by Rick Shelley
"It isn't the magic that was so draining, or even the duel we fought in the Shining City," Maria said as she prepared for bed. "I really can't explain what we did this day that was so depleting."
"Nor I," Silvas said. "But I feel the drain as well, as if some force were attempting to suck power from us the way a leech sucks blood from a body."
"You don't actually think that's what is happening?" Maria asked, allowing minimal concern to show in her voice. Alone in their bedroom, they sought the open communication of mere mortals, setting aside the direct link between them to a subconscious level. Already, both of them craved such moments as this, temporary abdications of the greater whole they had become.
Silvas reflected for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I think rather that this is a natural effect of some sort, perhaps customary to such as we have become."
They talked, and they moved toward each other across the large bed they shared. Even after they reached each other and moved toward physical intimacy, the conversation continued, though it became more and more disjointed as their passions grew.
"To think, it's been little more than a week since Carillia joined us together," Silvas managed as he caressed Maria.
Maria had changed physically in the brief time she had been with Silvas, no doubt a reflection of the inner growth that Carillia's gift had forced upon her. She no longer appeared to be an awkward adolescent having difficulty coming to terms with new womanhood. Her figure had filled out to a more mature lushness, but that was not the most astounding facet of her physical transformation. That was in the mature beauty of her face, a veneer of serenity almost as complete as that which Carillia had customarily worn. When Silvas first met Maria, in the great hall of her father's castle, he had not thought her especially attractive. Now... she seemed almost as beautiful as Carillia had always appeared.
After a prolonged period of foreplay, Maria rolled Silvas over onto his back and straddled him, lowering herself onto him, and into his spirit. The link between their minds became full part of their lovemaking. Maria controlled the pace of their physical union while their minds soared beyond infinities together. At first, her body moved slowly against his, prolonging each tickle of arousal. Then she increased the pace, and their skin slapped together with each thrust, until Maria's movements were so rapid that they would be no more than a blur to any mortal observer.
The climax, when it finally came, was equally remarkable. Once more, Silvas and Maria melted into each other in the throes of an ecstasy that overflowed the physical limits of their bodies and spanned the distances between stars in an instant. Then they collapsed back into themselves, shuddering with almost unbearable ecstasy. Maria slid forward to lie atop Silvas as each of them gasped for breath, their minds still reeling.
At long last, they drifted into a languid torpor, fully sated, and much more spent than they had been when they climbed into bed. Their spirits floated along a placid stream of stars and worlds, touching only lightly as they slid toward sleep.
Just as Silvas felt himself crossing the last ripple into slumber, his body shook once, as if in spasm. It was enough to rouse both him and Maria somewhat.
"What is it, love?" Maria asked, her voice carrying the full weight of approaching sleep.
"Nothing," he whispered. But his mind was active once more. His senses were alert, those of the flesh and those of the spirit. Maria had nearly crossed into sleep when he took a deep breath and spoke.
"I'm afraid it's time for another Council, Maria."
"Tonight?" she asked, almost plaintively.
"Tonight. There is unfinished business that must be completed before the next battle comes."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Maria and Silvas pulled on dressing robes and went up to the workroom. Satin and Velvet accompanied them, going immediately to their circles of protection along the wall. Once Silvas and Maria were inside the pentagram, Silvas activated it and went through his routine precautions. Though a god might not need the defensive spells of wizardry, that craft was one of the few advantages that Silvas and Maria held against the old gods. Mikel had supported Silvas for centuries—and Auroreus before him—to have that wizardry available at need, and the gods of the Blue Rose had also sought out a wizard-potent to be the spearhead of their assault on the White Brotherhood.
The couple stood back-to-back in the center of the pentagram through the early spells. Then they sat down, carefully, still back-to-back, for the final chants, including the spell of separation. As that progressed through the critical stanza, Maria and Silvas stood in the spirit, the Doppelgänger forms stepping clear of the physical bodies that remained seated in the pentagram, continuing the chant of the final spell.
The two great cats watched the spirit forms move across the room, but Satin and Velvet remained seated within their protective cylinders. They had seen this magic many times.
In turn, Silvas and Maria fetched Bay, Bosc, and Braf Goleg, and directed each of them to the room-that-did-not-exist where Silvas conducted his Councils. Then they went to fetch Josephus. Though new to the idea of a Wizard's Council, and without prior warning that it was coming, Josephus stepped easily out of his physical body when Silvas summoned him.
The room of the Council was as it always was, but there were minor differences. The vagueness of the room's dimensions hid any sense that the room itself might have changed, but the table seemed somewhat larger, and there were more chairs than usual. Even after Josephus, Silvas, Maria, and Bosc took their seats, one chair remained vacant. Bay and Braf stood at their places. Silvas stood again and looked around the table.
"Josephus is here by right of his divinity and the oath he has sworn to serve Maria and me. He has no need of initiation into this Council. Carillia made him a demigod long before she came to me. There is one more person I wish to draw into this Council, to make him a member, to bind him even more closely to us. Felix, my new apprentice."
