Demorn: City of Innocents (The Asanti Series Book 2)

by David Finn

  Demorn’s magic eyes flickered vividly over Mirror shards, floating lightly in the water, lying broken on the glass.

  She could see the angry wound upon her chest, in a hundred different worlds that ended in defeat, a mental and physical torture, bleeding and raw.

  And then Demorn knew. She knew why Firethorn had fallen. She could hear the thunder booming from the sky and smell the Fort burning.

  She raised the purple, burning Xalos to the sky.

  The Tyrant spoke a final word, blasted through her mind.

  ENOUGH.

  His voice echoed with contempt and dread. He raised his armored hand. The grey, bleached bones cracked and crumbled.

  She turned, watching his severe face, all the youth and hope gone, without love or a trace of hope, as the bone collapsed around him.

  The Reality Prisons shattered. It seemed the heavens themselves were falling.

  Finally, when it was done, and quiet, the sky sparkled with stars again.

  In his palm lay a white gem. Now so close, Demorn realized, she had seen it before. It had passed from hand to hand. Sinatra had held it for a time. He had sung love songs to her in Vegas, the white gem lighting up his neck.

  The gem shone into the Tyrant’s face, stripped through his energy shields.

  She saw him as a normal man. Neither young or old, just tired, with a sparkle in his gaze, a touch of grey in his hair. His teeth were very white and his smile was nice.

  He looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘Our end has not yet come, Demorn. Neither of us are caught inside his prison. We should not tempt it so.’

  ‘Where do you get your power from?’

  He chuckled, placing the terrible, spiked helmet upon his head. His wrist was slick with blood.

  ‘He loves to cut my hand off, Demorn.’

  ‘Does that finish you?’

  He shook his head ever so slightly, his purple eyes unreadable.

  ‘Fate likes to think so.’

  The Tyrant threw her the White Gem. She caught it, her hand stinging with strange heat. She quickly slid the tiny stone into a pocket.

  His voice spoke inside her mind, quiet. But Fate doesn’t know everything.

  Demorn stared at him for awhile. She was numb and exhausted and out of feelings.

  Demorn said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

  The Tyrant slowly knelt before her, the spiked helmet grazing the ground. He placed his terrible helm on the floor. She realized the circle of blood and fire surrounded her, pulsing out along the water and the grass. I don’t even need to draw the circle, she realized. It encircles me.

  ‘The circle is afire, Princess of the Swords. Call the Goddess of the Innocents.’

  ‘What do you know of Innocents and our goddess?’ she breathed.

  He spoke softly, as shimmering shapes danced in the air around him. ‘I know she comes only to the wild hearts. I know they must be both cruel and kind. I know that we must die, and kill, and live, for her, and each other.’

  Her cheek was bleeding again from the long, thin cut. It healed only to be hurt again.

  Demorn brushed her finger softly across his face. She caressed his brutal armor. Energy shuddered through her.

  ‘You know much, for a stranger. How did you know of the Dead King?’

  The Tyrant smiled.

  ‘He was not dead when I knew him. He was burstingly alive, one of the Ten, one of my friends.’

  This close, the Tyrant radiated power and visions. She could feel the change coming, she could see the Cavern, the naked Goddess dancing around them, runes carved on slick wet skin, a pulsing beat of melodies drenching her. Beautiful women and men that she had loved. Reality shimmered around them.

  ‘Princess, I am a ghost from another time, still living when all else has passed beneath. I know deep in the Fortress of First Sun there is a hidden shrine to the Goddess, where legend says her real heart resides, for the Necromancer of Malisk loved her secretly.’

  Her magic eyes burnt and Demorn drew her breath at the scale of his knowledge. Such secrets and myths were the reserve of a chosen few.

  ‘There is no record of you in our lore. You’ll need to swear on everything,’ she whispered. ‘Absolutely everything.’

  ‘Do it then,’ the Tyrant growled. ‘Take my soul, let your rituals swallow me if they can!’ His face was flushed with a terrible, strange power.

  Runic power symbols were twisting in the air, white fire, as thin metal chains spiraled from his Blood robes, bonds of protection loosening.

