And there was one other thing.
“If I’m not having fun now,” Magnus replied, “I just have to try harder.”
“Ever since you found out who your father was, you haven’t been the same.”
“Of course not!” said Magnus. “I’ve been inspired to create a cult in his honor. A cult to do all the most ridiculous things I can think of. It’ll either fail spectacularly, or it will be the greatest prank in history. There’s no downside.”
This was not the way they had spoken, hundreds of years ago, but the memories had bent and changed over the years and both he and Ragnor spoke in the words and idioms of the present day. Memory was a funny thing.
“That was meant to be a joke,” said Ragnor.
Magnus pulled out his fat money pouch and upended it. Hundreds of hacksilver spilled onto the table. All the thieves in the tavern went silent.
Magnus’s whole life was a joke. He’d spent so long trying to prove his stepfather wrong, and now it turned out his father was a Prince of Hell.
He raised his arms over his head. “Let’s have a round for everyone!”
The room erupted with cheers. When Magnus turned back to Ragnor, he saw that even Ragnor was laughing, shaking his head and drinking deep from a fresh mug.
“Oh well,” said Ragnor. “I have been able to dissuade you from your terrible ideas, by which I mean literally all your ideas, exactly none of the time.”
If Magnus could make everyone else laugh, surely he would feel like laughing himself. If he was enough fun to be around, he would never be on his own, and if he pretended he was all right, surely that would become the truth.
“All right,” Ragnor continued. “Let’s say you did start a joke cult. How would you go about it?”
Magnus grinned. “Oh, I have a plan. A fantastic plan.” He flicked his fingers, causing electricity to spark and jump to the scattered coins on the table. “Here’s what I’m going to do . . .”
The colorful wooden walls of the inn, decorated with weapons, shields, and animal heads, melted away. Ragnor, along with everyone else in the inn, turned to dust. Magnus was left looking forlornly at the empty space where his oldest friend had been.
Then he was in a different room on a different stage, in a different land, asking a crowd if they had ever felt lonely, if they had ever wanted to belong to something bigger than them. He was drinking red wine from a chalice, and as he waved a hand across the room, he saw everyone else’s mugs fill with ale. Magnus called upon the name of Asmodeus, and the whole roomful of people laughed with wonder and delight.
The ceiling dissolved into open sky, the chandeliers into hundreds of blinking stars. The wooden floors layered with plush rugs turned into green grassy fields marked off by rows of manicured bushes, a fountain on one side. Magnus raised his hand and noted the champagne flute half-filled with bubbly gold.
“Great Poison!” his followers chanted. “Great Poison!”
Magnus made an intricate gesture, and then a table appeared filled with drinking glasses stacked in the shape of a pyramid. White wine flowed from the very top, filling each glass as it cascaded downward, creating a beautiful waterfall. A huge cheer erupted, sweeping the crowd, and the sound almost swept Magnus’s heart along with it.
He toasted to their recent successful raid on a corrupt count’s treasure, and their distribution of the treasure to hospitals. His cultists were scrubbing city streets, feeding the poor, painting foxes blue.
All in the name of Asmodeus.
The cult was a joke. Life was a joke, and the fact that his life would never end was its bad punch line.
Magnus walked to the giant pyre burning in the center of the gala. The crowd, who were on the edge of their seats, all linked hands and fell to their knees when the larger-than-life shape of Asmodeus appeared high above them. Magnus had spent most of the week working on this illusion and was particularly proud of the result.
He expected the crowd to cheer again, but they were silent. The only sound was the crackle of flames.
“Isn’t this a special occasion,” said the giant, shimmering white Asmodeus to his faithful worshippers. “A bunch of fools being led by the great fool, setting a puppet of me above them in a foolish parody of worship.”
The gala grounds were as still as the dead after a battle. All the followers were silent on their knees.
Oh. No.
“Hello, son,” said Asmodeus.
