The Daemon Prism, page 50
“So they’re planning to use Dante instead of Portier for this soul switching?” said Ilario.
I raked fingers through my hair. “Kajetan believes that because Dante is daemon possessed, he will take on full immortality instead of rebirth. I don’t think he’s told Jacard who they’re dealing with.”
“They’re mad!” said Portier, breathless.
“It makes no difference to us,” I said. “We have to destroy the Stones before they try it.”
“How do we get the cursed things if we can’t yank them from their necks?” Ilario wrenched the cell bars as if to uproot them.
“They’ll have to take them off to fit the three together. As soon as they begin, you go, while the rest of us make some outsized distractions….”
“I can wreak a bit of havoc,” said Portier. “Even if I’ve fallen out of favor ritual-wise.”
And so we watched and waited. Jacard and Xanthe emerged from the bleeding cell. They were laughing as they spoke of traveling their new demesne from Mancibar to Norgand, of coaches and legions, and ordering their empire. Xanthe commented on the beauty of the suspended prisoner’s body. “No grueish hand, and every part so much more firm and powerful than”—she giggled—“yours, dearest Regent.”
“The mind that rules the body is of most importance,” snapped Jacard. “Now, to work …”
Jacard dabbed his brush in his gory medium, explaining that he painted the words in blood because he had no partner sorcerer to read his ritual books. He painted two lines on a whitewashed space next to Dante.
Vosi Dante de Raghinne av recivien, Zevi de Opere.
Vosi Jacard de Viole av recivien, Zevi de Opere.
From Dante to the vessel, Zevi the laborer. From Jacard to Zevi. Saints mercy …
Once he’d thrown down his brush, Jacard reached into a crockery urn. A handful of its contents, dropped into his brazier, produced a plume of black smoke. While one hand gripped the Stone Tychemus, he gestured in a circle above his head, and a band of candles, higher than the ones already lit, sprang into life with purple flame. “Uncle, spectre, prisoner of cruel Ixtador, answer my summons. Show us your face and tell us how best to join our three treasures.”
Kajetan’s tarry eyes glared, as his colorless mouth took on more definition. “Your future moves away instead of closer, boy. Shadows draw nigh. Let this be done.”
“With my lady at my side, I fear no one. And as long as one of the shadows is Duplais, I’m happy to hear it. He will die beautifully, and so slowly he’ll never wish to return to humankind.”
Portier’s face was unreadable in the gloom, but his hand, already icy, was trembling again. I enfolded it in both of mine. He had been so calm and deliberate. To feel his human fear reassured me that he was not in some ecstatic trance.
“The Stones were cut to accommodate each other like male and female. Turn them until they fit.” The spectre’s mouth gaped wide, and he licked his gray lips. Bottomless blackness yawned behind the colorless tongue. “Ensure your lesser spells are bound before invoking the three. Everything will happen very quickly.”
“Are you ready, my love?” Jacard touched Xanthe’s exposed breast. “My uncle is most impatient, and his touch is”—the prisoner screamed as a finger of cloud entwined his nether parts—“uncomfortable. Trust me and you shall rule Heaven and Earth at my side.”
I caught my breath as Xanthe unclasped the slender chain holding the two Stones. The baubles shot green light beams through her clenched fingers.
Ilario’s spirit went still. He released my hand, and I felt him step away.
As if to prove he was not lusting after her treasures, Jacard turned to his work. Raising Tychemus, he intoned a litany of Aljyssian phrases, pointing at the words he had just painted. As ropelike curtains of smoke obscured them, he stepped up beside Dante and the prisoner, Zevi de Opere.
Without warning, Jacard raked a knife across Dante’s breast once and then again. Dante gasped and shook violently. The air of the cavern darkened. Was it imagining that I saw flames in his glare?
Jacard stepped back and admired the bloody X, while sucking Dante’s blood from his fingers. “That’s where I’d cut your heart out did I not have better use for you.”
Dipping his finger into a silver dish, Jacard began to anoint the panting, wide-eyed Zevi. Portier drew me closer and whispered in my ear of ruses and distractions.
