The Devil's Influence Read online

  Phyl thought long and hard, mostly for dramatic effect and emphasis, but still, each time he acted like he was going to say something, Phyl watched Bale’s face; watched as it went through a wide variety of looks that Phyl presumed were tied to different emotional states. He was convinced that Bale was earnest in his plea and desperate for him to acquiesce.

  “Bale, I don’t know—”

  “Children, Phyl.”

  “What?”

  “Children were involved. I was hired to be muscle for a delivery. I’ve done that before and never cared about what was being delivered. This time I found out it was children.”

  Bringing both hands to his mouth to stifle a sob, Phyl said, “Oh by the many gods! That’s awful.”

  “I know. It got me thinking about something like that happening to my children and—”

  “Wait. You have children? That . . . that means I’m an uncle!”

  “Yeah. After this mission, you can come by and meet them.”

  Phyl stroked the tuft of hair growing from his chin as he thought about what was involved. A chance to save children. A chance to befriend the dark and mysterious centaur. A chance to meet nephews and nieces. However, the last adventure he and Bale had together led to the deaths of family members and close friends.

  Bale continued, “I know the downside is having to leave Bunice behind, but—”

  “Sold!” Phyl yelled. “Let’s do this.”

  Bale smiled.

  Phyl smiled.

  “I want a suit of plate mail,” Lapin slurred loudly.

  “Rabbits suck,” Tingle mumbled.

  Phyl sighed, hoping beyond hope that he made the right decision.

  six

  Dearborn observed Captain Wahl with Ideria and Nevin. She appreciated the coincidence in her action since he was the one who taught her the importance and intricacies of observation.

  It had been many years since Hander Wahl had been a captain in the King’s army, retiring before the Horde’s invasion of Phenomere, capital of Albathia, but Dearborn could never bring herself to address him as anything other than Captain Wahl, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. During the invasion, Captain Wahl left his farm and rode into the fray with enough weapons to arm a dozen townsmen. They fought bravely, but those who were unskilled fell to the savage minions of the Horde. During the battle, Captain Wahl was rewarded by fate, saving Marrim Palna, a widow who lived near the army barracks, from bloodthirsty hobgoblins. After the Horde was driven away, his heart insisted that his days of being alone should end. Their courtship was brief and their wedding simple. Neither of them had children and they were far too old to do anything about it, which meant they would never have the greatest gift a child could bestow upon parents—grandchildren. Both Captain Wahl and his wife never once viewed Ideria and Nevin as anything less.

  Warmth spread through Dearborn’s chest as Captain Wahl sat in his chair and taught the children about different knots using a length of rope, so frayed it could not possibly be used for anything else. Fingers far more dexterous than the scars and calluses implied, he made two loops and brought them together. He then stopped and looked at the children, sitting on the floor and rapt with fascination. He said, “What happens when a centaur moves into the house next to yours?”

  The siblings blinked while processing the question, searching through their limited knowledge of the world for an answer. Their blank expressions asked an unspoken, “What happens?”

  Captain Wahl leaned forward and said, “He becomes your ‘neigh’bor.” He proceeded to whinny and bray with great exaggeration and crossed eyes. The children both rolled on the floor with laughter.

  Dearborn laughed too. Not from the punchline like her children, but from seeing Captain Wahl, her commander for the first part of her military career, act with such youthful exuberance. She whispered, “Never had I once imagined this to be found in my Captain.”

  “Captain or not, he’s still an old man loving the joy of children. That is the relationship between the young and the elderly,” Marrim said.

  Dearborn did not realize she said anything aloud, let alone loud enough for someone else to hear. “Even though I am looking right at him, I do not see an old man.” Her words were truth. She could still see him as the sturdy man she had met on her first day of training.

  When she was a teen, her father’s blacksmith shop had burned down. She saved his life, but she caused a scene doing so. Dragging her father to safety, she herself wound up nearly naked. On display for the whole town was a young woman taller and more muscular than any other citizen. Uneasy scuttlebutt and rumors moved up and down the streets as fast as the people could carry them. Her father rebuilt, but the business did not return. They needed money, and Dearborn felt the best way to earn it was with the army.

  Of all the officers and trainers, Captain Wahl taught her the most—the benefits of simple observation. Tasked with the job of training the recruits in weaponry, he took an immediate liking to Dearborn, one of the few recruits who wanted to learn. His teaching methodology was grueling; in her mind, she summed it up as, “I’m going to swing this quarterstaff at you repeatedly, so learn ways to either dodge it or block it.” Education in the form of bruises. Since he liked her so much, he added one more piece of information for her alone, “Watch me.”

  She did. She watched him as they sparred. The way he planted his foot before a strike. The way he dropped his shoulder for a block. The slight movements of his body that betrayed his next action. She watched. She observed. She learned.

  The lessons of observation aided her greatly throughout her career as well as other aspects of her life. She was always observing. As a mother, deducing the needs of her children if they could not effectively communicate what they wanted. As a wife, reading her husband and hearing what he was not saying.

  Diminutia entered the small farmhouse. He smiled, always smiling. “We cannot thank you enough, Madam Wahl.”

