Demontech: Onslaught

by David Sherman

  Master Yoel walked the short distance to the end of the corridor, felt along the edge of a ceramic half column, then fiddled with the bottom of a frieze a couple of feet beyond on the opposite wall. The innkeeper tugged on a tassel from a hanging tapestry, stepped to the wall facing the tapestry and inserted his fingertip into a recess Spinner didn’t see until Master Yoel’s fingertip disappeared into it. The innkeeper didn’t turn at the corner at the end of the corridor; instead, he placed both hands on the blank wall at the corner and shifted them in a strange pattern. After the innkeeper removed his hands, a section wide as a door slid aside in the wall and exposed a stairway leading down. Flickering orange light came through the hidden doorway. The flickering briefly gave Spinner the terrifying impression the cellar was on fire and Master Yoel was leading him into a conflagration.

  Master Yoel looked over his shoulder at Spinner, simpered, then scampered down the stairs. Spinner stood at the head of the stairway for a moment as he realized there was no fire below, and eyed the stairs suspiciously. The source of the orange light was an oil lamp that flickered at the bottom of the stairs, which went down much farther than one would expect for a storage cellar. At the foot of the stairs there was a doorway to the left. Spinner couldn’t see what it opened into, and wished he had a weapon like the saber he had left behind on the Sea Horse. But wishing wouldn’t create a sword. He put a hand on the hilt of his belt knife for reassurance, remembering the hungry way the innkeeper looked at his purse. But, still, he followed the innkeeper down the stairs.

  No ambush waited at the doorway below, which revealed another corridor, its walls carelessly whitewashed stone. There was no troll-light, just what was provided by oil lamps sitting on shelves. Curved, polished brass mirrors behind the lamps reflected uneven orange light into the corridor. Set into the walls at intervals of about three paces were stout timber doors inset with tiny windows shuttered from the outside; they looked like the doors of prison cells.

  “The women who work in the inn,” the innkeeper said over his shoulder, “their quarters are down here. The doors are thick, you won’t have to worry about the noises they make tonight disturbing you.”

  That sounded vaguely threatening to Spinner; it meant that no one behind those doors could hear any noise he made either. He loosened his knife in its sheath and listened carefully for the sound of a door stealthily opening behind him.

  But robbery was not the innkeeper’s motive for leading Spinner into this cellar corridor. He stopped outside one of the timber doors and rapped on it. Then he opened the door and bowed Spinner through. Spinner noticed that Master Yoel didn’t have to unlock the door before he opened it. He went through the doorway ready, he hoped, for anything. He started at the click of a lock being turned in the door as it closed. What he saw then erased all thought of the door or the possibility of ambush.

  At first he could not believe he had been magically transported to a heavenly seraglio. Several dozen candles lit the room with a soft glow; some of the candles burned in wall sconces, others sat in candelabra on low tables. Many-hued curtains festooned the walls and draped the ceiling. Woven carpets were piled on the floor to such a thickness that walking on them was like walking on a firm mattress. Large cushions were scattered here and there, perhaps as seats. Cushions were piled behind the curtains against the far wall—or where Spinner surmised the far wall was. The colors of all were pastels punctuated by gold, save for the carpets, which were the yellows, reds, and browns that make up the color of gold.

  Four pictures hung, two on each side wall. One was a painting in an archaic style, of horsemen spearing a leaping stag; another, with skewed perspective, showed a walled city from a nearby height. A third was of a palace courtyard, with many women dressed as the Golden Girl had dressed for her dance, walking through it, sitting, or standing about. The fourth painting brought a pang to his heart, for it was of a vase of pangia flowers, flowers he hadn’t seen since he left home.

  A bronze statuette of a dancer who could only be the Golden Girl graced one of the tables, unclothed save for her sash, jewelry, and coins—and she had no anklet. Spinner was looking at the carved ivory elephant cow and calf on another table when he realized he wasn’t alone in the room.

  In a corner, seated on a cushion on the floor with her ankles crossed in front of her, was the Golden Girl.

