NiDemon

by Cormier, Shawn P.

  "Long and hard was the second rising of Reknamarken, and when it was over the Nomadin prevailed. They routed our armies, gathered up all the Nihilic weapons and destroyed them. Again the remaining NiDemon were banished to Loehs Sedah, leaving barely a few, hiding in mountainous halls and living in exile, waiting for an opportunity to press on with their goal of bringing law and order to the Ether. This time Reknamarken was captured and imprisoned, bound in a book which he thought was a tome of Nihilic magic that might strengthen him, secured with Nomadin spells for all eternity. Though the map was never recovered by any side, all our hopes seemed lost."

  The glow in the NiDemon's eyes returned and he turned his gaze on Ilien. "But a flicker remained, kept burning by the Creator's final words before his imprisonment. A Nomadin child will set me free."

  "The prophesy," said Ilien.

  "Yes, the prophesy that concerns you both."

  Windy jumped in her seat.

  "Yes," said Bulcrist. "Since you now know that you too are Nomadin-born, the question is which of you will fulfill the prophesy. Which of you will release the Necromancer from his prison?"

  Ilien looked down at his half-eaten food. The memory of Philion's final words under Greattower came back to him then. Forgive me, Master. It's you. You're him. You've been free all along. Reborn! Reborn as a Nomadin child!

  Could it be true? thought Ilien. Could I really be Reknamarken?

  Bulcrist sat straight in his chair. "Is that what you think? Is that what old Philion told you?"

  Ilien forced his eyes to meet Bulcrist's, angered by the NiDemon's eavesdropping on his thoughts. "I saw the Book under Greattower. Philion showed it to me. It was open! The Book was already open!" He looked at Windy, his eyes suddenly wide. "The prophesy is fulfilled, was fulfilled twelve years ago. Philion called me Master!"

  Windy gave an audible gasp, and Bulcrist reached out to pat her hand. "Now, now. Let's not jump to conclusions," he said. "Rest assured, young Ilien, I don't know what you are yet, but you are not the Necromancer reborn."

  "But the Book was open!" said Ilien. "The Necromancer wasn't in it! He wasn't in it because he'd been freed long ago. The prophesy is more literal than you think, than anyone thinks. It wasn't that a Nomadin child would free Reknamarken. It was the birth of a Nomadin child that would free him. Don't you get it? The birth of the prophesied child. The Necromancer would be reborn outside the Book. Reborn as a Nomadin child. The prophesy is already fulfilled. The Necromancer is free!"

  "Is he?" asked Bulcrist.

  "Yes! He has to be! He was tricked into the book after the Nihilic Wars, locked inside, imprisoned by the Binding spell Gallund cast upon the king's wax seal. You said so yourself. But the spell was broken. When Philion pulled forth the Book it was open, unlocked. I saw it with my own eyes!"

  Bulcrist's eyes hardened. "That's impossible, Ilien. You know it is, though you have forgotten why. Remember that not all appearances are as they seem."

  Ilien looked away. "Gallund used to say that."

  "Precisely," said Bulcrist.

  "Of course!" exclaimed Windy. "You're right. The book can't be open yet. It's impossible."

  Ilien fell silent, his head spinning, trying to figure out what he was missing.

  The princess leaned forward. "Ilien, Gallund's not dead."

  "That's right. The Necromancer can't possibly be free," said Bulcrist. "The Binding spell still holds, for it can only be broken by the death of the caster. Philion jumped to a false conclusion, Ilien. The Book is still shut. You are not the Necromancer."

  "But how? How is that possible?" asked Ilien. "I saw it open. It was torn in two. I burned it to ashes."

  "There is only one explanation," replied Bulcrist. "The book you saw was a fake."

  The book a fake? The revelation nearly took Ilien's breath away. "Fake?" he said. "But it was stolen from Kingsend castle. Why would the Nomadin allow Kingsend to be sacked if the book wasn't real?"

  "They no doubt let everyone believe it was real to draw out Philion and his servants," replied Bulcrist. "That would include you as well."

  "But so many died," said Ilien, sitting back heavily in his chair.

  "The lesser of two evils, they would say. Anything to stop the latest of the true Nomadin born from fulfilling the prophesy. Believe me, they've done worse in their time."

