Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [21]
He was supremely aware of the water at his back, aware that anything could rise up from its depths and come at his exposed back. His eyes flickered back and forth, measuring, gauging, watching. He listened to his own breathing. It sounded harsh and unsteady.
The demons came at him.
Caelan flung himself at his sword. His outstretched hand clamped onto the scabbard. He could hear them coming, claws skittering and scraping over stone. He whirled to face them, drawing the sword as he did so and flinging the scabbard aside.
Panting, he stopped only because they had. Now out in the open where he could see them clearly in the pale, ghostly light, they crouched in a semicircle and stared at him.
The demons were short, no taller than Caelan’s hipbone, and entirely hairless. Their leathery skin was black and crisscrossed with wrinkles. They had arms and legs like a man, with long, prehensile fingers and toes, all ending in long, sharp talons. Their tails were long and ratlike, and flicked back and forth nervously.
Caelan brought up his sword in smooth readiness. He thought about attacking, but some instinct bade him wait.
Just when his taut nerves could be stretched no farther, one of the creatures crept toward him. Caelan swallowed hard and let it come.
Fanged and snouted, the creature stared up at him with red eyes that were entirely too intelligent. Its long tail flicked restlessly back and forth.
When its tongue flickered out between its fangs, Caelan nearly jumped out of his skin. It was a serpent’s tongue, long and forked, quivering in the air as though measuring Caelan in some way. Then it flicked back out of sight. The creature opened its mouth in a toothy grin.
“Welcome, creature of shadow,” it said in a hoarse, gravelly whisper. “Art thou Beloth, our master?”
Astonished and horrified at being so grossly misidentified, Caelan stared back at it. “No, I am not!” he said with force.
The demon rocked back on its haunches, while the others scuttled away into the shadows, hissing with palpable disappointment.
“Servant of Beloth, our master?” the demon asked hopefully.
This time Caelan was wise enough to curb his denial. Tipping his head to one side, he asked, “Why do you ask me this?”
“Thou art aware, not asleep in the spell of protection,” the demon said.
“And that makes me a servant of—of your master?” Caelan stumbled over the words, finding himself unable to utter Beloth’s dire name aloud.
“Thou looks like man-spawn, yet cannot be,” the demon said. “Thou has no fear of the shadows, walking without spell of protection.”
If it only knew, Caelan thought wryly to himself.
“Thou has bathed in the waters of Aithe and come unto us.
We will serve thee, servant of Beloth, until our dire lord and master walks free once again.”
Caelan opened his mouth to repudiate everything, but the other demons came scuttling forward in an uneven, almost ratlike gait. They surrounded him. He tensed, wanting to back away, but their clawed fingers were already clutching at his clothing, stroking and petting him in reverence.
“Don’t worship me!” he cried in disgust. “Get back, all of you!”
They moved a short distance from him, but not far enough, and sat on their haunches with their tails coiled about their ankles. Their fangs gleamed in the strange light; their red eyes shifted to his face and down again. They smelled of death and something worse. The very sight of them turned his stomach, yet he knew he must keep his wits now, must take the advantage they had mistakenly given him and utilize it wisely.
But, Gault’s mercy, what did they mean he had bathed in the waters of Aithe? That was the mythological river of death, the black waters formed from dead men’s souls. During the most ancient and turbulent days following creation itself, when Beloth had strode the earth and destroyed all that he touched, the shadow god had killed so many men that their destroyed souls had flowed and comingled into a river that encircled the world. Later, when the top of Sidraigh-hal had been smote with the combined powers of the