Exiled: Keeper of the City

by Peter Morwood

Masejih waved with the black stick he was holding. A swirl of corpse light went up from the circle, parted like a gateway to let him out. He walked toward her, slowly, reaching into the pocket of his bathrobe for something.

  He came close, came out with it. Laas could not even move her eyes, could only just make out what it was. It was a cord, a cord of something silken, such as one might find hanging from drapes.

  “These ceremonies,” he said softly, as he put a paw under her arm, “commonly work better with a death. You are most welcome.”

  •

  Reswen and Lorin went down the steps as softly as they might. It wasn’t easy, especially for Lorin. He was never the most courageous of mrem; now that he felt certain he was implicated in the death of the Lloahai ambassador, he shuddered like a fish out of water all the way down to the main floor, and one step before it, he stumbled and fell flat on his face.

  “Come on, come on,” Reswen whispered, picking up Lorin in the darkness and dusting him off with inaccuracy but good intentions. “Don’t give out on me now.”

  Lorin said things under his breath as they turned the corner of the stairway and headed down another flight. Then he stopped, simply stopped like a statue and refused to move.

  Reswen heard the footsteps behind him cease. He stopped, turned, shook Lorin. It did nothing. From down the stairs he could hear some sort of speech, a garbled sound. “Come on,” he said. “Come on!—” And he refused to pay any attention to Lorin’s rigidity, simply dragged him down the stairs like a board of wood. At that, some of the rigidity wore off. Lorin, perhaps, had not been prepared for the possibility of being dragged like baggage. At any rate, he began gasping. “No,” he said, “Reswen, you don’t—”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Reswen. He was certain, now, that Laas was down there. Reason had nothing to do with it. He had more or less given reason up for the evening. Besides, considering her stubborn, well-intentioned ways, where else would she be? She had doubtless tried to seduce the wizard—and whether she had failed or succeeded, this was the result: lights and chanting in a cellar—

  Reswen plunged on down the stairs with Lorin in tow. “Reswen,” he hissed, “don’t you get it? They’re right in the middle of some kind of binding. If you disturb it you’ll get caught in it—”

  “She’s caught in it,” Reswen fairly snarled, and down they went together, past the rude door Thabe had mentioned, down the rude corridor, past the cupboards— At the corridor’s end, where it bent, caution hit even Reswen. There was a darkness in the air that came of more than lack of torches, and that dark air throbbed, faster and faster, as if with an expiring pulse. He gave Lorin a last wake-up shake, let go of him, and peered carefully around the corner.

  And saw it—and yowled, a mrem’s battlecry, spitting; and with his knife drawn, ran straight into the heart of the darkness—

  •

  Laas could not move of her own will, could barely breathe, could hardly think with terror, but one thing she could still do. As Masejih took her by the arm to lead her away, she set the claw deep in him and pulled, pulled harder than she ever had before. Want me, she cried inwardly, want me, you poor creature. Melt where you stand, go limp with desire, be able to do nothing but stand and look at me—

  Masejih’s paw on her trembled. Just freshly come from her embraces, he was easy prey, and she felt the claw settle deep and turn his blood hot. He stared at her, only her, and shook all over; the murderous look on his face had for the moment slacked into vacuous lust. But how long can I hold it? Laas thought, shaken. She still couldn’t move. And she needed to run, to get away from there—

  Another flicker of pale fire from that circle. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Hiriv coming. And Masejih twitched too; just from that tiny break in concentration, her hold on him failed somewhat. He gripped her arm harder, began to pull her toward the circle. No, she commanded again, setting the claw in as deep as she ever had with anyone, until the force of it made her head ache. Be still, just stand there and worship me—

  Masejih subsided again. Laas turned her attention to Hiriv—too late; her head rang with the slap from behind, her concentration fell apart, and there was another paw on her. “Meddling little bitch,” Hiriv snarled. “You want to know about magic, we’ll show you—small loss to us—”

