Defilers curse, p.57
Defiler's Curse, page 57
part #8 of The Magician's Brother Series
“Thanks,” she said.
“I’m still going to take ruthless advantage until you do, though.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Or not. Probably not.”
“Better.”
She stood and straightened her shirt before slipping her jacket on.
“Let’s go, then. I don’t have all day.”
Her eyes darted to the graphic novel.
“I knew I’d corrupt you,” I said with a smirk.
“Shut up. I’m only reading it because I lost a bet!” she protested, going red.
I decided to let her have that one. She seemed to be in a punchy mood.
Back to the Archive.
If they make me use the stairs this time...
Cassandra went first and grimaced as the Wards sealed off her Well.
“Ugh. Did not miss that,” she said with a grunt.
“I have no idea how you worked like this for so long,” I replied, following her in.
The familiar sensation dropped towards my Well.
And then just stopped before it could get there.
I froze; surprised.
Some kind of energy was being woven through my Aura; it was repelling the power of the Spelleater Wards.
It didn’t take long to track back to its source.
My Signet.
My face split in a huge grin.
“Cassie!”
“What?!” she asked, spinning at my tone, which had been a little over-excited, I’ll admit.
Her eyes went wide as she saw the little Magelight suspended over my palm.
She glanced at the silver line on the floor that marked the beginning of the Wards’ area of effect, then back to me.
“You mean...?”
She got it instantly. I nodded.
She screamed in joy and came over to wrap me up in a hug.
After a moment, she leaned back, grinning from ear to ear. She looked me up and down, smiling proudly.
“I knew you’d get there,” she said, cupping my face.
“Think of all the secure places I can loot now!”
“And you ruined it,” she replied, swatting my arm.
I couldn’t seem to stop grinning.
The Signets of the Archons were more than just symbols, they were items of power all of their own, providing protections to their bearer against hostile influence and effects. Until now, the powers of mine had remained dormant, a legacy of those Archons who’d fallen to the Black and had to be put down (which was a lot of them, to be fair).
But now, it was active. It was, perhaps for the first time, really mine.
It pulsed gently with power, a soothing counterpoint to my heartbeat. It was an amazing feeling, one of true acceptance.
“Hey, you know what I just figured out?” I said with a smirk.
“What?” Cassandra replied, still smiling at me.
“Never have to use those stairs again!”
She groaned, covering her eyes.
“Oh, the other Warden Commanders are going to make fun of me...”
“They don’t already? Ow!”
“I hate you, Graves.”
“No you don’t,” I replied, opening a Portal straight to Mira’s level and stepping through. The Portal Jammers didn’t work inside the place, after all, just in and out, why would they need to?
“Good grief...” Cassandra sighed.
“What?”
“You just used the true powers of an Archon to avoid asking to use a lift! How lazy are you?!”
“Very. Very, very lazy, that’s why I’m a Level Eleven Magician with five Specialisations; they give those certificates out to anyone.”
“Shut up, Graves.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I stepped through my Portal and onto Mira’s platform.
The entire Archive started to shake.
The Grimoire glowed, flaring like the sun, emitting a whine that had Cassandra ducking behind me. I surrounded her with a shield, but didn’t cast one for myself. The tone was actually rather pleasant to me, and only got more so as the resonance changed, becoming more in tune to me.
Finally, the light vanished, the tone faded to silence, and Mira appeared, more solid and vital than ever before, grinning like the Cheshire Cat’s evil, bird-eating twin.
“Welcome and be welcomed, my Lord and Master,” she whispered reverently, dropping to a knee.
“Oh stop that, will you? And get in my pocket already, we’re going home.”
“Must you ruin every important moment?” the book’s avatar said with a pout.
“That’s always been my experience,” Cassandra said with a sigh.
“You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go to Atarakis, hire every Amazonian descendant I can find and pay them to ambush you and administer a smacked bottom,” I replied, turning to glare at my Warden.
“And how do you know I wouldn’t enjoy that?” she said with a leer.
“Not fair, creeping people out with implied fetishes is my thing!”
She laughed and I headed to the pedestal.
“Already in your pocket, Mathew,” Mira said with a smile. “That’s the decoy.”
I grinned and reopened the Portal, gesturing Cassandra through.
I patted my pocket to confirm that there was, indeed, a dark tome of indescribable power in there, then I followed her through.
It was... I can’t actually describe how good it felt to return Mira to her spot in my library.
Well, a brand new spot actually. There would eventually be a second decoy Mira where the real Mira used to be hidden, as well as a decoy Shadow Codex in the same spot. I didn’t expect the Archons to ever come for her, but Palmyra was a terrible gossip and one of their more fanatical Wardens might get ideas.
Immediately, her power seeped back into Clarion Hall, and the defences immediately shifted, becoming denser, stronger and far more dangerous.
“Much better,” she said, appearing in front of me once I’d sat down.
“I’ll say!” I agreed. I let out a relaxed sigh. My home was once again a true fortress.
Mira smiled and gestured.
