by Joe Jackson
“No argument there,” Danilynn said.
Sonja returned with some wood, though it wasn’t much. The island didn’t have much in the way of trees, and certainly no forests, but Sonja was able to find bits from the old village and from around the few copses here and there. She assured Kari that she would use her arcane power to make the pyre burn hotter and more efficiently to get the job done. As she’d done for Uldriana, Sonja summoned a couple of simple urns to gather the ashes of the fallen when they were cremated. Danilynn and Se’sasha each said prayers over the dead, and Kari saluted them and held her fist across her heart while Sonja started the fire.
The fire burned down over the night, consuming the dead hunters efficiently. Kari wasn’t surprised that none of the soldiers from the camp down below came to see what the fire was. It was just one more thing for her to be furious about, but she kept her anger under wraps and tried not to stew in it for too long. The officers would get their justice from the Duke, and Kari had to keep her mind on the things she could control. Danilynn and Se’sasha prayed together under the light of the rising sun, and Kari, Sonja, and Aeligos gathered up the ashes of the fallen while they waited for the priestesses to finish.
With the urns filled and the prayers finished, the five companions beheld the face of the Temple under the strong light of the morning sun. The face of the Temple was on the south side, which struck them all as odd; they had guessed it would face north, so it would be facing into the sun for virtually the entire year. Aeligos didn’t bother to dwell on that too long, and he asked Sonja for some parchment and a writing implement. Soon, he was seated on a rocky outcropping near the Temple door, and started copying down what was written there exactly.
Kari was a little nervous about touching the door, but ultimately she concluded that was what she was “born to do.” She stepped forward and laid her palm on the hemisphere that stuck out of the star’s center, unsure what exactly she was supposed to do. When her hand touched the cool marble of the hemisphere, a pale light began to glow in each of the six niches. Kari wasn’t surprised by that: she was missing the other six keys to actually open the door. The positive was that any doubt – and there really wasn’t any – that she was Salvation’s Dawn was wiped away. Not only did the door react to her touch, but she reacted to the door’s as well: the symbol of Zalkar began to glow through her breastplate again.
Se’sasha approached and gently touched Kari’s shoulder. “Place both hands upon the stone,” she said. Kari did so, and everyone got to their feet and gasped at the reaction. Now the star itself glowed, and symbols appeared in each of the six niches. “Just as I suspected! Look at these symbols: this is for Ashakku; that one is Be’shatha; and this one here is Huirelius! These must represent the others: Ambergaust, Viggaru, and Xinxis. And you – your connection to the center must represent Arakiel: the deity you called Gori Sensullu.”
“Wait; how do you know all this?” Aeligos asked in awe, and the looks of the others echoed his words. “You’re saying the seals…they represent these other deities, and Kari represents Gori Sensullu, or Arakiel, then?”
Se’sasha glanced around suspiciously. “We must leave,” she said. “We have a drawing of the Temple’s face and its writing, and, more important, we now know what is inside.”
“We do?” Kari balked. “How? What is it?”
“Not here,” Se’sasha said, gesturing down the sierra. “We have a distinct advantage over the demon kings, but the longer we stand here studying and talking, the more likely we are to inadvertently inform our enemies. Let us leave this place, and I will explain when we are home. For now, I will tell you only that these symbols correspond to memories of my mother’s; images from the oral histories of our people that she was never able to share with me while she was alive. Yet, you have brought us together, and now her knowledge resides in me. And I will share it with you and your Order, only not here.”
Kari looked at the others and could see they were just as excited as she was. They made their way down the mountain hastily. Thankfully there were no surprise appearances by Emma, Taesenus, Amastri, or any of the other spies for the demon kings. Se’sasha seemed sure she knew what was in the Temple, and whatever it was, she didn’t want to let it be known anywhere that wasn’t completely secure. Kari decided the best place to hear her out would be Kyrie’s house: it was not only warded from intruders and magical spying, but Kari could control who was there when Se’sasha divulged the specifics.
