by Stanzin
CHAPTER 23
Dialogue With The Devil II
The necromancer looked beyond angry – he looked deranged.
‘You knew… the rune-card… how?’ Remy hissed.
‘It’s a long story,’ Gregory said. His heart was pounding, but he barely noticed it under the strain of the massive river of power that coursed through him.
‘Let me in, Magus Gregory… there is more at stake here than you’ll ever know,’ Remy said, his voice hard.
Gregory laughed hysterically.
‘It’s more fun in here without you, to be honest. And the next time you want to make friends with someone… try asking their permission before you decide they’re going to die along with you. Let you in for what? So you can whack off fifteen thousand people? Convincing argument, that.’
There was another great burst of spellfire – it’s sheer fury caused Gregory to stumble back… but the fire spent itself against the barrier, which held. Remy bared his teeth, and shimmered out of sight again.
His sudden departure sobered Gregory. He was safe in here… so what? There was no telling where Vincent or Uncle Quincy were. The trace Vincent had put on Gregory… it must have failed somehow. And they didn’t know that Remy was here – even if help came, the advantage was with the invisible Necromancer.
He was safe in here, and he was trapped in here. He tried to activate the control panel, but it wouldn’t respond – Remy must have made it so no one but him could work it now.
There was nothing he could do.
… but there was.
Gregory rushed into the Scrying portal. He put the strange white bone into his own pocket; and he put Lesley’s blood frond in its place, and he touched the button he’d seen Remy almost press to begin the Scrying, cringing in expectation of the almost painful collision of wills he’d felt last time.
It never came.
His senses departed, all of them but his magic. He felt as if he were falling down a deep tunnel at great speed, a speed that gently slowed down as he approached… and he realised that this time, his Will hadn’t been magically flung across a vast distance: it had been carried there, by Domremy.
I like you, Gregory said to the nation-spirit.
He felt it again now, that mountain of otherworldly potential without Will, that forgotten but familiar presence, the wall that had nearly broken his mind the last time.
It couldn’t do that now… he had the bigger stick, Gregory thought smugly.
‘Lesley Greene’, he cast his thoughts out at the wall. ‘Can you hear me?’
After a moment of silence…
How did you come by your new friend? She sounded astonished.
Somehow, Lesley could sense Domremy.
‘Quite by accident, but we’re getting along fabulously,’ Gregory said. ‘That’s a little less important right now. How do I put this… you’re going to DIE!’
Am I?
‘Oh, not me, for Heavens sake! Look… just listen to me, and don’t interrupt! I don’t know how much time you’ll have to run… but you’ve got to run! Take everybody… the whole camp… get somewhere safe if you can!’
What-
‘The Blood Census… it’s not what they told it was – it’s a weapon... everyone rune-linked to the Blood Tree is marked for death… they mean to harness your Wills… I don’t know what they’re going to do with them… but I do know that they meant to do it soon – maybe tonight!’
How-
‘I think I’ve slowed them down a little, but I don’t know for how long… I learnt of this less than two hours ago… only few others know… and we’re fighting to keep it from happening… but we may lose.
‘You must break all the rune-links on your end, quickly… but don’t break yours until I end the Scrying – I don’t want to be stuck here! And then you must run… once the Tree falls, we won’t be able to watch you… they could just kill you all on any pretext… and I think they mean to kill you anyway…
She was silent.
‘Please, Lesley. It sounds fantastic, and you’ll be at risk even if you run–’
I believe you.
‘–but you’re at certain risk if you stay – what?’
I believe you. Things have happened… here… and they make sense only if your words are true. Is there anything else I must know?
‘No… I don’t think so. Just break the rune-links on your end.’
I will. I’ll go now. And if we do ever meet, I’ll owe you massive thanks.
‘Be safe!’
I will. Destroy the Blood Tree.
His senses returned to him more gently this time… he braced for the laughter, but it never came. He felt normal-ish.
Domremy had brought him back as gently as it had taken him.
He felt incredibly light – as if he’d scored a great blow in a fight – because, regardless of what happened, Remy’s plan for murder was almost certainly foiled. All Lesley had to do was get those rune-links off the refugees.
‘Greg?’
Susannah and her father stood outside the door, a frown on their faces
Gregory’s insides twisted sickeningly. Where was Remy?
‘What are you doing in there, son?’ Asclepius Coffey-Sharada asked, his thumbs stuck into his belt. ‘Remy said a student had locked himself inside the room.’
Remy appeared then, right behind them. His benign smile didn’t reach his cold eyes. ‘I saw the Director passing down, and thought he could talk you out of this harmless mischief. A prank… but one, I think, that’s played itself to fruition. Come, Magus Gregory, such jokes hardly suit your new title. Let us in.’
