It took some time for Emymu to recover, and Charlot despaired of the lost time, but it was all too fascinating to resist. At last, she lifted the mask from her face, and it drifted freely in the air where she'd left it, hovering just inches from her head. Now that he knew to look for it, he could see the echo of a human behind the otherworldly features.
"I am… I was a noblewoman of Yarlsbeth. An esteemed playwright, an actress of no small fame, and a scholar. Have you ever read The Triumph of the Verse, Poet Kings of Aran, or Stars Shine on Silver?" Emymu asked.
"None of them. The name Emymu is familiar, but I cannot remember where I heard it," Charlot admitted, though it seemed impolite. He was fairly certain the books she’d named were all musty works of proto-Aranic history. The subject put him to sleep faster than a full meal after a long day in the garden. He could not even begin to feign an understanding.
"Do you know the Moya of Yarlsbeth? A strong house, perhaps it still exists."
"Not in any significant capacity I am afraid," Charlot said delicately. He was certain it was going to be all bad news from here on out.
"Surely you must have heard of one of us. My father, Regial, a mathematician, discoverer of Heretical Sums and solver of the Nyene Equation? My Mother, Bospa of Leonne, biographer of Prince Trume?"
Charlot could only shake his head. He only distantly knew there had been a Prince Trume. Yarlee politics were an impossible snarled mess. He hadn't the faintest idea what a Heretical Sum was meant to be.
"All lost to time, I am afraid. Is there no one else?"
"That is everyone you could know. I had a younger sister as well, but she was not destined for anything much. Uthravine. I'm sure she is forgotten as well." The demon's head dipped low, the weight of time heavy on her head.
"Did you say Uthravine?" Charlot said with sudden interest. "Now there is a name I know! I was only just reading her epics! A fascinating tale."
"Epics? Uthravine? Impossible. She could barely be bothered to learn to read. To busy sleeping with any man who would look in her direction."
"That is most certainly Uthravine! The verse is perhaps regrettable in places, but the story… She led a revolt that pitted the three largest Wyrth islands against each other. Five thousand men perished! Relations between Urth'Wyrth and Horth'Wyrth have never been the same!"
The devil’s crimson eyes blinked three times. It was a lot to swallow.
"What became of her?" she asked.
Charlot could tell she was dying to know. He held a powerful bargaining chip, but he was too eager to tell the tale.
“She was betrayed on the eve of what was to be her grand victory! They gave her to the volcano. The Wyrth treated it as no more than another purge, but her scribe escaped with all three volumes of her epic and made it back to Yarlsbeth. That is where I read the name Emymu! You are the long-lost sister she set off for Wyrth to find!"
"She followed me to Wyrth? Gods, we were barely civil. I think we spoke all of ten words to each other the year before I set sail for Urth'Wyrth."
"She was quite devoted to finding you. The contacts she made on her search for you laid the groundwork for her revolt. Fascinating woman, a keen manipulator, and utterly ruthless."
"I misjudged her," Emymu said, and the mask sunk low to cover her face once more. It was strange to hear human regret in the devil's voice!
Charlot was struck by the way the mask responded to her emotions. The bond between woman and artifact was a very close one.
"She never would have found me. I myself sought Ytrios for nearly two years before I got in contact with him. It took terrible sacrifices to even get an introduction. Then, when I found him, he was nothing like I thought he would be."
"There is a name! The one who bound you here! Ytrios, tell me everything."
"Look upon him," the demon intoned, and the mask separated from her face and lifted above her head, and her form changed. The black form of the demon deepened into countless shades of gray, shrinking and contorting until she took on the shape of a man, with all the color bled out of him. The shadow man was terribly thin, his face skeletal, the eyes deeply sunken. He had a sharp, beaklike nose, and beneath it was a bristly black mustache that extended downward at either side of his lips. He had a short beard beneath his chin waxed to a point and a ring through his septum. An odd-looking one, just as Charlot had assumed.
"I AM YTRIOS! You will serve me, and only me! To disobey is to die! To hesitate is to suffer! When I speak, it is the law!" The demon spoke Wyrth in a man's voice, nasal and haughty. Charlot wondered if the man actually sounded like that or if it was colored by the demon's contempt. It was a perfectly insufferable voice.
The shadows swirled the forms of two women and a man knelt before the shade of Ytrios, pressing their foreheads against the ground. The scene was incredibly detailed. The demon had captured perfectly the fear in the eyes of the apprentices, the burning arrogance of Ytrios.
The shadows shifted, and there was Ytrios laying into one of the women with a whip, his eyes rolling upward with rapture. There was the man, turning on Ytrios with a knife and, a moment later, the apprentice's flesh was burning off his bones in shadowy flames. His death scream choked away as he burned, echoing off the walls of the cave.
Charlot could almost smell the flesh burning, the illusion incredible. The mask drifted back down and took on the form of Emymu again.
"Astounding! It's as if I stand right before them!" Charlot breathed.
"It is not only my memories that I can perform. I know all the great plays, and I have composed many more, caught in this prison. There is little else for me."
"Do Ravimax at the Gates!" Charlot asked, clapping his hands with an almost childish excitement.
Again, the mask rose above the devil, and the shadows deepened into the form of Ravimax, the glorious lance Tryhiminir at his side, the winged helm Gloriandree on his head. Long locks of shadow flowed from beneath the helm to the ornate spaulders of his impenetrable armor, Maliflueng.
"Let the skies rain poison! Let the earth split asunder and every horror crawl forth! Let the wind fling knives of ice and the sun spit fire upon us all the day long! Should the whole of the world turn against me, I would still stand upon this bulwark, defiant unto death! If the gods themselves took the field against, I still would not surrender!" Emymu proclaimed, in the bold voice of the ancient hero.
How perfectly she'd captured Ravimax! Not only the pride and defiance in his voice, but the fear beneath it, the acceptance of the certain doom they faced at the gates. Charlot felt his heart stir.
"Sublime! What a talent! I have seen the epic of Grimbalgon performed a dozen times, and I've never seen a finer Ravimax. Simply superb!" Charlot could not help but applaud, even though there were but two of them in the cavern.
"I was quite the actress in my time, perhaps the greatest on the lake. Certainly, there were none finer in Yarlsbeth.”
"Why did you go to Ytrios?"
"I sought power. I had everything, wealth, respect, fame, even beauty, if you can believe it now. Yet, I wanted more. I read of the Poet Kings of the Silver Strand, and I wished that I could call down the thunder with a verse. I read of Glim the Glorious, and I wanted to swim beneath the waves as a fish and soar above the clouds as an eagle."
"Heady thoughts," Charlot murmured.
"There was more, most of all I wanted the power to make my plays real. I could not stand the shortcomings of others performing my works! Flubbing lines, ad-libbing, failing to capture what I'd envisioned, it was maddening! To say nothing of the shortcomings of the stage. I saw my ideas so bright and gleaming turned hackneyed and tawdry. Even the finest actors, the most superb sets, all fell far short of my designs. Only illusion could do what I desired. A dozen wizards told me I was too old and refused to teach me. Ytrios alone promised me the power."
"They told you right," Charlot agreed, thinking of the boy he'd sent away.
"Bah! I am no ordinary woman, or so I thought. I thought the other mages greedy and secretive kooks, unwilling to share their power."
"I must protest this. Ytrios is a pretender. A true master would have never taken you on as a student. I do not doubt you are an exceptional woman, but there is a time for all things. The mind is mutable for only so long. To speak a language with an accent might betray your origin. To speak the art impurely might devour your entire being and loose horrors upon the Arc. If he offered to teach you, it was only as a means to ensnare you."
"This is what I learned. I thought I could buy magic from him with service and with wealth, but he wanted more, always more. He parceled the knowledge he gave me out like a miser and demanded from me more and more. First, my body, then, my mind, and at last, my very soul."
