ALSO BY MITCHELL HOGAN
The Sorcery Ascendant Sequence
A Crucible of Souls
Blood of Innocents
A Shattered Empire
At the Sign of the Crow and Moon—novella
The Tainted Cabal
Revenant Winds
Tower of the Forgotten—novella
Science Fiction
Inquisitor
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Mitchell Hogan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503903227
ISBN-10: 1503903222
Cover design by Zlatina Zareva
For my wife, who scratches her head at what I do for a living but has never failed to do all she can to help me achieve my dreams
CONTENTS
Start Reading
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
EPILOGUE
TO MY READERS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I say to you againe, doe not call upp Any that you can not put downe: by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your powerfullest Devices may not be of use.
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Chapter One
Many centuries had passed since Tarrik Nal-Valim, demon of the Thirty-Seventh Order, had felt the insidious pull of a summons. The warning signs caught him off guard, manifesting as a niggling sensation in the back of his skull, an unseen insect buzzing close by that became more annoying if he tried to ignore the feeling. When he realized what it was, his bowels and stomach clenched. One part of his mind tried to flee while another prepared to fight.
Invisible white-hot hooks jagged into his limbs, torso, and consciousness. Given only an instant to prepare himself, he managed to segregate a portion of his mind and resist the agony. But the hooks sliced and tore at his being, unraveling him no matter how hard he fought. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. Pain seared his nerves, and his mind swam with disorientation.
With a final nerve-rending jerk, his form was torn asunder, transformed back into his basic essence. He felt himself siphoned through a tear in the veil between his world—Shimrax, the Guttering Wastes—and another, like water down a drain.
The sensation lessened, and his thoughts coalesced. He was standing atop a derelict tower, its roof missing, walls of granite and mortar cracked and broken with only rusted iron supports and rivets remaining. In one corner sat a heaped pile of crushed terra-cotta roof tiles covered in grass and bird droppings, as were the tops of the remaining walls. A half circle of blazing white sun peeked over forested hills to the east, and the air held the scent of rain. The atmosphere was slightly thicker than he was used to and much more humid. A stark contrast to the hot, roaring winds and parched mountains of Shimrax.
As Tarrik took in his surroundings, he noted frost had crystallized on the corroded iron and stonework and crusted over what remained of the timber floor. A swirling mist penetrated every corner and shadow, giving off a sulfurous stench underlaid with rot. Both frost and mist weren’t his doing, he knew, but a side effect of the summoning and its tearing of ethereal fabric, a commingling of worlds for a brief moment as the veil between them was ripped apart.
A curious place for a summons. Fraught with danger. So much could go wrong.
Either the sorcerer who’d summoned him was an idiot, which would be good for Tarrik, or desperate, which could be good or bad.
Tarrik’s essence and mind prickled as the summons grew in urgency. A hundred needlelike pains pierced his body—his summoner prodding him, reminding him who was the slave and who was the master. He steeled himself and ignored the sensation. He was no weakling. He’d fought abominable creatures inhabiting the abyssal realms that sent others fleeing in fear. He’d endured battles against the Kasonna-Vulur invaders where only a fraction of a fraction survived. He’d walked the hallowed thoroughfares of the ancient ruins of Polas’azar, then climbed the cliffs of Lantrin to guest with the winged Halimir. He’d killed sorcerous masters before and would again.
Only then did he see that his summoner was a woman. Sweat dripped from her brow, and her chest heaved as if she’d just run up the stairs to the top of the tower. She had black locks, reddish-brown skin, sharp cheekbones, and a firm figure clad in worn and stained traveling leathers that showed she was no stranger to practicality. Her clothes were wet, as was the hair plastered against her scalp. No doubt from the rainstorm Tarrik had just missed. Fine lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes, hinting at her age. At her feet sat a small leather sack, out the top of which peeked the corner of a black bound book. Probably a grimoire.
She stood, eyes half-closed, inside a protective circle marked in chalk and blood and seemed to concentrate on drawing his essence forth. The corpse of a small goat lay nearby. Blood wasn’t necessary for a summoning, but demons liked to keep that information under wraps. Whatever they could do to confuse sorcerers, they did.
Tarrik stood inside another circle, caged by glittering lines of arcane force that crackled with intensity. A wave of scorching heat flowed across him, creating a tingling agony. Resisting a summons brought pain, but Tarrik had never been one to acquiesce quietly. He hadn’t survived so long and progressed in the hierarchy of demons by being timid.
He drew upon a tendril of dark-tide power, which the woman quickly suppressed. Standing his ground, Tarrik fought back, not caring if he hurt her.
Their battle lasted only moments. She was too strong, and he quickly backed off.
