Chapter seven: Friends

[baeraad]

Chapter seven

Six hours of sleep had restored Dara to something that resembled sanity. After a bath, a change of clothes to her usual voluminous, fur-lined Mystic's robes, a hardy breakfast and three cups of coffee, she felt ready to tackle the world again. Dara of Sablecrest Manor, caste of Mystics, scoffed at the universe's paltry attempts to confuse her by changing the rules in mid-game. She would simply figure out the new rules, and then use them to deduce exactly what was going on.

She was sitting on the kitchen table again, while the kitchen gargoyles were doing the washing up after breakfast. On the floor, the Witch Stone gravel were moving around, forming patterns and breaking them again.

"So, we are working on the theory that Mansuur is the ritual killer," she told the gargoyles. "That still seems most probable. But what else is he?"

The gravel moved across the floor - scrape scrape scrape - and lined up to spell out Mansuur's name, along with KILLER OF THREE.

"He leads some kind of insane cult," Dara said. "That gives us an angle. Anyone who attends his little get-togethers is a potential source of information."

The gravel spelled out CULT LEADER beneath KILLER OF THREE.

"What else?" Dara said. She chewed on her lip. "Okay, here's one question that I wouldn't have considered under ordinary circumstances." She took a deep breath, then forced herself to say it. "Did he make the demons come?"

Scrape scrape scrape, and the gravel spelled out DEMON SUMMONER?. Dara stared morosely at the words. The fact that they were lying there on the floor, her floor, the floor that was usually a place of such pristinely rational reasoning, made her feel oddly dirty.

"Is Mansuur He Who Comes?" she said between her teeth, forcing herself onwards. And HE WHO COMES? the gravel spelled out, forcing her deeper into the madness. She stared at them for a moment, then turned away.

"Then there's Jalon," she said. "How is he connected to this? He says he can see the future - if Mansuur is head of some wacked-out religion, is Jalon a prophet of it? An unwilling one?"

The gravel spelled out JALON and PROPHET?. For a moment, a line connected the names MANSUUR and JALON - then, with a snort of disgust, Dara scattered the stones that formed it. She had no idea what the connection was between them, except that Jalon was foretelling something bad that would happen, and Mansuur had something bad that he wanted to happen, and at the same time, by some funny coincidence, something bad was happening. In neither of the three cases was it very clear just what the bad thing was. There wasn't even any particular reason to believe that the three were one and the same, beyond the sheer coincidence of it...

Dara shook her head. A different angle, a different angle...

Jalon thought that Aseena was on the run - that she was hiding from someone. That was presumably Mansuur and his merry maniacs, but unless this Aseena was particularly dumb - which Jalon said she wasn't - she would have gone to the government for protection. However, the government had apparently not only not helped, but also not told Jalon anything about it. At the same time, one of the five highest government figures had not wanted Dara's investigation to happen.

The gravel formed the name KROLL. Dara looked at it for a moment. Was Kroll behind it all, with Mansuur just an artless puppet? Or was it Mansuur who was the one pulling the strings, and Kroll the one who was dancing at their end? Neither possibility felt right. There was something more here.

She grimaced. Never mind. Different angle, different angle...

Aseena had gone to look up some family histories at the National Archive. Family histories...

Dara raised a finger. The word BLOODLINES formed on the floor. Mansuur had used that word. The fated bloodlines, he had said.

"All right, so say that there's something in that," she told the gargoyles doing the dishes. "It's not that big a stretch. A demon can only be killed by someone within its own bloodline - a parent or descendant of a parent to its human host. Bloodlines do matter for... for magic."

She facepalmed.

"God, listen to me," she said. "Magic. We don't use that word a lot, do we? It's a scary word. It's the word you use for something that makes no sense. Why are there demons? Magic. Where does conjured goods come from? Magic. What makes the stone heel, roll around and sit pretty? Magic."

She looked morosely at the gargoyles, who ignored her and continued their toil.

"Truth is," she said, "truth is that we know nothing about it. Even I don't know why it works, and I'm doing it. I flex a synapse, and stone comes to life. But not just any stone, no, no. Just the particular kind of stone that we mine out of these hills. Saying certain words help... words, hell. They're not words. They're meaningless syllables. But for some reason, making noises with your mouth makes the witchcraft stronger, and making some noises works better than making other noises. Same with the runes - drawing shapes on the Witch Stone makes it easier to use, and some shapes make it easier than other shapes. So hundreds of years of trial and error pass, and we know how to use witchcraft really well - but we still don't know why it works."

She drummed her fingers against the table, then stopped when she realised what rhythm she was drumming out - Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

"So let's say," she said stubbornly, "let's say for the sake of the argument that there is some... some magic, some energy. Let's say it is bound to certain bloodlines, just like a demon is bound to its bloodline. Only instead of a demon, it's a... a destiny, a curse, a force that shapes the world around it into a pattern. What does that give you?"

