“But I was crippled and it was getting worse.” He swallowed heavily and continued in almost a whisper. “I knew that Ven loved you, and would make an admirable husband and father. The child . . . the child was mine, wasn’t it?” He didn’t have to feign the sadness in his voice: the poor babe, doomed by demons and wizards long dead or by mischance, he supposed it didn’t matter which.
“I thought I was dying. I could see no good in making you a widow a second time, so I went looking for something to put between us—and I found Shamera.” He played with the top of his left crutch. “Then I began to recover.”
“I noticed that you have been getting better, my lord. Can you tell me why?”
He hesitated and managed to look frustrated and slightly guilty. “That’s the truly odd part, and I’m not certain it is my secret to tell.”
“My lord,” she said meeting his eyes squarely. “Anything you say will stay with me.”
He gave her a measuring glance, then nodded as if in sudden decision. “Late one night, when one of the cramping spells began, Shamera came in and . . . worked magic.” He let some of the wonder he had felt creep into his voice. “I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. Shamera has told me that the wizards are largely fled from here, though there are a few, like her, who hide what they are.”
“Did she find out who did that to you?”
Kerim nodded his head, even while the meaning of the mistake she’d just made washed over him. He’d never told Sky that Sham had been undoing a spell laid upon him—just that she’d worked magic. “She seems to think so,” he said smoothly. “After the High Priest died—and this is the strangest part, I’m not sure I’d believe it if Shamera hadn’t had Brother Fykall to back her up—something took over his body, or wore his shape. Shamera says that it was a demon. It made the mistake of going to the Temple of Altis, and brother Fykall destroyed it.”
Sky’s mouth tightened with anger momentarily. If he hadn’t been watching her closely, he would have missed it. The guilt that he’d been feeling for misleading Sky all but melted away.
“I owe Shamera a great deal—my health, and even my life. But—” he looked down, as if caught by shyness. “—I don’t love her. Last night made me realize that I had to talk to her, and tell her how I felt. I’d already left it too long; I was afraid I would hurt her.”
He grinned suddenly. “I almost wish you’d have been there. I was expecting to face down the virago who leapt on my bed with a broken pitcher and faced a merchant instead. She let me say what I had to say, then smiled and laid down terms she thought were fair for services rendered.”
Kerim smiled coaxingly. “Come with me tonight, Sky. I haven’t been to the sea for a long time. The Spirit Tide is something you will remember for the rest of your life.”
“I . . .” she gave him a look filled with desire and fear. “I don’t know if I should . . .”
“Come with me,” he lowered his voice into a purr. Practicing with Shamera had improved his seduction technique.
She drew in a breath, and recklessly said, “Yes, I would like that. If you’ll wait a moment in the hall, I’ll put on riding clothes.”
“For you, I’ll wait,” replied Kerim softly, rising to his feet and crossing the distance to the hall as lightly as someone on crutches could be expected to.
Lady Sky gave him a quick, bright smile before she shut the door.
LANTERN IN HAND, Dickon waited outside the walls of the Castle with three horses: A sweet-faced bay mare, his own sturdy gelding, and Kerim’s war stallion, Scorch.
The stallion looked rather odd with the crutches attached to the shoulder of either side of the saddle, but he was used to carrying stranger things than crutches. Kerim rubbed the black muzzle affectionately.
Cautiously, with Dickon holding the opposite stirrup so the saddle wouldn’t slip, Kerim gripped the saddle at pommel and cantle and powered the rest of his body up and into position. Not graceful, but it was effective. Dickon handed Kerim the lantern, and helped Lady Sky on her mare before mounting himself.
“We are not to go alone, my Lord?” questioned Lady Sky softly, with a pointed look at Dickon.
Kerim shifted his weight until the stallion sidestepped next to Lady Sky’s mount. Reaching over he took one gloved hand into his free hand and brought it to his lips. “Alas, no, Lady. The best place to view the Spirit Tide is on the other side of a bad section of town. Despite the fact that I’ve paid off the proper people to ensure a quiet ride, it would be sheerest folly to go into such a place with only a crippled warrior such as myself to guard you. Dickon is quite a hand with that sword he carries.”
