Triplet

Chapter 18

Ravagin 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 lept 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 last 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."

Danae muttered something under her breath. "God. Let's get the hell out of this place."

Ravagin glanced at the sun one last time to check their direction and then hunched down into his saddle. "I'm with you," he nodded... and felt a shiver run up his spine.

Up ahead, somewhere, would be the hook in whatever this trap was that the demons of Coven had set for them.

They rode steadily for almost three hours, following a route that Ravagin insisted was the way they'd both come the night before; and as they continued on with no sign of hindrance or trickery from Coven, Danae's dread slowly faded into a sort of mid-level tension. The sun was still climbing in the sky—somehow, it seemed incredible that their whole stay in Coven had amounted to only about an hour—and the forest was alive around them with the chirps of birds and the scurrying sounds of small animals. Of the larger predators that Danae knew must live in Morax as well there was no sign.

"Aha," Ravagin said, his voice jerking her out of a nervous contemplation of the tree branches above them. "I told you this was the right path. Here's the clearing where I met the peri last night."

"Oh, great," Danae growled, looking around them with rekindled apprehension. "Let's move on before it comes back."

"And pass up what may be our best chance for a rest stop?" Ravagin rode to the middle of the clearing and swung down from his horse. "Come on, relax a little."

"Relax? How can you even think of relaxing at a time—"

"Danae." Ravagin held up a hand as he took a few stiff-looking steps. "I don't understand what the hell's going on, either, but if they'd wanted to stop or kill us, they would have done so a long time ago. Whatever else they've got on their ethereal little minds, I think we really are being allowed to go. So come over here and get the kinks out of your muscles."

"But it doesn't make any sense," Danae grumbled, dismounting and leading her horse toward Ravagin's. He was right, she realized: her legs and rump felt awful. "Why let us go? Especially when we'd figured out their secret?"

"Maybe there's a higher principle involved," he shrugged. Moving a few meters to the side, he stooped over and reached down. "It could be that whatever they wanted to do to us doesn't work properly on non-Karyxites. Or maybe the demogorgon in charge of this part of the planet overruled the demon."

"Why should it? Demogorgons aren't supposed to pay much attention to what goes on in human society here. There aren't even any spells to invoke them."

"Sure there are." Ravagin straightened, holding two halves of a broken sword. "Who do you think you're invoking when you do a spirit-detection or protection spell or something?"

Danae frowned. "Those are handled by a demogorgon?"

"Or else by an elemental—I'm not sure anyone knows which. But it's definitely one of the two great powers. How else do you think those spells work?—by magic or something?"

She looked sharply at him; but if he was ridiculing her he was hiding it well. "I thought all this was done by magic," she said stiffly.

He shook his head, turning the broken sword over in his hands. "One sword, shot completely to hell.

Melentha's going to be furious. Magic, huh? Yeah, I suppose you could consider this magic if you wanted to. I've always found it works better to think of it as an automated voice-command system, with the network being composed of spirits instead of computers. The words by themselves don't have any real power behind them; it's the spirits who respond that do all the work."

He was right, of course. Danae swallowed her reflexive urge to continue what would only be a futile argument and glanced back in Coven's direction. "So why did they let us go?"

"Let's not talk about it until we're out of the forest, okay?" Ravagin said quietly.

She looked at him sharply. "You don't understand it either, do you?"

"I've already said I didn't. I also said I don't want to talk about it. You want me to repeat it in Standard and Shamahni?"

"Why?" she countered. "You think we'll reason out something they were afraid we would see there and bring them down on us?"

"The possibility had crossed my mind," he growled. "And considering what just nearly happened to you in there, I'd have thought you'd be showing a little more caution yourself."

"In other words you'd rather run from danger than try to understand it." She snorted. "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm the one who was kidnapped, and I'm not going to let it go that easily. Besides, what can they do to us here that they can't do just as easily in Besak or even in Melentha's fancy fortress?

Hmm?"

Slowly, Ravagin looked up from his contemplation of the broken sword, and she swallowed hard at the ice in his eyes. "You're perhaps forgetting that I know about my place in your little psychological experiment," he said at last. "If this is part of it, I strongly suggest you back off. If it's not, then I'll tell you right now you're a fool. Whatever else the demons of Coven have going, we know enough already to make us a danger to them. Yes, they let us go; but maybe it was because they didn't realize how much we'd figured out. And even if they did, it may not take a hell of a lot to tip the balance back the other direction. If you want to consider it cowardly, that's your privilege... but try to keep in mind that I've brought over three hundred clients to Karyx over the past sixteen years and gotten them out safely. When you've got a record like that, let me know."

For a moment they stood facing each other in silence. Danae licked her lips once, but she couldn't find any words to say. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to offend you."

He dropped his eyes. "Forget it." For another moment he gazed down at the broken sword in his hands. Then, abruptly, he hurled the shards violently into the trees across the clearing. "Mount up, and let's get moving."

Feeling the blood flooding into her face, Danae obeyed.

Once again, Ravagin had succeeded in making her feel like a child. This time, unfortunately, she'd deserved it.