Mathus sighed, hating what he was about to do, and knowing it was years since he’d had any choice. He delivered a halfhearted backhand to the girl tied to the chair, hard enough to knock both her and the heavy oaken furniture to the floor.
She was only a few years older than his daughter would have been, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from making comparisons. To worsen matters, he knew further interrogation was pointless. She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t holding back anything.
Mathus kicked the girl in the ribs, and though his bored-looking face betrayed nothing, he suspected he was currently the only man in Tralgar who could truthfully utter the phrase, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you.”
The two men silently watching the proceedings would be far more vicious if either of them were in charge. As long as Mathus didn’t balk, didn’t give them any reason to suspect he was softer than he appeared, they’d leave the dirty work to him. But if either suspected he had reservations about this, they’d relieve him in a heartbeat. He’d be sent back to the record books.
“Cirgal signs in at least twice a week. More than half the time, he specifically asks for you, Mira. We’ve swept the rooms, and they’re clean. Spotless in fact. Which means anything he gave you, you took home.
“We don’t care about the gifts. Everyone gets them. No one reports them. We’re not mad about that. We just need to examine one of them. Something, anything. A piece of jewelry, or a lock of hair. Maybe he clipped his toenails once and a shard flew into your purse. Anything will do.”
Mathus knew even before coming here that this would be futile. If the scryers couldn’t get a lock on the mysterious Cirgal from his signature, then he was obviously shielding himself somehow. A man who could do that wasn’t stupid enough to leave behind any sort of talisman that could be linked to him.
Sweeping the room had been the best bet. Mathus didn’t know how Cirgal pulled that one off, and he honestly respected the man for it. Because the room had been spotless. Montby had the best mages in all of Tralgar on his staff. They didn’t need much to find a man, not an ear or a finger like the simpletons at the university. They could do it with a single cell. And for a man to walk into a crowded brothel over fifty times, and not leave behind, that? Monks and ascetics couldn’t manage the feat.
Mira was crying now, practically screaming incoherently, and for that Mathus felt a measure of relief. He was afraid she’d offer more resistance, and he’d have to spend that much more time breaking her. He delivered a final kick to the jaw, mentally applauding himself when it saw he’d successfully knocked her out without killing her.
“This is getting us nowhere. Get her to a healer before Montby has to refund any more clients. Let’s talk to the Master of Appointments again.” Mathus turned around and his face turned white. The two thugs behind him had both been killed without a sound. The man standing over the pair of bodies, rapier pointed at Mathus’ throat, had a remarkably forgettable face. Despite that, Mathus knew instantly who it had to be.
Yassil walked unsteadily, guided and practically held upright by the catman, whom he now knew to call Suljai. The days since his capture blurred together, and only in the last thirty six hours had lucidity been present more often than not. He’d fainted from blood loss after the initial battle. That much he was sure of.
He was also sure that he’d been partially healed, though not fully restored. Instead of the coma he deserved, he was just barely well enough to walk. So the feline either had healing potions, or knew where to get them. That wasn’t surprising. What was surprising, was the solution for keeping him controllable. Not magic, for which he’d cultivated a strong resistance, but some exotic drug.
Yassil could feel the needle inserted into a vein in his armpit, and he suspected there was plenty of tubing and a reservoir of the active agent, all hidden beneath the loose fitting jacket he wore. He had become a living zombie, a creature utterly without will. His captor gently guided him along, and he went, slack jawed and drooling all the way.
Except his body was developing a tolerance. Bit by bit, his mind returned to him. Suljai might be insane, but the catman had definitely done his homework. He must have known Yassil was an elf in disguise, long before he showed up with the other two. He’d known to use drugs against the famously weak elven constitution, rather than attack a mind disciplined over centuries of slow maturation.
But elves weren’t as frail as the other races liked to tell themselves. And though Yassil had been left partially wounded in order to hinder any resistance he might somehow offer, he was far from incapacitated. He could think again. And soon, he suspected he would regain rudimentary control over his own body.
With time to plan, and an opportunity to catch his captor off guard, he might be able to escape. And if not, he could at least kill himself.
