I used the wall to get to my feet and started to walk. My wounded foot made progress slow. Pain stabbed up my leg with each step, and I tried to use the wall as a crutch to keep some weight off it.
I moved into Waterside, the part of the city that was more a home to me than anywhere else. My foot grew numb and wooden from the cold, and while that worried some rational piece of me, my practical side was just glad there was one less part of me that hurt.
It was miles back to my secret place, and my limping progress was slow. At some point I must have fallen. I don’t remember it, but I do remember lying in the snow and realizing how delightfully comfortable it was. I felt sleep drawing itself over me like a thick blanket, like death.
I closed my eyes. I remember the deep silence of the deserted street around me. I was too numb and tired to be properly afraid. In my delirium, I imagined death in the form of a great bird with wings of fire and shadow. It hovered above, watching patiently, waiting for me….
I slept, and the great bird settled its burning wings around me. I imagined a delicious warmth. Then its claws were in me, tearing me open—
No, it was just the pain of my torn ribs as someone rolled me onto my back.
Blearily, I opened an eye and saw a demon standing over me. In my confused and credulous state, the sight of the man in the demon mask startled me into wakefulness, the seductive warmth I had felt a moment ago vanished, leaving my body limp and leaden.
“It is. I told you. There’s a kid lying in the snow here!” The demon lifted me to my feet.
Now awake, I noticed his mask was sheer black. This was Encanis, Lord of Demons. He set me unsteadily onto my feet and began to brush away the snow that covered me.
Through my good eye I saw a figure in a livid green mask standing nearby. “Come on…” the other demon said urgently, her voice sounding hollowly from behind the rows of pointed teeth.
Encanis ignored her. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t think of a response, so I concentrated on keeping my balance as the man continued to brush the snow away with the sleeve of his dark robe. I heard the sound of distant horns.
The other demon looked nervously down the road. “If we don’t keep ahead of them we’ll be up to our shins in it,” she hissed nervously.
Encanis brushed the snow out of my hair with his dark gloved fingers, then paused and leaned in closer to look at my face. His dark mask loomed oddly in my blurry vision.
“God’s body, Holly, someone’s beaten hell out of this kid. On Midwinter’s Day, too.”
“Guard,” I managed to croak. I tasted blood when I said the word.
“You’re freezing,” Encanis said and began to chafe my arms and legs with his hands, trying to get my blood flowing again. “You’ll have to come with us.”
The horns sounded again, closer. They were mixed with the dim sounds of a crowd.
“Don’t be stupid,” the other demon said. “He’s in no shape to go running through the city.”
“He’s in no shape to stay here,” Encanis snapped. He continued to massage my arms and legs roughly. Some feeling was slowly returning to them, mostly a stinging, prickly heat that was like a painful mockery of the soothing warmth I had felt a minute ago when I was drifting off to sleep. Pain jabbed at me each time he went over a bruise, but my body was too tired to flinch away.
The green-masked demon came close and laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We have to go now, Gerrek! Someone else will take care of him.” She tried to pull her friend away and met with no success. “If they find us here with him they’ll assume we did it.”
The man behind the black mask swore, then nodded and began to rummage around underneath his robe. “Don’t lie down again,” he said to me in urgent tones. “And get inside. Somewhere you can warm up.” The crowd sounds were close enough for me to hear individual voices mixed with the noise of horses’ hooves and creaking wooden wheels. The man in the black mask held out his hand.
It took me a moment to focus on what he held. A silver talent, thicker and heavier than the penny I had lost. So much money I could hardly think of it. “Go on, take it.”
He was a form of darkness, black hooded cloak, black mask, black gloves. Encanis stood in front of me holding out a bright bit of silver that caught the moonlight. I was reminded of the scene from Daeonica where Tarsus sells his soul.
I took the talent, but my hand was so numb I couldn’t feel it. I had to look down to make sure my fingers were gripping it. I imagined I could feel warmth radiating up my arm, I felt stronger. I grinned at the man in the black mask.
“Take my gloves too.” He pulled them off and pushed them against my chest. Then the woman in the green demon mask pulled my benefactor away before I could give him any word of thanks. I watched the two of them go. Their dark robes made them look like pieces of retreating shadow against the charcoal colors of Tarbean’s moonlit streets.
Not even a minute passed before I saw the pageantry’s torchlight come around the corner toward me. The voices of a hundred men and women singing and shouting crashed over me like waves. I moved away until I felt my back press up against a wall, then I slid weakly sideways until I found a recessed doorway.
I watched the pageantry from my vantage there. People poured by, shouting and laughing. Tehlu stood tall and proud in the back of a wagon drawn by four white horses. His silver mask gleamed in the torchlight. His white robes were immaculate and lined with fur at the cuff and collar. Grey-robed priests followed along beside the wagon, ringing bells and chanting. Many of them wore the heavy iron chains of penitent priests. The sound of the voices and the bells, the chanting and the chains mingled to make a sort of music. All eyes were for Tehlu. No one saw me standing in the shadows of the doorway.
It took nearly ten minutes for all of them to pass, only then did I emerge and begin to make my careful way home. It was slow going, but I felt fortified by the coin I held. I checked the talent every dozen steps or so to reassure myself that my numb hand was still gripping it tightly. I wanted to put on the gloves I had been given, but I feared to drop the coin and lose it in the snow.
I don’t know how long it took for me to get back. The walking warmed me slightly, though my feet still felt wooden and numb. When I looked back over my shoulder, my trail was marked by a smear of blood in every other footprint. It reassured me in an odd way. A foot that bleeds is better than one that is frozen solid.
I stopped at the first inn I recognized, the Laughing Man. It was full of music, singing, and celebration. I avoided the front door and went around to the back alley. There were a pair of young girls chatting in the kitchen doorway, avoiding their work.