Lady Sky smiled. “So this is not such an impulsive trip after all—you could have given me more notice.”
Behind her, Kerim noticed that Dickon was frowning his disapproval. He’d cautioned Kerim about flirting too hard and hurting Sky.
“Ah, me.” Kerim grinned. “I have betrayed myself. No, Lady, I’ve been planning this for most of the day.” He gave her a convincing leer. “But if I had given you notice, you’d not have met me in your sleeping gown.”
Lady Sky laughed and followed him as he nudged his mount into a swinging walk.
IN SPITE OFhis spoken pessimism, Kerim’s ride through Purgatory was without incident. He could feel the eyes peering at them from the inky blackness, but they stayed there. Apparently Shamera had greased the right fists with his gold. He took his time, flirting and delaying. By the time they reached the broken timbers of the old bell tower, he calculated that they only had a short time before the tide returned.
Kerim stopped the stallion near a clump of scrub a fair distance from the cliffs. Returning the lantern to Dickon’s care, he dismounted with more expediency than skill, but ended up on his feet, which was something of a salve to his pride.
While Dickon saw to Lady Sky’s dismounting, Kerim untied the leather strings that kept the crutches in place. He was still unsteady on his feet, but with the crutches he had a fair bit of mobility on the rough ground.
“Come,” he said, leading Lady Sky away from the horses and Dickon. “You’ll have to take the lantern.”
The nearby buildings were nearly rotted through from the salt-sea air. Kerim ignored them as he made his way to a small area of sandy dirt near the cliffs. He stopped with the base of one crutch resting near a solitary piece of broken cobblestone. Sometime during the ride the stars had come into their full glory. Even without the moon’s light, it was possible to see the beach far below.
Sky drew in her breath as she gazed beyond the cliff. “How fascinating.”
“Beautiful,” he agreed, “an unexpected act of nature—like you.” He reached into his belt pouch and looked for something that wasn’t there.
“Plague it,” he said, with boyish embarrassment, “I brought you something, but I forgot to get it from Dickon. Wait here, I won’t be but a moment.”
She gave him the lantern. Holding it awkwardly, he turned and rapidly made his way back to the horses while Lady Sky waited, her beautiful profile turned to the sea and a faint smile on her face.
AS SOON ASKerim was far enough away, Lord Halvok sneaked soundlessly around the remains of the building he had been hiding behind, giving Sham a hint at the reason his guerrilla campaign had been able to hold out against the Easterners. He stopped at the place she had hidden the break in the wire.
Quickly he brought the ends together, fusing them with a touch of magic that caught Lady Sky’s attention. Hidden in the shadows of another building, Sham bit her lip. Halvok’s fate rested on her rune skills, and she’d never had to make a rune of this size before.
As the magic built, the golden thread began to glow, burning brightly beneath the covering sand. Under other circumstances the rune would have been enough to hold its prisoner indefinitely; a demon was as capable of unmaking a rune as Sham or Halvok was, so Halvok knelt where he was and continued to imbue the rune with magic.
“What are you doing?” ask
ed Lady Sky staring at Lord Halvok in surprise and taking a step back. “Kerim?” her voice rose in fright, “what is he doing to me?”
Coming out of her hiding place, Sham flinched at the fear in Sky’s voice. Looking at her standing alone on the cliff edge it was difficult to remember the reasoning Sham had used to convict her. Instinctively Sham glanced at Kerim, knowing that he’d had his doubts as well. Kerim was frowning as he gripped Dickon’s arm. He gestured as he talked—though Sham couldn’t hear what he said.
Elsic stepped out around a rock, the flute in one hand and his other resting lightly on Talbot’s shoulder. “I know you, demon,” he said, his face turned to Lady Sky. “I’ve felt you in my dreams.”
