The Oathbound

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Rumors?” Tarma prompted, pouring his tan kark full again, and sliding a silver piece under it. “Well, we little care for rumors, eh? What’s rumor to a fighter but ale-talk?”

  “Plague take rumors!” he agreed, but his face was strained. “What’ve magickers and demons got to do with us, so long as they leave our masters in peace?” He drained the vessel and pocketed the coin. “So long as he leaves a few for me, this Thalhkarsh can have his fill of whores!”

  “Thalhkarsh? What might that be? Some great lecher, that he has need of so many lightskirts?” Tarma filled the tankard for the third time, and kept her tone carefully casual.

  “Sh!” the mercenary paled, and made a cautionary wave with his hand. “ ‘Tisn’t wise to bandy that name about lightly—them as does often aren’t to be seen again. That—one I mentioned—well, some say he’s a god, some a demon summoned by a mighty powerful magicker. All I know is that he has a temple on the Row—one that sprang up overnight, seemingly, and one with statues an’ such that could make me blush, were I to go view ’em. The which I won’t. ‘Tisn’t safe to go near there—”

  “So?” Tarma raised one eyebrow.

  “They sent the city guard trooping in there after the first trollops went missing. There were tales spread of blood-worship, so the city council reckoned somebody’d better check. Nobody ever saw so much as a scrap of bootleather of that guard-squad ever again.”

  “So folk huddle behind their doors at night, and hope that they’ll be left in peace, hmm?” Kethry mused aloud, taking her turn at replenishing his drink. “But are they?”

  “Rumor says not—not unless they take care to stay in company at night. Odd thing though, ‘cept for the city guard, most of the ones taken by night have been women. I’d watch meself, were I you twain.”

  He drained his tankard yet again. This proved to be one tankard too many, as he slowly slid off the bench to lie beneath the table, a bemused smile on his face.

  They took the god-sent opportunity to escape to their room.

  “Well,” Tarma said, once the door had been bolted, “we know why, and now we know what. Bloody Hell! I wish for once that that damned sword of yours would steer us toward something that pays!”

  Kethry worked a minor magic that sent the vermin sharing their accommodations skittering under the door and out the open window. Warrl surveyed her handiwork, sniffed the room over carefully, then lay down at the foot of the double pallet with a heavy sigh.

  “That’s not quite true—we don’t really know what we’re dealing with. Is it a god, truly? If it is, I don’t stand much chance of making a dent in its hide. Is it a demon, controlled by this magician, that has been set up as a god so that its master can acquire power by blood-magic? Or it worse than either?”

  “What could possibly be worse?”

  “A demon loose, uncontrolled—a demon with ambition,” Kethry said, flopping down beside Warrl and staring up at nothing, deep in thought.

  Their lantern (more fish-oil) smoked and danced, and made strange shadows on the wall and ceiling.

  “Worst case would be just that: a demon that knows exactly how to achieve godhood, and one with nothing standing in the way of his intended path. If it is a god—a real god—well, all gods have their enemies; it’s simply a matter of finding the sworn enemy, locating a nest of his clerics, and bringing them all together. And a demon under the control of a mage can be sent back to the Abyssal Planes by discovering the summoning spell and breaking it. But an uncontrolled demon—the only way to get rid of it that I know of is to find its focus-object and break it. Even that may not work if it has achieved enough power. With enough accumulated power, or enough worshipers believing in his godhood, even breaking his focus wouldn’t send him back to the Abyssal Planes. If that happens—well, you first have to find a demon-killing weapon, then you have to get close enough to strike a killing blow. And you hope that he isn’t strong enough to have gone beyond needing a physical form. Or you damage him enough to break the power he gets from his followers’ belief—but that’s even harder to do than finding a demon-killing blade.”

  And, needless to say, demon-killing weapons are few and far between.“

  And it isn’t terribly likely that you’re going to get past a demon’s reach to get that killing blow in, once he’s taken his normal form.“

  Tarma pulled off her boots, and inspected the soles with a melancholy air. “How likely is that—an uncontrolled demon?”

