by Debra Dunbar
I stood up. The sorcerer’s eyes widened. Taullian scowled.
“Who will care for these human children while the parents work? Who is expected to pay for their food and shelter?”
“They’re babies,” I argued, thinking of Tlia-Myea. “I’ve seen elves make a huge fuss over a new changeling. Don’t feed me this bullshit about what a hardship it is to have a cute little baby, or toddler, running around. You guys eat that shit up.”
I stood still while the high lord glowered at me and the sorcerer turned rather red from holding his breath.
“All right. But no on the elf gates. Never. We need the humans, and this is our only way of getting them.”
“Elves have been in Hel for two and a half million years. The last four thousand you’ve been bringing over human slaves. You can’t tell me how indispensible they are. That’s just crap. You survived without them before and you will again.”
Taullian thumped a fist on the table. It was the most forceful move I’d seen from him so far. “No. The gates are off the table and so are changelings.”
I smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. Taullian shivered, covering it up by taking a sip of wine from his goblet.
“Deal. Of course, I’ll find the gates one by one and destroy them myself. Not just the traps either. It’s going to be mighty hard to do a changeling swap when you’ve got no gates.”
The elf’s eyes nearly popped from his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t do such a thing. Only angels can close a gate.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t say close; I said destroy.”
Taullian gave me a skeptical look and turned to his sorcerer.
“Unlikely,” the man commented, eyeing me nervously.
“Humans disabled an angel gate with a fifty megaton bomb,” I mentioned casually. “Now, that’s a fuckload of energy, and I’m probably one of the only demons that could manage it. It’s one of my superpowers—storing a fuckload of energy and blowing shit up with it.”
Well, it had been one of my superpowers. Now all I could manage was cramming a spoon halfway through a table. But they didn’t have to know that.
“I thought you were broken?” Taullian sneered “You couldn’t fix yourself a few days ago, and now you expect me to believe you can blow up an elf gate?”
“Do I look broken to you?”
His gaze roamed over me. I could see he was undecided. Had I lied before, claiming permanent injury to convince the elves to lower their defenses so I could escape, or was I lying now?
Taullian again looked to his sorcerer for guidance. “Is it possible for a demon to do this?”
The human wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “The ancient ones used to be able to create and dismantle gates, and they might still have that skill. In my knowledge, demons born since the banishment have never been able to, but it may be possible.”
Taullian narrowed his eyes at me. “Her. Do you think she could do it?”
“If she could, the magical blowback would destroy a square mile. From what I’ve heard, an angel could survive it, but all but the most powerful demons would die. Kill their corporeal form, and they die too.”
True, but I was the exception to that rule thanks to the instruction of a certain angel. I could live inside a corpse, but I’d learned the limitations of my abilities, especially after my near-death experience on Oak Island. I couldn’t just go in with force, blow up a gate, and expect to survive it, but with some strategy and planning, I could ensure I was protected from the magical blast. Of course, this whole thing was a massive bluff since I could barely blow out a candle right now, let alone destroy a gate.
“Magical blowback? Now that sounds like a whole lot of fun.” I grinned. “I’ve blown myself up before and come through just fine. I’m no angel, but clearly I must be a demon of some substance. Which is probably why Ahriman chose me as his consort.”
That last bit was my attempt to remind them that I was special, that I was powerful and someone they really wanted to have on their side. I was a terrible liar, but for some reason, this particular deceit went through.
Taullian let out a huge breath. “Deal. But Feille dies, I rule all six kingdoms, and you or your agents assist until all six are stable.”
I glanced at Dar who gave a brief thumbs-up. He loved this sort of thing. My brother, the general.
“Deal.”
Dar stepped forward. “If I may?” he asked with a bow in my direction. Poser. I nodded.
“My Lord, there are reasons I believe you will prevail against Feille in spite of his more numerous forces and disproportionate military funding. He is a dictator. He’s spread too thin trying to manage his own kingdom and four conquered ones.”
