City of Demons (31 page)

The Banes looked at each other. No one outside the hall was supposed to know about the jewels and their power. Salick cleared her throat. “My Lord? How did you, ah, acquire the jewel?” Her voice squeaked, and Garet felt his own anxiety rise as they neared the bottom of the stairs.

Andarack's answer was barely audible. “Master Relict...delivered it... on my brother's...” he stopped talking and slumped against the wall. “Listen carefully, I can go no farther with you. Even having that cursed thing in the house has driven off all my workers except Dasanat.” He smiled weakly. “She's a true mechanical. Nothing except her current project ever catches her attention.” He pointed to a door at the bottom of the stairs and handed Salick an ornate, brass key. “There are instructions to follow...on the table inside.” He waved off their hands. “Leave me to rest here a while and I'll be able to go back upstairs. No doubt...Dasanat has ruined the mix by now.”

Reluctantly, they left the Ward Lord sitting on the stairs and climbed down the last dozen stairs to stand before the door. It was made of a single plank of oak, but the door was as wide as all four Banes standing side by side. “What a tower that tree must have been!” Dorict exclaimed, running his fingers over the ancient, blackened wood. “There's none like it these days.” Iron bolts the size of their wrists affixed its hinges to the stone wall. Salick held out her lamp to the lock, a massive affair of brass and iron, and tried the key. It turned smoothly and she pulled back on the heavy door. Garet got his fingers around the edge and did the same. With a horrible groan that tickled their stretched nerves, the door swung open and they lifted their lamps to see inside.

Bones! Stacks of them were piled here and there in the low-arched room. Some looked almost human, but were deformed in some, subtle way. Others were monstrous, gigantic arms and legs ending in hooked claws. Skulls were stacked on the room's single table, dark eye holes staring at the Banes, needle teeth bared in the yellow light.

“So this is what a demon looks like with the meat off!” Marick exclaimed, stepping cautiously into the room. “I can't say it's an improvement.” For demons they were, the skeletons of Shriekers, Bashers, Crawlers, Slashers, and several others Garet could not immediately identify. A small hill of ice blocks, half-covered in sawdust, was stacked on either side of the door. A single piece of paper lay on the table, held down by a carved wooden box.

“There's the jewel,” Salick said, her breath steaming in the cold room. Walking stiffly to the table, she brushed the box aside with her trident and picked up the paper. Holding her lamp low, she read the message aloud. The room brightened as Dorict found wall lamps to ignite, bringing the piles of whitened bones into sharp relief.

“Procedures for the Testing of Demon Protection,” she read, then stopped to look quizzically at the others. “Demon protection?” she asked.

Garet shook his head. “I thought we were the demon protection,” he said. “But if Andarack can do all this, why does he need us to protect him?” He waved at the piles of bones.

Marick picked up a skull of a larger demon, crowned with impressive, horn-like crests, and moved the jaw back and forth. He grinned back at it before answering Garet. “Oh, this isn't Andarack's work. Remember how he acted on the stairs? He's no Bane. More's the pity!” He replaced the skull on top of its pile. “These must have come from the Depository. I guess I haven't taken you there yet,” he said, noting Garet's confusion.

“Unless there was a sweet shop nearby, or trouble to get into, I doubt you would ever have gotten around to it!” Garet replied. He folded his arms and glared at his friend.

Salick and Dorict chuckled, glad of some humour to break the effect of the jewel's proximity, but Marick was unfazed. “Trouble enough, it seems.” he said, looking at the piles of bones. “The Depository is where we keep the jewels of all the demons killed in Shirath. It's in the hills to the north.” He ran his fingers over the white bones of a Shrieker's snout, tracing the nostril holes. “There's a deep crevice in the earth. All the jewels are dropped down there, and the bodies are left on the hill top to be cleaned by birds before they get dropped in too.”

Salick looked at him, open-mouthed. “Do I want to know how you came by this information, information that I only learned when I became a Green?” She crossed her arms and tapped one foot, causing Marick to step back, arms raised in protest.

