The Devil's Influence Read online

  Cezomir could resist nature no longer and now prioritized his lust above all else. He stood and grabbed the hands of the women, leading them away with a chorus of giggles. He glanced over his shoulder to look at Mallen one more time.

  fourteen

  “What happened here?” Bale asked, taking in his surroundings. He tried to let out a low, drawn-out whistle, but only succeeded in spitting all over the place. It was more than he could visually comprehend, and he was reduced to lowering his eyes to the ground as he shook his head slowly.

  “Bale, are you ok?” Phyl asked in a whisper. As Bale turned his lowered head toward his diminutive friend, Phyl noticed tears streaming down the ogre’s face.

  “It . . . It’s . . .” Bale’s voice failed him.

  “I know, Bale,” Phyl said shaking his own head in disbelief. “It’s going to be ok.”

  “It’s . . . beautiful,” said Tingle. “What a lovely, little establishment!”

  “I’ll be right out,” came a call from someone in the back of the establishment.

  The bar stretched out before them. It was empty of patrons now, but that never stopped Bale and whatever crew he was calling his own at that particular point and time from befouling any tavern that called itself open. There was a cleanliness about the place, coupled with a shininess that could only mean that the place was new, freshly opened to business. Long planks of the choicest wood cobbled together made up the tables. A long “C” shaped bar of a dark grained wood sat invitingly before the group of road-worn travelers. The bar stools were all made of the same, lightly colored timber and they appeared to be fashioned to withstand even the largest minotaur patrons.

  “Phyl,” Bale croaked, tears openly streaming down his face, “can’t you just imagine Zot sitting on that stool right over there?”

  “Actually,” Phyl said, “I was thinking more about Pik and how much he’d look quite at home at the far end there. Just drinking his ale . . . well, and making obscene gestures every time he set the mug down. I mean if we’re attempting to keep this fantasy somewhat grounded in reality that is . . .”

  “Oh,” Bale grunted, “I see. Ummmm, yeah, Zot sitting right here, his neighbor turned away in disgust after just a few seconds of meeting each other. Then Zot getting his revenge by letting his nose drip into the poor sap’s drink while he’s doing his best to forget that Zot isn’t there . . .”

  “That’s a, uh, quite an imaginative vision, Bale,” Phyl said, his face going wan.

  “Phyl?”

  “Yes, Bale?”

  “Did I ever tell you to always hold your drink when Zot’s around?”

  “No, Bale. No, you didn’t. It must have slipped your mind.”

  “You and Zot never really got along did you?”

  “Not especially, no. I usually did my best to pretend that he wasn’t there, especially when I sat next to him. Every time he sat next to me, my drink tasted . . . oh, by the gods!” Phyl proclaimed, hopping his way quickly toward the sign marking the privy

  “Huh,” Bale mused. “Maybe it was your drink that . . . Phyl? Where did he go?”

  “My apologies, gents. I went in the back to do a few things and, well, truth be told, we’re not really open for business yet, but who am I—”

  “Munty?” Bale asked. “Where’s your pointy hat?”

  “Get out!” Munty, the tall gnome, spat. “You two can stay . . . wait! Unless you’re with him. Then you all should leave. Bale Pinkeye, I just had this place built. It still smells clean! I refuse to let you spoil it in any way!”

  “Munty, I have no idea what you mean. I was one of your best customers.”

  “’Most frequent’ customer, Bale. Not best. Certainly never, under any circumstances, were you ever among the best of anything, unless we’re counting places destroyed . . . then you’re certainly no stranger to the best in the business list.”

  “That hurts my feelings,” Bale said.

  “Your feelings be damned. Get out!”

  “What’s all this yelling about, Bale?” Phyl asked as he was exiting the privy, taking great care to make sure that the door was latched stoutly against the noxious fumes he left behind. “I leave you alone for . . . Munty?”

  “You, too!” Munty shouted. “Get out, and be sure to take these other creatures with you. And be doubly sure that none of you come back. Ever!”

