Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1)

by Mitchell Hogan

His mind flashed to his wife, Jaquel, who had taught him to dance with her—a human activity she’d enjoyed. He’d done his best to accommodate her, though the endeavor had often ended with them laughing at each other. Tarrik’s chest tightened with the memory and the pang of loss, and he averted his gaze from Ren. His beloved’s face formed in his mind: delicate and gentle, just like her soul. He still missed Jaquel, even after so long. He would have done anything for her. Anything. No matter whether it went against his upbringing or broke the demon lords’ rules. He had done anything and had paid the price willingly.

  But he couldn’t stop time.

  Tarrik shook his head and ruthlessly thrust the image away.

  “Good. I have a task for you while I’m at this dinner. I can handle Veljor and whatever he has planned. After today’s display, it will not be anything subtle. Though perhaps seeing you missing will give him pause and stay his hand.”

  “As you wish.” He was curious about this task, but she would have to tell him of her own accord. She would get no prompting from him. Then a thought to keep her safe occurred to him, her bindings forcing a question from his lips. “Will your arts protect you from poison or drugs?”

  She eyed him warily. “No. However, I have many antidotes and a means of detecting such threats if I concentrate. I doubt Veljor would be so deceptive. He is a man of violence and must be seen to dominate rather than dispose of someone unobtrusively. He would want people to know it was he who did the deed.”

  “There are other Cabalists here. Would they not help you?”

  Ren looked away, her teeth biting her lower lip. “If someone plans my downfall, they will be disappointed. Whatever happens, we will be leaving tomorrow. Now, to your task. An adviser from the Tainted Cabal is posted with each ruler or leader who pledges allegiance. Someone powerful—to protect them but also to remind them of the Tainted Cabal’s might. The sorcerer assigned to Veljor is Roska Fridle. She will be at the dinner tonight to welcome another high-ranking Cabalist, which means her residence will be empty.”

  Tarrik grunted. “Except for her sorcerous wards, her guards, and whatever other protections she has.”

  “I can help you with the arcane wards—at least, to perceive them. Other than that, you’re on your own. If anyone sees you in her residence or can infer it was you, they are to die. Is that understood?”

  He nodded. “Am I to lie in wait for Roska Fridle?” A task he did not relish. Sorcerers were hard to surprise and harder to kill.

  “No. You are to steal an artifact from her.”

  So she would make him a common thief. No surprise. Sorcerers had no shame.

  “What does the artifact look like? Where is it?”

  “Roska’s rooms are in the northwest of the citadel, on the top floor, with access to a rooftop courtyard, so she can absorb the dawn- and dusk-tides in private. The courtyard allows entry to her rooms for someone who can reach it unobserved. My sources were quite clear on this, and they’re paid well enough to discover such information.”

  “Am I to fly up to the rooftop? Perhaps climb like a monkey?”

  Ren gave him a hard look. “Do not think I am unaware of your talents. It is a simple task for you to reach the roof and the courtyard. Once inside her rooms, you are to locate her study, which will be warded. Search for the artifact, and bring it back to me. I will keep Veljor and Roska occupied at dinner.”

  She knew far less than she thought about his talents. “And the artifact?”

  Ren traced a small circle on her palm with a finger. “So big, maybe the size of a coin—I’m not entirely sure. A disc of orichalcum with a small, flat bloodstone at its center.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I saw a drawing, but there was no scale for reference.”

  “And what is its purpose? A catalyst to enable your incantations?”

  She withdrew what looked to be a brass magnifying glass from her pocket and held it out. “This will allow you to see sorcerous wards. It’s the best I can do, and you won’t be able to disarm them. But you can pass through them if there are shadows on the other side.”

  He slipped the object inside his pocket. She knew about his shadow-step talent then, which wasn’t surprising if she had Contian’s notes. The old sorcerer had used Tarrik’s talent to play many a joke on his colleagues.

  “You’ll require a weapon of some sort,” she said, and gestured to a blade on her bedside table. “Take one of my knives, as your spear is too noticeable.”

  Tarrik nodded, though he didn’t need it. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I’ll leave here first. And be careful. I wouldn’t want to see you injured or worse.”

