Jonis by Rowan Erlking (manga ereader TXT) 📕

from her mistress’s garden. Her hands were covered in dirt as well as her knees. Her back was bruised and scarred. It was a Sky Child, just like the hundreds of others he had passed in villages and towns. They were slaves to the people. He usually paid them no thought, though his memory told him their ancestors had been fearsome demons with only world conquest on their minds. They had controlled everything, once. And they once had blue eyes like the Cordrils, with similar gifts. Of course, now their eyes were brown, and their gift is gone. So, yes, the Patriarch was right about one thing. Sky Children were now powerless demons, easily controlled. But Jonis wondered…

He whistled over the wall at the girl.

She looked up. Her gaze almost immediately fixed on his blue eyes. Gasping, she pulled back to the house. “What do you want?”

Jonis shrugged. “Conversation? Maybe you can answer a question that has been bothering me for years. Why are Cordrils and Sky Children so different, and yet so alike?”

“I don’t know anything about that. Leave me alone.”

He watched her run into the house.

It was just as well. Jonis could see she was as ignorant as any other human. He stood up from the wall and continued on his way, kicking the cobblestone dejectedly. His memory, he knew, was one-sided in regards to Sky Children. Cordrils hated them. But the reason felt stupid now.

 

As an early arrival to the party, the hostess gave Jonis a gracious nod and let him out onto the balcony. It was a wide place large enough for a small group of friends to gather if they wanted to. A set of chairs had been arranged on the left side. He waited there, leaning on the banister. He gazed over the rooftops and the hidden gardens. The view was beautiful, sparkling with lights from the fireflies that flickered in and around the trees—but then so were many other places in the land. The gas lamps all over the city were being lit for the night. Their odors wafting upward in small colorful clouds of smoke. The homes themselves sparkled like stars as the rooftops reflected the last bits of the sun in many colors like the rippling clouds in sky above. Music from phonographs echoed within the walls, accompanying laughter.

“Marvelous, isn’t it?” a smooth voice murmured, approaching from behind. The owner’s perfume floated from him with an aroma of raspberries and cherry blossoms.

Jonis glanced once to the source, recognizing a social fop that often frequented these parties. He couldn’t even manage a smirk. “The view is.”

Chuckling, the fashionable man leaned on the same railing. “You seem preoccupied.”

“I feel cursed,” Jonis murmured to the garden below them.

The light in the dandified man’s eye lost a portion of its playfulness. “Cursed because you are a Cordril, or for some other reason?”

Sighing loudly, Jonis glanced at the fop. “What I am can be a curse for starters. But worse is that no matter how hard I try to just live a good life—you know, make the world a better place—I’m stomped on.”

The dandy nodded. “I can understand that.”

Jonis raised his eyebrows at him.

Laughing, the fancy-dressed man turned, casually gazing back at the people that were slowly gathering into the front room of the hostess’s home. It was lit now, and the light shone onto the balcony with a warm yellow glow. “I know, I know. I am a playboy. A rich fool who everyone assumes has no worries.”

Jonis did not answer. What was the point? The man summed it up pretty well.

The fop lowered his eyes and regarded Jonis carefully. “Let me tell you a story, and you tell me the end. Once long ago—ages upon ages ago—our world was one of pure magic and light. Now you add.”

Jonis had heard this story. It was far back into his memory. Though it seemed ridiculous to play this game with the dandified man after having such a disheartening, yet revelatory day, he said, “But then the world was corrupted by greed, malice, and lust.”

The fop grinned with pleasure, glad Jonis was playing along. “Good. You know this tale. Let me add. Magic was a skill used to better the lives of others. It brought cures for sicknesses and aches. It protected people from the natural elements, and it gave life to those that had no hope. But once the darkness came, people began to seek power, riches and other selfish pursuits.”

“A rich boy knows this story?” Jonis laughed, though his mood had not lifted. Bitterness had settled in his mouth. “This is a tale told among rural people: farmers and hunters.”

“Those that still remember the old ways,” the fop nodded with a wry smile. “Now tell me, how were demons formed in our world?”

Jonis turned a little red in the ears. “Most demons are cursed men, people who used magic to grant them extra abilities they should not have.”

The fop nodded slowly, encouragingly. “Yes. Goles for gluttony—men who expanded their stomachs to contain all they could eat. Worms for filth—people unwilling to keep clean accidentally made them. And what of demon crows?”

With a shrug, Jonis said, “I’m not sure. The birds inhabit brains. They are birds…. Perhaps someone trained their pets to kill an enemy. Murder changes a thing.”

“Exactly,” the fop said. “Everything is the fault of man. Including Night Stalkers.”

A flood of chills ran down Jonis’s back and arms. He turned carefully, staring more intensely at the fop. The man did have a familiar face—but it was not in Danslik that he had first seen him. In the light shining out from the glass doors reflecting on the abruptly serious face of the dandified man, Jonis recognized the look in his eyes and the shape of his nose. Then the dandy nodded with a smile. Jonis half expected to see fangs. No. This man was from a village where he had negotiated to turn over a murderer to the two Night Stalkers to end a serious slaughter. This man was one of the Stalkers, the one that had made the kill. Standing there as a social fop, Jonis hardly recognized him.

