The Demon Lord (36 page)

A sonorous thrumming in the air might have warned the second guard that he had more to deal with than simply the fat man he had been told to kill—but he failed to notice anything amiss until it was far too late. Feinting a jab, the man craftily whirled his spear-butt up from ground level towards the demon queller’s head, and was taken off guard by the speed with which the “fat man” ducked.

In his youth Marek had trained with both the straight spear and the curved; it required no aid from sorcery for a shift of balance, hands and eyes to signal what was coming long before the blow itself was launched. As the stroke wasted its force an inch above his head, Marek’s own fist stabbed out and one extended finger touched the soldier’s midriff with a sharp, high
crack
.

This time with all his inner energies directed through that single finger, the demon queller folded his opponent like a broken twig and hurled him up to smash with stunning force against the ceiling. When the metallic clatter of the man’s descent had faded, Marek listened for a moment but could hear no other sentries.

“So…” He considered the already-blackening fingernail briefly, and guessed that he would likely lose it. “So two soldiers are enough to kill a fat old man, eh?” Marek had a sore finger to show for it, but was not even out of breath. “How very wrong you are, dear Overlord.” And then aloud he wondered: “But why kill
me
at all… ?” The Cernuan’s subconscious supplied his answer in a single word.

Ythek…

Crisen Geruath had certain plans afoot, and wanted no outside interference. Marek, the self-proclaimed queller of demons, personified just such a potential nuisance—and so the nasty practicality of the Empire’s logic dictated his removal. Yet even nastier to his educated mind were the implications of what had prompted such a drastic course.

He regretted, now, that he had not given way to his first impulse and set a cleansing fire to work on the appalling discovery which he had made in Sedna’s library just after Aldric had stalked in silence from the room. The contents of a locked, blued-steel cabinet. He should have expected it: books. Such a simple word to describe them. Accurate, too—until a closer inspection revealed what books they were…

That closer inspection—no more than the reading of two titles—had set him shaking with revulsion, and he had pronounced the Charm of Holding with more fervour than he had ever summoned up before, his grip on the medallion at his neck so tight as to almost buckle the thin antique metal. The books were old, and they had the mustiness of age about them—a scent as pleasing to any scholar as the bouquet of fine wine. And yet there was another more subtle odour, born of much more than the passage of years. It was—what had the young Alban said?—the reek of written evil.

And yet they were so rare… !
Enciervanul Doamni-soar
he had already seen; and yet not in the original Vlechan which had been so mutilated, expurgated and corrupted down the years. That thought alone had made Marek laugh a mirthless laugh deep in his chest, for how could anything so totally corrupt be corrupted any farther? This was a—
the
—near-legendary Jouvaine translation, and priceless. There was
Hauchttarni
—High Mysteries—and there
The Grey Book of Sanglenn
. The scholar within him had rebelled at any thought of burning such a find: these books and others like them had been forbidden and destroyed by the ignorant for centuries, to such effect that in some instances no wise men could be drawn into an opinion that one or other had ever existed…

But he was not a scholar; and it was a grimoire such as those in Sedna’s secret library which had caused him to take up the demon queller’s mantle ten years earlier, when…

Marek had closed his mind to that pain-filled memory, and had closed and locked the cabinet, unable to destroy its contents but equally unwilling to leave them accessible to untutored hands and eyes. Now, standing before another locked and bolted door, he realised with an uncomfortable certainty that he had not done enough. Locks could be unlocked and doors, by their very nature, opened…

He half-doubted that he had been brought to Aldric’s cell at all; more likely to some deserted part of the citadel where his murder would not be noticed/But having almost made up his mind on that point, Marek did not take time to wonder just exactly what might be behind the door. Still lost in his own thoughts, he reached out and slid back a bolt, deciding that he might as well— another bolt was withdrawn—make sure that there was nothing to be seen inside. Certainly—his fingers closed around the handle—there was nothing to be heard. The heavy door swung back. Beyond was darkness.

Marek realised then the depths of his own folly…

And in the instant of that realisation something unseen blurred past his head to strike the wall behind him like a hatchet, and he could hear the rending of a finegrained pine wood panel as its fibres split from top to bottom.

