He wondered just how many strings were attached to this particular "gift." Elizabeth never did anything that was not to her advantage. And, yes, he made use of the darker powers himself, but not to the extent that she did. Nor did he meddle with the powers that she dared to.
But . . .
He had the damned thing, after all, so he might as well make use of it.
He went out to his picked site in a grim state of mind. He ensured that his men would cooperate by stationing guards around a perimeter that was far enough away that no one would be able to see what he was doing except for his special assistants. Those assistants had been provided for him by Elizabeth, also. The ritual that needed to be enacted here could not be done by one person alone.
The weather had decided to cooperate, at least. Storm clouds gathered and built around Pantocrator. The wind whipped angry flurries of dust from where the assistants had been assiduously clearing every scrap of living matter, even lichen and tiny rock plants, until there was nothing but sterile, barren rock. Another was sharpening the bronze knife.
The patterns and sigils Emeric would do himself; he trusted such things to no assistant, even ones trained by Bartholdy. The fact that he kept such iron control over important matters, delegating them to no one else, was one of the things he thought his great-great-aunt respected about him. The brushes and pens for that work he kept in a special case—an ancient thing she'd given him many years before. It was made of hide and bone. The hide was curiously dark and iridescent, the bone . . . jet black. Neither part came from any earthly creature, and neither did the fangs, which served as a sort of semi-living lock and guardian. They opened only on certain words, treacherously closing on the hand if a mere intonation were wrong.
Of course, the king needed a suitable supply of ink. That was what the knife was being sharpened for. These rituals were designed to constrain the nonhuman and to protect him from it. They had to affect the homunculus he was about to release. Elizabeth had supplied the nonhuman blood from her captive stock. And Emeric and his assistants would have to give of their own to protect themselves.
So, when the knife had been honed to an edge that would wound the wind, each of them carefully slashed his forearm in turn, beginning with Emeric. Each of them funneled the scarlet blood that ran from the slash into the bottle that Elizabeth had prepared, while Emeric recited the guttural phrases Elizabeth had provided him. The sky darkened and the wind whirled around the hilltop, shrilling in their ears. There were two bottles now, one of red "ink," and one of black. Taking the first brush, Emeric began to paint the body and face of his first assistant with an intricate interweaving of sigils and symbols. The first went to build a fire in the center of the cleared place—only the fuel was bone, human and unhuman. When he was done with the last of them, and only then, did his most trusted assistant take the brush and complete the job on his master, Emeric. Then Emeric took up the knife and cut the first of thirteen protective circles into the bare earth.
At length, when the summer storm had formed into a huge dark tumbling mass, with Pantocrator shrouded in rain and distant thunder growling and cracking closer, they were ready. Stripped to the waist and painted—only their eyes showing in the masks of lines of alternating black and red—the nine began their chanting. The bone-fire was lit, the fungus that Emeric had piled atop it burning with a greenish flame.
Lightning lashed the earth, as if it was trying to strike them, but inside their protective circles it could not touch them. The assistants were made of stern stuff; though the very earth outside their hilltop smoked with the strikes, and the thunder threatened to shatter their eardrums, they did not even falter for a moment in their chanting.
Then, when the winds began to roar and the flames were near horizontal and the first heavy drops were splashing down onto the sun-dried earth, Emeric picked up the glass jar and threw the container into the flames. By the time the jar left his hands, the creature inside was fully aroused. The King of Hungary could sense the malevolent rage emanating from it.
The jar shattered. The liquid ran out of the fire in little coruscating, hissing rivulets.
The earth shook, angrily. If Emeric and his assistants had not been warned of the effect and braced for it, they would have been knocked to the ground.
And then the screaming began.
The scream seemed to go on and on; it pierced the very brain. It was full of rage, and pain. And for one, terrible moment, even Emeric wondered if he had let something loose that should never have seen the light of day.
The mighty cloud above them was lit with sheet lightnings. And the rain, advancing moments before, slacked off. The scream thinned and faded, receding into the distance, leaving a strange taste in the back of the mouth, and somehow, in the mind.
Well. Whatever had been turned loose was no longer his problem.
Emeric stood triumphant, smiling toothily in the flickering firelight. The truth be told, high magics were something he followed by rote. He enjoyed the powers conferred on him, the use of which required no effort on his part, but he was always nervous about these tasks.
Suddenly the earth itself trembled. He was flung from his feet. The rock beneath the fire burst explosively, scattering flames and ash over them. The ground shook beneath them, again and again.
* * *
The ground shook like a dog, flea-bitten. "What was that?" Svanhild clung to Erik. First the storm and now this! She wished for Cahokia.
Erik patted her comfortingly. "Its just an Earth-tremor, dear. We have had them up at Bakkafloi, especially when the volcano at Surtsey has been active. In my grandfather's time, one knocked down half of Reykjavik. Either it is not a very big one or we are far from its center."
"Are we safe?"
"We should probably get out of this cave."
"But it is raining out there."
"It seems to be stopping now."
* * *
Manfred picked himself up from the battlements. "Who in the hell needs cannons? Another one like that and the walls will just fall down. Does this part of the world often get earthquakes?"
The captain-general nodded, staying sitting down. "They have been heard of before, yes." Manfred had been trying for tact, especially when listening to the captain-general's version of the destruction of the moles. He'd been struggling with a volcano of laughter. Instead he got an earthquake.
"Well, it is a lot less welcome than that storm will be, if it comes here off the mountain. I thought I was going to boil in my armor today."
Eneko Lopez and his companions came breathlessly up the stairs.
"Did you hear it?" demanded Eneko. "Or see anything unusual?"
"No. But I felt it," said Von Gherens. "Knocked me off my feet."
"Not the earth tremor. Just before that. The scream. The agony and the rage and hatred."
Manfred shook his head. "It wasn't from out here. We were watching the coming storm and then we had the 'quake. The storm seems to be breaking up."
Eneko took a deep breath. "Something very magical, and very, very evil has come to this island. Something that should not ever have been created. I fear for this place."
* * *
Count Dragorvich cursed. Then he swore. Then he kicked a rock. His adjutant kept well back. He had run to call the siegemaster, only to find the man striding to the mines already.