The Kingdoms of Evil (84 page)

"Kendrick." Phinneas pressed his fingers over the bridge of his nose as if afflicted with headache. "We are five hundred miles from Byblos. I don't care what secret orders you might have, but I would be grateful if you stopped trying to lead me on with your idiot cover story. I
know
why you came here."

Kendrick frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Phinneas wiped a hand over his face. "Alright. Just stop me if I get something wrong. The academic government sent you into Skrea to act as a spy and agent provocateur. Communicate the Rationalist government's orders to Freetrick, coach him in organizing the surrender from the Skrean side. They sent one spy up through Virgin Soil. And you're the second."

"I am?" Kendrick said, momentarily at a loss, hand still halfway to the handle of his axe. "I was never told any of that."

"Stop playing dumb, boy," Phinneas growled. "That's why you got yourself up the mountain so fast. That's why you didn't go back down the mountain when the enemy captured you, but instead organized this insane raid down the…slopes…" His voice trailed off as Phinneas took in Kendrick's uncomprehending expression, "…sweet Truth," the Rationalist whispered, "that's why I've been following you all this time. I thought you had…secret orders."

"You thought I was going to…" Kendrick searched for the word, "
ally
myself with the Despot of Skrea? The Ultimate Fiend?"

"Freetrick," said Phinneas. "Your friend. Oh, sweet Words," the Rationalist's face was suddenly pale in the lava-light. "You really have gone insane."

But Kendrick did not hoist his axe and cut the man in half. He was squinting. Trying to remember the person he had been before Skrea, before the Bulwarks, before the letter Freetrick had received. Oh, what would Madene say?

He shook his head. Who knew what Madene would say. The Covenant was the only guide he could trust. And the Covenant said…the talisman straining on its chord toward the volcano…yes. The Covenant was clear on the matter.

Kendrick made himself smile. "I'm sorry Phinneas…old friend."

The treacherous Rationalist did not look put at ease. Now his own hand was sliding toward his hip. But his pistol, Kendrick knew, had no bullets, and with a sword Phinneas was only average. Whereas Kendrick had found himself the master of every weapon he had put a hand to. Natural talent or the aid of his god? He didn't know.

"Phinneas," said Kendrick, "I am glad you came with us. That is a very good idea."

"Is it?" The hand stopped, but did not move away from the sword-hilt.

"Yes, it is." Kendrick said. "Feerborg was…
Freetrick is
…my friend. I think I can convince him to meet with us. I think he will be willing to help us."

"You think he will? Kendrick…I don't," Phinneas sighed, and slumped, looking suddenly older and more tired. "I don't want to die here in this barren desert."

Coward. "I don't think you'll have to," Kendrick lied. "I think I can get the Ultimate Fiend…Freetrick…to come out and talk with us."

"Alright," Phinneas drew himself up a little. "Then either negotiate with him, or in the worst case, kidnap him and hold him ransom."

"Oh yes. Yes of course," said Kendrick. Anything to keep the old fool happy. "Alright. Do you think the other agent will already be in place?"

"He left Byblos the same time you did," said Phinneas, "so I would assume so."

Kendrick nodded. Phinneas must mean Istain. And although personally Kendrick would like to wrap his hand around the smarmy know-it-all's throat and squeeze until he squawked, the Covenant and Madene's injunctions both dictated he must give aid to those on the side of Good. Which Istain was. Probably.

"All right," he said. "So we need to draft a letter." Another letter. "Send it to the Despot…to Freetrick. Phinneas, can you find someone who can deliver the letter? Someone who won't just be killed out of hand?"

Phinneas nodded. "Some of the older ex-wendigos are known in the Necropolis. They can get a letter into the castle."

"Good," said Kendrick, and then because he wanted Phinneas to trust him and obey him, "thank you, Phinneas. I don't know what I would do without you."

The Rationalist made a precise bow and strode off into the camp.

Kendrick watched Phinneas go, knowing he would find reason to kill him. But not now.

