Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [96]
But what did it matter now? Imprisoned in the iron cage, he’d seen true evil in the form of a demon who animated nightmares. The inner contents of people’s deepest fears scraped out of their brains and clothed in flesh. It was an unthinkable violation. Then he’d watched the demon throw screaming, living people into the pit, where they were consumed alive.
He closed his eyes.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Demascus was standing over him. The man had learned—or probably remembered—how to move with the silent tread that would do an assassin proud. Which was no surprise.
The deva reached out his hand, and Chant flinched.
“Whoa, sorry!” said Demascus. The deva jerked his hand back.
Chant immediately felt ashamed of his reaction. He said, “Not your fault. I just can’t get the images of Murmur out of my head. Or what he did to those people.” And, he didn’t say, I’m unnerved by your newfound facility with darkness and light. The light, so merciless in its radiance, the dark so all-encompassing …
Demascus studied him a moment, his brow creased with concern, and looking not at all like an assassin or divine killer. He gave a slow nod. “Yeah. Same here. But remember, we destroyed Murmur; threw him in his own torture pit.”
Chant gazed at the edge of pit. The awful droning that had accompanied Murmur’s death spasm had died down to a light buzz, and the firefly lights were back to their original, still ghastly, flickering. A smell, like attar of roaches times one hundred, was growing. He wrinkled his nose.
“What did Murmur mean when it said you had defeated it once before?” Chant asked.
Demascus frowned. He said, “I wish to the gods I could remember. I asked the Veil, but it’s decided to make like an ordinary scarf again. I suppose the demon was talking about one of my, uh, previous incarnations. A long time ago. Which I suppose means Murmur was my nemesis the Veil described. Except …”
“What?”
“Murmur learned about the shrine from Kalkan. Otherwise the demon wouldn’t have sent servitors up there to try and collect the excess energy for its own use, and I wouldn’t have found their bodies and tracked down their origin. And I wouldn’t have ended up nearly becoming food for the pit.”
Demascus rubbed his temple.
Chant added, “And Kalkan was the one who hired Riltana to steal your scarf in the first place. And he’s still out there.”
“He’s not the only one,” said Demascus. “Jett was standing by the exit right before that last wave of cultists attacked. I imagine he ordered them to delay us. And he’s probably, right now, preparing an even bigger force to make sure we never escape.”
Chant swallowed. “Sharkbite. That means every moment we delay, the worse our chances.”
“Yeah. Otherwise I’d suggest we deal with the pit. But we’ll have to come back and figure out what to do about it later.”
Demascus helped Chant to his feet. They collected Riltana, then moved to stand by Carmenere, who was tending to the wounds and hurts of the survivors.
“Time to go. We might be facing some resistance out in the halls. The sooner we make a break for it, the less time they’ll have to prepare.”
Riltana said, “First good suggestion I’ve heard today.” Her words were light, but Chant noticed how she gazed anxiously at Carmenere, who studiously ignored the thief.
Demascus said, “Good. Let’s get the survivors out of here too. And keep an eye out for Jett in particular.”
It took a fair amount of time before they actually left the chamber of the pit. A few of the freed captives wouldn’t do anything but rock back and forth and stare, until each in turn had received the silverstar’s healing touch, which was enough of a balm to get them moving.
Two of the captives regained their wits relatively quickly, and helped Carmenere round up the rest. One was a watersoul named Ushen, an Airpsur peacemaker, the other a dwarf trader called Redanvil.
They also had three captured cultists to marshal, products of Carmenere’s merciful mace blows. They bound the cultists’s feet together