“What are you talking about? Kerim said the priest killed the demon,” said Lady Sky, looking more frightened than ever. “Kerim?”
“She’s going to send you back,” said Kerim gently, as he approached with Dickon. “Isn’t that where you’ve been trying to go all this time? It’s time for you to go home.”
“No . . .” Lady Sky’s voice lost its cultured softness as she wailed despairingly. “You don’t know what she’s trying to do!”
“Nor does she,” said the Shark from just behind Sham, causing her to jump. “But that never stopped her before.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Sham in a voice designed to carry only to the Shark’s ears.
He grinned. “You think I’d miss the most exciting bit of news to happen around here since the Eastern Invasion?”
“Stay back with Kerim,” she warned him. “This could get nasty.”
“Shamera?” asked Lady Sky. “Why are you doing this? I thought you were my friend.”
Sham walked forward until she stood just outside the barrier Halvok held. “Chen Laut,” she said, and gestured.
It was unnecessary to call the demon’s true form in order to send it back to its world, but Sham needed the reassurance of knowing she was right. So she call the demon by a name it had held for centuries. It was not its true name, but it had power all the same.
The sand at Sky’s feet shifted, as if at a strong wind. Sky herself jerked like a marionette in the hands of a toddler, shifting . . . The body fell limply to the ground, and over it stood the demon.
Larger than a horse it was, a creature of flames the color of magic. Eight fragile limbs held its apparent bulk off the wet sand, but there was nothing arachnoid about the rest of the demon. A tail of gold and red ever-changing flames hit the edge of the rune with a crack, driving Lord Halvok to the ground at the unexpected pain.
But there was no question who was hurt worse. The demon screamed, an unearthly trill that covered the spectrum of sound, as a blue-green light flashed from the rune to its tail. When it was through, the demon crouched in the center of the rune, swaying back and forth.
“Halvok?” called Sham.
“Fine,” he said, though he sounded hoarse. “The rune will hold her.”
“Three times bound was I,” said the creature using Lady Sky’s voice. “Three dead wizards litter the cold earth. Your binding too, I shall come through in better condition than you, wizard. Get what power you can while you may, you will be dead soon enough.”
“I will die,” Sham agreed readily, “as all mortal things do. But before then I will see you home again. Talbot, what’s the tide like?”
“If you destroy me,” continued the demon, “I will haunt you and your children until there is one born I might use, witch. I will take that one’s body and hunt until your descendants walk not upon this earth.”
“Not yet,” answered Elsic, listening to the sea as he fingered the flute, “but soon.”
Talbot gave the blind boy a sharp-eyed look. “It’s still out.”
“Jetsam,” purred the demon, shifting its graceful neck so it was peering at Elsic, “—cast-off selkie garbage. If you aid in my binding, I will seek you out when I am free, and throw you back to the sea where your own people will rend you and feed you to the fish as tribute.”
Elsic smiled sweetly. “I aid in no binding.”
The demon paced sinuously within the outer bonds of the hold-rune. It was careful not to touch the edges.
“Now,” said Elsic.
Dimly Sham heard the muted roar of the returning waves begin. Elsic put the flute to his lips and blew a single pure note that pierced the night as cleanly as a fair-spent arrow. After a few experimental scales, he slipped into an unfamiliar song in a minor key.
Sham felt the magic begin to gather. She took a deep breath, and silently reminded herself that most of the magic she would work were spells she already knew. She’d spent half the night memorizing the only one that was new until she could recite the steps backwards in her sleep. If her concentration or confidence faltered, it would release all the power of the Spirit Tide into flames that would swallow them and Purgatory as well—inspiration for the poorest of students, and she had never been that.
In the original version the death of the sacrifice gave power to the spell. The sympathetic magic of death sent the demon to where it belonged as the soul of the sacrifice traveled home. She intended to replace both functions with the Spirit Tide as it came home to the cliffs.
