“What?” asked Max, both relieved and wary of any favor a demon might require.
“We’ll talk on the road,” muttered Prusias, rising to settle Gianna back in her crib. “You have a charming daughter,” he remarked to Isabella. “She’ll do very well.”
Blinking suddenly, the demon shooed Max along as though he were late for school. “Pack your things,” he muttered. “I wish to reach the palace by dawn.”
Max hurried up the stairs, where he found Nix and Valya crouched upon the upper landing. Putting a finger to his lips, Max motioned for them to follow him down the hall to his room.
“I only have a minute,” he hissed, emptying his pack upon the bed. “Don’t interrupt, and do exactly as I say. I need you to send the map, this little ship, and these metal shards to William Cooper at Rowan. Smuggle them or something, but make sure he gets them along with a note explaining what happened. Okay?”
Nix nodded and quickly slid the items beneath the bed. Valya helped Max pack everything else. Tying his bag’s straps, Max stood and quickly embraced the pair before hurrying back down the hall.
Prusias was waiting by the door, tapping his cane and smiling pleasantly at his terrified hosts. The children stood ramrod straight, their eyes trained upon the demon’s shadow, which writhed unnaturally upon the wall. Putting on his coat, Max turned to the many faces that now looked to him.
“Goodbye,” he said. “Be good and look after Skeedle.”
And with that, Max followed Prusias out into the night.
“This is a happy chance,” chuckled Prusias, looping an arm around Max’s shoulder and leading him toward the road. “Here I am scouring the lands for warriors and I stumble upon Max McDaniels hiding in my very kingdom! I blush at my good fortune.…”
Stepping onto the road, the demon took up his cane and rapped it impatiently upon the cobbles. There was an explosion of light, a plume of sparks, and cascading witch-fire that made Max start and shield his eyes. When he opened them, he looked upon a carriage, a gleaming black Berlin stamped with Prusias’s royal seal. Four horses pulled the carriage, but they were not of flesh and blood, but billowing flame and smoke—spirits of fire forced into an earthly, animal shape.
A glass window slid open, revealing a small, anxious face.
“My lord!” sputtered a red-skinned imp, opening the door. “I thought you wished to travel inconspic—”
“Change of plans,” muttered Prusias. “Mr. Bonn, say hello to Max McDaniels. He’ll be accompanying us home.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the imp. He bowed to Max before giving Prusias a knowing grin.
“Don’t sit there smirking,” scolded Prusias. “Max is our guest. Take his bag and let’s be on our way.”
In an instant, the apologetic imp had stowed Max’s bag and helped him inside the Berlin, whose rich, spacious interior far exceeded its external dimensions. Sliding in after Max, Prusias sighed and reached for a handkerchief. Easing back, the demon mopped his brow and beard, grunting at the dried blood that he wiped from his mouth.
“How embarrassing,” he chuckled, tossing it across to Mr. Bonn. The demon rapped against the carriage door with his cane, and the fiery horses bolted into motion.
For the first few minutes, Max sat in tense silence, watching flames race past the glass window as the carriage rocketed smoothly down the road. Prusias slouched low in his seat, his taloned fingers plucking at his mail sleeve while he poured a glass of whiskey from a crystal decanter. He offered it to Max, who quietly declined. With a shrug, Prusias leaned back and took a sip.
“That was bad business about your father,” he rumbled. “Bad business indeed. Vyndra goes too far.”
Max stared at the demon as he swirled and sipped his drink.
“So you admit Vyndra murdered him,” said Max coldly.
“Admit?” remarked Prusias. “Of course I admit it. I feel responsible!”
“What does it have to do with you?”
“Vyndra wants my throne,” said Prusias with a rogue’s grin. “My beautiful city is infested with his spies and assassins. The nobles expect a civil war and are naturally trying to predict and align with the victor. Should Vyndra defeat someone of your reputation, it would weigh in his favor.”
While Prusias poured himself another drink, Mr. Bonn cleared his throat and opened a leather case stuffed with official-looking papers and certificates.
