Thaumatology 12: Vengeance (25 page)

Ceri looked at the pleading look on the blue girl’s face. She was really afraid that she had overstepped the mark and might have affronted her Mistress. It was insane, but there was also no way she was going to persuade Hiffy that it was all alright, unless…

‘All right,’ Ceri said. She reached out and light sparkled around her fingers as she touched them to Hiffy’s forehead. ‘There, you’re punished.’

Hiffy blinked at her. ‘M-mistress?’

‘Until I leave tomorrow you won’t be able to come, no matter how much you try. You’ll just get more and more wound up.’ Hiffy’s eyes were growing into saucers. ‘And I
will
be expecting you to come back to my rooms on a regular basis to perform
all
your duties. When I leave, all that pent up frustration is going to come out… all at once.’

‘You… Mistress is punishing me with pleasure?’

‘Mistress doesn’t think you need to be punished,’ Ceri replied, ‘but you do, so this is what you get. In future, I hope you’ll remember that it’s
I
who decide who needs punishing and when.’

Hiffy cast her eyes downward. ‘Yes, Mistress,’ she said, her tone contrite. ‘I’ll go see about some refreshment before you start your studies again.’

‘Good girl.’

‘That was really mean,’ Lily said once Hiffy had scampered off. ‘Brilliant, but mean. I think she’ll figure out she’s a favourite and not be so unsure of herself after this.’

‘I hope so. I sort of enjoy her worrying over me, but not when it’s patently obvious I wasn’t displeased. And I know it wasn’t as obvious to her, but she needs to learn I’m
not
a demon.’

‘She’ll get there,’ Lily replied, the grin evident in her voice, ‘as long as she doesn’t explode before we leave.’

~~~

‘We need to come up with a way of insulating the terminal point from the water,’ Ed mused. ‘The resistance to the spread of the resulting field would be significant.’

There was a slight pause while Cheryl listened to Carter’s translation and then, ‘It’s worse than that. You’re going to get a thermal reaction from the absorption of thaumitons. By my calculations… you’re going to boil the water near the final pylon.’

A round of gasps went up from the Guandosh when they heard the translation of that one. ‘A little warmer might be welcome,’ Cagol said, ‘but we could not stand such extremes.’

‘What about your canal idea, Ceri,’ Cheryl suggested, ‘except more like… a tree.’

Ceri gave her a nod and said, in Devotik, ‘Cheryl reminds me of an idea Gwyn proposed, actually, to distribute energy to different areas of our domain.’ Demons did not really have countries, and while it made it sound like the humans were in charge of England, domain was as close as she could get. ‘We could branch off the main line into many locations around the city. You would not get such a large rise in thaumic level in one place, but you would not get the massive heating problem.’

She scribbled some notations up in the air and stared at them for a few seconds. Her eyes widened and she turned to look at Cheryl. Her boss’ eyes were getting slowly wider as well.

‘God but I love it when we’re on the same wavelength,’ Ceri said, grinning broadly.

‘Like the generator,’ Cheryl said, ‘but on a much grander scale.’

‘Bigger, but lower power. A standing wave within a circle of containment nodes.’

Ed bounced to his feet, beaming and peered at the equations. ‘It has been… centuries!’ he said. ‘Centuries since a student of mine taught me something new. And not just a student of mine.’ He turned his smile on Cheryl. ‘No talent for magic my enormous, tailed behind,’ he stated. ‘I have no idea why you can’t cast spells on Earth, my dear, but it’s not for lack of talent.’

Carter barked out a laugh while Cheryl went scarlet, and the Guandosh looked between the various Earth people wondering what was going on.

Aktik, of course, picked up on it first. ‘Is this describing some sort of… interference mechanism?’ he asked.

Ceri smiled at him, and then at the other demons. ‘You five are about to become the supervisors of the largest magical engineering project this world has ever seen.’

