“Ahh,” the Voice sighed, “at last, perhaps, one who understands… or who might come to understand.”
The Voice chuckled. “You see, paladin, you have granted me satisfaction. You show great promise, and that is a good thing, for both of us, if you turn out to be the one I need. I think it best if you again forget all we have said, at least until our next little chat.”
“Leave me in my darkness, Satan,” he said wearily.
“Very well, Birch de’Valderat,” the Voice said, “but rest assured, I shall return. For now, forget, mortal. Forget.
“Forget.”
Chapter 11
Metaphors – even light and dark, good and evil – were never intended to be carried to an absolute interpretation. This is something most elves have never understood.
- Do’n’El’Maran,
“Collected Accounts from the Pandemonium War”
- 1 -
Three days later, as the new week began, Shadow Company set out with an escort of five hundred paladins; Brican referred to it as “traveling with a whole herd of holy humans in a handbag.” Specifically, they traveled with four-hundred-ninety-nine other paladins: eighty-three from each Facet, plus one Gray paladin.
The paladins had yet again been placed under the command of Garet jo’Meerkit, who deferred overall command of the expedition to his son, just as he had during their demon-hunting expedition the previous week. A few of the paladins raised their eyebrows in surprise at placing such command in the hands of one so young, but nearly all of the paladins had fought on the walls during the Barrier War, and they had seen Shadow Company in action both before and after the fall of Gerard Morningham. It was no secret that Garnet had prevented the complete annihilation of the forces on the Barrier by mounting a defense against demonic forces set to ambush the defenders from within the city, pitting his under-strength company against several times their number of demons and twisted monstrosities that had once been men.
So while some wondered about his age and the potentially critical nature of their mission, few had any doubt that Garnet was capable of holding his command. Still, there were those who chafed under the thought of ultimately following the orders of someone half their age, but these few wisely kept their opinions to themselves and raised no disputes. After all, the man technically in charge of their massive jintaal – the man to whom they would have expressed their discontent – was none other than Garnet’s father. Nevertheless, Garnet had some of his denarae circulate through the camp at night and listen in for thoughts of disgruntlement or resentment. Garnet had no fears of mutiny, of course, but discontent could manifest in many ways that could prove dangerous if they arose at the wrong moment.
The paladins rode either horses or dakkans – or dakkans that had changed into a horse shape – and Flasch compared the effect to someone having taken a rainbow and scrambled it all about to create a riot of mismatched colors.
Accompanying the eight-hundred-man force was most of the support group for Shadow Company and another platoon’s worth of cooks, smiths, and other tag-alongs that kept mostly to the group of paladins. Alicia drove the gnomish buggy Danner had received from his friend Faldergash, and she carried Brican’s pregnant wife Caeesha in the buggy with her. The back was packed with some parting gifts from the gnome. Danner hadn’t said, and Alicia hadn’t asked, but she assumed they were explosives of some sort. Only Alicia’s own trust in the gnome’s handiwork let her regard the bundles behind her with an easy mind. Moreen drove a second, smaller buggy on loan from the gnome, one of his earlier, less sophisticated models. Her vehicle was loaded with cooking implements and foodstuffs she insisted on bringing for the outbound journey. On the return trip, Alicia and Caeesha would be riding with her since Danner planned on taking his own buggy into Heaven with him.
Two days out, Danner and Birch were treated to a pleasant surprise when Danner’s father Hoil met them on the road with a dozen cloaked figures behind him. Birch and Danner rode forward to greet their kin and find out how and why he was there waiting for them.
“You’ve grown, boy,” Hoil said without preamble. “More of a man now than ever before.”
“Still not half the man as my father, though,” Danner said with a grin. “At least not physically.”
Hoil laughed heartily.
“And you, Birch,” he said, clasping arms with his brother, “how has life been treating you since the war? I’ve only been back to the city twice since buying that damned inn, which I certainly hope is working out well, considering what I paid for it.”
