The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (6 page)

Flasch frowned at that and opened his mouth to speak, then
evidently thought better of it and stayed silent. Michael was tempted to check
his friend for a fever, or perhaps demonic influence. When did Flasch
ever
hold his tongue?

“There is nothing to say that a man who leaves his family
behind heeding God’s call is showing proper devotion to God, nor the man who
leaves his old life to settle down with a woman,” Vinder went on. “No text
tells us that a man must cut himself off from ever knowing a woman, yet we
revere celibate monks in part because of their sacrifice. Is a man who is never
called to God’s service less worthy than one who is, or is he playing his part
in the divine plan by staying on a farm and raising his children with love?”

Vinder looked at each of the trainees as he spoke, and his
eyes flicked over Michael as he suppressed a twinge of a dark emotion at the
last rhetorical question. It was an innocuous enough point, and he preferred
not to dwell on other people’s idealized notions of farm life.

“If you’re called by God, is there any length to which you
should not go to obey His commands?”

“Sir, I thought God didn’t really speak to us in words,”
someone said, his voice losing confidence as Vinder focused his attention on
him. “I mean, how do you really know if He is telling you to do anything?”

The Violet paladin looked seriously at the trainee and said
in an intense voice, “If you talk to God, you’re praying.” He paused
dramatically. “If He talks back, then you’re insane.”

A few nervous twitters scattered about the room as the
trainees weren’t sure whether their instructor had just told a joke. Flasch
grinned and looked eagerly at the exchange across the room. When Vinder finally
barked a laugh and smiled, the uneasy tension in the room dissipated.

“You bring up a solid point, trainee
Tigh
,
is it? How
do
we know when God speaks to us?”

Several young men raised their hands, but Vinder blindly
ignored them and began his random pacing around the room again.

“The truth is, only you can know, and maybe not ever for
sure,” he told them. “We call the process of determining and enacting God’s
will for us
discernment
, and it is a key aspect of piety. We have our
teachings handed down from the immortal angels, and for my part, I consider
whether the thoughts and urges I have conform to the ideals we’ve been given.
Whether my thoughts and actions are truly the result of God instructing me one
way or another becomes secondary at that point – by acting in accordance with
His teachings, we might always be considered to be acting according to His
will. For instance, we are taught that God loves us all equally, so I have to
believe that any thoughts I may have of superiority over another race must
conflict with that basic principle. Who am I to place myself above another race
whom God looks on with equal favor?”

“I like this guy,”
Trebor kythed to Michael, and
Flasch developed a sudden fit of coughs to cover a laugh.

“Oh, I see not everyone is comfortable with that thought,
eh?” Vinder continued, oblivious to the telepathic exchange. “Well, if that’s
your cup of tea, you can rest assured there are any number of other paladins
and priests who feel the same way and can cite page and verse from texts to
justify their feelings. Me, I like to keep it simple.”

A few trainees muttered to themselves around the room, but
their instructor pointedly ignored them as he swept on with his lecture.

- 4 -

“For San’s sake, you’ve heard everything being said as well
as I have, Danner,” Trebor said, obviously depressed. “The pro-human sentiment
running through this place is rampant, and it’s making me sick to my stomach.
Even people who normally wouldn’t even think to be racist are projecting things
that put me on edge, and it’s made worse by the people who really do believe
that crap. It’s getting so I can’t even open up my mind without being assaulted
by thoughts about denarae inferiority and how silly dwarves and gnomes look,
and how stuck up elves are, and… Hell, you don’t know the half of it.”

Trebor put his face in his hands and gave a low moan. “I’ve
had a headache for the past three days, between that and worrying somehow
someone is going to find out the truth about me.” The false coloration of his
skin gave him an especially sickly look today, and Danner wondered if it was
time for Trebor to reapply the oil again.

No, Harvest Moon was
just a few days ago,
Danner remembered. Trebor reapplied the oil every time
San waxed full, using the moon as a regular reminder to ensure the chemical
didn’t wear off at an inopportune time.

