CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE BED OF SWORDS

Sorcha awoke to a strange sensation; the warmth of another human body beside her in bed. Since the Winter Palace, she had grown used to sleeping in DeSilva's arms, but they had not had the privacy to make love in those nights beside the campfire. Their liaisons had always been secretive or hurried; this was the first full night she recalled where they had spent with the leisure to make love and sleep and wake together.

Recalling her erratic behaviour of the night before, Sorcha decided to punish her neurotic Silvan side by waking DeSilva with a blowjob. She took wanton guilty pleasure in peeling back the bedsheets before positioning herself comfortably. It was just conceivable, as she was evident proof, that a Silvan woman could learn to enjoy giving the forbidden pleasures of the harem. But how much more impossible that a Silvan woman could play the concubine so completely as to wake her Kellion lover so.

Sorcha grinned to herself as she took DeSilva's sleep-limp cock into her mouth and began to work him fully hard. He murmured and stirred, his hand drifting to stroke her hair, but he was still asleep. Sorcha put her own hand between her legs, compounding her sins and recalling with a thrill how her Naril trainer had bound her wrists behind her back so that she would strive harder to earn her own pleasure. Recalling her trainer while she served DeSilva sent a guilty shiver down her spine; Sorcha relished it, increasing the tempo of her lips and tongue to bring DeSilva to climax.

He awoke with a gasp, his fingers grasping suddenly in her hair to hold her in position until the last moment was passed. Sorcha took her timing from his grip and increased the pressure of her fingers between her legs to reach her release, too. As his hold eased, she kissed and nuzzled him clean before lifting her head.

“Good morning, Monte.”

For once, he was lost for words; before he could recover, Sorcha bent her lips again to his pleasure, restraining laughter now whenever her ministrations caused him to moan or clench his fingers again in her hair.

DeSilva shifted his hips and was just about to roll them together on their sides when a shout from the terraces made them both freeze abruptly.

With a crash and a thump, DeKellia landed in a heap amid the flowers of the hanging garden outside. Sorcha looked up in shock and DeSilva coolly tucked the bedclothes up over his hips a moment before DeKellia bounded in through the patio doors.

“Charn's back,” he informed them, “I was up on the roof, saw her riding in. Get a move on, I think she's wounded.”

Without waiting for any reaction, he vaulted the balcony of the hanging garden, vanishing out of sight to land with another crash on the floor below.

Sorcha could only gape in amazement at DeSilva. He looked again in the direction his father had vanished, then shoved Sorcha's amazed pout back into his lap with a hand on the back of her head.

She tried to cuss him, then broke down giggling and applied herself to bringing him to climax again.

DeSilva's grip on her hair eased and she came up, wiped her mouth on the bed sheet, and rose to dress. DeSilva groaned exhaustedly and rolled over as if to go back to sleep.

“Come on,” Sorcha said, tugging at the bedclothes. “You heard what your father said.”

DeSilva insisted on lighting his pipe before quitting the bed to get dressed.

By the time they reached the courtyard, DeKellia was already astride a horse. Bareback, he plied his heels and thundered away without a word. Their other companions had been roused by DeKellia's boisterous departure. Kam Daishen was already outside where Sorcha and DeSilva stumbled out the front door. Vashta appeared on the middle terrace of the hanging gardens with Hnasi beside her, watching DeKellia's horse vanish amid the trees. When she spotted Vashta, Sorcha's eye also glimpsed a speck of black higher up. There, on the highest roof of the Mansion, Noth Kalidor crouched, watching his brother depart.

