Demonkin (11 page)

“Intention is not action. We have laws. Kara, do you have anything else to say in your defense?”

Kara thought about Trell, about Sera, about her mother, and knew she could not die until she saved them first. “I'll stand trial for my crimes after this is all over, but you need me right now.”

“Do I?” Haven asked.

“Only I can stop this,” Kara said. “Only I can travel beneath Torn’s spectral storms. I'll return to Terras, contact Melyssa, find out what she knows. Perhaps together, we can—”

“I knew Melyssa Honuron,” Haven interrupted. “If this threat is as terrible as you claim, she will come to us.”

“I can't stay.” Kara kept her posture firm and her voice calm. “My friends are out there, in danger. I have to go after them.”

Haven rose and smiled, faintly. “You are young, brash, and confident you will have your way. You remind me of myself at your age.” He crossed his thick arms. “You will remain here until we know more.”

“Think about this. I'm Torn Honuron's great-granddaughter. If I can just get to Terras, I can—”

“Did you not hear me?” Haven opened his arms and stared her down. “My word is law.” He loomed over her. “You will not leave Tarna.”

Kara stared with wide eyes. She had never seen King Haven’s face this hard, never seen his eyes this cold. His glare paralyzed her.

“By my father's decrees, I should have your head before the day is out. Aiding a Demonkin is a capital crime.”

Kara wondered if she could put all three of them to sleep. She wondered if she could get past three-dozen legionnaires and a stone door as thick as a horse. She wondered if she would die trying.

Nothing in her life felt real. She had betrayed her teacher, her king. Kara looked away from Haven. She looked at the stone floor.

“Even so,” and Haven's voice softened, “the sacrifices you have made for this world speak of your excellent character. I can pardon you.”

Kara dared not speak. One word would end her.

“Kara,” Haven said, “I pardon you for the crimes of aiding a Demonkin and stealing magesand. You will not die, at least not on my orders.”

Kara forced her eyes to rise and found his. Haven was not so terrifying now. Beren offered a sympathetic smile over his father's shoulder.

“As to the crime of lying,” Haven said, “that I cannot pardon.”

Kara’s face fell once more.

“You should have told us the whole truth when you arrived. You should have trusted your teacher and your prince. You should have trusted me.”

Kara wanted to ooze right through the floor. Disappointing King Haven felt worse than angering him. He was right about everything, and all her mistakes and lies caught up with her at once.

“I'm sorry,” Kara whispered. Yet she could not take any of it back.

“Is there anything else you have not told us?” Haven asked. “Anything you have withheld?”

“No.” Kara reminded herself that she was still Torn’s great-granddaughter, still their best hope for stopping the Mavoureen and stopping this war. “I swear on Solyr, on my soul. I've told you everything.”

“I believe you.” Haven glanced at Anylus. “Place her in protective custody.”

“Please!” Kara fought the urge to grab his royal robes and
pull
. “I have to put this right!”

“You are a target,” Haven said. “There is no guarantee the Mavoureen will not try to abduct you again. They have somehow opened another gate into our world, and we cannot strike until we know where that gate is.”

Anylus touched Kara's shoulders. A calm flowed through her, alien and strange, and the urge to fight or flee faded. Anylus was doing that, somehow.

“Do not argue,” Anylus said. “This is for the best.”

Kara fought the calm as she imagined her friends dying one by one. She saw the world burning away as she sat alone in a cell of cold stone. She could not bring herself to care, not with whatever Anylus was doing to her.

Haven rose and glanced at Prince Beren. “Walk with me, son. We have a war to plan.” They strode toward the stone door from which Haven had emerged.

Somehow Adept Anylus turned Kara as well. Somehow he walked her to another door hidden in the side of the throne chamber. How many other doors did this cavernous space hide?

“The king must think highly of you,” Anylus said, as they walked, “to pardon the crime of aiding a Demonkin.”

Kara couldn't stop walking. “Sera saved my life.”