Taullian nodded, a look of respect in his eyes. “Yes. That’s why we were allowed to pay tribute and sign a treaty. I made it clear we would fight hard, and he doesn’t have the resources right now to take us down.”
Dar’s nose twitched in agreement. “But once those four conquered kingdoms are under control, their rebellions crushed, their leaders executed….”
“Cyelle is next.” Taullian’s face darkened. “There will be no warning. We’ll be murdered in our sleep, a new regime in place by sun-up. That’s why I must move now.”
Dar leaned in, red eyes deepening to crimson. “But how should you rule six elven kingdoms?” he said, his voice soft and deep. “Each one so very different in philosophy and custom. Will they be six, or one?”
Taullian’s frown had a worried edge to it as he raised a hand to smooth a stray golden hair from his forehead. “Six.” He sounded uncertain, almost as if he were asking a question instead of replying to Dar’s.
Dar bounced his head in vigorous approval. “Wise choice. Consolidation would be a painful, bloody, and costly process. What will your governance model be?”
I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about, so I composed my face into what I hoped was a wise expression and tried not to doze off.
Taullian hesitated. “A Cyelle representative on their council. There will be certain laws they must follow, and a tribute, but beyond that, they can enjoy self-rule.”
“But what do they get in return? What keeps them from tossing your ass to the side and telling Cyelle to go fuck themselves? You don’t have the military might to force them to comply; there must be some benefit worth their cooperation.”
“A pact of non-aggression, and the promise of military support? Protection against invasion?”
Those were clearly questions. Taullian was floundering, reminding me of Kirby’s comments. He wasn’t a military leader, that wasn’t his strength. He was a civil leader, preserving culture, building stable infrastructure, supporting innovations in magical research and fine arts.
It gave me an idea. I wished Leethu was here, though. She was the expert.
“How about a program for knowledge sharing? Economy of scale in multi-kingdom projects? Cross-cultural arts and festivals? And a dedicated team comprised of representatives from each kingdom to address matters significant to you all, such as fertility, forest preservation, sacred spaces?”
Dar stared at me in shock. I didn’t blame him; I sounded like a fucking angel. I guess all those Ruling Council meetings were eating away at my brain. A bright light came into Taullian’s blue eyes, and he raised a hand to tap thoughtfully on his cheek.
“Would that be enough?”
I shrugged. “Give them an accounting of exactly what their “tribute” is going towards, so they can see it’s in support of projects that benefit them all. Might work. Might not. Either way, it’s better than lopping off heads for the next century and worrying about a knife in your back some day.”
Dar smoothed the back of his paw across the side of his face and along his whiskers. “That shit would never work with demons, but it might with elves.”
He was right. Demons might have their little quirks regarding hobbies or pet projects, but ultimately it came down to power and force. I hoped we hadn’t influenc
ed the elves too much in that regard.
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Taullian said after a thoughtful pause. “How many demons shall we expect to fight alongside us?”
I knew what he was thinking. Ahriman’s household was huge, encompassing nearly every geographic area of the demon territories. Of course, Ahriman’s household would not be attending this event—just me and my forty crazy followers.
“I’m afraid I can’t be specific,” I told him. “Surely you understand that Ahriman must continue to appear uninvolved in this matter. It wouldn’t benefit his reputation to be seen assisting an elven lord.”
Taullian frowned. “How can I plan the attack? How can I determine what positions to put the demons in?”
I tried to summon up every bit of aloof snobby attitude I could muster. I thought of Gregory and how he treated the others on the Ruling Council, how he brushed off their questions with authority and confidence.
“You cannot expect them to fight under your direction,” I drawled, trying with every ounce of me to project an angelic disdain. “Demons don’t do organized warfare. Give me some way to identify your troops, so they don’t get killed in friendly fire, and trust us to do it all from the shadows.”
“They will all wear a band of golden yellow fabric on their right arm,” Taullian said, after a moment of consideration.
I nodded. “When do we strike?”
“Two months.
