When Demons Walk (14 page)

Ignoring him, Sham yanked on the heavy down-filled tick that had settled at the foot of the bed. She searched it thoroughly before throwing it onto the floor. Muttering nastily, she started to tear away the sheets, and her hand touched a section of the robe Kerim had been wearing. With her heightened senses she could almost see the magic imbued in the fabric.

The rune on the robe was a lesser one, not a focus rune but another binding rune—far simpler than the one Kerim had worn. It was the sort of thing one would put on a animal so that it would not wander away. Far easier, she thought, to turn such a simple rune into a stronger, more powerful sign than to try it from scratch. The great mages, she knew, used to transfer a rune from one surface to another. The means had been lost to time, but perhaps the demon still knew the method. Kerim could have been ensorcelled again by morning.

As she stepped through the assorted bedding on the way to the fireplace with the remnants of Kerim's robe, Sham's foot knocked her knife from the folds of the tick and sent it clattering across the floor. She scooped it up and continued on her way.

The flames were still spitting high with the magic she'd fed them earlier. With the addition of the bedrobe, they turned purple and shot up through the chimney with such force that it dislodged months of old ashes. As the soot fell into the fireplace, it was consumed in the superheated flames, creating a shower of bright sparkles like a thousand falling stars.

Sham started back toward the bed when she heard the slight scuff of the “secret” panel sliding open behind her. She jumped sideways with reflexive speed, holding her knife in a fighter's grip as she turned to face the gaping opening in the wall.

For a moment nothing happened, and she took a cautious step toward the dark passage doorway. The dim glint of light on metal was her only warning as a sword swept through the air.

Frantically, she threw herself to one side, rolling over the top of a waist-high table to put it between her and the sword wielder. As her attacker stepped toward her, the firelight threw his face into high relief.

“Ven?” said Kerim, incredulously.

Even knowing that this could not possibly be the Reeve's brother, Sham couldn't detect anything about the man that appeared unnatural, not even the aura of magic that she'd felt when the demon had attacked her before.

“What do you want?” she asked, snatching a heavy, leather-covered shield from the wall and heaving it at the golem as she tried to get some distance between herself and the creature. The knife she held was balanced for throwing, but she didn't want to use it and lose her only weapon.

“
Mine. He is mine
,” hissed the thing that wore Lord Ven's body, knocking the shield aside easily as he slid over the table that blocked his path.

“No,” answered Sham as the creature started toward her in a trained warrior's rush.

She took three steps back and rumpled the rug under his feet with a touch of magic. He stumbled heavily, but recovered faster than she'd hoped: many automatons were clumsy things. Twisting and scrambling, she evaded him,
managing to nick his arm with her knife as she slipped past him. She saw the blood on his arm, but knew it had been chance more than skill on her part.

He held the advantage of reach and strength. Sham's lowborn knife-fighting skills meant nothing unless she risked breaking through his guard and closing in with him. She was deterred by the recollection that one of the attributes the golem enjoyed was disproportionate strength. As if to confirm her thoughts, a blow of his sword reduced a sturdy oaken chair to a broken shadow of itself and she decided to try magic instead.

She began to weave a spell to cause the cloth on his body to stiffen and imprison him in its hold, but she was just an instant too slow. Lord Ven closed in and swung his sword at her throat. She managed to deflect his blow with her knife, but the force of his strike wrenched her wrist painfully.

Sham lost control of the magic she'd gathered and the embroidered chair that sat by the fireplace burst into sudden flame. She took a quick step back and hit her elbow painfully against the wall—there was no more room to retreat.

Breathing hard, Sham ducked under Lord Ven's second strike. As she ran under the blade he reversed his stroke, catching her brutally on the back of her wounded thigh with the pommel. The blow drove her to the ground where she hit her chin on the floor with stunning force.

Face down, she missed exactly what happened next, but there was a shrill cry and the sound of sharp metal imbedding itself in flesh. Frantically, Sham scrabbled forward and then twisted to her feet.

