Akhor, my heart said to me starkly. It is your soulgem. It is no longer part of you. That means only one thing. You are dead, Akhor. You are dead, and all your life before is dead with you.
The knowledge beat upon my brow, beat in my heart against the cadence of life. No! No! I live! I cried silently, gripping my soulgem with all my strength, feeling the facets dig into my flesh, sharp against my palm. I live!
Yes, I live. And Akhor is dead.
I knew in that moment mat both were true, and die knowledge was agony. I would rather have been struck through the heart by the sword of an enemy, for surely it would not have hurt as badly. Was I to lose all that I had been? Was I become human to be no more than human? A young man's body with a thousand years of life and memory trapped within, with the knowledge of half a lifetime full of things that none would ever care about. I knew where the best fish shoaled off the coast of an island that was dead or dying. I knew how to catch the early thermals, where they lingered latest on a winter's night, a hundred tricks of flying that Shikrar had taught me and a hundred more I had learned myself. I knew the joy of dancing on the wind at midsummer, of singing with all my people in a great chorus to shake the heavens with a voice that I no longer possessed. To fly with all my strength up to the High Air on a summer's day, to find that broad wave and ride it, to dive swift as a falling stone and sweep back up into clear air at the very last moment, the fierce and soaring joy of it—never again with my own wings.
Never again at all, Akhor. Varien. Changed One.
So much that I knew, so much I had known and lived through, all useless now, all vain, all lost to me forever. The knowledge pounded against my breast like waves crashing on a rocky shore. I had been the Lord of the Kantrishakrim, the King of my people, ever restless, ever searching, desiring only their good in all that I did. In a moment I had cast it all away, when I bound myself to the woman who had caught my heart. It was a great shame to me to admit that I felt such a profound regret but I could deny it no longer. I loved her still, I always would, deeply and truly, but I was forced to admit to the silence of that deep night that my love for her would ever be touched by what I had lost. She had not changed me into a human, that was the work of the Winds and the Lady and we might never know the reason for it—but if I had never met her, I would be the Lord of the Kantri still.
The young moon sent gentle rays to bathe my hands and to bring a passing gleam to my soulgem, so bright in life—I twisted it this way and that, trying desperately to catch the moonlight again, to bring even a single moment more of life from the depths of it, severed from me for all time—ah, my heart!
I knelt in the pale rays of the moon with my soulgem cradled in my hands and wept. For the first and last time, alone in the soft moonlight, I mourned in my deepest heart the passing of Khordeshkhistriakhor, he whom I had been for more than a thousand years. All before and behind me was darkness and I was terribly alone.
It is often thus. When sorrow takes us, when after bearing overwhelming burdens we feel that the last weariness is come upon our souls and we would leave this life, it is because the Winds are preparing us for the next step. There must always be death before there can be new life. The soul understands no other way. Without darkness there would be no dawn; without winter, spring would never come.
This is a truth, but it does not make the winter less cold or the agony of death any easier to bear.
Still, perhaps I would not have been lost so deep in despair had I known that outside the window, even as I wept, stood my future.
My second task was to my first as darkness is to shadow.
I assumed my robes of state, for this time I called no Rikti. Only one of the Lords of the Seven Hells would serve my purpose. As a Master of me Sixth Hell I could command Rakshasa of the first through the fifth circles, and could negotiate with any of the great demons up to and including the Lord of the Sixth Hell. The only human who had ever dealt with the Lord of the Seventh Hell was the Demonlord, and it cost him his name, his memory and his life, in that order.
The task I had set myself in this second summoning was to learn how to get rid of the Demonlord once I had summoned him, in case he proved troublesome. I had learned much over the years I had worked on this final problem, but it was clear that I would have to summon the Lord of the Fifth Hell to learn what I needed to know. That Lord is the greatest demon that I have certain power over.
And still they try to tempt me, the fools. The Rakshi whisper words of power even as I prepare: so great a mage as I am has no need of precautions, my power is such that with it alone I will prevail over the degraded race of the demons, protection is for the weak—hah! Pitiful, pitiful. The screaming of spiders! I am no fool to give in to such obvious flattery. Before I complete the summoning I must know how to overpower him. I must be able to dispel him if I tire of him, or when I require him no longer.Good, they have stopped. Annoying things. My robes of state, tied at the waist with knots that protect me, to bind the demons I summon to keep within their allotted places. Incense, thin and light that my mind would not become fogged as I concentrated.
I checked the scribed circles and the sigils at the seven points—all were undamaged. I lit fresh candles at the seven points, drew back my sleeves, lifted my arms in greeting and began the Invocation.
"I, Malior, Master of the Sixth Hell, do here make sacrifice of water and blood"—I broke open the sealed jug and poured the dark, dank liquid on to the glowing coals—"of lansip and living flesh, to summon to me the Lord of the Fifth Hell."
I threw two handfuls of lansip leaves on the coals, then swiftly before I could think about it I drew out my knife, sharp as a razor and smeared with a salve to kill pain, and cut a strip of flesh from my arm. Even as I threw it on the coals I sealed the cut with my power to stop the bleeding. The pain was intense, but it helped me focus. The incense was fogging my mind despite my precautions.
Not the incense, fool, the Rakshasa. Don't stop!
"I bind thee by knife and by blood, by lordship earned and sacrifices offered and taken," I said. There before me in the coals a face began to form. "O Lord of the Fifth Hell, I summon thee"—and here I spoke his name. It was a spell in and of itself. I dragged the long syllables out of my memory, forced them past my lips. As ever, the end of the name was the hardest. I could feel the pressure of the Raksha on my mouth, on my lungs, trying to get me to speak too fast or stumble over my words, or best of all to fall silent—but I was not a Master by chance. Such things are commonplace when dealing with demons. If I were not able to resist and repel such attacks I would have died long since. I finished the name and stood back, for on the instant I completed it there was a creature sitting in the coals.
It was sitting because there was not room enough for it to stand in the small room. I had seen this Raksha before and knew it to be full eight feet tall. However, sitting comfortably on the glowing coals, in a semblance of a normal human body, it was surprisingly restrained. "What is it now, Gedri?" it asked. It sounded bored.
I knew better than to even appear to relax. "Thou art bound, thou art sealed to my service until I release thee."
"Yes, yes, I know," it said coolly. "What do you want?"
I had never seen this behaviour. It was disorienting. I almost stumbled over the chant I kept repeating in my mind to keep it out of my thoughts.
At that slightest suggestion that I might falter it screamed so loud my ears rang, and it leapt at me, transformed in the act into a ravening monster, horned and fanged with eyes of flame, reaching for my face with talons the length of my arm, like every demon of a child's nightmare.