It's not a bear.
Or—not only a bear. Gasping, fascinated, Ista Staggered nearer. Despite the initial impression of terrifying energy, it wasn't a well bear, either. Its fur, now that she saw it more closely, was mangy, falling out in patches, and despite its large frame, its flesh was thin. Its legs trembled. It stared up at Ista as if as fascinated by her as she was by it.
It seemed to her as though its essential bear-ness was almost eaten away, from the inside out. The eyes that stared back at her had a red intelligence that owed nothing to any animal mind.
It has caught a demon. And the demon has nearly devoured it.
And now the rider seeks another mount.
"How
dare
you," Ista grated. Not even a humble bear deserved
this. You don't belong here, demon. Go back to your accursed master.
Their gazes locked; she stepped closer; the bear stepped back from the white-faced boy. Another step. Another. The bear-demon lowered its head almost to the ground, its eyes wide and white-ringed, snuffling, backing away in fear.
"Royina, I come!" With a grunting cry, Foix appeared from the corner of Ista's vision, vest-cloak billowing, swinging his broadsword in a mighty arc. His lips were drawn back, strong teeth clenched with the effort of his strike.
"No, Foix!" Ista screamed, too late.
The heavy blade took the bear's head in one blow, and went on to bury itself in the soil beneath. Blood burst briefly from the creature's neck, and the head rolled away over the ground. One front paw spasmed; the big furry body dropped in a heap.
Ista seemed to see the demon with every sense but her eyes, a palpable force, a blood tinged fire, a smell like hot metal. It roared toward her, then, suddenly, scrambled back in a sort of bestial terror. It hesitated a desperate moment between Foix and the boy on the ground. Then it flowed into Foix.
Foix's eyes widened. "What?" he said, in a weirdly conversational tone. Then his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed.
LISS WAS THE FIRST TO GET CONTROL OF HER MOUNT AND gallop back; she swung down off her bay, breathless with confusion and alarm. The groaning Pejar pushed himself up to a sitting position and boggled at the beheaded bear. His brow wrinkled in bewilderment at the sight of Foix lying on the ground beside the carcass, which still leaked hot blood. "Sir . . . ?"
The fall from her horse had shaken Ista's stomach, but it was the concussion from the demon's passage that reverberated in her bones. Her mind felt unnaturally distanced from her body. She pulled off her vest-cloak, folded it, and knelt to try to drag Foix's heavy body around and pillow his head.
Liss said, "Lady, wait—was he stunned when his horse threw him? There may be broken bones ..."
"Did his horse throw him? I didn't see." That would explain why he had been first to reach the bear, certainly. "No, he was not hurt then. He slew the beast."
More's the pity.
"He slid right over the crupper onto his, um. Backside. I suppose there were no bones to break there." Liss wrapped one rein around her arm to hold her snorting, backing horse, and knelt to help, poking her head up for an impressed glance at the evidence of carcass, sword, and distant head. "Five gods, what a blow." She stared down at Foix. His face was the color of porridge. "What's the
matter
with him?"
Ferda rode up next, took one look, and vaulted from his horse not even bothering to keep a rein. "Foix! Royina, what has happened?" He knelt to run his hands over his brother's body, searching for the injury, obviously expecting to see bloody damage from some massive clawed swipe. His brows knotted as he found none. He started to try to turn Foix over. Dy Cabon labored up, minus his mule, gasping for breath.
Ista grasped Ferda's arm. "No, your brother was not struck."
"He chopped off the bear's head. Then he just . . . fell over," confirmed Pejar.
"Was the beast mad, to attack like that?" panted dy Cabon. He bent over his belly to brace his hands on his knees and stare around as well.
"Not mad," said Ista in a flat voice. "Demon-ridden."
Dy Cabon's eyes widened, searching her face. "Are you sure, Royina?"
"Entirely sure. I ... felt it."
It felt me
.
Ferda rocked back on his heels, looking dumfounded.
"Where did it . . ." Dy Cabon's voice trailed off as he surveyed the shaken guard, Ista upright and in apparent possession of her wits. Foix lying as though bludgeoned. "It didn't go into
him,
did it?"
