‘They weren’t insane,’ Brebbam said, ‘they were…’
‘Don’t say it!’ Merada snapped.
‘Be reasonable, Merada,’ Brebbam told him, ‘it’s obvious what this was. Lady Ayasha’s magic has only provided confirmation. This was the work of Cheldeg.’
Ceri frowned. ‘Are they related to Chelvig?’
‘Not physically. “Chel” comes from a Ctholnaraeic root word for fear or terror. Chelvig are tolerated since they tend to be solitary. Cheldeg hunt in packs. They are barely sentient, but fiendishly smart and malicious. And they feed on terror and pain.’
‘No Cheldeg have been seen within twenty days ride of Shilfaris for a century,’ Merada went on. ‘They were hunted down, driven out.’
Brebbam nodded. ‘But there have been rumours coming from the west for the last season or so of attacks on isolated farms. They seemed to be getting closer, but we hoped they would never come this far.’
‘But this isn’t the first attack like this locally,’ Ceri stated rather than asked.
‘The second,’ Brebbam said. ‘The last was about a week ago, but it was on one of the farms on the very outskirts of our district. They are moving closer, into an area of heavier population.’
Merada let out a hiss between his teeth. ‘The bodies will need to be burned. They lay eggs in the corpses. I’ll get men out here, and send messengers out. We’ll get the people from the farms around the village into the inn. I’ll see if I can get help from Shilfaris, but that could take days.’
‘If they bother,’ Rokta growled.
‘Get everyone you can into town,’ Ceri said. ‘Safety in numbers and it’ll be easier to mount a defence if needed.’
‘They’re tough,’ Rokta said. ‘Hard to kill, vicious, fearless. The only advantage we have is the sun. They don’t like the light. If they decide to attack the village…’
‘Then,’ Ceri said, gripping her staff, ‘they’re going to wish they hadn’t.’
~~~
Ooda and Tooky sat in a corner of the classroom, they mouths hanging open in awe. They had been allowed to stay as long as they remained quiet and did not bother Lady Ayasha while she worked. Currently, Lady Ayasha was busy filling the air with a complex series of symbols in three different “languages.”
She was fairly certain that the draconic notation would go unnoticed and if Brebbam did recognise it he said nothing. He had contributed various characters from the Ctholnaraeic language. It was an ancient demonic language, spoken by very few demons anymore, but still used for magical notation since it was, he said, closer to the source. On top of that she was using standard Earth mathematical notation which Brebbam did not understand immediately, but grasped fairly quickly.
The children seemed to have decided that Lily, who was sitting on a tiny chair beside them, must know all about what Ceri and Brebbam were doing. They kept whispering to the half-succubus, their faces quite serious, and she would whisper back, equally seriously, and then the girls would nod sagely and go back to watching. Ceri was fairly sure that Lily had just squeezed herself in behind one of the desks to be as distracting as possible. She had a “naughty schoolgirl” stripper outfit back home and Ceri was positive she was just fuming that she did not have it with her.
‘All right,’ Ceri said, pointedly not looking at her audience. ‘Um… do you have an accurate figure for the local magical field strength?’
‘One quot,’ Brebbam replied without a second’s thought. ‘It’s the baseline measurement for the whole world. I don’t believe we have any regions with less. A few have higher values.’
Ceri grimaced. ‘This is going to be harder than I thought.’
‘You’re used to a different measurement scale?’
‘Yeah. Um… is there a blacksmith in town who’s good at making small things?’
‘Yeland,’ Brebbam said, nodding. ‘He mostly does ironwork, but he’s quite skilled.’
Ceri picked up a slate from one of the desks and began drawing on it with the chalk. ‘Girls, would you take Lilith to see Yeland? Lil, ask the blacksmith if he wouldn’t mind coming here to discuss a commission.’
Lily pushed her chair back, rising from her scrunched up position with far more grace than a woman should have. ‘Of course, Mistress.’ Smirking slightly she handed the end of her chain to Ooda. ‘You can lead me there. Tooky gets to hold the chain coming back.’
~~~
Yeland was a dwarf. Not a Tolkienesque humanoid with a thick beard, exactly, but short, thickset, grey skinned and brusque. He even had something which sounded alarmingly like a Scottish accent and he used it to good effect sounding sceptical about Ceri’s project.