  The air was stifling and hot. Around the circle of blood miniature pieces of bone swirled around them.

  ‘We’ve all cut ourselves up into too many deals. I don’t want whatever’s left of your soul, Tyrant.’

  She spoke in deliberate Asanti. ‘I seek alliance as you rise.’

  The Tyrant got up, his voice thick with laughter.

  ‘You had me on my knees, Princess. Why would you not make me swear?’

  Demorn smiled sweetly as a memory of Kate and an old dream came into her head, unbidden. She drew a slender golden key from the back of her hand, dangling it on a thin golden chain between her fingers.

  ‘I prefer barter. Something for you, something for me.’

  Demorn watched him stiffen, his thoughts blasting across her mind in a wave: WHERE? WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS?

  It took everything she had to not buckle. Her face betrayed nothing but a sophisticated boredom.

  ‘I thought you were an expert at reading minds. Does it really matter?’

  IT MATTERS TO ME!

  He was some crazy version of holy, on the verge of ascension. Chains coiled from his body, pressing toward her, metal clinking. She could feel the Sword burning in her heart, protecting her. The image of a bizarre fish-head creature flickered through the room.

  ‘Calm down. Or will I have to put my Sword through you?’

  His voice shouted through her mind.

  I HAVE SEARCHED THIS ENTIRE WORLD AND ITS PORTALS! TELL ME WHERE IT WAS HIDDEN.

  Demorn smirked, pressing her finger against her forehead, pushing him out of her mind.

  ‘OK, enough. I stole it from a rich guy using my feminine wiles. He had a sweet pad just out of The Grave, not quite there, not quite here.’

  She flicked the golden key back into the sleeve pocket with deft sleight of hand.

  ‘Happy now?’

  The flames in his eyes cooled. The chains receded.

  ‘What else did you find in his mansion, Princess?’

  ‘Secrets. Yours. Mine. Other people’s. I dumped the whole lot onto a drive and gave it to my brother.’

  The Tyrant chuckled, but his eyes were solemn.

  ‘Oh, you’re a clever one.’

  ‘On a good day I’m not stupid. We’ve all got bills to pay.’

  He chuckled, and held out a bloody hand.

  Alliance.

  Slowly, she ran her finger along the long cut across her face. Blood lay on her finger.

  ‘I want the Innocents to be given a hotline to your ship. Whether I’m alive or dead, you come to my office.’

  He grinned. ‘You want a preferential deal?’

  ‘I want to make a lot of money. I want the Clubhouse to prosper, even in a War. I want the Innocents to be your Guard.’

  He laughed. ‘I’ve been alone too long. I like it.’

  They pressed their hands together. She couldn’t help but snarl a semi-smile.

  The circle of blood burnt high and hot around them. Her arm ached from the tattoo blazing on her skin. She released the golden key in her palm, giving it to him.

  Relief washed over his face, aching and sad. This was better than selling a soul, Demorn thought. Or taking one.

  ‘Alliance,’ she breathed aloud.

  ‘What would you ask of me?’ he asked.

  She looked into the void above. The glistening mirror worlds returned. Her magic eyes shone.

  She saw the dark, blank star where Asanti die
d, a void which could never be reborn. She caught the glimmer of the flame and promise that was Firethorn.

  ‘I have become sundered from Firethorn, forced to work and kill on Babelzon. Some days I cannot spawn Xalos. I need a way back.’

  He looked at her with polite, cold eyes.

  ‘What of the legend?’

  She smiled. ‘Which legend?’

  ‘That the Sword Princess is called in the hour of need. A wandering sword of death without memory or fear.’

  She shrugged. ‘It might be the legend, but I’m vague about what really happens there. I want to live there, man.’

  Demorn threw some burnt bones onto the floor, inside the burning circle of blood. A strange script glistened upon the bones.

  ‘It’s what I’ve gathered of the Dead King since my exile. Fragments that found their way to the Grim Earth. I thought they would help me get home. But now I know that was stupid. Just a dead-end path.’

  He looked at her for a long time. His thoughts were silent.

