The Demon City Read online

  It might be somewhat misogynistic of him, but he rather thought that a boy would be easier to deal with. Send him into the gym to punch something suitable, perhaps. Of course, Merlin was only guessing about that since he’d never before been forced to deal with pubescent humans in any real fashion, so he only had second- and thirdhand experiences to judge by.

  So far, they were all proving somewhat lacking.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to talk about it?” he asked as mildly as possible.

  “Nothing to talk about,” she grumbled, shoving open the large doors to the library. “Caleb is an idiot.”

  “Ah. Boys,” Merlin said with a hint of distaste. “And that is where I end my part of this discussion, fascinating though it clearly would have been. I have no desire to know the details of your mating practices.”

  She paused between steps, leading foot hovering just over the floor as she turned and gave Merlin a gimlet eye.

  “Don’t,” she said firmly. “For one, just . . . yech. And two, even if that were true, you are the last person I would discuss it with.”

  “Indeed,” Merlin deadpanned, “and for that I am, and shall remain, infinitely grateful. Believe me, I am sorry I asked. Please, continue stomping through the halls like a sodden gorilla.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is a gorilla?”

  Merlin sighed. “So much is lost on you, child. It’s a tragedy at times.”

  Elan rolled her eyes, irritated but fully aware that meant he wasn’t going to enlighten her. She continued into the library, now mumbling about something else entirely. Merlin watched her as she made her way to a familiar table, where a book was waiting for her, as it had been ever since she’d first found it.

  It was an old book.

  Older than the library it sat in, which was nothing to scoff at. Old enough, in fact, as to defy any method of dating he was aware of, which, again, was nothing to take lightly. It was bound in leather, of some animal that he had no record of, and the pages were organic . . . yet did not deteriorate. On the cover, the lettering was gold . . . the only element of the book he could identify with certainty, in fact, and it read simply . . .

  Ein Taki Amin Kine.

  Merlin only knew what it meant because someone had once told him.

  To Walk the Path of the Knight.

  Elan settled in front of it, opening it to the page she had marked previously, and against all logic and sense, she began to read it as if it were not in a language that predated her ancestors of a thousand years earlier. If he did not know for certain that others had reacted exactly the same way with the book, Merlin would have thought Elan to be an infiltrator come to steal it. However, he knew better. The book was one of the oldest mysteries he knew of, and he knew of many such mysteries.

  He was well aware that things existed in the universe that defied all understanding. He himself had often been accused of being one of them—an accusation that, in all honesty, Merlin couldn’t entirely refute. That might have been the reason why the ancient book irritated him so. For some reason, certain people could read it with no difficulties whatsoever . . . even certain people who had never been able to read anything up to that point.

  It was something of a sore point that Merlin himself wasn’t one of those people.

  The ancient entity stood back and silently watched as the girl-child casually flipped a page before continuing to read, completely engrossed in whatever it was she was seeing.

  So infuriating.

  *****

  From the moment she’d first seen the book, Elan had felt drawn to it. She couldn’t explain that draw, let alone anything else about it, but she didn’t feel the need to either. The draw was something tangible but indescribable. She remembered not understanding the words on the cover then, but somehow the next time she’d seen it, they were clear as day.

  The book was one of history and philosophy—two words that she had learned from the book itself—and instruction in seemingly any skill she could bring to mind. She had yet to find herself at a loss for something she sought once she turned to the book for more information. And though Elan didn’t really understand the pull it had on her, she couldn’t get the words she read in it out of her mind. The ideas within preyed on her thoughts when she tried to sleep, and she wondered at the stories it told her, uncertain if they were truth or some fanciful legend.

  Either way, she’d seen enough in the real world to know that the stories were possible, and that was enough. So she focused on absorbing what the book had to teach her, making it part of herself, part of her soul.

  She was going to be a knight. She would walk the path and destroy the demons no matter what it cost.

  *****

  Simone glanced up as Caleb slammed the door shut and stomped across the main room, leaving tracks of water and mud in his wake. She thought to reprimand him, but given that he had been out looking for Elanthielle, she decided that his mood likely wasn’t some childish fit of pique.

  Likely not much more mature, though, she thought, amused as she wondered just how the boy had put his foot in it this time.

  Caleb was a good lad, but she knew his faults better than most. Simone had raised him from almost before he could walk, his parents having been good friends who’d met their fates far too early. He had a good heart and a strong spirit, but his idea of tact left much to be desired. Given the right situation, that was not a bad thing in the least. However, dealing with a young woman of Elan’s age was seldom the right situation for a tactless comment.

  So she left him to his sulking, though the boy would probably have objected vociferously to that description of his actions if she’d had the nerve to make it aloud. Instead, she just quietly cleaned the floor as she again marveled at the changes they’d all endured over the last short while.

  The old city had been her home for her entire life, the last free human settlement she knew of. They’d lost contact with the others a long time before the destruction of the city. It had been the home of their little branch of humanity, but now it was, at best, an abandoned ruin.

