Chapter 24
The lashing horrors of the Dire assaulted his senses. Horrors which mortal minds were not meant to perceive or comprehend, battering against all bastions of sanity he fought to construct.
Nigel had traveled through the Dire many times in his sorcerous history.
But always on the back of a demon he commanded, wielding terrible skill and tremendous power.
Never dangling like a hooked fish on the end of a long, sinuous, scaly tail, fearful that any second he would be dashed off and sent careening into the chaotic Void.
Luna!
He clung to her name, willing himself to remember, even in the midst of cacophony and terror, his reason, his purpose.
Luna needed him. She needed him to somehow survive this.
To be more than the sum of his parts, to strive, to fight, to overcome impossible odds.
He would do it. For her, he would break himself in half, then break those halves in half.
Whatever it took, whatever sacrifice. He would reach her. He would save her.
Was that his own voice he heard, underneath the howling of chaos-entities? What was he doing . . . muttering prayers? Well, this was something new. Still, he supposed, even the most resolute heathen could be driven to piety through desperation. And he was nothing if not desperate.
The stink of the Dire seared his nostrils. The wails of demonic beings ripped at his ears. Raw heat and bitter cold by turns slashed across his skin, along with other sensations which had nothing to do with mortal perceptions, but were no less real, no less hideous.
Then, abruptly, a rip. A vertical slash in the fabric of reality, widening swiftly into a circular window, sparking with unknowable colors and weird darknesses.
Through it gushed the atmosphere of the mortal world.
The Dire Demon lurched to a halt on the edge of its reality, roaring in a strange, ululating voice.
With a shake of shoulders and massive, batlike wings, it tossed its rider through the portal to land hard on the waiting stone floor.
Then, abruptly, it turned its hideous face about, leering at Nigel.
For a terrible instant, Nigel felt the absolute vulnerability of his position.
If the demon chose, it could easily swallow him up right then and there, for he had no sigils to protect himself.
Instead, with a huffing sigh and a roll of all-too human eyes, the demon flicked its tail and sent Nigel flying through the portal as well.
He landed hard and skidded, half-convinced he’d broken multiple bones in the process.
His gas mask knocked partially askew, the filter giving an ominous crunch. That couldn’t be good.
The portal closed fast, zipping up reality in its wake. There was an almost violent POP of pressure in his ears, a burst of anti-light and weird colors. Then silence. Punctuated only by his own breathing.
Nigel pushed up onto his hands and knees, turning his head sharply just in time to see the cowled figure whom he’d followed rise to his feet and throw back his black hood.
The Dire-burnt visage of Lancelot Mortimer glared furiously down at him.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Grimm?” he snarled, though the ferocity of his voice could not disguise the fear gleaming in his eyes.
Mortimer, after all, had to know the Sovereign Troth was broken.
He must be suspicious of the fact that Nigel hadn’t used sorcery in the granary.
The balance of power between them was as yet unknown.
“You could have got us both devoured by the Dire with a stunt like that!”
Nigel didn’t answer. He pulled himself to his feet, watching how, even now, Mortimer’s hand twisted.
He knew what was coming, knew what his fellow sorcerer was about to try.
But he was helpless to prevent it. The next instant, a stream of his own lifeforce wrenched painfully from his body and soul, yanked into Mortimer’s grasp.
Nigel screamed at the shock of it, falling back to his knees.
“Interesting,” Mortimer said, toying with the lifeforce, pausing before performing the energy exchange.
He stared down at Nigel, calculations and conclusions rolling through his head, one after the other.
Suddenly, his one good eye brightened with understanding.
“Ah!” he said, his voice strangely high, on the edge of a cackle.
“You breathed in the severmist at the warehouse, didn’t you?
That Sovereign Troth made you vulnerable, and now . . . ah! Ah hahahah!”
He broke into wild laughter, throwing back his head.
His voice echoed against the stone walls around them.
Then, jerking his face forward again, Mortimer gleefully tossed the ball of stolen lifeforce from one hand to the other.
“You’re weak as a little first-year undergrad, aren’t you?
Forced to resort to cheap wardsman’s tricks!
” With a deft twist of his fingers, he performed the energy-exchange with one hand while the other began to draw a sigil.
