"Then what shall we say of your misuse, Magister?" purred Vilkas. His voice was still soft but now it held the edge of menace. Aral had recovered her feet and moved away from him, her corona in place now, her stance defensive. The corona about him, however, shone bright and clear, and I caught a glimpse of just how strong he was. I decided to make a trial of his strength and resolve. If I were fortunate and he failed, it would look like an accident.
"Ah, the last resort of the guilty," I said with a sigh. "Lay all the blame on another. Of what do you accuse me now, apprentice?" I asked, not releasing my own power but putting my hands behind my back. There I was free to move my fingers in a specific pattern to release a calling-on spell I had prepared for just such an emergency. "Do you say that I— Bright Shia, beware!"
The two Rikti appeared in midair and launched themselves, one at Vilkas and one at me. I cried out in some surprise—quite convincing, I suspect, as they might have gone for any of us—and made great show of attempting to fight off the one that was before me. It had orders not to harm me, of course, but the one on Vilkas was not so hampered.
However, the thing's talons were mere inches from his eyes when both it and the one facing me were stopped and held motionless. The source surprised me, however. It was the girl. She was chanting some kind of prayer aloud as she approached and held tight to something on a long chain about her neck. The Rikti fought to free themselves, but her cage of power was strong and her will implacable. Indeed, for that moment she shone brighter than Vilkas, until she touched whatever sacred symbol she wore with one hand and the creatures with the other. Each in turn cried out and vanished, leaving only their stench behind. That done, she loosed whatever assistance she had received from her prayers and her corona shrank to its normal dimensions.
"How dare you!" I cried, outraged. I did not have to practice my player's skills, for I had hoped that at least they would be injured. "Do you still tell me yoa have never encountered demons? How shall I believe that, with such evidence!"
"We never said we had not encountered them, Magister," said Vilkas, and his voice was calm and cold as dead midwinter. "As I believe I mentioned, we have found that they are drawn to any use of the Power, and we have had to dispel them on several occasions."
"Then how do you explain that one's appearance?" I cried.
"We did not call it," he said, his gaze locked on mine.
I knew in that moment that he was better than I had thought. Not only did he know who had summoned the Rikti, he had hung back and let his assistant do the work using some kind of amulet, so that I would not know his strength. He sealed his doom thereby. I will not suffer him to live. But slowly, slowly, perhaps he could be of value to me alive. For a short while.
"You will destroy all trace of your work in this room and come to the Great Hall before midday," I said coldly. "Do not fail to appear or attempt to leave, lest you force us to bring you back in irons."
"We will be there," said Vilkas smoothly, moving to open the door for me. I saw in his eyes that he would appear though all the Hells should bar his way, if only to spit in my face. Good. I wanted him angry.
In a way it is a pity—I would have preferred to have Vilkas's power on my side, but it was clear that neither he nor the girl would ever consent to it. It is just possible that Vilkas and the girl will attend the Assembly and suffer the fate in store for them, but I do not expect it. I will send Erthik and Caillin to guard their room. I will arrange for horses to be saddled and ready in the courtyard, complete with valuable articles from the library and a ring of Erthik's that I found some months ago.
If they are clever, they will ran. If they take the horses they can be charged with theft if it comes to that—but I have a better fate in store for Vilkas, and for Erthik. Both at a stroke. Ah, this is the first, this small matter, but in later times it will be seen as the first moment in my rule. The first act of King Malior, truly, for I shall rule in the name I have taken for myself as a master of demons.
Erthik and Caillin will die soon after I send them to guard the room, for I need their deaths to be unmarked at first and I do not know how long it will take for the prisoners to decide to leave. However, when the bodies are discovered outside the empty room that held Vilkas and Aral—ah, life is sweet.
In the meantime I have sent word to every Mage in Ver-faren to prepare to block a great power, in case Vilkas is a fool and decides to face the Assembly. I do not expect it, but one must be prepared. Should the two young idiots submit, I have a delightful fate in store for Master Vilkas. I can make far better use of his death than of his life. Once the block is in place, and they are banished and walking the world— well, it is not chance that Maikel has disappeared. I will not miss his meddling. To challenge me! For his presumption I have prepared him carefully over the last weeks, while we have been "working together." I have set a Sending in him, planted in his mind a deep need to find—well, whoever I wish him to find, I need only send a Rikti to touch him to engage the spell. He will find and follow whatever quarry I set him on, for weeks if I require it, though I do not intend to wait so long.
When I require my prey—Vilkas if he is a fool, some other if he is not—I need only summon forth the demon I have planted in Maikel. It is enspelled to establish, in only one hour, two ends of a demonline that starts here in my chambers. Such a task normally requires weeks of preparation.
I am very, very good.
When the demonlines are set I will be able to appear wherever Maikel has gone, capture my prey and return here in little more man the blink of an eye. Poor Maikel will not survive the experience, of course. He should never have challenged me. And should Vilkas prove a righteous fool he will be the subject of my slave Maikel's hunt; with his power blocked, he will make a fine sacrifice.