Kendrick turned around and walked toward his tent. Occasionally, people shouted out or waved or saluted to him, and he responded. But Kendrick did not let anyone engage him in conversation. He had plans to make.

Thank the gods for the Covenant. It was so much easier to act when you
knew
what was right. Like now, for instance, when the Covenant demanded, very clearly, that Kendrick kill the Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of evil.

Kendrick smiled in the darkness.

Chapter the Twenty-First

In which the Ultimate Fiend stages a Daring Rescue

At every six-foot interval along the hall, a monster stood, chained in a wardrobe-sized niche. As Freetrick passed, each monster spoke, or hissed, or only bowed.

"All hail the Ultimate Fiend."

"Hail…Fiend."

"I shall assume they know?" Bloodbyrn asked Skystarke, who nodded. Not that the monsters could do much word-magic while chained to a wall, Freetrick reflected.

"Why are they held captive like that?" Freetrick's head turned as they passed a particularly woebegone lizard man.

"Because this is the
lah-
da for Teirborg's
suites
," Skystarke answered. "Although those to be
sa
cri-ficed to the Ultimate Fiend go gladly to they-ah honorable deaths, the lower Da-ak Lords must chain their meals," his skin mask drew up to his nose, and the bitter words hissed between his outsized teeth, "lest they escape."

"
Who
goes willingly to be sacrificed?" Freetrick asked indignantly, "I've never killed my monsters like that. Or at all," he stopped for a moment, thinking. "Unless, you don't mean those disgusting sea urchin things I have to eat every morning. They're not sentient, are they?"

"No, my lord, they are breakfast," said Bloodbyrn.

"
You
-ah sah-vant refers to the monsters who await the Dahk Lord's pleas-ah in the hall outside his suites." Skystarke's voice was scarcely louder than the sibilant murmur of the monsters they passed.

"They did not expect
you
to walk out to
them
, my lord," snorted Bloodbyrn. "What temerity that would be."

Skystarke looked affronted as well. "His Malevolence has but to ask me, his
sah
-vant, to bring one of these monsters to him, where it can be
slaughtered
at his convenience."

"Okay," said Freetrick. "But the point is, I never will."

Skystarke looked briefly startled, then his eyes darted from his king to the chained monsters, to the presumably spy-filled walls. The captain of guard dropped his head in a silent bow. "I shall rememb-ah that."

The—inmates? Prisoners?---of the larder looked as if they would remember, too.

A large, circular door in the middle of the larder hall opened into a smaller corridor lined with portraits and statures of ancient and vile something-Chokes. Freetrick, who recognized the layout from his own suite, knew where to look. Sure enough, a patch of wall at the head of the corridor marked the place where Teirchoke's son's portrait had once hung. Thorchoke the Kind. Freetrick wondered what the poor guy had done.

No guard challenged them, but as they approached the door to Teirchoke's office, a voice called out from a patch of apparently bare stone wall.

"Who calls upon His Fiendishness the Dark Prince Teirchoke, the Jaded, Despot Noggor?"

"Flee to your master, minion," Skystarke called out in what was evidently the expected response, "and inform him of the terror he should feel, for at his portal stands none other, the
Despot of Skrea, Grasper of the Bolt, Lord of Pain, Terror under all Terrors, High Master of the Blood, and under the Maelstrom Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil
."

There was no audible answer, but the door opened, as if pushed by unseen hands. Its hinges creaked with artistic rust.

"Teirchoke?" Freetrick strode into the room before the door had finished squealing. "Are you here?"

"Ah, Malevolence." The voice came from the darkness within, as frail and evil as a hundred-year old curse written upon a parchment of human skin. "You have come, at last, to me."

The tastes of Teirchoke the Jaded ran, Freetrick could see, heavily to the Baroque. Huge leather chairs loomed over a thick, many armed fur rug. Red crystal light gleamed on bronze and iron hooks. Every available inch of wall space was hung with monstrous trophies, gloomy paintings, and cryptic diagrams that both drew and repulsed the eye.

And in the center of it all sat Teirchoke, himself, a tiny, hunched figure in a mountain of black fur atop chair of wood and twisted iron.

"Your…friend…is here, my lord, directly behind that door." A hand like a vulture's talon, crooked in the direction of the wall behind the chair. "But first, and I am terribly sorry to use the tired old cliché," with the creak of tortured wood and the screech of metal against stone, Teirchoke's chair pushed off the floor and scuttled to bring the old Despot face to face with Freetrick. "You will have to go through me."

"And what if I
do
go through you?" said Freetrick. "You can't kill me. You won't be able to hang out behind the scenes pulling Feerix's strings if everyone knows
you
were the one who used my friend to lure me here and then got rid of me."

The old man nodded. "Yes, I would have preferred to let Feerix do the deed, but that is, as the Sangboise say, spilled blood. I cannot change the past, only the future."

"So it's true." Freetrick tried hard not to take a step backward. "You're the one behind Feerix's stupid assassination attempt."

"I am almost embarrassed to admit that I am. Stupid is the word, my lord."

"Why?"

"Why? My lord, why not?" The old man's large yellow teeth showed in a snarl. "What assurance have you given me that you could ever serve my interests while living? If you are not a tool of that bloodsucking louche DeMacabre, you are a dangerous idiot. Oh my dear, do not embarrass yourself with a display of force." He turned his goblin's grin at Bloodbyrn, who had pulled out her athame. "I have absorbed the lives of three strong ogres today. I could crush you to a pulp faster than you could draw your blood. It was an insult to bring the Leech woman, my boy."

Freetrick did not respond, and Teirchoke chuckled, and continued. "You know I have found actually myself hoping DeMacabre's plan for you would succeed? Once he got his wretched royal grandson from your gonads, he would, after all, be free to kill you, and I would no longer have to concern myself with countering your lunatic reformation." His chair rose, bringing his eyes on level with Freetrick's. "You are a menace, Feerborg, a menace to everything this nation was built upon."

"Oh yes," Freetrick ignored the jabs at his ego and concentrated instead on the script he had planned. "And how well exactly has that nation treated you? How well did it treat your son? What prospects does it offer for your grandson? Skrea, is built upon a sterile
desert
, and it has nothing to offer you, Teirborg."

"With Feerix on the throne, and me behind Feerix, Skrea shall rise again, like a lich from its grave!" Teirchoke's voice sank to a serpentine rasp.

"Who are you preaching to, Teirchoke?" Freetrick spread his arms, as if to take the hands of the monsters spying through the walls. Monsters who, no doubt, were already practicing word-magic. "Anyone listening knows as well as you or me that Skrea will starve to death in a generation. That's if it isn't invaded first."

"That will be my concern, then," growled Teirchoke. "After I have reduced you to dust."

Well that was unequivocal. Time to deploy the big guns, then. "I could threaten to destroy you and use the energy I gain from your death to blow that door open."

The old despot began to chuckle.

"But then, what would that mean for Feerchoke's political career?"

The chuckling stopped, "Surely, your mean Argchoke? Even you must know the right to the royal generation name was taken…"

Freetrick simply smiled as color left Teirchoke's face.

"The royal line. To be Teirchoke, father of Wrothchoke, father of Feerchoke…" the old man mumbled, then his cold, suspicious eyes flicked back to Freetrick. "It will take more than empty promises to sway me, Fiend."

"Who said I was making promises? I'm the Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil. I make pronouncements." Freetrick slapped the nearest wall. A pair of eyes staring from a nearby portrait winced at the noise.

"His name is Feerchoke!" Freetrick shouted at the listeners in the walls, "I, the Ultimate Fiend have said it, and let any who act contrary to my words….uh…"

"Be killed for days" supplied Bloodbyrn.

"Be killed for days," Freetrick finished. "There." He turned back to the shaken Teirchoke. "That's what you get from the current regime. The
beginning
of what you get. What can Feerix offer that's any better?"