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“What then? Damon, we will live our lives.”

“We will not.” Damon shakes his head. He can feel it now. The torment that sits in his belly and will not let him rest. “When we slay this demon, Lyr, I fear they will make me the Emperor of Azuria.”

19

JEMEL

The sun is well past its zenith and Jemel still lies in his bed. He has slept for a long while after being given a strong tonic of salix and sofi by one of the court physicians.

As Xan advised, he spun a tale of a clumsy accident. That he dropped the blade he was using to remove the hair from his face into his lap. The physician was quite interested in the paste of honeywort on his wound. Jemel said he had been advised to use it by a friend. The physician does not ask the name of the friend. He simply talks on, as he redresses Jemel’s wound, recounting rumours of terrible fights and small riots outside the walls of the Rose Palace. Even chatter that a great evil is coming for Attar.

Now as he lies abed, head finally clear, Jemel thinks of the truth of his adventure the night before.

What has he learned from the expedition into the garden? Pershel was killed by someone wielding a blade. Someone Embel believed to be a demon.

A demon who could possess men.

Xan had asked if it was connected to Ur-Durik. He can see no direct evidence of this. But surely the circumstances mean that it is. Can ur-Durik possess mortal men? Is that his plan? How he will come to Attar?

And this creature, this demon, is Zai. His God. The God he was raised to devote himself to. He knows that. The God he was raised to worship is a demon that plans to destroy the world.

The demon that is his God. Jemel sighs. Of course his investigation into Pershel’s death has brought him back here. The place he cannot escape. Sometimes he feels torn apart by it. Like he is two people. One who knows he should reject Zai and the Book of the Rules and one who does not know how to live without them.

No one knows how Jemel wrestles with his faith. To Doroth he is a sworn believer in their cause. To Gelen Zain he is nothing more than a devout.

And who is he really? Deep down? A mess of blood and flesh. Twisted desires. The demon is inside him too. Perhaps it is inside every man who has ever made a rite to Zai. How much power must that give it?

He cannot deny a significant part of him hopes none of what he has been told and none of what he has read is the truth. Not to avoid the ruin that comes for the world, but so he can return to his life. When all he had to do to be a good man was follow the Book of the Rules.

But he cannot believe that. He knows Zai is a demon. And yet he remains an acolyte. He must find a way to be both.

The Hare is a mask he wears. His veil covers his face and makes it easier to be the strange conflicted man he needs to be to survive.

But when he thinks of his veil he cannot stop himself thinking that Xan removed that veil. And then did everything he could not to look at his face, despite all his professed desires for Jemel. And he could have done so easily. He could have looked on Jemel’s face, and more. When Jemel was weak in his arms. Xan is big and far stronger than Jemel. Strong enough to take Jemel, but, also, strong enough to resist him.

But Xan would bed him if he asked him to. If he were willing.

If he could let go of his vows, he could take what Xan is offering. He could remove his veil gladly. He cannot imagine doing such a thing.

But if he did… if he could…?

He would be a toy for that man to use and then be left behind when he returned to Pluma. Jemel would never see him again.

He should think of something else. He had intended to think of Pershel.

His thoughts return to Embel and what she had said to Xan. Embel had said Pershel read old books, ancient books. But she read the words on Lyr’s skin.

But what if those words were old books?

He knows it at once. So clear he wonders why he did not think of it before. The writings on Lyr’s body. They are the Books of Alios. They are the final part of this. And Jemel could read them. He might be the only man who can. He needs to read them. So where is Lyr now? If Atticul is correct, Damon is in the Amber Forest. Is Lyr still with him? And if he is, how could Jemel possibly get there? He has never left the Rose Palace. And the Amber Forest must be days of hard travel from here.

If the words on Lyr are the Books of Alios, what, then, did Pershel read? Did she read something about the demon taking the body of a man? Why did that cause someone to kill her?

Perhaps if he knew what she read on Lyr’s body. But without being able to see the writings, all he has that can tell him that is the writings of Batreous. Perhaps he missed something. He rises from his bed, head still soft from the sofi and ignores the pain in his thigh which, through the haze of the tonic has faded to a dull ache.

He sits himself at his desk and opens the linden box, drawing out his notes.

Is there anything in here about the demon taking the body of a man? He rereads the part where Batreous talks about the demon coming from the forest. He rises in the Forest of Amber and then he crosses a bridge. Or perhaps he builds a bridge. Jemel had not paid much heed to this line before. About how the first thing Ur-Durik would do after he rose in the Forest would be to build or cross a bridge. He had assumed it meant a bridge as he knew one. But he wonders. He thinks of something else.