  “But, Munty, we’ve been traveling for such a long time . . . we really just need a quick meal and a few drinks.”

  “There’s no such thing to any of you animals as ‘a few’ drinks! It’s the same thing every time. Round after round after ill-begotten round. Then broken tables. Smashed chairs. Crumbling walls and battered doorways. No, no, no . . .”

  “But, Munty,” Phyl started.

  “Don’t ‘but Munty’ me, mister.”

  “We have money!”

  Munty paused, his eyebrows acting as interpreters for his toiling mind. “How much money?”

  “We’ll pay double,” Phyl proclaimed.

  Munty leaned in closer to the satyr and spoke slowly, the annunciation of every word crisp and clear. “You can only stay until I actually open. Then, you’re out.”

  “Ok,” Phyl said. “Put it on the boggart’s tab.”

  “Less talking,” Bale boomed. “More drinking, please, Munty!”

  “You see? This is precisely the kind of behavior that gets you into trouble!”

  “Munty, if we don’t actually drink anything, then we can’t actually pay you anything.”

  “Ok, ok. Give me a quick minute.”

  True to his word, Munty placed drinks in front of everyone with a decided quickness. Bale snatched up the flagon in front of him and lifted it to his lips with such fervor that grog sloshed out all over the floor before he drank a drop.

  “Bale!” Munty started. “Stop making a mess! Put it down!”

  Bale set the drinking vessel back on the bar and peered at it with the look of a scolded puppy. “Is this better, Munty?”

  “Much. Thank you.”

  Bale stared at his drink wondering how in the world he could go about consuming it without removing it from the bar. He decided to climb up on the bar next to his drink, but Munty shouted at him to get down before his first knee made it to the bar top. He tried dipping his shirt sleeve into the viscous liquid and then wringing it out in his mouth, but again he got more on the floor than in his mouth, which caused frowns of disapproval from everyone. Dunking his fingers into the glass made the gnome’s foot tap.

  “Phyl?”

  “Yes, Bale?”

  “Do you have a piece of parchment?”

  “Like this one?” Phyl asked as he produced a piece from the pouch at his side.

  Bale examined it. There was writing on it but only on one side. “Do you need this back, Phyl?”

  “No, not especially. Thank you for asking. Munty, I’ll have a second, please,” Phyl said. Tingle, Wort, and Lapin all asked for refills as well.

  Bale rolled up the piece of paper into a tube, checking twice to make sure that the side with the writing on it was on the outside. He unfurled it three times in an attempt to roll it tighter. When he was satisfied, he dunked one end of the ersatz straw into his drink. It was on his third pull of liquid from the glass that the paper sprang a leak and grog fountained out the side of the construct. Munty made strange, garbled noises as if he were being strangled. Bale sat the straw down on the bar and sighed. As it unfurled, a puddle of alcohol formed beneath it.

  Munty came over with a rag and a reddened face, glaring at Bale. Bale mumbled an apology and tried to stand up, which caused more complaining from the gnome who was just positive that Bale would cause less damage to the establishment if he simply remained seated.

  “Munty?” Phyl asked. “Why don’t you get him
a bowl? Or something with a spout?”

  In the end, Bale was provided grog in a spouted pitcher and he sat about drinking his share in one straight shot, handling the new china delicately. Once he proved to Munty that he could do it without spilling a drop and without breaking anything, he was given a second draught.

  Munty had no reason to harass them further and Bale put away eight servings before he finally needed to belch. Unfortunately, one gaseous exhalation exhorted another and the smell caused Wort to snap. “Who decided this should all be on my tab? I can’t believe this. Do you have any idea how much that little stop off just cost me? It’s not even midday! How am I going to be reimbursed for that? Huh?”

