The changeling was swift.
On the other side of the wall, it took on the semblance of a large, brown dog that unhurriedly ran into the busy market street, deftly avoiding unsuspecting people's feet.
Not long after it left, Lord Tolen and his hunters with tracking dogs arrived to the wall. They found the shreds of the girl's bloodied dress there. The dogs at first became confused and ran in agitation from place to place. Sir Tolen worriedly watched them.
"It cannot escape from the city. The gates are closed, and there are additional guards posted along all stations on the wall. They will let neither animal nor human pass." Tolen's captain said calmly.
"...There. They found the scent again." He said with satisfaction.
The dogs lead the hunters from the wall along the winding streets, first to the city wall, then sharply away and back to the market. The changeling seemed to have followed a large loop, returning to the same alley where it was first seen. There, the animals began to grow excited.
"It is somewhere very close." The lead hunter said.
Sir Tolen gestured to him to release the dogs. Barking, they bounded into the alley, startling the groups of town-dwellers who still remained in the area, gossiping about the latest events.
At first sir Tolen saw nothing. Then, even before the dogs found their target, his eyes drew to a large brown dog, loitering lazily between Carmen's Bakery and Gootchin's Butcher shop, pretending to sniff the slops on the ground. From its convenient vantage point, it's intelligent hazel eyes observed the crowd by the apothecary's shop. Sir Tolen puzzled over why the changeling would seek to return here.
The changeling dog noticed the hunting dogs bounding toward it. Realizing that it was discovered, the changeling fled from them into the adjoining alley, another dead-end, on all sides surrounded by tall buildings. The brown dog ran back and forth anxiously, looking up. Fastening its eyes upon one of the open windows, it sprung up, changing in mid-stride into a familiar alien form that grasped on to the window-sill.
Several arrows struck its body. Losing its grip, the changeling fell, immediately surrounded by snarling, barking dogs. It shrunk from them against the wall, its hand drawing to the arrows that protruded from its hip and right thigh.
"Do not kill it! " Sir Tolen reminded his soldiers sternly as they raced toward the fallen creature. Obediently, they surrounded it with a fence of sharp lances pointed toward it.
Sir Tolen came through their semi-circle and looked at the creature. It lay where it fell, breathing quickly. It's dark eyes watched the men, and seemed to flash angrily with recognition when they fell upon sir Tolen. He saw its body tense, then relax again. Then its eyes closed softly. Whether it fell unconscious, or merely pretended to be so, he was not certain.
"Do you really think it's true what the priests said?" His captain questioned curiously.
"What?" Tolen answered distantly, frowning at the creature at their feet.
Memories of the incident at the crystal castle replayed again in his mind as he tried to place the creature. Where could he have met it before to explain the recognition he saw in its eyes?
"That it healed a man? That it may not be a demon, but some sort of other creature." The captain reminded.
Lord Tolen shrugged, uncertain.
"It is up to the wiser men than us to decide. Tie it." He ordered.
The creature recognized him, he was certain of it.
Was it from the group, which he along with knights Raden and Ruben had confronted in that little room? Who fled from them?
He could not be completely sure. It seemed similar to the young demon who interceded for him to the bigger one, who then spared Tolen's life. Whom Tolen later killed. Guilt stirred in Tolen's heart before he firmly put it away. His duty to the safety of Pharshena came first.
This demon was also not fully grown, but definitely bigger than the young one Tolen remembered in the crystal castle. The color of its eyes was black…
Only lord Tolen suspected now that the color of their eyes was directly linked to their emotions. The other, who had turned into a wolf, had eyes that turned green hazel in the end, just before he slayed it. And the eyes of the spawn in priest Ganos' cage had shifted to green after the priest's servants released it to return back to the cage. Their eyes turned black when threatened, Tolen guessed. He wondered what color eyes this demon would have, when it was no longer angry or afraid.
Sir Tolen watched while his soldiers efficiently bound the creature's limbs together. He pointed to his captain to remove the two arrows. Those were ordinary arrows, not the poisoned ones, though Tolen had brought those as well. Carefully, the captain pulled out the arrows, causing the changeling's body to flinch, but its eyes remained closed.
The men watched with amazement how the edges of its wounds, bleeding the familiar glowing blue, sealed right before their eyes, their transparent edges approximating, knitting together by glowing, swiftly creeping threads. There were only slight scars left behind, little pits markedly more dark than the rest of the creature's strange, translucent flesh, with clouding directly underneath.
