredulity, the crowd looked to her, and when they had all quieted, she spoke.

  “I understand the synthesis that comes from my relationships with the townspeople—with all of you, I mean. If you suspect I relish telling you I can’t perform the duty I’ve foisted upon myself, we don’t know each other very well. I understand your pains. All of you. But I can’t indebt myself. That serves no one, least of all me.”

  She pointed at the man who spoke of his girlfriend. “Geri, where would you be if I hadn’t found the tincture that cured Eleen’s cough two years ago?”

  Geri’s ire melted, and he hung his head. “The doctors just wouldn’t listen.”

  “Who did?” asked the Fleecer. A second later she turned to an elderly lady who hadn’t spoken yet. The woman leaned over a walker and peered at the witch from under her brow. Her back had formed into a u-shape. “Landa, who found you love?”

  “You did, dear,” the old woman said. Her voice sounded like it came from an ancient record player, and her hair had come partly undone and hung in front of her face. Despite a lack of crisp in the air, she’d wrapped herself in a knitted shawl.

  “After seventy-seven years, I helped find you the love of your life.”

  Landa nodded. “It was a good two months.”

  “See? The best things in life don’t last. I’ve experienced that firsthand.” The witch shook her head, and when she next spoke, she addressed the crowd. “I’m sorry I disappeared last week, but like I told y’all, there’s all the investigative stuff going around and—and I ran out of curatives—and I couldn’t face you. I didn’t know how.”