Lord Ven stood facing her with an oddly blank look and something dark pushed out of his chest; Kerim swayed unsteadily behind him—though he stood without aid. Sham jumped to her feet as the Reeve collapsed to his knees, sweat beading his forehead as a tribute to the effort it had cost him to stay on his feet so long.

The demon's creature fell limply forward, and the great blue sword slipped out of its back and sang out as it hit
the floor. Sham stared at the motionless body, gasping hollowly for breath.

“You're not hurt?” rasped Kerim.

She shook her head. “No, and I have you to thank for it. I wouldn't have lasted much longer against it.” She chose the neuter pronoun deliberately in order to remind Kerim, if he needed reminding, that the thing he'd just killed had not been his brother.

Nodding, the Reeve collapsed backward until he was seated on the ground with his back supported by a heavy chest. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

“Shamera, would you get Dickon? His rooms are down the hall. I think we could use his help to take care of the body.”

“Right,” she replied, frowning with worry as she looked at Kerim's pale face.

She didn't realize until she was halfway to the door that she still held her knife in her right hand. Shaking her head at herself, she started to set it on a table. It wouldn't do for the Reeve's mistress to run about the Castle at night with a knife.

“Shamera!”

The urgency in the Reeve's tone caused her to spin around.

Kerim's blue sword in one hand, Lord Ven's simulacrum advanced with a stealthy gait that changed to an awkward run as she finished her turn. Almost without thought she ducked under his swing and imbedded her knife deeply into the creature's eye.

“Plague's spawn!” spat out Sham in revulsion as she was carried to the floor in the thing's embrace. She scrambled frantically until she was free of its convulsive movements, jerking her knife out of the body so she'd still have a weapon if it came at her again. “Tide take it! Why can't this thing just stay dead?”

As she spoke the body, still writhing, vanished with a loud cracking sound, leaving the blue sword behind. She lunged to her feet and spat a filthy word, wiping her forehead with the back of the hand that held her knife.

“Is it coming back?” inquired Kerim in a suspiciously mild tone.

Sham shook her head, but there wasn't a lot of assurance in her voice as she said, “I don't think so. I'll go get Dickon.”

“No, wait,” said Kerim. “I think . . . I need an explanation of this night's events before you go. I feel like I have been thrown blindfolded into a pack of wolves. You might start with what it was you did to me that allowed me use of my legs.”

Sham sank wearily to the floor opposite Kerim's position. “I think I need to ask you a few questions before I understand enough of it to tell you what's happened.”

He inclined his head, managing to look regal in spite of being clothed only in sweat and the light cotton knee-length trousers that served as Cybellian undergarments. He wouldn't have been wearing that much if the trousers had been rune-marked like his robe.

“Something amuses you?” asked Kerim.

Hastily Sham rearranged her face and cleared her throat. “When exactly did your back begin bothering you?”

His eyebrows rose briefly at her question, but he answered her without hesitation. “I was traveling and my horse slipped off a bank while we were crossing a river. I wrenched my back. Perhaps eight or nine months ago.”

“Talbot told me that it has gotten worse in fits and starts, not a steady progression.”

Kerim nodded. “I have a bad spell, like tonight's, and when it's over I'm worse than before. The muscles in my back ache constantly with occasional shooting pangs. My legs are . . .” he paused and for an instant there was a wild hope in his face that he quickly repressed. “My legs
were
numb from mid-thigh on down. It felt like they were encased in ice. I was cold all the time.” He looked at Sham intensely. “I didn't realize how cold until now.”

“Now that it's gone,” commented Sham with the dawn of an impish grin.

“Now that it's gone,” he agreed hoarsely. He closed his eyes and swallowed, clenching his hands.

She took pity on him and, looking away, she began to piece together the story out loud. “Somehow, you must have attracted the demon's attention. I don't know why it chose to attack you differently than the other victims, or what it was gaining from you, but I
can
tell you that the demon caused your disability.”

“How can you be certain?”

Shamera glanced at the Reeve and saw that he was still fighting not to hope too much.

