Mother of Daemons

by David Hair

  Germane was advancing down the passage, still out of sight, and with every few steps he took, more energy pulsed and more men screamed and fell. She heard those still to die pleading, begging.

  ‘Where is she?’ he snarled, but no one answered – in truth, few of the prisoners could see each other; they likely didn’t even know she was here. Two more flashes. Two more dead men . . . and he was now only yards away.

  But Exilium had got the keys and was contorting to push his feet to his right hand. Basia stared in amazement, watching his toes moving like fingers, gripping the key and thrusting it into the lock of his manacles.

  ‘No, no, no—’ someone shrieked, and light blazed, just four cells down the corridor.

  Basia rose and tried to rip her own rusted manacles free: metal flaked and shrieked, but they held. She would have screamed in frustration – but she knew better than to make a sound. Opposite her, Wurther was hurling himself across the cell, trying to use his massive bulk to rip free – and incredibly, that’s what it took: the Grand Prelate’s manacles tore from their mounts, sending him crashing against the opposite wall, bellowing in fear and pain.

  ‘Where—’ Flash. ‘Is—’ Shriek. ‘She?’ Germane’s voice carried down the corridor.

  Kore’s blood, he’s nearly here . . .

  *

  Cold water splashed over Solon’s face and he spluttered back into consciousness, Germane’s words echoing among the hideous babble of the daemon Abraxas, snarling inside his skull. ‘No . . .’ he groaned, ‘no, get away . . .’

  ‘Solon?’ a horrified female voice exclaimed.

  He opened his eyes and saw Brunelda, his false queen . . . his lover . . . his whore . . . staring up at him with huge wide eyes, so many emotions coursing through her face that he couldn’t tell whether he saw hatred and loathing, or pity or . . . something else entirely. She held a chalice with a few drips left of holy water, but it spilt from her hand as she took in what was happening to him. He looked down at his bared arms and saw blackened veins spreading like the veins of a poisoned leaf.

  ‘Brunelda,’ he croaked, ‘get away from me – get away—’

  ‘Solon?’ she squeaked again, reaching out, then she wavered. ‘What’s happening to you?’

  ‘Get away,’ he shouted, ‘go – please, go!’

  But she snatched up a steel rod used to open the upper windows and wedged it into the metal loop made by the twisted torch-holders, while he babbled at her to run, run, run . . .

  With a screech of metal and crumbling plaster, his right hand came free and he fell forward, hanging painfully by his left, almost pulling from the socket. ‘Brunelda,’ he shouted up at her, ‘get out!’

  She’s carrying my son . . .

  But instead, swearing like a labourer, she rammed the rod into the other makeshift manacle and ripped it free, sending him sprawling onto the carpeted floor – as a blaze of hatred and fury coursed through him.

  Kill her take her pollute her, the daemon shrieked and half his muscles clenched to obey. But he resisted, going rigid and clutching at the carpet hooks in the floor, howling to Kore for strength and imploring her to run. Then his vision darkened and he reared up—

  . . . as something punched into his side, making his whole body scream. He convulsed as someone barely half his body weight landed on his back – and miraculously the daemon’s voice went from a shriek to a whisper and suddenly he could think his own thoughts again . . .

  ‘His eyes,’ Brunelda said shakily, ‘they went dark, but now . . .’

  ‘Are they clearing?’ a crisp female voice snapped.

  ‘Sister Virtue?’ Solon croaked, while his mind connected the ichor’s reaction to the dagger and shouted silver at him. ‘You have a silver dagger?’ The thing was still lodged inside his midriff. ‘Keep it in me,’ he begged.

  ‘What the—’ the nun – if that’s what she was, with her silvered blade – started, her voice horrified. ‘Get back,’ she told Brunelda. ‘He’s a Reeker.’

  Brunelda’s eyes went wider still and she clutched at her belly just as Lyra used to, but instead of fleeing, she exclaimed, ‘The silver . . . my cousin was infected on Reeker Night and Queen Lyra cured him. He needs sunlight.’

  Solon clung to that thought. Dear Kore, can I be saved?