Yassil could control the muscles in his eyes now, bringing the looming walls of Tralgar into sharp focus. He hadn’t been to the city for more than half a century, and it had grown rapidly since his last visit, but he still knew it. Everyone knew Tralgar. Only the capital of the Empire of Rose had more people crammed into a single location.
Tralgar allowed relatively free movement into and out of the metropolis, with thousands daily passing through one of the gates set at each cardinal direction. But that didn’t mean travelers were ignored. Guards stopped each newcomer to ask his name and business, and to have him sign a ledger recording the date of his entry.
Suljai probably intended to tell the soldiers that he was leading a simpleminded friend, perhaps seeking healers to treat some traumatic brain injury. With Yassil drooling and following along docilely, the story would work. But if Yassil could regain control over his lips and tongue, if he could manage a single whisper for help…
Montby was largely untouchable, but he didn’t rule the city. And slavery wasn’t officially allowed. If Yassil could make his plight known to city guards, in front of witnesses, they’d be forced to intervene. Suljai couldn’t fight his way past all of them, not even with the superb skill he’d demonstrated. There would be half a dozen guards at the gate itself, with hundreds more garrisoned in the squat towers to either side. Archers and crossbowmen on the wall could send waves of arrows at anyone who wasn’t directly beneath the entryway arch. And if Suljai made it to that narrow slice of cover, Yassil had no doubt that a score of archers would still be able to target him through murder holes.
Yassil didn’t think he’d escape alive, but death was infinitely preferable than the alternative. He didn’t have more than a vague idea what Montby intended, but he knew the potential was monstrous. Sympathetic magic was inherently dangerous, but thankfully it was also limited. Witches and shamans who practiced the craft could never channel nearly the raw power that illusionists and evokers managed to harness. Otherwise, the practice would likely be outlawed the world over. Crusades against magic would be the norm rather than the exception.
To use music to bind several different schools of music… it could work. It was genius, and it was cunning in its subtlety, but Yassil had seen through it. It wasn’t about making music. Magic wasn’t going into some new instrument, to create notes the world had never heard. No, the magic was the point of it. The melody was just the binding agent.
The forces wielded by mages of various schools would be intertwined with the sympathetic field, and Montby would have a weapon that could curse not just one individual at a time, but perhaps an entire species. It would take a dozen geniuses in just as many different subjects, to put it together. That was why it had never been done before. At any given time, only a handful of people could manage the task, and convincing them to do so was an impossibility.
So Montby would either trick them, or use force. They’d be kept in the dark, or they’d be ensorcelled if they saw through the ruse and objected. For all Yassil knew, he was the only pawn Montby still needed. If he couldn’t break away from Suljai, he must bring about his demise before passing through those gates.
Suljai continued leading him calmly, apparently unconcerned about the guards and unaware that Yassil had regained any awareness or bodily control.
Yassil wanted desperately to move his mouth, practicing and hastening the return of full control in these final seconds. He couldn’t risk alerting Suljai though, so he held that unquenchable desire in check. The catman had senses bordering on the supernatural, and even with his eyes focused elsewhere, he might notice.
They were just feet from the arch now, close enough for Yassil to notice a double portcullis, raised but surely capable of descending in a matter of seconds. For all its “open doors” policy, Tralgar wasn’t going to let itself become too tempting of a target. The gap between the two iron barriers was nearly thirty feet, and the elf absentmindedly wondered if the wall was so thick all the way around, or only at the gates.
A pair of soldiers stood outside the wall, on either side of the entrance, and Yassil suspected at least that many stood out of sight, flanking the interior gate as well. More than enough for his purposes. There were no other travelers passing through at this moment, leaving every soldier free to direct his full attention on the feline and its staggering companion. Perfect.
One of the soldiers, distinguished from his cohorts only by a small silver stripe on his collar, stepped forward. “State your name and business, please.”
“Help me,” Yassil rasped. It came out barely a whisper, but it was as much as he’d dared hope. At this range, the soldier couldn’t fail to hear.
Suljai burst into laughter. “Stupid elf. Did you think I wouldn’t know you were growing resistant to that putrid fish toxin? I let you have hope, false hope.” The catman left unsaid that these were Montby’s men, that he’d been instructed to pass through a specific gate at a specific time. Within this window, watch schedules aligned so that not a single uncorrupted soldier stood at the post.