“Not all decrees are absolute. That is why we have a king to interpret them.” A stone door rolled open. “He's who we trust to make exceptions.”

Anylus led Kara into a rising tunnel. Her feet carried her of their own accord, and for a moment, the sensation reminded her of possession by Cantrall. Was this similar? Anylus was a Soulmage, after all.

“I won't be set aside.” Kara managed to stop walking, an effort as difficult as trying to hold a rowboat above her head. “Just let me go to Terras, find Melyssa and Sera and Byn. We'll handle this. We did before.”

“What I will do,” and Anylus's calm flowed through her in force, “is walk with you to your new chambers. We will get you something to eat.”

Kara walked as if in a dream. She walked without focus, without worry, without fear. She walked in a fog of apathy.

“Anything else,” Anylus said quietly, “will wait until tomorrow.”

TRELL WAS HALFWAY UP YET ANOTHER grassy hill when his left leg collapsed. He fell on his face in damp earth, bones icy cold. Abaddon had left the Imperial Road, and Trell had no idea why.

The Mavoureen general loomed over him, an intimidating figure beneath warm blue sky. “Is there a problem?” It sounded amused.

“I tripped.” Trell forced his head up and out of the scratchy grass. It smelled like rain. At least he had not fallen on his sheathed broadsword.

“You're sick,” Abaddon said.

“Just tired.”

“You're also a piss poor liar.”

Trell ground his teeth and stood, walked. Every step split his shins with icy spikes. Abaddon clomped onward and Trell followed it. So long as they were heading away from Tarna, away from Kara, he would walk.

“What's wrong with you?” Abaddon asked.

“Why do you care?”

“You bested me in single combat. No mortal has done that for as long as I've existed.”

Trell looked to the clear blue sky, imagining his friends. Remembering Jair’s calm eyes as he put a sword through his own chest. “I had help.”

“You had an army,” Abaddon corrected. “Our armies clashed around us as we, their leaders, dueled blade to blade. You slew my army and you slew me. All I ask is that you allow me a chance to redeem myself.”

“I do not know how to summon Life.”

“So you say.”

They crested the hill and started down. Walking down was a different pain — like someone twisting his intestines in knots — and it helped to switch off. Trell stared at the dozens of hills ahead and despaired.

“Until we duel,” Abaddon said, “you will stay with me, under my protection. We will awaken Life's power once more and fight as equals.”

“I don't need protection,” Trell said, even though each step put a lie to his words. “You've seen my skills.”

“You are mortal. I am not. If I release you, how am I to know you won't get yourself foolishly killed in one of our wonderful new wars?”

“You don't deny starting them?” Trell wanted to tackle Abaddon and rip its helmet off. “Don’t you want to turn me against the Mynt?”

“Why would I deny an obvious victory?” Abaddon's massive armored shoulders creaked as it shrugged. “That is the only part of my strategy that worked.” They passed the husk of a dead white oak.

Trell glared. “Slaughtering defenseless people is not
strategy
.”

“This is war,” Abaddon said. “Our strategy of inciting conflict among your people was the best strategy for us to weaken you before we arrived, so that is the strategy I designed. Your people face annihilation. Before we can save you, we must first unite you under our flag.”

“You honestly believe what you did was right?”

“Right? No. Necessary? Yes.” Abaddon sighed, a rattling sound. “The Alcedi are coming. If you do not allow us to protect you—”

“To invade us,” Trell corrected.

“—then the Alcedi will consume you, just as they have consumed every other world that has denied us.”

“I do not believe you. I never will.”

“One day, perhaps, we'll find a way for you and your kind to speak to those on other worlds we have
invaded
. They'll tell you how the Alcedi came to enslave them, how we Mavoureen defeated the golden horde and saved their cities from annihilation. Saved their tiny little minds.”

Trell said nothing.

“Or I could show you the worlds that refused our help, the worlds that closed us out and fell to the enemy. I could show you worlds filled with vapid, drooling dolls.”

