“I didn’t take you for an expert in sorcery,” she said.
“I’m not. But the more information I have, the better prepared I’ll be.”
Ren poked a stick into the fire, and Tarrik thought she was ignoring him. Then she spoke, her words slow and reluctant. “Do not think I don’t know what you’re doing, demon. But you are right. You do need to know some things. I can generate a fifth-tier shield, effective against physical force, heat and cold, sorcery, and various other attacks. I trust you understand what that means?”
Contian had only managed a fourth-tier shield, and he’d been a grandmaster. Tarrik had seen him walk unharmed into sorcerous conflagrations over almost molten rock radiating heat that would melt flesh from bone. Every arcane shield had its weakness, but he knew from experience that a fourth-tier shield was impregnable to any power he could muster. A fifth-tier was . . . he had no idea but nodded as if he did.
“As for my other abilities, I imagine you’ll see them for yourself soon enough,” added Ren. “No more questions.”
Tarrik seethed at her peremptory tone but was smart enough to bide his time. Unfortunately, time wasn’t his friend. The longer he was in this world, the greater the chance he’d be killed.
Ren took the lid off the pot, and the smell of the roasted birds was overwhelmingly good. She gestured for him to join her as she began carving the meat.
Later, after picking the bones clean, the warmth of the fire and the food spreading through him, Tarrik felt strength returning to his body. He shivered in the cold-edged wind. Ren was cocooned in a blanket, staring into the diminishing coals. Not a word passed between them, almost as if the other did not exist. He wanted to question her about many things: what season it was; how dangerous things were for her—and, as a consequence, for him; and most of all, when and how Contian had died. But he held back. He didn’t know her and wouldn’t be able to tell if she was lying.
Tarrik fetched a blanket from the saddlebags and found a soft spot of earth on which to lie down. His feet were freezing, and he wrapped the blanket around them.
Ren shrugged off her blanket and leaned forward to add some thick branches to the fire. Tarrik watched the play of muscles beneath her clothes and the way her black hair moved in the wind, all too aware that she was attractive. Feeling lust stir within him, he looked away and ruthlessly suppressed desire.
“Are you feeling better after eating?” she asked.
Her face was hard to read in the flickering light. He supposed she was concerned whether her slave was functioning properly.
He nodded. “Though a drink or three would round out the meal and do wonders for my well-being.”
And help to suppress the wildness of his blood.
“I hope my summons didn’t take you away from anything important.”
“To be honest, I was a bit bored. This will make a nice change. A holiday.”
Tarrik had been in the middle of three-player Croix, a complex board game. When the summons had begun to draw him away, his opponents had laughed and then stolen all his money. Vadik-Karrina and Omolt-Abbami. He’d remember them when he returned and make them pay.
“You jest with me.” She rummaged through her gear and drew out a bottle and uncorked it. “Contian wrote you had a fondness for strong spirits. Wine is the best I can do.”
Anger surged through Tarrik. Contian had said he’d expunge Tarrik’s name from all records, but he had lied. To a human, a promise to a demon probably wasn’t worth keeping. Blood pounded in his head, and all he could hear was the beat of his raging heart.
Restraining the urge to kill Ren, Tarrik took the bottle from her. He swallowed a mouthful and, finding the wine not too awful, drank more. It was better than the fermented, bitter garotte-beetle milk he usually drank—all he could obtain by bartering his kills on Shimrax.
“Go easy,” Ren said with a laugh. “It’s the only one I have.”
Tarrik handed the bottle back. The wine would help for a time, until he could get something stronger. Alcohol had a numbing effect on demon desires, and he’d need it to maintain control. At least he didn’t have to worry about becoming drunk—his organs limited the effects of spirits. The amount it would take to get him drunk was enough to kill a human.
“Would you like to know more about what happened to Contian?” she said.
Tarrik met her eyes. “No.”
“You’re stubborn. He wrote that about you too.”
