Chapter 35
The coming weeks proved busy ones for Rys’s new kingdom.
Compagnon launched attacks as they tried to break free from the stranglehold they were in. Grigor pulverized them each time and noted to Rys how few experienced mercenaries remained. The blockade by Tarmouth prevented new ships from arriving at Aretiers.
The time approached for a final assault.
Maria and Vallis focused their efforts on establishing legitimacy. They distributed aid, uniforms, and education on taxes. Despite Maria’s wish to move into Castle Aion, she found herself in a carriage almost the entire time after her adventure with Rys in the bath.
Vallis herself prepared for a trip to Tarmouth. Now that the kingdom had been formally established, Tarmouth had processes they needed to go through. Registration with the port authorities, allocation of domestic dock space, meetings with the council members who ruled the island port, and countless other bureaucratic necessities.
But Tarmouth cared a lot more about Compagnon’s imminent fall and keeping the Malus League at bay. They sent Rys a few brief communiques via sendings after he announced that he was king. The message in them was clear, once he read past the diplomatic niceties.
Tarmouth would work with him, so long as he worked with them. They didn’t want another Compagnon or Malus League, but an allied nation.
That worked for Rys. He didn’t want to attract attention from the continents. If keeping Tarmouth happy minimized attention on him, then he’d let the port maintain its monopoly over intercontinental trade.
One day, that would change. But that day was many years in the future.
Unlike the others, Alsia spent a lot of her time in the mansion.
Palace, Rys reminded himself. Castle Aion was now the palace of the kingdom. It wasn’t the manor of Lord Talarys, but the palace of King Talarys.
The thought still brought a stupid smirk to his face. He’d controlled a far more impressive fortress during his time in the Infernal Empire, but that had been different.
Alsia had begun the process of moving in within days. Her closest retinue had come with her. She brought several guards and advisers, as well as a number of younger demihumans who were intended to help her with administrative work.
The problem was that the Kinadain didn’t have offices or administration in the dains. One’s contribution to the dain was assessed by physical labor. Hunting, toolmaking, carving, construction—skills that required physical skill and produced physical goods. Only the Sages, elders, and a handful of trusted merchants dealt in softer skills.
Alsia needed to remedy this, she felt. But she also needed these skills to help her as duchess.
The young Kinadain were to be trained in the palace as administrative staff. Tyrisa would help them with their day-to-day duties—although Vallis would temper the devil’s overbearing enthusiasm for paperwork. While here they’d also learn more about the wider world, including how things worked outside the dains.
“It’s not an easy thing to balance,” Alsia told Rys as they walked down the steps to the Labyrinth antechamber. “I want everybody to learn the wonders of the outside world, like Sages and Slayers do. But I want us to remain Kinadain.”
“You’re going to need to be very clear what being Kinadain means then,” Rys said. “Nobody else can define your people and culture. That’s what culture is. The reason the Kinadain have been so isolationist is that it’s the easiest way to avoid changing.”
“We need to change,” Alsia said. “Everybody else has. What I don’t know is how we should change. But the first step is to learn.”
“It’s a good first step. Just be careful of outside influences,” Rys warned.
The Labyrinth gate stood closed. A couple of demons sat near it, playing checkers with polished stones. Otherwise, the antechamber was empty.
Perfect for what Rys wanted to do. He needed space, and this room was the largest one in the castle.
“Outside influences like you?” Alsia asked, her voice laced with amusement.
“Yes, but also no.” He chuckled. “I mean the other Kinadain in the archipelago. They’ve all chosen their own way to cope with change. They’ll want validation of that, and that means convincing you to do what they did. If you reject their idea, and succeed, they’ll hate you. It’s the way of the world.”
“You sound so certain of that,” Alsia said sadly.
“Tribalism is an ugly thing,” he said. He looked at her and frowned. “Don’t worry too much about it. You have your own path in mind. I’m only warning you that it will make enemies. But that’s why I’m here. If you stick to what you told me when we first spoke, then we both have good reason to support each other.”
Alsia nodded. She watched silently as he began to draw two summoning circles on the ground.
His power to summon more infernals was limited. The power he had exhausted when he left the castle had regenerated relatively quickly, and he had since practiced using it. That gave him confidence to summon more infernals, but not too many.
Once Compagnon were dealt with, he needed to visit the Labyrinth again. His desire for more power slates and to destroy more power conduits never abated.
Rys also relied on some summoning tricks he had learned when he broke the last power conduit. His original summonings remained active and were tied to the demons and devils he brought to Harrium.
With his new knowledge, he could summon infernals more efficiently. That meant maintaining more infernals at once with less power. But he needed to fix the existing summonings in the process, so that infernals such as Terry and Margrim used less power.
These two summoning circles did exactly that. One altered his demon summons, then converted the excess power into a new summon. The other did the same for his Ashen. The result should be several dozen new infernals.
