Prince of Demons Read online

  *LAV’RINTIR NEARLY RUINED US.*

  *The mistake was bringing me into the room. Had they seen chaos alone, they would not have questioned.*

  *I needed you there. For advice and support.* A wave of jealousy washed through Dh’arlo’mé at the thought of leaving the staff for others to discover. *We belong together always.*

  *Indeed. A few moments apart won’t change that. I convinced Lav’rintir and the humans that I belonged to you. I can convince anyone who touches me to leave me where I lie.*

  *And the Staff of Chaos will corrupt the king?*

  *It seems certain. It lies. It cheats. It follows no rules. As it comes into its power, it will find a way to ruin him. But we must prepare to interfere once mankind destroys itself. We cannot allow the elves to crumble into chaos’ influence.

  *Do not worry for the power lost in Béarn, Dh’arlo’mé. We still control the kingdoms North and East. The roads in the West will prove more valuable than any kingdom. Let chaos rage amid mankind, and all the world will belong to the elves. . . .*

  DAW Books Presents

  the Finest in Fantasy by

  MICKEY ZUCKER REICHERT

  FLIGHTLESS FALCON

  SPIRIT FOX (with Jennifer Wingert)

  The Novels of Nightfall:

  THE LEGEND OF NIGHTFALL

  THE RETURN OF NIGHTFALL

  The Books of Barakhai:

  THE BEASTS OF BARAKHAI

  THE LOST DRAGONS OF BARAKHAI

  The Renshai Trilogy:

  THE LAST OF THE RENSHAI

  THE WESTERN WIZARD

  CHILD OF THUNDER

  The Renshai Chronicles:

  BEYOND RAGNAROK

  PRINCE OF DEMONS

  THE CHILDREN OF WRATH

  The Renshai Saga:

  FLIGHT OF THE RENSHAI

  FIELDS OF WRATH

  The Bifrost Guardians Omnibus Editions:

  VOLUME ONE:

  GODSLAYER

  SHADOW CLIMBER

  DRAGONRANK MASTER

  VOLUME TWO:

  SHADOW’S REALM

  BY CHAOS CURSED

  Copyright © 1996 by Miriam S. Zucker.

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66390-5

  Cover art by Jody A. Lee.

  Map by D. Allan Drummond.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1038.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  First paperback printing, November 1997

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  Version_1

  To birthparents everywhere

  for making the most loving,

  unselfish decision in the universe

  and for caring about a child’s future

  in a way few ever acknowledge or understand.

  No children are more loved.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to the following people: Sheila Gilbert, Caroline Oakley, Jonathan Matson, Jody Lee, Mark Moore, Dave Countryman, Jennifer Wingert, Dan Fields, and the Pendragons, each helping in his or her own way to make this a better story.

  For patience, support, love, and example: Ben, Jon, Jackie, and Ari Moore. Also Sandra Zucker and Evelyn Migdol, always interested and always caring.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. The Summoning

