Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (13 page)

The demon stood before him, in the middle of the courtyard for all to see, "Your task is complete...master."  The demon glared at him with pent up anger and frustration.  Normally Lenamare would have had to force himself to remain calm, staring at this horrible visage gazing so malevolently at him; however, the carnage wreaked on his castle outraged him so much that he didn't have time to be nervous.

"Obviously
...you moronic imbecile of a demon.  Look at what you've done to my castle!  Get out of here!  Return to your damnable hell, till I summon you again."  He waved his hands at the demon and it vanished.  Quickly he turned to Jehenna.  "How did that nephew of a second rate dung splayer outguess me like that?  Every damn thing I do, he outmaneuvers me!"

Jehenna herself was none to
o pleased by the results, and she had no more idea than Lenamare.  "He's got to have some sort of advantage or ally that we don't know about.  The sheer luck of him even realizing what you were doing, let alone figuring out the physical oscillation trick and timing his wizards to get the fireballs off fast enough, it’s impossible."

"Impossible maybe, but the horse
shit eating pile of vomit has done it."  Lenamare began to walk hurriedly to the gatehouse.  On his way he almost tripped over Alvea with Rex's body.  "Get that corpse out of here, and tell her to dry it up.  We haven't got time for that kind of nonsense; she's got work to do."  Jehenna waved impatiently to a nearby serving woman to get Alvea and Rex out of the way.  Alvea didn't even seem to notice the raving Lenamare walking nearby.  She simply rocked back and forth with Rex's blackened head in her lap.

"If he keeps this second guessing up, we might have some trouble," Jehenna said while climbing the stairs to the
gatehouse behind Lenamare.

Lenamare, too caught up in righteous anger
, didn't even seem to hear her.  He climbed the stairs oblivious to all but his thoughts.  As he reached the top, he turned and shouted as if to the sky, "how dare that bastard fifth son of a boot licking slavemonger attack me so.  I, Lenamare, attack me, in my own hold.  I swear that riverbank sludge-brained upstart shall know my wrath."

Tom rematerialized in his cave.  He turned slowly and walked over to his chair.  As he sat down
all he wanted to do was cry.  He was frustrated, angry, upset and tired.  Guilt still nagged him, yet now compounded to it was a feeling of helplessness.  Here he was trapped in this demonic body, doing demonic things and under the control of a wizard at war.  The way he'd acted, when confronted by the force field had been shameful, the emotions that had racked him then, were almost incomprehensible now.  At the time it had felt like getting through the force field had been the most important thing in the world; that it had to be done at all costs. Yet now he realized there was no good reason, he’d literally been out of control.

He
was ashamed of his totally uncontrolled behavior when trying to finish his mission.  Rationally, he knew  he couldn't control the pain or things he did there at the end, but that didn't help.  Especially considering that when he'd killed the man, he should have been in full control.

If he'd been able to do so, Tom would have cried, but apparently demons
still
didn't have any tearducts, so all he could do was something like sobbing.  The killing of the man and his behavior at the end, two acts of uncontrolled passion, simple thoughtless reactions. Things he'd always thought he was above, when he looked at the ignorant, emotional, juvenile bullies in his school.  What was he coming to?  Why him, why were things so unfair?  Sobbing he drifted off into a weary, drained sleep.

~

Jenn put away the last of the dirty bandages.  A serving girl had come to relieve her of tending the patients while they slept, so she could rest herself.  Wearily she stood, and walked back into the tower.  The children had been put to bed a few hours ago. The guards were posted on the walls.  Although several more attacks had been made by Exador, none had penetrated the wards.  She climbed tiredly up the stairs, her right hand dragging on the center pole of the staircase.  She didn't know if she'd have the energy to write in her diary tonight; but she supposed she must, Rex's death couldn't go unrecorded.

~

"So what are we going to do?"  Jehenna asked.  She and Lenamare stood on the roof top of the central tower, looking out at the invading army beyond the softly glowing wards.  The army was big, six to seven times larger than they had expected. 
Where did Exador get the men?
Jehenna wondered.

"What can we do.  That idiot student got himself killed, and his girlfriend is out of commission with her stupid grief.  Both of them were central to the foundation of the wards."

"Well, we could hardly have expected them to be put out of commission like that."

"I suppose, but nonetheless, with two of the legs supporting the wards gone, it
’s now only a matter of time before they begin to decay.  If only we could have got them primed first, instead of doing it ad hoc.  Then they would have lasted for a year after all the casters were dead.  As is, with no priming and two out of thirteen legs useless, we've got maybe four weeks, forty days, before any decay starts.  Once that happens, they will only last another forty days.   In all, a total of two lousy Uropian  months before they decay to nothing."

