hope that those are from Lord, and not Lady Soargyl, he thought mischievously.
After composing himself, he glided to the open door and peeked through. Light from a low burning fire illuminated the large Soargyl bedroom. Jak allowed himself a moment of self-satisfaction for having read
Brandobaris's augury correctly. Within is where the treasures lie.
A bronze-framed canopy bed sat in the center of the room. Through the hanging linens and piles of blankets, Jak could see the vague outlines of two sleeping forms. A cushion topped-chest sat at the bed's foot. To his right, a wardrobe and dressing screen. To his left, the dressing tables.
Though he knew he could have stomped across the floor and not awakened anyone who could sleep through that snoring, he nevertheless squeezed through the door and prowled silently around the room. Keeping his ears attuned to any change in the snoring that might indicate a sleeper beginning to awaken, he quietly hopped onto the top of the dressing table, kneeled, and moved methodically through the items he found there.
He discarded as unsuitable a silver buckle and a pair of engraved gold bracers. The item he chose had to be just right. He finally settled on a silver cloak pin shaped like an eagle's talon inset with a single tourmaline. Perfect, he thought, and dropped it in his belt pouch. Now for the final touch. He whispered the words to an incantation and the image of a long-stemmed pipe, with its embers softly aglow and smoke wisps rising gently from the ivory bowl, took shape on the dressing table-the calling card Jak left behind at all his jobs.
Style, good Lady, he thought, with a nod and smile at the bed. Style. Still grinning, he hopped to the floor-and froze in his tracks.
A feeling of stark terror stopped him. His breath caught in his lungs. Weak-kneed, he stumbled backward and bumped into the dressing table. Resisting the urge to hide his face behind his hands, he watched as an emptiness, a darkness blacker than pitch, boiled through the same bedroom door he had just entered.
His heart hammered painfully in his chest. The darkness roiled like a living thing, coalesced, and finally solidified into the shape of a tall, featureless, black humanoid. Waves of palpable hate radiated from it like heat from the hearth. Batlike wings sprouted from its back, the span as wide as half the room. Two dagger points of light formed in its face, yellow beads filled with malice.
Jak recoiled into the shadows, sinking slowly to the floor, his eyes involuntarily glued to the creature-not a creature, a demon! A demon! His breath came in short, fearful heaves that he struggled desperately to control. He tried to meld with the wood of the dresser and prayed that those evil yellow eyes did not spy him. 'Please, please. Some distant part of his consciousness yelled at him to do something, anything-a Harper should do something!-but his body seemed made of lead.
The demon hovered in the doorway and considered the Soargyl bed. Though it flew, its great wings flapped only occasionally and without wind. Lord Soargyl's snores continued unabated.
Shut up! Jak thought irrationally. Shut up! It'll hear you. But the demon had already noticed the sleeping couple, and it went for them.
With terrifying speed, the shadowy horror darted to the foot of the bed. It hovered outside the transparent canopy for a moment with its head cocked curiously to the side, as though studying the Soargyls. Its yellow eyes flared eagerly. Jak could sense it slavering, could sense the killer allowing its anticipation to build before the satisfaction of the slaughter. He wanted to scream but could not find his breath. He could only watch, transfixed by horror.
Two overlong black arms, each corded with shadowy muscle, formed from the demon's body. The arms ended
in vicious claws as long as a man's fingers. With a gentle grace horrible to witness-for Jak knew the butchery that would surely follow-the demon extended a thin arm and parted the linens that shielded the Soargyl bed. Silent tears formed in Jak's eyes and began to run down his face.
Do something, he ordered himself. Do something, dammit! But he could not. He loathed himself for doing nothing, but fear of attracting the demon's attention froze him to inaction. He gripped his holy symbol cloak-clasp so tightly the metal dug painfully into his palm. Don't wake up, he prayed for the Soargyls. Please don't wake up. Silent prayer was all he could bring himself to do for them.
