Page 7 of The Malevolent Seven

I shook my head. ‘You’ll remember what you saw in this tent, but should anyone ever ask, or should you try to speak of it– or even if someone uses magic to pull the memories from your mind– you’ll suddenly remember it differently.’

‘And what will we remember, should that occur?’ Galass asked.

I wondered if she knew how prescient that question was. Implanting false memories is tricky. I’d have to imagine a series of events between us that people like Ascendent Lucien would find believable, and that wassomething I very muchdidn’twant to imagine. ‘You’ll remember me as a cruel– though not excessively so– user of your bodies and tormentor of your psyches. You’ll recall me being arrogant, mean-spirited and, in the end, dismissive.’

‘That’s no different than any other night,’ Fidick said, with a faint smile.

How the kid could live the life he did and joke about it, I had no idea.

‘We accept the bargain,’ Galass said. ‘But I must warn you, Silord, that not magical trickery will prevent me remembering every detail exactly as it occurred. I’m not so easily glamoured as some you may have met in the past.’

Everyone says that. Even me.

‘Nonetheless,’ she went on, ‘you have my oath that I will never repeat anything that takes place inside the walls of this tent.’

‘Your oath?’ I asked.

I guess my tone was off.

‘Yes,my oath. Is the oath of a sublime a matter of amusement to you?’

‘The only thing I find funny about you is that you seem to think I value one person’s oath over another’s.’ I handed each of them their coins. ‘I’m going to cast the spell now. Are you ready?’

They looked at each other first, which I liked, then nodded.

The spell itself wasn’t complicated– it’s not even especially powerful. The mind doesn’t have ‘memories’ in the way we think of them,just fragments from which it reconstructs events after the fact. I watched the looks of all-too-familiar discomfort on Galass and Fidick’s faces as I fiddled with glowing black sigils in the air between us and pushed my unpleasant imaginings into their minds. If pressed, they’d remember this night as no different from just about any other.

The world is an awful place sometimes. Better people than me have failed to rise above its ways.

‘What now?’ Galass asked, holding on to the bed post for balance. ‘What are we about to witness that so damns you it must never be revealed?’

I went back to my chest, unspelled it again and took out a brazier and two small leather pouches, one dark blue, the other a faint pinkish hue. I returned to the centre of the tent, opened the darker pouch and poured the glinting azure sand into a three foot circle which I then surrounded by a larger, four foot circle. After making there were no gaps in either, I opened the second pouch and used the pale salmon-coloured sand within to create a thinner circle between the other two. ‘I’m going to summon a demon.’

They both gasped, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t sealed the tent to keep them from running away– but whether from fear of my retribution or some perverse sense of honour, neither of them fled.

‘A demon?’ Galass demanded. ‘The Ascendant called you a chance mage– isn’t that one whose spells are drawn from the Fortunal plane? Does this mean you’re really a servant of the Infernals who traffic in thrice-damned conjurations condemned by the Celestines themselves?’

I chuckled at that, which was cruel given how terrified the two of them looked. I wasn’t trying to be mean; I just find it funny the way regular people talk about the Infernals. ‘Don’t panic,’ I said as I prepared the summoning, ‘as demons go, he’s actually kind of a nice guy.’

Chapter 4

Everything Comes With a Price

Magic, like booze, comes in all different flavours. Amateurs talk about colours – black magic, white magic, grey magic. I once met a guy who insisted he only invoked turquoise magic,whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Really, though, what defines magic is not colour, but where the power comes from – or more specifically, where therulescome from.

All spells are, by definition, violations of the natural order: you want lightning to appear out of a clear sky? You’re messing with everything from temperature to humidity to the pressure of the air itself. Want a tree to grow faster? You have to start by screwing with the fundamental elements of life. The easiest way to do this isn’t by trying to force nature to conform with your will, but rather, to allow the physical laws of adifferentreality– say, one where freaky red and black lightning often appears out of a clear sky, or somewhere plants grow faster than they do here– to momentarily interfere with our world.

That’s magic.

The mechanics work differently depending on the particular form of spellcraft used to bring those rules into one’s present location, but whether it’s through incantations or charms or ritual desecrations, all spells rely on the same phenomenon: you have to trigger a breach between the Mortal plane and one more conducive to your needs.

Of course, that’s where the problems begin, because not all of those other planes of reality are uninhabited. Some are dominated by conscious entities with their own desires and plans, and without them, you can’t make their brand of magic work. Oh, and the vast majority of those metaphysical beings are not exactly nice people. That’s why magic, like booze, always comes at a price– and it’s never good for you in the long run.

‘Cade! How’s my favourite client?’ asked Tenebris cheerfully.

As demons went, my Infernal agent wasn’t a particularly imposing figure. He stood maybe five foot six when he wasn’t floating in the air. His skin was paler than mine, almost ivory, and textured like leather with a disturbing herringbone pattern to it. The fore horns sticking out from above his eyebrows were short, two inches long and spiralled like a goat’s. A second pair, curled like ram’s horns, came out on either side of his skull. I had the sense that among his kind, those ram’s horns were considered quite debonair, because I often caught him tracing a finger around one when he was bragging or excited. He was also something of a dandy, favouring long brocaded crimson coats that looked like silk but were probably made of the skin of the damned or something equally gruesome.

When Tenebris looked down at the floor and saw the three concentric rings of coloured sand surrounding him, he shook his head sadly. ‘Oh, Cade. This is the gratitude you show me after I got you this sweet gig?’ Gleaming red eyes glanced meaningfully around the tent. ‘I mean, look at the high life you’re living, buddy! Almost makes me wish I could cross over and hang out a while.’

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