“Salick, I can't help it if you're a bit slow!” He ducked behind the table. “Hadn't you better read the rest of that letter?”

Salick eyed the young Bane and picked up the paper again. “Against the walls are various objects and materials you are to use.” They looked around the walls. There, behind the piles of bones, were stacked an amazing variety of objects. Planks of various woods, shields of brass, bronze, and iron, bolts of cloth, and doubled glass frames filled with powders and liquids were neatly lined up under the wall lamps. Salick continued reading.

“In an orderly manner, place each object or material in front of the jewel so that it blocks its sight from you. Stand then in front of the material. Determine if the effect of the fear the jewel projects is changed. If it is changed, place the material that affected it outside the door. Put objects that did not affect it back against the far wall. It is very important that you methodically test all the objects and materials provided for you.”

“To block a demon's fear...” Dorict said wonderingly. He reached out for the paper and Salick handed it to him. She rubbed her recently injured side with the opposite hand and eyed the objects along the wall.

“But Salick, Garet!” Marick yelped. “If the fear can be stopped, even those popinjay Palace guards could slay a demon!” He looked terrified. “What is Master Mandarack trying to do to us?” He was shaken and reached blindly towards the table for support, only to yank his hand back when it brushed the wooden box.

“I don't think this is meant to destroy the Hall, Marick,” Garet told the young Bane. “I think the Master wants his brother to find out why we can't always feel the demons now.” He looked at Salick, and after a moment's consideration, she nodded.

“Garet's right,” she told Marick. “And it doesn't really matter who kills them. But think of this: if we can't find them, each attack could do as much damage as that Basher did last night.” Her expression was determined, and Marick wisely held his peace. “Come on. Dorict, Marick, you two bring that stuff over here while Garet and I get the jewel ready.”

The rest of the morning they tested each material against the jewel. Between the closeness of the jewel and the cold of the room, it was an unpleasant job—and unsuccessful. Nothing produced more than a slight relaxation in the feeling of terror projected by the jewel. Thicker objects seemed to have a slight, almost imperceptible effect, but as Salick said, after shifting a heavy brass shield in front of the jewel, “Maybe it's only what we want to feel. I couldn't really swear that there was any change at all!” She let the shield slide and held a hand against her ribs. Garet stepped over to help, but she stopped him with a glare and wrenched the shield back into place.

Garet was forced to agree about the experiment. In the end, they put three objects outside the door: the brass shield, a heavy tile of granite, and a glass frame full of what appeared to be grains of iron.

They trudged up the stairs, locking the door behind them. Marick kicked at the stone slab. “If we have to wear these to fight demons, we'll never catch one, unless they run into us.” The young Bane grinned at the thought. The door disappeared into darkness as they carried the light of their lamps back upstairs with them.

When they came into the great hall, Andarack looked better. He was arguing with Dasanat over how much pressure to put on the ore sitting in the press. He turned as he heard them approach and smiled expectantly.

“I'm sorry, Lord Andarack,” Salick told him. “We found only three things that might have had an effect.” She ran a hand through her hair. Being around a demon jewel all morning was exhausting. “If you have more material ready, we can try again.”

Marick suppressed a groan.

“No, my friends,” Andarack replied. “Not until I get the shipment I am waiting for.” He waved at Dasanat and she rolled her eyes. After another, more vigorous wave, the mechanical walked out of the room, hands on her hips and muttering curses. Andarack pushed a set of plans showing some type of tower off the table to join the wreckage on the floor and invited them to sit. “Dasanat will bring some lunch for us.” He sat beside Garet. “Now we have some time to talk of your life in the foothills of the mountains!”

And that is what they did. While the other Banes and an impatient Dasanat ate food purchased from a nearby wine shop, Andarack questioned Garet about every aspect of life in the foothills. He wanted the Bane to tell him the habits of every animal, the properties of every plant, and what the local farmers ate, dressed in, and used for building their houses. His curiosity was endless, and Garet began to fear that Andarack would never let him leave, at least until the first fifteen years of his life were fully described, when the guard from the compound gate interrupted them.