  2. After the Storm

  3. Mountain Trails

  4. Damnation

  5. Elf-Captured

  6. Destroyers of the Peace

  7. Ravn’s Promise

  8. Death on the Roads

  9. Lav’rintii Parley

  10. The Origins of Faith

  11. The Bonds that Break

  12. The Catacombs

  13. Scepter of the Elfin Kings

  14. The Dark Elves’ Legacy

  15. Law’s Heir

  16. Toward Balance

  17. Valhalla

  18. The Unwelcome

  19. Send-offs

  20. Lord of Chaos

  21. Love’s Hold

  22. The Price of Loyalty

  23. Changes

  24. The Off-Duty Tavern

  25. Knight-Testing

  26. Betrayals

  27. Honors Challenged

  28. A Demon and a Sword of Chaos

  29. Chaos-Threatened

  30. The Keeper of the Balance

  31. A Suitable Heir

  32. The Long Arm of Weile Kahn

  33. A Mother’s Love

  34. Garnet Eyes and Khohlar

  35. The King’s Demands

  36. Urgent Solutions

  37. Compromise

  38. Chaos Incarnate

  39. One Against a Kingdom

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Clouds embroidered netlike patterns across a sapphire sky, and muted sunlight glowed along their margins. The ocean lay calm as glass, a rare breeze chopping the water into stray bits of froth. Kevral Tainharsdatter stared over the taffrail, ignoring the elf captain who manned the tiller, singing his sweet, quiet song of the sea. Joy entwined inseparably with dread, and her inability to concentrate on one emotion bothered Kevral. Though only fifteen, she had achieved the sequence of sword training, knowledge, and mental control that signaled her passage to Renshai adulthood nearly three years ago.

  The Sea Seraph glided through the Southern Sea despite the dearth of wind. Kevral’s understanding of seamanship was spotty, yet it required little more than logic to realize the tiny craft should lie becalmed upon the wind-shy waters. Captain’s millennia of piloting had gained him skills mortal sailors could only envy. She turned her gaze to the triangular wavelets and foam spirals the rudder churned in their wake. Her companions’ voices wafted from the bow, their conversation distant murmurs carried on the intermittent breeze. The music of clamps thumping and clanking, the hum of lines, and the flap of canvas drowned out individual words.

  Kevral had slipped aft to think, certain their elfin captain, unlike her friends, would not disturb her contemplation. She had maintained her position for more than half an hour, her mind distant but her senses keenly pitched for danger. By Renshai law, her people had become the guardians of the high king’s heirs; and Kevral had protected Princess Matrinka from assassins for long enough to keep a part of her constantly alert even while she brooded. Insignificant details disappeared. Outside noises, however, always filtered through, processed by a finely-honed awareness, and discarded or retained without need for conscious thought.

  At length, Kevral pulled herself from her musing. Unsorted concerns remained so, raising an irritation that could not assist the problem but managed to usurp it for the moment. She spun to face Captain, deliberation reluctantly yielding to reality. Though hacked functionally short, her blonde hair had become ruffled into tangles by the ship’s momentum. Salt stung large blue eyes that well-matched her rounded cheeks and the soft, childlike contours of her face. The Renshai racial tendency to appear younger than her age had never bothered her, but now that romance had blossomed, adolescent awkwardness undermined her usually unflappable confidence.

  Captain broke the long silence. “Violence cannot solve every problem.”

  Kevral blinked. The comment appeared sourceless, and annoyance over unrelated matters nearly drove her to rudeness. Only then, she realized her fist had winched closed around her sword hilt. She released it, indentations from the knurling etched against her calluses. “I wouldn’t have harmed you,” Kevral felt obligated to reassure him.

  To Captain’s credit, he did not laugh.
To do so would have besmirched her honor and might have sparked the very brutality she had just dismissed. “I wasn’t afraid.” The reply still bordered on insult, and Captain rescued the situation with a compliment. “Renshai violence is swift and merciless, but never without cause.” The elf smiled, engraving the familiar wrinkles deeper onto his timeless features. Amber eyes, homogeneous as gemstones, studied her mildly from canted sockets; and the sun lit red highlights into mahogany hair faded from salt and weather. Rare silver wound through the brown, little resembling the gray of human elders. He wore his locks swept back and tied at the nape of his neck, opening the high-set cheekbones, broad mouth, and low ears and making him appear more alien.

  Footsteps midship rescued Kevral from a reply. Four of her six companions headed toward the stern, Matrinka and Darris in the lead. The princess sported the massive bone structure that defined even the women and children of Béarn, especially those of the king’s line. Thick black hair flowed past pleasant features and enveloped the calico cat, named Mior, so often perched upon her shoulders. Mior studied Kevral, wearing the smug expression cats had perfected. Darris held Matrinka’s arm under the pretext of steadying her, though the gentle drift of the Sea Seraph threatened no one’s balance. The love those two could never consummate had become too familiar for Kevral to pity any longer. At least, they had stopped denying their feelings for one another, though the difference in station between the princess and the bard would never allow them to marry.

