I fixed the murderer with a stare but he just shrugged and walked over to our campsite, collapsing his legs beneath him and reaching into the bag with our dwindling supply of bread.
"So, let's go," I said. "Clear it and move on." I was eager. Perhaps a little over eager. I wanted to be out, to be free. To be away from that place. I wanted to distract myself from the guilt and shame, and I wanted to distract Isen from staring at me the way he was, making me uncomfortable in my own skin.
Hardt held up a big hand and let out a sigh. "It's a fair way." He too started towards our campsite. "I hate to agree with Yorin here, but I think a meal and a few hours of shuteye would be best."
The delay ground against my nerves but I nodded all the same, not wanting to seem unreasonable. Isen followed me to the others and sat close by, always watching me. I hated it and I hated myself for causing it, but I refused to make a scene in front of the others.
We shouldn't have delayed. We should have left there and then. That was the night the eyes in the dark stopped just watching us and made their presence known.
Chapter 29
We should have set a watch. Yorin and I both knew we were being watched. The others thought we were safe, alone in the ruined city of the Djinn. It's a lesson I have taken to heart. I have since spent many days out in the wilderness, or sleeping alongside a road, or delving deep into forgotten ruins. These days I always set a watch.
I woke to the sounds of Isen shouting and found he had crawled close to me in the night. Hardt had pushed me away, yet more evidence he knew what I had done. I had drifted off to sleep feeling rejected, hurt. I hated myself enough already, and I began to think I had ruined my friendship with Hardt as well. Maybe that was why my sleep was plagued with horrid dreams. Or maybe it was Ssserakis, playing on my fears to sustain itself.
I was the last one on my feet. Isen already had his sword drawn and Yorin was in a ready crouch, knives in hand. Even Hardt had his fists clenched as though ready to finally throw a punch. Only Tamura seemed unconcerned, staring into the darkness and scratching at the patchy hair on his cheeks.
The little yellow eyes were all around us, but in the dim blue light of the pillars we could see what they belonged to. Each of the creatures stood close to three feet with a stoop. They almost looked like children, only their heads were overly large and their arms too long to be terran. That and they had no noses. Maybe you've never seen a terran face with no nose, I assure you it's fucking creepy. They wore no clothes of any sort and if they had genitalia it certainly wasn't between their legs. Some of the little creatures had a single tail, some had two, and a few of them had three; all swishing back and forth in the gloom.
There were hundreds of them surrounding us. But all they did was watch. Glowing yellow eyes fixed on our little group.
"What are they doing?" Isen asked, a note of panic in his voice.
There was no answer any of us could give. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring my aches and the need to pee. Like a wave extending outward the creatures bowed their overly large heads. Some even collapsed onto their knees.
"Now what are they doing?" Isen's voice rose again.
"Bowing," Hardt said and glanced sideways at me. "To you."
They were imps, creatures from the Other World. I thought they must recognise me, my power. I was a Sourcerer, an Impomancer, though I had no Source to prove it. It was only right they would recognise one of their masters. And they did, it just wasn't me. I didn't realise it at the time. I still didn't understand the truth of what I carried inside of me. They weren't bowing down to me. They were bowing down to the ancient horror that possessed me. I felt pride at their obeisance. Only it wasn't my pride at all. I think things would have turned out quite differently if I had realised from the start just how closely Ssserakis and I were entwined.
"Why?" Isen still held his sword ready, his head darting about to keep track of as many of the creatures as possible. "And what the fuck are they?"
"Imps," I said. Isen's panic was grating on my nerves and I wished he'd bloody well shut up. The strange thing was I was more embarrassed at myself than angry with him. I have taken a lot of time to sort through my feelings, and I have decided that I was embarrassed that the first man I chose to have sex with was a coward and a xenophobe. I have since come to terms with it, but I was just sixteen at the time, and confused. "Lesser creatures from the Other World. They're useless for war, but many Sourcerers use them as a form of slave labour. They're docile, near tireless, and easy to command." I shook my head and scoffed in disgust. "Perfect slaves." The others might be afraid but I was not. I knew the imps wouldn't attack. All Impomancers at the Orran Academy were given a copy of the Encyclopaedia Otheria. It detailed everything the tutors had discovered about the denizens of the Other World, and it dismissed all forms of imps as beasts of burden only.
Despite my claims I was still wary of them. I had never seen so many imps in one place before. I wondered if there was a Sourcerer nearby, one with an Impomancy Source I could steal. The thought of that power made my mouth water.
"Is that why they're bowing to you?" Yorin was tense and I couldn't blame him, but if the imps did attack us there was no other person in our little group I'd rather have at my side. "Because you're a Sourcerer?"
I shrugged. "I guess so."
"You guess?" Isen's voice was still high and panicky.
"Well, I can't exactly ask them," I said testily. "In case you haven't fucking noticed, imps don't have ears."
"How do they hear each other?" he asked.
Tamura let out a chuckle. "Silence down in the dark."
"What?" Isen squeaked.
I let out a sigh. "They don't hear each other," I said. "They don't speak. They must communicate in some other way."
"You don't know?" Isen asked, on the edge of panic. "I thought you were a Sourcerer." That was the last straw! I was angry at myself, that much was true, but I had anger enough to spare for Isen, and the idea that he might question my attunement to magic was a step too far. Such is the pride of youth. I was a Sourcerer and I wanted everyone to know it. To respect it. To respect me.
I turned on Isen and fixed him with a savage glare. I thought it another trick of the mind, but the hall seemed to grow darker around us, as though my anger was sucking the light from the space. Isen shivered, his breath misting as the temperature dropped. I was just about to open my mouth and let loose a torrent of rage on the man when I noticed the imps moving away, scurrying backward while keeping their heads down.
Isen was staring at me, fear plain on his face. I wonder if he knew then what he had screwed the day before. If he saw the horror inside of me before I did. Another relationship I ruined. As quick as he was to forget and forgive, I don't think he ever forgave me for scaring him like that down in the dark.
"They're coming back." Hardt was tense. Well, we were all tense, but with muscles like his, it really showed.
One of the imps crawled forwards, its head bowed and knees scraping on the rough stone beneath. It stopped just a few paces from us, heedless of the sharp steel pointed its way, and held up its hands to me. Imps have strange hands; three fingers and a thumb, all shorter than a terrran's and each ending in small claw. In those strange hands the imp held a shroom with a grey stem and a yellow cap.