Mother of Daemons

by David Hair

  As if to emphasise his point, he suddenly flicked his wrist – and Ogre choked back a cry of horror as he heard Dirklan Setallius’ neck snap.

  ‘No,’ Ogre croaked. He’s Lyra’s father . . .

  ‘So he is,’ Naxius agreed lightly, hearing Ogre’s thought as clearly as if he’d spoken the words aloud. Stepping around him, he stopped before Tarita, her Ascendant strength rendered to nothing. ‘And this one . . . I’ve been longing to meet you, my sweetling. The little dirt-caste nothing who’s turned my Ogre’s head.’

  ‘Master,’ Ogre blurted, ‘please—’

  ‘Master,’ Naxius echoed, sounding pleased. ‘Yes, I am still your Master, aren’t I? I have learned a great lesson on this journey, Ogre: that humans cannot be trusted. All my Masks betrayed me, did you know that? Every single one of them. You feed humans and they try to bite your hand. Only my constructs have remained true.’ He waggled a stern finger. ‘Except you, Ogre. You even killed dear Semakha, who I made for you.’

  That wasn’t how it was, Ogre tried to say. Semakha was evil – you made her so. But he couldn’t make his throat work.

  ‘An eye for an eye, the Book of Kore says,’ Naxius snickered. ‘You know what: I do believe I wrote that passage, too.’ Then he turned back to Tarita, his face turning savage, and balled his right fist.

  ‘Nooo!’ Ogre roared. He tried to move, but all he could do was drop to his knees. His axe clattered to the stone beside him. ‘No Master, I beg you—’

  Naxius paused. ‘The punishment would be apt and deserved, Ogre: you took from me, so I take from you.’

  Ogre looked up through stinging eyes to see the woman he loved was staring at him, her chin up, defiant to the end – and mouthing something . . . about love.

  That finally gave him the strength to move, no matter the cost. His leg muscles bulged, his chest expanded and his big hands flexed as he rose, the inner beast that Naxius had bred into him roaring.

  That he could still defy him clearly startled Naxius, but Ogre never got to even snatch up his axe and hurl it, for the mage’s eyes turned liquid gold and blazed across the chamber . . .

  *

  As the darkness came flooding in, Lyra reached for the sun, the only thing that might be sovereign against the daemons boiling towards her like a swarm of ravenous gigantic cockroaches and with her other hand, she seized Valdyr’s fingers, linking with him, and he came willingly.

  The dwyma responded, but it was too slow: the daemons were already blotting out Jehana’s face, even Urte itself—

  —but Waqar was unleashing his own flood of mage-bolts, shouting his sister’s name. Lyra could see the colour draining from his face: he was holding nothing back from the torrent of energy. Without physical bodies to house them, the naked souls of the daemons burned to ash on contact, but there were so many – far too many. He could buy them only a few seconds.

  But in those moments, everything came together.

  Light suddenly coalesced on Lyra: a bolt of brilliant radiance, bright enough to blind, but this time she knew how to channel it: she raised the hand clasped in Valdyr’s and let the current flow through her – and it burst from their joined hands, searing everything in its path. She shouted aloud, exulting in the potent rush, as the solar blasts wrought devastation on the sea of darkness, the screeching of the perishing daemons tearing at their senses.

  But the sense of victory was illusory, she realised, for there were so many more. Neither she nor Valdyr could drop their guard, but if someone couldn’t reach Jehana and somehow stop this, they were all doomed . . .

  *

  Waqar shouted, raged, pleaded,

  The agony was that he could see what to do – but he couldn’t do it himself. I should have embraced the dwyma months ago but I let other things matter more . . . I’ve failed everyone.

  His mind racing, he begged, ‘Help me!’ but Valdyr and Lyra were caught up trying to buy him time, not knowing he couldn’t do anything without them.

  He couldn’t distract them, for the daemons would overwhelm them; already they were all but engulfed by reaching talons and snarling faces, the nightmarish forms on all sides—

  —when suddenly he felt a small hand in his and looked down to see a young Yurosi girl with shining red-gold hair looking up at him.

  ‘Aradea is with you,’ she said in a small, sing-song voice.