He remained silent. She would never gain his trust the way the old sorcerer had, and the first time she slipped up would be her last.
“There’s a town not far from here, a few days’ ride. It’s sizeable enough, and we shouldn’t have any problem finding you clothes and a decent weapon. Failing that, another few days on is a city. I have business there.”
Tarrik looked up at that. “I thought you were on the run?” The marfesh and the sorcerer had seemed to confirm this.
“There are certain places where I am not welcome. But there are others where I can move about freely without fear of reprisal.”
“But someone wants you dead.”
She nodded as she poked at the coals with a stick. “There are many who want that. Some within the . . . organization I belong to. There are different factions . . . it’s complicated.”
“What does your ‘organization’ do?”
Flames crackled while Ren hesitated. She stared at him, a fire in her eyes as if she might burn him on the spot. When she spoke, her voice was low and tight. “We, ah, we’re called the Tainted Cabal.”
Tarrik laughed softly, for he couldn’t help himself. But his reaction wasn’t mirth, rather a bitter and hateful acknowledgment of the name.
This woman who had summoned him was one of the worst enemies of demonkind.
The members of the Tainted Cabal were worshipers of Nysrog, a demon lord driven to insanity by a summons gone wrong. He had eventually been defeated, but only after raining down death and destruction on Wiraya for decades. Human sorcerers were weak and always drawn to easy power. Many lusted after the gifts and abilities Nysrog had bestowed upon his most ardent followers. The Tainted Cabalists were the most prolific users of demons as slaves, more than any other sorcerers. And they’d forced many demons to fight and die for their mad schemes.
Tarrik had figured out Ren was dangerous, but now he knew she was crazed. He hated her for what she and her ilk had done to thousands of his kind.
She turned back to the fire and took a sip of wine. “I’m not aligned with those who desire the return of Nysrog. That undertaking is nigh impossible, and only the most zealous adherents believe it will happen. We aim for something that’s achievable. And Nysrog thrives on chaos, while we prefer order.”
Despite himself, Tarrik was intrigued. He wondered why she was telling him so much, then remembered that as her summoned slave, he was bound to keep her secrets.
“Nysrog was defeated . . . when?” he asked. “Close to two hundred years ago?”
“One hundred and eighty-three.”
“And after all this time no one has been able to summon him again?”
“He grew immensely powerful. Some say too powerful to control.”
A combination of the demon’s insanity and the human essences he had subsumed. Probably hundreds of thousands of them. “If you do not work to return the demon lord, what do you work toward?”
“Nysrog brought into this world others of your kind. Lieutenants of a sort, lesser demon lords subservient to him. Most were killed or returned to the abyss during the many battles and their aftermath. But not all. One demon chose nine human sorcerers of great power, and to them he promised greatness. Some agreed to follow him; some did not. But in the end it didn’t matter. The demon bound them all, much as I have bound you. Except . . . worse. He invaded their minds, broke them, dominated them. And after that, they all served willingly.”
A coldness washed through Tarrik. He ran through the list of demons he knew had died or returned. But he need
n’t have done so, for one name stood out among all the others: Samal Rak-shazza, whom many demons named the Adversary. A manipulator and deceiver. Nysrog hadn’t been the real danger. He doubted these humans had been aware of the reality at the time.
Decades ago, the other demon lords had caught Samal imprisoning and absorbing the essences of his peers in order to increase his power—with plans to kill them all and make himself ruler of the abyssal realms. The lords had tried to capture him, but he was already too strong. He had escaped, then disappeared, and later rumor put him on the human world. Samal had followed Nysrog and ensconced himself as the conqueror’s lone adviser. From what Tarrik surmised, Samal Rak-shazza had been the true power behind Nysrog and the cause of his fall into insanity. He had also been the cause of much of the trouble between demons and humans and had subjected both to countless depravities. He hadn’t been seen in the demon realms since the defeat of Nysrog.
“The sorcerers couldn’t kill or banish the demon?”
