Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

it?”
    “That’s frigging everything.” From Roth.
    “Ask my lord what it means,” Griff said. “And stay away from the hall.”
    Before she could frame another question, he had turned away through another arch to another courtyard where the grass gave way to cobblestones. For a large man, he moved very lightly. Even on the stones, he barely made a sound. Beyond him, Lucy glimpsed more tall, curved stone walls and a big door bound in iron, standing open. The hall?
    She looked at the two boys. “What now?”
    They exchanged glances. “You do not know?”
    She felt like a student teacher on her first day of school. Not a good feeling. “Well, he’s going to join Conn and the other wardens, right? To meet this . . . demon person.”
    Iestyn nodded. “Gau.”
    “Do you know why they are meeting?” Roth asked.
    She didn’t have a clue. She shook her head.
    He scowled. “We thought you would.”
    Iestyn uncurled from the grass.
    “What are you doing? Where are you going?” Lucy asked.
    “To get a look at them.”
    She was not their teacher. She had no authority over them at all. But she didn’t need authority to know this was a Bad Idea, like being trapped in a house with a serial killer and going alone to investigate a noise in the basement.
    “Griff told you to stay away from the hall.”
    “He said he didn’t want to see us,” Roth said.
    “And he won’t. We can get a good view from the barbican,” Iestyn added.
    They turned on her with identical smiles of pleased challenge. “ They are older than they look, ” Conn had said. They were selkie. Maybe they knew what they were doing.
    But they looked like a couple of ten-year-olds on World’s End planning to dive off the rocks into the quarry pool.
    She watched them climb the broken, narrow stairway to the battlements. They were only halfway up the wall when the castle shuddered like a horse tormented by flies. Lucy’s heart lurched. The vibration rose through the stones under her feet and shivered in her bones. Madadh pressed against her leg, shoulders bristling.

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    She patted the hound with a shaking hand, taking comfort from his warm, wiry bulk. “What was that?”
    Iestyn turned, his face pale and his eyes brilliant with excitement. “The demons are here. In the caves under the castle.”
    Roth called down. “Hurry, or we’ll miss them.”
    From his seat on the dais, Conn watched as the delegation from Hell drifted across the great hall, escorted by a rigid Morgan and the northern wardens. The finfolk shimmered in silver and black. The children of fire shifted like pillars of smoke, transparent and opaque by turn, their number and their countenances constantly changing. In the shadows of the hall, their eyes glittered like sparks.
    The demon lord Gau was the solid center of this entourage. Lacking matter of his own, he adopted illusions to suit the mood of the moment, bending light and imbuing particles of earth, water, and air to sustain the form and function of a diplomat. Today, indulging a sense of humor or perhaps merely a flair for the dramatic, he had assumed the aquiline visage, flowing robe, and laurel crown of an ancient Roman. Virgil , Conn thought. Dante’s guide through the Inferno . The wise elder statesman, the virtuous pagan.
    Gau was fond of misrepresentations. Even his name meant “lie.”
    Gau stopped in front of the dais, the focus of all eyes. “Lord Conn.”
    Conn inclined his head a bare fraction. He did not stand. “Lord Gau. You have come far from Hell to trouble our company.”
    The demon smiled, his teeth only slightly pointed. “All places are Hell, my lord. It is only a matter of perception.”
    Conn raised his eyebrows. “You are here to debate philosophy.”
    “I come to offer my respects,” Gau said, “and in acknowledgment of the long history between us.”
    “I see no respect in your recent violence against our people,” Conn said coldly.
    “My prince, we are not your enemies. For centuries, the children of fire have watched in sympathy as your numbers, powers, and territories decline, as the humans despoil your oceans and abuse your patience. The demon Tan sought merely to bring your attention to an existing problem.”
    “Through murder.” Conn kept his voice level and his hands still on the arms of his chair. Never admit emotion. Never reveal weakness.
    “Tan’s methods were perhaps extreme,”