by Joe Jackson
Of course, Kari thought. That’s why Sakkrass has those scars, and showed me those scenes of battle against the…mallasti, elestram, and erestram. She looked up. “In my dream, Sakkrass showed me that his people fight yours; I think he is the same deity as Ashakku. Are your people used as infantry in the Overking’s army?” The mallasti girl nodded. Kari turned to her friends. “Damn. Do you two have any other questions?”
“Of course,” Danilynn said. “If we can get back to the pendant you hold for a minute, what is the symbol behind the masks? Does it hold some meaning?”
“It is the traditional symbol for life, and is synonymous with Be’shatha herself,” the mallasti girl explained. “It is unusual that a syrinthian priestess, let alone their high priestess, would bend knee to the Great Mother. It is even more unusual when you consider that Be’shatha is dead – or asleep, as my people would say. They say that a god never truly dies: their essence only goes into sleep until the faith of the people is strong enough to re-awaken them. Thus far, this has not happened for our goddess. What syrinthian priestess do you speak of when you say she served Be’shatha?”
“The mother of the girl we’re going to try to release,” Danilynn answered.
“Ah, now I understand,” Uldriana said. “So it is your hope that this girl, this priestess that King Sekassus holds prisoner, will tell you more of what I have already told you?”
“That’s our hope, yes,” Kari said. “Although with all due respect to your mother, I’m half-tempted to simply kidnap you, and take you back home with us.”
The mallasti’s eyes went wide, but then she let out a tense chuckle. “That might be safer than remaining here, after everything I have told you. What else can I share with you, or are you satisfied that I am not keeping things from you?”
“I don’t understand how Se’ceria ended up serving Be’shatha if, as you say, Be’shatha is your goddess and dead. Why wouldn’t she have served Ashakku?” Danilynn asked.
“I cannot say,” Uldriana answered. “Though our deities are considered siblings, it is most typical for our kinds to worship our own. I wish I could tell you more.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kari said. “Take a rest. We can ask you more questions later, or you might find that you remember other things you need to tell us. In the meantime, why don’t you show Sonja some more about her arcane power?”
Uldriana nodded, and Sonja thanked Kari for thinking of her. Kari moved to sit beside Danilynn, and they slid their chairs closer together. “Does this all mean what I think it does?” Kari asked.
Danilynn beheld her curiously, but there was a lot going on in the priestess’ mind, Kari could tell. “You mean regarding you and the Temple?” she asked quietly. Kari nodded. “I’m thinking it probably does. If these demon kings can kill a god, then there’s no telling what it will take to stop them. Our gods are powerful, but even the greatest among them is dead now; if the Overking and his lieutenants can kill elder gods, our entire pantheon could be insufficient to stop them, as blasphemous as that sounds.”
“It doesn’t sound blasphemous, it sounds practical,” Kari said, putting her finger to her chin. “And if peoples’ suspicions about the Temple holding the power to make one a god are true, then the prospect of these ‘Ancient Ones’ getting their hands on that is terrifying.”
“But there is hope, if what Uldriana’s people think is true,” Danilynn offered. “If there’s a way to reawaken Be’shatha, then all together, when they know what to expect, the gods may be able to turn the tide back against the Overking.”
“And we’re about to try to snatch Sakkrass’ – or Ashakku’s – high priestess from the clutches of the kings,” Kari offered. She tapped a black claw on the arm of her chair absently. “Danilynn, do you suppose, if what Uldriana says is true, that it’s possible we could reawaken Gori Sensullu?”
The priestess’ blue eyes almost seemed to glow, so full of determination. “That was the first thing I thought,” she answered. “But if the strength of the peoples’ faith is the key, it’s hard to know just how to accomplish such a thing.”
“But it probably has to do with the Temple,” Kari said. “But I think this is something we’re better off waiting until we get home to go over in detail. Just don’t let me forget.”
“Believe me, I won’t,” Danilynn chuckled.
