Patricia Briggs - When Demons Walk

“Halvok,” said Sham, her voice trembling with the effort of speaking while she tried to hold both the magic and the demon. If Halvok dropped the tune at the wrong time, it could spell disaster. “Halvok, that world is gone. Driving the Easterners out of Southwood will not set time back. It won’t restore your wife, nor even the person you were before they came.”

She had told Kerim that what the demon wanted most was to go home—she knew how the creature felt. As she exacted vengeance from those men who had crippled Maur, she had known that it was only a substitute for what she really wanted: to return to what once was, to go home. “Only death will come from seeking it, Halvok. Not just nameless Easterners will die—but your friends and colleagues. People you’ve come to know and care for. And once the killing starts, it won’t be Eastern blood alone that feeds the soil. Hasn’t there been enough death?”

“Yes,” said Halvok. “I am sick of—”

The demon struck the rune.

Halvok fell limply to the sand and the steady glow the rune had been emitting flickered wildly.

No time to question. Running to the place where Halvok lay, Sham drew her knife, nicked her palms, and placed both hands on the gold thread. Power surged through her from that contact and she cried out. The magic from the waves buckled and the skin of her hands turned red and blistered from the wild magic that seeped out of her control, but the blood made the difference as she had known it would. It made the rune hers again, no matter how the magic surged and fought it.

She couldn’t let the rune fail until just before the wave hit the cliff, or she wouldn’t be able to open the gateway to the demon’s realm no matter how much power she had. She would have to break it, symbolizing the breakage of the bonds that held the demon to this world. It shouldn’t have been difficult. Halvok could have done it by dropping the two ends of the wire separately, but Sham was tied to the rune by blood.

She needed Halvok, but he lay silently on the ground, Talbot kneeling at his side. She hoped he was alive.

Still the magic grew. She couldn’t see the Spirit Tide, but the sound of the water rushing over the sand had become deafening. Ignoring the smell of singed flesh she continued to gather the magic.

“Now,” shouted Kerim and Talbot together.

She broke the rune. Bound to her by blood, the rune’s death hurt her, making her hands cramp until she had to force herself to her feet so that the tension of the wire would pull it from her grasp. Pain wasn’t the real problem, or rather not the whole of the problem. It was what the pain did to her concentration that mattered.

It took a long moment for her to regain control of the forces she held.

Just as she began the final spell, before the demon realized that it was no longer held by the rune, the great wave struck and the cliffs shook. Water coated everything, spraying in great heavy sheets. Elsic faltered and the magic flared wildly until she couldn’t tell hers from the magic that sang in the waves. Sham knew Elsic had resumed playing only from the feel of the magic flowing into her; she couldn’t hear the music over the pounding water.

Crying out in a voice that was nothing against the roar that shook Purgatory, she continued working the last spell.

The first of her spells gave her an awareness of the demon, so she knew when it sprang. She spoke faster, finishing as the demon’s hot, sharp tail raked her side.

Something rippled in the night and the demon stilled as the rift grew. In that bare instant Sham realized the place she was sending the demon didn’t exist, not as she understood the term. For a brief moment that might have been an eternity, she stood at the gate and understood things about magic she’d never realized before, small things ...

A second wave hit. Smaller than the first, bringing with it more water, more noise, and more flute-born magic.

Buffeted by pain, awe, and a new surge of magic, Sham lost control, consumed by the torment of the demon’s touch and the fire of wild magic. The gate flickered, then steadied, held by someone else.

Give me the power, witch, said Sky’s voice, slipping beneath and between the waves of pain as Sham regained a tenuous hold on the magic. You have my name, give me the power. If you do not, it will kill you and all those here this night.

Sham struggled to think. With the power she held, the demon could destroy Landsend. She didn’t think even the ae’Magi would be able to stop it. Now that Sham had shown it how, it could go home any time it wanted to. Demons were creatures of magic; they were not bound to use unformed magic as she was.

Elsic played, and the magic continued to grow as a third wave hit. Sham couldn’t even divert enough attention from her tasks to tell him to stop.

Silly witch, hatred of your kind does not mean so much to me that I would stay here another moment. Give me the magic and let me go home.

“Take it,” said Shamera, knowing that she could not hold it for much longer.

Power flowed out of her faster than it had come, and the demon accepted it with a capacity that seemed limitless. When it held all she could give, Sham collapsed on the sandy cliff top, curling around the pain in her side. She watched the demon as it steadied the gate to its home.

The demon turned toward the rift Sham had opened, then hesitated. Sham had a moment to wonder what she was going to do if the pox-ridden thing decided it didn’t want to go back when, feather-light, its tail brushed her side again. The pain that had resided there was replaced by cool numbness.

Sorry, said the demon in a voice as soft as the wind.

Then it was gone.

The gate hung open above the broken bits of golden thread. Sham struggled to her knees. She had given all her magic to the demon; there was nothing left. If it didn’t close ...

It snapped shut with a cracking sound that rose above the thunder of yet another wave of water. For a moment the night was still—then the fires began.

They lit up the night like a thousand candles, burning the saltgrass where the gate had been first, then spreading faster than even a natural wildfire through the damp foliage. When the next wave hit the cliff and sent fine spray high into the air, flame touched the algae that lived in the water, making the droplets of spray spark gold and orange in the night.

“Back,” yelled Shamera, stumbling to her feet as best she could. “Damn it, get back.”

The magic that she’d given the demon was from this world. What the demon hadn’t used had returned when the gate closed. A clump of driftwood burst into ashes as the magic passed near.

“Shamera, get away from there.” She thought it was Kerim who called, but she was too busy drawing upon what little magic she had left to be certain.

Cold hands closed on her shoulders. “What can I do?” asked Dickon.

“Support me,” she said, her voice thin even to her ears. “Release your magic to me.”

Like his magelight, the power he fed to her flickered randomly, but it helped. The old bell tower went up in a blaze of glory, but Sham managed to keep the wild magic from raging where it would. Like a sheepdog, the threads of her mastery nipped here and there, cornering the worst of it against the cliff where the water would control the damage.

Kerim stood back with the rest, wishing futilely for the means to help. The Shark stood on his right, looking much like Kerim felt. Talbot knelt on the ground with the unconscious Halvok’s head resting on his knee. The sailor’s eyes were focused on Shamera and Dickon. Elsic sat beside them, his lips tight with anxiety. Kerim thought perhaps that Elsic, blind as he was, had a better idea of the struggle than any of the rest of the audience.