The magic that the tide generated was formed by the sea, and humans worked only with unformed magic. Like limestone and marble, the two kinds of magic were formed by the same materials with tremendously different results.
Elsic gathered the green magic of the sea, and the flute transformed it into its raw form. Sham had to hold the gathering forces until the last moment before she worked the final spell. There would be no second chances.
Sweat ran off her forehead and she swayed with the effort as the magic grew exponentially with the progress of the monumental wave of water that had begun to swallow the sand. Someone gripped her shoulders briefly and steadied her.
Still the magic grew. The first two spells were easy, nothing that she hadn’t cast a hundred times before. She began to draw on the magic.
First to set the subject.
The demon screamed as she worked the spell, weaving it around the creature.
Second to name its true name.
Demon, Chen Laut, bringer of death, stealthy breaker of bonding spells laid upon it by greedy men. Avenger, killer, lonely exile. Sham understood the demon, and wove her knowledge into the spell. It was enough—she knew it. She could feel the demon trying to break the naming, but it was futile.
“Southwood lord,” called the demon, “Bind me to you and I will help you drive the Easterners from Purgatory. If you allow her to destroy me, they will never go.”
Halvok stiffened, like a hound scenting fox.
“If she chooses to bind rather than destroy, Shamera will not drive them away,” continued the demon persuasively. Sky’s voice rang clear through the growing roar of sea and wind. “She’s in love with the Reeve. She’s too young to really remember how it was, what it felt like to hold your loved ones as they die. But you do, don’t you? You remember your wife. She wasn’t beautiful, was she? Not until she smiled. She was wonderfully kind. Do you remember how much she loved your children? Then the Easterners came, while you were fighting elsewhere. You returned home and found only what the soldiers had left. She fought to protect the children, your wife, even after what they had done to her.”
“Halvok,” said Sham, her voice trembling with the effort of speaking while she tried to hold both the magic and the demon. If Halvok dropped the rune at the wrong time, it could spell disaster. “Halvok, that world is gone. Driving the Easterners out of Southwood will not set time back. It won’t restore your wife, nor even the person you were before they came.”
She had told Kerim that what the demon wanted most was to go home—she knew how the creature felt. As she exacted vengeance from those men who had crippled Maur, she had known that it was only a substitute for what she really wanted: to return to what once was, to go home. “Only death will come from seeking it, Halvok. Not just nameless Easterners wil
l die—but your friends and colleagues. People you’ve come to know and care for. And once the killing starts, it won’t be Eastern blood alone that feeds the soil. Hasn’t there been enough death?”
“Yes,” said Halvok. “I am sick of—”
The demon struck the rune.
Halvok fell limply to the sand and the steady glow the rune had been emitting flickered wildly.
No time to question. Running to the place where Halvok lay, Sham drew her knife, nicked her palms, and placed both hands on the gold thread. Power surged through her from that contact and she cried out. The magic from the waves buckled and the skin of her hands turned red and blistered from the wild magic that seeped out of her control, but the blood made the difference as she had known it would. It made the rune hers again, no matter how the magic surged and fought it.
She couldn’t let the rune fail until just before the wave hit the cliff, or she wouldn’t be able to open the gateway to the demon’s realm no matter how much power she had. She would have to break it, symbolizing the breakage of the bonds that held the demon to this world. It shouldn’t have been difficult. Halvok could have done it by dropping the two ends of the wire separately, but Sham was tied to the rune by blood.
She needed Halvok, but he lay silently on the ground, Talbot kneeling at his side. She hoped he was alive.
Still the magic grew. She couldn’t see the Spirit Tide, but the sound of the water rushing over the sand had become deafening. Ignoring the smell of singed flesh she continued to gather the magic.
“Now,” shouted Kerim and Talbot together.
She broke the rune. Bound to her by blood, the rune’s death hurt her, making her hands cramp until she had to force herself to her feet so that the tension of the wire would pull it from her grasp. Pain wasn’t the real problem, or rather not the whole of the problem: It was what the pain did to her concentration that mattered.