Touch of the Demon

  Mzatal went still, only the muscle in his jaw shifting as he ground his teeth.

  “Why would one of Katashi’s students have a tat of Jesral’s mark?” I asked, not liking any of the answers I came up with.

  Mzatal remained silent for another moment, and when he spoke, power boiled behind the words. “Only if Jesral has influence in Katashi’s enclave.”

  Everything about that was disturbing. Jesral with a foothold in Mzatal’s Earth presence held implications beyond my puny knowledge, but I knew enough to label it a Really Bad Thing. “I guess it’s too much to hope that Tsuneo simply found it in a book and thought it would make a cool tat?”

  Mzatal took my hand in a firm grip and strode toward the doors. We passed through the antechamber, crossed the corridor and exited onto the balcony.

  He breathed deeply and closed his eyes as he released my hand, undoubtedly calling up the pygah. “A chance that he came upon it by accident? Yes,” he said, then he shook his head. “Likely? No.”

  I leaned on the rail and rubbed at my temples. “Shit gets more and more fun,” I said with a sigh. “So when do you start training me? I think I’m going to need it, and soon.”

  He stood beside me, looking out to the sea and sky. “You need everything I can teach you, all that you can absorb,” he said, voice still brimming with power. “Meet me at the column at midday wearing clothing suitable for working out.”

  I straightened and regarded his profile. The set of his jaw betrayed his deep turmoil. “You got it, Boss,” I said, laying my hand briefly on his shoulder before I turned and departed.

  Chapter 27

  Workout clothing? An ilius—Tata, I think—coiled out of my way as I passed through the main room and into the bedroom. To my utter shock, I found a tank top, something that looked very much like a sports bra, socks and shorts. Apparently the zrila had been busy sewing like, well, demons. I quickly threw the clothing on, then spent several frustrating minutes looking for my sneakers, finally finding them in the insane location known as the-bottom-of-the-wardrobe-where-they-belong. Crazy faas!

  I raked my hair back into a ponytail as I headed out and reached the column just as the midday tone resonated through me. I looked up. It rose three stories or so, about ten feet in diameter at the base, narrowing gradually to a flat top that was half that. Though of the same ubiquitous basalt of the area, its polished surface glimmered in othersight as though coated with a thin layer of potency. As good a place to meet as any I supposed. What the heck did the lord have planned for me that required workout clothing? Exercise? The Arcane? I sucked equally at both.

  A few minutes later Mzatal approached down the long path from the palace. I allowed myself an appreciative smile at his appearance. Barefooted and bare-chested, he wore loose pants of deep blue low on his hips, and a sleeveless and flowing knee-length open tunic in a fabric that shimmered impossibly between gold, maroon, and dark green. His braid hung over his right shoulder, though calling it simply a braid did little justice to the intricate weave. It had to be at least a dozen strands, wound through with cords of silver, gold, and bronze. He looked damn good.

  As he neared I gave him a grin. “Nice duds, Boss. Looking sharp.”

  With a glance and faint smile, he continued past me and to the column. Placing his right hand on the surface, he murmured something too low for me to hear, then clasped both hands behind his back and turned to regard me, smiling enigmatically.

  I gave him a wary look. “What’s the plan for today?”

  “This is where it begins,” he said, voice rich and intense, “and this is where it ends. The Primary Initiation.”

  “Okaaay,” I said, totally baffled. “And what does that mean?”

  “This segment of training begins now and ends when you survive the execution of a perfect shikvihr atop the column.”

  Survive?? I tipped my head back to look at the column. How the hell was I supposed to climb that thing?

  I dragged my eyes from the column and back to Mzatal. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  His smile didn’t waver. “No, I am not. It is an arduous undertaking, and one that will serve you well.”

  I frowned. Clearly I was missing something incredibly obvious. I hated weird challenges like this, because I always seemed to miss the really obvious thing. “Okay, lemme make sure I have this straight,” I said. “I have to climb this smooth, really high column and then do a shikvihr? I don’t even know what that is yet.”