‘So this strip o’ metal is made of…?’
‘Silver-iron,’ Ceri replied. He frowned at her, obviously not understanding the term.
‘Gilfaskeel,’ Lily supplied.
‘Oh, Gilfaskeel! Why didn’t ya say that? I’ve got enough in the shop for this. And the other strip’s copper, so that’s easy enough. The gearing I can do. Not much call for this kind o’ thing out here, but I can do it. Now what’s this you’re wanting t’ put between the strips o’ metal?’
Ceri frowned at her own diagram. In truth, she was not sure herself. An old style, analogue thaumometer worked a little like a thermostat. You created a bimetallic strip, bonding two things together which would expand differently when heated. In this case, the heating came from silver-iron’s reaction to a magical field, but since it was an electrical effect there had to be an insulating layer between the two metals. She knew what they used at home, but what could they use here.
‘It needs to flexible,’ she mused aloud, ‘adhesive, it mustn’t conduct electricity or heat well…’
Brebbam snapped his fingers. ‘Qitna shell, and you can use shivikin web glue. That should provide the necessary properties.’
Yeland nodded. ‘I’ll take ya word for it on the shell. A’right, Lady, when d’ya need it fo’ an’ how much ya willin’ t’ pay?’
Ceri narrowed her eyes. ‘Two days, twenty silver.’
The smith’s eyes sparkled. ‘Och Lady, I’ve got t’ feed myself an’ ma family, an’ I canna do it in that time. Five days an’ a gold piece.’
Brebbam snorted. ‘I feel I should point out it’s just him and his wife, and she’s fat.’
Ceri smirked as Yeland sputtered. ‘Three days, fifty silver.’
‘Four days an’ eighty silver.’
‘Three days, fifty siver, and I’ll leave you the design. You can produce accurate thaumatology instruments to sell in Shilfaris. Or I can show you how to use them to give people early warnings of high magic areas.’
Looking as though she were making him sign over his firstborn and carve out his own tripes with a blunt axe, Yeland nodded and put out his hand to shake on the deal. Brebbam looked shocked at him as Ceri took the offered hand and shook it firmly. ‘What?’ Yeland asked of the teacher. ‘She’s no more a demon Lady than I am. She’s powerful an’ worthy o’ respect, an’ a dinna care what sh’ is anyway, but a deal made on a handshake is a handshaken deal an’ this Lady’ll respect that.’ He looked back at Ceri. ‘You’ll have your trinket in three days.’
As the door closed behind him, Brebbam said, ‘He’d have lost that hand for offering it to a Devos or the like. He’s a sharp judge of character as well as an exceptional smith.’
Ceri nodded. ‘I’ve done about as much as I can today. I’ll go over what I have and come back here tomorrow in case there’s anything else, but I suspect I’m stuck until I can get a more quantitative field reading. Besides, I did promise to help with your problems.’
Brebbam bowed graciously. ‘I look forward to it, Lady. I believe someone has a request for you.’
Ceri turned to find Ooda and Tooky standing behind her looking very serious indeed. ‘And what do you young ladies want?’
‘Can we lead Lilith back to the inn?’ Ooda asked.
Lilith was standing beside them, biting her lips to s
top herself giggling. Ceri gave her friend a quick eye-roll and then looked down at the children. ‘Very well. Just so long as I can have her back when we get there. She has duties to perform.’
Ooda and Tooky burst into giggles. ‘Oh we know she has,’ Ooda replied before picking up Lily’s chain and starting for the door.
~~~
‘When the kids were talking to you,’ Ceri asked as she recovered from Lily’s “duties”, ‘and I thought they were asking about the symbols I was drawing…’
‘Uh-huh,’ Lily replied softly, her fingers tracing slow circles over Ceri’s stomach.
‘They weren’t actually asking about the symbols, were they?’
‘Nuh-huh.’ The fingers circled a little lower; Lily wanted to go again, which was not unheard of, Ceri had to admit, but it happened every time now.
‘So what were they asking about?’
‘Boys.’ The fingers began sliding over Ceri’s labia and she started to squirm.
‘They’re a bit, mmm, young, aren’t they?’
