By Demons Possessed

by P. C. Hodgell

  Jame looked around. At the edge of a nearby puddle, half in it, lay Kalissan’s belt of flayed baby skins. As Jame watched, it slid beneath the surface. The water drained away between cobblestones, seething. It and its mistress were gone, along with all other demonic artifacts. Fragile indeed.

  Jame took a deep breath, wondering if she would regret what happened next. “Earth Wife!” she cried across that echoing hollow of desolation. “Mother Ragga, come to me!”

  “What?” rumbled a big voice behind her.

  Penari and Titmouse both jolted back. Jame turned. The Earth Wife loomed over her, seeming to blot out half the sky. Her hair and dress were as unkempt as always, a mess threatening to entangle the entire world. Her eyes were still pits opening on infinity. How much of Creation’s Chain could they swallow whole, Jame wondered, gulping. Why couldn’t she keep in mind how terrifying this woman could be?

  “I . . . er . . . have your mentor’s eyes.” She held out the stones, one balanced on each palm. “What should I do with them?”

  The Earth Wife lowered her head, like the moon descending to earth. Her nostrils flared. “Yes. I remember that scent. Like the incense of her sanctuary, it is.”

  Jame wondered suddenly if Ragga would take the eyes for herself. How tempting, to assume the place of the goddess whom she had worshipped as a child, who appeared to be dead anyway. She was the Earth Wife, after all, whose influence fell over an entire world when she chose to exert it. And she thought that she had betrayed the Old Pantheon goddess of her youth. Would stepping into Abarraden’s place wipe out the guilt of Ragga’s supposed apostasy?

  I betrayed you. Now I am you.

  Besides that, Ragga was now blind. If she chose not to be, who could blame her?

  Mother Ragga settled on her haunches with a thud that shook the plaza. “D’you mean to raise such questions, girl, or is that just your curse?”

  Jame nearly fumbled the eyes. “What did I say?”

  “Enough. Too much. Would it make me feel better to smash you flat? I could.”

  “I know.”

  “So you do. Yet there you stand.”

  Yes, shaking in my boots, thought Jame.

  “Huh.”

  The Earth Wife appeared to consider. At least her jaw moved as she sucked on her few remaining teeth ruminatively. Then she raised her head and uttered a long, low call:

  “Mooooo . . .”

  . . . ooooo . . .

  From the mouth of an alley came what could either have been an echo or an answer. Then something emerged into the open. Given the drifting smoke, it was hard to see, more a stirring of the air than a shape. Unlike the demons, it seemed to have little weight. As it approached, Jame realized that she wasn’t looking at it properly. What she could make out was a piece rather than a whole. The latter must be enormous, fading up into the sky. What stopped before her, though, was undoubtedly the apparition of a monstrous cloven hoof.

  “Well?” rasped the Earth Wife. “Give them to her.”

  Jame held up the gems. Something reached down and took them gingerly, as if they were grains of sand. Air sighed, or was that Mother Ragga behind her? When Jame glanced back, the Earth Wife was rubbing her eyes. Yes, she had them back. The other looming presence was gone.

  The old woman dropped her hands and slapped her knees with an air of finality.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said, climbing to her feet with a grunt. As she rose, she also shrank back to normal stature. “High time that I was on my way. You, girl, stay out of trouble. Ha. As if there were any chance of that.”

  “Wait!” Jame cried as she shuffled off into the haze. “What about the rest of the Four?”

  Mother Ragga turned, now an indistinct, dumpy figure about to unravel into the night. “I don’t tell them what to do, nor do they tell me. Fish-face and Blow-hard are probably done here. As for Burny, heh, what do I know?”

  And she disappeared.

  Wonderful, thought Jame, turning away. Why did she have the feeling that this night was far from over?

  Someone approached, materializing nearly where the Earth Wife had vanished. Short, thin, crooked . . .

  “Patches! What are you doing here?” Sudden anxiety seized her. “Is something wrong at the inn?”

  “You could . . . say that.” The little thief paused to catch her breath, bent over, one hand clamped to an aching side. She must have run hard. “Cleppetty . . . sent me . . . to fetch you. The Res aB’tyrr . . . is under attack.”