Sir Tolen noticed several other such areas spidering within the changeling's exposed body, more faded, and supposed them to be previous injuries. He wondered when and under what circumstances this young changeling sustained those. The bodies of those he had seen in the crystal castle had been unmarred.
"Where do we take it?" Tolen's loyal captain interrupted his thoughts. Already, the soldiers farthest away had to keep back the people from the adjacent street, who began to crowd into the alley. Their faces tried to peer over the shoulders of the soldiers at the captured changeling.
"To the temple." Sir Tolen gestured. The soldiers lifted the creature lightly by the ropes and carried it with them without effort.
The captain ordered the soldiers to part the crowd before them. And when they saw the captured creature, someone began a chant that the whole crowd picked up, flowing after lord Tolen.
"Changeling!"
"Demon!"
"Burn it! Burn it!" The crowd's chant sounded almost merry.
Upon reaching the temple sanctuary, lord Tolen ordered half of his men to stand guard by the gate and keep the crowd outside the temple grounds. The rest stood guard around the creature, which they lowered to the ground before the punishing block, where the penitent occasionally came to offer several hours of discomfort as proof of their full recognition of wrong-doing. The creature lay still in the sparkling sand.
"Tell Laeden Gaedus that I have captured the creature as he wished." Sir Tolen told the group of young priests, several of whom immediately ran to inform their superior of the knight's arrival.
Sir Tolen did not have to wait long.
Only, when he saw elder Gaedus coming toward him, he winced with displeasure. Next to the Turstone priest walked four men in embroidered robes - the royal court priests.
Tolen strongly disliked associating with those fellows, with their feigned piety and high handed words of empty blessings and endless arrogant rebukes. He respected the priests of the local order for their humble efforts to make the lives of the common people easier to bear. He also heard the visiting court priests condemning Laeden Gaedus for so wasting the donations that people brought to the Temple and ordering him to instead send the excess to the Royal Order treasury for more important work.
"That demon should be destroyed, not kept for vain scholarly curiosity." One of the imposing court priests currently berated the elder of Turstone.
"A priest of higher calling and with a greater understanding of such matters had already conducted a full study of these evil things. If you wish to have that account, laeden, you merely need to request it. And as for this claimed 'healing', it is likely an evil trick, designed to sow this doubt among you. Do not be deceived so easily, brother." Sir Tolen heard the priest continue in a berating tone.
The elder's face was lowered patiently, as were the faces of all the local priests. An admonishment by superiors had to be accepted humbly.
The court priests switched their attention to lord Tolen when they came closer. He politely bowed his head to them, as did all his men and guards.
"It is captured." Tolen affirmed to Laeden Gaedus.
"Good work, men." The court priest answered him, as though Tolen had addressed him, instead.
"And where is it? Ah! How appropriate." The four royal priests shared mysterious smiles among them that sir Tolen so detested. All four of them walked over closer and stared at the unconscious creature by the punishment block. The crowns of trees whispered gently overheard, casting pleasant shadows across sanctuary grounds.
"Tonight, then, it will be burnt at the stake. A public burning is always more striking at night. Until then, keep it secure."
They didn't even bother to give the respect due to his noble heritage and rank, Tolen seethed within!
He opened his mouth to tell them something he knew he would later regret, but the court priests were already sailing away in their elegant robes toward the sound of the lunch bell. Sir Tolen realized next that his casual clothing, more befitting that of a hunter than a knight, had likely misled the priests about his status. He didn't recognize any of them, so they probably didn't know him.
He shut his open mouth, then, still glaring after them. Either way, he did not like them. Turning to Laeden Gaedus, Tolen looked at the elder man with a question.
"Forgive me, Junad." The laeden of Turstone spoke softly to him. "It was an unwise request. I asked you to risk your life and the lives of your men needlessly and in opposition to the law. Do not worry. I have already taken full responsibility for it."
"But you said in your message that it did not kill that man. Must it still be killed, then? Why not simply confine it in the dungeon?"
"It is not yet certain what it did. The victim has not regained consciousness."
"Then, at least, the execution should not be until after the trial."
"There are no trials for demons, Junad. It matters not whether it be innocent or guilty, or even if it might have healed a dying man, rather than murdered him, as everyone thinks. According to the law it must die." The elder said calmly, even though Tolen could see the angry red splotches on his skin all the way down to his neck. Tolen watched him curiously, new questions stirring within his mind at Laeden's embittered words.