Noise from behind us spun me around. Andero loomed from the shadows and then Rhea beside him; her dose of the potion had run out. We were in dire straits, if our time was already expiring.
I made sure Rhea knew we could see her, then told the two quickly of Portier’s plan to distract Jacard.
“Ssst!” Portier’s signal set my blood into a fever.
Jacard returned to the catafalque and removed his own neck chain. He swept a courtly bow to Xanthe. “All is ready, my lady. Shall we seal our partnership?”
The two removed the Seeing Stones from their wire cages and laid them atop Altheus’s coffin.
Portier and I moved. He slipped out and ducked behind one of the angels. Unable to see Ilario, I had to fight the urge to run to the bier. Instead, I grabbed Dante’s staff—he had tuned a few of its spells to my hand—and took my place at the table holding Jacard’s books and implements. Time slowed and stretched….
“I see the joining edges, uncle. Are there words that must be spoken?”
“Don’t do it, Jacard.” Portier stepped out from hiding. “You’ll rue the day your uncle set you to this work. Look at Dante. Do you want his tormentor inside you?”
Jacard stood transfixed for a moment, as if Portier were the true revenant. Then he stepped down from the catafalque, a smile blooming slowly, until malicious glee beamed from him like shafts of candlelight. “Oh, foolish, foolish holy man. I know how little blood flows in those veins and how weak it is to begin with. Do you think you can outmatch the power of any healthy man, much less the power of sorcery?”
“There are things you don’t know about me.” Portier raised a hand and snuffed half the thousand candles. At the same moment, I upended the table. The bowl of blood shattered and splashed gore across the paving amid a cacophony of cups, tins, candles, and spoons.
“Nephew!” screamed the phantom. “Ignore the weakling. Proceed with the invocation now!”
I pointed Dante’s staff at one of the angels and released a focused blast of power. The statue shattered.
“Iaccar, the Stones!” Xanthe cried.
Only scattered shards of marble topped the coffin. No green. Exultant, I blasted another angel, just as Kajetan bellowed in outrage. Together we drowned out the cries of warning. Jacard himself dashed toward Portier.
But Andero appeared in front of Portier as if by magic himself, his blood-streaked sword drawn and raised.
“Who are you?” Jacard skidded to a halt a few metres away.
“I’m this fellow’s friend,” said the smith, “come along to see he’s not harmed. You’ve already harmed a number of folk I care about.”
Jacard snorted and raised his hand….
I blasted a third angel, scooting away as the marble head struck the catafalque and bounced my way. But when I glanced back, Andero lay sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beside his head. Portier tore at Andero’s clothes. I couldn’t tell if he was injured, too.
“Aieyy!” Dante bellowed in agony. The earth rumbled.
“Get the Stones, fool. The harlot’s snatched them back!” screamed Kajetan. “She has allies here. Did you not feel the bursts of magic? She never intended to give them to you.”
When Jacard whirled around, he held Tychemus. Hope disintegrated.
“Where are they, lady?” he said, soft as a cat’s purr. “All depends on the three together. On our agreement.”
“They vanished,” said Xanthe, quivering. “Believe me, lord. Lover …”
Eyes wide, lips colorless, she retreated before Jacard’s wrath. Tychemus’s green glints stained her face and her white gown.
Where was Ilario? Was he waiting to seize the third? If he became visible, it would spell disaster.
Xanthe threw her hands in the air. “The smoke ate them. Iaccar, my darling….”
He touched her tentatively. Then gripped her shoulder and shoved her to the ground. “You pissing, teasing little whore, you really don’t have them. Where did they go?”
Spewing short, desperate bleats, Xanthe tried to scramble away, but Jacard kicked her flat and stomped on her back.
“Magus, help me!” she screamed. “Dante, lover!”
But Dante was fighting even to breathe. Faster than an owl takes a mouse, Jacard plunged a dagger into Xanthe’s back. He snarled as he yanked it out again. “Good riddance!”
Turning to the catafalque, he kicked at the debris. “Where are they, uncle? What did you see? Or have you hidden them?”
“Hands of flesh have taken them, fool. Muster your own power, you puling little weasel. Use Tychemus. Once we’ve done the switch, the other Stones won’t matter. Hurry!”
