Witch, p.28
Witch, page 28
part #2 of Mage Saga Series
“Forgive me,” said Jezebel, “but Raphael told us that records of those days were destroyed. How do you know all of this?”
“We’ll get to that, too,” he replied. “I promise.”
They reached the end of the passage. Enigma held his hand to the wall and the bricks dissolved into nothingness. They entered a small chamber with a spiral staircase. The wall reconstituted behind them.
Enigma led the way up several flights of stairs. They emerged into a large circular room, built from the same glossy black bricks as the passage below. A fire was burning on an enormous hearth. There was a giant iron door directly across from that, and narrow window slits at intervals along the wall. A strange light flickered outside, casting purple shadows on the walls. The center of the room was sunken slightly, containing deep sofas and chairs. A low table sat in the middle.
“Welcome to the watchtower,” Enigma said. “Come, sit with me and tell me your tale.”
They stepped into the sunken area. They sat down, and Enigma poured them coffee in heavy mugs. Jezebel and Khaldun took turns telling their story, starting with Jezebel’s foray into the Devil’s Wood.
Once they’d finished, Enigma sat quietly for a few minutes, taking everything in. Suddenly he cracked a smile. “So you two must be lovers,” he observed.
Jezebel felt herself blush. “Former lovers,” she said. “It was our first time when Khaldun transformed.”
“I see,” Enigma replied with a nod. “I can still recall my metamorphosis—I was with a young wayfarer girl, as a matter of fact. Oh, she was beautiful. I’d never been with a woman before, but she was quite experienced. Yet I have to say that I don’t think she was prepared for what happened that night! She ran from the tent, screaming her head off.”
Jezebel giggled; Khaldun looked embarrassed.
“But tell me,” Enigma continued, “your cousin, Princess Allison—she’d never experienced a haunting before you used the spirit board at… Rockhedge, was it?”
“No, sir,” said Jezebel.
“And why did you two attempt to contact the spirit world?”
“Allison wanted to talk to her mother,” Jezebel said.
“Ah,” Enigma replied with a knowing smile. “I remember Leda well. She was a kind woman. Her death was tragic—it was a heavy blow to Aldo. I understand that her mind went in the end; she no longer recognized her family. Is that true?”
Jezebel nodded. “It was horrible. Allison was devastated—she and her mother were always very close.”
“You said that Myrddin believed the demon from Rockhedge followed Allison back to the castle?”
“That’s correct,” she said. “The first incident took place very soon after we went into Devil’s Wood; it made sense that it would be the same spirit.”
“I agree,” Enigma said, nodding. “Nomad possessed a ring—it would have looked identical to this.” He held up his hand. “Was he wearing it when the demon possessed him?”
“Yes,” said Khaldun. “He always wore it—but it didn’t protect him from the demon.”
“What became of the ring?” Enigma asked.
“I took it,” said Khaldun.
“Why aren’t you wearing it?”
“I didn’t see the point,” Khaldun said. “It failed Nomad…”
“It doesn’t guarantee protection,” said Enigma. “But it works in most cases. You should put it on—especially here. You’ve still got it, haven’t you?”
“I do,” Khaldun muttered. He rose from his seat and fetched his pack. Rummaging around inside of it for a minute, he retrieved the ring. He put it on his finger and retook his seat.
“Now… You say Myrddin explained to Aldo that sorcerers are particularly susceptible to possession, but Aldo ordered Nomad’s murder anyway?”
“He was distraught,” Jezebel said. “The idea of his daughter being raped… It was too much for him.”
Enigma shook his head. “Tragedy begets tragedy, it seems. I can understand Aldo’s turmoil, but that’s a shame. Nomad was a great man.”
“He was,” Khaldun agreed. “I miss him terribly.”
“After Aldo forbade Myrddin from attempting the banishment, was the necromancer at least able to keep the demon away?” Enigma asked.
“Not completely,” said Jezebel. “Whatever he did worked for a time, but the demon returned. Allison joined her father on a tour of the princedom, and that seemed to do the trick—the demon didn’t follow. But it came back as soon as she returned to the castle.”
