22. Negotiations
Negotiations
“ I ’m a collector,” Culis explained as he pushed the door open.
The wave of death energy rumbled out into the hallway again and hit Mila so hard it felt like trying to breathe while facing into a gale.
“I’ve visited many cultures during my time, and what has always fascinated me is their perception of death and whether or not they believe in an afterlife. This room is a…tribute to that.”
“Quite the morbid tribute,” said Mila.
Culis shrugged. “I suppose, to some, it may look that way. I see it differently. Death is as much a part of life as life itself is. In fact, it’s an essential component. If something can’t die, then it’s probably not alive. How each of us choose to process this fact is fascinating to me. Within Artor, for example, we choose to believe in the concept of an afterlife, where there is consequence for your choices in life. We have the Rotting Muds that exist as a threat for disobedience, and Aluah, the Holy Place, that exists as a reward. Now that idea has only existed for the past forty-odd years, since the God-King arrived. Prior to that, what did we as a nation believe happened after death?”
He waited for her to answer.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“Never thought to ask?” he probed. Mila found it condescending, although she wasn’t sure he’d intended it as such.
“More preoccupied with staying alive in my own reality.” She bit back.
“Fair.” Culis conceded with a nod. “Well, there are still many folk alive in Artor who remember it. You should ask them when you get the chance. It’s interesting.” He spoke with passion. This was genuinely a topic of real interest to him. “In other places, they have different beliefs. The Tuli believe that the blood of one who has lived seven decades must be shared at the moment of their seventieth birthday in order for their spirit to live on in the family collective.” He gestured to the altar that was covered in dried blood. “No one in their society lives beyond this age unless they’re being punished. To die a natural death of old age is the equivalent of being banished from the spiritual collective of ancestors.”
The death symbology around the room suddenly began to make a lot more sense.
“And the animals?” Mila asked, gesturing to the grotesque display of corpses hanging from the ceiling.
“Those who live in the nation of Cabot believe the entrails of a person’s familiar provides the map that will direct a dying person to their final resting place.”
“A familiar?”
“A lifelong animal companion,” Culis explained. “Another part of the culture there. ”
“I see,” said Mila. She was still unwilling to enter the room and immerse herself further in the uncomfortable energy, but it suddenly seemed far less ominous than it had earlier.
“I keep it all in one room,” Culis explained, as though reading her mind, “because they’re quite confronting relics, and having them dotted around the house, mixed in with all my other knickknacks, could send the wrong message to someone who stumbles across one.”
“But someone who stumbles across an entire room full of them will be fine?” Mila queried pointedly.
“Well, really, it serves you right for snooping around,” Culis replied, but he did not seem angry. In fact, he smiled at her. “Now, come with me. I’m a busy man. If I’d wanted you dead, I would have simply left you with Jezebel. Understand?”
“I understand,” she replied.
“Good,” he said curtly. “Now follow me.”
He led her up the grand staircase and into a large study. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a large oak desk sat in the middle, with a high-backed chair tucked in behind it. Mila imagined that downstairs was where Culis greeted travelling merchants, but this room was where they discussed business.
“We must get to work, if I’m to get my small ransom’s worth out of you,” he said as he unfurled a large map and laid it across his desk. “But first things first. Come here.”
Mila obeyed slowly, letting her horns extend as she approached him, hoping to get a read of him again.
It didn’t work.
Once she was close enough, he reached out and grasped her shoulders with both hands. She flinched at his touch and at the way his energy suddenly struck her.
Anticipation .
Despite his neutral face, he was very eager for what was about to occur. Knowing this made her more nervous somehow, and she stumbled a little as she arrived before him.
His eyes narrowed as he saw her fear.
“For the last time, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly, then, more briskly, “not on purpose anyhow.” He spun her around. “Don’t move until I say so.”
Through his touch, his energy suddenly sharpened to a clear beam. Sincerity . He was telling the truth. He wasn’t going to hurt her.
She wanted to read deeper, more of him, but he released her shoulders, and the veil fell again. Mila stood still, fighting the impulse to look back over her shoulder at the fussing that was occurring at the desk behind her.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, Culis’s hands came into view as he reached around her face and placed a thin black band around her neck, moving her short hair aside to clip it together at her nape. It was a necklace of some sort.
Mila made to turn back to him, but he held her still again.
“I didn’t say so,” he warned quietly.
His voice made her shiver. Then Mila heard a tiny whoosh beside her ear and felt the heat of a small flame beside her cheek. She stood as rigid as a statue, terrified of what was next to come.
Was he going to burn her? Brand her somehow?
