Triplet (19 page)

“Maybe they don't want us to get too good a look at them,” she suggested. Now that he mentioned it, it
did
sound a little odd. “If they're all victims of this same recruitment scheme, it could be the village leaders don't want us to identify any of them.”

“Which could mean they aren't yet sure they can keep us here,” Ravagin said slowly. “If we were stuck in Coven for the duration, without any possibility of a way out, they shouldn't care if we know who they've snatched.”

“Pretty flimsy logic,” Danae muttered.

“I'll take what I can get at this stage,” he shrugged, running his fingers experimentally along the window frame. “Probably a waste of time to try and get out this way, but for the moment it's about all we've got available.” Reaching to the back of his belt, he pulled a dagger from beneath his tunic and dug the point in between the frame and glass.

“They didn't bother to disarm you?” Danae frowned.

“Oh, the peri in the forest disarmed me, but good,” he grunted, working the knife back and forth. “Released the dazzler from the sword Melentha lent me. Lot of fireworks and frost—you'd have loved it. Melentha'll probably kill me for losing it.”

“Why'd the peri do that? Couldn't it have handled you even with a bound-spirit sword?”

“Hell, it could have handled me with
two
bound-spirit swords,” he told her frankly. “You have to remember that spirits aren't like a pack of idiot dogs or something panting eagerly for the chance to be dumped on by humans. Being entrapped is the equivalent of slavery for them, and they'll do practically anything to get out of it. It's probably the main reason that getting a binding spell wrong is so dangerous; the spirit knows what you were trying to do and lashes out in self-defense …”

He trailed off, and the knife in his hand came to a halt. “What is it?” Danae asked, feeling the hairs rising on the back of her neck.

“Coven,” he said slowly. “Danae … what is Coven's claim to fame on Karyx?”

She frowned, thinking. “You told me it was their trade goods. Well crafted, many of them spirit-enhanced—”

“Spirit-enhanced,” he nodded. “Is it just me … or is there something wrong about a peri who's able to release spirits working for a place that routinely binds those same spirits?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. “Maybe … could the peri be under a geas of some kind?”

Ravagin shook his head. “I don't think so. But there's more. When we got to the village itself … yes. The peri told the man that it was heading back to the forest.
Told
him. Didn't ask permission, didn't wait for orders of any kind. And the man accepted this as apparently normal behavior.”

Danae gnawed thoughtfully at her lip. “Well, it at least indicates that that particular man isn't in control of that particular peri.”

“Maybe,” Ravagin said slowly, “it indicates that there aren't
any
men in control of the spirits here.”

Danae moved up to where she could see Ravagin's face. If he'd been making a joke, it didn't show in his tight expression. “Are you suggesting the spirits could be in charge of Coven themselves?” she asked. “May I remind you that you just got done saying spirits don't like being bound?”

“I also said we're a long way from knowing what the rules are that govern them,” he reminded her. “There could be a whole set of power struggles underway we know nothing about. Maybe the—I don't know—the demons, maybe, are perfectly willing to trap the weaker spirits in the hierarchy for their own purposes, while the peris generally release them whenever they can get away with it. Something like that.”

“Or maybe all of the spirits in Coven are united against the rest of Karyx,” Danae said quietly. “With the bound-spirit goods they sell as their version of a fifth column.”

Ravagin turned away from the window to face her. “Are you suggesting there might be a way for bound spirits to release themselves when they wanted to?”

“Or else that one of the great powers could release them all at once,” Danae said, speaking slowly as it gradually crystallized in her mind. “Neither elementals nor demogorgons are supposed to be particularly localized. But even if the bound spirits never get out it might still pay an aggressor spirit to give them as wide a distribution as possible. Economically, bound-spirit items are the heart of what passes for technology on Karyx. The more the people here grow dependent on them, the more power the spirits have.”

“The wolf hunter method,” Ravagin nodded grimly. “Makes sense.”

