The Demon Shroud

by T. A. Miles

  “The cellar?” Merran presumed, preparing himself for the crawlspace that might have awaited them.

  “Possibly,” Korsten answered. The inquiring tone of his answer drew Merran closer.

  Crouching down, he looked into a blackness of unexpected depth. The stairs leading down were wooden, and a candle that was presently lit had been mounted on the railing, near a floor that was not of packed earth, but of rough stone. It may yet have been a wine cellar, though it seemed of unusual size for not being connected to the governor’s house.

  Korsten lowered himself into the space first, taking the steps to the point of the candle, where he waited for Merran to join him. They were faced, not with wine barrels, and storage alcoves, but with the opening to a tunnel. It stood several paces away, across a virtual cloud of stink that made it clear something had died. The wide swath of rust-red curving across the space also gave that indication. The evidence of a trail of blood led into the tunnel, having come from a space beside the far wall. Directly above that space was a door that undoubtedly opened to the outside.

  Neither Merran nor Korsten had anything to say. The details thus far indicated the labors of a human, not of a demon. Merran began to wonder now if it had been the insanity of a local person that originally attracted one or more of the Vadryn. Murder tended to equal bloodshed, and blood that was shed in violence could easily have been an initial lure. That it would have escalated so rapidly was in no way surprising.

  They decided in silence to proceed. Within the tunnel, it appeared that candles had been placed periodically to light one’s path. Cool air wafted through the corridor, carrying the sound of settling rock, and the further scent of death. Some of it was a lingering odor, suggesting that the range of decay may have varied, or that the space had been utilized in such a manner for some time.

  The passage soon opened onto a wider space. The floor was covered in loose earth, as if someone had taken the time to haul it down and spread it with the hopes of starting a doomed garden. Several places were only lightly covered, showing the bare stone beneath. A network of chains spanned the oddly-carpeted floor and were draped across the ceiling, leading to manacles at the center. They were presently empty, though the mostly exposed floor at the center showed evidence of movement and stains of either life or death upon it.

  Not far away, the body of a man lay against the wall. A shovel was on the floor, near to his outreached hand. Beside him was a mass of shredded fabric and what may have been the body that fabric once clothed. The display suggested that the individual had been the possessed, and that the demon had been encouraged to vacate the form, destroying the host in the process. There were only minimal traces of blood visible where it had happened. That could only mean that the demon had taken the blood instantly. The mystery now was why it had stopped there. The man on the floor appeared untouched, except by whatever essential injury had killed him.

  “Merran, look,” Korsten said, directing attention to stationary forms in the shadows.

  Stakes similar to those they had found on the plateau rimmed the cave floor, embedded in packed mounds of dirt.

  Merran followed their formation visually, then gave his attention to the chains again. But there was no time for further contemplation of the scene. In the corner of his view, the flutter of white wings was as lightning on the horizon, warning of a storm. Beneath his feet, the shadows upon the cave floor shifted.

  “Let’s move from here,” Merran said.

  Korsten did so without need of further instruction or encouragement. They swiftly carried themselves away from the center and nearer to the corridor leading back to the house. It was then that Korsten asked, “What did you see?”

  “Nothing specific,” Merran replied, which was often the case with Foresight. It was among the many talents that varied widely from one manifestation to the next. The only consistency about it was that it never manifested without reason.

  “There,” Korsten announced, touching Merran’s shoulder and directing his gaze to the ceiling, where a sickly green haze descended.

  Smaller lights transferred from one tendril of the looming mist to another, weaving their way toward the floor, splitting off as they did so. Some of the lights settled in the tops of the iron posts. The remaining globules of energy rolled along the ground, seeming to move through it. Or it may have been that something was moving with them, just beneath the surface of the deposited earth. At the same time, the shadows swiftly drew away from the floor, pulling themselves toward a centralized form, which was swelling amid the hanging chains, gaining mass. The movement of all of it appeared to drag objects of substance from the mounded earth.

  “Bodies,” Korsten announced, before there was any detail visible that would indicate as much.

  Merran glanced in his direction, but that was all the dignity that was spared the revelation, when the first limb was dredged from the piled dirt by the pull of light and shadow, and devoured by both.

  Eight

  The bodies of the dead were dragged into the central mass of what could only be one of the Vadryn. Aspects of the corpses fell away as the demon devoured what sustenance the emaciated forms offered, stripping them down with limbs that were only dignified from the darkness by the blood that the beast absorbed. It did so with a hunger, like a scavenger beast gnawing at the remains of a recent kill. Here, there were several kills. The blood from them was mostly old and largely spent, but it was enough in collection to give form to the demon, as it had been enough to belatedly alert Korsten to their presence. Inky layers of red and black constructed the rough contours of limbs and a misshapen core. The demon either had no proper bearing on the direction the form was to take, or it was overwhelmed by its own urgency and desperation. Its head grew tall and leaning, an abundance of arms pressing outward. They were of varying lengths with erratic digits. The legs may have been the steadiest aspect, supporting a canting tower of a body, multiple faces peering out of its collected mass.

