Demon King (46 page)

“No, you idiot! It was done sorcerously.”

“Ah-ha. Now it’s explained, for certainly you have certain talents I’ve never known in a virgin before.”

“That was part of my training,” Alegria admitted, blushing a bit. “I saw you peep into that room with the … what we called hobby horses. At a certain age, we were introduced to them and required to memorize many positions. As many positions as you lecherous men have been able to devise, and two more.”

It was my turn to turn red.

“Yes,” she went on. “They were used exactly as you thought. And there were other simulacra we were required to be familiar with, some large, some small. The small ones we called
lij
’s, princes, since we learned the older and more powerful the man, the tinier the toy.”

“That sounds sort of mechanical, and pretty damned unromantic. Not to mention a little painful.”

“Oh, the sisters of the Dalriada aren’t brutal,” she said. “First we learned to pleasure ourselves, when we were little more than babes. Then we were skillfully taught other techniques. Some of this was done in dreams. I remember one sequence well. I would’ve been thirteen, I suppose. He was tall, with a wonderful black beard that tickled when he lay atop me. He gave me great pleasure, and when I awoke, almost as damp between my legs as if I’d really known a man, and realized there was no one there, my heart broke, and wasn’t repaired until the next night, when the wizards of Dalriada sent him to me again.

“I was foolish enough to be shocked and even jealous when I told one of my friends about him, and she started laughing and said she, too, had been loved by him that night. The dreams were sent in cycles, so all of us learned the same things at the same time. There were other men in other dreams. Men and women. Sometimes more than one.

“Most of us had real lovers from time to time. The older women, or our friends. There is a tradition with the Dalriada that older girls take younger ones to teach. For a few weeks that woman you met, Zelen, and I were lovers. I didn’t and don’t feel it was bad, because I read most people will find pleasure where they can. Prisoners slake their lusts on each other, don’t they?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t been one yet.”

“And I’ve read that soldiers, when they don’t have any virgins to despoil or whores, will secretly turn to their brothers, paying no heed to the punishment they could face.”

“They do,” I said. “But in Numantia there’s no need to be secretive about it. I can’t imagine anyone making something natural against the law.”

“It is here in Maisir,” Alegria said. “Although it’s not enforced unless it’s the only way someone can destroy his foe.

“To change the subject,” she went on, “you realize I’m not supposed to tell you any of this.”

“Why not?”

“Remember, I am — I was a virgin, and that’s an important part of being a Dalriada.”

“You mean the man a Dalriada is … given to,” and the words still came hard, “is supposed to think all her talents, all the things she can do with her body, have been a gift of the gods?”

“Exactly. Specifically from Jaen.”

“By my monkey god Vachan, men are dumb,” I said.

“Maybe, but I think they’re sweet. And worth taking care of.”

• • •

Alegria was almost perfect, I thought, as I fell more deeply in love each day. Her biggest flaw was that she simply could not cook. Not because she didn’t understand the nature of foods — she’d been well taught by the Dalriada, but because she simply didn’t think it was necessary to be precise. A bit too much salt, a bit too few spices, a bit too long in the oven, a bit less kneading than specified — these didn’t seem to matter at the time.

“But after all,” she told me, “cooking isn’t important to a Dalriada. The noblemen we’re with have cooks and bakers and stewards and servants to bring us our meals in bed. Only barbarians would take a delicate flower like myself into the
suebi
by herself and require her to commit truly unnatural acts such as washing pots!”

“My humblest apologies,” I said, bowing low. “For I am truly a barbarian, Woizera Alegria, and a foreign one at that. Perhaps this task would be more to your taste. Would you be so kind as to attempt to fit your ankles into my ears?”

She mock-saluted and lay back on the bed. “You order me, sir.”

Not that it mattered — she had, as a dutiful student, memorized many recipes, and would recite them to me as I cheerily banged pots and kettles about. I can’t say I was or am a good cook. But I was better than Alegria. Not that we spent all that much time eating, however. At least not in the strict sense of the word.

I wished it had been five weeks instead of five days, but the time ended, and we returned to Jarrah. There was an invitation waiting, one for that very night, one I couldn’t have refused.

