by R. Lee Smith
“What do you get out of making my life more difficult?” she asked, holding very still while a hound licked blood from her feet.
“The satisfaction of watching you overcome adversity. Come, Bitter Waters. Leave the Master to his work. The tables are laden and waiting. It would be a shame to waste them.”
“And now you want to feed me? I think you need to make up your mind whether you’re punishing me or not.”
“In all honesty…” Horuseps uttered a peculiar, tight-sounding little laugh as he too gazed at the crouching, snarling creatures that surrounded them. “I just want you out of this room before the hounds realize how dramatically they outnumber us, and that there’s a fair chance three or even four of them could fuck you before their Master could stop them, but yes, you also need feeding. Come away.”
Mara looked at the hounds and saw that several more had drawn nearer to her than the bloody heap on the floor strictly demanded, and even those who still fawned adoringly for Suti’ok kept one feral eye on her. Some were shivering. All were drooling. She glanced once at their Master, but he remained fixated on his hounds. He too had drawn closer to her, and stood in a tense half-crouch, his hands hooked into ready claws.
“At your convenience,” Horuseps said, holding out his arm.
She started walking, unhurriedly, so as not to provoke a pounce, and Horuseps fell into step beside her, resting his hand on her back. “They didn’t act like that the last time I saw them,” she said.
“Fresh blood excites them,” he replied. “Under certain circumstances, we don’t even allow Zyera or Letha to stray too near.”
He neither asked nor wondered where she’d seen them before. There were many deaths in the Scholomance.
Mara looked back. Most of the hounds had stopped working to watch her go. Suti’ok knelt beside one, stroking its bony back and murmuring to it, watching her as well.
“Does Suti’ok teach anything, or does he just keep the hounds?” Mara asked.
“He teaches,” Horuseps replied, steering her well around two panting sentries posted at side-tunnels. “He teaches methods of magical defense against physical attack, but he has a student at the moment, and never accepts more than one. His teaching aides are difficult to control.”
“Is he their father?”
Horuseps took his hand off her back and armored his mind. “Why would you ask?”
“You said they were demon-stock. And look at them.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “They love him.”
“We don’t like to talk about the nephelim, precious.” Horuseps went ahead of her to open the dining hall doors, but paused with his hand on the latch and looked back. “We aren’t proud of them.”
“Suti’ok seems to be.”
“We’re not proud of him, either. Please—” He broke himself off, closed his eyes, and opened them dimmed. “Please,” he said simply.
Puzzled, she could only frown at him at first. “Do…Do you think I’m going to go in there and ask all the Masters about their half-human kids?”
He winced elaborately.
“You’re the only one I’d ever ask,” she told him. “I’d never even ask Suti’ok to his face.”
His melodramatic grimace faded into something less easy to read. “Because you…trust me?”
“Because I can usually tell when you’re lying.” Mara thought about it. “I guess that’s trust.”
He looked at her, motionless. Even the lights of his eyes were still. Eventually, a yelp from a distant hound distracted him. He stared in that direction for a long time too, then finally turned around and opened the door. “I should never have allowed myself to become fond of you,” he said, and went inside.
The dining hall was not quite empty. The other demons who were in the habit of taking their meals among students were already here, sipping wine and eyeing the empty tables below them curiously. The corridor at the rear of the room that led past the kitchens and down into the ephebeum was dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t see the hound prowling for trespassers there.
“What hast thou done with our daybreak entertainments?” Letha called.
“I’m afraid I’ve made a bit of a mess in the Nave,” Horuseps replied, leading Mara past the low tables with their platters of burnt and bloody meat. “I do apologize.”
A chorus of good-natured groans answered this, which Horuseps accepted with solemn nods and waves of his hand, but not everyone was playing along.
“What is she doing here?” Malavan demanded, stabbing a claw at Mara.
The rest of the table quieted.