  “Not really likely,” Kethry admitted. “I’m just being careful—giving you worst-case first. It’s a lot more likely that he’s under the control of a mage that’s using him to build a power base for himself. That’s the scenario I’d bet on. I’ve seen this trick pulled more than once before I met you. It works quite well, provided you can keep giving your congregation what they want.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Well, I’d suggest we wait until morning, and see what I can find out among the mages while you see if you can get any more mercenaries to talk.”

  “Somehow I was afraid you’d say that.”

  They met back at the inn at noon; Tarma was empty-handed, but Kethry had met with a certain amount of success. At least she had a name, an address, and a price—a fat skin of strong wine taken with her, with a promise of more to come.

  The address was in the scummiest section of the town, hard by the communal refuse heap. Both women kept their hands on the hilts of their blades while making their way down the rank and odorous alleyway; there were flickers of movement at various holes in the walls (you could hardly call them “doors” or “windows”) but they were left unmolested. More than one of the piles of what seemed to be rotting refuse that dotted the alley proved to be a human, though it was difficult to tell for certain if they were living humans or corpses. Kethry again seemed blithely unaware of the stench; Tarma fought her stomach and tried to breathe as little as possible, and that little through her mouth.

  At length they came to a wall that boasted a proper door; Kethry rapped on it. A mumbled voice answered her; she whispered something Tarma couldn’t make out. Evidently it was the proper response, as the door swung open long enough for them to squeeze through, then shut hurriedly behind them.

  Tarma blinked in surprise at what lay beyond the alleyside door. The fetid aroma of the air outside was gone. There was a faint ghost of wine, and an even fainter ghost of incense. The walls were covered with soft, colorful rugs; more rugs covered the floor. On top of the rugs were huge, plush cushions. The room was a rainbow of subtle reds and oranges and yellows. Tarma was struck with a sudden closing of the throat, and she blinked to clear misting eyes. This place reminded her forcibly of a Shin‘a’in tent.

  Fortunately the woman who turned from locking the door to greet them was not a Clanswoman, or Tarma might have had difficulty in ridding her eyes of that traitorous mist. She was draped head to toe with a veritable marketplace-full of veils, so that only her eyes showed. The voluminous covering, which rivaled the room for color and variety of pattern, was not, however, enough to hide the fact that she was wraith-thin. And above the veils, the black eyes were gray-ringed, bloodshot, and haggard.

  “You know my price?” came a thin whisper.

  Kethry let the heavy wineskin slide to her feet, and she nudged it over to the woman with one toe. “Three more follow, one every two days, from the master of the Blacke Ewe.”

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “How comes this thing they call Thalhkarsh here—and why?”

  The woman laughed crazily; Tarma loosened one of her knives in its hidden arm-sheath. What in the name of the Warrior had Kethry gotten them into?

  “For that I need not even scry! Oh, no, to my sorrow, that is something I know only too well!”

  The eyes leaked tears; Tarma averted her gaze, embarrassed.

  “A curse on my own pride, and another on my curiosity! For now he knows my aura, knows it well—and calls me—and only the wine can stop my fe
et from taking me to him—” the thin voice whined to a halt, and the eyes closed, as if in a sudden spasm of pain.

  For a long moment the woman stood, still as a thing made of wood, and Tarma feared they’d get nothing more out of her. Then the eyes opened again, and fixed Kethry with a stillettolike glare.

  “Hear then the tale of my folly—‘tis short enough. When Thalhkarsh raised his temple, all in a single night, I thought to scry it and determine what sort of creature was master of it. My soul-self was trapped by him, like a cruel child traps a mouse, and like cruel children, he and his priest tormented it—for how long, I cannot say. Then they seemed to forget me; let me go again, to crawl back to myself. But they had not forgotten me. I soon learned that each night he would call me back to his side. Each night I drink until I can no longer hear the call, but each night it takes more wine to close my ears. One night it will not be enough, and I shall join his other—brides.”

