The Fiend and the Forge

by Henry H. Neff

  It was a remarkable thing to watch a lymrill eat. While Nick hunted vermin with a sudden, insatiable ferocity, he was considerably more delicate with the minerals and alloys required by his unique metabolism. Metal objects were typically swallowed whole rather than chewed—even objects as large as an antique, and apparently expensive, toy train. How Nick managed to swallow these items, much less digest them, was a mystery. But there was little doubt that the metals made their way into each tooth, claw, and quill. These parts of his anatomy were harder than steel and made an adult lymrill truly formidable.

  But nature’s gifts were bittersweet. Throughout history, scholars and alchemists had hunted the lymrill to near extinction, eager to discover and exploit the composition of its pelt. To Max’s knowledge, Nick was the last of his kind—and thus Max felt justified in spoiling him.

  Historically, Rowan’s charges—mystical creatures entrusted to student care—were confined to the Sanctuary and only permitted beyond its borders on very special occasions. Since the Siege, however, this policy had been relaxed. It was no longer unusual to find a faun dozing in the Manse’s gardens or a gruff talking hare monopolizing tables in the Bacon Library. Nick’s motives—aside from a natural impulse to be where he should not—involved Max’s bed. It was a comfortable bed, and the lymrill had come to prefer its soft mattress and downy comforter to his arboreal habitat. Once he was placed upon it, Nick took great pleasure in tunneling beneath the blankets and wriggling about until he reached the footboard and plunged into sleep.

  Nick was eager for that bed and, indeed, so was Max. The pair crept inside the Manse’s doors, crossed the dim foyer, and wound their way up the spiral staircase to the dormitories. When they arrived at room 318, Max unlocked the door and ushered Nick inside with a stern directive to be quiet.

  He needn’t have bothered. David Menlo was still awake. Max’s roommate was on the lower level of the large, domed observatory, the top of his blond head just visible amid piled books, beakers, and arcane contraptions.

  Peering up at the room’s glass dome, Max noted that the view had shifted to exhibit the night skies of the southern hemisphere. Hydra twinkled, remote and beautiful, from beyond the curving glass. Threads of golden light connected the constellation’s stars until they gradually unraveled and faded, only to reappear and illuminate Leo moments later.

  While Max loved the observatory and its tranquil beauty, he knew better than to think it had been magically configured for him. In fact, he had not even been present when the room had been reconfigured following the Siege. It had happened one day over the summer while Max was doing carpentry down the hall. He happened to poke his head inside what had been a charred mess and had found David sitting comfortably by the fire, sipping coffee from his favorite thermos. The room had been restored down to the last detail, from the octagonal table at its center to the gleaming armoires and luxuriant bookcases.

  Max did not begrudge David’s initiative to configure the room on his own; he used the room and its singular qualities in ways that Max did not. There had been many nights when Max awoke from a dream to find his roommate standing upon the central table, studying the dome’s wheeling contents as though they were a puzzle, a cipher containing secrets great and terrible.

  Walking down to the lower level, Max saw that David’s attention was not on the heavens but on a boiling beaker. David’s brow was furrowed, and the whole of his being seemed to focus on the mixture, which issued a weak trickle of white smoke. Unblinking, he plucked several red flower petals from a small wooden box.

  A sudden, brilliant flash of light caused Max to yelp and Nick to bolt back up the stairs. Crowning billows of thick crimson smoke now poured forth from the beaker. They spread throughout the room with a noxious odor that made Max gag.

  “Phew!” he cried, snatching an atlas and waving the vapors away. “David, what are you doing?”

  “Testing something,” replied David distractedly as he scrawled in his notebook. “It’s late. I thought you were sleeping at your dad’s.” Glancing up, he caught sight of Nick peering down from the top stair and pawing at his nose. David put down his pen and waved his hand; the spreading smoke condensed into a stream and funneled into the fireplace and out of the room.