“That’s not surprising,” Enigma said. “It would have been difficult for the demon to track your cousin.”
“I’ve thought that maybe she and I could move far away to escape it,” Jezebel told him.
“He’d find her eventually,” said Enigma. “When a specter imprints upon a human this way, it learns to sense her life force—like a hound tracking a scent. If Allison stayed in any one place for very long, the demon would eventually feel her presence there.”
“Perhaps traveling with the wayfarers would allow her to elude it,” Khaldun suggested. “They’re always on the move.”
“Possibly,” Enigma said. They sat quietly for a moment. “Well… It seems that our tales converge.”
“They do?” Jezebel asked. “How?”
“Come with me,” Enigma said, rising to his feet. “I’ll show you.”
The sorcerer walked toward the great iron door. Jezebel got up, looking questioningly at Khaldun; he merely shrugged.
Enigma opened the door, and a gust of cold wind blew through it. Jezebel shivered; she hadn’t appropriately dressed for this climate. They followed the sorcerer outside, and he closed the door behind them.
They were high in the mountains now, between the two peaks Jezebel had seen from afar. The sun was setting in the west. The tower sat in the middle of a flat basin. Enigma led them to the eastern edge. Jezebel’s teeth chattered with cold. The bitter wind whipped her hair in all directions.
As they approached the end of the basin, Jezebel gasped. A sea of roiling black clouds extended below them, almost as far as the eye could see; the sky above was clear. Lightning occasionally flashed, illuminating small regions of the clouds from within. Far beyond, near the horizon but above the black clouds, Jezebel perceived the sun glinting off a lighter-colored band.
“It looks different, way out there,” she said, pointing. “Is that the ocean?”
“It’s just a band of clouds, higher in the atmosphere,” said Enigma. “Pytha occupies the eastern edge of the continent, between the Anthar mountains and the Lonely Sea. But the water lies many hundreds of miles away, much too far to see from here.”
At that moment, the ground shook. It felt like some unseen giant had struck the mountains with a massive hammer. The tremor lasted several seconds; Jezebel stumbled from its force.
“Azure told us this area was prone to quakes,” Khaldun said. “I’d never felt one before.”
“That was no earthquake,” Enigma replied. “It was Xythor.”
“What are you talking about?” Jezebel asked.
Enigma didn’t answer at first. He stared out at Pytha, looking far away for a moment. “Let’s go back inside,” he said finally.
Jezebel wasn’t going to complain. The black clouds filled her with dread, and she was freezing. Back in the tower, she made straight for the hearth, holding her hands in front of the flames. Enigma poured them more coffee, and they sat down on the couches again.
“I suppose I’d better start at the beginning,” said Enigma, taking a deep breath. “You’ve both heard of Syllith, I assume?”
“Raphael told us about her,” said Jezebel. “She’s your conjurnor, right? She was one of the governors?”
“That’s correct,” Enigma replied. “When the governors first appointed her to the council, she became very interested in Dredmort’s wraiths. The spirit world is her specialty, you see. She couldn’t understand how Dredmort had discovered the rite to create the monsters. Henry had only recently unleashed the wraiths in his campaign against the neighboring princedoms. So when Syllith requested permission to infiltrate Fosland and investigate the matter, the council approved.”
“My understanding was that Dredmort found the rite contained in texts in Fosland’s library,” said Khaldun.
“Yes, exactly,” Enigma confirmed. “But such information should not have existed there. Syllith managed to embed herself in Henry’s castle, disguised as a servant. Sure enough, she discovered a series of ancient tomes on magic in the library. The books were buried deep in the stacks. Among other things, they contained the spells for the rite of binding. And it turns out that their author was one of the ancient governors from before the rise of the Pythan Empire. He’d been the court mage in Fosland prior to his tenure at the university, and returned there after his retirement. That’s when he wrote those books, and left them in the library.”
“That explains it,” said Khaldun.
