The demon king, p.39
The Demon King, page 39
“You may think nothing of our laws,” Cyla growls back, heedless of the danger, “but they are everything.”
“They are everything because laws that criminalize Eaters let your families steal our demons, our property, our very right to exist, all to cement your power. Don’t pretend you have any moral authority after you’ve reduced your son and heir to a pale shadow when once he shone like the sun.”
“How dare you…” Cyla takes a step forward, and Mirella moves to match it.
Garos gives a great moan, throwing himself awkwardly between them. He stumbles, but Mirella catches him. He’s trembling, weeping openly, and shaking his head. “No, no, no. Not for me, ’Rella. Not for me.”
Mirella’s face twists with pain, but she throws her arms around him, the rage in her aura turning into something else as she kisses his tears away even as her own streak her cheeks.
Chapter 35
Zegan
Folk miss things sometimes. Things they might’ve noticed, if they bothered to look. If they gave everything their attention.
Ent their fault. Most folk can ignore their senses when they want, or when their attention is elsewhere.
We can’t.
Cyla din’t know there was demon ichor in Mirella’s mouth when she kissed her husband. Don’t reckon anyone did, apart from me and Cirene. If they noticed the flush in his aura, expect they chalked it up to a man who ent been kissed in a while.
Likewise, everyone, even Cyla, turns their attention away, made uncomfortable by the scene. No one’s paying attention to poor old Garos as Mirella slips some mind demon finger bones into his hand.
Think for a moment that Garos won’t know what to do with them, but there’s new lucidity in his eyes as he slips them into a pocket and conceals their glow with his body.
Cirene feels a touch of hope, then pushes it down with an iron will.
Hope ent a jinx, I think at her. And despair ent a blessing.
Let us walk between them, then, Cirene thinks back.
“Dawn is approaching,” Janas says. “At this time of year we will have perhaps nine hours of sunlight to reclaim parts of the city, offer protection to the surviving citizens, and join our forces.”
“Bring everyone here,” Cyla offers without hesitation. “There is no safer place in Hive.”
“Perhaps,” Yushi says.
Cyla looks at him, but Janas answers. “First, we wish to see Zegan.”
“Absolutely not,” Cyla says.
“The court has the right to investigate the prisons of any mind,” Janas reminds her.
“And you still think you rule the court?” Cyla asks. “With your dark spire and your escaped mind?”
“Sounds like she’s got something to hide,” Velena whispers to Xevia. Only it ent really a whisper. She meant for everyone to hear it, and they do.
“You have an Eater’s stink on you, child,” Cyla tells her. “Your great-uncle must be very proud.”
Velena shrugs. “He’s not so great. And if you really have Zegan captive, why not prove it?”
“She’s afraid we’ll try to Eat him, dear.” Mirella licks her lips. “If there’s one thing the court fears, it’s someone doing to them what they did to us.”
“Enough.” Yushi’s command is so deep we feel it vibrate in our bones. “You are right, Cyla. I am not proud. But my niece is correct. We cannot reposition our forces here without proof you have your mind under control.”
“His brothers will come for him,” Olive warns. “It’s in all our interest to guard against that.”
Cyla considers. Hard to get a read on her. Judges are good at keeping their auras under control, but it’s more than that. Usually we can smell emotions on folk, but not here. Don’t think Cyla’s the type to be taken by her feels—she’s calculating. Right now, the other Judges need Cyla more than she needs them, but she does need them, or else she’s going to be trapped in a lone spire surrounded by a sea of demons.
“All right,” she says at last.
* * *
—
This time the lift makes us feel like the air’s squeezing us in a fist as we descend far too quickly to the base of the spire and below, traveling deep into the bedrock. Don’t mind being underground, but don’t understand how “normal” folk just shrug away that fast a pressure change.
Like emotional burdens, somehow sharing the feeling is easier than doing it apart. I can feel the pressure on Cirene’s body, hugging every contour and curve, just as she feels it on me. It’s strangely intimate, and any guilt or shame over liking the feeling is shared and lessened as well.
