‘That was a long time ago. About… oh, a century ago, give or take a decade or two, he returned with an army of Devos, Dakag, and Therim. Therim are creatures from the wasteland beyond the mountains. Technically just det, they are still among the most physically powerful creatures in this world. Incredibly tough, big, and vicious, but also intensely loyal. Molech has a personal guard composed entirely of Therim. With that force, Molech carved himself out a kingdom north of the mountains. He killed a Lord named Fossif to take it and it has generally been an improvement. Fossif was a poor ruler, fond of government by terror. Qualiksh fought in the latter stages of that war. Molech and Graggil have an uneasy peace and this region lies between their lands, though Molech seems to have the upper hand. We benefit some from that arrangement, acting as a trading area between the two fiefdoms.’
‘And he hasn’t expanded his territory since?’
‘There are rumours of intrigues and machinations in the courts of various Lords, but he has not taken it further than that. His lands are bounded by the Khedra Range and Mount Khed lies in the heart of them. The Castle of Bones rests on its slopes and inside that is…’
‘Gorefguhadget’s iron crown,’ Ceri finished for him.
‘Indeed.’ Brebbam sounded impressed. ‘I believe he hopes to regain control of it and so gain power over all of us again. If he has a plan to do it I have no idea what it could be.’
Ceri nodded and tightened the locking screws on the mechanism before her. She looked down at the meter and frowned. ‘Okay, Lily may be affecting the reading. Just wait here a minute.’ Picking up the little coppery device she walked out into the afternoon sun, shading it with her body to avoid heating and looked down again. Her heart sank, but she waited for a minute in case there might be some settling.
‘Eight point three-five,’ she said as she walked back into the classroom.
Lily looked up at her expectantly. ‘And that means?’
‘Even assuming the meter is reading high as much as I’m willing to believe it can be doing, it’s too high. I’d be looking for nothing higher than eight point one-seven.’
‘Oh,’ Lily replied flatly.
‘There might be another way,’ Brebbam said into the silence which followed. Ceri and Lily looked at him, hope etched into their expressions. ‘I didn’t say anything earlier because… it is not going to be easy or safe.’
‘At this point,’ Ceri replied, ‘the alternative is waiting around for a couple of years and hoping I can drag Lilith down to a level where I can move her. That’s not safe either.’
Brebbam nodded, acknowledging the fact, but still seeming reluctant. Just before Ceri was going to prompt him again, he began speaking. ‘The Lords have a way of sending higher demons across into other worlds. Yours in particular, but occasionally others. They are useful only when the energy level there is closer to ours, under normal circumstances. When someone in your world summons a random demon, they go through those portals. It’s one way the Lords control things. There are also some who can cross at other times, with the application of enough power.’
‘That’s how demons cross at Samhain,’ Ceri said, ‘and how they came over when the German Rift was opened.’
Brebbam nodded. ‘I believe you could use one to cross. It would… lower the threshold, so to speak.’
‘That sounds pretty reasonable. What’s the catch?’
‘The Lords keep their portals close. Graggil’s is in a cave under Bothiridan, almost inaccessible without his permission. Molech’s is the other close one, and that is in a room next to his throne room. Even with your power, getting to either would be suicide. Your only hope is the one in the Castle of Bones.’
Tooky let out a little gasp. ‘No one goes there!’
‘It’s haunted,’ Ooda supplied, ‘and guarded by monsters, and Gorefguhadget’s spirit sits on his throne to destroy anyone seeking the Crown!’
‘Perhaps,’ Brebbam said, ‘but it’s six hundred miles, the last hundred over foothills and then mountains. You can maybe do it in fifteen days if you meet no obstacles. Molech’s demons are less likely to be friendly than you’ll find here, so you’ll need to be careful. You’ll enter his lands after about two days going south. It won’t be easy. Not at all.’
Ceri looked over at Lily, receiving a tiny nod almost instantly. ‘Perhaps not, but it’s a chance we’ll have to take.’