  He didn’t reply to the false claim of concern, just took the sheathed knife and buckled its slender belt around his waist. He looked at his spear with regret.

  Ren adjusted her belt and her sword’s chest strap before moving to the door and opening it. She smiled brightly at Caterine, who leaned against the opposite wall beside a guard.

  Tarrik could see that Caterine and the guards feared Ren. It was in their eyes, the flare of their nostrils, the stench of cowardice around them, their expressions of caution and respect when she looked away. The sorcerer held a formidable power. She was deadlier and more evil than any of them. A killer. And a supreme beauty.

  Tarrik squeezed that thought to a kernel and hid it in his deepest recesses. He could not afford to let his emotions affect his attitude toward the woman who’d made a slave of him.

  “I’m ready,” Ren said to Caterine. “Lead on.”

  Caterine glanced at Tarrik. “Your man isn’t coming?”

  “No,” said Ren.

  Caterine narrowed her eyes but led Ren away. The guards at their posts followed behind.

  Tarrik waited a dozen heartbeats before checking the corridor. Clear. He slipped quietly along in the same direction they’d gone, but at a staircase he ascended to the next level. Then, as the steps continued up, he kept going.

  They ended at a wooden landing with three corridors leading off it. The floors were scuffed and the varnish rubbed bare in places, so he assumed this was a less used section of the citadel or perhaps one mostly frequented by servants. The area was dark and dingy, with only a single lamp lighting the top of the stairs. Its feeble glow was rapidly overwhelmed by gloom a few paces down the corridors.

  One corridor led northwest, presumably in the direction of Roska’s rooms. Tarrik padded down it, keeping close to the wall to avoid squeaking floorboards. His form wasn’t built for stealth, and although he had the demonic talent of remaining unnoticed, he lacked the trick of wrapping shadows around himself to aid concealment.

  Footsteps sounded ahead, and he ducked into a side room. He left the door open a crack and stood behind it, next to sheet-covered furniture stacked higher than his head. A servant bearing a dim lamp hurried past. Tarrik waited until the footsteps had vanished, then slipped back out into the corridor and continued.

  When the corridor ended at a window, he took out Ren’s lens. The wide door to his left shone bright with crisscrossed wards of white and crimson. Roska’s, presumably. With reluctance, Tarrik decided Ren was correct. The best way inside Roska’s suite would be from the rooftop courtyard, which would probably be less secure due to its private location.

  He shoved the lens into his pocket and stepped silently to the window, lifted the latch, and levered the window open. Poking his head out, he looked up. Stone gargoyles perched atop the crenellations: winged monkeys and lion-headed birds, one with a snake in its jaws. He stared at them, waiting for one to move—you could never be too careful—but they remained as lifeless as stone. He knew of a higher demon, Aira Phenue-Drovik, who’d been badly injured by an ensorcelled statue. The demon had become obsessed with a human princess of renowned beauty. Her desire had blinded her as she peered through a window at the sleeping princess, intending to overpower the woman and sate her lust, and she had failed to notice the stone gargoyle come to life beside her. It had
massive pincers and snipped her left arm off. Aira had barely made it back to her summoner before passing out from blood loss. She was now ridiculed as a lack-limb. Tarrik chuckled at the memory. He wouldn’t make the same mistake.

  The granite window surround was carved and offered plenty of hand and feet grips. The parapet was three feet above. Tarrik eased himself onto the external ledge and closed and latched the window. Anything left disturbed offered a clue to a canny investigator. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to come back this way.

  In a few heartbeats he was pulling himself up onto the parapet next to a gargoyle carved in the shape of a stork with bat ears. There was a short drop on the other side to a small paved courtyard. He was in luck.

  He clambered down and crouched low, hand on Ren’s knife hilt even though he didn’t need the metal blade. His shadow-blade catalyst was more potent than any sword, a weapon he wanted to keep from Ren and use only in emergencies, when it would remain a secret.