Beyond the gaping doorway, darkness moved…

“Enough of this, Commander.” Crisen’s interruption was lazy and laced with malice. “I already know
where
she is; the important word was
what
Quite a different question—and requiring quite a different answer. So why the deviation,
Kortagor
Jervan?”

Jervan looked up from his uncomfortable, unaccustomed kneeling position—garrison commanders did not kneel, they stood up straight like soldiers—and attempted to read something from his new Overlord’s face. The attempt was unsuccessful. He said nothing.

“Come now, Commander.” By his tone and his expression Crisen was enjoying himself. “You took her to your room; therefore you must have found her interesting—in one way or another. And you the most happily married man in the entire fortress…” Crisen leaned closer and smiled conspiratorially. “Just between the two of us, man to man: how was she?” Jervan reddened and the Overload’s smile stretched wider. “Oh, I see… She was a virgin. Was she… ?”

The eagerness with which he asked that final question came from much more than simple prurience, but such subtleties were lost on Jervan’s burning ears. “Dammit, I don’t know!” the
Kortagor
snapped, then realised uneasily to whom—and to what—he was speaking. “... My lord,” he added hastily, before continuing to vindicate himself. “I swear I did not touch the girl. Sir, she’s young enough to be my daughter… !”

Crisen steepled his fingers and studied their interlaced tips, then rested his chin on them and stared at Jervan, laughing softly to himself. It was not a pleasant sound. “So?” he said, and the unfeigned astonishment in the one word said much about the mind which shaped it.

Then his gaze lifted towards a sound of movement at the back of the hall. “Well?” The question was addressed to someone Jervan could not see unless he turned his head, and he was not prepared to risk such a movement. He wanted both eyes on the Overlord…

“It was as you suspected, lord,” came the reply. “His door was locked.” That sent a premonitory shiver sliding down
Kortagor
Jervan’s back.

“And what then?” Crisen prompted with little patience.

“We broke it open, lord.” There was a pause, more noise, and then a woman’s squeal of frightened outrage. Jervan’s stomach turned over. “And we found this inside.”

“Why lock the door, Jervan… ?” The voice was a caressing murmur for the present, but Jervan had known the last Overlord and knew how quickly softness could turn into rage. Rather than say something wrong, he said nothing at all.

“Oh, Gome now, Commander.” Crisen settled back in his high-backed chair, entirely at ease and certain he controlled the situation. “I asked you a question; you could at least attempt some entertaining lies. Were you, perhaps, hoping to keep this pretty morsel for yourself— despite your protestations of fidelity and chastity? That would be a credible human failing, would it not? Or did you hide her for fear I thought she and Kourgath had conspired together in my poor father’s death?”

“So he killed the old swine after all?” shrilled Gueynor delightedly. “A shame that piglets run so fast—Ow/” The girl’s words were punctuated by the sharp sound of a blow and this time Jervan did turn, half rising to his feet.

“Damn you, let her alone!” His parade-ground bellow shattered the ugly tension in the hall, if only for a moment, and the two retainers standing nearest Gueynor fell back by reflex alone. The red mark of a hand glowed on her pale face.

“Yes, let her alone,” came Crisen’s voice. “Until I tell you otherwise. Step forward, girl. Let me see what has provoked such uproar…”

Gueynor walked with stiff-backed dignity for half a dozen paces, ignoring the blatant lechery in the soldiers’ eyes—both she and they knew what the Overlord had meant—but faltered when she came close enough to see the strange expression on Crisen’s face, then broke and ran to Jervan’s arms.

“How touching! But, Commander, I do not recall permitting you to rise, so… get down on your knees in the dust where you belong!”

Jervan tightened his embrace on Gueynor momentarily, reassuring her as he would one of his own children, before turning very slowly to face Crisen. There was pride on his face now, the haughtiness of a man who had served in the Imperial military machine for twenty years and still remained a man. “I will not,” he said flatly. “What you intend to do you will do regardless of whether I obey or not. So I will not.”

“A pretty speech, Commander Jervan,” mocked the Overlord. Only Gueynor and Jervan were close enough to see that his sarcasm was a veneer; Crisen might seem confident, but only when that confidence remained unchallenged. His streak of cruelty, however, was much more than just skin-deep… “As you say, I have already decided what to do. Not so much with you as with the… lady. Are you not even slightly curious about that… ?”

