Sin Eater (Iconoclasts Book 2)

by Mike Shel

  “It ain’t in place!” he answered, frantic. “The door’s jammed!”

  Margaret’s barks became more ferocious. Auric turned back to the creature: it crawled free of the hearth, comprised entirely of flames, a serpentine body the size of a horse, with six muscular legs and a whirling tail that shed cinders into the heated air. He saw the roiling orange fires that were its muscled limbs, readying to pounce. Auric moved forward to ward off the beast, but his movements seemed slowed, as though he waded against the current in waist-deep water: the thing would be on top of him before he could brace himself and present Szaa’da’shaela as a skewer on which it might impale itself. But then Margaret faced off against the animate flames, growling her fiercest growl. Before Auric could warn her back, she leapt into the fires, her noble snarl choked into a terrible whimper. The fire beast shuddered at the attack, thrashing its head about for a moment with Margaret in its burning jaws, then flung the hound’s charred body across the floor, deeper into the kitchen.

  A mad rage pulsed from Auric’s heart, engulfing him, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. Taking advantage of the crucial seconds Margaret’s valiant, suicidal attack had bought him, he held the Djao sword’s jeweled grip with both hands and lunged at the creature. He swung the weapon in a great horizontal arc, the blade catching the beast at the corner of its jaw. Auric expected the steel to pass straight through the fiery form, but the keen edge of the sword bit into something solid, and the monster bellowed in pain. Bits of fire dropped from its body to the floor, like liquid metal dripping from a forge.

  Auric yanked the blade back, eliciting another yowl of agony from the inferno creature. He drew back the weapon again, readying another great swing in hopes of decapitating the beast, but it leapt forward. Its jaws bit into the meat of his right bicep and shoulder. Fiery agony erupted, nearly forcing Auric to drop his sword, and the incendiary force of the creature’s body pushed him backward. The heat roiling off the elemental baked the flesh of his face—he could feel his cheek cooking. He brought Szaa’da’shaela about with his left arm, slicing into the thing’s fiery jowl with the sword’s wicked edge. The teeth released their hold and Auric managed to twist away, feeling searing pain where the beast had bitten him.

  The fiery creature’s jaws opened wide, emitting a fierce roar that carried with it a gust of overwhelming heat. Auric tried to stand his ground, but the unnatural creature’s body baked the air about it, forcing him back. His left side struck the door jamb and a wave of enormous fatigue fell over him like a great blanket. He heard Hanouer yell something desperate behind him but couldn’t make out the words. Auric sensed that his life was at its end.

  But somehow, he was moving forward again, Szaa’da’shaela thrust forward in the vanguard. His fiery assailant backed away, fear in its glowing features, eyes like burning coals focused on the sword’s lethal point. Auric backed it further into the corner of the kitchen, stepping over Margaret’s blackened corpse. When it could retreat no farther, the thing reared up on four back legs and spoke. Its voice was like the deep crackling of fuel burning in a furious furnace.

  “Da’shaela’behk’ahl, imbeda.”

  The flames lost their form and fell to the floor, dissipating. Though fire was still everywhere, the elemental was gone. Auric turned back to the door where a wild-eyed Hanouer cowered with still-unconscious Pala. As he moved toward them, he glanced at his upper right arm, where the beast had bitten him. It was throbbing, the sleeve of his bedclothes burned away, the creature’s teeth marks now blackened, cauterized flesh.

  The outer door was much heavier than the one to his bedroom; there would be no breaking this one down with his shoulder. It was clear that Hanouer, beset by another fit of coughing, couldn’t manage winding his way through the manse to the front parlor, where Auric suspected he would find that door equally resistant. A tingle ran up his sword arm. Another message from the blade? He looked at the weapon’s edge, then at the iron-bound oak. What good would the sword do? Then, in his mind’s eye, he recalled the blade nearly cleaving a manticore in two when he was last in the Barrowlands, hacking through tough, armored hide and bone in a single stroke.

  “Get back,” ordered Auric. Hanouer grimaced but complied.

  The heat of the fire was behind Auric and he heard its menacing snapping and sizzling growing louder and louder as it consumed his home. There was a great crash as a portion of the second floor collapsed at the opposite end of the house. He gripped Szaa’da’shaela with both hands and raised it over his head, despite his wounded arm’s screaming protest. He closed his eyes, imagining the rune-etched metal cutting the door asunder. Then he brought it down with all the strength he could muster.