“The miners' guild has delivered those crates, my Lord,” he said. “But they won't bring them any closer than the gate.” The young man kept a hand on his sword hilt, feeling even at this distance the brush of the jewel's emanations.

Andarack rubbed his hands. “There! More materials for testing.” He sent Dasanat off to bring in the boxes. The Banes helped, as it was obvious that one person could not shift the heavy loads.

“What are these full of?” Marick demanded, pushing a crate beside the unsociable mechanical. “Rocks?”

“Of course,” she answered. They both pushed and hauled at it until the first box was inside the great hall.

Andarack was sketching something out on a piece of paper. “There!” He showed them a drawing of a small, flat cart, with a mast at one end fitted with a swinging arm and a pulley. “This will move those crates with a minimum of effort!”

Dasanat took the paper and looked at it sourly. “Shall I put it with all the others?” she asked, indicating a stack of papers as tall as the wine jug beside it. “Or should I use it to bring the other boxes in?”

Andarack snatched back the paper. “How amusing! Go get the guard to help.”

With the guard's assistance, they soon had all three boxes in the great hall, and Andarack pried off the top planks. Inside were indeed rocks. Big and small rocks. Gravel. Slices. Bags of rock dust.

Garet shook his head. He agreed with Marick. If they were to stop demons with stones, he still preferred to throw them.

Dasanat took the first set out, a black, crumbly rock that stained her hands, and loaded it into the press' hopper. Andarack spoke to the Banes.

“There's enough for everyone to do. Each of these rocks must be crushed and put in labelled glass frames. The rocks that are too hard to crush must be labelled and, if necessary, wired together to make a big enough screen.” He indicated Garet and Salick. “You two are bigger, so please help Dasanat with the press.” He bent over the boxes and began to haul out rocks to place in separate piles on the table. After a moment's confusion, Dorict and Marick began to help him.

The afternoon passed in a cloud of choking rock dust, thrown up by the press as it crushed the samples, one after the other. As each pile was put between the iron plates of the press, Dasanat pulled a red cord that ran along the shaft piercing the wall. The shaft soon started rotating and the press lowered or raised depending on how she had set the gears. Curious, Garet went outside to see what the cord was doing. He found the end attached to a lever. The lever, when pulled by the cord, opened a small spout that dropped oats into the pans hanging just in front of the horses. As soon as the grain dropped, the horses walked forward, trying to reach the grain and turning the post, which transferred its power through a gear at the top to the shaft that ran through the wall and turned the press. When the press stopped, a spring pulled the grain to within reach of the animals' mouths until the red cord was pulled again. The horses looked well-fed and remarkably content with their circular wandering.

After the rocks were reduced to a fine powder, Marick and Dorict used funnels to pour the dust carefully between sheets of glass held apart by wooden frames. When they were full, they carefully slid in the top slat of the frame and put it aside to be taken down to the cellar. Andarack brushed the name of each rock on the top of the frames and supervised the much-irritated Dasanat. The shadows had lengthened in the room, and they had lit the lamps before all the rocks were prepared.

“Done!” Marick told Dasanat. “If I never see another crushed rock, I'll die happy.” He washed his hands in the basin the mechanical had brought when the last sample had been finished. Surprisingly, she smiled in return and clapped the Bane on his back.

“You work better than I expected!” she said.

Marick rolled his eyes in astonishment. When she had taken the dirty water out to the courtyard he turned to Dorict. “I thought she was all gears and pulleys! Who would have thought that there was a person in there.” He shook his head.

Andarack laughed behind them. “Even I could not design such a machine. No, Dasanat is an artist. Yes, my little friend, don't shake your head. She works in glass, wood, metal, and more importantly, ideas.” He yawned and stretched out his arms. “Now I think we must stop until tomorrow. You go back to your Hall and rest, and I will persuade Dasanat to try to remember where her family lives so that she can do the same.” He took them to the courtyard gate and bade them a warm good night.

The sky held only a touch of silver and the shadows between things were deepening as they approached the Ward Gate. Marick yawned, setting off all the others. “Come on, all of you, let's go back and sleep. I bet I'll dream of rocks tonight.”