The orange glow lit her face and hair, and for an instant Tarrik thought she looked like Jaquel. He blinked and placed the full canteens beside their gear, then with shaking hands rummaged for the bottle Veika had given him. He swallowed a measure, then another, aware of Ren’s eyes on him. When he returned the bottle to his saddlebag, he felt more in control.
Ren had said they would be staying here for the day while she recuperated from the exertions of their flight. But perhaps they were here so she could work her enchantments. Either way, the day promised to be boring, with Tarrik standing guard while she slept.
Ren pronounced the rabbits done. After the meat had cooled a little, they ate in silence. She ate more than she normally did, and from the set of her shoulders and her relaxed expression, Tarrik judged she preferred the outdoors to the city. She certainly knew how to skin and gut a variety of animals. He almost asked where she’d acquired such skills before stopping himself. It was a known strategy for summoners to create a bond between themselves and the demons so their slaves became accustomed to their bindings and even came to care for their captors. Tarrik wouldn’t make that mistake.
He picked the bones clean, then threw them into the disturbingly precise hole. Ren waved a hand to indicate he should fill the cavity, and he used his booted foot to return and pack down the dirt. Then he busied himself inspecting his spear and honing the blade. He found a cloth and worked some oil into the shaft, which had suffered from years of neglect.
Ren stared into the rapidly diminishing coals, content to ignore him.
Finally, she said, “I know you felt my sorcery. Are you not intrigued as to what I was doing?”
“No.”
Something nefarious, no doubt. The wards she usually put up didn’t require the power he’d felt.
“Is lack of curiosity a Tarrik trait or a demon trait?”
“It’s a survival trait.”
“Ah.”
Tarrik had had enough of talking to her. He rose, spear in hand. “I’m going to scout the area.”
“As you wish. I will sleep before long, so return soon.”
He walked increasingly wide circles around their campsite, stopping occasionally to practice forms, becoming more familiar with his weapon. The spear felt good in his hands, and he was glad he’d found it. Those fools could keep their swords and fancy footwork and ineffective techniques.
A snort of amusement escaped him when he remembered Albin’s words just before Tarrik had killed him: “Spears are for peasants, and swords are for noble warriors!” Humans thought life was a game and that arrogance and posturing somehow gave you an advantage. Well, now that Albin had crossed the veil into death, he could contemplate his failings for all eternity.
When Tarrik returned to their camp, he found Ren wrapped in another blanket and the fire almost dead. He decided against adding more wood. Though a blaze would bring welcome heat, it might wake Ren, and he didn’t want to talk to her.
He settled himself into a comfortable cross-legged position and turned his mind to breaking open Ananias’s essence. He had a full day to work on the task and didn’t intend to waste the time.
Chapter Twelve
Sometime after midday, Ren cried out in her sleep. Tarrik pulled back from scraping at the shell around Ananias’s essence and leaped to his feet. He saw that her knuckle was between her teeth, and she’d worried it until it bled. Something stirred within him. She was doing herself damage, and he could use it as an opportunity to show her he could be relied on for care. Another step toward gaining her trust.
He found a strip of clean cloth in their saddlebags, and gently, so as not to rouse her, took her hand and bound the bleeding knuckle. As he worked, a sob escaped her, and she stirred but didn’t wake. Something was tearing her up from the inside, and Tarrik didn’t think it was her murder of another of the Nine.
He returned to his blanket and continued to work on breaking through to Ananias’s essence. The process took hours of scraping and probing, but this wasn’t a task to be rushed. He’d come too far over the centuries, fought through too much, to become careless and fail now.
Finally, he managed to coax a tiny trickle of essence from the roiling mass. It came to him reluctantly, but also hopefully, as if seeking a new home now that Ananias was gone. As the concentrated kernel expanded inside Tarrik he shuddered with pleasure, then quickly tore the scrap apart. He dispersed it through his mind before the essence could do any damage.
A milestone: the first fragment of essence to be absorbed. Others should come more quickly now.