  “I almost thought you would never see me,” she said in a voice that was half husky, half wind chimes. She stood, and her movement seemed to Spinner even more graceful and effortless than had her dancing earlier.

  At the sight of her, his throat constricted and his tongue felt swollen.

  The Golden Girl glided softly toward him, and he became aware that she was not wearing the same costume that she wore for her public dancing—now she had on a flowing, diaphanous gown that covered her from neck to floor. Or would have covered her except that he could see through it, and it was all she wore. “He said someone would pay for me tonight,” she murmured seductively, and held a languid hand out to him.

  Spinner wanted with every atom of his body to reach out to that hand and take the woman. But the sight of her body through the gown stopped him for a moment; he had to simply look at her. Her breasts were more perfectly proportioned and set than he imagined any to be. Her waist dimpled more smoothly than he could have guessed when he saw her on the stage, even though he saw it clearly there. Her belly curved deliciously. Her hips flared so gracefully he thought he could bury himself in their embrace, locked in by her legs, and never come out. The fine hair of her pubes was the same color as the hair on her head.

  He looked at her for so long she became impatient. “Come and take what you have paid for,” she said at length, and in those words there was an indication that she had not chosen this rendezvous, and the message that he could look and touch and take, but never possess. All that, in the edge to what she said, jarred his mind to awareness, and he finally realized the language she had been speaking. It was unflawed Apianghian, but her words sounded odd, with the musical rhythms her voice held.

  He suddenly found his voice. “You speak to me in Apianghian,” he said in his native tongue—a language in which no one else in the inn had spoken to him, or heard him speak, except, briefly, Doli.

  “Of course. In what other tongue should I address a countryman?”

  “But you aren’t Apianghian,” he said weakly, shocked by her claim of kinship. “Apianghians are like me, dusky and dark haired. You are fair and golden.”

  A corner of her mouth quirked. “You lowlanders,” she snorted. “Hemmed in as you are by seas and mountains, you think you are all there is. None from the lowlands ever visit the mountains—except for the royal tax collectors.” She shook her head scornfully. “If Frangerian traders never came to your shores, you’d think you were the only people in the entire world.”

  “You are from the mountains?” he asked, as though she spoke a riddle, which her words may as well have been from the welter of confusion he felt. Some part of his mind reminded him that he’d learned as a boy that the people of Apianghia’s northern mountains were golden of hair and fair of skin.

  “From the northern mountains, yes.” Her lips curved in an ironic, almost mocking smile. “But if you prefer, I can talk to you,” she switched languages, “in Frangerian. You must have had a reason for leaving home if you have become a Frangerian Marine. Perhaps you wish no reminder of your home.” A trace of taunt entered her voice. “Maybe you are sorry you came to me? Maybe you want to leave now?”

  “How do you know I’m a Frangerian . . .” His voice slowed and stuttered to a stop. He was barely capable of coherent thought.

  A corner of her mouth twitched. “Everyone knows the uniform.” She pulled the flowing gown close around her, as if not allowing it to flow would make the cloth opaque; one arm half covered her still-seen breasts, the other partly concealed her loins. Suddenly she was just a woman—the most beautiful woman Spinner had ever seen, but just a woman. No longer was sh
e the mystical houri of only a moment before.

  Spinner blinked rapidly, swallowed a few times, struggled to control his thoughts. A woman of the Apianghian north—he accepted her claim—a dancer, and . . . and . . . He couldn’t make himself form the word, so far from home. And dancing in a Skragish inn? How could such a thing be?

  He must have said this last thought out loud, because she told him: “I’m a slave, ninny. What else would I be doing here? Why else would I be dancing for uncouth strangers? Or doing those things you can’t bring yourself to name—things you wish me to do with you?” Her voice was sharp, and she glared at him with eyes that hated.

  He dropped his eyes. Embarrassed, he dropped to sit on one of the cushions.

  “A slave?” he asked weakly.

  “A slave,” she snorted. “This inn is a staging post for slave trading. Now, you paid for me. Be the man you think you are and take what you paid for.” She stepped forward until her feet came into his downcast view. What he could see of her gown flowed again.

