At the Behest of the Dead (30 page)

**

I woke to nothing good. Voices, but they were far away.

“This one?” She sounded familiar
, but not in a way I was about to write home to mom about.

“That’s him. Excellent work.”

My head ached like someone had taken three or four ballpeen hammers and used my skull to practice bongo drums. I wanted to roll over, but a lassitude held me in thrall. I might as well have been tied to a flatbed truck and driven off a cliff for all I cared. The pounding didn’t let up, and after a while I realized it was my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I wanted to get up, see the world, talk about life, but I couldn’t even open one eye.

A voice spoke
, but it was in the background and the words were too hard to make out. They had a droning cadence--like Morse code--that thumped at my already throbbing head.

Open eyes! I ordered
, but they didn’t obey, bastards. Too bad I didn’t have a spell that could force my body to do my own bidding, which was usually reserved for simple things like nerve impulses. I tried to open my mouth, and even that didn’t respond.

I was left with one other sense, that of smell, and I wished to hell it didn’t work because the scents swirling around me meant one thing.

Demons.

Brimstone burns. Imagine you have a jalapeno and you pop it in half. Now scrape out the insides and jam them up your nose. Inhale. If you
survive this, you will have an inkling as to what brimstone smells like. When you think of brimstone I’m sure one thing goes through your mind, and that is the other element that’s normally found in close proximity. Fire.

Brimstone is just code for sulfur, at least up above. But it was also the bedrock that the cusp was supposedly made
of, so that could only mean one thing. I had made the one-way trip.

I wanted to howl in fury then scream in fear.

My left eye finally obeyed and became a slit, but I snapped it shut because all I got for my effort was the rest of the chili pepper, in my eye.

“
Gah!” I managed. No one made a witty comeback so that meant I was probably alone. Great, I would be able to recover, maybe with a few push-ups, a couple of woven together spells, or through constructing enough glyphs to get me out of my this predicament.

If my head didn’t hurt so much
, I would have laughed out loud at the thought.

I got both eyes open after what seemed an eternity. After another endless round of constant eye blinks
, I managed to keep them open for a few seconds. Just long enough to take in pillars. Huge ones, reaching to a ceiling that was so high it faded into mist. Black and red pentagrams and giant glyphs covered the walls. I choked back a gasp of wonder before sinking back to the blessed confines of sleep. My last thought as I drifted away was that my captor’s had lovely taste.

I couldn’t wait to kill them.

**

I woke again and my situation hadn’t improved very much. At least my head was no longer pounding. Now it was an ache that started at my forehead and wrapped around to my neck. My eyes opened and were burned again
, thanks to the sulfuric gas that made up what appeared to be the air in the room. My lungs woke up next with a tremendous round of coughing that would have doubled me over, had I been standing. I was instead secured, on my back, and unable to move any limbs.

The view of a massive cathedral with a domed ceiling
was clear and judging by the scale of the room, I was an ant in a valley.

I tried to make sense of some of the glyphs that danced up columns of obsidian
, but they didn’t resonate with me in the slightest. Some were so twisted and cruel I wondered at the insane mind that had come up with them.

The last thing I remembered was asking for Mike before being assaulted by a pair of apes at South of Heaven. I wondered which one had hit me. When I got back I wanted to take my time with him.

I didn’t have much, so self-bravado would have to do.

Something shuffled across the ground somewhere
near the direction of my feet. It was big, and when it moved so did the ground under me. I tried to look but all I saw was my chest. I moved my head to the side, finding only a black and slick floor.

Fire rolled over an open section just a hundred feet from my location, sending chunks of black rock tumbling down. Flares answered the obsidian and made me wish for a fire hose attached to an ocean.

If I wasn’t already sure of it, I now knew that I was indeed beyond the cusp and possibly in the first ward, and that meant that I was a dead man.

My arms were secured across my chest and my legs were equally immobile. I tried to move my feet and at least they flexed at the ankles. I still had on my dark robe and it did, in fact, look worse for wear. I wiggled around to test my bonds
, but I also wanted to check on the contents of my hidden pockets. I was disappointed to learn that there didn’t seem to be anything there.

“Look who is
awake,” an all too familiar voice said. It echoed around the large chamber, and though it was distorted by the acoustics I recognized the inflection.

“You’re not real.” I managed to gasp between parched lips. My tongue felt like a dry sponge. I had been on benders that didn’t leave me this parched the next day.

“Real enough. My theatrics were very entertaining. Tell me differently,” said Balkir.

“Your theatrics sucked. How are the hand wringing lessons going?”

A blow across my gut made me regret my words. Fire leapt across my mid-section and then continued to burn until I felt like someone was cutting into my stomach to view its contents. I gasped then let out a half-howl that was really pathetic considering how dry my mouth was.

“Care for some water?”

“Yes,” I replied, much more contrite.

Something warm trickled from above. It hit my mouth and had, surprise, a sulfuric flavor. Could have been warm piss for all I cared. My mouth dropped open and my parched tongue met
what might have been the best drink of my entire life.

“Let me tell you a story.”

“I hate stories,” I said before I could think about it, so I got another lash across the gut. This one crisscrossed the first and left me howling in agony.

“It’s an excellent story.”

I learned my lesson that time, although every fiber of my being wanted to whip out some of my self serving bravado and tell Balkir to go screw himself.