The demon glided under the canopy and hovered over the bed, looking down on the sleepers. It held its wings and clawed arms outstretched, as though to embrace the Soargyls, to envelop them in emptiness. Lord Soargyl snorted, mumbled something, and rolled toward his wife. His snores quickly renewed, an almost comical funeral liturgy.
As the demon stared down at the Soargyls, Jak could literally feel its tension building, its hate growing. Stay sleeping, he prayed. Please gods, let them stay asleep. No one should have to die staring into the face of a nightmare.
The demon reached down and extended a claw toward the sleepers. Jak sensed its insatiable hunger. The shadowy claw seemed to tremble in eager anticipation as it neared their flesh. It will finish them quickly, he thought. His guts roiled at the thought of the slaughter. They'll be dead before they ever wake up. He took some small solace in that.
The demon reared back and raised its claw high to slayAnd suddenly stopped, thoughtful.
No! No! Do it! Do it, godsdammit! He almost said the words aloud.
As though sensing Jak's silent pleas, the demon lowered its claw and turned its baleful yellow eyes in his direction. His heart stopped. He tried to sink farther into the shadows. Them first, he thought, hating himself for a coward but unable to stop the thought. Them first.
The demon turned back to the Soargyls and Jak's heart began again to beat. Cold sweat now mixed with silent tears. You're a coward, he accused himself. A damned coward.
Rather than raising a claw to strike, the demon instead reached down and gently caressed the cheek of Lord Soargyl.
Bastard, Jak cursed it through his fear. He realized then that it fed on terror as much as blood. It wanted its prey awake.
The demon's dire touch jerked Lord Soargyl from sleep. Lady Soargyl, too, began to stir. The burly lord sat bolt upright in bed to find himself face to face with hungry yellow eyes and a darkness as empty as the Void. 'Huh? What the-'He reached instinctively for a nonexistent sword but found only nightclothes.
His first thought was to fight, Jak cursed himself. Mine was to hide Tears poured unabated down his face now, for he saw terror take shape in Lord Soargyl's wide eyes. 'Hel-' Lord Soargyl started to shout.
Casually, the demon flashed its claw and tore open a gash in his throat, a ragged hole so wide that it nearly severed his head. The bed should have been awash in a fountain of blood, but inexplicably the wound did not bleed. Wide-eyed with terror, Lord Soargyl gurgled and pawed futilely at the tear in his throat, trying desperately to keep his head attached to his neck. His body began to convulse.
'Ahg, arg, agh.' Foam flecked his mouth and a gray vapor gushed from the wound. Eagerly, the demon devoured it. As it feasted on the vapor, it seemed to grow larger, more substantial.
It's his soul, Jak thought in terror. It eats souls.
Lord Soargyl's body began to shrink then, to implode until it was little more than an unrecogniz* able mass of wrinkled flesh. No sounds emerged from his open, screaming mouth.
Lady Soargyl at last came fully awake, sat up, saw the leering eyes-of the demon, and began to scream. Her terrified wail pierced Jak's soul and freed him from his paralysis.
'Boarim, Boarim!' She shook the shrunken remains of her husband and Boarim Soargyl's body crumbled into dried hunks. She pulled back as though burned, screaming and crying the desperate keen of the hopeless. Before Jak could move to intervene, the demon picked her up from the bed and drew her near. A big woman, she kicked and shouted in protest, but the thing held her body aloft.
'No! Please! Please!' The demon ended her screams by tearing her open from navel to sternum and devouring the vapor of her soul, filling its emptiness with the life it had stolen.
While it fed, Jak found his wits enough to whisper the words to a spell that rendered him invisible.
The guards have to be coming, he told himself. They heard her and now they're coming. But they hadn't come yet, and the demon finished with Lady Soargyl all too soon. It playfully squeezed the husk of her body and the corpse exploded into a rain of dried pieces that fell to the bed, intermixing with the pieces of her husband. Without a backward glance, it flowed toward the doorIt stopped.
Jak's heart stopped too. It senses me, he realized. Dark, but it senses me!
The living shadow turned and raised its head, sniffing the air like a hound. Its eyes narrowed thoughtfully and
