Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver (4 page)

As he turned with a flourish, Creeg slipped on a bit of scree and fell to one knee with a curse. Why the Lady Iranez had chosen this overconfident glorified cook as their companion in this treacherous land made little sense to Korm, but if she wished to risk her trusted agent in this task, it was her own coin to spend. He doubted the alchemist would survive the journey to the foot of the mountain, let alone make it back to the other side of the lens after making a deal with a demon.

Aebos bent down to collect the bag of Iranez’s treasure that lay at his feet, threw an awkward grin at Korm, and set off along the alchemist’s trail. Korm sheathed his sword and set out after them, eyeing the linen sack as it bounced upon the cyclops’s back with each of the creature’s long strides. There was a fortune in there. Surely the demon wouldn’t need all of it. Even a handful from the sack would set him and Aebos up for months in Quantium, if not pay their way to any port on the Inner Sea. But in order to spend their reward they’d have to bargain with Juval. And they would have to survive.

∗ ∗ ∗

Six hours later the trio had reached only halfway down the mountain. Although no sun had been visible in the sky since their arrival, the whole of the demon’s world had become progressively darker as they made their way down the rugged terrain, and in the last hour all three of them had slipped and slid within inches of unseen dropoffs and unexpected ravines. Epostian Creeg’s fine white leather suit bore jagged tears and stains from shoulders to shins from the coarse red dust that covered the mountain. Korm’s left knee still bled from a fall that had shredded the leg of his breeches, and the alchemist’s salve had done little to stop the dull pain. The persistent fire of the burning mansion, still visible just above the treeline of the nearing forest, glowed more brightly in the growing gloom, but did little to light their increasingly dangerous path. All of them suspected that a fatal tragedy lay just ahead.

“All right,” Korm said, throwing up his hands. “I think we’ve got to call it a night and rest here. Any more climbing in this darkness is likely to kill us.”

Aebos frowned—his vision far surpassed that of a human in the dark—but Epostain Creeg’s dust-covered face shone a wave of relief.

“Agreed!” the alchemist said cheerfully, plopping himself down on a low boulder set against a jagged wall of rock twice the height of Aebos. “This vantage should prove easily defensible for the evening. I shall prepare us a meal, for all of this climbing has aroused a demonic hunger in my guts.”

At the mention of food, Aebos turned away from their makeshift trail and let out a contented sigh. “That is the wisest thing you have uttered since we arrived,” he said. “What provender shall you provide from your satchel?”

Creeg smiled reflexively, his eyebrows high with surprise. “It is nice to be appreciated,” he said, struggling to free his arms from the straps of his oversized rucksack. He set the bag on the ground beside him and withdrew a generous metal pot with an engraved lid. This he uncapped, setting the lid beside him on his rocky seat. He placed the pot between his legs. “Our options are somewhat limited under the present conditions,” he said, his face a mask of genuine regret. “Before we ventured through the lens I returned to the galley and scavenged some mashed tubers that I’d set aside for dinner. There are cubes of hippogriff within, but I’m afraid the lady Iranez enjoyed the tenderloin the day before yesterday, and all that remains are the lesser shoulder cuts.”

Aebos sat himelf upon the ground opposite the pot. “I am sure we will manage,” he said, peering into the stew. “Shall we light a fire?”

“We don’t need to,” Creeg replied. He reached into his bag and retrieved a slender glass tube filled with bright blue liquid. “A little something I cooked up before setting out from Quantium.” With an eager grin he unstoppered the tube and flicked his wrist three times. Three dashes of sapphire splashed into the pot, which immediately issued a small cloud of steam. Korm felt steady heat from within the pot as he sat down next to Aebos. Satisfied, Epostian Creeg re-capped his glass tube and placed it into the bag, from which he withdrew a long metal spoon. This he jabbed into the pot, stirring the slurry with enthusiasm.

After a few moments of slience, Korm spoke up. “So what do we know about this demon?”

Creeg looked up from the stew. “We know that it’s formless in nature. When Nex trapped the demons within his ships he stripped them utterly of their physical forms. They exist now only as a disembodied presence. After a while the demons learned to possess mortals who came into their realms. Over the centuries, Juval has taken hundreds of forms by possession. It shoves aside the consciousness of a body it wants and wears it as long as it wishes. Because Juval is immortal, its fascination with a given body tends to outlast the lives of its physical forms, but this is no problem because it can always claim another.”