  Bale’s head throbbed. Wort’s complaining had taken on the rhythm of an endless chant, each verse but a slightly modified version of the one that came before. Headaches were not fun, and Bale wanted to have fun in a tavern, but if fun was not to be had, then he might as well do what they had originally set out to do—find information about who wanted to purchase children. Wort brought them to this town to meet up with a friend of his. Time to go, but not without paying first. Time for Wort to settle up.

  As usual with Bale, the plan he formulated never made from his mind to his mouth, so he became disappointed when no one acted upon it. He had to take matters into his own hands. Literally.

  While Wort continued to prattle on, Bale interrupted him by lifting him up, turning him upside down, and shaking him. Coins of all different kinds of valuable metals rained from Wort’s trousers, bouncing and ringing in tiny tones as they clattered to the floor.

  “Hey!” Wort yelled. “That’s ten times what we consumed.

  “Bale! Stop,” Phyl said. “That’s enough. We should go now.”

  Wort ran out the door as soon as Bale returned him to the floor. The others followed to the sing-song voice of Munty calling to them, “Come back any time!”

  It did not take long for Wort to lead them to a large building at the edge of town. A long wooden structure with an apparent second floor above ground, the shop of Haddaman Crede sported a thatched roof that was peaked at several points to allow for water runoff. The grounds were well tended and the walkway was nicely laid stone. Neat green trim outlined the two windows that faced the group as they approached. A solid looking door painted a dark tan separated the inside world from those outside. Wort declared that they had arrived and that they should leave the talking to him. With a flourish, the boggart flung open the door. “Haddaman!” he yelled.

  The calm, beautiful exterior belied the bedlam within. Bale tried to whistle, but only managed to get a frothy spittle all over Tingle’s black mane. Half of the wall adornments had been thrown down upon the ground. An entire shelf of items laid upon the floor in one of two states: broken or very broken. Another shelf had been knocked over, its goods scattered upon the floor like chicken feed. A streak of a something reddish lined the floors.

  “Is that . . . blood?” Phyl whispered, not sure himself if he was asking a question or stating a fact.

  “This is wrong. This is all wrong,” Wort moaned. “We need to find Haddaman.” The boggart slinked to a far corner of the shop and opened a secret door to the basement.

  While Wort examined below, Phyl and Bale looked into the back room. “Hunh. No sign of a struggle in here,” Phyl announced as the boggart came back upstairs.

  “Wort, how well do you know Haddaman? Any idea who might have done this?” Tingle asked.

  “Vogothe,” said Bale. “Vogothe did this. It had to be Vogothe, right?” his voice turning to a growl.

  “Any idea where Haddaman might have gone, Wort,” Phyl asked, “assuming he had time to escape . . . or . . .,” Phyl gasped at his own realization. “Do you think he was taken?”

  Wort could only shake his head.

  “We need to find Vogothe,” Bale said. “That’s where we’ll find Haddaman. Where do we find Vogothe, Wort? I have something for him,” Bale said, his fist clenched in anger. “Where, Wort? Where?”

  “The underground fights,” Wort croaked. “He runs them. But Bale . . . I . . . we . . . it’s dangerous.”

  “Lead the way, Wort,” Bale said. “I’m dangerous, too,” he mumbled.

  In silence, the little group headed back out to the road following Wort’s reluctant lead. Without so much as a backward glance, they left behind the ruin of Haddaman’s shop, each lost in the in their own unique idea of what had happened there.

  fifteen

  “You are perfect as is,” he said as his fingers slid over her cheek, his thumb traveling across her bottom lip.

  Dearborn smiled. Even though her husband was slipping off into slumber after a vigorous tussle atop the bed, she knew he meant those words. She knew the first time he had said them.

  Diminutia was a rogue, a handsome and quick-tongued one at that. His disarming smile offered just enough wickedness to show that he knew the way his sun-kissed curls bounced around his face acted as a frame for the most divine blue eyes that had ever graced this world. Those eyes and that smile had helped him share a bed with many women, even more than Dearborn ever wanted to think about. She doubted that there was any woman that he could not smooth talk into giving away her modesty with a spread of the legs. But he had forsaken them all for her.

