Biomancy

by Desdemona Gunn

  She drew in another deep breath and released it. By then, Amber had hopped down and moved to Liz, who picked her up instead and began to stroke her absentmindedly. “That’s what we thought. The priest appeared to be a demon priest, brought a cult of people here and sacrificed them all after her keep was built.”

  “No one else there?”

  “Otherwise an empty building. Lots of promise, lots of potential, no current occupants or inventory.”

  Liz stared back and forth at them, awestruck but afraid to speak.

  “You saying what I think you’re saying Lea?”

  “That this building is mine? Yes. We all came here to find me a new workshop and laboratory. I think I found the most convenient retrofit physically possible.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We move in. There are plenty of large master bedroom type rooms, I’ll gladly allot one to each of you, though I assume you’ll want one?”

  “Safe assumption.”

  “So, are we...?” Three words were all Liz could muster with her sympathetic pain that seemed to be oddly one-sided at the moment combined with her utter confusion about Leana’s current state.

  “Spending the rest of the wake moving in. I’ll show you to your rooms, and we’ll go from there. I was...” Another deep inhalation and slow exhalation, “counting on Anixemeter for general diplomacy and Chief for security, so I think I’ll need these niches filled. Liz, you’re here for your plant-magic, and I’ll be putting those to use outside of exploration and scouting, so stay for that. Elon, I think I need you for security, but also theory-crafting. I need someone well-versed in the arcane arts to bounce ideas off of and to offer input. As well, being the most well-travelled and best to travel, you’re my new diplomat.”

  “Can do.”

  “Wait. What do you need my druidic powers for?”

  “Gardening. Importing and meat farming is impractical for the long-term; we’ll need to start growing. For now, gather all the things you need and move in. I’ll show you to your selection of rooms. I apologize for the darkness, but trust that it is devoid of life. I’ll be working on the lighting situation most likely first-thing.”

  They wandered through the halls and slowly, over a twenty-minute tour, they were shown ten different bedrooms of which they chose the one room featuring a cathedral ceiling.

  “You have the rest of your wake off. Port home and gather your things if you wish. You are working for me and living in-house as of now.” Liz set Amber down and she hopped with trepidation back to Lea. She closed the door as she left and noiselessly walked away, rabbit in tow, leaving them in a massive pitch-black room. Liz looked around anxiously while Elon conjured light in his off-hand and dropped to the ground to begin etching a rune.

  “Well... Welcome to our new home.”

  “Elon... What was up with Lea?”

  “Defense. Come on, you know how people are. Death is hard to register. She hasn’t really accepted it yet, and to fight against breaking down completely, she’s sticking to business. Knowing her, she’s gonna be working her ass off fixing this place up in the coming dozens of turns, most likely. It’s her way of coping.”

  “As long as it helps...” She hugged him as tight as she could, which Elon noted was tighter than he expected. He paused efforts on the rune to reciprocate. “I’m just glad to have you. I mean, what if you went with them instead of me? You could have—”

  “We have no idea what could have happened, Liz. It’s a what-if statement, nothing else. There’s no point in dwelling on it. We’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

  She pulled in even tighter, a force Elon didn’t know she had. “Gods be good.”

  “Gods be good...”

  Turn 1568 of the third age

  Sunrise, 1 Turn Later

  Chapter 38: Demonology: The Lost Art

  The City of Kandra, Octavian Prefecture

  Town was oddly quiet, not only odd for the nature of Kandra as a whole, but on a clear, beautiful sunrise such as this one, as warm as it was, it just perplexed her that so many people wouldn’t be out on the streets. She was puzzled, but ultimately not disappointed.

  The joviality of pub life called to her, so she visited a local one called the Iron Penguin. The tongue-in-cheek name was lost on most, including her. Sure, they had the perfect cider, best in all of Kandra, but she practically went there for the name alone.

  The atmosphere was delightful, though. Quiet, but social, commonly with live music, and a friendly staff. She waltzed in through the oak doors and, on her walk down to the bar, was greeted by name by four separate people, one of which was a former student.

  She ordered their seasonal ‘Masala Cider,’ one infused with cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon, and sipped it lightly as she grinned. Oddly enough, most people didn’t like their hard cider hot, nor their non-alcoholic cider cold. All of the above were good for her, but hot spiced hard cider was hard to beat.

  The drink slid in front of her in a beautiful wooden goblet bound with blackened iron. As she prepared to lift it, she was clapped on the back. “Tabby! I haven’t seen you in fuckin’ ages!” The voice, combined with the size of the hand slapped on her back was enough to tell her who it was without even turning. Still, she opted to look back at her former roommate.

  “Rue. How in the hells are you?”

  “Fuckin’ good, Tab. Fuckin’ good.” The literal beast of a woman sat beside her, resting all four arms on the bartop. “The hardest whiskey you got. I want a fuckin’ gut punch. So what’s my little Tabby been up to?”

  “Oh, it’s my turn break. Every nine turns, I get one off. I love tenure. So, I’ve been enjoying relaxing, not dealing with papers or students. No excuses for being late, excuses for not having work, excuses for falling asleep. I’ve just been enjoying this nice warm sunrise, a glass of cider, a good hookah on the porch, and a loving husband.”