She looked down, and bit back a curse. The words were gone from the floor. Sometime during her musing, she had unconsciously shifted around the gravel. Now it formed a rough map of Shadowed Citadel Demesne - the western wall and the northern wall, the lakes and the hills, the cathedrals and towers, the manors scattered throughout the city and the more modest neighbourhoods that surrounded them and separated them from each other...

"Okay," she said slowly. "Okay... and then let's say that that energy changes its surroundings in such a way as to allow itself to flow freer. It makes people think in a certain way, act in a certain way. It finds its way into stories and songs and poems and nursery rhymes. The more it shapes the Demesne, the stronger it gets, and the stronger it gets, the more it shapes the Demesne. So the energy just keeps reinforcing itself over the years, keeps building and building and building, until it finally comes to a head. Then what?"

Feeling a chill, she drummed out the rhythm again. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam. Ta ta ta tum, tam-tam-tam.

The sky weeps blood, when he comes. The stone is dust, when he comes. The dark grows cold, when he comes.

The city falls, when he comes.

"Well, thank the UniGod that's not too ominous or anything..." she growled.

She slipped down from the table and headed up the stairs. She needed more information. And she would get it out of Jalon, if she so had to have a gargoyle lift him by the ankles and shake him until some sense fell out!

She slammed open the door to his room.

"Jalon!" she snapped. "Just what did you mean by..."

She broke off.

Jalon stood frozen by surprise, halfway out of a copper bathtub full of steaming water. The gargoyles that had prepared it for him were standing by the window, deactivated until they were given new orders. A fluffy white towel was lying on the bed - he appeared to have been heading for it when she burst in.

Dara's mouth worked without a sound coming out. Jalon's body was fit - not bulky, but taut and compact and gracefully formed, with slender muscles subtly defined beneath smooth, pale skin. He had barely any body hair, and what he had was even paler than that on his head, making it almost invisible.

They both stood frozen for several seconds. Jalon was, naturally, the first to recover. He grinned shamelessly.

"I know!" he said. "Magnificent, isn't it? Glory be the UniGod and His divine creation!"

That broke Dara out of her paralysis. She spun around, facing the corridor with her cheeks burning.

"You're horrible!" she snapped.

"I'm horrible?" Jalon said. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"

"Well, pardon me for opening a door in my own house!" Dara groaned. Annoyingly enough, she supposed it really was her own fault. She wasn't used to there being other people in Sablecrest Manor. Gargoyles didn't really hold on their privacy. Still, Jalon could have had the decency to act like it was a little embarrassing for him too, the bastard, instead of being so damn unflappable about it.

There was a rustle of cloth behind her.

"I'm decent now," Jalon said. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"

Dara turned suspiciously. Jalon was sitting on the bed, with the towel snugly wrapped around his hips. While that did indeed satisfy decency, it still gave her a well-formed upper body and most of a pair of shapely legs to look at. She fixed her eyes stubbornly on his face.

"I forget," she muttered. "Give me a second."

Jalon smiled at her, more kindly than obnoxiously now.

"Do relax," he suggested. "We are both people of the world. I have nothing that you haven't seen before, surely."

"Well, yes, but it's been a while, and the details are a little blurry..." Dara muttered.

Jalon laughed amiably, like she had made a good joke. Dara realised that he was trying to make her feel more comfortable. She groaned inwards. Great - now he was feeling sorry for her.

There was one thing to be said for this, Dara had to admit. The feeling of oncoming doom that she had gotten from her theories down in the kitchen had completely disappeared. It was hard to concentrate on spine-chilling horror when you were too busy being embarrassed. And too busy trying to silence the parts of your mind that didn't have the decency to be embarrassed but kept using your excellent ability for image recall to go over every detail of a certain recent memory, making all sorts of inappropriate comments about it.

"You really think that Rinabaar is interested in me?" she said.

Jalon raised an eyebrow.

"Was that what you came here to ask me?"

"No. But, do you?"

Jalon smiled.

"I'm really pretty sure."

"If I ask him out and he turns me down, I may strangle you with my bare hands," Dara said. "Are you still feeling sure?"

Jalon gave her a patience look.

"You're really amazingly uncomfortable with flesh-and-blood people, aren't you?" he said.

Dara sat down on the bed next to him and hid her face in her hands.

"Oh, you have no idea," she said.

"Why?" Jalon said. "What are you so afraid that we'll do to you? We're not that bad a lot, I promise."

"It's..." Dara looked up and bit her lip. "I think that the problem is that I notice too many things, all at once."

"You mean, you see all the flaws in people?" Jalon said.

"No... Well, that too, a little," Dara said. "But mostly..." She patted the cover of the bed. "What do you see here?"

"It's a woolen blanket," Jalon said. "It was quite nice and warm to sleep under."