  “Nonsense, my boy,” Marrim replied. She went over to him and kissed his cheek the way a mother would. She even used her thumb to wipe away lip prints. However, she also used the opportunity to place her other hand on his arm and squeeze. Dearborn knew very well that every time she had done that over the years it was for the sole purpose of feeling the muscles hidden by his sleeve. Dearborn held no ill will toward the action and hoped that when she reached Marrim’s age, that her mind would still find ways to appreciate the trim body of a handsome man. Of course, Dearborn prayed that she would one day make it to Marrim’s age.

  During the quest for the magic stones of Wyren, her Elite Troop faced demons. Terrible creatures that nature did not create, nothing more than twisting masses of teeth and claw. Deep within her heart, she thought she was going to die. She survived, but at the time she wished she had not. She had lost everything. The soldiers she trained and led. The man she loved. Then Diminutia came along.

  Their romance was as strong as a tornado. Marriage. A house. The children. Captain Wahl showed her the joys of a simpler life, so she and Diminutia bought the neighboring farm. The demons still crept around in her mind as she slept, but the number of nightmares had diminished considerably. Now, she was afraid they might return.

  Diminutia crouched by the children and mussed their hair, eliciting soured faces and squeals. Laughing, he stood and turned to Dearborn. There was that smile again, that damn smile of his that held a library’s worth of information, including, “I’m sorry for this.”

  Diminutia had been saying that ever since Silver showed up yesterday. They had been friends and business partners many years ago, the business of pilfering. After the battle with the demons, Silver went on to become a wizard. When he showed up at her house after a decade of no communication, she knew his visit was not going to be a social call.

  After Silver had arrived, pleasantries were exchanged and Diminutia
started some tea. Dearborn told the children to play outside. After the scare with the bull, they would undoubtedly stay close to the house, well within a safe perimeter. Sitting at the dining table, it took mere minutes for Silver to tell his story of a thwarted kidnapping inside of the Looping Forest, but Dearborn knew the effects of the tale would be lasting.

  “Are you sure it was Bale?” Diminutia asked.

  “Unmistakable,” Silver replied. “Have you been in contact with him since the Demon Wars?”

  “No. The last I heard about him was years ago. He was involved with a gang led by a psycho named Cezomir.”

  “Is he still with them?”

  “Not that I know of. I heard that Cezomir wound up in Hellweb.”

  “Maybe Cezomir is no longer there? Maybe Bale went back to working with him?”

  Running his hands through his thick, blond hair, Diminutia exhaled slowly. Dearborn had been married to him long enough to know that was his way of processing, trying to blow away any disbelief. “Bale is kidnapping children.”

  “I don’t think he did the kidnapping. Just the delivering, and I don’t think he even knew what he was transporting.”

  “But someone is kidnapping children.”

  Those words twisted Dearborn’s spine. She looked out the window to Ideria and Nevin, watched them play. She turned back to the conversation only because her children were too beautiful to look at for any great length of time. She asked, “You’re here to ask us to help you find out who’s kidnapping the children.”

  Silver’s eyes were dark, midnight itself using him as a conduit to see the world, his stare intense, delivering the crushing weight of the universe. Yet, upon hearing Dearborn’s question, they softened, made lighter by guilt. He looked down and answered, “Not exactly.”

  “You want our help with something. If not for stopping monsters from stealing children, then what? What could be worse than that?”

  “The potential reason for wanting the children.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m not entirely sure yet.”

  “Then I do not understand what you want from us.”

  Silver sighed and looked back up, from Dearborn to Diminutia. “To find the Eternity Seed.”

  “Eternity Seed?” Diminutia asked. “The one seed all plants and trees and grasses and flowers had come from?”

  A smirk played across the wizard’s face. “During my training, I have learned that many myths are true. This is one of them.”

  Shrugging, Diminutia said, “Okay, it’s real. I’m guessing the seed is valuable.”

  “Not just in terms of its worth in gold. Whoever controls the seed controls all flora.”

  Diminutia laughed. “So, whoever owns it can create tall trees and pretty flowers?”

  “Don’t you remember the myths?”

  Dearborn did. The great King Frell, the god of ice, fell in love with a mortal named Wystra, but she eschewed his advances. When asked why she said she loved color and his world was of ice and snow, the white devouring all color. King Frell stole the Eternity Seed from the garden of the gods and gave it to Wystra. The maiden was happy; the seed growing colorful plants and trees and flowers, any that she wished for. But she lost herself within the power, and King Frell lost himself within his love for her. The whole world would have been consumed if not for King Frell’s brother, Inferus. The fire god killed Wystra and saved the world, but ruined his relationship with his brother. Dearborn learned over the years that the moral of the myth depended on who told it, and who listened to it.

  Diminutia laughed again. “Are you really telling us that a single seed can really alter entire landscapes?”

  “Have you forgotten a decade ago when five shiny baubles controlled the demons of Hell?”

  Dearborn remembered that too. All too well. “So, what does the Eternity Seed have to do with the kidnapped children?”

  “That is what I’m not sure about. Magical items have been disappearing over the last five years. Powerful items. The Wizard’s Guild has been investigating, trying to stop their disappearances before they happen. With no success.”

