Chapter 55 – Old Debts

Johann shouted a command into his ring as he uncorked his vial of Corrupted Essence. “Narzoz! Help me neutralize their patterns, now!”

Narzoz obeyed, guiding Johann’s weaving so confidently that it almost appeared as if the demon himself were steering Johann’s hands.

Visible only to Valentina through the Sight, he formed from the Corrupted Essence a flawless yet geometrically unsettling pattern of terrifying elegance, which the demon fed into him and which, in the geometrically inverted logic of demonic weaving, worked much closer to the Grundgestalt than regular Essence Weaving.

It surpassed Valentina’s ability to weave at this level and certainly even Johann’s extraordinary skill as well. It was like Johann himself served, in a sense, only as a channel for the demon.

The blossoming effect of the demonic pattern engulfed Faustus’s patterns, then her own, and finally Innogen’s small Ard barriers, burning them away and passing through them like a bolt of lightning through rotten branches.

Valentina would have believed everything was lost at that moment, had it not been for Vyxara’s cold smugness.

Finally the effect of Johann’s demonic pattern reached the walls, dissolving even the protective patterns Valentina had woven there months ago. At least the normal ones. The demonic patterns she had placed there with Vyxara’s help and whose inverted geometry was meant to conceal her secret activities from the outside world, did not dissolve though.

Quite on the contrary.

The demonic pattern designed by Narzoz and woven by Johann with Narzoz’s help, and the demonic patterns designed by Vyxara and woven by Valentina with Vyxara’s help, were on the same side of the same symmetry, in the same orientation.

And between patterns with the same orientation, the pattern Narzoz had fed to Johann apparently produced resonance instead, as Valentina saw through the Sight before she fully understood what was actually happening.

The catastrophe unfolded in a fraction of a moment. The demonic wall patterns vibrated with violent oscillations and instantly threw back the entire energy of Narzoz’s powerful breaker pattern, which had been charged with almost an entire vial of Corrupted Essence.

Johann’s eyes widened in astonishment as his pattern became unstable under the overload, collapsed, and the entire effect of the pattern, which was still connected to his hands, poured into him like a tidal wave and ate through his body.

He couldn’t even scream anymore.

He slammed face-down onto the floorboards and convulsed in violent spasms that were a horror to behold, as if his own muscles and tendons were trying to fight their way out of his body. His fingers clawed so tightly into the wooden floorboards that he dug deep furrows into the wood with his bloody fingertips, and his boots pounded repeatedly against the floor while a gurgling rattle emerged from his throat.

It took an agonizingly long time. Valentina, Faustus, and Innogen held their breath, motionless.

Finally, the twitching grew weaker. A final tremor ran through his body, and then Johann Georg Bombastian von Agrippin lay stiff on the floor of Valentina’s study.

No one said a word. Only in Valentina’s head Vyxara spoke up.

“Narzoz delivered to Johann exactly what he ordered.”

“Wasn’t that a violation?” Valentina thought. “Of the binding rules?”

“No. Narzoz didn’t harm Johann himself. The fatal outcome was an interaction with the environment, and the demon simply chose not to warn his master beforehand. The bond demands obedience, truth, and not to inflict harm, but it does not demand care or benevolence.”

Valentina closed her eyes. So that had been Vyxara’s plan.

“I couldn’t be sure it would work,” said Vyxara with a weariness unusual for the demon. “But it was the best chance we had. And I was certain the demon would take it.”

Valentina opened her eyes again, at least as best she could with all the swelling, and looked around.

The room looked as if a storm had raged through it. The large bookshelf was probably only good for firewood now, and scattered furniture and destroyed, smoldering books lay everywhere.

On the wall opposite the window, the surface was charred pitch black over an area of about five feet in diameter, right where the demonic patterns had been and had reacted so violently with Johann’s demonic pattern.

Innogen was still sitting in the corner behind the desk, exactly where Valentina had pushed her. She had her back against the wall, her injured left hand pressed against her chest, and in her right hand she was still clutching the vial of Distilled Essence, which was almost empty, and she was trembling all over.

Valentina dropped to her knees beside her, wrapped her arms around her, and pulled her close. Innogen dropped the vial and reached with her uninjured hand into Valentina’s cloak, clinging tightly to her.

Innogen’s heart was pounding against Valentina’s chest, far too fast, and Innogen’s tears were wetting her neck, but she was crying too, while the blood from her eyebrow dripped into Innogen’s hair.

“Valentina.” Vyxara’s voice was firm. “I’m just as glad as you are that nothing worse happened to her, and you have a lot to talk about, but you have to deal with the situation.”

Valentina didn’t pull away immediately but allowed herself a few more defiant breaths to feel the living Innogen in her arms instead before she lifted her head and looked over at Faustus.

He was literally hanging in the doorframe, breathing heavily, still holding the Eye of Deceit in his hand. He had a nasty cut on his arm and an ugly, already slightly blistered burn. His tattered cloak was even still smoldering slightly at the shoulder.

Faustus dragged himself forward and nudged Johann’s corpse with his foot. When there was no reaction, he turned the body over with his foot. Johann’s expensive burgundy doublet was scorched, his fingertips were bloody from the wood he had dug into in his death throes, and his face was frozen into a hideous grimace.

“What shall we do with him?” Faustus finally asked. His voice was dry as dust.

