“Oh…crap,” Phin muttered. “This is the Node, isn’t it?”
Poltus looked at him, and gave a small smile displaying teeth that looked like they were filed to points.
“I gather you have read the book already. Good.”
Poltus’s wings moved a little and the devil floated down to the level of the main floor. Phin stayed where he was on the catwalk, leaning on his hands on the black balustrade. The little devil turned to look back up at him.
“Come, Mr. Phoarty. Someone who needs to speak with you will be along shortly.”
Phin stared, at the devil, at the Node, at the great featureless walls of the tower, and at the false sun floating high above. The silence in the place was eerie and though brightly lit all seemed pregnant with unseen menace. The devil waited, bobbing gently in the still air, and Phin slowly took the nearest horseshoe stair to the floor. He approached Poltus in front of one of the nine sets of wooden portals leading to the gallery wings. The designs on the heavy doors were so intricate they looked like formulae.
“You…you’ve read the book, too?” Phin asked.
“As much of it as I could.”
“Well, did you get enough to know that I can not do anything here?”
The devil frowned, and Phin jerked as the double doors behind him split in the middle. One swung open.
A grinning figure with green and blonde hair stepped out, wearing a deeply red gown. Phin took her as a woman for all of a second before noticing the wings, and the glassy red eyes. And the fangs. She stepped to the side, and a man came out behind her. Phin blinked at the filthy fellow, as he carried the familiar tower shield of the Legions.
He was unknown to Phin though he wore a legionnaire breastplate as well, and had an Imperial short sword on his hip. His helmet was an old battered thing of leather and iron. His dark hair and short beard were unkempt and matted with the gray dust of Vod’Adia’s streets, and his brown eyes were shadowed and sunken from lack of sleep. Phin did recognize the leather satchel hanging from a strap over the man’s shoulder, for he had been wearing it himself that way for the previous two days. Judging by the weight hanging in it, it still contained the Sarge’s book.
“Phinneas Phoarty?” the man asked, his voice soft but with a sharp edge on his words. There was something familiar about him.
“Y-yes?” Phin said, for there seemed little point in denying it, and he had the sense he did not want to make this man angry.
The man looked at him, then out at the Node. Poltus slipped innocuously out through the door, and the winged woman winked at Phin before she followed the spiny devil, pulling the door shut behind them.
“This is the Node,” the man said. He brought one hand to the satchel. “And this is the book.”
He turned to Phin. “And you are the Wizard.”
“I know you,” Phin said, staring. “You were at the Dead Possum. You cut the Sarge’s fingers off.”
“Yes I was. Yes I did.”
“What do you want from me?” Phin asked.
The man raised a hand and Phin flinched, but the fellow only set it on Phin’s shoulder. Phin was the taller of the two but the man the Sarge had called Centurion Deskata was built like a bull.
“I just want to go home, Phinneas.”
The Node and the book and the Wizard. This man wanted the same thing as the other legionnaires. Phin started to feel queasy.
“I can’t help you,” he said.
The man looked Phin in the eye, and for Phin it was like meeting the gaze of a dangerous animal.
“You may wish to reconsider,” Deskata said. He grabbed a handful of Phin’s robes and dragged the wizard down the stone stairs toward the center of the chamber.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Balan, Balan, Balan!” Nesha-tari shouted, and the Devil Lord winked into being at the head of the table.
“Damn,” Balan muttered. “Forgot about that.”
Zeb grabbed his axe from where it leaned against a wall as his crossbow took too long to load to be useful at the moment. Tilda however snatched up her bow and drew a bead on Balan, while Heggenauer raised his shield and mace. Balan smirked at all three of them.
“You don’t really think any of that would work, do you?” Balan asked, but he lost his smile as a snikt! sounded behind him and Uriako Shikashe extended the white blade of the Breath of Winter, holding the tip of the curving sword just off Balan’s neck above his right shoulder.
“Huh,” Balan said, glancing sideways. “Yes, that might do it.”
“Balan, what have you done with John Deskata?” Nesha-tari demanded.
“Not a thing, Madame. He decided to leave completely of his own accord.”
“Where has he gone?” Tilda asked, still with her bow fully drawn back, the string hooked on her archer’s glove and her straight left arm trembling slightly.
“Not far,” Balan said.
“Enough dissembling,” Nesha-tari snapped, marching around the table and coming to stand quite near the devil. Tilda relaxed the pull on her bowstring before her arm gave, and Zeb knelt behind the table to load his crossbow as innocuously as possible.
Nesha-tari’s blue eyes flashed as she glared at the devil, standing near enough now to touch him but only raising one hand to jab a finger at his face. Zeb knew the woman was powerful, but the sight of her confronting the horned, hoofed, red-eyed Devil Lord with her hands empty of weapons, or lightning for that matter, was truly impressive. She growled as she spoke to Balan.
“You will tell the truth to me now, as your kind must. What is it you think to do here?”
Balan stared into Nesha-tari’s eyes, and a wistful smile played about his dark gray lips.
“There is no need for such a coarse tone, Madame. Nor indeed for you to involve yourself here at all.”
Balan looked at Nesha-tari with a solemn expression on his diabolic features, and spoke with complete sincerity.
“There is no reason what I do here need be of any concern to you, nor to your Blue Master, Akroya the Great.”
Nesha-tari’s lips pulled back, exposing her even teeth.
“How do you…”
“Because Danavod told me who you are,” Balan said with a shrug, then looked around at the others. “Even had she not, we would have learned all by now. You people talk entirely too much. Do you not know that the streets of this city have ears? Not to mention eyes. Beady little red ones.”
“Balan…” Nesha-tari snarled. The devil sighed.
“Call off your man, Nesha-tari, that we might speak in a more polite fashion.”
“He is stalling,” Tilda said, but Nesha-tari met Shikashe’s eyes over Balan’s shoulder, and the sword blade hovering just above it.
“Uriako Shikashe, stand down.”
The face mask of the samurai’s helmet was undone. He was seen to frown deeply.
“That is not a good idea, Madame.”
“It is an order. Are you in my service, or are you not?”
Shikashe let a hard breath out through his nose, then gave Balan’s neck a soft tap with the flat of his sword. Balan winced as though the blade was either very hot, or very cold. The samurai lowered his sword and took a step back, though he took a formal stance with both hands on the pommel, clearly ready to strike in an instant.
“That is moderately better,” Balan said, rubbing his neck.
“Speak, Balan,” Nesha-tari growled.
“Fine,” the devil said, and nodded toward Tilda. “She is right. I am stalling.”
The devil disappeared in a wink. Shikashe lunged, his sword flashing, but it passed through where Balan had stood and cut a slice clean through the top of the heavy oak table.