shut down on me—just like you're doing now."
And she had turned on her heel and led the way
into the inn's common room, ignoring the fact that
Tarma looked as if the sorceress had just slapped
her.
The voice of the little priest penetrated her
musing.
"Nay," he said. "Nay, I cannot agree. Our teach-
ing is that evil is not a thing of itself; it is simply
good that has not been brought to see the truth. We
hold that even a demon can be redeemed—that
even the most vile of such creatures could become a
blessed spirit if someone with time and patience
were to give him the proper redirection."
"Always supposing your proselytizer managed to
keep from being devoured or ripped to shreds be-
fore he got a single word out," Tarma croaked wryly,
draping herself more comfortably over the edge of
the worn wooden table. "He'd better be either agile
or one damned powerful mage! No, I can't agree
with you, my friend. Aside from what Magister
Tenavril has to say about them, I've dealt with a
few demons up close and on a quite personal basis.
I have to side with the Twin Suns school; the
demonic beings must have been created purely of
evil forces. It isn't just the Abyssal dwellers that
are bad clear through, either; I've known a few
humans who could pass for demons. Evil is real
and a reality in and of itself. It likes being that way.
It wouldn't choose to be anything else. And it has
to be destroyed whenever a body gets the chance,
or it'll spread. Evil is easier to follow than good,
and we humans like the easy path."
"I cannot agree. Those who are evil simply don't
know what good is."
"Oh, they know, all right; and they reject it to
follow pure selfishness."
"I—" the little priest blinked in the candlelight.
"Can you give me even one instance of great evil
turned to good once good has been pointed out to
it?"
"Uh—" he thought hard for a moment, then
smiled triumphantly. "The Great Demon-Wolf of
Hastandell!"
"Oh, that's too easy. Warrl!"
A shadow in a corner of the hearth uncoiled
itself, and proved to be no shadow at all, but the
kyree, whose shoulder came nearly as high as Tarma's
waist. Closer inspection would reveal that Warrl's
body was more like that of one of the great hunting-
cats of the plains than a lupine, built for climbing
and short bursts of high speed, not the endurance
of a true wolf. But the fur and head and tail were
sufficiently wolflike that this was how Tarma gen-
erally thought of him.
He padded over to the table and benches shared
by the ill-assorted trio. The conversation of all the
other occupants of the inn died for a moment as he
moved, but soon picked back up again. After three
days, the patrons of the inn were growing a little
more accustomed to the monster beast in their midst.
Tarma had helped that along by coaxing him to
demean himself with a few tricks to entertain them
the first night of their stay. Now, while the sight of
him still unsettled a few of them, they had come to
regard him as harmless. They had no notion of his
true nature; Tarma and Kethry had tactfully re-
frained from revealing that he was just as intelli-
gent as any of them—and quite probably could beat
any one of them at chess.
"Here's your Demon-Wolf—one of his kin, rather."
Tarma cocked her head to one side, her eyes far
away as if she was listening. "Kyree is what they
call themselves; they come from the Pelagir Hills.
Warrl says to tell you that he knows that story—
that Ourra didn't know the sheep he'd been feed-
ing on belonged to anyone; when he prowled the
village at night he was just being curious. Warrl
says Ourra had never seen humans before that lot
moved in and settled; he thought they were just
odd beasts and that the houses were some kind of
dead growths—believe me, I have seen some of what
grows naturally in the Pelagirs—it isn't stretching
the imagination to think that huts could grow of
themselves once you've seen some of the bushes
and trees. Well, Warrl wants you to know that
when the priestess went out and gave Ourra a royal
tongue-lashing for eating the stock, Ourra was quite
embarrassed. Without there being someone like me
or Kethry, with the kind of mind that he could talk
to, there wasn't much he could do by way of apol-
ogy, but he did his best to make it up to the village.
His people have a very high sense of honor. Sorry,
little man—Qurra is disqualified."
"He talks to you?" the little priest said, momen-
tarily diverted. "That creature truly talks? I thought
him just a well-trained beast!"
"Oh, after all our conversation, I figured you to
be open-minded enough to let in on the 'secret.'
