by Daniel Ruth
“I am. That’s not where I’m not going.” I explained and walked into the building.
“I see.” He obviously didn’t but stopped asking.
One of the guards jogged ahead and opened the door, then ran ahead to lead us forward. I suppose he thought Durmont had forgotten the way.
The corridor was huge. It was clearly used as the civil center of the city. I could have fully transformed and still have been dwarfed by the architecture. The floor was marble and echoed nicely as we passed through into a monstrous chamber, with row upon rows of benches. While not quite large enough to host gladiatorial events, it was still a decent size. On the far side, was what looked like a judges or magistrates raised desk. It had a very nice view of the entire room.
As we approached it, I saw that the wall behind it had double doors leading out of the room. Again the guard ran ahead and opened the door for us.
“I hope you have a good reason for waking us up in the middle of the night,” an elderly noble complained as he looked up at us. He was one of nineteen people that sat at a large stone table. Although the table looked austere, the seats placed around it were highly polished wood and lined with sumptuous overstuffed velvet cushions. “Just remember your only on this council as the high councilman’s representative until he gets back.”
“Don’t pull that on us Kent, we all know they had to drag you out of the whorehouse. Damned if you’re not still wearing your girl’s stockings!” mocked one of his fellows, a younger man, merely middle-aged. I glanced at Kent’s feet. Yes, he was indeed wearing rather feminine hosiery. I really didn’t want to think about it.
“Laugh if you will, but he better have a damn fine reason.”
“I did,” assured Durmont. “I will let my companion demonstrate.”
I looked at him nonplussed. Really? I was not amused. I looked back at the stone table and upon closer examination realized that at the head of the table was a metal cover. It was outstanding in that it was the only thing on the table and yet no one was paying any attention to it, however, they unerringly avoided going near it as they milled around on the way to taking their seats.
“I’ll start as soon as everyone’s seated. I’ll just stand here.” I moved over to the seat in front of the covering. It was interesting to see the discomfort in the faces.
“That’s odd, who usually sits there,” one muttered to his neighbor.
“That’s the... guest speaker’s seat.”
“I don’t remember it being there,” another added. As they discussed the seating, their expressions got more and more uncomfortable. Meanwhile, I had lifted the cover. Sure enough, a crystal the size of my fist sat under it. I hummed to myself as I lifted it up and examined it. After a minute of focusing on it, I deciphered the means of activation. The natives were getting nervous and their confusion slowly turned to panic. Then the stone started to glow and lifted from my hands. The people’s expressions drained away, replaced with vague expressions and slack jaws.
“You will remember everything the demons told you not to,” I repeated my previous commands. It seems to have worked fairly well and there was no reason to do anything different. “You will know what they told you do and be able to choose not to do it.” Then I crushed the stone again.
Arguments immediately arose and nineteen people suddenly began shouting and demanding answers. They were confused and scared which in turn triggered anger. I turned to Durmont, who had already fully recovered his senses. “There you go. They are all yours.”
“Thank you,” he replied wryly. “Gentlemen! Quiet, please! I believe that if you reflect upon your memories for a few seconds you’ll realize that we have all been under the command of evil. Thanks to the Professor we are free, however, you must realize we have been doing the will of a demon lord. It will take some time to explain everything...””
“What?”
“What do you mean? I admit the goal was odd...” Kent began.
“It was a bunch of crap!” Shouted out Kent’s younger nemesis. “I can’t believe it made any sense!”
“The demon lord Vatapi, used you to create a circle matrix that covered ten dimensions,” I interrupted tiredly, hopefully, this would be the last time I had to explain this. But I doubted it. “These worlds have been flooded by your world's energy. It didn’t lower yours, of course, but it did overwhelm the other world's existing ley line network. Now every single world is as much of a disaster as yours. Congratulations.”
“What proof do you have?” I ignored that comment and continued.
“These ten worlds are blocked from outside influences, which is why the gods have abandoned you. Vatapi was going to use these worlds as his personal fiefdom. Hell on earth, if you will.”
“Then why aren’t we up to our eyeballs in demons. We have experienced unprecedented peace for over a month. No demons whatsoever,” declaimed another councilman. It wasn’t Kent this time.
“Your welcome,” I nodded to him magnanimously. “Our world defeated Vatapi. We have a limited time before he reforms and gathers his armies again.”
“Well, if you were able to kill him once, it shouldn’t be too hard to kill him a second time.” Even Durmont paused at that comment.
“We basically got him to walk into a trap, he won’t fall for that trick again. Get used to the idea that a demonic horde is on its way. Fortunately, the dimensional barriers are keyed to Vatapi. Until he reforms his armies won’t be able to move with impunity.”
“Do you have a plan?” another elderly man asked in a quavering voice.
“Durmont is in contact with my world’s government. Even if we can’t trick the demon lord again, between our two world’s resources we should be able to hold the portals. Didn’t you used to be able to defend yourself against demons randomly manifesting hither and yon? Well now there’s an army but they have to go through known gates.”
