The Rise of the Demon Prince

by Robert Kroese

  “You mustn’t blame yourself, Konrad,” Rodric said. “It was Eben who put her there.”

  “I know. I swore to kill him for it.”

  “And yet he still lives.”

  “In a manner of speaking. Without a vessel to occupy, he is trapped in the shadow world. It is a fitting punishment for what he did to Beata.”

  “You speak the words without conviction.”

  I shook my head tiredly. “It is a strange business, dealing with sorcerers. As soldiers, we became accustomed to death, and perhaps we deluded ourselves into thinking that we understood it. We condemn a man to death and think that the matter is settled, content with the assurance that if there is anything beyond death, the gods will deal with the souls of the deceased as they see fit. But now the veil has been drawn back, and I see the face of Eben laughing at me.”

  “But you wish to take his counsel.”

  “I will speak with him, in order to learn what I must to defeat Voros Korom.”

  “And when that is done?”

  “Mere death is too good for Eben the Warlock. I swear to you, I will see his soul obliterated.”

  Chapter Two

  I spent most of the remainder of the day resting. Although it was only my mind that would travel to the shadow world, physical weakness would manifest as mental weakness, and it would not do to let Eben see me in a compromised condition. Eben and I shared a desire to save Nagyvaros, but I suspected our plans would diverge sharply once that had been accomplished—and it would be foolish to think Eben was not plotting for advantage even now.

  After breakfast the next morning, I closed myself in the room in the inn, forbidding Rodric and Vili to enter for the next hour. The meeting was unlikely to take that long, as time passed much more slowly in the shadow world than it did in ours, but I thought I might need the time to recover.

  I sat on my bed and removed the bandage from my hand. The wound had sealed, but it took only a slight pull on the skin to cause a small pool of blood to well up in my palm. I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to drift to the shadow world. Finding myself once again on the vast gray plain, facing the ominous black keep called Sotetseg, I held my hand out and allowed the blood to drip to the ground. As it struck the soil, waves of energy swept outward like ripples on a pond. In the distance, I heard the howls of the ravenous beasts in the mountains. They sensed the power of a sorcerer’s blood and would soon begin to pour onto the plain after me. I moved quickly toward the keep, occasionally allowing a drop of blood to fall to the ground in front of me. I did not know why I always appeared at that particular place on the plain, but I had learned that my blood would create a path that I could traverse to the keep. Unfortunately, it also attracted monsters.

  I knew from experience, though, that the monsters stayed in the mountains unless lured onto the plain, and that I could reach the guard tower in front of the keep before they could cross the plain toward me. Whether I could get inside the guard tower was another matter. If the mysterious “Masters” who ruled the keep had made alterations to their defenses since the last time I’d visited, I might find myself trapped outside to face the ravenous hordes.

  But I was relieved to find, when I reached the guard tower, that the impression of a man’s hand appeared as before, just to the right of the door. I could now hear the snarls and growls of the creatures rumbling across the plain behind me. I pressed my palm against the impression, and the door swung open. I slipped inside, placed my other hand on the impression on the inside wall, and breathed a sigh of relief as the door began to swing closed. None too soon, either: a second after I heard the bolt slide into place, a half-dozen creatures slammed into the door.

  The first floor of the tower was empty, as far as I could tell in the dim light. Several large stone pillars supported the upper levels; around the periphery wound a stone staircase. I climbed to the third level, where dim light from the angled slits in the walls illuminated the figure of a man standing in the center of the room. He faced outward from the castle; from his vantage point, he could observe the entire plain outside the moat. Behind him, in the direction of the castle, was a wooden door. A key protruded from its keyhole.

  I did not know the watchman’s name, nor why he had been sentenced to this fate, forced by some enchantment to stand, unmoving, eternally surveying the dismal plain. All I knew of him came from a song once sung to me by the mysterious man called Bolond while I was in the dungeon of Nincs Varazslat:

  Blind and deaf the watchman waits

  never opening the gates

  but to the one he once betrayed

  until the debt at last is paid

  “Bolond commands you to open the door,” I said.

