The Demon Lord (22 page)

The implied recent mutilation made him wince a little; that, and the bowman’s youth, would make him sensitive and determined to prove something—anything—to a world which might consider him incomplete. It would make him as deadly as a coiled adder. And yet there was something about him which sounded a near-forgotten chord of memory… His hair… ? It was cut short, yet not close-cropped like that of the Imperial military—but it was black. The memory hovered an instant, and was gone.

The single eye blinked lazily, like a cat’s. “No demon, eh? Some would argue. I am
eijo
. And what are you, besides a man of Cerenau?” Those last words were in pure Alban, coloured by that Elthanek burr which had been so hard to reconcile with the Drusalan language, and the fat man blinked.

“Is my accent so obvious?” he said, and laughed— hollowly, and forcing it just a little.
An
eijo,
before Heaven
. ...
That explains the hair
. But it did not— quite—explain that tiny, nagging memory. He hid a grimace with a broad, false smile.

“Are you a priest,” the girl wondered innocently, and now he wondered how much of that wide-eyed curiosity was no more than an act, “that your first words are concerned with demons?”

“Not a priest,” he replied with as much hauteur as a stealthily slipping towel would permit. “I am Marek En-dain, demon queller.
The
demon queller.” His bow was jerky, laced with a faintly aggressive politeness.

The
eijo
replied with a perfunctory salute and grinned, yet despite its brevity that flash of teeth disarmed the situation. “Demon queller indeed,” he murmured softly, half to himself and half to the girl. There might have been awe or respect in his voice, but somehow Marek was inclined to doubt it. “Kourgath,
eijo
of Alba, traveller and mercenary.” He cleared his throat, gently mocking Marek’s insistent emphasis. “Just
a
mercenary. And my lady: Gueynor of…”

“No fixed abode,” suggested the demon queller generously.

“Ternon, originally,” Gueynor finished for him. “Some years back.”

Not too many, thought Marek, looking at her; babes in arms don’t leave home alone. I wonder do your parents know about… His eyes slid momentarily to the
eijo’s
face. Probably not. Already over the worst of his fright—and despite appearances, Marek Endain did not frighten easily—he was beginning to guess why this young couple were so jumpy and suspicious. The lad in his middle twenties, the girl not twenty yet—well-spoken, both of them. A mercenary and, he guessed, a wealthy merchant’s daughter, and not forcibly abducted either by the look of her. Both expecting and fearing pursuit. It was like a story… Marek felt warmly sentimental, remembering an occasion when he too had been young.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” he announced impulsively, hitching his towel to a new anchorage higher up the majestic curve of his belly. Kourgath and Gueynor looked at him, both wearing the same startled expression, then at each other. They smiled.

And the towel abruptly slipped. Kourgath added to Marek’s embarrassment by laughing aloud as the Cer-nuan grabbed wildly, while Gueynor put one hand in front of her mouth and blushed becomingly. The demon queller was beyond blushing. When the Jevaiden plateau obstinately refused to open up and swallow him he straightened his back and, carefully avoiding anyone’s direct gaze, muttered, “If… if you don’t mind, I’ll dress now.”

“I don’t mind at all,” the
eijo
returned with a sardonic grin, “and neither does my lady. In fact we would consider it a wise decision. Very wise indeed.”

“Do you think that we can trust him?” Gueynor asked softly when the Cernuan had walked away.

Aldric gazed after him and nodded. “Yes, I think so. In any event, we have to—unless you prefer the alternative… ?”

“I told you before—I won’t agree to murder!”

“Except,” Aldric’s voice was nasty, “for the Geruaths. So call this self-defence…”

“Why? Because it sounds better?”

“If he’s dangerous there won’t be any choice in the matter.”

“Thanks to you!” Gueynor was still angered by what she deemed an ill-considered action on Aldric’s part, and with Marek out of earshot was certainly not reluctant to let him know it. “If you hadn’t been so hasty he would have passed us by!”

“I… doubt it.” There was little else that he could say as a reply to her accusation, and no way now that he could start to explain about his sixth-sense feelings or make her understand why he had been certain that Marek’s intended route would have brought the demon queller and his pony right on top of them. Knowing that, it had been no more than good tactics to make the first move; he had gained the advantage of surprise and, it seemed now, perhaps, an unsuspecting ally as well.