~~~

Ceri stood in the portal chamber, Lily on one side and a rather fidgety Hiffy on the other, as a stream of children walked through the gate from Nedarim. Ceri had dressed up for the occasion; she thought the kids would want the full show, so here she was in her witch-seductress outfit with her staff in hand.

There were twenty-three children in total, though a few were older and there to make sure that the younger ones behaved themselves. They all stood there with their mouths open until Brebbam came through, bringing up the rear, and Ceri closed the door.

‘All right,’ Ceri said, ‘welcome to the Castle of Bones, stronghold of the Overlord of All Demons. I am Ayasha, as I’m sure most of you remember.’ There were a lot of slow, awed, nods. ‘Good. Now, I have business to attend to, and you’ll all stand there like statues if I’m around, so Lilith and Hiffy are going to be giving you the tour. They both know all about the castle, so ask them
lots
of questions.’

A hand went up at the front and Ceri smiled indulgently. ‘Yes. Ooda?’

‘Lady Ayasha, will we get to see the dungeon?’

‘I am informed by my advisor that the
torture chamber
is perhaps the finest example of its kind in the realm, if a little lacking in the most modern of terrible devices for inflicting
horrific pain
upon naughty young det. You will be getting to see it, because any young demon should have a full education. Should you not be on your best behaviour, you will be able to see it in use. Are we clear?’

‘Yes, Lady Ayasha,’ the children chorused.

‘Ooda?’

‘Yes, Lady Ayasha?’

‘You will
not
do something naughty because you
want
to try out the torture machines. Ask Hiffy what I do to people who
think
they should be punished.’

