The Demon Shroud

by T. A. Miles

  Sitting up, Korsten was faced with himself reflected in the chaos of its center. Within the orb, figures moved, writhing, as if encased within a cocoon. A chrysalis of destruction and of torment.

  Korsten raised his hand to it. As his fingertips reached toward their reflection, that reflection seemed to press out from within. Claws poked through the film, emerging with a slender hand. A grotesque grace of form, appearing on the edge of violence, but which lightly met Korsten’s hand. The overlong fingers folded around his own.

  And then the grip became strong. Korsten was pulled into the eyes’ center. He dove through a dark mist, as if into water. Forms swam around him, seeming distant, but quickly drawing near, schooling toward him. He moved upward, emerging at an ashen, porous shore, upon which stood an elderly man, tied to the rock by chains. He looked down at Korsten with hollow sockets in place of eyes.

  It seemed that he would speak, but when he opened his mouth, many dark limbs shot from between his teeth, all of them reaching for Korsten.

  He sat himself up in darkness.

  His gaze moved over the ceiling, which was now of simple timber and empty shadow.

  Fifteen

  The butcher had begun his work without delay. Alsaide had left him to that work hours ago, ignoring the sounds and smells of his lair while he’d been there, though they tried following and lingering. Some of it was carried on the bit of meat Alsaide had brought with him to his room. It was just a small portion with no important dimension, but the foulness of it was equal to having dragged an entire corpse.

  It didn’t matter; it would be gone soon enough. Until then, he would imagine it represented Loel.

  His brother had gone with the Master during the night, as he always did, but not before breathing some of his taint into the butcher’s lair, over one of the pits. The oily green orbs had fallen into the heap and moved through it, like scavenging rats. The action raised the dead ones and further stimulated the others. It stimulated the others to eat the dead ones in the process of their rising. It proved that they had been successful in creating something new. Demons had been formed that could empower themselves with tainted and decaying bodies. They were making energy of death, growing like a fungus.

  Unfortunately, also like a fungus, they held no intellect and were easily gotten rid of, especially when the original essence of the demon had been too far degraded or diluted. Those formed directly of Leodyn were strong, sometimes to the point where Leodyn himself had seen to their destruction. The resident demon lord held no interest in any of the lesser creatures developing much of their own will.

  Alsaide had not slept at all, but he imagined it was somewhere near to morning when he rose from his bed and crossed his room to see what had become of the bit of flesh that he had dubbed Loel. His bare feet moved over cold stone from the large rug upon which his bed sat. The far reaches of the room were sparser decorated in order to protect things. While his living area boasted an enormous hung tapestry, the plush area rug, varnished wood, and detailed fabrics upon the cushions, his work area held only a large stone table, simple shelves filled with bottles and some books, and a wide hearth with a kettle and various pots arranged on the floor in front of it. There was also a birdcage. Within it lay the meat, and a smallish thing eating it.

  The creature had no coherent form; it was built entirely of demon taint. Alsaide had grown it from an amount of blood taken from a man who had been fed from. The man—once a Morennish soldier—had long since died from the untreated effects of his Vadryn-granted injury and become a ghoul. Ghouls found among Morennish troops tended to get burned in short order, because the people of the northern country were desperate, but they were not complete fools.

  Ghouls could eventually become lesser demons in their own right, but the process was quite lengthy and they were often quickly dispatched by larger entities, or even by humans with sharp enough reflexes and wits about them. The problem was that ghouls were formed of the discarded remains of a demon’s feeding and, depending upon the level of feeding, that could take more or less time. The raveners, however, were formed of the potential of ghouls without actually becoming them. By applying the toxin of a demon’s essence to a living host and allowing it to feed slowly on the whole, all the while growing itself in a way that was not reliant on the body maintaining its original form, the ghoulish stage was bypassed. The essence of the Vadryn created its own flesh by devouring and reshaping its host and therefore did not require an intact vessel.

  It was no different in principle than a demon dousing itself in the blood of a recent victim, and for a time acquiring physical attributes. It was no different than the manifestation powers of the ancients, whose age and accomplishment in spiritual mass enabled them to command cohesion, with or without a host. Though, it was especially with a host that their powers were at their most impressive. The lifeforce of a willing vessel, of tapping into a constant cycle of renewing vitality, aided them immensely.

  Unlike Alsaide’s fungus demon, which was presently and ever-so-gradually consuming the flesh that should have come from Loel himself. Loel was no better than a ghoul, a very slowly altering victim of feeding. He might one day become separated from his own body as a lesser demon. His body would become useless and continue to decay. And, the moment he attempted to feed from or acquire a body it might then be drawn to, the Master would destroy him. Because he was useless, as a slab of festering tissue.

  “I’ll give you blood later,” he said to the largely formless demon in the cage. It had the beginnings of limbs, though only an uneven pair that helped it to cling to its food. It had a sort of mouth with needle-like protrusions for feeding itself. There were no eyes, though it may have begun to develop an eye or face region. It was difficult to tell against the slick darkness of its flesh.

