City of Demons (5 page)

The Plains were a revelation to Garet. He had spent his life trapped within the dark green hills that surrounded his father's farm. Even Three Roads, the nearest thing to a village within walking distance, was hemmed in by those forested ridges, which ran for ten days' travel from the edge of the prairies to the far mountains.

Now his eyes ran along lines that did not end in a humped, green wall. Sometimes flat, sometimes gently rolling, the land was a continuous surprise. Even the colours were different. The grass, long enough to tickle the belly of the horse he rode, glowed golden in the setting sun. The wind sent great waves of the nodding, seeded stems bowing and straightening all around him. Looking up, the blue arc of the sky seemed deeper, wider, and more vibrant. And just when he thought that blue and gold were the only colours left in the world, they would ride through a patch of wildflowers, red poppies and tall, purple lupine, that stretched half-way to the horizon.

The only visible barrier as the small party rode west was a thin line of clouds hovering above the distant horizon. At times the limitless views led Garet to think they made no progress at all, and the horses only walked in place while the sun swept overhead. Then he felt exposed and naked, a worm crawling across a giant's table. At other times, when the swaying of the horse lulled him into drowsiness, he felt his spirit flow out over the plains, bending and swaying on the endless grass, and then something like peace came into his heart. Most of his time, however, was not spent in contemplation of the landscape, but on more immediate, personal concerns.

It was two days since he had left his home, and all the day dreams he had spun of riding away to adventure and independence had not prepared him for the two things most on his mind: his loneliness and the pain in his backside.

Although all the boys had tried riding neighbours' horses at Three Roads, Garet had never ridden for more than a few minutes. Now, after two days of riding, the chafing of the saddle on his bottom and thighs had made life miserable and walking almost impossible. The night before, Salick had been forced to steady him as he hobbled from his mount to the camp they had made. It had taken over an hour for him to recover and walk downwind far enough to attend to his body's needs. Salick had haughtily informed him that the discomfort would disappear as soon he became used to riding. Garet, after another full day in the saddle, felt that becoming used to riding might take the rest of his life.

Mandarack signalled to Salick and pointed over to their right. In the distance, a line of trees seemed to magically appear out of the dry grass of the prairie. The elderly man, relaxed and seemingly immune to saddle sores, turned the head of his lean, black mare and trotted towards the distant trees. Salick signalled the younger boys, Dorict and Marick. Both rode the same horse, a brown plough horse that Marick claimed was the stupidest animal he had ever seen. Dorict pulled its blocky head to follow Salick's lead. The mare placidly obeyed. Stupid or not, the animal was the only one of the four that could bear to drag, although on a very long rope, the corpse of the demon. The two Banes, perhaps two or three years younger than Garet, had somehow found the corpse and prepared it while he talked with Mandarack and Salick. The other horses, the two ridden by Mandarack and Salick and the pert brown pony from Three Roads that Garet suffered on, stayed far ahead of the mare as Marick yipped in his high voice and jammed his heels into its barrel ribs to urge it to a reluctant trot. The bundled corpse bounced and swung behind them, knocking down great swaths of the tall grass.

Garet turned the head of his pony to jolt after Salick's mount. An hour passed before the trees grew near. The sun would soon be resting on the clouds lining the horizon. Now he could see that the trees grew out of a river valley that cut a curved line through the plains. The banks of the river slumped down from the flatlands at a steep angle and they had to ride a good mile before they found a path gentle enough for the horses to manage. The other side of the river boasted a small farmstead, but no smoke rose from its clay and stick chimney, and no animals sheltered in the large corral. Like all the farms they had passed, this one was deserted.
Where have all the people gone
, he wondered. Had the demons killed them all? He desperately wanted to know this and a thousand other things. What would happen to him in Shirath? Why did Mandarack, Salick, and the two boys all wear different coloured sashes? And just who was Mandarack? How could he ride up to Pranix, himself just returned from the Rivermeet, point to a horse and take it without paying? The tavern keeper, who could blister skin with his curses, had merely grumbled under his breath and saddled the mount for Garet's use. Everything that was happening around him grew out of some mystery that no one would bother to explain!

