Disciple of War (Art of the Adept Book 4)

by Michael G. Manning

  The lich shook his head. “No, not at all. In fact, I would say that most of them aren’t, otherwise they’d have engineered their own extinction—along with the rest of humanity’s—generations ago. If you’ve learned anything about demons, then you know what their goals are—”

  “Their home plane is parasitic,” Will responded. “They survive by devouring other worlds.”

  Grim Talek seemed impressed. “It would be interesting to know how you learned that much. I doubt Arrogan had enough time to teach you that extensively, but I digress. Yes, they would love to exploit our world, but they can’t without our help. For the demons to win, all they need are some followers crazy and powerful enough to summon a demon-lord and then allow him to construct a spell-engine capable of anchoring their plane to ours.

  “In general, this hasn’t happened because they are hypocrites. The senior leadership of the Church of Iron works carefully to weed out the truly suicidal recruits, but apparently, they grew lax and a few slipped through. The second reason it’s unlikely is because most of them don’t want to sacrifice their own followers. However, a few of the priests who responded to my request were especially insane, and the opportunity to sacrifice Darrowan citizens was all they needed to convince them they should actually try and make the prophecies in their black book come true.”

  Will stared in disbelief. “You’re telling me you recruited Shimeran priests, lost control of them, and now you need me to stop them from summoning a demon-lord? Have I understood you correctly?”

  “The spirit of it, but you’ve misunderstood the details. You can’t stop them from summoning a demon-lord because they’ve already done it, and it wasn’t just any demon-lord, it was Madrok himself.”

  He wanted to jump up and run screaming around the room, but Will simply couldn’t muster the energy. “You’re the all-powerful wizard lich. You screwed up. It sounds to me like you need to clean up your own mess.”

  “This is partly your fault as well,” said Grim Talek.

  Isn’t it always, thought Will dryly. “How?”

  “You made the war too interesting. You provided too much of a challenge, and when you took Maldon it completely distracted me. That’s why I came to meet you in person. Unfortunately, my departure was exactly what Shistok was waiting for. Within hours of my leave-taking, he sacrificed half the city to fuel his summoning ritual for Madrok.”

  “Who is Shistok?”

  Grim Talek waved a hand dismissively. “He was the senior priest, but no need to worry about him. The reports I’ve received indicate that Madrok devoured his heart within moments of crossing into our world.”

  Will glared at the lich. “I’m not accepting any blame for your actions. I have plenty of mistakes of my own to beat myself up about. How long ago was this?”

  “Roughly twelve hours ago, while I was traveling here,” said the lich amiably. “You should be glad. I actually was considering making you one of my Drak’shar, or killing you if that proved too difficult. Instead, I’m offering you a different option.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “Which is?”

  “Find a way to send Madrok back home and stop the spell-engine construction. Do that and you can live out your longer than average life. I won’t even argue about you taking Darrow from me—to be honest, I was getting tired of it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you turned around and did it yourself? Every minute you waste here allows the demon-lord free rein to do as he wishes,” Will pointed out. “Threatening me or offering me Darrow isn’t going to solve your problem.”

  Grim Talek shook his head, then got to his feet. “Oh no. You misunderstand, I wasn’t threatening you. I’m not going back. This was merely a courtesy visit. If you don’t manage to send Madrok back I will just relocate. There are plenty of other planes to consider.”

  Will gaped. “If you can’t manage it, how am I supposed to do so?”

  “Not my problem, and frankly, I really don’t expect you to. A smarter solution would be to find a new world for yourself.” Grim Talek nodded at Rob, indicating he should stand. “Time to leave, Robert.” Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a slim book before offering it to Will.

  He didn’t reach for it. “What is that?”

  “A gift I thought you might like. The journal contains notes and instructions regarding my message tablets. If you survive, or even if you move on, it’s a useful bit of artificing to learn. I created it myself, and to the best of my knowledge no one else has ever managed to steal or copy the secret.” The undead lich continued to hold it out to him, but when Will still didn’t move, he tossed it onto the chair he had vacated. “Don’t be so proud. It’s a secret many would kill to learn.”

  When he turned away, Will suddenly broke his silence. “I’d rather know the spell you used on my friend.”

  Grim Talek turned back, arching one brow again. “Really? I didn’t take you for the type. Most would consider it a vile piece of magic.” When Will didn’t answer, he gestured to the book on the chair. It flipped open, and a blank page from the back tore loose and floated over to hang in front of the lich. Lifting one hand, Grim Talek quickly wrote out the spell, using a different spell that seemed to act as an invisible pen.

  Will watched in amazement, and when the lich finished, he sighed. The page flipped over in the air, and he began inscribing a second spell on the back. When it was finished, he sent the page floating toward Will. “There’s the spell I used, and on the back is the spell I used to write without a pen, since you seemed so fascinated by it.”

  This time he took it out of the air, no longer worried it might be a trap. When he started to say something, the lich interrupted him with a warning. “Ask me for anything else and I won’t respond kindly.”

  He had only one question. “Why?”

  Grim Talek paused. “I’m not sure. I like you? It was a fun war? Take your pick. Farewell, William, and good luck with Madrok. I doubt we will meet again.”

