Undermind Book 5, Chapter 9: Shaiel (Rough)

Silence stretched as they surveyed the smoking rubble and ash and crackling timber of what had once been the Vintonjorg town hall. Protruding from a nearby ash pile was a blackened hand, its fingers curled into a fist. Elsewhere, contorted shapes amidst the ruins starkly depicted the agony and terror of the victims’ final moments. The smell of cooked meat permeated the air.

“I should never have trusted them,” growled Saskia, clenching, opening and re-clenching her fists in agitation as she gyrated through the air.

“These poor bastards would be dead either way,” said Ruhildi. “’Tweren’t the demon shites who lit the fire. They just didn’t lift a finger to save anyone.”

Saskia shook her head angrily. “That’s beside the point. Now the demons are on the loose, and now we know they’re up to no good.”

The moment Saskia had come near the escaping demons, they had cut the throats of their human hosts and abandoned the bodies, their souls riding the wind to who-knew-where, moving faster than even she could hope to fly.

“Aye, but ’tweren’t as though you let them go for no reason,” said Ruhildi in a placating voice. “There were no other way to reach the burning building in time. The fault lies with them for betraying your trust, not you for giving it.”

“She is right, Old One,” said Padhra in her ear. “Not even you can see into the future. No meaningful choice is without risk. You chose to try and save as many people as you could. I would have done the same.”

“Fine,” said Saskia. “Let’s just agree that in hindsight it was a terrible decision and move on, shall we? What are we going do now?”

“I have to go back for Tildin and Rafe,” said Ruhildi.

Saskia blinked at her friend for a moment, until she realised Ruhildi was talking about the mother and child she’d rescued from the Blightguards before everything really went to crap. She’d left them underground, out of harm’s way.

“Right,” muttered Saskia as Ruhildi dashed off. At least some good would come out of this. That kid had better go on to cure cancer or something, given the price that had been paid so he could be free. Of course, none of this was his fault. It was all on her. If she hadn’t intervened, the little insurrection would never have taken the turn it did. The townsfolk wouldn’t be happy, but they’d be alive. Most of them.

Tildin and Rafe shouldn’t have to see this, thought Saskia. Coming to a decision, she settled on the steps before the smouldering ruins, planted her hands to the stone, and called forth her essence.

Ruhildi was a far better stoneshaper than her, but this was something Saskia could manage on her own with borrowed magic. She didn’t need her friend’s level of mastery, honed over a lifetime, for the task at hand. All she needed was power. And she had that in spades. The ground trembled violently around her. Stone cracked. The walls of a nearby building, already damaged by the battle and the fire, cracked and toppled. And amidst a cloud of churned up earth, the ruins of the town hall began to sink.

Padhra remained silent in her head, but Saskia could tell she was there; a comforting presence. Ruhildi was there too, though distracted at the moment. No matter how hard things got for her, she would at least have them.

The ruins were too vast to bury all at once. Saskia worked her way around the perimeter, leaving smooth-packed soil in her wake. She was less than halfway done by the time Ruhildi returned with the woman and child in tow. So much for sparing them the grisly sight.

Tildin gagged as she drew near. Tears streamed down her face, and she held her son close, but she did not look away. Minutes passed while they watched. Then Ruhildi led them away.

When Saskia was finished, and there was nothing but a smooth mound of earth where the building had stood, she erected a small stone cairn in its place.

Only then did she turn her gaze to the bloody corpses strewn across the town square. Those were all Blightguards and their collaborators. The townsfolk they’d butchered earlier had been thrown inside the town hall to burn with the living.

For a moment, Saskia considered trying her hand at necrourgy. She shared Ruhildi’s stoneshaping magic, so why not that side of it as well? But she had no use for walking corpses right now. Sighing, she looted a few items from the dead, then left the corpses to rot in the sun.

She caught up with Ruhildi, Tildin and Rafe a short distance out of town.

“I don’t know where we will go from here, but we can’t stay,” said Tildin to Ruhildi. “The Blightguards will be back. Besides, the town is no longer a home. It is a graveyard.”

“Then let us see you safely to another town,” said Ruhildi. “’Tis not as though we have elsewhere to go.”

“Us?” said Tildin. “Who is us?”

“Me and Sashki,” said Ruhildi. She flicked her eyes skywards to the spot where Saskia flew behind them. Saskia had kept her distance from the two humans, not wanting to disturb them any further with the presence of an imp.

