by Garon Whited
I sighed and stretched. Mary raised her head from my chest and smiled at me. She blew a lock of hair away from her face and grinned at me.
“Firebrand?” she asked.
“How could you tell?”
“You tensed up.”
“Oh. Yes. Can I have a minute to put some instructions into a rock?”
“I’ll pop into the bathroom for a minute. Don’t eat all the red berries; I like those.”
“Shulua berries,” I informed her, listening to what my mouth said. It was news to me. “They’re sweeter when they’re fresh. These are well-preserved, though.”
“Good to know. I still don’t want you to eat them all.”
“Perish the thought.”
She skipped into the bathroom and I put some instructions into a spell.
The road along the coast clung, for the most part, to the mountainsides facing the sea. On the north side it was generally a wall of rock; the south side was usually a descending slope of variable steepness, from straight down to about thirty degrees, often ending in either a ravine or heaving sea, depending on the time of day and the height of the tide.
Huh. The sun of this world goes down and vanishes as it passes the horizon. It reappears on the other side of the world to rise for the morning. It isn’t a celestial body in the sense of a star or planet. It’s an energy manifestation in a magical universe. Does it affect the tide?
How about the moon? Is it really a moon? Or is it something else again? It seems to orbit the world on the same time interval as the sun, only as an opposite—the sun sets as the moon rises, and vice-versa. Is that by design or merely a coincidence? Does the moon actually affect the tides? I’ve never paid much attention because I’ve never cared much for ships, sailing or otherwise. But if I knew how the tides worked, it might give me insight into the things influencing them.
Crap. I may need to be more nautical and I hate boats. No, on second thought, I don’t. I hate oceans, sinking, and drowning. Boats are okay.
Anyway, the Kingsroad along the southern coast.
I imprinted the instructions and slid the spell into the rock face nearest me. The mountain started changing the road. It immediately began to narrow as the rock wall inched slowly into the right-of-way. The surface of the road tilted, ever so slowly, toward the sea-side. The road surface started developing speed bumps two or three feet apart, rising up in humps, sinking down in dips, making it progressively more difficult, minute by minute, to roll a wagon over. The two bridges started to change shape, the road surface rising in the center and dropping off on both sides like the peak of a roof. Places where the road ran under an overhang, the ceiling started to lower, growing downward, decreasing the clearance.
The mountain seemed almost gleeful to have something to do. Come to think of it, it enjoyed my instructions about the Kingsway, too. I think it likes having large projects, but I have no idea why. I would think it would prefer to sit contentedly, like a… well, like a rock. But what do I know?
None of this would happen quickly. They’d notice the dips first, of course. If they were smart, they’d turn around and hurry back before they ever caught on to the tilting of the road or the narrowing of it. If they weren’t smart, the army, strung out along the road in the mountains, would find their road gradually disappearing from under their feet. Hopefully, everyone would go back to their staging area around Baret.
Hmm. Mental note: Call the Baron of Baret and see how he’s doing. He might be inadvertently besieged by a force he wants nothing to do with.
Mary came out of the bathroom, finger-combing her hair into a semblance of order.
“Breakfast?”
“Absolutely.”
We had breakfast and went back to bed.
Mary seemed reasonably happy about the morning. I admit, it was a good morning. It helped my morale, certainly, and moreso since I insisted she trim her fingernails before we started. Thinking ahead pays off.
By the time we cleaned up, dressed, and made ourselves presentable, there were a number of people waiting to see me. We came out of the bedroom and Kammen handed me a stack of messages.
“What’s this?”
“Everyone wants to see you, Sire. We got a buncha guys headed here.”
“Yes, I know. Lissette declared war.”
“You know?” Kammen asked.
“I have good ears.”
Hey, don’t I get any credit? Firebrand asked.
I don’t want to admit you listen in on people. Keeping it in the realm of “That’s just how it talks” keeps people from looking at you as though you’re riffling through their brains.