"Which of course they'll never get a chance to do," said Jehenna.

"Precisely, as soon as Exadung out there realizes the thing's decaying, he'll do everything in his power to help it.  So in reality, we only have a little over six weeks."

"Unless Exador manages to outguess us again."

"No," Lenamare said, turning to face her.  "Twice, maybe.  But no one does that sort of thing to me three times.  I've learned my lesson.  I will not even give him the chance to outguess me.  There is positively absolutely no way the man can know that he toasted one of my warders.  Thus he can't know that this field can't be maintained indefinitely.

"This time
around, I've got a few surprises for him."  Lenemare turned to glare out at the army surrounding his home.

~

Jenn looked out over the edge of a merlon on the parapet of the schools defensive wall.  Everywhere she looked there were men lined up behind the wards.  The number of besiegers seemed to have grown over the past few days, she wasn't sure because she hadn't had a chance to observe the enemy closely before this point.  She'd only gotten quick glances during her errands. 

This was the first free moment she'd had since the siege had begun.  Finally after three days, the wounded were finally getting to the point where they no longer needed her constant attention.  Unfortunately, she mused, for some patients, it was because they
had passed away.  Luckily, however, thanks to the skills of the doctors and her spells, most would survive.  True, many would bear burn marks and scars for the rest of their lives; but at least they had their lives.  Rex wouldn't even have that.

Goddess, she couldn't believe he was dead.  It was, she almost smiled
sadly, just like Rex to get himself killed in such a manner.  Heroic, brave, saving others.  Just like a ballad.  Rex always liked ballads, she'd always thought that somewhere down deep, Rex was really a bard, not a wizard.  She could understand what he'd done, and intellectually she knew it was probably be for the best.  Actually, looking at the faces of the children who had been with Rex, she couldn’t exchange their lives for his; she just wished there had been another option.  It just hurt so much.  It seemed so unfair that the stupid fireballs had to come over the wall at them.

Why were the innocent punished
?  Why couldn't the stupid fireball have bounced and hit Exador.  Even hitting Lenamare would have been better, true it would have meant the end of the siege, and Exador's essential victory, but wasn't Lenamare more deserving... 

No, she had to stop that line of reasoning.  Every human had a right to life, even those she personally didn't care for.  Both Exador and Lenamare should be allowed to live out their lives.  Actually the whole thing was that damn demon's fault.  If he hadn't been so insistent on getting in, Rex would still be alive.  It was probably just being spiteful and vindictive in a typical demonic manner.  If anything had to die, it surely should have been that thing.  Of course, it wasn't exactly alive, so she wasn't sure if it could die.  Nonetheless, if anything had to get hurt it should be a creature of evil, not a human being.

She turned and looked up at the late afternoon sun, its shimmering light refracted by the force dome.  Actually it didn't matter if Lenamare or if anyone else had gotten it.  With Rex dead and Alvea in shock, Jenn knew the dome couldn't be sustained long.   Most of the common people didn't realize it, and in fact no one had admitted it to her either; but she wasn't a fool. 

She hadn't participated in the setting of the wards because they had only needed thirteen people, and her specialization was the farthest from that area, but that didn't mean she didn't understand how it was set up.  She had known the schedule for setting up the magical defenses, and knew they hadn't been primed. She knew exactly what it meant when a major pillar of the impromptu
wards was destroyed.

Jenn didn't know how long the dome would last, but at least Exador didn't know for sure that it wouldn't last.  What they were going to do when the wards came down, she didn't know.  It wasn't going to be fun.  Of course, thinking back on it, what real chance had they ever had.  Even under the best conditions, they would eventually have been starved out.  Completely cut off, physically and magically, from the outside world with no real chance of relief, they would eventually have succumbed.  Oh, true, after a year or so, Exador might have gone home, but if he really wanted the school so much that he'd gotten the
Archimage's support, then what was a year's time?

Actually, Jenn thought, as she began to walk along the top of the walls,  this a
ll assumed Exador didn't have any more tricks up his sleeve.  He might have some way to break Lenamare's wards.  Lenamare had never made a secret of them; to the contrary, he had often boasted about them to others.  He’d previously built the wards for Freehold and the Council. It wasn't inconceivable that Exador had a plan to get around them.  Not that he needed one now, but it might be morbidly interesting to see what he came up with. 