"Yes." Ista moistened her lips. "It was backing off. I tried to stop him, but all he saw was a mad bear, I think, seeming to menace me."
Dy Cabon's lips repeated the word,
Seeming?
His gaze upon her sharpened.
Dy Cabon's manifest belief finally convinced the stunned Ferda. His face nearly crumpled in tears. "Learned,
what will happen to Foix?"
"That depends"—dy Cabon swallowed—"much on the nature of the demon in question."
"It was bearish," reported Ista, still in that same flat voice. "It may have consumed other creatures before the bear, but it could not have ingested the nature or intelligence of a man yet. It had no speech."
But now it possesses a very banquet of words and wits.
How quickly would it start its feast?
"That will change," muttered dy Cabon, echoing Ista's own thought. He took a deep breath. "Nothing will happen instantly," he asserted more loudly. Ista did not quite like the too-hearty tone of that. "Foix can resist. If he chooses. An inexperienced demon needs time to grow, to learn."
To dig in,
Ista's thought supplied. To tap a soul's strength, to prepare for siege. Did it follow that an experienced demon, fat with many souls of men, could conquer in a breath?
"Still, we should give it as little time as possible to ... as little time as possible. A temple at one of the provincial seats will have the means, the scholars to deal with this. We must take him at once to the arch-divine of Taryoon—no. That would take a week." He stared out over the hills toward the distant plains. "The provincial temple at Maradi is closer. Ferda, where are your maps? We must find the speediest route."
The other guardsmen were riding up, having captured the loose horses and mules. One towed Ferda's mount. Ferda rose to search his saddlebags, but turned back quickly as Foix stirred and groaned.
Foix's eyes opened. He stared up at the sky and the ring of faces hovering anxiously over him, and his brows drew down in a wince. "Oh," he muttered.
Ferda knelt by his head, his hands opening and closing helplessly. "How do you feel?" he ventured at last.
Foix blinked. "I feel very strange." He made a clumsy gesture with one hand—it looked like a paw, swiping—and tried to roll over and stand up. He ended up on all fours instead. It took him two more tries to gain his feet. Dy Cabon held one arm and Ferda the other as he blinked again and moved his jaw back and forth a few times. He reached his hand toward his mouth, missed, and tried again. His fingers probed as if reassuring himself he felt a jaw and not a muzzle. "What happened?"
For a long moment, no one dared to answer. He looked around at their horror-stricken stares with increasing dismay.
Dy Cabon finally said, "We think you have contracted a demon. It was riding the bear when it attacked."
"The bear was dying," said Ista. Even in her own ears, her voice sounded oddly detached. "I tried to warn you."
"It's not true, is it?" Ferda asked. Begged. "This cannot be."
Foix's face went still, inward; his eyes were fixed, unseeing for half a dozen breaths. "Oh," he said again. "Yes. It is ... is that what. . ."
"What?" Dy Cabon tried to make his voice gentle, but it came out edged with anxiety.
"There is something ... in my head. Frightened. All in a knot. As though trying to hide in a cave."
"Hm."
It was becoming apparent that Foix was not about to turn into a bear, demon, or anything else much but a bewildered young man just yet. The seniors of the party, supporting Foix, all went a short distance away and sat on the ground to consult the maps. A couple of the guardsmen discussed the carcass in low voices and decided its diseased skin was not worth the peeling, though they collected the teeth and claws for souvenirs, then hauled it away off the road.
Ferda sorted out his map of the region and smoothed it over a wide, flat stone. His finger traced a line. "I believe our most efficient route to Maradi is to stay on this very track for another thirty miles or so, to this village. Then turn and descend almost due east."
Dy Cabon glanced up toward the sun, already fallen behind the wall of mountains to their west, though the sky still glowed deep blue. "We'll not make it there before this night falls."
Ista dared to touch the map with one white finger. "If we continue only a little, we'll come to that crossroad up to the old saint's village that we intended to visit. We've already bespoken food and fodder and beds there. And we could start again early." And there would be strong walls between them and any more bears. Although not between them and the demon—a reflection she resolved to keep to herself.