Tilden let out a little gasp. Rafe squealed and gripped his mother’s hand and said, “Mum, it’s the corpse bird! Is it going to eat us too?”

Ruhildi snorted. “Och no. Sashki only eats bad people.”

“Ruhildi!” hissed Saskia. Her voice was too quiet to carry across the distance, but her friend didn’t need ears to hear her.

Tilden shot Ruhildi a baleful look. “No-one’s eating anyone. Right?”

Looking chagrined, Ruhildi nodded. “Sashki is my friend, and the nicest imp you will ever meet. She would never hurt either of you—or anyone else who doesn’t deserve it.”

“An imp?” said Tilden. “However did you become friends with an imp?”

“’Tis a long story,” said Ruhildi. “How about I call my friend here, and she can tell you herself?”

Tildin gave a firm nod, though she didn’t loosen her hold on her child.

Ruhildi looked at Saskia and whistled sharply between her fingers.

“What the hell was that supposed to be?” grumbled Saskia as she flapped closer. She landed on Ruhildi’s shoulder, feeling a sliver of satisfaction at the role reversal. Giddy-up, Ruhildi!

Ruhildi surreptitiously pinched Saskia on the leg, drawing a squawk from her. Then her friend reached up and patted her on the head. Unexpectedly, Saskia felt a purr rise up in her chest.

“There’s a good imp,” said Ruhildi. Turning to the wide-eyed mother and child, she said, “You see, she’s fair tame. Hardly ever bites.”

Saskia stifled the impulse to nip her on the ear. Now wasn’t the time. “Hi,” she said to the pair. “I’m Saskia. Nice to meet you.”

Rafe’s mouth opened wide in surprise. “A talking bird!”

“An imp isn’t a bird,” said Tildin. “It—she—is a demon.”

The matter-of-fact way she spoke of demons gave Saskia pause. “Have you met many demons before?” she asked.

“You’re the first,” said Tildin. “But my mother and father were from Araduun.”

“Your parents…” Saskia swallowed. “Were they living in Vintonjorg?”

“Oh no. They died years ago, as did my husband. Wagon accident.”

“Oh. That’s a relief—I mean, not a relief, but…” Saskia trailed off.

“It’s alright, I know what you mean,” said Tildin. “Truth be told, I wasn’t especially close with anyone in town. Still, I’ll grieve for them. Someone has to.”

Saskia shuffled awkwardly on Ruhildi’s shoulder, before finally launching herself back in the air. “So…Araduun. Are there many demons there?”

“Oh yes,” said Tildin. “You mean you don’t know?”

“Assume I know nothing,” said Saskia.

“Very well. The Blightguards hold no sway in Araduun. We—I mean the human city states—are not at war with your kind as we are here.”

“Yeah? Sounds like a much nicer place than this one. Why don’t we go there?” Saskia frowned. “After we clean up a certain…mess I created.”

“I don’t ken how we can ever find Lilene and the others if they don’t want to be found,” said Ruhildi, catching her drift. “Mayhap we should just go. We might larn something there that can help us here.”

“Araduun lies far to the north, across the sea,” said Tildin. “Thejourney is neither safe nor quick.”

“Can we go, Mum?” pleadedRafe. “The bad people won’t come for me there.”

“We don’t need to decide straight away,” said Tildin. “It is a long way to the coast. And if we want to make a new home somewhere along the way, we can do so.”

“I have to say, you’re taking everythingremarkably calmly,” said Saskia. “You’ve been thrown so many curve balls you’re neck deep in balls, yet you keep on wading through those balls as if they’re not even…okay, that one got away from me. What I mean is, you’re strong, and you’ll survive.”

“Words of wisdom from the wisest of imps,” said Ruhildi with a chuckle.

They made camp in a little valley to the north, and slept under the stars—and the moon and the giant tentacle monster. This was the first time Padhra got a good look at Ixathi, and her reaction didn’t disappoint.

“Old One,” she gasped. “Is that an…older one?”

“You could say that,” said Saskia with a chuckle. “Whatever that thing is, it’s older than me or Yona or any other of my kind I’ve ever heard of. Feel free to start worshipping itif you like. I won’t mind.”

“Never,” said Padhra. “You will always be myOld One.”

It wasn’t yet dawn when the sound of a scream jerked her out of a fitful dream. A child wailed; thin and piercing and filled with pain. Unfurling her wings and loosening her grip on the branch above, she flitted into the air. Only then did her sleep-fogged brain identify the source of the commotion and bring her to full wakefulness.