“The what?”

“Old story I once heard about a man who trapped a particularly cunning pack of wolves by setting out food for them every night for a few weeks while during the day he slowly built a fence around the area. By the time the fence was completed the wolves had become so accustomed to coming there for food they walked right into the enclosure and he simply closed the gate behind them. Moral was that you're vulnerable to the same extent that you're dependent. If this is what the spirits—or any subset of them—are doing, we've
definitely
got to get out of here and blow the whistle.”

Danae looked at the spot where Ravagin had been digging with his dagger. It was hardly marked. “We're not going to break any speed records going at it this way.”

“Yeah.” Ravagin scowled at the window frame and jammed his knife back into its sheath. “The whole building's probably crawling with bound spirits. I wish to hell you'd been out there in the forest with me when that peri released the dazzler—with that high-retention memory treatment of yours you might have been able to remember the spell it used.”

“I'm not sure I'd care to have a whole swarm of freshly released and possibly hostile spirits buzzing around me, anyway,” Danae said, shivering. “Looks to me like all we have left is the direct approach. Through the door.”

“With a spirit-protection spell around us?” Ravagin said doubtfully.

Danae gritted her teeth. “And the possibility that you at least might be able to get out while the lar's busy holding me.”

“Forget it,” Ravagin shook his head. “We leave together or not at all.”

“This is no time for male overprotectiveness,” Danae growled, tension draining away what little native patience she possessed.

“Don't flatter yourself,” Ravagin shot back. “Male protectiveness is usually reserved for friends and lovers. But you're a client, and I'm a Courier, and I'll be damned if I'll chase you all the way to Coven just to turn around and desert you.”

“Well, then, the hell with your Courier pride, too,” she snapped. “This is just a shade more important—”

And without warning the door slammed back on its hinges.

Danae jumped, spinning around as the Coven-robed man strode into the room.
Damn,
she thought viciously. Possibly their last chance to get out of here, and they'd thrown it away arguing.

And then she caught the look in the man's eyes … and abruptly her stomach tightened within her.

R
AVAGIN TENSED, MUSCLES AND
senses automatically shifting into combat mode. If the man assaulted Danae he would have to intervene … But a moment later the wild eyes shifted instead to him. “You—Ravagin,” he ground out. “The woman called you ‘Courier.' I heard her. Who—
what
—are you?”

The sheer unexpectedness of the question threw Ravagin off stride for a couple of heartbeats. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to gain time.

The man's face darkened, and his voice was suddenly harsh. “Don't play games with me, human. If you're a Courier from the other world, admit your identity.”

Beside him, Ravagin felt Danae tense. “You're mistaken,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “I merely meant he was acting as my escort in Besak—”

“
Do not lie!
” the man screamed, taking a step toward her.

Danae jerked back; and as the man took another step forward, Ravagin moved to stand between them. “
Carash-natasta!
” he called.

The man jerked back as if stung, and for a second an expression of pure hatred suffused his face. Slowly it faded, to be replaced by a look of almost amused bitterness. “And what did you expect to accomplish by that?” he asked.

“It was mainly to get your attention,” Ravagin said, hiding as best he could the knot growing in his gut. He hadn't expected a simple demon-release spell to do any good … but the other's startled reaction had confirmed his suspicion that the man before him was indeed playing host to something else. “I also thought it might help me find out who I was talking to.”

“I trust you are satisfied?”

“Reasonably.” There was nothing to be gained, after all, by groveling before the demon. Whatever it had planned for them, maintaining his dignity couldn't make things any worse. “I don't suppose you'd care to give me your name?”

The smile on the other's face was very inhuman. “I do not insult your intelligence, human. Do not insult mine. Now tell me where you are from.”

