by Nichols, TJ
They were all adults, which eased his conscience a little. A few had already attempted escape. Two had died in the desert, but their deaths returned only a touch of magic. It was a waste of their souls. The other three made their way back and were sick from the heat, the way Angus had once been. Reddened skin and racing heart. Saka had healed Angus, and he could heal these humans, but no mage would. No one would admit to being able to heal when the humans were there to die and make their deaths count. Their suffering would be ended on the blade of a knife.
His mouth was bitter with the knowledge that he had voted in favor of the temporary solution. His one vote wouldn’t have made a difference, even if he had refused, but every other mage would have looked at him and wondered why he wanted Demonside to die.
If human warlocks hadn’t killed so many demons for their magic, he wouldn’t be surrounded by red sand and contemplating killing. He’d be in the shade of fingerfruit trees, teaching magic to an eager apprentice. There were few trees, and fewer crops. Fewer herds.
They’d all be dead from starvation before the drying of Demonside was complete. It was little comfort that Humanside was freezing, and their crops were also failing.
He turned away from the humans. Most of them wouldn’t be killed. Soul magic, while powerful, was a one-off event. Most of those humans would be kept alive and bled, prolonging their use and the magic that could be returned. Most of them would hold some magic, but nothing like a warlock.
It would be good to have another warlock to bleed. He’d seen the release of magic from the death of Angus’s father. And warlocks were the ones who should pay. How many demons felt that way about Angus and the humans they were training? Not all the mages were in favor of deepening their ties with the human world, but Saka didn’t see that they had a choice.
Humans had to stop the humans. All the demons could do was offer support.
He would kill that night, because if he didn’t, there was a very good chance he would lose his position as head mage of his tribe. He would not let go of that and surrender to the will of those who wanted to kill every human they could get their hands on. That was not the way to save Demonside… or Humanside.
Saka gave up looking for Angus and walked up Lifeblood Mountain to get ready for the ritual. The knives strapped to his arm were sharp and ready. Inside he was dull.
On the path up, he met other mages. There was little talk as there was nothing left to say. They were surviving, not living.
Chapter Three
It wasn’t Saka returning from the mountain that woke Angus. It was excited chatter. He drew up some magic and created an orb of light in his hand. In Demonside it was something he could do almost without thinking. Magical energy was everywhere. It was part of the fabric of the world.
He got out of bed, pulled on pants, and padded across to the flap of the tent. He pushed it open to see what the commotion was. Other demons were also waking.
“Look, above Lifeblood.” A woman touched his arm and pointed up.
The sky that had been a deep purple bruise when he went to bed, tired and aching from the simple walk to his father’s cairn and a little magic practice by the river, was no longer clear. The bright yellow stars were hidden.
He rubbed his eyes and squinted, but there was no mistaking what he saw. Clouds were forming, spreading out. The top of the mountain rippled and shimmered with energy from the ritual the mages were carrying out. In the same heartbeat, Angus wanted to be up there with them and also to throw up. He wanted to be part of the magic, even though he knew what they were doing to rebalance and it turned his stomach.
Even though demons were celebrating the clouds and what it would mean—many of them putting out pots and bowls to catch as much of the rain as they could—there was a certain reverence about it. They weren’t celebrating the death. They were celebrating the rain. In their red desert, rain meant life.
That was the reprieve they had bargained for, that he helped create—a few lives taken so they could spend the coming year finding a way to bring down the Warlock College and release the magic the college had somehow stored. If the underground failed, if he failed, then it would be war between demons and humans, and no life would be sacred.
It could still fail. The clouds could tear apart as fast as they formed.
So he joined the vigil with the other demons and watched the sky. The clouds swelled and spread. The mountain crackled and glowed with the darkest blue. Occasionally there was a flash of gold or red or sickly green as the magic was released and returned to Demonside.
The air around him cooled, and a hush fell. The desert went silent. The usual noises of the town stopped, even the singing and drumming. The livestock were quiet, as though they too knew the importance of the moment.
Angus drew his nails over the cuts he’d made that day—his way of rebalancing the magic that had been used to heal him. Blood, souls, and sex. Saka hadn’t touched him since he almost died. There was a distance between them that Angus couldn’t place entirely at the feet of his injury or on Saka being consumed by his duties up the mountain. Jealousy was so ugly, but it was there. He’d given up his chance to be because he knew he wasn’t ready, but he could’ve stayed and been part of something much bigger than himself.
His blood dripped into the sand and shimmered faintly. Longing wasn’t enough to release much magic. Lust and fear worked best. Would he have the courage to kill another human in ritual? He knew the answer. He hadn’t even worked up to being able to cut Saka. It was one thing to put a blade to his own skin, but another to do it to someone else.
Please let there be rain. For all our sakes—human and demon on both sides of the void.
He repeated the words in a constant litany as his blood dripped onto the sand. He tilted his face to the sky and was almost able to taste the rain. There was a sweetness in the cool air. He licked his lips and anticipated the first drop.
