by Joe Jackson
Kari sighed and tried to drift off to sleep. The weightless feeling that preceded it started to take hold, and Kari whispered a silent prayer to Sakkrass. She wanted to speak to him in her dreams if she could; she felt guilty for the way she’d reacted to seeing his true face, and wanted to make sure things were still right between them. Kari had been predisposed to distrusting snakes throughout her lives, and the thought that her prejudice – justified or not – had insulted or hurt her adoptive father stung.
Kari slept peacefully and dreamed of her son, but she didn’t relive any memories or transcend into any sort of out-of-body experience. Sakkrass was still quiet towards her, and that thought clung to her when she opened her eyes in the deep gloom of the pre-dawn morning. The room she shared with Uldriana was nearly lightless, and even with the strong night vision she possessed as a rir, Kari could barely see anything. Once her eyes adjusted fully to the pitch dark, she saw that Uldriana was no longer sleeping alone: the mallestrem proprietor was snuggled up with her in the other bed.
Kari left the room silently and checked in on her friends. Sonja and Danilynn were still asleep. Kari briefly considered taking a bath while she had the place to herself, but she decided against running the automated water pumps and disturbing her roommates. Instead, she dressed quietly in her armor, belted on her swords, and decided to take a stroll on the nearby streets while they were deserted in the early morning. She left the shared room, and descended the stairs with the practiced steps of someone who’d been a rogue in her earlier days, but she found there was an elestram in the sitting area when she reached the commons.
The beige-furred jackal “demon” glanced up at Kari with emerald eyes, and he asked her something in that other language. Kari shrugged her shoulders slightly and shook her head to demonstrate that she didn’t understand. The elestram tried again, this time in the infernal tongue, but Kari repeated her gesture. His third attempt was in a heavily accented dialect of rir; he was far from fluent, but he managed to get across, “Where do you go?”
“I was going to take a walk, and look around at your city a bit,” Kari answered.
There was only the briefest hesitation as he translated her words in his mind. He spoke again in halting, broken rir, and Kari made out that he said, “Take care that the watch do not mistake you for a prowler at this hour.”
Kari nodded and stepped out through the open archway into the streets. Close to the entryway of the hostel, the streets were lit by arcane sources, but they were dim, lighting only the immediate area. Kari looked side to side down the long streets and saw that despite the arcane advance in lighting, the city was still kept dark so that its residents could sleep easily. She set her feet down the road toward the coliseum, wondering if she could get a better look at it early in the morning when no one was about. Curiosity had the better of her: she wondered if prisoners or slaves were thrown into it to fight for their lives, or if perhaps it was a stadium for playing those games the mallasti youngsters had participated in.
The deeper darkness of the streets away from the hostel’s lighted entryway led Kari to cast her glance skyward. The night sky was once again a brilliant tapestry of shining stars and what looked like celestial clouds, and now Kari could see the sliver of a crescent moon barely above the horizon. Mehr’Durillia, as Uldriana had insisted, was no “underworld” realm at all: it was a planet, not unlike Citaria, but that knowledge did little to ease Kari’s tensions.
Uldriana insisted her people weren’t demons, but were conquered by them at some point in ages past. If this world of Mehr’Durillia had been invaded by what Kari and her Order termed as shadow demons, then she could well understand how the world’s collective peoples had been conquered. Kari had only succeeded in “fighting” the demon because it was in possession of a mortal form, and she had only driven it away, not killed it, and then only thanks to Sakkrass. If faced with an army of such entities, Kari had to wonder if any world could stand against them.
Kari brought her thoughts back to her current trek, and she scanned the darkness around her for any sign of trouble. There wasn’t a soul on the streets with her: it was eerily quiet, so much so that she could hear the trickle of the aqueduct running high above, delivering water to different parts of the city. Kari considered how DarkWind seemed to have people on its streets at all hours of the night for one reason or another, and she found it interesting that the city of Rulaj, home of supposed “demons,” was by contrast lifeless in the dark, pre-dawn hours.
She reached the coliseum and found that it, too, had open archways that welcomed her to enter without a key or permission. She climbed up the stone steps, wide and well-spaced to allow for a comfortable ascent – there was that elestram architecture again – and eventually reached an intersection where paths led to seats. Kari’s jaw dropped in amazement as she beheld the design of the interior. The seats were stone, but were carved into comfortable-looking shapes rather than being simple, flat stone benches, and their backs were designed to take the different tails of the Mehr’Durillian races into account. The stadium looked to accommodate several thousand spectators, and Kari’s eyes took in the green field in the center. As she had suspected, it seemed to be a field for their football or lacrosse matches. She could even see that there were irrigation ducts that fed from the aqueduct to keep the field well-watered and green.
She began to pace around the path she’d arrived at from the stairs, and came across what looked to be a chalkboard behind a table. If her instincts were right, it was for keeping track of odds and bets, and it meant the games were not just for sport, but for wagering on as well. Kari saw a throne farther along, and guessed the king often took in the matches and games himself. She continued along her path toward the throne, looking out over the field and the rest of the coliseum, and she was impressed with it despite the fact that it wasn’t as large as the one back home in DarkWind.
