When he was twenty-three, he was handed off to a man named Hector Aogo, who was also a self-proclaimed dunkelheit Summoner. It was well known that he had been trying to summon the Devil to our plane for years. Then he was presented with the opportunity to obtain Julian. He bought out his indentured contract from his previous owner, and became the property of Mr. Aogo.
Often Mr. Aogo would have to kill people in order to perform some of his spells and rituals, and on more than one occasion, he had been charged with murder. In order to avoid being arrested, he would kill himself, usually by poison. Once the coroner would declare him dead, one of his servants would steal his body and inject an antidote into him in order to revive his body.
Reputedly, his body would sometimes sit for weeks at the morgue, waiting for its panacea. His soul should have been well on its way to the ghost realm, but then he would reappear in another country several months later. The way he claimed that he was able to accomplish this great feat was by anchoring his soul to poor Julian.
According to Mr. Aogo, Julian died after the fifth time he had killed himself. As far as we know, Mr. Aogo was never able to summon the Devil, and the next time he had to poison himself to avoid an arrest, he actually succeeded in killing himself. As his infamy grew, more and more people tried to unsuccessfully use anchors. The practice was finally outlawed, and Mr. Aogo fell into near obscurity.
“No, it is too dangerous,” I argued.
Suddenly something hit the wall next to the sigil and then fell to the ground. As it was beyond the scope of the light from the lantern, I had to look around for a minute, but I managed to find it. I bent down and picked it up. It was an odd shaped bone, something like an anchor but with sharp spikes on it. It must have been one of the bones from the dead bodies in the room.
“It came from over there,” he said indicating the direction towards the tunnel. He came to stand beside me and said, “But I have no idea how. Everything is dead in this room. I don’t see how that bone landed near us.”
I picked the bone up, examining it more closely, and said, “You are correct about one thing.”
“What?”
“Nothing besides us is alive in this room. This is a furcula.” He stared at the bone, not getting my meaning. “It’s shaped like an anchor Colin. Someone is trying to encourage us to do it.”
He grimaced. I couldn’t say for certain who had thrown it; however, if it were Stephen, then this might have been his way of giving us his blessing. He must have approved of Colin.
Colin wasted no time opening up his coat, and then swiftly unbuttoned his shirt without ever saying a word. I was the one frowning now.
I said, “Wait. What is exactly is involved in doing this anchoring?”
“Don’t fret. There is no risk for you,” he said cryptically.
“Are you sure you want to do this. It has been outlawed in the Republic for hundreds of years for a reason.”
“Nonsense, so have Summoners.” Which wasn’t exactly true, we have been outlawed for less than two hundred years, and bans were lifted during the last world war.
“Is it reversible?” I tentatively asked, backing up to the wall near the ward.
“Do you want it to be?” he asked pausing his hands, which were only four buttons away from revealing his entire chest. I licked my lips nervously, since I was not sure what I wanted. Not sure what I needed. Not sure what I deserved.
“Maybe.”
He smiled smugly and asked, “In that case, are you ready?” Then he finished unbuttoning his shirt.
“I am not familiar with the process. Tell me what I need to do.”
“You need to use that blade with the nastertly horn on the handle to make the anchor symbol across my chest.”
“Which blade?”
“The one there,” he said pointing to the hilt of the blade that Dorian had given me in the V.O.L.E.S. machine back in Britannia.
“This one?” I asked, pulling it out.
“Yes, didn’t you know that this was its fundamental purpose when it was made?” he asked curiously.
“Heavens no. It was a gift from Dorian, and he didn’t seem to have a clue about what it was when he gave it to me.”
He curtly nodded his head once in understanding and then he asked, “Do you know the anchor sigil?”
“I think so.” I stooped down in the near dark and traced its shape on the dusty floor. It was not exactly a true anchor, as the vertical line extending down through the middle of it, branched off to create a circle with an arrow through it.
“That’s it, but they left off a mark in the textbooks to prevent children from doing something that would be irrevocable.” He then added a crescent at the top of the anchor. I duly noted its position and size in relation to the rest of the marks.
“Is this reversible?”
“Hard to say,” he answered as he looked away from me. I was reminded of how terrible of a liar he was.
I drew my lips into a tight line and asked, “How deep?”
“Pardon me?”
“How deep do I make the engraving into your chest?”
“Only deep enough to draw blood. Coat the blade with your ochre first,” he instructed me.
“Is this a dunk spell?” As I waited for him to answer, I began rubbing the blade with one of my sticks. I thought about the perimeter press spell and Verlangen Teufel one too, which had been as close as I had wanted to go in that direction. What was I doing with my life? What would Grandfather think of me?
He gripped my arms in his hands and I startled. I paused my ministrations to look at him.
“Basil, it will only solidify our connection, which already strongly exists. There is nothing dark about this spell. Understand that the important part of doing this is so that I will be able to find you, and you will be able to find me, even if you are in another dimension. I will remain here, and you will be able to cross the planes and return to me anytime you wish. No mirrors, no water, or other magic required.”