  Waqar had no idea what that meant, but if the girl was here, she was like Lyra and Valdyr. He reached out with his mind, and there she was, welcoming him.

  ‘Help me reach her,’ he begged.

  The girl seemed to understand, because her face tilted up past his to the giant shape of his sister’s face in the stars above, and together they shouted,

  Then, with a sob of utter loss, he sent a blazing mage-bolt into the stars, right between Jehana’s eyes, seeking to kill his beloved sister because he couldn’t think what else to do. With the girl channelling energy through him, that pallid blue bolt became a burst of concentrated light that flashed across the skies . . .

  *

  The words reached her like a whisper, but she heard them loud as a clarion call: her name, spoken by her brother, wrenched her back from the precipice.

  She tried to call out to him, but the daemon was riding her and she had no mouth; she was just a tunnel, a passage for the unearthly to tear their way through. She was helpless – then a ray of light slammed into her skull and she howled in pain, for she was half-daemon now, half of their world.

  But the rest of her, the not-daemon, rallied. The pain was bad, but nowhere near the agony Lucian, bound to her dwyma form, felt when that concentrated beam of light struck like fire on parchment. He, who’d not felt direct pain in the millennia of his existence, howled and thrashed about – and lost his grip on her.

  Like a mongoose caught by a cobra, poisoned and near death but still possessing teeth of her own, Jehana turned and struck and through her own intense pain, held on to that burning light and channelled it inwards, inside her where millions of daemons were enveloped in its radiance, then shrieked and died. Even as she did so, she reached back to the source of that light – Waqar, she suddenly realised – and drew more, then channelling gnosis and dwyma, she sent a brilliant beam through the being that rode her.

  Lucian howled for mercy, but she closed her ears; and the Lord of Daemons came apart in a burst of glowing sparks, comets that quickly faded and winked out.

  Gone . . .

  He was gone.

  And she was free . . .

  Healing the Elétfa took but a thought, directing the energies into restoration, burning through the daemons still clinging to it. Then she thought of the ichor – and after she burned it from herself, she extended herself through the living tree, burning it away from there too.

  Gone . . . It was gone.

  She floated free, hollowed out and filled up, and suddenly, beyond all hope, at peace.

  It is done.

  She closed her eyes and hoped to die.

  *

  Ogre stared helplessly as Ervyn Naxius licked his lips and pointed a finger at Tarita, purple light gleaming as he prepared his spell of choice. ‘Master, please,’ Ogre begged, knowing it was hopeless—

  —when suddenly, Naxius blazed from within as if he’d swallowed a sun. He rose into the air, arms and legs splayed, light streaming from his eye sockets and his mouth, as his beauteous youth, his radiant skin and lustrous hair crumbled to pallor and wrinkled age. He was screaming light, venting a burning agony beyond human endurance. The darkness gathered within him, the light dimmed . . .

  . . . as Jehana Mubarak vanished from the image above, her face cast in serenity . . .

  And the Master’s face went slack, as if he were utterly unable to comprehend what was happening.

  But Ogre, hearing Tarita gasping for breath, groped for his axe, rose with a snarl of utter rage and hurled it. It spun through the air and buried
itself in the Master’s left breast, crunching through ribs like kindling and lodging there, the silvered steel cleaving apart the chambers of whatever kind of heart Ervyn Naxius still retained.

  The mage staggered, groped for balance as he fell to the floor . . .

  . . . and then sat up and wrenched out the axe. With a fiendish grin, he rasped, ‘Oh, bad Ogre.’

  Ogre’s heart almost stopped – but even as Naxius rose, his face a mask of bestial ferocity, an argenstael dagger plunged into his back and this time ichor exploded and ash came blasting out in a cloud, hurling him back.

  When the dust finally settled, there wasn’t enough left of Naxius to fill a bucket.

  ‘Hmm. Definitely one of my better throws,’ said a dry voice.

  Ogre turned and stared as Dirklan Setallius, his face grey, clicked his neck properly back into place. ‘But . . . I thought . . .’ Ogre stammered.