The soldier with the silver stripe pretended to look at the parchment in his hands, clipped to a rather substantial looking board. “The deal’s changed. If you want to pass through, it’ll be another fifty talents. Gold ones. Not that silver crap the Rose people use.”
Suljai’s pupils dilated and his ears flattened against his head. He knew immediately that something was wrong. The three closest soldiers looked shocked, clearly unaware of any change in orders. But the primary giveaway was the smell. Suljai had noticed it earlier, but thought nothing of it. Tralgar was home to multiple races and all manner of mixing occurred, after all.
But the man with the paper smelled off… inhuman. And yet he looked like a full blooded little simian. Suljai knew that when appearances lied, some form of treachery should always be expected.
Yassil caught the soldier’s wink and realized that for once Montby and his minions had been out played. Rescue, or at worst, death, lay only seconds away.
Suljai drew his shorter blade, eight curved inches of death that could be both thrown at distant targets and used up close. Without warning he struck for the man’s throat, hoping to kill him quickly. If he moved fast enough, kept everyone off guard, he could still control this situation and push through the gate. Once past, he only needed a few seconds to get behind cover.
The soldier parried with the wooden clipboard, reacting far faster than any human Suljai had ever seen before. Just as the catman should have suspected, layers of foul trickery were at work here. Still, the soldier wasn’t that fast. Suljai shoved Yassil to the ground, stepped back, and drew his primary sword with his dominant hand. Then he was attacking again, blades whirling and spittle flying.
The thing that looked like a human managed to duck and weave long enough to draw a rapier, taking a few shallow cuts in that first fraction of a second, but nothing critical. Then he was shouting, and the rest of the guards were coming to his aid. Arrows flew from above, erring on the side of caution and going wide, but one of the archers would get lucky eventually.
The three nearest men on the ground, loyal to Montby but not without limit, attacked halfheartedly. Suljai could have returned their apathy, but such mercy wasn’t in his nature, and his spun in a circle, cutting down two of them and returning to face his only real adversary.
More arrows shot by, one actually grazing Suljai’s cheek, and he decided survival was more important than valor. He threw his dagger at one of the archers atop the wall, not caring about the weapon or whether it found its mark. He simply needed the free hand to grasp the bracelet on his left wrist and rip it apart. As the band shattered, tiny black beads tumbled in all directions. A sphere of magical darkness erupted from each, instantly expanding until the shadowy globes combined into a single swelling blob.
Suljai moved through the darkness, even his feline eyes unable to pierce the magical aura. No matter, for his memory worked fine. He hadn’t foreseen this exact scenario, but he’d planned for one close enough. He knew Montby might want to tie up loose ends by silencing everyone involved with this mission, and an ambush as the gates was the way to do it.
So Suljai had carried a powerful spell of darkness bound to his wrist, expertly prepared by a mage he trusted. And why not trust the man? Who could possibly lie through such tortured death screams?
The catman had been prepared from the very start to use this device, and he hadn’t neglected to note and measure every square inch of ground. While the humans were milling around uselessly, Suljai was moving with complete confidence.
The catman’s talons reached out for the elf as he darted past, sure that the creature had neither the strength nor the time to have moved. To his shock, his claws scraped without resistance through sheer air. He kept moving, unable to dwell on that setback. He had only precious seconds before the humans regained their wits, and he couldn’t waste a moment if he wanted to live.
Just before Suljai burst out of the darkness, already planning the steps he would take before reaching the nearest structure that could offer cover, a prick of pain stabbed through his left shoulder blade.
The catman burst into the light, swerving and leaping in a chaotic pattern as sluggish reflexes loosed arrows in his wake. In moments he was out of danger, deep inside the city where he would vanish like a roach at noon.
A thin trickle of blood ran down his back, from the piercing wound he’d received. It filled the insane warrior with rage, to know that he’d been hit. The wound was minor, something that would heal on its own within days, but the fact that he’d been struck at all, galled him. He knew from the moment it struck, which weapon had found his retreating back. It was a rapier tip that nearly skewered him, the weapon of that thing that looked human.