Trell rubbed his aching temples and stopped walking. “I am not Cantrall. I am not your puppet. Why repeat these fabrications?”

“Perhaps I merely enjoy the sound of my own voice, in this world.” Abaddon laughed, a sound like stones grating together. “Please, keep walking. Before I find someone else I need to kill.”

Trell fell into step behind Abaddon. His muscles ached like he had spent days pushing a boulder uphill. Despite his frustration, exhaustion, and fear, he found another question for the Mavoureen general.

“Did you know your army slaughtered my family?”

“I did not. My sympathies.”

“You don't feel sympathy.”

“Correct. I was simply being polite.”

“My town was named Carn.”

“It was a desert town, yes?”

Trell ground his teeth. The demon remembered. Had it cut his wife down, or had another revenant ended her life?

“We wiped out several desert towns,” Abaddon said. “Your brave people impressed me, soldiers and civilians alike. Even the children took up arms before dying. A few of them even escaped.”

“Escaped.” Trell stopped walking again.

“Of course. What is the point of butchering a town and blaming it on a rival province if no one survives to spread the tale?”

Trell knew his wife was dead, but what about others he couldn't remember? Did he have parents? Brothers or sisters? “Do you know who escaped?”

“I didn’t bother to check.”

“How did you attack our villages? Where did you start?”

“We rode into view under the colors of Mynt and cut down all outside your walls. We then slaughtered your militia and tore apart your gates. Once inside your walls, my loyal Mavoureen threw torches to spread fire. If it moved, we killed it.”

“Elders.” Trell shivered. “Children.”

“As I said, anyone.” To the Mavoureen general, slaughter and strategy seemed one and the same. “My soldiers killed and hunted until most everyone we found was dead, then set your buildings ablaze.”

Abaddon had just described a war crime, and any province or king in the Five Provinces would name it such. The Cairn Teyn might be a Tellvan oath, but the other provinces obeyed it as well. Or had, until villages started burning deep in Rain.

Trell pondered ripping Abaddon's head off again.

“Given that your people do not dig into the ground,” Abaddon said, “I doubt anyone in homes survived. Those at the town edge when we attacked may have escaped, and others may have pretended to be dead.”

Could Trell destroy this demon? Would Abaddon kill him if he tried? Would it kill others after it killed him?

“Do you believe your parents would pretend to be dead?” Abaddon asked. “Would they flee the city?”

“I had a wife.” Trell picturing Marabella’s face.

“Ah. Any children?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That's fortunate.” Abaddon resumed its casual walk. “Perhaps your father and mother and wife are all out there somewhere, waiting. I doubt it, but there is always hope.”

Trell unsheathed his broadsword. He ignored the pain stabbing his arms and raised it through force of will. This demon
must
die.

Abaddon fixed Trell with whatever waited behind its skull-faced helm. “Are you ready?” it asked. “To summon the power of Life?”

Trell howled and charged.

Abaddon drew its own sword and parried Trell's first descending strike. Metal rang upon metal, yet its blade did not ignite. Abaddon let the next blow come. Trell's sword bounced right off its armor.

Trell struck again and again, aiming for every joint he had trained to attack in the years he could not remember. Blow after blow rang off the Mavoureen general's armor. Trell screamed, hacked, cursed, and soon enough he collapsed, chest heaving. Icicles stabbed his aching muscles.

“Your emotions seem so odd to me.” Abaddon waited for him to swing again. “Anger. Sadness. Guilt. We are a people that have never experienced birth or death, loss or pain, and we cannot die. We are forever, and when you are forever there is very little point in getting upset.”

“I hate you.” Trell could not even lift his sword.

“Hate is another emotion I have never understood, but I am less curious about what drives mortals. Malkavet understands trickery and arrogance. Davazet, he understands hate. Balazel taught it to him. I do not know where Balazel learned it. Perhaps from interacting with primitives?”

Trell threw down his sword. “There is nothing primitive about having a soul!”

“Pick that up.” Abaddon pointed at Trell's sword. “You’ll need it.” The armored demon strode away.

