Chaos god, p.28
Chaos God, page 28
Now, the familiarity of the structure felt like coming home again, and I wondered idly for a moment if there was any way to save the place. Sylmarie’s words echoed in my mind again as I coasted on my wings. The idea of becoming the ruler of all nine realms, or even just this one, was so huge and foreign a concept that my brain rejected it. I couldn’t see the destiny she’d said was laid at my feet as a reality, but Elora and the others had been confident in Sylmarie’s prophecies. I figured if it really was my fate to rule, then it was unlikely I’d be able to change that.
As crazy as that sounded.
I decided I would go one step at a time, and if I did fulfill some destiny and become God King of the nine realms, I would see about restoring the palace to its former glory.
For now, I had darker fish to fry, and I turned my attention to the less opulent but still rather imposing structure to the north as I picked up speed again. The Demon Lord’s castle was close, and I remembered what Ayen had told me about flying birds being a rare occurrence in this region for the last several years.
Then I veered far to the west, and I soared slowly around the western side of the castle toward the back and then around to the eastern side where the kitchen was.
I inspected the walls as I went, and once again, only five demon guards patrolled lazily back and forth along the castle’s front outer wall. They seemed entirely bored, and they only occasionally glanced down toward the front gate for dangers to their lord. I couldn’t see any other demons anywhere around the castle, and I expected that the terrain played a big hand in that fact. The castle was nestled quite nicely into an alcove in the mountain range, and the only reasonable path to the gates was from the front.
I waited until I was well around the other side of the castle with the kitchen window in my view before I dove sharply down. Then I spread my wings out hard to slow my descent, and I stretched my feet out in front of me. I flew straight at the window, and I tucked my wings close to my sides at the last second to keep from breaking my hands on the stone walls.
I tried to stop on the windowsill, but my momentum was a bit too much, and I slid right off and landed on the narrow table below.
“Fuck,” I muttered, but it came out as a muffled screech.
Astrid was in the kitchen all alone, and she stood with her back to me at the large table in the middle of the kitchen. She gasped and turned around sharply when the thump of my landing and my squawk alerted her to my presence.
“Oh!” Astrid breathed with surprise and a touch of relief as she looked at me. “Hello, beautiful friend. What are you doing here?”
I spread my talons out on the table and kept the vial firmly under my toes. Then I held out my left leg that held the letter and gave her a tiny caw.
“What have you there?” Astrid brushed off her flour-covered hands on her apron. The pretty blonde girl stepped closer to the table, and she gingerly picked up the rolled-up letter. “Goodness, this is unusual.”
I gave the girl what I hoped was a reassuring blink, but I had no idea how my hawk features would appear to her. I looked pointedly at the letter and nudged my beak toward her.
“Would you like me to open this, my new friend?” Astrid asked, and she reached one finger forward slowly as if she wanted to stroke the feathers on my chest.
I gave the girl a firm nod, and I leaned closer to her finger so that my brown-and-white speckled feathers touched gently against the back of her knuckles.
“You are very intelligent,” Astrid said with wide eyes.
I blinked patiently at her, and I did my best to be still as she finally unrolled the letter.
“‘Dearest Ingrid, Astrid, and Merial,’” Astrid breathed as she read the letter aloud. “Oh, dear…”
I watched the young woman’s face grow more and more surprised as she read the letter, and her mouth moved over the words in silence. When she was done, she stared at me in shock. Then she read the letter over once more, and she turned the page over in search of more information.
“My gods,” Astrid gasped. Finally, she looked at me, and her blue eyes were wide with confusion and shock. “Is this true?”
I nodded firmly, and then I released the vial from under my right foot, and I nudged it toward her.
“Goodness!” Astrid picked up the vial full of concentrated night lace poison, and she held the pretty liquid up to the light.
“Is that dough ready yet, child?” Ingrid asked with authority as she re-entered the kitchen from the stairway. “Oh! What in the heavens is going on in here?”
“Ingrid!” The blonde girl turned fast to Goren’s mother, and she held out the letter to her. “We’ve received a letter from my sisters and your family!”
“What?” Ingrid asked, and she eyed me with suspicion. “Why on Asgard is there a hawk in the kitchen? Where did it come from?”
“His name is Levi,” Astrid answered firmly, and she took a half-step between me and Ingrid. “Here, read the letter!”
Ingrid narrowed her pale green eyes at me, and then she looked from Astrid’s insistent face to the page the girl held in her hand.
“Very well,” Ingrid sighed as if she knew there was no use in refusing the girl’s request. Ingrid moved the page toward her face, and then she moved it away several inches as if she couldn’t quite focus on the lines. Then she narrowed her eyes and began to read. “What the…”
“See?” Astrid pleaded with the older elf, and she pointed to a place on the torn book page. “They mean to kill--”
“Hush, child!” Ingrid shushed her in an aggressive whisper, and her pale green eyes flicked to the stairs. “I can see what it says.”
“And here it is,” Astrid added, and she held up the vial of poison. “Just like the letter says.”