  “No!” Rue gasped at her, astonished and excited simultaneously. “Tabby got married?”

  “I did, I did.” She reached up and tapped at her choker. A painstakingly detailed plate of silver rested at her throat with tiny silver chains wrapping behind. More chains dropped down to her chest, holding up two small rubies on the top of her sternum. The whole piece was an accent for the massive burning red ruby embedded front and center on the main plate, cut to perfection, flanked by a smaller ruby in each direction.

  “Light o’ Tzen, tha’s fucking gorgeous!”

  “Thanks! He made it himself.”

  “Why the fuck wasn’t I invited?”

  “I sent you an invitation, and never got anything back. Assumed you were fighting the good fight or whatever.”

  “It’s been many moons since I seen the fight, kwara. I’ve been guarding.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It was a few turns ago.”

  “Oh, so soon. Still honeymoonin’ then, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So the sex is still good, then?”

  Her face flushed red more quickly than she was expecting. “Yeah, it never really stopped.”

  “That’s my girl.” Another slap on the back. It would have disoriented her if it wasn’t for the long build-up of tolerance she somehow achieved through turns of rooming with an Atrok guardsman, despite that being more than sixty turns ago. “So what you been up to other than runnin’ off with random men?”

  “He’s not random! I started dating him sixteen turns ago, I’ll have you know. And otherwise... not much. I’ve been tending to both the academy’s library, as well as my own, grading papers, teaching people things about species they should probably already know, teaching other kids things about history no one really cares about, and— Oh! Oh. You know what I’ve been doing lately?”

  “All these things, and apparently something else?”

&nb
sp; “I’ve been getting back into demonology.” She leaned in close for the last few words.

  “Tabitha Atwood! You’re jokin’.”

  “I’m not. It caught my interest again, and I’ve been getting more and more into it. I find the process endlessly compelling, and, even more fascinating, is the variety I’m getting. I’ve learned how to reach into nearly all the heavens and pick whatever I want out of them.”

  “Heavens? But we’re talkin’—”

  “Rue. We’ve talked about this. Heaven and hell are subjective terms, like angel and demon. It’s only called demonology because of the process people go through to get them. Taking an archon, binding it to your will, controlling it like a pet or slave, and using it for whatever you want lends people to the term demon. No one ‘enslaves’ an angel.”

  “Tabby, you’re lecturing.”

  “I’m a teacher, Rue. Gimme a break.” She laughed and slammed back the remaining decilitre of cider before ordering another one. “But yeah. I can get into six of ‘em, but I still can’t break into the domain of Ril’Sek.”

  “She’s the magic god, I’d assume her’d be the hardest to bust. She gotta have bunches of magic locks, right?”

  “Something like that, to simplify it. Ah, thanks.” She grabbed her refilled goblet and sipped a few times, smiled contentedly, and set it down. “I just don’t even know what kind of archons she’d have at her disposal.”

  “It’s been for-fucking-ever since you did the demon shit around me, I don’t even remember. How many does each god get?”

  “As many as they want, but most stick with a motif.”

  “A what?”

  “A... A theme. They like all of their archons to be similar. Ik’Thar is god of war and death, so most of hers look like dead things. Tze is god of law, so all her guys are suited up in plate. I don’t even know if she has more archons than ‘plated protector’ and ‘winged plated protector.’ Motara, though, she’s got all kinds. I mean, she’s got masonry, brewing, the dark, forging, all that shit under her belt. She’s the smith of the gods. She’s got all sorts of archons. Workers, shades, guardsmen, drunkards, all sorts.”

  “Wha’s the point of a drunk archon?”

  “Fuck if I know. Free beer?”

  “Reason enough for me.” She slammed back the shot in front of her, the fifth in a row. “Yo, ‘tender. I said heaviest you got. Is this the heaviest?” The bartender confirmed. “Gods above, get me a fuckin’ half-litre glass, then.”

  Sunlight barreled through millions of kilometers of dead space, escaping the endlessly churning inferno that was the central star of Adra’s system. It powered through continuous void before penetrating the many layers of atmosphere protecting the denizens of this fair planet from the horrors of the void. In quite a short time after piercing the planet’s outer layer, the light flew past a bird, a lush green tree, and directly through a pane of glass before fighting through a curtain of thick cloth.

  Having braved these dangers in an indescribably short amount of time, the collection of particles making up this “ray” of sunlight came to the end of its journey on the sullen face of Tabitha Atwood, who currently wished for nothing more than another cent or ten of sleep. The barrage of photons following the beam that awoke her did their best to keep her awake, and ultimately succeeded in their job.

  She cursed the light, not particularly caring about the potential environmental effects on her beloved planet if the sun were to suddenly, as she put it, “go fuck” itself “in a hole and die.” All this poor woman knew was that it felt like a tiny faerie wielding a phenomenally long needle or two taking a particularly obnoxious amount of schadenfreudiatic glee in stabbing her cranium as much as physically possible.

