The Devil's Influence Read online

  seven

  Water dripped from the ceiling to the puddle on the floor, the echo of the splash maddening. Not as maddening as Mallen’s constant complaining about it, though, in Cezomir’s mind.

  Humans could not handle their emotions. They were often led by them and certainly had no control over them. It must have been a heavy rainstorm, because the drip was consistent and ongoing, each rhythmic drop of water leading to a groan or unsavory comment from the human. As a werewolf forever stuck in his wolf-state, a species not known for their patience and calm demeanor, Cezomir handled the irritations with relaxed grace. He simply found a way to channel his frustrations and rage by thinking of the one individual whom he wished to kill, gut, and eat.

  Bale Pinkeye.

  After every drip, the sound would echo off the stone walls of the murky dungeon, and from two cells over Mallen would lament, “Damnable drip.” Cezomir simply smiled, imagining the satisfaction of digging out Bale’s eyeballs and popping them like grapes between his teeth. He had been fantasizing about this for three years, the length of time he had been in this prison.

  This was Bale’s fault. Cezomir and his crew had set up a job where they were going to frame Bale and take the rabbit. However, the ogre never showed. Cezomir cursed his hubris for accepting Bale to be the dolt he portrayed. No creature could be as stupid as Bale. None! It was a good act, though. Cezomir remembered one mission together where Bale accidentally ate his own bootlaces. A good act, indeed. That act lulled Cezomir and the others into a false sense of security, never suspecting that it was Bale who set them up to be apprehended, landing them here.

  The prison was barely more luxurious than an oubliette. This dungeon was one of many small series of cells buried underground that formed the Hellweb dungeon system. An above ground maze of stone and jagged fencing confounded all except the guards and the warden in charge. Only the vilest offenders the country of Albathia had to offer were kept here. The ingress and egress were the same door, a time-slanted frame separating a set of stone hewn stairs from a dirt floor so packed that pooled water no longer made mud. There were only six cells, three on either side, offering enough room for Riz, the minotaur, to pace if he deemed necessary. However, the cell doors were tiny, constructed of four arm-thick bars, durable enough to endure years of prisoner abuse and show no signs of it. One lone sconce by the door lit a fraction of the room. All Cezomir knew from the people who fed him were their hands, all other aspects cloaked in darkness. The one lone accouterment that the prison had was the drip that happened during a hearty rain.

  Drip.

  “Fucking torture this is,” Mallen moaned.

  “Torture?” Cezomir asked, tired of the human’s bellyaching. Visualizing the different ways to eviscerate his nemesis did not come without risk. Sometimes Cezomir worked himself up too much of a lather to continue meditating. “The drip? Or your incessant whining?”

  “You cannot tell me each drip doesn’t bore through your head like a Balladorn fire mite!”

  “I simply put my hands over my ears.”

  Having only one arm, Mallen fell silent after Cezomir’s comment. Bigol, the hobgoblin, laughed. He added nothing to the conversation because he lacked a tongue to do so. Riz snorted in amusement as well. Lina made no noise.

  Five cells filled. The sixth cell, the empty cell, was home to the dripping water. And Mallen was the only one who complained.

  Cezomir knew why Mallen complained and why Bigol and Riz did not. Those three were a part of his crew. He knew what to say to shut them up or make them laugh. If he were capable of feeling friendship, they would be the closest things to that concept. Lina . . . Lina was the newest addition to the dungeon. He did not know her, did not even know what she looked like.

  The guards brought her in four months ago. They threw her into her cage without a struggle. No fight. She had been defeated, broken down. A guard spoke her name—Lina—and welcomed her to hell as he locked the door. After the guards had left, the only noises from her cell were the soft scrapes of cloth against stone as she tried to find a comfortable way to sit or lay.