“Did you see his face?” he murmured thoughtfully, remembering Marek’s expression.

“What about his face?”

“I suspect he thinks we’ve run away together.” Gueynor snorted. “No, it’s true.” He explained briefly what he had read on the Cernuan’s bearded features, and the girl examined his reasoning in silence for a moment before she pursed her lips and nodded.

“You might be right,” she conceded reluctantly, not sounding particularly convinced. “But what difference does that make?”

“It means that he’s formed his own opinions—and they’ll be more credible to his mind than anything I might try to feed him. He’s forgiven me for that arrow already—at least, he didn’t mention it—and I doubt now that he would betray us to anyone, even accidentally. Marek thinks he knows who would be looking for us, and why. He’s a romantic at heart, I think—or would like to be.”

“You think!”

“I think. No more than that. But I’d still go bond for his silence.”

Gueynor stared at Aldric, then very gently reached out to adjust the black patch over his eye. He had raised it to shoot, muttering something about not judging the distance accurately otherwise, had not replaced it snugly enough and had been twitching at it ever since, as if it itched. She patted his cheek afterwards. “Don’t go bond for anything,” she advised, and the waspishness had left her voice. “You might forfeit more than money.”

What then? the Alban thought. Life? Honour… ! No, not honour. That was long since lost. Once again he had maneuvered an innocent stranger into accepting him as something he was not, employing deception with a practised ease. It was a dishonourable thing for any Alban warrior to do, and for a clan-lord should have been unthinkable. It had been unthinkable for him, but in a subtly different way—he had not thought about it at all. Maybe if Marek had been from somewhere else it would not have mattered, would not have had him thinking like this—but he was Cernuan. South Alban— though if he was like the other Cernuans Aldric had met he would not appreciate such a misnomer—and a fellow-countryman in this foreign province. Maybe he was a little mad after all, if to be mad meant to no longer care about losing his own self-respect…

Was that why he had helped Evthan in his hunt for the Beast? And why he now hoped to help Gueynor? Because he was trying to recover something, to prove something to the world and to himself… ? Prove that he could have saved his father’s life and his own honour if he had come home in time. And would he always have to prove it by killing and deceit, down all the days of a life that seemed sometimes already far too long?

Aldric’s mouth opened, but no words emerged and it closed again with a snap of teeth that Gueynor could hear. Instead he got to his feet, almost flinging himself upright and away from the comfort of her hand, her presence, her sympathy. He seized the black wolfskin
coyac
and drew it on over his shirt, hesitating a moment as he felt its weight settle on his shoulders, then moved away to stare unseeing down towards the uncomplicated pool while he tried to come to terms with the complications inside his own head.

When Marek returned he was wearing a splendid
cymar
of scarlet patterned with whorls of gold and black; two stoppered wine-jars were secured between the fingers of his left hand and three beechwood drinking bowls in the right. His arrival on Aldric’s blind side went unnoticed, but still he glanced warily towards Gueynor, suspecting that his previous appearance had precipitated some sort of argument. Only when she patted the ground where her companion had been sitting and smiled shyly at him was the Cernuan reassured. Whatever their dispute, he guessed that a little red Elherran wine would be appreciated. By himself, if no one else!

Aldric heard the distinctive sound of a withdrawing cork, but ignored it. In his present mood the last thing he intended was to start drinking, because he knew from past experience where it would lead. He had been down that road once before, with less reason than now, and once was enough. So… no wine. With his resolution settled, he counted his breaths for a few moments more and turned round.

Gueynor and Marek were deep in an animated conversation about anything and everything—except, the Alban reckoned cynically,
eijin
who shot at perfect strangers in the middle of their ablutions—while the demon queller organised his mane of long hair into a neat queue. Now he looked considerably more elegant and capable than the dripping, towel-wrapped figure who had stood before them not so long ago. A receding hairline only served to accentuate his lofty, intelligent brow, framed by the silvered chestnut of hair and full beard. Taller than Aldric, he was a fat man—and yet less fat than he appeared. Most of his surplus weight was carried in his belly—as splendid in its own way as the
cymar
which covered it, but a neatly organised affair as bellies went—while the rest of him was stocky rather than plump. There was real strength hiding in those thick limbs, but seen with the eye and mind of one newly come to recognise deception, Aldric suspected that the Cernuan deliberately chose the image of a middle-aged fat man over-fond of food and drink. He was probably nothing of the sort…

“Apart from the obvious,” Gueynor wanted to know, “what does a demon queller actually do?” Marek finished forking his beard and drew breath to expound theory and practice.

