“Are we leaving already?” asked Willa.
“Good a time as any.”
Willa and Russ left Grenn at the table alone. “Can’t stand the way he eats his meat,” she said when the waiter came with a plate of bacon. “All charred like that.”
As they walked out, Russ heard Grenn say, “Is it too early to get a side of you, too?”
“Wow,” the waiter said, stretching out the syllable. “I’ll give it to ya that you’re a sight better than the slugs that sometimes sneak in here.” Russ didn’t hear how Grenn responded, but considering he heard no commotion, it couldn’t have gone badly. When he looked back, Grenn seemed well in his element as he chatted up the waiter, who leaned against the back of the booth, a smile across her face.
The morning sun outside freshened Russ’s resolve, and he basked in its rays. Though he unironically longed for the simple days of leisure and rumination on his farm, at least the weather here had proven nice. He hadn’t noticed the night before, but a temple down the street stood in sleek alabaster, painted by the morning light, stark against the exterior of Rhine’s.
“Where does she live?” Willa asked. She looked one way down the sidewalk, then the other.
“Dunno,” said Russ. “She told me to find her.”
“That’s help”—
“Mee-yow!” a man yelled from the stage of a passing car. He wore a wide grin across his face and sunglasses on his forehead, and he made sure Willa saw him holding his crotch in one hand. His hair flailed as the car sped past. “Come get some milk, little kitty.” The slugs’ laughter faded for the roar of their engine, and they raced around a corner, almost running head-on into another car.
Willa looked decidedly unimpressed with the passerby. “Has no one told this fucking town that windbruh—breakers and track pants went out of fashion five years ago?”
Russ smirked. “Never knew they were in fashion.”
“Yeah,” said Willa. They turned opposite the way the cat-caller had gone. “It was a fucking travesty.”
Three blocks later, Russ and Willa turned the corner onto a one-way side street, heading west. Her tail flicked behind her as she walked an invisible line with quiet steps.
“… It appeared during the night,” she told him, watching a comet that skidded along Coroth’s upper atmosphere. “Thousands of years ago, people would have taken it as a sign from the gods. Ev—everything is, I guess, but with all that’s happened over the last few days, I’m sure laymen will find some kind of meaning in it.”
Russ’s gaze traced where the comet hung over the western mountains, the sky a pale indigo where it met the peaks’ white ridges. In its trail, a haze of blue and purple and silver painted the firmament and sparkled for the sun behind them. The celestial phenomenon made him uneasy, and Willa speaking of patterns and signs and meaning where none existed only added to the dull apprehension that had settled in his gut. “Don’t put stock in it. It’s a rock.”
He remembered when Jeom had first taken him on an assignment—a short investigation to deal with a necromancer practicing oneiromancy.
“Death releases us from the confines of mortal understanding,” the Warlock had said after they arrested him. He’d piled a stack of corpses in his living room. Their smell pierced through the embalming fluid he had poured over them, and Russ had raised his helmet against the stench.
The death-dealer spoke with urgency, his yellowed eyes wide, as though he thought if he could say enough words in time, he’d convince them to not take him away from his “… pets, all of them. They need me. The Order can’t possibly understand the work I’m trying to accomplish here. Within each of their minds is a universe, and pulling them back from the Nothing—or wherever their souls have gone—gives them unimaginable insight into”—he’d searched for a word—“everything. You don’t even know.”
Jeom clamped the man’s jaw shut with a vice of holy magic so the dealer-in-death couldn’t speak, even covered the man’s mouth so he couldn’t open his lips. “Meaning comes to us from the gods. Anything beyond is like children pretending they’ve built a home out of a sand castle.” Russ hadn’t kept track of the necromancer afterwards.
They walked past a side street that only allowed foot traffic, and Russ doubled back. An urlan stood outside a house four doors down, and as they got closer, he recognized Reight, who smoked from a wooden pipe that curved over his head. Reight tipped the affectation at them as they approached. Blue smoke coiled toward the sky and caught on a mild breeze.