Ingrid read the lines of the letter once more, and then she looked me over thoroughly before her mouth opened, closed, and opened again.
“Is this all true?” Ingrid finally forced the words out of her shock-stricken mouth.
I nodded firmly, and I gave her a small caw to confirm everything in the letter was true. Then I resettled my wings against my small body and waited to see what Ingrid would do next.
“We must take this chance, Ingrid,” Astrid half-ordered and half-pleaded with the older woman. “No other opportunity like this will ever come to us.”
“I do believe you may be right, dear,” Ingrid murmured in amazement, and her face slowly shifted from pure shock to determination.
“You intend to free us all from the Demon Lord,” Ingrid murmured.
I just gazed at the women and waited for them to decide.
Then a small spark of hope came to life in the elf’s pale green eyes, and when I knew I had her on our side, my heart rate jumped in anticipation.
Holy shit, this crazy plan of mine just might work.
“So, I must add this to his Lordship’s feast for this evening?” Ingrid asked me.
I nodded to confirm.
“Something he will consume quickly would be best, I expect?” Ingrid pondered for a moment.
“Actually,” I tried to say, but a small screech came out of my beak instead. I shook my feathered head insistently.
“I do not understand.” Ingrid narrowed her eyes in confusion at me. “It should not be something he will consume quickly?”
I sighed with frustration and knew I was going to have to shift back into my human form to speak directly with these women. I wished for a moment that I had the ability to speak in animal form, but I guessed that just wasn’t part of the magic.
I glided down from the table and landed on the uneven stone floor. Then I took a few deep breaths, and I thought about how I needed to speak with Ingrid and Astrid, and how crucial it was to the mission that we be able to communicate. I had no idea if it was going to work, and I started to resign myself to playing twenty questions with the Demon Lord’s servants. Then my body began to shift once more, and I felt myself stretching back out to my six-foot-four-inch frame.
“Oh!” Astrid gasped, and she smothered the sharp sound with both of her hands.
“Goodness, that is astonishing,” Ingrid whispered with more stealth than her young companion.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but I felt like I needed to clarify some things. And, honestly, I have some questions for you, too.”
“Certainly.” Ingrid nodded, and she smoothed her hair down.
I was impressed with how much composure the woman had. Even though she seemed to believe the part in the letter about me having shifting magic and being a human in hawk’s clothing, I’d still expected her to freak out a little bit.
“Okay, so I came in here yesterday as a mouse,” I started, and I shook off how weird that sentence sounded coming out of my mouth. “I overheard you two talking about how the sacrifices are presented to the Demon Lord so he can figure out how everyone would be most useful to him. Is that right?”
“Yes.” Astrid nodded.
“That is how the sacrifices have gone for as long as I have served His Lordship,” Ingrid agreed.
“Okay, good,” I said. “And after that, the sacrifices get taken down to a dungeon?”
“Yes, there is another set of stairs down this hallway that leads to the dungeons,” Ingrid confirmed, and she pointed back through the kitchen door and further to the left.
I moved toward the kitchen door and poked my head around the corner to peer down the stone hallway. Two simple iron sconces were spread far apart so that there were just two pools of flickering yellow light before the hallway sank into total darkness.
“What happens to them once they’re in the dungeons?” I asked, and I phrased my next question very carefully. “How long is it usually before the Demon Lord has them brought to their different… assignments?”
“The quickest I have ever seen the sacrifices leave the dungeons is the following day.” Ingrid knotted her cracked fingers, and the tension was clear through her entire body.
I moved further back into the kitchen, and as I stepped out of sight of the hallway, I was pleased to see this brought some relief to the older elf’s shoulders.
“That’s good,” I said. “What about the demon guards? Are there more than the five at the front gates?”
“Yes,” Ingrid confirmed. “I do not know how many there are, I am sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I comforted the woman, and I could tell my prolonged presence here was making her nervous about being found out. “Do they patrol through the whole castle? Or do they have particular stations and assignments?”
“Mostly, they seem to guard the dungeons,” Astrid answered.
I nodded at the young blonde woman, and then I glanced at Ingrid for confirmation. The older elf nodded in agreement.
“Excellent.” I sorted all the additional information into my mental assessment of the Demon Lord and his fortress.
“What do you wish for me to do with the, uh…” Ingrid gestured vaguely at the vial that was still clutched in Astrid’s tight grip.
“Right, so Nestryn said it would be burned up quickly in the Demon Lord’s body,” I explained. “This means I need it to go into something he’ll consume fairly quickly, but not immediately. I’m going to need time to be brought down to the dungeons, shift, escape, and get back up to the dining hall before he has a chance to burn through it all. Does that make sense?”
“It does.” Ingrid nodded, and she thought for a moment. “I bring his Lordship his wine as the sacrifices enter the room. I believe he enjoys the shock on their faces when they see me, and he enjoys the torture it brings me to see who has been chosen each month. I have never seen him take even a single sip or nibble until after the sacrifices have been led away to the dungeons.”
“Okay. That’s good, that will give me enough time.” I nodded my understanding.
