The Lost Colony (23 page)

CHAPTER 14

While Artemis and company had been zooming around the time tunnel, Leon Abbot had been in council with the pride elders. Council was where all the big decisions got made, or more accurately, where Abbot made all the big decisions. The others thought they were participating, but Leon Abbot had a way of bringing them around to his way of thinking.

If only they knew, he thought, biting the inside of his cheek to prevent a smug grin spreading across his face. They would eat me alive. But they can never know, because there is nobody left alive to tell them. That dolt N
^o
1 was the last, and he’s gone. What a pity.

Abbot had something big planned for today. A big departure for the pride, the dawn of a new era. The Leon Abbot era.

He looked down the table at his fellow demons sucking the bones from a bucket of recently live rabbits that he had laid on for the meeting. He despised the other council members. Every one. They were weak, stupid creatures, ruled by their baser appetites. What they needed was leadership. No arguments, no debates, just
his
word as law, and that was that.

Of course, under normal circumstances, the other demons might not share his vision of the future. In fact, if he suggested it, then they would most likely do to him what they were currently doing to the rabbits. But these were not normal circumstances. He had certain
advantages
when it came to negotiating with the council.

At the far end of the table, Hadley Shrivelington Basset, a recent addition to the council, stood and growled loudly. The signal that he wished to speak. In truth, Basset worried Abbot slightly. He was proving a little resistant to Abbot’s regular powers of persuasion, and some of the others were beginning to listen to him. Basset would have to be handled soon.

Basset growled again, cupping both hands around his mouth to ensure that his words traveled to the head of the table.

“I would speak, Leon Abbot. I would have you listen.”

Abbot sighed wearily, waving at the demon to go ahead. The young ones certainly loved their formality.

“Things are happening that worry me, Abbot. Things are not as they should be with the pride.”

There were murmurs of assent from around the table. Not to worry. The others would soon change their tune.

“We are known by human names. We worship a human book. I find this sickening. Are we to become human altogether?”

“I have explained this, Basset. Perhaps a million times. Are you so dull-witted that my words do not penetrate your skull?”

Basset growled low in his throat. These were fighting words. And pride leader or not, Abbot would soon find those words rammed down his throat.

“Let me try one more time,” continued Abbot, plonking his boots on the table, a further insult to Basset. “We learn the human ways so we can better understand them, and so more easily defeat them. We read the book, we practice with the crossbow, we bear the names.”

Basset would not be cowed. “I have
heard
these words a million times, and each time they seem ridiculous to me. We do not give each other rabbit names when we hunt rabbit. We do not live in foxholes to hunt the fox. We can learn from the book and the bow, but we are demon, not human. My family name was Gristle. Now that’s a real demon name! Not this stupid Hadley Shrivelington Basset.”

It was a good argument, and well presented. Maybe in different circumstances Abbot would have applauded and recruited the young demon as a lieutenant, but lieutenants grew up to be challengers, and that was one thing Abbot did not want.

Abbot stood and walked slowly down the length of the table, gazing into the eyes of each council member in turn. At first their eyes blazed with defiance, but as Abbot began to speak, this fire faded, to be replaced by a dull sheen of obedience.

“You are right, of course,” said Abbot, running a talon along one curved horn. An arc of sparks followed the path of his nail. “Everything you say is exactly right. The names, that ridiculous book, the crossbow. Learning the language of English. It’s all a joke.”

Basset’s lips curled back over pointed white teeth, and his tawny eyes narrowed. “You admit this, Abbot?” He addressed the council, “You hear him admit it?”

Before, the others had grunted their approval of the young buck’s challenge, but now it was as if the fight had gone out of them. All they could do was stare at the table, as if the answers to life’s questions were etched into the wood grain.

“The truth is, Basset,” continued Abbot, drawing ever nearer. “That we’re never going back home. This is our home now.”

“But you said . . .”

“I know. I said that the spell would end, and we would be sucked back to where we came from. And who knows, it may even be true. But I have no idea what will actually happen. All I know is that for as long as we are here, I intend to be in charge.”

