“Not when there is something inside. The opening needs to be clear,” she answered. “The stones are a protection,” she told the Prime. “We need those stones.”
“Matt, you and Tamara go.”
“We will help.” Kallish’s voice had rarely been more welcome. Her cadre moved from behind those guarding the Taellan and flowed forward with Matthias and Tamara, leaving the room.
“How are stones going to help?” Serran demanded.
“Remember those children you claim were such a disappointment? The ones you do not want to remember?” Arrow asked, rising to her feet, voice edged with something dark she had rarely heard from her own mouth before. Serran glared at her. “There was a part-Erith living among humans. Oliver Anderson. He made the stones.”
“Protection? For humans?”
“He was half-human,” Arrow reminded the Erith’s favourite mage and turned her shoulder on him, attention going back to the hand clawing its way into the room. Progress was slow, but there was progress. The hold spell Willan and Gilean were maintaining was having some small effect.
Beside Willan she saw Iserat’s third gathered, faces grim as they readied their weapons. Ronath’s quiver was empty in the world, but archers from the other cadres were passing him arrows two and three at a time. The third, the most famous Erith warriors, looked ragged and unkempt next to the cadres from the daylight world. And yet every daylight warrior was watching them for clues. The last third. The legends who had stood against incursion. Fallen not Forgotten.
Even now, a century and more in the demon’s realm, bare moments back to the daylight world, faces stained with dirt from the herb garden and traces of blood at ears and noses, their determination was clear, Iserat exchanging information with Miach and Elias in low tones that did not carry to where Arrow stood.
The crown of Saul’s great head was visible now, the arm through nearly to the elbow, the portal widening to accommodate his bulk.
“Where do you want these?” For the first time she could recall, Matthias sounded out of breath. She looked across to find Matthias, a handful of ‘kin and Kallish’s cadre back, bearing the stones between them.
“In a circle around the portal. Evenly spaced if possible,” Arrow said, indicating with a hand. She moved to follow them, only remembering then that she had one boot and one sock. She stopped to pull off the second boot before padding across the floor to inspect the first stone. It was still daubed with blood from the sacrifices that had been made to leverage power for the human’s portal. Which reminded her of a critical matter. “The portal below is closed?” she asked Kallish.
“Long gone. Gilean dismantled it after you were through and we did not think you were coming back,” the warrior told her.
“Good.” Arrow did not envy the war mage his task. Dismantling spells required effort and, more, he would have known he was sealing the way back.
Kallish agreed, her expression grim as she looked at Arrow. “You are bearing unclean energy, mage.”
“I know.” Arrow wanted to scrub herself from the inside out, the barb around her heart a constant pressure. Shadow-walkers were meant to be immune. But she was fairly sure none had ever been in the surjusi realm before, or used the realm’s power. There was no cleansing that she knew that could fix her. The thought held her still for a moment, the barb tightening. A scrape of the claws against wood brought her back to the here and now. There was no time for sorrow. “How long were we gone?”
“A matter of hours.”
Arrow’s breath caught. Hours here. What had felt like a week in the demon realm. She wondered just how long a span of time the six had endured. A century and more in the realm. She frowned, trying to orient herself back to the here and now. “So, this is still the second day of the summit?”
“Yes. It has not been going well,” Kallish observed, voice dry. “There has been a lot of panic about the portal below. Humans believe the Erith opened it. The Erith do not think any of their number would be so foolish.”
There was something comforting in the familiarity of it. Speaking with Kallish, the warrior a master at understatement. A pause in the middle of danger. It settled her again, anchored her to the here and now.
“Humans,” Arrow told Kallish. “No Erith involved. No Erith would have needed that much sacrifice.”
The warrior’s face reflected her own revulsion even as she tilted her head, acknowledging the information.
“The humans that came back?”
“Apart from Dorian and Juniper. All involved,” Arrow confirmed. Her stomach twisted. All of them involved in plotting to go to the surjusi realm, and then come back. And some of them plotting to sacrifice at least two of their number to power the spell.
The cadre and shifkin had finished placing the stones. In a precise, perfect circle, each one evenly spaced. Trust the ‘kin and Erith elite to manage the task so well. Arrow looked down at the one in front of her again. She could sense the Erith power, waiting to be used, desecrated by sacrifice.
“The stones need cleaning.”
“Orlis.” Kallish barely raised her voice but the journeyman mage was there. “The stones need cleansing. All of them.”
Orlis looked at Arrow, mouth half-open with the obvious question. His eyes flared amber, and whatever he saw in second sight made him snap his jaw shut, face paling. “Right.” He moved away, drawing runes in the air as he did so.
“I hope your plan is good, mage,” Kallish said, eyes going past Arrow to where Saul was still breaking out of the demon realm.
“So do I,” Arrow answered, kneeling by the first stone as Orlis finished cleansing the last.
“These stones were used for unclean magic,” Kallish pointed out, clearly placing herself as Arrow’s conscience. It would have been funny in other circumstances. The barb inside her, visible to anyone with magic sensitivity, was deathly serious.