Valentina wiped the blood from her eye and sat up. Her body protested at every movement, the back of her head throbbed dully, her eye was so swollen that she could see only through a narrow slit, her lip burned, and she was still dizzy. But it was no use. She couldn’t break down now. Not with a visiting scholar from Othal lying on the floor of her study, who was as famous as he was dead now.

She could think about everything else later. For example, what on earth Faustus was doing here and how he’d gotten his hands on the Eye.

“The body has to disappear,” Vyxara agreed. “And preferably back to his own house.”

“Faustus,” said Valentina, and after a brief clearing of her throat, her voice sounded surprisingly calm. “Can you take him back to his house? He lives on Midriver Row in the three-story house with the red door. The key is in the pocket of his doublet.”

Faustus eyed her, and a faint smile flitted across his gaunt face. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done in the past year.”

Valentina didn’t react to that. “If they find him there, they’ll see a dead scholar from the continent with a demonic artifact on his finger and whatever forbidden writings he has in his secured study. I’d bet anything he’s got plenty of forbidden stuff in there.”

“Hmm, yeah, the story practically writes itself,” Faustus confirmed with a cynical undertone. “The Illumination loves stories like that.”

“His secure rooms are on the first floor,” Valentina added. “If he has records there that mention my name…”

Faustus shook his head. “I can try to get in there, but with a guy like him, I don’t expect to be able to bypass his security patterns that easily. Certainly not in one night, and probably not in ten.”

Valentina nodded. Faustus was right. “Then we’ll just have to hope he didn’t write any of it down.”

“I mean, I could start a fire…” Faustus offered, raising his eyebrows.

Valentina just shook her head. “Are you crazy? We don’t know how that would interact with his patterns and it could set the whole block on fire.”

He shrugged. “It was just an offer.”

Valentina turned to Innogen, who had been listening to the conversation with noticeably growing unease.

“Innogen, I promise I’ll explain everything to you, but first I need to take proper care of your hand and get you into bed so you can rest. Everything else will have to wait until tomorrow.”

There was a slight twitch in the corner of Innogen’s mouth. “Everything, yes?”

“Everything I can explain to you.” Valentina swallowed. “I swear.”

Innogen looked at her with her gentle blue eyes, which were now red and puffy, and she looked exhausted and afraid, but in her gaze lay also her stubborn love for Valentina and she had never felt more ashamed of keeping all those secrets from her.

“All right,” Innogen said softly. “But tomorrow, Val.”

“Tomorrow. I promise. I’ll take care of Faustus first, and then I’ll be all yours while he… gets rid of the body.”

Valentina turned to Faustus. “Let me look at your arm.”

He sat down with a heavy groan on the one chair that was still intact and wordlessly held out his bleeding arm to her. Valentina pushed back his torn sleeve, shook out the last bit of Distilled Essence, and wove a Leb pattern over the open wound.

The cut was bleeding, but it wasn’t deep enough to have severed any tendons or caused any other serious damage. The Leb pattern drew the edges of the wound together and stopped the bleeding. Before attending to his burn, she rummaged through her destroyed shelf for an undamaged vial of Distilled Essence.

The burn was probably very painful, like most burns, but essentially nothing serious. As she first cooled the burn with a Luvt pattern and then wove Leb into it to initiate healing at the same time, Faustus sat there watching her with some fascination.

“You really are as good at healing as everyone says,” he murmured, without looking her in the eyes.

“Just stay still.”

She was aware that she was still naked under the cloak and that the cloak kept opening as she worked, but she didn’t care. Faustus had already seen everything anyway, back at Violet Delights, and feeling shame seemed to her, after what they had just been through, such a ridiculous triviality that Valentina didn’t even want to think about it.

Nevertheless, when she was finished patching him up, she stood up without a word, hurried upstairs to the bedroom, where she threw off the cloak, hastily slipped on a simple dress, and grabbed two woolen blankets before going back downstairs.

She gave one of the blankets to Innogen, who gratefully took it, and spread the other out next to Johann, beginning to roll him onto it. Faustus stood up and came over to help her.

Valentina cleared her throat. “It just occurred to me that there are still some of my clothes in his bedroom, and the table was set for two. You’ll have to get rid of those, too.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Faustus reached for Johann’s hand to turn him onto his side.

“Valentina, Narzoz is still in the ring.”

Valentina flinched. “Wait.”

Faustus pulled his hand back a bit.

Valentina activated the Sight and regretted it almost immediately. The demon’s compressed, seething malice was still pulsing sickeningly within the ring.

“Don’t touch it,” Valentina said.

Faustus looked at her questioningly.

“The demon is still inside it,” she said curtly.

Faustus’s hand jerked back as if he’d been burned, and he looked at the ring as if a snake had wrapped itself around Johann’s finger.

“Under no circumstances must the demon fall into the hands of the Illumination,” said Valentina. “They would try to interrogate or study it, and… that wouldn’t be good.”

“Indeed, Narzoz, for example, knows about us,” Vyxara added in her mind. “He sensed me in that room, and if he falls into the hands of the Illumination and they ask the right questions…”

Faustus nodded slowly. “And what do we do with the demon?”

Valentina carefully slipped the ring off Johann’s stiff finger. It took all her courage to touch the dead hand, and the ring was stuck; she had to pull and twist until it came loose. The demon’s raging fury was so close it made her feel sick. As quickly as she could, she placed the ring on the desk.

Then she sat up and stared at it, unsure of what to do.

She could destroy it, break the bond, and send the demon back to where it had come from.

Or she could keep it.