They returned to the military encampment first. Kari took a tactful approach and asked the Major respectfully to keep a couple of squads up at the Temple door to watch for trouble. He didn’t seem overly concerned, but neither did he offer much argument. Kari then informed him that her hunters had been killed, and it was as though someone had dropped a sphere of burning pitch in the center of the camp. Suddenly the defense of the Temple became a huge priority, and Kari and her friends left before she could get angry and say anything rude.
Captain Smedley picked them up when they reached the pier of the seterra-rir ruins, and ferried them back across to Brigham. Despite the fact that the man was a civilian and obviously quite curious, he didn’t ask any questions or nose into his passengers’ business. His crew was rough around the edges but they made every effort to be polite. Kari made sure to thank the captain again, and once she and her friends were all reunited at the inn in Brigham, Sonja took them all home.
At Kari’s request, they arrived at Kyrie’s house and caused a minor disturbance there, rather than arriving at a random place in the city or on the Order’s campus. Kari would have to go and inform the Order’s clerks of the two hunters’ deaths and make arrangements for a funeral, but first she wanted to get Typhonix safely home. As it was, there was a lot to explain to Erik and Kyrie, not to mention Serenjols: Ty was still crippled despite Grakin’s continued attempts to heal him, and that was not going to sit well with Kyrie.
Kari sighed as she considered the weight of everything before her: none of it was going to sit well with anyone.
Chapter XXV – Unrest
“Gods, Ty, what happened?!” Kyrie asked as Sonja and Aeligos hobbled up the front steps carrying him.
“I told Kari she looked cute with a baby bump, and she beat me up,” he joked, actually able to manage a smile and a chuckle.
Kyrie’s gaze fell over Kari, but she shook her head and gestured for everyone to get in the house first. Sonja and Aeligos helped Ty to his favorite reading chair, and he got settled into it as well as possible. Kyrie had her hand on the end of her snout as if fighting off tears, and Kari could well understand. Most people that looked at Ty saw a strapping brute they didn’t want to tangle with. To Kyrie, though, Ty was her youngest child: her baby. To see any of her children hurt was hard enough for Kyrie to deal with, but to see her youngest injured like this, Kari could only imagine how painful it was. She knew that Erik would be furious.
“I’ll be upstairs in my room,” Sonja said, though she surprised everyone by teleporting with a thought rather than simply walking upstairs. That, too, spoke volumes not just to Kari, but to Kyrie as well.
The blonde priestess rubbed at her eyes. “Would someone like to please explain what’s happened?” she asked calmly.
Kari sent Little Gray up to his room to play, and the boy went with no argument. Kari had no doubt he was happy to be home again, away from the chaos of the ordeal, and back where his toys were. Once he was out of earshot, Kari spoke up. “This is my fault,” she said. “I never should have trusted the ‘help’ of a demon king, and this is the result of that. I’m sorry it was you that got hurt, Ty. This is my fault; it should’ve been me.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Ty said. “This wasn’t your fault. As soon as we can get a wheeled chair or something, I’ll head to Tigron’s temple and see if they can do anything. I’ll be fine.”
“If anything, it is my fault,” Se’sasha said. “It was my request to go speak with the spirit of my mother that led to this.”<
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“All right, seriously, would the two of you knock it off?” Aeligos said irritably. He wasn’t usually one to get upset and be rude, so it served to really get Kari’s attention along with everyone else’s. “You know whose fault this is? This is Taesenus’ fault. He’s the one that attacked Ty. Maybe Koursturaux or Amastri were behind it, maybe they weren’t, but the blame for this falls squarely on Taesenus. So, really, let’s concentrate on finishing what we started, and we’ll see if we can take vengeance on him. But this claiming blame nonsense has got to stop.”
“Taesenus?” Kyrie asked, barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Isn’t he dead?”
No one answered; even Ty held his tongue despite the opportunity to make a wisecrack. Kari straightened up. “That’s something we’re going to have to talk to Kaelariel about,” she said. “Seems it was a surprise to him as well. I’d heard that Kaelariel killed Taesenus near the end of the War, but there’s no doubt that’s who attacked us at the temple.”
“The Temple of Archons?” Kyrie asked.