  ‘Dead? Me? Necromancy, my friend,’ Dirklan told Ogre. ‘They say a bone-dancer’s harder to kill than a roach nest, although I rather think that flatters cockroaches.’

  Ogre put a hand to his heart in thanks, then hurled himself at Tarita and gathered her to his chest, trying to tell her all he felt – until she put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Ogre,’ she whispered, ‘shut up and kiss me.’

  Epilogue I

  A Western Sunset

  A Dream of Better

  I’ve been told that I’m never satisfied, always yearning for the impossible: universal peace and prosperity, equality and love, an end to war and a world without frontiers. It’s better, I’m told, to seek the attainable. My answer is that one can do both: achieve that which you can, but also strive for that which is beneficial and still out of reach. It’s in our striving that we grow, as a person and as a people.

  ANTONIN MEIROS, 877

  Rym, Rimoni

  Martrois 936

  The halls of Ervyn Naxius’ secret citadel echoed with the sparse footfalls of those few who remained. It was a strange place to linger, but there was no sane reason not to rest on a soft mattress or to dine on food and wine fit for kings and emperors.

  Or princes and empresses, Waqar supposed, looking across the huge lounge to where Valdyr Sarkany and Lyra Vereinen were sharing a divan, sitting primly enough, although their bodies were inclined towards each other in longing.

  They say after wartime that people seek out love to heal the hurt.

  But he feared there would be no healing for his sister. Jehana, sitting across a low table from him, was staring blankly into space. She hadn’t spoken since they’d found her at the foot of Naxius’ blasted dwyma tree in the aftermath of the previous night’s horrors. Waqar immediately took over her care, only letting her out of his sight long enough for Lyra and Tarita to bathe and clothe her. He hated her bone-white hair and the burn-marks around her face where the mask had been, but most of all he hated the emptiness in her gaze.

  Valdyr said that a lot of what one saw inside the dwyma was symbolic, but it had looked horribly real to him: a true vision of Hel.

  He steeled himself and tried again to reach her, ‘Jehana, will you eat? Please?’

  Dirklan Setallius joined him. The Volsai looked twice as ghostly as usual, although he moved with his usual economic precision. They’d shared the bare outlines of their stories and he now knew the empress was Dirklan’s daughter: a deadly secret in the outside world, but it felt just that her father had exacted vengeance on Naxius, who had so assailed Lyra.

  ‘Is she responding?’ Dirklan murmured.

  Waqar shook his head. ‘Nothing. I don’t think she even hears me.’

  ‘Be patient,’ the spymaster advised. ‘She needs the very best mystic-healers – we can arrange this in Pallas.’

  Can I accept such aid? he wondered. They’re the enemies of my people. ‘I must return to the Shihad,’ Waqar replied. ‘My people need to see me, to know I’m with them.’

  ‘I’m sure they do,’ Dirklan agreed. ‘You saved us, Prince Waqar – we’re in your debt.’

  Waqar shook his head. ‘No, for without Lyra and Valdyr, I wouldn’t have been there; and without Coramore, I would have failed – and Coramore, I understand, would not have been there at all had it not been for the heroism and sacrifice of others.’

  ‘We all played our part,’ Dirklan agreed. ‘Jehana saved us, because she heard you and loved you enough to fight back – or that’s how I read it. In the end, I think we all saved each other.’

  ‘You speak truly,’ Waqar conceded, before indicating Lyra and Valdyr. ‘I think they are drawn to each other.’

  ‘That’s Lyra’s business,’ Dirklan said mildly. ‘I let her make her own mistakes.’

  ‘With what result?’ Waqar asked doubtfully: few Eastern fathers would do such a thing.

  ‘A lot of mistakes,’ the Volsai chuckled, his face crinkling. ‘But no one grows without making mistakes. The woman she was before all her misadventures could never have done what she did today.’

  Waqar thought on that. In some ways, Jehana had been on a similar journey, pursued though the wilderness with Tarita and Ogre, then caught up in the machinations of Alyssa Dulayne and Ervyn Naxius, making mistakes, but growing.

  And he’s right, Jehana needs help I can’t give – no one in the East can, except perhaps the Ordo Costruo.