“She’s here at my invitation.” Horuseps came around to the Master’s side of the high table with Mara securely under his hand. “And so, Malavan, if you’d be so kind as to remove yourself,” he said. “We seem to be short a chair this morning.”
Dull red color began to bleed into Malavan’s skin. He speared a piece of meat and dragged it to his plate defiantly.
One of the demonesses—Mara couldn’t tell if it was Zyera or Letha—tittered. Someone else whispered and a deep, gravelly voice muttered back. The air was charged, expectant.
“I see ten long benches standing empty,” Malavan spat finally.
“So you have your pick of them,” Horuseps replied. “Move on.”
Malavan hissed, slammed his two long claws into the table and leaned out over them, throbbing scarlet and shaking with rage. “I was here first! I am always here! I’ll not be moved by the likes of her or you!”
But his fear was louder even than his anger, and Mara could feel his thoughts squirming: He didn’t dare strike at Horuseps, and everyone here surely knew it. How dare he? How dare he oust him from his place and order him away as if he were some human? How dare he do it for her!
Then he spun, and Mara knew it was coming even before his sharp scythe of a claw left the table. He spun and slashed, intending to open her face as he’d done to her warden those many days ago. He’d caught her by surprise then, but she was watching him now, and as fast as he was, Mara’s mind was faster. He’d only just drawn back his arm, filling the Mindstorm with his envious hate, when Mara slapped him.
Slap was perhaps too kind a word. This was a demon, not a human, and she withheld nothing. Everything she had went out along a single focused line, crashing into him like a psychic battering ram.
Malavan flipped over and off the table with one claw still imbedded in the stone. For an instant, that long, bony sword seemed to tremble, and then his weight came down and the claw shattered, sending shards of bone spinning out into the room and leaving a piece nearly as long as Mara’s own forearm quivering straight up from the table. Malavan landed thrashing and shrieking just as the first flares of alarm at his attack began to light up in the Mindstorm.
Horuseps patted her shoulder.
“You!” Malavan’s remaining claw hooked at the tabletop. He heaved himself up, the stump of his broken claw held tight against his chest. It was already healing, new bone gleaming white as it grew from the knob of his finger. “I’ll kill you for that, you clay-born cunt!”
He sprang, even as several demons lunged to catch him, and Mara slapped him again. He landed with a wet smack on the stone floor behind her, staggered up, and fell over again, both fingers twitching.
He lay panting while all the others watched Mara. The Mindstorm belonged to Malavan alone. Every other had shrouded their thoughts.
Malavan kicked once or twice, then rolled onto his knees and dragged himself upright. His arms shook as he folded the blades of his claws in close against his sides and leaned on his knuckles. He spat blood, wiped his mouth, and glared at her.
She waited, ready for him.
“It is forbidden to use arts against a Master,” he said sullenly.
Someone laughed. She was sure it was Zyera that time. The sound made Malavan flinch. His helpless hate ate up a little more of Mara’s senses.
“Mentalism is not an art,” Horuseps said, leading Mara to the demon’s empty seat,
there between Zyera and the hulking spike-studded executioner, Argoth. “It’s a talent. Something you wouldn’t understand.”
Malavan watched as wine was poured into his cup and set before her. Argoth picked up the meat in his plate and tossed it on the floor at Malavan’s feet while Zyera filled it again with bread and fruit and cheese. He thought about killing her the same way most people thought about winning the lottery—in a desolate, covetous way. Then he spat more blood, turned around, and limped away.
“Thank you so much,” Mara said, once the dining hall door had banged shut. “I was just asking myself what could possibly be more fun than making a few hundred students resent me.”
“He’ll get over it,” Horuseps said, tickling Zyera’s chin.
“Yes, he seems like the forgiving sort. None of you like him,” Mara observed, feeling around the table. “Why is he here?”
“It isn’t necessary to like someone in order to live with him, precious. Besides, it wasn’t our decision.”