All is now set. If they run and do not take the horses, I shall send Rikti to deal with them, enough to ensure their death and defeat. If they submit, Vilkas will live—briefly— despised, disgraced and powerless. Let him face that for a day or so until I have him safe, when he will have just enough time to despair before he becomes demon fodder. It is too good a fate for him, to be the means of rebirthing the Demonlord, but better him than me.
Ah, the Demonlord, the Nameless One! The first to follow my calling, and the best of us. His natural gifts left him discontent, for he was a mere first-level Healer without the ability to go further. He had studied healing all his life. When the Magistri of his day tested his power and found it so paltry, he knew he must do something to change it. He knew the Tale of Beginnings, that the Gedri had the power of choice, but it is said mat he was the first for many centuries to have the courage to call upon the Rakshasa for assistance.
His greatness lies in die fact that when he called upon them he knew that he had nothing to lose. He had thought long upon the pact and told them in detail what he required—more power than any alive possessed, the ability to destroy the Kantri, and a way to survive should they live long enough to try to kill him. When the Rakshasa demanded his true name for payment he agreed without hesitation. His name was stripped from the world, from the memories of all who had known him—so much is known to all men. What most do not know is that the spell of the Distant Heart was performed at the same time. Like the great wizards of legend, his heart was taken from his living body and laid in a distant place for safekeeping. It was a great work that he wrought. In essence he became a demon himself at that moment, with all he had demanded, beginning with more power than any human had ever before possessed.
When the Kantri attacked him, he managed to destroy fully half the great beasts before he was killed. He died valiantly, laughing at his murderers in the knowledge that he would live on as a Raksha and in the certain knowledge that it would be possible for him to live again under the sun when a demon master of sufficient strength and resolve should arise to summon him.
I am that man.
I must go and meet with Erthik and Caillin in a moment, but first I need to renew the players' p
aint and powder mat conceal my youth. This will be the last time. Sometimes I can barely stand still for the power that is in me now, when I emerge from my hidden chambers trembling with excitement.
I can feel in my bones that all the world is rising to join in battle. I do not intend to be alone.
However, one thing eludes me still. It is simply not possible for two of the Kantri, or even the shadows of them, to remain hidden in Kolmar so long. Perhaps the large number of common dragons in the hills might smell like one of the Kantri to a Rikti, but what is this Akor that lurks in Ilsa? I sent word by demon messenger, at great expense to myself, to the Healer under my control in Marik's branch House in Illara, the capital city of Ilsa. She is skilled in the dark arts, but even though her powers extend a hundred miles in any direction she could find no trace of the Kantri, nor has she heard any rumour of a dragon. There is something very wrong, something I am missing.
I begin to feel a sense of urgency. All is carefully timed from this moment forward, that my coronation might take place on Midsummer's Day. I must have Marik's daughter by then—by preference, long before that day. I am concerned at the words Marik heard—"the Kantri on Kolmar," it said. All of them, perhaps? Even in the fullness of my power I do not wish to battle all of that nation at once.
Though I could do it, for the Demonlord, brought back into life, will surely be the final death of that people. Indeed, as I think of it, my problems would thus be resolved at a single stroke. For behold, I know now how to summon him, how to raise up a body to enshroud him, and my power over Marik will provide the required sacrifice of a living soul when the body presents itself to me.
I have been searching much of my adult life, reading all, daring all to ask very particular questions of very particular demons, and now I have found it. He was clever, the Demonlord, but he could not have expected that one such as I would arise. He was the greatest power of his time, thanks to the Rakshasa, but even without their help I am a hundred times stronger than he.
He could not have known that Healers as a class would grow more powerful as time went on, and that the use of the Power would expand as it has. Where only the very best of his time could smooth a broken bone and hasten its healing, that is now routinely performed by Healers of the third rank and above. Now we can cure illnesses of the mind, which difficult and delicate accomplishment they never even dreamed of.
I know where he is and how to bring him back, and I have that which alone will summon him. My final accomplishment will come tonight, when I discover how to be rid of him when I am finished with him, for he who cannot banish the demon he summons is the greatest fool of all.
Oh, yes, he was clever and daring, the Demonlord, but I am more clever than he, for I can bring him here and make him do my will, and tonight I will learn how to kill or banish him when I require him no longer. That is true power.
Two days later I will be prepared to complete the summoning that was begun at the change of the year, on the darkest day of midwinter. Somewhere—I neither know nor care where—earth shakes and fire spews skyward as the demon creature grows to maturity. I would not care to be there when it is birthed.
However, enough of such pleasant speculation. I must go and have a last word with Erthik.
Will
Rumour flies as fast as thought in this college. I was passed in the corridor midmorning by four of the Magistri: Erthik was muttering something about Berys, and then I heard Vilkas's name.
I was approaching Vil's chamber when I heard someone leaving, and the voice made me shiver. I ducked around the nearest corner, heard footsteps going, thank Shia, in the opposite direction and fade to silence. I went up to his door and was dragged inside almost before I had finished knocking.
