The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (30 page)

“When this is over…” Maran began.

“When this is over, one or both of us will be dead, and it
won’t matter,”
Sedel
said with finality.

- 3 -

The others listened in silence as Maran related the tale of
his meeting with the unknown elf. Maran had received permission to tell them
much of what he’d been told, with the exception of anything to do with Maran’s
family, or the name and nature of the
Do’Fidel
. Maran
also voluntarily omitted
Sedel’s
name – false though
it was – and his determination to sacrifice himself for his king; some things
were not meant for others to know or understand.

When he was finished, they sat in a somber silence for
several minutes digesting what the shadowy elf had told them. Finally it was
Perklet, of all people, who broke the silence.

“Perhaps that explains some of what we heard today,” the
quiet Green paladin said. They all looked at him and waited patiently while he
flushed at the sudden attention. “Nuse, Moreen, and I sat in a bar with two of
your invisible friends at our side translating conversations for us. Not the
best way to pick up information, to be sure, but they wanted a new perspective
from us and we had to know what was being said, so we made do.

“Anyway, during a brawl that broke out between two elves,
someone was knocked down and their head split open from a splintered chair,”
Perklet said. “I knelt and healed him discreetly, and no one noticed. He said
some things, as did his companion who picked him up, that our translator didn’t
think much of at first. They said, ‘The father follows the son, the sun follows
the night, and the stars rule the sky.’”

“It’s a reference from an elven play,” Maran said, nodding.

“That’s what the translator said, but it just struck me as
odd, and I remembered I’d heard something very similar between two elves
earlier,” Perklet said insistently, “and I started wondering. Your brother was
just slain, and if your father is the next target, the father will follow the
son. The stars could be these Do rebels hoping to gain power. His friend
murmured something about being in no condition to act, and cursed him for being
stupid and getting hurt.”

“It’s thin,” Hoil said skeptically. “There’s nothing about
the sun following the night that fits.” Perklet looked crest-fallen.

 “There was more to it,” Moreen said, breaking in. “His
friend mumbled a few other things that were hard to hear and our translators
could only catch snatches, but the words king and prince were almost definitely
said. Looked at in the light of a conspiracy, it almost sounds like a code,
like a sign and countersign.”

“It could have been from the same play, but I’m beginning to
believe you,” Maran said grimly. “If nothing else, it’s an odd reference to be
made so blithely.”

“That’s what we thought when our translators explained it to
us,” Moreen said, “and we also had a few questions we wanted to ask you, Maran,
rather than our invisible escorts.”

“Such as?”

 “Where have your friends been looking for these
unknown invaders?” she asked.

“In just about every home, office, building, nook, and
cranny in every city on the island,” Maran replied in frustration. “In
particular, there’s not a level of this city they haven’t searched thoroughly.”

“What about beneath the levels?” Moreen asked pointedly.
Beside her, Nuse nodded in support, his eyes thoughtful.

Maran stared at her.

“You keep telling us what wonderful cities you elves build
on these branches you make grow together to make solid walls and solid floors,
but what’s to stop someone from making something
beneath
one of these
levels, hiding in the shadows?” Nuse continued, picking up on Moreen’s line of
thinking. “Think about it.”

“I don’t have to think about it,” Maran said, now angry at
himself. “My associates have been doing it for centuries. Elven society is
conditioned to avoid the shadow whenever possible, and the concept of going
beneath the levels to where there is no light at all is an anathema to the
elven psyche. It’s an aversion the Do have carefully fostered ever since they
first started moving back into the cities and concealing their presence. Maybe
that conditioning worked a little too well, though. I believe you may very well
have hit upon a social blindness that backfired on its instigators.”

Maran cursed softly. “Surely they thought of that, but would
they have searched as thoroughly…” He trailed off in thought. He pulled a black
balaclava from a hidden pocket and slipped it over his head.

“You must excuse me for a moment,” he said and abruptly
disappeared from sight.