  Mallen tried to talk to her, asking where she was from, why she was here, and if she had any friends who were coming to break her out. No response to any of them. “She’s a Yullian,” Cezomir said. He knew no one could see her, but he could smell her. He assumed Riz could as well. He also assumed that she could smell everyone in the dungeon. Her smell was as unmistakable to him as his was to her. Pungent. Antagonistic. Found roaming the jungle-covered mountains along the southern part of the continent, the Yullians lived in villages as a society of hunters. Even though they walked on two legs and had five fingers on each hand, they were still what Cezomir hated—cats. “I doubt she’ll be talking to any of us, especially if I’m here. Isn’t that right, beautiful?”

  One throaty word came from her cell, “Dog.” That was the last she spoke. Today, however, Cezomir felt that might change.

  The door opened and the smell of death filled the dungeon. Lina and Riz shifted in their cells. The other two could not notice it, but Cezomir did. Three guards, dead. What disturbed Cezomir, instinctually raising a strip of hair from his neck to tail, was the interloper. There was no scent, no smell whatsoever. Every creature had a smell! How could this guest not?

  “I am Qual. Are you Lina?” the man spoke, his voice thick and hollow.

  “Yes,” she said, unafraid.

  “I am in need of your talents. There is an individual I wish to find. I heard a rumor that a Yullian was held here and was wondering if we could broker a simple deal. I free you, you find him.”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  The clacks of metal against metal, of a lock unlocking and a door opening. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need to do this to guarantee that you find this person.”

  “I understand.”

  Whatever he had done, she accepted it. Cezomir was certain he could accept it, too, whatever it was he did. For freedom, for a chance to seek revenge against Bale Pinkeye, Cezomir would do anything, accept anything. “You should free the rest of us as well. My crew and I are exceptional trackers.”

  “I didn’t come for you,” the liberator said.

  “She’ll need help,” Cezomir said.

  “No, she won’t,” Lina replied.

  “Let us not forget, you got caught.”

  “So did you.”

  “We were betrayed and set up. You were caught.”

  The strange man laughed and clapped as he approached Cezomir’s cell. The werewolf remained lounged on the floor, attempting to stem the growing anxiety within him. The figure standing before him did not help quell his nervousness. The size of a regular man, he wore a cloak. The shadows of his hood obscured most of his face. Most. His skin was a deep shade of shimmering green the likes that Cezomir had never seen. It was a color that made him uneasy and he did not know why. A color that his ancestors would have run from millennia ago and the instinct now whispered to him through his bones to do the same. Cezomir pushed down those fears, allowing for concerns about the man’s eyes. Red. Swirling fire red, as if the living flames of hell used this green-skinned man as the true cloak. “My name is Qual. You are?”

  “Cezomir.”

  “You vouch for the other three?”

  “I do.”

  “You will work with Lina to find the person I seek? Within two months?”

  “We will.”

  Lina’s growl echoed through the dungeon.

  Crimson eyes burning brighter, Qual extended his hands and whispered a language Cezomir had never heard before. The latch of the cell door clanked and now nothing stood between the werewolf and his freedom. A wizard! Cezomir had limited dealings with them. It explained the ease of escape, but not the lack of smell.

  Three more sounds of locks failing. Cezomir squeezed through the small
door. Once free, he stretched and looked at his companions exiting their cells. After three years of being hidden, his crew hardly changed: nothing noticeable about Riz, Bigol had gotten a little thinner, and Mallen had streaks of gray in his brown hair. Prison had not been bad to them. Then he finally saw Lina.

  He fought every instinct to jump on her and tear her throat out, just as he was sure she fought against similar urges. Almost equal to his height, three heads taller than an average man, she stood with the clawed fingers of her hands curled into fists and murder in her green eyes, vertical slits for pupils. Holes and tears in her pants and tunic exposed gray fur that covered her whole body. A pink nose twitched in the center of her feline face, while the triangular ears atop her head were pulled back in apprehension.

  With a chuckle, Qual asked again, “Are you sure you two can work together?”

  “Anything to get out of here,” Cezomir answered, wondering when his first chance to kill her would be.

  “Dog,” Lina snarled.

