by Joe Jackson
Kari started to introduce herself by her Lady title, but thought perhaps it would be best if she was as unassuming as possible. “Karian Vanador,” she introduced herself, and then she gestured toward her friends. “These are my friends, Danilynn Stahlorr and Sonja Tesconis.”
The elder mallasti studied Danilynn and Sonja for a minute before he turned his gaze back toward Kari. “You may stay here for two nights, demonhunter, just as His Majesty has ordered, and we will aid you in the way His Majesty has decreed. Understand, however, that you are not welcome here, and we do this for His Majesty’s sake, and not yours.”
Kari bowed her head. She hadn’t expected a warm welcome, and wasn’t getting one; there was little surprise there. “You have what we’re supposed to deliver to King Sekassus?” she prodded.
“We do,” the elder responded with the barest of nods. “It will be provided to you, just as His Majesty has decreed. We will speak more on this later. For now, go and sit by our people on the field; let them get used to seeing you among them.”
Kari wasn’t exactly pleased with that idea, but if she and her friends would be staying in the village for a couple of nights, she figured she’d better get used to the hyena demons as much as possible. She turned to Morduri, who nodded but otherwise made no protest or complaint about how the elder had addressed Kari and her friends. The two guards returned at a beckoning gesture from the elder, and Kari glanced at Danilynn and Sonja again. Before either of the two women could ask a question, one of the guards spat on the ground and then spoke to them in the infernal tongue.
There was a brief exchange between Sonja, Danilynn, and the guides – complete with spitting – and then Danilynn turned to Kari. “What’s with all the spitting?” Kari asked. “Not that I was expecting a warm welcome, but…”
“It’s the language,” Sonja said. “Every time we speak to them in the infernal tongue, I can feel them get offended. It’s not what we’re saying; it’s the language we’re using to say it.”
“Correct,” Morduri said. “They consider the infernal tongue to be the language of evil, and accordingly, they don’t like to speak it unless they have to.”
“Well, that’s certainly…surprising,” Kari muttered. She wondered exactly what sort of language they considered their own tongue to be, but decided that would probably be a rather poor question to pose on their first meeting.
Morduri gestured the women away, so they followed their guides to the clearing on the east side of town. The majority of the mallasti people were watching the football contest among the youngsters. Kari could scarcely believe her eyes, but it was an actual football match taking place. Eleven youngsters wearing the wood-and-bone chest pieces were playing against eleven others who wore nothing. The mallasti didn’t seem to bother with clothing, even for modesty’s sake. It was an interesting contrast to the elestram, though Kari had only ever seen Morduri in the nude.
The match continued for some time, and Kari studied the mallasti rather than paying any real attention to the score or play. The majority of these mallasti had the deep, reddish-brown coats with the dark spots, and black hands, feet, and snouts. There were a few that had lighter tan or brown coats with more of a charcoal gray coloration to their extremities. Interestingly, the color of their ears seemed to have little to do with the coloration of the rest of their coats: some had tan ears, others black, and others gray. Most of them had yellow eyes, but some had brown or even green eyes, and a rare few had that fascinating orange color that Emma possessed. All of them had short, furry tails, and stood between six and six-and-a-half feet tall.
Kari listened to the barked instructions of the coaches, the calls from the adults watching, and even the banter of the players as the match wore on. She tried to place the language, hoping there might be some memory of it from Sakkrass buried deep in her subconscious. Nothing came to mind, and Kari became increasingly glad that the mallasti could at least speak infernal, no matter how much they might have disliked it, and that the elder did indeed speak the common trade tongue of Citaria. Kari wondered how many others besides the elder could.
Kari hardly noticed when the match came to a close. She was sitting in the short grass at the side of the field, generally ignoring the adults and their children as they made their way back to the village. The mallasti seemed just as happy to ignore Kari and her companions, and Kari was having a hard time understanding just what was going on around her. She knew the demons reproduced the same way mortals did, but that their children partook of sports struck Kari as out of place. Her hackles rose as she felt herself being lulled into a state of complacency, and she glanced around suspiciously, taking in the faces of her companions to gauge their thoughts.
Before she could even establish eye contact with either Sonja or Danilynn, one of the young mallasti came up and handed Kari the leather ball. He said something to her, but it wasn’t in infernal, so neither Kari nor her friends had any idea what he was saying. The youngster left Kari with the ball and ran to catch up with the other mallasti heading to the village. Kari looked at the sun, past the apex and retreating towards the distant hills to the west, and then she spared her two friends a glance. They seemed just as bemused by the entire ordeal, so with a shrug, Kari got to her feet and followed the mallasti back to the center of the village.
“What’s going on here?” Kari asked no one in particular. Many of the families were gathered around the center of the village, where Morduri stood with the elder. The demon king and the elder mallasti were conversing in that other language again, and Morduri was clearly perturbed by the topic at hand. When Kari and her companions made their way to the demon king’s side, the demonhunter repeated her question.
“My favorite part of every visit to one of my peoples’ towns or villages,” he answered sarcastically. “When I have to explain to them that I’m not interested in marrying any of their young, unwed daughters. Or older, married ones, for that matter.”
