Ken Hood - Demon Rider

"A bright lad, he was, young Nevil." Oreste fussed cheerfully with his vials and potions. "Now I need a lock of your hair, dear boy." He picked up the dagger and came around the table, smiling his scarlet lips.

Suspecting trickery, Toby stiffened as the blade approached, but he lost nothing more than a twist of hair. Oreste took it back to add to the concoction in the goblet.

"He was a dreamer, though. I doubt if he would have held the throne of England very long. Everyone noticed the change when Rhym took him over."

"Was it you who killed his brothers and his father?"

The baron emptied a couple of vials into the chalice. "Goodness, no! That was darling Valda. With more than a little help from Nevil himself, I dare say." He uncorked a bottle and added something that looked like fresh blood. Why so much preparation just to kill a helpless man?

Silence became oppressive very quickly. "Were you there when he and Valda tried to conjure Rhym?"

"Fortunately, I was not." Oreste chuckled. "It might have taken me instead! Now, where did I put the... ah! There is one thing I have been meaning to ask you, Tobias. I have tracked you very closely for years, so I know almost everything you have done and everywhere you have been." He had begun grinding something in the mortar, which left him free to look up and smile across at his victim. "The one matter that still puzzles me is just what happened at Mezquiriz."

No! He would not tell that.

The baron tut-tutted. "Come, my boy! You are about to die. I am doing you a favor. Surely you can humor an old man's curiosity, hmm?" He had only to speak a word to one of his demons and Toby would babble out the whole story in terrible detail. "It is little enough to ask."

It was very little to ask, but it took a real effort to answer. "The hob went berserk."

"Yes, yes! But why? You had eluded me at the border. You were not in danger, and there was no great spirit there to provoke it. So what ignited the hob?"

Toby turned his face away. "I lay with a woman."

"Ah!" The pestle stopped for a moment. "I never thought of that. Yes, I can see what might happen. I wondered if it had been your first attempt to control the hob."

"I can't control the hob. I was told that it would take me over and control me."

The baron began grinding away again. "That is certainly the more likely outcome. The two of you must be very intertwined by now—but you know that, because you refused the exorcism. And the girl? She died? This is sad."

He seemed quite sincere. Why was he keeping up this meaningless chitchat at all? Just to comfort his victim and keep him from brooding on his imminent end? But he was a sadistic, murdering monster. He probably knew how Toby's hips ached already, how his hands had gone numb. One thing was certain—he would not be revealing so many secrets if there was any chance of the prisoner living to repeat them to anyone.

He emptied the contents of the mortar into the chalice and then consulted the scroll, moving his lips in silence.

A condemned man could try a last request, even if there was very little hope of its being granted. "Excellency? It does seem unfair that my friend Hamish should be put to death just for being my friend, when a skilled adept such as yourself is allowed to prosper unmolested."

"Hmm?" Oreste looked up and smiled so broadly that his eyes disappeared altogether. "Ja! It does indeed! But life is rarely just, my boy—even you have lived long enough to learn that! The Inquisition is well aware of my reputation, but there is nothing they can do about me. You don't catch lions in mousetraps. And lions have to tolerate mice. We live and let live, the Black Friars and I—with a few exceptions, that is—so don't worry about Master Campbell. He knows the truth about Rhym, and we don't want him blurting that out on the rack, now do we? I expect he will catch a fever in his cell and die quite soon. In fact, you have my word on it. Well, I am just about ready, I think. Sorry to have taken so long."

"And what happens now?" Toby asked, mouth suddenly dry.

The baron came around the table carrying the candlesticks. He placed them on the floor near Toby's feet, not looking at him. "I am going to exorcize the hob. But at the same time, I will exorcize you also." He peered up at the prisoner's face, perhaps hoping to see some appropriate signs of terror. "Ingenious, isn't it?" Chuckling, the hexer minced back to the table. "You and the hob go into the amethyst, and the soul of Nevil goes into you. When Vespianaso puts his thugs to work, they will be tormenting the wrong man!"

"So it will be Nevil who gets tortured?"

"My master finds the idea amusing."

Toby clenched his teeth and said nothing.

Oreste shrugged. "It was Rhym's idea, not mine. Nevil is a danger, so Nevil must die. This we all know. Of course I shall hex him so that he cannot reveal the great secret he alone knows, the name to conjure Rhym. He may scream all he wants that he is the rightful king of England and not Toby Longdirk, but the tormentors will not believe him. He will have to scream at them in Latin, as he knows no Spanish tongues. Rhym finds this prospect entertaining."

"What happens to me?"

The baron picked up the carved ivory casket and stroked it lovingly. "You become immortal. You and the hob will be one. Together you will make a wonderful demon."

"Don't you torture spirits to make them into demons?"

The baron shrugged regretfully. "This is true. But the worst part of torture is not the pain, dear boy, it is seeing yourself being ruined, joint by joint, muscle by muscle. It is knowing that life will never be as good again, and that you cannot grow back missing eyes or charred flesh. That doesn't apply to an immortal. A little suffering and you will learn to serve me." He laid the casket down and stared at Toby appraisingly. "Don't worry about the gramarye failing, as Valda's failed. I borrowed a couple of convicts from the city jail to practice on. I sent them home in each other's bodies, quite successfully."

"You promised I would not suffer!"

"A trivial untruth. I was being kind."

"It will be my body they are disassembling. I should prefer to remain and die with it."

"You have no option." Oreste opened the ivory casket and took out the leather locket. "It is the penalty of your own success, Tobias. Had I managed to catch you myself, then I would have spared you... spared your life, that is, not your will. You would have been useful as a man, too. But what you achieved at Tortosa was so extraordinary that you frightened the Black Friars out of their robes. From Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, the Inquisition was screaming for your carcass. When I saw that there was no way I could keep them away from you, I reported the problem to his Majesty, and he thought up this procedure. It is certainly ingenious."

"If the Inquisition finds out about the substitution, then Nevil will live!" Argument was useless, of course, but he could not submit to such an abomination without protest.

"The Inquisition will not find out. The inquisitors will dismiss Nevil's complaints as more evidence of his demon's cunning. Even if I told Father Vespianaso myself, he would not stop now. They are always so convinced that they are right that they accept their own conclusions as infallible evidence. So Nevil goes into you and you go into the—"

The stone he was holding was a smooth black pebble, nothing like an amethyst. He looked up at Toby, but Toby could only stare. What? Who?

"How did you do that?" the baron screamed.

"Do what, your Excellency?" There could be small pleasures, even in a torture chamber.

"Diaz swore he saw the amethyst and put it in this casket! No power could have touched it in there, not even Montserrat itself. You! The hob?"