  But there was no time. He twisted and looked up at the nun on his back. ‘Sister Virtue, you have to raise the alarm. It’s Germane – he’s possessed – he’s heading for the dungeon – he might already be there – he’s going to kill Basia after he’s learned where the real queen is . . .’ His voice trailed off as he realised how many lies he’d just revealed. He waited for confusion and the need for lengthy investigations.

  But Sister Virtue just snorted, as if she knew all that. ‘I’ve been waiting a week for the chance to knife you, you prick, but either you’re surrounded by toadies or sealed off in the royal suite behind all those wards.’ She paused to twist the silvered knife in his side, making him gasp in agony. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.’

  ‘Germane’s a Mask,’ he panted. ‘He’s like an Ascendant . . . find a pure-blood – find ten, twenty . . . but kill him, before he learns where Lyra is . . .’

  Even in this state of extremis, he saw the way Brunelda’s composure crumpled when she realised that this was still all about Lyra. But she stayed.

  ‘He’s only been gone two minutes,’ she said. ‘We were waiting outside the chapel for you – I saw you go in, you were distressed and I was worried . . .’ She swallowed, then went on, ‘When the comfateri left before you, we were confused, so we drew aside and he didn’t see us.’

  ‘Everyone in this rukking castle is on the west side, overlooking the Place d’Accord,’ Virtue cut in. ‘There’s no one to warn.’

  Solon groaned as the daemon voices rose again, urging him to fling off the nun and shred her take her rip her to pieces, but he fought them down and put his hand over hers, keeping the dagger in the wound. Part of him wondered if at some point the level of ichor in him would turn critical . . . and the silver would blast his blood into ash . . .

  But if she removes it, it’ll take me sooner.

  ‘Then it’s up to me – to us,’ he panted, resolving to fight until his last breath. ‘Who the Hel are you anyway?’

  ‘The name’s Veritia,’ the nun replied, assessing him coldly, then her expression shifted decisively and she let go the silvered dagger and rose. He immediately grabbed the hilt and, wincing at the pain, made sure it was still jammed inside the wound.

  ‘I’ve got argenstael as well, you prick,’ she rasped. ‘If I could’ve seen your face properly before I attacked, I’d have used that and you’d be dead already.’

  ‘Thank Kore,’ Brunelda moaned, clutching at him. Her face was so full of emotion as to be unreadable . . . but there was no hatred, for all he richly deserved it. ‘Solon, hold on!’

  Dear Kore, I held her as a prisoner and used her for my own ends, Solon thought incredulously. She can’t actually care . . .

  ‘You can heal,’ she pleaded, and he knew she wasn’t just talking about the ichor.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ he told her, matching her every meaning. He gripped her shoulder. ‘Listen, I free you. Go, pack your things and go. Take care of our child, and . . .’ He choked then managed to add, ‘I’m sorry – for everything.’

  She looked at him, her eyes welling up. ‘Don’t die,’ she whispered. ‘Please—’

  ‘Kore’s Blood,’ Veritia barked urgently, ‘come on—’

  Solon gritted his teeth, snatched up his discarded sword and with his left hand over the hilt of the silvered dagger to keep it in, he faced Brunelda. While he floundered for words, she seized his face, kissed it, then fled.

  He stared after her, until Virtue – no, Veritia – grabbed his shoulder. ‘Come on!’

  ‘Are you Volsai?’ he asked, as they hurried to the backstairs.

  ‘Freelance – sometimes Kaden Rats, sometimes Grey Foxes . . . but yeah, now I’m Volsai.
’

  Two of the worst gangs in history . . . or three, if you counted the Volsai. But Solon was relieved: she’d know how to fight. ‘You’ve got argenstael,’ he managed, staggering in her wake. ‘If the daemon overcomes me . . .’

  ‘It’d be my pleasure,’ she said tersely. ‘Now come on.’

  She hurled herself over the balustrade and plummeted down to the entrance hall and he followed suit as the daemon voices rose further, becoming clearer . . .

  *

  Germane strode to the next pair of cells, looked left and right. At last: one was female. He got rid of the male first, a torrent of energy turning him instantly to charred meat and bone, then faced the woman, who was kneeling on the stone floor, clad in a filthy nightdress. Her short dark hair had been hacked into tufts. Her head was turned away.

  Short dark hair . . .

  ‘You,’ he called, ‘stand up.’