‘Demons mature differently from humans.’ Lily was not letting up as she explained. ‘Ooda is thirteen, Tooky is twelve. Ooda could shoot up any time and so could Tooky if she’s a quick developer. That’s why Ooda’s in a dress. She’s actually starting to develop. Right now they’re at the “boys are an interesting, if peculiar attraction” phase. Next year, Ooda for sure will be grown up and spreading her legs.’
Almost as if the statement was a suggestion, Ceri’s thighs spread wider. ‘That seems so young,’ Ceri said, her voice breathy.
‘Different social mores, different physical development.’ Shifting smoothly, Lily moved down the bed and a second later her tongue had replaced her fingers. Ceri stopped asking questions; she was too busy moaning.
Day 20
The sound of knocking roused Ceri from a deep sleep born of exhaustion. Lily was possibly getting worse; though she could not actually harm Ceri, her hunger for sex and feeding from it almost seemed to be growing.
The knocking came again. ‘Yes,’ she called out. ‘All right, I’m coming.’ Pulling herself out of bed, she stumbled over to the door, opening it without thinking.
Qualiksh looked a little shocked to suddenly be presented with a naked woman, but he rallied quickly enough. ‘Merada asked if I’d get you up. There’s been another attack.’
Ceri pushed hair out of her eyes. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered. ‘Give me a few minutes to get dressed and I’ll be down.’
‘Of course,’ he said, turning away quickly and heading for the stairs to the ground floor.
‘He wants you,’ Lily said, her tone matter-of-fact. She slipped out of bed and began putting her cuffs on. She insisted on sleeping in her collar, but Ceri insisted she remove the cuffs for sex unless they were actually using them.
‘He’s married,’ Ceri countered as she located her clothes.
‘Marriage is more of a mutual support agreement here. It doesn’t preclude sex with other partners.’
‘Oh. He doesn’t want you?’
‘He’d do me, with your permission, but you’re someone of higher rank. His wife would consider it an honour if you bedded him. She’s a det, he’s a higher demon. She got respect from getting him, but she’d get more if her partner can attract another like him or even higher.’ She snapped the last of her locks closed and looked up at Ceri. ‘I’m not saying you should, it’s just for information.’
Half-dressed and half-asleep, Ceri tried to get her head around the social logic. ‘I’m not even a demon, never mind a higher one.’
‘You appear to be a very powerful demon,’ Lily replied with a hint of pride. ‘What we call demons are just det with a talent for magic and so the ability to cross into our world, yes? Det are the equivalent of normals back home, higher demons are like practitioners. You’re a higher demon. In fact, with your power, “Lady” is not an inaccurate title.’
‘You think I could be a demon Lord? Or fake it anyway?’
Lily looked at her with a quite genuine smile. ‘Mistress does not have to fake anything.’ There was a purr in her voice, and not a hint of sarcasm.
Ceri was not feeling the same confidence in her abilities as Lily seemed to have. She laughed. ‘Especially orgasms.’
‘I should hope not, but I’m quite serious. Some of the Lords have more experience, but I doubt any have more power.’ She narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘None of them.’
Ceri finished strapping her shoulder leathers in place. ‘Well if these things keep attacking farms like this, you better be right.’
Merada and Brebbam were in the taproom when Ceri and Lily came down. Neither looked happy, and Qualiksh was standing near them with his sword. His wife, Ebalim, was wringing her hands beside him and Ceri heard her saying, ‘You be careful. You’re not as young as you were,’ as they walked down the last few steps. As they approached, Ebalim turned to Ceri, her expression imploring. ‘You’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish, won’t you Lady?’
‘No one is doing anything stupid on my watch,’ Ceri replied. ‘What happened?’
‘Someone spotted smoke rising from a farm about a mile outside town,’ Merada told them. ‘Of course, we’re not sure it’s the Cheldeg…’
‘Bandits would never attack a homestead so close to the village,’ Qualiksh commented.
Ceri nodded. ‘All right, let’s get out there. If we get there quickly enough we may even be able to track them.’
Qualiksh looked impressed. ‘You really do have some experience with this.’
Ceri wrinkled her nose. ‘Some. I sometimes think it’s too much.’
~~~
Their second farm was smaller than the first, but it still had a burned out barn with charred animal corpses in it and a house. The occupants were in the main room, both of them dismembered this time.