He sealed the breach he’d created and quickly checked his work to ensure the shell was now whole. If it shattered and released all of its essence at once, Tarrik would lose his mind.
“Wake up.”
Something prodded Tarrik. He opened his eyes to see it was Ren’s boot. He groaned and levered himself to a sitting position. It was getting dark, and Ren had stirred the fire to life.
“You’re supposed to be keeping watch,” she said.
Tarrik’s head ached, and his mouth was parched. He made it to his feet and drained half a canteen of water. Worrying away the layers of shell around the demon’s essence had been exhausting, and the last thing he remembered was deciding to rest his eyes for a few moments.
“There were no threats,” he said. “I made sure of it. Besides, your wards would have warned us.”
“That’s no cause for slackness. Do you need a taste of the Wracking Nerves to remind you of your duties?”
The hardness of her voice made him bow his head. She was angry, more so than his falling asleep warranted.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
“It had better not.”
He looked up to find her glaring at him. Her face was flushed, and both hands were clenched into fists. Her right hand was still bound with the cloth, now patched red.
She brandished her fist at him. “You did this while I slept? You touched me?”
Tarrik cursed inwardly. He’d miscalculated. Of course she wouldn’t want someone touching her without permission. She was damaged and broken from Samal’s violation of her body and mind.
“I . . . yes. Your hand was bleeding and—”
“What else did you do?”
“Nothing. If I overstepped, I—”
Ren barked a cant, and agony racked his bones and muscles. His skin felt as if it were being both scorched and flayed. He screamed and fell rigid to the ground. The Wracking Nerves continued without respite, and Tarrik found his mind collapsing into a smaller and smaller ball. Eventually the torture diminished until he could draw breath without pain. He remained curled up, face pressed to the dirt. When the agony faded to nothing, he crawled to his knees, then staggered to his feet. She’d castigated him more than was warranted; perhaps he was a surrogate for her anger against Samal. Ren couldn’t express rage against her master but could punish her slave.
Despair filled him, but he clenched his jaw and steeled himself. Succumbing to a sorcerer’s chastisement and becoming a meek slave was something that happened to other demons. But not him. Not Tarrik Nal-Valim, demon of the Thirty-Seventh Order. He had survived the stone walls of old Kargax when the invaders had torn them down and fed on the demons within. He’d fought his way through the breach at Ulrionaz when even demon lords had fallen to terrible sorceries and star-metal blades. And he would survive this. He would absorb Ananias fully and break Ren’s bindings.
Tarrik took a deep breath and glowered at the source of his misery.
She regarded him with a sneer. “I see I have not broken you. Good. I was worried for a moment.”
Tarrik swallowed his pride along with a mouthful of blood and saliva. “I meant no disrespect.”
“Nevertheless, you gave it.”
“It won’t happen again.”
Ren’s eyes narrowed. “I dare say it will. Now, gather our gear. We have a long way to travel tonight, and I assume you’ll want us to stop early.”
Tarrik frowned. “Why?”
“Tonight is the full dark. You’ll want to replenish your dark-tide powers.”
Oh. Maybe it was because he was still recovering from the dose of Wracking Nerves, but he couldn’t bring himself to dissemble.
“It will happen whether I focus on it or not. We demons do not need all the rigmarole you sorcerers go through with the dawn- and dusk-tides.”
“Rigmarole? Is that how you see sorcerers—focused on unimportant rituals, as though playing some kind of game?”
He shook his head. “You humans can play with sorcery however you want. It doesn’t matter to me. Demon abilities are innate.” Mostly. “We don’t use cants.” Except sometimes.
Ren seemed to accept his explanation. She retrieved one of the full canteens and busied herself voicing cants to create another disc.
Tarrik made sure their gear was secure and stowed the cooking pot he hadn’t yet washed.
Soon the disc was complete, and they were speeding into the coming dark. Tarrik rubbed his sore neck, wishing he could do something about his headache.
With the moons Chandra and Jagonath remaining beneath the horizon and full dark upon them, he saw the yellow lights of the city in the distance before he smelled its stench.