Then Ingrid bustled around the kitchen in a sudden burst of movement, and I side-stepped to get out of her way.
“Astrid,” Ingrid commanded the young blonde woman. “Bring the red wine from the back of the storeroom. It is the best wine, and he will not be able to help himself from drinking every last drop.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Astrid said with a smile, and she hurried off to follow the older woman’s orders.
“That sounds perfect,” I said, and I felt our conversation was coming to an end. “Do you have any questions for me?”
Ingrid paused and thought for a moment. “I do not believe so.”
“Alright, I’ve got to check out the castle a bit more,” I told them. “I need to see these dungeons and get a better feel for the demon guards down there.”
“Are you going to turn back into a hawk, sir?” Astrid asked. Her tone was polite, and her eyes were filled with fascination.
“No, I don’t think so.” I shook my head, and I pondered my options. I needed to be something small so I could get around without being seen, but I didn’t want to lose the serious advantage that flying gave me.
“Then what will you become?” Ingrid’s wrinkled brow furrowed at me.
“Let’s find out,” I mumbled under my breath.
Then I closed my eyes and prepared to shift once again.
Chapter 19
I imagined something small, inconspicuous, and with the ability to fly, and I turned my thoughts firmly to the needs of the next part of my mission.
Then I opened my eyes and focused on the need to be stealthy and move around the castle with swiftness. I thought about how many vicious demons were probably roaming around the dungeons, and what they would do to me if I was caught lurking around. Just a few seconds later, I was surprised and pleased to feel my body beginning to shift.
I watched Ingrid and Astrid’s eyes go as round as dinner plates as I shrank low to the ground. My arms and legs shrank and narrowed into spindly little limbs beneath me, and an extra set of legs started to emerge from the middle of my torso. Then I felt a pair of thin, veiny wings sprout from my back, and my eyesight shifted. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, the way everything fractured into two dozen identical versions of the room around me. The weirdest part of this shift was that I could suddenly detect all the smells of the kitchen from two antennae that had emerged from my forehead.
I was very close to the floor, and the two women stood far above me with identical looks of shock and awe on their faces.
“Goodness,” Ingrid breathed, and she took a half-step away from me.
I spread open the thin membrane of my wings, and I felt them flap rapidly against the firm muscles of my back. I flicked my large globular eyes back to get a better look at myself, and I spotted thin stripes across the middle of my torso. The stripes were a very subtle shade of yellow, and the rest of my body had become the smooth black casing of a wasp.
If I’d still had a traditional spine, a shudder would have gone down it.
There was something about wasps that had always creeped me out, and now I was one. I forced myself to look at the many advantages of this form for my current mission. I was definitely small, and the black color of my exoskeleton would make it easier for me to blend into the shadows in the dungeons. I would also be able to crawl around on the ceilings and walls in this form, so I wouldn’t have to fly the entire time. Then I could fly all the way back to camp without having to shift again.
I decided it was a good option, even if it creeped me out.
I fluttered my wings, and I was impressed at how quickly my entire body lifted from the uneven stone floor of the kitchen. The room tilted strangely around me, and it took a few seconds for me to get my bearings. Flying in my hawk form had been a bit more straightforward, and I assumed it was because my wings had shifted from my arms. In this wasp form, the wings had sprouted from my back as completely new extremities of my body, and it took a bit of extra thinking to manipulate them and maneuver in the direction I wanted.
I took a few laps around the kitchen to get a better hang of flying, and then I buzzed straight through the doorway and into the hallway. I flew to the left and started to make my way down the poorly-lit stone corridor. The hall was long, and I flew close to the ceiling just in case a demon decided to emerge from the dungeons at that moment. There were two more open doorways in the hall that appeared to lead into more storerooms, and I spotted several wooden barrels and crates in the rooms.
Once I got to the end of the hall, I could see that there was an even narrower flight of stone steps that led down into the bowels of the castle.
There was a distant yellow light flickering somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, so I figured that was where I needed to go.
I started to fly into the dark depths of the castle, and I sniffed at the putrid air with my antennae. I could smell the pungent odor of dozens of dirty bodies pressed close together, the moldy dampness that accompanied a poorly ventilated basement, and the wretched stench I’d come to associate with the demons of this world.
The castle’s dungeons opened up at the bottom of the stone stairs, and there were a few more simple iron sconces on the wall that allowed enough light for me to have a good look around.
I noticed a heavy iron keyring hanging on a rusty nail just outside the door, and I filed this fact into my mind. I was sure these would be the keys to open the prison doors.
The space was wide and long, and prison cells lined both sides of the stone room. Thick iron bars ran from the ceilings to the floors all along the length of the room, and I could smell the strange tinge of rust on the bars. The first area of the basement prison was empty of any people, but there were at least a dozen people huddled together in the second area.
The people looked as though they’d barely been cared for since their arrival here. They were filthy, and the dirt on their faces was streaked with dried tears. Many of them looked dangerously thin, like they’d been given just enough food to keep them from starving to death. Some of the men and women looked more healthy, and I assumed they were more recent arrivals to the Demon Lord’s castle.
