The Demon Shroud

by T. A. Miles

  Her initial explanation of the event was enough to hold all three of them for several steps. Korsten was busily trying to envision it, and in the process, he continued to envision the eye from his recent dream. He did so while looking toward the edge of town, and the lake-sized meadow at its north end, and the cliff without a house that overlooked it.

  “What exactly happened to you?” Merran asked their colleague.

  “I was thrown a good distance, into a ravine,” Tahlia said. She lifted both shoulders. “Maybe that’s the reason I was left behind.”

  “But, how were you trapped here?” Merran pressed. “Your hands weren’t bound.”

  Taking another look at her, and at the present stains on her clothing, revealed that all of her magic had fallen, including her subconsciously cast spells that would have normally guarded against simple wear to her clothes. Undoubtedly, Merran had noticed that as well, but he wanted to hear from her precisely what may have happened, since neutralizing spells were something that they were only aware of through the Superiors exclusive ability to cast them.

  “Well,” Tahlia said with a sigh that expressed more weariness than anything else, “the enemies’ spell managed to have a neutralizing effect on me. I had no ability to use my magic afterward, and I could scarcely move in the aftermath of what had happened. I did manage to crawl from the field, as I said, and I was eventually discovered by that girl and her cousin. They didn’t like the look of me, I suppose. They locked me up and my only recourse was to wait until the effects of the enemy’s magic wore off, or until I could sort out something else. Their jail is reasonably constructed. Still, I’d have been on my way out of here, the moment the effects of the Vadryn assault wore away.”

  “We’re glad to have found you unharmed,” Korsten decided to say, though he was still absorbing much of her account.

  “Aren’t you a pretty fellow?” she said, and she was not really smiling when she did so. “A decent contrast against Merran’s graveness.”

  “My name is Korsten,” he let her know, wondering if he had somehow managed to offend her.

  “Sounds familiar. You’re the reason Sharlotte and Lerissa left, aren’t you?”

  Korsten believed that he had his answer in regard to offenses. It was a tiring subject, but one that he would evidently have to continue to live with. “Sharlotte is the reason that Lerissa left. I did manage to inspire Sharlotte to leave, however. Unintentionally.”

  Merran had even less tolerance for the topic now than he had when it was relevant. “Sharlotte left because she still has not grown to adulthood, for all of her years, or Ashwin’s efforts.”

  “Ashwin’s efforts? I’ve heard about them.” Tahlia was a very frank person. Korsten wasn’t sure yet what to make of it. “They don’t tend to improve dispositions, but they do bolster determination, and purpose. He’s very good at that.”

  “Yes, he is,” Korsten said in his defense, if defense was necessary. “He’s my life-mentor.”

  “Sharlotte never could contend with Ashwin’s acquiring a new pupil,” Tahlia said, perhaps in conclusion and perhaps in satisfying her own concerns over what had happened. “Sione is my mentor.”

  “I was beginning to wonder if it was Jeselle,” Korsten mumbled.

  Tahlia smiled now, though only briefly before changing the topic. “Shall we inform the girl-constable that we’re leaving? I’d like to have my weapon back.”

  “Yes, let’s collect whatever we need,” Merran answered while they drew to a halt beneath the reaching shadows of evening. “I’d like to head to the cliff early in the morning.”

  “What’s at the cliff?” Tahlia asked.

  “A manor house that needs uncovering.”

  •—•

  Merran and Korsten spent the evening at the inn with Tahlia, rehashing events leading up to their meeting. She was abrupt and cutting, in a non-personal way, but she listened well and her contributions to the core of the conversation and to any planning were on point and eager. What some may have viewed as brash, in Merran’s opinion, exhibited a very clear air of fearlessness …most of the time.

  He had never worked with Tahlia before, but they had come to Vassenleigh around the same time. She had been nearer to an adult than Merran then, and they had both been visited frequently by Ashwin. Frequent visits from Ashwin tended to mean that it was some significant trauma that had brought the priest-to-be to the seminary. Tahlia never mentioned the specifics of her past to Merran. And Merran had never talked about his experiences with anyone, except for select members of the Council, and Korsten. Korsten’s experiences had unfortunately become somewhat public, owed to Sharlotte, whose jealousy led her to demonstrations of inexcusable violence and hatred toward one of their own.

  Still, Tahlia did not know all of it—particularly the details which Korsten found more important than the internal strife the affair had inspired—and he was willing to relay those details to her now. The conversation had come after mention of the three priests who may have lately become prisoners of Morenne, or of an insane or possessed local lord. In regard to being held a prisoner of Morenne, Korsten was the only survivor on record, and he had very nearly died during the experience. Merran himself had briefly been in the custody of an archdemon himself—Haddowyn’s destroyer—and it was the unexpected arrival of Korsten that had spared Merran, following the beginnings of assault and abuse that only the Vadryn were capable of.

  “I’m not surprised to hear of your experiences,” Tahlia said to Korsten—Merran had left out his own trials with Renmyr. To both of them, she said, “And I have no illusions about the safety of my partner. When we’re captured, we’re tortured; that’s all there is to it.”

  “You’re very anchored,” Korsten remarked.