And still Gregory stood frozen. His thoughts fractured into two terrible future realities. In one of them he gave in before Remy harmed Susannah and her father, but once Remy was in here, he could make another rune-card to replace the one Gregory had broken quickly enough; Lesley might live, but Gregory would have allowed thousands to perish. In the other, if Gregory stood his ground, and watched Remy hurt Susannah and Mr. Coffey… and he didn’t know if he could stand it.
‘Greg, drop the barrier,’ Susannah said crossly.
‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t? This is stupid, Greg – you can’t pull stunts like this at the Tree!’
Gregory barely heard her words – he was looking at Director Coffey, who was acting very strangely. It was as if he’d been frozen in place, thumbs still stuck in his belt… but his face had gone crimson; his jaws flexed, but wouldn’t open; his eyes were wide and fearful; and his head was turning inexorably to the left.
Remy wasn’t even looking at the Director, but smiling pleasantly at Gregory… and the despair on Gregory’s face must have gotten through to Susannah, because she asked:
‘What’s the matter?’ Her voice was soft with kindness. She finally realised that he wasn’t looking at her, but behind her, and when she turned, she screamed.
‘Daddy!’
She shook her father by the arms; the Director barely moved, only his bulging eyes turned grotesquely to look at his daughter, his chin reaching behind his shoulder.
‘Help him,’ she shouted at Remy, who gave no sign he’d heard her, but kept his gaze fixed on Gregory.
‘Tell your friend to open the door,’ Remy said softly.
‘What are you doing?’ Susannah shrieked at Remy. ‘My father’s-’
Her words cut-off as she understood; and the look of fear on her face mirrored her father’s.
‘Tell your friend to drop the barrier,’ Remy repeated.
‘You let them go, I’ll drop it,’ Gregory said.
‘I don’t think so, Magus Gregory. This ends one of two ways – painlessly or painfully.’
‘Gregory… please… do as he says,’ Susannah begged.
‘You’re not going to kill them… or me either,’ Gregory snapped – he’d suddenly realised he had a bargaining chip, a flimsy one, but better than nothing.
‘I’m not?’
‘No, because I met your friends… the ones you keep in your basement,’ Gregory said.
That shook Remy.
‘You were the one that night? How… and that’s how you knew about the rune-cards… but no – you couldn’t have read it.’
‘The Index?’
Remy’s shock broke whatever grip he had on Director Coffey: who moved with a speed that should have been impossible for someone his size: an unseen force flung Susannah aside and off the landing: she fell out of sight with a scream: the Director roared out a curse: silver flames broke on Remy’s unflinching form, which only slashed something across the air.
The silver flames vanished.
Remy should have been screaming – he was horrifically burned, and Gregory could see his white bone of his jaw gleaming… but he made no sound, and Gregory wildly wondered whether the fire had killed him as he stood… but he stood, holding in his hands a thin and cruel looking sword streaked with blood.
The Director’s legs trembled... his knees buckled: and the vast man fell, his head rolling forward and off, hitting the runewood floor with a sickening thud, short jets of blood spurting from the headless neck…
For a long moment, Gregory refused to believe his eyes.
Something stirred within the Director’s body; the air around it contorted strangely, distorting Gregory’s view of the large man. It looked as if something were leaving that prone form. Teeth bared, Remy drove his sword through the dead man’s chest, and uttered a spell Gregory couldn’t understand; like that night at the cottage, the spell felt wrong… like it shouldn’t be allowed.
Whatever it was that had been stirring in the Director’s body, it seemed to spasm; the strange distortion rose from the Director, crept up Remy’s blade, up the necromancer’s arm; Remy gasped; Gregory saw the charred flesh heal and knit, the melted face reform within seconds, and but for the blackened robes he wore, there was no sign the necromancer had ever been burned.
Remy turned to Gregory.
‘Drop the barrier, or I go look for your friend.’
‘I’ll drop the barrier,’ Gregory said, backing into the Scrying portal, fighting down the bile and shock rising in his chest.
Remy’s hand flexed on the sword’s pommel.
Gregory forced himself to calm down… to focus… to think. He reached out with his thauma to the small device he’d planted at the door. All at once, he pulled at it, hard: it flew across the room as the golden barrier dissolved: Remy dashed in: the round iron disk smacked into Gregory’s hand: he slammed it into the portal’s arch: like before, the barrier re-materialised an instant before Remy’s spell reached Gregory.
The necromancer smiled mirthlessly.
