Night's Templar by Joey W. Hill
Her twisted limbs showed how valiantly she'd fought. What sickened him was seeing her torn clothing, the broken fingers, the ripped flesh. He studied the fanned out pattern and condition of the men's bodies that littered the cave floor. They reminded him of a group of wooden soldiers picked up and flung, then torched by fire.
How had they made it past her wards and protections? Her defenses would have been considerable, but the enemy she faced had found a way, and used weak men to do its bidding. As evil always did.
"She made a good accounting of herself," Keldwyn said.
Uthe looked up, surprised to find the Fae next to him. "How did you get through?"
"The shielding could not prevent a Fae magic-user of my level from entering, but it was clever enough I did not want to risk disrupting its nature and possibly destroying its recognition of you. It made more sense for you to go first."
"And if I was incinerated, there really wouldn't be anything left to do, right?"
"There was that, yes." Keldwyn didn't smile. He was looking at the ruins of Fatima's body. "So what happened here?" His voice was low and respectful.
"She used her magic to fight, until she realized the numbers would deplete her energy to the point she couldn't protect what they'd come to take. I think that's when she made the decision to sacrifice herself and put all her energy toward that protection." Kneeling by her body, Uthe put his hand over her mangled fingers, his throat thickening at the memory of how they'd once felt. Thin and cool, like gnarled sticks, but full of life.
"The explosion probably occurred when death was imminent. She knew the protection spell would be triggered by the release of her soul, but she wanted one more strike on her own terms. It burned the bodies." He imagined her summoning that last bit of defiance to blast them away from her and touched her face. "I'm sorry, Fatima. So sorry we did not come in time."
Bowing his head, he said a prayer for her soul to Allah, since that was the face of the Divine that Fatima had preferred. Then he rose. There were sconces on the wall, the torches burned out. But Uthe found more in a woven basket and replaced them. Fatima was a sorceress, so apparently she hadn't needed a lighter. As soon as he had the thought and glanced toward Keldwyn, he saw the Fae was already on it. Keldwyn moved to the first torch, touched it, and flame appeared.
"It looks far more impressive than it is," Kel said at his quizzical look. "More a conversation with the elements than actual magic."
A pragmatic explanation, yet Uthe couldn't look away as Kel moved to each of the four torches, bringing the flames to life seemingly from the touch of his fingers. Fire licked along Uthe's body as he thought of the way Keldwyn could do the same to him. He was standing amid rotting corpses and still affected by the Fae's mesmerizing qualities, not surprisingly. He'd spent a great deal of his life in violent circumstances, and other impulses and needs had learned to live and grow within their proximity.
Kel glanced over his shoulder. "I did not dismantle the spell, so nothing can get into this cave with us."
"But the longer we are here, the more time we give reinforcements to arrive." Uthe was sure reinforcements would be coming. They'd deal with that when necessary. As the light spread through the chamber, he saw the things he'd seen on past visits. A cot, some basic equipment for preparing and preserving food, a radio. Everything else was dedicated to Fatima's purpose. Containers for potions and ingredients, stacks of books. Hundreds of carved symbols on the walls, a language that stretched in every direction, like stars and planets crowding a universe.
He stood back, studied the symbols. There was something different. Colors. She'd used colors and dyes, so it seemed as if certain strings of symbols went together and intersected with others.
She couldn't make it simple, because she'd known other enemies would be sent to decipher it. The colors were for him. The colors of the chakras, which told him the order in which they should be studied, but that wouldn't make it an easier problem to solve. It just narrowed down the amount of data he would need to study. They wouldn't be leaving the cave anytime soon, which meant he had time to do something else first.
"There are several chambers beyond this main one," he said. "Including one with a water source. I'll clean and prepare the body there and form a cairn over her for burial. It won't be according to her faith, but she'll at least be laid to rest with respect and prayer. As for the rest of them..." His lip curled with distaste. "I'd like to burn them to ash, but the smoke would choke us.
"I'll take care of them," Keldwyn said. "But do we have time for any of that?"
"The answer is there," Uthe said, looking at the ceiling. "But I do not know how long it will take me to decipher it. Hours at least."
Uthe went to his pack, removed a smaller bag. As Keldwyn watched him, he withdrew a generous length of shimmering silk, let it play over his hands. His fingers were too rough, snagging the delicate fabric. "I'd intended to give this to her as a gift. She loved beautiful fabrics."
Keldwyn gripped Uthe's shoulder. "I am sorry."
"She expected to die in the service of this quest, as do I. The manner of her death was undeserved for such a noble spirit, though. No matter how often that turns out to be the way of it."
His bitterness was the symptom of too many losses over the years, but as always, the sharpest bite came from the staring eyes of the long dead, on a battlefield where he had survived and they had not. It always went back to Hattin. He put the silk back in the pack. He would prepare her body, and figure out what he'd come here to find. He would honor her as well as those dead Templars by making sure her tireless work didn't go to waste.
