The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (10 page)

Trebor pushed himself to his knees and instinctively began
to wipe the powder away from his eyes, then he stopped. Too late. Dark gray
streaks ran down his face where his hands had been, and it was all too obvious
something abnormal was occurring.

“What in Heaven’s name is wrong with your face, Dok?” the Blue
asked. “Elven oak ash isn’t that dark. San, you weren’t kidding about that
allergy. Get out of there.”

It was
Ashfen
, of course, who saw
the truth.

“He’s a denarae!”

The courtyard went silent. The paladin stopped with one hand
outstretched toward Trebor to help him out of the ash.
Ashfen’s
hand and finger were thrust toward Trebor in accusation. The other trainees
stood or crouched statue-like, frozen in whatever act of cleaning they’d been
doing before
Ashfen’s
denunciation. Trebor’s face was
a twisted mixture of fear and loss.

Invisible behind the doorway, Danner slumped to the ground
and cursed silently into his hands.

- 2 -

That quickly, all of Trebor’s care and precaution was sliced
to pieces. Within minutes, Gerard Morningham and a handful of other instructors
were at the scene. They hauled Trebor off and dispersed the rest of the
trainees from his group. Danner had disappeared back to his own training group
and pretended he’d merely gone in search of a toilet. An hour after he’d
halfheartedly resumed his weapons training, a Blue paladin appeared and
instructed him to report to Morningham’s office. Danner saw Michael and Marc
already moving that direction, so it wasn’t hard to figure out why they were
being summoned.

“Did you know?” Morningham asked as soon as they were all
assembled, with the exception of Trebor.

“Know what?” Michael began.

“Yes, sir,” Danner said evenly.

Morningham’s office was a severe place, a perfect fit for
the man they had all finally grown to respect even more than they hated him.
One of the dark stone walls was covered up by a bookcase filled with volumes on
history, battle, swordsmanship, dakkan care, and an assortment of other topics.
The wall behind them had the thick oaken door, flanked by a painting of a
red-cloaked paladin riding on a blue dakkan and confronting a flying demon
straight out of someone’s nightmares. The wall to their right was dominated by
an enormous tapestry that showed the skyline of Nocka as it appeared centuries
ago, before the Barrier had been erected. The sky was darkened by clouds of
winged creatures, and the ground was split evenly between armies of
black-scaled demons and armor-plated paladins; the two armies were on the verge
of colliding on the open plains before Nocka. The last wall, behind Morningham’s
desk, was little more than a gigantic window overlooking the training
courtyards below.

The desk was perfectly organized and had no clutter or
knickknacks. It was utilitarian, and served as nothing more than a writing- and
workspace for the Red paladin. Danner felt strangely cozy, even as he felt
uneasy about being in their instructor’s private office.

Morningham glared at them, the red scars on his face pulsing
slightly. Danner was sure that wasn’t a good sign.

“Your friend Trebor Dok was revealed today to be a denarae,”
he said after a moment. He studied their expressions. “Judging by your faces,
de’Valderat is right and you already knew. I’m assuming you were there?” he
asked Danner.

“Yes, sir. I was passing by on my way to the toilet and saw
the incident,” Danner lied.

“Do you boys realize how grievous an incident this is?” he
asked. “People don’t much like the denarae, especially around here, and now it
will seem they have reason. The stories are already beginning that the denarae
were trying to infiltrate the Prismatic Order to learn our secrets.”

“For what purpose, sir?” Marc asked.

“It doesn’t bloody matter, you idiot!” Morningham exploded,
rocking them all back on their heels. “I don’t like or dislike denarae any more
than I do any other man, but this is the last damn thing we need right now, and
I know I don’t have to explain that to you, of all people. People won’t stop to
think and wonder
why
the blasted denarae were infiltrating the paladins;
they’ll see it as an invasion of something they consider holy by a people more
despised than any in history, and it won’t matter that there’s no basis for it.
It will bring chaos we can ill afford. They’ll grab their Sin-accursed torches
and pitchforks and start a denarae hunt that won’t stop ‘til there’s blood!”