But I don’t. It doesn’t work like that.
And I’m not the Demon King.
So? What’s that got to do with… oh.
“You knew a war started?” Mary asked.
“Sure. A little after breakfast.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It would have ruined our morning.” I turned to Kammen again. “Please let Seldar know I’m available. As for the rest of these,” I said, thumping the papers, “if it’s not a personal matter—personal to me—tell them to take it up with Seldar or Dantos.”
“Gotcha, Sire.”
“Good. Now, I’m going to call Thomen and see if I can sort this out.”
“Can it wait a bit?”
“For?”
“Seldar. He really wants to see you.”
“All right. I suppose I should find out what’s going on in more detail… and he may want to sit in on the conversation. I’ll be in the workroom.”
“I’ll let him know,” Kammen said, and drew out a small mirror. He spoke with Seldar while we relocated. I wound up following Kammen. Dantos had already set up the new workroom, separate from the new gate room.
Once there, I called Tianna. I didn’t want to talk to her so much as to work on her mirror and mine so they could act like an extension phones. She blew me a kiss through the mirror and went back to doing whatever fire-priestesses do. Mary got a lesson in mirror communications while I worked on the spells.
Something made a ripping, wet sort of sound, like tearing flesh. I held my spell-work stable for a moment and looked over my shoulder.
It was big, about eight feet tall, and shaped vaguely like an old-fashioned beehive. It was greenish-blue, splotchy, and covered with tentacles. The tentacles were about as long as it was tall and arranged radially, emerging from each level of the “beehive” in decreasing numbers as they ascended. Each tentacle seemed covered in eyes, at least at first. The eyes were open and looking around as the tentacles writhed. Then the eyeballs opened to reveal needle-like teeth and extend long, sharp tongues. Each eyeball-mouth-thing emitted a screech in a slightly different note, grating on the nerves and raising hackles.
Mary screamed. I didn’t blame her a bit; I felt like screaming, too.
Kammen, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care if it was screaming, screeching, writhing, flailing, or begging for help. It appeared, unannounced, in the presence of the King. Like a computer following instructions, he attacked. Condition: it appears unannounced. Action: kill it. Kammen killed it.
He started by charging into it, sword out, and buried the blade in the thick, tough hide of the thing. Tentacles immediately snapped around him, smothering him in coils. The next thing I saw was the tip of his blade emerging from the top of the thing as he sliced upward from the entry wound. A few more swipes and pieces of the thing fell away, thrashing madly on the floor. This freed him well enough to remove tentacles in much the same manner as trimming a hedge, followed by carving a ham. Ichor went everywhere, splattering and stinking like wet dung and industrial waste. At least it didn’t sizzle.
Kammen stood there, his armor dripping bluish-black fluid, and regarded the writhing pieces. A few quick swipes and they were very small writhing pieces. He finished up with a spell, a wiping gesture to remove foreign material from his armor and weapon. Then, with perfect aplomb, he resumed his place by the door.
/>
Elapsed time: six seconds.
Holy crap on a cracker.
“I’ll have someone get the bits and burn ’em, Sire.” He sounded about as excited as my grandmother over her morning cup of tea. Which, even if it’s a particularly good cup of tea, still isn’t too excited.
“Yes,” I said, and tried to keep my voice from shaking. “Yes, do that.”
“What was that?” Mary asked, almost whispered.
“I have no idea. Probably something from Johann. Since he couldn’t drag me away, he’s probably sending presents.”
“Wherever it is he shops, promise me we’ll never, ever go there.”
One of the bits of tentacle opened its eye and screeched at us. Kammen stomped it with a splat!
“I promise.”