Interlude: Cheryl
Chilcomb, Hampshire, December 31st, 2012
Cheryl Tennant sat on the bed in Carter’s country retreat watching the sun setting over the surrounding hills. It was New Year’s Eve and she was, once again, Cheryl Tennant, Doctor of Thaumatology. Almost.
She had been without the chain which supressed memory and personality for two weeks; Carter had, apparently, been insistent that her health was assured and any physical harm healed before removing it. Her initial reaction had been panic since her last memory was of being grabbed by dark shapes. There was no way her kidnap could be kept from her and her men had been bright enough not to try. She had been given the basic details of what had happened to her; in truth neither Carter nor Alec knew exactly what she had done while she was in Bangkok, but they could all fill in sufficient details from imagination.
After a couple of days she had come to terms with it, rationally. She could remember nothing after she was captured until the necklace had been removed. She knew she had been dancing in a bar when Carter and Alec had found her, and she knew that the dancers in that bar were whores. She knew that she had probably been selling her body to Chinese soldiers and officials, but any after effects of that activity had been erased from her body. Almost all of the effects anyway; to her amusement she had discovered that she was a little fitter than she had been and she was better at dancing, if only provocatively. The amusement had not lasted long, but it had been a momentary break from the anguish.
Because while her conscious mind was as happy as it was going to get with her situation, her unconscious mind was a lot less sanguine. She had nightmares of lying in a dirty hotel room while a queue of men lined up to take their pleasure of her. Her self-confidence was gone and she found herself watching the shadows in any room she was in, just in case they moved. She knew that Gwyn, Ceri’s draconic ancestor, had personally seen to the task of healing her body when she had been brought back, but she had found herself unable to even call the woman to thank her. And a couple of attempts to engage in sex had ended in her hyperventilating and having to leave the room.
Both Carter and Alec had told her that she just needed time to get over what had happened. Cheryl knew they were right, of course, but she did not want it to take time. She needed to get back to normal. If she could just start behaving like nothing had changed she was sure her mind would catch up. Trying to do that was not working, however. Something was missing, she had decided, and that was stopping her from getting back into her normal swing.
The sun was setting on the year. In the morning she would go back to London. She needed to be back among her own things. That was what she needed.
Kennington, London, January 2nd, 2013
Gwyn walked smoothly across the hallway of High Towers as the third round of knocking sounded through the building. It was late, almost midnight, but neither she nor Mei slept a lot. They had been up, Mei watching TV while Gwyn read from the extensive library Ceri’s parents had put together. She had discovered something of a taste for an author named Terry Pratchett; Guards! Guards! with its rather strange, extra-dimensional dragons had amused her greatly.
The knocking came again, urgent, demanding, as she reached the inner doors and pulled one open. ‘I’m coming,’ she called out. Then she opened the outer door and said, ‘Oh.’
Cheryl looked terrible; tired and unhappy at the very least. ‘Can I come in,’ she asked, though she looked like she did not really want to enter the building with Gwyn there.
‘Of course.’ Gwyn stepped aside to allow Cheryl in.
The doctor seemed to relax as s
he walked through into the hallway, but her shoulders tensed again as soon as she heard the doors closing behind her. ‘I… should thank you,’ she said, not looking around. ‘I understand you took care of me when Carter and Alec brought me back.’
‘Your thanks are appreciated, but unnecessary. I was undoing the damage done by…’
Cheryl turned, cutting Gwyn off. ‘Carter told me you had nothing to do with what happened. You weren’t responsible. Thank you for your help.’
Gwyn regarded her for a moment. ‘Your mind knows that, but your heart, I think, does not quite believe. And I don’t think you came here in the middle of the night to offer me your thanks.’
‘I went home. I thought that if I went home, with all my things around me, I could get back to being me. But it wasn’t my home anymore. It was the place they took me from.’ Cheryl swallowed. ‘I’ve always felt safe here.’
Gwyn nodded. ‘You’re welcome to stay here as long as you don’t mind the company of two ex-dragons. Do you know Mei Long?’