But Jacard’s fury spun him to face Portier. “Is it you, librarian? You and Dante again. And that woman …” He inhaled sharply. “Anne de Vernase, the Mondragon witch. Did she set you free? She and this damnable, cursed mage. Xanthe said she’d found a woman’s trinket on him.”
“Nephew! Attend!” Kajetan was panicked now. “We must do this be fore they invoke the power of the two! Tychemus can accomplish the switch alone if you but focus! The rite to free our master can come after.”
Jacard bared his teeth and raised his Stone to the wall. “Conforme desiti novae!”
“No!” I screamed. The surge of power through the Seeing Stone near knocked me from the step.
The phantom Kajetan bellowed in triumph.
Jacard wasn’t using the three together—a partial victory—but success or failure could kill Dante. I drew my zahkri and cut the straps holding him to the wall, letting his weight slump onto my shoulders and slide to the ground. I freed the wailing Zevi, who flailed his arms and backed away crabwise. Once disentangled, he scrambled to his feet and bolted for the stair, sobbing.
Dante shuddered and the trembling earth shook beneath us. I threw my arms around him as if I could shield him from what was to come. His flesh was cold as a dead man’s. “I know you,” I said, drilling the words into his head. “You will not be what he wants you to be. You are mine, Dante de Raghinne. Mine!”
Kajetan roared in fury, “No, no, no! You incapable runt, what have you done?” There followed such an ode of malediction as I had never heard, wails and screaming and bellowing, until they all faded into one extended scream that was the very sound of madness.
When I looked around, I saw Jacard’s terror-filled eyes bleeding and his swollen body shaking violently. The Seeing Stone dropped from his hand and clattered down the steps. His eyes went entirely black … and then entirely white, again, and then again. Holding his skull together as his skin wept blood, Jacard screamed and staggered in frenzy, until he followed the course of his Stone and tumbled into the pit to lie still.
The gray smoke thinned and dissipated, and as I cradled Dante in my arms, I began to laugh and sob together. The blood-painted words on the wall had changed. They now read: Vosi Kajetan de Saldemerre au recivien, Jacard de Viole. Vosi Jacard de Viole au recivien, Kajetan de Saldemerre. From Kajetan to Jacard. From Jacard to Kajetan. Not only had Dante switched the original receiver to Jacard himself, but every time Kajetan took control of Jacard’s body, the enchantment had replaced him with its former owner.
“You had your little joke on them after all, didn’t you?” I said. “And it does matter….”
Across the cavern a tall, slim form rippled the air like a child behind a bedsheet. Ilario became visible. Oblivious, he carried Xanthe’s two Stones into the dark maw of the prison passage. My own enchantment faded as I laid Dante on the step and retrieved the Stone of Reason from the floor.
Unspeaking, Dante curled into a ball. Spasms racked him continually. The walls trembled. Candles toppled from their niches. I stroked his sweat-soaked hair. “We’ll solve this,” I said. “But first the Stones. As you instructed me.”
Perhaps destroying the Seeing Stones would set him free—one way or the other.
Rhea knelt beside Andero. She pressed a clean cloth to a nasty laceration on his scalp, where Jacard’s blast had thrown him against a shard of broken angel. To my relief, the smith was slowly coming around. “Stay still,” she said, “at least until you can hold this yourself. You’re going to have a wicked headache for a month most likely.”
I stuffed a lit candle into Portier’s hand, helped him up, and we made a slow progress into the prison passage. Ilario sat in the last cell, the one with the collapsed wall, clutching Xanthe’s Stones close to his breast. His eyes were closed, his slender face drawn and creased as if he’d aged fifteen years.
“Stars of night, my friend,” said Portier, crouching beside him, “are you all right?”
“Makes a skewered gut seem like a holiday.” Ilario rubbed his forehead. “I need a nap. I need to give these infernal things to someone. And I need to get away from here and never see—” His eyes popped open. “Ah, gods’ teeth, Portier.”
“We did well, all of us,” said Portier, shaking off Ilario’s anguish. “We need to finish this quickly. For Dante’s sake. And Mancibar’s … and everyone’s …”
The newest tremor dislodged dust and pebbles from the ceiling.
