Demon King (49 page)

The door opened, and the robed man returned. With him was Karjan.

“Go to your master,” the
azaz
ordered.

Karjan looked suspicious, but obeyed. He gazed intently at me. “Tribune,” he asked, as if sensing something was wrong.

“Yes?”

“Are you — ”

“Be silent,” the king barked, and Karjan jerked, obeyed. “You two,” the king went on. “Hold that man.”

The two cowled men pinned Karjan’s arms. The king drew his dagger and held it butt-first toward me.

“Damastes,” the
azaz
said, almost in a croon, and for the first time I saw excitement in his eyes. “Take the knife.”

I obeyed.

“Kill that man.”

Karjan’s eyes went wide in surprise. I drew the knife back carefully, and his mouth opened, perhaps to scream in horror. I plunged the dagger into Karjan’s chest, angling upward to skewer his heart. Blood spurted and ran down the knife’s hilt, across my fingers.

Karjan, my servant, my friend, my savior in a score of battles, grunted, and his eyes were dead, his knees folded. The two men let him fall.

“Give the king back his dagger,” the
azaz
ordered, and I obeyed.

King Bairan knelt, wiped the blade clean on Karjan’s shirt, and resheathed the knife. “Give him his orders,” the king said, and his voice was hoarse with passion.

“Damastes, do you hear me?”

“I do.”

“Will you obey me?”

“I will.”

“We are going to set you free. You and the other Numantians. We will give you safe passage to Penda, where your army, your emperor, wait. You will go to him and say you must speak to him alone.

“Then you will kill him.”

Two days later, all surviving Numantians left the Octagon for the Numantian lines around Penda, for a prisoner exchange. I remember little of the journey, except that it was cold and wet, but I didn’t care. We were escorted again by the Royal Taezli Cavalry, for I recollect familiarly uniformed horsemen.

I was a tiny Damastes, floating in the amniotic sea of the greater Damastes the
azaz
and King Bairan had created. I could watch, I could listen, I could even participate, so long as I never allowed any thought of the task set me to surface.

Svalbard asked what had happened to Karjan. I can’t remember what I replied. He gazed at me oddly and asked if something was the matter. I — the real I — managed to snap that nothing was amiss, and for him to go about his duties. He clapped his fist to his shoulder and obeyed, and as he left, I felt the other, false Damastes’s rage. I’d saved Svalbard’s life, for if he’d persisted, he would have died. I would have killed another friend with as little hesitation as I had Karjan.

That instant gave me, the real me, a bit of hope. I was not completely in that other’s power. I remembered yeast bubbles rising in my family’s cook’s bread sour. Such tiny thoughts were permitted. If they ever surfaced, ever broke, then the other Damastes, the assassin, would realize it wasn’t as much in control as it thought, and would drive me deeper, perhaps until I drowned and was no more. Then the emperor’s doom would be certain.

As we traveled, as more days passed, tiny pieces of an idea came, and were hidden from that other Damastes. Actually, it was less an idea than a desperate hope, most likely useless. But I clung to it, clung as hard as I could, without ever letting those “bubbles” be noticed by the Damastes whose body I drifted in. That Damastes ate, slept, gave orders when they seemed necessary, but in its own way was drifting as I was, not to come fully alive until it faced the emperor.

I dully noted that there were always soldiers around us — new recruits, old hands — all moving north toward Penda and the battle-grounds. The other memory I have is of the people of Maisir moving against this uniformed tide, moving south, deeper and deeper into Maisir, away from the fighting, away from the soldiers. They traveled on horse, heavily laden cart, and on foot, carrying what little they could, hoping for some haven.

We were almost in the Time of Storms, and rain, then snow and wind, smashed into these poor wanderers, and there were sprawled bodies beside the rude tracks we followed, bodies thankfully covered with fast-falling snow.

I was not cold, was not wet, was like a baby about to be born, yet not wanting to come into the harsh world. I’d be born to instant death, for the minute I slew the emperor I’d be cut down myself.