  Alsaide decided that he wouldn’t allow the beast to eat all of it. He wanted to see if he could grow a new one from the meat it was in the process of tainting further. If the Vadryn could be born of flesh, rather than merely spirits, it would open new potentials. If they could be formed without their natural territorial instincts, it would enable more than a few of them to be on a battlefield at the same time.

  The fire danced suddenly in the hearth, drawing Alsaide’s attention to it, and then to the door, which had come open. He glanced about the room to see if anyone or anything had slipped in, but everything seemed the same as it was before, with no hint of an intruder.

  Leaving the cage and his work area, Alsaide returned to his living space and took clothes from the fancifully carved wardrobe. He quickly dressed and abandoned his chamber for the corridor. Looking down either side of the windowless space, he saw no evidence of any bodies. There was a carpet that was rarely walked on by anyone but himself, well-carved chairs that no one sat in, and paintings that Alsaide had never bothered to study. There were odd drafts in the fortress, but he wasn’t satisfied with that as an explanation. He was decided on exploring a bit, but first he wanted his map.

  Turning back toward the door, he was met with the very near form of Leodyn. Glimpses of rich color which dressed a body with almost no color to it at all filled the space in front of Alsaide with an odd complexity. The form was lean, but long and tall, seeming in the moment to have to fold its frame in order to fit within the doorway. Alsaide knew that it was not the man’s form by itself, but also the projection of the demon, whose eyes he would not look at.

  Leodyn hovered over him, as if debating whether or not to try worse forms of intimidation than his mere presence. And then, he said, “Tell me about this priest who holds the key to Ashwin.”

  •—•

  Morning arrived at Endmark with an eerie silence. Korsten awakened ahead of Merran and gave the ceiling a long study before rising. There was nothing noteworthy about the crossbeams or the sections between them, except perhaps for the abandoned webbing that stretched across some areas and may have contributed to certain aspects
of his dream. The dream seemed to be the culmination of his recent experiences and an elusive feeling that had begun forming shortly after crossing the ancient bridge. It had compounded with the notion that an agent of the enemy could be watching the town. What his subconscious seemed to want to suggest was beyond bearing.

  Leaving the bed, Korsten went to the window, kneeling to have a long look out at emptiness that only supported the lack of sound. There were no chickens or dogs, no goats or bovine, and not a solitary citizen who was in any way concerned with waking the town. Not even Haddowyn had been so bad off as this. For all accounts, life seemed fine and normal beneath the Camirey household. There had been a functioning body of government, a working constabulary …there were merchants, artisans, tenants, and there were animals kept. People hunted in the woods, they gathered at Brenwick’s tavern, they looked after their children, and the adolescents among them were sometimes brought to Korsten for lessons on reading and history. No one had seemed as affected by anything as the people were at Feidor’s Crest and now at Endmark. Not even Lilende, which was, at the time, under frequent assault by Morennish troops, had presented the same sense of utter defeat as either of the recent towns Korsten had visited.

  “Has anything changed?”

  “No.” He glanced over his shoulder at Merran, who had risen without his notice and was just putting on his boots.

  “We’ll be better off searching the outlying areas, I suspect.”

  “I agree.” Korsten left the window, collecting his own boots, which he didn’t realize he had even taken off during the night. It had probably been Merran’s doing. And it had been his partner’s eyes which led him to a dream which included a solitary, watching eye and an elder who had had none. As the details began to paint themselves freshly upon his memory, Korsten said, “I dreamed about a presence.”

  Merran looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

  Korsten studied his partner in return, anchoring himself visually to features that had become synonymous with his understanding of trust. He thought of the hand that reached for him in the dream and wound up reaching for Merran’s. He received it and took it in both of his own, holding it so that the back was in view. He observed the arrangement of veins beneath the skin, and before long he saw the faint press of light in a pattern of concentric rings and symbols. It made Korsten smile; partly because the effect of the Healing eased his mind instantly and partly because it was somehow amusing to think that the spell could be cast so reflexively—that there was some aspect of Merran that Merran himself didn’t have full control over. Better than amusing, it was endearing.

  Korsten let Merran’s hand go, though not with any haste, and said, “Behind that presence in the dream, I envisioned an old man, held by the Vadryn.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” Korsten pressed his own hands together lightly in the absence of Merran’s. “But there were chains holding him. It was probably inspired by lingering thoughts of Ergen’s cellar.”

  “Possibly.” Merran stood now. Korsten’s gaze followed him to the end of the bed, where he collected his sword. “That said, I intend to start searching cellars, if we come up with nothing else.”

  •—•

  The woods surrounding Endmark were indistinguishable from the woods leading to it. As along the road, there was the odd relic decorating the terrain, but nothing substantial. Not until they came to the edge of a ridge overlooking a wide swath of grassland. On the far side of it stood a structure that appeared to be a gate, and behind it, hung like a tapestry woven by the gods, was an even higher ridge, laden with dense growth, a low band of mist, and layers of clouds stacking behind it. They piled toward Heaven, as if sentinel towers set in place by ancient powers.

  But something seemed to be missing from the view.

  And that was when Korsten, said, “If I were to build a manor house over Endmark, I would put it there.”

