Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [9]
Unless … was he a supernaturally fast healer? He reached up and touched his temple where the dretch had raked him—Ouch! He sucked in a breath.
It wasn’t bleeding freely anymore, but it certainly wasn’t closing in any sort of hurry. He returned to washing.
When he was mostly clean, he dressed once more, in the clean smallclothes and the leather armor he’d liberated. He feared the armor would prove inadequate for his tall frame, but the material relaxed as he pulled it on, until it fit him just right. Some minor enchantment lay in its stitching. That explained why it had fared better than every other garment amidst the carnage.
Demascus shrugged back into his coat and slung his packed satchels of salvage over his shoulder. He sheathed the sword at his belt, referred to the map one final time, then packed it up with the rest of his new-claimed belongings.
Demascus departed the altar and stone ring. He hiked several paces up the slope, stepping around boulders, ducking under low-hanging branches, and getting his long coat briefly snagged in a stand of prickly bushes. Then he paused.
He turned to gaze back at where he’d awakened.
Sans most of his memory, the shrine and its surrounding stones inscribed with animals encompassed the entirety of his world. He didn’t want to leave it behind, corpse heap, vanished demons, and all. It was all he could claim with certainty. Departing might mean he’d never see it again. And, what if, once he topped the rise ahead of him, the shrine slipped entirely from his mind, just as his life before he’d woken there had done?
Another thought occurred to him. What if it all came back to him … but he discovered a host of memories akin to the one where he strangled the priest? What if he proved to be some kind of insane murderer?
“A tangled skein our fears weave,” he muttered. There was no way to know. Just as there was also no way to know if one of the floating earthmotes above might choose the next moment to hurtle out of the sky and crush him. Nothing was certain. Best just to nod, and see what came next.
He counted the pillars, three separate times, to fix them in his mind. By the time he verified their number was twelve, he found the resolve to continue on his way.
“Good-bye, old stones.”
CHAPTER THREE
CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANÛL
THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
A HAND FELL ON DEMASCUS’S SHOULDER. HE LOOKED around into angry eyes the color of heated bronze. A flicker of flames seemed to dance on the man’s brow. A firesoul genasi.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” said the genasi. The odor of liquor stung his breath.
“Oh, wonderful,” Demascus muttered.
He hadn’t been in Airspur for an hour and already he’d managed to accidentally walk himself into the worst part of town. He’d hoped, upon entering the marvelous city built on the walls of facing cliffs, that his feet would know where to go, even if his mind didn’t consciously remember. Instead he’d wandered the inhabited cliff faces and flying bridges like someone stupid with sleep or drugs.
A handful of people stood behind the belligerent firesoul. They looked equally fortified with liquid courage and spoiling for a fight. They’d apparently spilled out of the tavern facing the plaza called the Lantern Inn.
“Did you hear what I said?” the genasi yelled in his face.
Demascus said, “Um, what do you mean, I shouldn’t be here? The streets are public—”
The genasi’s grip tightened and he said, “I know your kind, sellsword. Looking down at common folks, thinking you’re better than us. I want you gone from here! Those who wear the red ain’t welcome in this neighborhood. Scuttle back to your damn Motherhouse.”
Demascus shrugged out of the firesoul’s grip and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m no sellsword, and I don’t want trouble.”
Silence greeted his declaration,