Demonic Secrets

Kori was eager to teach her sister about antidotes at the earliest opportunity, so the next night she organised the contents of her satchel onto Erika's finely carved table. Erika lifted a vial up to the lamplight. "This is a pretty colour of blue. What's it for?"

"Galen root," Kori informed her. "It reduces pain, but only when used in tiny, tiny amounts. Too much is poisonous."

Erika set the vial down and stared at it dubiously. "Really? How much?"

"There's enough in this little jar to kill three people. But it tastes bitter, so I doubt it could be slipped into someone's drink. And there is a very effective antidote. Let's talk about that first." Kori held up another vial of powder which gleamed silver in the light. "Argyrese. A wonderful antidote. It works on most herbal poisons. A few grains would counter a lethal dose of the galen root."

Erika gazed at the vial, stroking her cheek in thought. "That is indeed a useful herb. Where does it grow?"

Kori grinned. "In marshland. It was Uncle Rudolph who helped me gather Argyrese the very first time. I was six and we went into the fen near the village together to try gathering herbs for Madeleine. The sound of the breeze on the Argyrese petals made a pretty tinkling sound, but only I could hear it."

One by one they went through every single bottle and vial in the collection. Kori showed her sister the mixtures and dosages that would counter poisons, treat coughs and fevers, encourage conception and enhance memory. Kori did not know whether it was the collection that interested her or whether she wanted to learn more about Kori herself, but either way her interest was flattering.

"You do know the most interesting things, Kori. Don't worry about etiquette anymore, you'll be in the protocol class tomorrow and I know you're willing and able to learn. That's the main thing."

Kori looked at her sister. Did she know how badly the etiquette drill with Brunhilde had gone? But Erika merely smiled that oblique smile of hers.

00O00

Protocol Novice class took place in a sunny room in the ladies wing. Madam Ehren was a brisk, no nonsense sort of lady who instructed Kori and a class of mostly younger noble girls on what was considered in the Dark Forest to be proper decorum.

Of greater interest to Kori was the castle's extensive library, which she found located near the Map Room. Row after row of bookcases groaning under the weight of innumerable tomes on every subject under the sun! So much knowledge! A shame Kori would never have time to read it all. Another reason she had to be grateful to Erika was that her sister had written her a note of permission to view any section of the library, including the Caution and Restricted subjects.

The librarian, a silver haired older lady named Leisel, scanned the note and nodded. "If the future queen wills it, it shall be so. Well just ask me if you have any questions, lady Korina." Kori beamed and thanked her effusively, complimenting her on a well-kept library.

On first viewing the library, Kori wondered where she should begin. There was just so much to choose from. She decided to begin in the Caution Section, where one tome in particular drew her attention. A book bound in black leather entitled "Accounts of Demonic Conjurations and Visitations." Kori stopped by the shelf and hesitated. She loved Erika for her comfort and kind words of wisdom, but she still needed closure of some kind. She lifted the heavy tome down onto an oaken table and flipped through the heavy vellum pages to the section on Demonic Banishment. Interesting... It was apparently possible to banish a demon by marking out a symbol using consecrated artifacts, but only a supernatural sleight of hand could do so successfully. That was a cryptic instruction. Still, such information could be useful if Kori ever had to fight a demon.

She hesitated and then flipped to the section about real life accounts of demonic encounters. This chapter included a mixture of rumours of demonic visitations and written accounts of those who claimed to have been visited and survived. Kori's heart was thudding in her breast as she speed read the chapter and she caught her breath as she found a page entitled "Lord Sommernacht." The page began thus:

A demon knows no rules and has no sense of restraint. Let no one be complacent. Not even the nobility of Nordheim are safe from their depredations. The Sommernachts are the second most prestigious house in the Dark Forest principality after the ruling Reingold house and yet this did not stop a lesser demon from abducting Lord Sommernacht, leaving his lady wife and infant daughter to despair of ever seeing him again…

Kori read on until she found the account left by her father. It did not make for pleasant reading. She had to force herself to get through the passage.

She read how her father was abducted in the grounds of his estate and carried off by a demon to her lair. He had not known where it was, describing it as a rocky cave lit up by pale corpse lights. Her heart thudded in her breast as she came across a passage penned by her father:

She clutched at me with a horrible, gripping strength and those terrible, staring eyes, twin black orbs bore into mine. Her face was like a clay mask, an unnatural, vivid orange. I tried to draw back, but her arms stretched to impossible lengths and her grip did not falter. She dragged me back and grinned at me, showing razor sharp teeth. "Pretty men cannot stay away from me, my lord. Are you ready to serve my needs? Ease the pain of my existence? I have watched you more closely than you know and we are compatible."

I refused her advance and she shrieked at me in rage, her mouth distending grotesquely and her dead black eyes bulging. She proceeded to force herself on me and she was too strong to fight off…

Feeling sick and a little dizzy, Kori skipped ahead to the end of the passage. The demon brought Lord Sommernacht back home afterwards leaving him with a purse of iron coins and confessing her crime to Brunhilde.

So the demon "transported" her father either through space, or into a netherworld? How exactly did that work?

The passage from Lord Sommernacht finished there and the author of the chapter offered his own comments about how terrifying it must have been for the Lord not knowing whether or not he had sired a male heir with the demon. The author then wrote a rambling hypothesis about how the 'seeds of doubt this planted in his Lordship's mind surely paralleled the unnatural creature that grew in the demon'…

"Sorry author, this unnatural creature doesn't want your opinion…" muttered Kori, turning the page.

