Patricia Briggs - When Demons Walk

Sham noticed that chalky pieces of mortar were breaking off the straw broom and littering the ground.

“I will speak with you later,” said the High Priest, in obvious dismissal. “Now, I have business to conduct.”

The broom stilled.

“Kidnapping?” queried the little man softly, sounding almost dangerous.

Sham shook her head frantically, but Fykall was looking at the being he must assume was Lord Brath. She wished she could warn Fykall what it was that he faced. She had no wish to see her little broom-wielding defender die.

“She’s a heretic, Fykall,” explained the High Priest reasonably. “She has been working evil in the Castle. I have reason to suspect she has had a role in the recent killings.”

“Ah, but that is for a formal court to decide.” As he spoke, the smaller man walked farther into the room, positioning himself between Sham and the High Priest.

Somehow she failed to feel any safer.

“I am afraid she’s influenced everyone near the Reeve,” expounded the High Priest. “If she hadn’t tried her magics on me, I might never have noticed what she was doing. Can you imagine anyone telling the Leopard that his mistress is an evil sorceress? Or anyone going against the Reeve if he refuses to believe? Then she would be free to do her worst unhindered. It is necessary to be rid of her before she can do any more harm.”

It sounded convincing, even to Sham. She hoped that the priest listened and left the room.

“Who are you?” question Fykall softly.

Sham stiffened in her chair.

The High Priest raised his eyebrows arrogantly. “I am the High Priest of Southwood, little man. Appointed so by His Grace, The Voice of Altis.”

Fykall shook his head before the other finished speaking. “No. You are not Brath.”

The High Priest’s face went blank, as if all the personality the golem had stolen from the man was gone. Sham wondered if it was some choice on the part of the demon or if there was something that the priest had done.

“Yon have a little power, priest—I wouldn’t let it fool you.” Like its face, the golem’s voice had lost the intonation that made it that of the High Priest.

The priest shook his head and Sham heard a thread of joy in his voice as he said, “It is not my power.”

She speculated that he had been indulging in one of the narcotics that were traded in Purgatory like gold: taverweed maybe, since beggar’s-blessing didn’t generally cause delusions of invulnerability.

“You do not have enough knowledge,” commented the golem, in much the same voice it might have used to speak about the weather. Sham noticed that it was starting to look less human and more like what it was.

“It is not knowledge,” said the little man peacefully, “it is faith, and that I have in abundance.” He straightened and held out his hand, palm forward. Speaking in a commanding voice that echoed in the dining hall, he said, “You will give up the essence that you have unrightfully stolen.”

The golem jerked. Its skin blackened and cracked. Its features lost their elasticity and shape, fading into the crude facsimiles that had been formed of clay when it was made. It shrank slightly in size, looking odd in the robes of the High Priest—though certainly no less menacing for all of that.

“Know this,” said the priest, without taking down his hand. “You have soiled this temple with your presence and killed Our High Priest. The High Priest had forsaken his calling long ago and so had no right to call upon the power of Altis. Your desecration of this temple, however, will not be so overlooked.”

“I am not unarmed, priest,” hissed the creature, crouching low and throwing its hand out in a spinning motion.

It was a spell Sham had not seen before and it hit Fykall and forced him to step back. From behind she couldn’t see the effect of the spell, but the little priest swayed like a spider in the wind.

The power of the bindings lessened just a bit, but it was a sign that the demon was turning its attention to other things. She tried another spell, a simple fire spell, to burn the bindings and allow her to help. She knew, even as she cast, that there was not enough power to destroy the bonds ... then something touched her spell and magnified it. The bindings dropped from her hands and feet in ashes.

As she rose the golem began a second spell, one she’d seen before and, almost without thought, she moved to counter it. Tides, she thought, the demon was powerful. It was all she could do to keep the spell from touching Fykall or her.

The priest spoke, his voice hoarse, but steady. “We take from you the power given by the death of Our High Priest.”

The golem cried out and the hardened clay that formed the bulk of its body began to break and crumble: Whole sections fell off the wooden skeleton. As the chunks hit the stone floor they crumbled into yellow dust, revealing the golem’s internal framework. Crudely shaped sticks were bound together by a thin, tarnished silver wire into a mockery of a human skeleton. Its head was a block of wood with a small yellow stone set where a person’s left eye would have been.

Sham watched warily for some new spell, but there was none. The wood began to age, turning first grey, then white. As the fragile substance dried to splinters, the High Priest’s garments floated down to the ground. The yellow gem broke free of the wooden selling and rolled across the smooth floor until it rested several paces away from the pile of cloth.

The priest rested his broom on the floor and looked at the smallish mound that had been the High Priest. Sham worked to untie the knot holding the gag in her mouth. She must have made some noise because Fykall turned to her and, seeing her trouble, proffered her an eating knife from his belt.

As she cautiously slipped the dull blade between the cloth and her cheek, the sound of a group of men moving briskly through the halls penetrated the room. Fykall moved between Sham and the door, standing with his bedraggled broom as if it were a weapon. Another time, Sham was certain she’d have found something funny in that, but after what she’d seen the priest do to the demon’s golem, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see Fykall eliminate an army with nothing but that broom.

Even so. Sham wasn’t unhappy when Talbot burst into the room followed by the Captain of the Guard, a host of Castle guardsmen, and a rather grim-faced Dickon.

When Talbot raised a hand the Captain barked an order and the guardsmen stopped near the entrance, Talbot peered at the two of them warily. It occurred to her that Talbot had no way of knowing if the demon had killed her and replaced her with the golem or not. Since he couldn’t know who the demon looked like now. Talbot must be wondering just who it was he was facing.

Fykall look a step forward, but Sham, watching Talbot’s hand lighten on his sword, gripped the priest’s shoulder. “Gently, Lord Fykall. These men know something of what we faced here—and have no way of knowing that we are who we appear to be.”

Talbot gave her a nod of approval that in no way lessened his alertness and bowed his head quickly toward the priest.

“Why don’t ye tell us how ye came to the Temple, Lady Shamera,” directed Talbot finally, for he was a Southwoodsman, and Sham knew the sight of Altis’ power was almost as doubtful to him as magic had been for Dickon. “—and get rid of that knife while ye talk, would ye?”

Sham grinned and threw the knife so it landed point down on one of the dining tables several yards away, remembering too late that that was a skill the Reeve’s Mistress would not possess. Ah well, she thought, maybe no one would remark upon it in the midst of such doings. Most of the guardsmen, Easterners to a man, were staring uncomfortably at the High Priest’s clothing on the floor.