The Daemon Prism: A Novel of the Collegia Magica

by Carol Berg

  So I spread my arms and planted my staff, and as the starving spectres gathered round, I let my anger enfold them, engulf them, drain their incoherent fury to add to mine, and when my power was swollen so huge, I thought my soul must shatter, I shot flame from my staff and cried, “Begone, Dimios Souleater, back to your ice caves. Face me, if you dare.…”

  Ilario

  CHAPTER 40

  “You don’t know where he’s gone?” Andero stared down at Por­tier’s naked corpus and the empty place where I had laid Dante. The good smith was near tearing his hair at Anne’s declaration. “Chevalier didn’t say he’d be vanished.”

  Well, it wasn’t as if I’d actually known what Anne was going to do with Dante. She just said to put him in the enchanted circle with Portier and make sure Portier was touching him. She’d had that look on her face that was so much like Dante’s when he was working enchantment—absolute certainty. Open a path through the eternal Veil? Raise the dead? Explode a mountain? Of course I can do that. Or, I’m going to live with a murderous blind sorcerer who can skewer a man’s heart with a thought, but deep inside all that crust and anger, he loves me dearly.

  I’d never been that certain about anything in my life. But Anne de Vernase had always proved her certainties, so I had laid the poor devil Dante beside Portier, who lay on that dirty stone floor waiting to die, and we both shrugged and yielded to a woman like none other in the world. If Anne had told me that Dante was going to walk back out of Heaven with the Pantokrator’s scepter, I had no doubt he would. I was surprised to hear she didn’t know.

  “He’s in Ixtador, I suppose.” Still she held her grief in check. “He was in torment here. He said he was the Souleater’s Hand in the Living World. He was being driven to obedience with pain, readied for the moment his master would walk free. But he was fighting it with everything in him. Why do you think this roof is still intact? You told us how amazing it was that half the population of Mancibar wasn’t dead. Why so? Because Dante deflected and diverted and did whatever he could to mitigate the violence of their conflict. He was trapped here where he couldn’t fight freely. He needed to be in Ixtador. That’s why he wanted to die—not in despair, but in frustration because his body, his instincts, everything he was, told him he was supposed to fight, to destroy, to wield wild magic…but not here. If he prevails, then Ixtador will be no more, and the Souleater will lose his feast of souls. If not…I can’t think it would be worse there than what he was enduring here.” That’s when her voice broke. “Gods save me, Andero, I didn’t want to lose him.”

  Not even I wanted to lose him. She’d been right about him all along. Dante was her completion, her joy…and I would do anything necessary to bring joy to Anne de Vernase.

  Andero cared a deal about Dante, too. I never would have picked that gentle man for Dante’s brother—especially after hearing about their upbringing. Then again, I’d seen him put a few of the palace guards down with a move that near snapped their spines.

  “No, no, I understand you didn’t,” he said, “but spirits and daemons, lady, he wasn’t dead! What does he do there? Have you a spell to get him back? Can you talk to him in your way? Touch him as you do, to know if he lives?”

  “There are no spells anymore. No aether. No voices. No sense of him. The Seeing Stones are no longer in the living world, and magic’s gone with them, and I don’t know that he can ever get back.” And she had known it when she sent Dante beyond the Veil. “It means we won,” she said, though never was victory pronounced with such sorrow. “Portier did what was needed—dear, blessed man. The Souleater won’t walk free in this world. It remains to be seen about the next.…”

  Ah, Portier, I thought. There’s a hole in the world where you ought to be. We’ll not forget. My chosen life had forbidden me many friends. That one should be a Saint Reborn must serve a lifetime’s wonder. It near left me grinning to imagine him—so slight, so intense, so reserved, yet bold enough to challenge the Creator of the universe and steal his holy magic.

  “I understand your grieving for your friends,” said Rhea, packing up her kit. “But there are others who may need us. I’m going to the tetrarch.”

  “Damnation!” I yelped. Lost in thoughts of the dead and missing, I had entirely forgotten the brave men who’d gotten us here. “The palace guard don’t know Jacard’s orders aren’t in force any longer. Will you come, Andero?”

  “Aye. Could use a fight.”

  I, too. I turned to Anne.…

  Her eyes darted to Portier; her hands fidgeted. “I’ll come,” she said. “I just need something first.…” She glanced around, then visited the adjoining cell where we had laid Dante. She emerged with empty hands, agitated beyond reason.

  Rhea picked up something from a stack in the passage. “Use his shirt,” she said, handing Anne a wad of cloth. “He was a tidy man?”

  Anne laid the shirt over Portier’s face, and his hose across his privates. It wasn’t all that dignified. I looked at her askance, and she colored a bit. Even laughed a bit. “All right. It makes me feel better,” she said.

  Indeed Portier had been a tidy man. He had removed his clothes, folded them, and left them in a stack. And just like Altheus, he had stopped breathing just before I stuck my knife in his neck. I hadn’t had to kill him. Blessed saints…Grief unsheathed its blade and plowed it into my gut.

  “When we come back we’ll dress him,” said Rhea. She brushed my hair with her fingers. Rhea had a gift for comforting. All these days…years…not even my sister, Geni, had guessed how I felt about Anne.

  Anne still wasn’t done, though. “Where’s Dante’s staff? It’s not enchanted anymore, but it would make a decent fighting stave.”

  I waved my hand. “Uh, I kept it with him. You didn’t say not. He didn’t look right without.”

  That got a genuine laugh out of her, no matter that it was laced with tears. “It might do him more good there than it will here. If Ixtador is formed of the aether, perhaps his magic will work.”

  “And if Dante de Raghinne can work enchantments beyond the Veil,” I said, “then he’ll find his way back to you.” No brighter beacon existed in the universe.

  “Aye,” said Andero. “I’d say he would. His is the stubbornest head and heart was ever born to woman.”

  I prayed we were right. I had heard the message he’d sent her through Will Deune. For the first time, I knew Anne’s certainty about Dante was the truth. I was content.

  RHEA HAD NO ONE TO HEAL. Tetrarch de Ferrau lay dead in the waiting room along with two of his bailiffs. The other two had vanished along with the guards who had held them captive. The whole place seemed deserted. Servants, guards, and courtiers must have gone to see to their families amid the terrors of the night. To our astonishment, dawn was breaking. A clear, silvery desert dawn. We saw no signs of fire down in the city.

  We found a buttery and drank gratefully. Then we returned to the navel of the world and placed Portier in Altheus’s—his own—tomb. We didn’t think he’d mind mixing his bones. He wasn’t truly there.

  We left the vile mess that was Jacard where it lay, but Xanthe was missing. We found the blood pool where she’d fallen. Mayhap she crawled away. Mayhap she’d dissolved to dust and mingled with the rubble from the shattered statues.

  Rhea spotted me kneading my tender gut and suggested we burn the tetrarch and his two men. The palace sat on rock, too hard for digging, yet we couldn’t leave them behind. De Ferrau had helped us find the answers we needed, difficult as they were to hear…and to live with.

  We built the pyre in front of the palace, searched out lamps and oil, and waited until we were sure the flames would take our comrades. Likely all in town could see it.

  Then we left. The red-haired captain was manning the gates. As none of us were Portier or Dante, he let us pass.

  “Hosten, isn’t it?” said Anne, once we were outside. “We’re messengers from the saints, sent to free Mancibar. The Regent is dead, as is the Lady Xanthe. Go to the crypt
and you’ll see. There will be no more vanishings. No more bleeding. The daemon mage is no longer in this world. Have mercy on your citizens and keep order. You’re in charge here.”

  He might have believed us; he might not. To my mind he looked relieved as he charged off toward the palace.

  We returned to the scholar’s house and slept the clock around. Two days later we rode north.

  WE WERE A QUIET COMPANY. We had won such a victory as no cadre of soldiers ever had. But each of us had left a piece of the heart behind, even Rhea. She knew the two dead bailiffs well, and de Ferrau had been her master since she was twelve.

  We chose a route that bypassed Hoven. Andero’s honor demanded he return there to finish out his bargain, but I wouldn’t hear of it. “We need you,” I said, pulling him aside. “Anne has no magic, and to be honest, my insides are still as tender as a rabbit’s kit. Once we’re through the wilds of Kadr, you can head back for Hoven if you feel it right. But be prepared. Rhea will likely insist on going along to look after your head. I don’t think she’s ever seen one so hard, as she never got a chance to tend your brother.”

  “She’s a marvel,” said the smith, watching her riding beside Anne. “So wise. And she’s a quietness about her as I’ve never seen.…”

  I muzzled my grin. Rhea had confided that she found the smith’s quiet ways a marvel, as well. “He’s the gentlest man I’ve ever met, especially for one who’s gone soldiering, especially when one considers what his brother is…was. And smithing is such a stalwart profession.…”

  Which being a gentleman in the queen’s service—and occasional swordsman and agente confide—was most certainly not. She had spent a great deal of time during my recovery trying to persuade me to become a Temple scholar. When I told her that my wardrobe would just not support that shade of green nor my reputation support any designation as scholar, she had left me eating porridge for three days running.

  Of course, that was before I had told her that it was the Cult had claimed my loyalty when I was a boy and our converse grew more serious. I didn’t think she’d be going back to the Temple right away, if ever. Over our last game of stratagems, the previous autumn, my royal brother-in-law had told me of a plan to build a new kind of hospice in Tigano. I had a notion he might be interested in a fine physician once Andero’s time in Hoven was done.

  It was Anne worried me. She didn’t want to go back to her parents, yet without Dante…I wasn’t sure anywhere would feel like home for a good while. It was not a place I could fill. Not this time.

  As we traveled, it seemed to me a peace settled over the world. I didn’t dare suggest what that meant. Anne assumed the quiet was merely the absence of voices in her head.

  On our tenth day out from Mancibar, our track from the southwest rejoined the ghost road near the village of the shepherds, the impoverished little place where people spoke of the Pantokrator and the guardians as personal correspondents and the War for Heaven as if it had occurred last month. Comparing the scholar’s map to Andero’s, we judged we’d come out to the north of the village, which meant it required a backtrack to go there.

  Anne was of a mind to pass it by. “I’m tired of the road,” she said. “I need to be home.” She didn’t say where home might be, now Pradoverde was ash.

  “I want to contract for some of their woolens,” I said. “You know how I adore such fine colors, and, saints know, they could use the coin.”

  But it wasn’t that entirely. These people had shown an uncanny connection with the sublime that I believed all four of us could use. The old man Otro had called Dante the Daemon, and spoken of him as wrestling daemons, fighting for his soul. And so he had been. We had come full circle on this journey, and I felt the need to acknowledge it.

  “All right, then.” Anne had no vigor to argue, which told me much of her state.

  THE WHOLE VILLAGE, SAVE THOSE off with the sheep, came out to greet us. They honored Andero, especially, saying he had wrestled the cruel spirits possessing their man Jono while Dante cast them out. Young and old begged him to tell stories of his journey and the fate of the great and noble mage he served. He deferred to Anne.

  Thus, on that night after feasting, Anne told the story of Portier and Dante, Jacard and Xanthe, of the rent in the Veil and our narrow escape from having the Souleater free to ruin the human world. She crafted our grim tale in the language of myth and legend, holding the villagers rapt for near two hours. And when she was done, she smiled at me across the sea of heads and nodded, and I knew it had been right to come.

  “Have you called the great sorcerer home?” asked Ertan, the headman, laying a withered hand on hers. “Surely you’ve not left him to wander the stars before his time.”

  “I’ve no enchantments to bring him, and I am bereft of prayers.” The weight of sadness in her admission must surely make the stars weep. “He might be prisoned in the ice caves.”

