Chapter 243: Mine

Every object the demon’s radiance touched shattered like light passing through a prism. Plants, soil, and stone were undone down to their component elements before Baelin’s eyes.

The chancellor’s jaw hardened as an ancient tree collapsed, turning to black carbon, gases, and its component metals. The stones the light touched separated into quartzite, sand, metals and other precipitates.

‘Admirable control over the physical form,’ Baelin thought. ‘The ability to break down one’s body into energy and reduce objects to elemental components: just as the books stated, though they did not mention the speed and proficiency of it. Hmmm, this should be a good counter…’

Baelin’s lips moved with speed, casting several spells while he willed the demon-bane symbols toward the abyssal knight. Ezaliel’s prismatic shield shuddered around him, splitting and solidifying into a dozen floating winged shapes that curled protectively around his body, reflecting away the symbols’ light.

Then each ‘wing’ shuddered.

Thooom!

A hail of crystal fragments tore free. Shards ripped through the air—snapping and popping like fireworks—destroying trees and more as they struck the earth in a massive explosion of dirt clouds.

Baelin’s multilayered shield materialised around him.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

The crystalline missiles pricked the shield, protruding like arrows from a wooden target. The noise from the sheer amount of speed and force created by the shard storm roared in Baelin’s ears as his symbols passed through the crystalline storm and surrounded Ezaliel.

He directed more mana into the symbols, they flared with bright light and force. The demon’s form shuddered beneath their magic as the chancellor spoke his incantations in an unending stream of casting.

He unleashed his wrath upon the creature.

Rmmmmmble.

The first spell shook the gardens.

A swell of mana shifted through the air as molten power solidified around the abyssal knight.

Crack.

Then the reality surrounding them shattered.

Whooosh!

Eight portals burst open around the creature, each leading to the cold, blackness that lurked between stars. The air screamed as it was sucked into the endless dark while the demon was frozen in place. The pull from all sides kept it motionless, while the icy darkness plunged its core to a glacial cold.

Crack!

A long, jagged crack lanced through the crystalline form as a howling sound escaped it. To Baelin, the sensation in his ears was like the feeling of panicking ants scurrying through them.

He snorted in distaste as he struck with his next spell.

His hand extended—fingers pointed forward like spears—and released beams of utter darkness from his fingertips. They hummed with necromantic energy and coiled through the demon’s wing-like protections, sinking deep down within its body.

Ezaliel’s inner lights withered as its essence was drained away by Baelin’s terrible magic.

He could feel him weakening now.

But Baelin was far beyond mercy.

The ancient wizard extended his other hand, emitting five beams of light that began to circle around the creature; from above, from the back and sides, and from below. Each beam left a solid bar of radiance in its wake; every pass crafted a prison around the creature: one that no spell, skill, or feat of strength, could undo. The cage closed in around the abyssal knight, tightening like an insect’s cocoon around its prey.

Ezaliel's crackling voice shrieked in desperate echoes.

It quickly transformed, turning to another ray of light to escape through a shrinking gap in the bars, but Baelin’s beams prevented that.

Pling!

It flailed within its cage like a captured fly inside a glass jar, trying to escape. There was little time before its prison was complete.

It paused, hovering for an instant.

The demon seemed to make a decision.

With a shudder, it returned to its crystalline form, which shuddered and cracked as power built within it. The lights inside flared as bright as miniature suns.

Crack.

“Oh, you are a cowardly one, aren’t you?” Baelin snarled.

Boom!

The crystalline demon swelled, then shattered into thousands of shining particles, scattering and disappearing like stars in a cloudy sky.

Baelin cursed as he dismissed his spells. The radiant cage vanished and the portals slammed shut with the sound of a thunderclap.

“Self-termination,” he growled. “A cowardly move…though logical under the circumstance. Blast it, now I shall have to content myself with your master.”

Baelin connected with a Wizard’s Eye, noted its location, and floated through the wreckage of the foliage to the edge of the botanical gardens. He heard the sounds of a struggle. They appeared to be only a few yards ahead, and his altered sight saw blue shapes restraining an struggling orange one. One blue figure had clamped a hand over the captive’s mouth to prevent spell casting.

Through an act of will, Baelin shifted his vision back to normal eyesight then dismissed the enhanced invisibility spells he’d placed on his summoned servants. Four war-spirits shimmered into being, surrounding an invisible figure on the ground fighting to get free.

As Baelin floated up to the combative demon summoner, he spoke a single word of power and a sound like shattering glass filled the air. Suddenly, the figure of a portly young man was revealed. There was a vague familiarity about him.

“Finally, you vile little wretch,” Baelin said, his voice like steel.