  “The shikvihr is a full pattern lay, consisting of eleven rings with eleven sigils per ring,” he explained patiently. “It is a ritual foundation that greatly enhances ability to control and focus potency. When done properly, it flows like a harmonious dance. The column will adapt to the level of your preparedness. Step back ten paces, and I will demonstrate an initiate level shikvihr.”

  Yeah, I was off to a great damn start. I backed up the requisite distance.

  Mzatal turned to the column and placed both palms on it, murmuring low again. As I watched, the surface of the column began to flow and change. Ridges and footholds appeared and disappeared in an undulating rhythm. He ascended with a grace to make Nureyev weep, shifting effortlessly from each protrusion to the next as they ebbed and flowed around him. Some of the ridges couldn’t have been more than an inch or two deep, yet Mzatal seemed to glide up the column like a rock climber in zero gravity.

  I craned my neck back as he reached the top and began what looked like a dance, or kata. He flowed around the perimeter of the top, a hair’s-breadth from the edge at times, laying sigils in a flowing chain, with movements so beautiful it made my heart ache. With a final sweep of his hand he ignited the sigils, sending a resonant tone through the column that vibrated my teeth in an impossibly good way.

  Another wave of his hand dissipated the sigils. He descended as beautifully as he’d ascended, then placed a hand on the column again. It shimmered and became dormant. He turned and beckoned for me to approach.

  “This was without the distractions that accompany the final trial,” he said with a slight smile.

  I suddenly felt like a fifth grader who’d been handed a calculus test. Only a few weeks ago I’d been so damn confident in my summoning abilities, yet now there was no denying there were major gaps in my knowledge base.

  Throat tight, I gestured to the column. “I don’t even know how to begin, to get to…” I shook my head. “I don’t know any of this.”

  “It is why we are here,” he said, exuding calm. “It is why we are training. You will know it. You will understand it intimately. You will be able to dance the shikvihr even though the world breaks apart beneath your feet. It is your foundation. It is your salvation.”

  Clearly, he’d never seen me dance. “Okay, fine. What do I do first?”

  “You climb,” he said, placing his hand on the column again. It shimmered and then a narrow stair spiraled around it to the top.

  Nice that the column has a “kindergarten” level, I thought. “Just climb?” I asked him.

  “To the top. Go.”

  I gave him one last doubtful look, then started up the stairs. I fully expected them to start shifting beneath my feet, but they remained stable, though they seemed to narrow considerably the higher I climbed. I kept my back pressed against the column and took my time, and finally eased up over the edge.

  A swell of potency engulfed me like an emptiness needing to be filled. I dropped to my knees, fighting the surge of panic as I realized the top of the column wasn’t solid. I knelt on a perimeter about a foot and a half wide, but in the middle was a two foot diameter…hole? I didn’t know what it was. Deep blackness radiated potency like a ravenous maw, and whatever it was, I knew I didn’t want to step on it. Or touch it. Or be anywhere near it.

  Panic continued to claw at me. I squeezed my eyes shut, called up a stupid pygah, and focused on my breathing. I didn’t have to see the hole to feel it, and even shifting out of othersight didn’t do much. It still lurked there, dark and
unknown, sucking at me, tugging with questing fingers.

  I had no idea how long I was up there doing my impression of a treed cat, but at long last I cracked my eyes open and peered down at Mzatal.

  “Can I come down now?” I called, damn near pleading.

  Eyes on me, he nodded. Getting back onto the narrow stairs was the hardest part of the climb, but I managed to crab my way down. By the time I reached the ground I was drenched with sweat.

  Scrubbing at my face, I trudged back to Mzatal. Look at me, I couldn’t even stand on the top. Trust me to flunk kindergarten.

  Yet when I looked into his face, he was smiling. “Many do not make the climb,” he told me. “Some who make the climb cannot step onto the top. It is a start. Your body re bels more than your mind.”

  My spirits lifted a fraction of a smidge. “You mean I didn’t fail?” I had a hard time believing that I managed to get through something others couldn’t, especially as fucked up as I currently was.