And then Kori found a piece of parchment between the pages. She caught her breath. It was a letter signed by Lord Sommernacht and at the top it read; To my daughter.

She snatched it up and scanned it eagerly as though she would devour the words.

My daughter, though we have never met, your welfare is a matter close to my heart. If you are reading this, then you have demonstrated the integrity you needed to be accepted at Castle Gruenwald and you have the intelligence to research your origin.

I deeply sorrow now that we have never met and I have a feeling that it is now too late. Madeleine the wise-woman will have told you the main points about how I was raped by a lesser demon and how you were the innocent result of the crime. I never had the courage of my brother Rudolph and that is part of the reason why I could not bring myself to accept you. I regret it. If you read this, then I ask your forgiveness.

Kori choked and had to stop reading for the moment, emotions were welling up inside her. "I forgive you," she murmured, blinking back tears. She suddenly realised she could not honourably retract her forgiveness…

The letter continued:

Do not be afraid of who you are, my daughter. Use it. I can foresee circumstances where the Dark Forest will have need of you.

Kori could not read anymore just yet. She badly wanted comfort and wished Madeleine were here. She bundled the letter under her dress, replaced the book on the shelf and prepared to leave the library.

Leisel looked up. Something in Kori's manner must gave betrayed her agitation. "Are you alright, my dear?"

"Thank you, Leisel… I was reading about demonic visitations. It's an upsetting subject for me. That's all."

Leisel tutted. "I'm sure it is."

00O00

Kori went straight to her bathroom where Maria the maid was drawing up her bath. Maria had previously been assigned to Brunhilde, but Kori's arrival had meant some rescheduling. Now she was assigned to Kori's quarters instead.

The marble bath was almost full when Kori arrived in her dressing gown. Clouds of steam arose, iridescent in the silvery lamplight. Kori clapped her hands. "Well now, this looks marvelous."

She slipped into the hot bath and relaxed, her long hair fanning out around her like seaweed. Thoughts of what she had read were buzzing around in her brain. She really needed someone to talk to, but where to begin?

"Are you happy at the castle, Maria?" she asked. "It is like a new world for me in many ways. I mean compared to village life."

Maria blushed a little. "I'm happier here now, m'lady."

But Kori knew she couldn't talk to Maria about her real issues. Madeleine was not here, but she had to tell someone really wise who she trusted and she had to do so quickly. There was someone wise at Castle Gruenwald, someone wise who she had to trust. Who she needed to trust, for her own peace of mind...

00O00

Kori had fallen asleep on Erika's bed by the time she returned. She had settled into her sister's room expecting a long wait, but had nodded off anyway, so it was with surprise and disorientation that she awoke to find her sister seating herself before her dressing table.

"Sorry. I didn't want to disturb you," she said as Kori sat up groggily. She did not seem remotely surprised to have found her sister on her bed. She picked up her silver plated hairbrush and began to brush her long, ebony hair, which glinted with a silvery sheen in the lamplight.

Kori brushed her own hair away from her eyes. "Good day, dear?"

Erika brushed three more strokes. "Preparing to be Queen is rigorous, but I am undaunted." She smiled. "And how was protocol class?"

"Not too difficult." Kori wondered how to broach the subject that was bothering her. "The castle library is a lot more interesting. Books on everything. Um… One about demons piqued my interest. I am half a demon myself. But there was something in it that concerns us both."

Erika laid her brush aside and rose to her feet. Moving around the room she snuffed out the candles, leaving the gleaming star lamp which she carried over to the bedside table. She climbed into the bed beside Kori. "What is it that concerns us, sister?"

Kori pulled out the letter Lord Sommernacht had left for her and handed it over. Erika scanned it and her eyes widened.

"Dad wanted me to do something, I know it," Kori whispered in her ear. "It was his way of accepting me. It has to be. Wasn't it? I think his warning is to do with the werewolves and the Wolf Demon they've conjured. He wanted me to fight them. Demons do unnatural things… produce strange looking offspring like me… and it must take a demonic creature to defeat the Wolf Demon. Dad set out a mission for me. Didn't he? Please tell me."

Erika put an arm round her shoulder. "I knew nothing of the letter before now, but I believe you are right. Rudolph told him how smart you are."

"And I have forgiven him. It feels so good. Erika… please keep this between us? It's a message that's really private. A pinkie promise..." Kori held up her green hand. "Uh… make that pinkie-greenie promise?"

"Pinkie-greenie promise it is," said Erika softly.

Thus the sisters made a pact based on their mutual understanding and love. Kori fell asleep beside Erika, her mind now at ease. The wolf demon was still far off.

Author's Note: For any reader interested in specific details of Dark Forest currency, iron coins are a form of currency of very small value. This token was the angry demon's way of adding insult to injury because he refused to take her as a mistress i.e. likening Lord Sommernacht to a prostitute who was barely worth hiring.

Think of the iron coin as being equivalent to the mite in old English currency (in the Elizabethan era). A mite was 1/6 of a farthing. The Dark Forest copper piece is equivalent to a farthing, their pewter piece equivalent to an old penny, their silver piece equivalent to a shilling and the gold piece equivalent to a gold sovereign.