Culis fidgeted with the clasp of the necklace, and Mila felt the flame come close, warm, but not uncomfortably so, to the back of her neck. For a few seconds, it seemed like nothing was happening.
Then, finally, Culis blew out the flame, his breath startling her.
“Okay, all done. You can move now. ”
Mila moved towards a mirror on the wall to inspect the necklace but was immediately distracted again, embarrassed by her overall reflection.
She hadn’t noticed in her room the way her greasy hair was growing back in uneven clumps and hung awkwardly around her face, making her brown eyes look more narrow than usual. She hadn’t noticed how her large, dark brows were now overgrown and untamed. They drew attention away from what were usually her best features – her strong jaw, high cheekbones and big lips. The blue shift she wore didn’t hug a single curve where once it would have. She looked unbalanced, like an overgrown, gangly child, rather than the tall, strong woman she remembered herself to be. Beside Culis in his casual finery, she looked like a street urchin.
Her eyes were finally drawn to the black necklace that nestled into her throat. It sat like a thin noose against her tanned skin, a chain made of six thin, dark strands that were braided together to form a pretty, interlocking pattern. The material was something she’d never seen the likes of before. It felt as light as pumice but looked as smooth as glass.
As she continued to spin it around, she saw that what had once been the clasp was now a glob of melted black.
“It’s a pretty piece of jewellery,” she scoffed, “but not so pretty that I want to wear it forever.”
Culis raised an eyebrow and grinned as he surveyed his work. “It’s made of vasium. Ever heard of it?”
She hadn’t.
“It’s one of the most impressive metals of our time. This dainty looking thing cannot be cut by any metal or blade we have yet discovered.”
“Wonderful,” she said scathingly. “Why is it on me? ”
“Because its weight varies, according to its distance from its sister.” He held up a small, sparkling, silver and black rock in his left hand.
Mila reached for it, but Culis drew it away and placed it into his breast pocket.
“This is my insurance to keep you from running away and reneging on our contract. Stay close and your necklace will remain light as a bird’s sneeze. You can go anywhere within this manor, and you’ll only feel the pressure slightly increase around your neck. But go much further than, say, oh…a mile from this?” He patted the pocket gently. “The weight will increase significantly, eventually to the point where it will pin you by your neck to the ground. You’ll be stuck there until someone from my staff comes to collect you.”
Mila’s eyes widened, and horror flowed through her.
“I hadn’t been entertaining ideas of escape,” she lied softly, realising that her frantic, failed escape attempt this morning had not gone unnoticed.
“And now you definitely won’t,” he said coolly.
“I made a deal with you,” she argued. “I am here of my own free will. This is unnecessary.”
“I am risking far too much on this venture to accept a demon’s word as gospel. Besides, this will allow us to travel freely, without the requirement of a lead or shackles. I think, for both of us, that is the preferable option.”
Mila glared at him, but Culis met her gaze evenly, showing no hint of remorse. He did, however, seem to soften slightly as he eyed her tattered hair.
“After this meeting, I will call one of the maids to fix you a bath and cut your hair, if you’d like? ”
Mila turned back to the mirror and studied her reflection again. The necklace could not be ignored, but the rest of her truly did look awful.
“That would be…nice.”
“Easily done.” He waved away the gratitude. “I expect, after a few weeks, you’ll have gained some of that weight back too. Hopefully, you’ll feel healthy and comfortable here soon.”
“Why bother with that?” she accused. “My comfort has never been your priority before.”
“I was somewhat preoccupied with the small task of trying to keep you alive,” he bit back.
“Ah, yes, forcing me to lick your feet to keep me alive. Truly a noble act.”
“I improvised.” He shrugged, unabashed, and took her insubordinate tone in stride. “It worked. You’re alive, are you not?”
“For your own purposes, as I’m sure I’m about to discover.”
“You’re correct, little demon.” He rapped with impatience, not shying away from her accusations, but not accepting them in their entirety either. “Having you alive is far more useful to me than having you dead.”
He was mocking her. She did not take the bait.
“And what are these plans?”
“I’ll tell you, ” he leaned forward, “once you tell me what you sense from my energy.”
“I can sense that you’re an arse ,” she shot back immediately.
Culis threw back his head with genuine laughter. In the comfort of his own lair, he was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him.
“Okay, I set myself up for that one. How about this one? How exactly do demon powers work?”
“Why do you need to know?” Mila demanded .
“Because the more I know, the better I can tailor the product to the buyer.”
“What product? What buyer?” Her blood ran cold.
“Little demon,” he tutted condescendingly. “Do not play dumb now. You know I am a man of commerce. Surely, you’ve figured out by now that all of this – ” he gestured up and down at her, “ – is about product and buyer.”