“Atya,” Ren said as they descended, the wind whipping about them. Dawn cast a gray light across the landscape, lending it a washed-out look. “We’re still on the coast, but this close to the Wastes, the people are tougher. They’re used to hardship.”
Tarrik recalled Contian speaking about the Wastes but couldn’t remember any of the details. Something about battles and lingering fiendish emanations that harmed the land.
They flew over the city, Ren peering down as if searching for a landmark, brilliant white threads of sorcery streaming over her face and hair. She focused on something below, and the disc dropped like a stone. Tarrik’s stomach rose to his throat, and he swallowed. It was an unpleasant sensation, one he didn’t care to repeat.
They jerked to the left as Ren corrected her aim. He saw an imposing granite building rearing up from a deserted park surrounded by a wall. The building was cube shaped, with no windows or doors, unless they were set into one of the sides out of sight. Faint seams could be discerned in the granite, and the whole thing looked like it had been carved from one giant piece of rock. The shape reminded him of the sharp-edged hole Ren had dug with sorcery. Was there a connection?
They alighted on the flat roof, which consisted of the same murky gray granite as the walls. There were no railings to prevent a fall from such a height. Tarrik could see the ocean to the east and the city spreading out around them in all other directions, covered in a smoky haze.
A cube of stone stood out from the center of the roof, with a blackwood door on the side facing them. Tarrik’s skin prickled, and his arm hairs stood on end. Powerful sorcery was present, and he sensed undertones of dark-tide beneath the human arcane emanations. Whatever this place was, he wanted nothing to do with it. He hoped Ren would get her business over with and get them away as quickly as possible.
The misty threads trailing over and behind her dissipated, and she stood and stretched, her arms above her head. Even though they’d been flying the entire night, she again seemed invigorated and showed no signs of needing to replenish her dawn-tide repository. This seemed a perfect place to Tarrik for such an activity: quiet and private, raised high above the city.
Ren adjusted her orichalcum sword and shifted the baldric across her chest slightly. She shaded her eyes from the morning sun, and Tarrik became aware of her gracefulness and lithe form. His mouth went dry, and heat surged to his face and groin. He allowed his eyes to roam over her with a feral shamelessness, then tore them away, fumbled with the sack, and took a deep swallow of spirits.
There was danger here—he knew all too well. For as demons’ emotions ran deep, so could their lusts transform to love if left unguarded. That was what had happened with Jaquel, which had then led to his exile.
Consorting with humans always led to trouble.
“Bring our gear, and be quick about it,” Ren said. “Sheelahn will make me pay if we tarry here overlong.”
Sheelahn? Another sorcerer probably. Tarrik wiped his mouth and replaced the bottle. His hands shook, and he hid them from Ren’s sight.
She hopped down from the platform into the haze of heat emanating from the granite beneath them. Tarrik noted with alarm that the stone had begun to glow a dim orange. He thought he could hear it cracking faintly. He shouldered their saddlebags, picked up the sack that still contained a few waxed paper–wrapped fruit loaves, and grabbed his spear. At least he didn’t have to lug saddles around anymore.
Ren strode to the door, and Tarrik followed. The portal opened before she reached it to reveal a man wearing a mask of polished blackwood with no features except two eyeholes. He was skinny and almost as tall as Tarrik and wore a thick coat the color of gloomy rainclouds. His long black hair was twisted into multiple braids with no pattern that meant anything to Tarrik.
“Enter,” the man said. “You are expected.”
He stood inside an elaborate iron cage, which Tarrik decided must be a lifting device of some sort rather than stairs. A luxury afforded by the weak.
Ren entered the cage, and Tarrik squeezed in between her and the man, the saddlebags brushing against them both. There was a metallic groan and a clunk from above; then the floor lurched, and they began to descend.
“The Ethereal Sorceress will see you,” the man said to Ren.
“We are honored,” she replied.
“The demon is not invited.”
