City of Demons (50 page)

“Here,” he said, pulling her to her feet and fitting the crutches under her armpits. “Use these to keep upright. Now where's the device?”

She lifted one crutch carefully off the floor and pointed towards Banerict's room. Garet retrieved the tray of batteries and the silkstone box with its wires and imprisoned jewel. He urged Dasanat to follow him as quickly as possible, and the poor mechanical hobbled behind him as Garet moved out of the room, even with his limp still faster than the woman.

Once in the corridor, he looked up the hall towards the gymnasiums, where he had seen a light before. It was still there, casting faint shadows on the opposite wall as someone moved within the Green gym. He led Dasanat in that direction. She stumbled a bit in the gloom, but neither of them had a hand free to hold a lamp.

The light within the Green gym grew and steadied. A figure stood in the doorway, using a taper to light the lamps beside the door. Salick! Garet put the tray down on the floor and hopped towards her, leaving Dasanat farther behind. He reached her in a moment and grabbed her hand, startling her into dropping the burning candle.

“Garet!” she said, putting a hand over her heart. “You frightened me.” She pulled him inside the gymnasium where Dorict was coming out of the storeroom, struggling with an armload of training weapons.

“What have you found?” Garet asked. “Is Mandarack in the Hall?”

Salick started to answer and then stopped. The look of concern left her face and she smiled serenely. “It's all right, Garet,” she said softly. “Everything's all right now.”

And Garet realized it didn't matter who or what was in the Hall. Demon or not, everything was perfect. He smiled back at her. “Yes, I can hear it calling.”

Across the gym came the clatter of wood and metal on the floor as Dorict dropped his load of weapons to stand slack-armed and grinning.

Garet took Salick's hand. They left the Green gym and turned right, towards the peace and happiness calling to them. Someone said something, but the muffled voice was easy to ignore. At the end of the corridor, the door of the Gold gymnasium stood wide, the light from the hall lamps illuminating the way to joy.

They entered the gym and saw the demon. It was on the far side of the room, standing over the body of a Black, a small body that lay twisted and torn in a pool of blood. Training dummies and mats had been pulled to the wall to make a kind of nest. The creature's snout was painted with blood, and its claws dripped with it. A single yellow eye burned in its face. It raised a hand, the sickles at the end of its fingers spreading in anticipation. The Banes smiled.

Hand in hand, they walked forward, seeing nothing but happiness. A small part of Garet's brain said to him, you fool, it's like in the clearing by the old Temple, only it's stronger now, much stronger. It's a false peace, fool. Stop!

But he could easily deny the voice; there was no joy in it.

They had crossed half the length of the gym when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him to the ground. He tried to get up but whatever held him was heavier than he was. Still bruised from the Digger, he couldn't shift the weight. With a desperate wrench, he managed to twist around to see his captor.

It was Dasanat. The mechanical had grabbed him from behind and the weight of the armour aided her in keeping him from what he must reach. Salick seemed to notice the struggle and his missing hand for only a moment before turning to walk on.

Dasanat screamed within the helmet, the voice echoing oddly before reaching Garet's ears.

“You have to fight it, Garet,” the woman yelled. “Oh Heaven's shield, please, please fight it!”

He struggled again, but the mechanical's arms were strong from their long acquaintance with hammers and the forge. He could not break free. With a groan of effort, Dasanat flipped him over to her other side, shielding his body with her own from the gaze of the waiting demon.

A cloud passed over Garet's mind. Where was he? He looked at the mask of the helmet in front of him. He could dimly see Dasanat's eyes within, split into multiple images by the crystals, each one pleading with him to listen. The feeling of joy was still there, but as Dasanat clenched him to the protective armour, the little voice he had earlier dismissed gained strength.

“Dasanat!” he said. “What's happening?”

The mechanical yelled back, “It's the demon, Garet! It's controlling you!” Her voice was frantic.