She sighed loudly. “I suppose, since you are a
Cybellian
—” she let her tongue linger over the term as if it were an insult of the highest order, much the same way Kerim habitually said “magic” “—I shall have to begin with a basic lesson on magic. I generally use rune magic rather than casting by voice, gesture, and component. The runes are more subtle and they last longer.”

There was a bare hint of amusement in Kerim's voice when he interrupted her, “What is a rune?”

Sham sighed a second time and began to speak very slowly, as one might to someone who was very young and uninformed. “Runes are . . .” She stopped and swore. “I'm going to have to go simpler than that. I always knew that there was a reason that wizards don't talk about magic to nonwizards . . . hmmm. Magic is a force in the world—like the sun or the wind. There are two ways a mage can harness the magic: spellcasting or runes. Spellcasting uses hand gestures, voice commands, and material components to shape the magic. As a mage gets better he can reduce what he uses.”

“And a rune is?”

“Runes are patterns that do the same thing. They take skill, precision, and time—but last longer than spells. Unless a limit is placed upon them, runes will absorb magic from other sources so that the ending spell is more powerful than it started out to be unless the rune is triggered. When you were hurting, I drew the rune of health on your back. It showed me that there was another rune already there. The demon managed somehow to bind you to it. I broke
that rune, but there was another on your robe and a focus rune on your chair.”

Kerim rubbed his temples. “What is a focus rune?”

“Wizards cannot cast magic over long distances without aid. Some mages use an animal that is connected to them—a familiar. But the more common means is the use of a focus rune, a wizard's mark. It allows the wizard to work magic someplace without being there. Both the rune and the familiar are dangerous to use, because their destruction hurts the spellcaster.”

“So you hurt the demon, and it sent my brother.”

Tiredly she shifted her weight off of one bruise and onto another one. “The demon probably sent the golem when it sensed that I was meddling with the rune on your back. As it happens my talents lay in the making and unmaking of runes, so I was able to destroy the rune before the golem came.”

Kerim swallowed, but he didn't ask the question that was on his face; instead he said, “Is it dead?”

“The golem? It was never alive, remember? I suspect it's still functioning—otherwise the demon would never have risked transporting it out of this room.”

Kerim's eyes closed again; his mouth was set in grim lines and his hands lay forcibly lax on the ground as he said quietly, “I can feel my feet for the first time in months, and the coldness is gone. But I still don't have much control over my legs, and I still ache. Am I going to get worse again?”

Sham rubbed weary hands over her eyes like a tired child, then managed to find the magic to cast a quick spell that would allow her to see any magical ties that still bound Kerim to the demon.

“It has no hold on you now,” she said finally. “Tomorrow I'll clear your rooms of its meddling. Until then you should find someplace else to sleep. As for the rest . . .” she shrugged, “I am no healer, but I'd be surprised if you were able to get up and walk right now. I am absolutely amazed that you were able to attack the golem. You should know as well as I that lying around waiting for
a wound to heal is almost as incapacitating as the wound itself.”

Kerim nodded once, abruptly. “Lady, would you get Dickon and send him for Talbot? There is much to be done tonight—and I think the four of us need to develop a plan of action.”

Sham nodded and struggled to her feet. She started for the door, but belatedly remembered she was still in her nightgown. Snagging the tick off the floor where she'd left it, she wrapped it around her like a robe before leaving the room.

As she trotted through the hall it occurred to her that Dickon could be the demon. He was very much at home in the Castle. Hadn't he been one of the ones that Kerim had said did not worship Altis? She stopped in front of his door, and hesitated before knocking.

The hall floor felt cold on the soles of bare feet, and Sham shivered. Deciding that she would drive herself insane trying to discover who the demon was if she resorted to random guessing, she forced herself to knock on the door. Wearing a dressing robe, Dickon opened his door soon after the first knock.

“Lady?” he asked politely, giving no outward sign that it was unusual to be awoke at that hour by a woman splattered liberally with blood and wearing a rather large bedtick.