  He shook his head. “You did not fail, and it was indeed a trial, its outcome determining the course of your training.”

  I snorted. “You needed this to find out I don’t know shit?”

  His mouth twitched. “That I already knew. I needed to know something more of your heart and your mettle.” He looked up toward the column. “The void can consume the resolve of even the most stalwart.” He returned his attention to me. “And now we train your body.”

  He stepped into a wide stance—one arm stiff to the side, wrist flexed, and the other straight out in front, palm forward—and beckoned for me to copy it. I did so, though a thousand times klutzier. From there he led me through a kung-fu-tai-chi-yoga type of routine that left me sweating and shaking. At first everything in me screamed that it sucked—it was exercise, after all—but it was so freeing that by the time we were done, I was almost sorry it was over. Almost.

  I felt the grove activate as we finished. “Someone’s coming.”

  Mzatal went still. “It will be Seretis. He is early.” He straightened, adjusted his tunic. He wasn’t sweating or even breathing hard, the bastard. Luckily, I was doing enough for both of us.

  Though I’d never actually met Seretis, I remembered the lord’s quick smile as he’d passed me on the way to deal with the anomaly at Rhyzkahl’s palace; seen a glimpse of his character as manifest in the residence he shared with Rayst. And Michael Moran had certainly spoken highly of him after our snowball fight. “Why is he here?”

  “He asked to meet with me concerning a matter raised at the conclave.” He looked past me, down the steep, rocky slope that dropped from the far side of the column. “Do you see the pile of bricks at the bottom of the hill?”

  I peered that way and saw a stack of dark basalt bricks about twenty-five yards away. “Yeah.”

  “While I am gone you will move ten of those bricks from the pile to the base of the column.”

  I blinked in astonishment and almost asked him if he was fucking kidding, but managed to hold it back. He wasn’t. Not one little bit.

  “Sure thing, Boss.” I scowled and picked my way down the hill while he turned toward the grove. Yeah, and I intended to sing “It’s a Small World” in my head the next time his mind-reading-ass was trying to concentrate.

  The bricks weighed probably about ten pounds each, which wouldn’t have been too bad to carry over flat terrain. But the hill had a slope of about forty-five degrees, and ranged from rubble to thigh high “steps,” which meant that this particular exercise suuuuuuucked.

  Gestamar landed by the column as I reached the top of the hill. “Heya, Gestamar,” I said breathlessly.

  He rumbled in what I suspected was amusement. “Greetings, Kara Gillian.”

  As much as I liked Gestamar, I didn’t want to waste breath with casual conversation. He simply continued to watch while I lugged brick after brick. The uneven footing and the climb over the big shelves made the whole thing one big pain in the ass. By the ninth brick my muscles were pure jelly. I was so going to hurt tomorrow.

  “A long bath in the hot pool will serve you well tonight,” Gestamar said, rumbling louder, and this time I knew damn well he was laughing.

  “Yeah, thanks, darlin’,” I panted as I headed back down the damn hill.

  I stepped down from a boulder onto gravel, lost my footing and landed on my ass, though I caught myself before sliding. That would have left some ugly road rash. Still gonna have a bruise, I grumbled silently as my posterior protested. I grabbed the last brick and slogged my way back up the damn hill, but when I reached the top, Seretis leaned casually against the column where Gestamar had been. Yep, still totally looked like he belonged on a Spanish-language soap opera. He watched me, smiling, as I staggered past him. Lord or not, I wasn’t about to stop when I was so close to being done.

  I stacked the brick with the others, then sat heavily and lay back in the grass, breathing hard. I turned my head to peer at him. “Hi, I’m Kara Gillian. Figure you already know that though, right?”

  He smiled broadly. “I know it of certainty now. I am Seretis,” he said, voice light and damn near cheery. “It is a true pleasure to meet you, Kara Gillian, as delightfully sweaty as you are in this moment.”

  I pushed up onto my elbows, liking him already. “Michael speaks highly of you.”

  “And well he should,” Seretis said with a laugh. “I pay him enough to do so!”