  Collecting Nick, Max approached the table, stepping gingerly past innumerable manuscripts and scrolls and the forbidden grimoires that David had a tendency to borrow. Settling the lymrill onto a leather chair, Max leaned close to peer at David’s concoction.

  Within the beaker frothed a rose-colored liquid, which surged and splashed against the glass. Tiny golden bubbles rose in double and triple helixes, evaporating with a hiss that sounded very nearly like a human sigh.

  “What is it?” Max asked, leaning closer.

  “Oh, a pet project,” replied David, plugging a stopper in the potion and removing it from the burner. He placed the beaker next to several others that contained similar contents—roiling liquids that ranged in hue from vivid scarlet to murky plum.

  “So it’s a secret!” teased Max.

  “If you like,” sighed David. “It gets tedious having to explain oneself all the time. Between Ms. Richter, Kraken, Boon, and every other self-proclaimed Mystic on this campus, I’m asked questions all day long. I hope you don’t mind if I come here for a break from questions, Max. I need it.”

  Max glanced at his friend. It was not like David to brush him off. There was affection in David’s tone—a weary plea for understanding—but an unmistakable impatience simmered beneath.

  “No worries,” said Max. “I won’t even ask you what those are.…”

  He gestured toward a small mound of red flowers that lay upon a rumpled cloth. He had never seen such flowers before—on campus or even within a textbook. They had seven bloodred petals that were veined with gold and spiraled out from a black pistil. Max reached to touch one.

  David lurched to his feet. “Don’t!” he cried, snatching the flowers away.

  A wave of searing heat issued from David’s body as though a furnace door had been opened. Papers blew from the tabletop, their edges curling as they floated slowly down to the floor.

  Max froze as though he’d been caught plundering a cookie jar. For a moment, he simply stared at his roommate. David appeared equally shocked and leaned heavily against the table, refusing to meet Max’s gaze. After several seconds, he regained his composure. With careful, deliberate motions, David folded the cloth over the crimson flowers and placed the bundle in the wooden box. Closing its latch, he cleared his throat.

  “I’m working on things, Max, and some of my projects can be very dangerous. Please don’t touch anything unless I specifically say it’s okay.”

  Max stood tall and glowered down at his roommate. “I’m not a little kid, David. And I live here, too.”

  David’s face fell, and he gave Max an imploring look. “No, no, that’s not what I meant,” he said meekly. “Of course this is your room—our room.” Frazzled, he began gathering up armfuls of singed papers, diagrams, and books. An awkward silence ensued until David slid a final sheaf of notes into a tattered volume entitled Seeking Lazarus.

  “I’m sorry, Max,” he mumbled. “I know how that must have sounded.”

  “It’s okay,” said Max, trying to shrug it off. He placed another log in the fireplace and joined Nick in the leather armchair.

  The beakers and tubes were stowed in a velvet-lined case and, along with the boxed flowers, were placed in David’s enchanted backpack. Max stroked Nick’s quills, trying to remember and catalog the many questions that plagued his mind.

  “Ah,” said David, easing into the opposite chair and swinging his legs onto the ottoman. “I have messages for you. They were slipped under the door.”

  From the pocket of his cardigan, David retrieved a crumpled wad of notes.

  “Who are they from?” asked Max wearily.

  “Hmm,” said David, scanning the folded pieces of stationery. “I believe Julie, Julie, Julie … and, yes, one m
ore from Julie. Unless Connor has also taken to signing his notes with little pink hearts. Would you like me to read them to you?”

  “No!”

  David handed over the notes, and Max read them, blushing, while his roommate grinned and stoked the fire.

  “And what does Julie have to say?” asked David.

  “Nothing,” said Max hastily. “Er, she wants to meet us for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I figure prominently in her plans,” said David mildly. “But I won’t be able to join you.”

  “What do you have to do?”

  David said nothing but glanced at several drawings lying on the table. Max saw that these were a variety of summoning circles—intricate, powerful diagrams used when summoning malevolent spirits. Max had seen David use them before and knew such things were incredibly dangerous.

