Without even thinking he whipped his potentia around himself like a cloak, a flexible shield. The released energies from the destroyed hexes billowed harmlessly about him, dirty smoke and spitting sparks. Bits and pieces of ruined doors bounced off his etheretic armor and tumbled to the black-and-white marble floor, some of them burning.
Stunned, he stared at the gaping holes in the wall that used to be three doorways, then carefully eased his tight grip on his potentia. Like a sword gliding back into an oiled scabbard it slid back inside him, out of sight.
“Gosh,” he said. “That was-different.”
And terrifying. Because he’d no idea what he was doing. Not consciously, anyway. Temper and desperation had combined in a single hammering heartbeat and suddenly he was smashing powerful hexes as easily as Reg snapped flies in mid-air.
Lional’s bedroom suite lay beyond the middle doorway. With a single word and a hand wave he banished the lingering smoke then marched through the empty doorway into the private parlor beyond. His earlier incant had lit every lamp and candle in here, too. Again, to his surprise, he found no overwrought opulence. Oh, there was a certain sumptuosity to the sitting room, silk curtains and velvet upholstery and plush carpets underfoot. Beneath the poisonous dark magics the air smelled sweet. There were fresh flowers in crystal vases. Ebony chairs and a low table inlaid with mother of pearl. No gilding. Rich forest green and midnight blue were the dominant colors-and crimson, too, splashed here and there like drops of blood from a wound.
No books of magic in here.
A single door in the back wall led out of the private parlor. Gerald tested it, but at last found no hex. So he took the door by its handle, twisted it, pushed-and walked into the room beyond just like an ordinary, everyday man.
And here was Lional’s bedroom, almost as austere as the rest of his apartments. Dull bronze walls, plush black carpet-and an enormous four-poster bed. Its drapings were bold crimson, as though Lional felt the need to sleep in blood. Tavistock cowered on the red velvet spread, topaz eyes slitted, fangs bared in a terrified snarl.
Gerald sighed. “Bugger.”
He stared at the lion and the lion stared back. On the nightstand on the right-hand side of the bed, a tower of ancient texts. The stench of unwholesome incantations was so oppressive he could practically taste the dark magics contained between their covers. The ether shivered with them, a subliminal note of evil on the very edge of sensation. He could feel his potentia shrivel like a garden slug sprinkled with salt.
And here’s me, come to take that evil into myself. Come to let it devour me alive…
Stranded on the bed, the lion rumbled in its throat.
“Poor old Tavistock,” he said, pity stirring for the cat he’d so carelessly sported with to further his own petty ambitions. “Doesn’t look like you’re having much fun.”
The lion rumbled again-agreement, or a warning of imminent attack?
“I’ve got some bad news for you,” he added, taking a prudent half-step back. “Lional’s found a new pet. I’m afraid you’re going to have to shift for yourself.”
Except-how could it? This was a lion, with an appetite to match. And with the palace deserted… nobody to feed the wretched thing… either it would starve to death or start eating people.
Oh, just what my conscience needs. A man-eating lion on the loose, courtesy of me.
“Tavistock,” he said. “I think it’s time for a change.”
The words of the transmog reversal incant were buried in his memory somewhere, courtesy of Reg. But he knew, without knowing precisely how he knew, that he didn’t need the words. Not any more. His potentia, woken to full life by the accident at Stuttley’s staff factory, bubbled inside him like a hot spring. He could feel it expanding within the confines of its mortal prison, his body, shimmering his blood and vibrating his bones. Every time he’d used it since arriving in New Ottosland, whether he meant to or not, in the strangest way it felt like he’d been feeding that power. Giving it what it needed to grow.
So that all he needed to do now was look at Tavistock and see the cat held captive within the lion. See Tavistock as he’d been before, on the audience chamber dais, in Lional’s lap, just a cat, just a fluffy cat, no more dangerous or disturbing than that…
“Tavistock,” he whispered, and held out his hand. “Go back now. Go back. Be a cat again.”
The thaumically-charged ether crackled. On Lional’s enormous bed Tavistock twitched, tail lashing, and lumbered to his feet. Threw back his vast, maned head and roared, saliva-slicked fangs dripping. Around him the air curdled, tinting bluish orange. Then a crack of sound and a flash of light. A thunderstorm roaring through the ether. Gerald grunted, an echoing tempest raging through his unquiet blood as his potentia obeyed his command.
“Reversato!”
Another flash of light and crack of sound and the lion was gone. Instead, a bemused cat sat blinking in the middle of Lional’s bed. Long marmalade coat wildly ruffled, whiskers bristling, eyes like saucers, Lional’s abandoned pet took one look around the room, let out a loud, indignant wail and bolted.
One word, that’s all it took, one word and a thought and I reversed a Level Twelve transmog. Who am I? What am I?
“Good luck, Tavistock,” he murmured. “And good riddance.”
Staring after the cat, he wondered if he could undo the dragon the same way. But no. Not with Lional linked to it by the Tantigliani sympathetico. His strength fed their bond beyond any easy breaking.
More’s the pity.
Now that it felt safe to move about Lional’s bedchamber he crossed to the nearest window and tugged its bronze silk curtain aside. Stared through the glittering glass at the palace gardens beyond, then up at the sky. Both were empty. No sign of Lional or his dragon. No sign of life at all. There were two more curtained windows and he looked through both of them, just to make sure. The third window afforded him a glimpse of the palace forecourt, where he’d left Shugat and Zazoor and the Kallarapi army.
They were gone. Holy man, sultan and every last camel. Vanished as though they’d never existed.
“And good riddance to you too,” he added, feeling bitter. Feeling betrayed. Idiot. “You’d only have ended up getting in my way.”
So. Lional and his dragon. If they weren’t hanging around the palace, where could they be? Off terrorizing the countryside some more? Probably. Lional did enjoy his little amusements. And he believed himself invulnerable, facing no kind of danger from the likes of Gerald Dunwoody. Which was bad luck for the countryside-but a stroke of good luck for him. It was a reprieve, of sorts. A mistake on Lional’s part. Perhaps the only one the mad king was likely to make.
Letting the curtain fall back across the window, he turned to stare again at the vast crimson bed. Towering on the nightstand, Lional’s stolen grimoires beckoned. Five-no, six ancient volumes. So many. So much evil. Palms sweaty, breathing uneven, his throat suddenly hot and tight, Gerald pushed through the bedroom’s still-thickened etheretic atmosphere until he was standing so close to those terrible books that all he had to do was uncrook his elbow and he’d be touching them.
Or they’d be touching him.
“I’d rather see you dead here and now-I’d rather kill you myself than see you-”
“Oh, Reg,” he whispered, the memory of her terror for him like acid in his veins. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a choice. You saw what Lional’s turned into. Whatever’s inside me won’t be enough.”
He cried out as his fingers closed on the first grimoire. Such a shock of latent power searing through him. A dark voice whispering, full of malice and glee. His knees had gone weak again, threatening to buckle. Still clutching the grimoire he sank to the edge of Lional’s bed. The feather mattress gave way beneath him with an almost-silent sigh. With a heart-thumping effort he forced his eyes open, made himself look down and read the title of the book in his sweaty, trembling hands. The damn thing was so heavy he had to rest it on his thighs.
Grummen’s Lexicon.
Of course. Start with the best.
The Lexicon was bound in brass and black leather, its title embossed on cover and spine in faded gold lettering. The rich binding was scarred with age. Wrinkled here and there. On the top right-hand corner, a single fingerprint, scorched scarlet. Holding his breath Gerald touched his own finger lightly to it, and heard in his mind the lingering echoes of a scream.
