Терри Брукс - Tanequil

Relieved of its disguise and free to depart, it went out the window. It was three stories up, but since it had come in by climbing the wall, it had no difficulty leaving the same way. Using its claws to grip the stones, it went down like a lizard, crawling and skittering until it was back on the ground. From there, it scurried across the grounds and through the shadows to the edge of the compound, went over the wall, and faded into the night.

It had been in the city for the better part of a week, making itself familiar with its new surroundings. After coming out of the Forbidding, it had acted quickly to eliminate the human who had facilitated its crossing, absorbing it as a sponge would water, consuming flesh and bones and blood, but assimilating its memories and traits and keeping the skin to disguise itself. The Moric was a demon, but it was a changeling, as well. While most changelings could only pretend at being other creatures, however, the Moric could actually devour and become them. It was a useful ability, particularly here, in this world, where it would have been quickly noticed otherwise.

The woman's death had assured its secrecy, and her skin had given it a way out of the Druid safehold. Too many magic users resided there for the Moric to feel comfortable. It was powerful, but no match for large numbers. Besides, it had taken what it needed from the Druids. Misguided and corrupt, they had yielded to the temptations offered them and unwittingly opened the door that imprisoned it. So desperate were they to indulge their own greed that they had never stopped to think what it was they were really doing. How easily manipulated they had been! First the woman whose skin it inhabited, then those who shared her hatred of the one human it feared. Had she not been betrayed and sent into the Forbidding to take its place, it would still be locked away in the world of the Jarka Ruus. But the cunning and deception of the Straken Lord had deceived them all, and so for the first time in centuries, a demon was free.

Still, it would all be for nothing if the Moric did not accomplish what it had been sent to do. The human Dunsidan was the key. The Moric hadn't known as much when it had come to this city, its plans not yet fully formed, its intent for the most part to find a way to make use of its human disguise.

But yesterday it had discovered the project the human Dunsidan had sought to keep secret. It had learned of the weapon he had built and the hopes he harbored of using it against other humans. The Moric had watched as the man in charge played with the crystals. It had watched as Dunsidan used the weapon, burning through thick metal, twisting and destroying entire slabs in seconds. There was something of interest. The human thought to use the weapon as a tool of war. The Moric was not so shortsighted.

The city was sleeping, and the Moric was able to pass freely down its streets and alleyways. The few humans it encountered never saw it. It climbed the walls or hid in the darkness and waited for them to pass. It could have killed them easily and would have enjoyed doing so, but it was there for a different purpose and would not allow itself to be distracted. Its value lay not only in its adaptability, but also in its single–minded determination. There would be plenty of time for killing humans later, when its task was complete.

When it reached the entrance to its hiding place, it glanced around to be certain it was alone before going down through the grates. The smells of the sewer were sweet and welcome, and it hastened to reach the cold, dark catacombs through which they tunneled. It was the one place in that wretched world that reminded it of its own. It could feel at peace there. It could find comfort. One day, it promised, everything would be just like that.

The darkness was thick and deep beneath the earth, within the tunnels, and the Moric found a shelf submerged in several inches of fetid water and sewage and settled down to sleep.

They were still miles away when Grianne saw the fortress for the first time. It sat on a plateau that fell away hundreds of feet from a huge mountainside. Silhouetted against the empty horizon, black and stark within a swirling mix of gray mist and low–hung clouds, the fortresses' towers and parapets jutted sharp and hard–edged from the mottled rock as if they had blossomed like a cancer.

It was a huge, sprawling complex. She stared at it from the bed of straw on which she lay, her chains clanking softly as she rolled and swayed with the pitch of the wagon in which she was caged. They were moving in the direction of the fortress, and she felt certain that it was their destination. Whoever had made her a prisoner would be waiting there. She contemplated what that might mean as the strange caravan rolled on, the bull beasts snorting and huffing from their exertions, the wolves surging past in flashes of gray ruff and snarling muzzles, the creaking of ironbound wheels and leather harness mingling with the staccato snapping of whips and the odd croaking of wagon drivers she could not see. Dust filled the air, thick and choking, and she smelled its dryness and age. It made her choke, and she buried her face in her shoulder to breathe. Her body ached from being shackled, and her head throbbed from the ingestion of grit and the stench of the animals.

Once, when she was looking in the right direction, she saw the strange creature that seemed in charge of the little procession, its oddly elongated face peering in at her, topknot of coarse black hair swaying with its steps, bearded face intense and bright–eyed with interest. It did not speak to her as it had the first time it had approached, merely studied her a moment before moving on.

Exhausted and sick at heart, she dozed for a time, and when she woke again they were climbing a long, winding ramp that led to the fortress. It looked even bigger by then, looming up in a cluster of peaked roofs and crenellated walls, blacker than the soot of a wet fire and sharper–edged than a throwing knife. She sat up, bracing herself against the pitch and roll of the wagon, looking up the rampway to where a pair of massive, ironbound gates had opened to admit them. Creatures that reminded her of Weka Dart in the way they carried themselves scurried about on the tops of the walls and along the ramp itself, the metal of their weapons and armor glinting dully. The fortress was heavily defended, whoever its lord, and the only approach seemed to be up the fully exposed ramp.

She was reminded suddenly of Tyrsis, Callahorn's great fortress in the Four Lands. This keep could be a mirror of that one, and she suspected that it was situated on the same plateau in this world as Tyrsis was in her own. The similarities surprised her, and yet she knew that in the divergence of separate histories, some things would work out much the same. The use of geography in choosing natural positions of defense would surely be one.

The gates swallowed them up and closed behind them with a booming sound. Then there were faces all around her, sharp–featured and hungry looking, fringed in coarse hair and dominated by flat noses and pointed ears. Goblins, she realized, though she had never seen one. They had been banished into the Forbidding in the time of Faerie, she had read in the Druid Histories. Some of them grinned unpleasantly, revealing sharp, pointed teeth and black gums. They reached through the bars to touch her. The wolves snarled and snapped angrily at them, as if protecting a meal they would soon enjoy. The drivers she couldn't see flicked their whips and croaked. The air was filled with raucous sounds and fetid smells and, even inside the walls of the keep, clouds of dust.

The caravan rolled to a halt at a central tower, one ringed with walls that were spiked and barbed atop their parapets and through which the mouths of spear launchers protruded like serpent tongues. A flurry of activity announced their arrival as dozens more of the Goblins surrounded the wagons, some bearing lengths of rope and chain attached to slip–nooses and clamps and some bearing weapons. Grianne could no longer hear the snarls of the wolves, — presumably the huge beasts had been locked outside the last wall they had passed through, their task as herders complete.