A flash of green exploded before Danae’s eyes, and she felt herself falling backwards as the demon forced her away from the flames. Now!—“Płazni-hy-ix!” she snapped. Bending sideways, she slid away from the demon and rolled off onto the floor. Scrambling to her feet, she ran awkwardly for the door.
Nothing moved to intercept her. She got the door open; and as she slipped through it she threw a glance behind her at the flaming bed and the two demons swirling in furious activity around it.
Furious, yet oddly impotent activity. Closing the door gently, Danae permitted herself a grim smile as she hurried down the hall toward her own room. Ravagin had been right about it requiring two or more opponents; but she suspected even he was going to be surprised to learn that the confusion of a jinx spell worked against other spirits as well as human foes.
She just hoped they both lived long enough for her to tell him about it.
The hallway was deserted, both of people and spirits. Nor was anything lying in wait in her room as she ducked in and hurriedly scooped up the bag of incense Gartanis had given her. Cautiously, pressing against the stairwell wall, she tiptoed down the stairs, her heartbeat sounding like thunder in her ears. Somewhere along here Melentha would certainly have set up a second line of defense against escape. …
But she reached the first floor without incident. The conversation area door was open, the flickering light of a firebrat spilling out into the hall. Gritting her teeth, Danae eased over to the door and peeked in.
Empty.
The knot in Danae’s stomach tightened a couple of turns as she flattened herself against the wall and looked quickly around her. There would be no time for her to search the whole house for Ravagin—the demons upstairs might blow the jinx away any time now, and when they did so they’d be after her like a pair of furies. “Ravagin!” she stage-whispered, straining her ears for any kind of a reply.
Nothing. “Damn,” she muttered. “Haklarast.”
A sprite materialized before her. “I am here—”
“Where is the human called Ravagin?” she interrupted it.
“I do not know.”
She gritted her teeth. She had to get out of here. … “Find him,” she ordered. “He should be in this house somewhere. Tell him—wait five minutes and then tell him that Danae has gone. Tell him—” I’m sorry. The apology stuck to her tongue. “Just tell him that.”
The sprite flared and vanished. Taking another look around her, Danae pushed off the wall and headed for the front door.
Again, no spirits appeared to challenge her, and a minute later she was outside. Ahead was nothing but starlit ground … and the deceptively innocent post line.
And behind her was nothing but demons. Gritting her teeth, she kept moving.
She was five meters from the line when a green glow began to form on the two nearest posts. “Man-sy-hae orolontis,” she intoned between dry lips; and as if in response, the intensity of the green light suddenly increased. Steeling herself, Danae started forward—
And the green lights suddenly detached themselves from their posts and shot directly toward her.
Gasping, she fell back a step. The lights combined into one in midair, then abruptly split apart again half a meter in front of her as if bouncing from an invisible bubble surrounding her. She held her breath; coming around in tight circles, the parasite spirits recombined and swooped back for a second attack. This time they struck the invisible barrier a few centimeters closer to her. The next time they made it even closer … the next time closer still …
“Man-sy-hae orlontis!” Danae called again, fighting against the panic she could hear bubbling up into her voice. They were almost upon her …!
But with one protection spell still in place, a second invocation was useless. The parasite spirits chipped again and again at the spell until, suddenly, it was gone. She braced herself—
And the spirits vanished back into their posts.
Biting down hard on her tongue, Danae took a shuddering breath. She should have expected this, she realized as the panic abated enough for her brain to function again. Melentha had set this defense up … Melentha the sadistic bitch, who’d mentioned once how amusing it was to watch people trying to break into her house. She wouldn’t let her post line kill attackers on their first try.
Okay, Danae, settle down, she told herself. You’re safe, at least for now. So now what the hell do I do? There were at least two other spirit-protection spells that she knew, but neither was supposed to be all that much stronger than the one the demon had just casually shattered. A lar would be stronger, but a lar was stationary and couldn’t be made to move with her across the post line.
Unless …
It was a gamble, but gambles were about all she had left. Gritting her teeth, she started forward.
It wasn’t easy. She’d seen a lot of demons here—had seen what they were capable of doing—and each step was a struggle between will power and the panic again starting to simmer just below the surface. The green glow brightened with each laborious step; with each step her eyes involuntarily squinted against the possibility that this time the parasite spirits would again burst forth to attack her. Four steps … five … six … the post line was no more than two meters away, and Danae’s whole body was shaking with fear and dread. Forcing moisture into her dry mouth, she filled her lungs. “Sa-preenhala minnistulri,” she gasped—
And fell backwards as a crack of thunder seemed to explode inside her skull. The ground came up and slammed into her back and head—
And. then there was silence.
Groggily, she forced herself up on her elbows. Ahead, the entire post line was alive with flashes of green ribbon, looking for all the world like green high-voltage current arcing across inadequate insulation. Between her and the nearest posts …
Cautiously, she got to her feet. She’d never seen a lar in trouble before, but she had no doubt that that was exactly what she was witnessing. The clean spectral whirlwind she’d seen her first night on Karyx had changed into the dirt-laden funnel of a tornado, its muddy blackness shot through with angry flickers of color as the lar struggled to establish itself where she had invoked it against the resistance of the demon.