‘You’re a slippery creature, Magus Gregory,’ he said, ‘but I could still go fetch your friend. Come out of there before I do.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Gregory spat. ‘You’re dying… you’ve got about an hour at most… and I broke your rune card – you’ll have to carve another one if you want your weapon to work.’
‘The rune card will take me no time,’ Remy said. ‘I could be back in here with your friend in less than a minute.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Gregory said, managing a sick sort of sneer. He brandished Lesley’s blood frond at Remy. ‘Look outside…’
‘What-’
Through the arch of the Control Room’s door, they saw shrivelled black fronds falling through the air.
‘While you were gone, I managed to Scry an Elder in Falstead Refugee Camp… they’re rioting the camp, breaking everybody’s rune-links right now.’
Remy’s face went white.
‘They might not be able to break all fifteen thousand runelinks… but they don’t need to,’ Gregory said. ‘They just need to break enough that the Tree can’t sustain itself… how much would that be? You need twelve thousand rune links for the tree to function… so they only need to break three to four thousand more, I think? You’ve got a race against time, Remy. Shouldn’t you start running?’
The necromancer snarled. Tables, strange instruments, papers and chairs scattered away from him. He knelt on the floor and began drawing a familiar circle of runes: a Scrying circle. Remy was very quick; the circle was ready in ten minutes, and Gregory kept quiet… hoping against hope that Remy had forgotten the one crucial detail….
He had.
Gregory nearly laughed with glee when Remy began patting at his robes frantically. His eyes finally darted in horror to where Gregory stood, safe behind the barrier.
‘Looking for this?’ Gregory said, holding out his open palm, in which a small white finger bone lay.
Remy screamed in frustration; black fire beat ineffectually against the golden barrier again.
‘You’ve got forty-five minutes!’ Gregory yelled, and the fire stopped.
Remy’s face was screwed up – he was crying in his desperation and rage. The necromancer might be insane, but his actions had to make sense to himself; and Gregory needed to know what Remy knew – he had to keep him off balance.
‘There’s only one thing for you to do: make the rune-card,’ Gregory said. ‘And we can talk – let’s talk about why I was at your home… you want to know, don’t you?’
Remy gathered his wits and pulled out a blank-rune card from a small cupboard. Shoulders hunched and tensed, he began to carve it. He seemed almost sullen, childlike.
It was a startling change from the cold killer who had stood outside the door only minutes ago.
‘I though Asclepius Coffey was your friend,’ Gregory forced out.
‘He was… but poor Asclepius was never meant to survive my use of the Blood Tree. He knew too much of how I worked… he would have figured out how the Reflectives had truly perished.’
‘I saw you take Algernon… the night of the Voidmark. You were at the Caverns, weren’t you? Why did you take him in particular? Why then and there?’
Now that Gregory thought of it, how had Remy managed to get into the Cavern in the first place? That gigantic boulder had blocked the only way in and out of the Cavern.
For a moment, he thought Remy wouldn’t answer… then: ‘I call it the Den of Thieves… everybody you saw in my basement is there because they stole from me. Professor Algernon only lasted as long he did at the Cavern because his patent, on the filing system he says he designed, brings a lot of money to the Caverns. Pfah! He couldn’t design a cupboard to save his own life… so he stole my idea. I was his apprentice then – because no one else wanted to spend his or her time tutoring a charity case. I showed him my designs… he said he’d look them over. The twit put me off for five weeks, and one morning I heard he was throwing a party – he had just contracted a manufacturer to build filing cupboards based on his designs – my designs. He made me serve the guests at his party… didn’t acknowledge even once that I had anything to do with it… and they all told me how lucky I was to have such an accomplished Master.’
Dark rage choked Remy’s voice.
‘When I’d had enough, I went to tell him he couldn’t get away with it… that I’d tell everyone he’d stolen my works. He told me I’d gone mad, and that I was telling wicked lies… by the time I got home and came back to show the Queen the notes I’d made while designing, he’d already had me expelled – said he caught me stealing. No one would listen to me… my own grandmother went to her grave believing them. I took him then… because it was the most convenient time for him to disappear.’
Remy turned to stare at Gregory, his face hard. ‘You came to my house. Why?’
‘You called me,’ Gregory said. He pulled out the much-folded notice and showed it to Remy.
Remy looked confused for a second before incredulous understanding dawned on is face.
‘You’re the kid Teacher lost?’
‘Your Teacher? He sent out that invitation?’
Remy ignored Gregory’s words. ‘That doesn’t make sense… if you’re the kid in the poster, then you can’t be the Grey’s kid�
� Teacher said you were taken from him.’
‘That’s one way to put it,’ Gregory said cryptically.