The shade quivered in the air, yet the mask hung perfectly still.
"He duped me into donning the Asyndagrim. He told me it would give me the power I sought. The mask's powers…they are immense! Before I donned it, I struggled to create the image of a mouse. With it, I could fill a stage, I could perform an epic on my lonesome! Every part! I could sing all the voices myself. You cannot imagine the exultation of being choir and cast all at once. I took to wearing the mask at all times, I never wanted to part with it. Even Ytrios cautioned me to moderate my use, but I never wanted to stop. I slept with the mask on, I never let it out of my sight, and when I began to change, I was too in love with the power to stop.
"So! The legends of the Shadow Theater of Wyrth are true!"
"A king's ransom for a pauper's seat, and they paid, oh, how they paid! I made Ytrios as rich as the king of Khemeria, yet still, he wanted more! Always more! And I could not leave him. He had me bound in a web of oaths and compulsions, he had my true name. As I changed, I needed him more and more. If the Wyrth ever suspected I was becoming a demon, the whole of the legion would have hunted me down and destroyed me. Urth'Wyrth is a jealous master. At last, it was too clear what I had become. Ytrios shut down the shadow theater. I had to hide from sight like a leper!
"Look upon me, I squandered it all! I sold myself into this! And he used me! He used me! He had my true name! I murdered his foes, left their houses in ruin, women, children, there was no act too black! I fed them to him! I fed the monster!"
Emymu's voice had become a terrible wail, roaring through the cavern, and her very substance rippled and twisted away from her, as if the shadow had begun to boil. Eyebrows arched with alarm, Charlot gripped Flaccaro tightly and waited for the storm to subside. It took a long while before her form was tranquil again.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"You were his tool, you say, yet here you are, sealed within the earth. Why did he imprison you?"
"I became too effective. He looked upon the devastation I wreaked, and he feared that I would slip his chains and take my revenge. He saw me gaining power at a pace that outstripped his own. It was only a matter of time. He hadn't the power to destroy the Asyndagrim, its strength is beyond him."
"Ah, the old story," Charlot mused.
"He built this prison and ordered me to enter it, and this is where I turned on him. I nearly had the power! I was a hair's length away from destroying him. I bit off his hand, I tore his flesh but, in the end, he had my true name. I could not overcome him. He sealed me in here and returned but once, nearly a year later to lay the sigil of death and seal the cave up. He'd taken a pact and wore a devil's hand in place of the one I devoured. Since then, there has been only darkness, waiting and prying."
"The Asyndagrim," Charlot invoked, pronouncing the word with great care, weighing the rightness of as though he were swishing a mouthful of wine. It was true, but incomplete, a faithful translation that could still not quite capture the essence. "How did Ytrios come by it?"
"I do not know," Emymu said, and Charlot gave the shade a hard look, then he decided not to pursue it yet.
"You see this ring? I discovered it in a field near the cave. How did it come to be near here? Ytrios made this."
"I do not know. I felt it tethered to the Yala, so I tried to steal its power from you. I assume it is some work of Ytrios."
"The ring was buried, and a woman's body was buried with it. Do you know who?"
"Oh…swallow the sun. It must have been Mina."
"Who was she?"
"Another of Ytrios' apprentices. We were lovers before I donned the mask. Perhaps she sought to free me. How did she die?"
"The ring consumed her. She died in flames."
"Just like Uthravine…"
"Yes, those who come to rescue you fare rather poorly," Charlot observed.
The shade quivered again and wept once more. Though she was a devil, bound in a pit beneath the earth, Charlot still could not help but wince at his own callousness. At least the tears were short-lived this time. The shade was spent.
"I have heard enough," Charlot proclaimed. "I shall seal up the cave. When I can, I shall return and investigate further."
"NO! Don't leave me here! Destroy me. You have my true name! Use it to unmake me! End my suffering!"
