Tangled Lights and Silent Nights

by Kelly Stone Gamble

  “Oh, Alloran!” Her expression of affront melted away, replaced by a coy smile as she reached out and twined a lock of his unkempt and overlong black hair around one finger. “Why—are you coming to the winter solstice feast? I didn’t think anything could drag you out of your laboratory!”

  For the first time, the sounds of merry-making permeated the haze of calculations engulfing his mind. He was standing right at the entrance to one of the citadel’s great halls. The double doors stood open, revealing a room full of long tables. Various wizards and sorceresses were arriving to take their seats, and musicians played harps in one corner of the room, the waterfall of sound almost lost beneath the hubbub of chatter. Great glittering streamers of magic in red and gold and green decorated the room’s ceiling. Vases of roses, encircled with holly wreaths, marched down the centre of each table, and the flickering candlelight gave the room an old-world feel compared to the usual steady burn of wizard glows.

  Another bloody festival.

  “Uh…no,” he said. “I have important work waiting for me.”

  He circled around her, and she muttered something as he walked away. He glanced back at her, almost walking into a wall as he tried to cut the corner. Had that been “Such a waste”?

  He shook his head and hurried on, returning to his calculations. When he reached his laboratory, he paused with the door half-open to check the wards woven through the walls. It was absolutely imperative that everything was contained within these walls tonight. Satisfied, he strode into his laboratory. Dozens of wizard glows hung from the ceiling, and he blinked in their brilliance.

  “Someone give me an update!”

  The room was large and contained numerous workbenches, including one that ran around the entire outside wall. One of the central benches held a spindly construction of thin timber rods and gold wire. The half-dozen assistants in the room were engaged in a flurry of activity everywhere other than around this construct; they were packing various items from the benches into boxes and winding up rolls of wire while yelling across the room at each other.

  “T minus 10 minutes, sir!” shouted Kevaughn. His first assistant was a scrawny looking young man in utilitarian shirt and pants that were too large for him. He had his sleeves rolled up and a haystack of black hair on his head.

  Alloran snagged another assistant, this one a young woman in spectacles, who was clearing a bench of clutter. “Make sure you take that.” He indicated what looked like an innocuous jewellery box. “The spells on that aren’t anything we want in the vicinity of the gate.”

  The girl started—what was her name again?—then stuffed the box in with a sword and what looked like a half-completed lantern. He was proud of that one—a wizard glow in a box, he called it. An unending source of illumination for the common man, once it was done. Well, one man, anyway. Someone else could mass-produce them, if they wished. Once he’d solved the puzzle and made the thing work, he’d be bored with it.

  The girl hurried from the room with her box, others filing after her. They had a secondary location to take all his magical projects—things that were incomplete and thus sensitive and items that carried volatile spells—which couldn’t be risked near this particular magical working when it was brought to fruition. And this was why he told wizards never to keep half-completed teleport spells in their rooms. Maybe they would listen when one of them finally blew themselves up.

  His gaze swept the lab, checking that everything that should go had gone. He grabbed the last straggler by his coat, a boy with indigo eyes the same shade as his own, and nodded at a brass kettle resting on the bench. “That one, too.”

  The boy scurried out, the kettle swinging from his arm, and Alloran gave a satisfied nod. It was just him, Kevaughn, and the gate now.

  “The spells are in order?” he asked, sweeping through the ranks of benches to join Kevaughn.

  “Of course, sir. Just as you left them.” The young man grinned up at him toothily, obviously pleased to be involved in what he considered to be the greatest magical feat of the century with the most renowned research wizard alive. Which, of course, it was, and so he should. Alloran’s best friend, Ladanyon, would be bilious with jealousy if the gate worked.

