by Curtis, Greg
In that moment Harl knew a sense of shame. Maybe even a little horror.
It was for that reason that he abruptly got up and gave his apologies. He said it was because he needed to get started on the demon trap. But it wasn't. It was because he realised that as terrible as the lot in life he had been given five years before was, there were still some who had been given worse.
Chapter Twenty Two
Harl was linking up the last of the chains for the demon trap when the High Priestess came, riding up his path while soldiers drove a wagon for the trap behind her. It had been an easier build than he had expected though he'd still worked through much of the night. But then physically the structure was not complicated.
It was not really much more than a cage in the end. A cage made of sturdy metal that was large enough to hold a man or a demon. The only additional elements to the steel frame and bars were the chains leading to the collar and the wrist and ankle restraints. But they were no more than crude steel objects enchanted with some spells of restraint. Wizard or demon, whatever was contained within this cage once properly bound would not be getting free. He would be bound, neck, wrists and ankles, scarcely able to even touch the bars, and his magic would be useless. The difficult part was going to be getting the wizard into the cage. Somehow Harl could not imagine even Maynard the Mad willingly stepping into it.
“It is ready?”
Erislee dismounted and stepped into the clearing and Harl glanced up from his work to see her standing there. Then he looked up further as he heard roaring. A couple of griffins had arrived with her and they alighted even as he stared at them. They immediately started making themselves comfortable in the trees around his home while he stared, amazed by the sight. They were surprisingly noble creatures he thought. Almost regal in their gold and white. Wherever the High Priestess went these days he understood, she was accompanied by the servants of her Goddess. He guessed they reminded people of who Artemis was. The Goddess she had been before the false temple had usurped her name. And who her true servants were, instead of the twisted creatures of the false temple.
The wagon meanwhile had pulled up at the edge of the yard, several soldiers on it already waiting to load the demon trap on to it. The soldiers he noticed, didn't seem at all surprised by the griffins.
“Nearly. I'm just linking up the last of the lengths of chain to the collar. But once that's done it can all be simply connected up with a few bolts and locking pins. The spells are already in place. The bars are warded. No magic can be used within the cage.” Not even his, and he was normally the one sort of wizard who should be able to escape any sort of cage. But not this one. For some reason that made him nervous.
“Then I should start the prayer.”
“I'd prefer it if you waited a moment please High Priestess. Considering what your prayer will do and that I would be helpless inside this trap, I'd like to connect up the last of the chains before your prayer is cast.”
The thought of being torn apart by demons, having his life and soul shredded the same way, was not one that appealed to Harl. It was a terrible death.
“Well enough.” She walked over and started inspecting the cage, perhaps looking for weaknesses or defects. She would find none. She didn't. Then apparently satisfied, she wandered over to the pit where he was working.
“You use your fingers?” She seemed surprised for some reason. But then most people were when they saw an arcane smith working. They could and did use the same tools as blacksmiths. But they didn't always have to.
“Of course, for some of the fiddly things like making the links solid.”
That was one of the things that an arcane smith could do that a normal blacksmith couldn't. While they both used hammers and tongs to bend and shape the steel into links, a blacksmith would use a softer steel compound to connect the two ends of the link up like glue. Harl didn't have to do that. Instead he simply pinched the steel link's ends together and let the fire running through his fingers melt the steel in the right place so that it became one. The end result was both stronger than what a blacksmith could do and neater.
But then as an arcane smith he used other abilities to what a normal blacksmith would. He could smell and taste the metal as it heated, which was invaluable when it came to getting the recipe for steel just right. He could tell just by squeezing a sword how it would bend and flex. How well it would hold an edge. The sound it made when he tapped it with a fingernail told him even more.
The High Priestess stood there quietly on the other side of the pit for a while after that, watching him as he worked. And though he found it a little odd it didn't bother him. Not nearly as much as it did when she sent the soldiers with her in to his house to boil a pot of tea. That was a liberty. But in the end he was becoming used to such things.
“My sister says you're from Lion's Crest?”
The question was unexpected and it bothered Harl. Especially when she knew the answer. They had spoken of it only the day before. Lion's Crest and that terrible day when the beasts had come was something he tried not to think about a lot. It was not something easily forgotten or put aside. But then he realised that she wasn't asking about that day. She was asking about his life before then. And maybe she had a right to ask as the leader of the rebellion. She should know a little something of those who served her cause. She also had good reason to be curious about the past. Especially if what he had heard about her was correct. That she had been locked away in a cage for five long years.