  Then he reeled as Laas drove the claw into him. She felt utter satisfaction. How many poor mrem had she done this to, on his orders? Let him see how he liked it now. Hiriv sagged, a great bloated bag of desire, and looked at her with moon eyes. Laas thought longingly of the way Reswen looked at her, all directness and merriment, and gulped back a sob, and concentrated on holding both Hiriv and Masejih still at once. It could be done. She had done it before—

  —But before, that horrid dark presence had not been lowering at her, beating at the walls of its confining circle, as eager to get hold of her as she was to be out of there. It was more eager for her by far than these were, for all the hold she had on them at the moment. A little movement came back to her. She glanced up at the thing, in the process of turning her head to look down at the hallway—but then she froze again as those eyes rested on her, swallowed her, drowned her in cold pale light, willed her into nothingness, hungered for her as it hungered for the stones and the little flasks of water bound at its feet in the circle—

  She fought it. It was a losing fight, and she knew it, as first Hiriv and then Masejih came free of her spell, and they dragged her toward the circle. They went across the floor in a strange halting sort of parade, as she would strike first one of them, then the other with desire for her, and one or the other would halt, would gaze into her eyes or start to take her into his arms. There would be a struggle as the first one tried to pull the other and Laas along. And then she would feel that awful dark regard pressing, pressing on her, and she would lose her hold, and both of them would become their own mrem again, and pull her onward again—

  And then they crossed through into the circle, and her talent left her entirely. Laas collapsed to her knees, freezing cold, frozen stiff, at the feet of the dark thing. Claws reached down toward her; she could do nothing to prevent it, could not even scream. She could only stare in ultimate horror into those pale cold eyes as the cord came around her neck from behind and squeezed, squeezed, squeezed everything black—

  •

  Reswen saw her: saw the hideous dark shape bending over her; saw Masejih behind her with the strangling cord, choking her life out; saw Hiriv with his arms raised, chanting almost in an ecstasy of evil; and he saw the stones, and the bottles of water, and understood what was happening. But worse, he understood what was happening with Laas, and that was much more important. He leapt out of hiding and raced for the circle.

  The priest and the wizard paused, stared at him expectantly, with what might have been incipient laughter on their faces. Reswen drew the knife and ran at them—and bounced away from nothingness, and fell on the floor, swearing—

  Another voice was raised up, crying Reswen had no idea what words. As he rolled to a standing position again, he looked over his shoulder and saw Lorin standing there behind him, looking more terrified than even Reswen had ever seen him, eyes squeezed shut so that he wouldn’t have to look at the looming terror in the middle of the circle—but standing with arms raised, chanting. Can words look like something? Reswen thought, for there seemed to be bright movement in the dark, throbbing air where Lorin stood, bright shapes lancing away from him almost too fast to see. They arched through the air like fired arrows and buried themselves in the barrier that had stopped him. It wavered, flickered with pale light and with colors, as if the two kinds of words warred with each other—

  Perhaps they did. Reswen saw the look of amusement turn into fear on Hiriv’s face, and the priest fumbled what he was chanting, faltered, began chanting something else, a hurried sort of litany. Pale fire began to drive out the colors in the circle barrier. But Lorin kept o
n chanting, louder; and Hiriv made the mistake of looking up at the dark thing that lowered over him, seeing the malice and balked hunger in its eyes—

  There was suddenly a patch of barrier that wasn’t pallid at all, but all colors. Reswen took his moment, dove through it, and crashed into Masejih, knocking him over and away from Laas. She fell to the patterned floor, choking and coughing, her eyes bloodshot with the near-strangling and her face bloated out of its usual shape. All this Reswen noticed with the anguish of love, but he had no time to do anything about it. Cold pale eyes were on him. He rose up and put himself between the lowering shape and the stones and bottles of water.