“She here?” Russ said, half a house from him. Kendra’s shack had tucked into a gap between a couple of low-cost mansions. Gray-painted stucco covered their exteriors.
“Unless she ported away,” said Reight, curt.
Russ pointed at the pipe. “That do anything for ya?”
Reight waited a few seconds before he answered. “Helps me think.” He dragged while he spoke. “You cut my bread too early.”
Russ nodded. “Right.”
“What?”
“No—just—fine.”
The urlan brew out a cloud of smoke. “Glad that’s settled.”
Kendra’s front door opened, and she walked outside, garbed in a Leynar robe that bared her legs and hips and torso to just under her ribs and plunged toward her navel to expose a goodly portion of chest—would have, if not for the leathers she currently wore underneath it. A cloak draped over her shoulders, the hem of which skidded the ground when she dropped a covered box of turnips just off her porch.
She looked between Russ and Willa. “Hi.”
She went back inside, where a floating machine slowly moved Reight’s electronics one at a time from the hearth to his room. Kendra batted at it as she walked to her kitchen. “Sorry about the mess. Got it into my mind last night that this place was a fucking sty, so I tried to clean up.” Her lips pursed, then she sighed. “And I only made things worse.”
Russ ducked to avoid another oddity that zoomed by overhead. “Sounds about right for you.”
Kendra flipped him off.
“For a Leynar, I mean.”
Her other hand joined the first as she walked into her hallway and out of sight. A second and a half later she teleported to the bar, her back to them. “I wouldn’t have overdressed so much, except we’re heading northeast, and it’s gonna be cold up there. Especially in the forest.”
“There’s not a fancy spell you could use?” Russ asked, dodging a floater again. “How do ya keep yourself warm during cold nights?”
“That’s one reason I live here.” Different colored gems covered a piece of fine cloth on the counter in front of her, each as purely cut as the next. “Doesn’t really get cold. Plus, I have better things to do with my Ley.” She looked at Russ and frowned. “Gods, did you sleep?”
“No,” he said and joined her at the bar. “Apparently your friends could have helped me with that if I’d been so inclined. I’m glad I look bad enough for you to ask.”
“Yeah, I can—tell.” Kendra yawned. “Didn’t sleep much last night, either.” She walked back to the hallway, but her voice carried to him. “Trying to discern as much as I could before we headed back there. Perhaps trying to talk myself out of doing it.” When she walked back into the great room, a leather pouch hung from her left thigh. “Because it is stupid. Surprised I’m still here?”
“A bit. But no one’s forcing you to come with us.”
“And let the Grand Master die when I could have saved him? Sounds great. How exactly would I explain that to High Tower, again?”
“Dunno. How’d you explain me disappearin last time?”
“I didn’t, remember?” Her gaze turned toward Willa. She gestured toward her with a nod. “And you. At least you appear suited for the part. You’re up for all this, then?”
“Oh.” Willa seemed surprised that Kendra addressed her. “Yes. It’s—it’s great of you to take me along.”
Kendra shrugged. “His idea.” She walked toward the Priest, who stood a few inches t
aller and tensed when Kendra reached out and placed her right palm against her stomach. “And I don’t suppose you mean me any harm.” She stared pointedly into Willa’s eyes. Tension passed briefly through the room and left as fast, then Kendra tapped on the steel. “That’s cute. Seems like you lot have got a little more freedom with your armor than Karlians.”
“Same as Leynar robes,” Willa said as Kendra headed toward a table near her hallway. “Just like the cut of the cloth for Ley, the make of the armor curves the Light to our own brand.”
“Makes you wonder how Karlians do it.”
“We call, and the Light answers,” said Russ. “Do you really need your robes cut like that?
Kendra puffed. “You think I show this much leg for fun?”
“Don’t you?”
“I mean—yes, but—it’s never hurt.” She glared at Russ, who wore a wide grin. “Shut up.”