“These are different runic syllabaries, aren’t they?” Alsia asked suddenly. “They both look very similar, but there are differences when I look closely.”
“Different languages, actually,” Rys said. “And they’re not magical runes—although the demonic languages are runic in nature.”
He pointed at the demon summoning circle. “That one is written in Compositional Demonic. There are three demonic languages. Common Demonic, which is basically a street tongue. Superior Demonic, which is the only ‘true’ demonic language. And Compositional Demonic, which is a written-only version and a bastardization of the two because most demons are illiterate.”
Alsia tilted her head. “Why so many languages? Shouldn’t a race only have one?”
Rys laughed. “That’s not really how language works. The Infernal Empire introduced Compositional at some point because demons needed to write.”
“Does the same apply to devils?” she asked. “I’m assuming that’s for devils.” She pointed at the other summoning circle.
“It does, and it is,” he said. “There is Low Devil, High Devil, and Royal Devil. In this case, the language differences are completely artificial and they’re all fairly similar.”
“And you speak and write all of them?”
“I do, plus a lot of other languages,” Rys said. “Although many of them are dead languages now. I rely on magic for translation. My native languages are actually infernal ones. I spoke a lot of Low Devil on the streets. Demonic languages are murder on the throat.”
“What about dwarvish? Elvish? Draconic?” Alsia sounded excited.
He stood up and looked over the circles. They looked right, and he didn’t see any problems.
Unlike most of his summoning circles, he couldn’t afford to be sloppy here. These were attached to infernals he had already summoned. Making a mistake here could harm his existing forces and possibly banish them back to Hell.
Rys looked at Alsia. “Two of those are based on infernal languages, so yes. Dwarvish is based on demonic. Elvish on the devil tongues.”
“And draconic?” she pressed, her tail swishing behind her and shifting her red coat.
“I’m not sure.” He stroked his chin. “There are a lot of theories, and the dragons claim they invented their own language independently, but nobody knows. Up until the collapse of the Infernal Empire, Harrium had been ruled by divine races. There were at least two more from before the Emergence.”
“Two?” Alsia blinked. “I thought the Emergence was the beginning of intelligent life?”
“That’s a bedtime story for children.” He waved an arm around him to gesture at the Labyrinth. “This place is proof that life existed before the Emergence. Extremely powerful life at that. I’ve seen evidence of two separate entities here.”
The Creator and whatever created the vault that contained the power conduit. There had been significant differences between everything else in the Labyrinth and those rooms.
Based on what Orthrus said, another pre-Emergence race sealed the Creator away in his own creation.
“What happened to them?” Alsia asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s a pre-Emergence ruin in central Gauron. That’s the most physical evidence I remember finding.” Something twigged in his memory, but he couldn’t remember what. “Otherwise, I have heard that there was a pre-Emergence race that was destroyed during the Emergence by the angels and infernals. But I only know that because I know someone who fought in the Emergence.”
“And everything about them has been lost to time? Even their very existence?” Alsia looked around herself, then wrapped her arms around her body. “That is… sad.”
He looked at her. What she was feeling couldn’t be empathy for the beings who created this place.
“Time doesn’t respect memory,” Rys said.
“I know. It bothers me that so much is so easily forgotten.” She bit her lip. “Is that the fate for the Kinadain? That our past is forgotten, like everything here? So few remember anything before the arrival of…” Alsia frowned, uncertain what to call the foreigners from Gauron and Pharos.
“Hanna told me,” Rys said. “It is possible to preserve history, but only so well. The Infernal Empire built massive libraries to store knowledge.”
“Lost to its destruction,” Alsia muttered.
“Ariel blew one up, actually. She suspected the archdevil Kauros used the knowledge in it to rise to power,” Rys said offhand. “I think the other was burned down when the Empire fell. It was a symbol of tyranny. Tens of thousands of people flocked to it, and the dragons blew it to pieces. Ironic, given they still haven’t relearned some of the magical theory contained in that library.”
“That is… ironic, yes.” Alsia stared. “And sad. Is so much of your knowledge of magic lost because of anger and fury toward the Infernal Empire? Don’t you worry about your legacy?”
“My legacy is not dying,” Rys said with a laugh. “But, realistically, that is why I am careful. The Infernal Empire fell because it created too many enemies. When the final portal to Hell was destroyed by a rebellion of dragons, it happened because of millennia of compounding mistakes.”
With a snap of his fingers, he cast one of the summoning rituals. A flash of red light filled the room and shadow welled up from the circle. Rys quickly finished the other ritual in the same manner.
Alsia watched, transfixed, as the shadows cleared and dozens of figures stood where none had only moments before. Unlike when Fara had witnessed this, Alsia showed no fear.
In one circle, nearly twenty demons of assorted strains and species grumbled and flexed. They pushed at the barrier at the edge of the circle. Several tried to break through it with force. Two noble demons stared each other down, before one floored the other with a bone-shattering punch.
