“What happens to your love then? Does it turn to ashes and hate?”
“It stays with me . . . forever. Don’t you understand? Our emotions are like raging floods to your trickling streams.”
I hate this world. I hate humans. But I don’t hate you, not anymore.
Tarrik rose and padded away, wanting to be alone. He was weak. The demon lords had known it. Another reason for his exile. They’d labeled him a traitor to his kind for loving Jaquel, for working alongside Contian. A consorter, a revealer of demon secrets. All because he’d loved a human.
Tarrik spent a few hours wandering the encampment. The day was cold, and he wrapped his arms around himself for warmth against the chill.
Soldiers’ campfires were pitched in depressions in an effort to keep any wind away and surrounded by rings of stones gathered from around the plain. The warriors spoke and joked in hushed tones, eating meals thrown together from whatever supplies had reached the encampments. Foraging was out of the question. Tarrik knew they were already butchering horses for meat, as equine screams rang out frequently. Soldiers had converted one tent to a smokehouse to preserve the horseflesh.
Men and women gathered around their feeble fires. Tarrik couldn’t see any groups who weren’t close by smoldering flame. It made sense that, this close to such darkness as Samal’s prison, animals as fearful as humans would gather around pockets of light and heat. He smelled the fear on them, as sharp as rotting fruit.
As Tarrik wandered, he didn’t go unnoticed. Men and women watched him and eyed his spear with hooded, cursory looks. It was not surprising, as he’d arrived with one of the Nine. One soldier, a robust man slabbed with muscle, glowered at Tarrik. A hard moment passed between them before Tarrik shook his head and moved on. He imagined it wouldn’t have taken much to start a fight.
But despite wanting to burn off nervous energy and work himself into a frenzy to escape his meandering thoughts, Tarrik walked on. The soldier and his compatriots would die soon enough, through violence or accident or old age.
His care for humans had died a long time ago, buried under an apple tree.
A commotion woke them during the night. Detonations close to the pyramid cracked through the darkness, and eldritch lights flashed. Ren moved quickly to the tent’s entrance and stood with one arm holding the flap open. Over her head, Tarrik saw sparkling lines scythe the night and heard a dozen pops like wood in a blaze. Screams reached them: human, and something lower, more guttural. Brief flashes of bright light bleached the side of the pyramid. After a time, the uproar died down.
“The Cabal’s sorcerers encountered something,” Ren said, “and handled it.”
She said no more, just returned to her bed of blankets. Soon Tarrik heard her breathing even out as sleep overcame her.
He remained awake, wondering how someone as slight as Ren could be so fierce, so resistant to the torments that had assaulted her throughout her life.
She still hopes to break free of Samal’s grip, he realized. She hopes for a normal life. What would it be like for her? Could I work alongside her as I did with Contian?
Once Tarrik finally fell asleep, he became caught in vivid dreams, an erratic jumble of sensations. Jaquel called to him, as if she were in another room. He entered but instead of finding her saw the apple tree they’d tended together. Its branches sank low with the weight of shining red fruit, and rotten apples lay on the ground underneath, chewed on by animals. Tarrik stopped, frozen with indecision, and a sense of foreboding surrounded him. Searching for Jaquel, he saw a worm-riddled corpse propped against the trunk of the apple tree, its skin wizened and tattered, its bones gleaming white where they were exposed. Inky ooze dripped from its rotted mouth, and its splintered fingernails were hooked into claws.
“I will teach you about power,” said Ren behind him, speaking with a conviction as solid as stone.
Heat climbed Tarrik’s neck. Despite her words, the belief in her tone, he knew she had been overtaken by madness, like all of the Nine.
He woke with a start, bolting upright. Sweat dripped down his brow.
This world brings suffering . . .
Ren seemed determined to do grievous injury to the Nine, knowing that when Samal was freed, it would cost her dearly. The Adversary would not be lenient. He would hurt her and continue to hurt her, never willing to forgive.