“Why would—”
Argoth’s hand lit high on her thigh under the table. She looked at him. He gnawed on a bit of bone and gazed pensively at the vacant tables where no students were sitting.
“Why would Kazuul bring someone in that he knew everyone despised?” Mara continued.
Argoth’s hand slid up, lightly squeezed.
**What in hell are you doing?** she sent at him.
His mind tapped back at her playfully, but he said nothing.
“There were greater issues at stake than camaraderie. If you want to know which, you’ll have to take it up with him.” Horuseps accepted the cherry Zyera teasingly offered between her lips in a deep kiss everyone else ignored, then delicately took the stem out of his mouth and said, “It isn’t wise to pity him.”
“Who, Kazuul?” Mara asked, and looked at Argoth again as his hand dipped between her thighs. He ignored her, snapped his bone in half to suck at the marrow, and began to rub his finger deliberately back and forth over her robe.
“No, dearest, Malavan. Although I can’t imagine anyone pitying Kazuul either,” he remarked. “And one shudders to think what he’d do about it if he knew…but no, Malavan. His kind is quick enough to prey on pity, and quicker still to take revenge for it.”
“I don’t feel pity,” Mara said irritably, and sent to Argoth, **So this is your last chance to stop what you’re doing.**
Argoth drank wine and began to pull her robe up one handful after another.
“No? What is this strange affection you have for Connie if not pity?”
“She’s my friend.”
“Friend! Every relationship you’ve ever forged has been carnivorous,” Horuseps declared. “You feed on people, you don’t make friends.”
She started to get angry, but forced it back, forced herself calm. “I wouldn’t have thought it was like you to dismiss something just because you can’t understand it.”
Argoth’s naked finger penetrated her slowly. He rumbled out a thoughtful growl, contemplating his cup, and began to move in her.
“I dare say I understand more than you do at this juncture,” Horuseps countered, and Zyera laughed. “But I’ll take your word for it. You love the pitiful Connie, honestly and unselfishly, in spite of her overwhelming ineptitude. But tell me, do you think you’ll remain friends once you’ve saved her from us?”
She leaned out to frown at him as Argoth stroked deeper. “Why wouldn’t we?”
Most of the demons laughed then. Even Argoth chuckled.
“Perhaps I flatter myself that we—” Horuseps indicated the table with a lazy flick of his wrist. “—might make some lasting impression upon our students. But even if she were as heartless as you—”
“I’m not heartless, damn it!”
“—is it so impossible to imagine some small ember of resentment when she thinks that she had to be rescued from her failures by someone like you, who can be so callous about her success? In fact, I should be very surprised if living in your shadow was not what drove her to us in the first place.”
Mara stared at him. “Christ, you’re in a bitchy mood tonight.”
Zyera laughed.
“I just want to know if you’ve really thought about this,” Horuseps said, frowning at the demoness with mock severity over some very genuine irritation. “Your single-minded pursuit of the feeble Connie may seem admirable to humans, but I can’t help but think you’ve failed to grasp the far-reaching consequences. Even the truest friends seldom love you better for seeing them at their worst.”
Argoth removed his hand and licked his fingers. He glanced at her, showing the tip of one fang in a smile, and tapped at her mind again, telling her he knew she enjoyed it, telling her she was just as sweet as the wine.
“I understand,” Mara said mildly.
“Do you?”
“Oh, I think so.” She reached under the table and put her hand unerringly on Argoth’s crotch, boldly cupping the solid bulge of his cock beneath his skirt. He grunted, his smile turning at once to dark surprise, but Mara ignored him and leaned out to lock eyes with Horuseps. “You can’t find her, can you?”
Horuseps twitched one eyebrow, expressionless.