  Darris’ gentle features had slackened since learning of his mother’s death only a few days earlier. Grief softened his hazel eyes, usually peaceful and now nearly glazed. Brown curls flopped across his forehead, hiding the fine, Pudarian brows and drawing attention from the large but straight nose and broad lips. He wore a sword at his hip and his favorite lute slung across his back. His sorrow, Kevral guessed, stemmed not only from the loss of a parent but also from the responsibilities her death had heaped upon him. An ancient curse on the bard’s line, passed always to the eldest child, imbued them with insatiable curiosity yet forbade them from passing on the knowledge this gained them in any form except song. In addition, the bard was always the personal bodyguard of Béarn’s ruler.

  Kevral acknowledged her friends with well-directed nods, then turned her attention to the young man behind them. Though only a year older than the Renshai, Griff towered over the others, his huge frame packed with Béarnian muscle and fat. His features contrasted starkly with his size. Cowlike, dark eyes looked out from a rotund face wearing a vast, friendly grin. Black bangs dangled into his eyes. Only the day before, Kevral and her companions had rescued him from the elves’ dungeon, yet he looked none the worse for captivity. Griff did not even seem to realize the significance of his being the last untested Béarnian heir, the only descendant of King Kohleran left to pass a trial crafted by Odin to judge the neutrality and innocence of king or queen. But Kevral knew that, without the proper heir on Béarn’s throne, the balance would dissolve and the world would fragment into chaos.

  Rantire followed Griff, hand on hilt and gaze wary. Though a distant cousin to Kevral, she bore little resemblance. Her bronze hair and gray eyes broadcast her descent from one of the less pure-blooded Renshai lines, the tribe of Rache. Her face still bore evidence of her much longer imprisonment by elves. Unlike Griff, Rantire had been tortured for information, and Matrinka had spent the better part of the night tending her myriad wounds and scars. Kevral’s private discussion with her cousin revealed that the elves had inflicted far worse than kindhearted Matrinka could know. Between sessions of brutality, they had magically healed the vast majority of Rantire’s injuries.

  Now, Rantire fairly shackled herself to Griff’s side, his self-appointed guardian, at least until he took the throne. Kevral did not begrudge her cousin an honor won, with words, faith, and courage from Ravn, a young god descended from Renshai. As a token of his trust, Ravn had awarded her one of his own swords, a blade she wore proudly at her hip. Rantire’s eyes zipped to every motion, never still; and her stance remained perpetually alert.

  Kevral could not resist teasing. “Rantire, if you got any tenser, you’d explode.”

  Rantire’s eyes narrowed, and she glared. “Perhaps, Kevralyn the Overconfident, if you became as serious about your charge as I am about mine, you wouldn’t see a need for jokes.”

  Anger splashed through Kevral at the use of the full name she despised, the hateful nickname that suggested her self-assurance stemmed more from arrogance than ability, and the questioning of her loyalty to duty. Attributing Rantire’s hostility to stress, Kevral forced herself to forgive it, resorting to sarcasm rather than blows. “I apologize for the affront.” She curtsied, passing the victory to Rantire. “It takes more skill than I have to deliver three insults in one sentence.”

  Matrinka joined in before the dispute could escalate. Unlike Kevral, she could not see that a wild spar between Renshai warriors would probably do both participants good. “We were just discussing how much smoother things could go from here if we knew more about the elves.” She walked to Kevral’s side, settled against the gunwale, and faced Captain directly. Darris waited until she found her position, then took a comfortable one beside her. In contrast, Rantire placed herself between Griff and every rail until he finally sat with his back against the jib mast. Even then, Rantire violated his personal space, an imposition he did not seem to notice.

  Captain clung to the tiller, though his features revealed no discomfort. “What would you like to know?”

  “Everything.” Matrinka glanced at Kevral for a reassurance the Renshai felt ill-prepared to give. Too late, Kevral wished she had directed the conversation to the facts necessary to stand against the enemy. Matrinka’s book schooling would steer her toward history and details that little interested Kevral. “Like why haven’t they had dealings with people before this? And why do they hate us?” Matrinka’s face suddenly tightened into a painful grimace. “I’m sorry. Was omitting elves from ‘people’ insulting?”