“No, although he killed the hunters that were guarding that Temple,” Kari answered, and she sighed. “Aeligos is right, though: we need to finish what we started. Se’sasha, you said you knew what was inside the Temple of Archons; can you tell us, now that we’re in this warded house?”
Se’sasha looked around at all of the people in the room, and when she glanced back at Kari, the demonhunter nodded: there wasn’t anyone in the room they couldn’t trust. “When I communed with my mother, along with all of her experiences on this world, she imbued me with the memories of her own early life growing up, learning how to be high priestess,” she began. She took a seat, and everyone else did so as well, waiting to hear what she had to say. “You have been told that my people have no god but Sekassus: on the surface, this is true, but our people have not forgotten Ashakku or our roots under his benevolent rule. I was denied this education because my mother was taken from me when I was but a girl, but in communing with her, I have learned much of what has been passed down among the priestesses of my people for thousands of years.”
Se’sasha brought her hands together in her lap. “Ashakku is our god and our maker: he created my people; he created the sylinths, our guardians; and he created the czarikk, our kin. However, our people are not the only ones indigenous to the world of Mehr’Durillia, and the others are not Ashakku’s children. There were other gods, and one can see their work in the other races that share our world: beshathans – mallasti, elestram, and erestram – were created by Be’shatha the Lifegiver, considered a ‘sibling’ of Ashakku. Then there are the valirasi, one of the races created by Huirelius the Welcome Rain. Together, Ashakku, Huirelius, and Be’shatha were known as the Holy Siblings, but they were not the sole creators of Mehr’Durillia.”
“There are others, some of whom created peoples on Mehr’Durillia, and others who did not. There were seven master deities in total, and they populated each other’s worlds with their many and varied folk to build trust, brotherhood, and alliance between them. You can see the work of the Great Bull Viggaru upon Mehr’Durillia: he is the creator of the harmauths, but my mother said one can also see his work here on Citaria, in the form of the minotaurs and what you call ‘Sylvan Beasts.’ Ambergaust the Golden Lion put his kwarrasti upon your world; Mother recalled that Eli and Danilynn traveled with one when she met them. Whether or not the aquatic lord Xinxis has put his merfolk on this world, I am not sure, but the final of the seven deities, Arakiel, is your own creator, known to you as Gori Sensullu.”
“So you see, there are seven principal deities, and seven seals or keys to open this great mystical Temple your world possesses,” Se’sasha said, holding her hands up to see if everyone was following. She was answered by naught but nods, so she continued, “You asked what is in that Temple, and though I cannot tell you exactly what it is, I can infer what it must be…”
“It’s their meeting place?” Aeligos prompted as she trailed off.
Se’sasha met his eyes and nodded sagely. “It is their Temple: not just to Arakiel or to any of his siblings, but to all of them. It is not just their Temple and meeting place, though: if the demon kings were to capture it, it might break their hold upon these worlds, or make it more difficult for them to work together against their enemies. As it stands, Be’shatha and Arakiel have both been slain, and Ashakku is under attack: the siblings are in dire peril.”
There was silence again, so Kari asked, “You learned all this from communing with your mother?”
Se’sasha made a gesture of partial agreement. “No, I learned a lot about the deities from my mother’s spirit, but until I saw the Temple and the way it reacted to your touch, I had no idea such a place even existed. What do you know of those other seals or keys to the Temple?”
“They’re supposedly guarded by powerful creatures in places no one knows about,” Kari said with a sigh. “I find that hard to trust, though. I’m wondering if we should look into getting them all together to keep them safe.”
“No, being in one place would just make them easier to find,” Ty said, and Aeligos agreed with him.
“As far as the other seals, we have to trust that Gori Sensullu did enough to keep them safe for the time being,” the rogue said. “Should we go tell the Council?”
Kari shook her head. “I think there’s a mole in the Order,” she said, getting everyone’s attention in a hurry. “The last time I spoke to Amastri, she knew where we were going with Se’sasha and why, and she also knew I’m pregnant. She’s a hell of an information gatherer, I’ll give her that, but there’s no way she’s finding these things out on her own. And since all of this was supposed to be kept a secret among the Order, someone’s talking. In any case, I need to go talk with our resident not-demoness and then get to the campus of the Order.”