Danner sighed. The two of them were sitting at the far end
of a table at the midday meal, far removed from anyone else. Marc and the
others were still in line waiting for their food, so for the moment Trebor and
Danner were alone. Since Garnet’s display the day before, several of the other
trainees had approached him to offer apologies for repeating the rumor about
him. Garnet tolerated the attention, but like his friends, he was looking
forward to their Sabbatha
[9]
leave. Their
Octday
had been co-opted by their
intensive training schedule, so they would only be getting a short weekend to
themselves, if their instructors granted it at all. More than one weekend had
been sacrificed to training in the past, and that was before the uptick in
intensity following the doomed paladin expedition.

“Trebor, I can’t pretend I know what it feels like. Not just
what it’s like for you to be so assaulted mentally, but the simple prejudice
that’s being unknowingly sent your direction. I can only imagine what it would
be like if they found out you’re really a denarae. But you can’t let them do
this to you.”

“I’m not
letting
them do anything, Danner,” Trebor
said, his voice a bit wild.

“Sure you are. No one can make you feel good or bad unless
you let them,” Danner said. “It’s something my dad once told me. Sure,
sometimes it’s harder than others, but you can always dampen or enhance
someone’s ability to hurt you. You can’t let people get to you like this.”

“This from the person who still gets tied into knots just at
the thought of talking with Alicia?” Trebor said, a faint smile breaking
through the sad lines on his face.

“That’s different,” Danner said, only slightly nettled by
Trebor’s teasing tone. At least it was pulling Trebor out of his emotional trough.
“Or… I suppose it isn’t. I guess I really don’t mind getting my insides turned
to mush by her, I just wish I knew where she stood. I still don’t know if she’s
entirely gotten over that other matter.”

Trebor nodded. There was no need to vocalize what they both
knew. One of The Three had impersonated Danner and raped Alicia, and she’d come
to Nocka intent on exacting her revenge. With Trebor’s help, they’d discovered
the truth, and she could now at least stand to be around Danner for some time
without growing upset. They hadn’t seen her in the last week or so, having been
so wrapped up in practice they hadn’t left the compound – except for their
occasional middle-of-the-night forays hunting corrupted paladins. But they
would probably get leave this weekend, and they would invariably see her.
Alicia was Marc’s twin sister, and Marc was Danner’s friend, so Alicia was
staying with Faldergash, a gnome in the city who was one of Danner’s oldest and
closest friends. She and Marc had an aunt in the city, but for whatever reason,
Alicia preferred to stay with the gnome instead.

“Well, anyway,” Danner said, clearing his throat, “you just
keep rubbing that stuff on your skin, and we’ll never have to worry about
people finding out about you until you want them to.”

“I hope you’re right,” Trebor said, the traces of mirth
disappearing from his voice. “I really do, Danner.”

Later that day, Danner would look back on those words with
bitter irony.

Even the cleansing rays of the sun could not have banished the horrors
that invaded our island and destroyed our city. Even so, we huddled together in
the darkness and prayed for the dawn.

- Unnamed dwarven survivor of the massacre at
Den-Furral,

“The Homeless Years” (1019 AM)

- 1 -

Birch shifted his broad shoulders and heard the creak of
his leather vest as he stared out toward the sea from his vantage atop the
battlements of the fallen dwarven capital of Den-Furral. The city was actually
a fortress carved into the living stone of a mountain, all but impenetrable to
an assault – from the outside, at least. The attack that had destroyed
Den-Furral had come from within. To Birch’s right was a room half ruined by the
battle over a week ago. In that room, Birch had slain Sal, one of The Three –
shape-shifting, mind-controlling, demonic brothers from Hell. A charred outline
on the floor was all that remained of the once-powerful demon. Somewhere in the
world his brothers, Min and Ran, still lived, and it was Birch’s sworn task to
seek them out and slay them.