Tarrik wondered if a tiny spark of the original Ren remained, a spark that Samal couldn’t extinguish. Whether, despite the evil she had perpetrated, there was still a part of her left untainted. Perhaps that was what drove her. Perhaps she wanted death, a release from her past.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The morning haze quickly cleared to an icy brightness that blinded Tarrik as he stood under the blue sky. For a few heartbeats he closed his eyes and imagined he was back in his realm, casting a final look at the hated daylight before hunkering down to sleep or amuse himself until he could set out in the darkness to hunt.
“Check what happened to the Cabal’s sorcerers last night,” said Ren from the doorway of the tent. “And do not let your guard down.”
Tarrik nodded, knowing she probably only wanted him out of the way for a while. But he did as he was told, striding away past the soldiers and servants huddled around meager fires, burning precious fuel to heat water for their tea and boiled oats and barley. His stomach rumbled, but he would wait till he returned to sate his hunger. More of the salted rat meat could be found among the provisions in Ren’s tent.
After the Cabalists had fought off whatever had come for them from the pyramid, they must have returned to the encampment for safety, leaving their dead behind. Nocturnal scavengers had been at the human carcasses; the ground around the tattered remains was splashed with liberal quantities of blood. Tarrik saw giant paw prints in the gore—they reminded him of the tracks of a gruul, a furred predator in the demon realms.
The carnage didn’t seem to bother the two men he’d seen the day before. They’d moved their wagon closer to the slaughter and were shoveling remains into coffins. A dozen paces away stood three sorcerers, including the woman who had approached Ren yesterday, their mouths drawn into thin lines as they watched.
The men stopped and leaned on their shovels when Tarrik approached. Sweat streamed down their faces despite the cold air.
“How many killed?” he asked them.
“Don’t rightly know. More than a few.”
Tarrik prodded a gnawed leg bone with his boot. Something had cracked it open and feasted on the marrow. “What killed them?”
The taller man coughed and spat into the dirt. “Maybe a manticarr. Maybe something else. Tore through them like they were rabbits. The ones who didn’t die ran for it. Can’t say I blame them. You mess with unnatural sorcery like these people do, something’s bound to get you one day.”
The shorter man nodded. “That’s right. Sooner or later the gods decide your time’s over. Then we clean up and collect our coin.”
“Everyone goes back into the dirt,” Tarrik said.
“Ain’t that the truth. Say, big man, you happen to know when they’ll make the push into the tomb?”
“Tomorrow.”
The taller man grinned. “Plenty of dead for us to clean up after that. Hopefully someone will be left to pay us for it.”
Tarrik left the men and the remaining sorcerers and made his way back to Ren’s tent. At its entrance the ground was newly scuffed, and there were wagon-wheel marks in the dirt. Inside, he saw a sizeable iron-bound blackwood chest by Ren’s bed. It was secured with a heavy lock, and Skanuric runes had been carved into its wooden surface.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Nothing that concerns you. Come closer.” Tarrik stepped toward her, and she stared at him, head tilted slightly to the side. “We need to talk.”
He leaned his spear on a chair and went over to the table of food. What else had they to talk about? Was she going to confide in him further? His hands found a bottle on the table, and
he drank deeply, the spirits scalding his throat. He wiped his mouth and chewed a piece of rat meat, in no hurry for this talk.
“Tarrik . . .”
He turned and spoke over her. “A few of the Cabal sorcerers survived, including the woman who spoke to you yesterday. They’re spooked, though, and rightly so. Whatever creature came for them feasted on the corpses after the survivors fled.”
Ren nodded. “They weren’t careful enough. Exhaustion, probably. Well, they chose to join the Tainted Cabal; they knew what they were getting into. Come here.”
Tarrik moved closer and saw that her eyes were red with fatigue. “Do you have another task for me?”