Kyree have a lot of talents—they're as bright as you
or me. Brighter, maybe—I have no doubt he could
give you a good battle at taroc, and that's one game
I have no gift for. As for talking—Warrior's Oath—
sometimes I wish I could get him to stop! Oh, yes,
he talks to me all right—gives me no few pieces of
unsolicited advice and criticism, and usually with
an 'I told you so' appended." She ruffled the great
beast's fur affectionately as he grinned a toothy,
tongue-lolling grin. Kethry tossed him one of the
bones left from their dinner; he caught it neatly on
the fly, and settled down beside her to enjoy it.
Behind them, the hum of voices continued.
"Now I'll give you one—evil that served only
itself. Thalhkarsh. We had firsthand experience of
that one. He had plenty of opportunity to see
good—it wasn't just the trollops he had stolen for
his rites. Or are you not familiar with that tale?"
"Not the whole of it. Certainly not from one of
the participants!"
"Right enough then—this is a long and thirsty
story. Oskar?" Tarma signaled the host, a plump,
shortsighted man who hurried to answer her sum-
mons. "Another round—no, make it a pitcher, this
may take a while. Here—" she tossed him a coin, as
it was her turn to pay; the innkeeper trotted off
and returned with a brimming ear then vessel. Kethry
was amused to see that he did not return to his
station behind the counter after placing it on the
table between Tarma and the priest. Instead he
hovered just within earshot, polishing the tables
next to them with studious care. Well, she didn't
blame him, this was a tale Tarma didn't tell often,
and it wasn't likely anyone in Oberdorn had ever
heard a firsthand account of it. Oskar would be
attracting folk to his tables for months after they'd
gone with repetitions of
the story.
"From all we could put together afterward,
Thalhkarsh was a demon that had been summoned
purely by mistake. It was a mistake the mage who
called him paid for—well, that's usually the case
when something like that happens. This time though,
things were evidently a little different," she nod-
ded at Kethry, who took up the thread of the story
while Tarma took a sip of wine.
"Thalhkarsh had ambition. He didn't want to
live in his own Abyssal Planes anymore, he wanted
to escape them. More than that, he wanted far
more power than he had already; he wanted to
become a god, or a godling, at least. He knew that
the quickest ways of gaining power are by worship,
pain, and death. The second two he already had a
taste of, and he craved more. The first—well, he
calculated that he knew ways of gaining that, too.
He transformed himself into a very potently sexual
and pleasing shape, built himself a temple with a
human pawn as his High Priest, and set up a
religion."
"It was a religion tailored to his peculiar tastes.
From what I know most of the demonic types
wouldn't think of copulating with a human any-
more than you or I would with a dog; Thalhkarsh
thought otherwise." Tarma grimaced. "Of course a
part of that is simply because of the amount of pain
he could cause while engaging in his recreations—
but it may be he also discovered that sex is another
very potent way of raising power. Whatever the
reason, that was what the whole religion was
founded on. The rituals always culminated with
Thalhkarsh taking a half-dozen women, torturing
and killing them when he'd done with them, in the
full view of his worshipers. There's a kind of mind
that finds that stimulating; before too long, he had
a full congregation and was well on his way to
achieving his purpose. That was where we came
in."
"You know our reputation for helping women?"
Kethry put in.
"You have a geas?" ventured the little priest.
"Something like that. Well, since Thalhkarsh's
chosen victims were almost exclusively female, we
found ourselves involved. We slipped into the tem-
ple in disguise and went for the High Priest—
figuring if he was the one in charge, that might
solve the problem. We didn't know he was a pup-
pet, though I had guessed he might be, and then
dismissed the idea." Kethry sighed. "Then we found
our troubles had only begun. He had used this as a
kind of impromptu test of the mettle of his servant;
when the servant failed, he offered me the position.
I was tempted with anything I might want; nearly
unlimited power, beauty, wealth—and him. He was
incredibly seductive, I can't begin to tell you how
much. To try and give you a notion of his power,
every one of his victims ran to him willingly when
he called her, even though they knew what their
fate would be. Well, I guess I resisted him a little
too long; he became impatient with me and knocked
me into a wall—unconscious, or so he thought."