 They stared at each other in silence, not knowing what
to do or say. After a few awkward moments, they heard a loud scream right
outside their door, and the wood rattled against the lock. Birch immediately
placed himself between the door and Moreen and laid a hand on his sword while
Perklet and Nuse took flanking positions on either side of him. There was a
loud pounding, as of someone trying to break down the door, then it stopped
with a choking gurgle of sound. Then the door opened, despite being locked from
inside, and Maran stood there with two bodies at his feet. One was of an elven
guard, the other was an elf wrapped in black clothing and missing an ear.

Maran looked at them grimly.

“It’s started.”

If we stand on the backs of those who come before us, we must pay for
their sins. If we stand upon their corpses, we must pay for our own.

- Jared
jo’Raneth
,

“A Coming of Angels: The Epiphany” (34 AL)

- 1 -

“Birch, Hoil, come with me now!” Maran barked from the
doorway.

“Where…”

“There is no time to explain,” Maran said sharply. “Both of
you. Now!”

Birch drew his sword and turned to Nuse and Perklet.

“Gentlemen, I need you to stay here and protect Moreen,” he
said. “Take whatever steps you deem necessary, but keep her safe. Selti, stay
here,” Birch ordered. The gray dakkan nodded sullenly, but obeyed.

“Our life before hers, brother,” Nuse said soberly. The
three paladins joined hands.

“For God and for man. For Life,” they said as one.

Birch took one of Moreen’s hands and clasped it tightly. She
mouthed, “I love you,” as he squeezed her hand and turned away.

Birch followed Maran and Hoil into the hallway and found he
had to run to keep up with the fleet-footed elf. Maran wielded a dagger in each
hand, and his eyes were coldly murderous. Birch watched every corridor
carefully as they passed, but he saw no other elves.

“What’s happening, Maran?” Hoil dared to ask.

“They’ve begun their attack on my family,” Maran said. “I
just spoke with a guard sympathetic to my companions, and my sister is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was almost an accident,” Maran said emotionlessly. “She stumbled
onto a group of the intruders while they were dressing themselves in guards’
uniforms, and she screamed in warning. The false guards slit her throat, but it
was too late. I don’t think they were quite ready to attack, so now their
schedule is upset, which we can use to our advantage. This is being done by
experts, and it might have been over before we knew it began if not for her
chance blunder.”

Maran turned to look down a hallway, and Birch saw a deep,
burning rage in the elf’s eyes: the only outward sign of the fury seething
within him. Hoil looked at the elf and shivered.

Twice they encountered elves who immediately attacked Maran.
The first time he slit two throats and disemboweled one before Birch or Hoil
could even catch up to him, and by then there was little left to do. At the
second encounter, Maran merely knocked the men unconscious and quickly had them
moved into a large room nearby.

“These are loyal guards,” Maran explained. “They just
mistook me for an intruder.”

“Which brings up a good point,” Hoil said. “That’s all well
and good for you to know the difference somehow, but what about us? No offense,
but a loyal elven guard looks much the same as a traitor in a uniform.”

“For now, focus on incapacitation, and let me worry about
the difference,” Maran replied. “Just…”

He suddenly spun and deflected the straight-bladed end of a
halven
, diverting the weapon into the wood of the door. The
attack came from outside the room, and Birch pushed past Hoil to position
himself to back up their elven companion. Maran ducked to the side, pivoted on
one foot, then kicked out. One blow caught his assailant on the wrist, the
other in his belly, driving him back out of sight before Birch could see him.

“Hold, El’Siran,” Maran said sharply. “I serve the king.”

“Prove it.”

“I am he who was once
El’Maran
,”
Maran replied, removing his balaclava. “You once brought my brother and me dry
clothing after we fell off a
chiplin
into the
Si’risha’mi
River. I serve my father, the king.”

Finally Siran came into view, holding his twin-bladed sword
at the ready as he advanced into the room. He stared at Maran’s missing ear,
then he nodded and looked at Birch and Hoil.

“You are together?”

Birch wasn’t sure which of them he was asking, but all three
nodded at once.

“Then I must trust you,” Siran said. “Where are you coming
from?”

