Thaumatology 12: Vengeance

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘That can be arranged,’ Gwyn said, nodding. ‘We can go over it while he’s here for the conference.’

  Faran was dialling an internal number on the phone. ‘I’ll organise something with the Dean’s office. I think he’ll consider this urgent.’

  Ceri nodded. ‘Have we had confirmation of who’s coming over from America?’

  Cheryl turned to her computer. ‘I think so… Yes, we’ve got the list.’

  ‘Is there a Billie Farmer on it?’

  ‘Um… Yes, she’s there. She’s part of the team presenting their work on the collider.’

  ‘Okay, what about Martin Whitaker?’

  ‘Whitaker… no.’

  ‘Okay, I need to set up a call with Barclay Macbay. We want Martin over here for the conference. He’ll be a student by now, but he’s a sorcerer. We want him here.’

  ‘That is going to take more doing,’ Cheryl said.

  ‘Yeah. I’m aware of that. Last thing: can you come over to High Towers on Sunday? Bring the full analysis kit. I’m going to bring Hiffy over to this side to make sure it’s actually possible for det to do it.’

  ‘She’s going to be lost, the poor thing,’ Cheryl replied, her face wrinkling in concern. ‘She won’t understand half of what’s going on for starters.’

  ‘I had an idea about that. I think I have it covered. Can you come?’

  ‘Of course. Try and stop me.’

  Soho.

  The moon was waning, which tended to cut the werewolf population, but the undead had not taken up the slack so much. Rumour was that there was still a lot of noise among the vampires after Hildegard Braun’s nature became known to more of them. No one had seen her in weeks, no one had heard from her, and there was disquiet among the ranks.

  On the other hand, there were more Fae in than ever. Ceri’s tables were exclusively occupied by Sidhe of one faction or the other. Ophelia’s almost always were, but tonight only Lily and Sasha had humans, and they were celebrities who spent a lot of time watching Ceri as she went about her work.

  And doing something as simple as waiting tables had never felt so wonderfully normal.

  ‘I’m still having some trouble adjusting to working with royalty,’ Sasha commented while she waited to be needed with Ceri.

  Ceri glanced at her; the blonde was grinning, but there was a hint of nervousness about it. ‘In here, on duty, I’m as royal as you are. Even if half the Fae insist on calling me Lady Ayasha.’

  Sasha, the only one not privy to Ceri’s secrets before they had come out, had been briefed before the club opened. She had seen High Towers on the news, of course, and heard some of the weird reports. But Ceri and Lily had featured in that kind of news before, and in a few things Sasha knew had happened, even if she did not know exactly what had happened.

  ‘Yeah… but…’ Sasha’s pretty face contorted as she worked out what it was she wanted to say. ‘I mean, you’ve got a palace…’

  ‘A castle.’

  ‘A castle, with servants…’

  ‘The castle has a staff to run it because I’m not there all the time…’ Ceri sagged a little. ‘Okay, well, yes. When I’m there they do insist on serving me, but it’s more like… like a government office. With a torture chamber, barracks, and a small army. What I’m trying to say, and doing it badly, is that I’m still the same person and I just got stuck with running the Demon Realm. It’s not like I was born…’

  ‘You’ve got dragons in your ancestry, Ceri,’ Sasha pointed out.

  Sagging a little more, Ceri gave her friend a grimace. ‘Look… Are you and Ophelia still trying out your newfound liking for women?’

  Sasha went scarlet. ‘I… Well we get together now and then.’

  ‘Well, get her to take you over to the castle and you can see for yourself.’

  There was a squeak and Sasha’s eyes tried to pop out on stalks. ‘Really?! I could go to… Oh wow. That’d be amazing!’

  ‘Maybe you should start tours,’ Alec suggested from across the bar. ‘Come to the Demon Realm. See the Castle of Bones. Marvel at the slave markets of Shilfaris.’

  ‘Shilfaris only has one slave market,’ Ceri replied. ‘It’s in the square at Low Gate.’

  ‘They really have slave markets,’ Sasha asked.

  ‘They really do. You’d fetch a handsome price. Blue eyes are a rarity.’

  ‘I didn’t need to know that.’

