The Kingdoms of Evil (86 page)

Freetrick grinned over at Istain and Madene, "With Istain watching?"

"Oh, Freetrick, gross!" She said, automatically.

"You sound like Madene, Istain," Freetrick said, still looking at Bloodbyrn. "I thought you were more worldly."

"I am," Istain bit their tongue and then replied.
Stop striking talking to them, Madene!
"I'm just not a big fan of sado-masochist snuff porn."

"Your friend is even more degenerate in his speech than are you," said Bloodbyrn.

"Right," muttered Istain, "degenerate." Madene couldn't stop Istain from moving her gaze down to the parchment in her hands. Even she could tell the instructions on the page made no sense.

"I don't get it," Istain said, "You're going to kill him with…" he ran a finger around a particularly odd series of commands "…fractal topology?"

"That's the plan."

"Free, you've written this all wrong." Stink Istain out. He had gotten so wound up in his stupid programming problem, he wasn't letting her see anything of whatever Freetrick and Bloodbyrn were doing. "You can't get a…I assume this is supposed to be a fluid? You can't get a fluid to flow
up
with no input of energy. And even if you had energy, where are the definitions for that flow? You just sort of
assume
this stuff will move around by itself."

"Assume it will."

"Well okay," said Istain, finally looking up, "but still, wait a second," he looked up, "how are you planning to get word-magic to work in Skrea anyw—"

There was suddenly a large, strong hand over their mouth, and foul, ketone-laced breath wafting from behind them. "You will be
silent
," Skystarke said.

Madene?

She ignored him, and nodded their head for the benefit of the monster.

"Yeah, Istain," said Freetrick, seeming not at all upset that his bodyguard was about to chew off his best friend's face. " The walls have ears."

"Okay," said Istain as Skystarke released them. "I'll just stand here and try to look pretty then."

"A worthwhile Endeavour." Bloodbyrn gave them a bitchy little smile, then turned back to Freetrick. "I would ask as to the status of my lord's death energy."

What is it with all this 'my lord' stuff?
Istain's whisper buzzed in their throat. Madene shook her head to silence him.

Bloodbyrn seemed to be interrogating Freetrick about his own magic, her tone a bizarre mixture of concerned girlfriend and drill sergeant. The conversation became even more disturbing when Madene made the connection between the questions and what she knew of necromancy.

"My lord, I beg you to take a life."

Madene waited for Bloodbyrn to look over at them when she said that, but her creepy orange eyes stayed fixed on Freetrick. Crafty.

"Yeah?" retorted Freetrick, "And whose life should that be? Skystarke's? Istain's?" Madene noticed that he didn't mention taking Bloodbyrn's life, even rhetorically.

"A suitable slave can be brought from anywhere in the castle—"

"A slave with their own life and their own problems? And a monster to boot, contravening everything I'm trying to do here? No."

"My lord—"

"I said no!" Freetrick sighed, then held out his hands. "Look, when we do…what we're going to do, we might not even need death energy to do it."

"My lord, I do not advise---"

But Freetrick had already turned and begun to walk down the hall. The rest of them could do nothing but pursue.

In which the Ultimate Fiend engages in Climactic Battle

Milielan DeMacabre felt himself teetering on the lip of hell.

Not any hell a Do-Gooder would recognize, of course. For Milielan, a man who had trouble sleeping too far from burning sulfur and enjoyed a good scourge at the weekend, hell was not a place. Hell was a king who would not take orders. Hell was a prince who worked for an enemy. Hell was the inability to simply slit the throats of both young idiots and take the bloody skull throne for himself.

And most of all, hell was the prudence that demanded he wait, and scheme, and manipulate.

"Ah my lord, the Ultimate Fiend!" Milielan clasped his hands together and grinned his most dental grin. "It is positively phantasmagorical to see you." And if the expression might display a little of that hidden desire to bury his canines in the fool's jugular, what of it? "Doubly so, since our chance meeting can also bring together so many people who, I do not think I overstep myself in saying so, have much to discuss. Is it not so?"

