Steve White - Demons Gate.pdf - Steve White - widez2

Demon's Gate

Table of Contents

Author's Note

PART ONE:

The City

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Part Two:

Lokhrein

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Part Three:

Arvaerness

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Part Four:

Arnoriysa

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Demon's Gate

Page 1

Steve White

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-7176-8

Cover art by Clyde Caldwell

First printing, January 2004

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

White, Steve, 1946-

Demon's gate / Steve White.

p. cm.

"A Baen Books original."

ISBN 0-7434-7176-8 (Hardcover)

1. Demonology--Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.H474777D46 2004

813'.54--dc22

2003020724

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

To Sandy, for the love which is the

most precious thing I possess.

And to Richard A. Getchell, for allowing

Irma Sanchez the use of a great line.

BAEN BOOKS by STEVE WHITE

Page 2

Demon's Gate

Forge of the Titans

Eagle Against the Stars

Prince of Sunset

Emperor of Dawn

The Disinherited

Legacy

Debt of Ages

with David Weber:

Insurrection

Crusade

In Death Ground

The Shiva Option

Author's Note

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, Demon's Gate is a fantasy. Its setting is not our own world's

Bronze Age, although its geography and climatology are markedly similar. It mirrors European prehistory,

but with larger and more developed political units and a higher level of sophistication about certain things,

most notably theology. (As far as the latter is concerned, a case can be made for the presence of

Zoroastrian-style dualism a thousand years early. After all, in the Demon's Gate world it's real . . . more

or less, as Nyrthim would say.) At the same time, the mundane technology of this world—metallurgy,

shipbuilding, construction techniques, chariots and their use, and so forth—is as accurate in terms of our

current knowledge of the European Bronze Age as conscientious research can make it.

The pronunciation of the various languages is fairly self-explanatory. Final vowels are always sounded.

The aa combination in Dovnaan words represents an ah sound shading toward aw . In words of

Nimosei derivation (including numerous names and loan-words in Ayoliysei, such as "Ayoliysei" itself), iy

approximates a shortened one-syllable form of the sound sometimes rendered as aiee .

I make no apologies for using English units of measurement. Metrics would be even more anachronistic.

More anachronistic still would be to put fashionable modern sentiments on such subjects as slavery, war,

social equality and gender roles into the mouths of the characters.

PART ONE:

The City

CHAPTER ONE

The mist through which they sailed was unusual for the Inner Sea.

Page 3

"Nothing to compare to what we're used to, of course," stated Khaavorn.

Valdar smiled. His companion had yet to admit that anything in these regions could compare with

home. In this case, though, he had a point. The island of Lokhrein from which they'd departed a moon

and a half ago was almost fogbound enough to justify its reputation. Here, the sun kept breaking through

rifts to awaken eye-dazzling sparkles on the water. Still, this mist was enough to veil the northern coast of

Schaerisa to starboard, and the galley seemed to glide through a pearl-white world of blended air and

sea with no land at all.

But then, abruptly, they were out of the pocket of mist and back in the sunlight whose brilliance and

clarity almost hurt their northern eyes, under the sky whose blueness Valdar had never gotten used to.

Off to starboard was the coast of Schaerisa with its little whitewashed fishing villages. Ahead rose one of

the rocky ridges that broke up this island's coast into a series of crescent-shaped coves, forming a

headland.

As they drew abreast that headland, a cleft in the ridge gave them a glimpse of what lay beyond . . . and

for once, Khaavorn was silent.

They'd heard tales of The City, of course. Khaavorn had scoffed loudly, and in his quieter way Valdar

had agreed. But now, as the galley moved on and the cleft fell behind, the two of them turned to each

other and exchanged a nervous glance, both wondering if they'd really seen what they thought they'd seen

but neither willing to be the first to voice the question. Unconsciously, Khaavorn's hand went to the

smooth-worn haft of the heavy war axe that was the weapon, emblem and soul of a Dovnaan warrior.

Valdar smiled condescendingly . . . but then realized that his own hand had sought the hilt of his sword.

Then they rounded the headland. Ahead was another rocky prominence, not unlike it. At a bawled

command from the captain, the steersmen hauled on the twin rudders and the galley heeled to starboard,

turning into the channel between the two capes. Khaavorn and Valdar held onto the rail to keep their

footing . . . and stared ahead at the vista for which no traveler's tale had prepared them.

