The Demon's Call by Philip C Anderson

Author:Philip C Anderson [Anderson, Philip C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532395918
Published: 2019-04-26T22:00:00+00:00

2

Trent pulled himself from his meditation the next morning when the first sliver of sunlight pierced through the morning fog to touch Leoldin’s face. The alley-harangues of a wizarding old man and his feckless pet had come to him intermittently during the night, a premonition in its parts: of pieces coming together and of atonements and forgiveness. Yet like trying to remember fragments of a dream, they escaped him, and by the time he left his room, he thought nothing of them.

He didn’t go with Grenn to get the younger man’s breastplate that morning, but Trent found him waiting in the courtyard below his room. Xenia bounced to Grenn’s left elbow and landed on the freshly gleaming metal. The armor’s folding parts pulled away from his arm in thin blades.

“Woah,” Grenn said. He appraised his left arm, turning it to catch the light. “How’d you do that?”

Xenia beeped.

“Upgrades?”

She nodded, whistling.

“Goddess,” said Grenn, marveling at his arm. He copied the sound that meant ‘upgrades,’ though off-pitch.

“Got your helm workin again?” Trent asked.

Grenn nodded, and his helm folded over his head. “That and more.” His helmet retracted. Dark half-circles painted his face under each eye.

“Didn’t see ya at the convocation.”

“You know how it is.” Grenn stood. “Got held up, and then you told me I needed rest, so”—he shrugged—“that’s what I did.”

“Ya look like shit.”

Xenia chirped.

“Shut it,” Grenn said to her in mock-warning.

The little mech beeped and whistled, and Trent got her meaning of admonishment.

“Karli’s Light will sustain me.” Grenn tossed his right hand from his face to gesture indifference.

Xenia whistled.

“Okay, okay.” Grenn pursed his lips, tuning a whistle that undulated in pitch. He held his right hand near his face and tapped on nothing in time with the beeps he made. They sounded kind of like Xenia’s. “That good?”

The mech shrugged, then intoned a response.

“I assume you didn’t get that from a girl in the Order,” Trent said as Grenn shouldered his hammer. They headed away from Leoldin’s statue, toward the Spoke.

“Vqenna’s a big place,” said Grenn.

“Too big. You wanna get breakfast before we’re called in?”

“You think that’s happening still?”

“It better. We’re leaving if it doesn’t.”

Grenn stopped. “What?”

Trent walked a few steps before he double-took Grenn’s absence and half-turned. “That’s what I told ‘em by proxy.”

“Come on, man, you heard ‘em. They’re convening a session. If not this morning, if not today, sometime soon. If we’re not here for it”—

“They’re not gonna have a session while I’m here.” Trent didn’t wait for Grenn to answer. “For one, there’s no quorum—there won’t be. Even if there were, they’ll decide what to do with me, send me on my way, and tell everyone else afterward. Manifeld wants me outta here before the old guard shows up, and I gotta say, I do too.”

Grenn exhaled. “Even if that’s the case, I’ve got to stay here until I’m reassigned.”

“What if I told you you’re assigned to Tanvarn?”

“Is that where you’re heading?”

Trent nodded. “Whoever was lookin for me is there. Good a place as any to start.

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