“It’s working out just perfect, dad,” Danner said.
“Good. Good to hear it.”
Birch shifted in his saddle, hoping he didn’t chafe Selti too badly with the newly purchased leather. Selti was in his runner form now, and Birch could tell his mount was eager for the day to be over so he could shift to his drann shape and find someplace quiet to curl up with a few pieces of sausage and then sleep.
“I’m doing passably well, brother,” Birch said. “We’ve got some things to discuss,” he said with a meaningful stare, “but they can wait until later. You are, I assume, planning on joining us.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Hoil asked innocently.
“Well,” Danner said with a shrug, “unless you’ve suddenly taken to traveling with a couple hundred elves for a personal escort. I mean, you’re worth a lot, dad, but not that much.”
Hoil glared at his son.
“How in San’s name did you know about the others?” Hoil asked. “He said no one would ever be able to spot them.”
“You forget who trained me, dad,” Danner reminded him. “Maran was the absolute best, as you well know.”
Hoil grimaced. “Damned if that one didn’t just backfire on me. Well, yes, alright. Speaking of Maran, these are a gift of sorts from his… from the young elven king. I think you’ll recognize their commander.”
An elf appeared beside Birch so suddenly he jerked in shock and quickly prevented Selti from rearing in surprise. The gray horse glared at the elf, who stared back from beneath a thick, forest-green hooded cloak. Eventually, it was Selti who looked away first, then the elf tilted his head so they could all see beneath his hood.
“El’Siran,” Danner said with some surprise. “I didn’t think you survived the Barrier War.”
“It was a close thing, young human,” Siran said softly. “It was not, it seems, my time to die.”
The elven warrior fell silent and immediately walked away to rejoin the other elves who had suddenly appeared and now waited on the road. The last time anyone had seen Siran, he had single-handedly slain a group of childris demons making an assault on the last of the Ash’Ailant. The last demon had survived to destroy the Stone, however, and Siran was left crumpled and bleeding on the cobbled stone of the courtyard.
“Only person I’ve ever met who’s even less talkative than Maran was,” Hoil muttered when the elf was – he hoped – safely out of earshot.
“How is Maran, by the way?” Danner asked. “Have you heard anything from him since… you know?”
Hoil shook his head. “He more or less dropped out of existence when he accepted his current position. I would never jeopardize his identity or safety by making any sort of inquiry, even if I knew who to ask. I imagine if there was anything important he needed to tell me, he’d find some way.”
Danner quirked an eyebrow. “So where did the elves come from then?”
“I won’t pretend to know how they knew, but the other day Siran showed up at my door and said I should come with him with all speed, prepared for a long journey,” Hoil said. “Gave me a scroll written by the king himself, directing Siran to contact me and through me, place himself and his warriors at the disposal of the force of paladins marching on Heaven. Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued, and I could hardly resist going along with him. We practically flew across the countryside trying to beat you here.”
Danner grinned at the expression on his father�
��s face. Then he looked a little deeper, and saw that beneath his grinning and jovial exterior, his father was hiding a deep-seated anxiety: sort of a worrisome fear and eager exuberance all rolled into one.
What is going on with my dad? Danner wondered.
“So, Birch, is Moreen around here somewhere?” Hoil asked. “I reckon whatever campfire she’ll be running tonight will have the best food, and I want to put in my claim early for a share.”
- 2 -
That night, around the campfire, Hoil regaled a group of paladins and women with stories of his latest financial endeavors.
“I went in with that gnome friend of yours, Danner,” Hoil said, “and already we’re getting set to make a killing. Seems he stumbled on a way to keep things cold and all but frozen while doing his fire experiments – he is a gnome, after all – so with summer fast approaching, I figure we’ll do quite well in the commodity of cold.
“Of course, it’s not all quick and easy cash,” Hoil said, wagging a finger. “Hard work, research, and development are going into making this a profitable enterprise. Faldergash nearly lost his whole beard a couple weeks ago. Froze it solid playing with some of his chemicals, then lost half the fur on his chin when he bumped into a wall and snapped it off.