  The veils shook and trembled.

  “This much only did I learn. Thalhkarsh is a demon; summoned by mistake instead of an imp. He bides here by virtue of his focus, the bottle that was meant to contain the imp. He is powerful; his priest is a mage as well, and has his own abilities augmented by the demon’s. No sane person would bide in this town with them rising to prominence here.”

  The woman turned back to the door in a flutter of thin fabric and cracked it open again. One sticklike arm and hand pointed the way out. “That is my rede; take it if you are not fools.”

  Tarma was only too pleased to escape the chamber, which seemed rather too confining of a sudden. Kethry paused, concern on her face, to reach a tentative hand toward the veiled mystery. The woman made a repudiating motion. “Do not pity me!” she whispered harshly. “You cannot know! He is terrible—but he is also glorious—so—glorious—”

  Her eyes glazed for a moment, then focused again, and she slammed the door shut behind them.

  Kethry laced herself into the only dress she owned, a sensuous thing of forest green silk, a scowl twisting her forehead. “Why do I have to be the one pawed at and drooled over?”

  Tarma chuckled. “You were the one who decreed against using any more magic than we had to,” she pointed out.

  “Well, I don’t want to chance that mage detecting it and getting curious!”

  “And you were the one who didn’t want to chance using illusion.”

  “What if something should break it?”

  “Then don’t complain if I can’t take your place. You happen to be the one of us that is lovely, amber-haired, and toothsome, not I. And you are the one with the manner-born. No merchant-lord or minor noble is going to open his doors to a nomad mercenary, and no decadent stripling is going to whisper secrets into the ear of one with a face like an ill-tempered hawk and a body like a sword-blade. Now hurry up, or the market will be closed and we’ll have to wait until the morrow.”

  Kethry grumbled under her breath, but put more speed into her preparations. They sallied forth into the late afternoon, playing parts they had often taken before, Kethry assuming the manners of the rank she actually was entitled to, playing the minor noblewoman on a journey to relatives with Tarma as her bodyguard.

  As was very often the case, the marketplace was also the gathering-place for the offspring of what passed for aristocracy in this borderland trade-town. Within no great span of time Kethry had garnered invitations to dine with half a dozen would-be gal lants. She chose the most dissipated of them, but persuaded him to make a party of the occasion, and invite his friends.

  A bit miffed by the spoiling of his plans (which had not included having any competition for Kethry’s assets), he agreed. As with the common folk, the well-born had taken to closing themselves behind sturdy doors at the setting of the sun, and with it already low in the west, he hastened to send a servant around to collect his chosen companions.

  The young man’s father was not at home, being off on a trading expedition. This had figured very largely in his plans, for he had purloined the key to his father’s plushly appointed gazebo for his entertainment. The place was as well furnished as many homes: full of soft divans and wide couches, and boasting seven little alcoves off the main room, and two further rooms for intimate entertainment besides. Tarma’s acting abilities were strained to the uttermost by the evening’s events; she was hard-put to keep from laughing aloud at Kethry’s performance and the reactions of the young men to her. To anyone who did not know her, Kethry embodied the very epitome of light-minded, light-skirted, capricious demi-nobility. No one watching her would have guessed she ever had a thought in her head besides her own pleasuring.

  To the extreme displeasure of those few female companions that had been brought to the festivities, she monopolized all the male attention in the room. It wasn’t long before she had sorted out which of them had actually been to one of the infamous “Rites of Dark Desires” and which had only heard rumors. Those who had not been bold enough to attend discovered themselves subtly dismissed from the inner circle, and soon repaired to the gardens or semi-private alcoves to enjoy the attentions of the females they had brought, but ignored. Kethry lured the three favored swains into one of the private rooms, motioning Tarma to remain on guard at the door. She eventually emerged; hot-eyed, contemptuous, and disheveled. Snores echoed from the room behind her.