"The bloody bastard!" said Vilkas, with a heat I had never seen in him. 'To threaten us so for experimenting! Every time I see him he reeks worse of the Rakshasa." Vil looked directly at Aral, which was unusual enough to catch my attention. He seldom looked directly at anyone. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No, I managed to turn most of it," she said, rubbing her arm and not seeing his glance. Just as well for her, for the care and concern he allowed himself to show might have undone her. "But I swear he meant to wound me badly. If I hadn't been on my guard, I'd have been thrown across the room at least. Lady curse him to death and darkness—"
"Stop right there, you," I said quietly. "No curses."
"Will, you weren't there. Damn it! .If I'd had a knife I'd have gone for him."
I put a hand on her shoulder, briefly. I didn't dare leave it there very long. "I know, lass. But that would make it worse, not better. Knives are not the way for that one."
"Will, he's insane!" she cried, whirling away from me. "He tried to injure me, then stood there lecturing us about how misuse of the Power is forbidden, and then he called up a pair of demons! With no altar, no incantation that I could see, he called two demons into the room and pretended to be helpless. He made us get rid of them. As it was I could barely breathe for the stink of demons all around him. And we're called up before the Assembly in only two hours, and the Lady only knows what they're going to do."
"Hells' teeth, Vil. Was it really that bad?" I said to Vilkas as I steered Aral into a chair before the fire. She subsided into muttering to herself. I tried not to listen to the words.
"In fact it went a little better than I had hoped, though there are two very different aspects of this to consider," he replied coolly. He had regained his composure and was watching Aral with a cheerfully bemused expression. "To be honest, we have long suspected that what we were doing was not widely acceptable. Magistra Erthik doesn't seem all that worried, but men she knows both of us." He paused for a moment. "Interesting that Berys felt threatened enough to want to defend himself, even if it was quite amazingly feeble. Claiming research to explain the Raksha-stink, indeed! And he took the trouble to insult me, which I find unsettling."
I looked at him. "Insulted you? How? And why should that bother you?"
"By disparaging my Power. He called it a 'nimbus'." Vilkas stood behind Aral's chair and leaned over slightly, and I noticed he was surrounded even as we spoke with a subtle blue cloud. I guessed he was checking Aral to be certain she was uninjured. It took only a moment. "I don't give a damn what he says, Will, it only concerns me because I have been careful never to show him enough of my ability to draw attention to myself." He half grinned at me. "I believe he has noticed now."
"Noticed you? That's good. Who did all the work?" complained Aral, turning round in her chair to look up at him. "Nimbus, indeed! That's what they call the lowest level of Power, Will. Healers who haven't started their training or who don't have a gift beyond the first level have a 'nimbus' when they summon the Power." She snorted. "I expect Vil has one when he's fast asleep. His corona is every bit as bright as Berys's and a damn sight cleaner."
Vil nodded to me and walked over to the fire, warming his hands, leaning against the mantelpiece. Aral, on the other hand, leapt to her feet, her frustration not letting her sit still. "Have you any chelan, Vil? I'm dry as the great southern desert and I can't sit still when I want to kill someone."
"The leaves are in the cupboard and I suspect we need more water. Make enough for us all, would you?" said Vilkas. She got on with it, knowing her way around Vilkas's chambers as around her own. Vil went to stir the fire while I wandered over to the window and stared out at the bright morning, trying to take it all in. That Berys was on easy terms with demons I could well believe, but to summon one in broad daylight where both Vil and Aral could see him do it—it did not bode well at all. I had in my gut a cold certainty that great things were now moving and we had best deal with them by assuming the worst. I glanced over to where the two of them were making chelan, she growling at him, he speaking quietly to her.
Typical.
"What's caught your mind, Will?" asked Aral a moment later, still with a brow like thunder but a little calmer than she had been. "I asked you three times if you want
ed honey in yours. You've got some now, want it or not."
"A cold day like this needs the sweetness, I thank you."
Vil had taken up his post, leaning that slim frame of his against the side of the fireplace while Aral and I sat before it. We had gathered thus many a time, ever since I had first come across them arguing in the gardens soon after Aral arrived. I had stood watching them full five minutes before either noticed me, and by then they had been standing on my seedlings for quite some while. They brought me others a few days later, by way of apology, and a friendship developed. I was just that bit older than either of them, perhaps a matter of eight years older than Vilkas, who was the younger by a year, and I had become a kind of mentor to them both. It pleased me greatly. They were good souls and I enjoyed their bickering. It was very much like my sister Lyra and me at their age—though what I felt about Aral was most certainly not the love of a brother.
I was about to ask them what they were going to do next when there was a knock at the door. Instinctively I hid myself as Vil opened it. Don't ask me why.
It was Magistra Erthik and Magister Caillin. "Hullo, you young idiot," said Erthik cheerfully. "Berys has decided you need guarding, which just goes to show how well he knows you. Caillin and I will be here until you two are due at Assembly. I thought you should know."
"Magistra, surely you do not believe—"
"Vilkas," she said, "the only thing I truly believe is that Berys is as twisted as a corkscrew. I'm not a fool, you know, I can smell the Raksha-stink as well as you can." I couldn't see, but her voice sounded as if she were smiling. "I've been waiting years for this particular Assembly, my lad. We may even manage to get Berys tossed out on his crooked ear. Just you tell the truth, all of it, and you'll be fine. Now go away, I'm not meant to be talking to you."
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