  Alloran brushed past to do a final inspection of the construct. It was a gate to a hell. He wasn’t sure which circle of hell, only that it would be one of them. Ancient wizards had peeked through the veil, so he should be able to identify the hell by its features and denizens, but a gate, through which a man might pass… Well, his head anyway. He hadn’t made this one large enough to walk through. He wouldn’t visit on this first attempt, only check it worked. Then he could think about practical applications, such as siphoning dimensional energies to create new power sources….

  He shook his head, realising he was distracting himself with the limitless possibilities, and adopted a stance before the gate. He checked the spell sequences already in place, making sure they were correct and intact, then laid the final rune set, sketching them into the air in indigo fire with one hand.

  The runes flashed bright, then faded away as they ignited the spell sequences. There was a flash of light in the centre of the framework, in the middle of the ‘door’ shape, but it was there and gone so fast; it was almost the deception of an eye blink.

  “Did it work?” Kevaughn asked uncertainly.

  Alloran licked his lips and then boldly thrust his arm into the construct, half-expecting—though he would never confess it—to see his hand emerge out the other side.

  It didn’t.

  Kevaughn gasped, then whooped in excitement. Alloran pulled his hand out, flexing his fingers, checking that everything still functioned as it should. It did; of course it did—this gate, this hell gate, was based on the same principles of portal magic, long tried and tested spells with no side effects.

  Alloran shoved his head through the portal, gasping again as new vistas opened up before him—and from the shock of the cold. It was freezing in this hell, so cold that his cheeks stiffened with it, and his teeth began to chatter. There was nothing to see except endless tundra, the snow and ice swept smooth and hard by the katabatic winds wailing across it.

  He jerked back into the almost-painful warmth of his lab, turning to Kevaughn with an excited if frozen grin forced into the cold-stiffened muscles of his face. “It worked! It’s the seventh hell.”

  “Can I see?” Kevaughn’s face shone with excitement. “Please, sir?”

  Alloran nodded his permission, stepping away and folding his arms to watch the young wizard receive his reward.

  Kevaughn leaned into the gate, preparing to enter a new dimension.

  Something gangling and black leapt out of the gate. Kevaughn screamed. Blood, shockingly red, splashed across the walls and floor. Kevaughn crumpled, giving Alloran a brief look at his ruined face and gashed throat. Alloran backed up, bile rising in his throat, until he bumped into a bench. Seven hells, Kevaughn… he was… dead.

  The demon—a seventh-hell imp—had landed lightly on the opposite bench, and now it cast around, its face lifted as if scenting the air. It was a little larger than a monkey, barely small enough to fit through the gate, but with elongated limbs that made it look spider-like as it crouched. It had a flat face set with dull, red eyes, and long pointed ears swept back from its skull. It was black and hairless. Vicious claws curved from the end of each digit on its six-fingered hands, and fangs protruded from an almost lipless mouth.

  The imp turned its face to Alloran. He stared at it, paralysed by shock, his mind fumbling for something—anything—that he could do, should do, but the spells kept slipping from his mind, like elusive fish sliding from grasping fingers.

  Then the imp threw itself across the room, bounding from bench to bench, to cast itself directly at the door. Alloran took a half-step forward, one hand lifted—and then the imp sailed straight through the sol
id door and all the wards cast into it.

  Alloran gaped. Not only had the magic failed to stop it, but the imp could phase-shift! It had clearly been solid enough when it killed Kevaughn, but it had done something to allow it to pass directly through solid matter, shifting its own particles so they no longer aligned with those of the door.

  Need to move, need to do something—before it kills anyone else.

  Reluctantly, he forced himself to hurry to the door. His thoughts raced as he yanked it open. He would be sanctioned for this, no doubt. Would they take his research away?

  He glanced back at the dead youth’s corpse. Maybe they should.

  As soon as the door opened, he heard the screams.

  “Seven hells!” This time he managed to break into a run, following the sound of the terror. Sweat trickled down his back. What could he do to contain the thing? To kill it? For the first time in his life, creativity failed him.