Sorcha tugged on DeSilva's arm, directing his gaze up just in time for them both to see Kalidor spring off the roof, execute an acrobatic flip and land safely on the grass thirty feet below. His eyes remained fixed on DeKellia's direction before and after his leap. He glanced once at the other spectators, and Sorcha shivered at the Dacoit's momentary stare. All human warmth was gone from his face. He registered his companions without recognition, in a split second assessing their precise positions and attitudes. Then he broke into a run, sprinting straight for the treeline, not west as DeKellia had gone, following the winding road, but south, straight as an arrow into the woods. He ran with phenomenal speed; barely had Sorcha registered that he had moved, Noth Kalidor streaked past her. A moment later he was past Kam Daishen and halfway to the treeline; before anyone could take so much as a step, Kalidor was gone, vanished amid the trees without a whisper of undergrowth. A deer would have made more noise; the echoes of DeKellia's hoofbeats and the thrash of branches still sounded faintly from the forest, but not a sound heralded Noth Kalidor's passage through the trees.

“Where...?” Sorcha managed at last, but DeSilva could only shrug.

“South,” said Kam Daishen. “He has gone ahead of us to join the Darians marching on Silveneir.”

“He's betrayed us?” DeSilva boggled, then fell grimly silent.

Sorcha still did not understand. “But why? Aren't we all on the same side? Why did the Darians fight at Narillion if they weren't helping Silveneir, I thought we were all allies?!”

DeSilva put his hands on her shoulders and drew his cloak around them both, although it was significantly warmer here than it had been in Kellia. “It's not quite that simple, love.”

Sorcha glanced at him but put off the new surprise question for the more pressing issue at hand. “So explain it to me.”

DeSilva laughed. “It's a bit early to go back to bed, but if you insist...”

“Just tell me, I'll kiss you if I get confused.”

“We rode for a year with the Queen of Daricia...”

Sorcha interrupted by kissing him. DeSilva laughed and tried to go on:

“We found the queen's daughter and...”

Sorcha kissed him again, smothering his words and her own laughter.

“...So when the Kraag and the Darians arrived at Narillion...” DeSilva fended her off, laughing himself now. “Dammit, woman, let a man breathe... right, the Queen and the Princess rejoined the Darian army, and when we went north, they went east, back into Daricia. The thing is though...”

“Yes?”

DeSilva chuckled. “Sorry, I was waiting for you to kiss me again.”

“Oh. Did you want me to?”

DeSilva pulled her to him, digging his fingers into her buttocks. “You little minx. Alright, the point is that Kalidor is alone in disagreeing with my father; the Queen's insane, she wants to conquer the world. Kalidor's still loyal to her, he's just been stuck with us until now and we let sleeping dogs lie.”

He leant forward for a kiss, but his explanation had finally roused a question in Sorcha. “But why did we do that? I mean, if he's been on the other side all this time...”

“We're family, the only one of us Kalidor might actually murder is my father. In the meantime, well... When a Dacoit Master feels inclined to wring your enemies' necks, it's hardly smart to try and stop him. Now c'mere...”

They were still kissing when DeKellia returned, leading a second horse by the reins and cradling a woman's body in his arms. Sorcha and DeSilva disengaged reluctantly, then walked hand-in-hand back to meet DeKellia close by where Kam and the others waited.

When he reached the porch, DeKellia dismounted and laid his charge out on the ground. In Silvan grey and polished mask, her uniform smeared with forest grime and blood, she could have been anyone. She was sorely wounded and barely breathing, unconscious, but her left hand still grimly clutched her scabbarded sword.

"It’s Charn," Sorcha said. "Sweet Iaran's ghost, whatever's coming down from the north..."

"Is still coming," DeKellia said. "Help me get her inside; she's bleeding to death on my boots here."

Kam Daishen came forward then and lifted Charn in his arms to carry her indoors.

"Damn you, get off me." Charn swatted futilely at Sorcha's attempt to wash her wounds.

"Don't be an idiot," DeKellia told her impatiently. "Hold still while we get your mask off."

“Touch my mask and die,” quoth the Diva, “I don't care how damn deadly you are, DeKellia.”

“You're pouring blood from your skull,” DeKellia growled back, but made no move to touch Charn's mask. “Let Sorcha and Vashta do it. I'll go outside.”

Charn's blue eyes burned murder, but she nodded and DeKellia withdrew. Only then, with none but female company, did Charn grudgingly permit the removal of her mask.

