by Joe Jackson
Dinner was a somber affair, most of the family’s attention squarely on the fact that Ty was not among them. Even Damansha – Serenjols’ girlfriend and a captain of the city watch – seemed to have taken news of Typhonix’ injury badly, and for the most part, the Tesconis family and their guests ate in silence. Kari had many things to go over with her in-laws before they began their dangerous mission to the southlands, but she decided to wait until after dinner. Odds were that Kyrie would take the news that her children were going away again so soon a little less sharply over an after-dinner drink.
Kari’s thoughts wandered while she ate and fed her son. Typhonix was foremost on her mind in light of the surrounding silence, but there were so many issues begging for her attention that she found it hard to keep her thoughts on any one thing for long. Besides Ty’s injury, there was the letter from King Koursturaux, the mystery surrounding Taesenus and Seril, the situation with the syrinthian prisoners, Se’sasha, the possibility of a mole in the Order, and half a dozen other smaller issues like the funerals for her slain hunters. It was so much to take in at one time, and that was to say nothing of the other issue on Kari’s mind: her pregnancy.
She rubbed her lower belly reflexively at the thought, and that brought smiles to the faces of her friends and family. Obviously it didn’t ease the tension over Typhonix, but Kari figured at least some good news had come at the end of her treks to Mehr’Durillia and the syrinthian valley. She had to believe that Ty would recover, but regardless of whether he did, Kari wanted revenge on the Demon Prince. She wanted him to pay for crippling Typhonix, for kicking Kari in the belly when he knew she was pregnant, and in general for being a murderer. Kari had no idea how he had survived his apparent slaying at the hands of Kaelariel, and she had to wonder if it had something to do with being Seril’s son. Whatever the case, Kari planned to find some way to make sure he died and stayed dead, even if it took her the rest of her life.
Kari glanced across at Eli and Danilynn, and her thoughts turned to the mole among the Order. She had some basic ideas of how to expose the mole, but she wasn’t the tactician Aeligos was, so she knew she would need time to formulate a good plan. She had already figured her best option was to use people outside the Order, and Eli and Danilynn filled that requirement perfectly: they were both veteran mercenaries of the Order, but not members of the Order itself. Kari had some ideas about using Se’sasha, Eli, and Danilynn to expose the mole, but she wasn’t going to tell anyone else about it until she had spoken with the Council.
The letter from King Koursturaux was an enigma; Kari still had no idea how Amastri was relaying information to the demon king or how the demon king was getting physical letters to the half-elf woman so quickly. It bore looking into, and Kari wondered if the Duke might be willing to lend her some of his investigators: people not associated with the Order that Amastri might not be familiar with. Having some people keep an eye on Amastri might expose yet another spy in their midst, or at the least let Kari know how the demon king and her servant were conversing so freely between worlds. Kari was beginning to feel like she was surrounded by enemies even here on Citaria.
While Amastri had assured Kari that the sudden invitation to King Koursturaux’ palace was not something to worry about, she did freely admit that the demon king was displeased, to say the least, with Kari’s initial response. Kari understood that she had gone too far, and though Koursturaux was a demon king and an enemy, Kari had to wonder if she should apologize for her emotional response. She had been angry at the time: angry that Ty was hurt, angry that she thought Koursturaux had betrayed them, and – not the least – angry that the demon king would taunt her like a petulant child. Still, Kari knew she had to keep in mind that Koursturaux was very old, very powerful, and very volatile, and that provoking her in return was never going to be a smart thing to do.
Thinking on that, Kari realized that even her refusal of the demon king’s invitation could easily be taken as an offense. She wondered if Koursturaux was aware that Kari was pregnant, and how that alone would override any desire to go and speak with the demon king in person. If Amastri knew, Kari figured the demon king must know, and she hoped that Koursturaux would understand that was the biggest reason for her refusal. As it stood, Kari had enough demon kings interested in her blood without adding Koursturaux to the list.