“How many portals?”
“Ten for each world, once you recover a bit I’m sure you’ll remember setting up the circles around them.”
People had started to calm down, now the situation had been explained and they understood what needed to be done. For almost thirty minutes I answered questions. Finally, I had enough.
“Okay, that’s enough questions,” I said as I stood up from the table. “We’re just repeating ourselves. The important thing is that your all free and can prepare for the oncoming storm. Meanwhile, I am going to bed.”
“You can’t go now; we haven’t decided anything!” Kent said, clearly irked.
“You have a way to contact my government. I’m sure he’ll be happy to stay up all night discussing anything you like. Meanwhile, I am tired. I just fought a greater demon and I want a snack before I go to bed. You can contact my secretary with the terminal I gave Durmont if you need me for anything.”
With that, I turned around and left the room. It was obvious that they were extremely unhappy with my attitude. They were still arguing with one another as I closed the door behind me. I can only guess that they let me leave that easily was because I was a representative of a foreign power that they needed to ally with in order to fend off a demon invasion. Or it could be that they respected a man that fought a demon and only got a sprained toe.
Of course, the joke was on them, my toe was fine.
Chapter 32
More out of reflex than any real planning, I ducked into an alley to change into my more diminutive form. As I jogged back to by apartment, I got some suspicious looks from both the guards and vagrants in the street. In both cases, they decided they had better things to do than chase children that were out late. I appreciated this because beating on humans was a thorough waste of time.
I made a note to myself that a few minutes ride in a flying carriage was actually quite a long way by foot. If I was back in Arc I would call for a ride. Here, I was simply out of luck. Still, my jogging was a decent pace and I was back on campus within an hour and sleeping within ten minutes of that.
The air
horn in my ear was definitely not how I wanted to wake up. Startled, I jumped out of my bed, only to realize I was laying on what was mostly a pile of kindling with bed sheets on top of them.
“What the hell!” I shouted muzzily, still trying to get my bearing. I turned to see Beth by the door, air horn in hand and glowing blue. She was either invisible or had her force field up. “I thought I told you not to use that gain!”
“I had to! My conditioning class starts in a few minutes and you wouldn’t wake up!” She had tears streaking down her face and quaver in her voice. I would have been more sympathetic if I didn’t still have a ringing in my ears.
“Fine, let’s get the pain suppression started. I should have enough energy now, after...” I glanced outside the window. The sun was up and it was obviously mid-morning. Nonetheless, I still felt tired. Not a good sign. “Four hours? Why is my bed smashed?”
“You were tossing and turning,” she replied, nervously looking at the trashed room. Tapping her forehead gently, I initiated the suppression technique.
I took a moment to cast Repair. A support of the bed reformed. I cursed under my breath. As an introductory spell, it had only the capacity to reform one component at a time. Give me six months and I believe I could expand it to include a related whole item. As of now, it would take me all morning to fix the thing.
Naturally, I didn’t want to think of the reason my bed was trashed. My nightmares have haunted me for well over a year. Even with my stamina, a week with only a few hours of sleep was going to catch up with me. “I’ll fix that later. Relax and I’ll get you going. I think I have something that can give you a little help with this.”
“Like what,” she asked curiously.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Then why did you tell me?”
“I’m bad with surprises.”
“Funny,” she said as she made a face at me. “Got to go! Bye!”
“Have fun!”
I was being mostly facetious. From what I understood, the war wizard class most resembled torture. I spent an hour getting the bed back together. The damn spell did not put the repaired parts back together so I got to enjoy a puzzle too, as I tried to figure where all the pieces went. I was thoroughly awake when I was done and ready for something to eat. I had just noticed we were out of food when there was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” I growled at the robed teen at the door. I swear if he tried to get mud on me I would hurt him.
“Is the Bethany here?”
“The who?”
“Mistress Bethany,” he said while nervously looking around.
“Beth?” Where did she get such an odd nickname? Well, at least we were not being pranked anymore. “She’s at class.”
“Please let the mistress know that I have finished cleaning her sheets and I have loads of food ready.”
I actually paid attention and saw that behind him was a cart with food and folded clothes. The youth stood at attention and waited for my response. Sweat trickled down his forehead.
“Hey, you’re the one that met us when we came in,” I said. I was almost sure; all people I don’t give a damn about look the same to me.
“I apologize. Mistress Bethany has taught us how wrong we were.”
“Well, okay then. Thanks for the food.” I waved him off and wheeled the food inside. As I greedily went through the food, I pondered the situation. On one hand, I wasn’t really certain if Beth had dominated the boy through hypnosis or intimidation. Personally, I did not really care but I was almost certain Jeremy would have a cow if his sister was mind controlling the other kids. The time we had watched ‘Children of Corn’ had definitional spooked him. I would mention something to Beth if I had nothing better to do.
On the other hand, she had gotten clean sheets and tons of food in a place that had no global network or similar contractual labor. That was very cool. I definitely made a great decision when I made her my helper. Jeremy was good but his sister was far more proactive.