Whatever it truly was, it was even more at home in darkness than the catman. It had either anticipated his moves, or it had been fast enough to somehow track and follow him. It had knocked aside the elf, and still had time to nearly run him through. Suljai vowed he would identify the creature, and when the time was right, he would kill it.
A simple death in battle though? No, that wouldn’t do. It would have to be a worse ending than that. A betrayal perhaps, something that stole victory right from under the creature’s nose, and left it filled with psychic pain as it died. Yes, something like that.
Suljai’s tale flicked as he imagined all the ways his plan might play out. It would take time, time to discover the creature’s identity and its most precious desires, but it would come about. Of that, Suljai was certain.
Events unfolded so quickly that Yassil could barely follow them, let alone react. The soldier winked at him, trying to offer reassurance, but the catman saw the wink too. Suljai acted immediately, striking without warning, and Yassil felt his hopes crash.
By the time he’d registered that his potential savior was still standing, moving and fighting almost as well as the feline, the battle was already moving into the next phase. Darkness exploded from Suljai, rushing outward in all directions, and even Yassil’s elven eyesight was no match for it.
A handful of phalanges grabbed his upper arm and roughly jerked him off his feet. Part of his mind noticed that they had the feel of fleshy fingertips, not claws, and that it couldn’t be Suljai. He couldn’t have resisted even if had been the catman, and after a moment he began to feel a measure of relief.
And then he was pulled out of the shadows, daylight searing his eyes for the half second it took to drag him through a doorway. He was in a passage inside the wall, and he made a note of that for future reference. Tralgar’s wall was not a single solid structure, but rather two walls with at least one corridor between them. It was the sort of information that was completely useless in the moment, but would eventually find a practical application. For elves, who lived numerous centuries, eventually always tended to come relatively sooner than for the other races.
Then something struck the back of his head, and Yassil dropped into unconsciousness. It all happened so quickly that he never had a chance to realize that this wasn’t a rescue at all.
Mathus stood bravely, waiting for Cirgal to strike. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the man. At best he could manage to scream and draw a few thugs to block Cirgal’s escape. He had no heart for that sort of death though. On another day, feeling a little more loyal to the self proclaimed count, he might trade the dignity of his last moments to shriek out a warning. But not today. Today he barely wanted to live at all, and he couldn’t muster the fight to try to bring this man down with him.
The rapier never wavered, but neither did it strike. Cirgal’s eyes flicked back and forth, noting everything in the room, but Mathus never doubted that Cirgal’s attention was still on him. He suddenly felt sure that the thief was one of those rare people who could split their attention among many things at once. “Well,” he finally asked. “Are you going to do it?”
“You’re Mathus.” The tone of voice suggested it was halfway between statement and question. Cirgal thought he knew, but wasn’t sure, and most likely that uncertainty was keeping Mathus alive.
Would admitting his identity be a good thing or a bad one though? Perhaps Cirgal only kept him alive for torture. Before he could make up his mind how to respond, the man with the rapier lowered his weapon and slid out of the room and behind the wall. He reappeared a moment later, a slumped humanoid form draped over his shoulders.
“Montby wanted this man brought to him. Yassil, an instrument crafter and music teacher. I’ve overheard there is a substantial reward.”
It dawned on Mathus that the search for Cirgal had been pointless all along. It appeared the rogue had every intention of revealing himself, in a most unexpected fashion.
Montby lifted the dark crystalline sphere from a hidden compartment and set it within lightly its base upon his desk. Carefully, very carefully, he begun to spin the multiple rings of the base, aligning the correct number on each with the barely perceptible groove that ran down the sphere.
One character at a time, he lined up the code that corresponded to his intended recipient. There were other ways to communicate over vast differences, but Montby rather liked the security of these artifacts. They were designed by the Imperial Demonic Empire during its height of sophistication, and it was almost impossible for a mage to eavesdrop. If one were scrying on Montby right now, and had somehow avoided his notice, the spell caster would see and hear nothing by gibberish.
Each sphere had a specific code, and out of all the billions of possibilities, only a hundred million had ever been used, at most. This meant any random combination would likely dial Montby into nowhere, rather than another sphere. But there was always a risk.