When they finally freed the straps of Charn's mask, Sorcha saw the Diva's face for the first time. Twin old, ragged scars dragged parallel lines down the right side of Charn's face from brow to jaw, bisecting her top lip and claiming the tip of her chin. Sorcha's tight gasp penetrated Charn's delirium; she turned her face away, presenting her unscarred left profile.

“You like that?” Charn asked.

Sorcha made no response; the Diva's eyes were unfocussed, her words semi-coherent.

“An Akurite did this.” Charn's unbroken arm shifted to trace the scars with her fingertips. “Years ago...”

Vashta coughed meaningfully, and Sorcha went to work sponging the blood off Charn's scalp. The word 'Akurite' made her blood run cold; she had seen one of Tain's Children summoned by Odacon, a shapeshifting monstrosity conjured up by the Warlord of Naril.

“Penvash, they called it,” Charn murmured, delirious beyond noticing when Sorcha moved on to clean the encrusted gore from the wounds in her side. “That was its name; the Seer of Penvash. It took my Kaesa...”

“Queen Saban's daughter?” Sorcha frowned.

“No. The Princess was named for my Kaesa, my niece... Penvash took her.”

Sorcha paused in her work, bloody water trickling from the cloth in her hands, Charn's story ringing a chord of childhood memory, a rumour that had reached Loth Kavnor from the distant capitol.

An Akurite had been seen in Silveneir, they said, but escaped; a lone Diva had given chase, but no more had Sorcha ever learned until now.

She was still waiting for Charn to go on when Vashta tapped her on the shoulder. The older woman mouthed “I'll be back” at Sorcha, then slipped out of the room.

Charn was still speaking, but she had drifted in time: “When the queen's daughter was born, she gave her to me. Her husband would have killed the half-Jaro child, but I took her back to her people in the south... on the way, I named her for my lost Kaesa...”

For a moment, tears stood in Charn's eyes. Then she blinked and snapped back to reality, glaring fiercely. “Who are you? Where's my mask?”

Sorcha checked the cut on Charn's scalp again, then helped the Diva fit her mask back in place, slipping a folded wad of cloth under the straps to dress the wound. Masked again, Charn seemed to recover her lucidity. Sorcha recalled the strange effect that losing her own mask had wrought on her, the stunned pliancy that had left her defenceless against her Naril captors. By the time she recovered, it had been too late; her training had begun.

“Who are you?!” Charn demanded again, seizing Sorcha by the wrist.

She tried to break free, but even wounded, Charn's grip was like a vice.

“It's me, Sorcha!”

Charn's grip went slack at once and the feral glare faded from her eyes. Dully, she said, “Oh, the slut.”

Sorcha shook her hand free and darted back, worried that Charn might turn violent. The Diva's sword lay within her reach; Sorcha did not dare touch it, knowing that nothing was more certain to provoke a death-bed defence, defying all aid until Charn bled out. The image prompted a hysterical giggle, and Sorcha had to retreat nearer to the door, ready to bolt if she lost control.

The door opened behind her and Vashta returned with fresh clothes for Charn; a clean grey Silvan uniform to replace her ragged and bloody livery.

The fierce strength was gone from Charn as quick as it had come; she fluttered on the brink of unconsciousness, trying to speak but swallowing every syllable. Vashta put down the bundle of clothes and came to Charn's side.

Only when they had bathed and bound all of Charn's wounds and assisted her to dress again did Vashta fetch DeKellia back into the room.

The grim inner fire that had preserved Charn against her wounds had abated; she lay exhausted in bed, her sword unsheathed on her breast and her hand resting on the hilt as if she drew strength from it, but she remained almost too weak to even lift her head, much less a blade.

“DeKellia,” the wounded Diva muttered. “Come here.”

“She needs to rest,” Vashta asserted, but Charn laughed grimly.

“I'll die on my own damn time, thank you. I still need to talk to Kam, and Sorcha too.”

Sorcha was stunned. “Why me?”

“Wait your turn, skank,” Charn replied, without so much as glancing at Sorcha. “I'm talking to this Kellion dog.”