  Tahlia seemed to take the words simply for what they were. “Don’t all of us have to be?”

  Typically, frank acceptance of death antagonized and worried Korsten. He looked at her directly and said, “You should know that Ashwin has not witnessed the return of any soulkeepers, nor the birth of any new ones lately. That can only mean that all three of them, including your partner, were still alive not many days ago.”

  Tahlia, seeming to know that it was best to give in for the moment, offered him the merest smile. “It’s a small hope, but I’ll hold onto it.”

  At that point, she saw herself to the room’s third bed, which left Merran faced with Korsten’s unapologetically distressed expression. Though it often went unsaid, such moments tended to only further endear him to Merran.

  Whether or not he knew that, Korsten brought them back to the topic that had inspired Sesha to reveal their prisoner. “What are we going to do about the governor? We can’t leave him as he is.”

  “A Release will undoubtedly kill him,” Merran said, providing the answer that was likely understood by all three of them.

  “I’m not very interested in upsetting the town like that before we head out to find and potentially kill his son as well,” Korsten stated.

  “I’m not either,” Merran answered. “It may be possible to perform a Binding of our own.”

  Korsten stepped back toward the bed he had claimed for himself and lowered onto it, his eyes scarcely leaving Merran. “You mean, to hold him until we can return to deal with the situation with a fuller understanding of what’s happening?”

  Merran believed that they both understood what was happening just fine, but that Korsten wanted to consider any possible option of saving Izwendel. It was possible, so Merran was not opposed to exploring the situation better. Finding out where his son was and why would be helpful. Finding the missing soldiers may or may not have been directly related.

  “A Binding placed on the door should do,” Merran concluded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  With it agreed, he left the room. Theirs was roughly centered along the passage. The stairs were not far away and Merran was
ted no time going to them and up. At the third floor, the staircase drew somewhat narrower, leading to the trapdoor. There was not room for two adult bodies to pass, and with one already sat beneath the door, it was evident that Merran had more work before him than merely casting a spell.

  “I thought you might come back here,” Phyodar said, “in the night, like a thief …or a murderer.”

  His form was partially veiled in darkness. Only minimal light from a table lantern reached into the stairwell. He had reasonable resolve, to sit with only a thin partition between himself and the Vadryn.

  “The demon has already begun to kill your uncle,” Merran informed him. “I’m not here to finish its work, however, or even to end his suffering, though I would prefer to end it.”

  “Then what are you here to do?” Phyodar demanded.

  “I’m here to protect you,” Merran said. And that was the finest point he could put on the truth. Whether or not Phyodar, or anyone else over the course of a hunter-priest’s career chose to believe it, was another matter altogether. Korsten also had not believed him once.

  Phyodar rose, coming down from the deeper part of the stairwell. “What can you do for him in his state?”

  “Nothing that would comfort you,” Merran replied truthfully. “But I haven’t come to work a spell on him. Only on the door.”

  “The door?”

  “To ensure that no one enters the attic and that no one …nor anything leaves it.”

  Phyodar’s glare suggested that he was put out with the idea, but he soon cast the expression over his shoulder. Maybe it only just occurred to him what he’d been sitting so near to moments ago. When he looked back, he asked, “What of his son?”

  “What of him?” Merran returned. “Is that who we’ll find, when we find the manor?”

  “I don’t know,” Phyodar admitted.

  The admission seemed to sap some of the strength he’d been putting into his guard. It visibly slumped him, enough that Merran felt there would be little resistance in pushing past him to attend to the matter that was still pending.

  Phyodar let him by, though he remained on the stairs while Merran went up to the door. The spell was not cast immediately; Merran hovered at the threshold, listening. Silence preceded light turns of the chains. While it seemed unlikely that Phyodar would have let him pass, if he’d lately laid a victim down for his uncle, Merran decided to push the door up and to have a look across the floor leading to the demon and its victim.

  The darkness was near complete, with only minimal bands of filtered moonlight offering more texture to the air than light. Merran cast a Lantern, allowing it to drift in enough to show him that the floor remained as clear as it had been when he and Korsten had first been brought to Izwendel. The governor remained in his chair, appearing deceptively at rest. The demon’s activity seemed that it was focused entirely on the man, for now.

  Merran lowered the door again, made sure to bolt the latch, and then cast a Binding onto it. The magic displayed itself only briefly in the moments it was being transferred from his hands. The soft light swelled beneath his skin and outward, laying itself around the bolt and the door’s seam, and then it faded from notice.

  “What will that do?” Phyodar asked.

  “It will hold the door in place,” Merran answered.

  “Against anything?”

  “Against anything that isn’t a stronger-cast spell.” On the chance that anyone in the village liked to dabble in wild magic, Merran added, “It’s unlikely that anyone outside of another priest or a greater demon would be able to undo it or breach it. The entire building may be brought down in flame, and that door will still be holding to its frame.”

  Phyodar’s expression fought against demonstrating any hint of being impressed by the idea. Ultimately, he wound up releasing a long breath.

  Since he may have been relaxing somewhat, Merran took the opportunity to see whether or not he would relinquish any helpful information. “What can you tell me about Izwendel’s son?”