“I know.” Arrow hesitated, aware of the scrutiny from Gilean and Willan, still keeping the hold spell in place, both pale with the strain of it, Orlis beside them. Doubtless they, like Kallish, were wondering if she could be relied upon. Still, she was inside the circle and the mages were outside it. That should give them some comfort. Kallish was close by, but Arrow thought the warrior had a love of danger.
Arrow put her hand on the stone, opening her second sight. The spell forms she remembered were still there. “The stones were created with honest hard work and clean magic, bound with protection.” She was still in second sight, seeing the clean lines of Erith magic. Clumsy and mostly untrained. Serran had been even less of a father to Oliver Anderson than he had a grandfather to her, Arrow thought. At least she had been handed over for training. Oliver, partly trained, had been left to work this out for himself. There were hesitation lines in the spells, and it was incomplete as they did not have all the stones. There was enough, though. There would have to be.
“Kallish, get everyone out of the circle.”
“Mage,” Kallish acknowledged. She gave orders but did not move.
Arrow dimmed her second sight and looked up at the warrior’s determined face. “Everyone. Out. Now.” The surjusi power coursed through her, tempting her to harm. Whatever Kallish saw on her face it was enough for the warrior’s hand to go to a weapon hilt. “Now.” Arrow said again.
“Out,” Kallish said to someone over Arrow’s shoulder. Kester protested, and Kallish grabbed his arm, Undurat taking the other, and dragged the Taellan outside the stone circle.
“Arrow.” Zachary was kneeling close by, bringing himself to eye level with her, prudently outside the circle, gaze intense. “What can we do?”
“Hold everyone outside,” Arrow told him, voice laced with a darkness she knew was not her own. “And trust me.” With the piercing hurt of surjusi power inside her she doubted herself, doubted she was worth that trust. And yet she needed it.
“I do,” Zachary said without hesitation, brilliant green eyes holding hers. “Good hunting.” Zachary moved back, giving ord
ers to his people who began moving around the circle, putting themselves between the circle and the others. Kallish saw what they were doing and a moment later her cadre joined them, intertwined with shifkin, all their backs to the circle, keeping watch.
The evidence of their trust stabbed Arrow’s heart more surely than the surjusi power. They would watch. She would deal with the threat.
Arrow glanced across at Saul. He had an elbow on the floor now, using it to lever himself up into the world, one great eye, bottomless black and full of loathing, staring at her.
“Little thing.” His voice grated the bones of her skull. “You are too late.”
Arrow stilled, the world falling away. She was kneeling inside a circle of potential Erith power, her body riddled with surjusi power that was close, so close, to her very core. No cleansing in the world could separate her now. And she could not leave this world to Saul. He was right. It was too late. Too late for a lot of things. Too late for the travel plans she had made. Too late to find out where the beginnings with Kester might lead.
She was one small being against the vast power that was the demon lord. Tiny. Insignificant. And she could be so much more. There was power there for her taking. A lot of it. Power to wipe out her enemies, to take revenge on those who had hurt her.
The thought was hers and it was not. She shook her head, the barb at her heart tightening so it was a struggle to breathe.
Hurt. Maim. Kill.
No.
That was not her.
Hurt.
No.
The tiniest kiss of warmth on her cheek, where the heartland’s mark was set. The faintest scent of green. The gentlest suggestion of sunshine.
When had she grown so cold? She was nearly freezing, limbs heavy with it.
And Saul had his full head through, blackened skin only fractionally lighter than the pair of hate-filled eyes that stared at her, unblinking. The darkness might tell her that she and the demon lord could be allies, could reign over his world and this one. That stare told her otherwise. He was looking at his enemy.
She dragged her eyes away from him, drew her kri-syang, sliced her skin open and applied the open wound to the stones.
Pure, clean, Erith magic rose to her call, the spell ready. It needed only a word to activate it. She was barely aware of Gilean and Willan falling back as the stones came to life, alabaster replaced with pure, shining amber.
CHAPTER 21
As the amber rose, a scream of fury from the humans called her attention. One of the men who had come back from the demon’s realm was trying to move forward to the spell circle, held back by Dorian and Juniper, both of their faces tight, jaws set. They might have stopped him, but they had not silenced him.
“Stop her. She’ll ruin everything!”
A ripple of unease spread through the Erith delegation, battle wards tightening in response to Miach’s sharp commands. Arrow could not hear the words, could only see the suspicion on Erith faces, directed to the humans.
Outside the circle of stones, blazing with Erith power, the ring of shifkin and White Guard keeping watch, there was movement among the human delegation. Some of those who had worn ordinary business suits were stripping off their jackets, many revealing bandoleers of vials, others the tight-fitting body armour favoured by the ‘kin. Combat mages and warriors. Some reached into briefcases and brought out weapons. Several handguns. At least one lethal-looking automatic weapon was being assembled. Weapons where there should not have been any, the official security detail more than adequately armed.
Some of the unarmed humans were protesting, rising from their seats, voices raised in panic. The Premiere, still surrounded by her security, looked utterly bewildered by the events around her but, even as Arrow watched, the human's delicate features firmed, jaw set. She exchanged sharp words with the man near her. Normal Merkel, Arrow remembered. He flinched slightly from whatever she had said, quickly recovering, a small smile creeping over his face.