As he spoke he drew a small glass cylinder from the bag. Korm recognized the familiar gold flakes—Creeg’s signature flavor—from breakfast. The alchemist unscrewed the top of the canister and dumped a generous clump of the stuff into the pot and stirred. After a few moments, Creeg sniffed the stew with an expert nose, but even Korm could tell it was ready to eat. His mouth began to water. His stomach tightened. He swore to himself he would enjoy the meal, no matter what.

Creeg fished three wooden bowls and three short metal spoons from his bag, filled the bowls one at a time, and handed them to Korm and Aebos before tending to himself. The cyclops ignored his spoon and tipped the entire bowl up to his thin lips, practically gurgling the stuff.

“If the demon doesn’t want Iranez’s treasure, how do we get it to return wind to the seas?” Korm asked, eyeing the beige mess slopped into his bowl. The hippogriff chunks looked like squalid islands in a sea of sludge. Only Creeg’s golden flakes brought a touch of class to the dish, and Korm was quite sure he’d had enough of those. “Can we kill it?”

Creeg chewed a bit of stubborn meat before replying. “I doubt very seriously that either of you is capable of such a feat,” he said, leaving unsaid whether he thought himself capable of the deed. “And besides, slaying its host body won’t do the trick, because Juval can simply reassume its formless nature, in which it is even more difficult to defeat.”

“Anything can be defeated,” said Aebos, scraping remnants of sauce and mush into his tiny spoon. “You’ve just got to punch it hard enough.”

“You cannot punch what is not there,” said Creeg, wiping his bowl clean with a fine linen cloth. “I’m afraid the best way to defeat Juval is to try to best it with words. The Lady Iranez—or rather, her miraculous Orb—seems to think the two of you capable of the job. It’s a testament to your glibness that you have survived this long, so I suppose all hope is not yet lost.”

Korm scooped a spoon of stew to his mouth and was surprised to find it delicious. Perhaps he could put the Queen’s Lament behind him and learn to enjoy food again after all. As he slowly maneuvered his spoon from meat island to meat island, Korm looked out over the horizon to the valley below. Darkness hid the dismal trees and rank puddles, but the flickering light of the burning building at the center of Juval’s world drew his attention like a magnet.

“Up there, on the ledge, Aebos said that the house on fire down in the valley would burn itself out within the hour. I can see it myself now that we’re closer, and it’s definitely still burning. How is that possible?”

Creeg, having finished with dinner, now stood up from the boulder, his rolled sleeping pad tucked under his left arm. He circled Korm and Aebos in a survey of their camp, looking for a bit of flat earth on the jagged mountain ground. “Juval controls everything around us, from the rocks on this mountain to the chill of the air to the sickly grass below our feet. If the building keeps burning, it is because Juval wishes it to be so. We’re sitting on a mountain now because Juval wanted a mountain here. We have to risk a plummeting death as we descend because that’s the way Juval wanted it. No doubt the demon considers the grueling march a fitting expression of its power over visitors.”

Aebos stirred his spoon in the tiny bowl cupped in his hand. “So if Juval controls what this place looks like, what else does it control? Could the demon fold forest and flatland to draw us closer to its lair? What if Juval discovers that we are here?”

Epostian Creeg snorted. “I assume that Juval knew we were here the very moment that we entered its realm.”

The alchemist flicked his wrists and unfurled his sleeping pad with a resolute snap.

Korm woke from fitful dreams at the touch of Aebos’s massive hand upon his shoulder, shaking him gently. “It’s been four hours,” the cyclops said softly. “It’s your turn to stand watch. A good thing, too. I just caught myself dozing off.”

Korm rubbed sleep from his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. Across the small expanse of flat ledge on which they’d camped the alchemist Epostian Creeg lay upon his fine bedroll, snoring softly. Beyond Creeg the mountain fell away into an inky darkness that filled the goblet of the valley, pierced only by the distant glow of the burning building at the center of Juval’s realm. Everything here looked exactly as it had when Korm had finally fallen asleep, and if not for his friend’s testimony he would have sworn less than an hour had passed. He certainly didn’t feel well rested.

