‘I came to that conclusion just now. Why give up power?’
‘Speed and vision, each is a different sort of power. You can see threats coming from farther away; you can outrun pursuit. You can soar high above the struggle.’ He shrugged as if to indicate he was offering reasons, not making a judgment. ‘But you have to sacrifice strength.’
‘I have seen . . .’ She stopped. ‘No, I have another’s memories of massive flyers, carrying weapons and wearing armour.’
‘Such creatures fly by more than the strength of their wings. They use magic to keep aloft. They are very powerful, lords, princes, and kings.’
‘Why?’
Belog had come to understand that this was Child’s usual method of enquiry, following a thread of discussion till she found out what she wanted to know.
‘In the Time Before Time, when we were all like Savages—’ he began. He had discovered after several beatings at her hands that she had a preference for old lore; so perhaps the first Archivist she had devoured had a preference for ancient history. ‘—a great chieftain arose among the first of the People. His name was Aelor. He ruled the inner kingdoms and brought order out of chaos. He decreed that we live on a great disc, at the centre of which he established the first settlements. Five original kingdoms, each ruled by their own king, followed by others, and all were known as The First Kingdoms. Around those kingdoms arose the Second Kingdoms, then the Savage Lands and beyond that, Madness.’
He could see that she was growing impatient, having had heard this before. ‘In service to those kings, some were granted protection as vassals to their lords. Some among those were given great power as their reward, including magic.’
At the mention of magic, he could see her attention grow rapt and he knew he had made the right choice. ‘Tell me more about magic,’ she said.
Belog had come to recognize her moods and when she exhibited a keen interest for a subject, he could not gloss over anything, no matter how tedious he might find the discussion. In his experience, she was unique, and how she came to be this way was a mystery. She came from a class of demon that for lack of a better conceptual term would be labelled ‘labourer’ or ‘servant’, and not worth much consideration by any being of power. Her mother was a menial, and her father a worker in support of the King’s army who had gone off to wage war against the minions of Maarg, when things as Belog knew them had begun to unravel.
He continued, ‘Magic is the name for a system of controlling power that spans the divide between the tangible and the intangible. By the force of will, the keen intellect of the mind, and the ability to discipline oneself, a person can practise, “magic”, as it is called.’
‘Can you do magic?’ she asked, ardently curious.
‘No, that wasn’t permitted. Our lord Dahun saw clearly in his mind that there needed to be a distinct demarcation between classes, lest one being grow too powerful and overturn the balance of things.’
She laughed, the first time she had felt the impulse and the first time he had heard one of his race do so out of mere amusement. ‘Lest one being grow too powerful and challenge his might!’ She fixed Belog with a sharp eye. ‘I know more by the day, my teacher. Perhaps some day I will know as much as you.’
‘A day to be welcomed, as a teacher, for you know your student has learned all you have to offer, but one to be feared as well.’
‘Because without my need for you, you become another meal?’ she asked with what could only have been a mocking tone.
‘Because one fears the loss of such inspiring company,’ he replied.
She cocked her head to one side, then chuckled. ‘I believe that is called flattery.’
His eyes widened. ‘You do indeed possess great knowledge, Child. I have never spoken to you of such a thing. It is not a concept widely known to our race. Only the class of succubae, the seducers and drainers of life, are adept at it. They use it to gull lesser beings.’ She gazed at him with fascination. ‘It is something weaker beings employ, a convention of false praise in exchange for favourable regard from a more powerful being. It is a tool of seduction, so . . .’
‘Magic,’ she interrupted. ‘I would learn it.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Then we must seek another, and this may prove difficult, Child. We must find a magic-user powerful enough to be useful to us, but not so powerful as to destroy us all. Our lord Dahun was jealous in his allocation of magic and controlled carefully who was allowed to use it.’
‘I believe magic-users exist among the Savages.’
He was quiet again. He was often surprised at the knowledge she already possessed. Finally, he conceded her point. ‘Yes, but there is an additional risk. The Savages are more like animals than rational beings. They exist in the old ways, slaughtering one another for position. King Maarg allowed his realm to retain many Savage customs, and he was anathema to lord Dahun. It was Maarg whom Dahun went to destroy when last our lord left us.’
‘I think our lord left because of that,’ Child said pointing to the east.
Belog didn’t need to be told what ‘that’ was, for he knew she meant the dark wave of destruction that oozed and flowed out of the Centre, devouring all it touched.
‘The Darkness,’ he said quietly. ‘But if so, why the show of arms and might? Why march against Maarg? Why not—’ he made a gesture with his flattened hand, ‘—just slip away?’
Child cocked her head to one side. He had come to recognize this meant she was grappling with a problem. ‘I do not know,’ she said at the last. ‘I should think, though, that for a king of Dahun’s majesty, it would be difficult to slip anywhere, un noticed.’ She smiled. ‘Perhaps he needed a diversion?’
