“It is time for you to explore more.” Marta addressed her daughter’s floating apparition. “I will watch over your body. Macthogos will protect your spirit. You can trust my control over him. Go and venture into the city and observe people. See what you can learn.”
Macthogos faded from physical form and joined Seredith in the spirit world. She felt completely at ease knowing Macthogos was at her side and shot off with a surge of joy, passing through the cavern walls effortlessly and rising up into the city. The great demon followed closely behind, silently watching.
Seredith floated invisibly through walls and rooms of homes and inns. She passed through Torchlight Tavern, which she and her coven frequented. Some folks still huddled together in the common rooms drinking, but by now most had retired. She moved to the upstairs level and stopped for a moment when she saw a couple writhing together on their bed. The woman spread her legs high in the air. The man grasped her ankles and held them wide as he frantically thrust himself into her. Even in her ghostly form, Seredith smelled the salty musk of their sex. She recognized the woman as a Torchlight waitress. The man was another tailor in town, one of Marta’s competitors. He had just designed a new dress for his wife two weeks prior, showcasing it to the Weavers Guild. His wife wasn’t a waitress. Seredith remembered Marta telling her once that the threat of death ignited the drive for life. There would be a lot of fucking tonight. She watched the woman’s face for a few seconds, but she couldn’t tell if the waitress was enjoying herself or not. She decided not. She moved on, reminding herself that this was no time for such curiosities. Marta would be judging her based on the value of her observations, not the value of her titillation.
A sudden thought occurred to her, and she congratulated herself for her brilliance. She would find that strange elf in the duke’s guest apartments. Surely the elf was the most important person in the city right now. Seredith’s spirit darted to the castle, flying through the apartments until she found her.
If Seredith had been in her body, she would have gasped loudly in surprise. The elf was speaking with the very troll who threatened the city.
Seredith listened to the conversation, knowing Marta would want a full report. The troll claimed to be a servant of Graelyn.
What would a druid want with an elf? Wait. He thinks she’s the Dragon’s… daughter?
When the troll spoke of the Green Lady, Seredith saw with her spirit eyes a whirling flow of emerald light flash through the elf’s veins beneath her skin.
Yes, Marta would indeed be interested in this.
* * *
Arda returned with Attaris at dawn to his home in the mountain slopes. The trolls weren’t interested in either of them, and the guards hadn’t restricted movement outside the city. She hunched over the dwarf’s wooden table with him, going over rough sketches of the castle and various breakout plans. Nothing seemed to quite work, which frustrated her because she knew they didn’t have much time.
They had been at it all day, stopping only for lunch. They only had two nights to pull this off. If the duke conceded to the troll’s demand, their window of opportunity would be gone when he returned. She suspected freeing Lunarin from trolls would be an exponentially more difficult and lengthy task.
Neither of them was exactly a master of stealth. Sneaking into the castle would be difficult but not impossible. On the other hand, they were both experienced explorers and had on more than one occasion bypassed Artalonian guard patrols to get to an old ruin or sacred site.
She had an idea. “Do you remember when we freed that gnome from the ratling tower?”
“Aye,” he answered, eyes turning to meet her gaze. “Oh. I don’t like where this is going.”
“It’s going to be the only way.”
“It’s a long climb. Longer than before.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she said. “I can scale that wall. Just have your wind tunnel ready to slow our fall when I come down with Lunarin.”
Windbowl lay on a rise, with the front of the city overlooking Crystalmere Lake. The castle, which was part of the back wall of the city, stood on top of a cliff overlooking flat farmland. Though it shared the city wall, it was the most difficult part of the city to assault. Most of the guest apartments were on this side of the castle for the favored view of the pastoral fields framed by the Windmane Mountains.
“It’s settled then,” Attaris said, rubbing his beard in thought. “It will be the long way up the back then. I’ll make sure your descent is easier than your ascent.”
* * *
While Marta trained Seredith in the caverns, Anuit sat cross-legged in the center of her bedroom floor, lightly clad in a loose white cotton shirt and leggings that came down to her knees.