Kari looked to the far end of the arena and saw there was someone else there, standing near one of the arching exits. At first she didn’t make anything of it, but once her eyes focused in the darkness, she saw that it was a succubus. The lithe demoness had glowing golden eyes, but Kari couldn’t make out much more detail at that distance in the dark. It did strike her as odd that there was someone else out in the arena at the odd hour, but she chuckled as she imagined the succubus could say the same of her. Kari continued around the inner row of seats, but the succubus made no move to either get closer or farther away.
When the demonhunter finally reached the base of the stairway that led up to where the succubus stood, she could make out more detail with her night vision, and her blood nearly froze. Even in the murky gloom of pre-dawn, Kari’s night vision was strong enough to make out the pale white skin, the slitted nostrils, and the golden, snake-like eyes. She took in the succubus’ armor, the weapons she had sheathed at her hips and on the sides of her thighs, and the cloak that wasn’t even covering her blue-black, leathery wings. It had been several weeks, but Kari knew exactly who she was looking at.
It was Turillia.
There was a silent, motionless few seconds between the two of them, but then the half-succubus turned and walked down the stairs. Kari hesitated, trying to decide whether to draw her swords, but she ruled against it unless she ended up in combat. It would be strange enough for her to have to explain why she was chasing a half-succubus assassin down the streets of Rulaj, but a lot more dangerous if she was brandishing weapons while she did so. She charged up the steps, but rounded each corner warily, giving a wide berth to assure she wasn’t ambushed.
By the time she reached the streets, Turillia had a sizeable lead, though the half-succubus continued to walk, all the better to remain inconspicuous. Kari slowed to a brisk walk, hoping she could gain ground on her enemy without drawing the attention of any wandering guards or sentries. Turillia looked back at her every so often, but she didn’t stop, and gave no sign that she was interested in fighting – at least not here and now. Kari started to wonder if
the half-succubus was leading her somewhere – perhaps outside the city – in the hopes that they could duel again where no one would interfere.
If you’re smart, that’s not what you’re thinking, Kari thought. Her mind whirled while she had the luxury of thinking as she walked. Turillia had been killed, she had been sure of it; her throat was torn out, the eyes were glazed over and lifeless, and she’d been given last rites and burned by the priests of the god of death. Unless she had, by some demonic trickery, managed to be reborn here on Mehr’Durillia, Kari simply had no explanation for it.
Unless it wasn’t Turillia at all. That led Kari to wonder how common half-syrinthian, half-succubi might be, and whether they were a tightly-knit group. There was also the possibility that this was an unrelated member of whatever assassin’s guild Turillia had belonged to. If it wasn’t Turillia – or even if it was – there was a distinct possibility that Kari was being led into an ambush to be captured or killed.
Kari stopped following the half-succubus. There was simply no good outcome to be had by chasing her, and the demonhunter reminded herself that even in the realms of Kings Emanitar and Morduri, she was an outsider and possibly seen as an enemy, and their protections might not extend to her. Kari knew she had to be smart about things, and if it turned out this was Turillia, or someone else looking for revenge, she had to force them to come to her, and not be baited into a trap herself.
Kari looked around, but she was on the far side of the arena from where her hostel was, so she began to retrace her steps back toward the coliseum. She walked at the ready, prepared for Turillia to strike from the shadows at any moment, but her hypervigilance caught the eye of an erestram guard approaching from a side street. The ten-foot wolf demon – or person, Kari thought to herself – stared at her coldly, and then it fell into step behind her and began to follow her. Kari was actually glad for the escort, though; it seemed unlikely that she would be attacked by anyone when she had an erestram guard following her.
The erestram followed her all the way back to the arena, and from there, Kari was able to get her bearings and find her way to the hostel again. Her lupine escort stayed with her the entire way, but didn’t speak to her or follow her into the hostel once she arrived. He continued on his patrol, and Kari met the gaze of the elestram night manager when she entered the foyer. He was sitting on a stool behind the counter with a book in hand, but his emerald gaze stayed upon Kari as if he suspected she’d been up to no good.
Kari wasn’t sure if she should say anything, but ultimately she decided against it. She simply nodded to him and then made her way toward the stairs, slightly unnerved by the way the jackal demon’s head turned very slowly so his gaze followed her until she was out of sight. She tried to remind herself that Uldriana said her people weren’t demons, but Kari still had doubts about that, and she was a stranger on their world regardless. The impassiveness or coldness of the canine-folk’s expressions was nerve-wracking, giving little hint to what they were thinking. Kari most typically got the impression they were looking at her like uncooked meat.
Danilynn was coming out of the bath chamber when Kari returned to their room, and the priestess didn’t even bother to ask questions when Kari began closing and latching the windows. She simply fell in with helping, and Kari was glad to have brought people she could trust to just go with her gut instincts and not argue everything. Once the windows were closed and locked and the door secured, the two women sat in the sitting area’s deep chairs. Kari took the offered brush from Danilynn, and began untangling her hair.
“Everything all right?” the fures-rir priestess asked while Kari brushed.
