When Demons Walk Read online

  Whether as statesman or warrior, there were very few people who would take on the Leopard without a great deal of thought. She had just decided to try and escape unnoticed, when his eyes locked onto hers.

  “I like to watch the neap tide come in,” he said in Southern. Nearly a decade of living in Southwood had softened the clipped accent Cybellians brought to the language until he might have been mistaken for a native.

  Sham waited where she was for a moment, caught by surprise at the conversational tone the Reeve used—speaking as he was to a roughly garbed, wet street urchin. Deciding finally it was probably safe enough, she scrambled up the rocks until she stood on a level with him. It struck her as she did so that this was an opportunity to attack the Cybellians that might never come again. She looked at the Reeve and remembered the dead that littered the Castle grounds after it had been taken by the invaders. Unobtrusively she slipped her hand toward the thin dagger strapped to her forearm.

  But it was more than just the suspicion that he was well able to defend himself against such an attack that kept her blade where it was. It was the sadness in his eyes and the lines of pain that tightened his mouth, both revealed by the bright moonlight.

  Imagination, she told herself fiercely as the angle of his head changed and shadows hid his features; but the impression remained. She shook her head with resignation: as she’d noted earlier, the Old Man’s gentleness was rubbing off on her. The Leopard had not been with the army that entered the Castle, and she didn’t hate enough to kill someone who had never done her harm—even if he was an Altis-worshipping Cybellian.

  “The Spirit Tide is impressive—” she agreed neutrally in the same language he’d addressed her, “—but hardly worth braving Purgatory alone.” Her tone might have been neutral, but her words were hardly the respect he must be used to receiving.

  The Reeve merely shrugged and turned to look at the foam-capped waves. “I get tired of people. I saw no real need to bring an escort; most of the occupants here are little threat to an armed rider.”

  She raised an eyebrow and snorted at his profile, feeling vaguely insulted. “Typical arrogant Cybellian,” she commented, deciding to continue as she had begun. She didn’t like to bow and scrape more than was absolutely necessary. “Just because you say something does not make it so. Jackals travel in packs and together can tear out the soft underbelly of prey many times their size and strength.”

  He turned his face back to her and shot her a grin that was surprisingly boyish. “Jackals are only scavengers.”

  She nodded. “And all the more vicious for it. Next time don’t bring so much to tempt them. That horse of yours would feed every cutthroat in the city for a year.”

  He smiled and patted the thick neck of his mount affectionately. “Only if they managed to kill him and decided to eat him. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to hold him long enough to sell him.”

  “Unfortunately for you, they won’t know that until they try it.” Despite herself, Sham wondered at the ruler of Southwood. She’d never met a nobleman, Cybellian or Southwoodsman, who would not have taken offense at being reproved by someone who was at the very least a commoner and more likely a criminal.

  “Why are you so concerned about my fate, boy?” Kerim asked mildly.

  “I’m not.” Sham grinned cheerfully, shivering as a breeze caught at her wet clothes. “I’m concerned about our reputation. If the word gets out that you came through Purgatory without a scratch,everyone will think they can do it. Although,” she added thoughtfully, “that might not be such a bad thing. A few nobles to dine on might improve the economy around here.”

  The sound of another large wave hitting the rocks drew Kerim’s attention back to the sea and Sham took the opportunity to study the Lord of Southwood, now that she knew who he was.

  Though his nickname was the Leopard, there was little catlike about him. As he was sitting on his horse, it was hard to judge his height, but he was built like a bull: shoulders proportionally wide and thick with muscle. Even his hands were sturdy, one of his fingers larger than two of hers. As with his horse, the moonless night hid the true color of his hair, but she’d heard that it was dark brown—like that of most Cybellians. His features, mouth, nose and jaw were as broad as his body.

  STARING AT THEroiling water, Kerim wondered at his openness with this Southwood boy who was so visibly unimpressed with the Reeve of Southwood. He hadn’t conversed with anyone this freely since he gave up soldiering and took over the rule of Southwood for the prophet. The only one who dared to chastise him as freely as this boy was his mother, and the boy lacked her malice—though Kerim hadn’t missed the lad’s initial motion toward the armsheath. He hadn’t missed the aristocratic accent the boy spoke with either, and wondered which of the Southwood noblemen had a son wandering about Purgatory in the night.

  The novelty of the conversation distracted him momentarily from the familiar cramping of the muscles in his lower back. Soon, he feared, he would have to give up riding altogether. Scorch was becoming confused by the frequent, awkward shifting of his rider’s weight.

  The Leopard turned back from the sea, but the boy was gone. Kerim was left alone with an enemy that he feared more than all the other foes he had ever battled; he knew of no way to fight the debilitating cramps in his back or the more disturbing numbness that was creeping up from his feet.

  SHAM TROTTED THROUGHthe narrow streets briskly to keep warm. The cottage she’d found for the Old Man was near the fringes of Purgatory in an area where the city guardsmen still ventured. It was old and small, roughly cobbled together, but it served to keep out the rain and occasional snow.

  She didn’t live there with him, although she had used her ill-gotten gains to buy the house. The Whisper kept him safe with their protection, and Sham was well known as a thief among the Purgatory guards. Her presence would have caused them to disturb the Old Man’s hard-won peace, so she only visited him now and again.

  The Old Man accepted that, just as he accepted her chosen work. Occupations in Purgatory were limited and tended to shorten lives. Good thieves lived longer than whores or gang members.

  Sham dropped to a walk, as the lack of refuse in the streets signaled her nearness to the Old Man’s cottage. She didn’t want to come in out of breath—the Old Man worried if he thought she’d been eluding pursuit.

  It was the extra sensitivity necessary to survive in Purgatory that first alerted her that there was something wrong. The street the Old Man lived on was empty of all the little shadowy activities that characterized even the better areas. Something had caused the tough little denizens to scuttle back to their holes.

  TWO

  Sham began to run when she saw the door of the Old Man’s cottage lying broken on the dirty cobbles of the street. She was still running, the dagger from her arm sheath in her hand, when she heard Maur scream in a mixture of rage and terror that echoed hoarsely in the night.

  As she reached the dark entrance she stopped, ingrained wariness forcing her to enter cautiously when she wanted to rush in howling like a Uriah in full hunt. She listened for a moment, but other than the initial cry the cottage was still.

  As she stepped across the threshold, the tangy smell of blood assailed her nose. Panicked at the thought of losing the old wizard as she had everyone else, she recklessly flooded the small front room with magelight. Blinking furiously, her eyes still accustomed to the dark, she noticed that there was blood everywhere, as if a cloud of the stuff had covered the walls.

  The Old Man was on his knees in the corner, one arm raised over his face, bleeding from hundreds of small cuts that shredded clothes and skin alike. There was no one else in the room.

  “Master!” she cried out.

  At the sound of her voice, he turned toward her. Urgently he said, “Go child, hurry. This is not your battle.”

  As he spoke, a broad red slice appeared on his upraised arm as if drawn there by an invisible artist. Though she had caught a bare glimpse of somethin
g moving, it was gone before she could tell what it was.

  His command was voiced so strongly that Sham took a step backward before she caught herself. The last magic her master had wrought was twelve years before. Blind and crippled, he was as helpless as a child—she wasn’t about to leave him.

  Her mouth firmed as another wound appeared, weeping blood down the side of his crippled hand. She gestured, calling a simple spell of detection, hoping to locate the unseen attacker, but the magic in the room was thick and obscured her spell. The assailant seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.

  She tried a spell to discover the kind of magic the assailant used so that she could try unworking his magic. A cold chill rolled its way down her spine as her spell told her that whatever else it was, it was not human. It was also not one of the creatures who could use natural magic, for what she’d sensed had no connection to the forces stirred by the Spirit Tide. That left only a handful of creatures to choose from, none of them very encouraging.

  She dropped the useless dagger to the ground. When the blade clattered to the floor, the flute slid into her hand, as if it had taken advantage of her inattention to slip out of the pocket in her sleeve.

  As her fingers closed about its carved surface, it occurred to her that a thing did not have to be sharp to be a weapon. She set the mouthpiece against her lips for the second time that evening and blew softly through the instrument, letting the music fill the air. She would never be a bard-level musician, but she was thankful for the years the Old Man had sought to instill his love of music in her.

  As the first notes sounded in the room, she could feel the magic gathering, far more than she would have been able to harness alone. It surrounded her, making her blood sing like rushing water with the heady vortex of power. She would pay for it later, of course—that was the secret of the flute. More than one mage had died after using it, not realizing until it was too late the cost of the power the flute called. Others had died when the magic grew too strong for them to control.

  She fought to ignore the euphoria spawned by the rapidly mounting tide of magic. When she felt it push at the edge of her control, she took the flute from her lips.

  Her body was numb from the forces she held, and it took more effort than it should have to raise her arms and begin a spell of warding. She watched her hands move, almost able to see the glow of the magic she wrought. She was so caught up in her weaving that when it began to unravel, Sham didn’t immediately understand the cause.

  The Old Man had come to his feet and moved close enough to touch her neck with one of his scarred and twisted hands.

  “By your leave, my dear,” said the old sorcerer softly as he drew the magic she had gathered.

  For a moment she was startled by his action.

  All apprentices were bound to their masters. It was necessary to mitigate the risk that the fledgling mages would lose control of the power they called and burn anything around them to cinders.

  The bonds of apprenticeship had not been severed when she passed to journeyman as was the usual practice, since only the master can break such a bond, and the Old Man had been unable to summon magic since his crippling. Sham had never considered the possibility that he could work magic already gathered.

  “Take as you will,” she said, letting her hands fall to her side.

  As the power she had drawn together gathered in the Master’s hands, the old mage smiled. For a moment she saw him as she had the first time: power tempered with wisdom and kindness.

  She watched with a keen appreciation the deft touch of the King’s Sorcerer as he wove a warding spell similar to her own but infinitely more complex without resorting to any obvious motion to aid his work. The continued slashes failed to break his formidable concentration. When he finished his spell, the cottage vibrated from the force of his attacker’s frustrated, keening wail. It tested the warding twice before Sham could no longer sense its magic.

  The Old Man collapsed on the floor. Sham knelt almost as swiftly as he had fallen, running gentle hands over him. She found no wounds that could be bound, only a multitude of small, thin lines from which the old man’s lifeblood drained to the floor. Her motions grew more frantic as she realized the inevitability of his death was spattered on the walls, on the floor, on her.

  There was no magic she knew that could heal him. The runes of healing she drew on his chest would promote his body’s own processes, but she knew that he would be dead long before his body could even begin to mend. She tried anyway. The effort of working magic so soon after she’d played the flute caused her hands to shake as she drew runes that blurred irritatingly in her vision as she cried.

  “Enough, Shamera, enough.” The Old Man’s voice was very weak.

  She pulled her hands away and clenched them, knowing he was right. Carefully, she drew his battered head into her lap. Ignoring the gore, she patted the weathered skin of his face tenderly.

  “Master,” she crooned softly, and the Old Man’s lips twisted once more into a smile.

  He would be sorry to leave his little, contrary apprentice. He always thought of her as he had last seen her, at that point where child turns to woman—though he knew she was long since grown, a master in her own right. She hadn’t been a child since she’d rescued him from the dungeon where he lay blinded, crippled, and near death. He had to warn her before it was too late. With hard-won strength he reached up and caught her hand.

  “Little one,” he said. But his voice was too soft: It angered him to be so weak, and he drew strength from that anger.

  “Daughter of my heart, Shamera.” It was little more than a whisper, but he could tell by her stillness that she had heard. “It was theChen Laut that was here. You must find it, child, or it will destroy . . .” He paused to grasp enough strength to finish. “It is . . . close this time or it wouldn’t have chanced attacking me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Master,” she answered softly. “Chen Laut.”

  He relaxed in her embrace. As he did, a wondrous thing happened. The magic, his own magic, which had eluded him for so many years returned across the barrier of pain as if it had never been rift from him. As he stopped fighting for breath, the power surrounded him and comforted him as it always had. With a sigh of relief, of release, he gave himself to its caress.

  Blank-faced, Shamera watched the old mage leave her, his body lax in her arms. As soon as he was gone, she set his head gently on the floor and began straightening his body, as if it mattered how the Old Man lay for his pyre. When she was finished, she knelt at his feet with her head bowed to show her respect. She let the magelight die down and sat in the darkness with the body of her master.

  THE SOUND OFboots on the floorboards drew her from her reverie. She watched numbly as four of the city-guards flooded the small room with torchlight.

  Belatedly, she realized she should have left when she could have. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Without witnesses, she was the most likely suspect. But this was Purgatory; she could buy her way out of it. Money was not a problem; the Old Man wouldn’t need the gold in the cave.

  Sham stood up warily and faced the intruders.

  Three were Easterners and the fourth a Southwoodsman, easily distinguished from the rest by his long hair and beard. They all had familiar faces, though she’d be hard put to name any but the apparent leader—he answered to Scarf, named for the filthy rag he tied over his missing eye. She relaxed a little: The whisper was that he could be bought more easily than most.

  Scarf and one of the other Easterners, tall for his race and cadaverously thin with large black eyes, looked at the blood that splattered almost every surface of the room with dawning respect. While the other two looked around, the Southwoodsman and the third Easterner kept their eyes on Sham. She carefully kept her arms well away from her body so she presented little threat.

  Scarf put the torch he held in one of the empty wall brackets and motioned to the Southwoodsman to do the same with the second torch. Scratching at hi
s forehead, Scarf turned in a full circle to assess the room again before letting his gaze come to rest on Sham.

  “Altis’s blood, Sham—when you decide to kill a bastard, you have a right pretty touch.” He hawked and spat—a tribute of sorts, thought Sham once she’d deciphered his fragmented Southern.

  Before she could answer, a fifth man walked into the room, this one dressed in the garb of a nobleman. She took a step back at the wide smile on his face.

  Scarf looked up and spoke in his native Cybellian. “Lord Hirkin, sir, I think you’ll find this one more helpful than the others. This is Sham the thief—I’ve heard the Shark watches out for him.”

  “Good, good,” said Lord Hirkin, the man who ruled of the guardsmen of Purgatory.

  He made a gesture toward Sham and Scarf stepped behind her, securing her by wrapping his massive hands around her upper arms.

  Tide save her, Sham thought, this wasn’t going to be easy after all. She set her grief aside for later, turning all her attention to the situation at hand.

  “I have been looking for just such a murdering thief,” Hirkin continued, switching to Southern for Sham’s benefit. “This man who calls himself the Shark. You will tell me where to find him.”

  Sham raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know where he stays; no one does. If you want him, leave a message with one of the Whisperers.”

  Actually she was probably the only person outside of the Shark’s gang, the Whisper of the Street, whodid know where the Shark was most of the time, but she had no intention of sharing that information with anyone. The Shark had his own ways of dealing with such problems: Methods bound to be much nastier than anything this man could dream up—besides, he was a friend.

  Hirkin shook his head with mock sadness and turned away to address the three guardsmen behind him. “It always takes solong —” he spun on his heel and backhanded her across the mouth “—to get any truth out of Southwood scum—too stupid for their own good. Perhaps I ought to turn you over to my man here.” He nodded at the cadaverous one who smiled evilly, revealing a missing tooth. “He likes boys about your size. The last one he got to play with I killed afterwards—out of mercy.”