Away from the realms of the abyss, he’d need to conserve his arcane energy. Opportunities to replenish it would be few. Tarrik would need to ensure his sorcery would work to his advantage. He’d been around a long time and wouldn’t waste his energy like a lower-order demon.
The woman must be a practitioner of great power and expertise to reach through the veil and hook a demon of his order. He hadn’t been summoned for centuries and thought—hoped—his name had been lost long ago.
Red-hot spikes pierced his mind, driving him to his knees. Something whimpered, and he realized he was making pitiful noises.
The spikes withdrew slightly, giving his thoughts and body a moment
to recover.
Seeking a weakness he could exploit, or better yet an outright mistake, he steeled himself with a growl and sent his awareness pulsing along the edge of the restrictive markings. But he was out of luck. No miswritten runes, no spelling mistakes for this sorcerer.
A simmering resentment in his guts turned to anger. Once again someone was attempting to enslave him.
“Reveal yourself, demon!” she shouted, and Tarrik realized he hadn’t filtered fully through the gate. The forceful tug of her summons pulled at him harder, like ropes binding his limbs and torso. The needle-sharp pressure in his mind intensified, on the verge of debilitating torment.
Tarrik gave in and allowed his essence to coalesce into his natural shape. It wasn’t so different from that of a standard human male, though the harsh abyssal environment of Shimrax had sculpted his muscles, rendered his fat, and roped his body with sinew. He drew himself up to his full height, knowing he stood a head taller than most humans. His straight black hair brushed his shoulders, his skin sleek and taut.
Tarrik decided his natural form would suffice. After all, demons and humankind were closely related, and it took effort to maintain a different physical manipulation for any length of time.
The summoner’s eyes narrowed, and the hot spikes of agony lessened slightly. Her gaze traveled along his body from head to toe. No material objects could pass through a tear in the veil—unless they were summoned separately—so Tarrik was naked.
He raised an eyebrow at her. He hoped she was enjoying the view, because if he found a way to free himself, he was going to rip her head from her shoulders, then suck the marrow from her bones. And when he was done with her body, he would imprison her soul and take her back to the abyss. There she would remain his plaything until her soul screamed for an end, a true death.
She took a deep breath and held her arm out dramatically. Tarrik noted it was trembling with either exhaustion or fear, maybe both.
“I am your master! I command you to reveal your true form!”
“This is my true form,” Tarrik said flatly.
That was how all these summoners saw themselves. They were the masters, and the demon was the slave. Minor demons reveled in being summoned, as their base hungers were usually well sated by defiling and slaughtering humans. But Tarrik Nal-Valim was no ordinary demon. He’d evolved past base desires and was now only a few tiers down from the exalted status of a demon lord.
“Do not lie to me, or I’ll visit upon you such pain as you’ve never—”
“This is my true form,” he said again with an exasperated sigh. “And I have felt such pain before. I have no desire to repeat it.”
She sniffed and whispered a cant under her breath. Tarrik sensed a whiff of power caress his body. He stiffened but otherwise made no move.
He recognized it as dusk-tide power, and that told him which world he was in—Wiraya, so the humans called this realm. Sorcerers here absorbed both the dusk-tide and dawn-tide essence and used the energy to perform their cants. She had timed his summoning to draw on her stored power and also take advantage of the dawn-tide surge. Her reserves were depleted, though—he could sense it. Summoning took a great deal of arcane energy.
His own demon sorcery used the dark-tide power too, but he had no way of replenishing it until the next full dark, when both moons stayed below the horizon. He had no idea when that would be.
“You speak the truth,” she said slowly. “Your skin . . . it’s silvery gray. You could be of San-Kharr blood.”
“But I’m not.”
Tarrik searched his memory and came up with a vague sense that the San-Kharr were arid-plains dwellers from the scorching south of this world who spent much of their time living underground, but his knowledge was a little hazy on the races of Wiraya. One human was much like another.
“No.” The summoner paused. “You’re a little short for a demon, aren’t you? Still, you’re above average height for a man.”
“Did you expect a giant? Horns and talons?”
He’d had enough of assuming monstrous forms to deliberately repulse and alarm humans, though some of his race delighted in such displays.
“Well . . . yes.”
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“Be silent, slave,” she hissed. “I’m not open to your manipulations. I am your master.”
“Your first time, is it?”
From her attitude and bearing, he decided it had to be. Despite the position she’d put him in, Tarrik was impressed. To summon a demon like him on her first attempt at breaching the veil showed a talent and knowledge of sorcery few could surpass, not to mention the strength such a feat took, both in dawn-tide and dusk-tide power.
“I said be quiet!”
He put his hands up to show he meant no mischief. Besides, bound as he was, he couldn’t harm a hair on her head. “You sorcerers are always so sure of yourselves. If you’d just—”
She spoke a cant, one that Tarrik recognized an instant before the Wracking Nerves slammed into him at full strength. His skin burned with agony, and he cried out, collapsing onto the floor.