“Why, not two days ago, he drenched his laboratory floor with some strange liquid that evaporated all by itself in a few seconds,” Hoil continued. He shook his head in disbelief. “Damndest thing I ever saw. I couldn’t see Faldergash through some of the vapor, and I worried I’d lost the little gnome.”
They all chuckled at the comic dismay on Hoil’s face.
“It sounds to me like Fal’s doing all the hard work, dad,” Danner said. “Where’s your hard work?
“Why, convincing Faldergash to market his inventions in the first place,” Hoil exclaimed. “Would you believe that chubby little fellow was going to donate his ideas to some non-profit scientific research group in Nocka? Who ever heard of such a thing?”
While Hoil griped about the utter lack of financial ingenuity in the gnomish populace, Danner left the fire and wandered past several other fires.
Guilian was sitting at a fire with a small group of denarae from his platoon, a slight smile on his face as he listened to the others talking. Danner was almost surprised to see his fellow officer so relaxed; Guilian always seemed to standoffish and almost tense around others, even his own people.
A young, human woman walked by the fire, and Danner vaguely recognized her as one of the housemaids working at the Iron Axe Inn. She paused ever so slightly in the light of the fire, then walked off unhurriedly. When Danner looked back at the denarae around the fire, Guilian was nowhere to be found. Danner glanced around and saw the denarae officer walking away from the fire in the same direction as where the housemaid had vanished into the darkness.
Guilian and a human? Danner marveled. He frowned at his own wonder. So what if a denarae took a human woman around. It wasn’t a problem… was it? Danner felt a sort of inner recoil at the concept, and that made him uncomfortable. He shut the dark, guilty feeling away and moved on.
The next fire he passed had only Garnet and his father enjoying its light and heat. Danner deliberately walked just close enough to hear what they were saying, expecting to overhear logistics of their journey or battle deployment plans.
“We’ll be near the farm tomorrow,” Garnet said.
“I know.”
“Do you want to go visit mom?”
Garet sighed. “With all my heart, son. You haven’t been to see her since you became a paladin, have you?”
“No.” Garnet hesitated. “What’s wrong?”
“I guess I’m just not looking forward to facing your mother,” he said finally. “It’s one thing to see your husband go off time and again to face death, but it’s something else to watch your son go with him. She knew what I was and the dangers involved when she met me. I have always been a paladin to her. You however, son, she’s watched grow up from the moment of your birth. Some part of you will always be that little boy running around the farm chasing chickens with a stick.”
Danner chuckled silently at the thought of his mountainous friend as a little boy wielding a switch and terrorizing farm animals.
“Mom’s known what I was going to do longer than I have, dad,” Garnet said. “I think she’s been preparing for this for a long time now. I don’t think it’ll be as bad as you think.”
“I hope you’re right, son,” Garet said melancholically, “because if something happens to you while we’re gone, I’d rather be dead first and face eternal judgment than go home and face your mother.”
Danner wondered how Garnet’s mother could be such a terror so as to intimidate Garet, whom Danner had always viewed as such a strong, powerful man. Some of that was carry-over from how Danner viewed Garnet, he knew, but still, Garet was impressive in his own right. Was Garnet’s mother that much of a shrew?
The conversation between father and son moved on to other matters, and Danner moved on to yet another fire. This time, he strolled over to where several of his friends were sitting with Mikal. Marc, of course, was there, asking all manner of questions that only an Orange paladin would ever truly appreciate. Mikal had dekinted his wings and wore a thick robe to hide his features whenever possible. The presence of the angel was still not a widely known fact to the paladins not in or friendly with Shadow Company, and they preferred to keep it that way.
Having Marc on-hand all the time was bad enough, but Danner shuddered to imagine a crowd of Orange paladins clustered around their Seraph guest asking questions and arguing with each other over academic trivialities.