  “So, you and Mzatal meet up for weekly poker games or something?” Though even as I said it, I damn near busted out laughing at the thought of a bunch of lords getting together for poker night.

  Smiling, he bent and picked up one of the big bricks, shook his head. “Nothing so amusing as that this time,” he said, giving me a wink. “Some qaztahl matters. And questions about you.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat up. “I’m so popular!” Then I sobered. “Mzatal told you what happened to me?”

  “He did, though I also knew some from them.” Seretis gestured to the three syraza sunning themselves on the roof of the palace. “There are those who think you dangerous, Kara Gillian.”

  “Are you one of them?” I had to remind myself that simply because he seemed nice and had a sense of humor didn’t mean he wouldn’t prefer to see me dead.

  His face still held a smile, though his eyes were serious now. “I could have been,” he said, turning the brick over in his hands, “had Mzatal’s answers been different, and had you assessed differently than you do.”

  The sweat froze on my skin. I knew it would take only a flick of his hand for him to smash my skull with the brick. I swallowed to work moisture back into my mouth. “And you believe him? Trust his judgment?”

  Seretis tilted his head and nodded slowly, regarding me with keen, hazel eyes. “If he says it, I know it to be truth to the best of his knowledge. It is in what he does not say,” he offered with a shake of his head, “that his shrewd genius abides.”

  I nodded slowly, some of the tension slipping away. “I have no intention of destroying the world,” I said, “for whatever that’s worth,”

  “I know this,” he said with quiet power. “I truly do. You carry a ‘danger’ that some would like to harness, and no,” he said with a smile, answering the question before I asked it, “I am not one of them.”

  “I said once before that dangerous things are used, destroyed, or contained,” I told him. “Are you content with how Mzatal intends to contain and use me?”

  His gaze went to the pile of bricks at the bottom of the hill. “I would rather hold—as Mzatal does—that you have the will, courage, and heart to contain yourself and to make use of your potential. Should that prove not to be the case, then I would need to reassess.”

  I let out a low sigh. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Seretis looked back to me, held the brick out. “You disliked carrying these up the hill.”

  I took it, weirdly relieved to have it out of his hand, even though I knew damn well there were a hundred other ways for him to kill me before I
could even blink. But by passing it to me it seemed as if he relinquished my fate back over to my control. “Exercise and I don’t always get along.” I told him. “We agree to disagree.”

  He crouched. “Amkir. Jesral. Rhyzkahl. Kadir.”

  My gut clenched, and I made a sour face. “You mean the Four Dickwads?”

  Seretis let out a soft snort of amusement. “The Four Mraztur.”

  “Sounds like a nasty word.”

  “There is no direct translation,” he said, “but, in your vernacular, perhaps ‘motherfucking asshole dickwad defilers’ will serve.” His gaze penetrated me, and when he spoke again, the air seemed to tremble around him. “Every brick you carry, every time you climb the column, you strengthen yourself against them. They do not rest in their purposes. Dance the full shikvihr and you become a true thorn in their side,” he said, eying me appraisingly. “Mzatal believes you have the passion, resolve, and skill to do it.”

  My eyes went to the top of the column. Memory of the terror of that yawning void whispered through me, and I shuddered. “I have a long way to go,” I murmured, then looked back to him. “But I’ve been described as a tenacious bitch more than once.”

  He chuckled, then his smile softened. “You would not have survived Rhyzkahl’s venom or Mzatal’s assessments were you not, Kara,” he said gently. “The Four seek you, and they seek Earth. They believe you carried power in the form of Elinor’s essence and they seek to use you to advance their plans.” He shook his head. “You were more than they had bargained for and less of what they thought they had.”

  I turned his words over in my head. “What do they want of Earth?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

  “What most all of us lordlings want,” he said, tilting his head. “Connection. Access. Since the cataclysm, we know it is critical for stability and control of the arcane, as well as the vitality of the qaztahl.” His smile faded. “The Four Mraztur want more though. Benevolent alliance is not what they seek.”