  Ceri decided that resistance was futile; she just had to say it. ‘Yeah, but if you do happen to fancy a bit of demon rough, you won’t be short of takers. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Lily arrived as Sasha’s face shifted to mortified. ‘Dad always hoped I’d get Mom’s eyes,’ the half-succubus said. ‘Hers are green, not blue, but that’s pretty uncommon in demons too.’

  ‘But your eyes are gorgeous!’ Sasha countered. ‘They’re dark, and exotic, and…’

  ‘Ordinary, if you’re a demon. Very few manage anything as light as hazel. Some have red, of course, but blues and greens? Big money in the slave markets.’

  Sasha grimaced. ‘Not helping,’ she sing-songed. ‘Didn’t they try to make you into a slave, Ceri?’

  ‘Fourth day I was there a couple of them got wind of a blue-eyed female in East Ward and gave it a try.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I left the corpses in the street,’ Ceri replied, and then pushed away from the bar to head for table eleven.

  Kennington, May 5th.

  Hiffy looked incredibly nervous as she stepped through the portal into the hall at High Towers. She was dressed in one of her more formal outfits: the bodice was not as low cut as she often wore, there were sleeves, and a long skirt. The skirt was shifting about as her tail twitched beneath it.

  As she had been instructed, she stood perfectly still when she was through while Ceri held the portal open, both Cheryl and Carter peered at thaumometers, and Gwyn and Mei checked her over with their Sight.

  ‘Everything looks normal,’ Cheryl said after a few seconds. ‘No unusual readings.’

  ‘We concur,’ Gwyn added. ‘Her body does not seem to be reacting negatively to the reduced magical field.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ceri said, and collapsed the portal.

  There was more peering at instruments and Hiffy, and Ceri joined in this time. As far as she could see, the det’s medians were holding steady. There was no sign of anything odd in the flow of energy around her body. She looked like a human, or a blue human with a tail anyway, though the balance between her chakral and tantric medians was different.

  ‘All right,’ Ceri said. ‘I think we’re safe for now. We’ll watch you for a couple of hours to make sure, but it looks like there’s not going to be a problem.’

  Hiffy gave a nod and then looked around as Twill buzzed in from the kitchen, flew around her once and then came to a stop a few inches from her face. Then Hiffy took a deep breath, bobbed a curtsey, and began to speak.

  ‘Mistress Twill… Good morning… I hope that I do not intrude upon your… territory.’

  Ceri had taught her the little speech when she had cast the spell which let Hiffy speak English. When Ceri had danced with Huanglong, he had used a spell to gift her his skill. Now she had used a variant of it to let Hiffy use her command of English. The det was taking a little time to get used to the new language, and it would leave her when the spell expired, but it seemed to be working.

  Twill was looking suitably surprised at the show of deference. ‘Well… any friend of Ceri’s is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Thank you, but Lady Ayasha is…’ The det’s eyes widened suddenly and she looked around at Ceri. ‘I can’t feel… I mean it’s like when we first met. Before the Crown.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ceri said, lifting her crown from her head with some relief. ‘It only works like that in the Realm. Here…’ She frowned. ‘I think it makes it a little easier to control demons, but it doesn’t have anything like the power it has over there. So I’m Ceri, or Ayasha if you must, and we’re frie
nds, just like back in Shilfaris.’