"Then he made me the same offer," Tarma con-
tinued. "Only with me he demonstrated his power
rather than just promising things. He totally trans-
formed me—when he was done kings would have
paid money for the privilege of laying their crowns
at my feet. He also came damned close to breaking
my bond with the Star-Eyed; I swear to you, I was
within inches of letting him seduce me—except
that the more he roused my body, the more he
roused my anger. That was his mistake; I pretended
to give in when I saw Kethry sneaking up behind
him. Then I broke his focus just as she stabbed
him; he lost control over his form and his worship-
ers' minds. When they saw what he really was,
they deserted him—that broke his power, and it
was all over."
"She' enedra, you were in no danger of breaking;
your will is too strong, he'd have needed either
more time to work on you or power to equal the
Warrior's."
"Maybe. It was a damn near thing; too near for
my liking. Well he was absolute evil for the sake of
it—and I should well know, I had that evil crawling
around in my mind. Besides that, there were other
things that came out afterward. We know he took a
few innocent girls who just had the bad luck to be
in the wrong place; we think some clerics went in
to try and exorcise him. It's hard to say for certain
since they were hedge-priests; wanderers with no
set temple. We do know they disappeared between
one night and the next; that they did not leave
town by the gates, and that they had been talking
about dealing with Thalhkarsh before they vanished."
She trailed off, the set of her mouth grim, her
eyes bleak. "We can only assume they went the
way of all of his victims, since they were never
seen or heard from again. So Thalhkarsh had plenty
of opportunity to see good and the Light—and he
apparently saw it only as another thing to crush."
The little priest said nothing; there seemed noth-
ing appropriate to say. Instead, he took a sip of his
wine; from the distant look in his eyes he was
evidently thinking hard.
"We of Anathei are not fools, Sworn One," he
said finally, "Even though we may not deal with
evil as if it were our deadly enemy. No, to throw
one's life away in the foolish and prideful notion
that one's own sanctity is enough to protect one
from everything is something very like a sin. The
arrow that strikes a friend in battle instead of a foe
is no less deadly because it is misdirected. Let me
tell you this; when dealing with the greater evils,
we do nothing blindly. We study carefully, we take
no chances; we know everything there is to be
known about an opponent before we face him to
show him the Light. And we take very great care
that he is unable to do us harm in his misguided
state."
Tarma's eyes glinted with amusement in the shift-
ing light. "Then it may well be your folk have the
right of it—and in any case, you're going about your
conversions in a practical manner, which is more
than I can say for many. Once again we will have to
agree to disagree."
"With that, lady, I rest content." He bowed to
her a little, and the bench creaked under his mov-
ing weight. "But we still have not settled the point
of contention. Even if I were willing to concede
that you are right about Thalhkarsh—which I am
not—he was still a demon. Not a man. And—"
"Well if you want irredeemable evil in a human,
we can give you that, too! Kethry, remember that
bastard Lastel Longknife?"
"Lady Bright! Now there was an unredeemable
; soul if ever there was one!"
Kethry saw out of the corner of her eye that
Oskar had not moved since the tale-telling had be-
gun, and was in a fair way to polish a hole right
through the table. She wondered, as she smothered
a smile, if that was the secret behind the scrupu-
lously clean furniture of his inn.
"Lastel Longknife?" the priest said curiously.
"I doubt you'd have heard of that one. He was a
bandit that had set up a band out in the waste
between here and—"
"Wait—I think I do know that story!" the priest
exclaimed. "Isn't there a song about it? One that
goes 'Deep into the stony hills, miles from keep or
hold'?"
"Lady's Blade, is that nonsense going to follow us
everywhere?" Tarma grimaced in distaste while
Kethry gave up on trying to control her giggles.
"Damned impudent rhymester! I should never have
agreed to talk to him, never! And if I ever get my
hands on Leslac again, I'll kill him twice! Bad enough
he got the tale all backward, but that manure about
Three things never anger or you will not live for
long; a wolf with cubs, a man with power and a
woman's sense of wrong' came damn close to ruin-
ing business for a while! We weren't geas-pressed
that time, or being altruistic—we were in it for the
money, dammit! And—" she turned to scowl at
Kethry. "What are you laughing about?"
"Nothing—" One look at Tarma's face set her off
again.
"No respect; I don't get it from stupid minstrels,
I don't get it from my partner, I don't even get it
from you, Fur-face!"
Warrl put his head down on his paws and con-
trived to look innocent.
"Well, if my partner can contrive to control her-
self, this is what really happened. Longknife had
managed to unite all the little bandit groups into
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 30