Then we come to a halt, and the doors slide open. Zegan guards line a hall not dissimilar to the one in Spire Shamosk. Like then, Cirene and I are sneaking, and I’m glad of it. I feel uneasy down here.
We follow the crowd down the halls, keeping close enough to slip through doors before they close, but far enough to keep anyone from bumping into us.
Zegan’s cell looks exactly like Shamosk’s, down to the last ward. Reckon they don’t just give you a mind demon and trust you know the care and feeding. Every spire probably has a cell like this, even the ones ent got a mind yet. Hopefuls, Velena called them.
We can sense the powerful coreling inside the cell. Hear the scrape and clatter of his chains, feel the rise and fall of his skinny chest.
“There,” Cyla says, opening a viewing panel in the heavily warded door. “As promised.”
Janas, Yushi, Xevia, and Olive peer in, but we don’t need any of that. Our senses are so attuned we can practically see through the walls. Sounds and vibrations and smells and tastes combine with the magic the creature radiates to give a clear picture of the creature chained within the cell. Sorry to say I’m learning to know mind demon smell pretty well. Zegan’s got his own flavor, but there’s no mistaking what he is.
Janas’ fingers tighten on their weapon. “Open it.”
“Why?” Cyla demands. “You can see it.”
“Either the demon is chained, or he is not,” Janas says. “The others somehow slipped their bonds. Why not this one?”
“I added more bindings,” Cyla says. “I am not a fool.”
“Show us, then,” Yushi insists.
Cyla looks around. Can’t blame her for wantin’ to keep the cage shut, but her bargaining position’s worse down here, not better. She has dozens of Watch on this level, but not enough to take out six Joined and a couple powerful Eaters. She might do it herself with the power at her fingertips, but loosing such power could bring the whole spire down around her ears.
Cyla nods after a moment, pricking her finger on the blood lock sealing the demon in its cell. Janas, Yushi, and Xevia raise their weapons defensively as they enter the cell. All of them have their minds warded, but coreling princes are stronger’n they look and have other powers. Underestimate them even for a second and it can be too late.
Olive has her shield on her arm and a spear in hand. It looks for a moment like Cyla will bar her entry, but then she seems to shrug and allows it. She does try to bar Mirella, but Cirene’s mam goes slippery and is in the room before Cyla knows what happened.
Zegan is curled into a fetal position on the floor. He is manacled hand and foot, in addition to a collar and a band of warded electrum around his waist. Each of these is connected by thick electrum chains to Drains in the wall. We can see the massive amounts of magic flowing through them to power the spire.
Everyone fans out, examining the demon’s chains from every angle. All are tense and ready for an attack, but they can see the magic being siphoned from the demon as well as we can. Wouldn’t be working if the wards weren’t right.
Folk miss things sometimes. Especially when they ent looking for them. Zegan looks right. Smells right. Sounds right. But then he shifts, and there’s a liquid ripple inside his body. Not ichor.
It’s a mimic. We share the thought with horror. It means Zegan is still at large—he could be down here with us.
Does Cyla know? Is she deliberately passing off a mimic as a mind in a play for power? Or is this a trap? There’s no way to know.
No one else has sensed it. We have to warn them, even if it means breaking cover.
Cirene makes the decision for me, letting go my hand, quickstepping away, and powering down the wards that kept her hidden. “It’s a mimic!”
Olive gets her shield up in time to cover Janas as well as herself as the mimic slips its bonds and lashes out in all directions, barbed tentacles whipping through the air.
Mirella turns slippery but still gets cut as she rolls out of a tentacle’s path. Another smacks against Olive’s shield. The mimic wards keep the flesh from connecting, but the barbs are magic-dead and unaffected. They’re not able to scratch the warded glass, but the blow knocks Olive and Janas back a step.
