The Daemon Prism: A Novel of the Collegia Magica

by Carol Berg

  I’d listened carefully to all the names of those present. Otro was not among them. I leaned to the quiet woman who sat next to me. “Your elders thought my friend, the mage, was dead. I worry that he may be ill. This Otro sounds like one who sees deeply. Where could I find him?”

  “Otro wanders,” she said. “He could be here or there, on the land or among the stars. If your spirit draws him, he’ll come.”

  “Is he a holy man, then?”

  “Some say.”

  Not so helpful. But she described Dante’s companions for me. Andero, a giant man. And, curiously, the blind thief was John Deune. “The thief did not see us. Spoke as if we were not here. Thought us too stupid to see him pack away the blanket we lent him. The sorcerer saw more with his ears than did the thief with his working eyes. And more with his heart.”

  “Exactly so.” I could scarce speak. Only Portier had ever believed me about Dante’s heart.

  The headman then proceeded to introduce us to the rest of the villagers as friends of the blind healer who had traveled through the village two months before. “Though Mage Talon was a great and noble personage and clearly beloved of the gods, he labored mightily through a night and a day to save the lives of two of our own. In his service, the giant wrestled the cruel spirits that tormented Jono while the enchantments were being done. And even the thief obeyed the healer’s direction that night, keeping the fire lit to chase the dark away. Always will friends of the healer be welcome here.”

  Talon. I had to smile. Dante continually scoffed at the adventures of the beggar who became the councilor of a king. But only after I’d read aloud an hour or two.

  We stayed later than we intended in that shabby, sweltering room, talking of weather, of the measure of the sky, and of the varied lands we’d traveled in fact or in story. As the evening grew late, and the smoke of the elders’ pipes thick, I returned to Dante’s story. “Why,” I asked the blue-eyed headman, Ertan, “did you say Mage Talon was so clearly beloved of the gods? Sadly, that would not be the judgment he would put on himself.”

  The elder nodded seriously. “Then you must tell him, so that he will understand the wonder of his life. It is because the guardians left us so long ago, and speak to us no more. We have learned that when comes one who cannot hear our foolish noise, why, he is one to whom the guardians speak. And when comes one who cannot see, then that is one to whom the guardians will show themselves. It tells us that the guardians and He Who Wanders the Stars live, even though they live with us no longer.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I said. “But why have your gods—guardians—abandoned you?”

  He shook his head, sadly. “We know not. Our ancestors must have offended them terribly. The guardians lived with us from the Beginnings, and roamed with us across the plains, teaching us to hunt and fish. We gave them honor, with dancing and stories and always the first kill of the hunt, and they in turn brought the rains when it was dry, and made us strong and enduring. But they began to bicker among themselves and would not tell us their arguments and visited only rarely. Some said they were jealous of us—which seemed unlikely. But when came the unending winds, and the mighty rivers dried up and the land withered, they sent no help, so that our people withered also, until we are as you see us. We’ve heard rumors of holy ones who’ve taken on the duties of the daemons, but they’ve not come here.”

  Seldom had I heard such grief expressed so simply.

  “Their story is very like our tales of the Daemon War for Heaven,” said Ilario as we walked out to the house that had been vacated for us. “The angels fought among themselves about whether to tell humankind of our place in the Pantokrator’s heart, for Dimios and his fellows believed us not worthy to share the gifts of Heaven. But, of course, we of the Cult”—he glanced at Rhea, walking on his other side—“believe that Ianne, the first of the Saints Reborn, stole Heaven’s fire and brought it to the Living Realm, incurring the particular wrath of Dimios forever after. If ever I should encounter Ianne Reborn, I shall speak to him about this place.”

  He squeezed my arm. Though I knew what he believed of Portier—and what I had come to believe—I wasn’t ready to accept that other men or women were reborn to help the sorry world. For certain there were not enough of them. Nor was I ready to accept that some fallen angel ate the souls of the dead. Though, indeed, Portier, and my sister, and Dante had shown me there were many truths beyond science.