DeKellia laughed as if Charn had said something hilarious, then sat down in the chair beside the bed, his pipe in his fingers but unlit, his dark eyes studying Charn unreadably. While Vashta fussed about the room, cleaning up the bloody cloths and battle-ruined clothes, Sorcha stood silently watching Charn and DeKellia.

All animosity had vanished now; they were simply two warriors, one of whom lay near to death.

Charn spat blood on her pillow and looked again at DeKellia. "I'm brown bread, DeKellia, don't you lie to me. Even if you could stitch me back together, you can't wait out the months here until I'm back on my feet. You going to leave someone here with me, Kam maybe?” She laughed, coughing up more blood. “I don't think so. The mission, DeKellia; you have to go on. He's after you; he built this house and put it in your path, and now he's called up Tork Vasud...” she began to ramble, her voice growing quieter until her lips barely moved. Her eyes closed and her skin turned deathly pale. “Tork Vasud is coming...”

Vashta put a hand on DeKellia's arm and asked, “Who is Tork Vasud?”

DeKellia paused before he replied, and in that moment, Sorcha blurted out, “He's the god of the Goro!”

“It's a forest demon,” DeKellia reiterated. “Worshipped in Uria as a god.”

Sorcha's Goro lover Menalowen had worshipped Tork Vasud, spoken of him often but always as a benevolent and musical entity. But she recalled also the prowess in battle of her lost warrior poet and knew that Tork Vasud was a dancing god of destruction.

“The house,” Charn whispered. “The Bed of Swords, Vasud... it's all the work of the Sorcerer...”

DeKellia choked, staring at Charn in shock. Sorcha had no idea what occasioned his reaction, but she was too caught up in her own emotions to ask or even attempt to guess why DeKellia suddenly turned pale.

“Oh yes.” Charn's glazing eyes gleamed with manic fervour that her body was otherwise too weak to express. “I know of the Sorcerer. I know you, DeKellia...”

Vashta shot a look at DeKellia. In the woman's face, Sorcha saw again the calculating affection Vashta held for him, flavoured now with fierce vindication. DeKellia met her eyes and Vashta looked away, but the bleak smile remained on her painted lips. She seemed about to speak, to utter some damning explanation of her strange relationship with DeKellia and his profound reaction to Charn's cryptic warning, but he cut her off before she could turn her fierce stare into words.

“Vashta, go find Kam, tell him Charn's dying.” With a glance from Charn to Sorcha he added, “stay with her,” then quit the room, Vashta hurrying out on his heels.

Sorcha was alone with Meridian Charn. She approached the bed hesitantly, uncertain until Charn grunted, “Sit.”

Sorcha planted herself in the seat so recently vacated by DeKellia, her hands fluttering nervously.

“Scared?” Charn's eyes glittered. “Of me or for me, it's very sweet. You're a soppy little kumhal at heart, I know that.” She said it with grim affection, but the word she had used, kumhal, was an obscure and highly derogatory Utryce term for a woman of easy virtue.

“That's not fair!” Sorcha protested, only to be silenced by Charn's glare.

“I know what you put in that mouth, I've no wish to hear what comes out.”

Sorcha went scarlet, her throat closing in embarrassment.

Charn's eyes studied her with disdain, as if the Diva could read her mind and see the morning's adventure written in Sorcha's memory. The guilt was not thrilling now; Sorcha's skin crawled as if in empathy with Charn's contempt. The Diva's next words shocked her to the core.

“Don't go home,” Charn said. Intensity gripped her and she propped herself on her elbow to lock her eyes with Sorcha's. “Not to Loth Kavnor or Silveneir. You're beyond the church's help. It's all garbage anyway, not one of those bitches believes a word of it. That's why they'll punish you; the Silvanni church is all about fear, and you obviously don't fear them enough. If you go back, they'll teach you fear every day until you die.”

Her voice grew ragged, the effort taking its toll on her remaining strength. She slumped back in the bed, her conclusion barely more than a whisper: “Take my advice, stick with your boyfriend and run, far from your family and from his.”

