Rexei shuddered as those burning streaks of fire were turned toward her. “Thissss . . . boy? You give thissss boy to me?” The other side of Nurem’s mouth quirked up in humor. “I acsssept.”
Reveal yourself! Now!
SEVENTEEN
The shout, in Guildra’s voice, spurred Rexei into pushing to her feet. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say, then seized on the word boy. “I’m not a boy! I’m not a young man, either,” she added firmly as Torven scowled at her. She didn’t know why her Goddess wanted her to do this, but she quickly worked on the buttons of her trousers as she continued. “I’ve never been a male—all this time, you’ve been duped by a woman!”
Whirling around, she dropped her trousers, pulling down her undershorts as well, and mooned Torven, the demon, and over half of the ex-priests. The look on Elcarei’s shocked face was worth the fear that she would be brutalized for her revelation, but it was the demon’s response that caught everyone’s attention. Nurem snarled, hissing at her with jaws that gaped four times as wide as any human’s, revealing nested rows of too-sharp teeth lining that unhinged jaw. He clawed at the bubble-sphere separating his universe from theirs and glared at her as she hastily yanked her pants up and faced him again, fumbling to get everything buttoned back in place.
Beyond him to the left, she could see Torven, his palm scraping slowly down a face screwed up in a grimace of rage. “Stupid . . . moronic . . . ! Why didn’t anyone check to make sure she wasn’t a she?!”
“What does it matter?” Elcarei called out. “Feed her to the demon!”
“The demon has already accepted a male sacrifice, that’s why!” Torven yelled back, whirling to face the middle-aged, blue-robed priest. “If we feed her to him now, he’ll be able to break the bindings and escape our contr—”
BANG bam POW! Tufts of munitions smoke puffed out from the passageways. Priests and apprentices cried out in pain, some dropping with hands clasped to reddish stains, others whirling to confront this new danger.
“Torhammer!” Elcarei snarled, spotting the captain of the Precinct. Rexei remembered the face of Captain Torhammer from the Consulate meetings, and she felt both worry and relief. The captain was more than competent as a warrior, as were his men, but none of them were mages like the priests in this chamber.
“You!” Bishop Hansu accused, pointing at a younger man with brown curls, green viewing lenses, and a distinctive pointed nose, one which Rexei knew she would’ve remembered if she had ever seen him lurking around the temple. She wondered who he was, if Hansu could be so upset at his presence among all others.
Others appeared all around; she recognized the chief leftenant, Rogen Tallnose, but most of the others she didn’t know. She loved them, however, for most had hand-cannons pointed at the priests, and hopefully some hadn’t wasted their only shot. The ones who weren’t in leather-and-plate-armored coats were somehow casting energies from their hands, some of them female like her.
“Retreat!” Archbishop Gafford shouted. “Full retreat!”
Those that could still move whirled and ran for the mirrors displaying those odd views. Inside his bubble-sphere, Nurem hissed and clawed at the membrane separating their worlds; he lost the shape of his semi-handsome form, resuming the same horrific monster visage as before. Backing up from that side of her own bubble-ward, Rexei turned and pressed her hands against the shield, striving to hear the tones it made so that she could match them and slip through.
Before her hands could do more than sink wrist deep into the shield, a woman in steel armor and an open, black-lined cloak cleaved through the air between herself and Rexei with a mirror-bright sword. Though her long blade cut nothing, touched nothing but air, entire sections of paint were somehow flung off the stone floor. Rexei knew the woman. Knew her name was Orana . . . something. Orana Niel. But Rexei had no context as to how she knew the other woman, other than having seen her face somewhere. Whatever spell had been used to cut out chunks of her memory had been very concise in some areas and a bit vague in what it removed from others. The demons, she knew about; her chosen Goddess, she had always known. But . . .
“You! Longshanks! You planned this!” Torven accused, making Rexei turn around to see what he was up to. He was doing something with a small sack of powder pulled from the pouch strung on his belt. Scattering it in a circle, he called out over his shoulder. “Well, guess what, Guild Master of the new priesthood? I’m leaving this mess for you to clean up! Bazher faroudoel!”
Light flared up from the powder and the mage somehow dropped down out of sight.
She has the words. You have the will.
Rexei knew that was a message from her Goddess, but she didn’t know what sort of a message it was. The sphere trapping Nurem inside the ward-circle was starting to bulge; he had somehow regained the half-handsome, half-humanoid shape from before, but his claws were pushing against the soap bubble of the Veil, deforming it in an effort to tear through. Another slash of the sword behind her popped the bubble capturing and confining Rexei . . . just as three of the mirrors exploded, making people yelp.
“Champion!” Captain Torhammer called out. Two more mirrors popped. “What’s going on?”
“They’re destroying the mirror-Gates!” Orana called back. “And with the primary demon summoner gone, it’s going to be difficult to get the Veil resealed.”
“. . . Guildra said you have the words,” Rexei said, turning to face Orana. The last two mirrors exploded as well. She flinched but continued, “And that I have the strength. But I don’t know what words.”
“Ah. Just a moment . . .” She shifted her two-fisted grip on the sword and dug one gauntlet-covered hand into the robe’s sleeve. “Where is it . . . where is it . . .”
A sickening pop behind them made Rexei whirl around. The Veil-bubble was gone. For a moment, the demon-Monster returned, swelling to fill the containment sphere, then Nurem controlled himself, shrinking down to merely twice as tall as a human this time. “I willl have my sssacrificssse, sssweetling,” he hissed, and liiiicked the transparent magic that was all that held him in place. “The agreement wassss made.”
“Bullshit,” Ora muttered. She pulled out a scroll and pushed it at Rexei, who fumbled to take it and untie the ribbons holding the aged parchment and sticks together.
“Priessstling withhh a sssword, are you?” Nurem hissed, looking more amused than enraged. “You thhhink you can sssstop me?”
The containment wards started to stretch. Below them, the lines of paint started to bulge and move. Rexei gulped and yanked at the ribbon holding the scroll shut. Orana stepped up next to Rexei, sword now resting on her shoulder, her free hand on her armor-plated hip. She gave the demon a contemptuous look. “I have slain a God, little beast. The former God of this land. I will slay you if need be . . . but your demise will be swifter and more final at the hands of a true priestess of this land.”