by Joe Jackson
She thought about Taesenus’ sword and what the demon king could possibly want with it. Obviously, it was a vorpal sword: a blade reputed to be honed so fine that it could cut through virtually anything, including incorporeal spirits. It was the kind of weapon warriors and soldiers alike dreamed about: one that would let them cut down their enemies regardless of armor or skill. Kari couldn’t wrap her head around what a demon king would want with such a weapon, aside from equipping a champion with it. That thought gave her pause, and she wondered if another warrior like Taesenus was going to rise up and began decapitating people with that sword. If that came to pass, it would be Kari’s fault.
Kari’s mood turned somber with that thought, and she glanced at her companions to try to take her mind off of it. Kari wondered if Uldriana or her people truly had any idea what their kin did when they went to Citaria; the whole village seemed rather passive, even docile. They didn’t seem like the type of mallasti Kari had hunted and killed in the past, or like those a king would send to do their dirty work. It was possible that was just what they wanted Kari to think, but she doubted they could all put up such a charade, or that they even cared enough about what Kari thought to do so. It was possible that they were ‘soldiers’ in the same sense that Kari’s own people were: when not at war or under war-like command, they were regular people. If that same concept held true for demons, it was quite a revelation to Kari.
She was really at a loss as to what to make of Uldriana or her people. The concept of demons that were not completely rotten was baffling, but that thought brought to mind Celigus Chinchala. If it was possible for a demon king to turn coat and ally himself with the gods of another world, who was Kari to say it wasn’t possible for the rank-and-file demons of this underworld, Mehr’Durillia, to do so? Kari had mentioned the idea of cultivating insurgents among the demons: all the better to help the Order combat the schemes of the kings. Now that thought seemed less far-fetched. If Uldriana really was what she appeared to be on the surface, and there were more like her beyond her village, then there was hope that Kari and her Order could find allies among their enemies.
Kari was mindful of such thoughts; Uldriana had recognized that Sonja was empathic and partially telepathic, so Kari was suspicious that the mallasti girl might be so as well. Kari turned her attention to her friends. Sonja took in Uldriana’s lesson eagerly, and Danilynn scanned from horizon to horizon while they walked. Kari thought she would have to get Danilynn to teach her the infernal language: the priestess’ fluency was apparent when she spoke. Kari wondered if Uldriana would be willing to teach her some of the mallasti dialect, if the length of their journey would permit it. At the least, those two languages would make interesting additions to those Kari already knew: the Citarian trade tongue, the rir tongue, elvish, and czarikk. Kari thought it also might help in the future, should she need to visit the underworld again, or else converse with demons that showed up on Citaria. To Kari, it was amusing that the Citarian trade tongue she mostly routinely used was the one she was the least fluent in.
“I was thinking maybe you could teach me the infernal language,” Kari said to Danilynn, and the priestess wasn’t the only one to give their attention to her. Uldriana looked at Kari, too, so she added, “Maybe you can teach all of us some of your own language, whatever it’s called.”
“It is called beshathan,” the mallasti girl said. “I can teach you some of it if you like, but I doubt this journey will be long enough for me to teach you enough to make much use of.”
“Why’s it called beshathan?” Kari prodded.
“That is what our people are called,” Uldriana answered. “We are mallasti, elestram, and erestram, but all together we are called beshathans by the others. Accordingly, our three races share this tongue we likewise call beshathan.”
“But what does the name mean? Where did it come from?” Kari pressed.
Uldriana made a dismissive gesture. “That is a topic for another time, perhaps,” she said. “I would rather not speak of such things with you. Not at this time, anyway.”
She went back to speaking with Sonja, so Kari and Danilynn exchanged a glance and shrugged. “Infernal can be a pretty tedious language to learn, but I’ll do my best to teach you,” the priestess said. “It’s much easier to teach when one can learn to read and speak it at the same time, but we can start with the alphabet, common words and phrases, and how to at least express that you’re not fluent in it, for practical applications. Gods know Aeligos picked most of that up in a few hours.”