I showed it to Alegria, and she shivered, and her face paled with fear.

“What does
he
want?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure he’ll tell me.”

“Be careful, my love. Be very, very careful.”

• • •

“You may call me
azaz
, my title,” the small man said softly. “For I permit no one my name. I’m sure you appreciate that knowledge of a sorcerer’s name can give power over that wizard, and even though I fear no one, I cannot see the reason to ever grant the slightest advantage.”

The
azaz
was the mysterious master of ceremonies, the Maisirian chief sorcerer and most powerful magician. No one in the embassy knew anything about the man who held the post, other than that he was utterly feared. No Numantian, including Ambassador Boconnoc, had ever met him. The
azaz
, like his predecessor, preferred the isolation of his castle, a five-sided black stone monolith at the very end of Moriton, next to the high wall that held out the Belaya Forest.

When he attended court, he sat in an anteroom or cubicle with a heavy curtain across it. And when he called someone to his presence, he or she always came, even though there might well be no return.

The
azaz
was a small man, in his early forties, I guessed, balding and clean-shaven. He was sharp-featured and reminded me of another retiring man to be feared, Kutulu, the Serpent Who Never Sleeps. But where Kutulu’s eyes were careful recorders of all they saw, the
azaz
’s were ice-blue, nearly colorless lances of power and authority.

It might sound as if they had the same blaze as the emperor’s. The emperor’s eyes drew you in, held you, and commanded obedience. The
azaz
’s glare was almost that of a madman’s. He didn’t need to give you orders, for his power was so much mightier he’d simply crush you if you stood in his way — or if the
azaz
thought for one moment you might.

He wore pants and shirt of a heavy, rich, dark brown silk, and held a wonderfully carved wand of ivory in one hand, that he toyed with as he spoke.

He met me just inside the anteroom of the castle. It was bare stone, with no decoration except a black banner hanging on one wall, with a symbol on it in red I didn’t recognize. I bowed, introduced myself. Then he said, without niceties:

“I do not like you, Damastes á Cimabue,” and his tone was as casual as if he’d mentioned the weather.

I blinked, recovered. “Why? Because I am a Numantian?”

“I have little love for your people, true, but my dislike is more personal. Do you recollect a man you would have known as Mikael of the Spirits?”

Mikael Yanthlus, Chardin Sher’s supreme magician. I’d gone into the castle he and his master were sheltering in, and laid the Seer Tenedos’s spell, then fled moments before some great demon rose from the earth and destroyed the castle and the rebels it sheltered. Here was yet another link to the past.

“Of course.”

“Mikael and I were friends, or as much as any wizard permits himself friends, when we were boys. He decided he could learn more, faster, by wandering. He did gain much, but was hurled back to the Wheel by you and your emperor. I’ve tried to reach his spirit, or to find where he was reborn, but none of the demons I’ve summoned have knowledge of him. Perhaps he’s still with the gods. Or perhaps he was destroyed unutterably. So I love you but little, Numantian.”

Honesty, I think, requires its mate. “He was assisting a rebel in a foreign land against that man’s rightful rulers,” I said coldly. “He met the fate he deserved, as did the traitor he served.”

“I see your bluntness, which I witnessed at your first meeting with my king, extends to all things,” the
azaz
said, with a bleak smile. I remembered that curtained alcove behind the king.

“As for Mikael, I can’t say I agree that he got what he deserved, but I won’t argue that his doom was unjust. He was always more ambitious than I. If he’d lived, by the way, I don’t doubt that he would have overthrown Chardin Sher, and then there would have been a contest of wizards to make the gods gape in astonishment.”

I didn’t reply.

“But that didn’t happen. So I’ll have to be the one who tests your great Seer Tenedos,” the
azaz
said. “If for no other reason than to see if your emperor was able to steal Mikael’s powers when he died. Myself and the War Magicians against Tenedos and his Chare Brethren.”

“I can’t see how this contest can happen, if there’s to be peace between our kingdoms,” I said. “Which there will be. Or are you going to ruin the negotiations?”