Xevia deflects her tentacle with a quick blow from the blunt end of her polearm, then whips the blade around to sever the limb. Judge Yushi takes a different approach, dropping his weapon and grabbing a whipping tentacle in his warded electrum gauntlets. I expect the demon to just melt away, but the Judge knows what he’s doing. The gauntlets stop it from changing, letting him set his feet and pull the limb taut.
Xevia takes the opportunity, severing that limb, as well.
Now that it’s shifting forms, I pick up the mimic’s natural scent. It’s faint, like you might expect from a creature that ent got pores unless it’s copying somethin’ that does. Still, I can place it. Cyla’s mimic. Which means she lied, which means…
Cyla draws an impact ward, knocking Yndros, Tryan, and Velena from their feet. The spire remains lit, probably from all the drones in cages, but without the mimic in the Drain, Cyla’s magic ent got as much pepper as before. Cirene makes her feet go slippery, speeding away from the blast like she’s skating across a frozen pond. She circles back, trying to get into the cell with her mam.
“Guards!” Cyla cries, and Zegan Watch come running down the hall from both sides. They don’t have demons, but their armor is keyed to the spire’s grid and still Draws power.
Feel like I should do somethin’ but I don’t really know what. No one knows I’m here, but that’s an advantage I can only use once. I cast about, trying to see where I would be most useful.
Tryan pumps his legs for half a dozen strides, then leaps as high as the ceiling will allow, arching into the approaching Watch faster than they can draw impact wards to knock him back. The giant man crashes into their neat lines, knocking everyone into disarray as he lays into them with three massive fists.
Opposite, Velena has similarly scattered the Watch from the other end of the hall. Like Cirene, she skates frictionless along the floor, but she turns sticky when she’s in close, using it to wrestle opponents to the ground. Like Tryan, she’s not killing…at least not on purpose, but she ent being gentle, either. Trying to put folk down for the count while we settle things.
Yndros is already warding before he gets to his feet, the mind demon head slung across his back giving him enormous power. Cyla is smashed against one of the walls, but her armor is powered and protects her from the brunt of the impact.
Cirene slips by into the room with the mimic, but Olive’s got that under control. She raises her circlet’s warding field, enhanced by Baadel’s arm, and the mimic is smashed against the cell wall so hard it bursts, turning into an iridescent black liquid that pulses and throbs, like clay tryin’ to mold itself.
The mimic is powerful, though. Too powerful to be squashed to death. Powerful enough to cling to the wall and push against the forbiddance so hard Olive is forced back a step.
“Everyone out!” Olive cries, and the others are quick to obey while the demon is contained. They form a guard around Olive and Janas as they exit and seal the wards on the door of the cell to keep the mimic contained.
There’s a boom from inside. The wards will hold it for a bit, but they ent keyed specifically to a mimic. It will break out eventually.
Mirella goes for Judge Cyla the moment the demon is contained. She’s so fast Cyla doesn’t have time to react as she slips around defenses and gets a hand around Cyla’s throat. Mirella turns the hand sticky as she squeezes and lifts Cyla off her feet entirely, where even magically strengthened limbs lack leverage. “You set us up.”
Don’t know if Cyla means to answer, but all she can do is pull at Mirella’s fingers helplessly as her face begins to purple. Cirene cries out and races to them, but it’s hard to say whether it’s to save her grandmother or help her mother.
Yndros, Tryan, and Velena have the Zegan Watch subdued. The mimic is trapped. Starting to think we might get out of this in one piece.
But then there’s a keening sound that echoes in the halls. Even the normal folk cringe at the high-pitched shriek. Cirene doubles over, covering her ears, and I ent much better.
Instinctively, I trace the sound back to its origin, a spot down the hall where the wall looks a little funny. Strange I din’t notice before. I focus, and see the barest outline of Zegan himself against the wall, hiding with the same kind of magic I’m using.
Everything changes at once. Mirella puts Cyla down and swings into a backhand that takes Cirene off her feet in the same motion. I swallow a cry in my throat at the violence of it, but Cirene is slippery and avoids the full force of the blow. Still, it’s enough to knock her to the ground and send her skidding into the wall. Frictionless, she bounces around until she recovers herself.