His loneliness rose up and, for a moment, he forgot the pain of riding. He bent over the horse's neck and felt a knife-sharp longing for the simple, reassuring threads of his lost life: his mother putting dinner on the table, her quick hands moving in the light of the winter lamp; his sister banging the table with the rough wooden dragon he had carved for her; even his father and brothers coming roaring in from the fields. Tears fell on the pony's neck, and it tossed its head at the unexpected wetness.

“Are you sick?” Salick asked sharply. She had dropped back beside him, their mounts brushing each other on the narrow trail along the river's edge.

Garet remained silent, bent over the pony's neck. He would not give this arrogant, unpleasant girl the pleasure of seeing him cry.

“No,” he grunted.

Salick said nothing else, more evidence, Garet thought, of her dislike. She nudged her horse past the pony, taking up her accustomed place behind Mandarack. When the party came to a flat spot nestled in the curve of the river, Mandarack dismounted. Garet envied his obvious lack of discomfort. He gingerly swung his own leg over the pony's rump and slid down to the ground, remembering this time to keep a grip on the reins so that no one would have to chase down his mount. To his surprise, he could manage the pain well enough to stand on his own. Delicately, with tiny steps, he led the horse to the river's edge and let it drink. Marick came up beside him, leading the stout mare. The demon's corpse had been left on the prairie, some distance from the head of the trail.

“Still bowlegged?” The younger boy's joking tone could have been either a friendly jibe or callous insult.

Garet only nodded, still unsure of how to respond. Marick puzzled him. Like the twins, the small Bane took every opportunity to poke fun at Garet. He had laughed openly when, at the end of the first day's riding, Garet's legs gave out, and he lowered himself from the saddle straight into a surprised squat on the ground. And when Garet's horse had run away the night before, forcing Dorict to chase it for a half a mile, the small boy had collapsed in whoops and howls of mirth until even Salick, too busy supporting Garet to help catch the pony, had cracked a slight smile.

And yet for all that, Marick's enjoyment of Garet's mistakes had none of the cutting cruelty of his brothers' laughter. As far as the younger boy was concerned, Garet had joined them for the sole purpose of increasing Marick's own enjoyment of life. And that enjoyment was obvious in everything he did. He chattered at the silent and irritated Dorict on their shared horse and cheerfully dismounted to help whenever the demon's corpse became tangled in a patch of brush. Unintimidated by Salick's dour presence, he often teased her by snapping to attention or bowing at every word she said.

He even found his own mistakes hilarious. At their noon break that day, he had stepped off his horse into a warm pile of droppings left by Mandarack's tall black. A shocked yelp had turned suddenly into a rush of gasping, wheezing laughter at his own predicament. The fit went on so long that the Master himself walked back to look down on his helpless apprentice. Marick had looked up from his undignified position, flat on his back with one reeking boot in the air and gasped out at the Bane, “Master, I've found something you dropped.” Dorict's and Garet's jaws both dropped; Salick turned a deep shade of purple as she choked on a withering reprimand. Mandarack, however, merely regarded the boy, who was still wheezing as if he had run all the way from the foothills, and turned back to attend to his mount. This set off a whole new round of gasps and howls from Marick, and it was some time before they could get any work out of him.

Marick now squatted easily by the river, grinning at the creaks and groans produced by Garet as he lowered himself down on his haunches. They drank from their cupped hands before the horses had a chance to muddy the water. The cool water was a blessing after the late summer heat of the prairies. The two finally straightened and led their horses back to the wilting trees bordering the campsite. Garet's resemblance to an old man as he stood up set Marick chuckling again, and for a moment Garet thought that if he held his hands out to the boy, as to a roaring fire, the heat of Marick's good cheer would banish the pain of his isolation.

His next encounter, however, brought him back to reality. Dorict called to him, “Get some firewood. Salick says we'll camp here tonight.”

This was the longest speech he had received from Dorict so far, and Garet decided to risk a question. “What is this place?”