The bright, dizzy whirl of motion Magnus was in jerked abruptly to a halt. He had mocked the name of Asmodeus, mocked the idea of worship. He’d wanted his actions to blaze across the sky, to fling defiance at both his fathers.
Magnus had done all this because he knew that no matter whom he called, nobody was coming.
Only somebody had come. His father had come to crush him.
Magnus found himself frozen, unable to move even a finger. He could only watch as Asmodeus stepped out from the pyre and approached him, unhurried.
“Many have worshipped me,” said Asmodeus, “but seldom has my name been cried so loud by so many. It attracted my attention, and then I saw who their leader was. Trying to reach out to me, my child?”
Magnus tried to speak, but his jaw was clenched closed by some unknown magic. Only a thin moan slipped out from between his clenched teeth.
He met Asmodeus’s eyes and shook his head, very firmly. He might not be able to speak, but he wanted to make his total rejection clear.
The living flames that were Asmodeus’s eyes went dark for a moment.
“Thank you for collecting these followers for me,” he hissed at last. “Be sure I will put them to good use.”
Sweat poured down Magnus’s face. Once again he fought to speak, and once more he failed.
Asmodeus flashed his rows of sharp teeth.
“As for you, like any erring child, your insolence must be punished. Nor will you remember what you have done, or learn aught from it, for the memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.”
The words were from the Bible; demons quoted Holy Scripture often, especially those with pretensions to royalty.
No, Magnus almost begged. Let me remember, but Asmodeus had palmed Magnus’s forehead with his bony, clawlike hand. The world washed blindingly white, and then blindingly dark.
Magnus came back to himself, in the present day, kneeling before the members of his own cult, the memories his father had taken from him restored.
He was on his knees. Shinyun was standing over him, leaning down so her face was very close to his.
“You see?” she demanded. “You see what you have done? You see what you could have had?”
The first emotion Magnus felt was relief. In the back of his mind, he had always worried about what he was truly capable of. He knew what he was: a demon’s child, the son of Hell’s royalty, always afraid of his own capabilities. He’d been so afraid he might have set up this cult with evil intentions, used them for horrific purposes, perhaps erased his own memories so he would never have to face what he had done.
But no. He had been a fool, but he had not been evil.
“I do see,” Magnus replied softly.
The second feeling that came to him was shame.
He struggled to his feet. He turned and beheld the crowd, this horde of mundanes that he had accidentally brought together and turned into cultists with an ill-conceived joke, this band of dupes who were probably only searching for something greater than themselves, for some assurance their lives had meaning, that they were not alone in the world. Magnus remembered feeling so much pain that he forgot other people mattered. He’d made a joke of their lives. He was ashamed of it, and he wouldn’t want Alec to know the person who had done it.
He’d been trying to be someone different for a very long time. And, he realized, he didn’t feel that savage driving pain he’d felt in that long-ago time drinking with Ragnor anymore. Especially not since he met Alec.
Magnus raised his head and spoke in a
clear voice. “I’m sorry.” He was met with stunned silence. “A long time ago, I thought it would be fun to start a cult. Get a group of mundanes together to pull some pranks and play some games. I tried to make life less serious than it is. The joke went wrong. Centuries later, all of you are paying the price for my folly. For that, I am truly sorry.”
“What are you doing?” Shinyun demanded behind him.
“It’s not too late,” Magnus shouted. “You can all turn away from this, from demons who are not gods and the folly of immortals. Go live your lives.”
“Shut up!” Shinyun shouted over him. “These are your worshippers! My worshippers! Their lives are ours to do with as we choose! My father is right. You are the greatest of fools, the prince of fools, and you will speak folly until someone cuts your throat. I will do it myself. I will do it for my father.”
She stepped out in front of Magnus and faced the crowd.
“Now is the time of destiny. Now is the time when you, my brothers and sisters, will be elevated above all others, above even the angels, answerable to none save the greatest of demons and warlocks. You will sit at the base of my father’s throne!”