  Merran looked at him, appearing to consider more than the words in the moment. And then they guided the horses carefully down to the meadow. They rode through golden grass, toward the rich autumn colors on the opposite end of what was virtually a lake in its expanse. They stopped when they came to the skeleton form of what was indeed a gate.

  There was no wall, and no visible remains of one. There were only two tall posts, an articulated crossbeam that had suffered in its time, and two uneven doors that were wedged permanently apart by the growth of brush.

  “There was a path here once,” Merran announced, dismounting.

  Korsten looked to see him nudging aside overgrowth with the toe of his boot, which revealed broken bits of stone.

  That was all the discovery required for them to move further toward the cliff and the start of another forest. They followed a route from the gate with the hopes of staying on the buried path, that it might lead them to a second gate, a clearer road, or even a guard house.

  “The troubles here aren’t old enough for this amount of decay.” Korsten spoke the thoughts as they formed. “I suppose it’s possible that the governor’s house might have been refurbished from a relic of the Old Kingdom and that maybe it was never totally renovated.”

  “Perhaps,” Merran answered, which was his way at allowing Korsten to speculate to his heart’s content. Undoubtedly, he had theories of his own forming, and they would share them before long, if they didn’t happen upon answers first.

  They did eventually find a guardhouse, and a staircase along with it. The stairs were in fair order at a glance, and promising. The guardhouse was in no better condition than the gate, save for the fact that it did happen to have standing walls. The windows were overgrown or blocked by fallen aspects of the building’s interior. The foundation appeared cracked and the door was largely suffering from rot, owed to damage it may have taken from a tree that had collapsed against the façade.

  From beneath the shade of the fallen poplar, a loosely familiar man in a hooded cloak stepped into view. Without the distance and elevation of a cliff, his features were better viewed. They depicted him youngish, with long sculpted features, brown hair and light brown eyes. As it was apparently how he preferred to introduce himself, he had a crossbow ready and aimed.

  A breath of mild aggravation sounded to Korsten’s left, and he slipped his gaze momentarily in Merran’s direction. “You’ve had about enough of him, haven’t you?”

  Merran’s expression was not one of amusement. “I’m verging on simply declaring this one antagonistic.”

  The man had declared himself that, but for reasons which may not have justified taking any severe measures against him.

  “I’m not deaf at ten paces,” the man announced. “Declare me whatever you like. Your interest in this town is not welcome.”

  “The town is behind us,” Merran stated.

  Korsten raised his hand to request a stay of further word—or action—between the two. “Our interest is in the disappearance of several soldiers. I’m assuming that some of those men came from your town and as such, their disappearance should interest you as well.”

  “I’m not here to discuss matters with you,” the man declared without lowering the bow. “I’m only here to ask you to leave.”

  “We cannot oblige you until we know what’s become of those soldiers,” Korsten told him. “Endmark is a part of the Kingdom Alliance, or at least tolerant of it. You know that several of those soldiers came from the Capital and that we’re from Vassenleigh.”

  “By the look of you, I guessed as much.”

  “Then you know that we cannot leave.” Korsten observed him very deliberately, managing to capture his gaze long enough that the man’s resolve softened.

  However, he recovered that resolve in rather short order, letting it be known that he was determined not to trust and he would not be easily swayed to listen. Not without far greater effort than what Korsten was willing to make, at leas
t.

  “I’ll escort you back to town,” the bowman said. “It can be discussed further there.”

  “What manner of authority are you?” Merran asked, because they were at the point where it required stating.

  “My name is Phyodar Izwendel. My uncle is governor of Endmark.”

  •—•

  Korsten and Merran agreed to accompany Phyodar back to Endmark. Now that they had evidence of a hidden place—evidenced in part by Phyodar’s actions—they would seek more answers before uncovering that place and whatever was hidden along with it.

  Phyodar seemed to think that he was in a position to have arrested them, but he was largely ignored whenever he attempted to enforce instruction onto either of them. While etiquette was important, Endmark was too far gone to worry about relations overly much.

  Foremost on Korsten’s mind was the fact that they had been introduced to part of the governing family of Endmark and neither of them appeared to be residing in the house of the governor. It seemed to support the possibility that the governor had been possessed after all, and that their actual fear was of him and of anyone getting too near him. Of course, they may not have known it for possession. It may have been that his behavior frightened them, if it didn’t outright threaten them.

  Renmyr had managed to not alarm anyone, for the most part. He had established a reputation as a bullish, headstrong young man. He behaved as if he still lived beneath the authority of his father, but certainly as if he might in some way take on his father’s responsibilities. With his elder brother on his presumed deathbed, and Ithan behaving somewhat irrationally, any of his exhibited stress or temper would not have been taken out of hand. In Korsten, he had confided his stress, and because of that, Korsten had excused much. His proximity to Renmyr was such that it was scarcely possible to suspect what was directly in front of him.

  And now that Korsten knew, it seemed that Renmyr wanted him to know nothing else. Korsten used the name at hand, but it was not actually Renmyr. The man had been lost long ago. The demon had only taken his name and in doing so, he and ensured that Korsten could never think of Renmyr again, without invoking the demon as well in one way or another.