Kari chuckled and the women walked on into the later afternoon. Kari was adept at detecting trailing parties, and she was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone on their tail. Sonja was able to confirm it when they made camp for the night, when she and Uldriana used their life-detection enchantment to explore the plains around them. They seemed to still be safe and undetected, and though she kept her guard up, Kari was satisfied with that.
Chapter XIII – Uldriana’s Trust
Early the next morning, two large creatures appeared on the horizon as the women got underway. It didn’t take long for Kari to make out enough detail to recognize that it was a pair of harmauths, the massive, muscular ram demons being quite distinctive in appearance even at a distance. She pointed out their approach to the others, but Uldriana didn’t seem concerned at all.
“Do not be alarmed, harmauth patrols are common near the borders of Tess’Vorg,” the mallasti girl said. “If you run, they will take you into custody. Better we take a leisurely pace and allow them to stop us if they choose to. Sonja, you may drop your masking enchantment; they will not be fooled by it anyway.”
Kari looked to Sonja, and her sister-in-law nodded; Uldriana wasn’t trying to deceive them. Kari had never seen a harmauth before, and she wasn’t looking forward to doing so for the first time when she was in hostile territory. Uldriana didn’t seem all that concerned, so Kari took that as a minor comfort, and tried to stay calm. A sudden look of doubt crossed Sonja’s face, and Kari picked up on it and guessed her sister-in-law didn’t know how to summon her greatsword just yet. Danilynn seemed to sense Sonja’s trepidation, too, and she tried to subtly hand Sonja the decapitator she had strapped to her back.
Uldriana watched the exchange of weapons with a furrowed brow. “Be at ease; they are not coming to harm us,” she said almost soothingly. “Even if they were, your weapons would likely do little more than annoy them.”
Kari nodded but rested her hands on her belt just in front of the hilts of her blades. The two ram demons called out something in infernal as they closed the distance to the group of women, and Uldriana answered. Sonja and Danilynn didn’t look to be alarmed by the exchange, so Kari waited to see what else would happen. It was aggravating to always be the odd one out, unable to understand the bulk of what was being said around her, but Kari tried to keep those feelings from her features.
The harmauths were both close to or just over ten feet tall when their long strides straightened out their bent legs, and they were absurdly muscular, such that they made even Kari’s in-laws look normal. Their hides were a dull brown that faded to a lighter shade across their bellies, and their horns were pearly-white. Kari couldn’t tell if they were male or female at a glance; they had long tufts of hair in various places to hide gender and accent their forms. They didn’t have pronounced breasts, but Kari knew so little about them that it told her nothing. Their red eyes blazed, but they didn’t appear angry when they drew closer. One blew out a loud snort that startled Kari.
There was a brief conversation between Uldriana and the harmauth sentries. Though their dark hooves pawed the ground impatiently every so often, the guards seemed satisfied with whatever Uldriana told them. For that matter, so did Sonja and Danilynn, which Kari found a lot more comforting. She watched the swinging tails of the ram demons, which looked more like those of a lion, with a hairy tuft on the end. Kari wondered how expressive the tails were for the harmauths. It was only then that she came to the realization
that they not only wore no clothes, but they carried no weapons. She had to wonder: was a harmauth that powerful that they didn’t even need weapons to deal with unruly members of the other demon races?
The conversation lasted only a couple of minutes before the harmauths made dismissive gestures and continued on their way. Uldriana motioned for the others to follow her, but Sonja spoke up. “Is it true?” she asked. “Are you taking us to the city of Rulaj, and possibly to see King Emanitar?”
“That was not my intention,” Uldriana said with a shake of her head, “though if you wish to see an elestram city, or meet with one of the eldest kings on all of Mehr’Durillia before we go to Saristor, we can do so. My intention was to travel towards Rulaj, but to go around it.”
“What did the harmauths have to say?” Kari asked.
