Elaine nodded. She had been quieter ever since the night of the battle at the palace.
“Take us below,” said Suya, “I am eager to gain more power.”
“Good,” said Lady Nasibron, “but be prepared because when we do, we may face more peril than even I know.”
“More peril? We've already faced plenty,” said Niu.
Hilos glanced at her, his face dour.
“Unlike each of us, some did not survive that peril.”
Niu bowed her head.
“Forgiveness, please.”
Hilos bowed to her.
“Forgiven.”
Lady Nasibron motioned them closer.
“We are going to gather sprites and banes. As mages, you must find the places essence resides. And there are no places they reside in greater numbers than around world wells.”
“Aren't world wells dangerous?” asked Melissa.
“Yes,” said Lady Nasibron, “but to gain the power we need fast enough, you must risk it.”
She turned to Elaine.
“Wait here,” she said, “student you are to make sure no demon escapes, should any get past us below.”
Lady Nasibron led the way into the dungeons. They left the light behind.
Elaine’s shadow cast followed them along the passage but soon faded completely. They turned the corner and descended until they reached a passage where a semblance of light returned. Beyond a cell carved into the rock, a circular room lit only by sprites and the flickering dimness of banes came into view.
Lady Nasibron motioned them through the cell and into the circular chamber with its floor of rough-hewn stone.
“This is the world well,” she said. “Here, sprites and banes are common in their isolated forms. Should they be agitated, though, the seals on the well weaken and demons may approach the surface.”
“Should we not have brought Lord Hadrian with us?” asked Suya.
“Lord Hadrian is always busy,” said Lady Nasibron.
Melissa believed her. The immortal had been mostly absent over the past three weeks, despite his promise to remain and help protect Soucot.
She forged into the center into the room, approaching the smooth edge of the world well on uncertain feet. Farther from the well, the floor was not polished or even laid stone but rougher than either. She took care not to slip and fall.
She approached the well. Light circled her. Sprites and banes retreated from her space. Lady Nasibron sent sprites out to brighten the room with a flare of green.
“Isolated essence rejects the presence of humans. That means it is up to us to draw them in any way.”
Hilos and Kelt approached the well. Niu followed them with Suya. Lady Nasibron stayed by the entrance.
“You five, locate as many sprites and banes you can but don't agitate them for long because demons will notice below, and they will come if we do not leave in time.”
“How much time do we have?” asked Suya.
“I wish I could say.”
“My lady,” said Hilos, “May you suggest any ways to attract them?”
“Empty your thoughts and still your inner essence. Sprites and banes can then move through you as if you're not there.”
“I never learned to meditate,” Melissa said.
“You’ll simply need to manage your thoughts another way,” said the old witch.
That doesn’t seem simple, thought Melissa. She frowned at the well. Separating an iron bane seemed easy once she trained them to respond to her very thoughts, but to learn a new skill in an instant seemed impossible. She and the others separated, circling the well in an uneasy silence. How can I be wary and calm at the same time?
The excitement of gaining more raw materials to shape and control combined with the danger of well made her tense. She peered over the edge. Abyssal blackness lay below, glaring darkness.
She stepped back from the edge then folded her hands. She kept her eyes opened, mind racing to find a way to clear itself. She focused on the darkness. Darkness hid objects and people from the. Darkness became her mind’s metaphor.
Moving her thoughts into darkness took some mental effort. She used a technique for clouding the minds of others on her mind, positioning a veil in her mind. One by one, she pushed her thoughts, fears, and memories beyond that veil.
Sprites and banes began to move about her. Melissa swayed drunkenly, a few hand-spans from the edge of the well and its sheer drop. Essence provided the lights that danced before her. She looked into the abyss as her mental veil sheltered her thoughts.
She staggered away from the well. Another fragment of essence passed through her, a bane. She reached out gently and then lock the bane in an embrace. The bane drifted to her core and began to circle her heart.
The others made progress swiftly. Suya, especially, attracted a cloud of angrily-singing banes. Over the next hour, the five of them gathered dozens of essences as a group.
A rasping click and loud clash of claws on stone came from within the well.
Lady Nasibron approached the edge, motioning for Melissa to stand back. Melissa, mind still cloudy, lurched to one side. She looked at Lady Nasibron, puzzled.
“What is it?” she asked.
The old witch gazed into the dark.
“A demon is climbing the well.”
The others looked at each other in surprise. The sprites and banes around them retreated from their agitated minds.
“It was inevitable after how long we’ve been here,” said Lady Nasibron.
Melissa glanced down the well. She saw nothing.
“It must be far down,” she said. “The darkness hides it completely.”
“The darkness cannot protect us,” said Lady Nasibron. “We must protect ourselves.”
Melissa nodded. She wrapped her fingers around her spear.
The cavern’s chill crept through her clothes and into her mind. The sounds in the well grew louder.
“You all have more power now,” said Lady Nasibron. “Hurl the demon back. No more gathering essence. Once he falls we must be certain he won’t return.”
Melissa gripped her spear’s haft tight.
“Understood.”
The others signaled their assent. They all prepared their weapons and magic around the well.
“We will not allow a demon to escape the dungeon,” said Lady Nasibron.
“That’s why you left Elaine above,” said Suya.
Niu nodded.
“Elaine has done this task before,” said Nasibron. “Each well is a proving ground for mages. If you cannot best a lesser demon when it emerges, perhaps it was a waste of time to bring you here at all.”
Melissa scowled into the pit of the well, as dark as ever.
Glittering shapes appeared from the black. Those shapes resolved into two sets of eyes set on either side of a gray dome-shaped face. An inky black body moved behind the skull of a face, all grasping tentacles and reaching arms. Two arms and four tentacles scrambled up the wall. The limbs formed around a body that resembled a jellyfish from the bay, but rather than being flimsy and transparent the demon’s body gleamed like iron-colored bone.
“That doesn't look like a lesser demon,” said Niu.
Hilos clapped a hand on her shoulder.
“Brace yourself.”
He folded his living hand into his artificial fingers and started speaking an incantation. Hilos sent a flying sprite above the pit, casting a light bright as day. The demon's bony body shifted like liquid steel as it looked at Hilos. Tentacles and arms longer than human bodies reached for the top of the pit. The domed face could have been a pale mask except for the four eyes and the fanged mouth.
Melissa braced herself against the floor. Her heel hit an outcrop of rock behind her. Nowhere to go.
Hilos’ light sprite returned to him as he sent out another. Kelt raised a long blade in one hand. Suya drew her blade from the second scabbard on her belt. Niu twirled her staff.
Hilos backed away from the w
ell. Melissa nodded. Despite his training as a knight, Hilos was too frail to fight a demon physically.
Lady Nasibron joined him. She wove a ritual spell in the air. Characters formed from glowing sprites took shape before the old witch. Melissa hoped she was making some kind of weapon.
The demon’s bulk emerged from the well, swinging tentacles and groping arms in every direction.
The hand struck with weapons and magic, each wielding a mix of old and new essences. They mustered more raw power than possible with their old capacity of sprites and banes. The demon leapt to the other side of the well, avoiding their onslaught, and landed on the surface. The hand retreated to form a defensive wedge by the passage to the dungeons.
The demon scrambled toward them, moving on tentacles and clawed hands, domed faced gleaming in the light of the well. That light fell behind the beast, eclipsed by its shifting bulk.
Melissa drew a line with a sprite at the tip of her spear. She drew a ward across the ground in front of herself and the others. She made another line, then another. She formed a thick barrier, leaving a collection of new sprites sizzling on the floor.
She doubted one sprite alone could stop the demon. She braced herself for the impact, spear raised once more. The demon thrust out an arm, shimmering with grayish light. The faint light cast a slight glow on the demon’s skull-like face as the hand reached for Melissa.
Her spear intercepted the hand. The spear, reinforced by metal and essence, nearly snapped. The hand recoiled.
Niu swung her staff at arm’s length, smashing the demon’s chin. The monster retreated for an instant, then roared toward them. The sound of its voice drowned out the sounds of the sprites and banes in the room.
The stench of the demon up close made Melissa wonder how anyone managed to interact with such beings for long. Despite the broken eggs and dried milk smell of the creature, she fought with loud cries on her lips.
Behind the, with Lady Nasibron, Hilos threw down more barriers using separated sprites.
Lady Nasibron turned to him.
“Sir Hilos, use the new ability I told you about.”
The old man stiffened behind Melissa.
“Am I ready?”
“You must try,” said the lady witch. “Be bold.”
Hilos took a step forward. He muttered the incantation of opening, the one he’d used the day they first demonstrated personal techniques.
“Hold the creature at bay for a moment, my friends.”
Melissa nodded. Niu grunted in agreement. They pushed with their weapons, striking the demon with ineffectual blows. They kept the demon's arms and tentacles from reaching past them.
Hilos slipped between them. The demon snarled. Fangs gleamed as jaws widened. The old knight planted his palm on the demon's smooth face.
The skull-like dome shimmered, then softened, melting under the mage’s touch. Growths of bone lashed out, wrapping around Hilos’ hand. The skulled stood open, exposing the demon's weakness. A cluster of banes gleamed within, iron-hard like the one Melissa had been born to wield.
She retracted as much as essence as she could, then thrust her spear into the mass of iron banes. The banes in the demon’s skull scattered and the monster howled in agony. Melissa forced the demon backward, spear embedded deep in his head.
“Such a wound cannot kill the creature. Throw it back while you can,” said Lady Nasibron.
Hilos grimaced as flexible bone tendrils constricted on his hand.
Kelt swept out with his sword’s gleaming edge, a single bane running rapidly up and down the weapon’s length. The black edge of the blade split the demon’s skull. Hilos pulled his hand free.
The demon retreated toward the well. Lady Nasibron finished her ritual script in the air. The seals she left in the air between them and the well ignited in a flash of light. The demon’s face went vacant as fire burned its body from below. The heat and light made Melissa look away with the others. When the light began tom dim the demon teetered on the edge of the well, shaking with pain. Suya threw herself at the creature, her blade flashing out. She propelled herself on a stream of sprites. The force of her blow knocked the demon over the edge. The demon disappeared into the darkness, howling as it fell into the void.
Suya landed on the uneven rock floor and stumbled. Kelt caught her around the shoulders. He helped her steady herself.
“Good work,” said Lady Nasibron, “we need only wait a little longer for the well to recover its natural seals.”
Melissa glanced at Niu. Her friend grinned.
“We did it,” said Niu
“We did,” said Melissa.
Hilos gave a satisfied nod.
Kelt set Suya on her feet. She laughed.
“We needed a victory.”
“Your victory,” said Lady Nasibron, “is well-deserved today, my students.”
The five of them exchanged surprised looks. Suya hugged Melissa.
Niu threw herself in to join them. When the three of them parted, they looked toward the black pit. The world well remained dark as ever, forbidding and dangerous. They returned to the surface, elated and ready for more.
Saben
Saben and the others stayed in a poorly furnished inn several miles north of Soucot. The three of them studied the scroll.
He wished he could've done the work alone, but without Rond to translate the Tancuoense idioms and Jaswei helped him understand the arcane scripts, he never would have managed it.
The three of them sat around a bar table, several weeks after escaping the city.
The scroll lay between them. Jaswei traced one line of script with her finger as she explained the pronunciation and identity of each character. Rond expanded on the meaning by adding context.
“This ones indicates the creature is not originally a demon. Could it be part human?”
“Hopefully that to make it easier to control,” said Jaswei.
Saben studied the line and found he understood it easily enough thanks to their interpretations. In a perfect sense, the words indicated a flowering of youth, and that character usually meant childhood.
Childhood was a state only humans understood because animals were born with their faculties and other entities possessed immortal lives.
“It was human?”
“A human demon,” said Jaswei. “I never there was such a thing.”
Rond shrugged.
“Me neither,” he said.
Saben frowned.
“I'm not sure this is the right scroll.”
Jaswei glanced at him.
“Don't say we need to go back for another.”
He shook his head.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Oh, you would,” Jaswei said.
“I promise.”
“The demon,” she read with Rond's help, “is an ascended being. He attained power as great as the greater beings. The eighty-eight feared him.”
“Feared?” said Ron. “That’s either promising or dangerous.”
“Both,” said Saben, “I hope.”
They studied the scroll a while longer, uncovering the identity of the demon little by little.
His name was Azel and he had fallen centuries ago. Parts of the scroll were difficult to interpret even for all three of them, but for the most part, they recovered the means to take the demon’s form.
Saben studied longer than the others, using their lingering advice when they grew weary and sat drinking. He gained confidence in reading alone. Drawing in a breath, he finished the scroll in silence.
“I thought I might become him right away,” said Saben.
Rond shrugged.
“Good thing you didn't. I couldn’t explain that to the innkeeper.”
Jaswei nodded.
“We need a safe place for you to change.”
“There's a farm not far from here,” said Rond. “It’s been abandoned for years now.”
“Does that make it a hiding place?” said Jaswei.
Rond nodded.
“It does,” he said. “We just need to get there which would be easy if we weren’t all wanted by the guards,” he said under his breath.
“We’re low on money,” said Saben. “We only have a few days worth of gold.”
“Saben,” said Jaswei, “once you make your sacra form work, you can have your revenge.”
“I hope you're right.”
They finished with the scroll and rolled it up to stow. On the way back to the rooms, Rond climbed the steps ahead of them. Jaswei turned to Saben at the foot of the stairs.
“Thank you,” she said, “for saving me.”
“Didn't you say that before, back at the palace?”
“I haven't said it enough,’ said Jaswei. “I’d still be rotting in that prison at my luckiest if you hadn’t.”
“And we wouldn’t all be wanted if I had found a better way,” he said.
“We all stole that scroll before you threw in with those assassins trying to kill the governor. Yes, you did something terrible trying to rescue me. I appreciate that even more.” She stood on tiptoes and clapped him on the shoulder.
Her face hung close to his.
“Thank you,” she said. “If you ever need anything, don't forget to ask.”
“We’re companions,” said Saben, “I'll ask.”
She smiled at him, then lowered herself to stand on the balls of her feet. He followed her up the stairs. They parted at their rooms and they spoke no more that night.
Folt
His stolen ship floated in the Kanori harbor after a jaunt across the bay. Folt watched the ship from the corner of his eye while he waited at the restaurant for his food to arrive, fresh-caught from the bay.
Folt was alone as he preferred since leaving Soucot and abandoning Hilos and Suya those years ago. Even in the allied part of Kanor where he sat, he remained on guard. Without his team, he would be truly alone in the country. Governments could be useful but they couldn’t be a friend.
Kanor once waged war with mercy before. Folt doubted they were eager to do so again after the last battle. Ships at the bottom of the bay told that story. The guilty ghosts and shades that inhabited dockside towns kept Kanor’s suffering fresh after decades of peace.
Demon Scroll Page 24
