He flew in random directions, continually berating himself, hearing the death gasps of the man he had killed, watching the man’s life seep down and drip off his elbow. How long he kept this up he didn’t know. It seemed like a small eternity that he flew around hating and loathing himself. Eventually however, he ran out of steam and hate.
He settled into something like despair. He’d done it; he couldn’t change it; he would have to live with it, with himself. He hated himself and what he’d done, but he just didn’t have the energy to go on raging at himself. He also realized that it was getting late and that he needed to get back to Lenamare. Lenamare had given him three days, that time was nearly up, and he still had a long way to fly.
He looked around to the setting sun and headed north, back to the tower. Night came and he flew on. A nervous feeling was growing inside him; he didn’t think he was going to get back in time, and for some reason that gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn’t know why, and after all the raging at himself he’d just been through, he didn’t care, it just did.
As morning came, the uneasiness grew as he realized he was further away from the tower then he could fly by noon. The gnawing grew as the morning marched on and he knew he would not make it in time. Faster and faster he flew. To Tom it began to seem imperative that he reach Lenamare on time.
A cold, rational part of his mind told him he was being silly and to let Lenamare wait; but even so he flew faster and faster, until he could fly no faster. His speed would just have to do, even though the unease was turning to almost a physical pain, a need.
As the sun neared overhead, he began to ache all over. He knew it was irrational, and surely all in his head, but the fact that he wouldn’t reach Lenamare in time hurt. It must have been something in the compulsion, the binding, that forced him to obey Lenamare’s command and it was probably the possibility of failing or disobeying that command that was causing the pain.
By the time he saw a shimmer on the horizon, which he took to be the tower, he desperately needed to get to Lenamare. He didn’t know how he knew it was the tower, he did, he didn’t care that it shouldn’t shimmer, it did. His whole mind was focused on completing his assignment. He concentrated on it so strongly that he didn’t even notice the army camped around the castle, he didn’t even notice the wards. Until he hit them.
He was flying very fast, twice as fast as normal, about seventy miles an hour. He hit the wards like hitting a brick wall. Unlike a car or person however, all Tom did was bounce. The shock of the blow brought him slightly back to reality. It didn’t hurt badly, but it did stun him slightly. He realized that there was an obstacle in his way to getting to Lenamare. He knew that he had to get around it, or through it, there was no other choice.
Single-mindedly Tom flew to a point on the dome and began pounding on it with his fists. When the dome didn’t give or break, Tom realized, almost insanely that he needed more force. Whatever the cost, he had to get through that dome. Grasping for ideas, he began to pound rhythmically back and forth on it with karate punches from each fist. He did it just like he was instructed, kiyaing with each blow, but with a fanatical devotion he had never used before. Because of the compulsion, he put all his will power in it. With each blow and yell Tom also struck with his will.
Out on the field, Exador noticed the large demon strike the wall and rebound, and then begin to pound. His eyes narrowed in calculation. He knew it wasn’t his demon, so it must be Lenamare’s, trying to fulfill a return compulsion. Knowing Lenamare, and guessing the strength of the pentacles, Exador did some quick calculations in his head. Quickly he began giving orders to his generals and subordinate wizards.
Inside the dome, every wizard felt the blow to the pentacles as Tom rebounded. “What the hell... what is Exador doing?” shouted Lenamare as he glanced up from his surveillance of the surrounding army, atop the gatehouse.
“Not Exador, I think. One of ours.” Jehenna remarked beside him as she pointed up in the air to where Tom was pounding on the dome.
“Damn. I forgot about him coming back.”
“Not good.”
Up in the air Tom was so single mindedly determined to get in that he paid no attention to anything. Thus, he didn’t even notice the red glow surrounding himself, and the bolts of magical energy that struck the wall in time to his fists.
On the ground near the cots, Jenn looked up in fear at the demon trying to get in. She had known that summoning that thing would be the end of them all. Now it was helping the enemy invade the castle. Like all the older students and masters, she knew that even though the pentacles could keep out Exador or a fourth order demon; given how hastily they’d been set up the wards without a full priming, they couldn’t withstand both for long.
The children were becoming frightened by the energies they could feel reverberating through the dome. To calm them, Rex, who was standing nearby, gathered them together and led them to get some wood for the fires that heated the hospital’s water.
On the gatehouse roof, Lenamare turned to Jehenna. “Well, you set them up; you know the strength of your support in building them. Will they hold without the priming?”
“You know as well as I, if Exador’s got the kind of force we think he does, and decides to use it in concert with that demon, the shield can’t hold for more than a few hours. If we could have gotten them set up properly...”
“I know. No problem, I designed them myself. Damn Exador and his sped up time scale. We’re gonna have to shift the shield to let the demon in.”
Jehenna thought for a moment then said, “But how? Demons are both magical and material. Thus, he’s blocked no matter how we balance the shield. That’s why pentagrams work so well on demons... remember.”
“Yes, I realize that,” Lenamare said testily. “We can however, play a few tricks with the oscillation frequency of the balance and sneak him in.” Lenamare motioned to one of his students standing nearby acting as a page. “Tell Hortwell and Elrose to meet Jehenna and myself in the primary ward chamber in five minutes.” The child ran off immediately to follow his orders. “Follow me,” Lenamare told Jehenna, and they set off to the catacombs.
The children were gathered around the woodpile getting their third loads of wood. They couldn’t take much at one time, actually Rex was doing most of the carrying. Rex didn’t mind however, the primary point of having the children carry the wood was to keep their minds off the situation. Besides the hard physical work also kept his mind off the situation.
As he bent to pick up another chopped log of wood, he felt a change in the air. Reaching out with his mind he could feel that the pentacles were oscillating. He could only guess that Lenamare must be trying something to let the demon in. The shields couldn’t be shut down temporarily without having to start from scratch to put them back up, but they had to do something to get the demon in, before it seriously weakened the force field. Rex’s quick mind saw what Lenamare was trying to do.
The best bet would be to set the field on magic mode and set it to oscillate at a resonance frequency with the demon’s spirit’s energy frequency. The demon’s physical body would pose no problem, since the field would be keeping out only magical energy. They’d have to risk only a short time of physical attack; unless Exador got clever and sent energy into the field at the same frequency as the resonance. That would be a forcing of the system, and if he sent enough energy in, it could overbalance the system and lead to a stochastic field, meaning the field would disintegrate into a bunch of isolated stability points and collapse.