Lisa Shearin - The Trouble With Demons

Piaras looked at Mychael in disbelief. “They failed?”

“Eaten away from inside over the past few days,” Mychael said. “And our best spellweavers haven’t been able to repair them.”

“Meaning that there’s nothing between me and the souls inside the Saghred,” I told Piaras. “I’ve spoken with my father-and with Sarad Nukpana. Through dreams at first, then in a more direct way, like a voice in my head.”

“Piaras, have you had any dreams about Sarad Nukpana?” Mychael asked quietly.

Piaras swallowed hard, and the pulse throbbed in his throat. That told me all I never wanted to know. Sarad Nukpana was a master of lies, but he hadn’t lied to me about Piaras. The goblin had been inside Piaras’s head while he slept and influenced him while he was awake. He’d taken the first steps to carrying out his threat. He’d made his move, now he expected me to make mine. Get the Scythe of Nen, get him out of the Saghred. If I refused, Piaras’s fate-and his blood-would be on my hands.

I forced myself to stay calm. “Do you remember any of your dreams?”

“Not really. I remembered that I didn’t like them…” Piaras shook his head. “But I don’t remember what he told me.” He hesitated. “Or what he did.” Hesitancy turned to horror, but not panic. “What did he do to me?”

Piaras was keeping his head, or at least trying. The next time Sarad Nukpana put in an appearance in my dreams, I would find a way to strangle him.

“He may be influencing your actions,” Mychael told him.

Piaras was silent for a few heartbeats. “What I did tonight?”

“You’re good with a blade,” I told him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetie, but you’re not that good. You were fighting two-on-one, and those embassy guards were doing their best to divide and distract. You didn’t fall for it.”

Piaras drew a deep breath; it shuddered as he exhaled. “In practice I still fall for it, don’t I?”

I nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, you do. And when one of them attacked, you didn’t drop your guard against the second one. You kept your vitals covered and your blade moving.”

“But I’ve been working on that in lessons,” he protested.

“And how is it going?” I knew and so did Piaras. As if what Sarad Nukpana had done to him wasn’t enough, now I was making him admit that he wasn’t a good enough fighter to have survived on his own tonight. But the first step to surviving Nukpana was for Piaras to realize just how much danger he was in. No doubt Sarad Nukpana had wanted him to kill that elven Guardian and all of those embassy guards. And no doubt Taltek Balmorlan and the elven ambassador would have come up with a perfectly good reason why their guards were wearing Guardian uniforms-and an even better reason to charge Piaras with five murders.

Piaras’s jaw clenched. “I fought better tonight than in my lessons, didn’t I?”

“A lot better.”

His gaze became distant. “When I disarmed Sir Jari, I knew you were there,” he told Mychael. “But I just couldn’t let him go. Everything was blurry, like I was there, but not really. Some part of me wanted to kill him.”

Change of plan. I was going to kick Sarad Nukpana in the balls, then I’d strangle him.

“There is a way to confirm that Nukpana was responsible,” Mychael told him. “If you would allow me.”

Piaras stood firm. “Do whatever you have to.”

Mychael went to stand in front of him and put his hand on Piaras’s forehead like he was checking for a fever. Mychael didn’t close his eyes, and neither did Piaras. After a few moments, Mychael’s lips tightened into a thin, tense line. I didn’t have to hear the word to know what he’d just thought. My own vocabulary choice was even more colorful.

Piaras didn’t move. “He’s been in my mind, hasn’t he?”

“He has.”

Piaras didn’t say anything else, but the emotions flowing over his face more than did the talking for him. Fear, helplessness, exhaustion, and rage were all there in spades. Piaras had been on the run with me since this whole crapfest had started. He wanted it to be over with, he wanted the people after him to leave him alone-the kid wanted his life back. All of those would work for me, too.

“But I was the one who killed that embassy guard,” Piaras all but whispered. “Sarad Nukpana didn’t have anything to do with it. I know he didn’t. I’d just conjured the bukas. The guard was trying to kill me to make them go away. Sir Jari and the other two were coming at me. When a buka roared, the guard was distracted. I lunged.” He looked like he was about to be sick. “I killed him.”

“Before he could kill you,” Mychael said. “It was self-defense.

In another second it would have been three on one. You eliminated a threat to survive.”

Piaras ran a hand over his face. “From live threat to dead in the street.”

“You did what you had to do,” I told him. “You did nothing wrong.”

“The three of them rushed me; I had no choice.” He said it, but he didn’t believe it.

My gut twisted. “No, you didn’t have a choice. Just because Balmorlan wants you alive doesn’t mean those elves wouldn’t have killed you and called it an accident.”

I shot a glance at Mychael. I’d known Piaras for years, but I had absolutely zero experience talking a young man through the guilt of his first kill. As Guardian commander, I hoped Mychael did. He’d better.

“Piaras, do you still want to be a Guardian?” Mychael asked solemnly.

“More than anything, sir. But…” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they were glistening with tears he was determined not to shed.

Mychael gave no sign whatsoever that he noticed. I was glad Piaras wasn’t looking at me.

“But what, Piaras?” Mychael asked.

“I don’t think the Guardians still want me.” He said it so softly I barely heard him. “I killed a man tonight; I wanted to kill a Guardian, I put half the Guardians in the citadel to sleep last week, and most everyone on the island probably still thinks I tried to assassinate the archmagus. People are afraid of me, and some of them are Guardians.” Piaras looked like he was about to be sick. “They don’t need to be afraid of me. I don’t want them to be.”

“Piaras, they were afraid of me, too,” Mychael told him.

“Uh, you’re their commander, sir. Aren’t they supposed to be?”

“I said were afraid. Now I have their respect. Changing from one to the other took time. You’ve only been here two weeks.” Mychael paused. “Piaras, look at me.”

Piaras hesitated a moment and then met Mychael’s eyes.

“The Guardians were established to protect the Conclave, defend the Isle of Mid, and administer justice to any mage who would use his or her powers to bring harm to others. The city watchers are qualified to deal with most cases.” Mychael’s smile was grim. “That leaves the nasty ones for us.”

“Like Sarad Nukpana?” Piaras asked.

“Exactly like him. And one thing you can always count on is that every last one of them will fight back with any weapon at their disposal. Sarad Nukpana is inside the Saghred; that limits his options. He is incapable of physical attack, so he attacks the mind. As a Guardian, you would be trained not only to defend yourself against such attacks, but to strike back and defeat your adversary.”

“But why did he want me to kill Sir Jari?”

“Nukpana’s influence-”

I interrupted. “Mychael, I’m the reason he’s attacking Piaras; I should be the one to tell him why.”

Piaras looked at me in surprise. “You’re the reason?”

I snorted. “I’ve been the reason for everything lately.” I told him about the Scythe of Nen, and why Sarad Nukpana wanted me to find it-and then I told him what Nukpana had threatened to do to him if I refused. He needed to know; I wasn’t going to keep him in the dark.