Patricia Briggs - When Demons Walk

“Vengeance?”

Sham shook her head and looked at the bedding. She was tired: too many emotions, too much thinking. “I was once torn from my home, thrown into a strange and dangerous place. I know how she feels. I wanted vengeance, yes, but what I desired more than anything was to go home.”

He covered her hand with his.

She looked at him then, and gave him a small smile. “I could be wrong, but listen and decide for yourself. I thought at first that the only way for the demon to return to its own world would be to find a black mage who could send it back, but the demon would have to make itself vulnerable to the wizard. It would be easier for the wizard to enslave the demon than send it back. Black wizards, by their very nature, are not honorable; if I were the demon I would be hesitant to trust one with my freedom.”

“Wait,” Kerim broke in. “This demon is working magic. Is there a reason that it can’t send itself back?”

Sham nodded. “Black magic is not as easy to control as normal magic because it is stolen by the mage who is using it. To get home, the demon has to open the gate to its world and enter through it. It cannot hold the gate while inside, not with black magic.”

“But you think it has found a way?”

“Yes,” she said.

“But it can’t use black magic to do it.”

“Not black magic alone,” agreed Sham. “But there is another magic the demon could use. There is magic involved in death and life.”

“This has something to do with Sky’s pregnancies?” asked Kerim, following what she said far more closely than she’d expected.

“The magic released at a birthing is close to death magic in power, but it is bound to the woman giving birth—a situation encountered by mageborn women only a certain number of times. So it is not really considered a counter to death magic, which is much easier to effect.” She had known about that magic before, but the old text from Maur’s book had reminded her of it. Not pregnancy but birth generated power.

“If the demon uses childbirth to return home, what would happen to the child?”

Sham met his eyes squarely. “Not being the demon, I don’t know. But if she kills it and the man who fathered it, she would have much more power than by killing people who are not tied to her.”

Kerim took a deep breath. “I seem to remember you saying that demons could not become pregnant.”

She nodded. “A particularly nasty warding spell was used to prevent the host body from conceiving. Like most warding spells, it conserved energy by remaining passive until its activation conditions are met—in this case the onset of pregnancy. When triggered, the spell begins to extinguish the life-force of the unborn child: death magic.”

“But didn’t you say that most spells can only be active for a few weeks without power? Has the power of this spell faded over the hundreds of years the demon has lived?”

“No, that’s why this so nasty. It’s usually reinforced and maintained by life-energies of the demon. However, to avoid draining the host body, when triggered the spell drains life energy from the unborn child.”

“So Sky can’t be the demon?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Not so,” Sham replied. “The demon could form a barrier between the child and the rune to protect it from harm.”

“Then why bind the demon at all?”

“Because the barrier requires enough strength that it would kill the demon’s host body before the child could be born. I think that our demon discovered another way to power the spell. The rune it used was one that allowed it to drain your strength—killing you slowly as it allowed your child to live.”

“Kerim,” she said, leaning toward him. “The rune had to have been set by someone who was close to you, intimate with you. It was set near the time of Fahill’s death. I believe that it was set by Lady Sky, to protect her baby. When I broke the binding, it killed the child.”

Kerim swallowed and she could tell by his face that he believed her. He clenched his hands in the bedclothes. “Poor little waif.”

“The child was doomed anyway,” said Sham softly. “If I’m right then it was intended to be the sacrifice she used to get home.”

She let him absorb it for a while before she continued. “That would explain why she frequents the Castle. Here she has the most choice among men who are well-nourished and healthy. But she can’t stay here long or she risks detection. My master, Maur, ran into a demon hunting in a village once. The Shark believes it might have been Chen Laut, that it ... she killed Maur because he knew what she looked like.”

Kerim didn’t, say anything, so Sham continued speaking. “Elsic said that she was closer to her goal than she had ever been. Southwood has always been a refuge for wizards and sorcerers, and the Castle has usually had the King’s Wizard. Nine months is a long time to hide from a powerful mage. She must have been excited when chance filled the Castle with Easterners who didn’t believe in magic.”

“You seem to think she was trying to bind me again tonight. Since I’m already weakened, what good would that do her?” asked Kerim.

“Revenge,” said Sham softly.

He watched her narrowly for a minute, then said, “What if it isn’t Lady Sky? This is all speculation.”

“I don’t think I’m wrong,” replied Sham. “But, we’ll have to plan for that contingency as well.”

“So what do we do with her?” asked Kerim.

Sham gave a frustrated shrug. “Damned if I know.”

A soft creaking noise from the connecting door drew Sham’s attention and Elsic stepped tentatively through the resulting opening. “Shamera? Is something wrong?”

Shamera felt her jaw drop as an incredible idea came to her.

While she sat stupefied, Kerim answered for her. “She’s fine.” He paused, looking at her thunderstruck expression. “—I think.”

“Sympathetic magic,” muttered Sham, staring pointedly at Elsic. “They use the death of the sacrifice as a source of power—and sympathetic patterning. The sacrifice’s soul returns to its origin like the demon they are sending home.”

“Shamera?” asked Kerim.

She shook her head, still muttering to herself. “It can’t work, it’s too absurd. The demon will never cooperate, it has no reason to believe we’d try it.”

“Shamera?” asked Elsic.

“Kerim? Do you think you could extend my credit at the dressmaker’s?” she asked.

“What?”

“I think I have a plan. I need to find Halvok.” Muttering to herself, she stalked to the door.

When she came back from speaking with Halvok, Kerim had gathered Elsic, Dickon, and Talbot in his room.

“Lord Halvok doesn’t think it will work,” she reported blithely, “but he can’t come up with anything better, so he said he’ll help. Talbot, I’ll need you to accompany me to my dressmaker’s tomorrow morning, if you would.”

“Of course, lassie.”

“Elsic, I’ll need your help as well.”

“Whatever I can do,” he offered, though he was obviously surprised to be of use.

“We haven’t eliminated entirely the possibility that Sky isn’t the demon,” said Kerim slowly. “If she isn’t, will she be hurt by what you’re planning?”

“Not physically,” she said, after a moment of thought. “If she is human the most it will do is scare her.”

He considered that. “I suppose we really have no choice.”

“Why use me as an escort?” asked Talbot as they rode through the morning traffic.

“I need you when we go into Purgatory,” Sham replied, deftly avoiding a collision with an overloaded wagon.

“Purgatory?”

She grinned. “I need the Shark too.”