  The blade bit into the thick wood, cutting it in half, slicing through the iron binding the door as though it were no more than strips of bacon. Hanouer gasped in disbelief behind him. Auric pushed the sundered pieces of wood aside and they parted like linens hanging on a line. He helped his manservant drag Pala through the portal, and the three of them emerged from the burning manse into the cool summer night, beneath a sky hung with countless stars.

  4

  Dyrekeep

  Agnes rode her dappled mare down the hill hard, leaving Kennah and his burden far behind. There were several workmen sorting through the aftermath of the fire, determining what might be salvaged from the wreckage and making certain the blaze didn’t rekindle itself. She was off her horse while it was still at a trot and caught herself, stumbling into a run. She grabbed hold of the nearest workman, a young, gap-toothed man close to her age with hair the color and coarseness of straw.

  “Auric Manteo?”

  The youth was silent for a moment, returning Agnes’s intense stare with raised eyebrows and a gawping mouth. At last he spoke. “Dyrekeep, ma’am. Sir Auric’s up at the lady’s manor.”

  In minutes she was pounding on the manse’s door, out of breath, heart beating in unison with her blows. The baroness’s chief manservant, whose name escaped her, answered the summons with furrowed brow. The small, balding man’s expression turned to surprise and softened once he recognized Agnes. “Oh! Miss Manteo. Your father is within. Fear not, he lives.”

  He opened the door wide to admit her and she relaxed with the good news, attempting to compose herself.

  “The baroness and Sir Auric are in the library, if you would walk with me this way.”

  He escorted her through the well-appointed manor, hung with fine tapestries and framed portraits. In a broad hall they came upon Auric’s manservant, Hanouer, who sat on a bench in a hallway, soot-stained, eyes puffy and red, looking more forlorn than anyone she had ever seen. A big-boned woman wearing voluminous homespun skirts and a headscarf knelt by him, wiping ash from his face with a wet cloth. Her eyes searched about for the man’s wife, sweet Pala, who had pampered Agnes with treats from the kitchen when she last visited. She was nowhere to be seen. Hanouer lit up with recognition when their eyes met, and his grubby hand grabbed hold of hers. “Oh, Miss Agnes,” he wept. “Pala is dead!”

  “Oh, Hanouer.” Tears came to her own eyes as she put a hand on his stubbly cheek. “I’m so sorry. She was such a dear, dear woman.” Agnes had grown fond of them both during her visit to her father’s home last autumn, after the events of the plague. The childless couple had doted on her as though she was their own granddaughter.

  “Aye!” he wailed, adding his other hand to the vise grip he held her in. “She was better’n I deserved! Sir Auric kilt a demon in the kitchen, after it et poor Margaret, but Pala never woke. Father Borim says it were the smoke what kilt her. Sweet Belu, I loved that woman!”

  Agnes’s eyes went wide. “Demon?”

  “Miss Manteo must see her father and the baroness, sir,” said the balding manservant, firmly removing Hanouer’s despairing grip on Agnes’s hand. “You may speak with her later.”

  The old man nodded, pathetic, submitting himself again to the min
istrations of the servant woman kneeling by him.

  Agnes and the manservant mounted a winding set of stairs at the end of the hall and passed through a few more high-ceilinged rooms before finally reaching the manor library. The man knocked on the heavy oak door and opened it after receiving muffled feminine affirmation from within. Lady Hannah, tall and regal, hovered over Agnes’s father, who was slumped in a cushioned chair. He was clad in a fine robe made for a much taller man; no doubt it had belonged to the late baron. Auric’s face was still marred with soot, his hair singed in spots. There was more gray in his hair now, which fell just below his ears, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his dark eyes were more prominent than when last she’d seen him, perhaps from the ashy residue trapped there. The right side of his face was baked red, as though he had fallen asleep in the noonday sun.

  “Miss Manteo is here,” announced the manservant.

  Auric’s weary face brightened when he caught sight of Agnes in the doorway, and the baroness straightened. The robe slipped from her father’s shoulder as he made to stand, exposing fresh bandages wrapped around his right upper arm and shoulder. He quickly sat back down, putting hands to his temples.