“Born and raised. I had just opened my own smithy a year before the attack – the Elder Fire Forge. This is not so grand but it still bears my mark. In time it may become more.”
“Elder Fire. I was told. And I remember the name. You made a silver staff for High Priest Garrilon of Apollo's temple. He said he found it to be fine work for someone so young.”
She surprised Harl with that. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken about his work. Particularly the work he had done before the false temple had come. In fact he hadn't thought there was anyone still alive who had any knowledge of it. But it was also pleasing to be remembered for something he had crafted.
“I remember it. It was an interesting piece to make and he was generous with his coin. I hope it served him well.” That was for the month he had had it before the beasts had come. But Harl didn't mention that. There were enough bad memories about people who were now probably dead without him adding any more to them.
“He did. He said the enchantment of vitality you placed on it made him feel ten years younger when he walked. Although that would still have made him ninety!”
“Good.”
Harl concentrated on his work after that, knowing that the High Priestess was probably in a hurry. It was a long journey back to Midland Heights and the siege. But as he worked he was also thinking about something else. A question that had been circling in the back of his thoughts ever since he had heard that the great temple at Lion's Crest had been originally overrun by wizards and demons. And eventually the question forced itself from him.
“High Priestess, how did the box, the gate, get brought into the temple without someone noticing what it was?”
He had heard about the great wooden box. About how many men had been needed to carry it in. And about how it had really been a gate. All of that he understood. But what he didn't understand was that no one had thought to check it before it was brought in. No one had thought that it was such an unusual offering that they should perhaps have studied it first. And with a gate there would always have been signs that it was highly magical. There probably had even been a ripple in the air around it that distorted sight a little.
“Pride and arrogance of course. The mistakes of all men. All priests as well. We were told it was a gift from the king. That he himself would be coming to present it to the temple when it was in place. And we thought that that was simply as it should be. That Artemis' temple should be so honoured.”
Erislee paused for a minute and then add
ed, “I thought that. And then I had to watch everyone in the temple be killed around me.”
There was bitterness in her words. Bitterness and shame. Harl understood that, as he walked with the same shame himself. Failure. Priests it seemed were no more immune to the failings of the spirit than anyone else.
He wasn't looking at her as she said it. His eyes were on his work. But he could hear the pain and sorrow in her voice, and he instantly felt bad for having made her dredge up painful memories as he looked for an explanation. Or perhaps he had been seeking a confession? But if hers was a confession as he thought it was, it revealed no great mistake on her part. Just a terrible price paid for a small failing.
“I'm sorry.”
And he was. For so many things. But above all for the losses they had all suffered. If what she had said was true, and he was sure it was, then she had lost not just her temple that day, but also her friends, her mother and five years of her life. It was a sorry reminder that there were no victors here. Only survivors. It was simply that he had hated her temple for so long. It was hard to put aside that sort of hatred and blame completely even now. It was hard to simply accept that the followers of Artemis had been victims as well. So he was grateful to finally have something else to tell her.
“We're done here.”
Harl pulled the chain out of the pit to show her. One end was attached to the collar, and the other end in his hand would soon be attached to the top bars of the cage.
A growl cut through the air just then, the sound of a griffin roaring, and though he knew it was no threat – the beasts were just making themselves comfortable in the surrounding trees – it still chilled his blood a little. He could take a unicorn if he had to, he thought. But he had no idea at all how to fight a griffin. Not when they could strike from above.
“It's all right.” She let a small smile grace her face as she saw his disquiet. “They're peaceful.”
But they weren't peaceful. In fact according to all the tales he'd been told the griffins were taking a terrible toll on the minotaurs and leonids, striking from above and behind without warning and leaving behind bloody corpses. The cerberi were even less fortunate. They saw nothing at all until a griffin landed on top of them and ripped them apart. Still, as long as the griffins weren't coming after him that was all that mattered.
Harl attached the collar chain to the cage, using a spark between his thumb and forefinger to make the connection solid. The less locking pins he used the stronger the trap would be. And he had managed to keep the number down to six. One on the collar, one on each of the wrist and ankle bindings, and one on the door. It would hold the wizard.
“Now High Priestess, the collar is the key. The bars of the cage are all warded against every form of magic known. But they are general barrier spells. Once inside the cage with the door shut, Maynard should be almost helpless, but there is always a chance he could break through. The collar however, is warded with the most powerful barrier spells against his particular gifts that I could enchant. Summoning and dimension. Snap the collar around his neck and his most powerful magics will be negated. He will be helpless. So do that first then bind the rest of him into the cage and close the door.”