  The Tyrant sighed long and somewhat mournfully. He seemed to be seeing something else, perhaps a past with his ancient friend.

  His voice was soft. ‘I can help you. But it will take something more to find the path back to the White Fort, for the way has grown distant now. The Dead King has passed beneath, and you are not as pure as you were. Your Sword has been sold so many times.’ His purple eyes span. ‘And some strange mercy has lessened you.’

  Demorn nodded, feeling a trace of guilt. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘I need the body of one you should have killed, but have let live.’

  Neither spoke for a while.

  Finally, Demorn took the slender golden chain from around her throat. Carefully, she took off one of the tiny skull charms that adorned it, so small that many eyes could not see them.

  She kissed the charm softly, breathing an ancient vow. Magic was a trained tool, taught by Corizan witches. She was not born to it and she held a cautious fear of its mystery.

  The air inside the circle of blood crackled with lightning and the distant smell of sulfur. The Tyrant moved back slightly. She felt nothing in her heart but resignation that a particular game was over.

  Lightning formed in the mirrored sky, bolts striking from the glittering windows into the skull charm itself, again and again with dazzling frequency.

  The ground was charred by the assault of the blasts and she felt the heat pass across her face. Slowly the energy formed the aspect of a man.

  It was Duke Pain, writhing inside the vortex. His red armor was cracked and broken. Inside the maelstrom of restless, shifting energy, Pain begged, clawing with desperate fingers at the energy walls.

  The lightning storm ended with a final stinging bolt. He lay there, before the two of them. His red armor was cracked and broken. His pallid skin decayed and burnt. The Duke looked up with haunted eyes, wild hair.

  He slowly recognized Demorn and smiled sickly.

  ‘Demorn, where am I? What is this terrible spell? What have you done to me?’

  He tried to rise, but the Tyrant was the master of this domain. She saw his hand slightly move, crushing Pain back to the ground. With reddened, terrified eyes Pain looked up to the glittering mirrors in the void. His skin was stretched thin, covered in sores.

  ‘You’ve almost gone full Pale. You know what I have to do.’

  The Duke begged, whining partial words about favors.

  Demorn realized the last time she had seen him was in the dream. Images of the lake filled with the Pales flashed through her mind. He had held her hand. In his way, he’d been kind.

  Demorn laid a hand gently on his face. So much had changed.

  ‘You helped us, Duke, it’s true, when my brother and I crashed in Babelzon. You helped us, I helped you. Favors back and forth for years.’

  She nestled close to his ear.

  ‘But I know you betrayed me, Duke of Pain.’

  She struck him flush across the face, not pulling the punch.

  ‘I know you betrayed me!’

  The old Duke wailed and begged. He was thinner than when she had seen him in the dream. He seemed sick. He seemed to know this was the end, even as he begged so pitifully. He was thin and old, starved of his cunning and powers.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you mad!’ he screamed. ‘I saved you from the Grave! You escaped through my portal! I saved you!’

  The terrible Xalos spawned directly from her heart. The flames were deathly cold and it was so light in her hand.

  The Duke stopped begging. He was an old man. The power was sapped from him. It happened to all the Pale Suns.

  Shadows and memories of The Grave flickered through her. The lonely nights in the hotel, the ice ring eating through her heart, zombie movies on the TV.

  Her voice was solemn.

  ‘Two years in Dead World, sundered from the Innocents, exiled from the White Fort, where the Worm stalks now.’ She struck his face. ‘You damned me!’

  His skin tore and he screamed. The fear and guilt inside him fed the fire blazing from her blade. She gestured at the Tyrant to release him.

  Slowly, Duke Pain staggered to his feet. She saw him look at the antiquated watch upon his wrist. She saw the shock and fear upon his wizened face.

  She laughed but there was no humor in her. The spirit of Xalos was passing through her. She saw him as he really was, how he had always been. A traitor doomed to walk that path, hustling on his backwards clock, his sweetest lie still just a lie, his favor a bargaining against an inevitable end.

  ‘Will you really be the one to kill me?’ He sighed. ‘I thought I would keep living and living. But the backwards clock has stopped. I am old, Demorn, so old. It is a terrible thing to live a long life twice.’