He glanced toward the stadium—through the glass walls of the gardens—and saw figures flying in the direction of the gardens on stone disks: The Watchers of Roal. They had responded quickly, though the battle here was finished.

“You, child, have been a menace to all of Generasi,” the chancellor said. “But today, your ugly display ends. Your demon took the easy way and destroyed its physical form…no doubt to reconstitute itself in its own realm.” He slowly shook his head. “I have a mind to pay it a personal visit…but, alas, such a visit would likely trigger the wrath of its lord and lead to even more unpleasantness with demons invading Generasi. Still, there are means available to dissuade him from further trespass in this world. He will come to understand that, in one way or the other.”

He clapped his hands once, making the summoner wince and his eyes grow wide.

“But for now, I’m afraid this leaves you as the only culprit available. The city will, with full justification, want their pound of flesh, as will The Watchers and me, of course. You are a very popular young man, in a sick sort of sense. How… unfortunate for you.”

The demon summoner shouted something into the war-spirit’s hand, but the words were garbled.

“Save your strength,” Baelin said. “You will need it. You will need all of it for the trials ahead of you.”

“Victory!” Ram shouted from above. “Baelin destroyed the demon’s leader and captured the summoner! We have a victory!”

Alex had known that even before Ram said the word “victory.” He’d felt the connections between this world and the demon’s realm breaking as the portals began closing. At last the battle on the beach could end, but there were no cheers or celebrations.

The damage the demons had done was everywhere.

Scorch-marks, blood, debris and the broken bodies of both defender and demon littered the beach. Defenders groaned, some wept, clutching deep wounds, while others were…too still.

Too silent.

“Lady von Anmut! Svenia!” Hogarth cried.

He began pressing a cloth to Isolde’s back while medical staff were heading in their direction. Svenia’s mood was solemn as she clutched a wound on her side from a demon's scythe claw. Her chainmail saved her life, but the injury had meant she could only keep fighting with one hand, and the flying demons had used the advantage to surge around Isolde, claw through her defensive spells, and tear into her back. The cloth that Hogarth pressed against her back was starting to drip.

“I am alright,” Isolde insisted. “I am fine.”

“Like hell you are,” Thundar said, joining Hogarth with a strip of cloth that he’d torn off his tunic to help stem the bleeding. Khalik was going to Svenia, while Theresa and Brutus ran to Alex.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “Your arm…”

“It probably looks worse than it is,” he grunted. His torn shirt sleeve was saturated with blood. A trio of healing wizards were on their way with their kits of potions, salves and dressings.

“All things considered, we got off light.”

All around them, people who’d been near Alex’s group seemed to have fared better than others in the camp. The cabal and their allies had been highly effective in mounting a strong offensive against the demons. Since they’d had a lot of practice fighting monsters, they knew to take the fight to them which helped keep a lot of people near them safer. Plus, they had Claygon—who was almost an army on his own—on their side.

The same couldn’t be said for other areas of the beach.

A heart wrenching wail rose up from The Outcasts.

Their team surrounded a pair of figures—two of the centaur priests—were laying on the sand. One was barely moving, and both were covered in blood; one of their legs was resting at a strange angle, like it was shattered.

The third centaur had pressed his hands against his teammate’s wounds and was loudly praying to the four winds. His hands shone with healing divinity that bathed the wounded one in light.

But—even from his distance—Alex could see that the other fallen centaur was dead. His body had been ravaged.

A thundering, agonised cry tore through the camp, and Alex saw a panicking Tyris tending to Vesuvius’ face. Dozens of gashes marked the vulcanchelone’s armoured face, and the poor creature looked miserable.

Shiani, Rhea and Malcolm were carrying a weak Rayne to the closest group of medical staff. The skinny young man was bleeding from his forehead and torso.

Still, Alex would say he was one of the lucky ones.

Others on the beach looked like they’d tasted the full brunt of the demons’ rage.

He shuddered.

Now, he had two reasons to hunt down Burn-Saw: information and revenge.

But that was for later.

For now, he turned his attention back to the healing wizards working on his arm as they offered him a potion and continued cleaning his wound. All the while, worry ate away at him.

How were Selina and the Lus? What would he find in the stadium when he finally got there? He was almost too scared to find out. But he had to know, so for now, he prayed to The Traveller that Selina, Theresa’s parents, Sinope, Nua-Oge and their other friends were okay.

Back in the stadium, Amir stumbled around in a daze, almost in shock at the scene before him.

The aftermath of the attack was visible everywhere, and pained cries hit him from all sides. He wrapped his arms around himself, thankful that there were less dead and wounded than he’d feared there would be.

Far less.