After I ate and cast a few Clean spells to get rid of the unsightly spots and dust of the last day, I started to set up my alchemy paraphernalia. I had some fortunate encounters last night and I wanted to make the most of it. Soon the living room had several burners, distilling trains and my extraction apparatus. It was a bit more complex than the simple crucible I used for the first generation of my wards but since this world had a plethora of magic shops, I had gotten some supplies.
Humming happily to myself, I got out the shimmering rock fragments I had shattered last night and began to grind them into a powder. I could have done it more thoroughly with my fingers but then I may have more impurities to deal with. As the hours passed I refined and purified. When Beth finally came back from class I was slowly stirring a gently glowing concoction of something that looked like a purple syrup.
“What’s that?” she asked tiredly. The conditioning was a bit draining even if you were able to avoid the normal excruciating agony.
“Liquid thought,” I replied with a pleased smile.
“Yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“No thrill of discovery?”
“Too tired for thrills. Looks like you broke open a lava lamp.”
“I ran into a greater demon last night,” she looked alarmed but let me continue. “Do you know the great thing about demons?”
“No, except for when they die, I haven’t seen anything too great about them.”
“You need to get over that whole fear of demons thing. With your present abilities, you could totally stomp one of those tiny demons that chased you around town.”
“How about a hundred of them?”
“Concentrate on how easy one would be, you can grow into the rest,” I waved off her concerns. “Anyway, demons leave stuff behind, especially if you’re an alchemist.”
“Oh, like treasure?”
“I was thinking body parts but okay, let’s go with that. I scored some nice things. More specifically some things that I can refine into crystals than can store psychic energy.”
“What were they before?”
“Some rocks that could forcibly hypnotize people.”
“That seems pretty useful. Why didn’t you keep those?”
“It’s actually pretty limiting. Admittedly, you have a talent for it that I don’t but I would rather be able to draw on these like batteries in combat. I might be able to triple the effectiveness of my shields. Remember, survival first!”
“That does seem pretty useful. I suppose.”
“It should work to fuel almost any psionic talent. For example, you can store a bit of energy in it and suppress pain all on your own. For those times you just can’t wake someone else, even with an air horn.” I winked at her.
“How does that syrup stuff get to be crystals?”
“Well, some of it is focusing energy the right way but it’s basically growing a crystal from a supersaturated solution.”
“That seems pretty mundane.”
“A lot of alchemy is. However, if I do it just right, I think I can form some pretty gems in shapes that do not need cutting. Disrupting the formation would lessen the energy storage.”
“My faith in magic is restored,” she deadpanned. Then she yawned and started to head to her room. “I am going to take a nap.”
“You may get a call from the acting principal. Just take a message and I’ll decide what to do later. Also order another terminal from Conrad and have it sent to my house. I’ll pick it up the next time I’m there.”
“What,” she exclaimed as she turned back to me. “Acting principal? Of this academy?”
“What other one would I be talking about?” I asked in puzzlement.
“He’s going to be calling me? Like on my terminal? Does he know we snuck into the academy by pretending to be a dead child Baron?”
“It didn’t come up,” I said absently as I kept stirring the concoction. Slow and steady was the name of the game when it came to alchemy.
“But what if he recognizes me?”
“That seems pretty unlikely since there are literally thousands of students here,” I replied thoughtfully. “You could simply say I hired you to take my calls.”
“I don’t see how drawing attention to our less than honest admissions could end well. I think I can use some programs to mask my image and voice. What does he want to talk about?”
“Maybe nothing. I got him in contact with Conrad and President what’s his face.”
“Carlos...”
“Yeah, that one. Hopefully, they can organize some sort of defense against Vatapi and we don’t need to do anything for a while.”
“Wasn’t the demon menace the main reason we came here?”
“Not really,” I said. The main reason I was here was to learn the magic system. Which I was well on the way to doing. The secondary goal was to figure out where the demons were holed up. The maps were going to be a great help if I could decipher them. Durmont had these on his walls too, so he may learn more before I do. That was the main reason I was interested in keeping in contact with him.
The notes on the circles would be good. Not only could I get a better understanding of the methodology of wards and circles but I might be able to find some flaws in the barrier I could exploit. Other than the obvious one of going to Mars or Pluto. Perhaps something a bit more convenient.
“Fine. I’ll let you know if he calls.”
The next few days were fairly uneventful. My flatmates grumbled a bit about my laboratory equipment taking up the entire counter surface. This complaint was entirely true, but they enjoyed watching the crystalline dust swirl around in the solution until it merged with the tiny seed of the gem in the center of the flasks.
Once the flasks were set up, they only needed a small amount of maintenance throughout the day. I was able to utilize this time to finish studying the remaining utility spells. I finished the Cooling spell and the Light spell from the second semester and worked my way through the third semester, which included Bind, Wind, Candlelight, Flash and finally Float. Nothing earth shattering but a decent enough foundation.