by Joe Jackson
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 repeated. “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.”
Kari chuckled; she’d seen kwarrasti on rare occasions in her prior life, but she never got the chance to interact with them as a people. “Did she leave before the Apocalypse?” she asked.
“I think so. I think she went back home to her people in case the fighting spread to their homeland. I haven’t heard from her for about twelve years now.”
Sonja emerged from the bath chamber, and once she went back into her bedro
om, their mallasti companion made her way to the lavatory. Their mallestrem host left without a word to the other women, and once Uldriana finished with her bath, the four women got ready to take to the streets of Rulaj. Kari resolved to have a good breakfast in the city before they departed for Saristor. Uldriana agreed to find them a little place to have a hot breakfast, and then to find a store where they could resupply.
They left the hostel with little attention from Uldriana’s bedmate. The mallasti girl led them along the streets, which weren’t crowded, but had a good number of people of the various Mehr’Durillian races, either working or on their way somewhere. Rulaj was a fairly large city even compared to DarkWind or Solaris, but it lacked the feeling of overcrowding that so often typified the larger cities back on Citaria. The architecture and inlaid artwork continued to impress Kari and her friends, and Uldriana was happy to point out some of the finer details that the elestram craftsmen put into their work.
Kari found she looked at the “demons” differently now. It was still hard to believe that her Order – and indeed, everyone else as well – could be so wrong about the various peoples of Mehr’Durillia. To consider them enemies because of their invasive behavior was one thing, but as Kari considered her people had long thought of them as demons when such might be nowhere near the truth, it disturbed her. How many times had Zalkar loaned Kari his power to defeat these people, and yet they might not even truly be demons? If the serilis-rir weren’t demons and the people of Mehr’Durillia weren’t demons, it meant that Kari’s Order was poorly named.
If everything Uldriana had told them was true, then it seemed like a cruel trick: that these people had been conquered by demons, and yet they were treated like the aggressors rather than the victims. Kari took some comfort in the thought that those people of Mehr’Durillia she had hunted across her two lives had been trouble. She had never hunted a mallasti, valiras, elestram, or erestram that hadn’t been causing trouble or taking lives. Those she found on Citaria were agents of the demon kings, sent to kill or try to find some way of bringing their evil lords to other worlds to conquer. At the very least, it was not as though Kari had ever just kicked down the door of some beshathan’s dwelling and killed it without cause.
That brought another thought to Kari’s mind: how many of the supposed “demon kings” were actually demons at all? Uldriana had all but confirmed that Asmodeus, Baal, Koursturaux, Baphomet, and Abaddon were actual demons, but Kari had to wonder about the others. Emanitar may have literally gotten into bed with one of those who had killed Be’shatha, but he didn’t seem like a demon. It left Kari to wonder what was the truth in the cases of Morduri, Sekassus, and especially Celigus Chinchala. Was the old demon king who helped the Light forces win the Apocalypse a demon at all?
Kari blew out a sigh and took in the sights of the city around her more carefully. The elestram architecture was so unlike anything Kari had ever seen before, but there was a wonder and majesty to their artistic prowess that she couldn’t help but appreciate. For most of her life, Kari had thought of elestram as little more than bothersome wizards and assassins who made their way to Citaria to cause havoc. Now, she could plainly see that like with the mallasti of Moskarre, there was so much more to the jackal-folk that Kari had never had any indication existed. Their artistic and architectural prowess was complemented by the ability to create wonders of advances in plumbing and machinery. True, Kari had seen indoor plumbing from time to time in various places around Citaria – most commonly the palaces of monarchs and nobles – but not to the extent she had experienced it at the hostel the night before.
Kari glanced at their guide, expecting the girl would perhaps have a little extra spring in her step, or at least a smile on her face rather than that impassive expression. If her intimacy with the mallestrem innkeeper the night before had any such effect on her, though, it didn’t show. She seemed almost ashamed when she let any emotion escape that impassiveness, and Kari didn’t miss it. While Uldriana was distracted looking at something, Kari glanced over her shoulder at Sonja and nodded toward the mallasti girl. Sonja made a face that seemed to indicate Uldriana wasn’t happy, just as Kari suspected.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” Kari asked while the four women walked along the bright, sunny streets. The smells of cooking breakfasts wafted out from many of the homes they passed, and Kari was glad Uldriana was leading them to a café or similar establishment for their own morning meal. The hostel they’d stayed at had no kitchen or food service at all, which had forced Kari and Uldriana to go out and get dinner the previous night.