As swiftly as it had engulfed him, the punishment ceased. He lay curled up, hands balled into fists, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He’d bitten his tongue, which throbbed with pain.
After a few long panting breaths, he struggled to a sitting position. When he looked up, his summoner was peering into the distance over the side of the ruined tower, a look of worry on her face.
Something was chasing her. She was desperate. This, Tarrik could work with.
“You sorcerers,” he said, pausing to swallow the bloody saliva that was thick in his mouth, “are always too quick to punish. The carrot works better than the stick.”
“I have no carrots,” she replied. “And you’re not a donkey.”
Tarrik struggled to his feet, nerves still tingling from the torture. He glared at her but remained silent while she stared at him. Her dark-blue, almost black eyes were filled with fear and despair.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I’ve gone about this the wrong way.”
Clearly she’d expected a monster. A creature she could command with no qualms and feel no regret about if it was injured or killed. Tarrik’s lips opened for an automatic rejoinder, but he clamped them shut. Better to obey her commands and get this over with, but he didn’t like the way she was looking at him.
“First things first,” she said. “I command you to tell me your name.”
Tarrik envisioned his hands wrapped around the summoner’s neck, her eyes bulging and face turning purple as he choked the life from her. The image brought a smile to his face. He decided to play along and offered a deep bow from the waist.
“Tarrik Nal-Valim, demon of the Thirty-Seventh Order. Which you already know since you’re the sorcerer who summoned me.”
“Sorceress, though that term is archaic. I’m a woman.”
“I can see that.”
She was quite attractive, in a rain-soaked feral-cat way. He added a leer for good measure. Base behavior was expected from demons, and he was happy to oblige. Whatever got him unhooked from her clutches quicker. And if she was uncomfortable in his presence and thought he was constantly thinking about ravishing her, then she’d want him gone as soon as possible. As far as she knew, all demons behaved like savage animals. His brutal realm didn’t lend itself to niceties.
“You will obey me, slave. You are bound. My will is paramount.”
Tarrik knew she was right. But one slip from her, one misspoken cant, and she’d die quickly. Then he’d be free to return to Shimrax, where he could continue to plan his redemption in the demon lords’ eyes and return from exile.
“And what is your will?” he said.
She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Then she bent, took an object from the sack at her feet, and held it out. A gaudy gold-and-jeweled sunburst talisman—used by a sorcerer as a concentration and calculation aid.
Tarrik’s gut twisted when he recognized it. The talisman had belonged to Contian, grandmaster of the Red Gate Covenant and carrier of their most potent catalyst, his previous master and a rare type of sorcerer. The two had even become friends in a strange sort of way, demon and human working together. What had happened to the old man that this woman now held his talisman?
Since returning to Shimrax centuries ago, Tarrik hadn’t heard from Contian. He’d expected to. He’d even sworn on this very talisman that he’d serve of his own free will for a year and a day if summoned again. After all this time, the old man was likely dead. The thought brought a surge of sadness and grief. He hoped Contian had died well—though trouble had forever followed him.
“You swore on this talisman,” the woman said, “many years ago. And your oath still holds true.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Tarrik said.
“Serve me,” she pleaded, holding up the talisman between them, “of your own free will. For a year and a day.”
“No.” Tarrik couldn’t think of what else to say.
Possible actions roiled through his mind. He could agree, then kill her when she unbound him. Or disagree—and probably be forced into slavery for an unspecified length of time. What if he agreed and was true to his word? This last option stuck in his craw. Voluntarily serving a master was . . . unpalatable, to say the least. Especially as she hadn’t earned his service, not like Contian had.
“Where did you find that talisman?” he said. “How do you know about my oath?”
He doubted Contian had written it down anywhere, in a diary or some such, or his own grimoire. No . . . the old sorcerer was too canny for that.
She shrugged. “I do know, and that’s all that matters. You swore by your true name, Tarrik Nal-Valim, outcast among demons, outlawed in many of their realms.”
“To Contian,” he reminded her. “Not to you.”
“You swore on this talisman, which held his catalyst—the thing that made his sorcery possible. It was the possession he held most dear.”
Memories flooded back to Tarrik. He saw Contian sitting in his rickety chair in front of the fire, reading, always reading. He saw ash falling like snow after Contian burned a stronghold of dead-eyes that worshiped Andil-tekkur, a wraithe that had lost all reason and urged the creatures to ever greater depravities. He saw Contian walking through an inferno, protected by spherical arcane wards and cradling an insensate black-haired woman he’d saved from ghouls. The sorcerer Delfina, his first apprentice.
Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1) Page 1