He marvelled again at the complexity of her mind. Had the horror from the Centre not come upon them, this one would have been culled early and evaluated. Either she would have been placed in an area of critical need and educated or she would have been killed as potentially dangerous. She was a remarkable child. He wondered if she had been someone remarkable before her last death, and if this new order imposed by Dahun, with matings and child-rearing encouraged rather than simply letting offspring spawn in the crèches and fend for themselves, might have done something to her mind.
For among the People, as soon as life returned after death, the faster one fed and the quicker one grew, the more of one’s previous life-memories endured. Belog was old for his race; he was more than a century past his prime, which was unheard of before the coming of Dahun. He knew he had been very young when the Demon King had taken power, but his memories were fading into the dim mists of the past.
‘Perhaps, but that is for another time and place to ponder. If you want to learn magic, we must make a plan.’
Her smile broadened to a grin. ‘I love to plan. I am very pleased I didn’t eat you, Belog.’
‘As am I, Child.’
They were now close to the road east, forced to hug its verge by the exigencies of the landscape and marauding bands of demons. A large band of very small demons scurried along the verge on the other side of the broad road, while Child and Belog watched from behind a rock on a rise. ‘So many,’ she observed, and Belog couldn’t tell if she spoke out of hunger or simply idle curiosity. She was easily the most inquisitive mind he had ever encountered.
‘Tell me about armies,’ Child said suddenly.
Belog was surprised. ‘In what respect?’
‘Why do they exist?’ Her voice betrayed a note of frustration he had become familiar with, as if she expected him to know her moods and desires without asking.
‘No matter how powerful a lord or king, there are others out there of equal or greater power. Armies are expressions of a . . .’ He stopped, as if groping for the proper words. ‘A need for respite in the struggle, I think would be the best way to put it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Child said, slightly petulantly. ‘What is this “respite”?’
‘We are by nature a race that struggles,’ he began as they walked a
cross the broken land that signalled the edge of the Kingdom of Dahun and the beginning of what had once been the Kingdom of Maarg. ‘Ever since the Time Before Time, we have been born, have killed and eaten, or been killed and eaten, and we have been reborn. If we are fortunate, life experiences give us purpose and direction and we endure for a time.
‘Some rise to great power, and many serve willingly in exchange for protection and privilege. Dahun had many generals, many counsellors, many who were given the duty to administer his realm.’
‘Armies, Belog, tell me of armies.’
‘Other kings, rivals, also have their demesnes and as individuals struggle and contest with one another. Armies are a threat; if you attack me, I will defend myself, or if you annoy me, I will attack you. Maarg controlled a great kingdom, but he was afraid of Dahun and worried about the other kings in the Savage Realms. Other kings of the Second Kingdoms contended with Dahun, and with one another – alliances shifted constantly – and sometimes armies were unleashed, and wars were fought. But for long periods of time, armies were held in check. Large armies at the ready deter others from attacking.’
‘Ah,’ said Child, as if she understood. ‘The larger the army, the longer the respite.’
‘To a point. Armies require a great deal of support: food, weapons, a place for them to sleep.’
‘Explain?’ demanded Child.
They walked down a widening gully until they came to three branching gullies, directing them uphill again. Belog knew that once this must have been a large pond or small lake with three feeding rivers. He spoke quickly of logistics and keeping an army fit and ready to fight. Of the need for support so that soldiers did not fall to killing one another in the old, Savage way.
When she tired of the detail, she would interrupt with another question. ‘Tell me about war and victory and defeat,’ she instructed.
He turned his narrative skills to best effect and launched into a long discourse on the nature of organized struggle while they climbed up the long slope towards the mountains beyond. Although there was much about this relationship he found tedious, his constant lecturing was honing the skills of his trade. He was required by Child’s endless questions to reach into his memory for facts and thoughts untouched in years.
As an archivist he had been given the responsibility to help with the cataloguing and organization of whatever knowledge came to King Dahun: books, scrolls, devices, anything and everything that might prove useful to their demon lord. The archivists had become the closest thing to a brotherhood seen in the demon realm, for every night when they sat in their shared quarters, they would tell one another of those things they had encountered during the day.
Belog had been among the first in his guild and possessed more knowledge than all but a few among them. He had a particular bent for associations, so he saw how knowledge dis covered and shared by one might relate to knowledge dis covered by another, in a way that was not immediately apparent to others. If any demon in the guild had been considered ‘senior’ or of highest rank, it was probably Belog, though those in his calling had never made much of an issue of this. By nature they were as close to being gentle as a demon could be.
Cresting the ridge, Child said, ‘Where do we go now, Teacher?’
He was secretly pleased to be called this, but answered, ‘It depends on where you wish to go.’
She fixed him with a look that told him she was unhappy with that reply, but he was growing in certainty that it would take a situation of crisis proportions for her to kill him. If there was such a thing as affection in their race, these two had chanced upon it.
‘I was not mocking you, Child,’ he said, taking a moment’s rest upon a rock. The long trek was taking its toll. He knew his intelligence was beginning to decline. It would take weeks, perhaps as much as a month of not eating, but eventually he would devolve to a near-animal state and attack Child, even though it would be death for him to do so.