Mila felt as small and insignificant as a loaf of bread at market. “If you intend to treat me as nothing but a product , you may as well have left me with Jezebel,” she seethed.
Culis held up a hand, losing patience. “Save your indignation for the end. It’ll be far less annoying for the both of us.”
Mila glowered at his words. His cocksure, superior attitude was infuriating but she really had no choice but to fall silent and wait for him to explain further.
“I bought you from Jezebel because I want you to help me find more demons,” Culis said. He said it matter-of-factly, but leaned forward and could not hide his eagerness from his eyes entirely. “If I find more demons, I will convince them to sign their service over to me in a contract, as you have done. And then,” he cocked an eyebrow, “I will sell them to other humans for vast amounts of money.”
Mila blinked at him incredulously, unsure she’d understood correctly. “You want me to help you to enslave them?”
“Now, one could phrase it like that, or – ” he quickly raised both his hands as though trying to halt her onslaught of venomous thoughts, “ – you could choose to look at it from a more…” he gesticulated into the air, searching for the words he was after, “… helpful perspective.” His voice was a purr, his eyes alight with anticipation. “Think about it like this. The Church condemns all seven Heretical Behaviours but only really punishes the First. You know better than I do the way humans view demons as a result. Your status in society is lower than that of a dog.” He lifted his feet and placed them cross legged on the table. “But…I have a vision – an inspiration, a sincere desire, if you will – to change that.”
She barely heard his words. The rage building within her made blood pound in her ears. What kind of man would wrest her from Jezebel’s control and give her the illusion of safety, only to force her to start a slave trade of her own people? He was the essence of a snake in a human’s body, sly and deceitful.
“What vision ?” she demanded in a fury, the words barely making it from her mouth.
“My vision,” he replied calmly, still leaning back infuriatingly, “is a world where the First is considered no worse than any other Heretical Behaviour and the burden of providing fodder for sacrifice to the God-King is split between humans and demons alike.” He said it simply, as though he were suggesting something as innocuous as taking a stroll in the garden. “So, yes, one way to view it is that I am implementing a slave trade of demons. Another way to view it is that I am preventing the genocide of demons, all whilst making me the wealthiest man in the nation.”
Mila was dumbstruck. “I don’t believe that you care about that,” she accused.
“About demon genocide?” His eyes gleamed and he sat upright again. “You’re right. I don’t. Not really, anyway. But you do.” He said it slowly. A man closing a trap. “And I care immensely about my wealth. So, there’s something for both of us, and the atmospherics are just right for a venture like this. There are enough religious zealots talking loudly in Traders Bay that such a shift is likely to happen in our lifetime. Anyone could capitalise on it. I’m just blessed with the brains and the means to do it first. And this is why I need you, I think.” He looked at her contemplatively. “It’s certainly why I need to know how demon powers work – specifically your power. When you said at the dinner that you could sense the difference between demons and humans… A power like that would make my task of uncovering demons from their hidden lives a hell of a lot easier.”
“You want me…” Mila spluttered, barely able to get the words out of her mouth.
“To help me develop a culture where demons have worth,” Culis finished smoothly, giving her the words he wanted her to say.
“But only as objects,” she accused, refusing to play along. “Only for our powers. And we’d be subjugated to humans in the process. I think many demons would choose sacrifice over such a life, such a humiliation.”
“ You did not,” he pointed out simply, letting that statement echo in the space between them before speaking again. “Look,” he said, using his tone to try calm her. “If the Church persecution continues as it has these past forty years, then, within the next…ten…twenty years? All demons will have been found and sacrificed, and your kind will be gone. What I’m proposing to you is, yes, servitude for your kind, but at least with servitude there’s life and a chance we might actually be able to change the way the world works.”
Mila was reminded of the mystery of the Church’s persecution. Why did Abbott hate ikarei so much? Why had he chosen to do this to them? Perhaps working with Culis to change the status quo would expose a reason.
“And how…how do you plan to do that?” she asked cautiously.
“So glad you asked!” he said with genuine delight, deliberately choosing to interpret her question as her compliance. “Well, firstly, we’ll need to ensure we select the right demons to recruit into the scheme. Demons with useful powers that can be monetised, not demons with…you know, the ability to hear the whispers of worms.”
If Mila hadn’t been so stressed, she might have laughed at that. Demons had started the rumour of useless powers years ago in an attempt reduce societal fear. She was surprised that someone like Culis would believe it.
“Then,” Culis continued, “with the right advertisement and the well-considered allocation of demons to owners, we’ll begin to see a shift. Mark my words, when the Sacrament of Contrition next comes upon us, I predict we’ll see the elite prefer to offer up a disrespectful human servant, rather than offer up the demon whose power has earned them unprecedented status and wealth.”