“Soon, yes. All my plans come to fruition tomorrow. After that . . . I don’t know what will become of me. The heat of the forge is rising, Tarrik. But I have some surprises of my own. Still, that’s not what I want to talk about. Have you succeeded in absorbing the demon you killed?”
Tarrik froze, a sinking feeling in his stomach. All this time she had known. There was no point in dissembling. “No.”
“Not at all?”
“A little. If I had more time, I might succeed. But I doubt I’ll get the opportunity before tomorrow.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Her suggestion shocked him and also baffled him. Why did she want to help him? And if he accepted her offer, what bond would that create between them?
Dare he push himself further?
“Well?” she said, her eyebrows raised.
Tarrik drew a breath. “There may be a way.”
An unwillingness to say any more dragged at him. At first he thought the feeling was wariness. Then he realized it was, in fact, deep shame. He didn’t want to ask a human sorcerer for help. The prospect ran against all he believed. But . . . here he was . . . on the verge of trusting a sorcerer again.
“The Wracking Nerves,” he said, pushing through the resistance. “You must punish me with it. The demon essence within my mind will become distressed and fight against the protective shell surrounding it. If you apply enough pain, it will crack.”
“And what then?”
“It will overwhelm me, or I will control it.”
Ren frowned. “Is such a battle waged every time?”
“Yes. But usually demons absorb an essence gradually, gaining strength with each small portion. If I fail to control any part of the process, I will lose myself. I won’t go mad, but I won’t be the same being. I will be both myself and Ananias—a new entity. And, like a newborn babe, I will have no memories but considerable power, both physical and dark-tide power. If that happens, you should kill me before I kill you.”
He looked around for something to grasp when the agony of the Wracking Nerves hit. Not his spear. If he became lost, having a weapon in his hands wasn’t a good idea. He settled for a cushion, about as far away from a weapon as he could imagine.
Ren gestured to him to lie down on her blankets, his head resting on her pillow. He clutched the cushion tight in both hands across his stomach.
She knelt on the ground beside him. “Now?” Her dark-blue eyes were filled with sympathy—and determination.
He winked at her, then closed his eyes. She uttered a soft laugh and spoke a cant.
Tarrik’s nerves erupted in searing pain. This time the agony didn’t plateau but kept increasing. His mind reeled, and he screamed.
Don’t lose control.
He clamped his thoughts into a tight ball. The Wracking Nerves sent waves of torment through his body and mind, shredding his consciousness. He gathered himself as best he could, battered by this sorcery designed to inflict maximum pain upon demons.
Ananias.
Tarrik fought his way through Ren’s punishment; it crashed over him, buffeting him like a gale. When he found the shell surrounding Ananias’s essence, he clung on for dear life, strangled by an ever-growing ache, his limbs a convulsing, grinding tangle.
A thought intruded upon his desperation. If he could barely hold off the Wracking Nerves, how would he cope with the surge when the shell broke?
Too late to worry.
With a tremor that lashed his mind, the shell cracked, unleashing a flood of essence. It hammered him, exploding through his flimsy defenses and attacking his mind like a snarling beast upon prey. Razors slashed at his being.
For an instant his mind recoiled from the alien presence within, giving it a breach to flow into. Then Tarrik’s fury erupted, and he threw his entire being into the fray, sending out dark-tide threads to tear the essence into smaller shreds. He would lose some of its potency, but survival was paramount. He had learned enough from previous absorptions to know that greed would be his undoing. The essence was demon in its rawest form, and its ravenous brutality had to be lessened.
He lost track of time as his world became a burning, roiling sea of hostility. Tarrik was scarcely able to absorb one fragment of essence before another pummeled at his awareness. Threads wove through his mind, clotting his being with something not himself. A corruption, an intolerable baseness that scoured his own spirit with vitriol.
Tarrik fought as best he could, but Ananias’s essence was too strong, and he was weak. It stripped his defenses and battered his spirit, diluting what made him Tarrik.
