The Crimson Vault Part 31

"And if the emergence of the Incarnations happens to unseat your father's power..." Grandmaster Avernus began.

Talos smiled, and it was a disturbingly winning, earnest smile. "That would be a fortunate side effect, yes. But the fact remains that I believe the rulers of Damasca have done far more harm than good with their b.l.o.o.d.y Trees."

Grandmaster Endross snorted, dragging the tip of his blade across the table and closer to Talos. "I still don't trust you, sir prince."

Talos sighed. "Heir. I'm not a prince, I'm an Heir. What are you, a child? No one says 'prince' anymore."

Grandmaster Avernus laid a delicate hand on Endross' arm before he tore his sword free and drew it across the prisoner's throat.

"Hold on a moment, Endross," she said. "I can vouch for him."

Grandmasters Endross and Helgard stared at her in disbelief.

"You can?" Helgard asked.

"I am familiar with Overlord Lysander," Grandmaster Avernus responded. "He has done a great deal for our cause in Damasca; more than most are aware, in fact. And he has given his allegiance to Talos."

Talos nodded. "That's right. And you three have tested my veracity yourself. How could I have fooled all of your tests?"

A serpent flicked a tongue in his ear, and he jerked his head to the side, distaste evident on his face. "Speaking of which, can you please remove these now?"

Grandmaster Endross turned and nodded to someone Alin hadn't noticed: a robed Naraka Traveler sitting in the corner of the room. She waved her red-marked hand, and the serpents evaporated.

"Much better," Talos said. He raised his bound hands, as far as the rope tying him to the chair would allow. "Now how about these?"

"Don't push your luck, Highness," Grandmaster Helgard said. "Tell us your plan, and we will decide how best to work it into our strategy."

Talos smiled broadly. "Simplicity itself. Once battle is joined, I will slip away to a prearranged location. You will meet me there, and I will open a Ragnarus Gate. It leads straight into the middle of the royal palace in Cana. You can be in front of the Hanging Tree in minutes."

"We must come to you?" Grandmaster Endross said skeptically. "No, that's too dangerous. You should come to us."

Talos sighed, as though exasperated at having to deal with a particularly stubborn child. "I can't. I am only a Traveler of Ragnarus, and that means I can only Travel back to Cana. And I certainly can't walk across the battlefield to Enosh."

"Have someone take you," Alin put in. For someone who claimed to have all the answers, this Damascan Heir seemed to be making a lot of excuses.

"Lysander is the only one I would trust enough to take me on a trip across enemy lines," Talos explained. "But he's an Avernus Traveler. And you all know what it's like to Travel through Avernus with any precision."

Alin didn't, but he nodded along with the Grandmasters.

"Your people, on the other hand, can Travel straight to my location. Once there, I'll take everyone to the royal palace. Simple."

"We could meet up in Avernus itself," Grandmaster Avernus suggested. "It may take a little longer, and there are some risks involved, but then we should be able to avoid the battle entirely."

"Ah," Talos said. "I keep forgetting you people don't have your own Ragnarus Travelers. A Gate to the Crimson Vault can only be opened in this world, not in any of the Territories. I could still summon my weapon into a Territory, though it would take longer, but I have to return here if I want to open a Gate."

"Then why don't you take us there now?" Grandmaster Helgard asked eagerly. "We could have an army inside Cana's walls in minutes."

"My father's still there," Talos said simply. "When battle joins, he won't be. He will go with the army; he always likes to be in the thick of things."

The Grandmasters all sat, digesting that. Endross brooded heavily, Helgard stroked his beard, and Avernus simply stared off in the distance.

Maker above, how powerful was the King? Alin would never have thought the presence of one man would make so much of a difference in the Grandmasters' way of thinking.

"There's one moreaissue," Grandmaster Avernus put in. "The Valinhall Incarnation."

Talos looked up sharply. "That's right! Is he here? May I speak with him? Is he still capable of speech?"

"Oh, he's capable," Grandmaster Endross said. "And I'm tempted to let you have your wish."

Grandmaster Helgard smiled a wolf's smile. "He's got good taste, this Valin. He hates your father almost as much as I do. I take great pleasure in imagining what he would do to you."