He’d just realised that Remy had no idea how much Gregory did or didn’t know – the longer Gregory kept him talking, the more Remy might reveal.
‘What do you mean?’ Remy said.
‘Maybe your Teacher lied to you.’
‘He never lies to me,’ Remy snapped. ‘He doesn’t tell me everything… only things he thinks I need to know – but he never lies to me.’
‘Then you know what he wants from me… did he think you were important enough to know that?’
‘He said you have something of his… something he lost, something very important, and he thinks you found it, before you disappeared’
‘He didn’t tell you what it was?’
Remy’s face flushed.
‘No. The man who came with you that night – who was he?’
‘A gypsy. I paid him to protect me-’
‘Don’t lie,’ Remy shouted. ‘That man wasn’t any gypsy! No gypsy could ever fight me and live! Don’t you dare lie – I haven’t got time for lies.’
The air rang with silence in the wake of Remy’s words.
‘Alright,’ Gregory said, weighing the odds of Remy telling anyone this in the little time he had to live. ‘He was Vincent Grey.’
‘Your father?’
‘Yes. He wanted to know why your Teacher wanted to find his son. How did you get so quickly from the camp to here?’
‘I flew.’
‘Without a carpet? Or an instrument?’
‘Let’s just say I had wings… and it’s a good habit to keep more than one instrument stashed away in case you ever need it,’ Remy said. ‘How did you learn to use the Index at my place?’
‘I have one of my own.’
‘They gave you an Index?’
‘The Queen’s gift… for saving the kids at Voidmark. It was your idea, wasn’t it? It’s amazing,’ Gregory said without pretence.
Remy looked at Gregory suspiciously.
‘Thanks,’ he said unsurely.
‘So that led you to building this weapon… the Tree, for your Teacher to use?’
‘Yes.’
Gregory could hear the pride in the necromancer’s voice.
‘What does your Teacher want with the spirits of fifteen thousand refugees – people you’ve never seen… people who have never harmed you… never stolen from you?’
‘You won’t understand. These people – their lives have no meaning. Their sacrifice to the war is the only thing that can ever give them meaning… and they’re not truly dying.’
‘Not dying?’
‘As soon as Teacher makes his use of them, they’ll all return to the Mother – we’re only fleeting manifestations of her spirit after all… as long as the Mother lives, none of us truly die.’
Remy truly was insane, Gregory decided. An insane religious nut.
‘Is that what your Teacher told you?’ he asked.
‘You don’t believe me… but it doesn’t matter,’ Remy said. ‘In time, when they know what we fought, and how we prevailed… Teacher and I will be known as heroes and protectors.’
‘What is this war you’re fighting? How do you know your Teacher is telling you the truth? If it turns out he lied… then what you’re doing – it’s murder. You’d just have been a pawn in whatever he’s scheming.’
‘You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.’ The rage had gone from Remy’s voice and face… he was once again in a trancelike peace. ‘Teacher showed me the shadows in which the war is fought, and I saw enough to believe him… and to believe in his methods. But even if there was no war, even if all this is just a scheme of Teacher’s, I’d still do his bidding. He’s given me too much. He taught me when no one else would… he listened to every idea I ever had, and he made them better… he never pretended my work was his… he gave me every tool I needed to become everything I ever could… he showed me how to conquer my every weakness. I’d sooner kill every soul on this planet than betray him.’
‘Is this your Teacher’s finger?’ he asked, holding up Remy’s Scrying token.
‘Why would I tell you that?’ Remy laughed.
‘You didn’t know who it was in the missing person poster – I bet your Teacher doesn’t know either. You’re dying, and without you, your Teacher and I will have no connection left. He wants to find me… and I want to know who he is. The last thing you could ever do to help him, to serve him… is to help him get to me.’
Remy’s hands paused in the carving of the rune-card – Gregory realised with a jolt he was finished.
‘Can I Scry him with this token?’ Gregory asked softly.
Remy nodded though he wouldn’t look at Gregory.
‘You can use it to speak to him… and I have one final question of you, Magus Gregory.’
‘What is it?’
‘The evening of the Voidmark… you should not have survived the final spectre you faced. Yet you did, and even that spectre was vanquished. How did you do it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I said don’t lie to me-’
‘I really don’t know. Until you told me just now… I didn’t know I’d vanquished anything. I’m still not sure that was me.’
Remy’s gaze was impassive. ‘Alright then… and I think your efforts have paid off… a little.
Outside the door, silhouetted in the golden light of the day’s sun, withered fronds fell through the air in great numbers – Lesley had spread his warning.
Remy inserted the finished rune-card into the array.
‘The tree is still standing, Magus Gregory – let’s see how many refugees you managed to save.’