Tarrik gave the man a sharp glance, then looked at Ren. She gave no indication she was perturbed that Tarrik’s true nature had been recognized.
“He remains with me,” she said.
The man paused, then nodded slightly. “As you wish.”
He’d changed his mind quickly, and Tarrik wondered if the pause denoted a sorcerous communication with this Sheelahn.
They passed two doors; then the cage stopped, facing another. The masked face turned toward Tarrik but said nothing.
Ren poked Tarrik in the ribs. “You’re blocking the way. Open the door.”
Tarrik pushed the portal, and it swung open on silent hinges. He stepped out and to the side to let Ren and the masked man exit. Ahead lay a corridor with a forest-green carpet and alchemical globes in wall sconces.
Twenty paces along the corridor, at its end, stood another strange-looking figure. If this was Sheelahn the Ethereal Sorceress, she was the oddest sorcerer Tarrik had ever seen. Her face was covered by an orichalcum mask with a single cross-shaped opening. Behind it, he could see only impenetrable blackness. She wore long robes so thick it was impossible to discern what lay underneath. Each fold and twist of fabric stood out stiffly and precisely, as if pressed and starched. On her hands she wore black silk gloves.
Ren walked toward the sorceress but stopped a dozen paces short.
“You have a demon with you.” Sheelahn’s voice was oddly musical, reminiscent of birdsong.
“He is not to be harmed,” said Ren firmly.
The mask tilted forward slightly, then returned to its original position. A nod. “I will buy it from you.”
“He is not for sale.”
“Everything is for sale or barter.”
“That is where you are wrong.”
“I am seldom wrong. But I admit people can form unnatural attachments to certain things.”
Ren’s fists clenched, and for a long moment she didn’t move or speak. Tarrik could see the tendons in her neck straining. Had Sheelahn made an oblique reference to the Nine’s, and therefore Ren’s, ties to Samal? Was that what had rubbed her the wrong way? But why should it if she was bound to serve the demon?
“Why have you summoned me?” Ren asked through clenched teeth.
“There are Cabalist plans afoot here in Atya.”
“There always are. It is none o
f my concern.”
“And yet here you are.”
“I have business in Atya.”
“You owe me a favor,” Sheelahn said.
“I . . . do,” admitted Ren.
“It is agreed, then. You will find out what the Cabalists’ designs are and disrupt them.”
“I will do what I am able to, but not at the expense of my own plans or if it would diminish my position with the Cabalists.”
“Agreed,” Sheelahn said. “They are using demons. Your pet may lend you an advantage.”
Tarrik suppressed a growl, and his hands tightened on the shaft of his spear.
Ren held up a hand. “Not a word from you, demon.” She turned back to Sheelahn. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“The demons are tricky things, able to mimic humans. I would not have them in this city.”
“I will do my best to ferret them out.”
“That is sufficient. Your best is quite good, as I know, Sun-Child.”
Ren nodded once, then turned on her heel. “Let’s go,” she said to Tarrik.
Sheelahn remained still and silent as they reentered the iron cage. There was another metallic clunk far above, and they began to ascend.
Ren had again agreed to interfere in the business of the Tainted Cabal or the Nine, Tarrik thought. The demons Sheelahn spoke about had to be jikin-nakar, who could shape-shift to resemble anything of a similar size and were able to absorb some of a human’s memories in order to pass as one. They would fool humans but not a higher-order demon. Tarrik reminded himself to keep a watch for any of the jikin-nakar; their lack of scent should give them away.
The lift stopped at the first door, and Ren led Tarrik into a massive room with a checkered floor of shiny white and green marble tiles lit by five chandeliers of alchemical globes. The masked man was waiting for them and gestured to one of a dozen blackwood doors dotted around the walls. He let them outside to a manicured garden surrounding the building and closed the door as he departed.
Ren stopped on the pebbled path twenty paces from the building. “This is annoying. I didn’t think Sheelahn would ask me to repay her so soon. But it may work to my advantage. I hadn’t thought to . . .” She shook her head and muttered to herself under her breath.
Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1) Page 21