It looked like The Watchers had done their work, slaying demons with sword and spell and suppressing their numbers.

But also…

Amir gagged.

A blue figure stood atop a hill of dead demons that looked like they'd been through the grinder in a butcher shop. Those audience members who weren’t too squeamish watched Hobb’s horned form atop his kills like a conqueror. The registrar’s fine clothes had not a single drop of demon blood on them, and the ancient devil was flicking his hand: with every flick of his wrist, an invisible force swept demon corpses into an empty point in space.

They vanished like they’d never been there.

Amir looked up into the seats, searching for any sign of Donovan, Ursula or anyone else. He didn’t see anyone he was looking for anywhere.

So much destruction, and things could have been much worse.

“Leopold, what have you done this time?” he whispered. “After all I-”

“The demon summoner has been captured!”

Amir startled, looking up at a Watcher, who was swelling their voice with magic until it filled the stadium: “I repeat, the demon summoner has been captured!”

A roar of relief and anger swept through the stadium.

It was all that Amir could do to hold himself upright. The graduate student’s mind whirled with terrible possibilities. Would Leopold be tortured? Executed? Banished to some demon realm?

Amir began to shake at the thought. He was his friend and a man he owed his life to! He couldn’t just…he had to…

“Do what, Amir?” he whispered out loud. “Go try and fight The Watchers, the chancellor, the entire city? …it’s done. It’s all done.”

Without another look back, Amir decided to get away from the stadium, looking to put distance between himself and what had happened there. Crossing campus at a brisk walk, he reached his apartment in the eastern insula without anyone speaking to him, even though he’d expected to be stopped…and arrested.

Closing the door—the soft click of the lock was usually comforting, but today, it locked with the finality of a jail door—he began quickly stuffing a bag with clothes, coin and his most precious belongings: his favourite textbooks, a few alchemical projects he’d been working through on his own time, and the silk robe his proud parents had sent him when he’d been accepted into graduate studies.

It had been expensive, and his family wasn’t the wealthiest.

He looked at the blue silk for a long time before finally stuffing it into the bag. What would they say? What would they do when he walked through the front gate of their courtyard, covered in road-dust, sand and shame. Trying to push everything from his mind, he took one final look around the apartment, then shut the door.

Campus was quiet as he made his way toward the gate, though with every step, he almost wanted someone to call out to him. To stop him.

For what would be the last time, he passed by the library, the main castle, and The Cells. He kept walking until the front gates stood tall before him. Pausing, he let his eyes trace each and every contour of their design before he finally stepped through them, and into the city.

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t.

If he did, he knew he would break down like a child. Instead, he kept his eyes down as the news spread through the streets around him.

“The demon summoner’s been caught!” someone cried.

“I’d like to give that bastard what’s coming to him!” another shouted.

Folk cheered.

Amir’s panic and shame grew, but he tried to push them from his mind.

He needed a plan if he was going to make it two steps from Generasi.

“I just have to reach the port,” he said quietly. “Leopold’s not the type to crack, so I should have time to…no no, that’s foolish. They could come for me while I’m sitting on a ship that’s waiting to leave. No, I should head south overland. Maybe even cut through a part of The Barrens.”

The more he thought about it, the better the idea seemed to him.

“Yes, that’s it. I’ll go south and stick to the deep parts of the wilderness. Maybe I could even summon something to fly me across the southern Prinean. And then…and then…”

Slowly, the former graduate student came to a stop.

All around him people continued cheering…his mind flashed back to those still forms in the stadium. Every single second of his silence had caused those deaths and wounds. All that suffering.

A silence that had been bought by a life-debt, loyalty to his friend, and a desperate hope that he could convince someone he cared about deeply to step off a path of destruction before it was too late.

But, now it was.

It was several stages beyond ‘too late’.

He looked down the street for a long moment. A part of him screamed to keep moving and get out of the city before someone thought to question him. Even if Leopold didn’t crack, it wouldn’t take a genius long to figure out how the demon summoner had information from inside the expedition team.

He needed to go…

Shame gnawed at him.

He needed to…he needed to…

His hands trembled. His entire body trembled.

After a long pause, Amir started moving again.

But not toward the southern gate. Not toward the port, either. He didn’t stop walking until at last the squat form of an investigator’s station loomed ahead.

Before he could lose his nerve, he kept walking toward the gates—flanked by its iron golems—until an officer stepped out and held up a hand.

“Afternoon, sir, can’t let you go any further unless you state your business,” the man said.

Amir’s voice trembled. “I’m here to report a crime.”

“I see. Whose crime, then?”

The man who once protected the demon summoner bit the inside of his cheek and looked up at the officer.

“Mine,” was all he said.