Willa continued. “At first the Undertaker just wah—wanted us in the cloth. But the armor Karlians wear offers not only more protection, the way it’s forged lends itself to enhanced Light-handling. The quartermaster actually uses our robes as pattern for our armor’s design and integrates them into the steel. We still have our cloaks.”
“I see that,” said Kendra. “Can’t forget those for when you need—modesty.” She stashed the last of what she’d be taking with her—a compass and ruler—in the pouch on her thigh and patted up her body, counting on her fingers. “I think”—
“Wait a second,” Russ said. From his belt, he pulled the ring Brech had given him. “Don’t need this anymore, lookin how I do.” He held it out for Kendra to take. “Figured you could get up to somethin with it.”
“Holy shit.” Kendra put it on her middle finger of her right hand, where it shrank to match her size. She admired its effect. “Cool.”
“You’re welcome.” Russ meant it. “Just don’t tell anyone who gave it to ya.”
“Fine. Got something you should check out, too.” She reached up her right sleeve and pulled out the soul stone Russ had given her, held it over her right hand, and let it fall. It hit her palm with a dooming thud. She repeated the motion, and each time it hit, the smallest jolt of despair filtered into Russ’s gut.
“Experimented with it a bit last night,” Kendra said. “Its frequency is different—over three percent higher from greaters back in the War.”
“I can hear it,” Russ said. Kendra dropped the stone to her palm a few more times. “Does it mean anything?”
Kendra pocketed it up her sleeve. “Dunno.” She spoke with a specially cultivated nonchalance. “But it’s demons, so it’s probably not good.”
“That could come in handy,” Willa said, “if things get dicey.”
“I’ve got actual dice for that. Besides, isn’t that why we’re bringing you?”
“I”—Willa looked to Russ. “I tho—thought I was coming for my demon”—
“Chill,” Kendra said and raised her right hand. “I’m fucking with you. Russ made me aware of your specialty.” She passed a familiar glance to Russ that said, ‘Cripes.’ “About the stone, you’re sure you don’t want to make another mark on your armor? What with how fond you all were of them.”
“Yeah. Through with all that. My”—Russ started, then Kendra said the rest with him—“marks is my marks.”
“That everything, then?” she said, annoyed, but a subtle smile playacted across her mouth.
“I guess if you’re in a hurry.”
“Just to get past this. Not to go there.” She wrapped her right hand around his neck and looked past him at Willa. “Versed enough in portal-tech to just follow through?”
Willa nodded, an earnest mask across her face. “I am.”
Kendra’s brow flicked in test. “See you there, then.”
Russ put an arm around Kendra’s waist. She whispered in the way magic understood, and a tug behind his lower back told him the evocation worked.
2
The next time Russ opened his eyes, his hammer glowed with holy Light, his left arm’s rune had turned to ice, and a dull smokiness filled his head, bit at his throat. The trees pressed close, nestling against a fight not their own, and the shadows beyond filtered much past them.
Kendra invoked a pull of magic in front of him and illuminated a bundle of Ley that floated over her outstretched hand. A branch snapped behind him when Willa ported in. She caught herself a foot behind him.
“What was that about not wanting to chase demons in the dark?” Russ said. He moved his right hand in the holy check.
“It’s still daytime above the trees, Russ,” said Kendra.
She reached toward the boughs high above her, and they parted to let sunlight through to the forest floor. Russ shielded his eyes against the blinding intrusion, which bent against the darkness. Under his armored feet, grass squirmed to make away from the blaze. Kendra let her magic go, and the trees stretched toward each other, frantic to cover the area again in shade.
Willa sniffed the air. “Smells like Fel.” She worked her own magic to bundle together some Ley.
Russ raised his helmet. His display came up and rendered the darkness in echo-like waves that pressed against it in pulses and showed him what his naked eyes couldn’t. The closest tree gained its full shape, then one farther on. The darkness leapt erratically and threw shadows that hid what Russ tried to see when he leaned around the wooden guardsmen. Silence pushed against them, accentuated their whispers, magnified every other crack and crinkle and skitter-of-beast that swished in the obscured wood.
This is not a natural darkness.
