by Joe Jackson
Amastri waved away the last comment. “Whether or not I am at liberty to help you will not depend solely on whether it will frustrate the Cobra Lord,” she said quietly. “However, you ask much of Her Majesty, and the price will accordingly be high.”
Kari drew out the Celestial Token – a specialized coin that allowed one to buy a weapon of incredible make from the same celestial smith who’d crafted Kari’s own weapons – and slid it toward Amastri. Amastri studied the coin and her lips curled up into a smile. “Hard to believe this little thing caused such a commotion when we first met, is it not?” she commented to Eli and Danilynn, and Kari saw from the corner of her eye that the question irritated them. “I believe Her Majesty was only interested in keeping this out of the hands of Sekassus and his minions. I find it unlikely Her Majesty actually wants it; as long as it is in your hands and not his, that may satisfy her. If it turns out Her Majesty does still want it for her personal use, then I believe this may be sufficient to strike a bargain.”
“Is this really worth that much, either to your king or one of the others?” Kari asked.
Amastri tilted her head to the side. “Would you part ways with those angel’s blades you carry for less than a king’s ransom?” she asked.
Kari was surprised; Amastri called them angel's blades, just as Turillia had when Kari fought her in Barcon. Kari knew her weapons were exceptional: crafted by the celestial smith Terx, Kari had assumed they might have once belonged to an angel. She’d never really thought of them as angel’s blades, though, and she wondered if the swords themselves struck fear into the hearts of the demons she fought. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted.
“And well you should not,” the woman said approvingly. “The works of the harmauth smith are rare and quite valuable, and probably more powerful than the people who carry them even realize. If you are ever afforded the opportunity to walk the hills of Celestial Arcadia, you would do well to visit with Terx and show him that you carry his works. You may find he can give you insight into the weapons and their capabilities, or perhaps he might even enhance or replace them for you – with or without this token.”
Kari nodded, but talking to a harmauth – even one who served the Celestials – was far from the top of her agenda. The swords killed demons, and that was really good enough for Kari until the day that stopped holding true. “So how long will it take you to find out if this payment is enough?” she asked, keeping on point.
“I will have an answer for you by this time tomorrow,” Amastri said. “I will either take this token as payment and give you the information then – or wherever it pleases you; certainly this inn is not the best place to review plans to enter the underworld. Otherwise, I will name my king’s price, and you will either meet it or find another way to hash out your plan.”
“Fair enough,” Kari said. “So tell me: I can see you’re part elf; what’s the rest of you?”
The woman smiled again in that disconcerting way and something flashed in her eyes that Kari couldn’t quite read. “You would not believe if I told you,” she returned evenly, and then she gestured at Eli and Danilynn. “I know they certainly did not.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Kari countered. “I fought a half-syrinthian, half-succubus just a few weeks ago, and I’ve spent the last three years unlearning a lot of what I spent the first thirty-five years of my life learning.”
Amastri glanced around the common room again, and when her eyes settled on Kari once more she said quietly, “Angel.”
Eli started laughing. Danilynn’s reaction was more subdued, but she still shook her head. “This is where you tell Kari the same thing you told us? That rubbish about how not all of you ‘fell,’ but some were ‘pushed’?” the priestess asked, barely able to keep the civility in her voice.
“Believe what you will,” Amastri countered with a shrug, her voice still calm and lacking much emotion. “Truth is not dependent on whether or not it is believed.”
Kari wasn’t sure what to think; in all honesty, she knew less about angels and celestial beings than she did about underworld demons. And when it came to underworld demons, she didn’t know much more than what they looked like, what powers they possessed, and how best to kill them. The suggestion that an angel – or even a half-angel, as the case may be – would ever serve a demon king was unthinkable. She didn’t know what to make of Danilynn’s words, but she guessed Amastri had explained her heritage to the priestess in a way Danilynn had found absurd. In the long run, Kari supposed it didn’t matter: nothing Amastri could say would make Kari trust her fully. Whether Amastri was half-demon, half-angel, or half-addled, Kari was really only interested in whether the woman’s information was accurate and reliable.
