by P. J. Fox
Tristan had never questioned whether the demon wished to serve him.
That it, or any demon might have independent opinions was something that never occurred to most necromancers—even as they asked the demons for secret knowledge. They saw them as mirrors, more or less, in a fashion that reminded the demon of what had become its favorite fairy tale. Bronwen, whose name meant white. As white as snow, the ballad went, as red as blood, and as black as a raven’s wing; the child’s beauty was legendary, and her legend reached the queen. It had never occurred to the queen, the demon thought with amusement, that whatever demon she’d conjured in her mirror might simply have wanted to torment her. Perhaps she was still the fairest in the land, more fair than her unfortunate stepdaughter. But what might the demon think of her, and want to inflict on her, after decades of unwanted servitude?
Tristan had what the demon wanted. But, more than that, even the meanest serf in Morven had more than the demon. He had the right, for good or for ill, to direct his own path. To be self-determining. To decide, for himself, what was right and what was wrong. To kill, not because he was ordered to, but because he truly believed that the man—or woman—in question deserved to die. To possess a home of his own, however rude. To exercise dominion over that home, and over those within. To be loved.
Demons did not love, not as men and women did.
The demon found human mating rituals confusing, and fascinating. There was so much posturing, so much deceit. Humans took so long to decide who they wanted, and even then their hearts were fickle. Nothing was more seductive than mystery, and by the same token nothing bred contempt faster than knowledge.
Tristan and Brenna seemed to have escaped this all too common pitfall, though; their love was based on truth. He knew her flaws and she knew his. Their bond was the closest the demon had seen to what it might, in human terms, think of as—for lack of a better term—love.
Demons mated, and were as protective of their offspring as any other creatures. But when a demon selected a partner, it did so forever. The relationship was, of course, very different. Tristan had asked, before, about the demons’ plane and what their lives were like; but the demon had no words that could explain these concepts to such a limited dimensional entity. To Tristan, what he saw and heard and felt was real; everything else was imagination, and even his imagination had limits. He lived in a world that killed what it didn’t understand. Anything that existed outside of a narrow, church-conceived morality was labeled as evil. Love was rated, in terms of worth, based on a complicated system of vows and beds and familial approval.
The demon considered these things as it watched Tristan pace back and forth. He, like his tutor, had begun to change, although so far the changes were subtle. He was still young, and vital, and alive—for now.
He was tall, but not so tall as to stand out in a crowd of tall men. His shoulders were broad and muscled, like his arms, from years of work with both sword and bow. He had the pale skin common to most of the North, although it had been darkened by exposure to the sun. His eyes were the gray of storm clouds, and they flashed bright when he spoke of war. Or of love. He’d only just begun to develop the corpse-like pallor common to all true necromancers. Soon, this and other changes—changes that Tristan had virulently denied, to Brenna most of all—would grow apparent to even the dullest of eyes.
And so the demon sat in its corner, unobtrusive and ignored, and watched.
And waited.
TWO
“You have to send him away!” Brenna pleaded.
She and Tristan faced each other across the scarred and pitted map table that had been in his family for generations. Gashes, like open sores, marked where thousands of knives had held down the edges of maps. Thrust into the wood, point first, their blades quivering. No map graced it now, only a porcelain vase the color of new grass.
At the start of the war, Tristan had appropriated his father’s solar. He shouldered all the responsibilities of being duke; he might as well enjoy its luxuries. He’d expected, by now, to be sharing this large room and its attached bedchamber with Brenna but she and her mother still occupied a suite of rooms in the south wing. Brenna’s father, too, was off fighting.
Tristan had nearly thirty winters; Brenna, eighteen. He’d been in love with her since she was little more than a girl, but rather than approach her father he had waited to press his suit until she was old enough to form an opinion about him for herself. And she’d been cautious at first, having come to think of him more as a friend of her father’s than as a potential husband. But, fantasies aside, no one realistically expected to marry a man their own age and eventually Brenna had thawed toward this intimidating personage. And, eventually, had come to return his love.
She was twelve when he met her, a precocious child just on the cusp of becoming a woman. He was twenty-four, three years a knight and with a number of successful raids against the tribes to his credit. He’d led men into battle, and killed men, and he’d met her on a hunt.
He remembered looking across the blankets that had been spread about on the grass, thinking how intoxicating she looked and how revolted at himself he was to have such thoughts about a child. But she hadn’t been a child then, not truly. The first hint of curves were visible beneath her adult’s dress, and her mother had let her pin her hair back in braids.
She was, even then, so small so…delicate. And yet so vibrant. She laughed all the time, including at him, an experience he found unsettling. But intoxicating. Brenna hadn’t, for all that she’d found him intimidating, been truly afraid. As so many were. He was twenty-seven and she fifteen when he began to court her in earnest, sending her gifts and flowers and taking her on—regrettably—chaperoned walks through the garden.
When he brought up the subject of marriage, she agreed. In other circumstances they would have been married within the season but war by then had come to Morven and Tristan couldn’t countenance a union under such circumstances. Brenna was still young, barely sixteen at the time, and no one had expected the war to last past the end of summer.