  “Agnes!” he said, face fatigued but smiling. “Sorry, a bit dizzy, and short of breath.” A series of terrible hacking coughs from deep in his chest followed his words.

  Lady Hannah’s face was tense with worry, though it seemed she tried to mask it as Agnes entered the library. “Agnes, dear! What fortuitous timing! A dreadful fire at your father’s home!”

  Agnes approached without the baroness’s leave and knelt by her father’s chair. He put a hand on her cheek and kissed her forehead, leaving soot stains in both places. “What brings you to Daurhim, daughter?”

  “It can wait,” she said, perhaps too abruptly. “What in blazes happened? Hanouer said Pala is dead, and something about a demon eating Margaret.”

  Her father frowned, took in a breath as if readying to speak, and then looked up at Lady Hannah’s manservant, still standing at the door. Hannah stepped forward and addressed the man in a quiet voice. “Arlan, some privacy, please.” The man nodded and left the library with a formal bow, closing the door behind him.

  Insisting they all sit, Lady Hannah herself pulled a chair over for Agnes. Auric shared his tale, the baroness nodding on occasion, as if to support the telling. The fire was no natural one, he explained. He and his servants were in some sort of sorcerous slumber. A fire elemental accosted them as they fled.

  “A fire elemental?” marveled Agnes, aghast. “How did you—” Her gaze turned to the sheathed Djao sword propped against a nearby reading table. “Who summoned it? Does a sorcerer live in Daurhim?”

  “Of course not,” answered the baroness, her tone defensive.

  “Then who—”

  “I don’t know, Agnes,” her father interrupted, his tone soothing. “I know nothing at this point. Pala is dead. Margaret is dead. Only Hanouer and I survived. Something strange is afoot, no question. But we lack the resources necessary to investigate such an event here in Daurhim.”

  “You really killed an elemental?”

  “I injured it, had it cornered. But no, the thing spoke some Djao at me and discorporated.”

  “What did it say?”

  There was a knock at the door. Lady Hannah bade the knocker to enter, her voice edged with irritation. Her manservant Arlan poked his head in again. “Forgive me, Baroness. Miss Manteo’s traveling companion is arrived.” Lady Hannah nodded, and Arlan opened the door wide. Kennah strode in, riding cap in hand, smoothing his unkempt beard with the other, uncharacteristically reserved, eyes to the ground.

  “I apologize if I’m interrupting anything,” said the big man, raising his averted eyes for a moment. “Thank you for allowing me into your home, m’lady.” He looked at Agnes’s father and nodded. “Sir Auric.”

  “Your name, son?” asked Auric.

  “He’s Kennah Rolenwy,” announced Agnes, answering for the man. “A Syraeic brother sent here with me. We were ambushed on the ride here by highwaymen, else I’d have a second brother to introduce.”

  “Bandits?” responded Lady Hannah, clearly indignant to hear there were outlaws within a day’s ride of her domain.

  “If you’d call ‘em that,” Kennah answered, a bit bolder now. “Agnes killed one. We hanged the other, under color of law, of course.” Kennah spared Agnes a quick, furtive glance.

  “Arlan,” said the baroness, frowning, still looking at broad-shouldered Kennah with a carefully assessing eye. “Please draw up another chair for Mr. Rolenwy and see that we are not disturbed.” The manservant nodded and moved a chair over so that Kennah could join the rest. Arlan bowed and retreated, closing the door soundlessly as he left the room. The baroness gestured at the chair with a graceful hand and smiled at the swordsman. Kennah took his place after an awkward adjustment of his scabbarded broadsword. He kneaded his riding hat in his hands.

  “What did the thing that attacked you say, father?” asked Agnes.

  Auric drew his amused gaze from the uncomfortable swordsman and looked at Agnes. “It said, ‘Da’shaela’behk’ahl, imbeda.’”

  “‘God’s will?’” ventured Agnes.

  “Yes, I caught that bit, too,” said her father. “But my head’s still foggy from breathing in smoke.”

  “‘I but do God’s will, mortal,’” Kennah offered. “Lower Djao.”

  The three others looked over at the swordsman with surprise.