“Before I go, there’s one other thing I want to tell you,” Kari said after a silent minute. “I’m not sure if you’re aware that I was recently promoted again within the Order, and I’m now its head.”
“I had not heard that. I assume congratulations are in order?” Amastri returned. Again she spoke in those near-emotionless tones and kept her face carefully under control as though she were playing poker. Kari wasn’t sure if Amastri was being sincere or mocking her.
“That’s not the point. The Order is under my control now, so whatever arrangement you may have had with Jason Bosimar, or anyone else within the Order, no longer applies,” Kari said, and Amastri perked up defensively at her words. “I’ve been living in this city for three years now and I’ve never even heard your name before, let alone when there was trouble. So I’ll tell you what: if you want to stay in this city on my watch, then the information you come back with tomorrow had better be exactly what I need.”
“Ah, Lady Vanador, tsk tsk,” Amastri returned, settling back down into her comfortable and calm demeanor. “I thought we were getting along so well there for a few minutes. Why the barely-veiled threats now?”
“It’s not a threat,” Kari said with a dismissive wave. “I just want to make sure you and I understand each other. We’re not friends, but you don’t want me as an enemy. I know what went on with your king and Eli and his friends before the War; I’m not sure I understand what your king wants, exactly, but if I can trust her and she’s willing to aid us in fighting against Sekassus, then you and I can have a working relationship. But that will start or end with what you tell me tomorrow night.”
The appreciative nod came again. “Lady Vanador, I assure you, if Her Majesty does not want you helped, I will simply tell you so,” she said. “If Her Majesty wants you helped, then I will give you the most reliable information I can to see to that end. Either way, you will know exactly what her wishes are. In short, Lady Vanador, I am an instrument of Her Majesty’s will, and my own wants and desires are of no consequence.”
Amastri slid the Celestial Token toward Kari, and the demonhunter put it back into her belt pouch. “I have one question for you, perhaps related to our bargain,” Amastri said, and Kari gestured for her to ask. “This half-syrinthian, half-succubus you fought and, I must assume, killed…was her name Turillia?”
Kari nodded. “That's right,” she affirmed. A look crossed Amastri’s face, and Kari recognized it fairly well: as much as Amastri always seemed to be calm and in control, that bit of information had shaken her. In light of how proficient a fighter Turillia had been and the fact that she had belonged to some sort of underworld assassin’s guild, Kari guessed that Amastri now saw her as an actual threat. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Kari said, breaking the short-lived silence. “I’m guessing you’d rather not meet on the campus of my Order?”
“I will come to your office if that is where you want to meet,” Amastri said, the calm demeanor returned in an instant. “However, I will not set foot in your deity’s temple. Call it…professional courtesy.”
She smiled again, and this time it made Kari laugh. Amastri was something else; Kari imagined Aeligos could learn a trick or two from the woman. Kari bid Amastri farewell, but she wasn’t really surprised wh
en Eli and Danilynn declined to ask Amastri any questions or bid her farewell. Kari invited them to return to the campus with her before they headed to her home for dinner, and both agreed.
Chapter III – The War At Home
Kari didn’t stay long at the Order’s campus. Since Amastri hadn’t told her anything right away, there wasn’t much to discuss with the Council. She went over her suspicions about an agent of Sekassus passing along information to the demon king, and the bounty she wanted placed on their capture or death. Kari was completely open about her actions with the Council, explaining that the Blood Order would be able to accomplish what they needed quickly and quietly. The Council wasn't happy with being tied to the Guild, even just financially through a bounty, but they went along with Kari's wishes on the condition that it was kept out of the public eye. Though she wasn't sure it would turn out to be true, she told the Council that involving the Guild would be a one-time thing.