  He passed another body—an elderly sorceress sprawled in her own blood, her chest and stomach torn open—while another woman cowered against the wall. Seeing Alloran, she screamed, then sagged in relief.

  “My magic, it just…just… did nothing!” she gibbered.

  Alloran ran on. The imp had gone in the direction of the feast hall, likely drawn on by the sound of the merry-making. Ahead, the music erupted into a cacophony of wrong notes and then died.

  More panicked wails began.

  He accelerated, bursting through the hall doors into a nightmare of blood and fleeing people. It was impossible to know how many were down, but it seemed everyone still able was running. He managed to clear the door just before the closest stampeded out.

  He scanned the hall, trying to find the imp. There it was, bounding from table to table, scattering plates of food and cutlery behind it in a raucous explosion of smashing crockery, slaying a person here and another there with casual swipes of its vicious hands. There was a strange kind of grin plastered to its thin-lipped face—manic delight.

  The people at the door trying to escape were still bottlenecked, but as the room emptied, it became apparent that some were fighting back. A group of sword sorceresses and wizards, predominantly reds, were forming ranks. The front rank held large swords and halberds. They advanced on the imp, while the second and third ranks prepared spells.

  With a shout, he lunged forward, directing an indigo blast of magic at the imp. It struck it and knocked it clear off the table in a clatter of silver against porcelain, but then the imp popped up onto the table again, apparently unhurt. Its grin widened, and it deliberately licked blood from its talons.

  The platoon attacked. Coordinated blasts of magic struck the imp from one side. The energy, red shot through with strands of blue and orange, hit the imp again. This time it bounded away, expending the blast’s force, and when it halted, faint tendrils of smoke rose from its skin.

  Undeterred, the sword sorceresses and wizards systematically blasted the imp.

  “It’s not working!” Alloran cried, but they either didn’t hear him over the noise of their own magic, or they didn’t care. Frustrated, he swept a vase of flowers from a nearby table, ignoring the water that spilled across the tablecloth. What else could he do?

  He blasted the imp again, this time shaping the energy so that it sliced rather than exploded. The imp yelped, evidently taken aback by the change in attack. The blade of sizzling blue energy cut open the imp’s hide—but no blood came forth. The imp looked at its own injury, then at Alloran, and its grin widened again.

  Then it charged straight at him.

  Seven hells! He’d done something to get its attention. Had it identified him as a threat because he’d changed his approach? Alloran dodged away, skidding on loose cutlery as he went. Did that mean there was a way to kill the thing? His left foot went out from under him, betrayed by a fork, and he went down, catching hold of the tablecloth. It did nothing to support him, and instead pulled free in a tremendous crash of decorative candelabra and plates of meat. The candles doused with a hiss in the pools of water from the fallen vase.

  The imp was coming straight at him, bounding into the air one more time in a leap that would land it on his face. Blasts of red magic struck it to no effect. Desperate, Alloran threw the tablecloth at the imp. It billowed out, tangling the imp in its folds. Then he remembered the thing could phase shift. He cowered, his arms over his head, waiting for the imp to sail free of the cloth.

  It didn’t. Instead, it writhed and howled. A green patch bloomed on the white cloth. Demon ichor… But from what? The cut he’d inflicted on the imp had achieved nothing—no blood had been shed.

  He stood, backing away uncertainly to give the imp room. It was flailing, tearing the cloth from its body by shredding it with its claws. He could see its wildly grinning face and then its belly.

  Green blood dripped from the wound where he’d sliced it with magic. But… why?

  Something had changed. Something had made it vulnerable. The cloth? Surely not; it was simple linen, with no magical properties….

  The water. The cloth had been sodden with water from the vase he’d knocked over. The imp was not only tearing the cloth away, but was shaking its various limbs, like a dog shedding water.

  “Water!” he shouted. “Water makes it vulnerable to cutting. We need to douse it in water and then cut it apart!”

