House of Chains

‘They did, Bairoth Gild. Icarium gave the Teblor the Laws that ensured our survival.’

‘Yet, were they able, the T’lan Imass would have laid a stone on him as well.’ After these words, Bairoth fell silent.

Karsa swung about and walked to the slab. Its luminescence was fitful in places, hinting of the sorcery’s antiquity, a slow dissolution of the power invested in it. Teblor elders worked magic, but only rarely. Since the awakening of the Faces in the Rock, sorcery arrived as a visitation, locked within the confines of sleep or trance. The old legends spoke of vicious displays of overt magic, of dread weapons tempered with curses, but Karsa suspected these were but elaborate inventions to weave bold colours into the tales. He scowled. ‘I have no understanding of this magic,’ he said.

Bairoth and Delum joined him.

The hand still lay flat, motionless.

‘I wonder if the demon can hear our words,’ Delum said.

Bairoth grunted. ‘Even if it could, why would it understand them? The lowlanders speak a different tongue. Demons must also have their own.’

‘Yet he came to make peace-’

‘He cannot hear us,’ Karsa asserted. ‘He can do no more than sense the presence of someone… of something.’

Shrugging, Bairoth crouched down beside the slab. He reached out, hesitated, then settled his palm against the stone. ‘It is neither hot nor cold. Its magic is not for us.’

‘It is not meant to ward, then, only hold,’ Delum suggested.

‘The three of us should be able to lift it.’

Karsa studied Bairoth. ‘What do you wish to awaken here, Bairoth Gild?’

The huge warrior looked up, eyes narrowing. Then his brows rose and he smiled. ‘A bringer of peace?’

‘There is no value in peace.’

‘There must be peace among the Teblor, or they shall never be united.’

Karsa cocked his head, considering Bairoth’s words.

‘This demon may have gone mad,’ Delum muttered. ‘How long, trapped beneath this rock?’

‘There are three of us,’ Bairoth said.

‘Yet this demon is from a time when we had been defeated, and if it was these T’lan Imass who imprisoned this demon, they did so because they could not kill him. Bairoth Gild, we three would be as nothing to this creature.’

‘We will have earned its gratitude.’

‘The fever of madness knows no friends.’

Both warriors looked to Karsa. ‘We cannot know the mind of a demon,’ he said. ‘But we can see one thing, and that is how it still seeks to protect itself. This lone hand has fended off all sorts of beasts. In that, I see a holding on to purpose.’

‘The patience of an immortal.’ Bairoth nodded. ‘I see the same as you, Karsa Orlong.’

Karsa faced Delum. ‘Delum Thord, do you still possess doubts?’

‘I do, Warleader, yet I will give your effort my strength, for I see the decision in your eyes. So be it.’

Without another word the three Uryd positioned themselves along one side of the stone slab. They squatted, hands reaching down to grip the edge.

‘With the fourth breath,’ Karsa instructed.

The stone lifted with a grinding, grating sound, a sifting of dust. A concerted heave sent it over, to crack against the rock wall.

The figure had been pinned on its side. The immense weight of the slab must have dislocated bones and crushed muscle, but it had not been enough to defeat the demon, for it had, over millennia, gouged out a rough, uneven pit for half the length of its narrow, strangely elongated body. The hand trapped beneath that body had clawed out a space for itself first, then had slowly worked grooves for hip and shoulder. Both feet, which were bare, had managed something similar. Spider webs and the dust of ground stone covered the figure like a dull grey shroud, and the stale air that rose from the space visibly swirled in its languid escape, heavy with a peculiar, insect-like stench.

The three warriors stood looking down on the demon.

It had yet to move, but they could see its strangeness even so. Elongated limbs, extra-jointed, the skin stretched taut and pallid as moonlight. A mass of blue-black hair spread out from the face-down head, like fine roots, forming a latticework across the stone floor. The demon was naked, and female.

The limbs spasmed.

Bairoth edged closer and spoke in a low, soothing tone. ‘You are freed, Demon. We are Teblor, of the Uryd tribe. If you will, we would help you. Tell us what you require.’

The limbs had ceased their spasming, and now but trembled. Slowly, the demon lifted her head. The hand that had known an eternity of darkness slipped free from under her body, probed out over the flat stone floor. The fingertips cut across strands of hair and those strands fell to dust. The hand settled in a way that matched its opposite. Muscles tautened along the arms, neck and shoulders, and the demon rose, in jagged, shaking increments. She shed hair in black sheets of dust until her pate was revealed, smooth and white.