  She felt for the dagger concealed on her thigh and threw it softly to him. His old, fast hands caught it.

  ‘It’s my poison dagger. My last favor to a friend.’

  She saw a brief moment of hope and light dance in his dead, sunken eyes.

  ‘Defend yourself if you can, Duke Pain.’

  He smiled sickly, a gesture perhaps, at the futility of it all. For a moment, in the Duke’s ironic, almost light-hearted glance, she saw her wise friend, her counselor from long ago, when they first landed on Babelzon, a walking dead man years before he found the real graveyard.

  Everything collided in her head. With a single short cry she leapt through the air, Xalos arcing downwards.

  The Duke moved inside the circle, raising the dagger and slashing at the air, but he had never been a fighter, and she was too fast for him. Her bright blade sliced into his neck, beheading the Duke of Pain with a single blow.

  She ceased the single word chant. Her lungs heaved from the effort of it, burning for oxygen. Her hands tremored with the power of Xalos. Energy surged into her.

  The Tyrant leaned down. ‘His backwards clock is already gone, phasing back to the start. He always knew this happened. He always will. What a terrible technology.’

  Demorn was quiet. ‘That only makes him more of a fool.’

  She felt nothing, unless the void was something. And maybe she did know, or at least guessed, why he had sometimes helped. Why he had hidden in his pocket reality, drinking wine while reality collapsed. He was probably very guilty and very scared and very alone, Demorn thought. Hurtling backwards through time.

  Unlike the clock, his crumpled body didn’t vanish. It remained, a broken puppet.

  She said, ‘He was a friend once. Perhaps even one until the end. Bury him in the Innocent’s Garden. Tell my brother the Duke liked very old lounge songs. He’d want us to get drunk and feel melancholic.’

  The Tyrant nodded, floating upward, shining and burning. The bones of the Dead King rose higher into the air with him.

  They were back in the control room. Blandly functional. Items of their trade strewn across it like a locker room.

  A single black mirror spun in front of her. She could see the White Fort.

  D
emorn’s fingers flicked across her invisible watch, words to Smile.

  I’m leaving — the Tyrant will vote for Tony — execute the kill if he doesn’t

  A slight tremor. On the shadowy blue watch, there was a smile.

  tell Jackie Z to start brokering deals for Tyrant missions BIG $$$

  A thumb’s up and love heart in response.

  Demorn turned to look at the Tyrant, a slight smile hovering on her lips. There was no bitterness in him, just a churning mixture of energy and light.

  For all his age, he seemed unsullied.

  She said, ‘This is all way weirder and more fun than I ever guessed it would be. But you should stop the Tyrant Runs. It makes you seem like a jerk, and it’s no way to meet good people.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh come now, you’re good people.’

  ‘We could have just done drinks and a show at the Jade Club.’

  The small golden key burnt like wildfire in his palm.

  ‘I laid the first Source Stone that built Babelzon below us. What do you see, Princess, when you look at me?’

  Her magic eyes shimmered. ‘I see many things. But I don’t see a Tyrant.’

  He laughed, tossing the golden key in his hand.

  ‘I just liked the sound of it, to tell you the truth.’

  He inserted the golden key into the clasp of the chain around his wrist. The Steel Bracelet fell to the ground, shattering on the floor into a hundred pieces.

  ‘What do you see?’ she asked impulsively.

  His smile was wise and sad. ‘I see a beautiful warrior covered in blood. I see a terrible Innocent.’

  Demorn smirked, pulling the electronic death mask across her face, feeling the electric cold run through her brain. The spinning mirror grew extra sharp in her vision.

  She bowed deeply, sweeping her arm toward him in a magnanimous gesture.

  ‘You see truly then, Invincible Tyrant of Mighty Babelzon.’

  Around her, dead mirrors shattered. The mirrors glowed. She took a step towards the portal gate.

  Xalos burnt with a low, intense fire. Brutal cold chilled her bones. Every step was a marathon.

  She was in the control room, walking toward the mirror. She was crawling through the Ice Cavern. She was on the tundra. She was in a vast cave, the blade’s purple fire the only light.