  Chapter XIII

  Night at the Inn

  Spring 57

  DUSK WAS FALLING, at the end of two very long days.

  Rue peered out the front window of the Res aB’tyrr into the square. Torches had been lit in place of the usual light-spheres. In their dancing glare, men were gathering around the fountain as they had the previous night. Then, however, Sart Nine-toes had been there to humor them. He had joked. They had laughed with him, all big men together. Then they had drifted away. That was after four of them had tried to dismember Boo, when their first instinct had been to haul the cat’s rescuer out of the inn by her ears. Sart had prevented that. He was a presence, no doubt, however hesitant Rue still felt about that big smile of his. How could anyone honest show so many teeth so often? Tonight, though, he was on duty across town, and she missed him.

  Kithra crossed the square to the fountain with a water jug balanced on one swaying hip. The brigands parted, then closed behind her. Rue tensed. Couldn’t the foolish girl tell that these men were dangerous? However, they greeted the Skyrrman’s young mistress with extravagant courtesy that only turned to leers behind her back. She preened in their apparent regard but nervously, her eyes darting defiantly toward the Res aB’tyrr.

  What are you up to, miss? Rue wondered.

  Yesterday Kithra had finally managed to slip into the inn while the dancer Na’bim had engaged Cleppetty’s attention with one of her increasingly petulant complaints.

  Rue had seen Kithra crouching outside Tubain’s back apartment, listening avidly at the keyhole. Ghillie had caught her there and had borne her, thrashing in his arms, back down to the kitchen, to Cleppetty.

  Such a squall there had been, then, mostly on Kithra’s part. Rue had heard it all before: Tubain was being held prisoner by his womenfolk. Abernia was a harridan—no, a demon, to torment him so. Only she, Kithra, could ease his pain with her pretty ways and then he would see, yes, that she was his true champion.

  Cleppetty had ejected her yet again, muttering, “Idiot.”

  The heart of the inn and its greatest secret lay in that back apartment. Rue sensed as much, even if she didn’t know what was going on.

  “The linen is dry,” Cleppetty said behind her. “Help me make beds.”

  Rue had been lending a hand at the inn since her arrival, not that there was a lot to do with the brigands turning away most of the regular customers. It suited her, though, to keep busy with less time to fret. So Cleppetty may also have thought. Now she assisted the housekeeper in taking down the sheets hung up that afternoon in the stable yard after boiling that morning in a basement tub. Drying power had hastened the process. Cleppetty had a minor talent for domestic magic, Rue had learned, and many such useful dodges. Yesterday had been baking day, with the bread dough rising more rapidly than Rue would have expected, given her limited experience at Tagmeth. Nonetheless, she had offered to help. Cleppetty had turned her down with a sidelong glance and a wry, cryptic comment:

  “Your precious lady once helped me quite enough, thank you very much.”

  Now a load of sheets was dumped into Rue’s arms, making her stagger.

  “These go upstairs in the back.”

  Ghillie called to Cleppetty from the hall. She went down to see what he wanted.

  Rue took the linens up to the room that she shared with the dancer Na’bim. The girl was there when she entered, clad as usual in one of her diaphanous costumes, discontentedly examining her face in a silver hand mirror that Rue hadn’t seen
before. A sudden thought stuck her: what if the dancer had gotten it as a bribe from Kithra to distract Cleppetty? What devious turns her mind had taken since she had come to this strange city. Was that bad, or good?

  “I’m pretty enough,” the girl said with a pout, turning the glass as if to discover a new, more beguiling angle. “Why don’t I have an audience of admirers?”

  Rue dropped fresh sheets on her bed.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, the inn is under siege.”

  “Oh, pooh. They could come in if . . . if . . .”

  “They wanted to?”

  “No! If Tubain would only spread the word that I was here. A new dancer is always welcome. Always!”

  “Was that the case with the B’tyrr?”

  Rue sprang the name on her because the girl had begun to irritate her. Everything was her predecessor’s fault, whoever that paragon had been. And she had been increasingly snide with Rue too—why, Rue couldn’t make out.