Soon, the time for her wandering thoughts was over, as everyone finished their meals and the plates were cleared away. After-dinner glasses were placed on the table, accompanied by a pair of large bottles of wine. Kari picked up a bottle to read the brand, but she didn’t recognize the name, and she had to laugh when Aeligos snatched it from her hand with a smirk. “I was just seeing what brand it is, so I have an idea who to start selling grapes to,” Kari chuckled.
Once everyone had a drink in front of them – Kari had a non-alcoholic wine that Kyrie had found in the marketplace – the demonhunter glanced at Aeligos again. “Are you and Sonja going with Erik?” she asked, at last getting to business.
The rogue nodded. “Yep. Jol’s coming, too,” he said. “Though I was going to suggest that we have Sonja teleport us to Port Kristofer to save us some–”
“No,” Sonja interjected, drawing everyone’s attention. She pursed her lips and clearly had to stifle a sob, and Kari wondered if she’d lost her grip on the arcane already. “I…I can’t. What happened to Typhonix is…my fault.”
“Sonja, what are you talking about?” Kari asked.
Her scarlet-haired sister-in-law let out a biting sob. Kyrie laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Uldriana warned me, but I didn’t understand,” Sonja explained, sniffling. “When you use teleportation, anything that’s specifically attuned to the arcane can sense it. That’s why they don’t use teleportation on Mehr’Durillia, even in places where it’s expected or allowed, and why teleporting between kingdoms is so dangerous.”
“You think Taesenus sensed you teleporting us around?” Aeligos asked.
Sonja nodded. “I think he may have sensed when I teleported us to Atrice, and then he followed us to that valley,” she said. “I had a strange, vague sense of something moving nearby, but I had no idea what it was or why I had felt it at the time. It was only after he attacked us and I realized I couldn’t even sense his lifeforce that I made the connection. Oh, gods, Ty…”
“Ty’s going to be fine,” Kari assured her, trying to make sure confidence came through in her words, and not doubt. “And Taesenus is going to pay for what he’s done, I promise you that. But getting back to this trip to the southlands, you don’t want to use teleportation?”
Sonja shook her head. “There’s too much risk with beings like Amastri and Taesenus being able to track our movements,” she said. “I’m inclined to only use teleportation when our destination is irrelevant and we’re not going to be ambushed when we arrive. That’s why it didn’t bother me to teleport us back home: Taesenus would have to be suicidal to set foot in this city.”
“Well, so much for expediency,” Erik said. “We’d better take the safer route, then. It’ll cost us some time, but better that than our lives.”
Kari had to agree with both sentiments. She wondered how many people or creatures were attuned enough to the arcane to sense people using teleportation. If it was only those who practiced the arcane, that wasn’t as bad, but if people like Taesenus had an innate attunement to it, then using Sonja’s skill could end up creating more problems than it potentially solved. It was something to ask Gareth Maelstrom, the city’s resident archmage, when Kari had the time.
“Earl Garant has griffons; you might be able to shorten the trip if you can use those to fly south,” Kari said, and she was answered by several bobbing heads. She had returned from her hunt in Barcon riding one of the Earl’s majestic mounts, so the creatures were known to Kari’s family.
“What information do you have about this problem in the south?” Kyrie asked.
“Not terribly much, but we’re getting a little more here and t
here,” Kari said. “A village called Saffsburgh was burned to the ground, and it doesn’t seem like there were any survivors. From what Earl Pendergast’s people passed along through the clergy, there’ve been no reports of any armies or large bands of raiders crossing the land, so they’re not sure what attacked. We’ve heard some wild theories like a dragon attack, since the village was burned to the ground, but as far as we know, there are few dragons left here on Askies, and they keep mostly to the mountains and away from our cities and towns. Right now, we think it could be a small remnant of one of Seril’s southern battalions trying to start another war, and Taesenus being alive might have something to do with that.”
“The town was burned with no survivors?” Kyrie repeated. “Did the reports say anything about the smell of cinnamon around the area?”
Kari wasn’t the only one staring at her mother-in-law curiously. “We haven’t gotten any reports from the site of the attack itself yet,” Kari answered. “We probably won’t start getting any real news until Erik and the others are already well on their way. Why cinnamon? What do you mean by that?”