But it had. The war that had begun when Tristan was twenty-five had only gained in momentum. The kingdom was in ruins and Brenna, two years his betrothed, lived here with him in a hateful parody of domestic bliss. She and her mother had nowhere else to go and, as improper as their living under the same roof might be, given their unmarried state, Tristan refused to let her or her mother go elsewhere. He couldn’t face the thought of what might happen. At least here, under his roof, she had his protection. They both did, although he could give a fuck what happened to Brenna’s mother. He hated the old hag.
“Brenna….” He sighed. “We’ve had this discussion before, countless times, and you know full well that I can’t.”
He walked over to the window, staring out at the snow that still swirled. The blizzard was starting to let up, but snow would fall for another day or so at least. Already it covered the ground ten hands deep. He spoke without turning, not wanting to see her face. To see the disappointment there, and the growing horror. He could stand disappointment, but not the knowledge that she was beginning to look at him with fear. She’d heard the rumors, the same as everyone else. She knew what people said about the man she’d pledged to marry. That he’d turned too far to the dark, and was becoming…different.
That at this point, he was little more than a demon, himself.
“I need his help.” Why couldn’t she understand? “In my father’s absence, I am Warden of the North. I can’t protect this castle, and this kingdom, without help.”
“If this is about power—”
He rounded on her. “This isn’t about power. What would you have me do, pray in the chapel while the world falls down around our ears? Reject the only help I have, to prove a point?”
“But your soul—”
“I’m not nearly as concerned about my soul as I am about the lives of those under my protection.” Seeing the flash of worry in her eyes, he tried to moderate his tone. “
Do you truly think that my soul wouldn’t be in jeopardy, darling, if I put my own wants and needs above my subjects’? Above those that I’ve sworn to protect? What worth is a man’s soul then, if he safeguards it at the cost of all he holds dear?”
“You and your duty,” Brenna said bitterly.
“Would I be the man that you love,” he asked quietly, “without it?”
She didn’t answer. Neither of them wanted to know the answer. Right now, what he wanted was to rip her clothes off and throw her down onto the bed and lose himself in her. But of course he was a gentleman and she a maid, and she would not give herself willingly to him without marriage. He knew; he’d tried before. Part of him wondered if he shouldn’t just overpower her, now; get it over with. They were betrothed; he had rights.
He turned back to the window.
“And even if I did put him out, where would he go? Out into the snow, to die?”
“I don’t care!” Brenna crossed her arms, pouting. “Just out. And,” she added, “I doubt very much that he’d die.”
Something in those words pulled at his heart; she’d lost some of her childhood innocence already. It was bound to happen, no woman remained a child forever, but he knew that in this case the loss was his fault.
“But he’s an evil man, Tristan, and you know it. He’s—he’s spreading his poison through the castle. People are talking. People,” she added, “are frightened of you. They whisper behind closed doors; they make the sign against evil at the supper table, right under our noses!
“They—they say that you’re changing.” Her voice broke slightly. “That you’re becoming…like him. And there are rumors, rumors that you’ve begun summoning some sort of creature. A—a demon. That the southerner’s death was your fault.” Recently, a political prisoner had died in his cell and it was he to whom she referred.
“And what do you think?” Tristan asked, without turning.
“I think that you’re a good man,” she said resolutely.
For awhile, silence held.
Chief among the necromancer’s arts was knowledge of the hidden. Tristan knew what was said about him, both because he had eyes and ears and because the demon had reported back to him. Tristan surveyed his own supper table with an increasingly cold gaze and if he gave no sign, he still saw the flashing hands that greeted his occasional comment.
His tutor, too, was hated throughout Caer Addanc. Before the war, the castle had been a cheerful place despite its name. Full of life and color, and his parents had hosted banquets all the time. But with the war and with the arrival of Tristan’s tutor had come darker times. Even the once gay tapestries seemed sapped of their color and Caer Addanc had grown increasingly to resemble the evil sprite for which it was named. Laughter rarely rang out in its halls, and no music played.
Was Tristan to blame? Even if he wasn’t, he was a convenient scapegoat. Even more than his tutor, because his subjects held no particular allegiance to that man. But they’d watched Tristan grow from a child, grown up themselves expecting him to one day lead them. Brenna was right to tell him that they were frightened. They were.
“A ruler,” he said quietly, “thrives on his own personal fable. Half of rulership is convincing your subjects that you have a right to rule.” His father had always said that. “These people you so fear are good people, yes, but also ignorant and superstitious. If they think me more than a man, then so much the better. Their demon prince will keep them safe and whole.” He rested his fingertips on the cold stone of the windowsill. “Can a mere mortal do that?” he asked, more of himself than Brenna.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself turned over to the church authorities.”
Tristan tried not to hear the threat in her words. She wouldn’t do such a thing; she loved him. She was concerned for him, was all, and he knew that. But the church had ever taken a dark view on heresy, she was right on that score. And Tristan was honest enough with himself to admit that he was more than a heretic. By some lights, he was a monster.
He needed Brenna to see him for the man he was. For the man he had been, and would be again. She was his humanity.
