The Daemon Prism: A Novel of the Collegia Magica

by Carol Berg

  Assuming we somehow managed to wrest the Stones from Jacard and Xanthe, I must draw together the keirna of these objects and shape them into a spell structure as Dante had taught me. Portier would lie in the center, holding the Stones. And then we would kill him, and I would bind my spellwork.

  How in the name of sense would I have time? How in the name of the holy could we murder our friend?

  Slumped in the passage outside the cell, I worked to refine the spell structure I had devised earlier. I had envisioned a vessel woven of enchantment that could contain Portier’s soul and the solid Stones, keeping them together as his soul left his body to pass the Veil. The objects specified in the painting lent themselves to the idea. The warp would be strung with the keirna of the four seasons, the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and the ring that anchored Portier’s passing soul specifically to the physical world. The weft would be the keirna of those things that touched the world of the spirit: the sanctified tessila, the intangible mystery of life and healing, and the weapon that brought release from mortal life.

  A fierce concussion set the iron doors swinging, disrupting my concentration. The rubble at the end of the passage clattered as it settled. Not long after, the woman let loose a siren scream. I raced back to the cavern.

  Xanthe was backed up to the catafalque. Tongues of smoke…licked her. Her pale hair floated outward from her contorted face as she stared into the cloud above her, where a half-formed phantom the size of a house bulged and shrunk amid the turbulent fog.

  “Sshall you, too, writhe for my pleasure thisss night, girl?” The throaty whisper hissed with malevolence as Xanthe sank to the floor. “You belong beneath my feet. Ignorant, crude. My nephew tells me you value tin over silver and cannot distinguish coal from ebony. Of course he is a beetle like you, too weak to bend a woman and a cripple to his will.”

  Nephew! I peered into the fog. The spectral features were unmistakably Kajetan’s. Would that I could murder the fiend again.

  Xanthe squealed as smoky fingers twined her hair. “You dare trespass holy ground wearing the objects of my desire, little trollop. Give them over.”

  “Leave her be!” Dante clamped his lips and groaned. Candles flickered. Implements on the bloodstained table rattled.

  The spectre’s attention snapped to Dante. “Does mindless vermin think to command me? Does not our sovereign master teach you your place even now?”

  Our master. I didn’t think he meant Jacard.

  With Kajetan’s focus elsewhere, Xanthe scuttled toward the stair to the upper gallery. I could not allow her to escape with her Stones. As the revenant heaped scorn and malice on Dante, I raced ahead and blocked the stair. I picked at her gown and blew on her face, making sure she couldn’t touch me and discover a living human.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered, forcing my voice harsh and sexless. “You’ll not leave until you drop your useless trinkets on Altheus’s coffin. Perhaps we shall strip you and add you to yon display of flesh.”

  Wide-eyed, she backed away, gripping the green crystals at her breast. Hurrying footsteps clattered on the gallery above our heads. Her eyes flicked upward.

  “Back upstairs, Hosten,” Jacard screamed. “Find that god-cursed librarian, so I can cut out his heart atop his own tomb. We’ll see if he recovers from that. Gherok is going to nip the fingers off those Temple bastards one by one until one spills who’s put them up to this.”

  Breathing a prayer for de Ferrau, his men, Andero, and Rhea, I quickly got out of Jacard’s way.

  “Your ghoul torments me, Iaccar,” said Xanthe, hurrying her steps to keep up with Jacard as he crossed to the pit.

  “We must work together, dear lady.” Jacard presented her a rictus of a smile. “My uncle is jealous of our life and the grand vision we share. Any blood will satisfy him. But I’ll not allow him yours.”

  “Get this done before Dante brings the palace down,” growled the spectre. “You’ve dallied long enough. The rite will grant you all the power you deserve, and this daemon bound to him will make you a true immortal.”

  “I’ll not rush the rite, uncle. This shall be my body, my power. Dante is a mindless husk who can’t speak his own name.”

  “Tell me why your city is collapsing, fool. His daemon grows stronger by the hour.”

  “Accept that you are dead, uncle! In this world we have more than whining spectres to deal with. This is but a spring storm and a plague of earthshakings as happens frequently in Mancibar. All will be well when my beloved and I are joined in power, body, and mind. The Stones shall control both the slave and his daemon master.”

  Jacard stroked Xanthe’s hair, drawing his hand downward to bare her shoulder. He kissed the curve of her neck, the swell of her breast, and then moved to her lips. She clung to him like an infant, more terrified than enamored. “Dante never recognized the beauty and cleverness right in front of him,” he said, softly. “It drove me wild. We shall make a magnificent partnership.”

  Kajetan’s black glare might have shriveled Dimios himself. “You are a cretin, nephew. There are forces of magic in this house—”

  His diatribe halted abruptly when Jacard held a plate of rock over a small brazier—the source of the incense-laden smoke. “Manners, uncle, or I shall silence you. Your guidance is valuable, but not imperative.”

  The phantom snarled and retreated into the boiling cloud. Deception…double-dealing. Kajetan had to be present if he was to take Jacard’s place. Did the dead sorcerer imagine Dimios would allow him to share this prisoner’s body?

  Jacard laid the slate aside and took Xanthe’s arm. “Now, my sweet, we need some fresh blood. Fortunately our great magic no longer requires the librarian’s carcass or his blood to bring us an everlasting empire. I’ve a hearty lad occupying his bleeding chair. Will you join me? The refinement of the torment should please you.”

  The two vanished into Portier’s old cell.

  I stepped up quickly to stand beside Dante. Rills of flame cascaded from his hands bound above his head, dissipating in bursts of freezing air.

  “I am your memory,” I whispered. “You are stronger than they know. The one who scourges you underestimates you in all ways. Neither he nor this bombastic spectre nor his thick-skulled minion have any idea of your gifts.”

  “Please…whatever you are…kill me.” Agonized gasps punctuated his words. “I’ve lost the light…fighting blind…Need to see. Need to die. Need to fight.”

  Tears stung my cheeks. “Memories cannot kill, but they speak truth. The light is inside you—the fire of your gift. Of your heart. Of your passion for right. I see it, and I will help you. You’ve many things to do before you die.”

  “There is no help.” He bared his teeth, snarling. “I am his Hand.”

  “Not yet. Not ever. Hold, Dante de Raghinne. Fight. Do not yield.”

  It twisted my heart to abandon him. But I dared not let Kajetan suspect my presence.

  I slipped across the cavern to the prisoner’s passage. “Ani?”

  Never had I been so happy to hear a voice. I ran to meet Ilario and Portier as they climbed through the rubble blocking the drain tunnel. “What of Rhea? Andero?”

  “On our heels,” said Ilario, helping Portier to sit. “As is Jacard. The switch worked like a clockwork, but there were no negotiations. When Jacard’s men surrounded the tetrarch, we were scarce along to the first stair. Rhea stayed to make sure Andero got away, but alas, I’d no chance to touch the emeralds and saw no sign of the lady.”

  “Both Jacard and Xanthe are here,” I said. “And she’s near giving up the Stones. And we’ve worse trouble. They’ve got Dante strung up out there. It’s Dimios’s torments and Dante’s resistance causing this destruction. He begs to die. I…I could do it.”

  Portier’s hand near crushed mine. “Don’t, Ani. Dante chose this path deliberately, and then destroyed the memory of his reasons. We must have faith that he did what he believed necessary. The tetrarch would say I picked the person who could
do what was needed, yes?”

  I couldn’t answer. Not when I felt the earth continue to spasm. But I did recall Dante’s scribbled message. Do not yield.

  “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 au recivien, Zevi de Opere.

  Vosi Jacard de Viole au 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!”