Nigel had mere seconds in which to act.
He reached into his pocket. He had four more severmist bombs on him, and he yanked one out and threw it straight at Mortimer.
It whizzed past his Dire-burnt ear and struck the wall behind him, shattering even as Mortimer dragged Dire Matter from its fell dimension and shaped a bolt spell.
The severmist hit the atmosphere, and the spell disintegrated, little motes of anti-glitter dispersing uselessly.
Mortimer merely laughed again. With a twist of his hand, he dragged forth another line of lifeforce, straight from Nigel’s core.
There was nothing Nigel could do to prevent it.
He had no barriers, no defenses. He fell forward, landing on his forearms, his masked face inches from the floor.
Heavy breaths heaved with exaggerated roughness through the mask’s cracked filter.
“What did you think of my simulacrum?” Mortimer asked, prowling the perimeter of the circular chamber in which they had landed. “I picked up a few tricks from Jastira over the years, refining my technique. That simulacrum I left for the wardsmen certainly did the trick, did it not?”
Ah! Nigel thought, realization bursting through the pain in his head.
So that false Mortimer he’d seen being loaded into the wardsmen’s van wasn’t a Brute Boy disguised in enchanted face cream after all.
The SSSD surely would have seen through such a subterfuge.
But a highly-refined simulacrum wouldn’t set off the same sensors, might pass for the real thing for days on end.
Simulacrum sorcery was a deeply hidden secret of the Dark Sorcerer’s craft, after all.
“What gave it away?” Mortimer continued, pacing through the whorling severmist as though it did not bother him in the least. “I thought I’d managed your little Luna’s likeness rather well.
I even consulted with your idiot brother in how to make it more convincing, so where did I go wrong?
” He snorted then. “Asked and answered, I suppose.”
Nigel slipped his hand into his pocket, gripping another of the egg-shaped crystals.
He tried to whip it out, but Mortimer sent another bolt of Dire Matter hurtling, this time infusing it with enough power that it maintained structure, despite the severmist. Nigel lurched to the side, just managed to avoid a skewering.
It shattered on the floor in motes of anti-glitter which were immediately devoured by the hungry atmosphere.
Mortimer strode swiftly forward, covering the distance between them.
He grasped Nigel by the front of his shirt, dragging him onto his knees.
Nigel fought to get his feet under him, to stand against this much older man, but his body was weak after the lifeforce siphoning.
Mortimer backed him up, slamming him against the wall.
“Did you think your pathetic little wardsman’s gadgets would work on me?
” he snarled. “I am a true Master of the Dire! Such petty defenses are as nothing to me! But you . . . great sorcerer that you once were, you’re vulnerable now, aren’t you? That girl has been your ruin!”
He yanked the mask from Nigel’s face, tossing it over his shoulder.
Nigel caught his breath, knowing that to draw even one inhale of severmist would mean his death.
He fought weakly in Mortimer’s grasp, his strength utterly sapped.
Mortimer let go with one hand and began to manipulate essential modalities, drawing more lifeforce straight from Nigel’s soul.
Nigel sagged in his grasp, his body shuddering, his lungs begging for air.
“I always knew one day I would kill you,” Mortimer snarled, his devastated face hideous in the purple haze.
“I always knew one day I’d have my revenge.
But I always imagined a magnificent, sorcerous altercation, worthy of the reputation you once bore!
Where is the Grimshade Lord now? Where is the Great Sorcerer of the Age?
” He scoffed, spitting in Nigel’s face. “You’re nothing but a damned florist. Pathetic. ”
He opened his mouth, a great burst of manic laughter erupting from his lungs. And Nigel took the severmist bomb in his fingers and shoved it between his teeth.
Before Mortimer could react, Nigel smacked his palms hard against his cheeks on either side, shattering the crystal, sending a gout of purple poison straight down his throat.
Mortimer screamed. Shattered shards of crystal cut his lips and cheeks even as the poison filled him up from the inside out.
He released the lifeforce he’d begun drawing, and Nigel felt it return to his body in a rush.
It gave him just enough strength to break Mortimer’s hold on the front of his dressing gown and throw his opponent to the ground.
There Mortimer writhed and flailed, choking as purple grossness dripped from his mouth, his eyes, his ears.