My heart plummeted. I’d be tightly within Ahriman’s grasp by then. “No, it needs to be next week. You need to strike now, before Feille has any time to gain info from spies, or consolidate his power base.”
A look of fear shot across Taullian’s face, but he set his jaw and took a deep breath. “One week. I will have the relay device delivered to your residence along with the specific time frame you’ll have to do your job. I’ll also send you the coordinates for the attack. I won’t be able to transport your army there, so I’ll give you ample time for them to travel independently and infiltrate the kingdom.”
I nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
Taullian stood to leave, his sorcerer pulling a transportation button from his robes. “Oh, and Niyaz? If anything goes wrong, it will be your head on a pike at the edge of the Western Red Forest.”
He and the sorcerer were gone before I could reply, leaving me with a table laden with food and impaled by a spoon. I turned to Dar who was looking at me, an expression of admiration and amusement on his face.
“You are so fucked, Mal.”
“Tell me about it.” I grabbed a loaf of bread off the table and stuffed a piece of dried fruit into my mouth. I hated to let decent food go to waste, and although it wasn’t hot wings, it was better than a lot of the food back at my own house.
“How are you going to pull this off? I can tell when you’re lying. I may have been too inebriated last night to catch it, but it’s clear to me now that Ahriman doesn’t know anything about this. He won’t be sending any troops, and he probably would be pissed as fuck if he knew you were up to this. Am I right?”
I swallowed the fruit, my mouth suddenly dry. “You’re right.”
“That elf is expecting an army, not forty demons, half of which are Low and can’t fight their way out of a paper bag. I’m good, but I can’t single-handedly kill hundreds of elves, and what is Leethu going to do? Fuck them to death?”
She could. And they’d all die happy, too.
“If you don’t want to do it, if Leethu or any of the others want to back out, it’s okay.”
Dar let out a breath, rubbing his paws over his face. “Mal, we’re not letting you do this on your own. You know better than that. And the other demons are thrilled with the chance to kill something, especially an elf. Just tell me you’ve got a plan. Please tell me you’ve got a plan.”
“I’ve got a plan,” I mumbled, my mouth full of fruit. “Trust me.”
Dar threw out his hands, looking at the sky in exasperation. “I do, Mal. I always trust you. I follow you into the most horrendous, poorly-thought-out, disastrous scenarios, because, in the face of terrible odds, you always come out smelling like roses. But this time… what the fuck, Mal?”
I swallowed the huge lump of fruit and crammed more into my mouth. It was actually pretty good stuff. “I’ve got a plan. Trust me.
Dar ignored me and kept going. “And if that elf doesn’t have your head on a pike, Ahriman is going to. What the fuck were you thinking, throwing his name around like that? Consort does not mean equal. You can’t commit his household to this thing. No one in their right mind would believe he’d send his people in to fight for an elf. He’s going to be furious you used his name and dragged him into the middle of this mess.”
“After the fight, I’ll need you to help Taullian stabilize the kingdoms. Take one, the most troublesome one, because you’re that good, and help his deputy get some order. Leethu can take another one. She’s not much of a fighter, but she can maneuver her way around politics like nobody’s business, and she knows elven power structures like the back of her webbed hand. Taullian can handle one personally, and hopefully the other two won’t be much trouble. I don’t have any other demons in my household I trust to do this sort of thing. The others can help you, or maybe I’ll send them up to the mountains to pester the trolls for the next thousand years.”
Dar froze, his eyes knowing. “You’re sending us safely away, so we don’t suffer Ahriman’s wrath once he’s found out what you’ve done.”
My brother knew me well. “He could easily guess that my foster siblings are my weak spots. I fear he’ll kill you both to punish me, and even though any household discipline is supposed to be mine to deliver, I worry he’ll kill every last one of you.”
We looked at each other, knowing the truth in my statement. I longed to lighten the moment, to hit him over the head with the loaf of bread, or declare he was a worthless shithead that didn’t mean anything to me, but I couldn’t. We’d gone far past that in our centuries together, and no longer needed to pretend. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to Dar and Leethu. Especially Dar, who had let me down over and over again, but had always come through at the last minute, when it really counted. As demons go, he was the most loyal of anyone I’d ever known.