“Not at all,” the
azaz
said. “My king does want peace, and I serve him precisely. As I said, I’m not as ambitious as Mikael was. In fact, I’m a bit suspicious of those who reach toward the stars. I refer to both you and your emperor. I mean no disrespect, but, what, ten years ago or so, he was a disgraced magician sent into exile, and you were the youngest cavalry legate in the army.”

“You know a great deal about both of us,” I replied. “And while I have nothing to say about my emperor’s goals, I can truthfully say that all of my achievements came as a surprise. They still do, to be frank.”

The
azaz
looked skeptical.

“And,” I went on, feeling a bit angry, “for a man who says he means no disrespect, you’ve certainly gone a very long ways in that direction for my comfort. If all you wanted was to have me here for a slanging match, then may I request your permission to leave?”

“Calm down, my cockerel,” the
azaz
said calmly. “There was a definite purpose in wanting to speak to you alone. If what I’m about to say came from my master, it would be very easy to misunderstand as a threat. It is not. It is, rather, a warning. As I said, I mistrust those with overweening ambition, which I feel you, your emperor, and even your nation may be guilty of.

“If I’m correct, then there’s a great likelihood this wonderful peace we’re all so enamored of won’t last for more than a few years.

“I’ll give you another reason for my suspicions: The Emperor Tenedos has frequently cited his devotion to Saionji the Destroyer Goddess.”

“Destroyer and creator,” I said, parroting something the emperor had said time and again. “For it’s sometimes necessary to tear things down to rebuild them.”

“True. Your emperor mostly talks of the creator aspect of the goddess. But most priests say Saionji’s creative powers extend only to her control of the Wheel, and regulating how and when each of us is allowed to return to earth. There’s no mention of her being creative as Umar was. But maybe your emperor is in Saionji’s personal keeping and knows more of her attributes than the rest of us.”

“Perhaps,” I said impatiently. “But I’m no priest, nor do I have much interest in the gods or their aspects.”

“Of course not. Soldiers seldom do, except in their dying agonies,” the
azaz
said. “But this is part of my warning, so take heed. Your emperor may worship Saionji. But it’s my belief such worship draws undue attention from the goddess. Perhaps it already has. In that event, I’d be surprised for her not to demand some sort of blood price.

“Such as declaring war on Maisir,” he said, and now there was anger and threat in his voice.

“You’re wrong, sir,” I said, forcing calm.

“Am I? Perhaps. I hope I am, in spite of my interest in testing your emperor’s magical thews. But if I’m not, take this as a second warning. I know you’re a man of heat and the tropics, and this Maisirian clime is something new. So take the opportunity to immerse a bit of ice in water. See how little of it is above the water. That is Numantia, Damastes á Cimabue, and Maisir is as vast to your kingdom as a mighty ocean berg is to your bit of ice.

“Challenge us at your own peril — yours, your emperor’s, and your country’s.”

I bowed, holding back anger.

“We can both feel relieved, sir,” I said. “For I can give you my solemn word, my oath, which if you know anything of me or my family is one which has never been broken, that Numantia has no desire for war, for any piece of Maisirian soil, or for the death of one soldier, man, woman, or child, whether Maisirian or Numantian.”

The
azaz
’s cold eyes held me. Neither of us dropped his gaze. Suddenly he nodded, and I was dismissed. I stalked out of the palace to my sleigh.

Riding away from the
azaz
’s dark estate, I pondered what he’d said. I thought that we had a very deadly enemy in the
azaz
, but at least he’d shown his feelings.

• • •

Three days later, on the eighth day of the Time of Dews, we met with King Bairan, to discuss the final outline of the preliminary treaty. I’d actually learned to think in contradictions like that. All went well, and the draft would go off to the emperor immediately. I wondered from where the
azaz
was listening, but set aside the thought.

Peace was in our hands, and as soon as we closed our fingers, it would be ours. Ours for this time, and, I hoped, with the borders brought under control, for all time to come.

• • •

“This is a much better way to celebrate than eating and drinking too much and shouting and singing,” Alegria said breathily. “Is it not?”

She knelt over me, guided my cock into her, then sank down, lying on me, moaning as I lifted my hips, driving into her, our lips mashed together. After a time she sat up, her body twisting as I moved inside her. She slid her legs forward until she was sitting on me, her feet near my head, then swung, lifting one leg across my body.