Daemon Gates Trilogy Read Online Free Page B

dry, narrow lips. Then they were gone, and it was just a heavy little man holding a wine jug.
    'Something wrong?' Dietz asked, and Alaric shook his head. Had Dietz seen that as well? No, he would not be asking so blithely if he had. Should he say something? Would Dietz believe him?
    They had been through many strange experiences together before this. They had fought daemons together, for Ulric's sake! And if he really was seeing such things, surely Dietz had a right to know?
    'I-I'm seeing things,' Alaric answered finally, letting his horse slow to a steady walk as they continued down the street. At least it was quieter here than it had been closer to the city gates, with fewer revellers and thus less frequent revolting images.
    'It is Geheimnistag,' Dietz pointed out. He glanced around, the distaste evident in his expression. 'Lots of strange sights here, and unpleasant ones.'
    'I know, but it's more than that,' Alaric argued. 'That man back there, with the jug - what did you see?'
    Dietz shrugged. 'A drunkard,' he answered succinctly.
    'And the jug?'
    'Just a jug.'
    'I saw a snake,' Alaric explained, though he found him­self doubting his own memories. 'And the man looked serpentine as well.' Had he really seen that? It all seemed blurred, unclear. 'At least, I think that's what I saw,' he admitted.
    'You're exhausted,' Dietz reminded him, 'and your head hurts. It's hard to see anything clearly in the middle of all this.'
    That was certainly true. The day was heading towards dusk, the shadows lengthening, and that distorted images and even sounds. The buildings produced strange echoes, and all the costumes and masks - was he just imagining things? Letting his mind play tricks on him, taldng those disguises and adding more fanciful touches from his own fears?
    'Perhaps you're right,' he said, relieved that there was a rational explanation. 'It would be simple enough to mistake one thing for another in all this smoke, and the imagery cer­tainly makes one think of the macabre.' Yes, he thought, that made sense. 'I'm already tired, so I'd be even more suscepti­ble to seeing images that were not truly there.'
    Dietz nodded. Clearly he was not seeing anything out of the ordinary, but then Dietz never did. The man was a rock of common sense and practicality, which was one of the things Alaric valued about him. No matter what was going on around them, Dietz always saw clearly.
    'We should stop for the night,' Dietz suggested.
    'No.' That was one thing Alaric was certain about. 'We're too far behind them as it is. We need to close the distance, not increase it, else we've no chance of catching those men and regaining the mask.' Dietz's resigned nod showed that he'd expected that response, and that he didn't think they'd find much at this hour and in this crowd, but he didn't argue, simply nudging his horse to a faster pace. Alaric matched him.
    For several minutes, Alaric was able to focus entirely upon following the strange trail only he could see. He ignored the people and other sights, sounds and smells as best he could, letting them slide past him, trusting his horse to pick its way through the crowd without his full attention. But slowly the festival crept back in upon him, stealing into his attention and distracting him from the search. Everywhere he turned, Alaric saw horrors, though only for the blink of an eye: people as animals, as beasts, as monsters; people bearing appalling wounds, or inflict­ing them upon themselves and each other; people committing acts he could not have imagined anyone would ever perform, even when drugged, intoxicated and caught up in mass hysteria. Each time, the strange image was gone before he could focus on it, leaving only a con­fused after-image in his mind.
    Alaric shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, but that didn't help. The depraved images continued. People changed as they swam in and out of focus, their outlines and features distorting, growing monstrous. Odd scents assaulted him,