What of it? I thought dully. This life was burdensome. I’d lost all — my loves, my ruler, my respect, my friend — and now my honor was doomed, for who would ever believe I was under a spell when I committed the ultimate sin and slew the father of my nation? The whispers would be how Damastes had been wooed by the evil Maisirian king to slaughter his best friend and ruler. Perhaps I’d be permitted a bit of rest when I returned to the Wheel, before Saionji judged me harshly, as I knew she would, a regicide, traitor, and monster, and spewed me forth to begin life again in some horrid low form to expiate my evil.

I was still alive enough to sense when we approached Penda and the fighting. I felt blood, the sharp feel of danger, and stirred, coming a bit awake. The other Damastes felt me and forced me back down. I pretended to obey, and spread a blanket of nothingness over myself. Then we were on the front lines — dirty gray snow, strewn bodies, shattered trees, and broken buildings.

Negotiations began to allow us to enter Penda. I paid little attention. The other Damastes was coming more and more alive as its senses sparked to full alert, ready for the greatest, the only, task of its brief life.

Maisirian uniforms were replaced with Numantian uniforms, and there was great rejoicing that we were finally safe, among friends. The other Damastes pretended joy, then told the leader of the prisoner exchange, my friend Tribune Linerges, that Damastes had a vital message for the emperor.

“Your wishes match my orders,” Linerges said. “For you’re to be brought immediately into his presence.”

The other Damastes expressed pleasure, and we went through the lines, through the fighting positions, through the ruined streets and torn buildings of Penda, into its heart, to a palace where the emperor’s headquarters were.

I was unarmed, but what did that matter? I could kill a slight man like Tenedos in a hundred ways with my bare hands before anyone could stop me.

My vision cleared somewhat, but it was as if I viewed everything in the reflection of a brightly polished copper mirror. All was red, yellow, orange. I was beginning to panic, seeking my chance, my only chance, but as yet I saw none, and the time was growing shorter.

We entered a big room, filled with tables covered with maps. Fire blazed in a great hearth, and next to it stood the Emperor Tenedos. He was dressed simply, as a private soldier, but his uniform was made of the finest heavy silk, and his boots were polished as mirrors.

I started to kneel, but Tenedos held up a hand. “No, no, Damastes, my greatest friend. Welcome home, welcome to safety.”

I rose and stepped toward him, moving a little faster at each step. Alarm flared across his face, and my hands were up, clawed, ready to tear out his throat, and somewhere behind me I dimly heard Linerges shout in horror.

But I, the real I, was too cunning for that other Damastes, and his creator, the
azaz
, and his master, King Bairan of Maisir. Before my hands reached the emperor, I hurled myself sideways, toward that searing fire with its high-roaring flames.

I felt the other Damastes scream in terror, and then the friendly flames reached out, held me, took me, embraced me, and there was nothing but red agony and then nothing at all.

• • •

I’d expected to awake finally seeing Saionji’s face, or one of her manifestations or ghouls, or, perhaps best of all, to not wake at all, to have slipped through her talons into the joy of utter oblivion. Instead, I felt soft linen under and over me, the warmth of a blanket, a perfumed wind touching my nostrils.

I opened my eyes and saw I was in a large bedchamber, in a palatial bed. Sitting next to me was the Emperor Tenedos.

“Welcome back, Damastes my friend,” he said gently.

Perhaps I was …

“You are not dreaming,” he said. “Nor are you dead.”

But I remembered that fire, that searing agony around me, and felt a great fear, one any soldier will admit to. There are worse fates than being killed: being maimed, crippled, emasculated, scarred so that your own mother shudders and shrinks away in horror. I’d seen men and women taken in Shahriya’s embrace, who yet lived, their flesh twisted, warped like water-smoothed driftwood, pain rending them at every movement. But there was no pain. Involuntarily my hand came up and touched my face. I felt soft, warm, healthy, unscarred flesh.

“No,” the emperor went on. “You have no scars, either.” He smiled grimly. “My magic saw to that.”

“How?”

“Do you wish to know? Do you really wish?” I should not have nodded. “There were three prisoners. Noble, or so they styled themselves, Maisirians. They pretended passion for two of my dominas, who were foolish enough to call on them. The feast was poisoned, and my soldiers found death instead of love.