  “I’m good with languages,” he muttered, cheeks above his beard blooming red. “I can do more than swing a sword. Who said this to you, sir?”

  “The fire elemental that burned down my home, caused the death of a fine woman, and murdered my hound,” her father replied, giving the man an approving nod. “Before it lost its form and vanished.”

  “Fire elemental?” Kennah marveled. “Never saw one myself. Was it a big one?”

  “‘God’s will,’” repeated Lady Hannah, ignoring Kennah’s boyish inquiry. “Perhaps we should consult Father Borim?”

  Agnes frowned at the mention of Daurhim’s supercilious priest of Belu, remembering his arch, condescending manner when last she visited the town. Auric touched Lady Hannah’s hand gently, an apologetic smile on his face. “I think not, dear. He hasn’t proven himself very useful today and I think a matter like this is beyond the experience of a parish priest.”

  “The priest has already been here?” asked Agnes.

  Her father nodded.

  “Why didn’t he heal you? Your arm and shoulder? The burns on your face?”

  “He tried, daughter, he tried. But his prayers were to no avail.”

  Agnes’s mind reeled. Wounds that a cleric of Belu couldn’t assuage? Disease might resist divine intervention, as did the Citadel plague last year. But injuries like her father’s? What could it mean but the interference of some other supernatural power? There was no other explanation, unless the priest himself harbored some secret sin that affected his connection to the goddess.

  She looked again at her father, telling herself it was his weariness, the ordeal he had just endured that made him look so much older. He was fifty-one now, more than twenty years younger than Lictor Rae, but there was an uneasy flutter in the pit of Agnes’s stomach; she was somehow more aware of her father’s mortality than she had ever been. He had come close to dying last night—only that sorcerous blade of his had saved him. She eyed the sheathed Djao weapon again, light from the window on the far side of the library twinkling in the three emeralds set in its exotic crossguard and pommel.

  “It’s speaking to you again?” she asked at last.

  There was a pregnant pause, Auric looking from her to Kennah, apparently uncertain how much the man knew. “Yes,” he answered at last. “For the first time since I was in the Barrowlands. As clear to me as my own voice is to you right no
w.”

  “Your sword talks, Sir Auric?” asked Kennah, eyes wide, staring not at her father but at the sheathed blade.

  “It does,” her father said, looking at the carpeted floor of the library. “To me, in moments of extreme peril, apparently, offering guidance and aid.”

  “It’s a Djao artifact,” Kennah said in a voice tinged with awe. “I recognize the provenance of the etchings in its hilt, even from here. Agnes shared a rousing tale from your career, sir, but she said nothing about a talking sword. I think I would like to hear the story of how you came into possession of such a weapon.”

  “Another time, perhaps,” said Auric, smoothing the back of his hair with a palm, the line of his mouth tense. Agnes watched her father’s eyes, narrowing as though casting his thoughts back. She had heard the complete retelling of his adventure at the official Syraeic inquiry, a few days after he had returned from the Barrowlands. With the sword, he had slain a living god and its avatars. Now the weapon had driven off a fire elemental and seen him safely out of a blazing building. The thought of such power in human hands was unsettling, even if those hands were her own kin’s.

  Her attention turned to Lady Hannah, sitting in the cushioned chair adjacent to her father. She had a natural aloofness to her bearing Agnes had previously witnessed in aristocrats: her head tilted upward at a slight angle, an almost-frown on her face; but she read worry at the corners of her eyes. It was worry for Agnes’s father. The idea of him with a woman other than her mother was still strange, but it didn’t bite as it once did. Her mother was dead four years now, her suicide still a sharp ache in the deeper recesses of her heart. Mama had been the daughter of an innkeeper in Boudun’s Artisan District. Though Agnes’s father earned considerable wealth from his many expeditions for the League, her mother had always insisted on frugality. She made sure the cottage he purchased for the family was a modest one, and while they never wanted for anything, she allowed no luxuries, insisted no one behave “above your stations.” A wry smile came to Agnes’s lips at the memory of that phrase. Mama lived in fear her children would behave like the offspring of spoiled merchants or—all good gods forfend—the nobility. They ate good, simple food, wore good, simple clothing. She did hire a tutor to teach them their letters and numbers, though Mama herself had no more scholarship than it took to balance one’s books.