"The problem is that the Incarnation is focused on your father to the exclusion of almost everything else," Grandmaster Avernus said, shooting the other two a sharp glance. "He's also notathrilled with us, since we robbed him of his chance to attack. It's been all we could do to keep him here, though we did manage to get him to see reason and not kill the lot of us. He still wanted us to Travel him over to the palace to fight your father immediately."

"We can't," Talos said immediately. "Not now. There are too many guardians in the palace. Anda"

He hesitated, as though unsure if he wanted to speak his mind.

"What is it?" Alin asked.

"This would be a bad time to start holding things back," Grandmaster Endross said softly.

"No one has seen Indirial today," Talos said at last. "That worries me."

"Surely Indirial's absence could only be a good thing," Grandmaster Avernus said.

"Indirial's absence would be a wonderful gift from above," Talos responded. "But when he is simply missing, then he could be anywhere. That is far worse."

Alin desperately wanted to ask who Indirial was, but he held his tongue. He didn't want to look ignorant in front of this arrogant Damascan Heir.

"So we're back to the same plan," Grandmaster Endross said. "We wait for Damasca to commit to an attack, and then we meet up with the prince and have him take us into Cana."

"If Zakareth is with the army, that works out quite well for us," Grandmaster Avernus said. "We can simply unleash the Valinhall Incarnation on him. While he's distracting the King*and, hopefully, cutting a b.l.o.o.d.y furrow through the entire army*we'll sneak off behind his back and strike at the Hanging Tree."

"How do we know you won't just leave us there to die once we've destroyed the Tree?" Grandmaster Endross asked.

"How do you propose I stop you from simply opening a Gate and walking away?" Talos said reasonably. "Besidesa"

He leaned forward as much as his restraints would let him. "Isn't it worth the risk? As long as you get to burn the Tree, what does it matter to you?"

The grin on Talos' face was eager, even hungry. To Alin, it even seemed a little bitaunbalanced. Like a spark of madness hid within the royal Heir.

But most of the others seemed convinced.

The rest of the discussion was just for show. The Grandmasters all agreed that they should take more time to decide, that they would have to confer with their strategists, but Alin could tell that they had been persuaded. The essence of Talos' plan, at least, would move forward.

In Alin's mind, however, there was still one last issue.

"What about him?" he asked, gesturing to Talos. "Now that we've got him, why should we let him go?"

Talos actually rolled his eyes. "The plan would never work if I did not return. My family would know something had happened to me, and would immediately a.s.sume that I had been abducted or killed. The plan could never move forward."

Alin met his eyes and said, very deliberately, "So?"

"That's a good point," Grandmaster Endross said. His dark eyes gleamed, and he had his sword back in hand. "I've always wondered how I'd stack up against a Ragnarus weapon."

Talos' eyes flicked to the mantelpiece across from him, where a clock ticked steadily away. "Oh, probably about as well as you fared against my father's spear. But I'm afraid we don't have time to test that today."

Endross' eyes widened with rage, and he raised his sword.

"Watch out!" Grandmaster Avernus called. A white-edged portal swirled to life behind Talos' chair, opening into a Gate leading onto a broad forest.

"Traveling accurately through Avernus is difficult," Talos said casually. "And it's time-consuming. But it's not impossible."

A man in soft buckskin stepped through, his outfit decorated with various feathers. He was balding and reedy-looking, like a man who spent all day inside with books, and as he exited the Gate he pushed his gla.s.ses up on his nose.

Six or seven more Avernus Travelers stood in the forest behind him, a cloud of various birds swooping and cawing around them.

Talos extended his wrists, and his sword*still on the table*moved on its own. It pulled itself out of a sheath and spun in a circle, slicing through his restraints. Casually he pulled his hands free of the ropes and seized his sword, buckling it back onto his belt.

"Gentlemen," Talos said. "Lady. I bid you a fond farewell. Don't worry; I'll send word to you with the finer details."

Then he made as if to walk into the Avernus Gate.

Grandmaster Helgard's enormous hand seized the back of the Heir's collar and pulled him backwards, slamming Talos down onto the table behind him.

The scholarly-looking man moved forward immediately, but Grandmaster Endross was already there, with a sword at the man's throat and a tiny swirling thunderstorm pointed at the nearest Avernus Traveler.