  Ilien looked up. "What do you mean the latest of the trueNomadin born?"

  "You are the latest child born of two Nomadin parents. Unlike Windy, who is only half-blood, you are fully Nomadin, and it is your kind the Nomadin seek. They foolishly believe that only a true Nomadin born child can fulfill the prophesy. All the other full-bloods before you had to endure the Nomadin's trials, and all failed. Count yourself lucky. You are alive."

  "Then Ilien is still in danger," said Windy.

  "He is safe enough while here in Ledge Hall," replied Bulcrist. "The Nomadin cannot reach him here, but they have other means of drawing him out. The Nomadin are not above using what one holds precious to get their way."

  Ilien leapt to his feet. "My mother back in Southford! They wouldn't!"

  Bulcrist fell silent, his hands folded before him.

  "I have to go home! I have to warn her!" Ilien pushed back his chair and it fell to the floor with a crash.

  "You cannot go home, Ilien."

  "I have to bring her here, where she'll be safe!" he cried.

  "She is safer where she is," said Bulcrist. "If you try to warn her you'll be playing into the Nomadin's hands. They are expecting you to return home. They'll be waiting for you. And when they catch you, both you and your mother will pay with your lives."

  "Safer is not good enough," said Ilien, hotly. "You said the Nomadin were not above using what one holds precious to get their way. They'll hurt her!"

  Bulcrist fell silent again.

  Ilien's face flushed hot and itchy. The thought of his mother in pain filled him with a sickening rage. His breath quickened and he felt an unsummoned spell overtake him, a surge of power born out of helpless anger that threatened to spill from his lips.

  "Tut tut," said Bulcrist, raising a long finger. "Rule number one. No Nomadin spells in Ledge Hall."

  Ilien turned on Bulcrist, seething with hot power.

  Bulcrist stood and threw back his cloak. "Do not be foolish," he warned.

  "Ilien!" shouted Windy. "Ilien, stop!"

  "Do not be foolish," repeated Bulcrist. "The magic you know will not avail you here. Neither will it help you save your mother. The Nomadin would subdue you like the child you are."

  Bulcrist's last comment hung in the air like a storm cloud between them. Ilien trembled with outrage.

  "There is another magic," said the NiDemon, "a magic more powerful than anything a Nomadin can conjure. I can teach you."

  "Nihilic," finished Ilien, his face still twisted in anger.

  "Yes," said Bulcrist, his eyes brightening. "Nihilic. You are adept already. With training you will no longer have to fear the Nomadin. With training, but not now."

  Ilien weighed the NiDemon's words. His anger was still fresh, but the unsummoned spell began to fade, leaving a curious sensation in his chest—power mixed with anticipation. "I'm going home," he said. "If I need to return, I will. I will not leave my mother in the Nomadin's hands."

  Bulcrist pounded the table. "You are making a mistake!"

  "It is my mistake to make," said Ilien, the sensation in his chest growing stronger.

  Windy watched anxiously as NiDemon and Nomadin-child faced each other in silence. "How will you get there?" she asked.

  "The Swan will take me."

  There came a clatter at the doors, which had been eased open a crack. They swung suddenly wide.

  "I will do nothing of the sort!" said the Swan. "Bulcrist is right. You are no match for the Nomadin. You will only place your mother in more danger than she is already." Pedustil stood behind her, averting his eyes from Bulcrist's gaze.

  "Eavesdropping on our conversation, my
dear?"

  "Keeping watch over my brood," she replied. "You were to teach the boy his heritage, not tutor him in your magic. You are still here by my good graces. Do not forget that."

  Bulcrist's face turned livid. His eyes flashed crimson in the dimness of the room.

  "If you are both quite finished deciding my fate," interrupted Ilien, "I'll take my leave." He turned to go.

  "I'm leaving with you," said Windy, following.

  "We are not through!" shouted Bulcrist.

  Ilien stopped, his back to the NiDemon. He made a furtive gesture with his hand. "Stay and enjoy your wine." He fixed the Swan with a cold glare. "You stay too. When you're through discussing the finer points of destiny, we'll leave for Southford." With that, he and Windy strode past Pedustil and the Swan and left.

