Patricia Briggs - When Demons Walk

Whenever Dickon had a spare moment from the Reeve’s service he would join them, and Sham began teaching him the basics of magic. She’d spent the better part of the morning trying to show Dickon how to form a magelight. It was a simple spell; Sham could feel the power simmering beneath the man’s frowning face, but he couldn’t use it.

“You think about it too much,” said Sham, exasperated.

“Sorry,” he muttered, wiping his forehead.

“Lady Shamera,” said Elsic, feathering several cords lightly on the strings of the old harp.

“Hmm?”

“Why were demons taken from where they belonged? What was their purpose?”

She sat back in her chair. “It was an attempt to gain more power, I think. There are stories of demons telling their wizard masters the secrets of various spells and runes—though a man who would take the word of a slave on how to modify a spell deserves the death that he doubtless received. More importantly, the demon could act as a reservoir of power—like the flute you found in the trunk, but safer for the mage. The wizard would send it out to kill and...” she hesitated, because he looked so young and innocent, sitting on the end of her bed with the harp nestled in his lap, “... do other things that would generate power for the mage to use.”

“What other ways?” asked Dickon.

“Sex,” answered the young innocent on the bed with a smirk.

“I’m going back to work,” Sham muttered, snatching the book from the seat beside her and opening it with a snap that didn’t do the ancient binding any good. Elsic launched, pointedly, Sham thought, into a child’s ditty, while Dickon began to try again to form light from magic.

It wasn’t opened to the section on demonology, but she began reading anyway. The author was expounding on the difference between male and female wizards. Sham tended to think it was nonsense— she’d never noticed her powers changing with moon and tide, but she had noticed that most such treatises were written by men.

... A woman’s power is bound to her body more strongly than a man’s. Use of strong magics may affect her adversely, so it is better that a woman attend to womanly magics and leave the great spells for her male counterparts ... There are times when a woman’s magic is very strong. When she is breeding her power grows with the child she carries—and childbirth, like death, allows her to perform magics that are far above her normal capabilities.

Sham felt her lip lift in a sneer. “Leave the great spells for her male counterparts” indeed. By the cute little fishes in the tide pools, she’d never heard such nonsense. She threw down the book in disgust and picked up the other one Halvok had given her. She hadn’t opened it yet, having concentrated on demonology, so she began with the first page.

Runes fascinated her, being beautiful and functional at the same time. The wizard who had drawn the pattern book had a fine hand, making it easy to picture the runes as they would look put together. Runes drawn for pattern books were divided in bits and pieces, deliberately kept powerless—otherwise such a book would not be possible. Sham took her time, admiring the precision of each line with the appreciation of having tried to use patterns set less carefully.

Her stomach rumbled, warning of passing time, but she turned one more page—and there it was. The rune that had been marked on Kerim’s back. She scanned the page behind it. Bonding magic, yes, she’d known that. Set to draw from the one so bound and give strength to the rune maker. Right, she knew that too—or had a good idea that was its purpose. Then she stopped, with her finger marking the page.

... can only be set by invitation of the one bound—although that consent need not be explicit and may take the form of strong friendship, physical intimacy, or emotional indebtedness. Thus the maker can brand his loved ones, servants, or bedpartners with this rune without their knowledge.

Sham rubbed her nose and stopped reading. The demon was someone Kerim was close to, or someone who, at the time the rune was set, had the appearance of such a person. Certainly, from what she’d read, the demon could have used its golem body to place the runes.

Fahill, she remembered, was a close friend. He had died about the time Kerim had fallen ill. Could Fahill have died earlier and the golem have taken his place? Or was it someone else?

What she needed to do before anything else was to question Kerim about what had happened at Fahill keep. It wasn’t a task she relished, but it might narrow down the suspects, bringing her closer to the time when she could leave the Castle. Leave him.

It would be best for her if they found the demon soon, then she could go back to Purgatory—or maybe travel a bit.

She stared at the book for several more minutes, before getting restlessly to her feet. Elsic looked up from coaxing harmonic chords from the strings of the harp, but turned his attention back to his music when she didn’t say anything. Dickon was concentrating so hard on the small flicker of light he held in his hand that it would have taken much more than the sound of her movement to distract him.

“I’m going to see if I can coax something from the kitchens. Stay here with Dickon and I’ll be right back,” said Sham. She wanted to talk with Kerim before she discussed her discovery with anyone else.

Elsic smiled and continued playing; Dickon nodded, staring at the lambent spark of magic he held.

Sham went to the door that had replaced the tapestry only the day before. She didn’t expect him to be there—these days he was out more than in—but she didn’t want to wander the halls with the two guards who were on duty at her hall door.

The newly hung door opened without a sound and Sham shut it behind her. She took a step toward the outer door when the creak of leather drew her attention to the bed.

The first thing she noticed was Kerim’s empty chair. She felt an instant of puzzlement before she realized that Kerim was in the bed ... and he was not alone. If she were not mistaken, the slim, silk-clad back rising out of the bedclothes over Kerim belonged to Lady Sky.

It hurt more than she had thought it would. Sham drew in a deep soundless breath. Grace, she cautioned herself as her mother had taught. When life doesn’t meet your expectations, it was important to take it with grace. Her father had said the same, but in a different way: lick your wounds in private so your enemies don’t see where you are vulnerable.

If only, she thought, stepping silently back to her door, If only Sky weren’t so beautiful, weren’t her friend. It made it harder because Sham understood what Kerim saw in Sky.

She turned to leave them alone, when a short phrase made her catch her breath. “Physical intimacy,” the book had read. She hesitated, wondering if her jealousy had affected her thoughts. Lady Sky the demon?

Quickly she found objections to her speculation. Demon hosts were bound with a death rune that could not be removed—killing any offspring of the host body before they develop, and Sky had been pregnant twice in the past two years.

How would a demon counteract a death rune?

— by shielding the child with life-magic. It would require a tremendous amount of power, though the spell itself was not complex. Sky had miscarried after Sham freed Kerim from the demon’s rune, a rune that had drawn life from Kerim.

The ease with which she found the answer shocked Sham into looking for reasons why Sky could be the demon rather than why she couldn’t.

Sky had been near Kerim when Fahill died. From the expressions she’d caught on Kerim’s face, Sham thought that it was possible that there had been some sort of intimacy between them. She was everything a male wizard would want in a demon host, who would be used as a sex partner to raise magic; beautiful, likable and ... in Kerim’s bed. Sham could work out the details later.