“We oughtn’t leave Dante out there alone,” I said.
“I’ll go.” Ilario held out the Stones to Portier. “I believe these are yours.”
Portier smoothed the polished green facets and perfect edges with his thumb, then glanced up at us with a sheepish smile. “It’s so strange I don’t remember them, save in those fragments Ferrau dug out of me. We need to see to the tetrarch and his men….”
But we couldn’t. Not yet. We needed all of us to make this work. Once begun there would be no second chance.
“After,” I said. Only for Portier there would be no after. Not here.
Ilario was back in moments, followed by a bandaged Andero cradling Dante in his arms. “Couldn’t leave him out there naked, could I?”
Rhea held Dante’s ancille gingerly in two fingers. I snatched it away, as her hand was shaking. She said she had seen to the youth in the bleeding chair and sent him running.
We laid Dante in the other cell. Again he curled into a quivering knot, his breath coming in strident gasps. His eyes were open but looked on nothing we could see.
Ilario and Andero moved down the passage to stand guard. Rhea sponged Dante’s face and said she would watch over him. And so it was left to me.
I whispered in Rhea’s ear that when she heard me call Portier into the cell, she should fetch Ilario. Portier was watching from the doorway when I rose.
“Are you ready for this adventure?” I tried to smile but didn’t think I made a good job of it.
He drew me into his arms and squeezed much too tightly. “It’s all right, Ani. To be honest, yes, my gut’s in a knot. But also”—he stepped back and held out his hand, which was now as steady as my father’s love—“this is why I’m here. Had I never heard mention of Ianne or saints or the Souleater or the Seeing Stones, I’d know it. When I heard the stories of how Altheus came down here and lay down to die, I assumed them metaphorical. But now? I don’t think so.”
“I’ll do my best for you. You understand I’ve never woven a spell completely. Pieces. Small things, but …”
“… but we had the same teacher, so I trust you. Tell him … I’ve never known anyone with his courage or his strength or his goodness. Tell him I never had a true friend either until him. And tell him I will never forget him … or you … or our magnificent chevalier. I’ll likely come haunt you all, just to see how you’re getting on, as you’re the only people I know who wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
“I know. You’ll think of what to say tomorrow. I promise I’ll listen, Ani, no matter what the rules are. I think I was done with rules a very long time ago.”
I laughed at the imagining, ignoring the dark things he must surely encounter along his way. Time enough for that as I wove. “You’d best wait out here … and you’ll need this….” I pulled out the third stone.
Something fell out of my pocket and chinked on the floor as I gave him Tychemus. Dante’s nireal. On his bit of paper, Dante had written: Wear it always.
“Would you put this on Dante? He brought it all this way.”
“Certainly.”
Kneeling at the door opening, just outside the boundaries of my enclosure, I ran through a series of quick exercises to clear my head. Then I heeded my teacher’s instruction….
Begin with intent and hold it in mind always, the core of any spell: mortal death, a natural passage, one we humans feared but should not. But the Veil had been damaged, torn repeatedly, and to avert further damage I must use its aberrant nature and shove these mystical bits of the aether back through the hole, carried on the wings of Portier’s soul.
And then construct the shape of the work: Piece by piece, I wove my containing vessel, warp and weft … physical and spiritual, as I had planned. Then, I wove in Ilario’s dagger, keen, light, to be wielded by a skilled hand, moved by grief and love, duty and mercy.
Only when the construct begins to glow with light, bring in the focus: first the Stones—which I knew from history, from Dante’s tale. They did not have keirna, for their essence was the aether itself, with which I was very familiar. And then I wove in Portier … the man I had loathed and come to respect and then to admire and then to love as a brother. His talents, his failings, his shyness, his muddleheaded approach to women, his own difficult family history, his friendship with a man who had no concept of friendship. Portier and Dante had saved each other from things far worse than death … and given each other gifts beyond measure.
Pausing. “I need you in the circle now, where I’ve marked your head and feet,” I said. My voice existed somewhere outside the aether where my great construct shimmered with the light of magic, the blue and green and yellow fire of Heaven.
