Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [102]
He hadn’t wasted time interrogating her. And here we are, he thought. In the home of the creature who’s haunted my dreams since I first woke on that damned altar. He was close to understanding everything … which worried him more than anything else.
“Kalkan owns this manor?” said Chant. “A place like this will set you back some serious coin.”
Riltana paused at the top of the stairs. She said, “It’s probably how he was able to get away with feeding off people, owning a place with grounds so large that neighbors couldn’t hear their screams …”
The thief had also explained she’d found a room filled with rotting corpses hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, Kalkan’s predatory features were more than just show. He really was a flesh-eater. A man-eater.
And not only a predator—but a schemer interested in killing Demascus. Kalkan had insured that Demascus would be caught up in Murmur’s schemes. Schemes somehow entangled with a previous life, where he’d evidently stymied several demons kin to Murmur, with the help of allies he no longer remembered the least thing about …
That was an unproductive line of thought. Soon, he would know more.
The Veil claimed his sword, or ring, would trigger more memories. But Riltana said Kalkan waited by his tomb, where perhaps the items, the ones he’d seen in his visions, lay with the moldering remains of one of his former selves.
If he went for those objects, Kalkan was sure to attack him.
Those objects contained the missing portion of himself, of which he was apparently only a fraction.
When it came down to it, he was no longer certain he wanted that reunion to occur.
What good can come of looting a corpse I shucked like a snake’s skin? he thought. That life is over; maybe its memories should be too. And what if I absorb so much, I lose myself, and become a different person? Won’t that be a death for the man I’ve learned to be these last few days?
He was afraid the answer was yes.
“Are you coming?” said Riltana. She stood at end of the hallway, her arms crossed. Her normally lustrous skin seemed drawn and almost tarnished, as if she was sick.
Demascus took a deep breath, then joined her.
The room was as she’d described it, complete with a still active portal leaking darkness, a rogues’ gallery featuring himself in various guises and outfits, and an overwhelming smell of death.
Riltana stayed near the entrance. He and Chant went to the wall and gazed at the drawings. Kalkan had a gift for art—at least when it came to capturing images of his favorite topic—Demascus.
Demascus studied his portrait in one particularly compelling piece. His back was to the perspective, and he stood poised with a two-handed runesword held high, his Veil and many charms aloft in the wind blowing across the mountain peak on which he stood. Hovering off the face of the peak was a colossal dragonlike abomination, its breath of billowing green gas enfolding him.
Demascus had no memory whatsoever of the event. Or … of any of the other scenes depicted on the wall in their hundreds. That was the person he might become if he found his memories. The man depicted was a complete stranger.
“Kalkan’s made quite a study of you,” Chant said quietly.
He had no words.
“The bodies … are behind there,” Riltana choked out. She pointed to a door in the corner.
“Should we examine them?” Chant said.
He said, “I’d rather not.”
“Good choice,” said the thief.
The drawings tore at his guts enough, with all the unanswered questions they posed. He didn’t need to be wrenched by seeing the trophies of a murdering psychopath.
Demascus retreated from the drawings, until he stood before the portal. The darkness was a physical blot, hanging just an inch off the wall. The lip of the effect wavered and blurred, as if renegotiating its terms with reality every moment. Beyond it, he imagined Kalkan watched him.
What would happen if I simply walk away? he wondered. He could break the cycle the pictures hinted at. Leave Airspur, and settle down in some distant land and learn a peaceful trade. Beer brewing maybe,