  The lack of water consumed the night before confused her, as her expeditions into the realm of alcohol consumption usually contained equal parts water to liquor. Last night’s odyssey, however, left her rode hard and put away wet. Tabitha dragged her seemingly crippled naked body out of bed, used the mattress to steady herself into a standing position, and carefully trudged across the endless bedroom.

  The bathroom called to her, but called more to her churning stomach, so she obliged it, making her feel ever so slightly better despite the poor taste left in her mouth. This taste, she figured would be washed out with a healthy glass of water. Thankfully, her merciful husband was waiting in the kitchen, clad only in a canvas kilt, showing off both his toned legs and rippling chest. Part of her was dearly pleased that she found such a loving, wonderful husband that had such respect for his body and had such a heavenly body to respect. The rest of her just wanted water, goddamn it.

  Water was placed into her hand daintily before she could attempt to speak. The sexy kilted man with the carefully braided beard was an absolute godsend. She drank the water slowly and cautiously, put it carefully onto the center island, and tried to croak out “hey.”

  A voice returned to her deep and melodious, something that gave her hope in life as a whole and the will to go on living. It rang through her ears like silk over her softest of skin. Unfortunately, the state of her brain made his dulcet tones all too rough and loud, like burlap dragged over a frozen nipple.

  “Not so loud” were the words she meant to say, and dearly hoped she did, in fact, say. This waking was proving to be terrible despite the alluring kilted man who she had legal right to do any number of titillating things to (of which she normally did).

  His voice, like a pile of the softest down feathers falling upon her head at the speed of a fine-tuned crossbow’s bolt, suggested something to her that she believed to be a walk about town. The sun was bright, a fact which she took absolute umbrage to, and the world was altogether too loud, but this godly voice from above said this would help her. Begrudgingly, she internally decided her personal voice from the heavens bound into a luscious hardened body was right.

  The hardwood floor scraped against her feet creating an unpleasant noise that didn’t quite distress her, but did little to assuage her pains. Before she made it to the door, her legally binding colloquial better half had the audacity to suggest that she cover her naked flesh before hitting the streets. Unfortunately, she had no choice but to accept his judgment, as the guards may find punishment fitting for such a choice.

  On any other wake, a quick retort would have shot from her mouth asking her husband if he truly wished to cover such a beautiful piece of art like her body, if he really did want her to hide the elegant slopes of her breasts, cloak the fine-trimmed hairs resting below her abs that, admittedly, could use some toning. This wake, however, she quite lacked the energy required to sultrily arouse her husband and she, instead, opted to simply throw on a dress and let him win this one.

  Both bra and corset stayed hung in her closet, waiting for a dess when Tabitha had the patience for either. Clad in a blue dress and sandals, hair tied back in a reckless ponytail, she balanced up on her toes to reach the lips of the veritable statue of a man she had the jubilant personal, governmental, and god-given right to kiss anytime she pleased, took advantage of said right, and took off down the stairs outside their flat and into the city.

  The sun shone bright, but she powered through, knowing it would get better soon enough. Hoping it would get better. Pleading.

  Altogether too suddenly, her name was called from behind her. A neighbor, perhaps. A friend catching me at an opportune time. A former student? A guard. An assassin here to kill me. Maybe he’s a drug dealer too. I wonder if drugs would help. To figure out which of her theories would prove correct, she turned on her heels to find a shady-looking figure leaning against the wall under the stairs she had just so gracefully, at least she hoped, descended recently. Oh good. Drug dealer.

  Golden locks of hair fell from his hood while pale skin and thin blue eyes shone from the darkness of his cloak. All she could wonder was how he could stand to wear
so dark a cloak in the dead of summer in a city like Kandra. Words from his mouth washed over her ears, words swimming through her head but not registering, not from the dehydration but more from her delirious mind that clouded all senses clambering for sleep and her current lack of focus.

  Before she could react, the figure was standing before her with a flask in his hand, offering it to her. He seemed insistent, asking her to drink it, but even in her semi-feverish state, she knew better than to drink something from a flask of a man found under her stairs. Though the man spoke with an air of academia and intelligence, not of vagrancy. He claimed it would clear her mind, make her feel better, though he made these claims as simple matters of fact, scientifically and astutely, not vaguely and akin to a pusherman. What’s the worst that can happen? There are guards present.

  As she drank it, a feeling of warmth rushed over her, and slowly her brain began to clear. The sounds of the city came in more clearly, the chaotic din of the bustling metropolis coming into focus. Energy slowly seeped into her, though a dark tea would be undoubtedly necessary. The man stood before her expectantly, waiting for her journey out of the land of alcohol to finally reach its end. It shortly did.

  Chapter 39: My Keep

  the Village of Ish'Gael, The Isle of Xin

  In just one short month, Lea had successfully enchanted light-emitting runes in every hallway, clearly lighting up the place quite nicely, outfitted her bedroom with the needed accoutrements, started utilizing the existing alchemy lab and had retrofitted one of the larger rooms to fit experiments.

  She set Idrilis on turning the town outside the castle into a large garden, which she was making good progress on. Her wizard boyfriend was rounding up people for Lea’s cause every wake, acting as ambassador in her sister’s stead. The keep now had barracks full of people, and she had hired a few geomancers to rework the dungeon into new living quarters.