Basset was stunned. “There will be no great battle? But we’ve been training for so long.”

“Distraction,” said Abbot, waving his fingers like a magician. “Smoke and spells. It gave the troops something to concentrate on.”

“To
what
on?” asked Basset, puzzled.

“Concentrate, you moron. Think about. As long as there’s a war to be planned, demons are happy. I provided the war, and I showed them how to win. So, naturally, I am a savior.”

“You gave us the crossbow.”

Abbot had to stop and laugh. This Basset really was a prize fool. He could almost pass for a gnome.

“The crossbow,” he panted at last, when his mirth had petered away.“The crossbow! The Mud Men have weapons that shoot death. They have iron birds that fly, dropping exploding eggs. And there are millions of them. Millions! All they would have to do is drop one egg on our little island and we would disappear. And
this
time, there would be no coming back.”

Basset did not know whether to attack or flee. All these revelations were hurting his brain, and all the other council members could do was sit there drooling. It was almost as if they were under a spell. . . .

“Come on,” said Abbot mockingly. “You’re getting there. Wring out that sponge of a brain.”

“You have bewitched the council.”

“Full marks!” crowed Abbot. “Give that demon a raw rabbit!”

“B . . . But that can’t be,” stammered Basset. “Demons are not magical creatures, except the warlocks. And warlocks do not warp.”

Abbot spread his arms wide. “And I am so obviously a magnificently warped creature. Does your brain hurt? Is this all too much for you, Basset?”

Basset pulled a long sword from its scabbard. “My name is Gristle!” he roared, lunging at the pride leader.

Abbot batted the blade aside with his forearm, then pounced on his opponent. Abbot may have been a liar and a manipulator, but he was also a fearsome warrior. Basset may as well have been a dove attacking an eagle.

Abbot drove the smaller demon to the stone floor, then squatted on his chest, ignoring the blows Basset drove into his armored plates.

“Is that the best you can do, little one? I have had better tumbles with my dog.”

He grabbed Basset’s head between his hands and squeezed until the younger demon’s eyes bulged.

“Now, I
could
kill you,” said Abbot, the thought giving him obvious pleasure, “but you are a popular buck among the imps, and they would pester me with questions. So I will let you live. After a fashion. Your free will shall belong to me.”

Basset shouldn’t have been able to speak, but he managed to moan one word. “Never.”

Abbot squeezed harder.

“Never? Never, you say? But don’t you know that
never
comes quickly here in Hybras.”

Then Abbot did what no warped demon should be able to do: he summoned magic from inside himself and let it shine through his eyes.

“You are mine,” he said to Basset, his voice irresistible, layered with magic.

The others were so conditioned to the
mesmer
that they succumbed to just a tinge of it in his voice, but for Basset’s fresh young mind, Abbot was calling forth every spark of magic in his system. Magic that he had stolen. Magic that, by fairy law, was never to be used to
mesmerize
another fairy.

Basset’s face turned red and his forehead plate cracked.

“You are mine!” repeated Abbot, staring straight into Basset’s captive eyes. “You will never question me again.”

To Basset’s credit, he fought the enchantment for several seconds, until the magic’s power actually burst a blood vessel in his eye. Then, as the blood spread across the orange sclera of his eye, Basset’s resolve faded, to be replaced by docile dullness.

“I am yours,” he intoned. “I will never question you again.”

Abbot closed his eyes for a moment, drawing the magic back into himself. When he opened them again, he was all smiles.

“That’s good. I am so glad to hear that, Basset. I mean, your other option was a quick and painful death, so you’re better off as a mindless lapdog anyway.”

He climbed to his feet and graciously helped Basset to his.

“You’ve had a fall,” he explained, in a doctor-patient voice. “And I’m helping you to your feet.”

Basset blinked dreamily. “I will never question you again.”

“Oh, never mind all that now. Just sit down and do whatever I say.”

“I am yours,” said Basset.

Abbot slapped his cheek gently. “And the others said we wouldn’t get along.”