Danner approached the fire quietly, listening in.
“…truly a beautiful place,” Mikal was saying calmly, “and the city of Medina is the most wonderful sight of all to behold. The city of crystalline towers is bordered on one side by a river of pure music, and on another by a river made of light itself.”
Deeta was stretched out on a log near Flasch, idly running her fingers through his hair. She sighed at the descriptions of Heaven, no doubt picturing them in her mind.
“The Mustion and the Alethion,” Marc murmured.
Mikal nodded. “Indeed. With the Philion, they are the three rivers of Heaven.”
Marc started to ask something, but Michael cut him off with a question of his own.
“You mentioned before that you and several other immortals were close friends,” the Yellow paladin said. “I’m curious to hear more about them.”
“Kaelus you know,” Mikal said, motioning toward where Birch was seated at the adjoining campfire, still listening to Hoil. “He was always the most courageous of us, and he kept his head even when his temper flared. And such a temper,” Mikal said with a smile, “even mighty Gabriel was known to tread lightly when facing Kaelus’s ire.
“Gabriel was a force and power unlike any I’ve seen. He was pure of purpose and absolutely firm in his devotion and vision. He was, without a doubt, the closest of us all to the Almighty, and a bold leader and friend for us all. Raphael, by contrast, was quiet and tender-hearted. She healed many of the angels who might otherwise have been destroyed during the Great Schism. Her loss was a terrible blow to all of us.”
Mikal was quiet for a moment. Danner had the wild, irrational thought that perhaps Mikal had been involved with the female angel, then he quickly banished it. Angels didn’t do that sort of thing with each other. Did they?
“And the others?” Michael asked, interrupting Danner’s thoughts before he could explore them further.
“Uriel was once the Angel of Death, perhaps the most grim of offices in all of Heaven,” Mikal said, “and until recently almost a wholly symbolic one. Uriel and Abdiel were, however, the two most disruptive immortals in all of Pleroma. Uriel’s tricks tended to be almost vicious at times, but never truly destructive. Abdiel was mischievous yet likeable in the way of a child. I can think of few things more tragic than his fate.”
Dan
ner felt something rub against his leg, and he looked down and saw a gray-scaled drann peering up at him. Selti crooned softly at Danner, who leaned down to scratch beneath the creature’s eye-ridges. After a moment, he sent the cat-sized reptile scampering back toward Birch.
“His āyus was that of what you would now call a demon, but his spirit was pure and his mind almost innocent at times,” Mikal was saying as he shook his head in remorse. “I don’t think he ever considered he might be harmed when he suddenly found himself on the wrong side of the war, he was too absorbed in abstract theory and philosophical conjecture. After Gabriel was killed and the Great Schism erupted, Abdiel spoke out against his fellows, trying to convince them that violence was not the way and would only lead to our mutual destruction.
“One of the more powerful and cruel of demons, Nisroc, struck Abdiel down, and a crowd of demons tore him apart. Nisroc sent us his severed wings to taunt us,” Mikal said, his voice grim and his face a mask of remembered anger. “I personally stalked and slew Nisroc during the Great Schism, and I sent his claws back to his fellow demons for their own memento.”
“A fitting act,” Flasch said, his voice almost awed as he listened to the angel’s tale.
“It was Uriel’s idea,” Mikal confessed. “He always did have a sense of appropriate justice to him.”
“Interesting, the ascribing of one of the virtues to an angel,” Marc said, breaking in. “You know, I’ve read all the texts on angels we have translated in the library, and I have a theory that….
“Oh, God save us, not another one of your theories,” Flasch said. Deeta giggled.
“I prefer to think of them as unproven facts,” Marc said with the bruised dignity of someone who knows he’s being teased.
“Well, just think, Marc,” Danner said, stepping forward. “In a few days, you’ll be able to find out the answers to so many of your questions and prove all the facts you can think of.”
Mikal stiffened slightly as Danner moved into the firelight.
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 15