His heart beat hard. The tension thickened with every breath.
He felt the split in the air a moment before something splashed onto his cheek. He touched the drop of rain with his fingertips, not sure he could believe it. He’d never seen rain in Demonside.
Around him people gasped as they felt the drops. Abruptly those few scattered drops became a downpour. The rain hammered his skin as though trying to pummel him into the ground. Laughter bubbled up. Someone broke into a song of thanks, and others joined in.
He was drawn into an impromptu dance, stamping in the wet sand. It splattered on his feet and legs. His skin became slick, and his hair was plastered to his head. He drank from the sky and let the relief and joy sweep through him. It was only when he went back to bed that he remembered the rain had been bought with blood.
Gray dawn light woke Angus. He lay still and took in the smell of the rain and the sound of the drops hitting the roof of Saka’s tent. It was still raining. That had to be a good sign.
He turned over, expecting Saka to be in bed with him, but Saka hadn’t come back.
The joy of last night’s celebration vanished. He didn’t know how to bridge the gap that had formed between them, and he wanted Saka’s touch. He missed rebalancing because it had become more to him than just ritual.
He shouldn’t want anything more than to learn.
Maybe it was time he went back across the void. He couldn’t stay in Demonside forever. Eventually it would suck the life out of him. Demons couldn’t live on the human side of the void either.
But he had no home to go to, and he was a wanted criminal, thanks to his father calling him out as a rogue warlock. And he could add accomplice to murder to his crimes because of his role in bringing his father to Demonside.
He wasn’t ready to go back, and he needed to get on with his training. There wasn’t time for him to waste lying around. He traced his fingers over the smooth red scar on his stomach. He had to stop reminding himself how close death had been, how much of his blood had been spilled on the sand. Saka claimed that he had expected the worst
. For a man who thought his lover, his apprentice, his something, was dying, he was notably absent.
At some point Saka would have to take his teaching duties seriously, or it would reflect badly on him, but Angus didn’t want to be a duty or a burden. Somehow the fun had gone out of magic, and he wanted it back.
He got up and pulled on clean pants. The ones he’d worn the night before were spattered in sand and soaked. He’d draped them over a stool, not sure what else to do with them. Drying freshly washed clothes had never been an issue before. But with the rain, everything was wet. He glanced at the roof and wondered how much rain the tent could handle before it sprang a leak.
When he stepped out and took in the state of the sky, he realized the rain wasn’t going anywhere. There wasn’t a patch of purple blue to be seen. Even the fat orange sun was hiding. Instead, for as far as he could see, there were green-tinted clouds.
People walked around and got on with their day, even though they were soaked. Children ran and laughed between the tents as though amazed by the falling water. Some of them had never seen real rain. He recalled Saka saying that the rain had been nothing more than a light shower in previous years.
Despite the rain, the day was heating up. The air thickened with humidity. He’d forgotten what a summer rainstorm could be like. Vinland hadn’t had a real summer for years. He used a little magic to create a shield to act as an umbrella of sorts and went to find some food. The underground had donated rations, so he might be able to get some bread or porridge instead of the traditional demon fare of dried fruit wrapped in something bread-like.
A demon reached out and touched his dry shirt. “You do not like the rain?”
That drew the attention of others. Then he was surrounded by pinched worried faces, as though he were ill again.
“I do… I just….” He didn’t have a good explanation for not wanting to be wet, so he dropped the shield. Rain hit his head and trickled down his face. Within seconds he was drenched. Water ran down his back and slipped into his pants and down his butt crack.
The demon smiled. At least someone was happy that he was having an impromptu, fully clothed shower.
“Do you not prefer to be dry?” he countered.
The demon, whose pink tufts of hair were limp instead of upright, looked at him as though he’d said something borderline offensive. Most of the time he got things right, but not that day.
“But we are dry the rest of the time. Why wouldn’t you want to be wet? Celebrate the rain and the life it brings.” She took his hand and spun him around like the night before. She stamped on the sand and splashed him as though it were the done thing to make people muddy. Then she laughed and walked away.
The rain wasn’t cold, and it wouldn’t last long. Maybe he should enjoy it. It would be another year before the rain came again, assuming it did. He turned to keep going to the market but stopped at the sight of his demon.
How long had Saka been standing there?
Demons walked between them, on their way to do whatever they needed to do. Neither Saka nor Angus moved, but one of them had to. Saka lowered his gaze to his hands.
In that moment Angus knew why Saka hadn’t returned to his tent the night before. After what he’d done to bring the rain, he couldn’t face his human apprentice. Angus drew in a breath, not sure what to do, only that he had to do something before the gap got much wider.
Angus crossed the path between tents. Saka should be accepting their thanks with a smile and a nod, in his usual manner. He needed to celebrate the rain. Looking miserable would only make the tribe question whether he was up to the job of head mage. Angus had no doubt that Usi, the second mage, would pounce on the hair-thin fracture in Saka’s composure and force it open. They were rivals, even though they worked together.