  He waited for a dozen heartbeats, and when nothing attacked him, he moved to a door set into a short wall. He used the lens again and perceived the door was warded, but not nearly as heavily as the main entrance to Roska’s suite. Tarrik knelt and peered through the keyhole, careful not to press his face close to the metal. He could just make out a shadowed wall opposite. Perfect.

  He waited for a hundred count, ears pricked to any noise coming from inside. When he heard none, he again focused on the shadows through the keyhole and poured himself into the darkness. His essence dissolved into the void, re-forming against the wall on the other side of the door.

  He froze, only his eyes moving as he searched for threats in the gloom. When none appeared, he allowed himself a sigh of relief.

  Tarrik slowly made his way down a rickety set of narrow wooden stairs, hands to the walls on either side. He had many talents, but seeing in pitch-black wasn’t one of them.

  He came to another door and jerked his hand back when it touched a hinge. His heart hammered in his chest, but no sorcerous scourge appeared to flay the skin from his bones.

  Through the lens he saw that only the handle and lock were warded. Again, he shadow-stepped past and into the room on the other side, where he instantly slid behind the curtains at a floor-to-ceiling window.

  The room was carpeted and similar to the reception room in Ren’s suite: couches, padded armchairs, and carved side tables holding numerous decanters of wine and bottles of spirits. It seemed Roska was fond of entertaining. Above the fireplace an alchemical globe emitted a soft glow.

  Three other rooms led off this one. If the suites were all of a similar layout, the smallest should be the preparation room, the largest the bedroom—which left the middle one as the study.

  The lens showed the door was free of wards, and why wouldn’t it be? To get this far, an ordinary thief would have triggered one of the two entrance doors and be dead or in a whole lot of trouble. But Tarrik was no ordinary thief. He wasn’t a thief at all, really, and to have his abilities abused like this was an indignity. He piled it atop all the other indignities Ren had forced upon him. A list that grew longer every day.

  Inside the study, a walnut writing desk stood in front of a wall of bookshelves, only a third filled with leather-bound tomes and rolls of parchment. Against one wall sat a sturdy, iron-bound chest secured with a large padlock. Presumably where the artifact was secured.

  He took a step toward it, and an eldritch tremor passed over his skin. He froze, eyes darting around for the cause. It had been sorcery, but . . .

  The air crackled as the temperature plunged and cold caressed his hands and face. Then heat invaded with an orange glow, pushing the frigid air aside. A familiar scent of sulfur and rancid meat invaded Tarrik’s nostrils.

  There was no point concealing himself. He stood next to the chest, arms by his sides to appear as nonthreatening as possible.

  The demon appeared as a scale-armored man wielding a burning long sword in his right hand and a wickedly curved dagger in his left. Scorching cinders dropped from the sword to burn holes in the carpet; the metal scales of the armor were blackened and corroded, as if seared by immense heat. The demon’s head was covered by a faded scarlet hood, which gave off red steam and concealed the face. But Tarrik knew who this was: Ananias Grimur-Sigvatux, demon of the Thirty-Ninth Order, and, to all intents and purposes, Tarrik’s superior.

  Blood and fire. He was dead.

  Ananias’s form solidified swiftly, and the floor creaked under his weight. The fact that the demon bore his own armor and weapons meant this was a summons of fiendish complexity performed so rapidly it boggled Tarrik’s mind. The sorcerer had had to bring physical objects through the veil separately, then gift them to the demon without strings attached—which could only happen if the demon knew a summoning was imminent. And that could only mean one thing: Ananias had made a pact with the sorcerer Roska Fridle and willingly answered her summons.

  Tarrik knew his triggering of that summons would have alerted the Tainted Cabal sorcerer, who would already be rushing back to her rooms.

  “I smell you, Tarrik Nal-Valim. Bow to me, or suffer the consequences.”

  The demon’s words were slow and heavy, breathed from lungs and a throat burned by constant flames.

  Tarrik swallowed and glanced at the warded door behind him. To run was his first thought—but in a blink Ren’s arcane binding held him fast. She had given him a task, and he was bound to see it through to the best of his ability. Fight it was, then. He cast any thought of fleeing from his mind, and the sorcerous chains binding his limbs and torso relented, leaving a prickling pain to remind him of their existence.