‘She was raped again,’ Ceri said after checking, ‘though it’s hard to tell given the amount of damage. She died first, I think.’
‘It’s like Raynor and the boat,’ Lily said. ‘They’re playing with their victims. Make him watch them defile his wife, drag out the pain, then make what they can of him by making his death as bad as possible.’ She looked at Ceri. ‘Remember what I said earlier? Imagine seeing your mate multiply raped by the lowest form of det.’
Ceri nodded; it was adding insult to injury. She headed out through the shattered front door to where the men were searching for tracks. Qualiksh was walking back from the edge of the farm’s near boundary. He looked unhappy.
‘They’re smart,’ he said when he was close enough. ‘I found tracks from around a dozen of them heading north, but there’s a rubble track out that way. They could have gone anywhere.’
‘Show me,’ Ceri said.
Sure enough, where the track headed off toward another farm to the north, an up-thrust of rock, worn flat by the weather and now rutted by cartwheels, covered several hundred yards of the path. Worse, the bulge of sandstone fell away to the south where a stream ran through a cleft it had cut in the rock. The ground looked hard and difficult to track over even on the other side of the stream. The Cheldeg could have gone off in any direction.
‘Like I said,’ Qualiksh stated, ‘no tracks, no signs I can see up ahead. We can head on to the next farm and warn them, but we don’t really know they headed that way and…’ He ground to a halt, his jaw working even as his voice cut out. Ceri was undressing in the road.
Merada came to his rescue by asking, ‘Uh, Lady, what are you doing?’
‘Undressing. There’s more than one way to track a target and I’m not ruining my clothes doing this.’ The men continued to look bemused as she took off clothing and handed it to Lily to carry. ‘Wish I had my collar,’ she muttered as she put her hand on Lily’s shoulder so that she could draw power through the half-succubus. There was a sensation as though her skin were trying to crawl away from her body and the sound of men gasping.
‘What form of beast is that?’ Qualiksh asked. Obviously they
had never seen a werewolf before and Ceri made a fairly imposing one; black fur covering a body with more muscle than she normally possessed and a bigger bust. Humans, most anyway, tended to find the dog-like head a little off-putting, but Ceri doubted it would slow the demons down any.
Ceri looked at Lily through eyes which saw muted colour and growled. Lily nodded. ‘It’s a creature from Earth which Mistress learned to transform into since it has very good senses, especially for tracking. She can’t speak normally in this form, but I have learned to understand the beast’s language. I can translate.’ It was a workable embroidery of the truth; not too far from reality to make it sound good even to Ceri’s enhanced hearing. She began casting about for scents.
‘They have things like that on Earth?’ Brebbam asked. ‘I’d heard the place was rather more peaceful than here, but this thing has teeth and claws to make a Dakag think twice.’
‘They are powerful and often skilled,’ Lily replied, ‘but they lack magic, for the most part. In a straight fight they are worthy adversaries, but they can suffer against more magically powerful foes.’ At a growl from Ceri she added, ‘Mistress has located a scent.’
There were quite a few scents along the track, but there was one strong one; vaguely reptilian and mixed with blood. If Qualiksh had found the tracks of a dozen animals, Ceri’s nose suggested at least that many had run onto the rocky surface and then dived off into the ravine. She dived off after it. The stream gave her a second’s pause, but there was enough scent hanging around the banks to lead her on, downstream and toward the north. Bolting ahead, she charged onward, led by her nose.
‘She needs to slow down,’ Qualiksh said as they ran after Ceri.
‘Mistress knows what she’s doing,’ Lily replied. ‘She isn’t going to jump into something without backup and her staff.’
‘I can’t see her,’ Merada said, sounding a little out of breath. ‘Whatever that form is, it’s fast.’
‘Very,’ Lily said. ‘She’s not far ahead. I can feel her. She’s stopped.’ She was also frustrated, Lily could feel it.
They found her, back in human form, looking at the mouth of a low cave which the stream vanished into, gurgling and rippling to suggest a steep slope. She turned and held out a hand for her clothes as they ran up. ‘They went in there,’ Ceri said. ‘You said they didn’t like the light? Well, that would give them a good place to hide. Does that cave have any other entrances?’
Thaumatology 10 - The Other Side of Hell Page 10