Morningham’s face pulsed and his scars burned with the rage
he felt within, and Danner knew he was holding some of that anger back. The
sheer ferocity of their instructor frightened him, and he was suddenly glad the
brunt of that anger was not actually directed at them.

Strange I should think
of that and see it even as I’m standing here with his breath hot in my face,
Danner thought to himself.

“We need this Prism and this city in one piece, not splintered
and divided,” Morningham continued hotly. “If you had told me or one of the
others something we bloody well should have known from the start, maybe
something could have been done. We could have handled the damn situation.”

“What
will
be done, sir?” Michael asked. His voice
was cool and calm, and it served to quiet Morningham’s rage at least a bit. The
Red paladin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know,
Semnriak
,” he
replied to Michael. “Dok is resting in your barracks for now. You’re to be
given leave this weekend, and I expect the six of you will disappear together
as usual. But I can’t say that I would blame him if only the five of you
returned. I know I wouldn’t want to face the kind of prejudice he’s sure to
encounter.”

“Then he won’t be kicked out?” Danner asked, his voice
filled with hope.

Morningham shook his head.

“Not yet. The Prismatic Council will review the matter, as
will my training staff,” Morningham said calmly. His rage seemed to have
subsided completely. “Lying to gain entrance to the Prismatic Order is not
something to be taken lightly, but I wish I could honestly say that’s all. I
wouldn’t kick the boy out because he’s a denarae, and I wouldn’t vote to hold
him in because of some equality-of-the-races crap. I’ll make my recommendation
based on his character and his training, and that’s all you need know.

“The decision could be made this weekend while you’re away,
or it could be made a month from now,” he said. “There’s just no telling. In
the meantime, I think it best if he keeps himself light with that oil, or
whatever it is he said he did. Everyone here will know the truth, I’m sure, but
let’s not invite disaster by having him walk around the rest of the city in
his, um, natural color.”

Marc opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, unsure.

“Say it,
Tanus
,” Morningham
barked.

“Sir, I just thought I should point out that Trebor never
actually lied,” he said, gaining confidence as he spoke. “There has never been
a question asking what race a potential trainee is, so he never would have had
to actually lie and say he was a human.”

“Just color up and let us dumb old farts come to our own
conclusions, eh?” Morningham said, and Danner could have sworn their instructor
was hiding a chuckle. “Well,
Tanus
, that could very
well be a telling point in your friend’s favor. I’ll make sure it gets brought
up appropriately. Anyone else have some little gem of insight for me?”

They stood rock-still in front of him.

“It’s the end of the day now, so get your friend and
assemble with the rest of the trainees in the courtyard. You’ve got a short
weekend to do whatever mischief and stupidity you young idiots do these days. I
won’t need you for extra duty, so take advantage of the rest. Dismissed.”

The door shut behind Danner with an ominous thud.

- 3 -

Instead of Faldergash, it was Alicia who picked them up at
the gate to the Prism’s headquarters. Danner’s chest tightened slightly when he
saw her chestnut hair and olive skin, but he forced himself to walk forward
smoothly, showing none of his inner trepidation. She drove the gnome’s
custom-built buggy, a vehicle that at first glance appeared just like any other
of its kind. The metal frame rose off the shoulders of the front seats in a
sturdy roll bar, and the metal cage extended forward to cradle the complex
engine. The back seat was more like a bench and was likewise surrounded by a
metal frame, but it was barely big enough to fit three normal-sized people, so
things got cramped when Garnet was along for the ride. There was some minimal cargo
room behind the seats, more of a flat cradle hanging off the back than anything
else. Visually, nothing about the buggy set it apart from anything regularly
available, and it would probably take an expert mechanic to deduce anything
special about the engine without intense scrutiny. But Faldergash took a
special pride in his work, and his customized buggy was probably one of the
fastest contraptions ever built.

They loaded Trebor into the back of the buggy, and Marc took
the front seat next to his sister. Garnet sat in the middle of the back –
spreading his vast arms across the rear seat like a patriarch cradling his
family in a church pew – and Michael sat opposite of Trebor on Garnet’s right.
Danner and Flasch twined themselves into the metal ribs on the outside.