  He raced to the next table and grabbed a vase of roses. He didn’t even bother to pull the flowers free before hurling the whole thing at the imp.

  The demon broke free of the cloth. Seeing the vase hurtling at it, it dodged—too wet to phase-shift?—but the glass struck the tiled floor and shattered, splashing water all over the demon. It howled and tried to shake itself free. But another quick-witted sword sorceress dashed forwards with another vase.

  “Cut it!” Alloran shouted. “We have to cut it! The water only makes it vulnerable; it doesn’t hurt it.”

  He demonstrated, attacking the imp with two whirling blades of indigo energy, slashing it in numerous places until the front rank of sword wizards and sorceresses closed with their weapons, blocking his access.

  “It won’t die!” someone cried.

  “Hack it apart!” Alloran shouted.

  He pushed his way into the crowd, now starting to stand down and shoulder swords and halberds, to see the bloody work. The imp had been reduced to pieces lying in a pool of green ichor, but they still squirmed. The detached head even blinked at him, and Alloran’s stomach flopped over.

  “It won’t burn,” a sorceress said, and she demonstrated. The flames licked over the twitching parts, then died.

  “We can send it back through the gate,” Alloran said.

  “Your gate has already been dismantled,” a cool voice said.

  Alloran grimaced, both at the idea his construct had been destroyed and at the owner of the voice. He pivoted to face a hawk-profiled red wizard. “Valgon.”

  Valgon carried no weapon and wore no armour, but he radiated a deadliness no other sword wizard present could match. “As soon as I saw your involvement, I dispatched a squad to destroy any active items in your lab.”

  Alloran tried to keep his expression smooth, but from the grim look of satisfaction on Valgon’s face, he failed. Valgon was the commander of the citadel guard, and well within his rights to act as he had. But he was angling for a place on the Council of Wizards, and Alloran had no doubt this was a political power grab. “Well then, I could open another gate—”

  “You’ll be lucky if you’ll be allowed to continue researching,” Valgon said coldly. “Much less open another gate.”

  A sick feeling grew in Alloran’s stomach as he stared around at the carnage. Valgon was right. Easily twenty men and women had been slaughtered by the imp, plus Kevaughn. Why hadn’t he thought of this? He’d had containment wards on the lab, but the imp had sail
ed right through them. Why had he given no consideration to the special characteristics of demons—such as imperviousness to magic?

  He couldn’t do this anymore. He had to stop. But…but he wouldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t. When he researched, nothing was off-limits, nothing so taboo that it could not be studied. The puzzle was more important. Solving the puzzle was all that mattered.

  A lump grew in his throat, and he swallowed hard. The only way—to stop himself, to save lives—would be to stop altogether. Quit research magic. Walk away from the puzzle.

  The very idea made his chest tighten to the point where he grew dizzy. No, it was the right thing to do. He’d stop. He would.

  “Box up the pieces individually,” Valgon was saying. “And then scatter them. I’m going to burn all the research.”

  Alloran’s head jerked up. Burn his research? This had been a mistake, no doubt—he would be making no more hell gates. But to burn the knowledge was criminal. “You can’t—”

  He swallowed anything else he might have said as Valgon nailed him with a gimlet glare.

  “Did you have something more you wished to say?’’ he asked, staring down his nose.

  “No.” Alloran shook his head. Maybe he could rescue some notes from his rooms while Valgon searched the lab. “No, nothing.”

  He watched mutely as Valgon rounded up enough sword wizards and sorceresses to get the job done and marched them from the room. When they were gone, he glanced around cautiously. There were a few people picking through the wreckage, but no one with any authority. He slid towards the door, watching to see if anyone noticed or—worse—tried to stop him.

  No one did. He clenched his hands, chafing against the slow pace he was forcing himself to maintain to avoid drawing attention, his back prickling as he waited for a shout to call him back. When he reached the door, he stepped into the hallway to find Valgon still there. He shrank back.