Looking up from his position on the floor, he could see that Salick was almost within the creature's grasp. Groaning with the effort, he lifted the mechanical to her feet, keeping her between him and the demon.

“Go!” he yelled, pushing her ahead of him as fast as he could. “Grab her!” he instructed Dasanat as they reached Salick.

The mechanical wrapped her arms around Salick's waist, as she had done with Garet, and they both struggled to drag the protesting Bane back from the death she was so willing to embrace.

The demon hissed and screeched in frustration. It climbed off the body of its first kill and onto the piled mats of its nest, preparing to leap on the three struggling figures. With a gut-tearing wrench, Garet pulled them all down onto the floor as the demon sailed over them to land in a heap beyond.

The feeling of joy ceased, as abruptly as the closing of a door cuts off noise. Salick cried out, and Garet shook his head at the suddenness of it. He rolled out from under Dasanat and pulled Salick to her feet.

“Help me get her up,” he told Salick, and they both lifted the limp mechanical. The helmet lolled to one side, and Garet feared that he had knocked her out by pulling her down to avoid the demon. He positioned the armour-clad figure in front of him and Salick, taking what protection he could against its recovery.

The Caller, for that was what it must be, shook itself off the floor and glared at them from one, yellow eye. This close, Garet could see the other eye socket was gouged and empty, the effect of his stone thrown so long ago near the abandoned Temple market. The demon seemed to recognize him as well, for its single eye never left his face as it advanced on the trio.

Salick pulled her clawed baton from her belt and thrust it forward but the short weapon was unable to reach much beyond the armour that protected them. Garet could not take it to wield against the demon and support the unconscious Dasanat at the same time. There was little they could do except back away as the demon advanced on them, claws raised.

No joy came from it now, nor any other emotion, as if in its anger, it would do nothing else but rend and tear the Bane that had once maimed it. Ignoring Dorict, who was closer to the beast than the others, the demon quickly outpaced their awkward backwards shuffle and struck at the mechanical facing it. The blow passed in front of the helmet, a few inches from the silkstone surface.

The demon hissed in frustration and struck again, with the same result. It launched itself at the armoured figure, but came up short against it in mid air, obviously before it expected to make contact. Dazed, it stumbled backwards a few paces.

What's wrong with it? It's as if it can't tell where things really are
. A memory of his life in the Midlands came to him. His brother Gitel sitting at the table after losing a brawl with a neighbouring farm boy, his left eye purpled and closed. He remembered his father's mocking voice telling his brother, “Don't bother trying to even up the score just yet. You're useless for now! No one can land a blow with only one eye!”

That was it, the one thing that might save them. But he had forgotten the beast's other powers. The frustrated Caller paused in its slow approach and opened its pointed mouth in a prolonged hiss. Fear flooded the room, curling around the edges of their protective shield and gripping their minds. Salick bowed her head against Garet's back, moaning a little. Garet made himself as small as he could behind the armoured woman he held to them, but even then, he could barely breathe. Dasanat was safe in the armour, but unable to fully protect them.

Just as the sense of joy had been stronger than they had experienced before, the fear hammering at them was far worse than any they had encountered. It was as if the creature's rage increased the power of its jewel. The fear ran along their windpipes and closed them off. It twitched their muscles and plucked at their racing hearts. Garet felt it as a physical pain in his skull, much worse than Draneck's sword through his leg, or the beating he had taken from the Digger.

Unable to command his body any longer, he let Dasanat slide to the floor at his feet. He collapsed to his knees beside her, dimly aware that Salick had done the same. His universe had collapsed to a single yellow eye that set fires in all the far and near reaches of his being but would not let him die, not yet.

The demon crawled towards them, carefully on all fours, like a dog. It seemed to savour their pain and paused to run its forked tongue between the rows of needle teeth. A clatter behind it made the beast shift to look with its good eye over one shoulder.