He was mad. She’d agreed to serve a mad man.
“This is heresy.” She shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“The elite are always heretics when it suits them. Divine obedience is for the poor.”
His disdainful tone caused Mila to think of Jahan again. Religiously devout Jahan. Jahan, who hated Culis, but also seemed to think that the persecution of demons by the Church was heavy-handed. She remembered the conversation she’d had with him only a few days earlier and realised that, perhaps, Culis’s idea would be supported by Jahan and others like him. Perhaps it wasn’t the most far-fetched, impossible idea that had ever been attempted.
“Look,” he said in a more conciliatory tone, as if he knew where her thoughts were headed. “I’ve travelled enough to see what has happened in other nations around the world when a minority challenges the religious majority. There’s usually a war, and religious wars are more corrosive and destructive than any other kind. There are no winners. You can never destroy a belief through force. You have to make it appealing for the belief itself to be changed. Otherwise, it only makes the zealots double down.”
“But you’re not proposing this because you hate war,” she accused. “You want to be head of this demon trade and become even richer off the backs of the misery and suffering of my fellows.”
He denied none of it, but smiled as he said, “Inflicting misery and suffering is such a tedious way to make money. How about this. We will write up contracts of employment, fair ones, ones that grant a demon freedom after, oh, say, ten years of servitude, amongst other rights.”
It was too much to take in. Mila looked around the room, her eyes drawn to the soft leather chairs in the corner beside the fireplace.
“May I sit?” she asked.
Culis nodded, gesturing towards them. “Of course. And while it is a little early in the day, I don’t think a nip of brandy would go amiss right at this moment.”
He poured them each a small crystal goblet full of amber liquid and watched her intently as she drained the strong draught. He poured her another, and Mila sank back into the chair, rubbing her face into her hands, unable to believe the conversation she was having.
“What is your name?” he suddenly asked.
“Our horns amplify our power,” she said by way of reply. “They make it clearer, stronger or more effective. But even without revealing them, a demon can still use a trace of power. For example, I can still sense you without revealing my horns, but the specificity of your energy is much less clear. And, in a crowded room, it would be impossible for me to focus on one person’s energy without my horns up.”
She deliberately used him in the example, hoping to reinforce his assumption that she could read him as clearly as she could read anyone else. She instinctively knew it would be dangerous for him to learn that he was uniquely difficult for her to sense.
“That is what I assumed. More or less. good to have it confirmed.”
“And my name is Mila.”
“Mila.” He repeated the name and stared at her for a long moment, as though matching the new information to the face he knew. Then he nodded, stood, and returned to his desk, retrieving the map he’d brought out earlier and bringing it back over to their seats.
“Well, Mila. Now we’re at the business side of things, inspect this map for me. We are here, the Highlands are here…and this is Traders Bay. Where do we start looking for our first demon?”
Mila inspected the map and felt bile rise in the back of her throat. This was all happening so fast. She still had no idea who she was signing her fellow demons over to, or what life she was subjecting them to.
“How will they be…collected?” she asked, shuddering at the term, but trying to buy herself time before giving a proper answer.
He studied her with a smirk on his face. “You and I, and a handful of others, will go together and find them. And when we do, you’ll have to find the words to convince them to join us. They’ll trust you far more than they will me.”
She baulked at the idea of being so intimately involved. “They’re unlikely to come willingly.”
“There is no other choice. They must be convinced,” Culis said with an infuriating shrug. “I have all but bound myself to Jezebel to give this idea a chance. It must be worth my while. If it turns out to be too hard, then I will simply exchange you back to her and take a long sea voyage to cool off my ties with the royal family for a while. ”
The cavalier way he delivered this threat made her freeze with the glass halfway to her lips. She hadn’t known that returning her to Jezebel was a possibility he’d ever considered.
“You’d return me to her?” Her voice came out as a croak.
Culis’s reply was firm. “I can’t force you to cooperate with me, but if you don’t, then I have no use for a sullen and difficult demon that does nothing but lurk around my house, frightening my staff.”
“Well, I hardly knew what this venture was going to be when I accepted,” Mila pushed back. “What am I supposed to even say to the other demons?”
“Now that’s a wonderful question!” His eyes gleamed with delight. This had now become negotiation rather than an argument about her compliance. And he truly loved negotiating. “Let’s determine that right now. The contracts will be ten years long, and the demons are obligated to serve their masters in whatever capacity required of them.”
“With some exceptions, I should think,” she interjected.