  Bulcrist opened his mouth to shout after him, but stopped. He smiled instead. His once empty glass brimmed with wine.

  Well done. Rather well done, at that. But aren't you forgetting something?

  Ilien stopped dead in the hallway. Bulcrist's words had whispered in his mind.

  "What is it?" asked Windy. "What's wrong?"

  The NiDemon's thoughts came again. I thought you came here to learn how to rescue your father.

  Ilien stood defiantly out in the hall, but Bulcrist was right. In his anger he'd forgotten all about his father.

  "You don't even know where he is!" cried Bulcrist from the other room. "It's he, not your mother in Southford, who is in real danger. It is he who has the map, Ilien—the map of the Crossings! That is why Amandalia captured him in the marshes. The scroll, Ilien. The scroll he took from the witches. You remember the scroll, don't you?"

  Ilien did remember. After their confrontation with the witches outside Southford! Gallund had found the scroll, the cloth inside the witch's hat, the one embroidered with yellow thread. Gallund had tucked into the pouch at his belt. But it was a scroll, a Nihilic scroll.

  "A trick!" called Bulcrist. "An enchantment placed upon the map to disguise it from all who saw it. Even Gallund believed it was a scroll. But it was the map, Ilien. The map of every Crossing on every world throughout the ether. The map that shows the location of the second Crossing, the Crossing that must never be opened. And now Amandalia has it. And she has your father too, a Nomadin, someone with the power to open the Crossings!"

  Ilien stood frozen. The second Crossing! The one the Nomadin and NiDemon alike believed should never be reopened. His dream came back to him again with crystalline clarity. Could it be true? Could it all be true? In his dream, Gallund had the map. The Nephalim had been hunting him. And the Nephalim had wanted the map for itself. If it was true, then the fate of Nadae itself was in peril. His father was in far more danger than his mother back in Southford.

  Then Ilien remembered what Gallund had said to him in the tunnels beneath Greattower. She's coming for me. It was true! Gallund had been fleeing the Witch Queen!

  All is not lost, came Bulcrist's words, comforting and reassuring in Ilien's mind. Amandalia knows how to counter Nomadin magic, the magic of the True Language, for she has struggled against the Nomadin for centuries. But you possess something she cannot counter, something she knows not. You hold the power only a NiDemon dares touch—the power of Nihilic. If you are to rescue your father and stop the Witch Queen from ever opening the second Crossing, you must let me teach you!

  A strange sensation came over Ilien, a giddy fear that choked his breath away. Bulcrist's voice echoed in his head. He felt suddenly faint.

  Windy grabbed his hand. "Ilien, what's wrong?"

  The NiDemon's words whispered in his mind. You will become my apprentice, or your father will die. And if he dies, the Witch Queen will open the forbidden Crossing. Then even the combined might of Nomadin and NiDemon will not be enough to stem the tide of banished spirits that will serve at her side. She will rule Nadae in place of the Nomadin, and you will rue the day you left Ledge Hall for Southford.

  Ilien lurched forward. "Get out of my head!" he cried. With that he bolted down the hall, Bulcrist's laughter still ringing in his ears.

  Bulcrist picked up his brimming wine glass. Yes. The boy was a natural. He would be more than adequate. With Ilien, his plans would be complete. There was only one thing standing in his way now. Only one thing that needed to be dealt with, and soon.

  He looked up and smiled. The Swan stood crossly before him.

  Chapter VI

  Taken

  Ilien lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, twirling his pencil between his fingers. Windy sat in a nearby chair, her black gown now rumpled and disheveled. She tried smoothing out the wrinkles but gave up with a sigh. She didn't know what to say to Ilien as he brooded in silence on his bed. She'd heard so much she still didn't understand, the least being that she was Nomadin as well, though only partly. A month ago she would have thrown a party knowing she had magic running through her veins. A month ago she had felt absolutely certain in her world, knew everything that went on around her. She was a princess then. Now she didn't feel very princess-like at all.

  "Kinil ubid, illubid kinar." Ilien incanted his Nomadin Light spell, pointing his pencil at a spot in the air above him. Nothing happened.