  Hiffy beamed at her. ‘Oh… I think I’m going to enjoy being here,’ she said.

  ~~~

  Hiffy had taken to the concept of sunbathing quite happily. She lay in the sun, her eyes closed, her tail waving lazily in the still air, while Cheryl ran a trio of scanning thaumometers in a circle around her. Cheryl’s professionalism had not lasted in the face of Hiffy, Lily, and Ceri stripping off to enjoy the sun, though she had just stripped down to her knickers.

  Lily had, of course, suggested they go up to the roof. Carter had stated that it was too hot and he would just be in the way, and even the thought of four naked women had not been enough to get him up the ladder. He was downstairs in the study, chatting with Gwyn. Lily had, rightly, pointed out that the light in the Demon Realm was significantly different from Earth. Hiffy should be observed under direct sunlight to ensure that it did not cause damage. Faran had opened his mouth to state the obvious and then closed it when his daughter had glared at him.

  ‘So, that big light?’ Hiffy said, sounding a little drowsy. ‘That is the “sun?” How does it glow like that? It’s so hot!’

  ‘Well,’ Cheryl said, ‘we don’t really know for certain. All the evidence is that it uses something called nuclear fusion. Research into that kind of thing is all pure theory, however. Mention “nuclear” to someone when you’re asking for a budget and they stop listening.’

  ‘It would probably be a little cooler if you had paler skin,’ Ceri added. ‘Darker pigments tend to absorb more of the heat. We better check you aren’t burning. That thing is… Well, the distance wouldn’t mean anything to you, but it’s very, very far away, and it still heats us up like that. All the life on the planet is basically driven by that big ball of gas. Sometime I’m going to have to work out where your world gets light from.’

  ‘Well,’ Ishifa said, sounding a little wary, ‘there’s the story of the Devim Who Flew Too High, but that’s more of a child’s tale.’

  ‘Tef and the Great Black Horg turned out to have a bit of truth to it,’ Lily commented.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ceri agreed. ‘What happened to the Devim?’

  ‘Well…’ Hiffy said. ‘Um… Back when Gorefguhadget was Lord of All Demons there lived a Devim who was more than safely curious. Everyone knows that curiosity is for the rich, the great, and the foolish, and the Devim was certainly not rich or great, but he did like asking a lot of questions.’

  ‘This is meant to teach children not to ask questions, isn’t it?’ Ceri said.

  ‘Of course it is,’ Lily replied. ‘Hush and let her tell the story.’

  ‘Sorry, Hiffy. Please go on.’ Hiffy was looking between Ceri and Lily as though she was expecting lightning bolts to be thrown around. ‘No crown, remember?’ Ceri explained. ‘You could insult me all you like here. Obviously, I’d have to have your entrails hauled out on hooks when I got you back to the castle…’

  Giving a rather timid grin, Hiffy went on with her story. ‘Uh… oh yes… The Devim would ask why the sky was red, or why the night was dark. He would wonder about magic and he would think, as deeply as any Devim could, about even the most mundane of things. He would ask his questions of det, he would ask his friends, and he would ask his betters. And then, one day, a question came to him which no one knew the answer to: where does the light in the sky come from?’

  ‘This is sounding kind of positive,’ Ceri commented.

  ‘Even money says it doesn’t have a happy ending,’ Cheryl murmured, still watching the thaumometer displays.

  Hiffy glanced between them before continuing. ‘Getting no answer to his question, and consumed with his greed to find the answer, the Devim eventually made the long journey to the Castle of Bones where Great Gorefguhadget sat upon his dark throne. Abasing himself before the Lord of All Demons, he said, “Great and wise Gorefguhadget, you are the most clever and knowledgeable of all. I beg you to answer a question which has been searing my very soul. Where does the light in the sky come from?” The great Overlord looked down from his throne and smiled. All in his court expected him to strike down the impertinent Devim, but he did not. Instead he said, “Simple Devim, you ask a most interesting question. It is a question I have asked myself and I do know the answer, but knowledge is something we must strive to gain for ourselves. If you wish to know the answer, you must go to the sky and see for yourself where the light comes from.”’

  ‘Now that sounds just like a dragon,’ Ceri said triumphantly.

  ‘Stop interrupting,’ Lily said, and there was a grin in her voice.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ceri replied. ‘Sorry, Hiffy. Keep going.’