A large sheet of paper slipped out of my desk and landed on the coffee table in front of me. Symbols and Spell formulae appeared, dense and complicated. I recognised the symbol for Black Magic laced throughout.
“What’s this?” I asked once she was done, picking up the sheet.
“Binding Spell,” she said. “Impossible before, for obvious reasons. Rather pedestrian now.”
“Binding?”
“For me. So that this never happens again. I will be bound to you for as long as you live, unable to shift my allegiance again.”
“And you... you’d be alright with that?” I asked warily.
“My personality reflects yours, Mathew. You don’t want to lose me again, so I don’t want to be lost. This doesn’t restrict me in any way other than the mechanisms of ownership, if that’s what you were worried about.”
“It was. And you’re sure?”
She smiled and nodded.
I read through the Spell and started practicing the constructs, getting a feel for how everything worked. It wasn’t that complicated, but it required the Black to work. The principle was to take a miniscule piece of my Soul and latch it onto Mira. If I understood the Spell, it locked down the part of the Grimoire’s Enchantments responsible for selecting its master. When the rest of my soul... moved on, so too would the fragment, freeing the book once again.
Worked for me!
I took an hour, did a few trial runs, then cast the Spell.
And it hurt.
A lot. Even yanking off such a tiny, and I do mean tiny piece of my soul (the equivalent of the shavings you get when you file your nails, that tiny) hurt like hell, but if it kept Mira safe, then it was worth it.
Even if it did put me on my arse for a day.
And make Cassandra scold me.
A lot.
Honestly, you cast one little Black Magic Spell that carves off a bit of your Eternal self without warning anyone... actually, I think I might see her point.
Never mind.
Chapter 77
“Morning Umaira,” I said brightly.
I think you’ll agree that this cheery greeting didn’t invite a shriek of indescribable terror as a response, but that’s what I got.
It was the day after I’d managed to lever myself back to my feet, feeling much better, if not completely recovered from the Binding Spell, and I’d wondered forth in search of breakfast.
“That’s new,” Cassandra said from her spot at the dining table as Umaira did her best not to urinate in her own jeans.
“Sorry,” the Time Mage said meekly, keeping her eyes low and her posture shrunken.
“Um... what’s the matter?” I asked her.
She flinched at the sound of my voice.
“Did I do something?” I asked as gently as I could while I wracked my brain for what I could have done to get this reaction.
“The Black Magic thing is scaring her,” Cassandra explained between bites of some sort of scrambled egg, sausage, butter and bread monstrosity. “Also someone, who will remain nameless—but was Demise—may have been bragging about the awful things you did to Zion. I’m guessing that might have something to do with this.”
She waved at Umaira, who was visibly squishing her posture into a smaller shape.
Oh thank you very much, Demise...
“Umaira?” I said softly.
Another flinch.
“Please would you look at me for a moment?”
She lifted her head very slowly. Her eyes were filled with fear and disappointment. I think I preferred the former to the latter, if not by much.
“I promise you, the man who did that is not the one standing in front of you.”
Sort of. I was closer to my baseline than I’d been before stabbing Rerek, but I wasn’t all the way there, either. I could see myself doing terrible things again if the situation called for them, or if I was angry enough. Rather a disturbing realisation, but not one that was especially helpful to the current conversation.
“And I would never harm someone who hadn’t harmed me and mine first. You have nothing to fear from me, ever. Understand?”
“As you say,” she whispered, looking away again.
This would not do. Umaira couldn’t be effective in this state. Frank Herbert was quite right: “fear is the mind-killer”.
“You’d better have a look,” I said, tapping my head.
She shook her own very hard. Her hair even went whipping out of its band (which hit me in the eye, incidentally).
“N-n-no, I don’t need to do that!” she stuttered.
“I think you do,” I said, returning the band. She flinched again, but took it. “Because if you don’t, you’re going to stay like this, and if you do that, you’re going to stop learning from Glass and your Wardens. You’ll fail, we’ll fail, the world becomes a darker place. So, please satisfy yourself as to my soundness.”
She became so terrified that it looked as if she were about to pass out. Not good for my self-image. It was one thing for bad guys to be scared of me, but I felt absolutely rotten over Umaira feeling that way.
Cassandra sighed and came over before Umaira could faint.
“Umaira, you trust me?” my Warden asked.
Umaira nodded.
“Then give me your hand.”
“Lot of butter on that hand,” I pointed out.
“Do you want help or not?” she asked.
I waved her on.
Umaira extended her hand and Cassandra took it. She sent a Telepathic probe to Umaira and then another into me, guiding the Time Mage, acting as a buffer, a lens, so that Umaira wouldn’t have to touch my mind herself.
“Cassie, I would stay out of that part of my memory, that’s-“
“Holy God!” Cassandra squeaked, instantly going bright red.
“-where the Tethys stuff is,” I finished sheepishly.
Umaira gasped, her hand going to her chest. Her eyes watered.
“I didn’t know... I didn’t know it was possible...” she whispered.
Cassandra smiled, shaking her head.
“What?” I asked.
“That one person could love another that much,” Cassandra replied warmly.