Rafe. The child was Rafe. He sat on a fallen tree trunk, nursing a bloody wound in his foot.

“What happened?” asked Saskia.

“He stepped on something,” said Tildin, who was rushing to staunch the bleeding with cloth torn from her dress. “A stone or stick or…something. My son sleepwalks.”

Fantabulous, thought Saskia. Are we gonna have to tie him down at night from now on?Then she berated herself for the insensitive thought. Rafe was bleeding a lot. This could be serious.

Her oracle medical interface confirmed her fears. Something had pierced almost all the way through the flesh of his foot. He wasn’t going to bleed out or anything, but nor would he be able to walk on that foot for a while.

His mother would have to carry him. Given his size, that would slow her down considerably. Maybe Ruhildi should be the one to carry him. Or…

Could she heal him?

Saskia had inherited some of the regenerative powers of her troll incarnation, albeit at a reduced level. Troll-Saskia had also been able to heal others by ingesting a substance called arlithite, then feeding them her blood. But there was no arlithite here.

Then again, she hadn’t even tried to heal someone else with her blood since she came here. Maybe imp blood had different healing properties than troll blood. Or maybe she’d evolved beyond her arlithite dependence. It was a long shot, but why not try it?

Saskia clenched her fist, slicing open the palm of her hand with her little impy claws. She let her blood dribble into a cup. She stopped when she began to feel light-headed. There wasn’t much blood in one little imp.

Tildin inspected the proffered cup dubiously in the pre-dawn half-light. “What’s this?” She took a sip, then spat in disgust. “Blood? Why would you…?”

“It’s not for you,” said Saskia. “It may help heal your son’s wound faster.” She neglected to mention the fact that it was unlikely to have much effect.

“Imp blood isn’t a healing reagent,” muttered Tildin. “I’m no witchwife, but even I know that.”

“Well I’m not your garden variety imp,” said Saskia.

“Garden—what?”

“Never mind. My blood is special. I heal fast. Very fast. So maybe…” She let Tildin make the connection.

“Alright,” said Tildin. She held the cup to her son’s lips, and urged him to take a sip. He did so, then gagged and tried to wriggle out of her lap, but she eventually coaxed him to swallow the rest of it.

Saskia’s stomach roiled. Here they were feeding demon blood to a child. What could possibly go wrong?

An hour later, as they were readying to depart, she let out a sigh of relief. Not only was Rafe not showing any signs of having been poisoned, but the wound on his foot was starting to close beneath the bandage. They couldn’t see it, but she and Ruhildi and Padhra could, through her medical interface.

Another day, and he didn’t need the bandage. Two days, and he could walk again—though they’d been making faster progress with Ruhildi carrying him, so there was no reason to make him walk all the time.  Rafe whooped up a storm when his mount charged up a hill. They could go all day like this—and did.

“How do you do it?” asked Tildin. “Carry all that weight? You’re such a skinny little thing, and yet you heft that pack—and my boy, who is heavy as a sack of bricks—as if they’re made of air.”

“Just as Sashki isn’t a normal imp, I’m not a normal girl,” said Ruhildi.

She said no more, and Tildin didn’t press her further. Maybe in time they could reveal all their secrets to her, but it was not yet that time.

As the sun began to wane on the fourth day, they came upon a misty glade with a stone statue at its centre. The statue had fallen into disrepair. One of her arms were missing, and the wings that had once splayed wide from her back were barely more than stumps. Her form was vaguely reptilian, but her face was closer to human than beast.

Approaching the statue, Saskia felt something stirring on the edge of her thoughts. This creature seemed somehow familiar, though she’d clearly never met her before.

“Some kind of demon?” she guessed.

Tildin looked at her strangely, then shook her head. “Not a demon. Shaiel the Winged Prophet. It is said she will slay any fool who creates an idol in her image, but there are always more fools who try.”

Memories rose unbidden at the name—memories that were not her own. The Serpent King had known a mysterious winged prophet. Could this statue be depicting the same entity?

Not daring to voice her thoughts aloud, Saskia fished for more information. “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

The woman shrugged. “It should. Perhaps you know of her by another name.”

“Such as?”

“Demonbane. Oracle of the East. Herald of Armageddon.” Tildin drew in a deep breath. “Hand of Ixathi.”