So, Feerborg had somehow gained possession of Teirborg's hostage. Surprising. "Why, here, for example, if I am not very much mistaken and I do not," he winked at Feerborg, happy to see the king's grimace deepen, "believe that I am…
here
is the much sought-after hostage from beyond the mountains."

Certainly the man, tall boy rather, wore that peculiarly Rationalist expression of shocked dullness, as if he had just been woken from pleasant dreams by a brick to the forehead.

"Here we have your hostage, Feerix, I believe?" If he could capture the boy for himself…well, a little aneurism and some help from a cooperative necromancer would make the boy, and the situation, far more controllable. It was a pity the same could be done to Feerborg, himself.

"Stop staring at me," the future meat-puppet said.

"Oh, I
beg
your pardon." Milielan leaned toward the boy, this so-called Istain. "It was not my
intention
to
alarm
you. Not at
all
." He allowed a delicately calculated amount of spittle to collect at the corners of his mouth.

"Well?" snarled Feerix from behind Milielan, "what are we waiting for? Tempest above, I grow tired of all this talk!"

"Come now, surely you see it would be better to drop this silly duel business." Milielan swung around to focus on Feerix.

"Exactly," said Feerborg. "That was just what I wanted to talk about."

What an astonishingly obvious statement. "Well then, my lord, some dark destiny must indeed be guiding all out actions on this day." The Duke packed into that statement every ounce of enthusiasm he could manufacture. "For what have we now but the opportunity to discuss that very issue with your half-brother here? Yes,
I
know!" He clapped his hands, enjoying the winces of the two Rationalists. "If you discuss terms with prince Feerix,
I
shall be at liberty, and all too rare that liberty has been of late, to share," he brought his teeth together with a click, "a few bites of conversation with my daughter."

Milielan did not wait for any of the gathered cretins to respond. They could discuss the deadly political situation or pick each other's noses for all the difference it made to him, as long as they did not, yet, kill each other.

"An excellent move on your part, daughter," he spoke in Sangboise to Bloodbyrn, nodding at the Istain boy, "disemboweling Feerix's counter-plot and gaining an invaluable hostage, at one stroke. And you kept the boy close, where he can be used to coerce the Ultimate Fiend and prevent him from fouling these delicate negotiations. Clever."

She nodded at the praise, but her hand came up in negation of it. "In truth, father, all this has been the work of my lord, himself."

Now that was truly surprising information. "Feerborg is attempting to make it appear as if he is concerned for the life of this…acquaintance?" Milielan stroked his trim beard in thought. "The Compassionate Feint. A most eccentric gambit. Almost praiseworthy. If it works, of course."

"My father," Bloodbyrn said, "I feel compelled to tell you that, to the best of what my reason and instincts are able to ascertain, Despot Feerborg is not pursuing this line of action as corollary to a more subtle manipulation of events, but out of genuine feelings of responsibility for the safety of this man, Istain."

"Inconceivable!" the Duke ejaculated.

The despot and the prince, locked together in what appeared to be a schoolyard shoving match, looked up. Were they
fighting?
Again? Well, and what if Feerix
did
finally kill Feerborg? The prince could hardly be more difficult to manage than his older half-brother.

"Excuse me, my lords, please go back to your game," Milielan said, casting a curious glance at the Ultimate Fiend and his…friend? How outré. The Duke shuddered and turned back to Bloodbyrn. "No, no, I cannot believe it. Even the Ultimate Fiend could not hope to survive here if he let it be known that he harbors sentiment for any creature."

"He does," his daughter said. "Only consider what you know of Despot Feerborg, father, and you will find yourself forced to agree that this maneuver, far from unbelievable as you say is, in fact," she smiled, "just like the man."

"Just like the man." The admiration in that phrase, that small smile, those upturned eyes.