She paused and waited expectantly, as if for a cheer of agreement. It didn’t come. At the top of the stone stairs to the rear of the amphitheater, Magnus saw chaos breaking out. Cultists converged at the top of the steps and then were violently pushed back, several of them tumbling down the seats and stairs.
Shinyun faltered. She motioned for the guards near the stage.
The disturbance was spreading and growing louder. Magnus couldn’t see what was happening—it looked like a knot of fighting, with cultists being tossed down the stairs and onto one another with abandon. The more well-armed guards near the stage were having trouble pushing through the crowd to get up to the disturbance.
Magnus felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps some of the cultists had thought better of their stupid, dangerous plan. Perhaps they would fall on each other—cultists often did—and forget about him, and about Asmodeus. Perhaps—
“Apparently,” said Shinyun, a blaze of orange fire gathering in her fist, “I have to do everything myself.”
She walked to the edge of the stage. But just as she reached the perimeter, she struck an invisible barrier and was thrown violently off her feet. The circle of salt and the moonflowers began to glow with pale fire.
Magnus stiffened with realization: the moonflowers lining the edge of the stage weren’t merely decorative. His eyes followed the crisscrossing lines of flowers that ran underneath the platform. Together they formed a giant pentagram. A much larger, and stronger, pentagram. But who had made this one? Not Shinyun—she seemed shocked to find she was trapped within it.
Shinyun picked herself up and stared at the moonflowers. She tried to leave again, only to be repelled even more forcibly the second time. She groaned and staggered to her feet.
Bernard was standing just outside the pentagram, watching them with a certain anticipation.
Shinyun hissed at him, “What is the meaning of this?”
Bernard gave her a small, mocking bow. “My sincerest apologies, Cursed Daughter. The thing is, though we realize you belong to our more militant and murderous fringe, this cult has always been about hedonistic pleasure rather than strict dedication to evil. The Crimson Hand have agreed that we do not want to obey your joyless rules or live under your rather too-stern leadership.”
“My, my,” said Magnus mildly.
“Do you disagree, Great Poison?” asked Bernard.
“By no means,” Magnus said. “Let the good times roll.”
Shinyun was staring at Bernard, and then at the faces of the cultists sitting in rows around her. These people were not here to watch their prophet, Magnus realized. They were gathered here for a spectacle of blood and betrayal.
“But I am one of you,” Shinyun said forcefully. “I belong with you. I am your leader.”
Bernard glanced at Magnus. “With all due respect to the Great Poison, we know how easily a leader can be replaced.”
“What have you done?” Shinyun asked.
Bernard said, “You are not the only one who can communicate with Asmodeus. You are not the only one who can summon demons to serve you.”
“Oh,” said Magnus. “Oh no.”
Bernard continued, with gathering triumph, “He comes when we call!”
Magnus closed his eyes. “Evil always does.”
Outside the pentagram there were cultists screaming, demons roaring, and black shapes against the sky. Inside the pentagram, the loudest sound was Shinyun’s ragged breathing.
“We don’t want any warlock to rule us,” said Bernard. “We want ultimate power, and to host the ultimate parties. So you are both imprisoned in this pentagram and we intend to sacrifice you both to Asmodeus. No offense, Great Poison. This isn’t personal. In fact, you’re something of a style icon of mine.”
“Whatever Asmodeus has promised you, he’s lying,” said Magnus, but Bernard sneered.
Once a Greater Demon was summoned, he would corrupt whomever was in reach. Asmodeus offered temptation none could resist and played games crueler than mortals could dream. No wonder Bernard had looked startled when Magnus had joked about sacrificing Shinyun.
Shinyun had never been the enemy. Shinyun had never been the true leader of the Crimson Hand. From the moment Magnus had lost control, all those years ago, it had been Asmodeus. It had always only been Asmodeus.