“Will you trust me?” Belham asked. He floated in front of her just at eye level. His indigo muscles rippled over his naked body as he crossed his arms over his chest, regarding her with a serious expression.
She knew she shouldn’t. He was a demon. But then, that was Marta’s training. She was already breaking Marta’s precepts, defying the rules that had been drilled into her. Maybe those rules were just Marta’s way of making sure Anuit didn’t rise to surpass her teacher.
She took a deep breath and settled her mind, calming the fluttering of her heart. “I will.” Then, she warned, “Do not betray that trust.”
Belham stared deeply into her eyes and leaned forward. With a clear, cold voice he stated, “My lady, if ever I told you anything true, this is the truest of them all. What benefits you, benefits me. I will do nothing to jeopardize your rise to power and your well-being. We are bonded, you and I. I depend on your life for my joy and my own well-being.”
She nodded. “Proceed then.”
He smiled and relaxed back onto the heels of his feet. “There is a rite that will open your mind to perceive a power that Marta has not yet seen,” he said. “Few sorcerers even have the potential, but you do. You were born with magic, far stronger than you suspect. But in order to perform this rite, I need assistance. You need to summon and bind two more demons, and the three of us together can then open you to this power.
“This is dangerous. You will be binding demons far beyond the stage your training would normally allow. Instead of years spent between such bindings, learning the nuances of control with each, you will have to do it within hours.
“You will need to allow me to supplement your control of them, to be your surrogate. Otherwise, you could not maintain your guard and control while they are still untamed.”
“What kind of demons? Are we restoring Thoknos?”
“No,” Belham answered. “You should consider Thoknos gone. You will replace him with a hellhound. This will be your new guardian. The other will be an incubus.”
Anuit frowned. “Both are very advanced. Are you sure?”
“As I said. If you place your trust in me, we can do this,” Belham reminded her.
“Very well. What must I do?”
“First we begin as you’ve been trained, with the circle of binding…”
Belham guided her through the first ritual. She repeated words of power as he instructed. Some of them she understood, but her demonic vocabulary was still limited. There were whole phrases that sounded like gibberish, but she repeated them faithfully.
The circle she had traced on the floor flashed bright pink. The black backdrop of the mundane world seemed to fade into shadow in her ceremonially entranced vision. The green triangle of summoning outside the circle flared in response. A pitch-black hole formed in its middle, reaching deep into the great Void between worlds. A whirling vortex of darkness reached through the hole. Objects outside the circle shifted towards the hole, gently tugged by the vortex’s whirling. A spool of thread she hadn’t secured rolled off the table and slid across the floor. It fell into the Void.
Even though she did not comprehend all the ritual’s lines, she understood the formula. She called out the keys to the eighty-eighth shell of the Void, unlocking gate
after gate, attuning the summoning circle to the correct resonance in space-time. She called out the names of the hellhound lords and demanded they provide her a bond mate. The price she paid was to be bound in turn, providing a tether for them to the physical world, a means by which their minions could act within existence. She gave them a piece of her soul, a part of herself that comprised the quality of the type of demon she sought to bind. The strands of her spirit would be used by the demon lord to craft an astral body for the minion. A small price to pay, she thought, for like her physical body, her spiritual body would also heal over time. Common minds might fear the cost she paid, but she knew the lost essence was no worse than the psychic form of a nosebleed. A flash of energy jolted through her and she inhaled sharply. A chunk of her soul tore away and fell into the vortex through the black hole in the summoning triangle.
She felt a presence approach in the Void. The demon lord responded and granted her a servitor. A great rumbling growl echoed from the depths of the blackness, rushing ever closer in lusty desire for life. The creature emerged, two clawed paws first, with leathery greenish-black skin. The head that thrust through looked nothing like a hound of this world. It didn’t even have eyes. A black thatch of spiky tendrils crowned its head from nose to mane, and the rest of its visage was nothing more than rows of teeth, which split its face in an impossibly long smile.