  The man turned toward me and nodded. He turned away and walked the short distance to the door. He put his fingers on the key and turned it until the lock clicked, then put his hand on the knob, turned it, and pulled the door open. He stepped aside, his hand still on the knob.

  On the other side of the door was a chasm, perhaps a hundred feet across, whose bottom was lost in fog and shadow. The chasm acted as a moat around the foreboding keep. As I watched, fog roiled out of the chasm and gradually solidified into the form of a bridge.

  I stepped onto the bridge, and the silent watchman closed the door behind me. I strode across. The portcullis on the other side raised as I approached, and I went into the castle.

  I found myself in a large vaulted hall into which little light penetrated. It seemed to be deserted. I proceeded to a door at the far end and threw it open to reveal a rectangular courtyard open to the dismal gray sky above. Several doors and open passageways led from it. I headed down the one that led to the area below the keep where the demon Szarvas Gyerek resided, but I was soon lost in a labyrinth of tunnels and passageways. Knowing that I could with minimal effort return to my physical body, I did not fear the possibility of being unable to find my way out, but wandering these passageways at random would do me no good. Further, I did not know what other creatures lurked below the keep, and I did not know if my pact with Szarvas Gyerek would keep me safe from them. Could the creatures here harm me even though my body was safe back at the Lazy Crow? I did not know. I had no weapons; I had learned that metal objects could not be transported to the shadow world. Perhaps I could have taken a wooden club or cudgel, but it was too late for that now, and in any case I didn’t like my chances facing a demon with a cudgel. If I saw the creature coming, I could flee the shadow world, but if I were surprised, I might not have a chance.

  I came to a square chamber about twenty paces across, dimly lit by a torch burning in a sconce centered in the wall across from the doorway through which I’d entered. To my left and right were passageways that led into the darkness. I moved across the chamber and turned to put my back against the wall; the torch now burned just over my left shoulder. Satisfied that if some loathsome beast came bounding toward me out of the darkness I would have time to force my consciousness back to my physical form, I shouted, “Szarvas Gyerek! Show yourself!”

  My words echoed down the corridors and died. For some time I listened but heard nothing. I opened my mouth again. “Szarvas Gyerek!” I cried. “It is I, Konrad. I have come to consult with—”

  “Shhh!” hissed someone from the dark passage to my left. A few seconds later a cloaked man emerged from the darkness: Eben the warlock. Hatred surged inside of me. It was all I could do not to throw myself on him and tear him limb from limb. The only thing that restrained me was the suspicion that it would do no good. Eben no longer possessed a physical body; he lived in Veszedelem as spirit. I suspected that his projection would evaporate as soon as I lay a hand on him. No, to truly kill Eben I would need to be patient and learn everything I could about the shadow world.

  “Quiet, you fool!” Eben snapped as he approached. “He’ll hear you!”

  “Szarvas Gyerek?” I said. “That was the idea. Are you not obliged to do the demon’s bidding? I assumed that to speak with you, I would need to get p
ermission from him.”

  “Technically, yes,” Eben said. “But Szarvas Gyerek cannot watch me constantly, and it is better if he does not know of our meeting.”

  “You plot against him already?”

  “Already!” Eben scoffed. “It’s been two years! This way.” He marched across the chamber to the passage on my right. I followed.

  Two years. I hadn’t had a chance to think about it, but of course he was right. A hundred times as much time had passed in the shadow world as in Orszag. It had only been a week for me—most of which I’d spent unconscious—but Eben had now been in the service of Szarvas Gyerek for two years. Two years to plan for my appearance and to plot his escape. For I had no doubt that Eben did not intend to serve his full sentence of a millennium doing the bidding of Szarvas Gyerek. I could only hope he had devoted some of his time to figuring out how to defeat Voros Korom.

