cliff, it scooted up the sheer rock like a roach on a wall and was gone.
The smell of it lingered, less an odor than a wildness that lifted the hair on John’s scalp.
The harpoon he’d flung lay smoking on the ground in a puddle of glowing acid. He cleaned his sword as well as he could on one of his plaids and cut the fabric off when it began to burn. Amayon still crouched in the rocks, weeping with shock and fright. John didn’t want to touch it, but he did; and for one instant the demon looked up at him, not with gratitude but with such a fury of resentment and hate that he stepped back.
Amayon quickly resumed the shape of a girl and held out her hands to him, her face running with tears, but the illusion was too late. “Fair try.” John took her arm and held her firmly away from embracing him. “There’s more of ’em about—can you smell ’em? Let’s see if we’ll be a little safer farther on.”
They journeyed a little farther, and Aversin wrote up an account of the fight with as accurate a drawing as he could make of the shining thing that had attacked themand another sketch of Amayon, a slumped silvery-green homunculus like a skeletal salamander. When he wakened again from nightmare-riddled sleep it was to find— revoltingly—that the carcass of the carry beast had deteriorated to the point where it could no longer be made to bear weight, and they continued their quest on foot. The squeaking, gibbering demons of the bottomlands seemed to have been left behind, and the high peaks were the province of the shining things, small and large. Twice more they were attacked, once by wolf-size creatures of rings and wings and eyes, and again by a thing like a glowing slug that oozed from the gravel and seized Amayon by the foot.
Only when John had chopped the thing away from the shrieking demon and the pieces receded sullenly into the ground again did he guess the truth.
“They can kill you, can’t they?” He lowered his sword and wiped the sweat from his face. It burned in the cuts left by the earlier attackers’ stings and made tracks in the fine dust on his cheekbones and throat. “Not devour you, the way demons do in the Hell behind the mirror. Not imprison you and torture you forever. Not cut you into little bits, each bit livin’ on in pain. Kill you.”
“You know nothing of it.” Amayon staggered to its feet, slowly, shakily resuming the shape of the girl, dress in rags over the tender breasts and the illusion of blood running down from a dainty cut on her leg where a swollen, ichorous sore had been.
“I do, though.” John felt something that was almost pity as he helped her up. “I grew up knowin’ I was to die, see. I was raised by those who knew they would die—would cease to be. Would have it all go away, and be nothin’. You never were.”
Amayon wrenched her arm from his grip and spat at him, poison that burned his face. “Whore’s son! Coward!” She would have run from him, but she staggered on her hurt leg. In any case he still had the ink bottle and the flax seeds. “You’re so puffed with pride about what you think you know, and you’re the most ignorant and stupid son of the children of earth, sitting on your dungheap of fragments and crowing at your learning, like an ape with half a book in its paws! And all the while you neglect those who’re stupid enough to depend on you! You can’t even keep a woman as old and homely as the bitch you got to bear your bastards, much less protect your feeble-witted son! So don’t go preaching to me about what I feel or what I think!”
But John saw the demon-girl tremble in her cloudy rags of lawn and velvet and heard the crack of terror behind the rage in her voice. He knew that he had guessed right. And Amayon would never forgive him that.
Darkness covered the mountain, as it had covered it in his dream. It might have been night at last—Morkeleb had spoken to him once of places where night lasted years, so that all
The smell of it lingered, less an odor than a wildness that lifted the hair on John’s scalp.
The harpoon he’d flung lay smoking on the ground in a puddle of glowing acid. He cleaned his sword as well as he could on one of his plaids and cut the fabric off when it began to burn. Amayon still crouched in the rocks, weeping with shock and fright. John didn’t want to touch it, but he did; and for one instant the demon looked up at him, not with gratitude but with such a fury of resentment and hate that he stepped back.
Amayon quickly resumed the shape of a girl and held out her hands to him, her face running with tears, but the illusion was too late. “Fair try.” John took her arm and held her firmly away from embracing him. “There’s more of ’em about—can you smell ’em? Let’s see if we’ll be a little safer farther on.”
They journeyed a little farther, and Aversin wrote up an account of the fight with as accurate a drawing as he could make of the shining thing that had attacked themand another sketch of Amayon, a slumped silvery-green homunculus like a skeletal salamander. When he wakened again from nightmare-riddled sleep it was to find— revoltingly—that the carcass of the carry beast had deteriorated to the point where it could no longer be made to bear weight, and they continued their quest on foot. The squeaking, gibbering demons of the bottomlands seemed to have been left behind, and the high peaks were the province of the shining things, small and large. Twice more they were attacked, once by wolf-size creatures of rings and wings and eyes, and again by a thing like a glowing slug that oozed from the gravel and seized Amayon by the foot.
Only when John had chopped the thing away from the shrieking demon and the pieces receded sullenly into the ground again did he guess the truth.
“They can kill you, can’t they?” He lowered his sword and wiped the sweat from his face. It burned in the cuts left by the earlier attackers’ stings and made tracks in the fine dust on his cheekbones and throat. “Not devour you, the way demons do in the Hell behind the mirror. Not imprison you and torture you forever. Not cut you into little bits, each bit livin’ on in pain. Kill you.”
“You know nothing of it.” Amayon staggered to its feet, slowly, shakily resuming the shape of the girl, dress in rags over the tender breasts and the illusion of blood running down from a dainty cut on her leg where a swollen, ichorous sore had been.
“I do, though.” John felt something that was almost pity as he helped her up. “I grew up knowin’ I was to die, see. I was raised by those who knew they would die—would cease to be. Would have it all go away, and be nothin’. You never were.”
Amayon wrenched her arm from his grip and spat at him, poison that burned his face. “Whore’s son! Coward!” She would have run from him, but she staggered on her hurt leg. In any case he still had the ink bottle and the flax seeds. “You’re so puffed with pride about what you think you know, and you’re the most ignorant and stupid son of the children of earth, sitting on your dungheap of fragments and crowing at your learning, like an ape with half a book in its paws! And all the while you neglect those who’re stupid enough to depend on you! You can’t even keep a woman as old and homely as the bitch you got to bear your bastards, much less protect your feeble-witted son! So don’t go preaching to me about what I feel or what I think!”
But John saw the demon-girl tremble in her cloudy rags of lawn and velvet and heard the crack of terror behind the rage in her voice. He knew that he had guessed right. And Amayon would never forgive him that.
Darkness covered the mountain, as it had covered it in his dream. It might have been night at last—Morkeleb had spoken to him once of places where night lasted years, so that all
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