“He might kill you, Mal,” Dar said softly. “Ahriman is cruel, and you’re just an imp.”
He might, but I was counting that his greed would keep me alive. “I’ve got one thing he really wants, and if I’m dead, he doesn’t get it. There’s a reason he was so insistent about my accepting his breeding petition, and he wants to ensure he gets a lot of chances to produce the offspring he wants.”
Dar tilted his head to the side, his bright-red eyes confused. “But you’re still terribly injured. There’s a good chance whatever he wants is something you won’t be able to pass along to any progeny.”
I smiled, although the irony of the situation twisted it to a grimace. “He wants devouring. Not just a little either, he wants the whole enchilada. And that’s one of the few things I still have. Unfortunately.”
A choking noise came from Dar’s long snout. “Devouring? No one chooses that deliberately. That’s not creating a demon—it’s creating a weapon.”
Dar’s voice trailed off, a look of shock on his rat-like face. “A weapon. He wants a weapon, but one he can control. Mal, you have a massive ability to devour, but you’ve always been able to control it. If Ahriman had a demon like that under his influence, he could take anything he wanted.”
“Yes, he could.” I had a good idea what Ahriman wanted this weapon for. I’d suspected the moment he’d insisted on any offspring having that particular skill. Now I just had to make sure that over the next thousand years he didn’t get exactly what he wanted.
“Hel?” Dar shook his head. “He’s ancient. He fought in the demon wars. If he wanted to rule Hel, he could do it now, without a devouring spirit. Why bother to go through all this if he wants Hel?”
“Not Hel,” I told him, m
y eyes intent on his. “Aaru. I suspect he wants to take back Aaru.”
20
While I waited for Gareth to show for his meeting, I mulled over my conversation with Dar. Aaru. I couldn’t imagine any other reason for Ahriman to want to create a demon with a strong devouring spirit, one he could control.
But why would Ahriman want Aaru? Did he want to destroy it and the angels as revenge for his banishment so long ago? A strong devouring spirit could certainly accomplish that according to Gregory, but there was an enormous risk that Ahriman wouldn’t be able to check his weapon once activated. I thought of how I’d felt, up on Devil’s Paw, how nothing mattered but sucking in everything around me like a demon vacuum. Was his thirst for revenge suicidal? Did it include the destruction of all creation? I wasn’t sure.
Of course, Ahriman might just want to use the threat of his devouring demon as a way to rule Aaru. If he could manage to pull the demon back after a terrifying demonstration, he’d have the leverage needed to enact a coup. I shook my head, wondering why anyone would want to occupy Aaru. The place sucked big time. Corporeal forms continually dissolved; there was nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to touch. It was a sensory wasteland. And it was filled with angels—angels who had all sorts of draconian rules and impossible-to-follow procedures for everything. He was better off here, and Hel was his for the taking if he’d just lift an ancient, powerful finger. Of course, few demons wanted to rule an entire planet of beings. Too much work. It would suck all the fun out of life, although, Ahriman was an ancient and might have retained some of his personality from when he was an Angel of Chaos.
With a powerful devouring spirit as his right hand, he could ruin the place, kill angels and scatter the rest. Even those who fled and survived would find themselves consigned to a corporeal existence. No Aaru would mean no place where they could exist as a pure being of spirit. They’d be damned, exiled, just as they’d done to us. Of course, he’d need to be able to control this weapon of his, and I suspected a devouring spirit strong enough to overcome the Ruling Council and smash Aaru would be one Ahriman couldn’t reign in at the end of the day. Revenge made for reckless decisions. I remembered Gregory’s prophecy of how a devouring spirit would bring about the apocalypse, the end of all creation. Would Ahriman find vengeance as sweet if it cascaded a chain of events that ended in the annihilation of all life—himself included? Maybe his hate had been festering so long that he just didn’t care anymore.