Gueynor’s eyes widened and she pressed closer to Jervan as if he could protect her. As if… Both were unarmed, unprotected, and even the oppressive atmosphere was a weapon in Crisen’s favour. There was more quick clattering as another retainer came in, saluted and marched hurriedly toward the Overlord’s high seat. He carried a book in his arms, cradled there because of its size, its apparent weight—and also because he plainly did not want the thing too close to his body.

“My lord,” the man said, “two things were not as you said: the iron casket had been locked and the sentry—”

“Never mind that,” Crisen returned dismissively, either not caring about the man or not wanting to hear what might have happened to him. As if he had no need to know. “Give that to me.” The heavy volume was handed over, with relief on one side and an unsavory display of fondness on the other—for Crisen hugged the book close to his chest as a man might hug a child. Or a lover. He stroked its cover and even that gesture seemed heavy with unpleasantness.

“Do you know what this is, Commander Jervan?” The officer had his suspicions but refused to give Crisen the satisfaction of crowing over him. He shook his head in denial. “I didn’t expect you would; although you might have said, ‘a book,’ or something equally witty. No matter. As you may have heard, thanks to Lord-Commander Voord there is an unexpected guest—yes, guest will suffice. An important guest in Seghar. A guest whose favours I would like to cultivate. So I intend to make this guest a gift…”

“No! I will not—”

“How will you not, Commander? She should be honoured.” Crisen stared at Gueynor and the tip of his tongue ran once around his lips. “Are you sure she is a virgin… ?”

“I told you,” Jervan forced his voice to remain low, reasonable, convincing, “I honestly do not know.” It seemed important to the Overlord that his answer should be an affirmative, so instead he racked his brains for reasons why the opposite should be true. They were there: good, sound explanations. “But I doubt it. She was married. At last, when I questioned her at the Summergate before she entered Seghar, she told me that she was a widow. And she was keeping company with that Alban mercenary…” This he pronounced as if it was conclusive evidence, and to Crisen’s mind it probably was so.

Except that he really cared neither one way nor the other. “A pity,” he muttered, patting the great book now resting across his knees. “But one detail hardly matters.” Gueynor uttered a tiny, piteous whimper without even knowing she had done so, and Crisen favoured her with a wide, benevolent smile. “Because in all other respects, this gift seems most accept—”

It was then that Jervan sprang on him.

The sudden assault for a seemingly cowed inferior took the Overlord totally by surprise, and it was only that surprise which saved his neck from being snapped between the
kortagor’s
outstretched, clawing hands.

Shock made Crisen jump, and that small, violent backward movement was just enough to upset the balance of his great chair…

Jervan’s impact sent it toppling backwards like a felled tree, breaking his half-formed grip and spilling both men to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Crisen’s squeals brought lord’s-men running from their places around the hall; one of them bravely seized Gueynor, the rest set about their erstwhile commander with boots and gisarm-butts until his senses swam and one of his wrists was broken.

Only then did they pick Crisen off the floor and dust him down, while he stared fixedly through glittering eyes at Jervan; and the lack of expression on his pallid face, scored now with long red gouges where the
kortagor’s
nails had clawed away long ribbons of skin, was far more frightening than had he raved as his father would have done.

“Stand him on his feet.”

The Overlord watched dispassionately as Jervan was dragged upright by main force, the breath of agony hissing through his clenched teeth as his shattered arm was deliberately used to lift him from the ground. Crisen seemed to notice neither the commander’s pain nor the way that his retainers eagerly inflicted it in hope of impressing their new master. Instead he walked once round the
kortagor’s
sagging body, studying it with the chilling air of a butcher sizing up a carcass, then glanced straight into Gueynor’s terror-clouded eyes and allowed himself a smile. His hand reached out, cupped her chin as she turned her head away and dragged it back to face him, squeezing until her cheeks were puffy and congested with dark blood. “The Devourer will enjoy you, I think,” he whispered under his breath so that only the girl could hear. “And He will be grateful for the gift…”