"And?" Dara said.

Jalon shrugged.

"I don't know. It's a sort of dark blue?"

"Royal blue," Dara corrected him. "It used to be even darker, but time and washing has made it a little paler. You can see the original colour out in the corner, there - just a shade or two darker. See here, how the fibers are just a little ragged, making it a little fuzzy? That's another age sign."

She lifted a fold of the cover and sniffed it.

"The dye is one called Temanin's Midnight," she said. "It's pretty good, so it keeps a long time, meaning this blanket is either old or used. The wear on it is less pronounced than the amount it has gone paler, so that means that it's old, and it hasn't been used much. There are a few little moth holes over by that edge, but it's mostly untouched, so it's been stored well. It's been used, but it's still got just a hint of starch down by the foot end - whomever slept under it slept like the dead, without moving very much. It smells faintly of a perfume called Jilin's Delight, that's said to imitate the scent of roses. There's a bit of sweat there too - the person who slept under it started his day washed and perfumed, but by the time he lay down here he had had exerted himself. One side is clearly more wrinkled than the others, so he instinctively sleeps on one side of the bed - probably hinting that he's used to sharing one with someone else..." She gave Jalon a look. "I could go on."

"I'm sure you could," Jalon said, a mix between awe and horror in his voice. "That's an impressive skill."

"I guess," Dara said. "To me, it always just seemed natural. Why don't anyone else see these things? The rest of you just seem to live in a different world - one where a street is just a street, not a thousand thousand details and patterns and stories and facts, all jumping out at you." She shrugged. "And how am I supposed to talk to people who live in a different world?"

They were silent for a while.

"I get it," Jalon said. "I mean... a little, I think." He grinned slightly. "I once composed an ode to Aseena's eyes. It was fifteen verses long. I didn't repeat myself once. Simple things have a lot to say to me, too."

"So how do you do it?" Dara said. "You know. Deal with people."

"I suppose... I accept that no one is exactly like me," Jalon said. "And I start looking for whatever common ground there is. There is always some, so it's just a question of how basic you have to make it. For instance, everyone has different hopes and dreams, but the experiencing of hoping and dreaming is pretty much the same for everyone. Even if you have nothing else in common, you can still bond a little over that. And usually, if you actually look, you'll find that people are more like you than you think."

Dara sighed.

"You make it sound so very simple," she said.

"Hey, look at it this way," Jalon said with a grin. "You already like analysing people. Just learn to look for stuff you like while you do it."

The gargoyles that had drawn the bath stirred and started walking towards the bed. For a moment, Dara didn't react. She was used to gargoyles walking around in Sablecrest Manor, carrying out tasks that she had set them on and then left them to it.

Except these ones had finished its task, and she hadn't given them a new one.

"Jalon," she said, rising urgency in her voice, "get..."

Then the first gargoyle threw itself at her, stony hands reaching out for her throat.

For a stupid moment, she tried to fend it off with her hands. Idiotic - her strength was as zero and nothing to a gargoyle. That cost her a split second, allowing the gargoyle to knock her backwards over the bed and lay its stone fingers on her throat. That was all it got, though - after that first moment of panicked fumbling, she remembered herself and struck out with her mind.

The gargoyle froze. Its brother, one step behind it, shifted uneasily from clawed foot to clawed foot, as if it didn't know what to do.

Arcane words spilled from Dara's lips, trying to force her servants back under her control. Part of her mind was still reeling, insisting that this couldn't be happening. Her gargoyles. Her Witch Stone companions. Her friends, her only friends. How could they turn on her like this?

She met a thick resistance, powerful and determined. Another witch, close by, contesting her control. For half a second, the fingers on her throat tightened, before loosening again. Dara wanted to scream.

Then Jalon tackled the second gargoyle, sending it tumbling into the first one. Sparks flew as the eldritch energies that animated them both interacted in unpredictable ways, and both of them stumbled, flailing around with stone limbs.

Dara screamed something long and agonised, and the gargoyles exploded. Witch Stone rubble flew throughout the room - Jalon dived to the floor with a yelp to avoid it. Dara wasn't satisfied, though. She continued chanting, and the rubble exploded into gravel, and the gravel exploded into sand, and the grains of sand exploded into the finest dust.

Only when there was nothing left of the gargoyles did Dara get up from the bed. She set her feet in the thick layer of Witch Stone dust that covered the floor, staring at it as if in horror. Then she snarled.

"Traitors," she said. She didn't recognise her own voice.

"What was that?" Jalon said, coughing helplessly from the dust getting into his lungs.

"Mansuur," Dara said between her teeth. The dust was in her throat too, but she felt too cold and dazed to notice it. She could feel her grip being contest all throughout the mansion - could feel one gargoyle after another abandoning her orders and turning to serve a different master. "He's here..."