Saka’s reddish skin usually gleamed like metal in the sun, and he glittered as the rain clung to him. Where the rain rolled off Angus in rivulets, it seemed to catch on Saka’s rougher skin. His black horns were sleek, and his eyes dark as he watched Angus approach. The way he rocked back on his heels made it appear as though he were about to turn and go.
“You made it rain.” Angus would not mention or ask for details about what had happened up the mountain. Even if he did, Saka wouldn’t say. He couldn’t, because Angus wasn’t a mage, therefore not entitled to know what happened on Lifeblood Mountain where the mages met. It would be years before he had enough training to attempt the initiation requirements—longer if Saka didn’t get back to teaching him.
“Yes.” Saka nodded. “It hasn’t rained like this in a long time.”
“So I keep hearing.” He didn’t know what to say to ease the weight in Saka’s heart. “It’s good for the people, for Demonside.”
“I know.” Saka glanced away. “But it sits ill.”
It sat no better with Angus, even though the sacrificed people had been sick and dying or criminals serving life sentences. If the college caught him, he’d never be sent back to Demonside. He’d be left to die in prison. “Now we have the time we need. You’ve shown that, with the underground, Demonside can survive.”
Saka pressed his lips together. “We shouldn’t have to beg for survival. How long until your Warlock College starts to draw the magic back across?”
Soon. They both knew that. The Warlock College wanted to gain control of all magic and was somehow storing it instead of allowing it to naturally flow between worlds. They had created the imbalance.
“For one day, let’s just celebrate the rain. It could be gone tomorrow.” Not that he was enjoying it slipping down the back of his shirt or the way the cloth clung to his body.
Saka shook his head. “This will last another two nights… maybe three.”
“How can you tell?” Angus looked up at the clouds as though there were a clue written on them. Was it the shape or the color? Rain splashed on his face, and he blinked the drops away.
Saka touched his arm. “Perhaps it’s time to teach you something new, if you feel strong enough?”
“I am.” He was also bored of lying around healing, although yesterday’s walk to his father’s cairn had left him exhausted.
Saka considered him for a drawn-out moment. Then he inclined his head and angled his horns toward Angus’s face. “You still trust me, then.”
“Nothing you do could change that.” They were trying to save two worlds. What had happened on Lifeblood was better than the alternative, which was all-out war between demons and humans. Some mages wanted that. If it happened, whenever a tear in the void was opened, demons would rush through and grab as many people as they could for rebalancing. They wouldn’t care who they were or what they’d done. And while Angus was glad he didn’t have to make the call on who should be sacrificed, at least the people who gave their souls had been carefully selected or had volunteered.
“Let’s pack some food and follow the river for a bit.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere quiet, so you can feel Arlyxia awaken from her summer slumber.”
Chapter Four
Saka should smile at the rain. It was what he’d hoped for. He’d proven to all the doubters that they could stave off the dying and go after those responsible without starting a war they couldn’t win. The humans could simply stop opening the void and wait it out, hold on to their stolen magic until the demons died.
Last night his hands had been sticky with blood. His ears had rung with the death cries of too many. He needed time to find peace within himself. He’d never seen so much death, and he’d been one of the mages who caused it. It went against what he believed, even though he knew that, in a roundabout way, it was exactly what he believed.
Everything must be in balance for the worlds to thrive. He’d helped return that balance as quickly as possible.
That morning he’d stood in the doorway of his tent and watched Angus sleep. The scar on his stomach was visible, even in the dawn light. How could he lie next to Angus after what he’d done? Yet he
would have to find a way. He couldn’t, and didn’t want to, hand Angus off to another mage for training.
They took a little of the food the underground had donated—a gesture of goodwill until the rains came and crops could be grown. While Angus liked the familiar food, Saka couldn’t say the same. Porridge made from oats was gluey. The potatoes were tasteless. The cows had proven to be the most useful, because they gave their souls and blood to rebalance. And they were good to eat. They couldn’t smoke any meat in the rain, but they would all enjoy the fresh roasts.
With some cold meat and some flatbread in a bag, they followed the river away from where everyone was camped.
Angus kept his hand over his stomach as he walked. He didn’t realize how close to death he’d come. Magic could do many things in the hands of a skilled user, but bringing back the dead wasn’t one of them. Some wounds were too great to be healed. Angus was lucky to have been helped so fast. There were some mages who’d have been happy to watch him bleed out. The mages who helped Angus could easily have claimed that Angus was too far gone and done nothing. Saka had thanked them, but he suspected there was a debt that would eventually need paying.
The river flowed swiftly. Water had surged to the surface, drawn up by the magic and fed with the rain. He hoped the magic was strong enough that it would take a long time for the rivers to sink, but that all depended on how fast the warlocks drew on the magic of Demonside.
Beneath his feet, grasses pushed up. Trees grew as he watched. In the desert the plants were used to making the most of the rain when it came. Herds of animals grazed and also made the most of the sudden wet. Some demons would too. Hopefully next year there would be some babies. There had been so few over the dry years.