Kari and Danilynn took advantage of Sonja and Uldriana’s lesson to make use of the bath chamber, and to wash their armor and clothes. Kari briefly interrupted the arcanists’ lesson to ask about restocking food and supplies in the city, but Uldriana asked her companions to wait until she could go with them in the morning. With a short-term plan in place, Kari and Danilynn spent the evening practicing the infernal tongue, and Kari managed to make fairly considerable progress learning the basics.
Chapter XIV – Dancing Shadows
Kari expected she’d sleep well. The golden plains of Tess’Vorg cooled off at night, but not so much that it became chilly. It felt like early summer, but Kari wondered if it was like that year-round, or if Mehr’Durillia experienced seasons like her own world. The upper floor of the hostel was warmer, but with the windows open, the dormitory Kari shared with Uldriana stayed comfortable, the air fresh. The city was quiet at night; other than the soft sound of the wind past the windows, and the barely-noticeable drone of Uldriana breathing, the room was nearly silent.
Kari started to nod off, but the more her mind raced through the things Uldriana had told her, the harder she found it to cross the threshold into the land of dreams. The information the mallasti girl had shared so freely was invaluable, but a part of Kari wondered how much she could trust it. It had been enough of a shock to Kari and her Order to find that the serilis-rir were not demons; the Order had been founded on hunting them, as until only recently they were called serilian demons. To now find that the underworld was not the underworld, and its demons were not demons, left Kari feeling adrift, helpless and clueless. If she and her fellow hunters had failed to recognize the true nature of their “enemies” for this long, Kari had to wonder how many other things they misunderstood.
Finding that King Koursturaux was not only a “true” demon king, but that she was also involved in the murder of this world’s creator, left Kari more fearful for being involved with her. If Kari ended up trapped in Koursturaux’ service, that would leave the entire Order exposed to the demon king’s machinations. If Koursturaux and her fellow demon kings had managed to kill a goddess at least as powerful as Gori Sensullu, how much of a chance did Kaelariel and the rest of his fellows stand against them? It was a terrifying thing for Kari to consider: if the demon kings could kill gods, what chance did any of her people stand?
The best chance she could think of was to play the demon kings against each other; after all, that was how the Overking apparently kept his subordinates in line. Kari wasn’t sure her deities, let alone her fellow hunters or even her brother-in-law Aeligos, were sharp enough to play the political games that would keep the demon kings fighting each other. As it stood, the demon kings were all in a subtle state of war with each other, but apparently that didn’t stop them from waging war on other gods and, to some extent, Citaria. It seemed they used their shadow demons – or just demons, if what Uldriana said was accurate – to fight their war on other worlds and their gods, but they used the mallasti, elestram, and other races of Mehr’Durillia to entertain themselves here and on Citaria.
It was a disheartening thing to consider. Kari and Danilynn had spoken at length, and Danilynn had reached one of the same conclusions as Kari. Several sources had mentioned that King Emanitar and King Koursturaux were once lovers; combined with the knowledge that Koursturaux had helped kill the mallasti deity, Kari could only conclude that Emanitar had betrayed his own deity. Everything Kari had heard regarding King Emanitar painted him as what she would almost call benevolent, but if he had aided in killing his own goddess for power, it could only mean that while he didn’t feel beholden to the Overking, he wa
s really no better.
Kari sighed and tried to drift off to sleep. The weightless feeling that preceded it started to take hold, and Kari whispered a silent prayer to Sakkrass. She wanted to speak to him in her dreams if she could; she felt guilty for the way she’d reacted to seeing his true face, and wanted to make sure things were still right between them. Kari had been predisposed to distrusting snakes throughout her lives, and the thought that her prejudice – justified or not – had insulted or hurt her adoptive father stung.
Kari slept peacefully and dreamed of her son, but she didn’t relive any memories or transcend into any sort of out-of-body experience. Sakkrass was still quiet towards her, and that thought clung to her when she opened her eyes in the deep gloom of the pre-dawn morning. The room she shared with Uldriana was nearly lightless, and even with the strong night vision she possessed as a rir, Kari could barely see anything. Once her eyes adjusted fully to the pitch dark, she saw that Uldriana was no longer sleeping alone: the mallestrem proprietor was snuggled up with her in the other bed.