Culis’s jovial demeanour turned quickly to icy professionalism. “Not too many exceptions,” he corrected.
“A limitless contract may be the lot I’m subjected to,” Mila said firmly, trying to keep the tremble from her voice. “But I will not help you subjugate my fellows to the same fate. If you want my help to discover the remaining demons and bind them into servitude, then you will allow exceptions I deem necessary.”
“Is that so?” His eyes narrowed and something about that tiny movement suddenly brought an air of menace into the conversation.
Mila tried not to be cowed but took note of the shift as something she’d be wise to remember. Culis was naturally gifted with the ability to act and pretend to be something he was not, changing character as effortlessly and easily as one puts on a mask. She had no way to know if what he was saying was a lie. He was the most complicated individual she’d ever met; charming, greedy, narcissistic, ruthless…but what made him dangerous was his cunning, and he was using it against her now, dangling the tenuous hope of long-term change for the demons of Artor, against the threat of returning her to Jezebel if she defied him. It was the same skill that had driven Jezebel right into the palm of his hand and had put the Artor Trading Company at the forefront of procurement for the nation. She saw the game he was playing and hated it.
“We are living beings,” Mila reminded him, quietly but firmly. “I am a living, feeling, thinking creature. No less than you.”
“Probably more than me.” His manner switched again as he offhandedly chuckled, then let out a sigh of resignation. “Fine. Here’s how we’ll do it. Today, you will draft the contracts that you think demons will agree to. I will review the conditions tonight and adjust them based on what I know the nobility will expect. From there, we will negotiate.”
* * *
That night, she lay in the darkness on her pallet and, try as she might to frame and reframe her decision to work with Culis, she could not find a moment where her conscience truly felt comfortable with it.
The weight of what she’d agreed to do to her fellow ikarei was a shackle around her soul, despite the fact she’d done her best to negotiate the contracts and achieve an outcome that would, perhaps, be a better option for them than a life of being hunted for sacrifice. It had been an exhausting process, one which had reinforced just how few rights ikarei held as ‘demons’ in this world. She’d been left feeling drained and disillusioned.
There had been some real wins in the process and, truly, if human buyers could agree not to abuse their demons and provide medical treatment when required, then perhaps it would be a small step towards changing the wider psyche towards her people.
It had certainly not all been positive though. There were other negotiations she had lost, which seemed inexcusable. For example, Culis refused to include a guarantee that a demon would not be sacrificed after their period of servitude.
“To include that,” he’d said, “we’d have to create an entirely separate contract for the God-King to sign, and considering that I’m already taking enormous liberties with his very vague permission to meddle with demons at all, we can’t draw this to his attention if we want it to succeed.”
“So, you’re saying that a demon who’s been successfully hiding for years could expose their existence, sign their life away for ten years, only to be sacrificed at the end of it?”
Culis rubbed his temples in frustration. “I can’t change the law, Mila. We’re just trying to change the status quo. Who knows what that will be in ten years’ time for demons? And besides, if we don't do this, it seems like Jezebel will very likely take the idea into her own hands. And I assure you, whatever diabolical schemes you believe me capable of, I am nothing compared to her.
The conversation had sat uncomfortably with her for the rest of the day, like a stone in the throat, and it felt even larger now that she lay in the deep silence of her room, with no one and nothing around to distract her.
Was she being a traitor to her kind?
It could all go terribly wrong. But was Culis right about the religious shift starting in Traders Bay? Was it truly possible to change the status quo? It was an enormous gamble, not just with her own life, but the lives of all those she recruited into this scheme.
There was no real way to know what the future would hold .
There was still the other option. She could still refuse to help and accept that this would mean she’d be sent back to Jezebel.
That thought had barely formed in her mind when her hands began to tremble, and her mouth dried out. She pushed it away in a panic, battling for mental clarity. It took a few moments, but eventually, the tremors passed, and she was able to breathe again.
Logically, she knew this physical reaction was all part of some sort of come-down, a stress response born from the long duration she’d held tightly onto her emotions in Jezebel’s presence. But knowing the logical reasons didn’t prevent the fear from sucking at her until she didn’t recognise herself anymore. It was in this moment that the harsh realisation struck her. She was too frightened to voluntarily return to Jezebel.
Coward. Traitor. Scum.
She was still caught in the clutches of creeping cowardice, the same one that had stayed her objections when Jahan had been dragged to his punishment. She was too frightened to say no.
Coward. Traitor. Scum.
The words burned into her like a hot knife, and she lay in a pit of self-loathing, ruminating on the words until sleep finally claimed her. But even then, nightmares plagued her, and scenes of hell unfolded within her mind.
In all of them, Mila herself was the devil.