Bernard turned away, trusting the pentagram to keep his quarry trapped. Shinyun raced around the pentagram as if she were on fire. She tried to cast spells to break free, but it was useless. She screamed at the cultists to break the barrier, but they all watched her with the same perfect impassiveness.
At last she wheeled on Magnus and screamed, “Do something!”
“Don’t worry, Shinyun. I know a spell that can break out of all but the most powerful pentagrams.” Magnus waved his hands around for a second, then stopped and shrugged. “Oh yes, I forgot. I could have broken us out, but I lost my powers because someone poisoned me.”
“I hate you,” Shinyun whispered.
“I might add, Cursed Daughter is a terrible nickname,” said Magnus.
“Are you really one to talk?” Shinyun demanded. “Great Poison?”
“That’s fair,” said Magnus. “It was a pun on my name. Magnus Bane? I admit to a weakness for puns—”
Shinyun gasped. A flying demon crashed to earth, landing with a horrible scream among the panicking cultists. The crowds parted and Alec Lightwood emerged, already halfway down the amphitheater steps.
Magnus felt stricken. Unexpected pain could hit in the same way, catching you off guard and rattling your whole universe, but what Magnus felt was not pain.
It was a great explosion of overwhelming emotion: fear for Alec, and love and relief, and a painful desperate joy. Alec, my Alexander. You came for me.
Cultists threw themselves at Alec, and he tossed them aside. For every one he knocked away, three took their place. They were hampering Alec’s progress, but they could not stop him, and neither could any demons of the earth or the air. He was not alone, either: there was a pale-haired girl at his left, and a black-haired girl at his right. Both wielded blades, keeping the throng away from Alec as he fired arrows at another demon, then swept a cultist off his feet with the base of the bow.
Magnus drank in the sight of him: the strong shoulders, wild black hair, and blue eyes. Magnus had always loved this particular shade of blue, the shade of the last instant when the evening was still full of light.
Magnus walked to the shimmering edge of the pentagram. There was something bright rising in him, along with love and hope. He could feel his power coming back, just out of reach.
He stretched out a hand toward Alec, and his fingers were able to breach the shimmering lines of magic, passing through the magic haze as if the magic were water. When he tried to step through to Alec, though, he slammed to a stop as if the magic were a
stone wall.
Being able to put his fingertips outside the edge of the pentagram was not going to be very useful.
“None of this matters!” Shinyun’s voice behind Magnus was a roar. “My father is coming! He will strike you down, the faithless who should have been most faithful, the false prophet, the disgusting Nephilim. All of you! He will place me at his side, where I belong.”
Magnus whirled, his happiness abruptly replaced by sick dread.
All the color was draining from the stone around them. From the top tiers and moving downward, the stone bleached to white until it seemed to spread to the air, forming a column of white static that joined the funnel of cloud and smoke that marked the site of the ritual. A blizzard of tiny black specks flitted within the column. Wisps of smoke danced inside the light. Buzzing filled the air, a torrent of sinister whispers from another world.
A voice in his head said, I told you, it is time to remember everything.
It had not been his own fear speaking, but his father.
“He is coming!” Shinyun shouted.
“Why?” Magnus shouted at her. “No one’s done any sacrificing yet!”
I come because my followers wish it, said the voice. The way is open enough for me.
There was a terrible thickness in the air, the feeling of a dank breath that froze the veins. It was a ripple of agitation that made Magnus want to run somewhere, anywhere, to get away, but his body would not let him move. Some animal instinct deep inside him knew there was nowhere to run that would be safe.
The approach of a Greater Demon, empowered by the adoration of so many worshippers, filled every sense, destroyed every other feeling, until only horror remained.
Above the pentagram, the static was resolving into a shape.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
Forged in Fire
ALEC UNDERSTOOD THAT THEY WERE badly outnumbered. Every soul sitting in the amphitheater—and there were many—had turned to face them. Quite a few had already risen to their feet and were reaching for weapons—clubs and staffs mostly, though he saw several blades flash in the light.
The Red Scrolls of Magic Page 26