‘We met, briefly, at the US Embassy.’
‘Ah. Introductions won’t be needed then. You may find her a little changed. Her transformation hit her hard.’
‘Confidence gone? There’s a lot of that going around.’
Gwyn made an agreeing sort of noise and started up the stairs. Cheryl could not help notice that nothing much seemed to have changed about Gwyn. She moved smoothly, gracefully, her back straight and her head held high. She was a slim woman, aside from her chest, tall and beautiful in a rather severe way, and she exuded calm confidence. Cheryl knew from Ceri that the dragon-woman could and did open up, and then she could be funny, interesting, a nice person to just hang around with. All Cheryl was seeing right now was the dragon queen.
The dragon queen stopped part way up the stairs and turned around, a slight smile on her face. The change in demeanour was a little startling. ‘Go on up, I’ll be there momentarily. I believe that we could all do with a drink.’
Cheryl frowned. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a great idea…’
Gwyn took a couple of steps down and put a hand on Cheryl’s forearm. ‘Trust me, dear. This isn’t just for you.’ She carried on past Cheryl, leaving her to walk up the stairs, wondering whether she should have gone to a hotel instead.
January 3rd
‘So this idiot from the Druids turns up,’ Cheryl said, half-giggling, ‘and the two of us are already half-cut.’ She was pretty much in the same condition now. One bottle had been shared, and then another, then the third was opened… ‘He’s all “You can’t be here! This is our holy place!” and I’m trying to explain that we have a permit and it might be his holy place, but he doesn’t have a permit, and what I really want to do is punch the creep in the face. And then Ceri saw him starting to gather power for a spell and told him she tended to throw around energy bolts when people threatened her and he backed down so fast.’
‘Druids were a lot less pretentious back when they were real druids,’ Gwyn said. She was looking a lot less affected by the wine than Cheryl was, but she was smiling. The smile made her face look softer; Cheryl liked that.
‘You probably met some,’ Cheryl went on. ‘Once he was gone we went back to the tent and got really dunk and then Ceri seduced me. It didn’t take a lot of effort and we regretted it for about a minute afterward, but if I’m honest about it she woke me up. Carter had always kept our relationship on a need-to-know basis because it was more like a relationship than his one night stands and I was a little… afraid. Yeah, I was afraid. Afraid that people would think less of me, that it might hurt my career. And there was Ceri who slept with a half-succubus and a werewolf, and did pretty much what she wanted and didn’t care. Young and talented and sexy, and damn she was good in bed and I’d enjoyed it. So, damnit, why should I care?’
‘I quite agree,’ Gwyn said. ‘She brought me out of my shell as well. I spent millennia mourning my dead mate, and then I discovered I had a… well, “child” is the wrong word, but you take my meaning. I realised I needed to get out among humans again. I so used to love being among your… our kind. I learned to talk to people again and came to see Ceri. When she accepted me as a sort of distant relative… It meant a great deal to me.’
‘They’ll come back, won’t they?’
‘Yes. I’m quite sure they will. I won’t have it any other way.’
‘It seems to me,’ Mei said, breaking her silence, ‘that I understand why you are having trouble settling back into your life, Doctor Tennant.’
Both Cheryl and Gwyn turned to look at the tiny Chinese woman; she had barely said a word all evening even though she had smiled when jokes were told or reminiscences made. She had always been Mei Long, the Sleeping Dragon, the one who observed and only spoke up when she felt she had to, but now she was practically mute.
‘Cheryl,’ Cheryl told her. ‘I think we’re past that kind of formality.’
Mei bowed her head. She had also retained the poise she had had as a dragon; even drinking she sat on the couch with her back straight and her knees together. ‘Thank you, Cheryl. You have been working with Ceridwyn for over two years. You have a strong, deep relationship with her which is based on more than just work. You trust her. She has changed your life as you and all her friends have changed hers. There is an element of love. Love of a good friend, but love nonetheless. With her, and Lily, gone there is a hole in your life. You have suffered a great shock and you need things to be as they were before you will be entirely happy that you are back to normal.’