  Qual chuckled as he reached into his robes, feeling around in secret pockets and pouches. His laughter slipped into more words from an eldritch language as he produced four thin strips of metal. Within a blink, each piece flew from his hand and snapped around the necks of Cezomir and his crew. The collar was warm, light. Despite the comfort, Cezomir turned to Qual and growled.

  Unimpressed, Qual waved his hand dismissively and said, “A simple assurance that you follow through with your part of the deal. If you try to kill me or stray from your assignment, it will sever your head. If you do not find the person I am looking for, well . . .”

  Mallen lifted his chin while scrabbling at his neck. “I do not like this.”

  Qual gestured to a cell. “Step back in and I will lock the door and remove the collar.”

  Cezomir pulled at his collar. He knew very little about wizards and thanks to that ignorance, he doubted that these collars could do what was promised. He needed a test, a way to find the limitations of the wizard’s power. His first thought was to challenge him, to openly demand a demonstration. But what if Qual’s claims were true? What if that kind of power could be wielded by one individual? After all, it was a wizard who froze him in wolf-form and another who took Mallen’s arm. Mallen. Cezomir had an idea.

  “Qual, we’ll do your bidding, but we ask a favor.”

  The wizard sneered from under his hood, the shadows playing across his face just enough to expose fanged teeth and one glowing eye. “More than escape from this hell? Getting greedy already?”

  “This request will only serve to help us in our quest, and in turn, help you, no matter what this quest may be. I’m simply asking for you to make us whole.” Cezomir pointed to Mallen, specifically his stubbed arm.

  “No.”

  Emboldened, Cezomir stepped forward, finger picking at the collar. “Really? Because you’re not able?”

  “Hardly. Because you asked and he did not.”

  Mallen stepped up, pointing to his missing arm. With the exuberance of a child being offered an unlimited supply of candied cakes, he said, “Do it! Do it! I am asking. Do it.”

  “Very well.” Qual flashed a smile to Cezomir, one as appealing as ichor dripping from a demon’s wound. Cezomir cringed, finding that smile to be very unsavory.

  Qual extended his hand, palm down, toward Mallen. The wizard’s fingernails grew, at first like claws extending, but longer, thinner. Once they grew to the length of an arm, their points had tapered to needles. Lightning quick, the needle points jammed into Mallen’s shoulder stump.

  Falling to his knees, the human screamed and grabbed at the nails in his arm. He pulled, but his attempt to extract what pierced his flesh was in vain. Blood flowed down his side. Before anyone could make a move to help, the wizard retracted his nails, taking the blood with him, the splash coating his hand.

  Like a macabre marionette, Qual waved his hand about, the strings of blood still attached to Mallen’s shoulders. The human did not dance or move like a puppet, though, he simply stayed on his knees and howled in red-faced pain. His screams intensified as a bone burst from his shoulder.

  Chanting went unheard, drowned out by Mallen’s horror, Qual made pulling motions with his blood-soaked hand. Each gesture coaxed the bone farther from the shoulder, dark and unseen spirits yanking it free. Each pull made Mallen scream louder. Qual gestured one final time, the ropes of blood splashing to the floor. Mallen collapsed, on his back, convulsing and still screaming.

  A skeletal arm now grew from his shoulder.

  Dull white, the bones were free from any blood or viscera, the fingers moving despite the lack of flesh or muscle. Mallen had stopped screaming, but lay twitching, gawping at his newly formed arm. He reached for it with his other hand but stopped himself, fear disallowed him from touching the bone appendage.

  “You’re welcome,” Qual said with a chuckle. He then turned to Bigol and asked, “Shall we regrow your tongue?”

  The hobgoblin looked away and stepped into the nearest shadow.

  Qual addressed Cezomir. “How about you? Care to fix your shapeshifting problem? Or do you not believe my magic is strong enough?”

  Cezomir ignored the wizard and walked over to Mallen. “Does it work?”

  Sweat and tears rolling over his face in streams, the human sat up and stared at his newly formed skeletal hand. The fingers curled into a fist. Still unable to speak, he only nodded his head rapidly.