Ren shook her head. “It took all the might of the remaining human sorcerers and their priests to weave a prison strong enough to contain him. More than it took to defeat Nysrog. This is the demon I serve. The faction of the Tainted Cabal I belong to seeks the return of Samal Rak-shazza.”
Samal was an abomination, Tarrik knew. Ren’s goal was to free the most malevolent demon lord in all of the abyss.
“Why? What role do you play in freeing this demon from his shackles?” Tarrik asked.
Ren gazed at him for a long moment. “That’s enough for tonight. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Clean the pot, please, before you retire.”
She turned from him then, spread her blanket away from the fire, and was soon curled up, apparently asleep.
Tarrik cleaned the pot in the river, scrubbing it with sand, then wrapped himself in his blanket and closed his eyes. He wondered why she hadn’t suggested setting a watch. Sorcerers had their tricks, he knew. And he would sense if anyone came within a few dozen paces, even while asleep.
When morning came, the wind had died down, and Tarrik wasn’t so cold. He’d woken a few times during the night, once from the chill and twice because of unpleasant dreams of Nysrog and Samal.
Ren fed the horses some of the grains, which Tarrik thought would be better used in a stew. The creatures had picked the area around their tree bare of grass, and that should be enough. Not only were they stupid, they were also greedy.
Ren saw the clean pot and smiled her thanks. Tarrik did not return it—why thank him for doing something he had no choice about?
He wished he’d accepted Ren’s proposal of free-willed service. If he had, he could have killed her and left this awful realm and not gotten involved in this mad plan to free Samal Rak-shazza. Tarrik’s own name would go down in infamy—that was certain. He was reviled enough by other demons without this overshadowing him as well.
Ren brought out two small loaves of bread and set them to warm by the awakened fire. After turning them once, she held one out to Tarrik.
“Eat. I’m sure you’ll like it. They’re my last ones. We can stock up on fresh supplies when we get to the town.”
Tarrik reluctantly took the loaf. It was lighter than he thought and, when he bit into it, sweet. Dried berries were inside with fragments of nuts.
He watched as Ren broke small chunks from her loaf and peered at each for signs of dirt before daintily nibbling them. While Ren took her time eating, Tarrik scouted around the campsite to be free of her presence and peered at the cloudy sky. When he returned, she was waiting beside the horses, which were now saddled.
“Ride the gray,” she said. “We’ll make better time.”
“I’d rather not.”
“It’s not a request.”
Tarrik considered the likelihood of her punishing him for refusing. He decided to choose his battles. After last night’s revelations, he had much to think on, and being subjected to the Wracking Nerves so early in the morning over a horse wasn’t worth a refusal.
He secured his shoddy sword to the saddle where he could easily reach it and mounted. The creature turned its head and stared at him.
“I don’t think she’s pleased you’re so heavy,” said Ren. She gave him a curious look before suppressing what looked like a smile and urging her brown along a faint game trail.
Tarrik had to admit he must look an amusing sight: barefoot, with pants and shirt too small and exposing his ankles and forearms.
These stupid beasts required vocal commands, didn’t they? It had been so long he’d forgotten much of this world. “Follow the other beast, the brown one,” he told the horse, and flicked the reins. To his relief, it plodded along after Ren’s.
After they had traveled an hour, the forest thinned. Ren slowed her mount to ride alongside Tarrik.
“That brand on your back, what does it mean? It looks deliberate.”
His mouth was suddenly dry. The burning agony of the ensorcelled orichalcum brand came back to him, making his head swim and his heart thump against his ribs. He reached for a waterskin and took his time swallowing a few mouthfuls.
His wrists and legs had been tied to a metal whipping post in the shape of an X. His clothes had been cut from his skin and thrown into a lake of lava. And it wasn’t enough that the Demon Lord Council had marked him for all eternity. All his remaining possessions had also been thrown into the searing orange lake after the valuables had been taken.
