by Langland, J.
Alvea and Bromagni came in looking almost as worn as she was. The two plopped down at her table, Bromagni plopping his head on the table. “Long day?” Jenn asked.
“The longest.” Bromagni said without moving his head from the table.”
“Jehenna has us running all over the city gathering components. Some really expensive components.” Alvea told her.
“Extremely expensive components?” Jenn asked.
“Remember the stuff we used for the wards back at the school, like that, only much bigger. Apparently, they are working with the council to do something extremely complicated with the wards. Lenamare, Zilquar, Hortwell, Elrose, Jehenna, Gandros, half the council of wizards plus their best masters. Whatever it is, it’s going to be big.”
“We ended up buying over 10,000 crowns worth of materials from various apothecaries, alchemists and metallurgists. It’s one seriously big spell.” Bromagni finally looked up shaking his head. “Gandros, Lenamare, Hortwell, Jehenna, and Trevin were locked in planning all day, and Alexandros Mien was even coming and going for consultation. He’s the most experienced wizard on the council, and so old he has to float himself down the corridors.” Bromagni shook his head in awe of the Elder Archimage.
“I think he’s like 120 or something.” Alvea said shaking her head in agreement. Jenn nodded, everyone knew of his record. One of the brightest mages of the last few generations. No one had seen him do much, other than float around the palace in the last decade, but when he’d been active, he’d been a major force in the world.
“Where were you today?” Alvea suddenly asked. “Normally Jehenna has you stand by to be her whipping girl.”
Jenn grinned, “Someone had to do something about the horses and the army in the basement since we couldn’t get food for them, or remove their manure. I pestered Jehenna and Zilquar so much they put me in charge of bringing the army and the horses above ground. So I spent the day with Councilor Damien, Markoff, and Zilquar’s captain, and the city guard captain. It was an all-day ordeal.”
“So, the rumors are true then,” Bromagni smiled at her, Jenn tilted her head in puzzlement, “you have switched over to doing combat magic!” Jenn hit him on the arm.
~
Wing Arms Master Heron sighed and put his head down on his desk upon his hands. He was getting too old for this. Despite his best intellectual reasoning, and common sense, there were times when he wished diplomacy were illegal.
He’d spent the morning discussing the situation with Arch-Vicar General Barabus and Arch-Diocate Iskerus. This was truly a tricky situation. Apparently, the same malefactors he was charged with dealing with were subject to a prior set of charges from the Church of Tiernon and the Rod. This prior claim arising from actions inside Church property before the vile Asmeth had ever set sail. Abduction, imprisonment, illegal interrogation and mental, if not perhaps physical, torture of the Church’s highest representative in Gizzor Del. Defilement of church property, blasphemy and perversion of religious rites, fleeing Tiernon’s justice among other charges. Heron was not familiar with the exact laws of the Church, but, clearly, these would be capital crimes in any jurisdiction.
Therefore, now, they had to mediate their competing claims of justice and arrive at a mutually satisfactory arrangement. He really did not need this. However, if that were not enough, they informed him on good authority that the entire city of Freehold had been overrun by demons. Freehold had apparently had been invaded by half the Abyss!
Clearly, that complicated the issues. He had sent back to Keeper City a request for the various relevant treatise regarding such invasions. He had no idea of the appropriate legal response: did they have mutual aid agreements? Would the Sky Fleet be required to remove the demonic horde? How would they determine and restore a legitimate government?
This presented a lack of information and thus a completely unusual uncertainty that he was unaccustomed to; however, he could deal with that. A few hours after the Rod delegation had left; a delegation from Freehold arrived, led by the esteemed Alexandros Mien himself.
Alexandros was a man Heron had only met a few times prior, but he was certainly a walking legend even in Oorstemoth. His keen perceptions, understanding of legal principle and his ruthless negotiating style were much admired, and admittedly, feared, in Keeper’s City.
The Archimage had informed him that the Council was aware of the incursion, that the incursion had not in any way actually impeached the council (obviously something to be considered suspect) and that the council had determined a mechanism to purge the city of all demonic influence.
Now this all seemed a bit fanciful to Heron, but this was Alexandros Mien after all. The Archimage had assured him that the only way the Council could properly, honorably, and legally meet the terms of both the Rod and Oorstemoth was to purge the city of all possible malignant influences and judicial pervertors and preventers. This did admittedly make sense to Heron.
Unfortunately, it meant a delay in meeting the agreed-upon delivery of the requested miscreants until due process could occur in Freehold. Delays however, were not completely unexpected, given his meeting with the Rod. That was a resolution that would take some time as well.
The bigger problem however, as the Archimage informed him, is that the Council would be evicting all demons from the city, forcibly, tomorrow. Said forcible eviction from the city, ejecting all the demons onto the proverbial laps of the Rod and the Sky Fleet. They were about to be set upon by a displaced demonic horde.
Fortunately, most were lower level and relatively easy to dispatch with the Rod’s help. The bigger issue was that some of the demonic influences or suspects were likely to be released as well, and would need to be apprehended, interrogated, tried, convicted and eradicated before they could escape.
This, Heron reflected with a misruling grin, might be theoretically possibly to deal with; the problem, however, only got worse. Apparently, both the Rod and the Council had determined that there were at least—AT LEAST—three Archaedemons in the city. He’d been prepared for maybe one; and he’d thought that threat overblown—but three?
It was going to be a very long night. Heron pulled his head up as a knock came at his cabin door signally that the delegation from the Rod had returned to discuss and coordinate activities based on the new intelligence Alexandros had provided. A very long night, sighed Heron.
~
Edwyrd had the day mostly to himself. Rupert and Tizzy had set out to do some more palace exploring. Obviously, that was perfectly safe, what could wrong with a 10 or 12 your old demon egging on an unhinged multi-centenarian demon around a palace full of wizards and invisible enemy demons? Edwyrd didn’t want to think about it, but he didn’t have any better suggestions for them. He did warn both to not cause any trouble, specifically no murder, torture or evisceration of anyone, and if they ran into anything or one important, they should try and get a hold of Edwyrd before proceeding or revealing any information. It was about a ten minute list of instructions. Tizzy obviously tuned out within 30 seconds.
Maelen and Gastropé had gone to town to check out some bookstores. Edwyrd had enough to read from Maelen so sent them on their way. Jenn was running around with Damien messing with horses and soldiers and who knows what. So that left him to his own devices.
He spent a good part of the day in the main palace entry hall sitting on a stone bench along the side wall watching people go in and out. More precisely, he was examining them with full demon sight. He was trying to determine various levels of animus and mana in them and determine if they had any of those links attached to them.
Fortunately, most the people going in and out were wizards so they were almost all heavily mana oriented and many had links and tethers. He had a couple reference books with him to help him figure out what things were.
What was interesting is that there were all sorts of links to all sorts of things. All the wizards that had demons with them, and to be fair there were not that many, had links to their demon
s similar to the one he had to Lenamare. There were also links between individuals; some between men and women were very light and clear. He wasn’t sure what those were; but the couples that had them were very clearly couples; some of them behaving like stereotypical married couples.
The wizards also had links/tethers to various items they possessed. Not all items, typically amulets and staffs. Some amulets then seemed to have more links radiating off of them to ‘somewhere else’ fading into the background unless he tried hard to trace them. Which he could do, at least until they went through a wall or out of sight.
He spent quite a bit of time looking at mana and animus distributions. Whatever this animus was, it wasn’t quite so clear. He believed it was this golden stuff enmeshed inside the people and their auras. Most of a person’s aura was mana related in some manner; or so he thought, but it wasn’t really clear. Maelen could answer that; except he had no idea how to ask because that was stuff any Animage should already know.
One thing that was clear is that some people ‘glowed’ more than others. These may or may not have been people that were more powerful. In fact, he was thinking they might not be. People whom he could tell by their clothing, demeanor and entourage were higher ranking wizards seemed to keep their mana more tightly concentrated inside themselves.
He spent considerable time thinking about how one could make these links. He’d like to practice. It would be rather convenient to have a link to Rupert to know where he was and if he was in trouble. Edwyrd did have some concerns about the ethical nature of these links, but having one to Rupert, who was supposed to be his son, would seem like a reasonable thing. Maybe Rupert would let him practice on him tonight?
Edwyrd also studied his own body, as much as he could. He was glowing, a lot, and while huge, it was sort of like a big cloud all around him. He supposed, since more experienced people reigned in their mana, he probably should to. It would keep him from sticking out like a sore thumb.
Later in the afternoon, he headed back to his room to get to a quite space so he could practice concentrating his mana. He’d done some meditation for Tae-Kwon-Do, so he thought he’d try that and imagine sort of sucking his mana inside his Edwyrd body, sort of how he sucked the giant Tom body inside. It seemed to Edwyrd, that containing mana would have to be similar to containing a giant demon form that kept wanting to burst out of him like a car’s front-impact airbag.
He had rather lost track of time working on containing his mana, when Tizzy and Rupert returned to the room. “Hey Edwyrd, about ready for dinner?” Rupert asked.
“Sure.” Edwyrd only pretended to eat, but the company would be nice.
“Who we going to eat tonight?” Tizzy asked.
Edwyrd shook his head as Rupert grinned cheek to cheek. “No one, I think you do that just to try and get a response out of me.”
“Still seems to work, a bit.” Tizzy observed. “Should be a quite dinner what with all those wizards scurrying around.”
“Well we are under siege.” Edwyrd told him.
“Yeah, don’t know what they’re up to, but they got teams running around buying up all sorts of crazy stuff in town and heading off to the basement with it.” Tizzy told him.
“Well, good then. I really don’t want to have the Rod, or the Sky Fleet coming in here. So whatever it takes to keep them away, the better.”
“Yeah, don’t like the Rod. Very high and mighty. About the only thing they were ever good for was kicking Ramses off the plane. But even that only lasted a thousand years.”
Edwyrd perked up. “Ramses the Damned? The one Maelen and I have been talking about?” Tizzy shrugged. “A Time Warrior? Dresses in leather straps, wears two swords.”
Tizzy nodded, “Yep, same one. I disliked him then, he was a real pain. Good thing Exador had him killed, for a while at least.” Tizzy seemed to be getting bored and floated out into the hallway. “He built himself a nice place there in the Abyss after that. Funky looking demons and all.”
Edwyrd shook his head. Tizzy was a treasure trove of information, if only there was a way to get it out of him more consistently and on demand rather than as an odd after thought. At least now, Tizzy seemed to have confirmed that the Ramses running around here was the same one with the palace in the Abyss.
Rupert and Edwyrd headed to the cafeteria; Tizzy had drifted off somewhere, again. When they reached the cafeteria, Maelen and Gastropé were there, so after picking up their food, they sat down with them. They both confirmed that wizards from the palace were running all over town looking for various spell components, particularly rare elements and gems. Edwyrd told them of Tizzy’s confirmation of Ramses.
Maelen shook his head. “Do you ever get the feeling it would be a lot easier to just ask Tizzy first?”
They all laughed at that. “About 80% of what comes out of his mouth makes absolutely no sense; the other 20% is pure gold.” Gastropé shook his head. “The trick is…”
“Knowing which is which.” Maelen finished his sentence with a laugh.
~
“Rupert, you’re a wizard.” Edwyrd stated to Rupert later that evening in their room.
“A junior apprentice.” Rupert acknowledged.
“What do you know about links?”
“A bit. The basics I guess.” Rupert replied. “Jenn or Gastropé could tell you a lot more. Jenn’s a thaumaturge and Gastropé does conjuring. Both of those specialties do a lot with links.”