  “So, wizard,” Cezomir said to Qual, “Who is it you wish us to find?”

  “Prince Oremethus, the brother of King Perciless.”

  Cezomir wondered if it was too late to return to his cell and shut the door.

  eight

  Landyr held the knight in his hand and studied it. The chess piece was made of a gray metal, the luster stripped away by time. The edges a bit worn, but the details were still there, exquisite in the craftsmanship. The knight was in full plate mail and helm, all humanity hidden other than the shape. Kneeling on one knee, he held a shield before him, awaiting an order from his king. Landyr could sympathize.

  “Please. Please be careful with that,” came from behind Landyr. The shopkeeper became quite fussy immediately after Landyr and Zellas had entered his shop. Absentmindedly wrapping his fist around the chess piece, Landyr was demonstrating the shopkeeper’s need for concern. “That is the chess set of the late King Durandenn, grandfather of King Perciless.”

  Landyr grunted a reply and gently placed the piece back to its starting square. He turned and was greeted by Zellas’ gaze of disappointment and frustration. Holding it just long enough to convey the meaning, Zellas resumed his conversation with the shopkeeper. “You said there have been no ransom demands yet. Any guess as to what they might be?”

  The pudgy shopkeeper had his arm around his equally pudgy wife. She cried during the entire trip from Phenomere to here, the town of Whiterock. While Zellas, Landyr, and eight members of the Elite Troop escorted them, there had been no opportunity for questioning. Once they got back to the shop, the keeper gave his wife some spirits to calm her nerves. Her crying had downgraded to random blubbering. Still keeping an eye on Landyr, the shopkeeper answered, “Nothing I could think of. We make ends meet, and have a few coins squirreled away here and there. We have no stash to dip into to fulfill a gold ransom. Everyone knows an antique dealer’s wealth is in his inventory.”

  Zellas looked around the shop and waved his hand at the rows of shelves. “What about your inventory? Any particular piece rare enough or valuable enough to warrant a kidnapping?”

  “Our most valuable piece is the chess set that your soldier was playing with. But one would assume it would be easier and more cost effective to simply purchase it than hire thugs to kidnap a child.”

  Landyr rankled at the shopkeeper’s comment. First, he was a Sergeant in the Elite Troop, not some soldier
in the army. Second, he should not even be here. Escorting a middle-aged couple back home and investigating was far beneath the Elite Troop’s capabilities.

  Zellas massaged his jaw with one hand as he continued to look around the shop. Landyr knew his general was taking this seriously, examining every antique in the shop and wondering the true value of the pieces. Landyr debated about his next move; either try to work on his patience by continuing to assist Zellas in the shop, or give in to his nature and go outside to help the other Troop soldiers in their questioning of the townsfolk. He knew very well he should stay, but he inched toward the door in a losing battle.

  Just as he consciously decided to give up the struggle and head outside, the wooden door flung open. A townsman burst in into the shop, the excitement could be seen on his face and heard in his voice. “Mallas! Delliah! Your son is back! Your son is back!”

  The couple looked at each other, fearful to believe such news. Then, as one, they ran past everyone in the shop and out the door.

  Landyr aimed for the door but paused to allow his general through first. On his way out, Zellas used a gloved hand to smack the back of Landyr’s head. It stung, but he knew he deserved it.

  Outside, the parents were on their knees, hugging the child with such zeal that he could hardly be seen. Their sobs were matched by the many silent tears of onlookers, each having a stake in the matter. The town was safe once again. If Landyr had been forced, he would have confessed that it did warm his heart to see a child reunited with his parents. His heart turned into a chunk of ice when he saw who had returned the child.

  Wizards.

  Landyr’s hand moved to the hilt of his sheathed sword. He was very aware of his action but would say he was not if anyone questioned. He hated wizards. He had never met any, but he knew that it was a wizard who created the demon stones. The stories did not state that he had anything to do with The Horde attacking his town, but in Landyr’s mind, the Horde would not have been looking for the stones if they had not existed.