As Korm roused himself, Aebos sat beside him and unfurled his sleeping pad. He looked to the roiling skies. “I’ve seen a swarm of shadowy avian creatures pass overhead three times since you and Creeg went to sleep. I couldn’t tell if they were the same creatures or different flocks. As you scan the mountain for danger, don’t forget to look up.”

Korm nodded, casting a casual glance to the sky. Far above, the clouds roiled without sound, but he saw no sign of the creatures. In a way, he almost looked forward to encountering them. If Aebos’s bird-things had been circling for a meal, he’d find out soon enough. And that, in a way, brought comfort. He knew how to fight. That was the same no matter the circumstances. A sword in the hand brought a sense of certainty and control, if nothing else. If he could maintain control, they would stay alive. Deal with the demon. Get back to the ship and the safety of land.

If he did it right, they’d also be rich.

“I’ll watch out for your birds, but my biggest concern is facing off against the demon with Creeg at our side,” Korm said quietly, his eyes on the sleeping form of the alchemist on the other side of their camp. “If Iranez thought he could have handled Juval alone, she would have sent him alone. She could even put dozens of guards at his back, and yet she didn’t trust him to get the job done. You saw how puffed up and angry he got at breakfast. He’s going to say something that’ll get us killed, I can feel it.”

“He is an exceptional cook,” Aebos offered.

“Perhaps the lady tires of his food, and has sent him here to get rid of him?”

Aebos chuckled. “Too elaborate. Surely she could just have him thrown overboard. It’s Iranez I’m worried about. When this is all over, and we return with the treasure, who’s to say that she’ll simply let us accompany her back to Quantium? She could just as easily have us killed.”

Korm pursed his lips and exhaled a slow blast of air, as if deflating. “That’s tomorrow,” he said. “In order to solve tomorrow’s problem, we’ve got to make it through today.”

Aebos smiled. He pulled his woolen covers over his shoulders, closed his heavy eyelid, and lay still. He began to snore before Korm had finished belting on his sword.

Korm circled the camp with soft steps, casting his eyes into the darkness in search of lurking danger. Finding nothing, he heaved himself upon the boulder near Epostian Creeg and did his best to let his mind wander while at the same time keeping a vigilant eye on the mountain—and the sky. His thoughts turned to the chilling tales he’d heard of demons from pilgrims riding the rivers of his youth, fleeing the crusade lands of the north where a rift in reality allowed the fiends access to the world. They spoke of vile appetites and perverse cruelties. Demons were beings of ineffable evil. They thrived on the sight of their enemies’ blood. And the greatest of demons were legendary beings in their own right. The sages spoke of them in the same breaths that conjured ancient dragons.

And now they were about to go face to face with one of them. He trusted Aebos, of course. He knew his sagacious companion would let him do the talking, and wouldn’t say anything to unduly arouse the demon’s ire. And if things did go to shit, he knew Aebos could back him up in the ensuing battle. Creeg, on the other hand, was a risk on both counts. Given his ego, he seemed almost pathologically destined to say something upsetting, and the man had thus far proven dangerous to absolutely nothing beyond lobsters and unborn aubekan chicks. A look at the slight form of the alchemist sleeping below him confirmed that Creeg offered no physical advantages to their chance of success. Korm chuckled at the enormous rucksack next to Creeg. He’d have to pull something awfully impressive out of that bag of his to prove his worth, Korm thought.

But why wait to find out what it would be? Korm eased himself off the rock and stepped softly to the bag. With the precision of a master tomb robber disabling a trap, the swordsman gently lifted the bulky satchel, flinching at every tiny clink from the glass bottles and containers within. Creeg didn’t seem to notice, and slept on.

Korm returned to the boulder and began rummaging through the rucksack. He withdrew a slim leather case hinged at one end and fastened at the other with a simple clasp. This he opened, revealing a medical kit with three crude metal syringes and a length of leather cord. Small loops of material built into the case’s interior held several ampoules filled with colored liquid. The kit and its contents looked shabby and well used.

Korm next removed a small, cylindrical glass jar from the bag, raising his eyebrows as he recognized Creeg’s ubiquitous golden spice within. Although he could not deny that the flakes added to the flavor of the meals they seasoned, they also brought a monotony to each dish that was starting to tire him. That said, Aebos loved the stuff, and would surely suffer from a scheme that deprived him of it forever. The perfect solution seemed obvious.