  Immediately after the Demon War, Diminutia tempered his life as a thief to help Dearborn fix hers. As with many new couples, they spent most of the days behind closed doors. Sweet-nothings melted away into intimate secrets as effortlessly as the rising and setting of the twin suns. She had fallen in love with him. That frightened her. She believed that as soon as their tryst ended he would disappear, having never kept a man longer than a night. Her typical relationships would end the next morn as dawn’s rays burned away the alcohol haze from the night before.

  During the Morning Sun’s rise of their fourth day together, she regarded herself in a full-length mirror. Naked. Her face was beautiful, this much she knew. But her body . . . no man could love her body. Skin taut, every muscle could be seen, rimmed by striations and veins. Any movement, no matter how simple or subtle, was a flex, a display of physical power. How could any man look past this? How could any man love her?

  She had not even noticed that she was crying until she saw Diminutia in the mirror, standing behind her. He reached around and wiped away her tears. “What are these for?”

  “Wishing.”

  He smiled. “For what? More time together?”

  “To change. To change myself.”

  His smile faded. Then came the look on his face, the expression that let Dearborn know he was destined to be her future husband. His jaw went slack, eyes widened. The way he looked at her made her feel that she was the last person to learn a powerful secret. There was no acting in his reaction, no form of lie or deceit. Baring raw emotion, he said, “You are perfect as is.”

  Those words meant more to her than any others over the next ten years. He said them with earnestness, his love behind them with every use. Even when she lifted more than he during their duties as farmers. Even when her belly was distended with their daughter, and then their son. Even after the children no longer needed to be nursed and her breasts disappeared back into her muscular chest.

  “You are perfect as is.”

  Every time.

  Even when he tried to say the words one last time before succumbing to slumber, whispered over his lips before the snoring started. Still smiling, Dearborn closed her eyes and shifted to her side. She loved this but wished the circumstances were better. Anything would be better than leaving her children to quest for a magical artifact. The last time she went searching for a magical artifact it was for one of the five cursed stones that enabled the demons to escape Hell. The very Demons that killed everyone in her Elite Troop. The demon general, a horned monstrosity named Ar’drzz’ur, killed her general, Iderion, the man s
he had loved at the time.

  Stomach knotting from the memory, she turned to her other side. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, trying to force back the images that came to her from the blackness. The arguments she had with General Iderion and Prince Oremethus about their course of action when they realized demons were after them, because of the cursed gemstone, the magical artifact. They were ill-prepared because of poor decision making, because of bad commands from the prince. There was but one man to blame for that, the incessant gnat who kept buzzing in the prince’s ear—Haddaman Crede.

  Dearborn turned again in the bed, tucking her head under her arm to drown out the screams she could still hear. The noises of battle and defeat and death. The sound of her own cries as she watched Iderion die. She had slain the demon Ar’drzz’ur, but she could never kill the past. These memories had been dormant as of late, but the appearance of Haddaman called them all forth like a necromancer summoning the dead to rise from their graves.

  Haddaman. She swallowed, a slimy disgust coated her throat as if gulping down live slugs. She had to allow him into her party ten years ago, because of orders given to her. There were no orders now, no higher command for him to twist. She did not trust him and she would be damned if she was going to make the same mistake twice.

  With every inhale of Diminutia’s soft snoring, she inched her way out of bed. She slipped on her tunic—a dress on most women, but barely long enough to keep her modest—and padded from the room. Two doors down was Haddaman’s room. She cupped her hand around her ear and moved closer to his door.

  Nothing. No noise.

  Most men snored, and those who did not still breathed heavy. There were noises from the tavern part of the inn, but barely noticeable and sporadic, hardly enough to mask the sounds from within a sleeping man’s room.

  Concentrating, she leaned against his door to hear better, but almost lost her balance as it gave way and opened. Whatever embarrassment percolated behind her chest dissipated when she saw that he was not in his room.