  “David, have you been summoning … things?”

  David’s pale blue eyes flicked over to meet Max’s. “You don’t need to worry about me, Max,” he said coolly.

  “But demons are dangerous,” cautioned Max.

  David glanced at him as if mildly amused. Pulling back the sleeve of his sweater, he revealed the stump where his right hand used to be. Astaroth had taken that hand—devoured it—to punish David at their first meeting. Laying the remainder of his limb on the armrest, David stared at the soft, puckered skin of the wound and sighed.

  “I know very well that demons can be dangerous. I also happen to think they are profoundly misunderstood.”

  “I see,” said Max, shifting Nick’s heavy body to his other leg. “And so Connor being possessed last year and nearly killing you was just a big misunderstanding.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said David, waving off the sarcasm. “I just mean the idea of demons as terrifying bogeymen is a fairly modern misconception and gets us nowhere.”

  “But you said once that even imps were demons and that—”

  “I know what I said,” interrupted David testily. “My point was not to ‘demonize’ them but to warn Connor that even an imp may possess abilities of which he should be aware. I assume you realize that the very term demonize illustrates my point.”

  “Which is?”

  “Because demons are different from us, people have tended to classify them as a generic family of creatures that should be reviled, feared, avoided, or even worshipped,” he said. Clearing his throat, he spoke with the stentorian gravitas of a Roman orator. “They shall emerge from the sea, with skins of metal and the limbs of beasts, and we shall appease them as gods returned.…”

  “Do demons really have skins of metal?” asked Max, leaning forward.

  “No,” said David, smiling. “That’s how the Aztecs described Cortés and the conquistadors when they arrived at Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs mistook the Spaniards’ armor for their skin, and the horses—the Aztecs had never seen horses—for the lower part of the soldiers’ bodies.”

  Max blinked. “David, what do conquistadors have to do with anything?”

  “Before we project all our fears on the idea of demons inhabiting our world, Max, I think we should try to understand them,” said David, settling deeper into his chair and sipping from his thermos. “Objective understanding—without blind prejudice and ignorant stereotypes.”

  Max began to argue, but David did not seem to hear him. Whenever he drifted into one of his quiet reveries, David’s soft, round features assumed the contemplative expression of a much older person.

  “Life is a competition,” he said softly. “Whether you believe it’s a Darwinian struggle for resources or a spiritual proving ground makes little difference to our problem. The fact is that another species—an intelligent, very powerful species—has taken control of this world. You can choose to view them as fiends from the pit, celestial wanderers, or just another iteration of Cro-Magnons edging out the Neanderthals.”

  “Are you going to fight them?” asked Max.

  David fixed Max with a stare that offered very little in the way of an answer. Easing up from his chair, he swung his backpack onto his shoulder and shuffled upstairs.

  “Good night, Max,” he said wearily. “Be sure to keep your promise to Nigel. Tomorrow is very important.”

  Max grunted good night and heard the familiar sound of sliding rings as David drew shut the curtains around his bed. Yawning, Max scooped up Nick and lugged the heavy animal to his own bed.

  It was only when Nick was snoring against the footboard and Max was sinking into sleep that David’s parting comments finally registered: Keep your promise to Nigel.

  Max had not mentioned the promise to David.

  Slipping quietly out of bed, Max crept to the brass railing and stared across the room to where David’s bed was hidden behind its dark curtains. Suspicions rose and fell like the ocean’s cold swell. Max squinted at the summoning papers below, scripted in David’s spidery hand.

  Max had seen demonic possession firsthand. His best friend, Connor Lynch, had succumbed to it the previous year. While he knew a lowly imp could hardly possess a Sorcerer so learned and powerful as David, Max also knew that his roommate did not bother with lowly imps. David was primarily interested in the Spirits Perilous, those ancient, immensely powerful entities that constituted a sort of royalty among their kind.