The flock of birds on the other side of the Gate let out a long shriek that sounded like a mountain being torn in half, and they started to rush toward Enosh at the command of their masters.

Grandmaster Avernus stepped forward, put one hand to her temple, and all of the birds slammed to a halt as though they had crashed into an enormous pane of gla.s.s.

Only one sparrow made it through the Gate, and it fluttered hastily back into the Territory.

Grandmaster Helgard looked down at Talos, who was spread out on the table, and grinned horribly. "You go when we say you can go, not before. Do not think you can disrespect us like this in our home."

Talos clawed for the sword at his side. He actually managed to draw a bit of it before Alin kicked his hand away.

He liked to feel included at times like this.

"I say we kill them all," Grandmaster Endross said, as though suggesting they should have tea with lunch.

"You could never do it," the Traveler in the gla.s.ses said. His eyes blazed fanatically. "We outnumber you two to one, and we would die to protect the Heir. You could not overcome us."

"Come now, Lysander," Grandmaster Avernus said chidingly. "You should know us better than that. They don't hand out the t.i.tle of Grandmaster for nothing, you know."

From his position on the table, Talos smiled. He even raised his empty hands, as best he could, to show he wasn't armed. "It all comes down to one question: do you accept my proposal, or don't you? If we're allies, let me go. If not, then it comes to a fight."

Alin was tempted to summon the golden sword and plant it in Talos' chest, but that didn't strike him as a very heroic thing to do.

Helgard started to respond to Talos, but Grandmaster Naraka cut him off. "Allies," she said. "For now. When we reach the royal palace in Cana, our alliance ends."

"I accept," Talos said, as regally as possible from his position flat on the table.

Naraka nodded to Helgard, her red spectacles flas.h.i.+ng.

Grandmaster Helgard gave her a look, but he released the prisoner.

"Thank you," Talos said to no one in particular. "Lysander, please stay for a while and discuss the specifics with Grandmaster Avernus. I'm going to go find some hot tea for my throat."

Rubbing his neck, he walked off into Avernus. Some of the Travelers immediately fell in around him, escorting him as though they were doing something useful.

The Grandmasters fell to talking with the Overlord and his Travelers, smoothing out the details of their alliance.

Alin sat and said little, processing the situation.

He wasn't sure if he was excited at the prospect of an attack on Cana, or disgusted that he would have to work with Talos to do it, but he realized it didn't matter.

The upcoming battle would decide everything. The Grandmasters didn't have it in them to fight a long, protracted war, not with their dwindling numbers. No one said anything, but this strike on Cana was possibly their last hope.

That thought didn't depress him. If anything, he felt somehow excited. He would be the one to make that last, desperate hope into a reality.

What else was a hero for?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:.

THE ROYAL ARMY OF DAMASCA.

358th Year of the Damascan Calendar 24th Year in the Reign of King Zakareth VI 41 Days After Midsummer 4 Days Until Summer's End Simon stepped out of the Gate determined to never set foot in Naraka ever again.

He had expected that the Territory would be horrible: the only things he had ever seen from Naraka were carnivorous lizard-beasts or h.e.l.lish, screaming flames. But it had never occurred to him that the place would be so hot.

Indirial a.s.sured him that it was the fastest and most reliable way to Travel between one set point and another, and that these routes were well-controlled by Damasca. Simon believed him, but there was still no way to make crawling through oven-hot, smoke-choked tunnels any more tolerable.

When he left Naraka and found himself standing on the edge of a stone outcropping overlooking the city of Enosh, he gasped in relief. The air tasted cool and fresh; even the baking summer sun overhead came as a relief.

As Simon bent over, coughing out the smoke in his lungs, he felt Denner pat him on the back. Hariman's fussy voice came from behind him, "You get used to it, Simon," the book said. "Don't worry. The fumes are not nearly as dangerous as they seem, a.s.suming you manage to avoid prolonged exposure."

"You don't even have lungs," Denner pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I'm wrong."

In Simon's head, Otoku sighed. He had tucked her into one of the pockets of his cloak after Indirial pointed out that it would be the best way for him to carry his dolls into combat. Simon had never even realized the cloaks had pockets.