Mary, Tianna, and I tested the new mirror system. I’m glad we did; it didn’t work on the first try. Tianna got sound, but all she could see was a huge, flaming eye. I found the problem and fixed it, then she got vision but no sound. It was a fight to make it work, but it was a fight I could win. The two used different sorts of transmission. The vision was a light-emitting function while the sound was more of a psychic thing, yet they both fed off the same information feed from remote mirrors. Most everyone else uses a solely psychic technique in which only the actual user can receive sensory impressions. This makes the mirrors useless as displays. Mine generally work more like televisions. Admittedly, mine are more complicated to make and definitely more energy-intensive, but they can be treated like actual images, not merely psychic visions.
Mary and I were both glad to have a problem to solve. Some of the monster-bits were still wriggling. It disturbed me greatly to realize some of the bits were also fighting and eating other bits. Firebrand poured fire over a few; luckily, they burned normally, giving off a sickly-sweet smell not unlike some high-explosive residues. It made me wonder if the smell was toxic. As a precaution, I magically guided the smoke up through an exhaust vent.
A squad of people with buckets, tongs, and mops came in to deal with the monster remains. After subduing some of the larger portions, they took them away to be burned. I cautioned them about not touching it or breathing the smoke. We’ll see if anything awful happens.
Most Things simply dissolve once you kill them. The Things from beyond the world do, anyway. Every time I’ve killed one, it collapses in on itself, liquefies, and evaporates.
This wasn’t a Thing-thing, merely a physical thing. It was a biological organism. It adhered to world-rules even after it died, rather than simply ceasing to exist. It was made of matter—presumably matter as I understood matter—and had all the problems a physical creature does, which definitely includes Kammen and high-speed vivisection.
So who sent it? And it surely was sent. Even I don’t have random monsters teleporting into my vicinity as a coincidence.
My money was on Johann. Thomen might like the idea, but he’d have to find such a monster (problematic), precisely locate me (difficult in the extreme, at the moment), then transport his creature through both the city and palace defenses (unlikely, bordering on impossible). I simply couldn’t see it happening. Johann, on the other hand, is looking past the city defenses, not through them. He’s on another plane of existence and the city shields don’t prevent interuniversal transportation.
I should fix that. I should build some permanent enchanted items to take care of my more mundane magical defenses, too. I should also get on the stick and start negotiating with other families of magi to help me out. Time is ticking, although it’s hard to tell how fast.
As for where he found a monster, I don’t know. I can make a couple of guesses. He could have looked into other universes, picked the first ugly thing he saw, and dragged it home to play with me. He could have conjured up a physical creature from someone’s nightmare. What I would probably have done, if I had all the power at his disposal, was to start with a living creature and transform it into a monster. A squid, maybe, or some particularly unpleasant sea creature.
Just three options, and those off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more.
Seldar came in as they were mopping up the last of it. I noticed while they didn’t wizard up the mess, but they did magically clean the mops, draining all the water and goo into the bucket. Interesting. Less power-intensive but more time-consuming. That does seem to be the usual trade-off.
“Sire.”
“Seldar. How’s the war?”
“On its way. I beg your pardon for my tardiness. I was engaged in discussion—”
“Hold it. No excuses. You are doing your job. I don’t keep track of what you’re doing; if it’s important, go do it. I can wait.”
“You are a most unfair monarch, Sire.”
“I am?”
“How can I use you as an excuse to free myself from unpleasant meetings if you take such an attitude?”
Mary snickered. I sneered at her.
“All right, I’ll take the blame. It’ll be our secret. Right?”
“Right, Sire.”
“Absolutely,” Mary added.
You got it, Boss! Firebrand said.
“Whatever,” Kammen rumbled.
“I’m surrounded by snark,” I observed.
“But no boojums,” Mary said. “I like your Seldar. Can I have one?”
“Ask his wife,” I advised. “Where’s Dantos, Seldar?”
“With Rendal, reviewing the city wall and its defenses. They know the people here better than I do.”
“Fair enough. Do you want to brief me before or after I try to talk Thomen into talking Lissette into calling the whole thing off?”