“Are you staying,” he asked, “or going?”
It was very late. The blizzard obscured the moon but Tristan’s internal clock told him that it would soon set. The solar was ablaze with light, fat pillar candles formed from beeswax perched on wrought iron stands that ringed the room. Tristan was rich; he could afford to light the darkness. Most women favored scented candles; he found that the frankincense and rose most often used gave him a headache and were rather unmanly besides.
“What do you mean?” she asked hesitantly.
“You know what I mean.” His voice was rough, rougher than he’d intended.
“I….” She trailed off.
He left the window and, in a few quick steps, advanced on her. She was small, much smaller than he, and as slight as a sparrow. He pinned her easily, holding her to the wall. “You know what I mean,” he repeated. His erection dug into her and he could feel her heart beat through her chest. She shook her head slightly. He kissed her, forcing her mouth open with his tongue. He wanted her, needed her. Didn’t she understand? He’d sacrificed so much and it was all for her.
He couldn’t marry her, not right now, not while he might die—while they all might die—and not while he was in bed with a man that he knew to be just as evil as Brenna claimed. He was too impure, too tainted. But he loved her, and always would. She was his, had been his since he first laid eyes on her. He’d only waited on her to realize it, to give herself to the inevitable, and now—
“Tristan, stop!”
“No,” he said hoarsely.
“Please,” she whispered. “Not now, not—like this.”
“Then when?”
She shook her head slightly, her lower lip trapped between her small white teeth. “I don’t…I don’t know. But I want to know…that you love me.”
“I do love you.”
“Tristan, you’re frightening me.”
He let her go. She was right that, even a few months ago, he wouldn’t have done what he just did. But whether war or stress or incipient famine had caused the change or whether, as Brenna claimed, his tutor had, he didn’t know. All he knew was that this was war and war changed men. Changed women. Changed the world. Brenna was right; this was about duty. His duty, to his people. Frighten them he might, but he would see them survive and if it weren’t for his tutor, his…skills…he wouldn’t have. None of them would have.
Brenna didn’t know this, no one did, but Tristan had used his arts to uncover not one but two traitors within the castle. He’d forestalled an attack that almost certainly would have cost them all their lives, an attack that was to have been facilitated by one of said traitors opening the western dog gate and letting a southern army in. And if Tristan looked in the mirror and, increasingly, saw someone else…then so be it. Brenna was still alive.
He stepped back. “Go,” he said.
“Tristan—”
“Before I change my mind.”
She left.
He shut his eyes briefly. And then, a different expression on his face entirely, he turned to face the demon. He knew where it was, without having to be told. There was a connection between them now, forged through months of summoning. Through months of…other contact. The expression he wore now was one of naked avarice, of dominion, of outright hatred.
“You know what I want,” he said.
“Yes,” the demon replied, its voice taking on the feminine characteristics of the woman it now resembled. The demon could pull the elements to itself, fashioning any number of forms, but no more explain how it did this than where it came from or why it was here. Demons, like human beings, were limited in their understanding of the world. There was only so much that any creature, mortal or immortal, was given to understand and pushing past the bounds of one’s natural orbit produced terrible results. As nearly any necromancer could attest.
The demon brushed a small, perfectly formed hand through its chestnut curls and smiled. It was small now, and slight, its cornflower blue eyes open and free of guile as it took a step forward. And then another. It moved hesitantly, like he liked. Uncertain of both him and itself—herself. They’d done this dance often enough that the demon was an old hand. It knew exactly what its master wanted, just like any good prostitute. Or slave.
And, really, in the end, what was the difference?
It trailed its fingers down his arm. “Tristan,” it whispered.
“Brenna,” he replied thickly.
THREE
It wasn’t the same, of course. It was never the same. As much as he remembered that first, painful time, Tristan wasn’t sure in his own mind how it had happened. Or, for that matter, why. He knew only that he was lonely, and desperate, and that he hated himself for what he was doing. Touching the demon filled him with self-loathing, but not as much as knowing that he was lying to himself—and loving it.
He wanted her but more than that, he wanted to hurt her. To punish her for rejecting him. To own her.
He loved her but he worried that he was losing her. Brenna was an innocent, and not meant for wartime. She was too kind, too…he didn’t know. He remembered back to those first hesitant encounters, during their courtship. She’d been nervous of this man who, although he wasn’t, not truly, seemed old enough to be her father. He had so much more experience than she did, of the world. He seemed older than he was. And indeed Tristan, although knowing himself to be still young, found it increasingly hard not to see himself as older than those around him. Older and wiser, which he often was. But he’d won her over with gentle words, and questions about her thoughts and feelings. Not too many people—male or female—asked a young woman what she wanted from her life.
Love had blossomed amidst roses and garden parties and, later, falling leaves and hunts. If only things could have stayed as they were, he was certain that they could have been happy. She would never have had to realize how different a man’s life was from hers, how different his life was from hers. She didn’t want a killer; she wanted a man to read her poetry, to hold her like she was a delicate porcelain vase. Not force himself on her in an extremis of need and frustration.