“My king,” said the imp. “While you’ve been away, matters of state have been piling up.”
“Let’s hear them, then,” growled Prusias, rubbing his eyes. “And mind our guest, Mr. Bonn.”
For the next hour, Max gazed out the carriage window at the purple blur of countryside. Now and again, yellow flames licked the glass and played about the edges of the pane, while Prusias replied to various petitions with a begrudging yes or an emphatic no.
When the imp reached for another stack, Prusias waved him off. Sitting up, the demon slid the glass window open so the night air could come rushing in.
“I remember when this road was made,” muttered Prusias. “I’ve traveled it so many times, but I never tire of it.”
“If you find it so enchanting, why are you tearing it all down?” asked Max bitterly.
“I’m not,” the demon retorted. “In the capital, you’ll still find many of the old things. I’ve just given them their proper scale.”
“Why do you hate mankind so much?” Max demanded.
“If you believe that, you don’t understand me,” said Prusias. “I love mankind. Love everything about them. The passion, the energy, the emotions, the desperation to do something, to be something before death claims them in a few short years. Mankind is a fireworks show. There are days I wish I’d been born human.”
Max scoffed.
“It’s true,” agreed Mr. Bonn. “I’ve heard him say it many a time.”
“Immortality’s overrated,” purred Prusias. “It robs one of all urgency! Most mortals fail to understand that death’s imminence is really a gift. Humans may fear me, Max, but I know them and love them. They will find no stronger ally among daemona.…”
Prusias’s voice trailed off as the carriage came to a jarring halt. Mr. Bonn blanched under his master’s glance and practically leaped out of the carriage to see what was amiss.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Bonn?” Prusias growled. “Why are we delayed?”
The imp’s frightened face appeared at the door.
“Those flowers again, m’ lord,” said the imp. “They’re … everywhere!”
Prusias cursed and reached into an inlaid box for a silk kerchief. Pressing it tightly to his face, he snatched up his cane and slid his infernal bulk across the seat. Poking his head out after the demon, Max saw the spectral horses rearing uneasily, their manes tossing flecks of fire. Ahead, the road descended toward an ancient bridge, a crumbling span that arced across a gurgling stream. David’s red flowers—thousands of them—fanned out from the banks, sloping up the hillside until they twined about the overpass, choking it like a noxious garland.
“What are those?” asked Max, feigning ignorance.
“Nothing,” coughed Prusias. “A pestilential weed.”
With a sweep of his cane, the demon destroyed the flowers in an immolation of golden flames. The twining stalks swayed in the heat, each petal hissing as the heat forced its poisonous sap to burst forth as from a blister. Prusias watched the bridge burn in silence, removing the kerchief only when the flowers and their vines were reduced to a smoldering lattice. There was a frightful gleam in the demon’s luminous eyes when he returned to the carriage, and Max backed quickly inside and against the far seat.
At Prusias’s command, the carriage lurched into motion once again, and the demon’s mood gradually improved. He seemed almost childlike, sitting forward and glancing occasionally out the window as the sky brightened toward dawn.
“Have you visited the great city, Max?” asked Prusias. “Skulked about its borders or braved an inner ward since livin
g in my lands?”
“No.”
“Come here.” The demon beckoned, motioning for the imp to move. “You can see it better from Mr. Bonn’s seat.”
Sitting in the imp’s place, Max gazed out the window to see a morning sky of pale gold. The sun rose behind a series of hills, driving off the night mists and illuminating a city whose walls and buildings sprawled about the hills and valleys, stretching forth along the Tiber like a growing garden.
“Could you stop the carriage?” Max whispered, pressing at the glass. Cackling with delight, the demon accommodated him, and Max slid out to stand on the worn road and gaze upon a city that transcended his imagination.
In the morning light, the entire city seemed a sculpture, a smooth array of strange volumes and shadows, grand shapes that melted into one another at surprising junctions to form complex geometries or bizarre, organic shapes reminiscent of sea life. Throughout this mad jumble, however, Max could see unmistakable elements of human architecture—Chinese pavilions, Islamic minarets, Egyptian obelisks, massive domes and cupolas whose scale dwarfed their human antecedents. These and countless other buildings were piled upon one another, partially obscured by a smoglike haze.
