'Uh -- ' he thought hard for a moment, then smiled triumphantly. 'The Great Demon-Wolf of Hastandell!'
'Oh, that's too easy. Warrl!'
A shadow in a corner of the hearth uncoiled itself, and proved to be no shadow at all, but the kyree, whose shoulder came nearly as high as Tarma's waist. Closer inspection would reveal that Warrl's body was more like that of one of the great huntingcats of the plains than a lupine, built for climbing and short bursts of high speed, not the endurance of a true wolf. But the fur and head and tail were sufficiently wolflike that this was how Tarma generally thought of him.
He padded over to the table and benches shared by the ill-assorted trio. The conversation of all the other occupants of the inn died for a moment as he moved, but soon picked back up again. After three days, the patrons of the inn were growing a little more accustomed to the monster beast in their midst. Tarma had helped that along by coaxing him to demean himself with a few tricks to entertain them the first night of their stay. Now, while the sight of him still unsettled a few of them, they had come to regard him as harmless. They had no notion of his true nature; Tarma and Kethry had tactfully refrained from revealing that he was just as intelligent as any of them -- and quite probably could beat any one of them at chess.
'Here's your Demon-Wolf -- one of his kin, rather.' Tarma cocked her head to one side, her eyes far away as if she was listening. 'Kyree is what they call themselves; they come from the Pelagir Hills. Warrl says to tell you that he knows that story -- that Ourra didn't know the sheep he'd been feeding on belonged to anyone; when he prowled the village at night he was just being curious. Warrl says Ourra had never seen humans before that lot moved in and settled; he thought they were just odd beasts and that the houses were some kind of dead growths -- believe me, I have seen some of what grows naturally in the Pelagirs -- it isn't stretching the imagination to think that huts could grow of themselves once you've seen some of the bushes and trees. Well, Warrl wants you to know that when the priestess went out and gave Ourra a royal tongue-lashing for eating the stock, Ourra was quite embarrassed. Without there being someone like me or Kethry, with the kind of mind that he could talk to, there wasn't much he could do by way of apology, but he did his best to make it up to the village.
His people have a very high sense of honor. Sorry, little man -- Qurra is disqualified.'
'He talks to you?' the little priest said, momentarily diverted. 'That creature truly talks? I thought him just a well-trained beast!'
'Oh, after all our conversation, I figured you to be open-minded enough to let in on the 'secret.' Kyree have a lot of talents -- they're as bright as you or me. Brighter, maybe -- I have no doubt he could give you a good battle at taroc, and that's one game I have no gift for. As for talking -- Warrior's Oath -- sometimes I wish I could get him to stop! Oh, yes, he talks to me all right -- gives me no few pieces of unsolicited advice and criticism, and usually with an 'I told you so' appended.' She ruffled the great beast's fur affectionately as he grinned a toothy, tongue-lolling grin. Kethry tossed him one of the bones left from their dinner; he caught it neatly on the fly, and settled down beside her to enjoy it. Behind them, the hum of voices continued.
'Now I'll give you one -- evil that served only itself. Thalhkarsh. We had firsthand experience of that one. He had plenty of opportunity to see good -- it wasn't just the trollops he had stolen for his rites. Or are you not familiar with that tale?'
'Not the whole of it. Certainly not from one of the participants!'
'Right enough then -- this is a long and thirsty story. Oskar?' Tarma signaled the host, a plump, shortsighted man who hurried to answer her summons. 'Another round -- no, make it a pitcher, this may take a while. Here -- ' she tossed him a coin, as it was her turn to pay; the innkeeper trotted off and returned with a brimming ear then vessel. Kethry was amused to see that he did not return to his station behind the counter after placing it on the table between Tarma and the priest. Instead he hovered just within earshot, polishing the tables next to them with studious care. Well, she didn't blame him, this was a tale Tarma didn't tell often, and it wasn't likely anyone in Oberdorn had ever heard a firsthand account of it. Oskar would be attracting folk to his tables for months after they'd gone with repetitions of the story.
'From all we could put together afterward, Thalhkarsh was a demon that had been summoned purely by mistake. It was a mistake the mage who called him paid for -- well, that's usually the case when something like that happens. This time though, things were evidently a little different,' she nodded at Kethry, who took up the thread of the story while Tarma took a sip of wine.
'Thalhkarsh had ambition. He didn't want to live in his own Abyssal Planes anymore, he wanted to escape them. More than that, he wanted far more power than he had already; he wanted to become a god, or a godling, at least. He knew that the quickest ways of gaining power are by worship, pain, and death. The second two he already had a taste of, and he craved more. The first -- well, he calculated that he knew ways of gaining that, too. He transformed himself into a very potently sexual and pleasing shape, built himself a temple with a human pawn as his High Priest, and set up a religion.'
'It was a religion tailored to his peculiar tastes. From what I know most of the demonic types wouldn't think of copulating with a human anymore than you or I would with a dog; Thalhkarsh thought otherwise.' Tarma grimaced. 'Of course a part of that is simply because of the amount of pain he could cause while engaging in his recreations -- but it may be he also discovered that sex is another very potent way of raising power. Whatever the reason, that was what the whole religion was founded on. The rituals always culminated with Thalhkarsh taking a half-dozen women, torturing and killing them when he'd done with them, in the full view of his worshipers. There's a kind of mind that finds that stimulating; before too long, he had a full congregation and was well on his way to achieving his purpose. That was where we came in.'
'You know our reputation for helping women?' Kethry put in.
'You have a geas?' ventured the little priest.
'Something like that. Well, since Thalhkarsh's chosen victims were almost exclusively female, we found