Kari left the room silently and checked in on her friends. Sonja and Danilynn were still asleep. Kari briefly considered taking a bath while she had the place to herself, but she decided against running the automated water pumps and disturbing her roommates. Instead, she dressed quietly in her armor, belted on her swords, and decided to take a stroll on the nearby streets while they were deserted in the early morning. She left the shared room, and descended the stairs with the practiced steps of someone who’d been a rogue in her earlier days, but she found there was an elestram in the sitting area when she reached the commons.
The beige-furred jackal “demon” glanced up at Kari with emerald eyes, and he asked her something in that other language. Kari shrugged her shoulders slightly and shook her head to demonstrate that she didn’t understand. The elestram tried again, this time in the infernal tongue, but Kari repeated her gesture. His third attempt was in a heavily accented dialect of rir; he was far from fluent, but he managed to get across, “Where do you go?”
“I was going to take a walk, and look around at your city a bit,” Kari answered.
There was only the briefest hesitation as he translated her words in his mind. He spoke again in halting, broken rir, and Kari made out that he said, “Take care that the watch do not mistake you for a prowler at this hour.”
Kari nodded and stepped out through the open archway into the streets. Close to the entryway of the hostel, the streets were lit by arcane sources, but they were dim, lighting only the immediate area. Kari looked side to side down the long streets and saw that despite the arcane advance in lighting, the city was still kept dark so that its residents could sleep easily. She set her feet down the road toward the coliseum, wondering if she could get a better look at it early in the morning when no one was about. Curiosity had the better of her: she wondered if prisoners or slaves were thrown into it to fight for their lives, or if perhaps it was a stadium for playing those games the mallasti youngsters had participated in.
The deeper darkness of the streets away from the hostel’s lighted entryway led Kari to cast her glance skyward. The night sky was once again a brilliant tapestry of shining stars and what looked like celestial clouds, and now Kari could see the sliver of a crescent moon barely above the horizon. Mehr’Durillia, as Uldriana had insisted, was no “underworld” realm at all: it was a planet, not unlike Citaria, but that knowledge did little to ease Kari’s tensions.
Uldriana insisted her people weren’t demons, but were conquered by them at some point in ages past. If this world of Mehr’Durillia had been invaded by what Kari and her Order termed as shadow demons, then she could well understand how the world’s collective peoples had been conquered. Kari had only succeeded in “fighting” the demon because it was in possession of a mortal form, and she had only driven it away, not killed it, and then only thanks to Sakkrass. If faced with an army of such entities, Kari had to wonder if any world could stand against them.
Kari brought her thoughts back to her current trek, and she scanned the darkness around her for any sign of trouble. There wasn’t a soul on the streets with her: it was eerily quiet, so much so that she could hear the trickle of the aqueduct running high above, delivering water to different parts of the city. Kari considered how DarkWind seemed to have people on its streets at all hours of the night for one reason or another, and she found it interesting that the city of Rulaj, home of supposed “demons,” was by contrast lifeless in the dark, pre-dawn hours.
She reached the coliseum and found that it, too, had open archways that welcomed her to enter without a key or permission. She climbed up the stone steps, wide and well-spaced to allow for a comfortable ascent – there was that elestram architecture again – and eventually reached an intersection where paths led to seats. Kari’s jaw dropped in amazement as she beheld the design of the interior. The seats were stone, but were carved into comfortable-looking shapes rather than being simple, flat stone benches, and their backs were designed to take the different tails of the Mehr’Durillian races into account. The stadium looked to accommodate several thousand spectators, and Kari’s eyes took in the green field in the center. As she had suspected, it seemed to be a field for their football or lacrosse matches. She could even see that there were irrigation ducts that fed from the aqueduct to keep the field well-watered and green.