‘Oh,’ Cheryl said.
‘I suspect that Gwyn has a similar issue,’ Mei added. ‘She is much better at dealing with loss.’
‘I disagree,’ Gwyn replied. ‘Spending tens of thousands of years moping in a corner is not “dealing” with loss.’
Cheryl found herself giggling. ‘So, I’m going to be stuck feeling like the world is out to get me until Ceri and Lily pop back into existence?’
‘I doubt it,’ Gwyn told her. ‘You’re an intelligent woman. If you know what is bothering you, you will come to terms with it. Probably sooner rather than later, now that you have all the information. An unknown horror is always worse than a known one.’ She looked across at the window where light was starting to filter in through the stained glass. ‘I think we should probably get some sleep.’
Cheryl followed her gaze, and suddenly realised how drunk and tired she was. ‘Well, I’ll take the chaise longe in the study.’
‘Nonsense,’ Gwyn replied. ‘We’re both sleeping in the guest room. I assume you don’t want to sleep in the main room…’ Cheryl shook her head; that just felt wrong. ‘…so you can sleep with us.’
‘Three of us in the one bed…’
‘Mei is tiny and we’re thin, there’s plenty of room.’
Cheryl sighed. ‘It’s not like I really want to be on my own.’
Gwyn smiled and rose to her feet. ‘And I promise not to seduce you, even though you are drunk.’
Part Four: Fairy Tales
Oridan Province, Demon Realm, Day 27
Ceri and Lily stopped at the brow of a hill and looked down at the forest. It was thick, full of old trees which stretched high into the air, and it went on for miles. The track they were on split just ahead, with the main path going on along the ridge, around the trees, and a far thinner path leading down and in. It looked like the majority of people travelling south took the detour.
‘That’s a lot of trees,’ Ceri said.
‘That’s a whole lot of trees,’ Lily replied. ‘What did you say this area was called?’
Ceri took a map from her bag, unfolding it and locating the name printed over where she thought they were. ‘Oridan Province. There’s a forest marked on the map, sort of. There’s no detail beyond the edge of the trees and no name marked.’
‘Ori is night, or dark. I think… I think that’s the Darkest Forest.’
‘What? From that fairy tale your father told you? Tef and the Great Black Horg?�
�� Her eyes scanned the map as Lily nodded. ‘Well, there is a Silver Lake on the other side. That was in the story too.’
‘Tef lived in Shoshteffrif on the shore of the Silver Lake,’ Lily agreed.
‘Well, what I know is that it cuts two days off our journey. Brebbam said going through there could be dangerous, but that no one patrols through it so we would be sure that we wouldn’t run into any of Molech’s forces.’
‘Seems like a no-brainer. Unknown danger verses known danger. Just remember to stick to the path.’
Ceri laughed and gave Lily’s chain a playful tug. ‘Come on. If we’re lucky we can get through before night falls. Even if we don’t get eaten by a Horg I don’t think I want to camp in there if I can help it.’
The track wound down the hill, which was fairly steep on this side, and then vanished into the trees. Ceri stopped when the chain tightened, and looked around to find out what was up. ‘Can’t you feel it?’ the half-succubus asked. ‘This place is… the field’s stronger and kind of nastier.’
Ceri blinked on her Sight and turned to look at the forest. Lily was right, the ambient field strength was higher. The magic seemed to writhe and twist around the tree trunks. Even the grass had sparks of magic at the tips like charge rising to the point of a lightning conductor. ‘Yeah.’ The path, on the other hand, seemed to be relatively normal, at least until it vanished into the darkness under the trees. ‘Stick to the path, you said. Seems like a good plan.’
The light was almost completely gone by the time they were ten yards under the canopy and Ceri had to cast a light spell on the end of her staff so that they could see where they were going. ‘Either Tef had damn good eyes or she could work light spells,’ Ceri commented as they went on.
‘Well I can. I had Dad teach me. Thought it would be useful.’
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