  There was nothing to be saved here; no Release would be required to free a human soul ahead of expunging the demonic spirit, but the creature had collected no small amount of strength in a startlingly brief period of time.

  Korsten had yet to see one of the Vadryn behave in such a manner, but if the demons were anything, they were versatile, capable of demonstrating a myriad of horrific forms and acts. The first demonstration Korsten had seen, years earlier, had prepared him for nothing, save awareness of the fact that the Vadryn were well more than legend in Edrinor.

  “We’ll use spells first,” Merran decided. “I’d like to keep a distance from it, if possible.”

  Korsten gave a nod, content to take Merran’s lead.

  Blast was always the first, best recourse, and each of them utilized the spell at once. With the merest gesture and minimal concentration, one of the simplest, yet most effective of a priest’s spells rushed as twin orbs of light that gained in speed and diameter as they traveled across the clearing, washing their brilliance over the whole of the space until they struck with concussive force.

  The empowered form of the demon was no natural body, but for the moment it had a physical form in the most basic sense, and the energy of the strike dealt it damage. One of the weaker limbs flew from the core while a heavy portion of its central mass was incinerated upon contact, leaving a gaping wound from which it did not bleed and which filled itself with the filmy sludge of its amalgamated components.

  Many eyes glared in response to the assault, but only some sets of them held any focus. In their swift searching, they soon located Korsten and Merran.

  With a gravelly whine, the beast ambled toward them.

  They went in opposite directions.

  Korsten heard and felt the air-shuddering pitch of its wail angling after him, followed soon by one of its limbs. The imminence of the strike inspired Korsten to dive from its path. He felt the mass of it weighing in the air as i
t swept over him. Rolling several paces, Korsten cast a Barrier in the moments he came upright, putting a shield of white luminescence between himself and the flailing arm of the Vadryn. The demon recoiled from it, but soon struck again, shattering the magic on the strength of its towering form and the fact that Korsten’s concentration was not as firm as it needed to be in just that moment. Korsten buoyed to his feet and lunged from the path of another strike, springing on his hands after another dive for safer ground was made.

  He had no sooner begun to wonder where Merran was, when the demon’s assailing limb was drawn back, as if by a force not its own. It was a Binding spell that had been used against the demon, but Merran had no leverage to match its strength. The demon twisted with the pull of the spell, then broke free of it altogether, targeting Merran with what quickly appeared to be the most active and dangerous part of it. Korsten observed Merran beneath the flailing arm, in a similar position to the one he had been in himself moments ago, and realized that the initial hope to maintain some distance was no longer viable.

  Korsten summoned his blade and rushed toward the demon. A strike low along the core inspired the beast to switch opponents yet again. When it brought the elongated arm around, Korsten raised his sword, and swung against it. The dark mass was readily cut by the magic, severing a portion of the overlong limb. The expunging power of Korsten’s blade, sent the severed portion to the ground in a spread of black ash that failed to reform or rejoin with the beast. As well, the demon struggled to make any shape of the truncated portion that was yet attached. Instead, it pushed a new limb out from its core, and in the process, shoved Korsten from it.

  The thunder of another Blast spell from Merran and the vocalized protest of the demon followed Korsten on his flight across the cave. He managed to turn himself around in the air and arrange a better landing than flat on his back, though he did feel something score his side along the way. The distance gained, put value back into Merran’s initial plan. Korsten drew his blade back toward his body, allowing it to wrap around his lower arm as if it were a mere brace while he swiftly gestured a more complex spell than either he or Merran had used against the creature thus far. He channeled energy from all points of access available to him and manifested it in the form of a white-orange flame that raced across the ground in search of its predetermined target.

  Again, the wailing, as the flames raced up the demon’s trunk, encircling it for enough consecutive moments, that Merran was able to lower the Barrier he had been maintaining and make use of his own sword.

  Merran stalked the beast’s violently swaying limb, until the Fire spell began to wane and he made good an opportunity to strike. He managed to sever the arm at a location nearer to the core of the Vadryn’s body, then hurriedly set another blow upon it, separating more of the darkly acquired material that made its grotesque form.

  With his blade in hand once again, Korsten joined Merran, helping to cut away portions of the demon, which swiftly filled the air with dark ash and embers of green. By the time the demon was no more, only a few of the posts yet served as eerie torches against the darkness.

  •—•

  The return to the surface was quiet.

  What had been experienced beneath the house of the deputy governor was not discussed in tremendous detail while Korsten and Merran each digested the event and undoubtedly made their own speculations.

  The lingering details, apart from the demon itself, were the evidence of a makeshift cemetery that was similar to the one on the plateau and the presence of recently dead bodies lain lately beneath the earth which someone—presumably the man who died with a shovel at hand—had brought in. By lately, Korsten suspected the actual deaths ranged from several hours to several days ago.

  “I wonder what the demon was doing there,” Korsten finally said, because he was tired of contemplating the matter in silence.

  “Being fed,” was Merran’s theory. He issued it while checking the cellar door that would bring them immediately outside.