Even one-eyed and introspective, Aldric recognised the symptoms. “Briefly, of course,” he interposed. The demon queller released his gathered breath and with a sharp gasp that sounded slightly outraged; nobody had ever asked him to edit his customary long-winded introduction before, neither was he at all sure that he wanted to, or even could. “Leave out everything which merely
sounds
important,” the Alban recommended drily. “That should help.” His sombre face had not altered as he spoke, and it was impossible for Marek to say whether or not he was joking. Probably not.

“You might say that I cure wizards’ mistakes,” he said at length, addressing himself primarily—and pointedly— to Gueynor. “It only needs one error in a ritual—an inaccurately drawn symbol, a broken line—for all hell to break loose. Often literally.”

“You see?” said Aldric, baiting gently. “That didn’t hurt, did it?” Then he put the question which had been nagging him ever since he first heard Marek’s accent: “What brings a Cernuan to the Jevaiden woods? Isn’t it rather far to travel?”,

“No more than for an Alban
eijo
,” Aldric’s lips pulled back from his teeth at that, and he nodded to acknowledge a fair hit. “I was visiting a Jouvaine lady associate”—Gueynor stifled a laugh—”and she mentioned something about a wolf. Or a werewolf. Here in the plateau Deepwood.” The laughter stopped as if severed by a knife.

“This isn’t the Deepwood,” Gueynor said softly.

“No matter. I’ve heard nothing anyway. Probably just peasant exaggeration.”
$

“Not exaggeration. Oh, no.” Aldric’s gloved right hand stroked the soft fur of the
coyac
, leather and fur, black on black. “There was a werewolf. And a real wolf. Both dead now.” The odd expression on his face unsettled Marek slightly, as did the gleam of unshed tears in the Jouvaine girl’s blue eyes. This, he realised, was a sensitive subject. “I,” finished Kourgath in a whisper, “helped.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence until Gueynor swallowed carefully and spoke again. “So what now for you? Back to your… associate?”

“No need. There was a full moon last night. It influences more than… Well, somebody, somewhere will need my services, as likely here as anywhere else.”

Aldric frowned. “You seem very sure.”

The Cernuan waved one hand in the air, indicating vaguely eastward. “I am sure, Kourgath. We’re not so very far from the Imperial frontier. Sorcery is strictly banned within the Drusalan Empire, but now and again those edicts are ignored by men with enough power to do so.”

“Such as Grand Warlord Etzel.” Aldric regretted the words even as they left his mouth, for they brought a suspicious look to Marek’s face and were obviously not such common knowledge as the Alban had supposed.

“At least, so I’ve heard,” he finished lamely, cursing himself.

“You must have listened to some interesting conversations recently,” the Cernuan mused, but to Aldric’s relief did not pursue the matter further—although he stared for several minutes at the Alban, who found it politic to evade the demon queller’s gaze by developing a sudden interest in the lacing of his boots. “As a consequence,” he continued eventually, “these Jouvaine border provinces are a haven and a home for a great many enchanters, whose skills are for hire to anyone with the necessary considerable wealth.”

“Such as Lord Crisen Geruath?” Gueynor asked. Aldric wished that she would learn to listen in silence, just once, and let him ask the prompting questions, but it was too late now. Far too late.

“Lord Crisen… ?” echoed Marek.

“The lord’s son at Seghar. His father is Overlord here.”

“I didn’t know that,” marvelled the demon queller. “Tell me, why do you mention his name?”

Shut up!
SHUT
UP
! screamed Aldric inwardly.
You don’t live here! You come from Ternon! You don’t know any of this
!

“Because his mistress…” It appeared that a little of Aldric’s desperate silent pleading had reached her at last, because she faltered momentarily; and when she continued it was with a flash of inspired brilliance. “I should have said that this is gossip from the last village we passed through. I wouldn’t give it too much credence. Valden, wasn’t it?”