  We spent several minutes making our way through the maze of passageways. Our course seemed random to me—sometimes going left, sometimes right, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending, but I got the impression that we were gradually going deeper below the keep. After the seventh or eighth turn, I gave up trying to memorize the way. I wasn’t even certain I could have found my way back to the chamber where we’d started. Eben held no torch, but a dim light seemed to follow us as we moved through the tunnels. Some sorcery on his part, no doubt.

  At last we reached a door at the end of a narrow passage that opened into a small library. It seemed disused and ill-maintained: the odor of mildew permeated the air. Eben led me to a wooden table in the center of an array of shelves that held hundreds of dusty, decaying volumes. Somewhere in the distance I heard the slow dripping of water. He muttered an incantation, and a lantern on the table came to life, illuminating the place with a greenish-yellow glow only a little brighter than the light that had brought us there. Eben sat in a chair on one side of the table, and I sat in another across from him. I think that little library with its books silently dying in the musty air may be the saddest place I have ever been.

  “He will not find us here,” Eben said.

  “What of the other demons?”

  “They are few, and the keep is vast. This library is ostensibly under Szarvas Gyerek’s control, but he has no interest in it, as you can see.”

  “Will he not be looking for you?”

  Eben shrugged. “I have made a habit of obsequious obedience, eagerly carrying out every task he assigns me. Szarvas Gyerek is a dour, solitary type, so he quickly tires of my presence. I pretend to have no interests other than serving him, and in this way have secured several hours of freedom on most days. I know these passages better than he does, and I have several hiding places like this where I can work undisturbed. I’ve provided him with a bell that he can ring if he wishes to summon me, so I do not have to worry about him coming to look for me.”

  “What are these tasks he assigns to you?” I asked. “And what is this work you are doing on your own? Is it too much to hope that you have put some effort into finding a way to stop Voros Korom?”

  Eben smiled. “I will speak neither of my work for Szarvas Gyerek nor of my own activities, except those which directly concern you. Yes, I have dedicated much of my time to seeking out Voros Korom’s weaknesses, but I am afraid I have come up with very little. Voros Korom alone would be a formidable adversary, but it is his entourage of wraiths that are the true danger. With the power of the brand you might be able to destroy them, but only if you are trained in how to use it. I must say, I had hoped you would return somewhat sooner.”

  “This is the first I’ve been well enough to come to the shadow world since our last meeting. I was nearly killed by Radovan, as you may recall.”

  “An eventuality that could have been prevented if you had listened to me.”

  “If I’d have listened to you, you’d have killed me yourself.”

  Eben smiled. “True, but Voros Korom would remain in the shadow world.”

  “As would Beata, whose life you stole from her. Listen to me, warlock. I have not come here to be your enthralled pupil, nor your starry-eyed protégé. You will teach me what I need to know to defeat Voros Korom, and then we are finished.”

  “Ah, but it is not so simple, young Konrad. One does not try on the ways of sorcery as if they were a fancy new suit of clothes to be worn once to a ball and then discarded. If you wish to defeat Voros Korom, you must become what you have pretended to be.”

  “I will learn what I must to save Nagyvaros and defeat Voros Korom, just as I learned what I had to in order to free Beata and put you here. Szarvas Gyerek does not own my soul, and neither will you. Now tell me how to defeat the demon.”

  “As you wish,” said Eben with an amused smile. “Voros Korom exists in a state between Orszag and the shadow world, which is why he is able to sustain the wraiths. But to do this, he must manifest himself physically in Orszag, and when he does, he is vulnerable to attack with ordinary weapons. Do not misunderstand; he is in constant flux between the two worlds, and his skin is tougher than steel. He has the strength of a hundred men. But he is not invulnerable.

  “As I say, however, the true threat is the wraiths who follow him. The wraiths too exist between Orszag and the shadow world, but in a different way than Voros Korom. Each wraith is composed of the souls of hundreds of individuals, each of whom is trapped in a sort of vortex between the two worlds. These poor souls are doomed to fight against this vortex and each other, forever trying to escape the shadow world into Orszag. They are drawn to the substance of Orszag but too weak to survive there. The sustaining energy fades the closer one gets to the mouth of the vortex, so as soon as one of the souls is on the verge of escaping, it weakens and is dragged back into the vortex by the others.”

