a surfeit of wizards 13

 

Chapter 13

 

“How interesting! You can’t feel the folds at all,” said Shareen as she came through the gate. Harmana had gone with her, being more used to it, Chessina took Ches, and I brought Bertor.

He kept muttering, ‘By all the gods!’ under his breath.

I installed him on the rug of travel whilst Chessina got everyone settled, and set off for his country house.

“Wait!” called Shareen. “Beware of the darkness inside!”

Well, that was encouraging.

“What… er, what are you going to do to my wife?” he asked.

“Will she accept wine from you?” I asked.

“Er, yes?”

“I want to lace it with truth serum. I need to find out if there were other demons involved, and if so, how many. Then, all things being equal, I will turn her into an ass as well, as donkeys have long lives.”

 

The stone house somehow felt wrong; or was it that I was unsettled by Shareen’s warning? I was unsettled by Shareen’s warning, and I was on my guard.

Bertor was irritable.

“My servants aren’t coming,” he said. “Where can they all have gone?”

I could think of two reasons.

The most benign was that they had cut and run, because of their fear of the mistress; the most grotesque was that she had sacrificed them to get in contact with her patron.

There were other unpalatable possibilities in between.

We came into the main room of the house, and there was Sheyla. Who was flickering between looking seductively beautiful and a corpse. The stench helped to resist any allure the beautiful version of her might have.

I started to cast the banishment spell; I had little choice at this point.

And that was when the succubus burst out of her chest, spraying maggots everywhere and attempting to rake me with her four inch claws.

“Schedriza!” I shouted, the Abyssal word for pain. The succubus contorted, surprised. “Schedraza!” I added, the word for pleasure. I alternated them, and then started changing the order.  Chessina and I had confused Pointy-Teeth with this and then banished him.

I drew Demonslicer, which I used to parry her claws as she started to get a hold on herself. She released a perfume to counter the smell of rot, a perfume which is pure seduction. I know; it used to be how Chessina smelled. It’s less pronounced, now, but the scent of Chessina, my wife, is more beautiful than any succubus. I started the spell of banishment again when I caught a glimpse of Bertor, reflected in a polished door, about to hit me. I used a push spell on him, and the Tower added enough impetus that he sailed across the room and into the wood panelling.

I hoped I had not killed him, but if I had, it was no real skin off my nose. I put up a globe of protection, and started chanting.

She was fighting it all the way, but at last, with a flare from the tower, the portal opened, sucking her inexorably into it.

There was a least demon too being sucked in, which had come from… somewhere… to lend aid to the succubus. I reached out my senses and projected my voice to chant the Banishment charm again.

I’ve never seen so many of the malodorous runts together before; there must have been half a dozen.  They screamed their way into the gigantic maelstrom I appeared to have created.

Then I sat down.

Hard.

 

“I… I’m sorry,” said Bertor, limping over. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“The scent of succubus,” I said. “It’s supposed to be irresistible.”

“How did you resist it?”

“I thought of my wife,” I said, honestly. “I need to search this house from top to bottom, and you need a coffin for… that.” I indicated the decayed corpse.

He gagged.

“And her soul?” he asked.

“Gone, I fear,” I said.

“And mine? How can I safeguard my soul?”

“I fancy she planned to seduce you and gain it through that,” I said. “Do you have a god to whom you give more than lip-service?”

“No, not really,” he said.

“Then get on your knees now, and pray to Emaxtiphrael, god of death and wisdom, and ask him to guard your soul, and to aid me to try to find Sheyla’s when I visit the abyss, as I must surely do at some point,” I said. “I make no promises, but I will try.”

“Thank you,” he gasped. “Has she killed the servants?”

“She may have done,” I said. “Why don’t you go to the village after praying and tell them that the fear is over, and see if any ran away, whilst I search the house?”

He nodded, glad of something to do.

The kitchens were a disgrace; the province of the less demons. I found the summoning circle in the ballroom, and plainly some of the servants had been sacrificed. I prayed to Arcana and Emaxtiphrael for guidance.

“Most of them were devout enough that the woman’s ineptitude allowed them to escape, dear one,” said Arcana. “Find her grimoire and burn it. Do NOT read it.”

It was not hard to find, and I burned it with magical fire.

On reflection, I did the same to Sheyla’s body.

Just in case there was any link.

And it got rid of the smell, once I had opened the windows wide and let the smoke out into the clean winter air.

Bertor returned with a couple of servants, as I was finishing up. I had summoned some invisible servants to deal with the worst of the mess in the kitchen, and I had one put Sheyla’s ashes in a vase to give to Bertor. I summoned water and heated it in a bath in a guest bedroom, and washed thoroughly, not neglecting my hair to which I was certain the charnel-house stench clung.

Bertor found me there.

“Towermaster?” he said.

“I burned her; the ashes are in an Agarakian blue vase,” I said. “I’m not going home smelling like a month old corpse.”

“No, quite,” he said. “Er, thank you.”

“Dragovar wouldn’t have known what to do,” I said. “No disrespect to him; he is a mighty wizard, but he doesn’t have the experience with demons that I do.”

“Lucky for me. Er, were you going to kill me?”

“No, you were under a spell,” I said. “Run your lands well, and marry a girl with less beauty, more brains, and no ambition.”

“Yes, Towermaster,” he said.

 

And then I could go home to help Chessina creep about, hiding Solstice gifts for the traditional treasure hunt, symbolising nature’s search for the sun, and the good gifts of winter, rest, renewal, and rebirth. Chessina did not remember it from before, so we both had more fun hiding the gifts than the children were likely to have finding them.

And yes, Rosie had slipped out to buy some pretty frocks, warm slippers, and a doll for Shareen, as well as another rune carving set.

Shareen woke as we went to check the children were asleep.