“If I may ask, what plans do you have in the event he will not do so, Sire?”
“Well, the way I see it, there are a few possibilities. Try and follow me on my thinking and correct me where my thinking’s stinking. I figure I can stop the war by handing over everything to Lissette and walking away. You want the marbles? Here you go; I’m done playing this game. That sort of thing. I’m working up to it anyway, but there are complications.
“One of those complications is the question of whether or not Thomen is treating her for post-traumatic stress or if he’s doing nasty things to her mind and controlling her. I’m going to have to see for myself before I’ll believe the results. I need to know she’s not some pawn under the thumb of the wizard who would be king.”
“I find it doubtful they will permit you—which is to say, the Demon King—in the presence of the Queen, much less allow you to examine her mind,” Seldar pointed out.
“Right, which makes things more difficult. If he’s a good guy, Thomen deserves thanks, not the alternative.”
“What is the alternative?”
“I’m thinking I try to kill him. Of course, it didn’t work out so well the last time I went off to kill someone. I’m sure he’s spent a good little while preparing for my attempt.”
“I would.”
“You’re not helping. However, I did come up with an alternative to killing him.”
“Which is?”
“Got a coin on you?”
“Of course.” He fumbled at his belt pouch and drew out a handful of change.
“What’s the biggest value coin? Got one of those?”
“Here.” He handed me an octagonal gold coin. It was about an inch across from side to side, rather thick, and looked struck rather than molded or carved. On the front of it, somebody did a terrible job of capturing my likeness; I looked noble, bordering on handsome. It was probably copied from some statue.
“How many of these would it take to buy… oh, say, a large merchant vessel? A full-sized, brand-new ship?”
“Ships are exceedingly expensive,” he informed me. “Each one is twenty or thirty thousand, depending on a number of factors.”
“When I announce I want Thomen dead and I will give a hundred thousand of these to the person who kills him, what will happen?”
Mary let out a low whistle. Seldar’s eyebrow
s went up and his eyes went wide.
“You once mentioned,” I told him, “that I’m a king and I don’t have to do everything myself. I could pay people to do this, couldn’t I?”
“Do we have a hundred thousand to spend?” Seldar asked.
“Yes.”
“I would say… it would be… difficult. For Thomen. It might encourage him to kill you quickly, however, and so remove the reward.”
“A good thought. I’ll have to find someone to hold it and administrate it for me. That way, even if I die, the reward stands.”
“Who could do such a thing without earning a death-mark from Thomen?”
“I’m thinking Bob would do it. It would appeal to his sense of humor, I think.”
“He has one?”
“A dark and twisted one, but yes.”
“Very well. Shall I send word, Sire?’
“Not so fast. We haven’t established if he’s a good guy, merely misguided, or an evil overlord in the making. I’m ninety percent sure he’s a brain-twisting would-be usurper, but I have to be certain. It matters.”
“Of course, Sire.”
“So, now that I’ve told you what I’m thinking, what do you have for me?”
“I have spoken with a number of individuals in Carrillon, all of them Order of Shadow. They are asking questions, discreetly, about Thomen, the Queen, and their relationship. So far, my investigations agree with yours. It is probable he is using her, but I cannot prove it as a fact.”
“Well, keep looking. What else?”
“Troop movements. The Temple of Shadow has the table of vision in their undervaults. Their best estimate of the force on the south road is fifteen thousand infantry, two thousand archers—counting crossbowmen—a hundred wizards, five hundred horse archers, two thousand heavy cavalry, and perhaps a hundred knights.”
“The Order of Shadow has my original sand table? Is that where it went?”
“Yes, Sire,” Seldar replied, surprised. “It is yours, is it not?”
“Yes, but why didn’t Tort take it?” Then the answer hit me.
“Because the Demon King would have it,” Seldar and I said, in unison.
“A better question,” I continued, “is why didn’t he want it? He could have moved it to Carrillon.”