  Rhea stayed late talking to the women. With only a few words on her part, she drew them into telling everything about the patterns in their weaving.

  While Ilario slept, I could not. Instead, I wandered to the top of a low rise and sat to test the aether yet again. The stars were sharp and brilliant in the moonless sky, the air as pungent as fresh lemons.

  “He Who Wanders has swept his house this night. Expecting guests is he, do you think?”

  I near leapt from my skin, brushing the solid body sitting beside me. But I knew whose the rasping voice had to be.

  “You’re Otro,” I said.

  “Aye. And you follow the Daemon’s road. ’Tis a dangerous way, the Way of the Dead. He was sore beset by spirits already. He screams in the night. I think he wrestles them.”

  “He’s often screamed at night since he was blinded.” Finn had told me.

  “Mmm. This was not fear or grief. For one born in the dark, such terrors are but echoes. No”—his head bobbed against the scattered stars—“he fights for his soul. The Great War has never ended for the daemons.”

  “Why do you call him daemon? I know him. Your own people honor him for this healing he did here. He is human-born.” Very human.

  “Daemon is a very old word,” he said, laughing and patting my hand. “You see him. So help him.”

  “How? Where is he?”

  But the old man had gone as quickly and quietly as he’d come, leaving me mystified…and more worried than ever.

  THE NEXT MORNING, AS WE loaded our packs and bade the villagers farewell, a burly, bearded man in a long tunic and ragged breeches approached me. A small boy hid behind the big man, clinging to him shyly.

  “Name’s Jono,” he said, tugging his forelock. “I be the one what bought the luck-spell. ’Tis my boy, this one here, my only son, and me, that he saved from the madness. I thought I was an ill-luck man, yet he worked magic for the likes of me.…There’re no words to speak the wonder of it. But I never had no chance to thank him.”

  “He’ll be pleased you’re doing well. That’s thanks aplenty.”

  “Nay, words is not enough. You must tell him that Jono has his blood-debt, and if he’s ever in need of aught that a poor man could serve, then I will do for him, be it near or far, or tomorrow or fifty years from tomorrow or when we walk the stars with He Who Wanders.”

  “He will be deeply honored, Goodman Jono.”

  The shepherd dipped his head in satisfaction. He pulled the boy out from behind him, and nudged him toward me. “Show the lady, boy. My boy, Luz, has summat for the sorcerer. He’s a gift with his hand.”

  The child passed me a small roll of leather, tied with a strip of green rag, and then darted back behind his father.

  “You made this?” Expecting some childish scrawl, I gasped when I unrolled the page. A few charcoal lines rendered Dante’s features with astonishing likeness. But they reflected so much more. The wariness that years of loneliness had left on him. The little twist in the side of his mouth that was the prelude to his rare gift of a smile. The lines about his eyes that were etched by his longing to see. This was the man I knew.

  “Oh, Luz,” I said, “this is a precious gift. You’ve brought my dear friend very close. I’m in your debt.” I curtsied to the boy as was proper when acknowledging a debt.

  The man was pleased, and the boy hid a broad grin in his father’s tunic.

  Resolute, I shoved aside doubt and rode out with my friends on the Way of the Dead.

  Dante

  CHAPTER 27

  25 DUON

 
; MANCIBAR

  “Burn this house?” Surely I was only dreaming that Xanthe had dragged me out of my hole, dressed me in black leather and a purple cape, and taken me down into the city. “Whatever for? Surely there are people inside.” Criers had long called middle-night.

  Neighbors had begun to gather in front of the fine house, gaping at our guards and torches. And at my collar that shone like a lighthouse beacon. Unlike me, Xanthe was anonymous, hooded and masked, her Seeing Stones tucked under her mantle.

