by John Corwin
"I get the feeling that the red ones are more important than the white ones," Max whispered.
"Yeah." I tried to take another step, but apprehension filled me. We should leave this instant. Victus could walk into this room at any minute. But I couldn't leave, not now. I had to see what was inside the red coffins.
Ambria beat me to it, jogging through the aisles between the black coffins to the back of the room. Max and I caught up to her and stopped in front of the first red chamber. It had more runes than most, but was slightly smaller than the others, a diamond-shaped glass lid on top.
Unlike the black coffins, there were no name tags to tell us the identities of the occupants. But it only took a quick glance to recognize the girl who slumbered inside, a peaceful look on her face. I'd seen pictures of her and heard the stories.
"My god," Max whispered. "That's Ivy Slade!"
Chapter 20
It was no wonder Ivy Slade had vanished all those years ago. The mystery instead was, "How in the world did my father capture her? I thought she helped defeat him."
"Maybe Cumberbatch did it," Ambria said.
"If that's Ivy, was does she look so young?" I peered through the glass. "Shouldn't she be eighteen or nineteen by now?"
"Maybe these preservation chambers keep people from aging." Ambria touched the glass near Ivy's face. "I can't believe it's really her."
"How does this thing open?" Max ran his fingers along the edges. "We've got to get her out."
I searched my memories, but found no solution to the puzzle. While Max worked on it, I darted to the other boxes. One held a lovely woman with dark hair, the next two nothing, and the fourth preserved a withered husk that might once have been a man. I rushed past the other coffins, but none of the faces looked familiar.
"Can't get it," Max growled. He grabbed my shirt. "Conrad, don't you see? If we rescue Ivy, she can defeat Victus again. We'll be unstoppable!"
Ambria gripped his wrist. "You sound mad, Max. Calm yourself."
Despite the pain his grappling caused my shoulder, I agreed with Max. Voices echoed behind us. I looked toward the back wall not far away and saw another doorway partially concealed by the stack of white coffins. Footsteps and loud voices filled the corridor beyond.
We were out of time.
I thought of hiding so we could stay and figure out this puzzle, but I didn't dare hide inside one of the preservation chambers. The white coffins were too tightly packed to hide behind. Besides, I was injured and tired. We needed to return home to heal and think. Worried looks from Max and Ambria told me they were thinking the same thing.
We raced across the room, through the connecting corridor, and into the foundry. Once again, we skirted the huge pattern and made for the exit.
A tall, thin figure appeared from the exit. Black suit, a crimson tie patterned with pentagrams, shiny leather shoes. Shaved temples bordered thick black hair on the crown. His cold gaze and flickering blue eyes sent shivers down my spine. It was the same man we'd seen outside Ansel's office. The same one who'd unleashed a wyrm on Galfandor.
He didn't smile, didn't alter his expression when he saw us. Instead he stopped as if to block our retreat. The ground to either side of him turned oily black. A head, still covered in the dark slime, pushed through the puddle to his left. A long muzzle formed, glowing red eyes flickered on. A body stood on wobbling legs and the shape became all-too familiar.
"He's summoning hellhounds!" Ambria shouted.
Max fired a shot of electrical energy from his wand. The man—the Daemos—blurred to the side. Much as I loathed what Della had done to those men, I took myself back to those terrible moments and remembered how she'd cast her deadly spell. It was a multi-pattern spell, one that would have taken me months if not years to master by myself. It required enormous power, explaining my fatigued state.
I didn't even try to land a hit on the man. I flicked the wand through the patterns, layering several destructions spells atop the other, weaving them into something far more malevolent, into something Della called Fireblade. The patterns melded and took form. All they needed now was focus and will.
The first shot flew wide, carving a gash into the stone wall. I slashed the wand downward and bisected the first hellhound as it struggled to break free of the primordial goo. The creature yelped, and the magic binding its form fell apart, the pieces melting into the oily substance. I dragged Fireblade straight across to the other hellhound. The Daemos blurred out of the path and slid to a stop. His teeth bared in anger as I sliced up his second demonic pet.