  At worst, the demons had infested it, and pity anyone who was left there.

  This new city, this place that had sprung up out of nowhere over the last few months thanks to the builders provided by Merlin, was very different. It lacked the old feel of their home, with well-worn stones in the streets and odd angles and strange buildings where people had built what they could and made it fit.

  Here the streets were flat and smooth, laid out in concentric circles around a freshwater lake. The homes were of stone or something similar, but it was smooth like she’d only seen in the temple before. They were solid, though, and warm and safe. After what had happened, she could accept the changes that felt strange in exchange for that.

  After cleaning the floor, she crossed over to check on Caleb, who had retired back to his own space and was even then honing his blade with something of a manic intensity.

  Definitely girl troubles. Simone laughed silently to herself before she decided that the boy had the right idea about one thing at least.

  She retrieved her own blade, some water, and a honing stone. Iron blades were excellent for killing demons but not so for maintaining an edge.

  As she worked with the practiced motions of experience, the home filled with the sound of stone on metal, and she continued to consider the changes that had come upon them.

  Kaern said that Elan had the scent of prophecy, she remembered with a smirk. The gruff old bastard had used a different phrasing, of course. I wonder if he was right. Maybe she’s done what he saw coming . . . maybe she’s only getting started. I wish I knew. Maybe it would tell me more about what to expect.

  Deep down, she didn’t think that whatever it was Kaern saw coming was just the destruction of the city and Elan and himself being the saviors of the survivors. Of course, for everything she’d seen in her life, Simone wasn’t so certain about destiny. If it were real, just what had people done to deserve the
demons being inflicted on them?

  The soft scrape of the stone on iron was all that was heard as she tried not to worry about what was to come.

  The future would take care of the future. She would deal with the present as it came.

  Chapter 2

  As a demon of the Third Circle, there were few things that could threaten or truly even confuse Lady Ser’Goth, Queen of the Azran Pits. That was one of the reasons she had accepted the honor of leading the invasion front of the infinite expansion of the circles in the first place. On the fronts there were challenges, even losses at times, and that was exciting.

  Lady Ser’Goth was almost human-looking, the shape most demons began as . . . and eventually returned to if they lived long enough to accumulate true power. Her demonic heritage was visible in the deep azure tint of her skin and the red glow that filtered out through her eyes, fingernails, and mouth if the surrounding lighting was dim enough. Actually, she glowed in other places as well, but mostly those were between herself and those few fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to share her private time.

  She stood almost seven feet tall, muscled and curved in ways that had helped her entrap more than her share of victims during her younger days. Now, however, she rarely bothered. There were real challenges to address, and playthings were easily acquired, whether willing or not.

  Today’s complication, however, was just annoying.

  “Truly?” she asked, disgusted. “A great wave? The Lord Idiot lost his entire expeditionary force, along with almost all his newly inducted Ninth Circle minions . . . to a wave?”

  Atop the once great building that now served as her seat of power, Ser’Goth sighed deeply and slumped in the polished golden throne that was hers alone. The room around her was one of very few in the entire city that still gleamed. The polished stone and rich metals were meticulously cared for by slaves, and woe to anyone of any ilk who chose to deface her property. The city beyond had been beautiful, once, and even now still inspired awe . . . but also fear and distress by those who would gaze upon it now.

  Gleaming spires of angular design still reached for the skies, but darkness now clung to them, and deep inside the city, filth had set in a long time past. Ser’Goth would have, in many ways, preferred the millions of humans who once lived there return, compared to the countless demon filth of the weaker circles. Alas, even one such as she did not get everything she wished for.

  That point was made clear by the groveling wreck of a demon kneeling in front of her, delivering tidings from the Lord Idiot, who had managed to lose the majority of his host to a wave.

  “Did the humans at least die in it as well?” she asked, exasperated.

  The groveling, bumbling demon messenger nodded obsequiously with such force as to knock himself out if he weren’t careful.

  “Yes, my lady. The last free city in that region was wiped out before the wave struck. The city still stands. It was high on a cliff, but it has been abandoned.”

  Ser’Goth sighed again, feeling much put upon. “Well, at least he accomplished that much. Very well, return to your master.”

  “Of course, my lady,” the demon toady simpered. “But . . . that is, my lord asks for . . . reinforcing numbers.”

  The glow of her eyes flared bright enough to be seen even in the relatively decent light of the throne room, her voice taking on a deep, guttural tone.

  “He dares ask me for more forces? Begone, minion! Tell your master to rebuild his own forces,” she snarled. “He will have no more of mine.”

  The demon practically fell over himself fleeing the room and her presence.

  Ser’Goth sighed yet again, feeling like she was caught in a rut. She might have played with the messenger, except that the Lord Idiot had sent an Eighth Circle who had barely begun the change. She had her standards, and things with body parts falling off fell well below them.