“They just asked where we were headed, not much more,” Danilynn answered. “It’s strange that they simply took Uldriana at her word, but they did.”
Kari considered that; it was possible it was all part of a trap, but it was also possible that what Uldriana had told her so far was true, and the guards in Tess’Vorg simply weren’t nosey. “Will it be dangerous for us to go to Rulaj?” she asked the mallasti girl. “Or will it delay us for too long?”
“King Emanitar may find you to be a curiosity,” she answered. “I am not sure how he would react to finding that you are a hunter. I would assume he may believe that you are in his realm to cause trouble, and ask you to depart, but he would not likely cause you harm unless you gave him reason to do so.”
“But Rulaj will otherwise be safe to, say, get a bath and resupply?”
An odd look crossed Uldriana’s face. “Yes. Provided we do not announce ourselves or draw attention, King Emanitar will not likely take enough of an interest in three rir females to come see to us himself. We should be able to indulge ourselves in a bath, and take a night’s rest in a hostel without impacting the speed of our travels.”
“How far is it to Rulaj?”
“Three or four days’ travel,” the mallasti said, glancing to the northwest. “If you have never seen an elestram city before, it may be quite a tale to tell your friends when you return to your own home.”
Kari nodded. “So the elestram prefer cities? They don’t live out in the open country like your kind?”
Uldriana began walking again, and Kari and her companions followed along. “No, the elestram are a much more urban people, preferring their impressive architecture to the simple beauty of living in tandem with nature. They are the most intelligent of our peoples, and they build cities of not only impressive design and decor, but also of wonders that are not found in the other parts of Mehr’Durillia. It is hard for me to put into words; you will see for yourself.”
They continued on for a few more days, crossing the golden fields of Tess’Vorg. The realm was as beautiful three days in as it had been at the border. They passed by other travelers, villages of mallasti, and the occasional harmauth patrol. None of the patrols stopped or even stared at the four women after the first time, and other than a curious glance here or there, the three rir women didn’t seem to attract much attention. The more Kari thought about it, it seemed to her that Uldriana drew more attention than Kari, Sonja, or Danilynn, perhaps because she was seen as leading the rir women on their journey.
True to form, Uldriana interspersed some more lore and knowledge about Emanitar and his realm in between her lessons with Sonja. She talked a great deal about King Emanitar, most notably the fact that even with three mistresses and having been kast’wa to King Koursturaux, he had yet to sire an heir of either gender. Kari hadn’t considered it when Uldriana first mentioned it, but it became apparent that was an issue in light of King Sekassus’ attempt at murdering the mallasti king. In the back of her mind, Kari began to wonder if King Emanitar might be unable to sire a child.
Kari was amazed that the journey had proven as worry-free as Amastri had suggested. She knew things were bound to change for the worse when they reached Sorelizar, but Kari started to get more and more curious about King Emanitar and, to a lesser extent, King Morduri. She wondered what it was the two neighboring kings wanted from their positions, and whether or not they were ever involved in plots against Citaria. While civilized and seemingly benevolent on the surface, Kari had doubts that they were that way to anyone besides their own people, and that in terms of their threat to Citaria, they were still enemies of Kari’s people.
Not long after lunch on the fourth day within Tess’Vorg, the city of Rulaj came into sight. It was a rather conspicuous city on the open plains, and a lot of its detail was readily apparent even at a fair distance. Obelisks, sandstone statues, and walls inlaid with colored mosaics or bas relief artwork became identifiable even a mile from the city’s edge.
“This place looks beautiful,” Sonja commented.
“It certainly does,” Danilynn agreed. “Rather reminds me of the ice temples back home, or the terraced temple district of Dira Ch’Tori.”
The closer they got, the more detail they could see: an aqueduct, several structures that appeared to be windmills, a grand and stately coliseum, and, not the least, a fortress-palace with high, pointed towers topped by flying flags. The flags, oddly enough, depicted a lion with the spots of a hyena all over it.