Milielan felt the hairs rise on his neck. No. No, it could not be. A memory of Bloodbyrn's mother cut through Milielan's intended speech like a sabre's slice to his larynx.

"Father? What ails you?" She asked.

"Yes," Milielan growled to keep his voice from trembling. "Indeed this plan is just like the man, as you say, my daughter. It is rampant and suicidal
lunacy!
" He smote the wall beside them with his fist.

His daughter actually allowed herself to gasp, a reaction far greater than words justified. That, too, was too much like her mother. As her mother
had
been, there at the end.

Milielan struggled to separate past from present. Bloodbyrn was not the lady Basorrie DeMacabre, and Despot Feerborg, by all that was bloody, could never be mistaken for Milielan DeMacabre, himself. No. The tragic history of the old generation need not be repeated by the new.

It
would
not be, by his blood and dripping teeth, that DeMacabre swore.

"My daughter," said Milielan, in a more modulated voice, "this situation cannot continue. The hostage is an advantage only with his neck between
our
fangs. Therefore I direct you: peel that boy off of the Ultimate Fiend, and by all that is bloody inform me if you have reason to believe we cannot continue with our previous plan. It is true I grow weary of lord Feerix straining at his leash. I would be glad to know if the time has come for me to
release
," he spread his hands before her, "my grip."

That came close to revealing too much, even at a time when most hidden ears would be listening to the discussion between the Ultimate Fiend and the Prince. But Milielan was growing desperate. He feared he recognized the emerging pattern in Bloodbyrn's responses.

Exsanguinations! What mad seer could have predicted, after the nightmare of Bloodbyrn's childhood, that Milielan would repeat this conversation? The one that had last passed, nearly word for word, between himself and Milielan's own father, before he had murdered the man. Before he had married the dear lady Basorrie.

***

Freetrick kept his hands ready to defend himself.

"I see you have captured my hostage," Feerix was smiling as he strode toward Freetrick. "An adroit move." The smile widened, "which you have followed by a stupid one. Why did you bring him here?" He laughed, "where I can so easily kill him?"

With shocking speed the prince lunged forward

Behind him, Istain gave out a squawk of surprise, but Freetrick had been on guard since the suspicious word 'adroit' and was ready to shove a shoulder into Feerix's chest.

Black mist crackled in the air.

"Inconceivable!"

Both their heads turned at the outburst from DeMacabre. The man was staring at them. Staring at him. And at Istain? Truth, what was Bloodbyrn telling the untrustworthy old viper? Freetrick wondered whether he might be able to shout something, ambiguous enough not to tip anyone else off, but strong enough to stop Bloodbyrn from blabbing everything to her striking crazy-ass dad.

Feerix's next shove nearly pushed him over. As it was, Freetrick blundered backwards into Istain, and Istain said "oof" as his back pressed against the wall.

A black tentacle flashed through the air directly at Istain. Freetrick concentrated and flicked the attack aside. In some strange corner of his mind, he registered the drop in his already miniscule reserves of necromantic power. The negotiations were not going well.

***

"The plans of the Ultimate Fiend will
not
result in our goals, my daughter, whatever it may be!" With difficulty, Milielan controlled his tone, swallowed the words he could not say in this unsecured corridor. Why could the girl not see for herself? This boy could not protect her as she needed to be protected. How could he? Feerborg had never lain eyes on the source of the girl's beauty, having never met the Dark Lady Basorrie DeMacabre.

"But you must wait until I
tell
you of the plan, father, before you dismiss it."

And never would he, for in the days of madness after her loss, Milielan had burned his lady's portraits, smashed his lady's busts, killed all of the mansion's servants, until nothing remained of her in the world. Nothing excepting his memories and the face of his daughter.

"My daughter," spoke Milielan, "we shall at a later time continue this discussion, once the hostage is firmly in our grip. Then we may have some room for flexibility. But not now, for our enemies listen."

Most of those enemies who had colluded in that night, so many years ago, were already slain. But so more threats remained. Many more throats remained to be slit.