Khiighun, she heard the demon lord whisper its name in her mind.
It crawled out of the dark circle and sat patiently inside the summoning triangle. Its clawed feet dug into the stone floor, and its hunched shoulders rose and fell with each breath.
“Khiighun,” she addressed the creature, using the demonic language. “I bind you to me. Your will to my will. Your purpose to my purpose. Your life to my life. I bind you to me.”
She gestured and opened a pathway from her protective circle to the summoning triangle. It grinned and leaped forward at her, fading away when it touched her body. The vortex and hole to the Void vanished. The hellhound now lived in her sphere of awareness, ready to be summoned as she desired.
She now had two familiars. Belham was her dark genius, her spy and advisor. Khiighun replaced Thoknos as the raw, fearsome guardian servitor. The incubus would be her tool of seduction and manipulation. Incubi and their female counterparts, succubi, were particularly dangerous. Their masters ran the risk of falling to their charms. The demon lords of temptation always bequeathed a servitor embodying the ideal image of the sorcerer’s greatest inner lust. Anuit was certain she could master the incubus. Men had never proved a distraction to her ambition.
She resealed the triangle and circle and began the next rite. She had already sweated through her white cotton clothing, but she knew the work tonight had only begun. Belham again guided her through the ceremonial words. Again she understood only part of it, reciting the words faithfully as instructed.
The triangle flashed and the black hole opened once more, the vortex tugging gently on her skin. She recited the words that unlocked the gates of lust, charm, and temptation. Her heart fluttered in excitement as they moved closer to the correct resonance. She recited the litany to the lords of lust, offering a shard of her soul for them to reshape into a vessel for her greatest desire.
The vortex softened and expanded throughout the room. A low, thrumming note sounded, causing the air itself to vibrate over her skin. She moaned. Her legs grew warm, throbbing with the desire to be touched. Her entire body trembled at the Void’s caress. She sank to her knees, unable to keep from crying out.
“Please, yes,” she murmured. Give me the incubus I desire.
She gasped as the erotic charge gathered within the root of her being. Sexual energy exploded from her sacrum and shot to the crown of her head. Her spine snapped straight. Her eyes flew open. It hurt and she wanted more.
A budding light formed on the center of her brow. It dangled and throbbed like a milky egg sack. With each climax it collected more of her soul’s light, growing until it seemed ready to burst. Finally it broke free, ripping the erotic charge from her body. It tore away all pleasure, leaving every nerve in her body burning raw. She sucked in breath, unable to scream through clenched teeth. Her eyes clamped shut, pinching out tears. The pregnant slice of her spirit floated in the air for a brief moment before the black hole’s greedy sucking inhaled it. The thrum faded to silence. She stared at the hole numbly as the rod of fire in her spine dissolved and allowed her body to relax. An empty pit of loneliness remained in the void left by her sacrifice. Heartache more extreme than she had ever before felt tore at her chest.
The lords of temptation accepted the sacrifice of her desire, and the smells of cinnamon and musk wafted out of the black hole. Anuit felt the demon’s presence from far away, as if the demon lords had chosen a servitor distant from where she had attuned the summoning triangle. The demon rushed closer, until finally, a stillness fell over the room. Anuit softly breathed in anticipation to see what the demon lords had crafted for her. She unconsciously clutched at the heartache in her chest.
