Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept (29 page)

His voice contained a slight tremor as he spoke the names, as if even he was afraid of what he was doing. The air
abruptly stopped flowing toward the pit, growing heavier and colder in just moments. It felt oppressive, unclean, and carried a stench of death with it that nearly made Isabel retch.

Her nausea was stilled by a thrill of fear at the howl of pent
-up frustration, rage, and hatred that suddenly emanated from the pit. It filled the night with a long wailing indictment of life and light. The sound was entirely unnatural and inhuman, filled with unadulterated spite and the mind-warping suffering of endless torment.

A
ir started to flow out of the pit, rank, fetid and putrid; it carried with it the stench of ancient death. Isabel swallowed back a bit of vomit, struggling to maintain her composure. Darkness welled up from the pit and flowed like water unbound by gravity into the three circles opposite Phane, Isabel, and Hector. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden, the three demons coalesced into solid form.

“I am Azi Dahak and I have answered your summons,” the first said.
He stood seven feet tall, with black scaled skin and eyes that glowed like embers. He was humanoid, but more lizard than man, with clawed feet and hands, a long barbed tail, and a snakelike face, complete with forked tongue.

“I am Malphas and I have answered your summons,” the second said
, a viscous, burbling mound of black ooze. A mouth formed in the side of the blob only long enough for it to speak, then vanished into the undulating mass of darkness. A tentacle formed and lashed out at Phane but was stopped by the magic circle. It recoiled, five mouths forming all of a sudden and wailing, howling, and barking their frustration and rage into the night.

“I am Ravan and I have answered your summons,” said the third.
He looked almost like a man, standing six feet tall and perfectly proportioned, except his skin was far too pale and beautiful, almost as if he’d been carved from fine white marble. His eyes were yellow, his hair was silver and flowed to the middle of his back. His mottled green teeth were all filed to a point. Each of his fingers ended in an inch-long jet-black claw.

“Vassals of the Master, lords of the netherworld, I have called you forth and bound you to serve
me so that you might deliver a message to our Master.”

“No, you must let
me go,” Malphas said, its mouth vanishing in a bubble that welled up from its viscous body until it popped, leaving a hole in its side that slowly filled in with blackness. Several eyes appeared in its side, all looking intently at Phane, all blinking in unison.

“I will not go back,” Azi Dahak said. “You have brought us here and given us form
… surely there is more we can do for you before you banish us to the formlessness of the netherworld.”

“I too would stay,” Ravan said. “I can be of great service to you … if you would just free me from this cage.” He reached out and dragged his claws down the magical barrier surrounding him.

“You will—” Phane started to say when Ravan interrupted him.

“Who is this one? I would have her. She is special,”
he said, pointing at Isabel.

“You will
—” Phane tried again.

“No! You will give her to me. Now!” Ravan shouted, deliberately placing his claws against the magical barrier and slowly raking them along the magic, causing faint red sparks.

“I want her,” Azi Dahak said. “Give her to me and I will serve you for a thousand years. I will give you the world, all for the price of this pittance.”

“If she were a pittance, you wouldn’t be willing to trade me the world for her,” Phane said, smiling without humor.

All three demons began to rail against their captivity. Azi Dahak and Ravan began to flail against the barrier, while Malphas formed two huge, hammer-like hands and began to pound the stone beneath.

Phane waited for several moments, letting the demons struggle against his magic as if he knew that their efforts were doomed before uttering a single word in the guttural, inhuman language he’d used to summon them in the first place.

All three stopped, though it looked as if they were struggling against some unseen force. Phane smiled again.

“You are bound to serve me. I care not for your desires, only that you obey.”

“I will not!” Ravan said, eyeing Isabel all the while. “You must give me more.”

“No!” Phane said, magic magnifying his voice to drown out the demon’s protests.
“Azi Dahak, Malphas, I charge you with delivering a message to our Master. Tell him that I wish to trade a dead soul for a living soul.”

All three suddenly lost interest in Isabel, several eyes growing
again out of the undulating blackness that was Malphas, each looking around a bit frantically this time. A small mouth formed and began wailing in terror, but in a very small voice.

“Is the living soul willing?” Azi Dahak asked, his forked tongue flicking the air.

Phane looked to Hector. Isabel tried to yell, but she was still silenced by Phane’s spell. She railed against her shackles, but they held, cutting deeper into her wrists, drawing a trickle of blood that ran down her hands and dripped off her fingers. She ignored the pain.

“I am willing,” Hector said, his voice cracking a bit.

All three demons became very excited, agitated even, like a hungry animal when its master puts food just out of reach.

“I have spoken the words, offered the tribute and given you your tasks,” Phane said. “I now discharge you
, Azi Dahak, and you, Malphas, to the netherworld to deliver my message.”

He began chanting again and the two demons started struggling against the magical barrier, this time with a frantic, almost desperate effort. Phane spoke a final word, barking
it into the night, and the two demons melted back into formless darkness, flowing back into the pit, a forlorn, keening wail following them into the netherworld.

“What of me?” Ravan asked.

Phane ignored him, turning to Hector.

“Blood the circle,” he said.

Hector nodded woodenly but made no move to obey.

“You must blood the circle,” Phane said, a bit more urgently.

Hector seemed to snap out of his daze. Slowly, mechanically, he raised his axe and brought it down on the goat’s neck. The bound woman at his feet cried out at the thud of the axe falling. His strike wasn’t forceful enough to decapitate the animal, but he cut through its spine, spilling blood at his feet. With one hand he dragged the goat to the edge of the circle and let the blood flow into the channels cut into the stone.