  “If they only wish to escape this vortex, why did they attack me when I ventured into the ruins?”

  “They sense that living people have what they lack: the energy to survive in material form. A human being carries with him a source of sustaining energy, called an akarat. The akarat is what allows a human soul to remain attached to a material form. Without it, the two would separate. The soul would dissipate and the body would wither. The souls trapped in the vortex are drawn to the energy of the akarat like moths to a lantern, but their efforts are equally futile. The trapped souls gorge themselves on the energy of the akarat, and the victim dies and its soul joins the others in the vortex.”

  I wanted to press Eben on the matter, but he did not know about Vili’s parents. If I let on that I had a personal interest in two individuals trapped in the vortex, he might use the knowledge against me, deliberately withholding information to manipulate me. Better to be patient and let him tell me what I wanted to know of his own accord. Reluctantly, I changed the subject.

  “Why did Voros Korom turn away from Nagyvaros?”

  “Have you heard of Varastis? Or Magas Komaron?”

  I shrugged. “Magas Komaron is a myth. A natural rock formation that those of a whimsical persuasion have made into an inaccessible fortress.”

  “So most believe,” Eben said. “Varastis was an archaeologist working for the office of the Arcanist in Nagyvaros. The job of the Arcanist’s office, as you must know, is to curate arcane knowledge and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands—which is to say, the hands of anyone but the Governor, the Arcanist, or the acolytes of Turelem. And since the Arcanist has historically been a puppet of Delivaros, it can be supposed that the Governor is, more often than not, left out of the loop.

  “In any case, Varastis abruptly retired from his post and was said to have left the city. But a few years later, rumors surfaced that he had returned and established a small school somewhere in the Hidden Quarter. Varastis’s students were sworn to secrecy, but it was said that he was teaching them the secrets of sorcery. At this time, sorcery was not technically illegal, but only because the acolytes held such a monopoly on arcane knowledge that such measures were unnecessary. The acolytes were convinced that V
arastis had found something under the city—something left behind by the Builders—that had revealed to him knowledge that even they did not possess, and they became desperate to stop him and learn his secret. But Varastis was an expert in the law and had many friends in the government, so efforts to entrap him using existing statutes came to naught. The acolytes were forced to use all their political leverage to pressure the Assembly into passing laws expressly banning sorcery and the dissemination of arcane knowledge. Gendarmes were dispatched to the Hidden Quarter before the law was even passed, and the moment word came down that sorcery had been made illegal, they converged on the house where Varastis’s school met. The acolytes knew the location only because one of Varastis’s students—an ambitious man named Radovan—betrayed him. Radovan had become convinced that Varastis was keeping the greatest secrets to himself, and he hoped by ingratiating himself to the acolytes that he might infiltrate the Arcanist’s office and learn Varastis’s secrets.

  “Many of Varastis’s students were arrested and sent to Nincs Varazslat, but Varastis and a few others escaped. They fled to the east, to found a sanctuary outside of the acolytes’ control. This was Magas Komaron, an impregnable fortress in the Eastern Mountains said to be constructed by the same Builders who built the ancient city that once stood at the site of Nagyvaros.”

  “You are saying that Magas Komaron is a real place? Not just a granite obelisk left behind by a chance fissure of rocks, but a fortress deliberately constructed on a mountain peak?”

  “Were you not a scout in the janissaries? Surely you saw the beacon that glows at the top of that fortress?”

  I shrugged. “It is not impossible some hermit found his way to the top of the obelisk.”

  “Using a path up the mountain that still has not been discovered by the best scouts in the janissaries, to say nothing of the Barbaroki? And now manages to keep a beacon perpetually lit at the summit? For what purpose? To perpetuate the myth of an ancient fortress?”