Mandarack and Marick had entered the far door. Leaning against the Red, the small Bane held the tray of spark jars and the silkstone box. With clumsy hands, he tried to connect the wires to the jars, but the jerking of his own muscles defeated him. With a cry, he dropped the tray to the floor and fell backwards, clutching at his temples. Mandarack advanced, leaving Marick pinned to the ground by his terror. The old Bane moved slowly, leaning forward into the waves of fear like a traveller into a heavy wind. His withered arm hung limply at his side while the other, clad in its shield, was held out, as if feeling for the proper path. The Hallmaster shuffled painfully towards the demon, passing Dorict without a word or a look.

With an effort almost beyond him, Garet held his head up to look at the advancing Bane. As he came closer, Garet wept to see a trickle of blood flowing down Mandarack's chin from where he had bit his lip in the struggle to keep moving. More blood dripped to the floor from the straps of the trembling shield, as the Hallmaster used all his resources to fight the crushing fear.

The demon turned to face the old man, reared back on its hind legs and spread its thin arms as if in welcome. The waves of fear intensified, rolled them over and over, drowning them and exploding like soundless thunder in their heads. Mandarack cried out, a drawn-out groan that came from the depths of the stoic Bane. Salick's own tears fell on Garet's neck and she clutched at his tunic in her distress.

The two were almost within reach of one another. The creature drew back one arm and held the other out in an attempt to judge the distance. Mandarack stumbled a bit and came to a stop, the outstretched tip of his shield touching the claws of the Caller's reaching hand.

Both Bane and demon struck, struck at the same instant, the claws slashing at the Bane's neck and chest as the tip of the shield tore through the tough hide of the Caller's throat in Mandarack's last, desperate lunge. The creature threw back its crested head and tried to screech, but a horrible, bubbling hiss came out of its blood-frothed mouth. It collapsed across the legs of the Hallmaster, both bodies motionless on the gymnasium floor.

The reduction of the fear was disorienting, and at first, Garet could not move. He could only retch weakly as Salick crawled over him to Mandarack's still form. She kicked the corpse of the demon off Mandarack's legs and pulled her Master's grey head up into her lap.

Garet finally managed to crawl after her. She was using her gold sash to dab away the blood from Mandarack's face. There was no sense trying to stop the blood from the ruin of his chest. The demon's claws had lain open the Bane's heart and cut the life from it. Garet removed his vest and laid it over the wounds. Salick wept over the body, rocking slightly back and forth.

Garet looked up at the drawn faces of Dorict and Marick and said, “Help me with Dasanat.” He looked at Salick. “Then we'll take care of the Master.”

“I'll stay with him,” she said, one hand caressing the pale cheeks of the man she held.

The third Temple dome, closest to the river, was traditionally reserved for the King and Lords of the city. There they looked up at the night sky dome, their expensive leather boots held by servants outside the ring of pillars, and pleaded for whatever the powerful might still desire. Their daughters and their sons joined hands in marriage on those cool tiles, and when they died, the priests laid them there to rest, to look up with sightless, open eyes, to study the way they must go.

Banes, even the most revered, were laid like any citizen in the northernmost dome before being carried with songs and tears to the burning grounds outside the walls. But today the traditions were remade. The funeral procession of Hallmaster Mandarack came sighing and rustling over the centre bridge and weaved its way through the wintered gardens towards the Temple dome of the Lords of the City.

No sound came from the ranks of Banes who had cast off their cloaks to show the sashes and uniforms of their Hall to a city that once again accepted them. Equally silent were the Ward Lords who stood side by side with the Masters, carrying the bier. Lord Andarack led them on the left, the pole held tightly to his shoulder and tears flowing down his cheeks. Branet, the new Hallmaster, led them on the right, with no tears but a stricken look on his face. Tarix limped beside her husband's place, her newly-braced leg supported by a single crutch. Behind them all came the men and women of the city, their bright tunics like fire trailing from the darker mass that preceded them.