  Na’bim threw down her new mirror, cracking it. “Ohhh! Look what you made me do! Why do I have to lodge with a scullery maid anyway, when I should have a room of my own? No, a suite of rooms! In the main house!”

  “A maid?”

  Na’bim contemptuously pushed the sheets onto the floor. “‘Do this,’ says Cleppetty. ‘Do that.’ ‘Oh, yes, mistress,’ you say. ‘Shall I lick the plates clean now?’ Don’t you have any pride?”

  Rue regarded her, half amused, half puzzled. She often found people not of the Kencyrath hard to understand. “I have as much pride as I need or merit. Why should I want more?”

  “You people! You all think you’re so much better than the rest of us! You and your precious Bat-ears, your precious Talis-whosit . . . why should one person be so good at so many things? It isn’t fair!”

  “Wait a minute.” Rue sat down on the chair, staring. “D’you mean to tell me that Jame was both the Talisman and the B’tyrr?”

  “Jame! On a first name basis, are you? Wait. You didn’t know?” Na’bim crowed with delight, clapping her hands. “Not so smart, are you, after all. And some people say that I’m dim. Ha!”

  With that she flung herself out of the room, floundering on the way over the fallen sheets, regaining her balance in a move that, in the main hall, would have gained the applause that she so clearly craved.

  Rue sat stunned. Had Jame been such a creature as this, a common tavern dancer? No. Oh, no. And a thief too?

  I don’t know you, lady. Have I ever? And should I swear to you now?

  Somewhere, a cat wailed.

  Rue jumped up. For a moment, it was a night before. Sart hadn’t yet returned from guard duty. Boo was screaming in the square. She barely remembered what she had done to the would-be molesters, only that afterward, somehow, she had become part of the inn.

  Another cry.

  Rue plunged out of the room. Yes, it was Boo again, this time plumped down in front of the rear apartment door, protesting stridently that it was shut in his face.

  As Rue hesitated, panting, the door opened a crack and the cat oozed inside.

  “Good kitty,” fluted a voice within.

  Rue had never heard Tubain speak. Surely, though, he wouldn’t sound like that. She snatched up the extra linen and pelted down the hall. The door was closing. It stopped when she knocked on it.

  “Clean sheets . . . er . . . mistress?”

  A pause, then it opened again. Rue blinked at the figure before her, at its boots and flounced petticoats, at its half-veiled beard.

  “You saved Boo, didn’t you?” piped this improbable figure. A pudgy, beringed hand reached out to accept the linen, then returned to pat her on the head. “Good girl.”

  The door closed.

  “Woo,” said Rue, turning away.

  Cleppetty had said both that the Sirdan Men-dalis was holding Mistress Abernia captive and that he had lost her, in the process losing control of the Talisman whom he had summoned for reasons that Rue still didn’t entirely understand. Either way, Abernia shouldn’t be here, much less as she appeared to be. Kithra’s peculiar expression came back to her. Was this the voice that she had overheard, eavesdropping? If so, whom had she told, and why should that matter anyway?

  Rue dumped linen in the other servants’ quarters opening off the corridor, most of them unoccupied, and went down to the kitchen.

  There, Patches hunched over a bowl of beef stew thickened with barley. “Hello,” she said. “How goes the home front?”

  Rue sat down opposite her and accepted her own portion of dinner from Cleppetty. “Well enough, as far as I can tell. How goes the war?”

  “Oh, on the boil. There are gods and demons and haunts all over the place. Something is definitely brewing in the Temple District, which seems to be falling down, or on fire, or both. Our Talisman has been spotted just about everywhere. I wish I knew what she was up to. How are we supposed to help while she keeps us in the dark?”

  That struck Rue as a very good question.

  “Was it like this, when she was here before?”

  Patches considered. “More or less. Mind you, it wasn’t that she set out to make trouble. It’s just that around her a lot happened, often very fast.”

  Cleppetty snorted. She was making stone soup in a cloud of flung spices, with root vegetables trying to crawl out of her reach. Patches scowled at her back.

  “You know what I mean. Half the trouble she got into wasn’t of her making.”

  “Ha.” Cleppetty seized a pepper pot and applied it liberally. Rue stifled a sneeze. “But as soon as she arrived . . . boom. A match to tinder, that girl. ‘Bloody, singed, and dripping wet’ she was, that last time, before she and Marc left. I knew then that we were in deep trouble.”