“I didn’t know you could drive a buggy, sis,” Marc said. She
revved the engine and drove off into the city. She handled the wheel with
skill, but without the ease of extensive experience.

“Faldergash has been teaching me during the week while you’re
all locked up in there beating each other with wooden swords, or whatever it is
they have you doing,” Alicia said. “There’s not much else for me to do besides
look for another job.”

“What’s next? Is Faldergash going to teach you how to build
gnomish things? Or were you planning on having the gnome teach you how to
fight?” Marc said teasingly.

“Actually, I was going to ask Garnet to teach me,” she said
with a ‘so there’ look on her face.

“What an unwholesome thought,” Flasch said, pitching his
voice deliberately so Alicia could hear him. Garnet couldn’t reach his head to
smack him, so he settled for jabbing the smaller man in the ribs.

“Why? He wields that unwholesomely huge sword,” Marc said,
ignoring Flasch’s comment. “You’d do better to ask Danner, he’s the best of us
with the size sword you’d want.”

The conversation in the buggy went silent, and all they
could hear was the low hum of the motor.

Shut up, you idiot
, Danner groaned silently. Why did
Marc have to say something like that? It was too much, too soon.

“But I guess Garnet would be a better teacher,” Marc said
lamely, more to end the silence than anything else.

“Maybe,” Alicia said. Her voice was flat. Danner winced.

As Alicia steered them through the streets, Danner somehow felt
the city had lost much of its luster. The streets seemed grayer somehow and
less full of life than he remembered. At first he thought he was just depressed
about Trebor’s situation, but eventually realized that even the people seemed
to move as though they were all worried about something. Danner looked up at
the sky to make sure it wasn’t about to fall on them, and he was just the last
to know about it.

“What’s going on around here?” Michael asked. “I’ve never
seen this place look so glum, not even after the paladins crossed.”

“That’s old news now. They’re all worried about the rumors
about Merishank,” Alicia answered over her shoulder.

“What rumors?” Garnet rumbled. His shoulders were hunched in
to make room for Trebor and Michael, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“I forgot you guys probably don’t hear much in there,”
Alicia said. “There’s word of an army building in Merishank, and this time
they’re not building in the east. Either they’ve given up on the mountains and
they’re going to try and go around them, or else they’re marching north. The
rumors all say north, and this city is pretty much the first thing they’ll come
to.”

“But Nocka is inviolate,” Marc protested. “We have the
Barrier here. No one would dare attack Nocka in case the Barrier is weakened or
destroyed and the demons return.”

Flasch reached forward and smacked Marc upside the head.

“Oh yeah,” Marc murmured, his words almost lost under the
whirring of the engine.

Danner nodded to himself.
‘Oh yeah’ is right, Marc,
he thought.
There’s still two demons out there who will be doing their best to
destroy that Barrier.

“It can’t be coincidence,” Danner said aloud. “We can pretty
much bet that if that army moves north, they’re coming here, and we can be sure
there’s something evil in charge of it.”

“One of The Three,” Garnet said needlessly.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Trebor was nonetheless paying
enough attention to hear what was being said and to worry about it. He closed
his eyes and concentrated, then sent out a mental plea for help.

- 4 -

When they arrived at
Faldergash’s
house, they unloaded and piled inside, then surrounded the table loaded high
with food the gnome had prepared for them. Apparently his
superfire
-cooker
was working perfectly; the meat was beautifully cooked to a juicy medium-rare,
and Danner had his best meal in a week.

While they ate, they discussed the potential threat of an
attack by Merishank. Faldergash and
Gabruella
, the
gnome who actually owned the house, filled them in on whatever rumors and
information they had gleaned. The two gnomes were, after all, spies of a sort,
sent by the Dale gnomes – a race thought to be extinct after a genocidal war by
the jealous dwarves hundreds of years ago – to observe the mainland. Despite
their best information, in the end all they had was speculation. No one seemed
to know for sure how long Merishank had been girding for war – or rather,
preparing for this particular attack, since the xenophobic nation seemed to be
in a perpetual state of military readiness.