Powerful creatures called Asperils, which maintained the demonic empire over hundreds of worlds, used the spheres almost exclusively, and Montby would bet they knew the code for every single one that had gone missing over the centuries. Somewhere, an Asperil undoubtedly had a thousand black skull sized balls sitting at an oversized desk of his own, each of them attuned to Montby’s artifact. It would maintain those open channels, waiting for a thousand years if necessary, until one finally connected. Even if the link were brief, it might be enough to give away Montby’s location.
He had no desire to become targeted by those creatures, for once roused they tended toward uncontrollable destruction. Even handing over the device might not save him, or the planet for that matter.
So Montby kept the sphere in pieces, ensuring it couldn’t somehow activate by its own. And when he did connect it to the base rings, he made absolutely sure not to misdial. He could only hope the being he wished to contact was just as careful, and it hadn’t allowed its massive ego to lead it into carelessness.
The last ring spun into position and Montby gave the sphere a final push, feeling it click into place.
The activation was instant. One moment the crystal was dark, almost like a giant bead of obsidian. The next, it was a perfectly clear window into a distant room, one lit by torches set into rough stone walls. A cave or mine shaft, Montby suspected.
A toothy face grinned back at Montby, reminding him of nothing so much as an ancient shark. That impossibly wide mouth, filled with multiple rows of serrated teeth, sat beneath beady yellow eyes, within a head that was too perfectly round. That head, shaped like a globe glued to a neckless torso, was unmistakable. He had made contact with Gonzogal, a True Demon.
Gonzogal was the size and shape as a man, but his coal black skin marked him apart. Completely uniform in color, even across the palms and soles of the feet, it was skin stronger than any armor. Rumors circulated that once a force of elves had attempted to kill the creature. A heavy steel-tipped arrow, fired from a ballista not ten feet away, had struck squarely against Gonzogal’s chest. The momentum lifted him off the ground and carried him backwards more than a dozen yards before he slammed into a tree and came to rest. To the horror of the elven host, Gonzogal stood up, unharmed. The bolt from the ballista was ruined, its shaft cracked and the pointed tip dulled and warped. Yet Gonzogal was hardly scratched.
The creature was also rumored to have strength matching his fortitude, able to punch through stone and steel with ease. If that didn’t make him formidable enough, he fired shockwaves from his fingertips, unleashing invisible torrents of energy that could shred armies to pieces.
Montby knew enough not to dismiss those rumors. There was more truth than exaggeration in this case, and he wouldn’t want to stand within reach of the creature, but he had little outright fear. None of the True Demons were invincible, and Gonzogal was just as vulnerable as the rest of his kin. Magic could subdue him, even kill him. And there was a more important weakness, at least for Montby’s purposes.
Long ago, when great mages delved into the various schools of magic with abandon, a powerful contract was forged. Using sympathetic magic on a scale not seen since, True Demons and fey lords came together to end a bloody war and enforce a truce. The terms were simple. True Demons and lords of fey, usually called High Fairies, could neither harm nor lie to each other. To this day, the contract held, magically binding the slowly dwindling members of each race.
The spell had soaked into the blood, and there it sat. In the case of the High Fairies it was even passed down to their pure born offspring. The power to create such powerful spells hadn’t been successfully wielded in centuries, but that wasn’t quite the end of the story. For those envious of this contract, and the protection it provided against the demons, there was a way to tap into it. Drink the blood of a High Fairy, and until it was destroyed by stomach action, it would draw you into the contract.
Even the lowliest of fey were far too convinced of their own importance, and none were willing to give up their vital fluids without a fight. For most, the acquisition of such a substance would be effectively impossible. Montby was not most. Every now and then one of the supernatural creatures came through his demesne, and each time subtle nets closed around it. The egotistical creatures never saw Montby’s traps until it was too late.
Before opening the channel to Gonzogal, Montby had consumed a significant quantity of that highly valuable fluid. Red so bright, it was almost gave off a pinkish glow, the thin blood had gone down like wine. Three times the maximum necessary dose, just to be safe.
Now the demon stared at Montby, finally ready to make a deal. It would soon find it was a deal that couldn’t be broken.
“You’ve repeatedly dropped hints that you have sufficient funds available to cover my current endeavors, and that you wish to strike a bargain,” Gonzogal growled with perfect clarity.