"Run!" I shouted, keeping the spell ready at the tip of my wand, but not firing it.
"Who are you, boy?" the Daemos said as we ran past.
I kept my wand leveled at him as I ran, aware he could probably blur over and snatch it from my hand in an instant if I let down my guard. "Who are you?"
He shot toward us. Max shouted in alarm. Glass shattered and a cloud of black gas billowed twenty feet from us. The Daemos whooshed through it and skidded to a stop, face screwed up with confusion. We rounded the corner and dashed through the exit.
"Was that your anti-memory potion?" Ambria panted, never looking back as she outpaced me and Max.
Max gulped air. "Yep—Memory Fog." He sucked in another breath. "I meant to grab Banana Peel!"
"What in the world is Banana Peel?" I asked.
"The slippery potion I invented last year." He stumbled over a root, but kept his balance as we left the trail and raced across the meadow. "I even made the last batch yellow to match the name."
During our potions class the previous year, Max had used peppered snails instead of toasted slugs for a cleansing potion and created an oily substance so slippery that it was nearly frictionless. He'd even been granted a certificate verifying that he'd created a brand new potion, albeit by accident.
I met the lifeless eyes of Jonas where I'd left him in the field. Not surprisingly, his wounds proved too severe to survive. I spotted Chachi face down in the dirt only a few feet away. He'd apparently tried to wriggle his way across to Jonas and died for his effort.
"Wait!" I stopped and steeled myself for what we had to do.
Ambria gave me a confused look but stopped. "Conrad, we can't just stop. That man could catch us in a heartbeat!"
"That's just it." I looked back but saw no signs of pursuit. "Max hit him with memory fog. He'll forget everything for the last ten minutes."
Max's eyebrows rose. "Hey, you're right. We don't need to run anymore."
"It's not just that." I swallowed the sickening knot forming in my throat. "It means he's forgotten that we know where this place is. It means we can come back and rescue Ivy without them expecting it."
Ambria's lips peeled back into a horrified grimace. "It means we have to hide these bodies, doesn't it?"
I nodded. "They can't find any trace of us here." I gagged just thinking about the trench beyond the piles of dirt on the other side of the meadow. "We have to dump the body parts into the trench and cover them with other corpses."
Max heaved and made retching noises. "I—I can't!"
Ambria shivered and hugged herself. "You can and you will, Max." She swallowed hard and looked at Chachi and Jonas's dismembered limbs. "Now, go grab those arms and throw them in the pit."
Max put a hand over his mouth and turned green. "I'm going to use memory fog on myself after this is over."
Ambria nodded fervently. "Oh, yes. Maybe on me too."
I knelt next to Chachi's torso. "Ambria, can you help me, please?"
She blanched, but knelt and grabbed handfuls of Chachi's shirt. "This is ghastly."
The effort of holding down my rising gorge prevented me from answering. We half-dragged, half-carried the torso to the trench and rolled it in. Then we retrieved Jonas's parts. Max located the limbs and threw them next to their previous owners before rushing into the woods and throwing up. When he came back, it took three of us to move some of the fresher bodies on top of Chachi and Jonas u
ntil they were fully concealed.
"That took much longer than ten minutes," Ambria said. "The memory fog won't help now, will it?"
Max shook his head sadly. "Now we can never unsee it."
I hadn't planned on using it anyway. "I don't think we should ever forget this." I realized that I could barely smell the stench of the dead anymore. "Victus is a monster. All of this is his doing."
Ambria nodded somberly. "Well, if we can't forget it, can we at least go home and bathe?"
"For once, I'm not even hungry," Max said in a small voice. "I just want to go home."
I couldn't agree more. We took one last look around to make sure we hadn't left any obvious traces and then headed into the forest, back toward the portal I'd left open while hypnotized. An old log cabin appeared between the trees, its roof sunken, weeds and flowers growing from the mud joints, but otherwise seemed in good shape for a building abandoned to the forest.