Released from the Diva's gaze, Sorcha stumbled backwards towards the door as if physically shoved. It opened behind her, letting in DeKellia, Vashta, and Lendar. Sorcha barely saw them, pushing past and blundering out into the corridor. There she found DeSilva, and immediately buried her face in his chest.

“That evil dyke, even on her deathbed she still...” she was on the verge of hysterics; DeSilva shushed her with a kiss.

“Shall we get out of here?”

She sniffled and wiped her eyes on his cloak. “Yes, please.”

He took her by the hand and they ran, DeSilva leading and Sorcha following through mazelike corridors until they found their way out to the hanging gardens on the middle tier.

The hanging garden overflowed from the stone-potted flowerbeds in a verdant cascade over the rampart to the foot of the building on every side of the ziggurat. Ivy and honeysuckle had scaled the walls up to the apex of the building, and Sorcha was immediately seized with the desire to climb it. DeSilva gave her a leg up, then put his hand on her backside to boost her higher once she had a grip, but the honeysuckle proved a flimsy aid to climbing and she fell back into his arms within a moment.

They lay stunned amid the settling debris of leaves and grime, staring up at the sky.

“What inspired that silliness?” DeSilva asked.

Sorcha did not want to admit that she was afraid to go back into the corridors of the house.

“The master bedroom,” she lied. “I thought we might sneak in through the window.”

"My father warned us,” DeSilva replied. “Trust me, nothing could possibly be worse than him losing his rag, so don't even think it."

Resentment of her own fear made her uncharacteristically spiteful. "Daddy's boy."

“Oh yeah?” DeSilva pulled Sorcha to him and kissed her. She responded but drew back when his hands roved more eagerly over her body.

“Not here.”

“Right here.” DeSilva pulled her back to him and began kissing her neck.

“No, Monte, please...”

He rolled atop her and began peeling off her shirt.

“No!” Sorcha shoved him off and wriggled from beneath him. “I don't care who knows we're sleeping together, but I won't have you or anyone, especially me, thinking you can just haunch me on the floor any time you please.”

“I'm sorry. I thought you were just being coy. We were having fun for a minute there.”

“Yes.” Sorcha leant against the parapet and scraped her hair back with her hands. “And it feels strange, Monte. Can't you wait until we're in bed?”

“Come on.” DeSilva offered her his hand and led her back to the ivy-encrusted wall. “I bet we can do it. We managed the gate, didn't we?”

Sorcha nodded, relieved not to have to go back into the house, and accepted DeSilva's aid again in assailing the wall. This time, with much dislodging of leaves and branches, they scrambled up over the lip of the hanging garden and tumbled together onto the patio of the upper floor.

A stained-glass double-door led directly into the chamber where stood the Bed of Swords.

Sorcha pulled up, but DeSilva held on to her hand, turning to glance at her with a grin. Still Sorcha hesitated, mindful of DeKellia's warning but all too aware of what lay beyond those doors: a warm bed, a man already her lover. The mere thought of not taking him to bed now sent anxious knots through her stomach; her hands and skin were already tingling with anticipation. She knew there were at least half a dozen other beds in the house, but there was no denying the forbidden allure of the Bed of Swords.

The double doors were ajar; DeSilva led the way, closing the doors behind them. There stood the bed, its frame forged of countless iron swords welded together.

DeSilva grabbed Sorcha by the arms and pulled her to him, kissed her hard before beginning to peel off her shirt. She hung in his grip, his arm around her waist now while he bared her breasts to meet his lips. She was in a swoon when he flung her on the bed and started peeling off his clothes.

Where they were and what had happened that day deserted her mind; Sorcha kicked off her boots and wriggled out of her breeches, then shrugged off her shirt and lay back on the bed. DeSilva joined her, stretching out at her side to begin tracing his fingertips the length of her body.

She made to roll towards him, but he stilled her with a kiss. “Stay there.”