  And then he stepped outside and vanished from view. Will stared after him for a long while, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then he looked down at the place where Rob had fallen and been tortured. The grass was torn up there, but he could see something white and angular sticking out from beneath a clod of dirt.

  Cautious, he examined it carefully for any trace of magic but found none, so eventually he brushed the dirt aside. A small piece of folded paper was there. Opening it, he found a short note, presumably from Rob:

  There is a spy among your officers.

  Chapter 49

  The next morning was quiet. Will slept in, despite the excitement that had interrupted his rest. When he finally woke, he could hear the normal sounds of a military camp outside, but no one had been allowed in to bother him. Apparently, Lieutenant Renly actually had a heart. Who knew?

  He didn’t move from his cot, other than to adjust his position to allow for better blood flow. One shoulder had gotten cramped after being beneath him for too long. Instead, he stared around the interior, watching the light play through the flaps and beneath the bottom edges of the sides of his tent.

  It looked like a frivolous moment of laziness, but Will’s mind was enjoying a moment of crystal clarity, the kind that only appears immediately after a solid sleep and before the urgency of life could spoil the mood with its hustle and bustle.

  The goddamn cat had been right. That much was obvious, and because he was right, he wouldn’t be coming to save the day. Aislinn might be able to help, but the being that had visited him the night before was the only monster Will knew of that had frightened her and Arrogan enough that they gave up their attempts to eliminate it—and that same monster was too afraid to face Madrok.

  “That does not bode well for you, Will,” he muttered to himself. It just figured that as soon as he’d finally reached the point of achieving the sort of power that might enable him to force his enemies to leave him alone that the world would go to hell. It’s never something I can handle, he
thought sourly.

  He spent a solid quarter of an hour feeling sorry for himself. Will reasoned that the world owed him that much at least, and then he started working through his options. The first and most obvious was making an escape.

  That was the easiest course, but as he followed that train of thought, it got worse the further he went. He’d have to pick who he took with him, assuming he found a decent place to live, and also assuming he could learn enough to find such a plane. Thus far the only planes he’d ever traveled to were the fae realm and Muskeglun—and the ethereal, though he wasn’t sure if that counted.

  Choosing the people he would save—that was an exercise in cruelty, and there was also the problem that many of them were likely to refuse. Laina, for example, was inordinately obsessed with her charity work. Will didn’t think she would be easily convinced to abandon Terabinia, much less the world itself. Selene was more pragmatic, but he worried she might choose similarly.

  Soon enough, he abandoned the idea of running away. It might have been partly because the death of Eric had left him feeling somewhat fatalistic, but he preferred to think that maybe it was simply that he didn’t want to abandon humanity to such a dark fate. He suspected that Arrogan would have described it differently, accusing him of being suicidal. In the end, he didn’t care. I already knew something was wrong with me, he decided.

  Will activated the limnthal and addressed the ring, “Back to our conversation about demon-lords…”

  “I already told you. Avoid them like the plague. It’s not worth it,” said Arrogan.

  “I hear you,” said Will. “I’m not planning on it, but I can’t help but think about it in a general sense. We had to fight some Shimeran priests the other day.” He went on to describe what had happened, as well as his explosive and unexpected use of his new talent. When he finished, he realized he had another question. “Before you tell me about demons, why do you think they froze? I wasn’t trying to do that.”

  Arrogan answered carefully. “Since I wasn’t witness to it, I can’t be sure, but you’ve mentioned feeling a chill after using your talent before. Probably you’re using ambient turyn to convert thermal energy into sonic energy.”

  Will frowned. “I thought I was converting the turyn itself into sound.”

  “Maybe, but it’s rarely that clear cut. From what you described, you actually used the ambient magic to transform one form of kinetic energy into a different kind of kinetic energy. The turyn drew the heat out of the air and bodies of those nearby and converted it into sonic energy. That’s my best guess, anyway.”

  An idea struck him, and he felt a sudden surge of hope. “Would something like that work against demons?”

  “Most demons, certainly,” agreed the ring. “Though you’d have to have sufficient ambient or active turyn in the area to do something similar to what you did with the enemy soldiers.”

  “Most demons,” repeated Will. “What about a demon-lord?”

  “I already told you to forget about facing one directly,” said Arrogan waspishly.

  “Just humor me. I’m curious.”

  “It wouldn’t work. For the same reason I told you the other day when I said you don’t really have to fear magic anymore—from anyone. A demon-lord’s will and control over the magic around himself rivals that of a third-order wizard. Other than force spells, no magic you could create would hurt one.”

  Well, shit, thought Will sourly. “What does work against them? Don’t they have a weakness, like the fae and iron, or vampires and silver?”

  Arrogan laughed. “Unfortunately, no, but we don’t need one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our world itself is poisonous to them. It’s filled with turyn that directly interferes with their own. Just as regular people die if they get any demonic turyn inside them, demons have similar problems,” said his grandfather.

  Will wasn’t sure he agreed. “They don’t get sick from our turyn, even if I attack one directly with a spell. I know that from personal experience.”