Abbot returned to his own chair at the head of the long table. The chair was high-backed and made from various animal parts. He settled into it, paddling the armrests with his palms.

“I love this chair,” he said. “Actually, it’s more of a throne than a chair, which brings me to our main business here today.” Abbot reached under a leather flap in the chair and pulled out a roughly fashioned bronze crown.

“I think it’s about time the council declared me king for life,” he said, fixing the crown on his head.

This new king-for-life idea would be a tough sell. A demon pride was always ruled by the fittest, and it was a very temporary position. Abbot had only survived as long as he had by
mesmerizing
anyone who dared challenge him.

Most of the council had been under Abbot’s spell for so long that they accepted the suggestion as if it were a royal decree; but some of the younger ones shuddered with violent spasms, as their true beliefs wrestled with this new repugnant idea.

Their struggles didn’t last long. Abbot’s suggestion spread like a virus through their conscious and subconscious, subduing revolution wherever it was found.

Abbot adjusted his crown slightly. “Enough debate. All in favor, say
graaargh!
”

“
GRAAARGH!
” howled the demons, battering the table with gauntlets and swords.

“All hail King Leon,” prompted Abbot.

“ALL HAIL KING LEON!” the council mimicked like trained parrots.

The adulation was interrupted by a soldier demon who burst through the lodge’s flap.

“There’s a ...there was a big ...”

Abbot whipped off the crown. The general population wasn’t ready for that yet.

“There’s a what?” he demanded. “A big what?”

The soldier paused, catching his breath. He realized suddenly that he’d better communicate the
bigness
of what had happened on the mountain, or else Abbot was liable to behead him for interrupting the meeting.

“There was a big flash.”A big flash? That didn’t sound
big
enough.

“Let me start again. A
huge
flash of light came from the volcano. Two of the hunting party were nearby. They say someone came through. A group. Four beings.”

Abbot frowned. “Beings?”

“Two demons, maybe. But the other two, the hunter doesn’t know what they are.”

This was serious. Abbot knew it. These beings could be humans, or worse still, surviving warlocks. If it was a warlock, he would surely guess Abbot’s secret. All it would take was one demon with some real power, and his hold on the pride would be gone. This situation had to be contained.

“Very well. The council will investigate. Nobody else goes up there.”

The soldier’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously, as he was about to bear bad news. “It’s too late, Master Abbot. The entire pride is climbing the volcano.”

Abbot was halfway to the door before the soldier finished his sentence.

“Follow me!” he shouted to the other demons. “And bring your weapons.”

“
GRAAARGH!
” roared the spellbound council members.

Artemis was surprised at how calm he felt. You would think that a teenage human would be terrified at the sight of a pride of demons climbing toward him, but Artemis was more nervous than terrified, and more curious than nervous.

He glanced backward over his shoulder, into the crater they had just climbed out of.

“The pride comes before a fall,” he said softly, then smiled at his own joke.

Holly overheard. “You certainly pick your moment to develop a sense of humor.”

“Usually I would be planning, but this is out of my hands. Qwan is in charge now.”

N
^o
1 led them along the rim of the crater toward a low rocky ledge. There was a wooden rod jammed into the ground beside the ledge, and hooked over the rod were dozens of silver bangles. Most tarnished and soot-caked.

N
^o
1 wiggled a bunch over the top of the rod.

“Dimension jumpers leave these here,” he explained, passing them out. “Just in case they make it back. No one ever has, until now. Except Leon Abbot, of course.”

Qwan slipped a bangle onto his wrist. “Dimensionjumping is suicide. Without silver, a demon will never be able to stay in one place for more than a few seconds. They will drift between times and dimensions until they are killed by exposure or starvation. Magic is the only reason we’re here. I am amazed this Abbot person made it back. What is his demon name?”

N
^o
1 squinted down the mountain pathway. “You can ask him yourself. That’s him, the big one elbowing his way to the head of the group.”

Holly squinted down at the pride leader. “The one with the curved horns and big sword?” she asked.