In the Company of Ogres (13 page)
“You hear the future,” corrected Elmer. “Tell me what you’ve got in your hand right now.”
“No.”
“Name one card in your hand.”
“Then you’d know what I had.”
The other players chuckled. Owens held several cards in the wrong direction already, although no one bothered to point it out.
“At least one of us would know then,” said Elmer.
By now, Ace had swallowed enough peanuts to be understood. “I bet if someone turned Ned to stone, he’d stay dead. Or boiled him in acid until everything dissolved. Even his bones.”
“If I were trying to kill him,” said Owens, “I’d tie him down with some heavy rocks and throw him in a real deep lake. I figure even if he didn’t stay dead, he’d come back alive underwater and just drown again before he could free himself. Over and over and over, if need be. Not exactly killing him, but it’d be the next best thing.”
Everyone agreed it sounded like a good plan, although Elmer still insisted that burning Ned to ash would be easier.
“Do you know how hard it is to burn a human to ash?” asked Sally. “They’re not quite as flammable as treefolk. Trust me, there’s always stuff left over. The bones and heart and a couple of other choice organs.”
She raised and cocked her head. Salamanders were especially sensitive to subtle changes in temperature, and a cold spot passed through the hall outside the room. She set down her cards.
“Where are you going?” asked Elmer.
“Deal me out.” She stretched, uncoiling her long, serpentine body. “I’ve got to check something.” She slipped quietly into the hall.
“What’s gotten into her?” asked Ace.
“Who cares?” Elmer deliberately blew a smoke ring into Owens’s face. “If you don’t take your turn now, we’re going to skip you.”
Owens admitted defeat. He leaned over to Ace and asked for a suggestion.
“I’d go for sevens,” replied Ace.
“Crap.” Owens drew a card.
“You didn’t ask,” said Ace.
“Trust me,” replied the oracle, “he doesn’t have any.”
Anyone else might not have given much thought to the frost along the hallway walls, but Sally knew underworld ice when she smelled it. Salamanders and ice demons were natural enemies. In addition to the innate conflict of their nature, there was a lot of bad history between the races. Her warm skin burned hot enough to simmer the air.
She turned the corner, and her adversary stood before her. He’d surely sensed her presence as easily as she’d felt his. Neither made a move right away, instead taking measure of the other.
The demon pulled back his hood. His face was long and angular. The horns growing from his brow curved back to touch the top of his bald skull. As she grew hotter with anticipation, he grew colder. As wisps of flame danced on the scales along her back like a sail of fire, frost crystallized on his blue skin. A chill mist slipped from his tight lips as he spoke.
“I’d heard your kind were extinct.”
She paled a humorless gray. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, and I don’t care. An ice demon killed my cousin, and I’ve always wanted to return the favor.”
She snorted. Her scales brightened a bloodred shade. A sword and shield of blackest ice materialized in the demon’s hands.
Sally darkened from murderous crimson to merciless ebony. She spat a fireball. The demon deflected the strike with his sword. Both the weapon and the flame dissolved in a blinding cloud of steam. The demon hurled jagged icicles without aiming. Sally twisted her serpentine body to avoid all but one. It struck her dead center but melted away almost instantly so that the worst of the damage was just a nick. She shrieked as a gout of flame poured from her jaws. It met the demon’s frozen shield, and soon the entire hall was obscured with fog and the sound of battle.
Drawn by the noise, a nearby door opened. Regina and Miriam stepped out of Ned’s quarters into the muggy, misty hallway. The siren was nearly impaled by an ice dagger that buried itself in the wall three inches from her face. Regina grinned, but her grin faded when a lick of flame shot close enough to sear the tip of her hair. They could see nothing else but shadows wrestling in the fog.
The demon struck Sally a hard blow with a frozen club that sent the salamander reeling. She tumbled from the fog to land at Regina and Miriam’s feet. Before Regina could demand an explanation, Sally hastily saluted.
“Excuse me, ma’am. This won’t take another minute.” She sprang back into the mist.
In truth, it took just eleven seconds under a minute during which Sally hissed and shrieked and even howled three times. She spat enough fire to burn down two forests, and her skin blazed hot enough to smelt bronze. It was fortunate Copper Citadel was mostly stone and mortar, or else it would’ve been ablaze. Finally, she fell quiet. The steam gradually faded enough to reveal the salamander coiled around a large block of ice.
“Oh, damn. Decoy.” She unwound from the block. Her tongue flicked out to taste the air, but the demon was gone. Like a fire burning too hot, Sally’s rage was all but consumed. She settled into a more tolerable temperature, and Regina was able to approach.
“What’s going on here?”
“Ice demon, ma’am. Caught him snooping about, but I’m afraid he got away.”
Regina gave Sally orders to lead a few soldiers in a search of the citadel, but she expected the effort to be fruitless. Sally slipped away, leaving Regina and Miriam standing in the puddle of a melting ice block.
“I wonder what it was doing here?” asked Miriam.
Regina frowned deeply. She didn’t like the idea of unauthorized visitors roaming the citadel. Murderous conspiracies aside, she was a thoroughly by-the-book officer.
The demon’s cloak of seclusion would’ve failed him against a thorough search, but Ogre Company’s lax discipline gave him plenty of time to slip away. He was out of the grounds and on his way before a proper alarm was raised.
Despite the troublesome salamander, he was most pleased. She’d not interfered before he’d gotten close enough to get a good reading off the pendulum. It’d even glowed. That could mean only one thing, and his frozen blood chilled in anticipation. Lost in his icy thoughts, he failed to notice the Red Woman until he’d practically run into her.
