Russ met Kendra’s gaze.
“I can feel your uncertainty.” Slight annoyance padded Willa’s voice. “Did you bring me along to keep me out of ta—taa—Tanvarn or because you honestly believed I could help?” Her magic moved through the trees, passing in and out of sight as did she.
Russell followed. Kendra sidled up to him and whispered, “Or was it both?” She cast an admonishing glower upon him.
Willa’s voice bent around the trees like the corners in an alley. “Ya know, Grenn wasn’t incorrect when he said demons are specifically enigmatic. But most get the wrong idea of what enigmatic and specifically mean in the same way most don’t understand what a deductible is when they buy insurance.” She hummed on a syllable, and her magic adjusted course off to their right.
“We understand what the words mean by theh—themselves, but when someone chooses them as vocabulary for specialized terminology, their meaning skews. So when someone reads in a textbook that demons are specifically ee—nigmatic, the first thing that comes to mind is mystery, that we’re not meant to understand them. But what the terminology means, as Guillaume Cedacere wrote, is they’re a mystery until you understand them. A simple concept. Just like”—she snatched at the air in front of her and held onto what she caught between her fingers—“finding something when you know how to look for it.”
Willa mimed wrapping twine around her left hand, and after a few loops, she jerked against what she held. Something like a curtain fell. Her bundle of Ley floated on the other side, and beyond them, lit by their blue-gold light, a cave waited in a bog of shadow.
Kendra pointed at the fitting of rock. “There.” Her own motes flew toward the cave’s entrance, around which the Light from Russ’s hammer flicked like a candle’s flame, making movement of nothing. A quiet screech echoed from inside and stretched through the air.
“How long were we here before you figured that out?” Kendra asked. An expression painted her face a shade Russ hadn’t often seen: one of subdued esteem.
“Nothing too complicated,” Willa said, trying to hide a satisfied smile. “Demons often camouflage their dens.” She stamped on the fallen illusion with her foot, and bits of Fel flaked into the air as the trick dispelled.
“Were you timing that? Like the speech and stuff?”
The Priest couldn’t hide her grin. “You got us really close.”
Kendra nudged her in the ribs and leaned toward her to whisper in her ear. Willa’s voice ascended to quiet laughter. In the forest’s stiff air, it sounded unnatural. She responded in Ley, and Kendra chuckled.
Russ looked on with avid anxiety. “We gotta go in, yeah?”
“Worth a check,” said Kendra, her voice tinted with levity, “but this doesn’t seem right. The cave’s not breathing.”
Russ stepped toward it, and despite the hole of rock acting as Kendra said, a stench issued from it on the still air, suffocating in its perjure. His helmet filtered the smell away from him.
“Stinks,” Willa said. She held her hand over her mouth and nose a second, and a hard-light bandana covered half her face.
Kendra copied Willa. “Don’t remember that before.” Her motes floated back outside. She spoke to them, then shook her head.
“Watch behind,” said Russ. He hung his hammer over the threshold. Nothing happened.
Just inside its mouth, the rock descended sharply, and he braced himself against the left wall as he walked. His hand passed over a jagged piece of slate that crackled and fell.
“Look out!” Willa shouted, and she leapt in front of him, her arms outstretched. Around them, a golden barrier shielded against a trapping of rock that fell upon them. It rained with incendiary magic and shook the ground and cave as it chopped down. Willa’s ears lay back against her head, and her hair fluttered from the effort to keep up the surrounding orb. But the rumbling settled quickly, and once finished, she pushed the rocks off them with her Light.
“What in the hells was that?” said Kendra. With a gesture of her hand, eidolons of rock reversed and tucked themselves into the hole that had formed in the ceiling. “A trap?”
Willa pointed to a part of the rock wall. “Claw marks. Demons worship ambushers, and they copy them if they know how. This one was”—she stepped on nothing and raised herself to touch the ceiling above them; a puzzled mask covered her face—“intricate.” Her tail swept the air behind her while she investigated. The bundle she’d formed came at her call, and when she spoke, it spoke back, almost before she finished conjugating.
