The Hallowed Hunt

The man is a sorcerer. What in five gods’ names am I going to do if I catch him? Ingrey gritted his teeth and set the question aside as he bore down on Cumril, his hand stretching for the man’s collar. He made his grab, yanked back, whipped the man around, and flung him against the nearest wall with a loud thump, following up to pin him there with the weight of his body and glare.

Cumril was gasping and whimpering: 'No, no, help... !'

'So enspell me, why don’t you?' Ingrey snarled. Sorcerers and shamans, Wencel had said, were old rivals for power. With the dizzied remains of his reason, Ingrey wondered which was the stronger, and if he was about to test the question.

'I dare not! It will ascend, and enslave me again!'

This response was peculiar enough to give Ingrey pause; he let his hand, now clenched on Cumril’s throat, ease somewhat. 'What?'

'The demon will t-take me again, if I try to call on it,' Cumril stammered. 'You need, need, need have no fear of me, Lord Ingrey.'

'By my father’s agony, the reverse is not true.'

Cumril swallowed, looking away. 'I know.'

Ingrey’s grip eased yet more. 'Why are you here?'

'I followed the divine. From the temple. I saw him in the crowd. I want to, I was going to try to, I meant to surrender myself to him. I wasn’t expecting you.'

Ingrey stood back, his brows climbing toward his hairline. 'Well, I have no objection to that. Come along, then.'

Keeping a grip on Cumril’s arm just in case, Ingrey led him back to the narrow house. Cumril was pale and trembling, but as he recovered his breath, his initial shock seemed to pass off. By the time Ingrey pushed him through the door of the parlor and closed it again behind them, Cumril had revived enough to shoot him a look of resentment before he straightened his tabard and stood before Lewko.

'Learned. Blessed One. I, I, I... '

Lewko’s eyes were intent. He motioned to Ingrey’s abandoned chair, which Ijada set upright. 'Sit. Cumril, is it?'

'Yes, Learned.' Cumril sank down. Ijada returned to her own seat; Ingrey folded his arms and leaned against the nearby wall.

Lewko pressed his palm to Cumril’s forehead. Ingrey was not at all sure what passed between the two, but Cumril eased back yet more, and the demon-scent grew weaker. His panting slackened, and his gaze, wandering to some middle distance, bespoke the lifting of an invisible burden.

'Are you truly of Prince Boleso’s household?' Ingrey asked, nodding to the tabard.

Cumril’s eyes refocused on Ingrey. 'Yes. Or I was. He, he, he passed me off as his body servant.'

'So, you were the illicit sorcerer who aided him in his forbidden rites. I... it was guessed one must exist. But I never saw you at Boar’s Head.'

'No, I made very sure you, you, you did not.' Cumril gulped. 'Rider Ulkra and the household arrived here late last night. I had no other way to get back to Easthome except with them. I, I could not come sooner.' This last seemed to be addressed to Lewko.

'Did anyone else of Boleso’s household know what you really were?' Ingrey pressed.

'No, only the prince. I—my demon—insisted upon secrecy. One of the few times its will overrode Boleso’s.'

'Perhaps,' Lewko interrupted gently, 'you should begin at the beginning, Cumril.'

Cumril hunched. 'Which beginning?'

'The burning of a certain confession might do.'

Cumril’s gaze shot up. 'How did you know about that?'

'I reassembled it for the inquiry. With great difficulty.'

'I should think so!' Cumril’s obvious fear of Lewko gave way to something like professional awe.

Lewko held up a restraining finger. 'It was my guess that the destruction of that document marked the loss of your control over your power.'

Cumril ducked his head in a nod. 'It was so, Blessed One. And the beginning of my, my, my slavery.'

'Ah.' A brief smile of satisfaction tugged Lewko’s lips at this confirmation of his theory.

'I will not say the beginning of my nightmare,' Cumril continued, 'for it was blackest nightmare before. But in my despair after the disasters at Birchgrove, my demon ascended and took control of my body and mind. I, we, it fled with my body, which it was overjoyed to possess, and we began a strange existence. Exile. Always, its first concern was to keep out of sight of the Temple, and then, on to whatever erratic pleasures in matter the thing desired. Which were not always what I would call pleasures. The months it decided to experiment with pain were the worst'—Cumril shuddered in memory—'but that pass, pass, passed off like every other passion. Fortunately. I swear it had the mindfulness of a mayfly. When Boleso found... us... and pressed us into his service, it became quite rebellious in its boredom, but it dared not thwart him. He had ways of asserting his will.'

Lewko moistened his lips and leaned forward. 'How did you regain control? For that is a very rare thing to happen, after a sorcerer’s demon has turned upon him.'

Cumril nodded, and glanced somewhat fearfully at Ijada. 'It was her.'

Ijada looked astonished. 'What?'

'The night Boleso died, I was in the next chamber. To assist him in enspelling the leopard. There was a knothole in the wall, from which we could remove the knot and look and listen through.'

Ijada’s expression congealed. Cumril flinched under it. Was he, however demonized, to have been a wet- lipped spectator to her rape? Ingrey’s hand, which had been idly caressing his sword hilt, tightened upon it.

Cumril bore up under their speculative glowers, and continued, 'Boleso believed that the animal spirits he took in would allow him to bind each kin to himself. He had a, a, theory that the leopard was your kin animal, Lady Ijada, by reason of your father’s Chalionese bloodlines. He meant to use it to bind your mind and will to his, to make you his perfect paramour. Partly, partly for lust, partly to test his powers before he took them into the arena of politics, partly because he was half-mad with suspicion of everyone by this time and only by such iron control dared to have any woman so close to his person.'

'No wonder,' said Ijada, her voice shaking a little, 'he took no trouble to court me.'

Lewko said quietly, 'That was grave sin and blasphemy indeed, to attempt to seize another’s will. Free will is sacred even to the gods.'

'Was the leopard spirit meant to go into Ijada, then?' asked Ingrey, puzzled. 'Did you put it there?' As you once gave me my wolf?

'No!' Cumril fell silent a moment, then gathered himself again. 'Boleso took it, had just taken it, when the lady fought free from under him. And then... something happened that no one controlled. I know not by what courage she seized the war hammer and struck him, but death, death opens the world to the gods. It all happened at once, in a moment. I was still working upon the leopard as Boleso’s soul was torn from his body, and the god... the shock... my demon... Boleso’s soul struggled wildly, but could not get free of its defilements either to advance or retreat from the Presence.

'The leopard, so barely anchored, was torn from him, and fell into... no, was called into the lady. I heard a music like hunting horns in a distant dawn, and my heart seemed to burst with the sound. And my demon fell screaming in terror from it, and released its hold upon my mind, and fled in the only direction it could, inward and inward into a tight knot. It cowers there still'—he touched his chest—'but I do not know for how long.' He added after a moment, 'Then I ran away and hid in my room. I wept so hard I could not breathe, for a time.' He was weeping again now, a quiet sniveling, rocking in his chair.

Lewko blew out his breath and rubbed the back of his neck.

From his place by the wall, Ingrey growled, 'I would know of an earlier beginning, Cumril.'

Cumril looked, if possible, more fearful, but he ducked his head in acquiescence.

Ingrey breathed exhilaration and dread. Finally, some truths. He contemplated the miserable sorcerer. Maybe some truths. 'How came you to my father? Or did he come to you?'

'Lord Ingalef came to me, my lord.'

Ingrey frowned; Lewko nodded.

'His sister Lady Horseriver had fled to him in great fear, begging his aid. She had a frantic tale of her son