The gateway hung open in what had once been a small garden, evident by the chicken wire and log border around a patch of land. Something oddly familiar about this place tugged me toward the crooked door, a lone hinge holding it in place. I couldn't stop myself from walking inside.
I run giggling past the tall furniture. A simple leather couch sits in the middle of the room. Rustic wooden chairs surround a thick table, and a fire crackles in the brick hearth. This is where we come when Mommy needs to sneak away.
"Got you!" Gentle hands tickle my ribs and pull me in for a firm hug on the leather couch.
I burst into delighted laughter and look into the lovely young face of my mother. Delectra kisses my forehead and sighs. A lone tear trickles down her cheek. "I wish I could spare you, Conrad." More tears join the first. "I wish it more than anything."
"Spare?" I mispronounce the "r" like a "w", my tiny voice that of a toddler.
She doesn't seem to hear me, lost in her own world. "I can't risk it. Not again." Delectra wipes her tears and kisses my forehead. "I'm so sorry, my dear." Her face twists with pain. "No, go away."
"Is it the bad you again?" I ask.
She shivers. "Yes, Conrad. The bad me."
I flinched. The rotted leather couch sat in the middle of the room, its insides torn out. The remains of the table and chairs were scattered across the dusty floor. Cobwebs hung from the rafters, and the charred remains of old wood resided in the fireplace.
"I remember this place." The corner of a book protruded from beneath the couch. I knelt down and slid it out. Someone had scored the title with a knife, but I knew what it was without even thinking. The Family Picnic.
"I remember this book." Ambria took it and leafed to the first page. "It was in the library at the orphanage."
"I didn't read much at the orphanage." I looked at the illustrations on the first few pages, a perfect family preparing for a picnic. Mom, Dad, little Jimmy and Susy, and their pet dog, Patches.
"I hated it," Ambria said in a rough voice. "It was a reminder of something I could never have. Sometimes, I think the Goodleighs put it in the library as a cruel joke."
"I don't think we should stick around much longer," Max said. "I mean, what if that Daemos didn't lose his memory and is coming after us?"
"He would have caught us already," Ambria said.
I walked around the cabin, dazed at how familiar it felt. A bed, a small stove, and a kitchen counter occupied the two rooms. I vaguely remembered coming here on several occasions.
Delectra reads The Family Picnic to me. The door bursts open. She screams. Two men rush inside and tear the book from her grasp. Jonas stabs it with a long knife, a cruel grin stretching his lips.
"Well, isn't this a lovely refuge?" Chachi slashes the couch with his knife.
Delectra reaches for her wand on the nearby table, but Jonas kicks it away.
He waggles a finger at her. "Victus knows you plan to run again, Delectra."
"Yeah." Chachi tuts. "He asked us to talk to you."
Jonas laughs. "Yeah, exactly."
They rush her. I'm swept aside by their huge bodies and tumble into a heap in the corner where I cower in fear.
I shouted and flailed with my arms. The book flew from my grasp and tumbled onto the floor. My heart pounded and sweat beaded on my forehead. Thankfully, the memories from that night were too faded for me to recall much more. I had some inkling as to why Della's revenge had been so severe.
Some people need to die. Some deserve to die in agony.
I wondered what Chachi and Jonas's parents were like to have raised such wicked sons. Or had Victus taken ordinary people and turned them into monsters? If he did it to his own wife, I didn't see what would stop him from doing it to strangers.
"Do I even want to know?" Max asked.
"No, but I'll tell you anyway." I shuddered and told my friends what I'd seen when first entering the cabin, and the last vision.
Ambria wept and hugged me. "I'm so sorry, Conrad."
"I'm sorry too, but there's nothing we can do about the past." I stumbled back outside, eager to leave this place behind. I stopped before the portal. The small room on the other side beckoned to me, a safe space with no memory triggers. "At least now I know why Della's memories made me open the portal here." I stepped through. The world stretched and twisted, and I stood in the omniarch room near the underground mansion.