She began to pace around the path she’d arrived at from the stairs, and came across what looked to be a chalkboard behind a table. If her instincts were right, it was for keeping track of odds and bets, and it meant the games were not just for sport, but for wagering on as well. Kari saw a throne farther along, and guessed the king often took in the matches and games himself. She continued along her path toward the throne, looking out over the field and the rest of the coliseum, and she was impressed with it despite the fact that it wasn’t as large as the one back home in DarkWind.
Kari looked to the far end of the arena and saw there was someone else there, standing near one of the arching exits. At first she didn’t make anything of it, but once her eyes focused in the darkness, she saw that it was a succubus. The lithe demoness had glowing golden eyes, but Kari couldn’t make out much more detail at that distance in the dark. It did strike her as odd that there was someone else out in the arena at the odd hour, but she chuckled as she imagined the succubus could say the same of her. Kari continued around the inner row of seats, but the succubus made no move to either get closer or farther away.
When the demonhunter finally reached the base of the stairway that led up to where the succubus stood, she could make out more detail with her night vision, and her blood nearly froze. Even in the murky gloom of pre-dawn, Kari’s night vision was strong enough to make out the pale white skin, the slitted nostrils, and the golden, snake-like eyes. She took in the succubus’ armor, the weapons she had sheathed at her hips and on the sides of her thighs, and the cloak that wasn’t even covering her blue-black, leathery wings. It had been several weeks, but Kari knew exactly who she was looking at.
It was Turillia.
There was a silent, motionless few seconds between the two of them, but then the half-succubus turned and walked down the stairs. Kari hesitated, trying to decide whether to draw her swords, but she ruled against it unless she ended up in combat. It would be strange enough for her to have to explain why she was chasing a half-succubus assassin down the streets of Rulaj, but a lot more dangerous if she was brandishing weapons while she did so. She charged up the steps, but rounded each corner warily, giving a wide berth to assure she wasn’t ambushed.
By the time she reached the streets, Turillia had a sizeable lead, though the half-succubus continued to walk, all the better to remain inconspicuous. Kari slowed to a brisk walk, hoping she could gain ground on her enemy without drawing the attention of any wandering guards or sentries. Turillia looked back at her every so often, but she didn’t stop, and gave no sign that she was interested in fighting – at least not here and now. Kari st
arted to wonder if the half-succubus was leading her somewhere – perhaps outside the city – in the hopes that they could duel again where no one would interfere.
If you’re smart, that’s not what you’re thinking, Kari thought. Her mind whirled while she had the luxury of thinking as she walked. Turillia had been killed, she had been sure of it; her throat was torn out, the eyes were glazed over and lifeless, and she’d been given last rites and burned by the priests of the god of death. Unless she had, by some demonic trickery, managed to be reborn here on Mehr’Durillia, Kari simply had no explanation for it.
Unless it wasn’t Turillia at all. That led Kari to wonder how common half-syrinthian, half-succubi might be, and whether they were a tightly-knit group. There was also the possibility that this was an unrelated member of whatever assassin’s guild Turillia had belonged to. If it wasn’t Turillia – or even if it was – there was a distinct possibility that Kari was being led into an ambush to be captured or killed.
Kari stopped following the half-succubus. There was simply no good outcome to be had by chasing her, and the demonhunter reminded herself that even in the realms of Kings Emanitar and Morduri, she was an outsider and possibly seen as an enemy, and their protections might not extend to her. Kari knew she had to be smart about things, and if it turned out this was Turillia, or someone else looking for revenge, she had to force them to come to her, and not be baited into a trap herself.
Kari looked around, but she was on the far side of the arena from where her hostel was, so she began to retrace her steps back toward the coliseum. She walked at the ready, prepared for Turillia to strike from the shadows at any moment, but her hypervigilance caught the eye of an erestram guard approaching from a side street. The ten-foot wolf demon – or person, Kari thought to herself – stared at her coldly, and then it fell into step behind her and began to follow her. Kari was actually glad for the escort, though; it seemed unlikely that she would be attacked by anyone when she had an erestram guard following her.