  She didn’t move. Further down the row of cells, somewhere out of his line of sight, he could hear the sounds of struggling, but he wasn’t concerned; all the magi here were Chained, manacled and behind bars and no one had yet raised the alarm.

  ‘I said, stand,’ he rasped, and conjuring kinesis, ripped the woman from her kneeling posture and hurled her against the wall. She gasped in pain as he crushed her against the stone, studying her . . . and then he laughed at himself; he should have seen right away that she wasn’t his quarry: she had legs. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Braeda . . . Kaden . . .’ she groaned.

  He saw a strong face, more handsome than comely, but with a certain truculent charm – certainly desirable, had there been time for such pleasantries – the daemon inside him loved such things. But right now the only thing that mattered was that she wasn’t Basia de Sirou – so he snapped her neck with kinesis and she slumped lifeless in her manacles. Then he moved to the next pair of cells – where he stopped and stared.

  ‘Why, Grand Prelate, how wonderful to see you.’

  The head of the Church of Kore was standing in the middle of his tiny cell, empty but for a piss-bucket, his obese frame barely covered by a tent-like nightshirt, bare feet standing on the wet stone in the muck. His wrists were shackled to four-foot-long chains that he’d somehow wrenched from the wall – an impressive display of strength, Germane had to admit. His jowls were quivering with resigned fury.

  ‘It must be every priest and nun’s dream to see you thus,’ Germane gloated. ‘It is mine, certainly – even before I had the ineffable good fortune to join my Master’s cause.’ He slowly raised his hands, which were crackling with energy. ‘There will be dancing in the streets when your fate is known, you vile piece of corruption.’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from a daemon,’ Wurther rumbled.

  ‘Even your own holy book prophesises our ascension to glory,’ he pointed out with justification. ‘Truly, our time has come.’

  ‘“Prophecy”?’ Wurther snorted. ‘Don’t you know that the Book of the Last Days was written by a demented madman and included only because Sertain thought it made a better stick to beat down the people with than some fluffy poetry about Paradise? I hate to disappoint you, but you’re going to float in the void for ever.’

  Abraxas screeched through Germane’s soul, making Germane blast a deliberately weak bolt of gnostic energy into the Grand Prelate’s naked feet.

  As the Grand Prelate collapsed to his knees, howling in agony, Germane cried, ‘Kneel, “Holiness”, before me.’ Still moving slowly, enjoying the naked terror in Wurther’s eyes, he gathered energy for the kill. ‘Are you ready to burn?’ he asked, raising his hands and grinning widely, before saying, ‘for this, Grand Prelate, is our final farewe—’

  The word was left uncompleted – from the corner of his eye, Germane glimpsed movement – a man bursting from the next cell, snatching up the fallen gaoler’s sword and charging. The dark-haired man’s lunge was blindingly fast, the steel blade aimed unerringly at Germane’s chest—

  —but the daemon’s own preternatural speed saved him, locking his shields and deflecting the sword even as he was hurling kinesis at the swordsman, smashing him aside into the bars of the opposite cell. He blazed a mage-bolt, but the swordsman ducked under his blast, rolled away and smoothly came to his feet.

  Exilium Excelsior, Germane noted, which means Basia de Sirou is close . . . most likely in that other cell.

  The Grand Prelate could wait. He turned and pulled another of the dead gaolers’ swords to his hands. The blade was blunt and nicked and he knew little of fighting, but Abraxas did, so he met Excelsior’s leaping attack with a strong parry and a crunching blast of kinesis that pushed the man away so hard that he smashed the iron-banded door open. He took a step forward, glanced right and saw exactly what he’d hoped to see: Basia de Sirou, trying to insert a key into her manacles – which glittered with enchantment. If she succeeded, she’d free her own gnosis, which would be troublesome, even though she’d be no match for him.

  He used kinesis to wrench the keys from her grasp and into his own hand before knocking her unconscious with a kinesis blow – then turned as Excelsior, now desperate, hurled himself forward once again. Germane slammed him into the stone wall and this time – finally! – the Estellan flopped bonelessly and didn’t move.

  Those threats dealt with, Germane burst the bars of Basia’s cell, strode in through the shower of rust and iron splinters and gripping her by the hair, yanked her face to his. He had to hold the daemon at bay as he slapped her several times to bring her round, for Abraxas wanted to make her suffersuffersuffer . . .