She saw him, of course. Even new, his cloak’s magic couldn’t hide him from her eyes. She nodded to the demon. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Fancy seeing you here.”
“And you as well.”
They shared a silent moment as they shuffled through their own private musings.
“What brings you down from your mountain?” asked the demon.
“Nothing of great importance,” she replied. “And what of yourself?”
“Just a trifling matter. Nothing you’d be interested in, I’m sure.”
They both offered forth empty, polite smiles.
“Must be off then,” said the demon.
“Oh, please, don’t let me keep you.” The Red Woman stepped aside, and the demon walked off into the night.
Her vermilion raven flew down from the treetops to perch on her shoulder. “Do you think he knows?”
The sorceress shrugged. “If he doesn’t, he soon will.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“You could destroy him, couldn’t you?”
“With a single wave of my staff.” She demonstrated the simple gesture. “But they would sense that, and there would come more. They were bound to find Ned. It was only a matter of time.”
“You could always hide him again,” suggested the raven.
“I could. But this is where Ned belongs. It is time to see what he is made of, to hope that he is ready.”
The Red Woman continued on her way to the citadel, which by now was on full alert. She had more potent magics at her disposal than old, enchanted cloaks. No one spotted her.
“Do you think Ned will be ready?” asked the raven as they walked through the front gate unmolested by guards.
A frigid wind swept across the fortress.
“No, I don’t suppose he will be.”
Phantom darkness fell over the citadel like the shadow of an unseen colossus, and a hard rain poured from a cloudless, starless sky.
Eleven
WHILE OGRE COMPANY RAN about in poor discipline, the Red Woman slipped into Ned’s room. She walked in those moments between moments, those bridges between now and then, and none noticed her passing. Ned was the sole occupant of his room by that time. Miriam and Regina were off aiding in the search efforts. The sorceress stood at the foot of the bed and studied the corpse.
“What are you waiting for?” said the raven. “Just raise him so we can get out of here before someone spots us.”
The Red Woman chuckled. She could be gone in an instant. Nor did she have anything to fear should she allow herself to be seen. She only sneaked about because it had been her habit for so long she’d lost patience for dealing with the living. But she’d tarried long enough. She walked to the head of the bed, and waved her hands over Ned. The corpse’s bloat shrank. The burn on his chest faded to a less noticeable shade, not quite visible except under the proper light, but as he always carried a memento of his deaths, it would remain. After she’d lovingly tucked his tongue back in his mouth, Ned appeared to be merely dozing. His wounds were such that one could usually only be certain he was alive by his breathing. He wasn’t breathing yet.
She paused. It was truly a shame he couldn’t remain dead, forever frozen in this peaceful slumber. But death wasn’t for Ned.
The raven flew to the headboard. “Just do it already.”
She smacked Ned across the forehead. He jumped to life with a yelp. Returning from the dead was as normal as waking up, and there was a sense neither of wonder nor disorientation. Only disappointment, and even this emotion was slight.
“How long was I gone?” he asked the Red Woman. Her resurrections weren’t always prompt. Once he’d been deceased for three months before she’d gotten around to raising him.
But the Red Woman wasn’t there. She’d crept away in another of those “between” moments. This surprised him. She’d always been the first person he’d seen. Not that she ever told him anything useful, nor explained herself. But she’d never just run off before without sharing a few words. Ned didn’t care, but the distinct impression she was avoiding him did cross his mind. Never one to take a lucky break for granted, he took advantage of this moment to lie on his bed and relax. Right now, the Red Woman was gone, and no one else in the citadel knew he was alive. For at least a little while, he could enjoy the quiet.
It didn’t last very long. It never did.
The door opened. For a split second, he entertained the notion of sticking out his tongue, closing his eye, and pretending he was still deceased until whoever entered had gone away. He wasn’t quick enough.
Miriam’s large black eyes opened wider. “Oh. You’re back.”
He stared at the ceiling. “I’m back.”
“Are you feeling better, sir?”
He didn’t reply. That was a complicated question.
There was an awkward silence then. Ned was too involved in his own thoughts to notice as Miriam frowned and fidgeted a bit, tracing small circles on the floor with her left foot while, arms crossed, drumming the webbed fingers of her right hand on her left forearm. Had he any practice reading siren body language, he would’ve also noticed the fins atop her head flatten bashfully, and the tiny nervous gills just below her ears gulping down air. She tried to stop that. Outside of water, it’d only give her gas.
“It’s good to have you back, sir. I ... we missed you.”
He raised his head and squinted quizzically. “Really?”
“Yes, sir.”
He lay back and considered this. Currently he was too self-absorbed to understand the implications. Romantically speaking, Ned was rather dense. He’d never done well with women. His accumulation of scars and disfigurements hadn’t helped. It wasn’t a question of self-esteem. It was simply a question of experience, of expecting the world to behave in certain ways. That Miriam might find him desirable was as likely as the end table wanting to be his best friend. It just didn’t make sense to him, and like anyone confronted with the unbelievable, he had two choices. He could make that leap of faith and believe. Or he could just not notice.
He chose the latter, although “choice” might imply the slightest conscious effort on his part.
Miriam moved closer but still remained a few paces from the bed. “Can I get you anything, sir?”
“No, I’m fine.” He pursed his lips and blew out a long breath. “Thanks anyway.”
For her part, Miriam was well aware of how she felt. She liked Ned and had absolutely no way of telling him. All she need do was sing a little song, and he could be hers. Ned had already succumbed once to her allure. He would easily do so again. Women had been seducing men since the dawn of time by employing their wits and natural charms, and singing enchanted melodies was as natural to a siren as breathing. Would it have been so wrong to employ a little musical charm at this moment?
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