"It is not only your name that is required, but the mask’s true name, too. The two of you are so close as to be nearly one being. If I unmake you, you will linger within the mask. Clearly, Ytrios did not have the mask’s true name. Do you know it?"
"No," Emymu said, her voice heavy as lead.
"Then, you must wait. It will be only a short time compared to what has elapsed.
"Take me with you! I'll serve you, I'll swear any pact! Anything but this emptiness!"
"I have little use for a demon, I'm afraid,"
"I will do whatever you bid me! Whatever you desire, I will grant it! I will aid you in destroying Ytrios. I know his secrets, I know where he hides! I can murder your foes! I speak a dozen languages! My knowledge is vast, I know the history of the lake like no other! I know higher mathematics, medicine, botany.." She was nearly babbling and sounded very human in her despair.
"Did you say mathematics?"
"Yes!" Emymu said, her voice rising and desperate. "My father taught me all he knew! It comes to me as easy as a song. I can set your affairs in order, perform precise calculations. Whatever you desire, Master!"
Charlot's nose twitched, and he was sure the demon had not missed the motion. Master. How it tugged at his strings!
"Are you acquainted with the works of Mansilikis?" Charlot angled, wondering if perhaps this was the answer. What a stroke of fortune it would be.
"Mansilikis the Satirist? What has he to do with anything?"
"Satirist?"
"Yes, rich stuff, circular equations, impossible formulae. Whenever a student is too full of themselves, a lector would take them aside and give them his book, usually with an air of great secrecy. They'd bash their heads against it for months or even years before realizing it was all a jape."
"Oh, I see," Charlot said, and he could not help but lift a hand to his forehead and rub his temples with his thumb and pinky. He was sure Emymu's sly eyes had not missed that. He hoped at least she would be too cowed by his power to remark on it.
"Wait, were you gulled by Mansilikis? Aha…aha ha ha ha ha!" She was not.
"Silence!" Charlot barked, but the demon laughed on.
"Aha! You called me a fool, yet here you are, gulled by a gimmick meant to beguile first year scholars! Did you not wonder why none of the formulae would add up?"
"I am no mathematician!" Charlot shot, and he was sorely considering destroying the mask and this impertinent demon.
"This is obvious. What did you need to calculate?"
Charlot paused, deeply considering whether he ought to speak of his plans with this demon. It seemed unlikely anyone else would ever find her once he'd sealed up the entrance.
"I discovered a comet that passes close to the Arc once every twenty-seven years. I would like to pluck it from the sky and smash Urth'Wyrth with it."
Emymu blinked.
"Swallow the stars. I sit before a madman."
"Do you mean to wipe out the whole Arc? You know Jeraltycus' Theory of the Great Flood, the doom of the titans?"
"Yes, yes, I'm not a fool. Charlot's Comet is nowhere near as big as the one Jeraltycus envisioned, and I do not believe in his theory in any case. It does not match what I have found in the titan ruins.”
"Charlot's Comet? Yet, you discovered it. I have you in a lie. You are not Adon."
“What?” Charlot blinked, and he rubbed the back of his head. He had indeed lost track of his lie. "Yes, I suppose you have my name now. Curse it in the darkness all you like."
"I knew it for a lie the moment you uttered it. I knew Adon. You two look nothing alike, save a bit around the eyes. You both have a bit of Wick to you."
"You will have a bit less finger to you if you continue along those lines," Charlot hissed. The demon flinched.
"What became of Adon? Did he ever escape that book?"
"No! The old fool. How did you know about that?"
"Adon was one of the ones I sought first to learn the works of illusion. He not only refused but told me to avoid Ytrios at all costs. Adon scorned him by name. He even revealed his own form was an illusion to try and convince me. Would be that I had listened."
"That's rich, coming from Adon. He's blacker than a dozen of Ytrios and far more dangerous."
"I liked him. Perhaps there is sympathy between shades. Have you made up your mind to release me yet?"
"Of course not!"
"You wish to destroy Urth'Wyrth, and Ytrios from the sound of it. Yet, you could not destroy even Adon, trapped in his tome. You need my help."