  The fool might have gotten some forces out of me if he’d sent someone worth my time, she thought, amused by the idea as she got to her feet and crossed the room to where a large map of the world was carved into a massive wooden table.

  “So the northern part of the central continent is now clear,” she said, moving a marker to the appropriate area. “It took long enough.”

  “Indeed, my lady. This story, though . . . it concerns me,” a disembodied voice said from the ether.

  “Oh? Speak, Vizier.”

  A robed and humanoid figure, the source of the voice, appeared from thin air across the table.

  “A wave of the sort described, while possible, is rare,” he said.

  “You think it enemy action?” She half smiled, scoffing at the thought. “I think you credit these humans a little too highly.”

  “Human action? No,” the robed figure said. “They no longer have the capacity. We scoured the skies clean of their toys, and the sort of force required to raise up a wave like this would require the likes of which we could not easily have missed. But humans are not really the enemy, are they?”

  The lady stilled for a moment, considering that.

  “No,” she said, “they aren’t. However, we have not seen any sign of the enemy in a long time. If they have not yet abandoned this realm to us, then they are surely in the process of doing so.”

  “That I believe to be true as well,” the vizier said simply. “This may have been a parting shot in our direction.”

  She scoffed. “A weak shot, then. Eliminating the Lord Idiot’s forces merely saved me from likely having to do so myself eventually. No, Vizier, as unpalatable as it sometimes is, natural forces favor no side.”

  “True,” the robed figure conceded. “I do not say for sure, just that perhaps we consider that while it may require multiple actions to prove a pattern, all patterns begin with but a single act.”

  Ser’Goth nodded, albeit with reluctance. “A fair point, Vizier. For now, I believe this to be a natural occurrence. If we see other, similar actions, then we may consider them to be part of a pattern of action and respond accordingly. Likewise, if we find evidence of any other sort to indicate intervention.”

  The robed figure nodded once and backed away into the ether from where he had come.

  The silence that filled the room left Ser’Goth staring at the map of the world, the six great landmasses now almost filled with the markers of conquest.

  It had been a long time coming to reach this point, with far more losses among her forces than projected. The humans here had been tenacious, ruthless, and utterly demonic in the defense of their world. The greatest tragedy, in her eyes, was that in slaughtering all their warriors, all that had been left to feed to the change were the dregs who’d managed to eke out a survival while better men and women died fighting. It was the curse of the change, it seemed, to be fed inferior material to turn into demonic fodder.

  Some of the warriors she’d killed would have made superlative demons, given time.

  A fair few had been rather impressive playthings before she’d broken them.

  Ah well. The dregs would do. The change would cull the weakest and make the strong more so than they had ever imagined . . . in time.

  All things in time.

  *****

  Life under the demon yoke was not survivable if you had pride.

  That was why it was amazing that the man called Jolinr was still breathing. He was a tall, heavily muscled man, with the air of a brute. In his time he’d killed demons with his bare hands in retribution for their contempt, and he survived the retaliation only by the strength of his own body and the sometimes weary suffrage of the lady herself.

  That, and the fact that his two friends, the only two people in the world he gave a damn for, spent so much of their time pulling him out of the situations his pride got him into.

  The crack and sting of the whip had brought him to his knees as the black blood ichor of another demon felled by his hands dripped off his flesh. The red welt the whip raised shone brilliantly against the white of his skin and matched the red of his
hair and beard quite well. He hissed at the sensation, but only as he waited for the next blow to land.

  A scuffle and a thud behind him caused Jol to look back over his shoulder briefly and grin at the sight of Sindri standing above the demon overseer as his brother, Brokkr, huffed and started searching the now unconscious demon for anything of value.

  Jol got to his feet and limped over, across the dirty alley, waiting for the two brothers to finish their work. He towered over the pair, who stood only four feet tall to his well-over-six, but size meant very little when it came to the brothers. They’d stood with him for as long as he could remember, and he by them.

  “You’ll have to kill him,” Sindri said, looking up at him.

  Jol nodded. “I know.”

  The overseer had, perhaps ironically, seen too much. If left alive, it would cost all their lives, and likely a few more besides. Jol bent to retrieve his hammer from where he’d lost it after the first whip stroke had caught him across the face. It was half mired in muck, a mud of dirt and other things he would rather not consider that covered much of the ground within the city. The dark alley here had it in great supply, even coating the walls of buildings.

  The short-handled tool was one of the few weapons a human could carry openly in a demon-controlled populace, it being a commonplace item used by laborers in a dozen different fields. In the hands of Jol and with a few small—almost unnoticeable—modifications, it became a weapon more than capable of dealing with the majority of demons one might run into.

  When Brokkr had finished searching the demon, Jol motioned them both back as he hefted the laborer’s tool and dropped to one knee before swiftly bringing it down with a heavy blow that sent both a cracking and squishing sound into the air around them.

  Job done, he got back to his feet and let the black blood drip from the hammer as he glanced around.

  “Come, friends,” he said, “time to take our leave.”