I closed the gateway the moment Ambria and Max crossed the threshold. Even though I hadn't looked long at the front of the cabin, its image was seared into my mind. I would have no problem opening another portal there.
A shadowy figure stepped from concealment near the wall.
We jumped in unison, gasping and shouting, but it was just Kanaan.
"You did well," he said. "You did what must be done to survive."
"You followed us?" Ambria's voice rose an octave. "Why didn't you help?"
"I would have if necessary." The magitsu master folded his arms and regarded me. "You have deep inner strength and conviction, but you will be very sick after casting such powerful magic."
Nausea had slowly squirmed its way up my guts ever since running from the foundry, but I'd thought it was from the dead bodies. Kanaan's words made me realize it was actually magic poisoning—common in novice Arcanes after channeling more aether than they were used to.
He tossed me a wax wrapper with purple gum inside—one of Percival's potion treatments for my symptoms. I gratefully tore it open and chewed it, hoping it would alleviate the sickness.
"You could have helped us rescue Ivy," Max said to Kanaan. "How could you just watch us and do nothing?"
"The case requires a magic word," he said. "When you ran, I remained behind in case Zarin chased you."
Ambria raised an eyebrow. "Zarin?"
"The Daemos you battled." Kanaan nodded at Max. "The potion you used made him forget the incident. When he recovered from his confusion, he went into the next chamber and met with Victus, Garkin, and Rufus Cumberbatch."
"Cumberbatch was there?" The mention of the demonologist sent a chill down my back. "What were they doing?"
Kanaan turned his gaze to me. "They removed a man from one of the white coffins and ripped a piece of his soul to create an infernus. It was at that moment I learned the magic words you can use to save Ivy."
Chapter 21
"You saw them make an infernus?" Max said. "How did they do it?"
"Zarin used the wyrm as a receptacle." Kanaan cupped his hands to make a circle. "Garkin produced a crystal sphere used to contain the spark of a golem. With the help of Zarin, Cumberbatch threaded the soul fragment into the spark."
"How is it possible to do that?" Ambria said.
"Only a skilled Daemos and Arcane could meld the two." Kanaan paused as if to reflect on that and continued. "I sneaked through the room of nine sides before they entered and waited on the other side. Zarin summoned a humanoid demon and began molding its flesh into a likeness of the man whose soul they put in the sphere."
"Molded it?" Max shook his head. "Whe
n you summon a demon, don't they appear in their own form?"
"Powerful summoners can force them into shapes of their own choosing. Zarin held the demon in a fluid state, allowing it to morph." Kanaan pressed his lips together. "It was an impressive feat."
"He created a demon clone of the man?" Ambria asked.
Kanaan shook his head. "He had not finished when I left. It seemed a very slow, tiring process. I left and observed you in the cabin, then entered the portal shortly before you did."
"What are the magic words?" I asked, trying not to think of the poor man whose soul Zarin might even now be bonding to a demon.
"Ehx voden na mihx." Kanaan tilted his head slightly. "It is demon language that means, "Your soul is mine."
I tried to pronounce it the same way Kanaan did, but the guttural sounds didn't come easily to my throat. "Will you teach me how to say it, and more importantly, will you help us rescue Ivy and the other prisoners?"
"We have to do it soon," Max added. "We hid those bodies, but it won't take long before they get suspicious about their men disappearing."
"Sound reasoning," Kanaan said, "but I cannot defeat Garkin alone. With Victus and Zarin, they would make quick work of us."
The magic poisoning seemed to bloat my stomach and twist my insides. I chewed the gum faster, hoping the potion it contained would hurry up and work.
Ambria's forehead pinched with concern. "You're afraid of Garkin, aren't you?
"Afraid, no," Kanaan replied. "I am aware of his capabilities."
"I heard it in your voice," Ambria said. "You're convinced the way of the monkey can't beat the way of the rock. If you keep thinking like that, you'll never beat Garkin."
Kanaan grew still and quiet for so long, I thought he'd frozen in place. "You are right. I do fear I cannot beat him. My perception of Garkin is skewed and grants him power over me."