  Being of a higher order, Ananias was faster and stronger and possessed more talents than Tarrik. The only way out of this was by guile and trickery. But Ananias would expect that.

  “I cannot,” Tarrik told the demon. “You know this.”

  The shadowy hood rose to regard him. Glowing ruby eyes shone from the darkness within. “How are you not dead yet, race traitor?”

  Tarrik tried to shrug, found his shoulders bunching. The rebuke hadn’t lost its sting after all this time, though he perceived his alleged crime of marrying a human woman in a different light.

  “Why destroy a useful tool?” he countered.

  “The last I heard, you were exiled to Shimrax, scavenging among the gray sand and rock with other criminals. Hardly a tool close to the hands of the demon lords.”

  “The Council of Lords declared I was to be branded and exiled, stripped of all wealth, but to remain alive.”

  “Anyone else would have killed themselves for shame. I guess the lower demon within never ceases to fight.”

  “I’ve survived this far and will not give in easily.”

  “There can be but one outcome here. Your death.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you are resigned to falling? Where is your fight? Where is your hope?”

  “I abandoned hope long ago.”

  “Ah. A defeatist then.”

  “I am merely a slave. I do my master’s bidding.”

  “Like the last time? That excuse never washed with me. We all see what you really are, Tarrik Nal-Valim. Weak. Foolish. An abomination.”

  “I see farther than you. When you let your desires rule you, you are a slave still.”

  “You are a fool.”

  Hardly.

  A lone knife against the infernal sword and dagger held by a demon greater than he was. Tarrik knew there was only one chance to exit this room alive. One toss of the dice, which would probably see him dead and his essence subsumed by Ananias. Perhaps his opponent would then be powerful enough to ascend to the fortieth level and be recognized as a lord. Such was the main goal of all higher-level demons: kill and absorb the other’s spirit to become greater, stronger.

  Almost all. Tarrik had long ago lost the desire to become more powerful. What was the point?

  He unbuckled the belt that held Ren’s knife and tossed it to the floor
beside him. “Let us fight then. But these human weapons bore me. Let us fight demon against demon. Weaponless and—”

  “No.”

  The long sword’s searing blade flashed at him, and Tarrik threw himself backward. Pain erupted along a scorching line across his torso. He crashed into a chair, which splintered under his weight, and a jagged chunk of wood pierced his left arm.

  He scrambled to his feet, dripping purple blood from chest and limb. Ananias stood silently, regarding him with ember eyes.

  Tarrik pressed a hand to the cut in an effort to staunch the blood. He made the wound look worse than it was, dropping to one knee, panting like cornered prey. He groped for his dark-tide power, creating a conduit to the shadow-blade catalyst embedded in his right forearm, and prepared a cant on his lips.

  He forced a rictus of humiliation, made his words come out labored and reluctant. “You have . . . the advantage of me . . . I cannot flee . . .”

  “My bargain with this filthy human sorcerer was well struck,” cried Ananias gleefully. “Never could I have imagined such a reward. You are undone!” The ruby eyes shone brightly. “Bow your head! Submit to me!”

  Tarrik lowered his head, his eyes remaining on Ananias. He let his blood flow freely and placed both hands on the floor, set to spring.

  Ananias drew his curved dagger along his forearm, creating a trickle of indigo. Blood against blood, essence against essence. As Tarrik’s life left him, Ananias would use his repository of dark-tide power to absorb it into himself.

  With a final savage grin, Ananias swung his burning blade out wide, then overhead.

  Tarrik leaped.

  Faster than thought, Ananias dropped his knife, seized Tarrik by the throat, and shook him as if he were a child. Tarrik jerked wildly in the terrible grip, feet dangling above the floor. His throat ached as his breath was cut off. His fists battered at the stonelike claw holding him. After a fierce struggle, where Tarrik gained not an iota of release, he forced himself to go limp.

  Ananias smiled, his grip relenting slightly to allow Tarrik to draw breath. “You are overmatched. I know your bindings forced you to attack, and I will make your death swift. I do not care to tarry in this repulsive world.”