"One word? Is that safe?"
The hexer's customary sneer returned. "No. And be warned — I have worded my edicts as carefully as I know how, but Lupus has a sense of humor. If you happen to be clutching a doorframe when you pronounce the word, it may rip your hand off. Or bring the house, too, and drop it on top of you."
"Charming! Is that possible? A house?"
"Perhaps not, but Lupus is an exceptionally powerful demon."
Gulp! Exceptionally powerful and a one-word leash? Dangerous! But if gramarye could flash him back here from Siena with one word, why did he have to endure a demon ride to get there? The mummy was waiting for him to ask. Hamish rummaged through his knowledge of gramarye in search of an answer and saw that Lupus could be assigned a specific target for the return — here — but there was no way to define an equally safe destination in Siena. Given any leeway at all, a demon would drop him in fire, open water, a cesspool, anything to cause pain and adversity.
"Tell me about the other one."
"The other is Zangliveri, and you must wear it on your sword hand. If we meet with any trouble, point your blade at it and say, 'Vestige.' The target will be destroyed."
"Destroyed? People, too?"
"Certainly."
The ethics of murder were troubling enough without wondering how the tutelary would react to strangers slaughtering people with gramarye. It might let them get away with killing other strangers, as long as they left its flock alone — or it might not. "You play for high stakes, Maestro."
"There can be no higher stakes than these."
"Is Zangliveri as strong as Lupus?"
"Stronger. You should be able to open paths through stone walls with Zangliveri."
Hamish nodded and cleared his throat, which felt strangely dry, as if he were starting a cold. "Panoply for a fast getaway, Vestige to strike dead."
Fischart stared at him sourly. "You need to practice them again, or may I open the casket now?"
"I think I've got it."
"Good. I'd hate Zangliveri to turn the floor under your feet into an inferno." He opened the box and lifted out two rings of gold. One bore a blue stone, and the other a black. "Zangliveri. And Lupus."
"Pleased to meet you, Your Maleficences." Hamish slid them onto fingers of his right hand. They went on readily enough, then became painfully tight, but that was just the demons playing tricks. A demon would vent its hatred in any evil it could get away with, which might be plenty when it was held by a mere one-word conjuration. "What's the plan?"
Toby defined a plan as "The least likely sequence of events."
Fischart came around the end of the table. "You ride to Siena, and I follow. We release the steeds, locate Her Maj… the countess… if we can, and thereafter proceed according to our judgment and the turn of events." He had at least a dozen rings sparkling on his fingers — how many of them had been pre-conjured to react to a single word like Zangliveri and Lupus? The man was a walking powder keg.
Panoply, Hamish thought. Panoply. Vestige and panoply. What are we waiting for?
The adept wrung his hands. "I am very reluctant to use my skills against innocent men, Master Campbell. I am not as agile as I was, either. So, while I believe I can handle any gramarye Gonzaga is capable of applying against us and can probably distract the tutelary long enough for our purposes, I shall rely on your reflexes and keen eye if we meet with mortal resistance."
It was a nasty shock to realize that the celebrated hexer was as scared as he was. "Fear not!" Hamish proclaimed. "I am dauntless as a cornered rat unless I have time to think. Let's go." He headed for the door. The nauseating knot of apprehension in his belly went with him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hamish untethered the first demon steed and held its head while Fischart mounted. The brutes looked wrong for horses, acted wrong, smelled wrong, and their hate-filled eyes glowed faintly in the dark. He approached the other carefully, alert for iron-shod hooves and demon teeth that could rip chunks out of a man's flesh, but the hexer must have bound the Westlea demon well, for he was able to mount without trouble. Then he let go the reins and folded his arms. That was a point of honor for a demon rider, because in his terror he might seriously injure the horse's mouth. It was also rank bravado, but only a maniac would attempt this anyway.
"Ready, Maestro?"
"Ready, lad." The hexer's voice was a croak — comforting! "Pivkas, I bid you bear me after Westlea, going unseen."
Hamish wet his lips. "Westlea, I bid you bear me southward, passing east of Florence, going unseen. Go!"
The horse leaped into a place of demons, taking him with it. The first time he had ridden a demon steed, he had screamed for what felt like a solid hour, although in fact he had returned to reality after only a few minutes. Men had been known to go crazy, or faint and fall off, forever lost. One never knew what to expect, except that it would be torment and nightmare. In this case he rode beneath a sky of liquid black, devoid of sun, moon, or stars, and yet there was light of a sort, for the earth was visible from horizon to horizon, barren rock and ash bereft of shadows or color. Buildings were ruined, roofless, and tumbledown. People? There were no people as people, but vague glows writhed here and there like tormented wraiths trying to crawl up out of the soil, wailing appeals as the demon steeds thundered by them. If that was speech they were attempting, it was drowned by the discordant howl of a wind that stirred eye-nipping clouds of dust and once in a while peppered his face with sand. Blasts of feverish heat alternated with skin-freezing cold, both of them bringing rank, repulsive stenches.
He risked a glance behind him and shuddered. All he could see of the hexer was a skeleton astride a skeleton horse. Bones and metal — horseshoes and dagger, boot buckles and coins in a belt pouch. Conversation was impossible in the shrieking wind, but he decided that the old man was coping. His arm bones hung down in front of him, so he must be hanging on to the pommel of his saddle. That seemed like a good idea. Hamish could not see his own saddle, but he could feel it and cling to it. He tried not to look at his own bones or the sword dangling unsupported at his side. The gale tugged at his invisible cloak.
Florence was a ruin and an ancient one, as it might look a hundred years after the Fiend had sacked it, all crumbling walls and hills of rubble. He reminded himself that demons could not prophesy, and it was obvious that a pillar of light marked the sanctuary and lesser glows shone from the many shrines, defying the demonic illusion. To look at them hurt Hamish's eyes. He was not in a state of grace at the moment.
He could not, would not, stand this torment for very long. Coughing at the grit and filth in his mouth, he shouted, "Westlea, I bid you go faster!" A few moments later he repeated the command. Now the demon steed hurtled over the nightmare landscape like a stooping hawk. It crossed the dry bed of the Arno in three or four leaps and raced up the hills beyond. Had the demon world been ruled by the same laws as the world of mankind, it would have left a dust cloud a league long.
The baron was still with him. Either the old mummy was tougher than he looked or he had reinforced himself with some gramarye that he had not offered to Hamish. Either way—
"Westlea, I bid you go faster!"
Now the drum of hooves blended into a roar, like rain. The eldritch scenery rushed by in a blur. Southward he flew over the Chianti Hills, past Impruneta, Greve, and Castellina, retracing his journey of the last two days in a tiny fraction of that time. It just felt longer.
He came at last to a demonized vision of Siena, but the spirits burned there as bright as in Florence and would not take kindly to demons within their domain. Hamish halted Westlea in a field just outside the city wall. Then the air was sweet again, the stars shone above living trees. He bade his steed stand absolutely still and leaped to the ground. He shouted the same command to Pivkas — glad that he had remembered its name — and caught Fischart as he tumbled from the saddle.