  Astaroth was one such being. Perhaps Prusias was, too.…

  You’re a member of the Red Branch, Max reminded himself. You promised Cooper that you’d protect David from any danger. It’s your sworn responsibility.…

  Max reflected on this sentiment and felt his cheeks grow hot with shame. He scratched at the tattoo on his wrist and glanced across the room at David’s bed. Sleeping behind those curtains was one of the kindest, gentlest souls Max had ever known. He would not reach out to David because of any oath or assignment; he would offer his help because David was his friend.

  Max padded along the curving walkway of the upper level. The room seemed cold, and the only sound was the soft ticking of David’s clock. As Max drew near the curtains, he paused and became aware that his heart was thumping wildly in his chest. For several awful seconds, he imagined that beyond the curtains was not David’s sleeping form, but Astaroth’s white face smiling in the darkness. The hairs on Max’s neck stood on end. Steeling himself, he parted the heavy curtains.

  “Sorry to wake you, but—” Max stopped and caught his breath.

  There was no demon lurking in the darkness, but there was no David, either. The bed was empty, the pillows cool to the touch, and hardly a crease marred the silver moons embroidered on the blanket.

  ~3~

  THE HAGLINGS

  The next morning, Max yawned and picked halfheartedly at a bowl of congealing oatmeal. He had hardly managed any rest the previous evening, instead lying for hours and straining his ears for any indication of David’s return. There had been none. When Max had finally drifted off, his sleep had been plagued by the same dream that had haunted him for years. While he replayed its details in his mind, he gradually became aware that something was bobbing before him.

  “You are getting sleepy, very sleeeeeeeeeeepy,” said a coy voice with an Australian accent.

  “Huh?” said Max, blinking at the spoon that was swinging before his eyes like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

  “Really, Max,” sighed Julie Teller, putting down the spoon. “You’re turning into a zombie. Here I’ve been prattling away about tonight’s bonfire and the start of classes, and all you can manage is ‘Huh?’ ”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for a carafe of coffee. “I didn’t really get any sleep.”

  Julie scooted around the dining table to sit next to him on the bench. A smile shone on her tan, freckled face. Her sparkling blue eyes looked at Max attentively, and she took up his oatmeal in her hands. Steam began to rise again from the bowl, and in a few seconds it was piping hot.

  “There,” she said, setting it back down. “Now your breakfast’s edible, and you can tell me why you’re not gett
ing any sleep. I’d love to think it’s just sweet dreams of your fabulous girlfriend, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s something else.…”

  Max debated whether to share anything about David’s mysterious experiment and odd disappearance. He decided against it, reasoning that he needed a great deal more information before he started any rumors, and if he told Julie, the rumors would spread like wildfire. She meant well, but Julie reveled in gossip—from the salacious to the mundane—and often used her position as Rowan’s photographer to feed her inquisitive nature. If she knew that David was off on secret errands, Julie was liable to set up a stakeout.

  “You know me,” he said. “Just excited for class to start.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Julie. “Oh! That reminds me.” She reached across the table and fished through her bag for a pair of envelopes. From the official stationery, Max saw they were class schedules.

  “I picked this up for you,” she said, handing one to Max. It had already been opened. “I got into Honors Devices, so it’s going to be tricky, but I think we can have lunch together outside Old Tom on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

  Max glanced at his class schedule. It was handwritten—all of the school’s computers and networks had been destroyed during the Siege. From a technology point of view, Rowan had essentially been placed in the nineteenth century.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Chemistry, Applied Mathematics, Conjurations and Enchantment, something called the Art, Literature, and History of Empire, Devices I, and … what the heck is this?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you,” she said quietly. “I’ve never heard of that before and am a little curious why you’re listed as the teacher.”

  Max peered closely at the paper, his eyes zeroing in on his name written in smooth navy ink:

  ADVANCED COMBAT TECHNIQUES—LEVEL X

  MAGGIE ROOM 222—M/W/F—16:00–17:30