With the Council updated on her orders, and the syrinthians still unwilling to talk, Kari invited her new friends to dinner at her home. Danilynn and Eli accepted the invitation, and the group returned to Kyrie’s home in northern DarkWind. Kyrie’s home was large, but with several guests for dinner, it was a tight squeeze around the dinner table. Grakin had prepared the meal in his mother’s absence, and Kari saw that all of her in-laws were seated around the table waiting. Aeligos and even Eryn had come for dinner as well, apparently both interested in finding out just what it was Kari was planning. Erik, Sonja, and Typhonix were there, and Sonja had Little Gray in her lap. Of greatest interest to Kari, though, was her eldest brother-in-law Serenjols and the woman seated beside him.
Damansha turned around when Kari entered the dining area, and she rose from her seat to approach. Damansha was a half-elite: a cross-breed of the elite variety of serilis-rir – or serilian demon, as many still called them – and some other sort of rir; Kari assumed a terra-rir. She was large and burly, near to six and a half feet tall and muscular. She was dressed in casual attire, meaning the captain of the guard either wasn’t scheduled for the night watch that evening or she had already worked earlier in the day. The clothing didn’t cover her neck, and so Kari could see the thick creases of scar tissue that showed she’d nearly been killed just weeks before.
Kari remembered the incident in frightening detail: it had been the first time they saw the half-syrinthian, half-succubus assassin named Turillia. She’d come out of the shadows – or perhaps just out of thin air – and nearly decapitated Damansha. Kari had fended the assassin off until help arrived and Turillia fled, and Aeligos and Kari had worked to keep the woman alive and stable until proper doctors and healers could see to her wounds. Damansha had only narrowly avoided a date with Kaelariel, the god of death, and in light of her relationship with Serenjols, Kari couldn’t have been more glad for it.
“Lady Vanador,” Damansha began, but Kari held up her hand to cut her off.
“Just call me Kari,” she said lightly.
The half-elite woman bowed her head. She took Kari’s offered hand, but instead of shaking it, she pulled the shorter woman in for a bear hug. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you for saving my life,” she said. “I feel I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of it.”
They split apart and Kari waved off the comment. “I was the one who put you into that situation, knowingly or not,” she said. “So you’re not indebted to me at all.”
Kari took off her weapons and laid them against the wall, but didn’t bother going upstairs to get changed before supper. She introduced Eli and Danilynn to her in-laws, who greeted the guests warmly. Kyrie clearly remembered the two and welcomed them to her home. Sonja rose and gave Kari a big hug when she reached the table. Kari hadn’t seen her sister-in-law since before her trip to Barcon several weeks before. Sonja handed Little Gray off to his mother, and Kari sat at the table between Serenjols and Sonja with her son in her lap. Little Gray turned so he could cling to Kari, and she hugged him just tightly enough that her armor wouldn’t chafe against him. Grakin began putting dishes in the center of the table, but no one reached for the food while they waited for everyone to be seated.
Kari suddenly realized that Damansha and Eryn were sitting across from each other. It was definitely an odd situation, and she wondered if there was tension between the two. The Blood Order’s existence and activities were a sore point with the city watch and particularly its officers, and Kari was sure Damansha wasn’t exactly fond of Eryn. Still, if Damansha held any hatred for Eryn, she was covering it up quite well. Kari knew she wasn’t anywhere near familiar enough with the Blood Order or its ties to the political structure of DarkWind to really know the finer details, but she was surprised that a watch captain and an assassin could sit and be civil to each other at the dinner table.
“So, I’m told you killed the assassin who attacked me,” Damansha said to Kari.
“Well, I captured her; someone that was helping me killed her,” Kari said. She glanced across to Eli, who had taken a seat next to Aeligos, and he half-smiled. “Her name was Turillia. She was a hell of a fighter; gave me this nice scar to remember her by.”
“What scar?” Erik asked.