Birch thought idly about his quest. In the card game of
Dividha, Hunting The Three was a phrase synonymous with a quest in futility.
Three cards scattered amidst a deck of fifty-six, with anywhere from one to
four or five other players taking cards into their hands and discarding the
refuse. The odds of deliberately seeking out those three cards and finding them
were staggering. Birch’s task, and the task of the
jintaal
he was a part
of, was equally improbable and bordered on the impossible. Somewhere amidst a
world of millions of creatures from nearly half a dozen intelligent races, they
were supposed to find three creatures who could change shape at will and had
the power to dominate and control the minds of most mortal creatures.

Birch frowned. Their quest
should have been
all but
impossible, yet already they had completed part of it. Sal was destroyed, and
The Three were no longer the unified entity they had once been. Birch had
delivered the killing stroke, carving the
Tricrus
into the demon and
ending its existence. The Prismatic Council had directed them to this island
based on reports of an evil entity in the area, but now Birch and the others
were without the guidance and intelligence resources of the Council, and they
had no clear idea of where to move next.

Normally, a
jintaal
consisted of one paladin from
each of the six primary Facets of the Prism – Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green,
and Violet – each of whom would represent one of the six virtues the Prismatic
Order upheld: justice, courage, knowledge, temperance, love, and piety. There
was a seventh Facet, White, which represented beauty – the presence of all six
virtues in relative balance. In his time as a paladin, Birch had been a part of
two Facets.

Birch sighed as he felt the wind sweep past him. The gust
lifted his cloak and it billowed out above and behind him like a set of cloth
wings. When Birch first became a paladin, his cloak had assumed the deep red
color that marked his courage. Red paladins were typically the best warriors in
the Prism, and they formed the backbone of any missions that required
destroying the demons still found in the world. Eventually, though, Birch’s
reflection changed to White, as shown by the snowy-white color of his cloak
after the change. White paladins invariably felt an irresistible urge to cross
the Merging and enter Hell, and Birch had been no different. He said his
good-byes, but didn’t tell his family and friends where he was going. Roughly
eleven years ago, as time passed in the mortal realm, Birch had made his
crossing with his dakkan mount Sultana.

Later, Birch had come to realize that time passed
differently in the immortal plane of Hell than it did on the mortal side of the
Merging. For every two years he spent in Hell, only a year passed in his home,
and he only aged that one year. All told, Birch had spent twenty years in Hell
but physically aged only ten.

For hundreds of years, White paladins had been crossing
the Merging and disappearing forever. Not one of them had ever returned, and
all were assumed dead. As much honor as assuming the white cloak of beauty
conferred on a paladin, it was acknowledged as a death sentence. Birch was the
first and only paladin to ever return, but even he was at a loss as to how he’d
escaped.

Birch shook his head and sent his close-cropped ponytail
swaying slightly in response. He had unfortunately clear memories of most of
his journey in Hell, but six years of his life there were locked away in his
mind where he could not reach them. For half a dozen years he’d been a captive
in the deepest pits of Hell, yet he could only remember them in his dreams… or
rather, his nightmares. Birch had been tortured and pushed past the breaking
point of most men, but he’d held fast to his faith and his sanity, and somehow
he’d broken free and escaped back to his own plane of existence.

Far below him Birch saw what he believed to be one of the
main reasons for his deliverance. A dark-haired woman stood on the docks,
helping to load supplies onto the ship they would be using. She wore
dun-colored trousers and a white tunic, but no one could ever mistake her for a
man, no matter her clothing. She stooped low over a barrel that had apparently
split open, then she straightened and whipped her head to the side to clear the
hair away. She looked back toward the fortress to where Birch was standing, and
it seemed to him their eyes met, even though she was little larger than an ant
in his view.

Moreen.

The hardest part of crossing the Merging had not been the
terror of what he would be facing, but the sorrow of what he’d been leaving
behind. Birch and Moreen loved each other desperately, but his commitment to
the Prism had always prevented their being together. Despite the many times
he’d hurt her by not staying to be with her, going off on some quest for the
Prism, Moreen had always waited for him, and she’d done so for the ten years
he’d been gone across the Merging.