Kari had to stifle a laugh, and the way Danilynn and Sonja suddenly found some of the villagers very interesting told her they felt the same. Still, as amusing as the situation was – not to mention the elestram king’s perturbed reaction – Kari guessed it had to be rather frustrating to constantly have people trying to marry you. Suddenly, the way her brothers-in-law were treated on a regular basis made her feel uncomfortable, and she wondered if the continued pestering they received from their mother and others had anything to do with their resistance or inability to settle down. When Kari considered her suspicions about how Morduri really felt about Emma, it almost made her pity him.
Several anxious, young-looking mallasti girls were being prodded before the demon king by their overzealous family members, and Morduri went back to trying to delicately explain why he wasn’t interested. It went on for some time, but once it became apparent to the mallasti that Morduri wasn’t going to change his mind, they gradually gave up, allowing the embarrassed young women to retreat to other parts of the village. There they congregated and talked amongst themselves, though whether they were glad for his lack of attention or disappointed that they had missed an opportunity to marry the king, Kari couldn’t tell.
A part of Kari expected them to have a large communal gathering around the bonfire, but the families each retired to their teepees for supper, leaving the three rir females alone near the village’s central fire pit. Morduri bid Kari and her companions stay near the fire pit while he went into the large dwelling of the elder’s family. No fire was burning yet, so Kari sat down and pulled her pack between her knees, and she began to dig through it for the rations she’d brought. The smells of roasting meat filled the village before long, and Kari was strangely disappointed that the mallasti didn’t offer her any of their food. She and her friends began to eat their rations quietly, and Kari wondered when the elder would come out to speak with them again.
Raised voices drew Kari’s attention to the elder’s teepee, but it didn’t sound like a fight so much as very powerful speakers engage
d in debate. She glanced at Sonja and Danilynn to see if they could make out any of what was being said. “They’re speaking that other language again, but I can feel fear,” Sonja said. “They’re not afraid of us, but they’re afraid of us being here, it seems. If I could get closer, I might be able to actually hear what some of them are thinking, but I don’t think that would be polite or well received.”
“Quite right,” came the oddly-accented voice of a female mallasti. The accent was a bit like Emma’s, but it spoke more of a lack of consistent practice than a regional dialect. “You will find that my people are open and forthright, if you but ask what is on your mind. If you seek to steal our thoughts, what little tolerance and trust you have found will be lost.”
Kari rose to her feet as the mallasti female stepped before her. The girl had that same reddish-brown coat with black highlights as seemed common among her people. Her eyes were that golden-yellow color, and she stared at Kari intensely rather than with the impassiveness that marked most of her people. Like the other females Kari had seen, this mallasti wore no clothing, but other than the curve of her hips and the protrusion of her breasts, her furry coat was heavy in all the right places to hide her gender-specific features. Kari held out her hand and started to introduce herself, but the girl interrupted her.
“You are Karian Vanador, a Hand of Zalkar,” she said, making no move to shake Kari’s hand. “Yes, I know. You have been the subject of much debate and discussion since our king brought you to our village. I am called Uldriana; who are your companions?”
Kari introduced Sonja and Danilynn, and the young mallasti woman took each of them under her scrutiny in turn. She seemed to find Sonja the more interesting of the two, holding Kari’s sister-in-law under that intense gaze for several long minutes. Kari assumed Uldriana could sense the divine and arcane power in her two friends, though what it meant to the mallasti girl, Kari wasn’t sure. Ultimately, Uldriana turned her attention back to Kari without saying a word to either of her companions.
Uldriana said, after a delay, “Your presence has already spread alarm through our village. Were it not for the orders of the king, you would have been sent away, or perhaps worse.”
“Has your king told you what we intend to do with Sekassus?” Kari asked.
The impassive gaze of the mallasti gave way to one of disbelief before she spoke again in quiet tones. “You would do well not to refer to any of the kings so casually,” she warned. “If you call King Sekassus by his proper name without his proper title while in his presence, it will most likely be the last thing you say.” Kari nodded apologetically; she did need to stop making that mistake, whether on purpose or not. The mallasti girl made no gesture of approval in return. “I am aware of your intent; as I am one of the few members of our village who can speak your tongue, I am likely to be the one sent along as your guide.”
That got everyone’s attention more fully, but before Kari could ask anything, Sonja cut in to ask, “Are you a practitioner of the arcane?”
Uldriana regarded the scarlet-haired woman with an odd expression, and Kari guessed she probably had to translate everything that was said to her. From the sound of her voice and the fact that rir were very rare on Mehr’Durillia, Kari assumed Uldriana had very little time or opportunity to practice speaking the Citarian trade tongue. “Virtually all of my people are,” she said. “You hope to ask me to teach you, perhaps?”
“If we’re going to be traveling together,” Sonja agreed hopefully. “I’m quite familiar with the arcane arts, but I have trouble with it at times, and thought maybe someone with such an innate grasp of it might be able to help me figure out why.”
“I will ask if that is acceptable to my elders,” Uldriana answered. “Remain here; I will go and ask, and see what else is being discussed that you have been tempted to eavesdrop upon.”