The mallasti girl regarded Kari for a few moments before she replied. “I suppose I did,” she said with a shrug, which seemed uncharacteristic for her. “In all honesty, it was more painful than I expected. I found I enjoyed it very little on account of that.” She looked at the ground, but then her eyes came up to Kari. “You are a mother; did you find it painful your first time?”
Kari stopped and met the girl’s gaze evenly, but from the corner of her eye, she saw that Sonja’s jaw had dropped open. She held her hand up to her sister-in-law. “It’s all right, Sonja, she doesn’t know,” Kari said. She sighed lightly and answered, “More than you’ll ever know.”
Uldriana and Danilynn were both confused by the responses, both Kari’s and Sonja’s. Danilynn clued in after a moment, but her reaction was subdued, as though she wasn’t sure what to do or say. Uldriana, too, finally caught on, and her eyes wandered the ground, as if some words of apology or comfort might be written there. “I have misspoken; please forgive me,” the mallasti girl said.
Kari waved a hand. “Not your fault,” she replied. “Come on, let’s find some food.”
They continued on their way, and Uldriana blew a long sigh from her canine nose. “I hope I have not shamed my family; our people are not allowed to take a mate or consummate our love until we have reached thirty summers. Though, given where we are headed and the risk of death, I thought perhaps I might not find another chance to experience it.”
Kari considered that; it explained things a little better, as Uldriana didn’t seem impulsive at all. Her behavior the night before had seemed a little out of character. “All I can say is if you go home with a pup in your belly, don’t let your mother blame me,” Kari said, which finally drew laughs from her friends and the mallasti girl. “I know you didn’t believe me when I said it in your village, but I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. I made a promise to you, and to your mother, and I keep my promises.”
Uldriana stopped and met Kari’s gaze evenly, but she didn’t scowl the way she had the first time Kari had said those words to her. “I think I understand that now,” the girl said. “You are deep in a situation you still do not fully grasp, but I understand and appreciate your protective nature. When we met, I thought you were merely a heartless killer who targets my kind.”
“And I pretty much thought the same thing about your people,” Kari said. “I’ve already learned a lot since we got here, and I promise you, I not only won’t forget it, but I’ll make sure everyone else learns it, too.”
“We must concentrate first on surviving this encounter with King Sekassus, and making it safely back home,” Uldriana said evenly, her impassiveness returning to her features.
“Why are you so concerned about that? I thought the Overking’s laws were supposed to keep us safe in that regard,” Sonja said.
“King Sekassus is not exactly trustworthy,” Uldriana said. “He may give us Seven Days to leave his realm, but that does not mean he will not place obstacles in our way that hinder us for eight.”
“That’s what Celigus said,” Kari returned with a nod, and Uldriana looked as though she were about to chastise her for not calling him King. “Don’t worry, Celigus is very casual with the people of our world. Anyway, I’ve been coming up with a plan to get us out safely since the minute he told me that.”
Uldriana nodded, satisfied, and they continued along through the city. Uldriana found
both an eatery and a dry goods store, and they were able to stock up on rations and supplies, and have a quick but fresh breakfast. Once their tasks were done, they approached the outskirts of the city on its western side, where Kari saw that there was an elestram sitting beside the door of his house. There was a wonderful painting of an elestram hanging on the front door, and when Uldriana saw it, she moved over toward the seated jackal-man. He rose to his feet and said something in that flowing language of theirs, and Uldriana bowed her head and said something in return. Both turned and looked at the painting, and there was some continued conversation before they bowed their heads to each other again and Uldriana moved on.
“What was that about?” Kari inquired when they were a fair distance from the elestram.
“The portrait you saw on the door was his grandfather,” the mallasti girl answered. “The elestram paint portraits, or have portraits painted of loved ones who return to the embrace of the Great Mother, and place them on the door of their home. It is to remind the community that they have lost a friend, a loved one, and a valuable member of their society. My people memorialize our dead differently, but I appreciate the way the elestram present their grief.”
“Are you a priestess?” Danilynn asked, and Uldriana stopped to face her squarely.
“All females of my kind are considered reflections of the Great Mother, but as to whether I am a priestess in the same capacity you are, no,” the mallasti girl said. “I am but a simple girl, born to simple villagers, not blessed or special in any way.”
“Yes, you are,” Kari said. “You’re a very brave young woman, willing to walk into the home of a demon king to help strangers. That’s pretty special. I wouldn’t have had the guts to do that when I was nineteen.”