  He was horrified at the thought of her being a slave; slavery was outlawed in all lands that were recognized as civilized. He’d heard that it still existed in some places, but hadn’t been sure he could believe it. Anyway, the tales he’d heard had slaves working as fieldhands, or beasts of burden, living short lives of brutal labor. Never had he heard of them as public entertainers and . . . and . . . He still couldn’t say it. Thoughts of what he’d had in mind—what had he had in mind?—tumbled chaotically through his head. He twisted his face to the side so he couldn’t see the Golden Girl’s feet.

  She laughed at him. It was a harsh, mocking laugh.

  Spinner cringed. A slave? Slavery in itself was evil. But to enslave a woman as beautiful as this one? To make her, to make her . . . Spinner felt he must be as vile as those who enslaved her.

  The Golden Girl abruptly dropped into a flat-footed squat. She grabbed his hair and jerked his head toward her, shoved her face into his so her eyes stared at him from less than a hand’s breadth away. “So, you wanted me freely, is that it? You wanted me to come to you out of love, or from passion? You? A man I’ve never seen? Is that what you thought?” She snorted. “Or did you see me dancing and think I had no more pride or self-respect, no more desire for something better, than a back-tavern whore who will hike her skirts for any man with a copper in his hand? Did you think I was like that?”

  Spinner squeezed his eyes shut; his face contorted as though cutting off a flood of tears.

  The Golden Girl dug her fingers deeper into his hair and twisted hard. “Open your eyes when I’m talking to you,” she said through clenched teeth. Her knuckles dug painfully into Spinner’s scalp.

  She kept twisting his hair and digging her knuckles into his scalp until he opened his eyes—opened them to gold. The honey of the skin around her eyes radiated at him the anger of bees whose hive was being raided; her straw-colored eyebrows were lightning bolts striking at him; her black eyelashes were the rims of storm clouds coming to wash him away. Her amber irises seemed to grow and grow until they were ready to engulf him, to cast him inside the large pupils where he would fall forever, screaming until he despaired of crashing on a bottom that wasn’t there.

  Hair tore from his head as he yanked it out of her grip. “No!” he gasped. “I didn’t think you were a—a . . . I didn’t think you would come to me from love.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. “I didn’t think . . .”

  “That’s right,” she snapped, “you didn’t think. You saw me, you got engorged. Men. Pfagh!” She pushed roughly at his face and stood, turned and took a step away, folded her arms. She didn’t look back at him when she continued, “When lust strikes a man, he never thinks of the woman, of who she is or of what she might want. He only thinks of relieving the pressure in his groin, he only thinks of his own pleasure.”

  “No!” he wailed. “That’s not true!”

  She spun on him, bent at the waist, her fists clenched at her sides, her face that of a fury, the transparency of her garment ignored. “No? Then why are you here? If you weren’t thinking only of your own gratification, why did you pay the slavemaster a gold coin to own me for a night?”

  Anguish rippled across his face.

  “Here. You paid. Take.” She almost tore her gown, whipping it over her head. She stood unclothed before him, resplendent in her defiance.

  He looked away from her, filled with self-loathing. “I didn’t know you were a slave.” His voice broke when he said it. Then, so suddenly it surprised even him, he was overtaken by anger, filled with resolve to right the wrong of this enslavement. He was a Frangerian Marine, one of the most capable fighting men in the known world. He stood and looked into her eyes. When he spoke, his voice was strong and firm. “Get dressed. As of now, you are no longer a slave. I am not alone. I will get my companion and my weapons. We will set you free. And woe be to the man who tries to stop us.”

  She laughed bitterly. Then her body slumped and she was no longer defiant in her nudity, she was just naked and vulnerable. Her arms briefly moved to cover her nakedness before they surrendered the attempt and fell away.

  “You can’t free me,” she said softly, her voice wavering.

  “I’m a Frangerian Marine,” he said boldly. “And I am here with another. There is nothing we cannot do.”