Sorcha lay still, gentle sensation from DeSilva's touch teasing the surface of her skin as he explored the lines and patterns of her tattoos. His hands went to her breasts, her sides, her hips, then traced the sweep of her loins to her inner thighs.

Sorcha gasped and trembled, her hands grasping fistfuls of the bedsheets to either side. DeSilva grinned and touched his moistened fingers to Sorcha's lips, then leant close to kiss her. She parted her legs and he mounted her, sliding one arm behind her head for a pillow as his other hand guided him into her. Sorcha embraced him with her thighs, holding him close as he began to move inside her. His hands found her wrists and pinned her arms above her head, bracing him above her. He slid his other hand down, caressing her sides until he found her buttocks, lifted her hips higher and thrust into her more strongly.

Sorcha barely noticed when his grip shifted to her inner thigh, pressing hard on the mark of the love bite from the previous night. She was adrift, her mind castaway on a sea of sensuous passion. DeSilva was kissing her breasts, his tongue and fangs teasing her nipples hard, first one, then the other, before his kiss moved to her ribs. He squeezed her thigh again and fastened a love bite on her side; the sea on which she drifted shuddered with a sudden storm.

“Monte, no...” Her protest came too late; he closed a love bite on her shoulder, and she passed out on a surge of pleasure. She tumbled backward into darkness, waking sensation receding and the reality of dream asserting itself. Ripples of pleasure occasionally nudged her vaguely towards consciousness, but she could not now remember what they implied. Beside her on the bed, DeSilva was making love to a tattooed girl who wore a Silvan mask. Sorcha gave them only a glance, suddenly more interested in the huge stained-glass windows all around the room. She had hardly paid them any attention before.

The images in the stained and leaded windows were all of knights, dressed in the armour of a bygone age. As she studied them, they seemed to grow, expanding until they escaped from the confines of their windows, a dozen tall, armoured men rendered in lead and glass.

Sorcha shrank back onto the bed, suddenly afraid, and inadvertently moved into the space occupied by DeSilva and the tattooed girl. She had another sensation of falling, only to jerk awake to a thrill of orgasm, consciousness suddenly restored as DeSilva thrust powerfully into her.

He paused, holding her close and breathing hard while he studied her face. “You alright?”

“...That was weird!”

“Should I do it again?”

“I'm not sure...” He was already kissing her lips, her throat. “Maybe not here...”

He thrust into her again and bit her on the neck. She lapsed at once, tumbling back into the dream to find the stained-glass knights looming over her, surrounding the bed now with their swords in hand. DeSilva went on making love to her obliviously, morphing with every movement into other men, other lovers. Her first, a grey-skinned Naril Darian known only by the tattoo 'XIII' on his throat, held her down with hands as strong as sleep. She writhed languidly beneath him until he changed, his eyes turning red and his skin dark as slate, his breathing becoming Rathelon's malevolent chuckle and expert domination.

Strong lips pressed against hers and she surged awake on another crashing wave of pleasure, grappling with DeSilva urgently until he planted another bite on her shoulder.

The master of the harem, Odacon Karmensis, settled his hands on her hips and lifted her astride him. Her whole body quivered, wrists and ankles bound but her hips and thighs undulating. She heard Fethne's voice whispering in her ear, instructions, comments, insults. Fethne's cool touch traced through the sweat on Sorcha's brow. She glanced to one side, her head lolling to meet Fethne's gaze. Odacon's favourite had been blinded at Narillion, but in the Bed of Swords now her eyes gleamed with the madness Sorcha remembered. Her full lips twitched into a depraved smile, her fingers stroking Sorcha's neck and shoulders, her voice wordless but maliciously sensual.

Odacon's fierce penetration faded, leaving her empty and exhausted.

Then strong, supple hands caressed her body, another woman's breasts pressed against hers and she was looking up into the green eyes and feral grin of Isa Maxine. Sorcha struggled but succeeded only in rolling them on their sides together, their bodies still entwined. Maxine's manic laugher became a masculine grunt and her perfume turned to a wild musk. The pirate woman's soft but selfish hands changed to Menalowen's stronger, infinitely gentler touch.