A cinnamon mist poured from the black hole and filled the triangle. It coalesced and solidified into a striking woman who carried the commanding presence of nobility. The innocent, human beauty of her face melted Anuit’s heart. She stood straight, wearing a high-collared white blouse, buttoned at the neck with a bright, smoothly polished ruby. The lace that lined the top of the blouse swooped into a V between her breasts, and matching lace hugged her arms from her elbows to her wrists. A wide, black belt was cinched at her waist. Her narrow white skirt opened wide at the left knee but otherwise covered her legs. She wore white leather boots that wrapped her legs from her knees to her ankles. The boots opened at the feet, revealing cloven hooves. Above the boots, the skirt’s slit showed legs covered in short brown fur. She stood straight with a properly arched back, arms resting forward on the handle of a closed black-laced parasol. A spiked tail sprouted through the dress under the small of her back. Two leathery bat-like wings spread behind her, softly rising and falling as she breathed. A black-laced hat with white feathers sat between two glass-smooth black horns on her head. Rich chocolate hair was pulled neatly back into a bun with three escaping locks curled in neatly dangling spirals. Green eyes twinkled with charmed amusement from beneath the brimmed hat, expressing nothing but silent, glittering joy at seeing Anuit.
Lady Bryona, she heard the name imprinted in her mind by the whispers of the demon lords.
Anuit’s heart thudded. A succubus? The lords of temptation sent her a succubus? What cruel joke was this? The lonely emptiness dissolved in the presence of this beautiful creature, and only by an effort of will she broke the captivation of the succubus’s stare.
“Lady Bryona,” she intoned the demonic formula. “I bind you to me. Your will to my will. Your purpose to my purpose. Your life to my life. I bind you to me.”
She opened the path between circle and triangle, allowing Bryona to walk to meet her. It was all she could do to not rush forward into the demon’s arms herself. Bryona rested her fingertips gently on the center of Anuit’s chest, smiled, and then faded away into the periphery of her awareness.
Now that the first part of the rite was complete, Anuit let the circle and triangle vanish. Belham had her lay down on the floor, and he called Bryona and Khiighun back to physical manifestation. The three demons stood in a triangle around the young woman. Belham led the rite this time, channeling a dizzying weave of energy that flowed between the three and condensed down into a knot, settling on Anuit’s brow.
Khiighun first moved to her. He leaned forward and placed the tip of his toothy mouth to her brow and then vanished. Bryona followed, kneeling over and kissing her forehead before she too vanished. Belham was the last, but he stepped back, keeping his physical form.
A searing pain shot through her from where they kissed to the base of her spine, opposite the flow of the previous rite’s orgasms. She arched as her back went into a spasm and screamed as molten fire ran down her spinal
column and through her head behind her eyes. The succubus’s binding ritual had been nothing compared to this agony. Tight cramps seized her shoulders and bottom, twisting her body into contortions. Her jaw clenched shut, muffling her torment.
After what seemed an eternity, the pain subsided and her muscles melted into numb jelly. Tears seeped from her closed eyes, and she lay limp on the floor. In the raw aftermath of her suffering, her senses were heightened to new levels of clarity.
“Open your eyes,” whispered the imp, close enough that she could feel his breath on her ear.
She did so, and saw dim, translucent wisps of gray floating throughout the air in the room.
“This,” he hissed, “is the power that Marta does not know. This is the rotting remains of dead souls. Remnants of their spirits that died with their bodies. It is abundant, and now that you’ve been opened to it, you can channel it to power your magic.”
“These are dead people?” she murmured.
“Yes. People, animals, it doesn’t matter. The soul dies with the body. Marta has not yet revealed this to you, but sorcerers know the truth: there is no afterlife. For anyone. This secret is the sorcerer’s freedom. The piece of your soul that you give in a demonic pact is a price paid now. It is not some hold against the future. The demon lords want living soul essence now, not the dust of rotting spirits. There is no eternal torment you need fear, because nothing survives your death. What the covens of Windbowl—even Marta and all the line of her mothers—don’t know, however, is that decomposing soul matter is filled with power just waiting to be tapped. Through it, you’ll be able to channel more Dark energy than any sorcerer alive today. The necromantic arts were lost to Ahmbren eleven thousand years ago when Archurion annihilated the darkling sorcerer-kings of Artalon. Congratulations, necromancer. This power is now yours for the taking.”
Anuit’s body finally gave way to exhaustion, and darkness crept up around her. She fell into the blank nothing of dreamless sleep.
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 7