Janas turns to Xevia, grabbing her by the shoulder and the belt to lift her from her feet before she can react. They throw, sending Xevia crashing into Yushi as Janas makes a break for the cell door. Olive moves to intercept her, but I can already tell she ent gonna be quick enough. This far off, I can’t get there in time, either.
Gallivar, frozen all this time, finally goes into action. “Protect the Judge!” In a move that surprises everyone, he rushes to stand protectively before his grandmother. Zegan Watch are already recovering, thanks to their charged armor, and alarms in the spire will have more on the way.
Janas opens the cell door before Olive can stop them, and the mimic explodes outward, no doubt under Zegan’s direct control.
It’s chaos everywhere, a dozen little fights, and I don’t fit into any of them, really.
Zegan thinks he’s still hidden. Cloaked in magic that turns away unwanted attention and blends him perfectly against the wall, creating a little patch of peace amid all the violence for him to conduct the battle.
Reckon I can pick a fight there. He’s revealed himself, but I’m still hidden.
Can’t rush it. One ripple in the air and he’ll be onto me, if he ent already. I start edging over so slowly it hurts. Hate lots of things, but going slow is top of the list. Feels like it will take a hundred years to get to the demon at this rate.
Yushi, Xevia, and Olive put their shoulders together as the mimic comes for them. Olive slows it with her circlet, but that doesn’t help when it shifts into some kind of tentacled water demon and sprays them with reeking, magic-dead ink. I remember the story of how she killed Baadel. Looks like Zegan ent taking any chances, marking her before she can try to use her Cloak of Unsight.
The smell is horrendous. All of them manage to shield their eyes, but when they look back, the demon has torn the door from the cell and hurled it right at Olive.
She gets her shield up, striding ahead of Yushi and Xevia to deflect the missile. It probably saves their lives, but Olive is sent flying into the nearest wall, and the others still take a painful bruising as the door smashes into them.
Janas has used the distraction to charge Yndros. I can tell he don’t know what’s going on, but he ent ready to punch his mam over it, and who could blame a man for that?
Only Janas ent got the same qualms. They punch him in the throat and slip the knife from their belt, cutting the strap of the sling that holds Baadel’s head across his massive back. They follow through on the pass, almost getting away with the prize, but this time Yndros has made up his mind. Quick as a cat’s slap, he bats the head out of Janas’ hands to roll away down the hall.
Janas growls and comes back at him, knife leading.
Still I edge along the wall, feeling like it’s taking hours when it’s only been a few seconds.
Mirella moves to attack Olive before she can recover, but before she can strike a blow, Cirene tackles her away. “Mother, this isn’t you! It’s the demon! Resist!”
Mother and daughter roll across the ground, and Cirene keeps ahead of the blows, but like Yndros a moment ago, she ent ready to let loose on her own mam.
Down the hall, I hear the lift doors open. The cars are full of untethered demons that charge down the hall, even as the Zegan Watch are getting to their feet. Tryan picks up one officer, throwing him bodily down the hall to crash into the charging pack, but it buys them seconds at best.
Another step. Not nearly enough, as the demons come barreling past me.
Olive is back on her feet, fighting the mimic alongside Yushi and Xevia.
“Velena!” Judge Cyla raises a hand toward Velena, who has made a straight line toward Baadel’s head. Cyla begins to trace a ward in the air, but then Gallivar pivots suddenly, hitting her square on the jaw with the heavy butt end of his spear. She folds, and he is quick to catch her, easing her to the floor as he removes the warded armor and jewels that connect her to the spire’s power.
Unhindered, Velena reaches the head and uses her electrum claws to pop out one of its great black lidless eyes. My night eyes see the eye ablaze with power like Aunt Leesha’s festival flamework. Velena squashes the gelatinous thing into her mouth, hardly bothering to chew as she chokes it down.