Confident in his superior strength, the victorious noble demon walked up to the edge of the circle and glared down at Rys.
“Who the fuck are you?” the demon growled.
“Your summoner,” Rys said. “When I bind you, you’ll be reporting to Grigor. Or whoever he feels fit to assign you to.”
“Feels fit? Who do you think you are, human?” the demon stretched out to his full height, revealing he was only a couple of feet shy of Grigor in size.
Rys didn’t waste any more words. With a pulse of power, the entire circle flared blood red. The light filled the room. The noble demon’s face screwed up and his gargantuan muscles tensed. He tried to reach for Rys, but his arm spasmed.
“As I said, I’m your summoner,” Rys said, staring up at the demon. “Now take these demons to meet Prince-General Grigor before I need to remind them of how weak you are.”
The noble demon clenched his fists but muttered, “Yes, boss.”
Then he turned to the other demons and let out ear-shattering roars in demonic. The demons fell into line and trooped out and up the stairs.
Before they left, the noble demon who had been knocked down stopped next to Rys. He was noticeably smaller than the brute from earlier.
“So, boss, where is this Grigor guy?” the smaller noble demon asked with a smirk. “Because some directions might be useful.”
Rys smiled. “They would be, wouldn’t they? I’ll let Grigor know about you.”
He gave the noble demon the directions and location of Grigor, as well as the knowledge of the Malakin who would assist them on the way. Then the demons finally left.
Truthfully, the demons couldn’t get lost. The Malakin would have intervened. But it helped to know which noble demons were thugs, and which knew how to command. Rys passed on the information to Grigor via the Malakin, knowing his general would use the information to organize the command structure.
“Nice trick there, boss,” an Ashen in the other circle said.
There were eight of them standing in small clusters, each of them smoking a cigarette. They’d fit right in.
“Any of you know Margrim?” Rys asked.
Two of them raised their hands.
“You’re the veterans then. Margrim’s your boss, and I tell Margrim what to do. Don’t do anything as stupid as the demons and everything goes well between us,” Rys said.
“How long’s the job?”
“Permanent.”
“Lotta folks say that.”
“Lotta folks can’t summon demon princes,” Rys parroted back. “Give me the shit talk after you talk to Margrim. If you still want to go back to Hell, I’ll be happy to oblige you then.”
The Ashen who spoke raised his hands. The others glared at him and puffed hard on their cigarettes.
Rys bound them, then sent them topside.
Afterward, he did some busywork. Summoned a few more Lilim, then some additional demons and imps. Rys stopped after that, as he needed the rest of his power for the fight to come.
But he did an internal check on the infernals he had summoned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.
On top of Grigor and Tyrisa, he had nearly a dozen noble demons, a dozen Lilim, over seventy weaker demons, twenty Ashen, and ten Malakin. Plus enough imps to keep everybody happy.
And the imps happy. They got unhappy if there weren’t enough imps to match the infernals. While the imps certainly didn’t have a union—and there definitely weren’t any delegates in the castle—they might have certain ways to express their displeasure. Rys preferred to keep them happy, given how easy it was to summon more of them.
“That was an enlightening experience,” Alsia said, reminding him that she was still here. “But why didn’t you use any sorcery to remind them of your strength?”
“Because I refuse to lower myself to their level,” Rys said. “I’m not a demon. I don’t beat the shit out of people to show them that I’m the big boss man around here. In the end, they’ll obey me for a lot of reasons. The easiest is to magically control them and remind them of the gap between us.”
“But you could beat them,” Alsia said.
“Easily. But I learned a long time ago with the succubi that there can be unintended consequences.”
“Ah. Your Incubus King title.” She blushed and her tail made itself known again with some noticeable swishing motions behind her back.
“Yes. If I start beating up the demons to show my strength, they’ll start fighting me. They do that to Grigor. He uses that to train them, but I’m not here to train the noble demons.” Rys frowned.
“What if Grigor wanted to fight you?” Alsia asked.
That would be problematic right now.
“He wouldn’t now. The demons know he’s stronger than me, but they also know that he’s obeying me.” Rys ran a hand through his hair. “But I’m a summoner, so that’s normal for them. Eventually, however, Grigor will fight me. The moment he knows I’m strong enough, he’ll pick a fight with me.”
Just like old times.
Rys grinned from ear to ear.
Swallowing, Alsia looked away. “I can see why you and Grigor get along.”
Rys coughed and schooled his expression. “It’s been a long time. But I do enjoy a good fight. Speaking of which, we need to prepare for one.”
“The Malus League.”
“That’s right.” He nodded. “Get your warriors ready, Alsia. Because I want as many of them as possible in one place when I show myself on the battlefield.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re going to be there?”
“Of course. I’m the king,” Rys said. “And a king needs to remind his subjects of why he’s in charge from time to time. In my case, that involves turning a few hundred soldiers into ash.”