“And you’ve really been looking. Not just where you promised to.” Mara unbuckled Argoth’s belt one-handed, stroked at his mind when he stiffened in alarm, then snaked it deftly out from around his waist and tucked it into her sleeve for safe-keeping. The sound of a few layers of leather falling aside wasn’t anything at all against the sound of wine pouring, knives and claws scraping against plates, and hushed whispers at the ends of the table. Mara wrapped her hand around Argoth’s shaft, feeling it grow even hotter and harder as she squeezed. She began to pump him in her fist, using her wrist mostly and moving her arm as little as possible. “You’ve been looking and you can’t find her either.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Horuseps said curtly. “How would I know who to look for?”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t know exactly. That’s why you brought Pretty Doll out to see me, but you’re not about to make that mistake twice after the way I reacted, so now you’re searching on your own.”
Argoth had stopped eating, stopped even pretending to eat. He stared straight ahead, expression grim, hands frozen around his food, as Mara stroked him fully erect.
“And either you can’t find anyone who could be Connie, or you’ve found too many. If I was there with you, we could figure it out right away, but that would mean showing me where you’ve been looking.”
Zyera looked at Horuseps. He did not take his eyes from Mara.
“And you can’t bring them up to see me for some reason, and you don’t want to show me why not.” Mara paused to drink some wine and roll Argoth’s heavy balls over her palm. “So this is your brilliant plan, to see if you can make me mad enough to stop looking as well. It’s a good thing I don’t feel pity, because that’s sad, Horuseps.”
He shrugged with his eyebrows and pinched off a bit of bread, denying nothing.
“I’m going to find her,” Mara said, working Argoth faster. “It doesn’t matter what you feed me or where I sleep or how many angry students you put in my way, I’m still only here for one reason and I am going to find her.”
Argoth tensed and came, spurting semen in a thick flood over his own thighs. Mara wiped her hand on his hard stomach where she figured it would show the most, and brought her arm back up.
“You could be right,” she said, taking another slice of bread from the tray. “She may resent me after a while. She may even hate me. But if she does, it won’t be because I didn’t come for her when she needed me.”
Horuseps swirled the wine in his cup.
Argoth stared broodingly down at the table and through it, his thoughts blackly focused on how to cover himself and conceal this mess before anyone saw it or even suspected it. The wrong rumor in Kazuul’s ear…he’d be a eunuch by day’s end. He tapped at her again, asking for his belt.
**I
n a minute,** she told him silently. **And relax. I won’t say a word to Kazuul, I promise.**
Everyone else ate. It was very quiet.
“You won’t believe me,” Horuseps said at last. “But I am trying to help you.”
“I do believe you,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s possible for you to help me and yourself at the same time.”
He started to speak.
“I know you’re hiding her,” Mara interrupted. “And now I think you might be hurting her.”
Horuseps closed his mouth. Demons ate and drank and watched them as alarm came quietly back to the Mindstorm from a dozen different minds. Mara felt it grow, shook her head, and looked at Horuseps again.
“I want her back,” she said softly. “That’s all I want. We’ll leave quietly. You can tell everyone you killed us, I don’t care. Just give her back to me.”
“It’s out of my hands, Mara.” All trace of a smile was gone. Horuseps’s eyes were, for the first time, entirely lightless.
“You have to know how this is going to end.”
“I do,” he said, still with that grim intensity.
She sighed and looked at her plate—Malavan’s plate—her appetite buried under her rising temper. For now, she was still calm, but it was a fight she suspected she was going to lose sooner or later. She picked out the fruit and put it in her sleeve for later, smoothed down her robe, and stood up. “I still like you, Horuseps.”
He smiled wanly.
“I don’t know why, but I do. And that’s too bad, because this can’t go on much longer without us becoming enemies. I’m not an idiot. I’m aware that I might not survive that.” She paused behind his chair on her way out and looked down at him, just at him. “But I’m sure I’ll risk it to get her back.”
He reached up to pat her arm, nodding. He kept his head bent, hiding his eyes from her, but through his touch she could feel his thoughts chewing at each other. He wasn’t afraid of her and he didn’t share the wordless apprehension of his fellow Masters, but his mood was a dark one regardless.
