Didit matter? He could be shed of the demon.
His muscles twitched from strain. The demon soothed them down with scarred, ink-stained fingers.
He had not touched Slate because he had taken vows to protect the weak from the strong, even when the strength was his and the weakness was a fleeting anguished moment. He had thrown away his chances with the real Slate, but this creature was not weak—not remotely.
The temple had cast him out. No real vows constrained him any longer.
He could give up his demon, and in return, he would have something that looked a great deal like Slate, and no one would ever know—
Caliban forced a smile. “Nice try,” he said hoarsely, recognizing the touch of the rune-demon scratching behind his eyes. “No.”
God, she’s strong, and subtle, too. She wants the demon. Why? You can’t fit two demons in one soul, they’re insanely territorial, if she took mine then she…
Could she jump to me?
The rune woman snarled, jerking backward. The knight shuddered. Is that it?Is her demon looking for another host? Does she want to pry my demon out so that she could take its place?
Is my dead demon protecting me from being possessed again?
“We could do well together,” she hissed, not touching him now. “Your oaths are all broken anyway, and I am far more civilized than that sniveling corpse you carry around now—”
“Why? You have a host—a whole tribe following you—”
The rune’s face was melting now, back into the deer, the beauty running back into the merely alien.
“She will not leave!” hissed the rune. “The old doe is bound here, her bones rotting around me, and the rune will not leave this place! There is nothing that will compel her out of these hills! I am trapped here, do you understand, shining one? Trapped!”
The old doe is holding her here?
Not willingly possessed then.
And he remembered, suddenly, that morning in the temple, when he had gone stalking through the halls with his hands red to the elbow. His demon had tired of such quick deaths, and wished for sport, like a cat with a mouse.
Her name was Selena. He barely knew her—she was one more fixture of the temple, not someone he spoke with more than a few times a year. She had been tall and spare and grey-haired, and herhands had been full of the white pillar candles they burned in the sanctuary.
She had heard the screaming and come running, still with her arms full of candles, and the demon had seen her through his eyes and purred and lifted the sword to cut her, only a little, to make the dying last.
And Caliban, who had been nearly mad and screaming behind his eyes, had thrown every ounce of himself behind the sword, and the cut had dropped her, dead before she hit the floor.
Denied, the demon had raged at him, frothing, his own voice screaming obscenities and curses down upon him. He could not have stopped the sword, he had no power to do that, but there was enough of him to bend it a little—only a little—to his will.
Was the old doe in there, still? Was she bending the demon a little, only a little, but enough to hold her trapped in place, no threat to the other tribes of rune that must surely populate these hills?
Caliban felt a fleeting admiration for the strength of the old shaman, completely dominated by the demon, yet holding the creature here nonetheless.
I wish I could have known her.
He looked up into the rune’s face, hearing the demon rant, and he could have sworn, for a fleeting instant, that something looked out of her face and winked at him.
I must have imagined that…
The demon’s voice cut off. It flung its hair out of its eyes and stood, chest heaving, until it seemed to calm itself.
That was, in its way, frightening. A demon with even that much self-control was rare.
Still. She can’t seduce me. She can’t compel me. Perhaps I can still find a way out—
“Come now, shining one,” the demon-rune said, trying to find its feet again. “Surely you feel some pity for my plight? A maiden in distress, I am. You need only take me to the nearest city, and I will flee, and trouble you no more. I can be so quiet that you will not even know you carry me. Surely you cannot deny me aid—”