Kyrie drummed her fingers on the table absently, and she had the rapt attention of every other person seated at the table. “Years ago, well before the Apocalypse – before Corbanis and I were married – we investigated a similar-sounding report of something rampaging across the southlands in much the same way. We went on the same assumptions: that it was possibly some small unit of…serilis-rir going after the weaker, undefended villages in the south.” She looked around at her children. “Your father, myself, and several others went to investigate and take care of the issue at the Order’s command, but what we found when we got down there wasn’t a unit of serilis-rir soldiers.”
“Was it something from the underworld?” Erik asked when his mother paused.
Kyrie shook her head, which didn’t surprise Kari. “No,” Kari’s mother-in-law said, “it wasn’t anything from…Mehr’Durillia, either. It was something different, something no one had ever seen before – or since, possibly until now. We had always assumed it was one of Seril’s creations, but we never found out for sure. We never knew where it came from, how it got here, or what it wanted other than to destroy things.”
“It called itself Tilcimer,” she continued. “It was vaguely rir-like in shape, but it had dark brown skin, white horns on its head instead of hair, and deep green eyes that could go in opposite directions. And, for whatever reason, it smelled like cinnamon rather than sulfur, like most fire-using creatures. But like the serilis-rir, it was fond of and immune to fire, and it threw around fireballs at will, raining destruction on everything around it.”
“You hunted down a demon when you were younger?” Erik asked, somewhere between surprise and amusement.
“I haven’t always been Kaelariel’s High Priestess,” Kyrie said with mock indignation. “I didn’t even always serve in a temple. No, when I came of age among the clergy, Kaelariel asked me to accompany your father on this mission from Zalkar, despite the fact that our two deities were still suspicious of each other at the time. We were joined by Torrie Cantabler, whom you all know of, a terra-rir archer named Sasha Jacques, and…,” she paused, turning her gaze to Kari, “Trigonh.”
Kari thought her heart had stopped. Despite the warm feeling that usually accompanied the mention of her friend’s name, the thought of Trigonh being asked to help stop whatever this Tilcimer was did not bode well. “This thing is that dangerous?” she asked.
Kyrie half-nodded, half-shrugged. “If it’s the same type of creature, it’s very dangerous,” she said. “Though at the time, Trigonh was sent with us because he was available and we didn’t know what we were dealing with. In the end, he didn’t prove to be much help, with all due respect to his fighting prowess. The Tilcimer was blindingly fast, and nearly impossible to hit. I’m still not sure how we managed to kill it in the end; Corbanis would know more about it.”
“Well, at least we can get in touch with him through the clergy,” Erik said.
Kari kept her mouth shut. The clergy would have little luck finding out anything from Corbanis Tesconis, because if all went as ordered, he was on a ship headed down to DarkWind already. Kari had feared she might be setting up a confrontation among the family, but when she’d looked into the whereabouts and orders of Corbanis, she was disappointed. He was still stationed up in Latalex, where he was in charge of watching the guardian demon Serenjols as well as activity from the hellgate. With Seril’s death, the mysterious gate to her private plane had become defunct, and Serenjols was as loyal to the pantheon as the man in charge of watching him. Kari had recalled the elder demonhunter to DarkWind without delay.
She wasn’t sure how that was going to sit with the rest of the family, but Kari couldn’t really concern herself with that. Above all else, Corbanis Tesconis was one of her hunters, and at the least, she needed to put him to good use. He was a Devil Slayer, only one rank lower than Kari had been when she was resurrected, so he was one of the highest-ranking hunters under her command. To have him waste his time watching an ally and a destroyed portal was asinine.
“You let me worry about that,” Kari said. “The rest of you can’t delay. The church has already gotten in touch with the Duke of Sutherland, and he’s going to have one of his Avengers meet you in Port Kristofer. Then you can pick up Earl Garant, Sherman, and Katarina, and head south like I told you. I’ll send reinforcements as soon as we have some higher-ranked hunters to send; right now the closest ones to Marsdale are only Enforcers by rank. They’re way too young and inexperienced to take this up on their own, but I can send them to meet you if you think you need more help.”