  Patches laughed. “Well, at least you got your own personal goddess out of it.”

  Indeed, Rue now realized that the kitchen walls were gently aglow, and not from the evening light or the cooking fires. A sense of beneficence permeated the room like the welcome blush of warmth against a chilled face. She hadn’t yet caught a glimpse of the nameless goddess, only the echo, as if in a dream, of her voice. Should she believe in that? Jame had. But Jame was . . . strange. Perhaps crazy. That doubt lingered, even after Rue’s experience with the gods of Kothifir. Those seemed, now, like pale shadows compared to the teeming divinity of Tai-tastigon. A shiver ran up her spine. So much about this world was turning out to be beyond the teachings of her elders. That, too, Jame had shown her. How far was she prepared to go down such a path?

  Patches was still chewing over what her hostess had said. “Here now. D’you think the Creeper would have gone after Dally if he hadn’t fallen in love with the Talisman? Was that her fault?”

  “Maybe not. I think, though, that she threatened the Creeper’s hold over the Sirdan through her friendship with his brother. Then too, maybe Men-dalis had always been disposed to see Dally as a threat, the gods know why. That boy fair worshipped him.”

  Men-dalis is a charmer.

  Rue blinked. Where had that thought come from? For a moment, she had felt very close to her lady, wherever Jame was.

  Although Patches had brought up the Creeper, talk of him seemed to make her nervous. As with a scab, however, she couldn’t help but pick.

  “Politics. All right. With the Creeper, yes. The Thieves’ Guild is lousy with factions. But with the Talisman? When did she ever care about that?”

  “Agreed,” said Cleppetty over her shoulder, her hands for a moment still. “That was never her game, even when she found herself up to the neck in it. She put her faith in people. What they thought. What they believed. How their belief shaped the world. Much of it was beyond me. Still, she seemed to have her hands on certain levers of power. Like a child. Playing. Did she know where her moves would take her or us? No. If you ask me, it was bloody terrifying.”

  “It still is,” said Rue.

  Patches shot her a shrewd, not displeased look. Mine first, it seemed to say. Yours second, if at all. “She still s
cares you, does she?”

  Rue addressed her supper, grumbling. “Honor is honor. How does being a thief fit into that?”

  “Ha. Never stole anything of value, did she? The smallest coin at the bottom of a merchant’s purse. A jeweler’s practice gem carving before his masterpiece. Even the Peacock Gloves, although I reckon that they were a deal apart.”

  “What about them?”

  Patches fossicked in her bowl, nose down.

  “Tell her,” said Cleppetty.

  “All right! My brother Scramp challenged her to raid Edor Thulig, the Tower of Demons, didn’t he? Well, she did it. There was Prince Ozymardien’s treasure trove, all the riches of the city, and she only took away a pair of gloves to prove that she’d been there.”

  “Special ones,” Cleppetty said, with the air of doing justice.

  “Yes, yes. The man who embroidered them used threads swept up over a lifetime in the city’s finest silk warehouse. They were the Peacock Gloves. They were . . . wonderful. I held them once, afterward. Y’see, my brother Scramp claimed that either they weren’t the real thing or that the Talisman was lying.”

  Rue was shocked. “He called Jame a liar?”

  “Yes. They fought. He lost. His master disowned him. He hanged himself. The Talisman gave me the gloves to buy my way into the Guild. She didn’t have to do that. The point, see, is that she was honest, in everything. D’you know how hard that is, especially for a thief so good that she could have stolen anything? For her, though, it was all a game of skill and daring and . . . and loyalty.” Patches stabbed at her stew with her spoon, as if searching in it for words. “She was . . . kind. Oh, you could lose your skin, following her, but that wouldn’t be her fault even if she thought that it was. I . . . loved her. I still do. There.” She scowled across the table at Rue, her hobgoblin’s face defiant. “I’ve said it. And if all of that doesn’t equal honor, be damned if I know what does.”

  Honor for a Kencyr was a torturous concept wrapped up with always telling the truth. Rue reckoned that she had just heard it.