The two curving headlands enclosed a vast harbor, universally conceded to be the finest in the world,

rimmed by gentle hills where villas peered forth from groves of olive trees and date palms. Arguably it

was two harbors, for it was divided almost precisely in half by a peninsula extending from the harbor's

southern shore. The head of that peninsula now lay dead ahead, like a mountain rising from the

water . . . not a natural mountain made by the gods, but an artificial mountain fashioned by men like gods,

for this was The City.

That was all anyone ever called it. Its actual name was Schaerisa, the same as the island. But it needed

no name on any of the coasts and islands of the Inner and Outer Seas that the Old Empire had once

ruled. It was simply The City.

It rose in tiers and terraces of stone and masonry and ruddy-tiled roofs, climbing the slopes of two hills.

One of those hills was crowned with the temple of Dayu, gleaming with decorative tiles and gold leaf. The

other seemed to groan beneath the weight of the imperial palace, whose colonnaded and porticoed

façade was like nothing the two of them—the son of one king and the nephew of another—had ever

seen, or imagined.

And yet those two hills were only foothills of a conical mountain whose jagged cinder-gray peak loomed

above all the clutter of buildings.

A volcano, Valdar found himself wondering, that once blasted its lava out and left the crater that is now

Page 4

a harbor? That's the kind of thing Nyrthim would have wondered about. He shied away from the thought,

as he always did whenever such strange speculations entered his mind, which they they doubtless did at

the behest of the old sorcerer's ghost.

The harbor was alive with ships—lean predatory war galleys and the broad-beamed merchantmen that

were their natural prey, tied up at the docks as well as under way. A small but well-kept-up boat

approached in a way that somehow exuded arrogance. In its stern stood a middle-aged man who, under

his official dress of white kilt and formal over-both-shoulders mantle, suggested gauntness settling into

softness. He bore a staff of office.

"What is your business here?" he demanded when his craft had drawn into shouting range. He used the

Nimosei that was still the common language of commerce in the lands once ruled by the Old Empire.

"The harbormaster," grunted the captain. He was from the land the imperials still officially called Ivaerisa,

where Khaavorn and Valdar had negotiated passage the rest of the way through the Inner Sea, and he

had the strongly built hook-nosed look that went with that land's Escquahar blood. Unfortunately, a

legacy of suspicion also went with it, here in the New Empire. "This is the Wave Leaper , out of

Ivaerisa," he called out, leaning over the rail, "bringing distinguished visitors."

"We are uninterested in any louse-infested rebel or barbarian dignitaries you may have brought from

Ivaerisa," the harbormaster sneered, using the first person plural in the way of all officials in all times and

places. "And the investiture was weeks ago—as I should have thought everyone knew by now. Proceed

to the commercial docks, along with the rest of the outlanders and the lower orders."

Khaavorn flushed. This was just the thing to bring him out of his paralyzing awe. He pushed the captain

aside and glared across the water, axe held so as to be just visible over the gunwale. His Nimosei had

been learned in childhood—his family, like many of Lokhrein's ruling clans, blended the bloodlines of the

Old Empire's priesthood with those of the conquering Dovnaan. But now he spoke in the Ayoliysei

dialect that was the New Empire's ruling language. He and Valdar had acquired it without undue

difficulty, for it and the Dovnaan tongue had common roots going back not so very many generations. But

Khaavorn's Dovnaan accent was now even thicker than usual—thicker, Valdar suspected, than it needed

to be.

"This young gentleman," he declared, waving grandly at Valdar, "is heir to King Arkhuar of Dhulon. An' I

meself am Khaavorn nak'Moreg, sister's son to Riodheg, High King of Lokhrein. I've also the honor of

bein' half brother to the Lady Andonre, wife of Vaelsaru, chief general of your Emperor . . . who, ye may

be sure, will be hearin' of any insolence we encounter from his servants!"

The harbormaster managed to grovel without capsizing his boat. "My humblest and most abject

apologies, lord! I naturally never dreamed that this, uh, vessel carried passengers of such eminence.

Please permit me to escort you to the imperial moorings." He gestured peremptorily at his steersman,

who bawled at the oarsmen, thus confirming the immemorial proverb of the ancient sage Zhaerosa: "Shit

flows downhill."

Khaavorn turned to Valdar and smoothed his mustache complacently. "One just has to know how to

deal with those sorts of people, that's all," he explained in their more usual Dovnaan tongue.

"No doubt. But was that 'young gentleman' business really necessary? You make me sound like I'm still

the callow little twit who arrived in Lokhrein ten years ago begging help from the High King for his old

ally Arkhuar."

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