M McNally - The Sable City

“My quarters,” Balan said. Poltus bowed in the air and disappeared, but Balan walked down the hall as far as the next corner, turned it, and strode out into a different room several floors away.

Poltus was already there, speaking to Uella who was sprawled out across the richly appointed bed, her indelicately delectable female form encased in a leather body suit that might as well have been shiny black paint. The leathery wings sprouting from her shoulders were folded against her back, and her beautiful face wore as always a cunning slant to arched eyebrows and a cruel turn to her ruby lips. For some unfathomable reason she had dyed most of her long hair green, leaving only streaks of blonde in the tumbling mass of it. Her eyes had bright red pupils, and a glassy sheen.

“Is he mad?” the succubus was just asking Poltus. She did not sound particularly worried, but perhaps eager.

“A little bit,” Balan said as he entered the room from around the corner to a sitting area. He stopped with a spark from his hoof and crossed his arms. Uella grinned at him broadly, showing her fangs.

“Hiya, boss.” She stretched out the last sibilant sound, with the tip of her forked tongue between her teeth. Balan sighed at her.

“Did I or did I not tell you to just watch the Wizard? To make sure he didn’t get killed?”

Uella rolled her eyes and groaned, then flopped onto her back though the presence of her wings made her arch her spine sharply. She beat her fists and kicked her heels against the covers, tearing them a bit with the spiked heel of one thigh-high boot. The heel was long enough to stab somebody, which was probably the point.

“But it was soooo boring! Everybody else gets to pile up bodies, and I’m supposed to just watch five idiot monkeys stumbling around? Really, Balan.”

Uella rolled up to her hands and knees, tossed some of her green-and-blonde mane over a trim shoulder, and set her red mouth in a pout.

“You can’t think of anything more fun to make me do?”

“Are those ears?” Balan asked, wide eyed.

Uella brought a pale hand with bright red nails to a string of severed ears that were strung around her neck.

“These?”

“Yes, those.”

“Oh, I’ve had these for years.”

“They’re still dripping blood!”

Uella shrugged and batted her eyes. The thoughtless ease with which demons were able to lie, even when there was no point to it, was a constant source of vexation for a proper devil. Sometimes it was a source of envy.

Balan sighed and turned to Poltus.

“Just tell me already.”

“Lady Uella slew the three soldiers earlier today, but she had the Circle Wizard brought here alive.“

“And the pretty girl,” Uella chirped. “You should see her, Balan. She’s just like a little doll.”

“What about the book?” Balan asked Poltus, doing his best to ignore the succubus for the time being.

“We have that as well, and I have read as much of it as I can. Though that was not very much.”

Balan frowned at the hovering fiend.

“You can read any language, Poltus. So can I. So can we all. What is the problem?”

“That only holds true for languages as they are commonly spoken and written, my Lord. The book in question is inscribed in an incantation script, a magical language in which words and phrases may be imbued with spell power. The language of this book is that of Old Tull, for it is the work of Kanderamath himself.”

Balan knew the name even though it had belonged to a monkey. That was the old Witch King who had caused Vod‘Adia to Open in the first place, and so indirectly brought Balan and his kind, and Uella’s kind as well, here.

“It is the spell book of an archmage?” Balan asked.

“Not precisely, Lord. There are only three spells inscribed within it. Fairly standard teleportation forms with only slight variations among them, near as I can tell.”

“And the rest of it?”

Poltus sighed. “It appears to be a sort of commentary on a far older scroll, fragments of which are preserved within Kanderamath’s text. This original is written in an ancient form of Kantan, which I can read, though understanding the fragments is a different matter. They are a chaotic hodge-podge of existential theorizing and tribal superstitions concerning the Three Nodes, including the one located here, and their relation to the magic of this world.”

Uella had curled up on the bed, shaking out her wings to cover her like blankets. She started snoring very loudly.

“This stuff is important, dear,” Balan said at her.

“Hmm. Old books. Fascinating.”

Balan turned away from her with a look of resignation.

“The Node,” he said to Poltus. “That’s the big archway in the center tower that doesn’t do anything?”

“Yes, Lord. Though I imagine it did do something at one time. Probably about the same period during which the Kantan scroll was written.”

Balan narrowed his red eyes, and his diabolic brain sifted through what he knew. The Great Dragon Danavod was afraid of what a Circle Wizard could do with this book, for if the Sable City of Vod’Adia was again severed from this world she stood to lose an enormous source of wealth. Wealth was the measure by which the Great Dragons kept score among themselves. Devils kept score in different ways. Vod’Adia was a convenient place for them to gather souls, but hardly a necessary one.

“The Circle Wizard,” Balan said. “He can read the entire book, correct?”

Poltus did not look wholly confident. “Perhaps. We scrutinized the man’s mind while he was unconscious and without defense, and found him to be of only modest ability, at the most. He is certainly no Kanderamath.”

“That does not mean that he could not undo what the Witch King wrought here.”

Uella rolled back over, propping herself up on wings and elbows.

“You‘re going to cut this city off from its world?” she asked with a small frown. “Why? Don’t you and the Black Dragon have a deal?”

“More than a deal, we have signed a contract with Danavod.” Balan grinned widely, revealing his own fangs. “And that always works out so well for the other party.”

Uella grinned back at him. “You’re so damned sexy when you’re evil. Just for the hell of it.”

Poltus cleared its little throat. “Pardon me, my Lord, but the contract does present certain obstacles to you, or to any of our kind, taking direct action.”

Balan looked sideways at the little devil.

“You know, a good number two would have figured out a way around that by now.”

Poltus permitted itself to look lofty.

“Yes indeed, Lord. So would an evil one.”

*

The party gathered on the third floor and watched the lights of the Shugak hobgoblins for an hour. There seemed to be about a hundred of the creatures and they built a cluster of campfires flush against the westernmost tower of the nine ringing the palace complex, reflecting dancing flames off the smooth black walls. They were clearly settling in for the night, if not longer.

Nesha-tari could see them better than the others with her Dragon-touched eyes, and after her earlier talk with the devil Lord Balan she also had a better idea of what their presence might mean. After a good deal of talk amongst the party Zebulon asked for her thoughts, and Nesha-tari told him.

“Either the devils are going to allow the Shugak to wait here for Phinneas and the others, or they have already captured them and are going to turn them over.”

Zeb told the others, Heggenauer asked a question, and Zeb asked her.

“The Shugak and the devils of Vod’Adia are cooperating?”

“Yes. The devils have some sort of relationship with the Shugak’s mistress.”

“How do you know that?” Zeb asked on his own.