But then Phane was a necromancer arch mage.
And a relatively creative one at that. There was no telling what he might actually be intending. Whatever it was, Isabel was certain of only one thing: it would end badly for Hector. He’d betrayed the Old Law and her personally, but she didn’t want him to suffer.
This time there weren’t any footsteps warning her of a visitor … her cell door just unlocked and opened. A wraithkin stood at the threshold holding a box. She found it disturbing how the wraithkin always looked at people like they knew something that everyone else didn’t.
“Master commands that you wear this,” he said, holding out the box.
Isabel crossed her arms and looked at the wraithkin defiantly.
“Master also said that I am to dress you, if necessary,” he said, his smile taking on a lascivious quality that made her skin crawl.
“Leave the box and close the door,” she snapped. “I’ll be a few minutes.”
The wraithkin looked disappointed but he set the box down and closed the door.
Isabel held up a black satin dress by its two very thin straps and shook her head.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
“Do you require assistance?” the wraithkin asked through the door.
“No!” she said, dropping the dress and beginning to take off her traveling clothes. The dress fit perfectly, expertly tailored to the inch. The soft black shoes were equally well fitted. Isabel found herself wondering how Phane had taken such exacting measurements without her awareness. She shook off that all-too-familiar sensation of insects crawling all over her and adjusted the dress to cover as much of her as possible. It was cut low, almost entirely backless and didn’t quite reach to her knees. Isabel would never have chosen such a dress in a million years.
The wraithkin smiled when he opened her cell door.
“Master will be pleased. Come.”
Isabel followed, wondering anew exactly what Phane had in mind. She had always expected that he would put her in a front-row seat for whatever he was going to do to Hector.
Tonight was the night. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
Resisting wouldn’t do any good, especially with a slave collar around her neck. She had resigned herself to behave until a real opportunity to strike presented itself. Now was not that time. Also, she wasn’t about to risk herself for Hector.
The wraithkin led her out of the black tower, a curious and surprising turn of events. She followed him through the city streets, drawing more than a few looks until they came to a very old stone wall surrounding an entire city block. Through a guarded gate, Isabel entered a lush jungle garden that presented the illusion of being overgrown. In the late evening shadows, she could just see torchlight flickering farther into the artificial jungle.
The wraithkin set out on a path that she hadn’t noticed until he started walking it. In the dusk, the shadows were beginning to play tricks on her eyes. The jungle was thick and wild, yet the path yielded to her easily. She followed more out of curiosity than anything else. The torchlight was ahead, somewhere deeper into the jungle—now that she was well inside it, the fact that it had been grown and tended mattered for nothing. For all intents and purposes, Isabel was walking through the wilds in a dress she wouldn’t willingly wear outside of her bedroom.
All at once, a series of rough-cut stone columns appeared. Each was two feet across and ten feet tall. More than two dozen pillars stood in a giant circle at evenly spaced intervals. Large, flat stones lay across their tops, creating an unbroken ring of stone ten feet overhead.
The torchlight was coming from within the stone circle. The wraithkin ushered her in. Reluctantly, she passed between the two nearest pillars. Each held a small alcove on the inside where a torch burned, illuminating the interior of the circle with a hauntingly primitive light.
The pillars surrounded a stone walkway five feet across, which gave way to a series of three steps descending into a well in the center of the ritual site.
The outside edge of the well was encircled with lines of silver and gold spaced two feet apart. A pit plunged into darkness in the exact center of the well, with a magic circle cut into the stone around its edge. Six more magic circles surrounded the central pit, all identical in size and design, save for the one where Phane stood.
It was larger by half than the others and it contained three circles within it, all arranged in a triangular pattern so that each would overlap the other two, forming a spot in the center where one could stand in all three circles at once. Phane stood in that spot with his back to the pit. He smiled when he saw Isabel.
She took a moment to take it all in, picking out details that she’d missed in her first glance. Three women, bound and gagged, knelt near Phane in one of his three circles. In another of his circles knelt a young man with his hands and forehead on the floor in prostration to Phane. In the center of his third circle rested a small polished wooden casket.
Dozens of people stood all around the steps that led down into the well. All of them wore identical black hooded cloaks that obscured their faces, but she couldn’t help feeling that all eyes were on her. A chill raced up her spine.
“Isabel, come, join us,” Phane said, turning to face the pit, and motioning to the circle on his right.
Hector stood stock-still in the exact center of that circle, looking straight ahead toward the pit. A goat staked to the floor next to him bleated. A naked woman lay bound at his feet, sobbing. Behind him, just inside the bounds of the circle was a full-sized casket with the lid open. Hector held an axe loosely in his right hand.
Phane looked over his shoulder and smiled at Isabel suggestively, motioning toward the magic circle to his left. It was empty except for a steel ring bolted to the stone floor with chains and manacles attached to it. Isabel stopped, staring at Phane with a mixture of anger and disbelief.
“I’m afraid there’s no time for any of that right now,” he said, raising his hand and lifting her from the edge of the well with his magic.
“Put me down!” she shouted, struggling helplessly as she drifted into the circle to his left. Her arms were held out against her will and the shackles floated up and snapped into place around her wrists.