“Wow,” was all Kari could manage to mutter as they continued along toward the city. Uldriana glanced at her with a slightly subdued smile.
They began to follow a wide, dusty road, and traffic picked up as they got closer. Just as Kari had suspected over the past few days, a lot of the stares were actually directed at Uldriana. Kari and her friends, by comparison, didn’t draw much more than curious glances, no doubt because the people weren’t used to seeing rir. It further reinforced Kari’s perception that the people were more curious about why one of their own traveled with rir women.
The people here were all clothed, just as Uldriana had suggested back in Moskarre. The mallasti tended to wear hand-woven, light garments made more for modesty than protection, though occasionally they were woven to include leather bits. Their garments were colorful and artistic by design, and many of the females they passed were wearing the pup carriers. Most of these had only a single pup in them, which Kari found curious. Most of the females in Moskarre had carried or nursed two to four pups at a time. Kari wasn’t sure if this development pointed to a high rate of infant mortality, or if those in Moskarre had raised their pups communally.
A smile found its way to Kari’s face as she thought of the mallasti children as pups, and she had to remind herself not to become too enthralled with the demons. They were strange and new, and so Kari found them quite interesting, but she couldn’t afford to fall for the charms they possessed as a people and forget what they truly were. Kari understood she still had yet to see the absolute truth of this underworld, but everything from the stars at night, to the docility of the people of Moskarre, to the tolerance the people as a whole showed Kari and her friends, pointed to something being off with her Order’s perceptions.
The elestram replaced the mallasti as the most prominent of the demon races when the friends reached the outer limits of the city. They were not unlike “The Wraith,” the elestram who’d saved Kari from the syrinthian assassin Irressa, and who acted as a not-so-imaginary friend for Kari’s son for months. The elestram were taller and more slender than the mallasti, most standing close to seven feet tall – or more when one took into account their high, pointed ears. They were lithe and graceful, and though they didn’t appear to build bulky muscle like the harmauths or even the mallasti, their long, lean muscles had a deceptive strength. Their faces were expressive, but seemed to most commonly have the same impassive, cold expression that the mallasti did. Their eyes were fascinatingly bright in color, and were ringed by either black flesh or short black fur that had the same effect as eyeliner.
Kari took in the details of the elestram as they scrutinized her and her friends in turn. Many of the laborers wore clothing
similar to that of the mallasti, but with more leather bits, allowing holsters and hooks for tools to be built right into their attire. The others wore very stylish pieces that were aesthetically pleasing and accentuated the alien beauty of their people: both males and females preferred chest coverings, but females left their bellies exposed and wore garments that drew attention to their hips. Kari found it strange that the elestram women would cover their breasts, but not the smaller nipples on their bellies. The smaller nipples weren’t prominent, and were usually fairly difficult to make out through the fur, but Kari was a stranger, so they drew more attention from her than other elestram or mallasti.
The other details about the elestram that drew her attention were the different types of body art. Facial decorations seemed common: threaded beads or tasseled jewels between the brows of the females, lovely drawn or tattooed patterns under the eyes and across the cheeks, or sometimes they had shaved patterns on the arms that were underscored by tattoos. Earrings were common on both males and females alike, and with their long, pointed ears, some of them had dozens of rings through their pierced lobes. Kari saw one or two with an eyebrow or even navel piercing, but these seemed rather rare. Since Kari had no navel as a rir, she found the navel piercings to be the most interesting.
Uldriana walked slowly to allow Kari and her friends to take in the sights of the city, so Kari took full advantage of it. The windmills weren’t like the typical ones Kari saw back home: these ones were tall and narrow, with fans that seemed as much for decoration as a practical purpose. They functioned in much the same way, but there were more of them in a small area, suggesting their design allowed them to be placed closer together without lower efficiency. Kari was no architect, but she could tell the elestram had put a lot of research and effort into honing their building crafts. The aqueduct struck Kari as odd, since the only source was a tower that seemed to be its beginning, and Kari wondered how or from where the tower produced water.
