“If it’s that dangerous, I should wish to set it loose on that damned Consulate meeting! And what was that boy doing at the head table?” Elcarei added, his brow furrowed in a scowl when Torven turned to eye him. “He’s no master of any guild, let alone anything higher! Not when the boy can’t even grow his own beard yet. That was a meeting of Guild Masters. It doesn’t make sense!”
Torven had no idea what the man was ranting about, and didn’t particularly care. He was tired from imbuing his considerable reserves into the spells embodied by those chalked runes, he still had the actual summoning and subsequent banishing to get through, and he was hungry.
“Pass me the chicken,” he ordered one of the novices. Careful not to touch the chalk marks, he accepted the cage and placed it at his feet, well within the blank circle enclosing him. It wouldn’t do to have a demon possess the body of a beast intended to be its sacrifice, and it definitely wouldn’t do to give the demon anything before a bargain had been struck.
Like mages, demons could be oathbound by their very own magics. One had to be very, very careful in the wording of binding a demon—the ultimate in law-sayers, in many ways—but once bound, the demon stayed bound until a condition occurred which either set it free or sent it home. Usually the correct phrasing included a way to force the demon back into its own proper Netherhell realm.
Most of the day had been spent in lecturing all the priests and novices who cared to listen in on what demons could be expected to be like and exactly how to word the oaths to bind them into service. In a few more minutes, he would be able to . . .
The archbishop snapped his fingers and pointed at the cage. “That chicken!”
Torven eyed the somewhat older man warily. “What about it?”
“I’ve heard that demons like receiving a sacrifice in exchange for their services,” Elcarei stated. “Does the size or the intelligence of the sacrifice matter?”
“Yes,” the Aian mage allowed, still wary. “The true demon-princes, the greatest of their kind, would demand daily living sacrifices of our fellow humans. They would also be nearly impossible to bind because the strength they would derive from daily blood sacrifice could allow them to weaken and snap their bonds. Not to mention it would turn every hand in this world against us.”
That made the archbishop scowl. He flicked his fingers, dismissing that idea. “No, not that! Not daily sacrifices. What size demon could we bind for draining with a single sacrifice? Because I have a target I would love to see drained and crushed into lifelessness. And if not by Mekha, who is gone, then by something equally sadistic, that I could then drain in turn, cushioning me from directly benefitting by the bastard boy’s death.”
If this man is that easily swayed by a bit of fooling from a lad half his age, then he’ll not last long as the leader of these men. Not without his Patriarch or his ex-God to back him up, Torven thought, eyeing the archbishop. The possibilities were many, but he settled on the long-term plan. I’d easily let him hang himself with his impetuousness . . . but not the rest of us, I think.
“We would be far better served in our ambitions to sacrifice that life to bind a demon as a proto-God than waste it just to eke out a little more magic for our own use,” he stated blandly.
Elcarei frowned in confusion. “Proto-God? You mean for us to worship a demon? I’m not about to go that far.”
“Nor would I, and not quite that far,” Torven soothed. Between his feet, the chicken in the cage clucked a little and tried pecking at the wicker bars. It didn’t get anything, neither freedom nor a bug, so it gave up trying. Torven, on the other hand, was not going to give up that easily. “A proto-God demon is one who makes a pact with humans to actually become a God, according to the rules of the inviting universe.
“Rather than focusing on a manifestation of group consciousness, we put our faith in a powerful being and elevate that being to Godhood. It takes far less energy—a great deal, but far less—to elevate a demon than it does to elevate a mortal,” the mage added dryly.
Elcarei quirked a brow. “Aren’t there laws against that? Laws of God and Man?”
“No outworlder may trick or otherwise falsely convince the mortals of this realm to worship and elevate them to Godhood,” Torven said. He smiled slightly, ignoring the softly clucking chicken. “But there is nothing against the rules if we, as fully informed mortals, agree to worship and elevate an outworlder—which technically includes demons—to a state of Godhood. The trick is to do it slowly, taking our time, and not rushing the process.”
A stern look covered the novices who were listening to his every word. Youth invariably equaled impetuousness, with rare exception, in his experience. A glance up from their crouched, note-scribbling forms showed the archbishop listening as well. “What’s to stop this elevated demon from reneging on its oaths once it’s a God?”
“A proto-God is bound by its oaths, even after attaining Godhood. The true control lies in the hands of the priesthood . . . because we would be draining the proto-God’s energy, same as in the previous plan. The proto-God would not have full access to all that incoming power.”
Elcarei narrowed his dark eyes. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then lifted it at Torven. “First, you have to prove you can bind, control, and siphon energy from a demon. Prove you know of what you speak, and I’ll see about having locator amulets made from any stray hairs on that impertinent boy’s coat and cap.”
Giving the older man a slight bow, Torven complied. “Of course. Students,” he asserted, recapturing their attention, “we now embark on the application of all the theory I gave you. At this point, I will carefully reassess all the runes I have marked onto the cell, double-check my own personal wards, and prepare the ‘offering’ to our incoming visitor.
“This will not be the weakest of demons, however,” he warned them. “No mere, dull-witted hellhound or poorly powered imp, but rather, one of higher intelligence. Preferably high enough to be able to tell me what I want to know.”
“And that is?” Elcarei asked, interrupting Torven’s speech.
Frowning briefly at the archbishop, Torven resumed his visual inspection of the runes. “One intelligent and connected enough to know what sort of greater beings are available in the particular Netherhell I will be breaching. Remember, it isn’t just any Netherhell we’re looking for. There are roughly a thousand of them within range of this universe; we want one where the residents will be amenable to our bargain, lawful and magical enough to be bound by oaths, and several more codicils,” he stated, pulling a rolled-up sheet of paper from his pouch. “All of which I outlined during our earlier lessons.
“Just like randomly catching the arm of a person in a city and asking them if they know of so-and-so, this will be a random summoning of a demon to find out if it knows of the kind of creature we seek to bind. If this first portal attempt will not suffice, then perhaps the next on the list will. And remember, do not use mirror-Gates to reach into any Netherhell,” Torven lectured sternly. “Demonic mages—and there are many—will detect and seize any such mirror. Once they do, they will use it to widen the frame and create a hole in the Veil between worlds that will be large enough for them to invade, which is something none of us want them to do.”
“That would be bad, yes,” Elcarei agreed dryly. “But doesn’t a frameless Portal use most of a mage’s strength?”
“A personally crafted Portal, built upon nothing but the aether itself, takes more than twelve times as much energy, yes, but it has the distinct advantage of collapsing like a popped soap bubble if anyone outside the crafting mage tries to seize control of it, never mind force it wider,” the Aian mage pointed out. “Weak mages cannot summon demons—or disappointed peasants who are of little use beyond crafting ice in the summer months would have long since torn this world to shreds in petty attempts at vengeance for the poor lot they drew in life.