  ‘Where’s your queen?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Lyra?’

  The woman’s eyes were frightened, but still she defiantly clamped her jaw shut, so he dragged her to the passage and showed her the unconscious Excelsior. Kindling energy in his left hand, he snarled, ‘Tell me, or he dies.’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly.

  She probably knew Exilium Excelsior was dead no matter what she said: she was Volsai and she knew the game. Well, there’s one way to make sure I find the bitch queen. He bared his teeth and elongated his incisors. ‘I think you need a change in motivation.’

  He bent to her, stretching his mouth as she cried out in fear, still struggling, for all it was not the blindest bit of use—

  —when he was ripped away from the woman and hurled against the bars by a giant figure who’d leaped over the fallen Estellan and was storming toward him. He had a longsword blazing in his grip and pale shields had crystallised around him.

  Takwyth . . . Rukking unbelievable—

  For a moment he feared the man had somehow defeated the ichor – then he saw the blackened veins and realised Takwyth was holding a blade rammed into his own side. It must be silver . . . clever. But the blood running from the wound was not entirely red and his clumsy gait showed he was succumbing.

  I just need to wait him out . . .

  Takwyth went straight on the attack, bludgeoning with all his immense gnostic and physical strength, but Germane surrendered control to Abraxas and with the knowledge of the souls of a thousand swordsmen and the power of the ichor he parried and blocked, all the while watching Takwyth’s veins darkening, until at last the ichor reached his eyes—

  —and Solon Takwyth, the greatest knight in Koredom, cried out in utter despair and fell to his knees, his sword clattering to the flagstones.

  ‘Slave,’ Germane purred, ‘get up and follow me.’

  His mastery assured, he turned back to deal with Basia de Sirou.

  An instant later, something cold and sharp punched into Germane’s left buttock and he felt the most excruciating burst of agony, as if all his blood were on fire. There was no time to drew breath and scream, for the roof tilted and his eyes burst into flame, blasting his awareness away . . .

  *

  Takwyth groaned and rolled up onto his knees, as Veritia sidled warily through the door, examining him carefully. He withdrew Veita’s argenstael punch-dagger, which had been concealed in
a spring-loaded sleeve scabbard, from Germane’s body.

  ‘Good plan,’ he conceded, ‘although I didn’t think the illusion would hold. I was sure he’d sense it.’

  ‘I had every confidence,’ she said drily, unstrapping the dagger.

  He pressed the silver dagger deeper into his side, groaning at the pain. The blood-flow was increasing and now he could hear the daemons as clearly as he could hear the Volsai. ‘I’m losing it,’ he warned her. ‘It’s time – I don’t think I can—’

  Veritia loomed over him and he didn’t flinch as she raised the argenstael dagger . . . which she reversed and smashed into his temple.

  The world cracked open and he spun away.

  *

  A distant sound troubled the void, light trembled at the edge of darkness and Exilium woke up.

  He was lying on grass, water was trickling somewhere nearby and leaves rustled in a cool, refreshing breeze, somewhat spoiled by the smell of ash. The moon hanging overhead was a glowing milky orb shining through misty clouds. Somewhere nearby, a man was vomiting.

  Had it not been for the noisy purging of someone’s guts, he’d have assumed he was in Paradise. Then a wave of pain washed over him and told him that he was assuredly still mortal – and still alive. His whole body ached, and when he tried to move his right arm, he felt the grind of bone on bone in his shoulder. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he sat up, looked around and found Basia sitting beside him, a blanket covering her hips and legs. Their eyes locked as utter relief blazed through him.

  She’s alive, she’s alive.

  He hadn’t realised how precious she was, how much he relied on her being her, pricking at him, questioning him, making him think about things he’d never even considered.

  He glanced past her to see Solon Takwyth, bent over a pool and pouring water down his throat, turning away to vomit horribly, and then repeating the actions. He was being tended by two women, a nun and the false Lyra. A few feet away he saw the Grand Prelate, drinking from a wineskin. He finally recognised where they were: Queen Lyra’s private garden. The foliage was burnt black, but the pool was still clear and somewhere, a night bird was singing its heart out, not quite drowned out by the distant sound of cheering swirling about the high walls.