“—to your refuge. Understood, Lord Duke.” Star seemed pleased. “The Imperial reference libraries for summonings, banishments, and field magic await load-out and transfer. The books and scrolls alone number in the thousands. The experimental equipment from the other laboratories that survived the structural collapse have been in storage and are being crated. We know they were the precursors to our imprisonment processes. By having your mages look through the materials, they should find a way to release us!”
“Exactly,” he said, and felt a little, a very little, relief. That was one problem out of the way.
“It shall be done today,” said Star. “The Record Keeper asks that I tell you that a Doll shall accompany the barge as well, to explain everything on the other side.”
“Good, good,” he said. And found a little appetite to eat.
“The Record Keeper reminds me that you asked about the source for magic power here, since the Imperial mages are discouraged from making pacts with Abyssal demons,” Star said after a very long pause while he revived his faint appetite. “The one below.”
Well, that killed his appetite again. But in a different way.
“I did,” he said. “But the Record Keeper never responded to me.”
“That is because the Record Keeper deemed it too dangerous. Too prone to discovery. But there is a brief window this morning, due to some unexpected demands upon the Imperial mages, when there will be no one but Dolls to note your passing. Would you still care to see this?” Star paused. “It is best seen, rather than explained.”
He shoved the tray aside and all but leapt up out of bed. “The sooner the better,” he said. “How should I dress? Just in case we run into someone unexpected.”
“This one will attend to that.” Star went to the wardrobe.
Soon he stood in front of the Portal, impatiently waiting for Star and the Record Keeper to gain access for them to this oh-so-mysterious place. Evidently not all Dolls were allowed access to it, which only made his curiosity itch the more.
Finally, Star signaled to him to hold up his bracelet to the Portal and say the words, “The Chamber of the Beast.”
The . . . Beast?
Too late now. He stepped through, into blazing red light and heat.
And realized immediately why the Record Keeper had been so reluctant to try to describe what was here.
Just to begin with, there was so much raw magic power in here that it almost scorched him until he shielded from it, and it took him longer than he liked to establish enough shielding that he was able to actually look at what he’d been brought to see.
Then, three more things had to be sorted through before he could make out anything.
The first was an ululating sound, but deep and sonorous, more felt than heard. He couldn’t figure out what it was, so finally he dismissed it to go on to the next thing standing between himself and understanding.
The second was the heat. Whatever was in the center of that room dumped heat like a young sun. In fact, it was probably the heat source that kept the entire Palace warm in the winter, provided the hot water for baths and the like, and provided cooking heat to boot. That was confirmed when he saw what could only be water-filled pipes lining all the walls of this chamber. Pumps powered by magic brought in cold water and took away hot water on a grand scale.
Then, the wards and spells guarding and binding what was in the center of the room created a kind of cage it was difficult to see through. Even with his physical eyes. There was so much power in here, with the spells that contained the mysterious object feeding on the power that the thing gave off, that, like in the cellars of Valdemar Manor, the spell-lines actually glowed physically.
So did the chained rune-plaques that surrounded it. He recognized what they were doing: they were binding something in place, but also hiding it, so that no one who was not physically in this room would be able to scry it, detect it, or see it in any manner.
Why?
But then he finally made it out.
And he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
“This makes no sense to me,” he said aloud. “What is this thing? It looks like a lump of rock.”
“It is an Earth Elemental, Lord Duke,” Star said patiently. “One of the Greater Earth Elementals, but a young one. It was lured into a trap, captured, and hidden here a hundred years ago or more. This is the source of all magic energy used in the Palace, and most of the magical energy used by the Imperial mages.”
No.
“That’s not possible,” he said flatly. “No Greater Elemental can be coerced into providing anything. You can bind it all you like, but it will never, ever give anything up.”
“The Lord Duke is correct,” Star admitted. “But it will emit magical energy if it is wounded. It must, in order to heal.”
It took a long moment for the enormity—and the horror—of that statement to sink in.
“You mean that you bound it here—and now you are deliberately wounding it—in order to siphon off the magic it uses to heal itself?” he said in a strangled voice.
“We are not,” Star corrected, forcefully. “Humans are. This is a rare moment when there are no humans in this chamber wounding it. They have wounded it enough, and now it is healing.”
That was the sound. That was what he was hearing. The poor, damned thing had been hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and finally left to heal.
And it was crying, moaning in pain, weeping because it knew this was only going to happen again once it healed. And of course, it could do nothing about that. It couldn’t stop itself from healing, any more than he could, if he’d been slashed all over, then bandaged and left to heal.
He had thought he had plumbed the depths of Imperial depravity.
He was beginning to think, now, that he never would.
“And this is a young creature?” he choked out.
“Something like a child. Yes,” said Star.
He wanted to be sick.
“Others of its kind seek it,” Star continued. “They have for some time. They roam beneath the earth of the Empire, hunting for it. They know that the Empire has it. But thanks to the magics surrounding it—those chains and rune-plaques—they cannot find it. The nearer they come, the more the distraction. You may have felt them, from time to time—when the earth trembles for a moment. And you have seen the ongoing damage they do as they seek for their young one, in the City. That is their reaction, their frustration. Always near enough to sense, never near enough to locate.”
“This is wrong,” he managed. “I would—rather see demon pacts.”
“No, my Lord Duke,” Star replied. “You most certainly would not.”