The young mallasti woman went to and entered the tent where the meeting was taking place. Kari looked to her two companions. She felt like they’d said something wrong or perhaps just too much of the right thing, but Sonja and Danilynn didn’t say anything. Sonja kept looking at the tent, and Kari assumed she was still tempted to go try to pick up surface thoughts. It made Kari wonder if Sonja could even do so, given that the mallasti spoke in a different tongue; could her sister-in-law read the thoughts of those who thought in a different language?
Danilynn was looking at the tent too, but once Uldriana disappeared inside, the priestess turned to Kari. “With King Morduri having demanded a service from you, I have to wonder if they’re discussing what you’ll owe this village for whatever it is they’re going to give up,” she said. “Did he give you no indication of what he’d want?”
“Nothing specific, other than to promise me it wouldn’t be anything against my nature, and that it would be for his people, and not just him,” Kari said. “Amastri said my payment to King Koursturaux would cover any bargains made with other kings, but that’s not the case, and I don’t know if King Morduri is going to regret going against her word. As far as I’m concerned, though, I’m going to give her what I agreed to give her, and let her figure out the rest.”
“One thing I can tell you,” Sonja said, turning her attention away from the elder’s tent, “is that when I have heard people mention King Koursturaux, they speak of her in terms of fear. But when these folk speak of or to King Morduri, it’s in terms of respect. Most people are afraid of King Koursturaux, but though I can’t make out what’s being said, they seem content to serve King Morduri. There is a stark difference here; when anyone spoke of King Koursturaux – I could almost taste their fear. Not so with King Morduri.”
“Eli talked about her a little,” Kari said. “He seemed hesitant to really go into much detail about her, outside of the way she looked and the fact that she was terrifying.”
“Not even just terrifying,” Danilynn added. “I just remember...when those black eyes look at you, it’s like…like time stops around you. It’s hard to describe, but being in the presence of something so ancient, so powerful, and so malevolent, you feel as though your heart is going to stop and your blood is going to freeze. Like all hope leaves you, and the prospect of even fighting back is an impossibility.”
Kari sighed quietly, wondering if the same would hold true when they stood before King Sekassus. Kari wanted to negotiate from a position of strength or at least on even terms, but the prospect of being frozen in terrified awe was not something she wanted to go through. She knew Koursturaux was of higher station than Sekassus on the Council, and she had to wonder just how much more powerful the female demon king was than Kari’s enemy. If Kari could stand strong in the presence of King Sekassus, it might cause the demon king to lose face with his subjects and his peers alike, and that might make King Koursturaux more likely to help Kari and her friends in the future, at least when Sekassus was involved.
The demonhunter turned her attention to the tent. The voices within were quieter now, but there was still an urgency in those foreign words that Kari didn’t have to be fluent to pick up on. She thought on Sonja’s words and realized that with the underworld being in a “subtle” state of war at probably all times, the subjects of one king being embroiled in schemes involving another was probably something they despised. Even if ordered directly by King Morduri, the people would ultimately be the ones who paid the price if the Crimson Huntress’ plan angered Sekassus or one of the other kings. That was generally how war worked, even where Kari was from: the nobility declared it, the commoners paid for it.
A mallasti male emerged from one of the other tents as the light began to fail, and he said something in that dialect that none of the rir women understood. He gestured toward the fire pit, but then he waved off his own words and approached. With a gesture, he sent a brief jet of blue flame into the remains of the prior night’s pile of wood, and the fuel that had not been consumed quickly caught fire. The mallasti nodded curtly to the women and then made his way back to his teepee, from which his mate watched the exchang
e with that impassive expression. Both of them disappeared inside without another word.
Kari was thankful for the source of light and warmth. The evening turned cool up on the hillside, but with a decent fire going, the night air was kept at bay. “Did you see that?” Sonja asked incredulously. “He just…he just did that with a gesture! How do these people have such a grasp on the arcane?”
“It’s in their blood,” Kari said. Sonja was insecure enough about her arcane prowess; to see the mallasti use it so casually surely wasn’t going to help. “That was one of the things I learned when I was hunting Turillia down in Barcon. The mallasti have arcane power in their very blood. I gather it doesn’t take them much to learn to use it, whereas someone like you, or me, or even Master Maelstrom takes years or decades to learn it.”
Sonja twisted her draconic lips to the side for a moment, apparently not exactly pleased with that answer. “True enough,” she said in contradiction to her expression. “Maelstrom has told me a number of times that he didn’t master the arcane until his seventh decade. He seems to find it amusing, in a sense, that I expect to have it mastered before thirty, or to be able to do the things he does when he’s at least two hundred years older than I am.”
“Nobody graduates from the Academy as an Avatar of Vengeance,” Kari said, one of the jokes that cadets often told to keep their feet grounded. The most “dangerous” demonhunters were not the Avatars of Vengeance, the Fists of Retribution, or the Hands of Zalkar; it was the rookies, the first- and second-year initiates that were swollen with newly-learned knowledge but none of the wisdom that came with years of experience. That was why the Order had its new graduates work as local law enforcement for a time before they were sent out to actually begin hunting their enemies.