He lifted his head at a waft of warm energy. Keldwyn stood at the apex of the corpses. He had his hands spread as a green glow left his fingertips and drifted down to the floor, settling over the dead like mist. A mist that started thickening, solidifying. Brown veins started to run through their flesh. Uthe inhaled the decay of the natural world. Dried leaves in damp earth, the bones of a mouse left by an owl, algae covering creek stone with slickness.
"We perhaps should have kept one alive," Keldwyn said absently. "Question them about who sent them."
Uthe shook his head. The bodies were starting to disintegrate, the odor of violent death replaced by something far less difficult to endure. "They are under compulsion, my lord, with souls already blackened. They are puppets of their master, with no true knowledge of him."
"Is that how you knew they were deserters and thieves from the Saracen army?"
Uthe nodded. "The demon possesses souls with capital crimes already marked upon them. It is how he is able to compel them from a great distance. Death brings them a chance to seek redemption in the afterlife, where they can cleanse their soul before they move on to another life and hopefully do better."
"A Christian who believes in reincarnation."
"I am not a Christian," Uthe said. "A religion isn't necessary to believe in God and obey His Will. Will you watch for our enemies while I take Fatima's body to the water?"
"I will. And since I will have time to kill...literally,"--a feral smile touched Keldwyn's mouth--"once you start your studying, I'll hunt in the immediate area. Dispatch any reinforcements who get close enough."
"Sounds like an efficient plan. Though Cai won't thank you if you don't leave him or Rand anyone to disembowel."
Uthe spoke in a casual tone, though he didn't like the idea of Keldwyn fighting by himself. Which was as absurd as his desire to pull out his sword earlier, since the Fae was capable of taking out a couple dozen humans on his own. But hadn't Keldwyn been the one that said even a human could get in a lucky strike?
"Cai should think about that next time he disrespects a high Fae," Keldwyn responded, unconcerned. "As his lupine companion would tell him, a bad dog gets no treats." The Fae positioned himself to watch the entrance, but he tilted his head toward Uthe. "Before you bury your sorceress, you will tell me what we face and why we face it. You may save the detailed explanation for later, but I will k
His tone made it a clear command. Uthe would have taken exception to it, but in Keldwyn's position, he would have felt the same way. He met the Fae's dark gaze.
"The demon is an enemy that was imprisoned over a thousand years ago. We discovered him in the ruins of Solomon's Temple, and I was charged with his guardianship until a way to dispatch him back to his origins was discovered. That is the weapon Fatima has created. She sent me the message several ago that it was at last ready."
"So the demon knows the answer to his demise has been found."
"Yes, apparently." Uthe looked down at the twisted corpse, anger and pride surging through him. "Though it didn't come from her. The message to me may have been intercepted, or the demon was monitoring her progress another way. She would have killed herself before giving them anything. She was much like her ancestor, Haris."
"A demon at large is a concern to far more than the human race or even one vampire." Keldwyn shifted to glance out the entranceway, then brought his attention back to Uthe, his dark eyes intent. "Did you not think to seek other help?"
"All involved with it were sworn to secrecy, my lord. You know as I do what element is attracted to a power source like this. Containing the demon itself has often been an overwhelming effort. If news of it had gone beyond us..."
Keldwyn frowned. "Yet it can compel weaker minds. Why would it not have made itself known to those with evil intent that way?"
"As I said, it can only compel those minds, not identify itself to them. And even if it could, the demon does not reside in this realm. It is beyond the reach of those with malevolent purpose."
Awareness dawned on Keldwyn's face. "The Shattered World. That is what you have imprisoned in the Shattered World. And Reghan suggested this?"
"Reghan and Shahnaz."
The Fae Lord digested that. "It makes sense. Magwel was in line for the Unseelie throne, and had the ear of the Queen then. He could have asked her help to open a portal there. Since that was before he and Magwel dissolved their relationship, she would have agreed with little explanation."
"Yes."
"Why worry about a weapon to send it back to a place it escaped once before? Why not leave it in the Shattered World for all eternity?"
"Because there is more to it." Uthe held Keldwyn's gaze. "I would prefer to explain further after I attend to Fatima, my lord. Please."
"I tire of waiting for the full picture, Lord Uthe," the Fae said, an edge to his voice. "It feels like you are deliberately keeping me ignorant to serve other purposes."
"I swore a blood oath never to speak of this to anyone but those who had to know to achieve God's will." Uthe rose to his feet, faced him. "I have always had to weigh carefully who I tell of this, never blurt things out hastily that cannot be retrieved. Yet you now know more than anyone alive, except myself. Draw your own conclusions from that, my lord, when I ask you for patience."
"I've never known you to blurt out anything, my lord." Keldwyn's expression eased some. "I believe current circumstances suggest I am now part of those who need to know."
"Yes. I agree. It makes sense to me that someone with your intelligence and power would be sent my way now, when the integrity of my own mind is degrading." Uthe forced out the words, though the last one caught in his throat. "Yet I will be frank, my lord. I do not know your full motives for coming on this quest with me, but I know you serve both the Unseelie and Seelie Fae royalty. I have had one task to honor above all others. This noble woman died for it, and she was not the first. No matter how much my heart wants to trust you, the mind and heart are intertwined. If I cannot trust the integrity of my mind, I will not fail after all these years because your attentions make me wish for things I have set aside. I must be certain I can trust you, and for that I need your faith. I need your trust."