  “No success?” Diminutia snapped. “How is that possible? Who could possess the resources to even do that?”

  “We do not know. The culprit is always one step ahead of us and when we do find him, he escapes. There is some powerful magic involved, only made stronger by each item.”

  As Diminutia fretted over the direness of the news, Dearborn placed her right hand on Silver’s. “You still have not told us what this has to do with the children or what you need of us.”

  Again, Silver looked guilty. “The reason why we stumbled on Bale and the kidnapping ring was that we were following a lead regarding the Eternity Seed. I don’t know how, but I think one is connected to the other.”

  “And?”

  Silver turned to Diminutia and said, “And I need your help getting the seed.”

  Eyes going wide, Diminutia shook his head. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

  “I would not ask if it were not important.”

  Hand through the hair again. “No, Silver. You are like a brother to me and we had some fantastic and some horrific adventures together, but I’m done with that. I’m a father, a husband, and a landowner. I pay taxes without complaint. Me. That’s how much my life has changed.”

  Forcing down her anger toward Silver for asking and her fear that he might convince her husband to join him, Dearborn asked, “Why do you need his help?”

  “As I mentioned, the Guild was thwarted in every attempt to stop the theft of these items and the recover those stolen. If our theories are correct, then the Eternity Seed is the last piece of this mysterious puzzle.”

  “What about local constables? What about King Perciless? Surely, he must be alarmed by this.”

  Silver shifted in his seat. “King Perciless is a good king. A great one. However, his pragmatism is a hindrance in this affair. We, the Guild, lack sufficient proof for him. He feels that we are pointing to an empty pedestal and saying that the valuable statue that was once upon it has been stolen even though no one knew of the statue’s existence in the first place.”

  Dearborn loved her husband’s eyes, bright blue and clear as the afternoon sky. They hid nothing, pristine windows to every thought and emotion. She saw too many of each swirling around behind his eyes. So did Silver.

  The wizard continued, “The Guild is at its wit’s end. You have always had an uncanny ability to track down a treasure. Any item we were paid to find, you found it.”

  “You used to be a thief too, Silver.”

  “Used to. I sacrificed those talents to learn new ones. I’ve lost the maps of the underworld to follow new roads.”

  Diminutia looked to Dearborn, a confused husband asking his wife to make sense of the situation for him. Unable to pull her gaze away, she asked Silver, “The other items stolen. I assume they are just as powerful?”

  “Yes. The heart of Inferus, which is a stone that commands fire. The crown of King Frell that can shape ice with a mere thought. A gauntlet that controls the very air we breathe. A trident that bends and warps water. A—”

  “Your point has been made.”

  Silver stilled his tongue and sat back in his chair, allowing Diminutia and Dearborn to stare at each other, holding a wordless conversation only a married couple could have. Dearborn knew her husband well. She knew there were a hundred reasons why he would want to join in looking for the Eternity Seed, half were noble, the other half not. She also knew the three reasons why he could not bring himself to say yes. Not because duty demanded that he stay for her and the children, but because he legitimately did not wish to leave them. The argument within his head must have been intense, judging by the tear that silently rolled down his cheek. This broke her heart.

&n
bsp; Still looking only at Diminutia, Dearborn asked, “Find the seed and nothing else?”

  Silver sat back up. “We find the seed and we get it to the Wizard’s Guild for safe keeping. Nothing else. I swear.”

  “Then we’ll do it.”

  “We?” Silver and Diminutia asked in unison.

  “Yes, we. I’m coming with you two. No one argues the point, no one questions it, no one tries to talk me out of it, or there will be regrettable consequences.”

  “Dearborn—” Silver started but was cut short by the frozen glare of Dearborn’s ice blue eyes.

  “Heavily regrettable consequences,” she repeated. The wizard shrank back into his seat.

  “The children?” Diminutia asked quickly enough not to incur his wife’s wrath.

  Dearborn smiled. “Marrim and Captain Wahl. They love Nevin and Ideria as grandparents would love grandchildren. They would act like we’re doing them a favor by letting them keep the kids for a couple of weeks.”

  Dearborn was right. The older couple said, “Yes,” before she could even finish asking the question. But now it was time to leave. She knew the children were in good hands, capable hands. She had never gone a day without seeing them, though. This idea hurt. This idea frightened her. She told herself that she was doing this for them, for all the parents and children of the land. Even if half of what Silver had told her was true, then it was obvious that a greater evil was at work.

  “You two behave for Mr. and Mrs. Wahl,” she said as she hugged them both.

  “We will, Momma,” Nevin said.

  “I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble,” Ideria followed up.

  Dearborn and Diminutia thanked the Wahls one final time and exited the house where Silver and three steeds awaited. Before they closed the door, Silver waved a palm-sized piece of glass at the children. Dearborn’s first inclination was to break his arm, but she fought her reflex. Before she could ask what he had done, he handed the glass to her. Forever trapped in it was an image of her two beautiful children, smiles big and earnest. Dearborn was so enthralled with it, she could not stop looking, even after she mounted her horse and rode away.