“I know that you’re raising an army of orcs just south of the Bloodtime canyon. You don’t intend to take Tralgar with them, and you’re certainly not planning on simply sending them to their deaths against the catmen or elves. Trying to fight through the birdmen to enter the Bloodtime would be just as suicidal. You might be intending to conquer the free goblins, but then what?
“The only thing that makes sense is that you’re thinking big. You want to take on the Empire of Rose. It’s been slowly crumbling for decades, maybe even centuries, and you plan to have an army large enough to take advantage of that weakness, as soon as the cracks begin to show.
“But you’ll have to bide your time, and fear will only chain orcs for so long. No one can really unite such chaotic and nomadic creatures. Which means you waited as long as you dared, and now you’re rushing to subdue every single clan roaming the mountains. It will be two steps forward and one step back all the way, with nearly as many tribes rising in revolt as you conquer or ally with.
“Or, you could simply pay them. Hire enough to keep the rest in line, and they’ll work tirelessly as long as the coins flow. I can give you an advance, and if I get what I want in return, I can pay continuous tribute. You can maintain at least ten thousand of the creatures as a standing army for as long as you need. And what I ask in return, you can accomplish in a matter of weeks.”
“I’m intrigued by your offer. What do you want from me though, want so badly to go to all this trouble?”
The demon’s expression never changed, and Montby silently thanked the gods that it had told him it was intrigued. If anything, he would have guessed that toothy smile looked angry. “Gather a force of at least five thousand orcs and goblins, and march on Tralgar. Besiege the city for five days at the most. By then, I’ll have what I want. I’ll pay off your army, and continue sending couriers loaded with gold and silver every month after.”
The demon shook its round head. “Too risky. I don’t have nearly that many, and to conscript them now might ruin everything. If you fail to pay, they’ll all revolt and it will take decades just to get back to my current position. I don’t know why you’d want to sabotage my plans, but I have many enemies with deep pockets.”
“That’s why I offer a payment in advance,” Montby countered. “Coinage, backed by gold. Three hundred pounds worth. And half that much every month following the siege.
Montby paused to clear his throat. He didn’t produce saliva or course, but this was one of those details he repeatedly ordered himself to mind. Such a simple thing as a man who never cleared his throat, might eventually be noticed. Blinking was another one, a more obvious tell that he now added almost unconsciously.
“Even if I fail to accomplish my goals during the siege,” Montby continued, “you’ll have that first payment. You march your army to Tralgar, surround it for less than a week, and disburse. Everyone’s been paid, and all those bloodthirsty orcish barbarians are content with that, even if they’re not loaded with spoils. You go back to the way things were before, but with at least half that payment skimmed away for yourself.
A funny thought struck Gonzogal just then, one he kept to himself even though he couldn’t help laughing for a full minute. It occurred to him that this would-be human warlord might be taking advantage of an impending event. It was highly unlikely, though possible, that some crazy band of humans was about to deliver three hundred pounds of gold anyway. Maybe this Montby knew about some mad cult that worshipped True Demons and was bound for their once in a century pilgrimage and offering. Maybe he was taking advantage of that, and giving up nothing.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter why the human as offering so much. Gonzogal didn’t care if he intended to go on a crime spree during the siege, or merely had a sick and twisted mind with an affinity for chaos. What mattered was that the math came up true. If the coins were real, they’d be about twice what Gonzogal would need to bolster his forces with mercenary orcs for a march on Tralgar.
Gonzogal finally stopped laughing, halting abruptly with no period of winding down. “Send your gold, and I’ll have my mage test it. If there are no tricks, I’ll have my army at the gates of your precious city barely a fortnight later. You knew enough to arrange this conversation. I expect you know for your courier to find me.”
The demon reached for his own sphere and twisted, plunging Montby’s view into grayness. Just like that, it was done. Montby would send the gold, and the demon, finding itself bound to Montby as though he were one of the noble fey, would be forced to march.
Montby carefully disassembled the communication orb, placing the crystal and its base rings into separate hidden compartments, behind locked drawers of course. Next came forced regurgitation, vomiting every last drop of fey blood back into its bottle. It would be far too late for the living to use this trick, the blood already diluted and contaminated, mixed with powerful acids and beginning an unstoppable process of degradation. It was an unexpected benefit of Montby’s condition, that he had no digestive process.