Ooda tried not to pout and almost managed it. ‘Yes, Lady Ayasha.’

~~~

Ceri sprawled on one of the chairs in the magic room, watching as the Guandosh went over the equations and the methodology for using them with Ed and, via Carter, Cheryl. She felt tired, elated, and a little silly since she was still dressed in her witchy gown. It was all going so well. None of the problems the Guandosh had would affect transmission through her tunnel system, they could trial the Australian lines in the Demon Realm without trouble, and the result would be an improved lifestyle for an entire domain.

‘You seem happy, Lady,’ Brebbam said, appearing beside her.

‘I am,’ she replied, giving him a smile. ‘This…’ She waved her hand at the party of Guandosh. ‘This is kind of why I got into thaumatology.’

‘To improve things?’

‘Yes. Don’t get me wrong, I had selfish motives as well. I wanted to
know
. I wanted to know things other people didn’t. But I always hoped that what I learned would benefit people other than a few academics.’ She frowned. ‘The old Lord of Shilfaris, the one I killed, his father gave a speech once about how something Cheryl and I invented would be useful for something other than hurting people. He said it was why he’d got into his line of work, to make life better through magic and…’ There was no word for technology in Devotik. ‘Magic and mechanisms,’ she tried. ‘That’s not quite what he said, but it’s close enough.’

‘Mechanisms like the one you had Yeland build for you?’

‘A bit more complex, but yes.’

‘Yeland did as you suggested. He built a few of them, set them up so that if they registered more than three quot they would ring a bell. He sold a couple, but not too many. Still, he made enough to be happy. Then one of his customers returned and wanted to know if he could make a lot more. Seems he’d been on his way to Shilfaris when a Wild Storm came through.’

‘A Wild Storm?’

‘We get them now and again on the plains. Higher demons can usually see or feel them coming and take shelter. Det quite often think they’re nothing but rain until it’s too late. The rain is charged by the strong magic in the clouds. It’ll eat its way through just about anything given time. Gilfaskeel is the only thing that’ll stop it. Seems Yeland’s bell started pinging and the merchant pulled up his caravan and got everyone under cover, and not a minute too soon.’

‘So now Yeland’s rich?’

‘He likely will be, but he’s been bright enough to say that the Overlord herself told him how to build his little bell boxes. It made his customers trust them more, and he could up the price a bit. They could save many lives. Making life better through magic and mechanisms.’ He gave her a smile and a nod. ‘We could have had a much, much worse person pick up Gorefguhadget’s crown, Lady.’

‘Oh!’ one of the Guandosh burst out at that moment. His name was Qoda and he seemed to be the least senior of the five, and the least well- versed in magic. ‘I see it. It’s just like the vibrations and counter-vibrations in a Gunbotva horn!’

Ceri gave a frown. ‘Why is it always the musicians who get this first?’

April 23
^rd
.

The door of the magic room opened quite abruptly and Hiffy marched in with the look of someone trying very hard not to run. A crowd of children were standing on the landing behind her and she could see a few nervous looks on some of their faces.

Hiffy walked straight to where Ceri was sitting and bent down to whisper in her ear. ‘Mistress, there’s something outside you should see.’

‘We’re a little busy…’

‘Mistress…’ Ceri gave the blue det a frown; she did seem quite urgent. ‘I took the children up to the watchtower and there’s an army marching up to the front door.’

‘The alarms haven’t gone off.’

‘They aren’t attacking. They’re just… lining up in front of the lake. And I’m not sure what kind of demon they are. I’ve never seen anything quite like them.’

Ceri got to her feet. ‘Come in children,’ she said. ‘Brebbam, could you explain some of what we’re doing here to the children? I have to go out for a minute.’ She turned to Hiffy and added in a lower voice, ‘Find Lily and get the rest of the kids somewhere safe.’

With that, she walked to the door, past the throng of excited young det, picking up her staff on the way, and headed out to the landing. Walking off the ledge, she dropped down almost all the way, her skirts flapping around her. Right at that moment, decorum was the last thing on her mind. Arresting her fall and landing softly, she marched out toward the huge main doors of the castle.

If they were demons the crown would keep them in check, but the fact that they were not assaulting the castle, just waiting, had given Ceri’s curiosity a poke which it was not going to let her ignore. Thoughts about what curiosity did to cats came to mind as she asked the castle to open up and the vast slabs of rock which formed the gates swung aside as though they weighed nothing.

She could see them, two formations, each of five ranks by the looks of it, and each twenty demons across. Two hundred and one of them were standing there, the last a little taller than the others and in front of the troops. They were jet black, maybe seven feet in height. The reddish sunlight still managed to glint off skin which had a scaly quality, and the features seemed to be a sort of flattened reptilian. Aside from the height they looked a lot like the High Ones, the race Gorefguhadget had pretended to be when he sat upon the throne.

Ceri walked out into the sunlight, stopping a few yards from the leader and planting her staff on the ground beside her. As one, two hundred and one demons dropped to one knee and bowed their heads to her. Ceri blinked.

‘Lady Ayasha,’ the leader said, ‘Overlord of All Demons, Heir to the Iron Crown, the Dakishodet have returned to serve you.’

Ceri just looked at him, her eyes wide. Aside from anything else, he had been speaking Draconic.

~~~

His name was Naton, and he was the Captain of the Hands, apparently. He sat in a chair opposite Ceri in her reception room with his lieutenants, Aja and Pansh, standing on either side of him. Pansh was more heavily muscled than any of the Dakishodet Ceri had seen, and he led the Right Hand who were trained primarily in defence. Aja was a slim, wiry female who carried what seemed like an extraordinary abundance of sharp objects about her person. She led the Left Hand who were described as the offensive unit, but Ceri got the distinct impression that Aja was an assassin.

Naton was a little perplexed that Ceri had never heard of them. ‘The Dakishodet were
made
to be Lord Gorefguhadget’s personal guard,’ he explained. ‘In truth, none of us knew him, but we have been awaiting the return of his line to the throne for more generations than anyone can count.’

‘Uh… Prophecy or something?’ Ceri asked.

Naton gave a nod. ‘When he fell, the survivors of our people fled into the mountains, making a home far to the south. The land there is harsh, but that kept us strong. Still, once there were thousands of us. Now we are barely strong enough to do what we were bred for, but when we felt your rise to the throne we knew that we had to come.’