Silvas stepped out of the room, alone this time. Maria remained seated. Hardly any time at all seemed to pass within the chamber before Silvas returned with Felix.
"Take your seat." Silvas pointed toward the vacancy between Bosc and Braf.
Felix sat and looked around, nervous at being summoned to this meeting without warning. He had met Josephus, and knew that he was a demigod of long duration, but they had talked only at table in the great hall, and they had been on opposite ends of the head table. Josephus had worn his power openly in the hall of his new lord and lady, but he had been warm and kind as well.
Silvas took his seat next to Maria again.
"Felix, I want you to open your mind totally to us. We need to know you completely, and it will make it easier for me to teach you those things you need to know immediately," Silvas said. In such a state, the erstwhile monk could not possibly hide anything of consequence from Silvas.
Felix nodded, then bowed his head as if he were entering prayer. Silvas and Maria took a linked trip in the spirit through the innermost recesses of Felix's mind and soul. They found no treasonous plots or indications that any other power held Felix in its grasp. Felix had led a simple life, focused completely on his faith and its duties until his path had crossed that of Silvas. The recent complications were there to be read as well, and the turmoil that Felix was still attempting to resolve. The excursion did not take long. Felix sensed exactly when it was over. He raised his head and opened his eyes again, staring at Silvas, waiting for the verdict of the wizard god.
"We ask you to become a member of our Council," Silvas and Maria said in a unison that was so perfect that no one around the table could discern two voices in the words. Then, alone, Silvas explained exactly what the choice entailed. "You will become like Josephus and our other counselors," Silvas said, a warning as much as a promise. "You will taste of the same immortality, and find power according to your nature and desire." Silvas went on at great length to emphasize the potential drawbacks that accompanied that power and longevity, as he had with Braf and—mu
ch farther back in time, with each of the counselors who served him.
"I will become a demigod such as these others?" Felix asked, surprising himself. He had not, until that very moment, realized that Bosc, Braf, and even Bay held that measure of divinity.
"Yes," Maria said.
Felix's lifelong acceptance of the discipline and open doctrine of the Church forced a long hesitation. His exposure to the Greater Mysteries was yet new, without the strength of long habit. But, finally, he took in a deep breath.
"I have come too far to back away now, lord," he said finally. "It is clear that my path is meant to run with yours. I accept your offer, humbly, and I hope I will serve you well."
In short order, the deed was done. Felix tried to take stock of himself, but failed to notice any immediate difference. That came as a distinct relief to him.
"I have a tale to tell," Silvas said, passing straight on to the more vital business of the Council. "This happened not a fortnight past. We had scarcely settled in at Mecq, when demons attacked the Seven Towers in the night. Carillia and I went to my workshop, and I went within the pentagram there to combat the demons. Two of them attacked me there. Others assaulted Bay and Bosc in the mews. The battle was a near thing, but we eventually managed to destroy these demons." Bay and Bosc reacted similarly to Silvas's narration. Their eyes narrowed as they shared memories of that raid.
"Just as the demons were vanquished, though, a powerful force seized me and hurled me through an infinite chaos," Silvas continued. "After a time I could not measure, I fell into a forest glade where none of my wizard's power functioned. In the center of this clearing, an old man sat on a rock. I thought of him as an old man, though I couldn't see him distinctly. It was as if many layers of filmy cloth were between us. The old man knew the name I was born with, a name I have not spoken in centuries, a name no living mortal could know. He bade me sit on the grass near him, and I sat.
"Then he told me a story about the old gods and their parents, a loving couple who were so wrapped up in each other that they had completely ignored the score of offspring that their love had produced. He spoke of how that neglect warped those children, until they turned to fighting each other and doing other outrageous deeds in a misplaced attempt to regain the attention of their parents. The parents, bitterly disillusioned over the way their children had developed, finally turned completely away from them in disgust and in shame, even though they had come to realize their own guilt in the matter. They felt that there was nothing left that they could do. After that, the children competed against each other with even greater ferocity, until—as the old man told me—'Death was less to be feared than defeat. And once the dying started...' "
Silvas stopped at that point, exactly as the old man had stopped when he told Silvas the story.
"I have a thought, the strongest suspicion, that the old man was himself the father of the old gods, there to prepare me for what was to come. In any case, he must have been from the land beyond that place where the old gods live. I think that I need to contact him again. If there is any solution to be found to our predicament, short of another cataclysmic battle such as we fought over Mecq, it is in that other land that I must find it.
"The powers of a wizard did not obtain in the clearing where I met the old man. I could not have taken myself there, and I was unable to take myself away from it. But the powers of a full god, in a Council such as this, might suffice. I want your powers behind me in concert, to propel me to that clearing and, should it be necessary, to recall me when I have finished."
Maria and Josephus had shared Silvas's memories directly, with all of the vividness of the original experience. Even the others had caught extensive glimpses of the scene, accompaniment to Silvas's narration. Once he had finished, Silvas and Maria called up a pentagram of silver in the ethereal Council chamber. When it came into being, the limits of the room expanded to accommodate it—without showing the expansion openly.