Russ follow her gaze with his own. He couldn’t make out much, even by the Light of his mace, but whoever called this cave their home had somehow cut into the rock overhead and worn smooth the wall to his left, where his hand had passed over that tinkly pebble. The dirty woman, D’niqa, surely they weren’t waiting for him here.
“Think there’ll be more?”
Though he’d asked of Willa, Kendra answered. “No.” She finished speaking with her bundle, and it floated further inside.
Twenty yards in, the tunnel opened. Bones littered the area, the preponderance of them gathered at the cave’s hind-end. Bears, skunks, wolves, squirrels, foxes, whatever hunted in this wood had no discrimination for their prey. Not even of humans. A humerus stood up from the pile as a candle, and a skull hung on its shoulder like a final prize. Russ wondered how far the beast—perhaps the Beast—had ranged to kill, whether anyone had gone missing and never been found.
A shape skittered to their right. They all shined their light toward it.
“What”—said Kendra. Before she finished, a creature popped up its head and screamed at a sonically deafening pitch. Russ’s armor detected his distress and dampened the noise, but when the creature saw him more clearly, it screeched louder and more desperately.
Kendra pressed her hands over her ears and yelled, “Quiet!” in Magornian. The sound in Russ’s helmet faded to almost nothing for an instant before his armor readjusted its volume.
Panting and scampering formed into scratches and words against the den’s far wall. “No!” a high-pitched voice said mid-scream. “No way out!” Then it turned, and when it saw the three of them watching, its shrieking reached a final height. Russ’s display showed they blocked the shadow’s only exit. “No hurt!” It stood on its hind legs, its ears so flat down the back of its head, it looked without them. Pools of dark eyes took up the preponderance of its features. “Please, gods, no hurt!”
“We won’t hurt you,” Willa said through a laugh.
“Gods,” said Kendra over the creature’s outcry. “It’s just a serren.”
The serren stopped screaming long enough to look between them. “No hurt?”
“The only reason we’d hurt you,” said Russ, “is if you were a demon. Are you a demon?”
It shook its head. “No dee-mund. No dee-mund here.” The little varmint panted a few breaths. “What you?”
“I’m a Karlian. Do you know what that is?”
“You eat me?” the creature asked, its eyes fearful orbs.
“Of course we’re not going to, you rodent,” Kendra said. “What in the hells are you doing here?”
“Food.” It rubbed its stomach with a tiny paw. “Hungry.”
“Gods, please tell me you didn’t eat anything.”
The serren shook its head at a frantic pace and spoke the same. “No. Food not here. Smells too bad to be food. Might be bathroom. Should leave.” It stepped from the wall.
Russ held up his hand. “Hang on.” Sieku’s aspersion for them had rubbed off on him, yet seeing this one jarred loose a memory of a dream. “You’re hungry?” He looked to Kendra, then again to the small beast. “Think you can help us with something? There’s food in it for ya.”
“For me?” it said and took another tentative step toward Russ before it realized what it had done and sprang backward.
“Gods, Russ,” Kendra said, “it’s a waste of time. Like he’s going to fucking know anything.”
“Just hang
on. Sieku and I deal with these all the time.” Russ reached into his left pocket for a ration of salted meat and turned toward the serren. “Your kind normally eats veg and stuff, I know, but do ya like jerky?”
“Jooky?” said the serren. It licked its lips and swallowed. “Mm hmm.”
Russ opened the package and ripped a piece from the whole. “We’ll go one-for-one, right? Understand?”
The beast’s head moved on its hinge in quick nods.
Russ set his hammer on its head and gestured for the creature to come closer. He knelt. “What’s your name?”
“Burth.” He stepped away from the wall. His eyes shot between the three of them as he approached, his body tense.
“And what did you think I was?” Russ held out the piece of jerky. “What made you wail so fiercely?”