The palace itself was of unimaginable scale. It was as if the Palatine Hill had been raised up into a mountain, where terraced slopes and buildings all converged upon the massive palace that crowned the peak. A gargantuan pyramid served as the base of the palace, its shape blending gradually into something akin to an enormous replica of the Coliseum. From this second stage rose yet another structure whose inspiration must have been Notre Dame Cathedral. But this version of the Gothic masterpiece had been stretched, its verticality exaggerated beyond that of the original so that its tallest spires rose to unfathomable heights.
“And you thought we’d tear everything down!” laughed Prusias, delighted. “Come now, before they get news of us.”
Max wondered at this remark, but it soon became clear. “They” were the countless human refugees who lived outside the city in sprawling tent communities and corrugated metal camps that littered what had been the Field of Mars and the Tiber’s western banks.
Men, women, and children came running, thousands of them, in states of ragged squalor. They lined the roadway, pushing and jostling one another, crying out at the carriage that now raced along the road, scattering the stragglers. Faces passed in a blur, young and old, each marked with a singular desperation.
“Fortune!” they screamed, each straining to be heard above his neighbor. “FORTUNE!”
“Why are they yelling that?” asked Max, deeply disturbed by the spectacle.
“They wish a boon,” sighed Prusias, drumming his knuckles on the window. “Pick one.”
“Excuse me?” asked Max, blinking as the carriage raced on, leaving hundreds in its wake.
“Pick one,” repeated Prusias.
“Her, I guess,” said Max, pointing at an elderly woman in a black wrap.
The Berlin screeched to a halt, the flaming horses bucking wildly. The crowd surged forward, kept back only by the flames that licked the carriage’s side. A crazed, frantic hope was stamped on each eager face as Prusias slid open the window.
“You there,” he murmured lazily. “Not the brat, the woman behind.”
A youth scowled and stood aside as a wrinkled crone hobbled forward, her hands clasped in supplication.
“Fortune!” she wheezed, a pitiable rapture on her unblinking face.
“Fortune is granted,” cooed Prusias, showing his small teeth and petting the woman’s hand. “Ease your worries, Grandmother. Mr. Bonn shall take your name, and you shall enter Blys this very day.”
While the imp handled the details, the passed-over youth muttered something under his breath. Prusias’s face darkened and he thrust his great head out the window.
“Stop that boy,” he barked, gesturing angrily at several men. The youth was dragged before the carriage, his face pale but defiant.
“What did you say?” asked Prusias mildly.
“Nothing,” replied the boy.
“Is that so?” wondered the demon. “I could have sworn I heard a hint of protest. Could this be?”
“No,” said the boy, all defiance draining from him.
“Are you saying that I’m lying?” asked Prusias.
“No,” said the youth, looking away.
“Are you saying that I’m mistaken?” Prusias inquired dreamily.
“No,” whispered the boy, now trembling like a leaf.
The demon raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways at his assistant. “Mr. Bonn, at sundown, you will release ten vyes from my dungeons and let them prey among the human camps.”
“NO!” yelled the boy.
“Make it twenty,” said Prusias with a shrug.
“But—!”
“Fifty.” The demon smiled. “The vyes may do as they will, but this boy is not to be harmed.”
“Yes, m’ lord,” replied Mr. Bonn as smoothly as if he were jotting down a shopping list.
“Do you see?” asked the demon, wagging a clawed finger at the stricken youth. “Defiance and ingratitude reap no reward in my kingdom. Remember this lesson and perhaps one day Fortune shall be yours.…”
The window was closed and the carriage clattered on. Prusias settled down once again into his seat and yawned before making further observations about the city—various quarters and districts that Max might explore with proper escort. When the demon digressed into observations about his chef’s latest dishes, Max broke in.
“So, you’re just going to let vyes hunt among the people who are huddled at your gates?” he asked.