“And then what?”
“Now you place the blessing of the Huntress upon the cage and when the time comes you speak your word of banishment to activate your prayer. He will be unable to resist. And he will be gone.”
“As simply as that?”
Harl didn't answer her for a while because he couldn't. The truth was that he didn't know. He'd never seen anyone banished let alone a Circle wizard. And when he did find the words they weren't very comforting.
“If your spell is quick and sharp. Hopefully it'll be clean.”
But it wouldn't be clean. Not like a sword through the heart. When the wizard arrived at the other side he would be torn apart and eaten. The demons would feast on every part of him. According to the priests of Pluto and the wizards who dealt with such matters, the demonic realms were filled with hungry demons, all of them starving, all of them wanting nothing more than to eat. To eat the flesh and the life of whatever they could find. Mostly they ate their own kind, and only the strongest survived. There would be no chance of survival for Maynard. And the only hope he would have was that it would be quick. It was a terrible death. Maybe some of the distaste he felt for what he was doing showed on Harl's face.
“This is a foul device.”
“It was a foul thing that the wizard did. He deserves to die.” Harl tried to pretend certainty as he said it. But the truth was that he wasn't completely certain. The High Priestess was right. It was a foul device. It wasn't a clean death they were talking about. Not for Maynard. He would arrive in the demonic realm and suffer. Body and soul. That was not something Harl wanted to think about.
Now that the heat of battle had passed and reason had returned, Harl sometimes had dark moments when he thought about the killing of Alenda Goldeneyes. About the look of horror on her face when he had taken her arms from her, just before he had taken her head. Though it had felt right at the time he wasn't always so sure any more. It wasn't that it had actually been wrong. He knew it had been the dutiful thing to do. And he also knew that it had been in the heat of battle, and that she had been trying to kill him. As she had killed many others. He knew his action had saved lives.
But against that she had been an old woman. And it was hard to get the image of an old woman screaming in terror out of his mind. Especially when he'd started cutting her to pieces. There were some things no soldier or warrior should ever have to do. But this was war. It had had to be done. This would have to be done as well.
“To die? Yes. Like this? I don't know.”
“As long as these wizards remain alive their deal with Xin holds and he will continue to send more of his army through the gate. More innocent lives will be taken. – With this, at least once the Circle Wizards pass through their deaths will not result in the death of even more lives.”
“You truly believe Dina's theory about the shape of the spell?”
“Yes.” He'd doubted it for a while – most of the previous night in fact. But then it had occurred to him that there was one unquestionable piece of evidence in her theory's favour. One of the Circle was dead yet the deal still held. Chimera were still entering the world. And he seriously doubted it was because the other eleven were shouldering an extra burden from their fallen comrade as they would have had to had it simply been a bargaining spell. They simply wouldn't do that.
“And how bad will it be if the last is killed here?”
“I don't know.” He took a deep breath as he thought of how to explain the complex magic that a true binding could be.
“A binding is unlike other magic. Some call it a living spell. It's not just more complex and more powerful; it goes beyond magic. It draws upon the life as well as the magic of those casting it. Some say it absorbs part of their very soul. And in that way the magic, the spell, becomes more than just mere magic. More than just the sum of the magic cast into it. In a way it almost becomes a living thing. Even if this was just the twelve wizards and the demon king that were bound by a simple bargaining spell that would be a terrible thing. They have so much magic within them. But if this is a binding I suspect it will be far worse. With not just the magic of the twelve and the demon but something of their living essence as well, the power could be increased tenfold.”
“But it could yet be worse than even that. A binding may also be formed and strengthened through the lives and souls of others. People sacrificed and their essence given to the binding. And these wizards were the sort who would far rather sacrifice others to achieve their ends than themselves. Demons of course are the same.”
“How powerful the binding is will depend on how many were sacrificed to create the binding. We know that Xin is desperately hungry for the lives of the people his beasts kill. When the wizards came to him I assume he saw the chance for a feast like no other, while the
wizards desperately wanted what he promised them. I would guess that when the binding was formed both of them sacrificed as many of their own as they could. Neither side could allow the deal to fall through.”
“There could be hundreds of souls bound up in it. Maybe even more. And that sort of living magical power can move mountains.”
“When Alenda Goldeneyes died, only the tiniest fraction of the magic bound in the binding was released.” But the destruction from that release had been fearful. They were just lucky that the wizard had died at the edge of the fort and not in the middle of the town, or things could have been much worse. Many more could have died.