Erik looked at Aeligos and both shook their heads. “If it’s one thing like mother thinks, then what you’re providing should be enough…ma’am,” Erik said.
“Oh, knock that off,” Kari said with a wave of her hand. “You only have to call me ma’am in front of the Council.”
The others laughed, and Erik continued, “If it turns out it’s a small army, we’ll gather up some forces from the surrounding cities and meet it that way while we put out a call for help.”
“Why don’t you want us to go with them?” Eli asked finally.
“I need you and Danilynn to help me figure out some problems we’re having here in the city,” Kari said. “It’s private stuff we need to keep sort of quiet, so I can’t use my hunters, and I don’t want to involve Damansha or the city watch either.”
“Is this related to what Eryn and I have been looking into for you?” Aeligos asked, trying to be as discrete as possible.
“No,” Kari said with a shake of her head. “Matter of fact, if you see Eryn before you leave, you can tell her to call off the search. I think I have a better idea of what I’m looking for now, and I think I can do it without her help.”
“Will do,” the rogue said.
“Damansha, are the watch still chasing that werewolf?” Kari suddenly thought to ask.
The burly half-elite woman shook her head. “No, Kari,” she said. “The last sightings of the beast happened not long after you left, and there have been only rumors since then. All of which, I might add, have been easily discredited. If it’s still here in the city, it’s making quite an effort to stay hidden.”
Kari was glad for that. Gil being in the city now would only cause more headaches, even though she seemed like the type of person that could sniff out the traitors Kari was looking for. In the future, the werewolf girl might be useful for that, but for now, Kari had to wait for the proper time to introduce Gil to the Council. As she thought on that, Kari realized she’d lost track of time during her trip to Mehr’Durillia, and midsummer was not far off at all.
“Well, if that is everything, I’m going to head over to Tigron’s temple and see to Ty,” Kyrie said, rising from her seat. Her words seemed to bring back the somber mood, and many of the others got up to accompany her.
Soon Damansha had to leave for the night shift, and Serenj
ols went with his siblings and mother to go see Typhonix. That left only Kari, her mate Grakin, her son Little Gray, Eli, and Danilynn to go and sit by the fire. Kari brought Little Gray upstairs first and read him a bedtime story, and once he was settled in, she returned to the sitting room to rejoin the others. It was clear from the looks on Eli and Danilynn’s faces that they were very curious to hear what they’d be doing instead of going south with the others.
“I need you two…to help me catch a mole in the Order,” Kari said. She was answered by three slack jaws.
Chapter III – Administration
Kari saw her in-laws off at the docks at dawn the next morning. The Duke spared none of his authority in gaining them a ship: the royal transport Sword of the Coast was conscripted to take the Silver Blades wherever they needed to go. Erik, Aeligos, and Serenjols boarded the vessel after hugging Kari, but Sonja lagged behind for a minute.
“What is it?” Kari asked her.
“I didn’t want to say in front of Erik,” Sonja said quietly, glancing over her shoulder at the ship. “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you this, and with everything else going on, I figured I should tell it to you in private.”
Sonja hesitated, so Kari laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sonja, what happened with Taesenus wasn’t your fault. Please don’t torture yourself with guilt.”
“It’s not that,” her sister-in-law said, waving off the suggestion. “Kari, remember when we first landed on Morikk and I had those visions in the village? I saw the people attacking the village and the seterra-rir. There were…demonhunters at the vanguard.”
Kari’s jaw dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
Sonja nodded grimly. “My psychic sensitivity doesn’t lie, Kari. I saw exactly what had happened as if I was living it, and the men leading the attack wore the tags of the Order.”
Kari thought to herself for a few moments. “But that would mean…the War of Purity happened a couple of years after I died. That would mean Turik Jalar was Avatar of Vengeance. I can’t believe he would send members of the Order to exterminate anything that he didn’t think was demonic in origin.”