Silvas and Maria took up positions in the central pentagon. This diagram was much larger than the physical one in Silvas's conjuring chamber. There was ample room for the two of them in this pentagram. Their counselors took up position in the triangles that formed the five points of the pentagram: Josephus, Bosc, Felix, Bay, and Braf. Silvas spent some moments impressing on each of the others what might be required of them. Maria would remain in the pentagram. She would have her constant link to Silvas—if that link could span the gap between Council and clearing—to tie him to his starting point and to keep the others informed of what was going on.
Maria and Silvas worked together to erect a system of incantations as preliminaries, speaking the spells with the others echoing them in the old language of the Trimagister. Even Felix found that he finally had the power to grasp and recall the words of that language now.
Silvas focused on his memories of that forest clearing, and the indistinct form of the old man sitting on the rock at the exact center of an unnaturally round gap in the pine forest. The memory picture became more and more detailed as Silvas poured power into the image.
The air around the pentagram crackled and popped at the power generated within it. The Council chamber grew more indistinct than usual, until it seemed to fade completely from view. The silver lines of the pentagram shone brightly, and the platform became a cosmos unto itself, apart even from the place of spiritual conclave.
Once Silvas felt that the time was right, all seven of the individuals within the pentagram spoke the same word of power, and Silvas braced himself, expecting to feel the body of his spirit being hurtled through a remembered insanity to the clearing that he could now see as plainly as he had seen it when he was first pulled to it.
Power flowed, arcing from the memory within the pentagram to the site that memory pictured. Sparks flew in all directions. Silvas could see that forest clearing as if at a tremendous distance, and distorted, with the edges bent toward him. But he did not feel himself flying toward it. He felt himself being distorted as well, stretched, his feet seemingly anchored firmly within the pentagram while his head was pulled toward the clearing, his body becoming elongated and increasingly thin.
Silvas struggled to free his feet, projecting his difficulty to Maria, unable at the moment to feel any response from her. He could feel their link, but there was no communication along it.
There was no physical pain in the way Silvas's body was stretched almost to infinity. This body was of spirit only. But there was pain within his mind, within his spirit, something far more intense than the other variety. Yet bearable. Silvas tried to lift his feet, separately and together, but for an age they would not budge. He looked down. His feet were visible, but not the pentagram on which they stood. Silvas created new spells, larding them with the most potent words of power.
Finally, his feet did come free. They did not catapult toward his head at great speed, though. Only slowly did his form seem to compress toward its normal dimensions. He was, however, moving in the proper direction, and gradually accelerating toward the clearing whose image he held in his mind.
This time he did not fall into the clearing. His landing was as gentle as if he had stepped from one stair down to the next.
The clearing was precisely as Silvas recalled it, in every detail, save that the old man was not sitting on the rock at its center. Silvas was alone. There was not even the call of bird or beast to keep him company. He stood motionless, straining to hear any sound at all, without success. He reached into his mind then, feeling for the link to Maria. It was there, but extremely weak, almost as tenuous as it had been while he was in Hell.
"I am here." The words were more for his own comfort than a serious attempt to reach Maria. "Where is the old man?"
He walked toward the rock at the center of the clearing, then around it, though the stone was not large enough to conceal anyone. Silvas turned through a circle, looking at the ring of pine trees that seemed as impassable as a wild thicket. Alone. Silvas stood near the center of the clearing for a
moment, breathing softly, probing outward with the powers of his mind, seeking any trace of the old man, or anyone else. He walked back to the perimeter of the clearing, as near the point where he had arrived as he could contrive, then began a clockwise circuit, searching for any hint of a path. If the old man was not in the clearing, Silvas would have to go looking for him.
Silvas strode all of the way around the clearing, but found no hint of any path. The trees were spaced with great regularity. The lower branches meshed together, presenting an almost impenetrable wall. Very small animals might pass below those branches without difficulty, but any human larger than a toddler would find great trouble in passing through the barrier. Even if Silvas were ready to bull his way through, he would have no easy way to know which direction he should take.
Silvas looked back out toward the vacant rock in the center of the clearing, then turned to look at the wall of trees again, wondering what he should do next. Then he turned once more, and the old man was sitting on the rock, as indistinct as he had been the first time. Silvas stared at him, squinting, using his telesight and all of the facility he could garner from his new power. The old man remained indistinct, but not—perhaps—as completely blurred as before.
Silvas walked slowly toward the man. As he approached, he became certain that he was closer to being able to see through the mask. There was a vague familiarity to the old man. Silvas could not escape the sense that he should know him from some other venue, but he could not yet make final identification.
When he was still three paces from the old man, Silvas stopped, wonder if the old man would speak first.
He did not. After a moment, Silvas said, "I've come to ask for your help, hoping to avoid another murderous battle."
The old man stared at him. He did not invite Silvas to sit. It was several minutes before the old man spoke.