"A law can be changed." Lord Tolen pointed out.
"Yes, after a long debate to determine if it merits revision. And after a lengthy deliberation in court. It will not save this creature, whatever it may be... " The elderly man gestured toward the changeling.
"I have been ordered to spend the next few days in silent meditation, to consider the gravity of my mistake. My brethren will accompany me, since they agreed with my order. I expect that fasting will also enlighten us to a greater wisdom. We are to start at once. Until then, superiors Junaire and Ludabois will handle matters in the temple. If you have any requests or considerations that merit attention, you will have to bring it to them."
Laeden nodded to lord Tolen apologetically and slowly led his men toward the common prayer hall, a long, rectangular building positioned right against the retaining wall of the sanctuary. Sir Tolen sighed, leaving his other questions unasked. It was obvious to him that the elder deeply resented the interference of the court priests, but could do nothing to countermand them.
Glancing back at the creature, which lay still, sir Tolen thought that it did not strike him as particularly malevolent. He felt a sudden sting of regret about having captured and brought it here.
This being managed to escape from him at the crystal castle, avoided his hunters and somehow survived this entire winter. If it must die, its death should be quick, Tolen judged with disapproval, a beheading by the sword, perhaps - as he recalled, that killed their kind instantly. Instead, the royal priests had condemned it to the long torture of the fire.
Sir Tolen preferred a humane death. After the battle, he had seen enough of these demons burned alive to know that they could feel pain and that the pain they felt must have been terrible. No creature should suffer so unnecessarily, he thought angrily to himself. And a public death should always be an example, not an entertaining spectacle to breed vul-gar sentiments among the people. He, himself, strictly discouraged similar practices in his own lands, despite what the lords chose to do in the king's court. The divine will of the high priests, however, superseded even that of the king. Lord Tolen knew that his request would be ignored. He could not change the manner of the changeling's execution.
"Guard it and do as the priests say." He instructed his captain sternly.
"Yes, sir." His captain bowed his head.
With unpleasant thoughts still coursing through his mind, sir Tolen turned and started walking away. He barely walked ten paces, when he heard a common startled gasp and movement from behind him. Swords swung, striking empty air.
"Sire, watch out!" The captain cried out in belated warning. Turning around, sir Tolen barely had the presence of mind to shield himself as the changeling's weight and momentum bore him to the ground. He stared into the changeling's angry, black eyes, drawing close to his own, and felt with amazing clarity the sharpness of its claws sunk with lethal precision into the side of his neck. He felt the claws tighten, in a very deliberate warning and his breath froze in his chest. He did not dare to move a muscle.
"I hate you...You killed our father." He suddenly heard an echo of a child's angry voice within his mind. And then memories drew forth and overwhelmed his mind like a flood.
Images flashed, of the battle, the hunts, the dreams, and events at the pass, Ondes Ganos smiling and holding his knife while his hand bled, the glowing blue vial in his lady's fingers and trust in her brown eyes, her sickness, and the skinny demon huddling in the cage. The image from his last strange dream held the longest - the kindness in the man's forgiving green-hazel eyes, the girl smiling in farewell through her tears, and the light dawning all around.
Lord Tolen's vision cleared. Stunned, he noticed clear tears gleaming in the changeling's eyes, now flowing with shades of dark blue. And then, the creature's claws retracted, and it was gone.
Scampering easily up the nearest tree, it leaped from branch to branch the entire length of the sanctuary garden, and disappeared from sight over the retaining wall. From somewhere beyond, sir Tolen heard the responding outcry of angry townsfolk, who surrounded the temple.
His own heart still beat fast, when he saw his captain's worried face above him and took his out-stretched hand to get up. Unwillingly, his hand reached to his throat, feeling the burning marks left by the changeling's claws. Caressing them with his fingertips, he wondered how it was that he was still alive, yet again.
"Deepest apologies, sir." His captain said uncomfortably, appearing at a loss. "It outsmarted us. Somehow, it freed itself. We will mount up the chase at once. It will not get away..."
"No!" Sir Tolen denied, angry with himself for his lack of attention. This was the second time that a demon had held his life in its clawed hand and let him go. He now felt strangely indebted, and angry that he felt so. He wished he could wash his hands of the whole affair, because it disturbed him so much.
"I had done enough. I am not a watchdog for the priests. Let the commoners do it for them. They seem eager enough." He pointed in direction of the roaring mob outside the walls. They seemed to have begun their own chase.