  “It doesn’t hurt them immediately. Unlike most people, demons can and do convert turyn like a wizard does, but they aren’t nearly as good at it. For example, a lone demon in our world has to kill to survive. It’s sort of similar to what vampires have to do. They kill living creatures to absorb the particular vital turyn within us, because that’s the one type of turyn here that they can naturally eat. Everything else, particularly elemental fire, is corrosive to them. No demon can survive in our world for an extended period. They have to return to their own plane to recuperate and recharge their turyn.”

  “So, why are they so keen on coming here then?” asked Will in exasperation.

  “Their plane is parasitic. If they don’t continue invading and feeding other worlds to it, it will begin to cannibalize itself. They need our help just to get here, but once they arrive, the main goal is always to find a way to bring enough force and power across to build the spell-engines that they use to anchor to, and destroy, other worlds. Without a spell-engine running, their time here is always limited. They need it to convert massive amounts of native turyn to void turyn. That turyn is released, creating a noxious local environment that nurtures and restores them.”

  So, no spell-engine, no demons. Will wondered if there was a way to exploit that. If he couldn’t beat Madrok directly, maybe he could just prevent the demon from creating the spell-engine. “What do they need to create a spell-engine?”

  “Ley lines,” said Arrogan. “Mass sacrifices work short term, but to be practical they need to tap into one or more ley lines to draw the power needed.”

  “Like the chamber the duchess used back in Cerria,” said Will.

  “Exactly. Most of the major cities were built on loci, places where two or more ley lines meet. It made it easy to create and power some of the greater magics, like the teleport beacons.”

  Will didn’t have to ask if Myrsta had been built at such a place. And Madrok is there already. Could it get any worse? “Is a spell-engine like a ritual, or a spell construct? What does it look like?”

  “Completely different,” said Arrogan. “They’re permanent constructs, so they have to be made from physical materials. In order to accomplish their purpose, the material has to be both incredibly strong and able to naturally transform energy into void turyn. I’m sure you can guess what they use just from that description.”

  He looked down at the ebon metal of his breastplate. “Demon-steel? But it doesn’t convert normal turyn. From what I’ve seen, it only converts kinetic energy into void turyn.”

  “Hence the term ‘engine,’” agreed Arrogan. “I’ve never seen one personally, but they’re described as massive, diabolical machines the size of a barn. The basic principle is that they tap into the turyn of the ley line and use that to power the machine, producing motion that is then used to drive demon-steel hammers somehow.”

  He’d seen firsthand what happened when his breastplate received a powerful blow. If the blow was powerful enough, the armor burst into black void-flames.

  Arrogan seemed to be warming up to the topic, and he continued, “I’ve no idea what sort of mechanical principles are used, whether they have gears, or simply trip-levers, or something even more complicated, but they’re big—really big. And once they have it running, the void turyn it emits makes the surrounding area absolutely lethal to everything living, just like their homeworld.”

  “Like hell?” asked Will.

  “Exactly. It spreads out slowly, but over years, maybe centuries, a demonic spell-engine will eventually convert all the magic of a world and kill everything in the process.”

  Will had been to hell once, riding on the back of the goddamn cat. He’d had to use a demon-armor spell to protect himself from the deadly ambient turyn. These days, he could probably manage even without the spell, but he wasn’t entirely sure. A fresh idea came to him then. “Is there a positive equivalent to demon-steel?”

  “Pardon?”

  “A met
al that converts kinetic energy into vital turyn instead of void turyn,” he explained.

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of. I suppose the closest thing would be troll flesh.”

  It was Will’s turn to be confused. “Huh? That doesn’t make any sense. Muskeglun is practically a desert, from an ambient turyn standpoint.”

  His grandfather laughed. “And that’s exactly why. Think about it. Their regenerative powers are magic. Where do you think the turyn for that comes from?”

  Will stared into space for a moment. He hadn’t really thought about it at all. “I just assumed they have a source like we do.”

  “Nope. If that was the case, you could eat a piece of one and it wouldn’t hurt you, but if you cut up a troll into ten pieces, it will grow into ten full sized trolls. Provided they were all fed, of course. If they had a source, you’d only wind up with one troll.”

  His mind was running through wild ideas by then. “What would happen if a demon ate troll flesh?”

  His grandfather chuckled. “Same thing that would happen to you, I presume. Trolls aren’t bothered by void turyn either. As far as I know, Muskeglun is the one plane that demonkind has no interest in. There’s very little turyn, and it’s full of things they can’t eat.”

  He returned to the previous point. “Wait, if trolls don’t have a source and they use turyn to regenerate, where does the turyn come from?”

  “Food, chemical energy—they produce turyn the same way we produce body heat.”

  Although Will found it all very fascinating, he was failing to find anything in the details that would help him chart a path to victory, much less survival. While he was thinking, Arrogan decided to ask a question of his own. “Now, why don’t you tell me the rest? You’re asking a lot of questions about spell-engines and demon-lords. Did you learn something new?”

  “Someone’s coming,” Will lied quickly, then he deactivated the limnthal. He definitely wasn’t in the mood for the lecture he knew would follow, but he could delay it at least.