“But one of the volumes was missing,” Enigma continued. “Syllith broke into Dredmort’s private chambers and found it. The book contained information about necromancy—it even outlined the spells required for a sorcerer to become a necromancer.”
“Isn’t a necromancer simply a sorcerer with a strong affinity to the spirit world?” Khaldun asked.
“That’s what I always assumed,” Enigma replied, furrowing his brow. “But it turns out that necromancers undergo a transformation similar to the one you and I endured. They do so by choice, so it’s not completely analogous. But the spells do change them.” He pointed to his eyes. “You’ve noticed, for example, that Myrddin’s irises are white?”
“I wondered about that,” Jezebel said with a nod.
“Syllith didn’t have time to examine the spells in too much detail—Dredmort caught her in his chambers, and she had to flee—but she was able to glean that much. And along with the book, she found a page of Dredmort’s notes. There, he’d written down his ideas for applying the rite of binding to two non-sorcerers.”
“And that’s how he created the wraiths,” said Jezebel.
“Yes,” Enigma replied. “But she found something even more disturbing in Dredmort’s chambers.
“We long knew that Henry wanted a sorcerer—he’d made requests to the university since the day he ascended to the throne. But with the arcane knowledge Dredmort possessed, Henry undoubtedly intended to force any sorcerer he acquired to become a necromancer. Imagine Myrddin’s power in Henry’s hands—there would be no stopping him. And in Dredmort’s notes, Syllith found references to the ancient demons of Pytha.”
“What ancient demons?” asked Khaldun.
“Those controlled by Nyro and the Sacred Circle.”
“But the elves destroyed them—didn’t they?” Jezebel asked fearfully.
“That’s what we always believed,” said Enigma. “Tradition tells us that the elves killed Nyro and her necromancers and destroyed their demons. But Dredmort’s notes raised suspicions. We knew that powerful enchantments had been placed upon Pytha. Syllith began to suspect that perhaps instead of destroying them, the elves incarcerated the demons, locking them inside the old kingdom. She returned to the university and reported everything she’d learned—and suspected. She asked permission to travel here to research the matter further, but the council refused. Syllith went anyway—that’s why they expelled her.
“Syllith came here and saw what I showed you. It didn’t take much for her to determine that her suspicions were correct: the old ones survived. The entire land of Pytha was transformed into a magical penitentiary. Immeasurably powerful enchantments lock the demons inside, and keep everything else out.”
“So that earthquake before…” said Jezebel.
“That was Xythor. He was one of the necromancers in the Sacred Circle. He possessed an uncanny gift with earth spells,” Enigma explained.
“Wait,” said Jezebel. “I’m confused. I thought the Circle’s demons were in there. The necromancers themselves were killed, weren’t they?”
“Their bodies were killed, yes,” said Enigma. “But what do you think demons are? They are nothing more than the spirits of powerful sorcerers and necromancers. The elves killed the necromancers, but their spirits live on inside of Pytha along with the demons they controlled. Speaking a mage’s true name is the only way to destroy her spirit and prevent her from living on as a demon.”
“So that’s why they created the watchtowers,” said Khaldun.
“Precisely,” Enigma confirmed. “The elves knew that the demons would spend eternity trying to escape their prison—Syllith learned about this more recently from the many historical texts she found in Highgate. The university should have maintained a perpetual watch upon this land. But over the centuries, complacency set in. The governors who were alive during Nyro’s reign died off, and people forgot why the watch mattered. The university’s purge of information didn’t help matters. Eventually, Nyro became the stuff of myth, no longer a real threat.
“And now we have a serious problem. The spells are weakening. Knowledge of how to restore the original wards has been lost. And the demons are doing everything they can from within to accelerate the process. It’s only a matter of time before Nyro and the Sacred Circle escape their ancient prison and rise again.
“What’s more, not all of Nyro’s mages are here. She possessed many lesser necromancers and sorcerers beyond the Sacred Circle. Some of their spirits are trapped here, but others still roam free.”
Jezebel gasped. “Do you think one of them could be the demon haunting Allison?”
