“What?” Void scowled, as one does when a brilliant theory is threatened with a hefty dose of reality. “What is the problem?”
“We need a sacrifice,” Himilco said. His voice was cold. “What are you prepared to offer, to have the demon come to us?”
“Shit,” I muttered. “What do we offer?”
“Uncle Mago?” Hamilcar snorted as we glowered at him. “Like I said, no one would miss him.”
“It has to be something of value,” Himilco said. “Personal value. And how much value do we see in him?”
I winced. “None,” I said. It was cruel, but true. “None of us would piss on him if he was on fire.”
“We might,” Himilco said. “But pissing on someone isn’t exactly a sign of respect.”
“We need something of value,” Hamilcar said. “What?”
We exchanged glances. All we had, all we really had, was each other. There was no way we could use one of us as a sacrifice and yet, what else did we have? The traditional virgin sacrifice would be a monumentally bad idea, if we wanted to ensure our rite was untainted by murder. And…
“There isn’t much that’s ours,” Hamilcar said. “The house? The books? The mansion? They all belong to the family.”
“True,” Void said. “We could offer up a portion of our souls?”
I shuddered. I wasn’t the only one. Soul magic was as dangerous as necromancy, often more so. The idea of splitting a soul was abhorrent. There were horror stories that suggested anyone who tried wound up insane or worse, a monster in human form. Or dead. I believed them. The soul was the thing that separated us from the animals, even if we were turned into animals, and giving up even a part of it would be disastrous. We wouldn’t know what we’d lost until it was too late, and if the horror stories were to be believed we might not notice or care.
“No,” I said, firmly. “Bad idea. Really bad idea.”
“There’s another possibility,” Himilco said, slowly. He spoke slowly, as if every word was gold. “We give up our name.”
“Our name?” Void sounded unconvinced. “You are aware, are you not, that we’re trying to get the family to acknowledge us?”
“Yes,” Himilco said. “We need something to tempt a demon. And it has to be something important. And if we are gambling for such stakes, we should try to offer something that will either take us to the very highest levels or sending us plunging down into the darkness.”
We exchanged glances, then agreed.
“We need to move fast,” Void said. He clapped his hands and stood. “Get some sleep. We’ll set out in the morning, before they find something else for us to do. They’ll probably be glad to see us go.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Where do you want to go?”
“Whitehall,” Void said. “Or near Whitehall. There are quite a few places we can use that aren’t monitored regularly. They’ll notice us eventually, but it will be too late.”
He looked at me. “You are still friendly with Old Stinky, aren’t you?”
“Professor Bodoh,” I corrected. His breath might be unpleasant — he needed to brush his teeth, then wash his mouth out with potion — but he was a charmsmith of no small repute. I’d been one of his favourites, back when I’d been a student. Void had been lucky his skill in magic was enough to make the professor overlook his cheek. “And yes, we do talk.”
“Good,” Void said. “Here’s what I want you to do…”
Should we have thought better of it? Yes, we should. It was foolish of us to risk so much for so little. But we were young and hurting and supremely confident in our power and skill. We could handle anything, we told ourselves. We were proud…
… And we all know what pride goes before, don’t we?
Chapter Four
I knew, the moment we drew near the shrine.
It was a beautiful spring day in the woods. Birds flew through the trees. Small animals and insects scurried across the ground; bigger animals, the ones that had learnt to fear the sorcerers of the nearby school, fled through the branches or crouched in their dens. The air hummed with magic, spilling out of the nexus point and into the forest…
And yet, the moment we crossed the unseen barrier, we stepped into another world.
Silence fell, so abruptly I thought someone had cast a spell. The forest was so quiet I could almost hear my own heartbeat. The trees seemed dead and cold, frozen forever in a moment of time. I shivered, despite years of experience, as the four of us walked through the trees to the shrine. Wild magic hung in the air, a stench that pressed against our senses and threatened to overwhelm us. No one knew who had built the shrine, or what it had been used for before it had been abandoned, but everyone knew to avoid it. Everyone except us.
“We can’t sleep here,” Hamilcar said, quietly. “Our wards won’t last a night.”
I nodded in agreement. The ruined buildings were decidedly… odd, as if whoever had built them had wanted them angled against reality itself. Strange runes, dead now, were carved into the stone, forming a pattern that nagged at my mind. I couldn’t understand their meaning and yet I had the feeling that, if I stared long enough, I’d be able to comprehend them. Things flickered at the corner of my eye, glimpses of wild magic — and something deeper and darker — that vanished whenever I tried to look at them directly. And yet… another shiver ran down my spine. The urge to turn and walk — or run — was almost overwhelming.
“There’s enough power here,” Void said, with cold satisfaction. “You can feel it in the air.”
“Yeah,” Himilco agreed. “You can smell it on the breeze.”
“What breeze?” Hamilcar looked spooked. “There isn’t a breeze.”
I nodded, keeping my thoughts to myself. The air was dead and cold, as if something had sucked all the life out of it long ago. The sunlight felt… alien, as if we were standing in the shade even though we were in bright daylight. It felt almost like the Blighted Lands, yet the wild magic felt highly concentrated… I reached out with my senses and cursed under my breath. Wild magic pervaded the land, spilling through the ruins and pulsing though the ground… I saw lights flash at the corner of my eye and looked around. They were gone. It was not a safe place.
“This is pretty much our last chance to change our minds,” Hamilcar said, quietly. “Once we take what we need from Whitehall, we’ll be committed.”
“We were committed the moment our uncle made it clear we would never be accepted,” Void said, curtly. “Weren’t we?”
“Yes,” I said. We’d argued for hours, switching between working out the spellware and arguing over the wisdom of what we were doing and then back again, without missing a beat. We’d covered everything, from the risks to the potential rewards if we succeeded. And yet, none of our discussions encompassed the wonder and terror all around us. “We have to make it impossible for them to keep us on the sidelines any longer.”
“Fine.” Hamilcar dumped his pack on the ground and looked around. “Himilco, you go set up the tents. Void and Hasdrubal can help me get started.”
Himilco nodded without taking offense. He was our potions master and his skills weren’t required, not for setting up the ritual. I watched him stride back into the forest — we’d be safe enough sleeping, once we were clear of the shrine — then started to follow Hamilcar as he drew out the first set of wards. It was a difficult task, one that had to be completed with strict attention to detail before we risked charging the wards. If we failed to channel the wild magic, we couldn’t hope to do anything else. There’d be no time to make changes once we started to empower the wards. Any mistakes would force us to stop, erase our work and start again.
I won’t bore you with the details of the wards and supporting charms. We’d based the original work on a standard dissipating charm, one designed to absorb or deflect patches of uncontrolled — or wild — magic, then expanded upon them to summon, trap and ultimately consume a creature from the darkness. It felt terrifyingly fragile, even before we got started, but we’d checked and rechecked the equations until we were sure there were no mistakes, no loopholes a demon could use to escape. We had to be very sure. Demons could see the future. If our captive saw a way out, it would take it.