  “He was my friend,” Phyodar said, and sank himself against the wall somewhat, as if a burden had been taken from him. “Sesha would have claimed him better than cousin as well, before his riding accident. It set him off …made him gloomy and resentful.”

  Merran stepped down from the attic door, stopping on the stair just above Phyodar. “What were his injuries?”

  “He had to have an arm set, and struck his skull fairly hard. I was with him—at the time, I thought he might have killed himself, but he came around.” Phyodar hesitated, as if he knew what he might be alluding to with his next statement. “He was never quite the same after it.”

  Seventeen

  The sun had not fully risen when they set out toward the meadow. Along the way, Korsten learned that Merran had not only cast the Binding onto the attic door, but that he had also gained some information from Phyodar. The man spoke of a cousin whose personality had been changed by an unfortunate incident while riding. A youth who had once admired the beauty of nature and appreciated stories of the greater world, who held an interest in achieving an aesthetic balance around him, had become gloomy, withdrawn, and erred on destructive.

  Phyodar also told Merran that the disappearance of the manor house was as much mystery to the town as it was to their visitors. No one had been living in it for some time, but rather, the Izwendels had been occupying a lodge to the east. Phyodar and Sesha were also not lifelong residents of Endmark. They had come from a castle nearer to Lilende, after war had displaced them a decade or so earlier—Sesha had only been a child. Some of their other family and residents of the unnamed settlement that had existed near their castle had, in fact, gone to Lilende or further south. That said, Phyodar—who was the eldest of the cousins—recalled having at least seen the manor house towers upon the cliff while riding. And then, one day, they were no longer there. He admitted that it defied all logic and that he had been to the cliff a few times, but never found the remains of the house. He had eventually convinced himself that it must have been so bad off that it simply fell down, and he also confessed that he didn’t venture far into the woods on the cliff, over a sensation of something foul in the air. When asked when Governor Izwendel had shown symptoms of being poisoned by the Vadryn, Phyodar said that it had been not more than two months ago, not long before the troops had vanished. He was well enough—they all would have guessed—at the time the arrangements had been made with the steward to have Kingdom soldiers march through Endmark.

  It was more than enough information to return Korsten and Merran—and now Tahlia—to the broken gate at the base of the cliff that oversaw all of Endmark’s lands. Following the buried path, they made their way to the guardhouse where Phyodar had convinced himself that he had arrested them the day before, and proceeded toward the stair behind it.

  The staircase was of stone, wide and richer than any other aspect of Endmark thus far. It made Korsten wonder if there was more to the town that was also somehow concealed. Or perhaps there were tenant lands …lodges, or anything that would justify the apparent wealth the area had once held. There was the lodge the Izwendels had been occupying, though they seemed to be staying within the village themselves now.

  Korsten decided that there must have been a collection of landholders in the region, rather like his own home city in the south. The current state of things at Endmark made the comparison seem rather ludicrous. Dilapidation had been the state of most of the northern reaches, though. Korsten would have to admit that Haddowyn also possessed all the signs of a place that had once been far grander. The majority of those signs had been at the governor’s estate, but that tended to be the way it was throughout Edrinor, even in the areas that were populated by more nobles.

  The foremost family of any city was always the governor’s. Since the breaking apart of the Old Kingdom, many of them had become like kings over their own cities. Their stations we
re inherited by their sons. That practice remained prevalent throughout Edrinor’s political society. Those of social or political rank had become the nobility, many having carried over from the previous rankings under the king. Their informal ascension had temporarily shifted from bloodlines, passing strictly to men of appointment, who had since reverted it to bloodlines. Korsten had been a part of that nobility. And now he was part of a different tier of nobility, an extension of the Old Kingdom that had survived intact. He was one of the King’s priests, but there was no king.

  Such thoughts were left at the bottom of the stairs, along with Erschal and Onyx, who had carried both Korsten and Tahlia in the absence of her own horse. Analee, Eolyn, and the creature whom Tahlia called Kiflas were all in tow, in their own ways and at their own pace.

  The general rule of the soulkeepers was that they went unnoticed by all, except the priest they were attached to. That said, those who knew to look for them—other priests—could locate them with little effort. Their function and existence both were secrets the Order kept, for the safety of its agents.

  According to Tahlia, no one at Endmark had expressed notice of Kiflas. And, if any of their soulkeepers were going to be noticed, he presumed it would be one as large and as forbidding as hers appeared, bearing overlong feelers and sizable mandibles, complete with a sort of hook. It was quite a large beast—a full hand to its length, rather than the palm size of either Korsten’s or Merran’s soulkeepers—and it preferred to attach itself to Tahlia or some near aspect much more often than it wanted to fly.

  Korsten didn’t suppose that much of the specifics of any of them mattered, in terms of behavior or even of eating. They were, after all, no mere insects. Their form was the form granted them by the magic of the lily garden. He did wonder if their shapes happened to be inspired by the disposition either of the preceding priest or the one they were to accompany for the duration of the priest’s and their lives. In that case, Korsten wondered if it was stating that Tahlia appeared more threatening than she actually was.