  Captain shrugged, taking no offense. “I never thought about it, really. The elfin terms and mind-concepts for humans and elfinkind are quite distinct. Common trading is your tongue. You decide.”

  Matrinka obliged. “I think ‘people’ ought to refer to humans and elves.”

  Worry about semantics seemed a waste of time to Kevral.

  Captain smiled. “I like that. A word that lumps us together. It suggests the potential for cooperation.”

  Kevral believed Captain’s choosing to work with them demonstrated the concept far more aptly, but raising the issue might only prompt a longer discussion about terminology. She waited patiently for them to continue.

  Darris interrupted, and Kevral cringed reflexively. The bard’s curse rendered his every utterance either an aria or paradoxically succinct. Although she delighted in listening to his peerless musical talent on most occasions, breaking for song in the middle of a conversation sometimes made him tedious. This time, Darris kept his comment mercifully brief. “If we’re going to talk about something important, shouldn’t Ra-khir and Tae hear, too?”

  Matrinka nodded agreement.

  “I’ll get them,” Kevral said, ignoring Rantire’s disdainful look as she abandoned her charge once again. It was not that her guardianship had grown negligent; simply that she had come to trust her companions. The self-assurance other Renshai condemned as overconfidence stemmed from proven ability. Kevral trusted herself to handle any situation that might arise, no matter how sudden or unexpected. She headed amidships.

  “They’re below,” Matrinka called.

  Kevral nodded without turning or bothering to reply. Soon enough she could see if Ra-khir and Tae stood at the foredeck, and the tiny Sea Seraph left them no other place but the cabin to hide. The customary mixture of excitement and discomfort assailed her as she set to the task. In the months they had spent traveling together, both men had fallen in love with her and she with them. It had become a strange triangle, devoid of d
eceit. Everyone knew where the others stood, and both men had promised to wait for her decision. Even before this competition, the two had hated one another. Yet circumstance had intervened, and they had managed to become friends. That bond, too, ultimately hinged on her. Kevral shook free of the burden of responsibility for now. The choice would have to wait until they delivered Griff to his inheritance and saw him safely ruling.

  Kevral reached the hatchway and pried it open. Sunlight filtered through the hole and into a single room sparsely lit by lanterns. Tae’s voice funneled upward. “. . . saying you’d starve to death rather than steal to eat?”

  “That is correct.” Ra-khir’s crisply enunciated trading tongue followed.

  “Yeah? Well, what if it wasn’t just your life? What if you had a wife and thirteen little redheaded brats? Would you let them starve to death, too?”

  Ra-khir ignored the jab against innocent children who did not yet exist to focus upon the question. “I’d get a job, no matter how demeaning.”

  “We already said there aren’t any jobs.”

  “Tae, this is a ridiculous discussion.”

  Kevral had had her share of honor arguments with these two. This one seemed particularly pointless. “If either of you are counting on me to supply those thirteen brats, think again.”

  Ra-khir rushed to the bottom of the companion ladder. Even the strange play of light and shadow could not hide the classic handsomeness of his face. “Tae was just . . . I mean, he wasn’t trying—”

  Tae interrupted, “Easy, Red. She was joking.” He moved up beside Ra-khir, his Eastern features coarser and diminished by his companion’s natural radiance. He winked. “Besides, I was talking about his future wife . . .” He jerked a thumb toward Ra-khir, “. . . not mine.”

  “Aaah.” Ra-khir joined the lighthearted banter. His months with Tae and Kevral had developed a sarcastic edge he reserved for them. “But it was Tae who picked the number.”

  Kevral smiled, many quips coming to mind, but she shoved those aside for the more important matter of Captain’s explanation. “Come join the rest of us in back.” She jerked a thumb aft, ship terminology a second language she had not yet bothered to learn. “We’re going to talk about elves and their motives. That seems far more important than speculating about how a Knight of Erythane would survive on the streets if he was a completely different person living in a completely different world.”