It had been a busy day, but Montby was more than pleased. Events were unfolding quickly now, and everything was falling into place.
Thanks to the demon, Montby’s power would soon increase by at least a factor of ten. And Suljai’s latest coded missive promised he had the elf, Yassil. The instrument maker should already be within the city, with confirmations from the bribed sentries waiting on Montby’s desk in the brothel upstairs.
The designs Montby had crafted could be weaponized, but that wasn’t his purpose, which would make the elf more pliable to the mind controlling magic yet to be employed. Once the music maker’s part was done, and his body disposed of, Montby could move forward with the real plans.
Unlimited power, something that should have been forever out of his reach ever since the betrayal that turned him into a fading undead creature, was finally falling into his grasp.
Gonzogal walked deeper and deeper into the cave, moving by feel in the perfect darkness. The tunnels weren’t natural, but had been carved, and they were regular enough that sight was unnecessary. Eventually he came to a locked door, crudely disguised with glued rock.
The orcs that mined for gold, foolishly thinking they might actually strike a vein, believed the tunnel ended here. A close inspection would have revealed that error, but they were not the most observant species.
Posting guards at this doorway would have ended badly, sooner rather than later. Either outright betrayal, or simply drunken gossip inadvertently spreading knowledge. Simply acting as though nothing were here, worked much better for the demon.
Gonzogal pushed his fingers into the tiny indentions, almost impossible to find in the pitch black unless you knew to look, and lifted. It was an odd sort of lock, dependent upon brute strength to lift the bars behind the rock façade. Tumblers could be picked, but this, this was something only Gonzogal’s fingertips could budge. Short of hacking through the door with axes, a laborious task for even the most determined orcs, the door was unbreachable.
With the locking bars lifted, he easily shoved the door inward and stepped into the secret room beyond. Glow wands were set in the walls of this chamber, spelled to activate when triggered by motion. The spell was an unusual variant, with a delay of twenty seconds, to give Gonzogal plenty of time to close the door behind him. No mysterious will-o-the-wisps were going to be reported in this tunnel, leading overly curious orcs to discovery. Gonzogal would have to kill them, if that were to happen, and the creatures weren’t so numerous that he could destroy them with impunity, yet.
As the light spells began to activate, Gonzogal joyously basked in their glow. An orc, gagged and bound, lie nearly motionless on a table. The naked warrior’s chest rose and fell rapidly, instantly informing the demon that his test subject was still alive. The top of its skull had been removed, and thick wires plunged deep into its brain, connecting to the cluster of electronics just above its spinal cord. The surgery would have killed any other sentient being, but the orc continued to draw breath over forty hours later. Robustness. Yet another trait Gonzogal liked about these creatures.
An army was nice. An army whose eyes and ears were yours, whose limbs were under your complete and immediate control, was far better. For hundreds of years Gonzogal had taught himself this technology, disassembling the simplest of ancient devices to reverse engineer their principles. He wasn’t particularly clever, taking far longer to learn principles of physics and biology than some. But he was extraordinarily long lived, with patience to go with that span.
One day at a time, he was inching closer to his goals. The Empire of Rose would fall one day, just as Montby knew. What Montby couldn’t know, was that Gonzogal had orchestrated it all, setting his minions in place centuries ago to guide the collapse.
The demon thought large, after all. Cities and nations were nothing. He intended to conquer the entire planet, and even that was only a stepping stone. He was Gonzogal, a True Demon, and the rightful heir to the Imperial Demonic Empire. This planet would provide an army large enough to attack the capital, to get him into the throne room where he could slay the unworthy fiend who currently sat there. Then, not one but a thousand worlds, would be his.
“Uh!” One of the hired killers shrieked and dropped the bundle in his arms. Despite the valiant effort of his partner, the body slipped out of his grasp and began tumbling down the stairs.
“Really?” The man looked up several steps and stared disdainfully at his companion. “We’ve already done this half a dozen times. Now you get Squeamish? Are your delicate sensibilities insulted by this job?”
“He’s still alive! I felt him move!”
