Spinner of Lies

that now open from this door.”

The golem stopped speaking. Without eyes, it was difficult to tell where the thing’s regard rested, but Demascus got the feeling it was waiting for something. “You said you were going to open the conduit?”

“Once you speak aloud the pass phrase of dispensation.”

A pass phrase? Shadow take it! He tried, “Chenraya indicated you’d tell us the pass phrase.” Demascus suspected it wasn’t a particularly good lie, but how smart could this animate chunk of obsidian be?

The golem cocked its head like a bird catching sight of a particularly choice worm in the grass. Was the golem buying his line? The thing’s body language was impossible to read. Was it about to step back and usher them toward the arch? Or was it-

The golem slammed its hands together. A fistclap of sound and obsidian shrapnel exploded outward, catching Demascus in the thunderous wave front. He tumbled feet over head. It was like he was underwater, struggling in a current, and didn’t know which way was up. Then the back cavern wall batted him out of the air. He couldn’t hear anything or feel anything except a body-wide tingle that quickly became an all-over ache. Shapes flashed before his eyes, but they were out of focus. His sense of time suffered …

Something not good was happening in the cavern, he knew that. The golem had pierced his bluff, and then some. He realized he was slick with sweat, as if all the water in his body had decided to escape. Why was he just lying here? Demascus gritted his teeth. He tried to lever himself up the wall. Ouch! He wished the tingles would come back. He slid back down. Low, rumbling noises grumbled in his ear, as if he was deep underwater listening to a fight raging just above the surface.

His eyes finally focused. Riltana was facing the obsidian golem alone! She whirled like a snowflake in a wind flurry, just out of reach of the construct’s massive fists. But lines of blood painted on her exposed limbs and face showed that merely being near the creature’s razor-sharp body was slowly slicing the thief to ribbons.

Three bolts slammed into the construct’s side, splintering the black stone. Chant was still up and part of the fight, he realized. As he himself should be! Demascus struggled to pull himself up again …

Someone hauled him upright. Who? Jaul. The kid’s mouth moved, but the deva couldn’t hear anything. He nodded anyway and said, “Thanks.” The sound of his own voice was one more unintelligible rumble.

Demascus drew Exorcessum. The runes along the blade immediately flickered to life, red and white. “Help me,” he said.

A white rune flared. His body-wide ache faded. The clash of combat invaded his ears once more. Then the rune went dark. The one next to it, the one that had cleansed his blood of spider venom in the warehouse yesterday, was also still dark. Odd. Weren’t they supposed to … renew themselves? He shrugged, and decided to save that worry for later.

Demascus careened back toward the golem, sword in one hand. His other whipped the scarf from around his neck, so that the far end grazed the golem, but failed to grasp a raised arm as he’d intended.

The obsidian humanoid was still trying to mash the thief. Demascus rushed up on its opposite flank and jammed his sword deep into the thing’s core. It convulsed and shrieked like a caged drake poked with a stick.

Riltana yelled, “There you are! Why do you always lie down when things get serious?”

“Because your wit tires me out,” he said, hauling back on this sword. It didn’t budge.

Exorcessum was stuck!

The golem wheeled, yanking the sword out of his hands. Stone shards abraded the deva’s face and outstretched hand. Demascus evaded a hammer fist of black stone. Lords of light, what the Hells had he been thinking? Slashing strikes were better than extended lunges, even for live targets-less exposure to a counterattack. And for a creature composed of animate stone, he might as well have gift-wrapped his sword before he slammed it point first into the golem’s obsidian body.

Another of Chant’s bolts stuck the Gatekeeper’s face. It didn’t care. Despite the damage the pawnbroker and thief had already inflicted, its attention was fixed on Demascus. Apparently it was put out that Demascus had gotten back up.

“It really doesn’t like you,” yelled Riltana, as the golem chased him down.

Retreating, Demascus replied, “You think?”

If he could summon his-

The golem “screamed” in his face, rubbing its head-splinters together so rapidly it looked like a hive of swarming bees. The sound hit him like a club.

For a moment, he saw two golems winding up to deliver a massive punch. Two Riltanas shot him a worried glance. He couldn’t distinguish the floor from the walls. Then his vision snapped back to true, but not soon enough. He wasn’t going to be able to avoid the stone fist hurtling at his head … Except he did, swaying under the golem’s half-ton haymaker like a tree in the wind.

Riltana seemed pinned to the air. Two of Chant’s bolts inched forward like slugs through air thick as clear jelly. Jaul’s slack-jawed expression of surprise, as he stood in the doorway, was graven as if in clay.

Demascus had produced a catch in time. The tables had just turned, though the Gatekeeper didn’t yet know it. Mounting bliss painted everything a sort of glowing orange, like right before sunrise. Time to end this thing.

The deva gazed into the shadows that suddenly welcomed him, whispering their secrets. He took hold of the wavering profile of the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge. He let its moth-wing sheen fall over the Gatekeeper. Points of light shone out. They summarized the golem’s being to the deva’s practiced eye. Its strengths were obvious. Its weaknesses were nearly nonexistent. But every creature, even a monster of animate stone, is tied to the world in some fashion.

And then Demascus saw the emerald flower of light that pulsed in the Gatekeeper’s chest. It was where the power of the golem’s animation was fixed; a magical “heart” of sorts. No, that wasn’t quite right. For there were two emerald flowers. And to fold this creature instantly into death’s embrace, Demascus would have to simultaneously pierce both. Difficult, to say the least.

First things first, he told himself. Before time’s gears renewed their clacking pace. He darted in, under the still-outstretched arms of the Gatekeeper, coming up behind where he’d planted Exorcessum. He draped the Veil around his neck, then snagged the hilt with both hands. Like a wagon precariously balanced atop a hill, where the slightest touch could launch its headlong rush, time raced back into dizzying motion at the contact. Demascus clung to the side of a creature made of razor-sharp rock and hauled on a sword so damnably long it might as well have been nailed into the Gatekeeper purposefully. There was no way he was going to get the sword out! It was jammed in too deep. In its current configuration, he would have to call upon the strength of …

In its current configuration? What an odd notion.

“Demascus!” screamed Riltana. “Let go! That thing’ll slice you to bloody strips!”

She was right about that. But … Exorcessum’s length had always struck him as absurd. And wasn’t it funny how its runes were calming white along one side and savage red along the other? As if they represented an unhappy compromise between two opposing ideals? Two sets of runes. On a blade two sizes too big. Hm.

The Gatekeeper ceased thrashing. It turned until the side of its body where the deva clung was lined up with the closest wall. Demascus realized it was going to throw itself against the stone and use his body as a cushion.

Now or never, he thought. He relaxed his grip on the hilt. Instead of trying to pull the blade straight out, he imagined pulling the hilt apart, separating the sword into-

Exorcessum split with a report like a cannon shot. The Gatekeeper’s body reverberated as if it had swallowed an exploding fireball. It stumbled and dropped to one knee. Demascus remained standing. He gripped two swords. Scarlet runes writhed in murderous glee down the blade in his right hand. White sigils like angel’s wings graced the one in his left. In their mixed light, Demascus smiled.

CHAPTER NINE

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL