Thaumatology 12: Vengeance

by Niall Teasdale

‘You can do that?’ Aktik put in. ‘I could do that?’

  ‘Theoretically, yes.’

  Gwyn was wearing her patient smile, the one she reserved for trying to teach someone who was not getting it. ‘Relax,’ she said, in English. ‘You have the form you wish to create in your mind? The equations necessary to focus and direct the energy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cheryl replied, her eyes focussed on the palm of her right hand.

  ‘Now, imagine the energy growing at the base of your spine. Feel it rise. Feel it flow upward until it fills your mind. See the equation, in your mind, fill it with that energy…’

  There was a slight flicker in the air above Cheryl’s palm. Her eyes widened and her hand trembled, and the flicker steadied, becoming a globe of soft, bluish light about as bright as a candle. The thaumatologist gasped, lowering her hand, and the light remained hanging in the air.

  ‘Oh…’ Cheryl breathed.

  ‘Well done,’ Carter said, beaming like a teacher whose student had just cracked some difficult problem. ‘And from scratch too. That is really quite remarkable.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Cheryl whispered, a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

  Ceri remembered how Cheryl had reacted when she had given her boss a glimpse of what it was like to have the Sight at Stonehenge. The look of wonder which had come over the thaumatologist’s face had been almost childlike. This was more or less the same.

  ‘It’s just a light spell,’ Maganola commented.

  ‘When you cast your first ever spell,’ Ceri asked her, ‘were you not elated?’

  ‘I… I suppose I was excited when it finally worked,’ the demon admitted.

  ‘Now imagine that you never thought you would ever be able to do that. Not ever.’

  Demons were not empathic creatures as a rule; asking her to imagine such a circumstance was probably a little mean, but she was either a good actress or the thought was horrific enough to hit home. ‘Ah,’ Maganola said. ‘Then perhaps her reaction is… understandable. What of your first spell, Lady Ayasha? Did you react this way?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Ceri replied, ‘but the circumstances were different. The first time I cast a spell I blew a hole the size of your head in someone.’

  The demons fell silent. Ceri gave them a quick glance: they were looking slightly shocked. No, they were looking awed. Well, that was not entirely a bad thing. She had a feeling that that story was going to get spread around fairly quickly. Demons were attracted to power and if they could not have it, they wanted the people above them in the hierarchy to have it in spades.

  Beside her, Lily stirred, leaning toward Ceri, but smiling at the Guandosh. ‘It was her great power, even before she took up Gorefguhadget’s crown, which attracted me to my Mistress. Is she not the most desirable Mistress any demons could have?’

  Ceri winced inside, but kept the expression off her face. She knew Lily was hamming it up a bit for the benefit of their guests, but it was not entirely untrue.

  Then Ceri saw Carter. The wizard was watching the interplay with a thoughtful expression on his face. Did he know Lily was playing to the crowd?

  April 22nd.

  ‘You’ve been watching me,’ Ceri said.

  Another session in the magic room had finally ended as night fell. They were making good progress and Ceri was sure they could spare the time to give the children a tour of the castle in the morning. The Guandosh had retired to their rooms for a few hours, leaving the Earth party to their own recreation, and it had been the first chance Ceri had had to get Carter alone all day.

  ‘I have been… Very well, I’ve been watching you,’ the wizard replied. ‘I was concerned that the power you have here might… influence your state of mind.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think you’re handling it well. Lily is not the slave I feared she might be. You treat the demons well, even though you could order them to do as you wished. My concern was unwarranted.’

  Ceri smiled. ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’ Carter bowed his head. ‘You’re wrong, but thank you. You’ve set my mind at ease a bit.’

  Carter frowned. ‘I’m wrong?’

  ‘Every second I’m here, the temptation is… It’s just there. I’ve got the power of this whole world at my fingertips. Every demon here, from the lowest det to the highest Lord, is subject to my will. I can do just about anything. Every time I come through that portal I worry I’ll succumb to it…’

  ‘But you haven’t,’ Carter stated flatly. ‘You are controlling it, not the other way around.’ He put out a hand, resting it on her shoulder. ‘Lily told me that even when the dragons had you in their grip and you were opening the bridge for them, you were fighting it. That part of you wanted her to stop you. You came alone to this world to get her back, knowing the danger. When you first put that crown on you came home because you hated how Lily was reacting to it. You’ve the strongest will of anyone I know, Ceridwyn. I can’t think of a better person to be in this position.’ His serious expression shifted to a proud smile. ‘You’re a credit to all your lineages. Don’t forget it.’

  Westminster, London.

  ‘One hand?’ Barry said, frowning.

  Kate nodded. ‘He was missing his right hand. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘So we’re looking for someone with one hand. That doesn’t narrow things down too much.’

  ‘It might,’ John said. His boss raised an eyebrow. ‘Lily told us that she cut Huanglong’s hand off when he confronted her in the power station. He was human-shaped at the time. If he managed to survive the detonation of the bridge…’

  ‘But the man’s a sorcerer. If he survived, surely he could regrow a lost hand.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Kate replied. ‘That sword Lily used was enchanted somehow to make it hurt dragons. Maybe that enchantment is stopping him from repairing the damage. Whatever, it’s something to work with and I think it looked a bit like him. His face is still hazy so I’m not positive.’

  ‘All right,’ Barry said, sighing. ‘As you say, it’s something to work with. Get a description distributed. If he’s spotted he is not to be approached. If he’s even half as good as Ceri then he’s basically a magical disaster waiting to happen.’

  Castle of Bones, Demon Realm.

  Ceri opened her eyes and found herself looking at a mass of silver hair instead of the usual auburn or black. She grinned. Hiffy had just about flaked out where she lay when they had finished with her, and det were used to rather more violent sexual activities than humans were. Then again, for the special occasion, Ceri had allowed Lily to feed on both Hiffy and Michael while the latter was in wolf form and that tended to make for an incredible ride.

  Shifting a little so that she could look over her shoulder, Ceri confirmed that her other two bedmates were still there. The bed was huge, designed to comfortably accommodate two fifteen-foot-tall reptilian humanoids, and possibly a Lorril at the same time. Four more normally sized people had plenty of room. Having giants in your ancestry was not always that great, the chairs were too big for starters, but in this case it had worked out quite well.

  Grinning, Ceri reached out and trailed a finger down the blue skin over Hiffy’s spine. There was no immediate reaction, so she tried again and Hiffy’s tail twitched between her spread legs. Another stroke and the tail lifted, tensing and then trembling a little. This time Ceri slid her hand under the det’s hair, found the patch of smooth skin at the base of her skull, and began to circle her index finger over it. Hiffy’s tail began to twitch, first randomly and then with an obvious rhythm, and tiny whimpering noises came from under the mass of hair. Ceri had never discovered why some demons had the sensitive little patch on their neck. She had a theory that it was something to do with parenting, like the way young animals would go limp when picked up by the scruff of the neck. Whatever the truth, as they got older it turned into a direct path to their hindbrain, it seemed.

  ‘Fa, Ika,’ Hiffy mumbled. ‘Lebat dak.’ There was a little more groaning
and then, ‘Neka! Neka! Dak… kotach dak… neka… neka…’

  Suddenly Hiffy rolled sideways with a gasp, her eyes wide as she looked up into Ceri’s face. Ceri giggled. ‘Come back here and let me finish,’ she said softly.

  ‘But Mistress, what time is it? I shouldn’t have fallen sleep! I need to be working… Oh, this is terrible. It’s not my place. You have to punish me.’

  Ceri looked at the pleading look on the blue girl’s face. She was really afraid that she had overstepped the mark and might have affronted her Mistress. It was insane, but there was also no way she was going to persuade Hiffy that it was all alright, unless…

  ‘All right,’ Ceri said. She reached out and light sparkled around her fingers as she touched them to Hiffy’s forehead. ‘There, you’re punished.’

  Hiffy blinked at her. ‘M-mistress?’

  ‘Until I leave tomorrow you won’t be able to come, no matter how much you try. You’ll just get more and more wound up.’ Hiffy’s eyes were growing into saucers. ‘And I will be expecting you to come back to my rooms on a regular basis to perform all your duties. When I leave, all that pent up frustration is going to come out… all at once.’

  ‘You… Mistress is punishing me with pleasure?’

  ‘Mistress doesn’t think you need to be punished,’ Ceri replied, ‘but you do, so this is what you get. In future, I hope you’ll remember that it’s I who decide who needs punishing and when.’

  Hiffy cast her eyes downward. ‘Yes, Mistress,’ she said, her tone contrite. ‘I’ll go see about some refreshment before you start your studies again.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘That was really mean,’ Lily said once Hiffy had scampered off. ‘Brilliant, but mean. I think she’ll figure out she’s a favourite and not be so unsure of herself after this.’

  ‘I hope so. I sort of enjoy her worrying over me, but not when it’s patently obvious I wasn’t displeased. And I know it wasn’t as obvious to her, but she needs to learn I’m not a demon.’

  ‘She’ll get there,’ Lily replied, the grin evident in her voice, ‘as long as she doesn’t explode before we leave.’

  ~~~

  ‘We need to come up with a way of insulating the terminal point from the water,’ Ed mused. ‘The resistance to the spread of the resulting field would be significant.’

  There was a slight pause while Cheryl listened to Carter’s translation and then, ‘It’s worse than that. You’re going to get a thermal reaction from the absorption of thaumitons. By my calculations… you’re going to boil the water near the final pylon.’

  A round of gasps went up from the Guandosh when they heard the translation of that one. ‘A little warmer might be welcome,’ Cagol said, ‘but we could not stand such extremes.’

  ‘What about your canal idea, Ceri,’ Cheryl suggested, ‘except more like… a tree.’

  Ceri gave her a nod and said, in Devotik, ‘Cheryl reminds me of an idea Gwyn proposed, actually, to distribute energy to different areas of our domain.’ Demons did not really have countries, and while it made it sound like the humans were in charge of England, domain was as close as she could get. ‘We could branch off the main line into many locations around the city. You would not get such a large rise in thaumic level in one place, but you would not get the massive heating problem.’

  She scribbled some notations up in the air and stared at them for a few seconds. Her eyes widened and she turned to look at Cheryl. Her boss’ eyes were getting slowly wider as well.

  ‘God but I love it when we’re on the same wavelength,’ Ceri said, grinning broadly.

  ‘Like the generator,’ Cheryl said, ‘but on a much grander scale.’

  ‘Bigger, but lower power. A standing wave within a circle of containment nodes.’

  Ed bounced to his feet, beaming and peered at the equations. ‘It has been… centuries!’ he said. ‘Centuries since a student of mine taught me something new. And not just a student of mine.’ He turned his smile on Cheryl. ‘No talent for magic my enormous, tailed behind,’ he stated. ‘I have no idea why you can’t cast spells on Earth, my dear, but it’s not for lack of talent.’

  Carter barked out a laugh while Cheryl went scarlet, and the Guandosh looked between the various Earth people wondering what was going on.

  Aktik, of course, picked up on it first. ‘Is this describing some sort of… interference mechanism?’ he asked.

  Ceri smiled at him, and then at the other demons. ‘You five are about to become the supervisors of the largest magical engineering project this world has ever seen.’

  ~~~

  Ceri stood in the portal chamber, Lily on one side and a rather fidgety Hiffy on the other, as a stream of children walked through the gate from Nedarim. Ceri had dressed up for the occasion; she thought the kids would want the full show, so here she was in her witch-seductress outfit with her staff in hand.

  There were twenty-three children in total, though a few were older and there to make sure that the younger ones behaved themselves. They all stood there with their mouths open until Brebbam came through, bringing up the rear, and Ceri closed the door.

  ‘All right,’ Ceri said, ‘welcome to the Castle of Bones, stronghold of the Overlord of All Demons. I am Ayasha, as I’m sure most of you remember.’ There were a lot of slow, awed, nods. ‘Good. Now, I have business to attend to, and you’ll all stand there like statues if I’m around, so Lilith and Hiffy are going to be giving you the tour. They both know all about the castle, so ask them lots of questions.’

  A hand went up at the front and Ceri smiled indulgently. ‘Yes. Ooda?’

  ‘Lady Ayasha, will we get to see the dungeon?’

  ‘I am informed by my advisor that the torture chamber is perhaps the finest example of its kind in the realm, if a little lacking in the most modern of terrible devices for inflicting horrific pain upon naughty young det. You will be getting to see it, because any young demon should have a full education. Should you not be on your best behaviour, you will be able to see it in use. Are we clear?’

  ‘Yes, Lady Ayasha,’ the children chorused.

  ‘Ooda?’

  ‘Yes, Lady Ayasha?’

  ‘You will not do something naughty because you want to try out the torture machines. Ask Hiffy what I do to people who think they should be punished.’

  Ooda tried not to pout and almost managed it. ‘Yes, Lady Ayasha.’

  ~~~

  Ceri sprawled on one of the chairs in the magic room, watching as the Guandosh went over the equations and the methodology for using them with Ed and, via Carter, Cheryl. She felt tired, elated, and a little silly since she was still dressed in her witchy gown. It was all going so well. None of the problems the Guandosh had would affect transmission through her tunnel system, they could trial the Australian lines in the Demon Realm without trouble, and the result would be an improved lifestyle for an entire domain.

  ‘You seem happy, Lady,’ Brebbam said, appearing beside her.

  ‘I am,’ she replied, giving him a smile. ‘This…’ She waved her hand at the party of Guandosh. ‘This is kind of why I got into thaumatology.’

  ‘To improve things?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t get me wrong, I had selfish motives as well. I wanted to know. I wanted to know things other people didn’t. But I always hoped that what I learned would benefit people other than a few academics.’ She frowned. ‘The old Lord of Shilfaris, the one I killed, his father gave a speech once about how something Cheryl and I invented would be useful for something other than hurting people. He said it was why he’d got into his line of work, to make life better through magic and…’ There was no word for technology in Devotik. ‘Magic and mechanisms,’ she tried. ‘That’s not quite what he said, but it’s close enough.’

  ‘Mechanisms like the one you had Yeland build for you?’

  ‘A bit more complex, but yes.’

  ‘Yeland did as you suggested. He built a few of them, set them up so that if they registered more than three quot
they would ring a bell. He sold a couple, but not too many. Still, he made enough to be happy. Then one of his customers returned and wanted to know if he could make a lot more. Seems he’d been on his way to Shilfaris when a Wild Storm came through.’

  ‘A Wild Storm?’

  ‘We get them now and again on the plains. Higher demons can usually see or feel them coming and take shelter. Det quite often think they’re nothing but rain until it’s too late. The rain is charged by the strong magic in the clouds. It’ll eat its way through just about anything given time. Gilfaskeel is the only thing that’ll stop it. Seems Yeland’s bell started pinging and the merchant pulled up his caravan and got everyone under cover, and not a minute too soon.’

  ‘So now Yeland’s rich?’

  ‘He likely will be, but he’s been bright enough to say that the Overlord herself told him how to build his little bell boxes. It made his customers trust them more, and he could up the price a bit. They could save many lives. Making life better through magic and mechanisms.’ He gave her a smile and a nod. ‘We could have had a much, much worse person pick up Gorefguhadget’s crown, Lady.’

  ‘Oh!’ one of the Guandosh burst out at that moment. His name was Qoda and he seemed to be the least senior of the five, and the least well- versed in magic. ‘I see it. It’s just like the vibrations and counter-vibrations in a Gunbotva horn!’

  Ceri gave a frown. ‘Why is it always the musicians who get this first?’

  April 23rd.

  The door of the magic room opened quite abruptly and Hiffy marched in with the look of someone trying very hard not to run. A crowd of children were standing on the landing behind her and she could see a few nervous looks on some of their faces.

  Hiffy walked straight to where Ceri was sitting and bent down to whisper in her ear. ‘Mistress, there’s something outside you should see.’

  ‘We’re a little busy…’

  ‘Mistress…’ Ceri gave the blue det a frown; she did seem quite urgent. ‘I took the children up to the watchtower and there’s an army marching up to the front door.’