Behind him, Danae gripped his upper arm warningly. Ravagin pursed his lips … but there was really no point in playing coy. For the demon to have picked up on the word
Courier
—and then to have placed the proper significance on it—meant he would merely be confirming something the spirit already knew. Somehow. “We're from a different world a long way from here,” he admitted. Peripherally, he sensed Danae's surprise that he'd given in so easily. Perhaps she didn't yet understand what they were facing here.

The man—the man/demon combination, rather—gazed at him for a long minute, an unreadable expression on his face. “How did you arrive in Karyx?” he asked at last.

“I think you know,” Ravagin told him, feeling the sweat collecting on his forehead. Spirit possession was one of the few facts of life on Karyx that he'd long since realized he would never be able to accept. “If you're looking for the location of the Tunnel, I can tell you right now you can't get through it.”

The man/demon hissed, exactly as a demon would, and for another long minute there was silence in the room.
Demon-powered or not, the carrier still has normal human weaknesses,
Ravagin reminded himself. A knife could still mess him up badly—maybe even kill him and release the demon back to wherever it was spirits came from …
if
he could get close enough to use the weapon before the other was able to stop him. He threw a sideways glance at Danae, her face very close to his as she looked out from behind him, one hand still with a death-grip on his left arm. If he could somehow cue her to create a diversion—finger-spelling, perhaps, behind his back? And if he could be sure of distracting the demon as well as its human host. …

“Get out of here.”

Startled, Ravagin brought his full attention back to the man/demon. “What?”

“You heard me,” it snarled. “Get out of Coven.
Ahlahspereojihezrahilkma beriosparathmistrokiai—
”

Danae shrieked, and Ravagin spun around to find her clutching herself tightly, a look of shock on her face. “It … got heavier,” she gasped.

“The djinn has been released from the robe,” the man/demon said. “It will trouble you no further. Now
get out.
Before the offer is withdrawn.”

Danae's fingers gripped Ravagin's arm again. “You think it's some kind of trick?” she whispered.

Of course it is,
was his automatic response … but if it was, there had to be a hook somewhere, and nothing obvious leapt to mind. Besides which—“Doesn't matter if it is,” he murmured back. “If we don't take a chance on it we'll be stuck here for good, anyway. Come on.” Taking her hand in his, he turned back to the man/demon. “We want our horses,” he told him, wondering just how far he could push. “I have no intention of hiking back through Morax Forest.”

The other spat, snarling something under his breath. Abruptly, two sprites appeared. “Send them,” the man/demon growled.

Ravagin focused on the glow-fires. “Have whoever's holding our horses bring them to the front of this building,” he instructed. “Quickly.”

The sprites flared and shot from the room. “Would it be out of order for me to ask why the sudden benevolence?” Ravagin ventured. “It might help future groups who happen to stumble into this place—”

“If any more of your people come to Coven THEY WILL BE DESTROYED!”

The man/demon's abrupt shriek left Ravagin's ears ringing and his heart pounding. “Understood,” he managed. “Come on, Danae—let's go.”

Passing the man/demon was the worst part. But the creature made no move to stop them, and a minute later they emerged from the building to find their horses standing stiffly by the temple door. “Hold it,” Ravagin warned as Danae hurried forward. “All right, spirits, we're here. Now get out of our horses.”

For a second there was no response. Then, abruptly, both horses were sheathed in red lights which coalesced into vaguely human shapes before vanishing.

Ravagin expelled a deep breath. “Djinns,” he identified them.

“Yeah, I know,” Danae murmured. “At least they weren't demons. Can we get out of here now?”

“You bet.”

They mounted and headed off between the houses at a fast trot. “Maybe that's why they never came too close to us,” Danae said as they neared the forest. “They knew we might be allowed to leave.”

Ravagin looked in the direction she was pointing and saw another group of robed figures in the distance. “I doubt that's the reason,” he told her darkly. “I don't think there are more than a handful of real humans in Coven any more. I expect those are nothing more than disguised spirits—possibly doppelgangers—put there for the sole purpose of making the place look populated.”