Trell dared not disobey. He sweated and shook. With great effort, he sheathed his blade and stumbled after Abaddon.

“Explain something.” Abaddon slowed its pace so it would not outdistance him. “You have just stated your people have souls, a fact to which I can directly attest.”

Trell put one aching foot in front of the other.

“You have also learned that your souls continue to exist after your bodies die. They return to the Five who made your world. This is how you believe?”

“Yes.” Trell gritted teeth against the pain.

“Yet when someone close to you dies, another mortal, you feel such rage and loss. Why is this?”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“Of course I wouldn't. I am not mortal, but I still enjoy learning new things. Those dear to you are not gone. They have simply changed form. You truly believe them to be safe in a beautiful place, free of all pain.”

Trell said nothing. What could he say to this Mavoureen construct, this philosophical monster? It did not know how to
feel
.

“So what of your father, your mother, your wife? If they are dead, you believe them to be safe and content.”

“They are.” Trell had to believe that.

“So why despair and hate? When you die, and you most certainly will, you will join them. Is it the temporary separation? You must understand time is a difficult concept for us, being immortal.”

“The separation,” Trell repeated.

“Yes. Being separated from them, even if only for a brief time. That causes your despair? Your rage?”

“You would not understand, Mavoureen. Any more than I would understand how to heartlessly slaughter elders and children.”

“I accept your reasoning. We are simply too different to ever understand each other. Yet we do not need to understand your people to save you.”

“You aren't here to save us.”

“You will change your mind eventually. In the meantime, we've arrived.”

Trell dropped to his knees at the top of the hill, grateful for any respite from the endless walking. A small town nestled below, raised wooden palisades around perhaps a dozen homes. Wheat fields stretched in all directions, and more small cottages clustered below.

A guard in a distant tower was ringing a bell. The tolling reminded Trell of Tarna, of bloody bodies crushed into mud. “What are we doing here?”

“I have a theory.” Abaddon stretched and worked its arms, its torso, like a boxer preparing for a fight. “From everything I understand about Life and her interaction with champions, she manifests when her champion feels a need to protect others. Do you feel that need now?”

“No,” Trell lied, but his voice trembled. A dozen militia manned those distant palisades now, long bows ready. The gates slammed shut. The town had no idea what sort of monster looked down upon it from the hill.

“Slaughtering your fellow soldiers in Tarna did not draw Life from within your soul, and in our bargain, you made me promise to stop killing before I slaughtered any more. We had to walk here to find new targets.”

“You promised,” Trell whispered. “You swore!”

Abaddon drew its terrible sword. “I swore to stop killing people inside Tarna.” Its blade crackled with lightning. “Logically, Life should respond as I slaughter innocent people here. Let's test that.”

“Don't.” Trell slammed his own sword into the earth, hilt-first, and clutched the upturned blade. “Kill them and I’ll kill myself, and then where will your duel be?”

“If you kill yourself, you'll break our agreement. I'll return to Tarna.”

Trell’s eyes blurred as wet stained his cheeks.

“I'll slaughter your woman. I'll slaughter them all.”

“Don't do this. Please!”

“You can still save these people, Trell.” Abaddon started down the hill. “Summon Life. Protect those you love.”

Abaddon raised its sword. Lightning struck the tower, a bolt from clear blue sky, and the tower disintegrated. Horrified screams rose on the air.

“I'm going to slaughter everyone in that village now. I'm going to devour their souls. Stop me if you can.”

Trell lifted his sword, stumbling forward with the blade raised. He howled as reason and logic burned away. He charged Abaddon and swung with all his remaining might, over, and over, and over.

He might as well have assaulted a mountain.

FOUR DAYS AFTER SETTING OUT from Tania's home near Dane, after a journey of many days through the quiet of Highridge Pass and the squall-filled grasslands of the Martial Steppes, Aryn Locke and Tania Lace came within sight of Tarna's massive walls. A line of wagons stretched along the Imperial Road. It was a very long line.