“Don’t do anything rash,” Aeligos said casually, as though he expected Kari wouldn’t.
She waved off the comment. “I’m going to talk,” she said. “In the meantime, Kyrie, I think you should go talk to Sonja. She’s taking this all really hard. Aeligos, can you help get Ty over to Tigron’s church with Eli?”
“We’ll manage,” Ty said, trying to smile. He patted his mother’s hand and gestured for her to go upstairs and talk to Sonja.
Kyrie walked over and hugged Kari tight, and the demonhunter was at a loss as to what she should feel. She’d gotten one of Kyrie’s sons hurt, put almost all of them in danger, and all she’d come back with was information about the Temple. She wasn’t sure that was enough to warrant getting people killed – people like Ursula and Richard. Reality sank in after a minute, though, and she realized that whether it was overt or not, she was wrapped up in a war with the demon kings of Mehr’Durillia. There was no escaping the death and destruction to come; all she could do was try to navigate her people through it, and keep as many of them alive as she could.
Kari left the house alone soon after. She was sure Erik would arrive home as soon as word spread that they’d returned, and she’d left instructions for him to take Se’sasha back to the Order’s campus. She strode purposefully toward the Silver Chalice, half of her wanting to draw a sword and just decapitate Amastri when she arrived, while the other half wanted to beat some information out of the woman first. The latter half was going to win out, but she knew she had to be tactful, and couldn’t hurt Amastri unless the situation – or her explanation – warranted it.
The Silver Chalice was just starting to get crowded in the late afternoon, and Amastri was surrounded by her throng of enthralled men. That did little to improve Kari’s mood, but she kept her swords sheathed and her expression as non-hostile as she could while she approached. Before she even reached the table, Amastri had one of the men surrender his chair, and the part-elven woman gestured for Kari to sit without hesitation. She looked Kari over, puzzled, and the demonhunter guessed Amastri was wondering where the katana was.
“I have something for you,” Amastri offered tentatively after a
brief silence, “but I was expecting you would also have something for me. It appears you do not.”
Kari didn’t say a word; she simply tried to burn a hole through the part-elven woman with her glare alone. Amastri was either truly ignorant to Taesenus’ attack, or she was trying to use her charms and acting to bluff Kari. Memories of being kicked in the belly by the Demon Prince and of seeing the bones of Typhonix’ spine while the priests worked on him flooded back to Kari’s mind. She glared at the men around her, who stared at her as though she was intruding on their good time, and her anger reached its boiling point.
“Get lost,” she growled to the many men around them. They looked to Amastri to see what she had to say, and though it seemed the part-elven woman was about to give the orders, Kari didn’t wait. “Don’t look at her; she’s a guest here. I’m the head of the Demonhunter Order, and I’m telling you to get away from us, now.”
Amastri stayed silent, a look of worry upon her face, but one of the men straightened out beside Kari as if trying to intimidate her. Her left hand dropped down to the hilt of the scimitar on her right hip. “I’m not going to ask you again,” she said without even taking her eyes from Amastri. Her words got the attention of more than just the men around her. The entire place went quiet, and though at first Kari thought Amastri might be controlling the patrons somehow to defend herself, the people soon began to head to the exits.
Even the barkeep didn’t bother to stay in the room to complain that Kari had just cleared out his inn right before supper. Soon enough, only she and Amastri remained, and the woman stared across at Kari as though expecting trouble. “Lady Vanador, what is the meaning…”
Kari held up her hand, silencing the woman. “Just give me whatever it is you have for me,” she said. “Then maybe I’ll explain things to you.”
Amastri pulled out a folded letter with a wax seal, and handed it across the table to Kari. It was tough but smooth tan paper, carefully folded and sealed by red wax with the image of a rose stamped within it. Kari was curious, but she assumed it had to be from Koursturaux herself. She knew of certain arcane traps that involved reading things that triggered explosions or other trickery upon the reader, but she thought Koursturaux had to be above such things. She glanced at Amastri briefly before breaking the seal, and then Kari began to read the meticulous flowing script, written in the common Citarian trade tongue:
