His name was Tallik.
An early Athasian sorcerer had summoned him here from—somewhere else, the words made no sense to Aric even in the context of the vision—but Tallik had proved too difficult for the sorcerer to control. Finally, that sorcerer—working with other, more powerful beings—had been able to capture and imprison the demon beneath Akrankhot, in a cage made of all the metal that could be gathered, because only massive amounts of enchanted metal could hold Tallik fast.
And there he had waited.
Waited for someone to come along, so that he could reach out, take over that one’s mind, use that one to find others, any who could muster the necessary effort to dismantle Tallik’s prison and let him loose.
Aric shook his head, trying to clear it of images from the past and pay attention to what was going on around him. His skin crawled from the briefest contact with Tallik. He wanted to scour himself with gritty sand, to scrub off any traces of the evil he had touched, the vicious nature of the demon coming through Kadya and into him. Tallik feasted on fear and hatred and death. Life and happiness were as repugnant to him as the demon was to Aric. But Kadya was saying something. Aric made himself listen.
“… will look into your concerns, of course, Aric. After all, we have you to thank for finding the metal in the first place. But I don’t believe we have anything to fear. The young lady was probably confused. Not all dreams, after all, mean anything. Even for such a one as her.”
“Good,” Aric said, “that’s good.” But he hadn’t removed his hand from the iron bar, and neither had she. Another thought flashed into his mind—not an image this time, just words ringing in his head with utter clarity. There was no mistaking their source.
It’s past time to have some soldiers kill Aric and his friends—especially these new friends. He’s served his purpose, and now he’s just getting in the way.
The “voice” he heard in his head was Kadya’s. But behind it was something else—something he recognized as the presence of Tallik.
The demon had already possessed the templar. He controlled her now. She was having his cage torn apart as quickly as she could, in order to completely free him.
And all of this due to Aric’s own efforts. Could he ever be forgiven? Could he ever forgive himself? He should kill her right now. He almost reached for his sword, then stopped. He didn’t know enough about this sort of thing, but he didn’t believe that killing Tallik’s host would mean killing Tallik. It would likely just move into someone else.
Once more, he was faced with the reality that one person couldn’t change anything on Athas; his action, or Kadya’s death—neither would accomplish anything. Her soldiers would kill him on the spot, and the demon would survive.
Uneasily, he drew his hand away from the iron bars. “Th-thank you, Kadya. I-I’ll go now.”
He barely made it through those simple statements, and he turned away before she had dismissed him, hurrying back to Ruhm, Myrana and Sellis. Instead of speaking, he beckoned, and they hurried back into the city. Finding a secure place inside one of the large buildings on the grand avenue, he told them what he had seen.
“You have to put your trust in dreams, Myrana,” he said at the conclusion. “I put mine in steel. If I touch steel, I can often learn things about whoever last handled it. And if I touch it while someone else is, I get a peek inside that person’s mind. In Kadya’s, there’s a terrible darkness, and there’s Tallik, the demon. I could hardly sense Kadya in there at all.”
Myrana sat on the large room’s tile floor, her back against a whitewashed wall that had only browned slightly over the years. “Then we are too late!” She buried her face in her hands. “And now she wants to kill you, because you know!”
“She wants to kill us all,” Aric corrected. “Not just me. Even our friend Amoni, a mul slave who’s helping to bring the metal up from below.”
“Her soldiers will have to kill me first,” Sellis said. “And they’ll find that’s no simple task. Come on, Myrana, we’ve done what we came here for. Let’s get away from this forsaken city.”
Myrana dropped her hands and stared at Sellis in surprise. “Leave now? We didn’t come just to give warning, Sellis. At least, that’s not what I believe. We came to help if we were able.”
“But if it’s too late to help—”
“We don’t know that. If there’s any way to stop this demon, this Tallik, we have to try.”
“I don’t think we can stop him, Myrana,” Aric admitted. “Even if Kadya wasn’t against us. I think he has too great a foothold for that. Too much of his cage has been destroyed, and none of us are sorcerer enough to put it back together.”
“Then all is lost?”
“Not necessarily, although time is short. We need to leave here, race back to Nibenay, and warn the Shadow King.”
“Him?” Ruhm asked. He snorted. “Probably already knows. That’s why he sent us.”
Aric couldn’t allow himself to believe that. “When I saw him, spoke to him, I didn’t have that impression, Ruhm. I think he sincerely wanted the steel, for its own sake. I’m not saying others in his court didn’t know, but I don’t think he did. I don’t even think Kadya did, until we were here.”
“What can he do?” Myrana asked. “If he is willing to help?”
“He’s the most powerful sorcerer in the Ivory Triangle,” Aric said, hoping it was true. “If it takes sorcery to re-imprison Tallik, he’s the one who can do it.”
“Do you know what kind of damage such sorcery would cause?” Sellis asked. “The whole of the Crescent Forest might be destroyed.”
“But if the other choice is a demon as fearsome and powerful as Tallik seems to be, then that’s no choice at all,” Aric countered. “We lose a forest, but we save the world?”
“I doubt the choice is that stark,” Sellis said.
“You haven’t seen Tallik, or … felt him. I think Myrana’s right. He’s unbridled evil, and as strong as any force I’ve ever heard of. If I’m wrong about Nibenay, if he refuses to help—or can’t—then we … I don’t know. We find a Veiled Alliance chapter, and see if they can summon the necessary magics to defeat Tallik.”
“I’m with Aric,” Myrana declared. “We strike out for Nibenay. Should we go now?”
“We need to let Amoni know,” Aric said. “She’s in as much danger as the rest of us. And her strength will help us survive the journey back to Nibenay. We’ll get to Amoni, and then tonight, once it’s dark—that’s when we’ll leave. We’ll slip away from the soldiers standing guard, and they won’t even know we’re gone until morning.”
“Assuming she doesn’t send them to kill you before that,” Sellis reminded him.
“Right,” Aric agreed. “Assuming that. We have no other choice, though, so that’s a chance we’ll just have to take.”
“The other choice is that we leave now.”
“We can’t leave Amoni to be killed. I’m sorry, Sellis. Go if you must. But for me, that’s no choice at all.”
XIII
Night Travels