“Sure you ported us to the right place?” he asked.
“As close as,” Kendra said. Her eyes glowed bright blue while she communed with the forest’s magic. The original cybernetics. “We might be right on top of it. The forests—get demons in here—like to move around, resettle themselves. The braver ones’ll uproot fully if they have to.”
When Russ could see three trees past him, into the murk that spread like ink in water, he stepped forward. Adrenaline tampered with his gut; he’d almost forgotten how it felt to hunt, and the thrill returned to him, a familiar friend in this unfamiliar world. They moved slowly, peeking around every tree. Russ half-expected to see a pair of red dots or the yellow gleam of teeth, yet around each bend, nothing came to them. Distinct murmurs comingled with the sounds of their breath and the forest’s whispers.
An uneasy intimacy accompanied him in this wood, and Russ knew, even though he’d never been there, he’d seen the trees past which he now walked.
Kendra watched Willa a few seconds, waited for the Priest to finish her thought. “That dialect. It sounds new.” Her brow furrowed. “Eqloir?”
“Close,” said Willa. “Eqloimn.”
Impression registered on Kendra’s face. “How’s that working for you?”
“Better than I thought it would when I first picked it up.”
“I could never get the uni-letter languages to work as well as the older ones. My evocations, particularly, end up scattered with them. They rely more on intonation I think is my problem.”
Willa nodded. “There are limitations to it, but often limitations are pretexts for creativity. If you’re willing to work with it, gih—give-and-take a little with your phrasing and manifestation, it becomes very forgiving.”
“Did they teach that at High Tower?” Kendra asked, stepping over a root. “Do all Priests use it?”
“The Undertaker encourages us each to have our own understanding with the Ley”—she listened to her bundle and whispered back to it before she continued—“as each Priest also has their own understanding with the Light. Every person views the world through their own lens”—
“So, too, does each of us understand in our own way,” Kendra said, finishing the motto for her. “Good to hear the Undertaker hasn’t lost sight of the Mesiter’s teachings.”
“Of course not. But our ministrations of the Ley go beyond the academic and philosophical. As Pr
iests we strive to un—derstand what the Undertaker calls the Underley—deep and discrete occurrences of magic beneath the mere physical”—
“I’m aware of the idea. Leynars have died trying to ascertain that knowledge. Trust me and the Mesiter, it’s not worth chasing.”
“For the most part, we haven’t been equipped to until now.”
“I’ll admit I was never interested in it, though”—
“Ladies,” Russ said, antsy to get on. Annoyance prickled against his mind. “Is now really appropriate to discuss magical dialects and politics?”
Kendra bounced her brow at Willa. “Mr. Matter-at-hand.” They giggled, then raised their hands back to their mouths and continued their discussions with their own Ley bundles. Russ wondered if they’d just shared an inside joke.
Near-silence compressed them again. Skitters vibrated the ground, climbed and swept through tree branches. Sighs echoed from the edge of nothingness.
“Do ya hear them?” Russ asked—those patters underfoot. Surprise caught him when his boot sunk into the ground. His armor spurred him upright, and he jogged a few steps to regain his balance. When he looked back, his display showed a hole, partially collapsed by his weight. “Damn beasts.” Sieku had warned him.
Kendra laughed. “Russell told me you’re a demonologist. Does Eqloimn make that easier?”
“It does,” Willa said, her words guarded.
“Then if the Grand Master doesn’t mind, perhaps you should show us what that training’s good for.”
“I’m—I’m not sure what you mean.” Willa’s bundle floated by her right ear, speaking its squeaky parlance.
Russell held up his hammer and spoke as he turned in a full circle: “We’re hunting demons, Willa. Take that at face value.” Burgeoning impatience crept from the back of his mind as the demon’s maw eluded them. He saw nothing.
After a second’s silence, Willa said, “All right.” She spoke a few syllables to her magic, which cheeped a spicy fricative before she released it. “Just so you know, we’ve been going the wrong way.” She pointed in a direction obtuse from where her Ley headed.
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