  This time Hiffy was grinning as she started up again. ‘So the Devim decided he would do just that. Despite everyone telling him that it was impossible, he determined that he would do just as Gorefguhadget had said. He packed a little sack with water, bread, and cheese. He put in a warm coat in case it was cold, and a fan in case it was hot, and then he took off from the highest place he could find and started climbing upward. He flew and he flew. He climbed and he climbed. The air grew thinner, but he pushed ever onward, up into the sky. But no matter how high he got, the light was just light, and there was no sign of the thing which made it. And then, just when he thought his task was hopeless and he could go no further, the sky began to sparkle and he thought that he saw something above. He thought, perhaps, that it was a face. It seemed round and huge, like the face of some vast demon hidden behind a sparkling curtain. Thinking he would soon see what only the Great Overlord had seen, he climbed higher, into the sparkling curtain.’

  There was a slight pause as Hiffy caught her breath. Ceri suspected it was for dramatic effect. ‘But there are some things which even the most curious of Devim are not meant to know, and as the curtain neared he felt the sting of a thousand tiny needles biting into his skin. For the curtain was made of the frozen tears of the Light, and they were as sharp as any blade ever forged. Before he could turn back, his wings were cut to ribbons and he fell. He fell and he fell, and there seemed no end to his falling. And the unforgiving rock of Mount Khed was waiting to welcome him below. And in his heart the Devim was sad, for he had glimpsed the Face of the Light, but he would never know what it was.’

  Hiffy stopped and looked at Ceri. ‘And then there are two endings,’ she said. ‘The one you hear most has him crashing into the mountain, but Inak says the other one is older.’

  ‘What’s the older one?’

  ‘It goes, um… But before the Devim could fall to his death on the black mountain, Lenadenora, the glorious and beautiful wife of the Overlord, appeared and caught him, and took him back to the Castle of Bones. She had him healed of his wounds, though his wings were ever after torn, and she said to him, “Some things, little Devim, lie beneath shrouds we lift at great peril. Be happy with what you know and let the universe have its secrets.” And the Devim thanked the great Lady, and he went home, and never again did he ask a question of anyone.’

  ‘Wow,’ Lily said, ‘Gorefguhadget and Lenadenora in one story. Dad told me a couple with him in, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one with her as a character.’

  ‘There are very few,’ Hiffy replied. ‘And a lot of them have changed a little over time and she stopped being mentioned. She’s always portrayed in a softer light to her mate. I think that’s why she’s been dropped over time.’

  ‘I’m going to have to get Ruffa or Faran to tell me them,’ Ceri said. ‘I wouldn’t mind hearing more about them. So… if there’s any truth to that story, there’s a star up there, but there’s also some sort of cloud of crystals in the upper atmosphere.’

  ‘Refracting and diffusing the light,’ Cheryl put in. ‘Possibly the magic field helps it stay up, but the question would then be: where did the crystals come from? You know, we could have scientists from all sorts of disciplines begging to study the world over there.’

  ‘One step at a time. We still need to get some sort of diplomatic structure set up before we
can start studying the place. Anything unusual from the scanners?’

  ‘No. Hiffy appears to be perfectly happy on a metaphysical level. I’ve just never had the chance to get a demon in a position where I could use a rig like this. It’s fascinating. I’m actually seeing minor T-Null decay going on.’

  Ceri grinned. ‘Maybe we can make it more interesting. Lil, this is your experimental idea. Why don’t you put some sun oil on Hiffy? I’m worried she might burn.’

  Lily was wearing a mischievous grin as she rose from her lounger. ‘In the interests of science?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ceri agreed. ‘Pure scientific enquiry.’

  Hiffy looked nervous.

  May 6th.

  Donald Colbert was a slight man who tended to look a little like a rabbit caught in a confined space with a fox. He wore glasses, except when he was talking to Lily. At first Ceri had thought this was because the heavy, black frames made him look a bit nerdy and he did look better without them, so he was taking them off to impress the half-succubus. It took a few minutes to realise that it was actually because he became even more nervous when he could actually see who he was talking to.

  ‘We ran an experiment yesterday,’ Lily was explaining, ‘and det, lesser demons, can survive in this world without difficulty. There’s the language barrier, obviously, but we can set up schools to teach English, or humans wishing to do business can learn Devotik. It’s not a hard language to learn.’

  ‘It’s pretty simplistic, actually,’ Ceri put in. ‘You need to get used to the sentence structure, and there’s plenty of vocabulary. Not as much as English; they tend to reuse words a fair bit so you have to go by context.’

  Colbert blinked at her. Ceri was there as ‘scientific advisor,’ not as the Overlord. In truth, having got the basics out of the way, she was finding it hard not to get involved. Unfortunately, having what his briefing notes described as ‘probably the most powerful magician on the planet’ in his meeting was just making Colbert more nervous.

  ‘There, err, aren’t any demons here today, are there?’ he asked.