He gazed up into her face and was again astonished at how she was evolving, becoming finer-featured and even more alluring. She must have been a succubus in her previous in carnation, he was almost certain of it now. From the way she was beginning to appear, he was sure she had spent a great deal of time on the mortal planes. Softly he said, ‘I think you have already decided where we are going, Child.’
She smiled and then laughed aloud. It was a musical, beautiful sound. Then her expression turned sombre. She pointed to the east. ‘How long before the Darkness gets here?’
‘ I do not know, Child. It appears to keep growing no matter what is done; fire, steel, magic have been brought against it, yet it happily embraces whatever it touches. A sharpened steel arrow, a falling shard of masonry, the cowering figure of a child, all are welcomed to oblivion by its touch. It is relentless, but unhurried.’ He paused and calculated. ‘I judge a few years, maybe five.’
‘But it will come?’
‘If we have learned anything of the Darkness it is that it is inevitable.’
‘Then we can not stop,’ she said. ‘If we travel for another five years, then in ten it will overtake us. Nothing can stop it.’
‘Everything the Darkness touches it dissolves, and even the stones scream in pain as they are rendered into nothing, yet the Darkness itself is silent, making no sound whatever. It is without substance, yet it consumes all. Yet no matter how much it consumes, it remains without substance. Nothing appeases it, nothing stops it. It just is.’
‘What do you think it wants?’ asked Child, still staring into the distance.
‘I can not pretend to know,’ said the old teacher with a sigh. ‘It is something of a speculation in itself that the Darkness may even be capable of wanting, which would require awareness. Does the wind want anything? Or the rain that falls? Or the fire that burns? Does the sand want as we tread upon it?’
Fixing Belog with a strange expression, Child said, ‘The wind wants balance, the rain wants to seep as far down as possible, and the fire wants to breathe and grow.’ Then she smiled a tiny smile and added, ‘I must confess I have no idea what the sand wants.’
He was silent for a long while as he considered her words, then said, ‘Yet those are mere explanations of their nature and their reason for existence, not any concession to will and consciousness.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I will not be here when the Darkness arrives, no matter how far I must travel.’
‘Where will you go?’ asked Belog.
‘Tell me of Dahun’s war on Maarg in the mortal realm,’ she demanded.
He was surprised by the question, and a little annoyed that she had ignored his. Yet it was clear it was time to start moving again, heading into the now-ravaged former Kingdom of Maarg, looking for only she knew what, and along the way he would be expected to educate and, to a lesser degree, entertain her. And Child would hunt for and feed him.
As existences went, outside the comfort of working on behalf of the King with the other archivists, this wasn’t a particularly unpleasant one, save for all the walking, he amended silently.
As they continued, he told of the summoning of all the King’s forces, how his army was marshalled and every magic at his disposal was used to transport them to a world in the mortal realm, where the armies of Maarg, along with Sebran, Chatak, and other kings of the Second Kingdoms as well as chieftains and warlords of the Savage Lands had been fighting with a race known as the Star Elves. They were physically weak, mortal beings, but they had been cunning and used powerful magic effectively. Their soldiers could not stand against the combined might of five demon armies, but each demon had faced a dozen swords, and the demon legion had paid a price for their victories. More than a million demons had been returned to the breeding crèches, it was estimated, and had the demons been mortal, the war would have been over. But each time a demon died, it returned to the world of its birth, and quickly it was fed and nurtured to fighting strength, then returned to the struggle.
Then Dahun had struck, when
Maarg’s force had inexplicably turned on their own allies, then Dahun had descended on the remnants, and in the end had fought his way across the mortal realm.
Then nothing more had been heard from the great Demon King or his generals. His army and all his retainers had vanished, as if they had never lived.
And Dahun’s kingdom had been left to defend itself against the Darkness.
She began asking questions, and he attempted to answer them as best he could.
‘Why are all rulers male?’ she asked at one point. ‘They aren’t. All kings are male. Female rulers are called queens.’
She nodded, and said nothing and they went on their way, leaving behind a horror even two demons could not understand.
Chapter Eight
Sailor
THE STORM ROILED.
The Suja slammed through heavy combers as it rounded the headlands before making the long run into Caralyan Bay. The crew had proven as ignorant as Jim expected, dock dregs hired at the last minute against the presence of someone such as himself, a Kingdom spy. All they knew was that every ship in Kesh seemed to have been gathered at Hansulé and all of them needed able-bodied sailors.
Jim knew where the ship was by the simple expedient of being able to calculate speed and position in his head. It had been something of a surprise when he had overheard an officer ask the captain where they were headed and he had discovered they were bound for Caralyan and not the deep-water harbour at Elarial.
Still, at the moment, Jim was too busy keeping a grip on wet sheets while reefing sails to wonder about the logic behind that choice. It was the dead of night and the only way Jim and the other men aloft could find their way around the rigging was by the light of a single shuttered oil lantern on each mast and by touch. The ropes were rough enough that he could keep a grip on them with his toes and haul in canvas. But it was the most dangerous task a sailor had to face, working aloft in a gale at night.