The serren feinted for the meat, and when nothing happened, he snatched it from Russ’s hand and skittered half a dozen paces away. He spoke while he chewed, his left cheek full. “Dee-mund.”
“How are you sure I’m not a demon?”
Burth considered as he gnawed through the other half of his morsel, staring at nothing, and what he said sounded more like thinking out loud than an actual answer. “Dee-mund no talk Plain, don’t give serren food. Serren food for dee-mund.” He looked up at Russ. “You no dee-mund.”
“Wow,” Kendra said, “I’m glad that’s settled.”
“You want more?” Russ tore another chunk from the pouch, made sure Burth saw it.
Burth still chewed his first piece, but he nodded.
“If a demon lives here, why’d ya come pokin around?”
“Dee-mund not here. Many days, I know. Deserted.”
Russ tossed him the morsel. “We know other demons are around, but we haven’t seen any. Are you familiar with where they go?”
Burth stopped gnawing on the new piece, and his gaze became distant as he looked past Kendra toward the exit. Russ’s display showed nothing there, but still, the act made him shudder. “Dark,” Burth said.
“Where is this dark? Do you know?”
Burth nodded. “My den told me.”
“Can you show us?” Russ asked of him.
The creature’s eyes opened wide, and he shook his head. “No. No, no, no.”
“All right, all right.” Russ pulled another piece from the pouch. “You see her?” He pointed at Kendra, and he tried to make what he said next sound as impressive as he could. “She’s a Leynar.”
Burth’s gaze snapped to Kendra.
“And the girl behind me is a Priest. We’re here to oust those demons.” Russ leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And I’d have to lie to ya if I said I weren’t a little scared about it.”
“You scared?” Burth said, his question honest if not disbelieving.
Russ nodded. “Aw yeah. But do ya know what else we are?”
Burth shook his head.
“Brave. Think you can be brave with us?”
Almost at once, Burth shook his head again. “No. Brave serren get killed.”
“I told you,” Kendra said. “This is pointless.”
Burth nodded toward Kendra. “Is she you girl?”
Russ chuckled and shook his head. “No.”
“Good. She mean.”
“I might’ve had something to do with that.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Kendra.
“No,” Burth said. “Not you. You nice. Give Burth food.”
Kendra’s Ley spoke with her. Her gaze undrew from the serren, her face masked by a callous scowl. “Someone died here.” She held her Ley bundle a foot over her hand, and from it projected a model of the cave, manifested in time-past. A small shadow pulled an unmoving log of a man by the ankles and dropped him in the middle of the room. The shade stuttered, then paused. “Not long ago. Did you know them, serren?”
Burth’s gaze became solemn, and he swallowed. “Maybe.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “Haven’t seen Qimber. Worried ‘bout him.”
“Who’s Qimber? Your master?”
Burth nodded.
“What do you see?” asked Russ. He stood.
“The Beast consumed them.” Kendra grimaced while she watched a quickly-moving diorama. Her left cheek perked against what she saw. “Tortured them.” The shadow morphed between human and dog many times as the scene sped on.
“Cah—can you reach ‘em?” asked Willa.
“Maybe.” Kendra grabbed her magic with her right hand and stretched it between her fingers, where it splayed into a timeline. Her gaze darted across it. “It’s gonna take—more interesting magic, if I can. The Order normally doesn’t like this kind of thing.”
“What, like necromancy?” Willa said, concerned.
“Nothing so dark, but with two members here”—Kendra raised her left hand in a helpless gesture—“I don’t have a good defense.”
Russ scoffed. “I’ll attest for ya.”
“Ooh,” Kendra teased. “The Grand Master condoning shadow magic. I’m a little closer to having heard everything, then.”
“Not condoning it.” Russ said, plain. “Can ya do it or not?”
“I’ll need to see if I can get a hold on them. There may still be enough essence here to make a phylactery, but”—she squinted her eyes, shook her head—“their signature is weak. They were alive for almost three days, but they did nothing.”
“Do you need help?” Willa asked.