“I am chiggruul, outlawed, in most realms of the abyss.”
“What for?”
For betraying our society. For loving the wrong woman. “For my dealings with Contian.”
A half-truth, and indeed he didn’t even know why he told her that much.
“I had no idea the consequences would be so harsh,” she said.
“Neither did I,” muttered Tarrik. Then louder, “If you plan to negotiate with the higher-order demons, I won’t be of any use. Most demons will not associate with me.”
A gust of wind blew his hair across his face, and he brushed it away. In the virtually windless realm he’d been living in—if you could call it living—his mane had been less annoying. He remembered seeing a length of leather cord in one of the saddlebags and busied himself burrowing for it.
“I won’t be dealing with any demons other than you if I can help it,” Ren said.
Curious. If she was telling the truth, there was more to her story than she’d let on. Then again, there was more to everyone’s story: lies they were ashamed of; secrets held close; desires they dared not speak of, hidden away in their hearts.
Tarrik found the leather cord, cut a length with the jeweled dagger, and tied his hair back. “And why is that?”
Her response came quickly, as if prepared in advance. “I do not condone what the Tainted Cabal has done to demons. I usually avoid summoning. My colleagues think I am mad, and maybe I am. Instead, I study sorcerous artifacts and their uses, seeking the lost secrets of their creation.”
“That seems . . . boring.”
Ren offered a short laugh. “It interests me. But it is a quiet existence.”
“Then why do people want to kill you?”
“How do your back and shoulder feel?” she asked instead of answering. “I’ll change the bandage when we rest again.”
“No,” he said angrily. “I want no more of your nursing. I can look after my own wounds.” He was healing swiftly anyway—another of his innate demon traits.
“As you wish,” Ren said, as if unconcerned. “I will not insist.” And she guided her horse ahead again.
Later that day they heard horns somewhere far away. Ren stopped and stared in the direction of the sounds for a while before urging them on at greater speed.
That night, they did not light a fire for warmth or food and relied on the light from Chandra, the smaller white moon of the two that lit this world, to make their camp.
Late into the night, Ren cried out in her sleep so violently that she woke Tarrik. He rolled from his
blanket, sword in his hand. Ren did not wake, though he heard sobs escape her lips.
There was something . . . a feeling in the air that made him cold inside. He became intensely aware of the silence that surrounded him. No crickets chirped. No grass or leaves rustled, disturbed by nocturnal animals. There was nothing, except a hint of movement above Ren, so brief Tarrik thought he might have imagined it.
A shadow, silvered with moonlight. A scent reached him—a pungent miasma of rock baked under a hot sun—and he knew he wasn’t imagining things.
This was dark-tide sorcery.
A faint cracking sound made him start. Ren stirred again but remained asleep.
Tarrik drew on his own dark-tide power, a trickle only, and sent his awareness out. He needed to be careful. Ren was unaware of what was happening, so whatever power this was had penetrated her wards.
He fashioned a scrying, then took it down a few levels. A scrying might be sensed, and subtlety was required. He knew there were creatures in this world that hunted in the night and fed on the living. Could he be so lucky that Ren had become their prey?
A cold breeze touched his skin, but it burned as a fire might. Tarrik looked down at his arms; they tingled, yet there were no marks.
His throat tightened with an emotion he seldom felt. Fear.
Be very careful.
He released his dark-tide sorcery, the barest whisper of power. And he saw.
Motes of sorcerous light swirled about Ren, cavorting in a complex dance he couldn’t fathom, and yet there was a rhythm to them that echoed in his essence and set his heart pounding. It called to him.
Demon sorcery. A demon lord’s sorcery. But it had an insubstantial quality, as if an echo.
Tarrik hissed softly. Who of the demon lords was capable of such power—to reach through the veil and send his or her awareness into the human world? It wasn’t possible. The lord had to be here, to be . . .
Samal.
The motes changed, became a thousand hues of darkness tied together with tendrils of violet.
Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1) Page 4