“I had intended a terrible death for them, a death such as I’ve given to any civilian who dares harm one of my officers. Then another thought came, after you’d tried … after you’d done what Maisirian magic forced you to try. Certain spells were cast, and the three women were flayed alive. Their skin replaced yours, and some of their blood flows in your veins.

“It was a dark deed — but one I felt no compunction about. There was a darker price attached for me, but one I paid gladly, not only as your emperor, but as your friend. I need you, Damastes. And I owe you a great debt.”

Part of me shuddered at what the emperor had said, but another part boiled in rage. He needed me again? How was I to be betrayed this time?

But the emperor spoke on:

“You have lain like a corpse for fifty days of this Time of Storms, barely breathing, eating only broth, and that seldom, but it is a true miracle you have come back so quickly. I know all, Damastes á Cimabue. While you were drifting between worlds, between life and death, I made other magic, and discovered the terrible curse King Bairan and his lackey laid, and how you slew the faithful Karjan and were supposed to assassinate me.

“That was monstrous, and both of those swine shall pay in a monstrous manner. For this war has only begun. Welcome back, Damastes. Now I’ll call on you for your greatest deeds, and we, together, will find our greatest triumph.” Tenedos rose.

“Yes,” he went on. “I need you to lead my army to victory. For we’re impossibly mired here in Penda. But there is no turning back. There can be but one end — either Maisir or Numantia shall be destroyed.

“And you will be the one to ensure it is not Numantia.” He didn’t wait for a response, but swept out of the room.

• • •

What emotions came then? A better question might be what ones did not. For hours my thoughts boiled. I was alive, and for this I should be grateful. But I still felt the pain, and part of me still wanted oblivion instead of a return to life. I was grateful to Tenedos, yet another part growled that there was no end to serving him, that he would — and had — brought me back from the grave to ensure that more of his visions, visions beyond reality into madness, would become real.

But I had no choice, and so concentrated on regaining full strength. I was whole, but weak. Whole — but when I found a mirror, there were changes. The most obvious was my hair, now only a bare stubble, that had burned like a torch in the fire and, I feared, would never grow back in its former profusion. My skin was, indeed, lustrous, and I shuddered away from the obscene joke that it was “just like a woman’s.” But there were wrinkles at the corners of my eyes, and I thought my expression was different: harder, colder.

I still felt numb, uncaring about anyone or anything. There was but one spark, and that was the dim hope that I might somehow find Alegria. That brought another realization. The only chance I had to find her was to do just what the emperor wished: Win this war.

I didn’t and don’t know if the emperor was aware of Alegria, and how my love would sway me. Perhaps so, for he was more than subtle enough to find out what had happened in Jarrah, and to use that knowledge as, I was realizing, he would use any tool, any man, to accomplish his ends.

And I had sworn an oath. That did as much as anything to return me to life.

We Hold True.

Very well. I was not permitted death, I was not permitted oblivion. Then I would deal it out to others, I vowed grimly. That appeared to be what Irisu wished. Irisu — or, more likely, Saionji, and her manifestation as Death.

Very well, I’d take that manifestation for my bride, for my avatar, and welcome Death on her pale horse, swords held high, skull grin shining through her dark cloak.

Now there would be three of us: the emperor, myself, and Saionji.

And let the world scream long in terror and agony.

On the thirteenth day of the Time of Births, the Numantian Army smashed out of the perimeter around Penda, striking south. We had three objectives: to destroy the army of Maisir; to seize and occupy Jarrah; and, although this was unstated and somewhat nebulous, to either seize King Bairan’s throne or make him the emperor’s vassal.

It had been almost a year since the war had started, more than half of that spent mewed up in Penda. When I was able to totter beyond my hospital bed, I was inundated with problems and their causes. First I obeyed my own commandment and ordered all my subordinates, buzzing like mosquitoes, to leave me the hells alone unless I summoned them or it was a true emergency.

Then, with the emperor’s permission, I summoned all of the tribunes and generals. My speech to them was very short and very pointed: We were fighting a war. We would win that war. If necessary, I would win it myself, killing the last Maisirian with the clubbed head of the last general who’d had the insolence to question my orders. That brought grins from the ones I wished to smile, and blank expressions from some others. Those were the ones I noted as being worthy of attention.