  “Let’s get out of here before I lose my temper and go back to wring their necks,” she snarled, while Tarma choked back a chuckle. “Puppies! They should still be in diapers, every one of them! Not anything resembling a real adult among them! I swear to you—ah, never mind. I’d just like to see them get some of the treatment they’ve earned. Like a good spanking and a long stint in a hermitage—preferably one in the middle of a desert, stocked with nothing but hard bread, water, and boring religious texts!”

  No one followed them out into the night, which was not overly surprising, given the fears of the populace.

  “I hope it was worth it,” Tarma said, as casually as she could.

  “It was,” Kethry replied, a little cooler. “They were all very impressed with the whole ritual, and remembered everything they saw in quite lurid detail. It seems that it is the High Priest who is the one truly in command; from the sound of it, my guess was right about his plans. He conducts every aspect of the ritual; he calls the ‘god’ up, and he sends him back again. The god selects those of the females brought to him that he wants, the male followers get what’s left, or share the few female followers he has. It’s a rather unpleasant combination of human sacrifice and orgy. The High Priest must be the magician that summoned the demon in the first place. He’s almost certainly having the demon transform himself, since the god is almost unbearably attractive, and the females he selects go to him willingly—at least at first. After his initial attentions, they’re no longer in any condition to object to much of anything. Those three back there were positively obscene. They gloated over all the details of what Thalhkarsh does to his ’brides,‘ all the while doing their best to get me out of my clothing so they could demonstrate the ’rites.‘ It was all I could do to keep from throwing up on them.”

  “You sleep-spelled them?”

  “Better, I dream-spelled them, just like I did with our ‘customers’ when I was posing as a whore back when we first met. It’s as easy as sleep-spelling them, it’s a very localized magic that isn’t likely to be detected, and it will keep our disguises intact. They’ll have the best time their imaginations can possibly provide.”

  Kethry looked suddenly weary as they approached their inn. “Bespeak me a bath, would you, dearheart? I feel filthy—inside and out.”

  The next night was the night of moon-dark, the night of one of the more important of the new deity’s rituals, and there was a pair of spies watching the streets that led to Temple Row with particular care. Those two pairs of eyes paid particularly close attention to two women making their cautious way through the darkened and deserted streets, muffled head-to-toe in cloaks. Though faint squeals a
nd curses showed that neither of them could see well enough to avoid the rocks and fetid heaps of refuse that dotted the street, they seemed not to wish any kind of light to brighten their path. Gold peeked out from the hoods; the half-seen faces were old before their time; their eyelids drooped with boredom that had become habit, but their eyes revealed a kind of fearful anticipation. Their destination was the Temple of Thalhkarsh. They were intercepted a block away, by two swiftly moving figures who neatly knocked them unconscious and spirited them into a nearby alleyway.

  Tarma spat out several unintelligible oaths. The dim light of a heavily shuttered dark-lantern fell on the two bodies at her feet. Beneath the cloaks, the now unconscious women had worn little more than heavy jewelry and a strategically placed veil or two.

  “We’ll be searched, you can bet on it,” she said in disgust. “And where the bloody Hell are we going to hide weapons in these outfits?”

  In truth, there wasn’t enough cover among the chains and medallions to have concealed even the smallest of her daggers.

  “We can‘t,” Kethry replied flatly. “So that leaves —Warrl?”

  Tarma pursed her lips. “Hmm. That’s a thought. Fur-face, could you carry two swords?”

  The kyree cocked his head to one side, and experimentally mouthed Need’s sheath. Kethry took the blade off and held it for him to take. He swung his head from side to side a little, then dropped the blade.

  Not that way, Tarma heard in her mind. Too clumsy. Won’t balance right; couldn’t run or jump—might get stuck in a tight doorway. I want to be able to bite—these teeth aren’t just for decoration, you know! And anyway, I can’t carry two blades at the same time in my mouth.