“Two days later a man came looking for work. He was a soldier, he said, but willing to work in the stables if that were all an old man was good for. As it happened the stable had need of workers, and the man was given the job. He wasn’t big, this man sent by Altis, but perhaps because of that he had spent much time studying fighting skills. He taught the boy—me—how to battle and, more importantly, when. When the Prophet of Altis called upon the people of Cybelle, I went to him and followed where he led. I fought for Altis with the zeal only a boy is capable of; for him I became the Leopard. As you believe that magic is real, so I believe that Altis is real.”
“You don’t have any of the trappings that most of the followers of Altis have,” she commented. “There are no altars in this wing. I have seen how you revere the High Priest Brath.”
Kerim snorted with what might have been a laugh. “Altis is real, but he is not my god anymore. A man learns things with age, if he is lucky. I woke up one morning and saw a field laden with bodies, and listened to His prophet dedicate that bloody field to Altis. I asked myself what Altis had done to deserve the lives of so many and whether he had done me a favor by creating the Leopard who had wrought such carnage. But I finished what I had started, fought to the last battle.
“After it was over—as over as war ever is—the prophet called me to him and told me to ask for a reward. It is not wise to refuse such an offer. Refusing a reward makes the ruler wonder if you are not looking for greater things—like his position.”
Her massage seemed to be having some effect; he wasn’t tensing against the pain and his voice had recovered its normal tone. “I told him to send me somewhere a warrior would be of use. Hurt that I didn’t ask for a position at his side, he sent me here, among the barbarians, if you will forgive the designation, while he rules the glorious Empire from Cybelle.” Kerim turned his head and granted Shamera a wry smile. “Why are you interested in Altis?”
“It occurred to me to wonder if Altis would permit a demon to worship in his temple,” said Sham slowly—though she hadn’t thought of that until he’d been almost finished.
The Reeve considered her words briefly before shaking his head. “I don’t know. I can tell you that there are any number of people who do not worship Altis: the Southwood nobles, like Halvok, Chanford, or even Lady Sky. For that matter most of the servants are Southwoodsmen and there are even a few Easterners, like Dickon, who decided that worshiping gods is a thankless task even before I ...”
Kerim broke off speaking as a wracking spasm took his breath. Horrified, Sham saw the muscles tighten and cramp, worse than it had been before. His back bowed impossibly; she expected to hear the crack of bone.
Discarding mundane methods, Sham traced the lines of the rune of health on his back where the turmoil seemed to be focused. She closed her eyes, seeking to visualize each muscle relaxing, forcing herself to draw the rune slowly so she would make no mistakes. Finished, she straightened, looking with magic-heightened senses at the rune she’d completed.
The symbol glittered in orange and then began to fade, just as it ought. Kerim sighed and relaxed gradually. When only a faint visible trace of the rune left, it flared brightly, fading to a sullen red glow.
“By the winds of the seven sea gods ...” muttered Sham with true perplexity. The rune should have faded completely ... unless the cause was unnatural.
It wants the Reeve more than it has wanted anything in a thousand years. The words of the blind stableboy echoed in her thoughts. The Reeve had begun losing his health near the time that the first slaying started.
Sham watched, thinking furiously, as the symbol darkened to black and Kerim’s back began to spasm once more.
Urgency lending cleverness to her fingers and power to her work, she traced another rune: a warding against magic. As she toiled, she could feel the rune touch a spell of binding that was beyond her ability to sense otherwise. Startled, she worked another spell.
Slowly, as if it were reluctant to show itself, thin yellow lines appeared. A rune drawn on living flesh had more power than was usual for such things, and this one was drawn by a demon. As the curls and line of the rune became clearer, she was able discern a rune of binding—source of the spell she’d detected—though much of it she didn’t recognize.
A harsh sound was driven out of Kerim as the muscles in his back tightened further. She set her hand tentatively on the demon’s rune and began unweaving it. After several attempts, she realized it wasn’t going to work. But there was another way, if she was fast enough and if the demon was slow enough.
Quickly, she began retracing the demon’s rune, displacing the demon’s power with her own and binding the rune to her. She had completed half the pattern, not nearly as much as she needed, when the demon began to steal back its work. It surprised her at first; she hadn’t known that anything could work runes without being present. After only an instant’s hesitation she started adding touches to the pattern, small things, nonsense things, parts of the rune that were wholly hers. Things the demon couldn’t see.
Sweat beaded on her forehead as Sham struggled to break the demon’s hold. For only an instant the demon became caught up in one of Sham’s useless twists, but it gave her time to finish the rough outline of the main rune. The master pattern hers, she was able to dissolve the complications that blurred the simplicity of the rune, small additions belonging to her weaving and the demon’s, destroying the demon’s hold on the binding rune completely.
The moment the demon’s hold broke, Kerim relaxed limply on the sheets. The hand Sham used to push her hair out of her face shook with fatigue. Taking a deep breath, she unworked the last of the rune, leaving Kerim free of any binding. That done, she stared at the room assessingly.
She had expected the demon to come to the chamber, but it had not needed to do so. Magic didn’t work that way. Magic—all magic—was subject to a few laws, one of which was that a mage could only work magic where he was physically present—unless ... the demon had a focus rune in the room.
“Shamera?” questioned Kerim softly, without moving from his prone position.
“Sssh.” She hushed him, staring out at the room.
The rune mark would be somewhere hidden from view, she thought, somewhere a mage wouldn’t he likely to glance at casually. Her gaze fell on Kerim’s wheeled chair. She rolled off the bed and tipped the chair over.
Kerim turned his head at the clatter of the chair hitting the floor. “Shamera? What are you doing?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” she muttered staring at the underside of the chair’s seat.
The focus was easy to find. It was not drawn with chalk or cut into the bottom of the seat as she would have done it, but scribed deeply with magic, invisible to anyone not mageborn.
With a foul comment, Sham pulled aside the fire screen and rolled the chair into the huge fireplace. The flames drew back, as if the very nature of the mark repelled them.
She raised her arms over her head, chanting a lyrical incantation to aid the fire with the force of her magic. The flames grew suddenly brighter, licking with fierce hunger at the chair. Neither the theatrical gesture nor the chant had been necessary, but it suited her mood.
How stupid of her not to consider such an explanation of Kerim’s “illness”, especially after the selkie, Elsic, had practically told her that Kerim was the focus of the demon’s attack. Human magic was not suited for such use, but she had known that she was dealing with a demon. She knew there were creatures that fed upon pain and despair; certainly the demon had not consumed its other victims in a physical sense.