“No sense struggling, Isabel,” he said, turning his back on the pit once again and raising his arms to the people assembled around the steps.
“Honored guests,” Phane said, a little too pleased with himself, “I’ve asked you here to witness the greatest feat of black magic that has been attempted in the past two thousand years. Tonight, I will raise the dead.”
He let the substance of his statement linger on the cool evening air for a moment before continuing.
“This is no simple thing. Preparations must be made. Sacrifices must be offered. A price must be agreed upon. The bargain must be sealed with blood.
“Please, step into the circle and join hands. Your unbroken ring of living blood within the magic circle will give it power sufficient to contain the forces that I will harness and bend to my will this night.”
There was a bit of hesitancy among the robed and hooded guests, but then one stepped forward into the outermost circle, facing the pit and offering his hands to those who would fill in the spaces on either side of him. More joined him, until the circle was filled with an unbroken ring of people, all facing inward, all hooded and all holding hands.
Phane spoke a series of words and raised his hand in a strange gesture. Dark wisps that looked like jet-black fire erupted from his hand. He hurled the fire at the circle of people. It leapt to the closest one, wrapping around his hand and that of the next, binding them together. The black flame streaked around the entire circle, creating an unbroken chain of magic, binding each person’s hand to the next so that they couldn’t let go even if they wanted to. Another quick spell and the entire outer magic circle became a set of two walls of magical force, further entrapping Phane’s guests. There were a few words of protest from
some of the Acuna wizards, but Phane ignored them, turning back to the pit at the center of the ritual.
Isabel tested the shackles around her wrists, finding them more than adequate to their task. She bored into Hector with her glare but he remained stock-still, staring straight ahead as if he was steeling himself for something. She got a faint whiff of rot—death lingering on the still night air.
“This is a very special place,” Phane said, drawing everyone’s attention once again. “This pit is an altar to the Master of the netherworld, a place where his avatar can be summoned and his will can be exerted within the world of time and substance.
“Consecration of such a place takes a great sacrifice. Nine hundred and ninety-nine lives must be cast into the pit, a task we completed only yesterday.”
“You bastard!” Isabel shouted, struggling against her chains even though they cut into her wrists.
“Silence,” he snapped, raising his hand toward her in an angry gesture. She tried to curse him again but no sound came out. He smiled at her helplessness, turning back to his guests.
“Now, I’ve bound you all together to create an unbroken chain of living blood within the magical circle that will contain this ritual. Your participation is vital to the success of this spell, but I assure you that none of you will be harmed in any way, unless you remove your hood and allow my Master’s avatar to see your face. He does not forget those that he looks upon and he covets all that he sees. Aside from that, I ask only that you remain respectfully silent.”
There was a murmur of grudging assent from the circle.
“Let us begin,” he said, turning back toward the pit, raising his arms and beginning to chant. Phane hurled words at the pit that Isabel didn’t understand. She wasn’t even certain that the language Phane was speaking was a human language, given how harsh, guttural, and angry the words sounded.
Even though she couldn’t speak, she could hear just fine. The distant rustle of the leaves and the noises of the jungle became still and silent. The air seemed to grow heavy and cold. The orange flickering torchlight dimmed. Phane’s words grew angrier and more aggressive, hate and rage flashing in his eyes as he threw himself into the ritual. His voice rose until he was shouting at the world with a kind of unbridled fury that Isabel had never witnessed before.
It was frightening to see the true nature of his soul. What’s more, in this setting at least, Phane seemed to be completely himself, honest and unabashed in his desire to dominate and subjugate every living person in the Seven Isles. Looking at him in the throes of his spell, Isabel couldn’t help but realize that in his mind, the Seven Isles belonged to him. In his mind, those who stood in the way of his total dominion were the real perpetrators of evil in the world. To Phane, what he desired and morality were one and the same.
His chanting grew to a crescendo, filling the well with palpable tension and fear. The women at his feet wept, trembling under the weight of impending doom. He stopped, his arms held high and his face raised to the sky. Silence fell for several moments, which only served to heighten the stench of fear mingled with the odor of rot from the pit.
Phane drew a knife from his robes and sliced across the palm of his left hand, drizzling blood on the heads of the three women kneeling in the circle to his left. They flinched and whimpered when the warm liquid splattered on them, then began wailing when they saw that it was blood.
“I have spoken the words,” Phane said, flicking his hand toward the three women sobbing at his feet as if he were brushing lint off his sleeve, his magic roughly tossing all three of them into the pit. They hit the far wall of the circular shaft with three thuds, followed by a chorus of screams that receded into the darkness.
Isabel felt sick to her stomach. When the screams stopped abruptly, Phane smiled at her with a wink. In that moment, she wanted to kill him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, and she was utterly helpless to do anything about it … and he knew it, reveled in it even.
After a moment of enjoying Isabel’s glare, he turned back to the pit.
“I have given offerings of blood and flesh,” he said, falling silent and waiting expectantly. All at once, the air began to move, flowing toward the hole as if the darkness deep within was trying to draw the world in.
