Tom nodded. “Boggy?”
“Estrebrius has talked about this master with me before, and he sounds pretty reasonable. Moreover, I am pretty sure he can’t hurt you in any way. You’ve been dealing with far greater wizards than Vaselle.”
“Antefalken?” Tom turned his head to the bard.
Antefalken shrugged. “I don’t know the man, but my guess is that he’s an average wizard, certainly not on par with any of the Council members. Lenamare and his crew are far more dangerous and you have taken their measure. He’ll be stronger than Gastropé, I’d bet, but probably not that much stronger.”
“And you don’t think it’s a trap?” Tom asked.
Estrebrius shook his head from side to side, vehemently indicating it was not.
Antefalken responded, “Not this soon. Given what everyone in Freehold has probably heard or seen, anyone thinking of setting a trap would want more time for preparation. Quite a bit more time.”
“Did you hear something?” Reggie suddenly asked, turning around in circles as if looking for the source of something he had just heard.
Tom glanced at him, but continued, “Okay, so let’s agree to that, then. See what he wants; otherwise, such an insane request is probably going to bug me until I find out.” Estrebrius was looking very ecstatic. Or something — Tom couldn’t tell what, sort of pleased and terrified at the same time. Tom did not know, but everyone on both of these planes was simply too strange to understand.
“There she is!” Reggie was pointing to a blank wall. Everyone else looked at him in puzzlement. Tom realized suddenly that he could see through Reggie, that he had become translucent and then quickly transparent, and then had vanished. Interesting, Tom thought to himself. He had wondered what his fading looked like to people around him.
“Time to get to work!” Tizzy chuckled.
“So, Estrebrius?” Tom asked, and the little demon turned back to him. “When did your master say he’d contact you again?”
“Shortly after dawn in Freehold. He has to wait for the gates to open and then go a ways out into the woods away from the two armies.”
“Anyone got a watch?” Tom asked.
Antefalken laughed. “It gets hard to tell time between the realms, but it shouldn’t be that long; maybe a few hours by the time he gets out of the city. That’s the same time Damien would normally summon me.”
“Have you heard anything more from him?” Tom asked.
“No. My guess is that the city is still sealed off from extra-planar forces and communication. Well, actually, we know that from Estrebrius here.” Antefalken shrugged. “I have to admit to some curiosity in knowing how much the Council knows about what happened outside the wall. If they got reports, they are probably freaking out pretty badly at this point.”
Tizzy and Boggy both laughed.
“I wonder what Jenn is thinking?” Rupert asked.
Tom shook his head. “I am sure she’s not worried about Edwyrd, but she will be a basket case about you.”
“We have a good idea what the demonic response is; we can guess what the Rod and Tiernon’s church’s response might be; but we don’t have any idea about what the Council knows or what the next move will be for Oorstemoth.”
“I am sure my master can give you a good report about what people in Freehold know,” Estrebrius chimed in. Antefalken nodded.
Chapter 89
Gastropé woke to a knock on his door. “I’m up!” he yelled to the knocker. He wearily conjured a mage light to illuminate the dark little chamber; it was still quite some time before dawn. He had barely slept; he had tossed and turned all night worrying about how the binding had become attached to him. He had not even noticed it! He had run every scenario over in his head, and nothing made any sense.
He used the chamber pot and then washed his hands and face with the cold water in the bowl on a stand in one corner. He had no mirror, and it was rather dark even with the mage light, so he decided not to try and shave — not that he had that much to shave. He shrugged and got dressed, then packed up what little he had taken out last night. Finally he seated his turban on his head. That was one nice advantage to prewound, sewn turbans; you did not have to worry about combing your hair. Traditional wrapped turbans made a mess of anything other than short hair; the prewound type, which his father insisted was an abomination, were more like a hat and not as bad.
Gastropé had taken to wearing a prewound turban during wizard school, when a friend had introduced him to a turban winder who could sew small secret compartments into the bands of the turban, where one could then secretly store spell components, money or small tools. This convenience, plus the convenience of not having to wind it every day had driven him to the dark side, as his father called it. Gastropé had to chuckle. His father had no problem with his wanting to learn how to summon demons, but wearing a prewound turban — that was where he drew the line. Fortunately his father, while a traditionalist, was pretty soft hearted for a shopkeeper.
Gastropé made his way down to the main hall where they were to meet. Jenn and Maelen were already there eating some meats, cheeses, fruits and bread that had been laid out by even earlier-rising servants for them to break their fast on.
Jenn frowned as he approached. “Did you get attacked by a necromancer in your sleep? You look like a barely risen corpse!”
Maelen chuckled as he popped a yellow piece of melon in his mouth.
“I didn’t sleep very well.” Gastropé looked around the room. There was a servant over by the fireplace, tending it, but no one else was around yet. “Take a look at me with your wizard sight,” he said to them, “and whatever it is you do similarly. Do you notice anything odd? Say, around here?” He gestured to his chest.
Jenn frowned again and shook her head, but muttered the incantation for her wizard sight and stared at him. Maelen simply looked at him intently. “I don’t know,” Jenn said slowly. “Is there some sort of string or cord coming off of you?”
“It appears to be some form of link extending” — Maelen’s eyes traced a path up into the air — “somewhere off plane perhaps?”
“Yeah, Trevin noticed it last night and complimented me on it,” Gastropé replied sourly.
“What is it?” Jenn asked curiously.
“It’s a demon binding going off to the Abyss,” Gastropé told them.
“A demon binding? You mean like a conjuror would use to bind a demon?” Jenn looked at him, puzzled. “I didn’t know you had any bound demons; you’ve never mentioned it. You know that’s sort of a big deal, given what’s been going on.” She sounded like she was starting to get annoyed.
“I didn’t! I have never actually cast a demon binding, ever! I’ve studied them and practiced them, but I’ve never actually bound a demon to myself before!” Gastropé waved his arms to emphasize his point. “I didn’t even know it was there until last night when Trevin pointed it out. That’s why I couldn’t sleep; I was trying to figure out how it got there!”
“So what or who is on the other end?” Maelen asked.
Gastropé frowned. “Well, it appears to be an older-style link for a second to third-order demon. Sort of like they used to do a hundred to two hundred years ago.”
“And it goes to...” Jenn prompted.
“I’ll give you one guess... it smells like funky pipe smoke!” Gastropé exclaimed.
“Tizzy?” Jenn asked in shock. “How could that be? Demons cannot bind themselves to wizards, it’s the other way around, and even then, a fiend like Tizzy could not. He’s said he doesn’t have any magical abilities, unlike Tom.”