Kari rubbed her finger up her chin where the succubus had nearly cut her snout in two. She could barely feel the thickened scar tissue where the cut had been; had it managed to heal over somehow in the weeks since the battle? Her in-laws and friends looked at her curiously, all except for Eli, who’d seen the wound first-hand. Kari was a little confused; she remembered Grakin looking at it when she'd first returned to DarkWind. “Maybe you just can’t see it in this light,” Kari said. “She cut through my lower jaw; I’m not even sure how I kept going after that. Must have been because of the Blood Oath.”
Grakin regarded her with a worried look as he set down the last of the dinner plates and took his own seat, squeezing in between Kyrie and Damansha. Normally he sat beside Kari, but with two extra guests, the table was crowded and they had to make due. Kari could understand his worries, and she wondered how badly he’d react to the idea of her going to the underworld. On that note, Kari wondered if the subject was one that would be wise to bring up while Eryn and Damansha were present. Kari knew she could trust her in-laws to keep quiet on the subject, but a captain of the city watch and an assassin might be more likely to accidentally spread rumors on such a matter. Damansha came into contact with so many people of different stations that a slip of the tongue might be unavoidable. Eryn, by contrast, quite possibly dealt with many people like herself or Aeligos, who could get information even when it was closely guarded.
The meal was passed around the table like a bucket brigade, and once everyone had a suitable plate of hot food, Kyrie said a prayer to Kaelariel. Though Kari served a different deity and she knew Danilynn did as well, everyone was satisfied with the prayer: Kaelariel was the head of the pantheon since his father’s death, so a prayer to him was now effectively a prayer to the entire pantheon. Even Eryn, who Kari doubted served any deity at all, waited patiently while the prayer was said and even intoned Amen at its conclusion. That struck Kari as odd, but then she reminded herself that she didn’t know enough about Eryn to conclude the woman didn’t serve a deity. Kari just had to wonder which one accepted an assassin as a follower. Famished, Kari dug into her roast beef and helped her son nibble on some of it as well.
Conversation around the dinner table was light, and the subjects of Kari’s hunt in Barcon and everything since were kept quiet while everyone ate. After dinner was finished, Kari helped Grakin and Kyrie clean up and wash the dishes. Kyrie and Grakin brought a number of fancy drink glasses over for an after-dinner drink, and Kari looked quizzically at the bottle her mother-in-law placed in the center of the table. Its label was in a language Kari had never seen before and could scarcely make heads or tails of.
“What’s this?” Kari asked.
“A gift Erik brought back from Ceritopolonis,” Kyrie said. “It’s called ouzo. Be careful, it’s got quit
e a kick.”
Kari chuckled; she’d been drinking double-godhammers for most of her adult life, and those were by far the most potent drinks she’d ever heard of. She graciously accepted a glass of ouzo from Kyrie, but had to tell Little Gray that he was not getting to try a sip. Her son pouted in her lap and the others laughed. Kari tasted it, and she looked at the glass with raised brows and swirled the liquor around within it. Kyrie hadn’t been kidding: it definitely had a kick to it, but Kari was sure she could drink it down in one swig if she wanted to. Instead, she enjoyed it slowly as a dessert, as was intended.
“So, I spoke with Kaelariel, but he wasn’t able to tell me much more than the Council already knew,” Kyrie said, surprising Kari only a little as she began discussing business with relative strangers present at the table. “He assured me, however, that it’s not because he can’t tell us, but rather because he doesn’t know. He’s told me that his father told him only that the mystery of the Temple would resolve itself in due time without the pantheon’s involvement. Kaelariel is quite dissatisfied with this himself, but there is little he can do about it.”
“Gori Sensullu sure liked his secrets,” Kari said, referring to the creator and lord of the pantheon, who had died at the conclusion of the Apocalypse. The world was still getting used to that fact even three years later: their creator was dead. It was hard to understand, and for many it was difficult to live with. Many of the rir people had fallen into depression after their maker’s death, but most had taken up following Kaelariel or his brethren among the pantheon. Kari had felt the sting of the loss, but her commitment to Zalkar and his ideals helped to keep her focused.