“That’s exactly what I fear,” said Enigma. “When I first came here, Syllith and I opened a portal. We released one of the lesser demons, and I allowed it to possess me. Syllith destroyed the monster. We managed to eliminate three more of them but dared not lure any of the more powerful ones.
“I stayed here to keep watch, but Syllith went to search for those specters who were never imprisoned. Your cousin’s demon is most likely one of those—the ancient power at Rockhedge would have attracted it.
“Syllith went to Highgate first. Buried deep in the library there, she discovered a list of all of Nyro’s mages and the demons they controlled. Since then, she has endeavored to find and destroy them while I seek a solution to the crisis here.”
“But how can you know what Syllith’s been doing if you’ve been here?” asked Jezebel.
“Mirrors,” Enigma said simply. “Until recently, anyway. Hers broke when she fled Roses. Henry has learned of her activities. He knows that she’s been to Pytha, and he pursues her relentlessly. He hopes to find out how to unlock the enchantments trapping the demons.”
They sat quietly for a minute. Jezebel held her mug in both hands, reflecting on everything Enigma had told them. Her sense of dread was overwhelming. The idea of Nyro returning was like something out of a hideous nightmare.
“But why—why didn’t the elves truly destroy Nyro and her necromancers the way everyone believed they did?” asked Jezebel.
“It may not have been possible,” said Enigma. “To destroy Nyro would have required knowledge of her true name—and she’d taken that back from the emperor. Eternal incarceration was probably the best they could do.”
“But you and Syllith destroyed some of them—why didn’t the elves do it?” Jezebel persisted.
“No, we didn’t capture any of the Sacred Circle,” said Enigma. “They are much too powerful—the ones we lured were lesser demons that the Circle once controlled. I imagine that not even the elves were strong enough to implement that spell against Nyro herself. The method requires allowing the demon to possess a living being—attempting that with Nyro would have been catastrophic.”
“What happened to the people of Pytha?” Khaldun asked.
Enigma shook his head sadly. “Of all the secrets Syllith unearthed, that is the most tragic.”
“What is?” Khaldun asked.
“They were slaughtered,” Enigma said. “The spells that the elves cast upon the land killed everyone who lived there. Small bands of refugees had fled during the war, traveling the continent in search of a new home. But your troupe is all that remains of the wandering people of Pytha. And that’s why the university has never allowed wayfarers to enroll there. It’s an ancient prejudice.”
Khaldun was stunned.
“But that’s ridiculous!” said Jezebel.
Enigma shrugged. “I would have to agree. In the beginning, the prohibition was based on genuine fear. You see, the magic ran strong in Pythan families. The majority of the Sacred Circle came from Pytha. The governors at the time of the fall worried that the secrets of necromancy might have been passed on within some of the old families. But the tradition of banning Pythans persists today without any basis in reason. Myrddin is the only necromancer who has arisen since Nyro’s fall, and his family does not come from Pytha. If the wayfarers were harboring such secrets, surely they would have produced a necromancer by now.”
Finally, Jezebel asked the most pressing question on her mind. “Can you help us? Will you teach us the spells to destroy the demon?”
Enigma let out a long sigh. “I cannot. Only Syllith knows them. It was imperative to keep them from me. I had to allow the demons to possess me—they would’ve shared the knowledge if I knew the spells, and that might have enabled them to cancel the magic. We couldn’t afford to take that risk.”
Jezebel felt herself come undone; it was as if something had snapped inside her gut. They’d come all this way for nothing. She had invested every ounce of her faith in this meeting, and now it was for naught. She’d failed: they couldn’t help Allison. Jezebel started to cry.
“Then tell us where we can find Syllith,” said Khaldun, looking back and forth between Jezebel and Enigma. “We’ve traveled halfway across the continent to find a way to save Allison. We can’t give up now!”
“I agree,” said Enigma. “In fact, I was going to suggest it. This is what I meant when I said that our stories had converged. Syllith will want to destroy your demon as much as you do. The last I knew, she was headed to Northcoast. They have an extensive library, and she was hoping to track down more information about the demons there.”