  “After sharing my bed this very morning, Lastegiere dared turn his back on me as he pranced through the market with his wife. I want everything he owns in ashes. Show me how to do it.” Her voice brooked no quarreling.

  “Certainly, Mistress, yes. But having wreaked a deal of unpleasantness on the people of Merona, may I suggest”—I grappled for the right words, the right tone—“that burning the man in his bed teaches no lesson. Whereas if he watches beside that proud wife and his neighbors, to whom he’s bragged of his conquest…Think of his helplessness. His shame. Make it sudden, so he comes from bed naked.…”

  She liked that very much. Indeed, the wine merchant burst from his house bare as a shorn sheep, trailing wife, near-grown son, five smaller children, and servants, as Xanthe’s green flames devoured the House of Lastegiere.

  Vengeance and humiliation became Xanthe’s new passion, the price of my bargain with her.

  My life had changed since the day I ripped apart Jacard’s illusion. Most definitely better, but most definitely riskier. I had to yield her more complete magics, some dangerous, some cruel. But in return for my forthcoming, Xanthe no longer stoppered my ears; I was now allowed to feed myself; and I spent far less time on my knees.

  Nights in the palace yet meant confinement in the sorcerer’s hole, and I was now locked away before the sun descended behind the red cliffs. Jacard would not hear of me being loose after dark, now my mistress gave me more freedoms. But in daylight hours, when I was not working with Xanthe on the Stones, I was allowed to enjoy a limited array of other amusements: a walk in the gardens, a game of stratagems, or a run down the palace road and back with Captain Hosten. By my reckoning it had been almost two months since I had last breathed the air of the world outside Jacard’s house. I began to feel alive again, and not the strange ghost I had become. But then she learned the pleasures of ruin.

  In the space of five days, we burnt another manse and flooded the shop of a dressmaker who had failed to sew enough pearls on Xanthe’s newest gown. I snarled and let fire belch from my staff to keep the onlookers at bay. She giggled at the spectacles beneath her enveloping cloak. Easy to guess her strategy. The evils would be laid at my feet, not hers.

  Indeed, as we walked up to Jacard’s house, whispers of daemon followed. I stirred up wind to blow sand in their eyes. My own, too, perhaps. Smothering conscience was easy.

  Patience, I told myself. Great gods, patience. Unraveling the Gautier plot had taken me years, and I’d come very near failure at least once every month. Even such limited freedom as Xanthe allowed meant information, the thing I had lacked most sorely. My participation was necessary. Xanthe did not trust easily.

  New activities and better prospects were not enough to banish the wild imaginings that plagued me in the sorcerer’s hole. I would have given much for the chance to talk with Portier about why in this godforsaken world he could believe he had stolen fire from Heaven. And why he had named me the Souleater’s champion.

  But, bathed in Mancibarran sunlight, I recited my own litany. I am a free man. I choose my own course. I do not believe in fate or destiny or saints or souleaters. Clearly there were depths of magic I had not plumbed. Someone else beyond the owners of the Seeing Stones could speak in dreams and insinuate prophecies into the mind. I just had to watch, listen, and find out who it was.

  THE FIRST DAY XANTHE TOOK me to morning market had me as foolishly excited as Ilario with a new coat. I relished the sights and sounds of commerce, the smells of teas and spices, frying meat and baking bread. I listened to news and gossip, and, whenever it was safe, asked questions.

  Both market and city were dismal places, quivering with unspoken anxieties. Sellers snapped at customers. The tables where one might expect people to linger drinking mezhalin, the thick bitter tea favored by the Arothi, were deserted and layered with dirt. Passersby kept eyes averted, not just from the Regent’s lady and the daemon mage, but from each other.

  Even the goods seemed poor quality and cheap, despite the city’s fine houses. The faces haggling over rotted fruit and coarse linen were pinched and gray. Save for Xanthe’s. Her complexion shone like polished moonlight over shiny beads and bracelets of lead and copper that no Sabrian lady would so much as give her servant. She lavished praises on the sellers and complimented their work and, having no idea what things were worth, was profligate with the coins Jacard had given her.