  It bent its eyes on him, and he started to freeze with terror. The thing smiled at him, a smile that promised worse than death, much worse—a long, leisurely sucking-dry that would leave him a little dried-out husk after what would seem centuries, but would actually be only minutes. And after that it would do its will on Laas anyway. There was nothing he could do to stop it—

  Its arm reached toward him. Reswen, sick with fear, still did what he could to protect his city: one last blow—it would not get at the stone and water without at least that. The rose-and-gold knife swung, gleamed in the paleness, drove into the thing’s arm—

  And with the quick jolting hesitation of a perfect stroke, it went through! In astonishment Reswen heard its high, awful scream, watched it flail and bleed darkness in great gouts. Its face was full of rage and astonishment. It reached for him with the other arm; he slashed that too, at the inside elbow where the blood vessels are closest to the surface—

  Something grabbed his arm. “You can’t do that, it’s impossible!” Masejih screamed. “Invulnerable to iron and fire—”

  Reswen, bemused, looked at the knife with affection despite all the madness going on around him. “It’s not iron,” he said. “But it does work as a knife.” And to prove it, he put the knife right up to its hilt in Masejih, underneath the collarbone—an incapacitating strike, not a killing one. He’ll live long enough for questioning, anyway, Reswen thought, and turned his attention back to the dark shape in the circle.

  It was writhing and screaming, an awful high thin sound. Good, Reswen thought, and crouched to pick up the stones and bottles of water. He pitched them out of the clear patch in the circle. The stones shattered; the bottles smashed and the water ran out, blots on the rammed dirt of the floor.

  The screaming that began now made all the rest look paltry. It came to Reswen that this was an extremely good time to get out. He picked up the still-gasping Laas and half hauled, half carried her out of the circle through the narrowing patch of color. Masejih’s going to have to take his chances. “Seal it up! Seal it up!” he shouted at Lorin. Lorin simply stopped chanting.

  And the circle was all pale fire again, and the dark, screaming shape in it looked for someone to wreak its vengeance on. It threw itself against the bounds of the circle, found there was no way to get at Reswen and Laas and Lorin—then turned, and looked long and lovingly at the two who were trapped inside with it.

  Laas was kneeling retching on the floor; Lorin was running up the corridor and out of sight, all his courage done with. So only Reswen saw what happened to them. He didn’t stay for more than a few breaths, just enough time for Laas to recover herself. But it struck him as amazing how much blood a fat mrem like Hiriv had in him....

  He picked her up, then, and ran as best he could. When Laas struggled in his arms, he put her down and let her lean on him, and they ran, or rather staggered, together. The screams coming from behind him were getting more and more terrible. They lurched up the stairs together, out into the main hall on the ground floor level, found one of the windows onto the garden unlatched by Lorin, and tumbled out through it. The urge to simply lie there, in the cool green grass, in each other’s arms, was very strong, but Laas this time struggled to her feet and helped Reswen get up. They ran for the back of the garden.

  They were barely on top of the garden wall when the front half of the building simply shattered itself like a beer keg with too much ferment in it, knocking them down on the other side. The explosion rained stones and glass and wood down on half the city. All around, after the initial terrible roar, they could hear the clatter of stones hitting cobbles, hitting houses, the occasional distant scream as they hit mrem, or almost hit them. One thing went up and did not come down: a pale-eyed shape like a black wind, black even against the night, which went up screaming with satiated hunger and vanished, melted into darkness.

  Reswen and Laas sat there on the pavement and put their arms around each other, and simply wept. Strength would be required tomorrow, but in the meantime, this was more important....

  •

  She rose up in her wrath. She felt the spell which she had commanded her pet to enact come apart like an old torn skin, she saw her mission go to tatters; and worst, she felt her pet die, devoured by the wretched little vermingod. That should have been her prerogative, none other’s. The rage rose up in her, blotting out even her terror at what would happen to her now that she had failed her masters. She would wreak her vengeance on this place at least; they would wish, those few of them she might leave alive, for the fate which was now denied them, that of simple slow starvation. They would beg her for their lives yet, and she would deny them all—

  •

  “Get up,” Lorin said. “Oh, for pity’s sake, get up. This is no time for it. Come on!”