  She lifted one foot, indicating the odd, silvery anklet. “There is nothing you can do about this,” she said, flat-voiced. She went through the frieze of curtains and collapsed on the pile of cushions Spinner thought must be a bed. She lay curled, her body heaving with silent sobs.

  He followed the Golden Girl through the curtains, sat on the cushions next to her and gathered her gently into his arms. He tried to comfort her by putting protective hands on her back and shoulders but was so aware of the soft, warm flesh he touched, her magically silken skin, that without volition his thoughts started wandering from protecting to taking. Desperately he looked around for something to cover her with, any barrier to put between his hands and her skin. The only thing he saw was the thin gown she’d discarded, and it was out of reach. He grabbed one of the curtains hanging from the ceiling and yanked it free. It was as diaphanous as the gown she no longer wore, but he draped it over her anyway. He could still see her through it, could still feel all the warmth of her body, but it was nevertheless a barrier to the touch of her skin on his hands, flimsy as it was. It was enough to allow him to keep his mind on comforting and protecting.

  “There there,” he said awkwardly. He clumsily patted her shoulder, tried to convey that everything would be all right, suspected he was failing abjectly.

  Sobs wracked her. After a few moments they began to subside. A few moments more and they ceased altogether. She pushed away from him and sat up. She smiled wanly and could only glance at him for another moment or so. Then she held her head up, firmed her expression, used a corner of the curtain to wipe tears and running mascara from her face.

  “Thank you for wanting to free me,” she said, as though it was of no consequence. “I thank you for your consideration. But there is nothing you can do. So,” she cast aside the curtain he’d covered her with and lay back on the cushions, arms held open to him, “come and take what you paid for. I grant it less unwillingly now.”

  For a long moment Spinner was torn between two of the imperatives of a young man: to take the object of his lust; or to right a vile wrong. He decided that lust could wait to be satisfied another time. He covered her again with the curtain, even though he recognized how futile a covering the curtain was.

  “Get up. We will go now. You’re free.” He made to stand up, but before he could rise to his feet, the Golden Girl lifted her foot and sharply kicked his shoulder with her heel.

  She threw off the curtain and plunked her ankle onto his shoulder. “Do you know what that is?” she demanded.

  He looked at her in confusion.

  “On my ankle.”

  He looked cross-eyed at her ankle. “It’
s a bracelet for your ankle.”

  She snorted. “Do you know what kind?”

  He shrugged one-shouldered, so as not to dislodge her foot from his shoulder—he liked the physical contact. “No.”

  “It is a summoner. It calls an azren.”

  He shook his head. “An azren?”

  “A death-demon. There is an azren in the forest beyond the inn. Every night the anklets summon it to us in our sleep and we dream of it.” She shuddered. “The dreams are always of it killing us.”

  “That’s horrible.” He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, protect her, but couldn’t without dislodging her ankle from his shoulder.

  “Pfagh! That’s not horrible. What is horrible is what happens if one of us tries to leave.” She glared at him, but moisture that glistened in the corner of her eyes gave lie to her anger. “The azren doesn’t hurt us when it comes in our dreams. But if we go beyond the inn yard, the anklet summons the azren and it kills whoever has gone forth.

  “I saw it happen to a serving maid who’d only been here a day or two. She said she wouldn’t be a whore at the slavemaster’s whim. She said she didn’t believe in demons. She ran for the forest. I couldn’t see the azren, I only saw the way it cut her to bits. She screamed in agony until it had cut her so much she could no longer scream. It was horrible.” She slid her foot from Spinner’s shoulder and rolled onto her side into a tight ball. Her voice was muffled as she said, “That is not going to happen to me.”

  Spinner was shocked at the Golden Girl’s tale. He’d never heard of an azren. How could anyone go through this valley? He asked the question as soon as he thought it.

  “The azren feeds on our dreams,” the Golden Girl said. “And the slavemaster sometimes sends it an ‘offering.’ If a slave here displeases him, or a new slave is injured or ill, he sends that one out to the azren.”