Phane smiled, raising his hands again.
“I call forth Azi Dahak, Malphas, and Ravan, vassals of the Master himself.”
His voice contained a slight tremor as he spoke the names, as if even he was afraid of what he was doing. The air abruptly stopped flowing toward the pit, growing heavier and colder in just moments. It felt oppressive, unclean, and carried a stench of death with it that nearly made Isabel retch.
Her nausea was stilled by a thrill of fear at the howl of pent-up frustration, rage, and hatred that suddenly emanated from the pit. It filled the night with a long wailing indictment of life and light. The sound was entirely unnatural and inhuman, filled with unadulterated spite and the mind-warping suffering of endless torment.
Air started to flow out of the pit, rank, fetid and putrid; it carried with it the stench of ancient death. Isabel swallowed back a bit of vomit, struggling to maintain her composure. Darkness welled up from the pit and flowed like water unbound by gravity into the three circles opposite Phane, Isabel, and Hector. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden, the three demons coalesced into solid form.
“I am Azi Dahak and I have answered your summons,” the first said. He stood seven feet tall, with black scaled skin and eyes that glowed like embers. He was humanoid, but more lizard than man, with clawed feet and hands, a long barbed tail, and a snakelike face, complete with forked tongue.
“I am Malphas and I have answered your summons,” the second said, a viscous, burbling mound of black ooze. A mouth formed in the side of the blob only long enough for it to speak, then vanished into the undulating mass of darkness. A tentacle formed and lashed out at Phane but was stopped by the magic circle. It recoiled, five mouths forming all of a sudden and wailing, howling, and barking their frustration and rage into the night.
“I am Ravan and I have answered your summons,” said the third. He looked almost like a man, standing six feet tall and perfectly proportioned, except his skin was far too pale and beautiful, almost as if he’d been carved from fine white marble. His eyes were yellow, his hair was silver and flowed to the middle of his back. His mottled green teeth were all filed to a point. Each of his fingers ended in an inch-long jet-black claw.
“Vassals of the Master, lords of the netherworld, I have called you forth and bound you to serve me so that you might deliver a message to our Master.”
“No, you must let me go,” Malphas said, its mouth vanishing in a bubble that welled up from its viscous body until it popped, leaving a hole in its side that slowly filled in with blackness. Several eyes appeared in its side, all looking intently at Phane, all blinking in unison.
“I will not go back,” Azi Dahak said. “You have brought us here and given us form … surely there is more we can do for you before you banish us to the formlessness of the netherworld.”
“I too would stay,” Ravan said. “I can be of great service to you … if you would just free me from this cage.” He reached out and dragged his claws down the magical barrier surrounding him.
“You will—” Phane started to say when Ravan interrupted him.
“Who is this one? I would have her. She is special,” he said, pointing at Isabel.
“You will—” Phane tried again.
“No! You will give her to me. Now!” Ravan shouted, deliberately placing his claws against the magical barrier and slowly raking them along the magic, causing faint red sparks.
“I want her,” Azi Dahak said. “Give her to me and I will serve you for a thousand years. I will give you the world, all for the price of this pittance.”
“If she were a pittance, you wouldn’t be willing to trade me the world for her,” Phane said, smiling without humor.
All three demons began to r
ail against their captivity. Azi Dahak and Ravan began to flail against the barrier, while Malphas formed two huge, hammer-like hands and began to pound the stone beneath.
Phane waited for several moments, letting the demons struggle against his magic as if he knew that their efforts were doomed before uttering a single word in the guttural, inhuman language he’d used to summon them in the first place.
All three stopped, though it looked as if they were struggling against some unseen force. Phane smiled again.
“You are bound to serve me. I care not for your desires, only that you obey.”
“I will not!” Ravan said, eyeing Isabel all the while. “You must give me more.”
“No!” Phane said, magic magnifying his voice to drown out the demon’s protests. “Azi Dahak, Malphas, I charge you with delivering a message to our Master. Tell him that I wish to trade a dead soul for a living soul.”
All three suddenly lost interest in Isabel, several eyes growing again out of the undulating blackness that was Malphas, each looking around a bit frantically this time. A small mouth formed and began wailing in terror, but in a very small voice.
“Is the living soul willing?” Azi Dahak asked, his forked tongue flicking the air.
Phane looked to Hector. Isabel tried to yell, but she was still silenced by Phane’s spell. She railed against her shackles, but they held, cutting deeper into her wrists, drawing a trickle of blood that ran down her hands and dripped off her fingers. She ignored the pain.
“I am willing,” Hector said, his voice cracking a bit.
All three demons became very excited, agitated even, like a hungry animal when its master puts food just out of reach.
“I have spoken the words, offered the tribute and given you your tasks,” Phane said. “I now discharge you, Azi Dahak, and you, Malphas, to the netherworld to deliver my message.”
He began chanting again and the two demons started struggling against the magical barrier, this time with a frantic, almost desperate effort. Phane spoke a final word, barking it into the night, and the two demons melted back into formless darkness, flowing back into the pit, a forlorn, keening wail following them into the netherworld.
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 25