Uthe paused. He hadn't realized all those thoughts had been there, just waiting to be said, building up throughout their journey together, and that journey had only just begun. Keldwyn was staring at him with an unreadable expression. Uthe inclined his head and spoke stiffly. "I am going to prepare her body now. Do as you will."
Taking the blanket from her cot, which still smelled like her body despite the less pleasant scents saturating the chamber, he wrapped her up in it, and lifted her tenderly in his arms. So light and small. Humans seemed fragile as birds when they died. Even some of his fellow Templars in full mail had felt that way to him when he carried them from the field.
He left the chamber, moving back into the warren of tunnels. One led to the water source, a trickle through the rocks that splashed into a pool no bigger than a bucket. Laying her down on the floor of the cavern, he removed her torn and bloody clothes. She had a stack of wash cloths and towels back here, and he doused one in the water, using it to clean her. Then he wrapped her in the silk. Sitting back on his heels, he gazed at her once more, seeing the strength of her features despite the decomposition.
It was rare for a vampire to be known to one family through so many generations. He'd seen the physical and personality traits Haris and Shahnaz possessed resurface or meld with the features of each successor who took on the mantle of magic and the responsibility of adding to their knowledge. Whatever Fatima had discovered had been built on their dedication.
In her younger days, Fatima had been a nearly perfect physical replica of Shahnaz. It was as if, after a certain number of cycles, the genetics returned in full force. In Fatima's flawless features, he was able to see what Shahnaz's beauty would have been unmarred. It was not the only way the two women were similar. Shahnaz had made the first major breakthrough with the demon.
When they'd unearthed the demon's container under Solomon's Temple, they'd found the binding on the vessel had an imminent expiration date. Up until then, Uthe had questioned the wisdom of removing the demon from where he'd been hidden, but that had suggested the discovery had God's favor.
Shahnaz had found a way to contain the spirit indefinitely. Relics had been useful to the binding, but finding a way to lock them to the demon and ensure the prison could not be breached as the years progressed had required magic of an extraordinary complexity. "Binding something so a smart person can't figure out how to unlock it is difficult, but not impossible. Finding a way to protect something from random chance and dumb luck is the true challenge."
He smiled. He'd heard computer experts say something similar about hacking. Appropriate, since technology had always seemed like magic to him. Shahnaz had at last found the right combination of spell craft, but it had nearly come too late. As the demon was breaking free from his older, weakened bindings, she'd shouted the right words and laid the architecture of his new prison. It pulled him back into captivity--barely.
He'd visited her shortly after it had happened. She'd looked as if she'd aged fifteen years, and he'd seen her only a year ago. Yet the close call with the demon didn't matter to her. She brushed aside his concern, having more important things to tell him. For years she'd lived with the demon's daily threats that it would break free and do unspeakable horrors to her, so Uthe guessed the threat nearly becoming reality hadn't been enough to rattle her. She only wanted to talk to him about one thing.
The angel who'd shown up on her doorstep right afterwards.
* * *
"You expect them to come down in a blaze of light and clouds, with wings gilded by a heavenly glow." She unwrapped a sweetmeat and offered it to him. When he declined, she gave him a cup of tea instead and sat on a cushion, her feet drawn up as she rocked on the point of her buttocks. She preferred to wear loose cotton pants with a tunic over it, a man's clothes, and she kept her hair hacked short. Though her face was a tragedy, she had a curvaceous body any man might desire. She stayed cognizant of that, though her reputation as a witch woman kept most at bay except those who needed her healing tonics. She lived in France, in a stone cottage in the forest, near the village of La Couvertoirade.
"He showed up outside my door a day after it had happened.
She rolled her eyes, looking so much like a fishwife at her wit's end with her husband that Uthe almost grinned, despite the seriousness of it all. "But I should have remembered that the gods, by whatever name we call Them, have their own agenda."
She pushed up the tunic, showed him an arm that had been burned to the bone. "I was still unsettled by this, else I would have known better. And the bastard gave me these white streaks of hair." She ran a hand through the short crop, ruffling it. "The demon, not the angel."
"You should have called me, Shahnaz."
"To what end?" She eyed him. "You are a powerful vampire, my lord, but you are no magic user. There is risk in what we do here, we know it."
"I meant to help with this decision, with the angel."
She shook her head. "The binding has been perfected, Lord Uthe. Thanks to your connection to Lord Reghan, we've secured a place to put the demon and the relics guarding it, far beyond the reach of man. Beyond the reach of any but yourself, really. Foolproof, since fools are the cleverest among us."
"You said the angel was going to take it."
"Yes. But I convinced him the sacrifice was too great." Shahnaz's eyes grew serious, and she closed both hands over one of Uthe's. "We cannot vanquish the demon at the expense of the others who share his prison. Giving him that victory would fuel evil in a way that would be worse than unleashing the demon upon the world. That was the argument I made with the angel."