Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [42]
He turned back to the page with the symbol again and studied it. It looked sort of familiar, like he’d just …
“Waukeen’s empty purse!” he cursed. He knew where he’d seen it.
Demascus began to struggle in his sleep. The man’s hands went to his own neck, as if he were trying to loosen a shirt collar drawn too tight. He thrashed and yelled, “No!” and sat up on his cot, eyes wide and blinking.
“What’s wrong?” said Chant.
“Huh?” said Demascus, staring at him in confusion.
“You were dreaming. A nightmare of some kind.”
Demascus rubbed his neck. He mumbled, “Oh. Yeah.”
Chant studied the pensive expression on Demascus’s face. Whatever the dream had been about, it hadn’t been pleasant. He decided not to press.
Instead he said, “I’ve found something you might find interesting. Come take look at this,” and pointed at the picture in the book. “Remind you of anything?”
Demascus swung his feet off the cot and into his boots, then came to the counter.
He examined the symbol, and his eyes narrowed. He said, “Minus the eye in the center, that’s the sign that fellow at the Motherhouse had on his neck!”
Chant shook his head. He said, “Chevesh wasn’t lying.”
Demascus began donning his gear. “Time to call the Firestorm Cabal to account,” he said.
“Hold on; we need a plan. We can’t just burst into the Motherhouse and accuse everyone there of being liars!”
“Why not?” Demascus said. He finished with his armor and belted on his sword.
“Because if they lied to us before, they’ll probably try to kill us to protect their secret. If they’re summoning demons, I doubt they value our lives, except as possible sacrifices.”
“If it was as simple as that, they would have killed us when we were there yesterday. Anyway, Lieutenant Leheren wasn’t lying to me, I’m sure of it. It was the other two, Jett and that other genasi.”
Chant nodded but raised his hands, “Let’s think this through.”
Demascus ignored Chant and pulled on his coat as he walked to the exit. “We can think it through on the way.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? If the Cabal really is calling demonic monsters into Airspur, maybe we should figure out some way to alert the queen that she’s being hoodwinked by the very people she hired to …”
But Demascus was already gone.
Chant was tired. His muscles ached from the evening’s escapades, and he’d managed to bang his shin somewhere along the way. It was so tender to the touch that when his boot top accidentally brushed it, he yelped with pain.
He considered letting the stranger go and be done with him. The thought of his bed was a powerful lure.
Fable meowed. “You already ate this morning,” he told the cat. “Earn your keep and find the rat who keeps eating holes in the tapestries.” Fable just looked at him, then settled more comfortably in her crate.
He glanced at the wall above the counter. Jaul’s likeness, rendered in deft strokes of black ink, was pinned there. Chant muttered, “I swear this is going to be the death of me,” and left his shop.
He dashed to catch up with the swiftly departing Demascus. He garnered a few looks for his haste; Chant wasn’t known as someone who dashed anywhere, unless it was to be first in line at the buffet held once a tenday at Creighton’s Sea Bonanza. It was an image of portly ineffectualness he’d worked hard to fashion, and he cursed Demascus for making it necessary to reveal himself as capable of moving so rapidly in front of all his contemporaries.
He reached Demascus’s side and said, “Wait!” then put his hands on his knees and gasped for breath. All for show, of course. If anyone had noted his athletic dash, they were treated to a wheezy, gasping finale that should make it all right.
Demascus waited. His eyes widened in surprise. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
The last time Demascus had seen him move swiftly, Chant had taken steps three at a time, vaulted a banister, and sprinted out of a wizard’s tower without showing any ill effect.
Chant waved him off without explaining his apparent lack of breath and straightened.