“I just went for a little walk, and saw someone that spooked me a bit,” Kari said. “We’ve been lucky not to draw any real attention here, so when I ran into someone that seemed like they were waiting for me, I figured I’d better get back to someplace safe.”
“That’s certainly alarming,” Danilynn said. “Did you get a good look at them?”
Kari sighed, pausing in her brushing for a moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was Turillia,” she said.
“Turillia? The half-succubus you hunted in Barcon?”
“Aye,” Kari answered. “She was dead, I know that, but I don’t know if she was maybe ‘reborn,’ or whatever you want to call it, here in the…on Mehr’Durillia. She had built up a lot of power, and she was trying to become a demon king – maybe she came closer than we thought. Unless half-syrinthian, half-succubi are common here, I don’t really know what else to think.”
The priestess thought to herself for a minute, so Kari finished brushing her hair. She grasped the shorter strands that usually arched over her brow, and found that they were getting too long and unruly. “I don’t suppose you have scissors with you?” she asked.
Danilynn went and got her pack, and she set it down and sat to go through it, coming up with a pair of scissors after only a few moments. “One of the many things I learned from Tor: always be prepared,” she said with a smile. Kari took the scissors, but when Danilynn saw what she was trying to do, the priestess took them back and offered to cut Kari’s hair for her. “We’re going to have to be especially alert for this potential assassin of yours when we leave the city, though I think Sonja’s masking spell will help a lot with that.”
Kari started to nod but remembered to stay still while Danilynn measured out and began cutting her hair. “It just makes me really nervous, because Turillia had denied serving Sekassus, and we never really got a clear picture of what she was supposed to be doing before she stumbled onto the become-a-demon-king scheme. So whether it’s her or someone else, I don’t know what they want, or whose orders they’re under.”
“Right; the wisest course of action will be to treat them as an enemy and stay on guard at all times,” Danilynn said.
Kari nodded once the priestess finished trimming her front hairs. “So, Eli said you were always very defensive of Tor; you two were close?”
The priestess seemed surprised by the abrupt change of subject. “Tor was one of the best friends I’ve ever had,” she replied at length. “I found him an oddity when we first met, but over the months and years we worked together, I grew to admire him. He was brave and selfless, willing to put himself in harm’s way to protect the rest of us – just like Eli proved to be when he joined us.”
“And that didn’t change when you found out who and what he is?” Kari asked.
Danilynn shook her head. “If anything, it made me admire and respect him all the more,” she said. “He had every reason, right down to his parentage, to be selfish and destructive and to only look out for himself. When I found out what he was, I began to appreciate how special he was so much more. I guess as a demonhunter, you’d have to become really close to a serilian demon to have an idea of what I mean.”
That hit Kari right in the heart. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said, her thoughts lingering on her slain friend Makauric. “What about Jori-an? Were you friends with her? Eli said she was ‘colder than a fures-rir icebox.’”
The priestess’ brow creased. “What does that even mean?” she blurted. “Jori-an…well, you’d have to meet her to really understand, but she doesn’t make friends easily. She’s very private, doesn’t like to let people into her life, or confide in them. But as far as traveling with her, she’s trustworthy: I trusted her with my life, and I would again. The thing with Jori-an is that she lives by her own code; you can trust she’ll almost always do the right thing, just not necessarily for the right reasons.”
“I actually have met her,” Kari interjected. “She was first mate on a ship that took us to Tsalbrin about three years ago.”
“First mate?” Danilynn queried. “What ship were you on?”
They paused in their conversation when Sonja emerged from her bedroom and waved. Danilynn and Kari waved back, and Sonja went into the bath chamber. “Karmi’s Sword,” Kari answered.
“First mate…,” the priestess repeate
d. “That’s odd. She owned that ship, last I’d heard. I lost track of her, Eli, and Tor when the Apocalypse came upon us, but I suspect she probably tried to stay close to Gnarr. I guess she went back to sailing after Jason Bosimar was killed.” Kari tilted her head curiously, and Danilynn added, “I never saw for myself, and they never said as much, but I always suspected there was something between Jori-an and Jason. They were a little too formal around each other whenever we went to meet with him, and when he found out she was seterra-rir, he was more excited than shocked. Maybe they were close because he was curious about her people, but my heart and my gut say otherwise.”
“I had started to suspect Jason’s journals about your group’s work left out a lot of details because he was trying to protect family. If he and Jori-an were close, or mates, or maybe even had a child together, that would explain a lot,” Kari said, and Danilynn nodded. “So that just leaves Rhiannon for people who traveled with your group?”
“There were others, but Rhiannon was the only other mainstay,” the priestess said. She chuckled to herself, then added, “Kwarrasti are…strange. It’s like half their brain is in another place most of the time. Sometimes you stand there talking to them, and it’s like they’re not even paying attention to a word you say. Then, ten minutes later, they answer or respond. Like I said, strange people, but loyal to a fault, and about the best trackers I’ve ever seen besides the brys. I can’t even tell you how many times we only managed to get our objectives completed because Rhiannon was able to find who or whatever we were looking for.”