“Good
. Now the woman.”

Hector looked over at him, his gaze briefly drifting to meet Isabel’s eyes, but he looked away quickly, his eyes settling on the woman trembling at his feet. He started toward her but stopped, blinking several times and shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

If she could only speak, Isabel knew she could reach him, but she was mute, helpless.

“It’s the only way,” Phane said, gently, sympathetically. “If you want you
r brother back, you must do this.”

Hector stared blankly at the woman for several moments. Phane seemed to be holding his breath, until, slowly, hesitantly, Hector reached down and grabbed
the woman by the hair. She cried out, struggling against her bindings and trying to plead for mercy around the gag in her mouth.

“We don’
t have much time, Hector. The message has been sent. My Master’s avatar will arrive soon. If you don’t blood the circle, he will take you … for nothing.”

Hector seemed to remember his determination and quickly hacked the side of the woman’s neck as if he feared that waiting a moment
longer would have shaken his resolve. Isabel slumped to her knees, tears flowing down her cheeks. Up until this moment, she thought that there was a chance for Hector, that he might come to his senses and return to the light. The woman struggled weakly, flailing helplessly as Hector dragged her to the edge of the circle and flopped her on the ground to let her life’s blood flow into the grooves cut into the stone.

The blood flowed from the goat and the woman, filling the grooves until the entire circle was red. With a
gesture, Phane lifted the dead woman and the goat and tossed them into the pit.

“Well done, Hector. Well done,
” he said.

Isabel staggered back to her feet, swallowing the bile and rage she felt, turning her attention to the spark of light at the center of her being. She was far too distraught to actually reach it, but thoughts of that calm, still, centered place within her helped focus her mind.

Phane turned to her, smiling boyishly.

She glared back.

He began speaking the words of another spell, this one using an entirely different language than the one before. She felt the portal to the darkness within her psyche begin to open. She tried to fight it, tried to call on the light, begged the Maker to save her from the darkness, but she received no answer.

Moments later, the
portal opened wide and darkness flooded into her. Pain, fear, and despair seemed to fill her up to the point of bursting, challenging her sanity. Depravity and deliberate malice coursed through her, unbidden and unwelcome … and she was helpless to do anything except endure it.

When she thought she was dying, that her identity could suffer no more of the darkness and its corruption
, it began to flow out of her as if it were being pulled from her body. Her back arched and her feet lifted from the ground. Only the shackles cutting into her wrists kept her within her circle. Thick, dark liquid flowed from her mouth and eyes, swirling into a glob and floating out over the center of the pit. The portal to the netherworld closed when the last of the darkness left her, dropping her roughly to the ground.

She
fell to her knees and retched, spilling the contents of her stomach on the stone floor as she tried to overcome the sense of filth and rot that clung to her soul. It took several moments to regain her sense of self, to wrest her emotions back from the unclean influence of the netherworld. Still, she was shaken and felt dirty, guilty even. The experience had taxed her will and drained her energy until nothing but apathy remained. She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball.

Once the darkness was free of Isabel and swirling in a mass over the pit, Phane lifted the casket containing Horace’s remains and sent it into the glob of whirling darkness. The wood and metal of the casket rotted away, desiccating and rusting in seconds until it had completely vanished, leaving only Horace’s bones mingled with the darkness
whirling in midair.

The darkness
slowed, spinning to a stop as it flowed into and became one with Horace’s remains, until finally, the darkness was gone and all that remained were stained bones.

They fell into the pit a moment later. Phane was holding his breath again, waiting with anxious anticipation.
Isabel’s curiosity overpowered her misery. She opened her eyes, but made no move to get up. Her whole body felt hollow, scarred and raw.

The torches surrounding the ritual circle began to flicker even though the air was dead calm. Phane knelt
, bowing his head.

A wave of shadow emanated from the pit like an explosion without any force, passing through and around
Isabel, leaving her skin crawling and her stomach turning anew. The torches extinguished all at once when the wave hit them, plunging the world into darkness.

Isabel
felt the presence before she could see or hear it. A sense of unbridled power and hate filled the night. She slowly pushed herself to her knees and then staggered to her feet, watching expectantly, her heart in her throat.

A
presence rose out of the pit. As dark as the night was, the indistinct form that hovered before her was darker still, only its red eyes providing any light at all. It hurt to look at it. She wanted to turn away, but refused, choosing instead to face her enemy, the enemy of life and light itself.

The malicious red eyes scanned the scene, noting Ravan first, who had gone to his knees as well, then turning to look at Hector, Phane
, and Isabel in turn, his gaze seeming to penetrate to the depths of her soul. The red eyes looked at Isabel until she began to tremble, intense fear coursing through her, building to the point of panic. They looked at her for a long time before turning their gaze back to Phane. She felt a wave of relief.

“You wish to trade a soul for a soul,”
the presence said. Its voice was grating, discordant and entirely unnatural. It made her ears hurt.

“Yes, Master,” Phane said, rising to face the Taker’
s avatar. As Isabel’s eyesight adjusted, she thought she saw Phane present Hector with an open hand.

“And you have summoned Ravan to collect this soul at the appointed time?”

“Yes, Master.”

Ravan howled as the Taker drew him into the pit and cast him b
ack into the netherworld, screaming.

It turned its gaze on Hector. The silence built to the point of tension before the horrible voice spoke again.