  "None of my Nomadin spells work," he said. "I've tried conjuring Globe a dozen times with no luck." He glared at his pencil. "And no matter how I pinch and prod this worthless number two it doesn't respond." He didn't dare tell Windy that he had used the basin, that he had traced the Nihilic rune and conjured Bulcrist's light spell.

  Again Windy didn't know what to say.

  "I'm scared," said Ilien. "This place is draining me of all I've known and filling me with some dark, mysterious power." He curled into a tight ball on the bed. "I don't want to be a NiDemon."

  "Who says you have to be?" asked Windy.

  "You heard what Bulcrist said. Only Nihilic magic is strong enough to defeat the Witch Queen. I have to learn it. It's the only way to rescue my father."

  Windy shifted in her seat. "Then why doesn't Bulcrist face the Witch Queen? Why doesn't he rescue Gallund? Why train you when he knows Nihilic already?"

  Ilien spun about to face her. "He can't rescue a Nomadin. He's a NiDemon, Windy, a NiDemon in hiding. He risks revealing himself if he tries to rescue Gallund."

  "That's not why," Windy countered. "Haven't you been listening? Bulcrist won't rescue Gallund himself because he's using you. There's something he wants, but doesn't dare risk getting himself, something he's been after, something the NiDemon have been after for centuries. The Witch Queen has it, and Bulcrist knows you're sure to get it for him."

  "I thought you preferred to call him Tannon," said Ilien.

  He rolled over and fell silent. He knew Windy was right. Bulcrist wanted the map more than anything, and it had nothing to do with the second Crossing. Bulcrist wanted the map for his own gain, for the gain of all NiDemon. With it he could open the Crossing to Loehs Sedah, and the war would start again.

  "You're forgetting something," he said. "If I do rescue Gallund, it doesn't mean I'll retrieve the map. Even if I do, the map will go to Gallund. Bulcrist will lose either way."

  "I don't know, Ilien," replied Windy uneasily. "Don't underestimate Bulcrist. You said yourself that he's still a NiDemon. He's up to something, I know it."

  "And if I do learn Nihilic," continued Ilien, "it doesn't mean I'm siding with the NiDemon. It doesn't mean I'll use it to help them. I'd only be learning it to rescue my father."

  Windy looked at him skeptically.

  "If that's what it takes, then so be it," he declared.

  "I don't like this," said Windy. "Maybe you should talk to the Swan."

  "She's unavailable," came Bulcrist's voice from the doorway. "May I come in?"

  Windy shot Ilien a warning look. Ilien sat up, wondering how much Bulcrist had overheard.

  "I'll take your silence as a yes," said the NiDemon as he approached. "Most people do. Your feathered friend has retired to her room. She's feeling a bit under
the weather, but she gave me a message for you. She insisted I give it to you verbatim. She says to get that nonsense of returning home to Southford out of your mind. Your mother is safer that way." Bulcrist adjusted his long, black robes. "And I couldn't agree more."

  "What do you mean, ‘under the weather?'" asked Windy.

  "How should I know? Maybe she has wilt wing. Maybe she's incubating eggs! She did carry both of you on her back for three days. She's probably exhausted."

  Windy raised an eyebrow.

  "Go ask her yourself, for all I care. The point is you're not going anywhere soon. Make yourselves comfortable and get some rest." Bulcrist turned to leave. "You'll need it."

  Bulcrist's footsteps receded down the hall. Windy turned to Ilien. "I don't believe it. I will go ask her myself."

  "Just leave her be," said Ilien, flopping back down on his bed. He jammed his silent pencil back in his pocket. "Get some rest." He rolled over and said no more.

  Windy stared at him in silence then left, closing the doors quietly behind her.

  Later that night Ilien awoke with a start. His room was pitch black, the sort of darkness he had experienced only once before—in the tunnels beneath Greattower Mountain. Though the chatter of rats was absent, it did nothing to still his heartbeat. The darkness was so absolute that it seeped into his thoughts.

  He felt trapped and more alone than ever. Windy slept in the room next to his, but she seemed a thousand miles away. He missed the annoying wriggle of his pencil in his pocket. Globe was unreachable. Everything he knew and had come to rely on was gone. There was only the quickness of his breath and the utter darkness—and the rasp of scales on stone.