Laurell Hamilton - Nightseer

The green strode forward to help. The sword sang in her hands, eager. The demon was not much taller than Keleios. Smooth ivory horns added to its height. It tried to move past Keleios toward Eroar, as if her drawn sword were nothing. She had to step in front of the demon and bar its way before it looked at her.

“Be gone, little female.” “Stand and fight, damn you,” she said.

The demon sighed. “Very well.” It turned pupilless yellow eyes full upon her. “I will kill you first.”

It swiped at her with ivory claws and Ache silvestri met the hand and sliced it. The demon’s other hand came out of nowhere and slammed into the side of Keleios’ head. She fell, dazed. She heard the demon bending over her. The sword screamed, “Get up!” Keleios tried, but hands gripped her wrists and jerked her upright before she could move. The sudden movement sent the room spinning. Something was crushing her wrist and she opened her hand with a small gasp. Ache silvestri clattered to the floor.

“Can you see me, little female?”

Keleios blinked into the yellow eyes of the demon. She was on her knees with wrists pinned between the demon’s smooth-scaled hands. “Too late to call magic, too late to use your pretty sword.” He bent close to her face and flicked out a crimson forked tongue. “Time to die.” The skin of her hands began to itch where he touched them, then to burn.

A green sore, like mold, appeared on her right hand. The demon released her, shoving her backward. Memories of the assassin’s death flashed through Keleios’ mind. Of his flesh melting away. She stared as the green mold grew over her fingers, burning, itching, but no pain, not yet. It flowed over her skin like water and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The palm of her left hand jerked, as if a muscle had spasmed. The sickness stopped spilling over her hand. It didn’t go away, but it stopped spreading.

Eroar had his back to the wall. A barrier of fire kept the ice demon at bay, but the slime began to slide through the fire as if it were nothing. The plague demon just stood watching, arms crossed, back to Keleios.

A warmth, almost a fire heat started in her left palm over the demonmark. The heat rushed up her left arm and down her right until her right hand felt like it was on fire. The green spreading began to fade, as if the skin were absorbing it, the way a healer healed wounds. When the last bit of disease was gone, the burning began to fade and flow back into her left hand. Demon magic against demon magic, that was what Lothor had called it. But there was no time to marvel at her healed flesh. Eroar was pressed against the wall, backing away from the demons. They were not giving him enough time to call another spell, and what could he call? One feared fire, the other cold.

Keleios scooped Ache silvestri from the floor and rushed forward. The green demon heard her, and turned with a smile on its face. “Well, little female, are you not dead yet?” The blade took him through the ribs and up into the chest. The smile died on his face and he stood frozen while the blue glow ate over his body and up the hilt onto Keleios’ hands. She didn’t fight it this time; she welcomed it, drank in the power, let it wash over her and the sword. Ache silvestri cried, “We bring death to our enemies.”

The demon’s body sank to the floor with the sword still embedded in its chest. Keleios turned to the other demons with wisps of blue fire still clinging to her hands. If she did not struggle against it, swallowing a demon’s essence did not take very long.

Eroar was fighting both demons and being forced back. Keleios sent a burst of cold into the pudding, and it began to shamble toward her. She set her hands together, lightly touching at fingertips and base of hand, and thought of cold, the cold that numbs, that freezes the air in lungs until it burns. She drew pure cold in her mind—not snow, not ice,

only cold—until the ache of it began to seep through her hands. The pudding was only feet before her when she opened her hands like a flower budding, until only the base of her hands touched, and cold came. It flowed like an icy wind to the demon. It slowed and stopped him. As the demon realized the danger, he tried to escape, but he was cold, so cold. He couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Still the cold came.

It was Eroar who broke the spell, shutting off the cold. “It is dead. Release your hold on the spell.”

Keleios blinked at him, and broke the spell stiffly, and was surprised to find she had slipped to her knees. The slime stood like a column of dirty ice in front of her. “The ice demon is dead; let us rescue the others and begone.”

She stood and began to flex her body. She had never been so stiff. There was a sound like a whimper or a quiet scream. Tobin crawled toward them. His body shook as if with ague. Keleios knelt beside him, smoothing back his hair, telling him, “You’re safe now, Tobin.”

He said nothing, but his eyes were haunted when they looked at her. He collapsed with a cry and clung to her for a moment, then pulled away and straightened. Keleios could feel him going through his control exercises. “I am a prince of Meltaan; I am a journeyman sorcerer, a visionary; I am Tobin.” He stood straight and proud and said, “I know where Master Lothor is.”

“Very good, lead us.”

It was then that he seemed to notice his nakedness or perhaps he recovered enough of his self to worry about it.

Eroar fetched his armor, and while he dressed, they turned to other problems.

She walked without Eroar’s aid, but it cost. “Urle’s forge, but I’m shaky.” She stood over the dead green demon. The tip of the silver sword pointed from its chest. Keleios bent to retrieve the sword but it struggled free itself and lifted to her hand.

It was free of blood once more, steam still rising from the blade where the blood had been heated away. She sheathed Aching Silver but left the lock off.

Tobin was fully dressed and belted his sword in place. Poth came out from under the rack, and a small skittering sound said Groghe had, too.

She asked Tobin, “Is Lothor in the far corridor?”

“Yes.”

She motioned for him to lead, and they set off.

They approached the far corridor quietly; Tobin had assured them that there were more demons about. The far corridor was short, straight, and lined with cells. Keleios peered round the corner and froze as a succubus appeared and entered the open door of one cell. She ducked back around, leaning on the wall, “The succuba still play. What are we to do? They could be eating his soul.”

The sword bobbed in its sheath. “If I may suggest, I hold a greater demon in me. The succuba would obey him.”

“Yes, but you hold his soul, or essence, not him.” “But you are my wielder. If you desire it, you may have his knowledge, his power for a time.”

“How?”

“You merely call him as if he were a spell.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have heard of such things,” Eroar said. “Enchantments that eat souls can sometimes loan those souls to others for a time, and a price.”

She stared at the Dragonmage. His dark face remained impassive; he might have been speaking of the weather, rather than using the souls of greater demons. “How safe is it?”

“It is like most spells—the success or failure depends upon how strong willed the person calling the magic is.”

Tobin said, “But she is taking in the ... essence of a demon. Doesn’t success also depend on how strong willed the demon is?”

“It does,” Eroar said.

“Don’t do it, Keleios,” Tobin said.

“I have to do something. It is only a matter of time before something worse than succuba visit these cells, or they discover the bodies.”