Arrow saw the shock on Dorian and Juniper’s faces. Despite being First Mage and deputy at the Collegia, they had not known the extent of the Collegia’s combat arm. More secrets. And more than that.
“They are well organised. This took planning,” Zachary said, voice grim, echoing Arrow’s thoughts. He was just beyond the amber, eyes brilliant as he stared at the humans.
“Calm down everyone!” An Wong pushed between two of her security personnel, normally polite, public, expression vanished to a combination of terror and fury. “What is going on?” she demanded. Arrow found it interesting that she directed her question to Dorian, not to the Magister, surrounded by a clutch of combat mages.
“Humans opened the portal to the demon realm,” Dorian told her, voice clipped, all of his arrogance stripped away. “Used blood sacrifice to get there. These ones.” He nodded to the clutch of humans, still dressed for travel, gathered behind the shouting man. “We brought them back.”
“Most of them,” Juniper put in, shoving her elbow into their captive’s midsection when he opened his mouth to speak again. The captive was Mark, Arrow saw, all the fear and uncertainty he had shown in the demon realm vanished, even as he doubled over, coughing.
“Most of them?”
“The demon lord killed Brian. And Stu.” The woman who had been marked for sacrifice by her fellows said. She was still frightened and trembling even in the world, her eyes wide, face wet with tears as she spared a glance to the Premiere and Mark before turning her attention back to Saul. Arrow spared a quick glance over her shoulder. The demon lord was making slow progress. Achingly slow. And yet it was progress, forward movement out of the portal.
“What in the world were you doing in the demon realm?” the Premiere demanded. “What did you hope to achieve?”
Excellent questions, Arrow thought, eyes still on Saul.
“Our freedom.” Two words that boomed through the air, laced with power.
She knew that voice. A well-known figure in the human world, often interviewed on their news programmes. Dismay clutched her stomach and she turned back to the humans. Among the delegation someone else was moving. The full, ornate robes of his office catching on those around him, the Magister of the Collegia Magica pushed his way through the crowd, sparks of power crackling at the end of his staff.
“Reginald, what is the meaning of this?” The Premiere’s face was flushed with fury now.
“We will not be denied.” The Magister was still using power to enhance his voice, sending it to all parts of the room.
Arrow glanced back at Saul and saw the demon lord’s mouth curve in the parody of a smile.
“You tried to make a bargain,” Arrow said, voice a bare thread of sound. The barb inside her wriggled in delight.
Somehow she had been heard.
“We have been oppressed too long,” the Magister told her, face grave. It was a studied pose and a studied tone, one he used often in his interviews. She wondered how long he had practised in front of a mirror to get that tone just right.
“Oppressed?” An Wong’s normally beautifully modulated voice had risen an octave. “No one is oppressing you. Idiot.”
“We demand freedom.” The Magister ignored the Premiere, continuing what Arrow was quite sure was a pre-prepared speech. He probably had several, for different occasions.
And she could stop him. She knew that. It would be easy. So easy. Just a few steps outside the amber circle. A blast of mage fire. One swing of her sword. His head rolling across the ground. Perfect.
Nausea gripped her even as the sword at her back pulsed, once. A warning. The barb inside her was still wriggling in delight.
“We demand-”
The Magister did not get a chance to make his next demand. A well-placed fist struck his jaw and he staggered back, the robes of his office tangling with his legs so that he fell back into the crowd, inarticulate cry of fury tracking his fall.
“That’s quite enough of that,” Dorian said, flexing his hand. “Arrow, can you stop S
aul?”
“I can try.”
“No!” Mark broke free of Juniper and surged across the room to Dorian, producing a weapon, a plain dagger, from somewhere. “We will not be denied!”
Dorian side-stepped the headlong charge with a grace that spoke of combat training, grabbed for a vial at his chest and spat a curse when he realised he had none left. Mark swung at him again. Dorian somehow grabbed his attacker’s wrist, the dagger bouncing harmlessly off his arm guard as he brought Mark to the floor, ignoring the muffled cries and glancing up instead to see who was close to him.
“Andy. Sleep potion. Now.”
One of the combat magicians nearby plucked a vial from his collection, handing it across. Holding Mark secure with a knee in his back and one hand holding his wrists, Dorian pulled the stopper out with his teeth and simply poured the potion over Mark’s head, turning his own head to avoid the fumes. As Mark went limp, Dorian tied him up with quick, practised movements.
The whole thing had taken moments. Arrow was fascinated. It seemed that the human combat magicians were warriors and mages both. She wondered if she, on her own and without aid from the sword, would ever be able to dodge an attacker as easily as Dorian had.
Even as Dorian rose to his feet, casting a glance around the room to check for more threats, the warriors and combat mages who had disguised themselves were moving forward, weapons raised and ward spells active. They shoved the others in the delegation out of the way in their surge towards the front. A pair went to help the Magister to his feet, others spreading out in a circle around them, a few of them calling mage fire to their hands.
The Premiere was bodily dragged back within her security, who pulled her away from the magicians, a few of the uniformed combat magicians going with them, facing off against their colleagues.
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