If Dorict heard the question, he did not bother to reply. Instead, the boy went back to his mount and pulled off the saddlebags stuffed with the food so reluctantly supplied by Pranix. Garet looked over to the others and saw Salick staring at him, waiting for him to obey the order. With a sigh, he picked up the hatchet and limped off to start picking up deadfalls and knock dry branches off the heat-struck trees.

The fallen leaves and brown ferns brushed against his canvas pants, the only ones he owned that were long enough and whole enough to qualify as decent clothing. The pants, along with a wool tunic that itched in this heat, his tattered shoes, and a few copper coins pressed on him by his mother at their parting were all the reminders he had of his old life. After delivering a second armload of firewood to his indifferent companions, Garet found himself wandering farther away from the camp, westward along the riverbank. He stopped picking up branches and stood looking out over the water.

The river broadened at this point, coming out of the narrow curve that had created their campsite. Farther along, above the trees, a thin column of smoke rose from an unseen fire, but Garet was too heartsick to wonder who else might be left in this demon-cursed country. It felt better just looking at the river and trying not to think at all. The twilight had turned the water to a fine, grey satin. The surface rippled and flowed in and out of itself, gliding over logs and sandbars. Dragonflies flitted a touch above the water, chasing clouds of busy gnats. Leaning his shoulder against a slanting birch tree, Garet ran his hand over the scarred bark and felt the tears rise up in him again.

Standing there, really sobbing at last in the privacy of the sheltering trees, Garet did not hear the light, precise footsteps behind him.

Mandarack's dry voice reached him through the sound of his own weeping. “Do you desire to go home, boy?”

Garet turned quickly, wiping his tear-stained face with the back of his sleeve. The Bane stood in the shadow of the trees, his calm, pitiless gaze demanding an answer.

“Why wouldn't I?” he spat. The bitterness of his own answer surprised him but did not faze the old man.

“Can you go home?” Mandarack's voice kept the same dry tone.

Garet's mouth flew open to shout, “Yes!” but he closed it before he spoke the word. Could he? His mother and Allia would accept him, of course. His mother might be disappointed that he had not been able to escape the farm, but she would not—could not—turn him away. But what of his father and brothers? With a sinking heart, Garet realized that he could never return to the farm. It had only been a comforting fantasy, like one of his sheep pasture daydreams. Looking miserably at Mandarack, Garet wondered,
why do I always want to be somewhere else? Stuck on the farm, I wanted to be a hero on his travels. Now I am a hero, and I just want to be back on the farm!
As he thought this, a small fire of determination, similar to the one that had helped him fight the demon, blazed in his belly. He stood straighter to face the old man.

“No, Master,” he tried to speak as evenly as the Bane, “I know I can't go back to the farm. My father wouldn't have it.” There, that was it. He had no place to go but forward, though maybe not in this unpleasant company.

Mandarack raised an eyebrow and, as if able to guess his thoughts, observed, “And yet you are unhappy here. Most children, you know, dream of becoming Demonbanes.” He paused. “But I forget how you were raised.”

Garet bristled slightly at this easy dismissal of his life. Mandarack noticed the resentment and raised his eyebrow again. “That's good. Anger is better than sadness, at least in our profession. It has its uses.” He reached across with his good hand and drew up his crippled arm to cross both at his chest. “My mind has been much on what is happening in these Midlands. And it has been many years since I have worked with initiates...” he saw Garet's look of confusion, “...those who are beginners in the Banehall.”

Turning to look at the river, his voice became less dry and more gentle. “There is not much ease or choice these days for any of us, but if one thing could be changed, and I can make no promises,” he waited to catch Garet's nod of understanding, “what would it be?”

Garet now knew better than to ask to return home. And he guessed that no one could demand friendship. However, there was one thing he could ask for—the one thing that could help him to live in this new life.

“Master,” Garet replied quickly, “I want to know all the things you do.” He stumbled at Mandarack's surprised look, “No—not that exactly.” He searched for the right words. “I need to know whatever someone my age should know about demons, the South, Banes, Shirath...” his voice rose in frustration, “about their life!”