“Yeah, well I’m not about to ask Gastropé. He’d assume I was trying to break my link with Lenamare and kill everyone.” Rupert laughed as Edwyrd grinned. “And Jenn,” Edwyrd continued, “she’d ask more questions about why I wanted to know, then she’d actually answer.” Rupert grinned.
“I guess you’re right.” The boy admitted. “Well, there are all sorts of links, object links, familiar links, wizard links, binding links, and more I don’t know anything about.”
“Well, tell me about those.” Edwyrd asked.
“Well, I can’t really do many, other than maybe a simple object link if I get lucky. An object link is a link applied to an object. You use Magic Writing to engrave some special runes on an object so you can attach a link to it. From then on, you know where the object is, and can follow it, and maybe do more advanced stuff over that link. Again, this is just what I’ve been taught.”
“OK, what’s a familiar link then?” Edwyrd asked.
“It’s a link to a living creature, typically your familiar.” Rupert said.
“Familiar?”
“Yeah, like a black cat, a bird. Wizards use them, specially trained and prepared animals that the wizard links to and he or she, if skilled enough, can use that animal as a second set of eyes, or command it to do things. Typically spying, alerts, or scouting. Birds are very good for that.”
“Can a wizard do that to a person?” Edwyrd asked, somewhat concerned.
“No, humans have too much mana, too much intelligence and willpower. You’d have to really overpower them, and sending that much power through this type of link would break it.” Rupert explained.
The boy got a sudden thoughtful look on his face. “What is it?” Edwyrd asked.
“I suppose, well…I just got to thinking, the way a wizard uses a familiar sort of sounds like demonic possession.” Rupert shook his head. “Maybe that’s what demons do when they possess people?” He looked at Edwyrd curiously.
“Don’t ask me; I’ve never possessed anyone.” Edwyrd shook his head and smiled. “What was that last one you mentioned, a Wizard Link?”
“Yeah, I have no idea how that’s done. But it’s how wizards link up to each other to share mana and cast spells. For example, in demon conjuring or setting up these wards…” Rupert gestured at the glowing ward light outside the palace. “They all link up and share their mana and sort of cast the spell in unison; not sure if there is any telepathy going on or what, but they can share their power.”
“Hmm,” Edwyrd murmured. “That’s interesting.” It ce
rtainly explained how a bunch of wizards no single one powerful enough to capture or defeat a demon could combine together and capture and bind one.
“Do you mind if I practice putting a link on you tonight? I won’t try to possess you, I just want to experiment and learn how it’s done. Plus if I can make it stick I can find you next time you pick a fight with a knight in glowing armor.” Edwyrd smiled at the boy.
Rupert laughed. “Yeah, that would be convenient. I could have used some backup.”
Edwyrd and Rupert spent the next several hours practicing trying to make links. Rupert showed him an object link and Edwyrd tried to follow it. It took some doing, the Magic Writing thing the most confusing; but he could see the link was attached to the runes, not the object itself. The link basically had to be linked to either mana or animus apparently. That sort of agreed with what he’d read. Since the link was mana based, generally, it stuck best to animus, but could also stick to mana with some work.
Edwyrd didn’t know anything about wizardry; he’d had luck faking Animagic or maybe demon magic, so he thought he’d stick with that. He tried various things where he tried to hook a bit of the animus cloud around himself into Rupert’s mana and/or animus and then sort of spin it out in a thread.
It didn’t work particularly well; at least not at first, but he eventually got something to sort of work before Rupert pooped out and went to sleep. While Rupert was falling asleep, Edwyrd worked on trying to create threads out of his mana. Once the boy was asleep, he’d try attaching again. Rupert had agreed with that, and Edwyrd had a few more ideas to try.
Chapter 78
Damien answered the knocking on the door; Antefalken was heating his bath water; demons were really good water heaters, Damien reflected. He’d slept like a log after yesterday’s insanity. He hadn’t done that much physical work and labor in a decade; it had worn him out.
At the door was one of Gandros’ pages. “Are you ready?” The page asked surveying Damien in his dressing gown with puzzlement.