“What happens if I die? Will you die with me? Will I be stuck in another dimension forever?” I asked.
“Shhh.” He rubbed my arms and kissed my cheek. Then he said in a shushed tone, “I’ll know if the connection changes. I will pull you back before harm can even befall you. I will be fine and so will you.” He said the words to me with such sincerity that I really wanted to believe him, but a small part of me that wanted to protect him from my profession did not want him to involve himself anymore in my dangerous lifestyle.
I leaned in close to him and said, “You will not follow me into the ghost realm should I die.” I poked him in the chest to emphasize my words and asked, “Will you?”
“As you wish.”
I bit my lip, nodded my head, and then finished rubbing the knife with the ochre dust. Then I asked, “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Are there any words I need to say in particular?” I asked, as I placed the knife’s edge against the middle of his chest above his heart.
“Intent is ninety percent of the law,” he said, referring to Summoner’s ability to pull the Earth’s energy from its electromagnetic mantle. It was also Grandfather’s rule number twenty-two.
The energy was definitely available in the air around us, easy for the taking, especially with all the ozone from the thunderstorm earlier. I pulled and forced it into the knife and started the trance to focus the energy.
Once I felt ready, I hesitantly pushed the blade against his skin. “Go ahead, it won’t hurt me,” he urged.
I nodded my head once and then quicker than I would have thought possible, I had the symbol inscribed into his skin. I knew without a doubt, the knife had been made to do this act. The moment I removed the blade from finishing the sigil in one long and continuous stroke, as these types of designs dictated, the carved mark seemed to heal and nearly disappear before my eyes.
“What happened?”
“It worked. Go on and examine the wardstone now.”
What did he mean it worked? “Where did it go?”
“Hurry, we have only an hour left before sunrise. If what I think is going to happen, happens, then we are going to need every spare second we can get. I heard tomorrow is a goddess’s birthday.” His wry attempt at humor surprised me.
“One last question. Can you see the new connection between us?”
“Yes, it is very strong. You truly are the most powerful Summoner I’ve ever met.”
“I’m the only practicing one I bet you’ve ever seen work,” I countered.
“Not true,” he told me while raising an eyebrow.
I turned around to investigate the stone one more time. After a closer inspection, the protrusion appeared to be a bone of some sort, but not one I had ever seen before. I asked, “You will tell me about these other Summoners later, won’t you?”
“All I know.”
I said, “Good, I’m going to touch it now.” And when I did, everything melted away, and I found myself in an entirely different location altogether. I was suddenly very happy that Colin had made me do the ritual.
I squinted my eyes against the bright sun and pelting sand of this new land. I didn’t know what plane I was on, but I did know that it reminded me of the one that I had banished myself to when I needed to retrieve Calidum while using the bathtub as a portal.
Once I regained my bearings, I peeked between the slit of my barely opened eyelids and saw several pyramids on the horizon several miles away. I was in a demon plane that looked a bloody awful lot like Egypt.
Chapter 19
Hieroglyphic Sigils
Rule number six: Seven ochre sticks are better than six.
I turned around and discovered that I was in front of a carved entryway which had been set into the side of a mountain. There was another one of those bone riddled wardstones set into the foundation of a pillar to the left of me. There was another pillar to the right of it. I followed the vertical line of the closest one to me up and discovered that it turned into the left leg of a statue that was easily at least two hundred feet high.
I stepped further away from it, and observed that it was part of a beautiful woman with outstretched wings on her arms and a sun disc above her head. Her legs straddled the opening into the mountain. I never took a deep interest in ancient Egypt, but something told me that his was a representation of the goddess Isis.
I glanced back at the pyramids behind me and wished I had a spyglass to see them more clearly. Had I simply travelled through a land portal? I thought for a moment that this could have been present day on the Dark Continent, until I noted the sun.
The sun was slowly descending in the sky towards the pyramids, but it was far too bright in its intensity to be our own star. As I didn’t see another living soul, I stepped further away from the temple entrance until I could see beyond the statue. Oh my, there was a second sun in the sky! This one was huge and rather than being a white disc, it was a huge burnt gold circle. Where exactly was I?
This could have been a parallel plane, like Neverland, or it could have been an upper dimension that I normally didn’t have access to visit. My mind couldn’t wrap around the possibility that I might not even be in our solar system any longer. But could this be old Earth? Could it have sent me back in time?
It was a desolate land, and as much as I would have liked to explore this new world, I walked back and reexamined the ward instead. I needed to change it.
I began the process of reversing its polarity. My hope was that if I did it here, it would also change back in the basement. The goal was to keep demons from leaving the hotel, but would it keep them from entering it too? I took a tendril of my hair into my mouth and worried it. What if I had made a mistake in my logic?