  “A plea, beauteous lady!” A gaunt woman in ragged silk darted from an alley and threw herself at Xanthe’s feet. “My son’s gone missing last Blood Night, but I’ve none more of family to feed me, nor to earn me through Ixtador’s gates. He was never a cheat. Nor was his dead father. I beg—”

  Xanthe laid a gentle hand on her head and whispered in her best imitation of Nessia’s sweetness. “Forgive me, sonjeura, but I am only a guest in the Regent’s house, scarce more than a prisoner myself. You see my fearsome guardians.”

  Xanthe’s hand masked her giggling as Hosten’s men threw the woman back into the alley. Casting sidewise glances at Hosten and me, she brushed off her skirts and continued her mission to a shoemaker’s stall.

  By our third trip to the market, it didn’t surprise me in the least to hear the whispering that the beauteous lady was but a gentle dupe.

  “I’VE A QUESTION, MISTRESS,” I said to Xanthe as she pawed through her myriad purchases on our return to her apartments one midday. “I’ve heard that Mancibar was a great banking center under Prince Damek. Caravan money, ship money, all was exchanged and held safe here. And yet you told me it had only a few soldiers and was an easy place for Regent Iaccar to conquer. If a city thrives on money exchanges, that makes no sense. And its location out here at the edge of the wastes, far from the seaports and well off the caravan routes, is wholly illogical.”

  Xanthe drained a wine cup and draped a deep blue veil around her pale hair. Her cheeks glowed from the wine and the excursion. “Well, of course it is because Mancibar was built upon Sirpuhi of the Red Cliffs. None would dare steal or cheat at Sirpuhi.”

  “But half the shops are closed. The exchanges deserted. What happened?”

  “Iaccar had Nessia speak dream words about a Spider God and his sticky webs, and about trapped children, sucked dry of blood and entrails. Spiders and scorpions appeared everywhere about the town, especially at dusk. Then he spread rumors that Prince Damek and his family and his cronies cheated on their accounts, and that their crimes drew the Spider God to feed on their bloated evils. The caravan dougas and ship captains lost faith and took their business elsewhere…”

  “…and so the people killed their prince and his allies.” I finished her thought and carried it further. “But the nightmares didn’t stop, nor the spiders, I’ll vow. Men say it’s because the prince yet haunts the city—a sign that this mysterious Spider God is not yet appeased.”

  “I cannot speak of that. Iaccar made me promise.” Xanthe’s lips pursed, teasing.

  Ghost rites. And people went missing on nights they called Blood Night. Even strong young nobles like her suitor Ageric were terrified to offend the Regent of Mancibar, who perhaps claimed he could appease the Spider God, who perhaps could direct this Spider God’s wrath upon those guilty of conspiring with the dead prince.

  I stood at Xanthe’s expansive windows, relishing the dry air and devouring the sunlit prospect of the gardens and lower town, and the vast fields and plains beyond.

  All of this foolery about haunts and spiders masked Jacard’s true purpose. He had come south to
find the Seeing Stones, a source of magic his uncle had hoped to use to upend nature. I could not believe my glory-hungry adept would use such power solely to create himself a little fiefdom at the edge of the wastes. And this elaboration of dreams and murder to lure Portier and me here for naught but petty vengeance seemed excessive, even for a petty mind like Jacard’s.

  I could accept his desire to conquer Sabria—the kingdom that had proved beyond his uncle’s reach. But why here? He could have chosen the teeming cities deeper in Aroth where the warlike people yearned for past glory and vengeance on Sabria. And I didn’t yet understand what made Mancibar’s history so powerful that it could protect fortunes, yet keep its legion so small.

  Sirpuhi. An Arothi word. In Castelivre, Adept Denys had read it.…