“I didn’t watch you, on purpose,” she murmured. “Thank you for the gift of being my new parents.”

 

oOoOo

 

I don’t think I have ever had a happier Solstice. First, we rose before dawn, and ate bread, salt, and drank water. Then we headed for the village. We went through the village in our best clothes, because it was expected, exchanging gifts with Matille’s family, and receiving a surprise gift of carefully knit mittens from Norva, who was still very grateful for having been rescued.

“I hope you don’t think them too rustic, Towermaster,” she whispered.

“Certainly not; just what I need,” I said, putting them on. Chessina did likewise. They were not enclosed so our fingers were free.

We were joined by a procession of villagers, making our way to the Stone Circle, where Priestess Silavara Oakheart led the time-honoured service greeting the dawn where it fell into the circle on this, the shortest day.

“Sun returning, we greet you. Nature’s renewal, we greet you. In winter’s rest, nature’s promise of return is found. Rise the sun, and sing the birds, raise our hearts in gladness as the days grow one by one,” she declared.

The magic of the circle protected us all, for no snow or rain fell within it, and it was uniformly a comfortable temperature. We sang the old hymn,

“Nature sleeps, winter keeps

All is waiting for the Spring

Slumber deep, warmth will seep

For rebirth of everything.”

 

I don’t need to quote it all, do I?  it is as timeless as the hills and I am sure you all know it.

Then the eligible bachelors lit the fire to symbolise that we would do our part for nature and help bring warmth and light, and the eligible maidens waited giggling for the young men to leap the fire, and offer his chosen girl a garland of mistletoe.

Then the fire was put to a more mundane use to roast a pig, and we had roast hog and bread for a proper breakfast, and made our way home for the search for gifts.

 

 

The children loved searching for gifts, something Harmana had never done before, because royal children had to be regulated too much; and Ches rarely had more than two or three gifts.

Elizelle was too young, of course, to enter into the spirit of searching, but she laughed and clapped her hands, and waved her stuffed doll.

And Shareen enjoyed her gifts, but it was apparent that she enjoyed belonging even more.

 

oOoOo

 

I got around to starting to read Sheyla’s diary, which I had taken, along with other papers, to peruse at my leisure. It was only the grimoire which Arcana insisted that I burn, unread. I know fine well that traps can be embedded in text, and though they were probably aimed at Bertor, they could catch me out too.

I was going to have to go back to court and get to know other nobles, and foreign ambastardors… uh, Ambassadors… to find out how far the rot had gone.   The diary was chilling. Apparently, Renilla, and especially Sheyla, had been quietly corrupting people for decades; and Sheyla’s mother had been Agravar’s lover.  Sheyla was probably Agravar’s daughter, which did not surprise me in the least, because she was dark and seductive, and paintings of her in the house had born a resemblance to Chessina and her cousin, Elinne. A strongly magical family.

And why? Well, it turned out that the demon Its-sek, patron to Agravar, and better known to us as Fishface, was acting on a prophecy.

Of course he was. That was all we needed to make life jolly.

The interpretation was that if the Towermaster could be overcome, Fishface could set himself up as undisputed ruler of Ezustry and likely take over the adjacent lands as well as ruling the elves and gaining the magical moonstone by replacing the Elven gods, who were currently working with the demons, in the fond belief that they were helping them gain Fae supremacy.

And it was why Sheyla had encouraged Bertor to see Harmon as a rival; to kill the Towermaster. It was unclear whether she felt that Harmon was the Towermaster of note who must be overcome, or if she merely wanted him out of the way before I was properly trained, but I suspected the latter.  Chessina was being trained up to be sent to me, to seduce, weaken, and suborn me because the prophecy also said that she was destined for the Towermaster. And that was why Agravar had killed her, and in such a way as to separate her from her soul. He had, despite all his cunning, and self-aggrandisement, been played by Fishface like a lute. As Harmon had once said, and how true it was, demonologists don’t involve demons in their schemes; demons involve demonologists in theirs.

I was even more sure that Arcana had intervened, and made sure to fulfil the prophecy about Chessina being chosen for me, but on her terms, not Fishface’s.

I love Arcana.

Chessina ranted for several minutes and in several languages, some of them not loathesome. She was totally devastated that her whole existence was designed to be a trap for me, and nothing more.

“Oh, Castamir!” she cried. “Do you love me still, now you know it was all set up?”

I drew her into my arms without hesitation.

“Of course I do, my darling!” I said. “More than that, I need you!  And all because you were so brave as to take a leap into the unknown, and I am sure you were guided by Arcana!”

The chime confirmed that guess.

I had to take Chessina to our room to confirm how much I still loved her, with horns and tail and without. She could be so fragile, my poor darling.

I don’t think I ever mentioned that the demonic putti had long since vanished from her décor; and had not, fortunately, been replaced with any other kind of putti.  The drapes remained, and somehow seemed to keep themselves clean and free of dust, which is my main objection to drapes.

Chessina seemed satisfied by my reassurances, and let me return to taking apart Sheyla’s diary for clues. It appeared that Pointy-teeth, or Kezyew, as Sheyla referred to him, was a minion of Fishface, which we had surmised. More worrying, there was a demon between them in the hierarchy, whom we had not banished. At least Sheyla named him as Parekschey; so we had some lever. She had managed to contact him when we got rid of Pointy-teeth. Renilla did not know this. Sheyla had, however, aged before she recalled the name Pointy-teeth had used, and even demons are bound by time. The diary ended with her intention to call him; and I can only assume that he turned up, and was disgusted at the loss of her looks and summoned the succubus to possess Sheyla and use illusion to seem to restore her looks, but the frail body had rapidly died and the succubus was fighting a losing battle.

Well, I had letters to Sheyla from sundry people, and could start from there.