Depressing; what could they do?  They were doomed to lose.  She shook her head slightly in frustration.  She really didn't have the energy to do much more.  She nodded absently to the soldiers stationed on the wall as she walked by.  What would become of all of them
? Exador had no love for Lenamare, and would have no mercy for his people.  One of the children had asked if they wouldn't be safe since Exador wanted the school, and the school was made up of students; wouldn't he spare the students. 

Jenn had reassured the little girl, but she didn't feel any such assurance.  Schools also had political clout.  The wizard controlling the school controlled the nearby land, and no new master who'd won the school by force could trust the people in the old master's clique.  Perhaps the youngest might be spared, but the masters and senior students would be in jeopardy.

Of course, all this effort on Exador's part for the school seemed to be a bit much.  Could any school be worth this much effort?  True Lenamare and Exador had been enemies for decades, but an army this size? Jenn stopped again and looked over the edge of the wall at the besieging army again.

As she looked down
, she noticed a slight disturbance.  Something was happening.  At certain points individuals were moving towards the iridescent wall.  What they were doing she couldn't tell.  There certainly weren't many, she could only see about four people at regular spacing around the part of the wall within her line of sight.  It would be logical to assume from their semi-symmetric arrangements that others that she couldn't see were also lining up along the wall.  Maybe eight in all were lined up around the school.

It didn't take long for her to figure out what was happening.  Although not attuned directly to the wards, she could still feel the attacks on them.  The individuals down there were either wizards or demons attacking the wall.  From her perspective it was too hard to tell.  If she were attuned to the wall she could probably tell by the feel of the assault but she wasn't.  All she could feel was the throbbing of the pentacles below.  Normally with the sort of energies that had to be flying about, she would have expected to feel a certain charge in the air, as well as a definite mental sensation indicating the type of magic being done and who was doing it.  The wards, however, as designed, blocked most of the magic coming in, and so all she felt inside was the response of the wards themselves.

As she watched however, she noticed that the insides of the wards, directly in front of where each of the individuals were positioned had begun to glow.  This caused her more than just a little concern.  It meant that the attacks were beginning to penetrate. Lenamare had better do something quick to balance the wards to keep more magic out.  She looked around quickly for him, but couldn't see him, surely he knew?

~

Lenamare knew.  He too could only feel the throbbing of the pentacles.  He was hurrying down the spiral staircase with Jehenna at his side.  As they went, six of the remaining senior students joined them.  The others, were on guard in the primary ward chamber itself, just in case such an event as this occurred.  "
Can you determine who or what is attacking the wards?" he asked Jehenna.

"I'm not positive, but I think he's hitting with about two thirds demons, and the rest wizards.  It's definitely a mixed group."

"Damn, how much are we going to have to shift the balance?" Lenamare asked.

"Quite a ways, I can feel it weakening in spots."

"Which means that when we shift to defend the magical, the demons concentrate on physical attacks, instead of their energy bolts. Can you tell what type of demons is he using?"

"I don't know for sure, at least one three, possibly two.  The rest are twos, what difference does it make?"

"We can fight demons with demons," Lenamare answered.  They reached the warding room.  Everyone was now there except Hortwell.  Jehenna glanced around in annoyance, wondering where he could be. 

"How?  For us to send demons against his, we have to send them outside, that means doing some sort of oscillation trick again.  We can't risk that now, it didn't work when we weren't under direct attack."
  Jehenna observed.

"Ah, but like I said, Exador is in for some surprises.  When we set the wards to pure physical, I had Hortwell teleport outside, a safe distance away, with amulets.  Now all I need to do is give the proper signal and he'll summon demons."

"Teleport out, during physical mode...of course, why didn't I think of it.  Teleportation's a magical translocation, not physical.  That makes what we did all the more dangerous..." she stood still and looked directly in to Lenamare's eyes.  "What if Exador had thought to send his people in?"

"Ah
..." Lenamare smiled coldly, "he did."

"He did?  Where?  What?  Why didn't I know?"

"You were too tired afterward, and I haven't completely decided how to kill them yet."

"But how did you find them all?  You did get them all?" Jehenna asked nervously.

"Of course, you recall that teleportation trap I worked on a few years ago?  Well, I never did get all the bugs worked out of it; however, I was able to get it at least operational, with a few slight glitches.  We however, don't have time to go over that now.  I shall take Hortwell's place and we shall balance the wards as soon as the demons are distracted."