Ferda frowned. "Six extra miles each way. More, if we mistake the track again." Just such a deceptive fork in the road had cost them an hour, earlier in the day. "Half a day's travel lost. We carry enough food and fodder for one night—we can restock where we turn east." He hesitated, and said more cautiously, "That is, if you are willing to endure the discomforts of a night in camp, Royina. The weather looks to continue fair, at least."
Ista fell silent. She misliked the scheme, but misliked still more the hint that she would put her comfort above her loyal officer's clear need. Split the party, send the speediest riders on ahead with Foix? She misliked that idea as well. "I... have no preference."
"How do you feel about riding?" Ferda asked his brother.
Foix was sitting with his brow furrowed and an inward look, like a man with a stomachache. "Huh? Oh. No worse than usual. My rump hurts, but that has nothing to do with . . . with the other thing." He was quiet a moment longer, then added, "Except indirectly."
Ferda said in a voice of military decision, "Let us push on as far and fast as we can tonight, then."
A murmur of agreement ran around the little council squatting by the stone. Ista pressed her lips closed.
They put Foix back up on his nervous horse—it took two men to hold the beast, and it sidled and snorted at first, but then settled as they set out again. Dy Cabon and Ferda rode close to Foix on either side. Protectively. Too late.
Ista stared at their backs as they continued down the road, such as it was. Her sense of the demon's presence, briefly so searing, was muted again. Was it occluded by matter, or perhaps deliberately hiding itself within its new fleshly lair? Or was it her deficiency? She had suppressed her sensitivity for so long, extending it again was like stretching a withered muscle. It hurt.
Lord dy Cazaril claimed that the world of the spirit and the world of matter existed side by side, like two sides of a coin, or a wall; the gods were not far away in some other space, but in this very one, continuously, just around some strange corner of perception. A presence as pervasive and invisible as sunlight on skin, as though one stood naked and blindfolded in an unimaginable noon.
Demons as well, though they were more like thieves putting a hand through a window. What occupied Foix's space, now? If both brothers came up behind her, would she know which was which without looking?
She closed her eyes, to test her perceptions. The creak of her saddle, the plodding of the other mounts, the faint crack as a hoof struck a stone; the smell of her horse, of her sweat, of the cool breath of pines . . . nothing more, now.
And then she wondered what the demon saw when it looked at Ista.
* * *
THEY MADE CAMP BY ANOTHER CLEAR STREAM WHEN THERE WAS barely enough light left to find firewood. The men gathered plenty; Ista suspected she was not the only one worried about wildlife. They also built her and Liss a little bower, of sorts, with logs and branches, floored with a hay of hastily cut yellow grasses. It did not look especially bear-proof to her.
Foix rejected being treated as an invalid and insisted on gathering wood as well. Ista watched him discreetly, and so, she noticed, did dy Cabon. Foix heaved over one good-sized log only to find it rotten, crawling with grubs. He stared down at his find with a very odd look on his face.
"Learned," he said quietly.
"Yes, Foix?"
"Will I turn into a bear? Or into a madman who thinks he's a bear?"
"No. Neither," said dy Cabon firmly. Though whether truly, Ista suspected even he did not know. "That will wear off."
Dy Cabon spoke to reassure, but did not seem to partake of the comfort himself. Because if the demon became less bear like, it could only be because it was growing more Foix-like?
"Good," sighed Foix. His face screwed up. "Because those look
delicious."
He kicked the log back over again with rather more force than was necessary and went to look for a drier deadfall.
Dy Cabon lingered by Ista. "Lady . . ."
Five gods, his plaintive tone of voice was just like Foix's, a moment ago. She barely turned her soothing
Yes, dy Cabon?
into a sharper, "What?" lest he take her for mocking him.
"About your dreams. The god-touched ones you had, so long ago."
Not
long ago enough
. "What about them?"
"Well. . . how do you know when dreams are real? How do you tell good prophecy from, say, bad fish?"
"There is nothing good about prophecy. All I can tell you is, they are unmistakable. As if more real than memory, not less." Her voice went harsh in sudden suspicion. "Why do you ask?"
He tapped his fingers nervously against the side of one broad hip. "I thought you might instruct me."
"What, the conductor conducted?" She tried to turn this off lightly, though her stomach chilled. "The Temple would disapprove."