Fear crowded him. He had gambled and lost. Perhaps this was his lot, to die here in this human world and have his bones cast onto the piles surrounding Samal’s prison. His mind would be torn asunder, and he would go mad. Like one of the Nine.
No! I will not surrender!
He threw himself back into the struggle and drew on the dark-tide power, weaving nets to trap the shattered essence running amok.
New threads intruded upon his thoughts, and Tarrik hesitated. They dove in like a heron into water, glowing white, silent and pure.
Ren.
Her sun power, shining bright, wrapped itself around fragments of Ananias’s essence, and the pressing waves pulled back. Tarrik was able to gather himself, one errant thought at a time, until he’d regained some semblance of calm. But the respite was brief. He saw the white threads begin to snap and their cages unravel.
He attacked the shredded essence anew, splitting his thoughts to deal with the fragments not hampered by Ren’s intrusion. He bound a few with dark-tide tethers, then focused on breaking off chunks for easier absorption. He took in three, then another two. As they dissolved, their energy flashed through his mind, searing him with brilliance. He felt his own essence expand.
His success and new energy strengthened his resolve. He would gain control over the essence. He would absorb Ananias and become something greater.
Tarrik fought as though he were a ravening beast surrounded by smaller creatures seeking to bring him down with their greater numbers. They were hunger, horror—tearing chunks from him with quick, vicious bites, hoping he would succumb.
He would not yield.
Tarrik thrashed wildly, tearing at fragments of invading essence, clawing, corralling, and finally absorbing them. He clutched at the scintillating slivers and pulled them into his own spirit, he who had not yet lost himself.
Darkness swirled around him as though it were a wind. A new sensation soaked through Tarrik’s mind, warm, reassuring. Ren, he thought at first. But he could not sense her presence. He realized it was his own essence, stronger after absorbing part of Ananias’s being. He had passed a threshold. He had succeeded. He had survived.
With a growing sense of relief and not a little pride, Tarrik breathed a sigh. At last he could ease back, take a few moments to gather his strength. He lurched away, leaving the dissolving essence to be absorbed and redefined by his subconscious, shaped to mirror his innate talents and augment his power.
He turned his attention to the physical world and found himself still on Ren’s blankets, panting in the burning aftermath of the Wracking Nerves. He tasted blood in his mouth, and his whole body ached from his spasming muscles.
Ren lay on top of him, her hands on either side
of his head, her blue-black eyes staring into his.
Though his mind swirled with chaotic thoughts and newfound promise, Tarrik’s first impression was their closeness: his pelvis against her thigh, breast to breast. As lovers might lie.
He gazed at her penetrating eyes, her soft lips. He wanted to give in to the passion that rose within him. To exult in pleasures of the flesh.
“Are you . . . whole?” she murmured.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“Good.” She removed her hands, withdrew slightly, and stood.
He remained lying there, focusing on his heartbeat, counting the thrums in order to give himself time to marshal his thoughts. The cushion he’d clutched was a few feet away, its cover shredded, the wadding from inside it strewn around the tent.
Tarrik got to his feet slowly and busied himself brushing creases from his shirt and pants. Ren had saved him from losing himself, and as a result he had grown, evolved. Potentially he could be confirmed to a higher rank. Without her intervention, he would be a mewling mess, lost in violence and hunger.
He drew himself up straight and met Ren’s eyes. “I, Tarrik Nal-Valim, of the Thirty-Ninth Order, thank you.”
Ren raised her eyebrows. Maybe she knew his advancement was self-imposed. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to survive the coming days.”
“You helped me. I sensed you, in my mind.”
“I didn’t bring you this far to lose you before my plan reaches its culmination. And if something happens to me—which in all probability it will—you’ll need all the strength you can muster to survive.” She met his gaze, her eyes strangely gentle. “You are brave, Tarrik. And I sense there are depths to you that would be worth knowing. I did not expect to find such in a demon.”
“I’m only trying to survive.”
Shadow of the Exile (The Infernal Guardian Book 1) Page 34