A token smile spread across Kendra’s mouth. “No, dear. You keep your pretty hands clean.” She reached, but before she got to casting, she looked to Russ and said, “It’s more like gray magic, right?”
“Just get on with it,” he said.
A ball of hard light pulsed from her hands and coated the cave’s interior in a hex-pattern, after which the air became still. Kendra whispered while she worked.
“Impressive,” Burth said. “Nothing happen.” He sniffed at a piece of light under his feet.
“Shh,” Willa said, raising a finger to her lips. She knelt next to the serren. “That’s the thing about magic: it works in the margins, takes a little time.” She watched Kendra. “Especially stuff like this—making people do things they might not want to.”
“Ahhh.” Burth followed Willa’s gaze and slowly took a bite of jerky. Russ wondered if the beast understood or just pretended to follow along.
Kendra’s eyes flitted around the cave, and her arms twisted as she gestured at different angles to light different portions of the hex map. Though Russ couldn’t use the Ley, those around a Leynar invoking it could feel when they did. Sometimes the magic presented as a stout tug behind their gut; other times, something might tickle their ear, or a passing breeze might graze their neck when they’re inside, about to tuck into a good book. What about that itch on their leg that makes one think a critter might be crawling on them?
None of those descriptions suited this.
As Kendra sifted through the vision, the atmosphere pushed against Russ a little harder. His ears plugged, and his eyes pressed further into his head. The discomfort made him pause. Kendra had used shunned magic around him before—even used him as a conduit for it during his days of youthful naivety, when a pretty girl doesn’t have to make a young man do anything—but this felt dirtier, for lack of a better term, like drinking used cooking oil, bits, char, and all.
“There.” Relief painted Kendra’s face. Wisps of breath and whispers escaped through twitches of her lips, but now she stood unmoving, her arms outstretched. “That’s a lot more than I thought there’d be.” She spoke almost casually. “You still want me to do this?”
Russ sensed something like a cord tighten and traced the source to magic around Kendra’s wrist. “What’ll we do if we don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
Scared, Kendie? They had already come this far. Russ nodded, and Kendra pulled.
From a set of bones underneath a dozen other animals, black dust floated through the air toward her and coalesced over her hand to fo
rm a floating stone that gleamed like obsidian. She whispered into it, and as she did, smoke issued from her mouth and painted the rock a dull blue. A final mote of dust, from the skull atop the pile, shot toward her, and in blinding luminance, an image climbed out of the phylactery, fell to the ground, then stood. Russ’s armor adjusted the brightness for him to see clearer.
The vision came to life. “Woah,” the man said. He brushed his hands over his sleeves, bewildered. “It was all black. And now I’m back?”
“Qimber!” Burth squealed. He ran toward the projection and leapt onto his master’s leg only to pass right through. He rolled across the floor on the man’s other side.
“Burth?” The serren’s ears perked up. Qimber knelt and reached out, tried to pet Burth’s back, but his hand dissolved against the creature’s body. He raised his fist to his face and turned it either way. “Has this all been a dream?”
“You’re not back, Qimber,” said Kendra. “Not really.”
Qimber stared at the woman who spoke to him, then his expression fell with crestfallen resolution. “Fuck, I guess not.” He paused, then asked, “How do you know who I am?”
“Your serren,” Kendra said, annoyed. “Why are your bones here?”
Qimber ignored Kendra for his pet. “Sorry I brought us back here, buddy.”
Burth shook his head. “Couldn’t know. Den scared but knew we’d come. Evil in forest.”
Kendra cleared her throat. “As charming as your reunion is, we’re rather short on time.”
The man saw the blue rock that floated over her hand, followed the wispy trails of blue light from it to his body. “I didn’t ask you to do whatever you’re doing.”
“No, you didn’t. Instead you got yourself killed.” Kendra raised an eyebrow. “I could return you to that state if you’d prefer.”
Qimber raised his right hand in placation. “All right.” He stood and scratched at his head. “I—I can’t remember. Just the forest—I remember being in the forest.”
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