September 10 / Ofkillsan 19

  It was past midnight before Brantly could begin his true work. Most of the castle slept, and he only had to reroute his path twice to avoid cleaning slaves. There could not be even a hint of what he was about to do, and even most of his slaves would talk if put to the question.

  In the lowest depths of the castle, below even the dungeon, was a chamber that only a handful knew of, and those few were bound by magic circle to never reveal its location or even existence. They would literally stop breathing first. The room had been magically carved into the living rock by a long-dead ancestor, and only those with the blood of the barons of Gastap could open it. It was unadorned, roughly hewn out of the granite, illuminated with perpetual mage-light circles casting a gloomy light.

  If knowledge of this room ever reached the king, it would mean his death and the destruction of every person with a drop of his blood. Diemon had only been down here twice; when their grandfather had initiated them into the secret knowledge of the true power of the Gastap house and again when he acknowledged Brantly’s supremacy over him.

  The sacrifice was already waiting inside the lair, naked and chained into the first of three permanent magic circles carved deeply into the stone floor. Brantly noted in mild surprise that it was his brother’s bed-warmer from this morning.

  “Hello, sweet thing,” he purred. “It is a shame we meet again under these circumstances. I guess it cannot be helped.” With a casual flick of arwa, he activated the first stage of the circle. The spell pulled the girl into a rigid spread-eagle position.

  Casually, Brantly stripped and laid himself down on top of the girl. He kissed the terrified girl and powered up the second stage of the draining circle. He watched as her hair, such a beautiful crimson, turned white and her skin grew wrinkled and spotted with age. A low moan escaped her locked lips. In the space of fifteen minutes, she aged seventy-five years. He could feel her ahna being ripped from her body, and her life force violently torn from every cell in her body and transferred into his own.

  The corpse grew cold, and Brantly got up off of it. “Such a pity, but young girls in their prime are simply the best for stealing their life-force.” Now he had the energy to do what really needed to be done. Well, young boys would probably work just as well, but he had no desire to try.

  He stepped over to the third circle and used the excess ahna to activate it. This time, the baron was careful, even cautious about activating the circle. The center glowed a sickly green, and faint screams and groans filled the air. Generations ago, an ancestor had quietly traveled to another word, and managed to capture a few of its inhabitants. minataurs, they were called—used a very flexible, but less powerful magic system based on runes.

  He waited. Several minutes passed before the otherworldly beast materialized in the circle, temporarily freed from stasis. The being was no common construct, and Brantly suspected it was created by the God of Light, another species of created being on equal footing as the elves or dwarfs. In other words, fit only for the slave-collar but an order of magnitude more dangerous than a dog person or rabbit man. It stood eight feet tall, with a bull’s head, a man’s torso and arms, and goat’s legs. It’s arwa level, at least, supported his theory.

  The minataur’s horns, wickedly sharp, grew out from above his ears and curved forward. Even for another of its kind, this beast’s headbutt would be lethal. Blood-red eyes stared hatefully at him from above a great, tooth filled snout. It was naked save for a linen loincloth and a thick iron slave collar.

  “One of these days, human, you will make a mistake, and I will take great pleasure in making sure you take years to die.” The minataur’s voice was deep, almost too low to make out.

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  The cold, withering stare from its master soon forced the minataur to look away.

  “What?” the bull still resisted his yoke. “Do you finally want to try for your aunt?”

  “You would be destroyed by Brantle’s walls. I will not grant you such an easy, useless death. It seems I have a new cousin. You remember Arnulf? It seems he has fathered a child. I want you to destroy his entire line.” The minataur had eliminated the rest of those between him and Brantle in a series of creative ‘accidents’ that gave Brantly complete deniability.

  Asteros sat, folding his legs under his body. Within his space inside the magical prison, he began to write the runes of his world’s magical system with his fingers in the air. They glowed briefly before the beast. “It seems your task is more difficult than you imagine. Arnulf escaped to a world with almost no native magic. His seed still exists on that world too.”

  “They could be a threat. Even if we destroy Arnulf’s son here, Elspith could fetch one of his siblings and still block me. Can you get to that other world?”

  “You would do better to eliminate the immediate threat. The best plans are always the simplest.” Asteros warned.

  “You are my slave, not my advisor, bull. Can you do it or not?”

  “If I am freed from this cage, it would be child’s play.” he boasted.

  “Go there, and slaughter the child or children of Arnulf. Only after that will we turn on the one here. Remember, even if I free you, I still have your heart, and if I die, then it will wither away inside that unbreakable prison.”

  “I would confirm that my heart still lives.”

  “I expected nothing less.” Brantly stepped away from the circle and walked to the one in the center.

  At the second circle, he cast the magic again, and this time, a female minataur, holding a baby in her arms, appeared. “Asteros, my love! End it, stop committing evil for our sake!” She cried.

  “Phalaera!” Asteros groaned. “Phalaera! Endure it for our son’s sake. Endure. I will break these magical prisons and free us. I promise in the name of the White Bull.” Both began to weep, and Brantly quickly cut the connection to the female’s prison.

  “So, Asteros, do we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal.” Brantly altered the flow of magic running through the circle, and a gap appeared. The minataur stepped through. “I will need weapons, and the ritual dagger your ancestor stole from me. Also a blank slate, at least three feet tall and five feet wide. This will be a complicated spell even for me.”

  ~*** *** ***~

  September 11 / Ofkillsan 20

  Asteros stepped from the rift into sweltering heat. Runic magic made for a much smoother transition between worlds than the less-advanced circle magic of his enslaver. Not that Brantly’s brute-force method was ineffective, the minataur thought wryly to himself. Dark green plants and trees stood all around him, and the air was fetid with the smell of wet, rotting vegetation. The ground squelched under his feet. The minataur sniffed the air and shrugged. After a brief moment of orientation, he discovered his calculations had been off, and the seed of Arnulf was thousands of miles away. At least he could now tell that there were only two.

  It would be a long walk.

  Something was watching him. A large cat, orange with black spots and a short tail twitching in anticipation, crouched in the foliage about ten feet away. Asteros turned warily, hefting his long-handled axe. The beast was nearly as large as he was, and quite muscular. “Do not bother me, and I will leave you alone. You are not my prey.” he told it.

  Their eyes met, red to gold, and after a long moment, the cat slinked backward. Asteros relaxed and let the beast wander off into the jungle. He envied the beast its freedom, while he was bound to the will of an evil man, the seed of an evil family. If he succeeded, he further stained his pitch-dark soul with unforgivable crimes. If he died, his beloved mate and infant son would die a terrible wasting death.

  “Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.” he muttered to himself. “White Bull,” he prayed to his people’s god, “Please give me the strength to endure until I can free Phalaera. Condemn me if you must, but do not allow my sins to ensnare her or our son.” He’d murdered hundreds in the service of Gastap, what were a few more to his soul?

  He turned toward the tugging on his compulsion. North. North, toward two innocent souls.