  While the deputy governor had been strongly implicated by what they discovered, Korsten asked, for clarity’s sake, “By whom?”

  “By whomever trapped it.” Merran’s answer suggested that he was not entirely committed to the notion that Ergen had been solely responsible for their discovery, which was good, since Korsten didn’t either. He sorted out the cellar door’s latch and let in what little daylight and fresher air was to be had.

  “You believe there was a Binding spell of some sort used against it,” Korsten said.

  “I do,” Merran answered. He went up the short set of stairs, reaching his hand back to Korsten. “The demon was being held in place, without a vessel—or with one that it had lately lost access to. The bodies brought to it were held just out of its reach.”

  “Ensuring that it would gorge upon them in the instant it was able.” That was easy enough to understand. But who would risk it? Certainly not the deputy governor. It seemed a fantastic plot for any ordinary man to be embroiled in. And there was nothing to indicate that Ergen had been possessed, or even in any way overtaken. His body appeared to have only been a body. “What was the purpose behind it? That it might be unleashed in its desperate state and devour an entire town?”

  Merran merely held his gaze in Korsten’s direction, along with his hand. The suggestion made now was, not only that someone had been keeping the demon, but that it had released it on at least one occasion and been able to summon it back, where it was bound again. But who could have held such power over it?

  Taking Merran’s hand, Korsten climbed out of the cellar. They stood on stained grass between the house and its stable. Overhead, there were only layers of mist and the idea of sunlight. There were no birds or anything else living. The town had actually died. It had been destroyed while they were on a false hunt half a day’s ride above it. At the very least, they had taken care of what may have been the greatest problem. If Ergen had been practicing wild magic, and learned how to Bind a demon, it had obviously overpowered him. Possibly, he had died casting the spell that held it in place until Korsten and Merran had arrived.

  But did that mean that Ergen had been the mysterious rider? Nothing about the man had seemed that capable, or even that devious …or even that ambitious. Ergen’s face had also not been so gaunt as what Korsten remembered seeing.

  He and Merran walked between buildings to the central road. Korsten wondered if there was a reason to check any of the other halls or houses. And it was in the midst of having the thought when they were once again faced with the rider.

  The stranger and his mount stood at the center of a street with no life about it, not even the curious gazes of townspeople peering out, because they were dead. For the first time since any of it had started, Korsten felt assured of that.

  “Who are you?” Korsten wondered, though he and the peculiar rider were too far from one another for his words to be heard.

  Still, it was almost a response when irregular spheres of the same unhealthy light as before took shape around the stranger. The individual raised a hand, causing Korsten to tense in anticipation of formulating a defense against whatever would come.

  What came were more of the floating orbs. They drifted from within nearby buildings and between them, funneling at no great haste toward the rider.

  Korsten beheld an ill sensation that spoke to him of lives captured. In the instant thoughts of defeated and drained souls were filling his mind, he believed that the cries of the recent dead joined them. It was surreal, even against all that he had witnessed thus far.

  The motions of a spell to disrupt the rider began without conclusion when Korsten’s gaze was drawn by a deep shadow to the opposite end of Feidor’s Crest. Upon the hill that rose out of the town’s north end, stood another mounted figure. Though the newcomer was too far away to properly see, the realization of presence raked across the distance and over Korsten’s senses with strikin
g force. He physically recoiled from it.

  The haze over Feidor’s Crest began to darken. Like a sudden storm, it gathered and raced across the area, instantly enshrouding what it touched in a darkness too complete to decipher anything else.

  Korsten knew better than to face that darkness unprepared. And, so did Merran. His partner was already performing the motions of a spell, constructing a means by which they could escape. Merran tended to reserve such spells as a last resort, which stated plainly to Korsten that this was not anything they could contend with on their own. The Reach spell opened up a view that had barely begun to form, but it was familiar enough to encourage Korsten to make haste toward it.

  It was only a few steps from them, but in those steps, Korsten could feel the demon’s blackness behind him, overtaking the town, perhaps even the strange rider as well. He determined not to look behind him, and when they arrived at the Reach gate, it was swiftly drawn over them, to be shut and thereby reestablish the true distance between places.

  The new view was not far from danger: the front hall of Dunlar’s manor. Merran rushed up the stairs from the main floor. Korsten went to the door, relieved to find Onyx and Erschal at the stoop. He gathered both of them and returned indoors, bringing them to the stairs. He knew while Merran was lowering to collect the governor’s son, that it was his turn to cast Reach. He did so with haste, while around them the air was swiftly drained of all light and warmth.

  Korsten did happen to look back, in the instant the Reach was closing a new space around them. He saw a seam of pitch blackness briefly dividing the panoramic view of a tiered garden, and then he saw a layered vision of white and gold, which, for Korsten, completed the shutting out of all darkness.

  Nine

  Patriarch Ashwin could often be found tending the lilies, and Korsten had a tendency to Reach toward people rather than places, so it was not surprising when they found themselves among the gardens at Vassenleigh. Korsten had performed the feat enough times since becoming a priest, that it was not surprising to Ashwin either.