“Alright,” Bryan said. “Let’s see this carriage of yours.”
CHAPTER 23: LADY GLACIA
“Murdread has twenty-four demons of significant rank down in the King’s Courtyard,” Kirvel said to Lady Glacia.
This time they were meeting in the basement of an abandoned part of Demia. A place where the lava pools encroaching made the surroundings uninhabitable. She didn’t want to risk exposing her best spy in Murdread’s service. Two of her biggest guards stood beside Glacia, fully covered in black steel armor and each carrying very large axes.
Only twenty-four? Glacia pondered. She never thought Murdread was a serious threat, but only twenty-four?
“I thought better of you, Kirvel,” she said.
“I am performing my duties and no one believes for an instant my loyalties lie elsewhere,” Kirvel said.
“If you were performing your duties well, I wouldn’t be surprised by how small Murdread’s force is. A hundred or so demonlings and only two dozen of significance? I should have been aware of those numbers long ago,” she said.
“Are you worried he will not have enough to fulfill your needs of his plans?” Kirvel asked.
“Your little mind is not capable of understanding my plans,” Glacia said. “Don’t be presumptuous enough to think I will explain anything I don’t want you to know. The intricacies of my plans are mine to know. Your duty, for which I have been rewarding you handsomely, is to accomplish the little tasks I assign you.”
“I just thought we were happy with Murdread succeeding,” Kirvel said.
Glacia reached out and took large axe from one of her guards. She spun the axe around in one hand, rolling the haft over the back of her hand a couple times, just for show. Sometimes the lesser demons required a show of physical strength, and her human-like feminine body belied her strength. When the weapon stopped spinning the axe blade rested against Kirvel’s neck.
“This is the second time I’ve had to remind you of your station,” Glacia said, speaking in a firm voice. “I almost never have to resort to threats to keep my loyal followers in line. If your rewards are insufficient to temper your curiosity, perhaps we need to re-evaluate our arrangement.”
Kirvel croaked, “I’m actually perfectly happy with the current arrangement. Don’t ask questions, I get that now. You won’t hear another question from me other than ‘What can I do to serve you, milady?’”
“Since you asked,” Glacia said as pulled the axe away and tossed it to the guard. She again used her usual seductive honey voice, “I need the name of Darien’s mortal. The one he is going to use in the final phases of his plans.”
“I’ll get that for you, milady,” Kirvel said. He bowed, took a step away, bowed again, and then scurried off.
The demonling’s value was quickly diminishing in Glacia’s eyes. She’d expected ambition when she’d recruited him. She’d underestimated not only his curiosity, but his ability to comprehend her complex manipulations. He’d been wrong in his assessments, but someday he might not be. She was sure his time in her service was coming to an end. She pondered what kind of end would be appropriate for Kirvel.
CHAPTER 24: PANTROS
The white spires of Melnith were a welcome sight a few days after they’d met up with Bryan. Pantros had missed Bryan, but two days of hearing his tales of surviving the Wylde Woodlands were more than enough to reacquaint him with his friend. It took them another day to reach the city. Several spires reached all the way into the clouds. Sheillene told him the entire city had been built with magic. The marble was shaped and sometimes even grown using magic.
If the stories were true, Melnith was over fifty thousand years old and it wasn’t the oldest of the Abvi cities.
“The main tower at the Sorcery College is almost a league tall,” Sheillene said. “They say the top levels can sway a hundred paces in the wind. Odd that they say it, since, being sorcerers, master of the element of air, they can control wind.”
“My baby sister is a teacher at the Sorcery College,” Thomas said.
“How?” Sheillene asked.
Thomas shrugged. “Well, she went there, learned for a while, and now she teaches.”
“No,” Sheillene said. “I mean if you’re a hundred and thirty, and she’s your baby sister, and the Sorcerers don’t take Abvi students prior to a hundred and twenty-five, what you tell me is not possible. Is she not also Abvi?”
“She’s pure Abvi, but they took her when she was twenty five,” Thomas said. “She’d already taught herself basic Sorcery from a book. They take humans at twenty; it wasn’t that much of a stretch to take an Abvi that young. We mature as fast as humans, we just live forever and get far more mature.” Thomas’s eyes darted to the various humans in the carriage. No one reacted.
“We’re quite the crowd,” Tara said. “We have the King of Thieves, The Greatest Bard ever, a General who has yet to see twenty two summers, and you, Sheillene, who, as I understand it is not only the greatest archer alive, but you were born with an innate ability to play any instrument.”
“I only play strings,” Sheillene said. “I tried a flute once and a cat attacked me to make me stop. I took the hint and never touched one again.”
“Well we can’t be a collection of the greatest,” Norda said. “I’d never claim to be the best Knight, and which of Tara or Faren would be the best innkeeper? And unless biggest means best, I don’t know how to classify Marc.”
“Humility is the trait of a great knight,” Sheillene said.
“He’s the best knight I’ve known,” Tara said. “But we don’t get many knights or any knights in Ignea. Still, I’m a bit scared. What if this is something big that’s happening and fate is bringing us all together?”
“It’s not fate,” Sheillene said. “Thomas, the older Thomas, is behind much of this. And without trying to be mean, this Thomas is good, but it was the older Thomas who is the greatest bard ever, this one is not quite at that level yet.”
“And I’m retired,” Pantros said. He had been thinking about how to maintain his profession after the journey. His last theft had been such a mistake that he seriously questioned if he could rationalize the morality of burglary anymore. “I’m just going to go build my castle and enjoy the view, even if it’s on a scrap of land no one cares about.”
“It is looking less and less like I’m an innkeeper anymore,” Tara said. “It’s not like I can go back to living in Ignea if I’m going to be alone there.”
“I’m with you wherever you go,” Thomas said.
“Ignea is the absolute worst place for a bard to base from,” Tara said. “You need somewhere more central to the trade routes. Sheillene is based out of the Rampant Gelding so she can travel pretty much anywhere and everywhere.”
“So I’ll buy you an inn in Fork,” Thomas said.
“You’re poor,” Tara said.
“I won’t always be,” Thomas said. “There’s another me running around who is much older than me, he’s probably made a few pennies in his long and strange life. When I’m that Thomas, I’ll use my money to buy you an inn. If I remember to, I already did. Well, the other me already did, if he remembered. There was an old building between the Rampant Gelding and the west gate that looked like it might have been an inn at some point. I bought that for you.”
“You did?” Tara asked.
“Well not me, but the other me.” Thomas shrugged. “If I remembered, and it doesn’t sound like I’m the forgetful type.”
Pantros tried to blink away his confusion. His sister seemed accustomed to the idea of two Thomases.
“I liked my staff, James and Bouncer and even Dale, though he ate and drank more than I paid him. At least his consumption was predictable,” Tara said.
“We can send for them,” Thomas said. “It’s not like they have to take the dangerous overland route.”
“Couldn’t you arrange all this in your future so that we can avoid all the hassles and just move away when my parents died?” Tara asked.