“Does that violate your delicate sensibilities?” inquired the demon, amused.
“It’s barbaric,” said Max. “Those people need you.”
“And I need them,” Prusias acknowledged. “But on my terms, Max. Always on my terms.”
“What will happen to that woman?” asked Max, swallowing his outrage.
“She will enter Blys and live in the Garden District,” Prusias explained. “She will enjoy a life of ease and plenty.”
“So she’s won the lottery,” said Max. “All these people languishing in filth, praying for the ‘Great Prusias’ to stop and make their fortune.”
“But that’s what I do,” laughed the demon. “Who suggested that Cleopatra smuggle herself in a carpet? Who told Alexander to sever that knot? Who helped Drake ambush the Spanish? I’ve been making fortunes for eons, Max.”
Max wanted to hurt the demon; he wanted to inflict pain upon Prusias as the demon had done throughout the centuries. It was a wild, sadistic impulse—a sudden, unblinking surge of emotion. Alas, words were his only weapons.
“I know why you walk with a cane,” Max blurted, staring at Prusias’s lame leg. “Bram broke you like a stick across his knee. He sent you fleeing out the window.”
The demon’s smile evaporated.
An unholy fire kindled behind Prusias’s eyes, and for a moment, Max feared that he had made a terrible error. The demon gazed at Max from across the carriage.
But at length, Prusias shrugged. “Bram was a powerful Sorcerer,” he acknowledged. “Good company, too, until he overreached.”
“What are you talking about?” said Max.
“I assume you learned of my injury at Rowan,” mused Prusias. “Perhaps from Bram’s very own account?”
“Yes,” said Max, remembering the chilling excerpts he’d read of Prusias in the Conjurer’s Codex.
“What did it say, I wonder?” said Prusias, a malevolent smile playing about his lips.
“It said that you possessed his servant,” said Max. “That you meant to kill him until he discovered and broke you!”
“Is that his version?” exclaimed the demon. “That is telling! I’ll have you know, Max, that I was there at Bram’s bidding that evening. He needed my help, and in the midst of our conversation, his young servant entered and witnessed his master trafficking in forbidden arts.
Your noble Bram brought madness upon the boy and cast me from the circle before curious parties could arrive. Remember him however you like, but Bram was the most ardent student of black magic I’ve ever met.”
Max opened his mouth and shut it again. The demon sighed.
“It hurts to learn your heroes have a wart or two,” Prusias observed wryly.
They rode on in silence, Max gazing out at the uneven shantytowns and lean-tos.
“Please don’t loose vyes on the camps,” he whispered. “Leave those people alone.”
“That’s why I love humans!” crowed Prusias, smacking his knee. “Whenever I focus on their faults, some noble impulse rears its head and shames me.” The demon glanced keenly at him, as though weighing the moment. “Do you know what my favorite game is?” he asked.
“No,” said Max.
“Quid pro quo,” said the demon, playfully emphasizing each syllable with a tap of his cane. “You do for me, I do for you. For example, tonight will begin a series of games—spectacles for the populace. Since you refused to partake in the médim, you will partake in these. If you perform well, I shall be inclined to grant favors to the humans. If you perform poorly …” Prusias shrugged and grimaced to reveal his tiny, perfect teeth. “But you won’t perform poorly,” the demon concluded. “We shall have to disguise you, of course. Mr. Bonn shall see to all the details.”
“I won’t fight for you,” snapped Max.
“You’re not fighting for me,” observed the demon smoothly. “You’re fighting for them.…”
They were nearing the Tiber now and the broad bridge ramp that spanned the river. The ramp rose toward a towering stone disk upon which was carved the face of a bearded man whose mouth served as the main gate. There was something in the mindless eyes and hollow expression that Max found disturbing.
“The Mouth of Truth,” remarked Prusias. “I was so taken with the original that I had it enlarged.”
Through his window, Max gaped up at the stone face, its blank eyes staring ahead while its mouth stood open to receive them. Passing within the mouth, the Berlin entered a tunnel whose only light came from the fiery horses.