I absently wondered where Horatio was, and if he would know if my plan would work. Was he adrift somewhere in these dusty lands? He certainly hadn’t made his presence known to me while I’ve been here.
Suddenly I felt a tug and lost my balance. I quickly recovered and tried to see if anything had grabbed me. I couldn’t see anything. Then I was pulled toward the wardstone. Obviously, Colin wanted me to return, but I couldn’t, not yet. Not until I changed the stone.
As I studied its graceful lines and bones that had been artfully arranged to make up this sigil, the word masterful was the only word I could use to describe it. With such economy of line, I saw the simplicity in it, but did not mistake that for a lack of power. I almost felt the electromagnetic pulses coming off of it. Now how could I change something like this? Did I have the ability? I even worried over whose bones has been used in the sigil.
After studying the intricate marking for a few more seconds, I observed the groove of the lines that had been etched into the granite. Looking closely, but not touching it, I realized that the striations and directions of the grooves could only mean one thing: that it was made with the single stroke of a tool, not unlike how I drew the mark on Colin. What kind of a tool could do that? What kind of power did a person need to have to create it? And what would happen if I placed my finger in it and traced it in the opposite direction from how it was created?
I reached out and hesitated. Maybe I ought to not touch it with my bare skin. I took out a stick of ochre, not certain if it would even work here, where ever this was, and then I was unable to stop myself any longer. I placed it at the bottom of the mark and retraced it while going against the grain.
When I finished, nothing happened. A few seconds went by and then the mark pulsed with a golden colored light once. A few more seconds passed and then the ground below me immediately began to shake and bellow. Uh oh.
I felt the connection between Colin and I flare up again, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to be pulled back to Colin. After being sucked back through an invisible inter-dimensional portal to him, I wound up slamming right into him. He held me tight to him for a few tense seconds, and then he pushed me back far enough to look me over.
“You brought me back,” I whispered.
He smiled smarmily at me and asked, “You’re not injured?”
I smiled back at him and replied, “No, I’m perfectly fine now.” He was my safety net, and I would never be stuck in another dimension without a clear way out again. I really looked at him, no smoke and mirrors required. This spell was not without complications however.
“What if I’m overseas and you’re here?” I asked.
“To use an anchor, it has to be close to the ship.” So, unless I conducted my Summoner business with him, the deal was null and void. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Had he tricked me into something I wasn’t sure I was ready to do.
Conflicted, I said, “Did anything happen to the mark here?”
“It glowed for a split second and then the meter said that it flipped poles.” Each wardstone was keyed when it was created with a polarity. Since this one had now been flipped, I had no idea how long it would last, so time was of the essence.
“Show me the location of the others,” I told Colin.
“Where did you go?”
“Somewhere amazing.”
“Tell me about it,” he said as he swooped me back up into his arms again. Then he proceeded to carry me deeper into the cavernous room.
“It was Egypt Colin, but not like it is here.” The Dark Continent had been designated as the world’s penal colony many years ago for the most dangerous criminals, but particularly the User population’s criminally insane. All of the country’s relics and archeological artifacts had been moved out of it over a century ago and housed in museums in nearly every nation. Even the great pyramids of Giza had been deconstructed, block by block, and reconstructed near Stonehenge in Britannia. They barely won the bid for it against Prussia.
“Yes,” he urged me. “Tell me more about this place that pretends to be ancient Egypt.”
“I saw pyramids Colin, honest to goodness pyramids, complete with gold caps and smooth sides. It was as if I was there thousands of years ago!” I said as I clutched the
collar of his coat.
We stopped, and as it was dark, I had no idea where we were in the room. I didn’t know where the lantern went that we were using, but that didn’t slow Colin’s progress. He set me down on the solid floor, and after a bit of shuffling, he told me, “Hand me your flint.”
He took it, and even though I couldn’t see him, after two strikes, a makeshift torch lit up in his hands. The lantern must have run out of fuel.
“Is that a femur?” I asked incredulously.
“I think so. The cloth was abundant enough, as well as the fuel source.” He must have meant the fat from the bodies surrounding us. The smell was not pleasant, but the light was God sent.
He pulled a kerchief from his bag and handed it over to me. “Go ahead and wrap it around your head. It won’t keep all of the smell out, but it should help with some of it.”
“What about you?”
“A kerchief isn’t going to help me, but it might help you a little.” I wrapped it around my head, and he turned the torch near a wall and a door was revealed.
“You don’t need the torch to see by, do you?”
He smiled and said, “Even I need a little light.”
“But you don’t really need this, do you?” I asked indicating the makeshift torch.
He smiled and opened the door. After peering deeply into the room, I saw his nostrils flare once and then he lifted the meter and scanned the room twice. After a few tense moments he said, “The next ward is over there in the corner.”
He led us into the room, which was similar to this one, but thankfully not one that was littered with decaying corpses. It was not empty though, as it was filled with crates and extra furniture that had been stacked on top of each other.
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