When Demons Walk Read Online Free PDF Page B

no wounds that could be bound, only a multitude of small, thin lines from which the old man’s lifeblood drained to the floor. Her motions grew more frantic as she realized the inevitability of his death was spattered on the walls, on the floor, on her.
    There was no magic she knew that could heal him. The runes of healing she drew on his chest would promote his body’s own processes, but she knew that he would be dead long before his body could even begin to mend. She tried anyway. The effort of working magic so soon after she’d played the flute caused her hands to shake as she drew runes that blurred irritatingly in her vision as she cried.
    â€œEnough, Shamera, enough.” The Old Man’s voice was very weak.
    She pulled her hands away and clenched them, knowing he was right. Carefully, she drew his battered head into her lap. Ignoring the gore, she patted the weathered skin of his face tenderly.
    â€œMaster,” she crooned softly, and the Old Man’s lips twisted once more into a smile.
    He would be sorry to leave his little, contrary apprentice. He always thought of her as he had last seen her, at that point where child turns to woman—though he knew she was long since grown, a master in her own right. She hadn’t been a child since she’d rescued him from the dungeon where he lay blinded, crippled, and near death. He had towarn her before it was too late. With hard-won strength he reached up and caught her hand.
    â€œLittle one,” he said. But his voice was too soft: It angered him to be so weak, and he drew strength from that anger.
    â€œDaughter of my heart, Shamera.” It was little more than a whisper, but he could tell by her stillness that she had heard. “It was the Chen Laut that was here. You must find it, child, or it will destroy . . .” He paused to grasp enough strength to finish. “It is . . . close this time or it wouldn’t have chanced attacking me. Do you understand?”
    â€œYes, Master,” she answered softly. “Chen Laut.”
    He relaxed in her embrace. As he did, a wondrous thing happened. The magic, his own magic, which had eluded him for so many years returned across the barrier of pain as if it had never been rift from him. As he stopped fighting for breath, the power surrounded him and comforted him as it always had. With a sigh of relief, of release, he gave himself to its caress.
    Blank-faced, Shamera watched the old mage leave her, his body lax in her arms. As soon as he was gone, she set his head gently on the floor and began straightening his body, as if it mattered how the Old Man lay for his pyre. When she was finished, she knelt at his feet with her head bowed to show her respect. She let the magelight die down and sat in the darkness with the body of her master.
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    T HE SOUND OF boots on the floorboards drew her from her reverie. She watched numbly as four of the city-guards flooded the small room with torchlight.
    Belatedly, she realized she should have left when she could have. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Without witnesses, she was the most likely suspect. But this was Purgatory; she could buy her way out of it. Money was not a problem; the Old Man wouldn’t need the gold in the cave.
    Sham stood up warily and faced the intruders.
    Three were Easterners and the fourth a Southwoodsman, easily distinguished from the rest by his long hair and beard. They all had familiar faces, though she’d be hardput to name any but the apparent leader—he answered to Scarf, named for the filthy rag he tied over his missing eye. She relaxed a little: The whisper was that he could be bought more easily than most.
    Scarf and one of the other Easterners, tall for his race and cadaverously thin with large black eyes, looked at the blood that splattered almost every surface of the room with dawning respect. While the other two looked around, the Southwoodsman and the third Easterner kept