  “ ’Tis only a call, no prayer or enchantment,” said an old women. “We call those who are dead and they come to us, but if your healer lives, how much easier for him to hear. A place away from day business makes it easier to hear. We’ll go with you. ’Tis a night of no moon, so the stars will be bright enough to guide him.” And they began gathering blankets and rugs, children, hats, honey cakes, flasks of tea, and walking sticks.

  “Perhaps I could just speak to Otro,” said Anne, a bit dismayed. “We talked last time.”

  “Well, then, you see,” said Ertan. “Your voice is clearly heard among the stars. How much easier to call one who shares your heart.”

  Anne seemed bewildered. So was I, but being of a less scientific bent than Anne, I caught what he meant. “This Otro,” I said, “he is not living?”

  “Gracious, no,” said Ertan. “Otro was my father’s father, and I’m so old my bones wither. Otro loves this land and all of us, so he remains close.”

  Anne was wordless. As was I, which my friends will say is not at all usual.

  With the entire village shepherding us, we made a jabbering procession out of the village and onto the rolling meadows beyond. Men sang and women laughed. Children darted about like fleas, forging ahead and then bouncing back as if they rode bowstrings, released from dusky bedtime as though it were solstice night.

  When we reached the hilltop place of their choosing, they spread their blankets and rugs on the rocks and grass and shared out the honey cakes and cooling tea, as grand a feast as I had ever experienced. There were no prayers or invocations, only quiet conversation and good cheer.

  Andero and Rhea were quickly caught up in a game of chase. Anne and I were left alone on the edge of the crowd. A matter of respect for her grief, I believed.

  “It is a peaceful place,” said Anne. “No matter their foolish ideas, I’m glad we came. Nice to be somewhere the people honor him.”

  “But have you called him?” This from a bent old man now sitting beside us. I wasn’t at all sure he had walked up from the village. I decided that perhaps I wouldn’t look at him too closely.

  Anne did, of course. “Otro! Can you tell me where he is?”

  “He wanders. Weary and lost. Searching. Call him. They’ll bring him if they hear.”

  I’d swear on my blessed father’s dead eyes that the old man vanished or perhaps turned into a star. And I’d swear on my blessed mother’s heart that when Anne closed her eyes and began whispering Dante’s name, that naught but a sheet of stars topped the next rise, though I blinked and a dark shape stood there. And I’d swear on my own hope of Heaven that he was escorted down the swale and up the hill we inhabited accompanied by a sea of faces that you could see only if you weren’t quite looking at them.

  He leaned heavily on his white staff and was as naked as a plucked chicken save for the silver chain and pendant I’d put about his neck myself. “Anne!” he called, hoarse as if he’d been calling for a century. “Where are you? Anne!”

  All our hearts stopped, I think. Mine certainly. Anne’s hand flew to her mouth. Andero halted in
his tracks, the game of chase swirling below him like a turbulent river about a rock. Rhea paused beside him.

  None of us moved toward Dante. I wasn’t sure our feet could tread the swirling darkness between us. He paused and touched the nireal, then straightened his path directly toward Anne. Hurrying. Faster. Shedding his companions. Another hesitation.

  “Dante!” she called.

  Even when he came within a few metres, he strained to see.…Then he touched the nireal and took a few more steps. Felt his way with the staff. Blind again.

  “Dante, beloved!”

  “Oh, blessed gods…” He slumped to his knees and pressed his brow to his staff, rocking back and forth. And then he craned his head back and released a great bellow, of triumph and hurt, of joy and exhaustion, of loneliness and pain and grief beyond a mortal lifetime’s measure.

  Anne knelt in front of him and stroked his hair, and I could not say what was spoken. But she soon laid his staff aside and enfolded him in her arms. He rested there, his head upon her breast, hers upon his black hair, and never did her hands stop soothing and comforting. After a while, she helped him to his feet, and they walked hand in hand up the hill.