“Do you know where Night Stalkers came from?” the fop asked him.

Slowly shaking his head, Jonis kept his eyes on the man. His hand rested on his sword hilt.

“I didn’t think so, but you might guess right.” The man leaned against the railing, talking casually as if they were talking about the weather. “I like to tell this story at parties. I believe it solves two problems. First, it warns would-be killers not to attempt the act. And second, it entertains the ladies. Listen tonight. I’m telling stories.”

He got up and walked over to the glass doors, opening one.

Jonis slowly followed the fop, watching him.

The party was full of laughter, drinking, dancing, and performing. The ladies showed off their talents pianoforte, playing light playful tunes as men sang along with flirtatious looks in their eyes and on their smiles. Jonis was polite and attentive, mostly waiting for the fop to share his story. Lt. Gillway wasn’t even there.

The fop stood among the ladies, laughing and drinking until he seemed altogether drunk. That was when Jonis heard the first words of the story.

“Ok,” the fop said with a pronounced slur. “Here is the tale of where Night Stalkers come from.”

The women giggled, blushing red either from the wine or his flirtatious advances.

“Long, long ago, when more people knew magic.” He swayed, spreading out his hands in demonstration. “There was one rich man by the name of Balisabar Renaus Optun. He had everything.” He took another drink of his strong liquor, raising a finger for them to wait. “But he wanted more.”

“Avarice,” Jonis said in a breath.

The woman that was sitting in the love seat in front of him yipped, surprised to hear his voice. She slapped her hand on her chest, catching her breath.

“You got it, buddy,” the fop said with a laugh, clicking his tongue. “Avarice. Avaricious! But instead of just earning money and not sharing with others like most greedy monkeys…”

The ladies burst into laughter.

“…He murdered to get it.”

“But that alone can’t make a Night Stalker,” Jonis said, raising his eyebrows.

“Too right!” the fop drunkenly said. “He used magic. A spell so foul that his victim, an upstanding gentleman of his same station and power, died instantly. All his life blood had vanished.”

The ladies gasped.

Jonis waited. Magic was rarely used to kill unless it was through natural means.

The fop saw his look and nodded. “This was no ordinary spell. Instant death. But that night, the magic of nature and life fought back. The very ground is full of it. And when the laws of nature are broken, the very earth spews back up the dead.”

The women screamed. It was all for dramatic effect.

“What then?” Jonis asked.

Grinning, the fop fell into a woman’s lap. She giggled, trying to shove him off, with help of her neighbors.

“The dead came back as a Night Stalker, sucked his murderer dry of blood and then he returned to his family, whole and well. His wife didn’t even know he had been dead.” The fop was speaking rather clearly now. “They had kids, and their kids had kids, and so on, and so forth. Today, anyone of us could be a Night Stalker and not even know it until they awake to the smell of avarice and blood. Nature’s policemen.”

Jonis blinked at the fop, wondering why he bothered to expose himself to share that story. It certainly answered a great many questions, except that one. As a demon hunter, Jonis had often wondered where the line ought to be drawn, especially since he was still considered a demon.

“Now, tell us all where Cordrils come from? I’d like to know before I die,” the fop said, flinging an arm at Jonis.

The ladies all turned their heads, their eyes watching him with a timid, yet eager curiosity.

Scratching the back of his neck, Jonis blushed, suddenly embarrassed with all the attention on him. “Actually, that is a bit of a mystery. But, uh, I’ll tell you some of what I know. Long ago, but not as far back as with Night Stalkers, there was a man whose name was Cordril….”

 

The party wound down into the early hours of the morning. Jonis rested back in his spot on the balcony, knowing he would be forced to hunt as soon as the guests left. The fop followed him outside.

“You shouldn’t follow me here,” Jonis murmured, not even looking at him.

“Why not? You and I are in the same predicament,” the fop said. “You and I both want to make a difference in the world—but what we are gets in the way.”

Jonis closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be forced to kill you. It is not the same in Danslik as in that village. We can’t negotiate for the murderer. I wish we could, but we can’t.”

“That’s because you work for the murderer,” the fop said.

Jonis looked up. “You know it?”

Nodding, the man no longer seemed so fancy and silly. His eyes reflected a sad wisdom that told grave tales of such a somber nature that Jonis almost recoiled. “We all know it. It is pretty obvious. Avarice reeks from the capitol hall. How else did such a young man become Patriarch of our country if not by intrigue and murder?”

Jonis stared at the garden below.

“Yes… Motivated by money rather than by concern for his people.” Jonis turned to face the Night Stalker. “Why have you come, then, and exposed yourself to me? Don’t you know I have to kill you now?”

Smiling kindly, the Night Stalker replied, “That day may come. But now, I am a fop. You can’t kill me without being charged for murder. Besides, I want to warn you, and…help you.”

It did not sound possible to Jonis. There were too many intelligent demons up to trickery—never forgetting that demon bird that inhabited his sergeant at Dalis Camp.

“One day the hunter will become