  “If you don’t shut up,” Reswen muttered into Laas’s fur, “you’re going to go to gaol, do you know that?”

  But Lorin was in no mood, apparently. “Reswen, get up!! You’ve got to do something!”

  “About what?”

  “About that!”

  Reswen looked up, unwilling, and then became befuddled. There seemed to be a pillar of fire rising up from somewhere across town. “What the—”

  “The liskash,” Lorin said—and his voice dropped to a whisper, as if he was afraid it might hear him.

  Oh gods, he did see it, Reswen thought. All his fur stood up on end at once. What the hell do we do about that?

  “Come on,” he said to Laas, and helped her up. “He’s right, we do have to do something—”

  She looked off toward the sudden violent brightness in the sky, and shuddered. “How could it be?” she said. “They’re extinct—at least, we thought—”

  “We were meant to think so,” Reswen said, brushing himself off hurriedly. “Come on, we have to get out of here and do something about that thing—”

  But what? he thought, as together he and Laas and Lorin picked their way over and through the rubble that had showered down from the Lloahairi Embassy. The place was a dead loss; the Lloahairi were going to have to rebuild it from scratch—and this time, Reswen thought, I’m going to insist they build it on bedrock, by the gods! The street in front was knee-deep in rubble. Mrem were running around and screaming, and other mrem, far enough off down the street not to have been involved, were standing in their gateways and staring curiously at the uproar. A few constables were trying to dig about in the mass of fallen stone and masonry. Reswen’s heart tightened in him as he saw a half-crushed leg and tail underneath a stone. But he felt no qualms whatever about grabbing the arm of the young constable who was trying to pull the stone off the extremely dead mrem underneath it.

  “Forget that just now,” Reswen said. “It’s Miav, isn’t it? Miav, leave this and get you down to the constabulary. I want half the available force here. Everyone else who can be spared must go straight to Haven. No one is to try to deal with what they find there. Just surround the place and keep people out of it. Understand me? Then get going!” He pushed the youngster hard in the back. Miav stumbled, and headed off. “And call out the city cohorts!” Reswen shouted after him. “Get them there too!”

  Miav waved, didn’t stop running, turned the nearest corner leftward and dashed out of sight. “Come on,” Reswe
n said. “We have to get there first.”

  “And do what??” Lorin cried.

  “You tell me,” Reswen said, grabbing him by the arm and starting to run himself. Laas leapt after him, lithe and easy even after everything she had been through. “What can you do about a Iiskash?”

  “Me??” Lorin laughed as he gasped, and started running along in earnest. “What makes you think—there’s anything I can do? This is a liskash—this is what almost made an end—of our people—”

  “But they didn’t,” Reswen said, gasping too, and not caring, as they turned the corner and pounded down through the Whites. “We must have—done something right—”

  “They died out!” Lorin said, panting, desperate, as they turned a corner. “They just died—”

  “Nothing just dies! There had to be a reason! Magic—”

  Lorin shook his head desperately. Laas came up on the other side of him from Reswen, took his arm, helped him run. “Their magic is more powerful than ours, they’ve mastered fire—”

  Reswen was watching the glow in the sky ahead of them grow, and was secretly wondering whether there might not be something to this. “And we have other masteries. Don’t we? Why would a liskash have come here at all unless we had something it needed?”

  Lorin panted and ran on a distance between Reswen and Laas before gasping, “Possible. Our gods are different—”

  “And our magics are different. Aren’t they, Lorin? Here’s your chance,” Reswen said, and gasped for air himself as they turned another corner. Was the air hotter here? Certainly the light was growing ferocious ahead of them. All of Haven might have been on fire. Oh, my people underneath ... please be out of there, get out!—