And the demon was winning.
Danae’s muscles felt like they’d just been through two hours of hard exercise. Choking back a groan, she forced herself to her feet. She had no way of knowing how long the lar would last, but until it was defeated she should be able to move right up to its far edge without danger. That was the theory, anyway, and she hoped desperately it was correct … because as she started forward, she saw that the lar’s far edge had indeed fallen where she’d hoped it would: a meter past the post line.
Her skin began to tingle as she dragged herself toward the silent combat. The number and brightness of the green flashes intensified, and as her eyes adjusted she could see that the high-voltage sparks were actually the demon’s parasite spirits flicking in and out of their posts as they threw themselves against the lar. Steeling herself, she stepped boldly between the posts—
It was probably only a few seconds before her vision and mind cleared and she found herself beyond the post line leaning up against the lar’s far edge. To both sides of her the fight was continuing; ahead of her the muddy edge of the lar had become transparent enough to see stars through.
The lar was about to collapse.
Danae took a shuddering breath, then another, trying to drive the cobwebs of that passage from her brain. When the lar vanished, she had to be ready to move away from the post line as quickly as she could, before the demon could reach out. Invoking another lar would give her a chance to get her muscles back in order again; licking her lips, she took a deep breath and braced herself.
And all at once the lar was gone.
She hadn’t realized she was still leaning against it until she toppled face-first onto the ground. “Sa-preenhala minnis—” she began.
And was interrupted by a crack of thund
er as a flash of green shot out of the post line and ricocheted from her face … and she found her tongue frozen.
With her lar invocation unfinished.
There was nothing she could do. Dimly, she remembered having heard that there were spells that could be done with hand and body movements alone; but nothing that specialized had ever been given to her. Without her voice, she was completely helpless; open to whatever the demon decided to do to her. The green glow flared again—
“Sa-preenhala minnistulri!”
Danae jerked at the unexpected voice from behind her, and for a heartbeat wondered if it had been a product of her own desperate imagination. But there was nothing imaginary about the flashes of green high-voltage that were again arcing about a dark but no longer muddy lar …
A pair of hands gripped her shoulders as she started to twist around in the grass where she still lay. “You all right?” a voice whispered.
“Ahhh—” Danae worked moisture into her mouth. “Ahh … yes, I think so. Where—how—?”
“Let’s hold off on any conversation until after we’re away from here, all right?” She found herself being half lifted, half dragged to her feet. “I tried a little spell that’s supposed to bind trapped spirits a little tighter,” he added, “but I don’t know how much range the demon there had in the first place, so I don’t know whether it’ll help us much.”
His arm supporting her, they started away from the post line, and it wasn’t until then that Danae realized how big the lar surrounding them actually was. “We go to the edge, you release this one and immediately invoke another?” she hazarded. “Cute.”
“Thank you. Your trick back there was pretty good, too. I’d wager your friend Melentha never thought of someone getting through her post line like that.”
Danae felt her heart skip a beat. “Melentha! Damn!—I forgot about her. She’ll be after us any second now—”
“She’ll have to hear the news and get back first,” the other said calmly. “She, Ravagin, and a man named Nordis left the house a few minutes before you came out.”
“You mean—?” Danae clamped her teeth together as it suddenly clicked. No wonder there’d been no demons in the halls or on the grounds to stop her: the system had been set up for the demons to take their orders directly from Melentha, and in her absence there was no way for unexpected events like Danae’s escape to be taken into account. For the moment, at least, they had a little breathing space.
But only for the moment. Even if the demons themselves wouldn’t or couldn’t leave the house without new orders, they would certainly have already sent word via their parasite spirits, and Melentha would soon be galloping back to start the hunt.
“You must have been skulking around here for quite awhile, then,” she commented as they reached the far edge of the lar’s protection.
“Not that long, really,” he shrugged. “I spent most of the time I had studying the defenses. Get ready: carash-melanasta—sa-preenhala minnistulri.”
The lar flicked out and a new one appeared to take its place. “I’m glad you found your way out before I had to find my way in,” he added.
“I don’t blame you,” she sighed as they started off again. “You know, I wondered if it might be you when I realized that someone out here was testing the post line for spirits. But I figured it was more likely bandits or something. Can I assume it was more of your finagling that was behind Melentha’s sudden departure, too?”
“Oddly enough, it was, though totally accidentally. My horse is tethered over behind the trees there—are your legs doing any better?”
“I should be able to walk in a minute or two.” Danae clenched her teeth and threw him a sideways glance. “I never thought I’d live to say this … but I’m sure as hell glad to see you.”
A slight smile creased Hart’s face. “I’m glad I was here when you needed me, Ms. mal ce Taeger,” he said.
Chapter 26
“I’LL TELL YOU ONE thing—Andresson damn well better be in trouble,” Nordis growled. “If he’s just off sight-seeing somewhere I’ll skin him alive.”
“Shut up and keep your eyes open,” Melentha snapped. “If you’d handled this right in the first place, the trail wouldn’t have had time to get this cold.”