Rogan shook his head, wondering where in the Nine Hells Vardaman had dug up this guy. He normally worked with a man called Snake, who was a sadistic braggart but was at least competent. Snake had uncharacteristically gone dark however, and the Minister of Finance never trusted lone mercenaries for some reason. So Rogan had been saddled with whomever Vardaman could round up at the last second, even if the man was more hindrance than help. “It’s just reflexes. Nerves live for hours after the body dies, and the arms and legs will continue to twitch sometimes. Haven’t you ever seen a battlefield?”
It dawned on Rogan just then that his partner hadn’t ever seen a battlefield. This was just a farmer or a craftsman, who had bought a fancy sword and a cheap suit of armor, and started thinking of himself as a badass.
The man was gibbering now, unable to articulate a single word while he pointed at something behind Rogan at the base of the stairs, presumably a corpse that had just come unwrapped. Rogan refused to respond, or even turn around, until the man calmed down. That was a mistake, he soon realized, an instant too late. Blood was already running down his chest and his vision dimming. The knife had drawn across his throat so smoothly that he hadn’t even felt it.
Raishe, wearing a face that he’d invented only hours earlier, advanced on the least threatening and last remaining adversary. He couldn’t help noticing the mutilation as he stepped over Kormash’s body, and any mercy he harbored bled from his system. Just as the final pints of fluid in the informant’s veins now bled through the cheap sheet half covering his tortured body.
He’d known from the beginning that the man was dead of course. A clever foe wouldn’t use the addict’s name as bait without first capturing him. It wouldn’t do to have the man potentially show up in time to deny the message. So he’d be captured, and just to make sure there were no loose ends, he’d be killed. There wouldn’t be any rescue, no long imprisonment until the opportunity for escape manifested. Only quick, efficient death for the likes of Kormash.
Except it hadn’t been so quick. It had been needlessly cruel, and that struck a nerve with Raishe. Most likely because so much cruelty had been required of him during his long periods of fealty. He’d done horrible things, but always in service to the greater goals at the end. This suffering had been inflicted simply because, and Raishe felt an almost uncontrollable urge to visit it back upon Vardaman and his hired hands.
After fighting off the effects of the poisoned bolt, Raishe had begun following his only obvious lead. The foreign crossbow. It wasn’t necessary of course. But an enemy had to assume Raishe hadn’t worked out who was in charge of the hit, or at least wasn’t sure. In such a scenario, Raishe would follow the clues, and walk right into the ambush that was waiting for him.
There was a warehouse known to function as a sort of flea market one day a week. Instead of worthless handmade crafts and nearly unpalatable foods, this market exclusively served those who wished for unusual weaponry. If the crossbow had been carried into the city by the assassin, Raishe’s investigation would end here. On the other hand, if it had traded owners, there would be a record.
Just as Raishe suspected, a trap was set for him at the warehouse. Two men were carrying a corpse out the rear exit, taking the third story door and loudly dragging the body down the exterior steps in broad daylight. It was bait that Raishe couldn’t refuse.
So of course he did just that. Instead of rushing in, he watched from a concealed vantage point. He saw the men pause, carry the body back inside through the ground door, and ten minutes later repeat the entire process. They were waiting for him, waiting for him to spot this and reveal his presence.
Raishe searched the entire perimeter, easily spotting the two archers who would shoot him down when he accosted the pair of soldiers on the stairs. One at a time, he snuck up on the marksmen and silently ended their lives. Only then did he approach the bait.
He’d killed four men last night, and when he was through here he could add four more to the tally. Vardaman’s options would be running thin. None of these had been the assassin that shot Raishe’s arm however, a bit of unfinished business that would linger and gnaw at him when this was over.
The last soldier managed to clumsily draw his sword, but immediately dropped it and fell to his knees. He began crying and presumably begging for mercy, though hardly one in three of his words were intelligible.
Raishe sighed, and cut off the man’s babbling with a single swipe of his dagger. He had wanted to hurt him, badly, but there simply wasn’t time. This was just the warm-up, testing his augmented reflexes and thinning the opposing forces a bit. Now, before his foes had time to react and regroup, it was time to strike at the head.
Raishe melted into the city, yet another face already taking form. Like the last, this one would last only a short while. Raishe felt good, stronger and faster than he’d been in years. Strong enough to kill a Minister of Economics.