  He bowed deeply. ‘Thank you. I accept your offer. Please, ask your mage-healers to help her – anything she needs. I stand surety for all costs,’ he said solemnly, touching hand to heart. ‘But what of you and your daughter?’

  The Volsai’s face turned serious again. ‘We must return to Pallas. A lot was left in the balance when we came here. I’ve been in contact with my second there and the news is good, but Lyra is the key. With her present, the new republic has a chance.’

  Republic. Waqar had had the term explained and it sounded like madness. Yuros really was another world.

  ‘And you say the safety of the Shihad is guaranteed?’ he asked again. With this crisis averted, he half-expected the war to resume: Teileman still had a giant army in northern Noros and there were now far fewer foes to oppose him.

  ‘Those in Norostein will be housed and fed and they remain armed. The rest is up to your commanders – and to you. I hope you will urge them to retreat into Verelon. The next Moontide is four years away, in 940. There is much to be resolved, but the war doesn’t need to continue.’

  Waqar looked away, thinking hard. The Shihad might be broken, but they still had many men, combatants and camp followers alike. However, he doubted there was much appetite for taking up the struggle again. Ali Beyrami was dead and Teileman was no warrior. He’d want to return to Kesh and claim his brother’s throne. This conflict now felt like a disastrous folly, not the great and just war Rashid had declared it to be.

  I’m sick of fighting, Waqar admitted to himself.

  Slowly, he offered his hand, in the Yurosi way. ‘Spymaster, I declare, insofar as I have the right to do so, that the Shihad is over. Evil has been vanquished and my people wish only to return to their homeland.’

  They clasped hands and raised a toast to peace.

  *

  Tarita found Ogre in the chamber of the constructs, wandering from slab to slab, studying each creature: lamiae, goat-men, lizardmen, bull-headed Mantauri and others. There were several ogres, his mirror-images; like him, they would also have gnostic ability, the better to serve Naxius. For now they slept, life sustained, but not awareness.

  They were divided over what to do about them. Dirklan and Waqar wanted them slain painlessly, without waking them. Lyra and Valdyr hadn’t yet ventured opinions. Tarita herself was unsure, and right now she was too tired to think. None of them had slept much since the ordeal, still too wound up and with too many unknowns in this citadel of the enemy to relax.

  ‘Ogre?’ she called from the door. ‘What’re you up to?’

  Gazing at the sleeping constructs, he said, ‘They’re all like me. It’s like coming home.’

&nbs
p; She joined him, squeezing his hand. ‘But it was never a good home for you, was it?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I belonged.’

  He looks lost, and torn, she thought. He thinks now this is over, I’ll leave and he won’t be able to follow.

  Kissing him last night had been strange – physically awkward, for he was so much bigger – but it had been the truest kiss of her life. ‘Ogre, what is it you want?’

  He looked around, then rested his hand beside a male ogre far bigger than him. ‘These are living people – they can be woken: I know how. But there’s no one to teach them right from wrong, to care for them, to tell them about the world . . . unless I do it.’ He bit his lip miserably. ‘This is what I must do, even when you all leave me behind. It’s the right thing.’

  You noble, beautiful man, she thought. She leaped up onto the edge of the slab so that they could talk face to face and pressed her cheek to his. She was suddenly a little frightened, because commitments were scary, but it was time to make some.

  ‘Ogre, if that’s what you want to do, I’m with you. We’ll do it together.’

  Even now, he looked like he didn’t quite believe her, and that hurt a little – but she supposed she wasn’t known for faithfulness.

  ‘I thought you wanted to travel – that you wanted adventures?’ he asked, sounding shy.

  ‘And I’m sure you do too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t put down roots as well.’

  ‘With the war over, people are going to come here, try to take this place,’ he warned. ‘My Master’s knowledge is valuable and dangerous.’

  ‘All the more reason for us to take charge of it,’ she told him. ‘And with my Merozain and Ordo Costruo connections, I can ensure it is kept in safe hands.’

  ‘But . . .’ He hesitated, then plunged onwards, ‘Tarita, you don’t belong here like I do. You’re so beautiful and perfect: you belong in the courts of kings and magi.’