Nordis subsided, and in the darkness Ravagin grimaced. Nordis was an old hand, with nearly ten years of service to the Corps on his file. Professional pride was probably behind his time-consuming efforts to locate Andresson by himself instead of immediately sending a message to the way house—pride, and maybe more than a little conceit. Still, there was no call for Melentha to jump all over him about it.
But then, Nordis had no idea of how his unexpected appearance had fouled up Melentha’s plans.
They were in sight of Besak’s lar now—or, rather, in sight of the place where the lar should have been visible. Ravagin felt his hands clench around the reins at the sheer power the lar’s destruction implied. Could Melentha have done all that herself? If so, then any plan he could possibly come up with to escape with Danae was so much wasted effort.
Perhaps there was a way to find out. “Tell me, Melentha,” he called across to her, “if someone wanted to take out a lar of this size, how would he or she go about doing so?”
“Hold it a second,” she said shortly as a pair of sprites shot across the landscape and came to a hovering halt in front of her. She held a brief and inaudible conversation with them, and a minute later they flitted off again. “No sign of anyone on the Besak-Findral road,” she reported. “What was the question again?”
“I was asking how you’d go about destroying Besak’s lar.”
“Afraid you’d have to ask someone with a little more spirit knowledge,” she replied calmly. “Gartanis, for instance.”
“Same thing I told Andresson when he asked that question,” Nordis commented. “I’ve never seen a client nag your leg off with questions like that.”
“You told him about Gartanis?” Ravagin frowned. “Maybe that’s where he went, then.”
“Give me a little credit, will you, Ravagin?” the other said. “That was the first place I checked.”
Unless Gartanis had lied about Andresson’s presence there … but why would he bother? “What exactly was Andresson’s field of study?” he asked instead. “If he wandered off on his own, it might give us a clue as to where he might be.”
“He didn’t have one,” Nordis snorted. “He was a tourist, here to see the sights. If you can believe that.”
“What in the world does Besak have in the way of sights?” Ravagin frowned.
“Damned if I know,” Nordis said frankly. “Or Torralane Village, either, for that matter. That’s where we started this trip—we only came down yesterday.”
“You were here yesterday?” Melentha put in. “Why the hell didn’t you check in then?”
“He didn’t want to,” Nordis told her. “Said he wanted to live native-style, not in some transplanted part of the Twenty Worlds.”
“You’re not supposed to let clients dictate safety rules to you,” Melentha snapped.
“Listen, Melentha, when we find him, you can try arguing with him,” Nordis shot back. “This guy gets what he wants, and you get bowled over if you get in his way.”
“He sounds like one of those rich fools who’ve inherited all their money and can’t find enough useful ways to spend it,” Ravagin suggested.
“Probably is,” Nordis agreed. “Then again, maybe he just thought he was being polite. We found out in town that you and your client were already staying at the way house, and he was pretty adamant about not wanting to intrude.”
“Did you bother to explain to him how big the house is?” Melentha growled.
Nordis said something in reply … but Ravagin didn’t hear it. A rich man playing tourist … who didn’t seem afraid to stray from his host even in the dead of a Karyx night …
And who didn’t want to run into Ravagin and Danae.
Hart.
And in the space of a few seconds the whole mess had abruptly been turned on its head. The bodyguard hired by Cowan mal ce Taeger of Arcadia to protect his daughter would hardly have gotten lost or even kidnapped. Somehow, for some reason, he’d deliberately deserted his Courier.
Of course. Hart knew about Gartanis … and Gartanis knew about Danae.
Beyond Nordis, three more sprites had converged on Melentha. Biting at his lip, Ravagin eased his horse into a slightly diverging path from that of the others. There was no time for any further questioning of Nordis; no time to consider the chances that his hunch was correct, or to consider what might happen if he was wrong. If there was even a chance that Hart was at the way house trying to get Danae out, it was absolutely vital that someone keep Melentha’s attention occupied out here where she’d be out of the fight. And that someone had to be him.
A flicker of glow-fire appeared beside him. “You are the human named Ravagin?” the sprite asked.
“Yes,” Ravagin nodded, frowning. He’d assumed that Melentha would make sure all the searching sprites would report directly to her—
“I bring a message: Danae tells you she has left.”
Ravagin’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean, left?” He threw a glance over at Melentha—
Just in time to see the green of a demon’s parasite spirit vanish into her.
And the balloon had just gone up for good. Without a second’s hesitation, Ravagin twisted his horse’s head hard to the side—
And jerked in his saddle as an unearthly shriek split the air.
“Man-sy-hae orolontis!” he snapped—and an instant later a dozen green parasite spirits burst from nowhere to break like a tidal wave over him.
Beneath him, the horse whinnied and reared. Ravagin tugged hard on the reins, struggling to get the animal under control and to get the hell away from there. The spirit-protection spell he’d set up wouldn’t last a minute under the kind of furious assault it was getting; less time even than that if Melentha was willing to reveal her possession to Nordis by sending her demon to take a direct hand in the fray.