“Two
warlocks of equal skill were once left in charge of the guild. They were friends but had much different callings. The two got on wonderfully at the beginning, as is true of any friendship that goes bad. Have you ever lost a friend?”

“The one you killed.
Asshole,” I muttered the last word but he let it go. Well bully for me.

“You might not understand anyway. There are friendships that last days, some weeks. This one lasted centuries. One of the friends was entrusted with a great secret and even made a guardian. Well, that simply did not sit well with the other friend. Oh it was fine for a while
, but the one that was snubbed dwelt on it. His annoyance became anger and one night, months after the honor had passed to the other, he confronted his friend. Both had far too much to drink and they said things they would both regret, but the damage was done.

“We fought, with words at the first, then with power. We tested each other and it had an almost friendly feel
, but as we lashed at each other it became clear that we were no longer interested in being friends. I heard a phrase once, from one of my younger students.” He motioned upwards.

“He called you a pussy?”

“There’s that sense of humor again. Hold onto to that, please. I look forward to many more quips before this exceptionally long day is over. Do you know how long a day in the wards lasts?”

Balkir
finally came into view. I wished very bad things upon him but he looked no worse for wear. In fact, as far as maniacal warlocks with a wish for world domination went, he couldn’t have appeared nicer. For now.

“Nope.”

“An eternity. Night’s relief simply does not touch the realm of demons.”

Ah shit.

“As I was saying. The word I learned was ‘friendemy.’ A curious mixture of two words that quite succinctly equaled our relationship. For once we began to fight, all of our petty disagreements over the years came to a head. It grew more and more brutal as the hours wore on. The testing became outright power, and when it was all said and done, well, Salazar reminded me of why he was chosen and I was not. He was simply more powerful. But I learned a valuable lesson that day.”

“Don’t fuck with the necromancers?”

“Yes, yes! That’s the attitude.” He grinned from ear to ear as he loomed over me. “I learned that I had a long way to go in my studies and I took the lesson to heart. If we were to ever confront each other again, I would be the victor, and so it went. You see me now and Salazar is dust. Worse than dust. A demon roasts his soul.”

I wanted to rip his head off and toss his body into one of the convenient pools of lava. All
this … this bullshit was out of jealousy?

“You’re a real piece of shit, know that? You’re a spoiled child that couldn’t get his way so you dedicated your life to bringing down a great man.
For what? This? You get to hang out in the wards? That’s really brilliant, Balkir.” I didn’t bother to mention the multitude of ironies that went through my head. He’d sought demons and a way to control them. Well, this one-way trip was worth it to me. At least this asshole wasn’t ever returning to the other side.

“Do you approve of my raiment?” He swept his arms wide.

Blakir’s robe was white as a virgin’s thighs and shown brightly against the very dark room. Complicated blue patterns were worked into the hem and collar. I looked and looked, drawn to the patterns, until I understood what I was looking at. Glyphs, and a lot of them. They were so dense that they looked like nothing more than fancy trim, but I could almost feel the power pulsing from him. I had the strangest desire to reach out and seize it but magic didn’t work that way.

“It’s pretty.”

Balkir cocked his head to the side, bald pate with the pentagram like shape reflecting the heat from the lava pools. He looked down at his robe and fingered the embroidery. I half expected another blow but it didn’t come.

“I had not considered the robe of a
warlock to be pretty. Perhaps I can decorate it with your blood by the end of the night?”

“Works for me. That way I can haunt your ass for the rest of eternity.”

“You think very highly of yourself, of your powers, but you have very little. You know that, right? The lines are weak. Nothing like they were in the old days.”

“Great. Another ‘when I was young’ speech.”

“Hah. I also hated speeches along those lines when I was young. That was a long time ago. My father was a demon you know.”

“What?”

“Oh no. Not one of the demonic. He was a demon to alcohol. Mead mostly, but he was fond of striking me. The first time I summoned a real demon, unaware of what I was actually doing, it resulted in his death. It was violent, bloody, and foul. And I laughed. I howled just as he howled. I knew then that I was destined for greatness.”

Blah
blah blah. All this mad doctor shit was getting on my last nerve.

“Do you now why you are here?” h
e said after a moment of silence. I suppose he was waiting for his life story to move me in some way. All I really wanted to do was take a piss.

Feeling more awake than I had in the last few hours
, I managed to struggle a bit against my bonds. I lifted my head and looked around the room. I found Balkir to my right side. He had his hands clasped behind his back, head tilted up. He was muttering words, but I couldn’t make them out.

“Virgin sacrifice?” I wondered.

“You can do better than that.” He gestured.

A head appeared from a pool of molten lava. A single horn broke the surface
, then half of another as the head came into view. Red skin marred by black scars crossed its scalp. Slits where eyes should’ve been, and nothing where a nose might exist on a person. It was vaguely man shaped, if not exactly proportionate. The body was long, with the torso elongated and heavily muscled. It had a tiny waist then four legs, but one missing a foot, so it stood like a weird tripod. The demon’s flesh rippled and fumes rose from its skin. Its ponderous steps were labored as it brought itself near Balkir.

The old
warlock stepped to one side as the last drops of molten rock splattered on the obsidian surface. I don’t know how hard the rock was but it was scarred by the drippings. I didn’t stand a chance if one of them landed on me.

Smaller demons joined the first. They moved like liquid silver on many segmented legs. Skittering around the room
, they came in dozens, then by the hundreds.

I hoped
when they tore me to pieces it would be quick.