“Our quarters, but more important is where we’re going,”
Maran said. “My father is in danger, as is the prince.”

“The king must be protected,” Siran said immediately.

“Agreed,” Maran replied. “You know where he can be found?
Good. Hoil, Birch, follow Siran and help protect my father. I go to protect the
prince.”

“But…” Hoil began.

“The Do can turn invisible and strike from concealment,”
Maran said urgently, cutting him off. “The king has adequate defense against
their kind, but I fear he will be overwhelmed if his defenders must face Do and
other, more visible traitors. I trust the Elan’Vital to deal with mundane
enemies for my s…nephew, but he lacks my father’s protection and will need me
to deal with the Do.”

Suddenly Siran pitched face-first into the room with a cry
of surprise. Birch looked quickly about, but saw no one. Maran threw a hand up
and leapt forward. He battled seemingly with the air, but metal rang on metal,
and Birch saw sparks fly from where the blade appeared to meet nothing at all.
Then Birch’s eyes burned fiercely, and two other elves suddenly appeared in his
vision, outlined with a reddish-orange haze. Birch had experienced something
similar during his encounter in Den-Furral with the room full of invisible
demons, and it only took him a second to adjust to his enhanced vision.

A glowing black orb hung in the air where Maran had
gestured, and Birch assumed it was allowing the elf to see his assailants. The
two attackers had forced Maran back into the room and were beginning to spread
out to come at him from alternate sides. Hoil pulled Siran out of the way and
looked frantically about, trying to see some sign of what was going on.

Another elf with a similar fiery tinged aura had already
crept into the room and now circled Maran warily. Just as he was about to
strike the unsuspecting elf, Birch leapt forward and drove his sword into the
invisible elf’s side. He followed up quickly with a swing that left the elf in
a bleeding, still invisible hulk on the floor. The elf’s chest still rose and
fell in shallow breaths.

The attack drew the attention of one elf attacking Maran,
who immediately capitalized on the distraction and stabbed the man in the
throat. Maran finished his other opponent a moment later, then stared at the
third man Birch had taken down.

“Wings and demons,” Hoil swore as the two elves Maran had
killed suddenly became visible. With cold practicality, Siran calmly stabbed
both men in the heart.

Maran looked up at Birch. “How?”

“My eyes.”

“Then come with me,” Maran said. “I will likely need your
help, and if you can see them, your vision may be more reliable than my own
senses. I can hide myself, but for me to make a light that will let me see
them, it would also reveal me.”

“Hold still,” Birch said, reaching toward the elven
ex-prince. “This may feel a bit uncomfortable, and may not even work.”

Birch gripped Maran’s head in both hands and locked eyes
with him, concentrating on what he wanted to happen. The Gray paladin had done
the same thing with Garet during the battle at the dwarven capital, acting
purely on instinct, and he was certain he could make it work again. There was a
flash of heat and light from Birch’s eyes, and Maran cried out and pulled away.
Then he stared at the ground in wonder.

“You can see him?” Birch asked, pointing to the third elf
who still clung to life.

“Red outline? Yes.”

“Good. Siran, Hoil, you too.”

Birch duplicated the trick with his brother and the elven guard.
Siran quickly scanned his surroundings with his newly enhanced vision and
caught sight of the remaining elf slumped on the floor. With cold practicality,
he stabbed the defenseless elf in the heart, and the red glow around him faded
as he became visible to the unaided eye.

“Anyone you see with that red aura is invisible, but that
doesn’t mean they’re your enemy,” Maran warned. “There are Do at work here
acting to protect the king. In particular, you will find one at his side who is
to be trusted above all others. Now go, Siran, Hoil. Protect my father.”

Maran had only a moment’s hesitation about what he’d said to
Siran about Do protecting the King. The implication was, of course, that the
king knowingly employed the services of the forbidden outcasts. He was
confident in the elven captain’s loyalty, however, and the fact that Maran was
still alive proved it. Siran would never have let him leave the room alive had
he not put his loyalty to the king above Maran’s presence as one of the Do.