“Moving on...” I replied pointedly.
“Right. You’ll have to forgive him, Umaira. Britons, you know...”
“Want I should remember that time you sat on a Faberge Egg?” I replied.
Still one of my very favourite memories. The sound she made... I laughed so hard I peed a little. I mean, she threw me into a rather icy lake afterwards, but still worth it.
Cassandra went even redder and swiftly slid out of the Tethys part of my memory.
She went through more of my emotional memories, just doing her best to explore my humanity for Umaira’s sake... and maybe her own. Eventually she couldn’t stop herself anymore and took a look at how I felt about her.
“Girly tears,” I said, smiling at her. A small measure of revenge for all the times she’d said that to me.
“Shut up, there was something in my eye!”
“Both eyes? Ow!”
She finished swatting me, let Umaira go, and yanked me into a hug.
“Me too,” she whispered.
“I know.”
She shoved me back, cleared her throat gruffly and turned back to our resident Time Mage.
“Questions?” Cassandra said.
“No,” Umaira replied. “Sorry, Mathew.”
“It’s alright. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Please, you cultivate it,” Cassandra replied.
“Saves me a lot of work if villains are too scared to do villainy.”
“Is that the only reason you do anything? So you have less work to do later?”
“No. The acquisition of food, comfort and naked Succubae are also important.”
“Ugh. Men!” Cassandra said in disgust.
“Like you’re any better!”
“I will have you know that I am a paragon of maidenly virtue and restraint!”
“You still have butter on your fingers, Paragon.”
“And now so does your favourite t-shirt,” she said evilly.
“I’ve saved the world at least twice, why am I being punished?”
“You saved two small islands, don’t get above yourself.”
I sighed, turning to Umaira. “See what I have to deal with?”
She giggled, already looking far better.
I hated making people afraid (some of the time, anyway). I was glad she wasn’t anymore. She was still wary, but at least she wasn’t terrified.
“Are we going to discuss why I keep finding you cuddling my boyfriend?” Tethys said from the doorway.
“No need. Sheer animal magnetism-ow, why?!”
“Stop giving people the wrong idea!”
Tethys chuckled and came forward to kiss me.
“Mine,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Cassandra.
“Ew,” my Warden replied.
“Hey!”
“Well, you are.”
“Not nice!”
“Don’t care.”
Tethys laughed and took my hand.
“I have something for you.”
“Really?” I said with a raised eyebrow.
She grinned. “Something business-related, you pervert.”
“I’m not sure I enjoy that characterisation...”
She rolled her eyes and handed me a piece of paper.
“Coordinates?”
She nodded.
“Unless I’m wrong, that is where Ankiala has stuffed the Demigod manufacturers she sent ‘on holiday’,” she said, grinning in a way that reminded me of a wolf.
My heart leapt.
“You think?!” I said, pulling up a map on my phone.
“I do. I’ve called in every favour we accumulated at GCHQ, tapped resources in eight different countries, gave out a few markers, at least one of which is going to bite me in the arse one day... but yes. I found them.”
“That’s amazing, Love!”
“I can’t take all the credit. I wouldn’t have come close without the information Hellstrom got from Rerek.”
“Really?” I said with a scowl.
She nodded.
“Rats.”
Cassandra snorted. Tethys rolled her eyes and started taking me through the data. Rerek had provided a name, which had led to a phone tap, which had led to two more, then a satellite being repositioned, which led to another location, then another... before finally arriving at a villa in southern Italy. In the original Namia Sutton’s home province, now that I was looking at it on a map.
I looked at my watch. Ten in the morning. Italy was two hours ahead, but that made no difference, really. I wasn’t willing to wait until dark.
“Okay. Cassie, get Orpheus and Dee and be ready if I call. Tethys, would you get in touch with the Sons of Lethe in case I need to call in artillery?”
They both nodded.
I went to the nearest bathroom and leapt into the Shadow Realm.
If I could get those Demigods back to work, only for me...
This could be change everything.
Chapter 78
I quickly found the general area, and was eventually able to zero in on the property. I did a quick circuit of the building’s Shade, then I started opening tiny Gates so I could get a proper idea of what I was walking into.
The villa was three stories tall and squat in overall shape. The front face had two thick towers of local stone either side of an arched entry, topped with sand-coloured slate. The walls were bare stone and the wood of the window panes, shutters and doors were painted in a faded blue. The garden was well maintained, mostly grass and a few shrubs aside from a small grove full of olive trees; all very normal, almost deliberately so. Nothing stood out as either offensive or opulent, there was no mess, but nor was anything too neat, either. Any casual visitor to the place would have found nothing worth remarking on. There were only three people on the grounds, two caretakers and a cleaner; the former were working on the shrubs, next to a beaten-up little three-wheeled truck with a bed full of tools. The latter was mopping up in the kitchen.
If I hadn’t known that there was something to see, I may well have missed it. Their facade was impeccable, and the diversionary Enchantments were even better. The Wards were layered into the fabric of the building with immense skill and subtlety, the work of a master.