The swords of the knights came flashing down, long blades of jagged bright glass. Sorcha screamed and warded her face with her hands, came awake with the cry still on her lips and DeSilva holding her upper arms pinned to the mattress.

"Monte, Monte, stop." Sorcha slapped DeSilva on the elbow until he lay back from her, blinking in the near-darkness. The drapes were open and cold moonlight spilled into the room.

"Now what is it?"

"We shouldn't be doing this," Sorcha whispered. “Not with everyone downstairs looking after Charn; it feels wrong, Monte.”

“I'll tell you what feels wrong, dammit.” He grabbed her hips firmly in both hands and thrust deeply into her, eliciting a cry that was half protest and half pleasure. “Leaving a job so well-worth doing undone, that's... what... feels... wrong!” He snarled as he came, then rolled off Sorcha and sat on the edge of the bed to pack his pipe.

“Monte...”

“Oh, give it a rest. We've stopped, haven't we?”

Sorcha said nothing, gathering the bedclothes around herself although it was not cold.

“And it's bullshit anyway,” DeSilva added. “You don't give a crap about Charn, you pushed her off a fricking airship.”

“I didn't mean to!”

“So you say, but you told me too all the rotten things she's said to you; I heard most of them myself.”

Sorcha twisted over amid the sheets to glare at him. “Then why didn't you stick up for me?”

“Did you ask me to? You're Silvan, I figured you could stick up for yourself.”

Sorcha flopped over on her back and glared at the ceiling, trying not to cry.

“I was dreaming,” she admitted. “All the while you had me under, I felt everything, but I was dreaming too. I told you it was weird, that was just the feeling. The dreams frightened me though, I just wanted them to stop.”

DeSilva grunted and stood up, stooping to retrieve his clothes.

"It's warmer than it should be," he remarked, knocking the dust off his shirt.

Behind him, the dead fireplace burst alight and the lamps around the room flared. There was no wood in the hearth, only a sourceless violet flame. Sorcha yelped in fright when the fires jumped into life; she screamed in earnest when the hearth fire brightened, lengthened, and became the figure of an armoured man sculpted in living flame. Contrarily, DeSilva relaxed, raising one hand in a calming gesture.

“Don't panic. It's Stantine Fenn; the other demon from the Dancing Ring. Hey, Fenn.”

The spirit chuckled, a crackling sound that drew a whimper from Sorcha. "What is it?" She whispered.

"I'm not rightly sure," DeSilva admitted, and put the question to Stantine Fenn.

The spirit's voice was like hot metal plates crashing together, mechanical, tortured, inhuman.

"Sorcerer, you know already that in life I was a Kellion knight. For nigh a thousand years I have persisted as I am now, a revenant birthed upon the realms of fire."

The temperature in the room was rising; sweat prickled Sorcha's skin, and she kicked off the blankets, but kept the bedsheet tight about her. Stantine Fenn paid her no heed, looking around the room. His footfalls left fresh burn marks in the carpet; the furnishings closest to him began to smoulder.

Sorcha watched in abject terror until DeSilva coughed politely to recapture the spirit's attention. "Would you mind if we stepped outside?"

“Monte!” Sorcha was too frightened to make any more coherent protest.

“Shh, it's fine. I'll just find out what he wants and be right back. You'll be safe here.”

DeSilva went to the door, opened it, and ushered the fiery spirit out. Sorcha remained as she was, crouched on the bed with the sheet clasped to her breast, her heart hammering while she gulped down breaths.

Only when she had regained a modicum of calm did she notice that the room was not the same. Gone were the octagonal walls and the stained-glass windows. The room now was square, with only a single arched and lead-veined window in one wall. The design of the window looked vaguely familiar, but Sorcha could not place where she had seen it before.

An eerie feeling came over her, reminiscent of deja vu but nightmarishly intense. Then she noticed the bed, no more the welded frame of iron swords but an ordinary four poster bed, carved of wood and decorated in Silvan style with sailing and hunting scenes.