"I am perfectly capable of destroying Adon, Urth'Wyrth, even the Arc itself should I choose!" Charlot roared. How dare this upstart devil question him?
"Forgive me, it only seems strange that you're out in the wilderness chasing after some urchin instead of splitting the Arc asunder, oh masterful Charlot the Archmage."
The demon took on his own image, yet it was a caricature. The bushy eyebrows had grown so long they hung over his eyes like a sheep dog. The distinguished nose was twice as big as it ought to be, and worst, his beard was tied in a bow! What an insult! Charlot gripped Flaccaro tightly. He drew a deep breath between clenched teeth, and then he had his composure back.
"Once, that gambit would have worked. There was a young man who would have shattered the circle to battle you for the insult alone, just as you intended."
Emymu dropped the caricature at once, hearing the tone of Charlot's voice.
"That young man would have destroyed you. Know that. You are very fortunate an old man stands before you."
"It is no fortune to be trapped beneath the earth for eternity. You've already made up your mind to leave me here."
"For now. I shall seal the exit, renew the bane. Yet, I will return once I have found my quarry. Then, perhaps we shall talk."
"Destroy me, then. Destroy me or I'll do it myself."
"You cannot destroy yourself within the ward. It's the most elementary part of a circle of holding. Merely wait. It might only be a day or two. I am close."
"No! It is now or never!" Emymu screamed, loud enough that Charlot's ears rang.
"What else can you do but wait?" he said, rubbing the back of his head.
"I can go mad. Years and years, an eternity I have dwelt in this darkness. All the while, I have struggled, fought to keep my mind intact. Daily, I hear the whispering of the Void, and daily, I push against it with all my strength. If you leave me here, I will give myself to her. I will go insane, and you can try and find another scholar willing to wipe out a city. Look me in the eye and see the truth of it."
"It may be true, it may be false. Either way, it has no purchase upon me. If you choose to destroy yourself, it is your own decision and no reflection on me. Now, if you are through grasping at straws…"
"Not straws but hairs. I have one last card to play, arcanist."
Emymu held up two dark fingers pressed together, and Charlot shrugged.
"I can see nothing from this distance."
"It is a hair of the one you pursue!"
"Worthless. I can find him without it. That could be anything! A rat's hair, or nothing at all! I certainly will not get close enough to see."
"It is the one you seek. He slept upon the sigil. You'll find no others."
"What color is it?"
"This I could not tell you, even if I stood before you as a full-blooded woman. I could never distinguish colors, even as a child."
"How extraordinarily unlikely. Colorblindness is a man's affliction."
"My eyes disagree. All my mortal life, the light of day was insufferable to me. The condition is called nystagmus. There is no cure."
Charlot nodded, certainly he'd come across this word at some point researching his own ailment.
"I believe you are telling the truth. I wonder if the Asyndagrim could produce colors if worn by someone who could perceive them? Or is it a thing of shadows alone?"
"I wouldn't recommend you don it to try. You can see the result," Emymu said, gesturing to herself with too long fingers.
"It's all quite fascinating…" Charlot trailed and, for a moment, he was shocked to find he was actually considering freeing a demon, merely because he found her interesting.
How badly he wanted to learn the secrets of the mask! And it was true, she could be a powerful ally. For a moment, he considered trying to pluck the hair away from her by sorcery, but as if she could read his mind, Emymu closed that hand into a tight fist. Charlot gave a nod of understanding.
"If you were set free of this place, what would your goal be?" Charlot asked.
"I want to die as a woman not as a shade. I wish to break the curse."
"That may not be possible. I know of only one other instance of another mortal who became a devil and found any kind of redemption at all."
"Who?"
"The Golden Juggernaut of the Rapaxoris was once a man. I know the beast who turned him, the kraken Nylacome. The squid hates him to this very day. After the fall of the Rapaxoris, the Juggernaut roamed the plaguelands, fighting bandits, slaying monsters, laboring for those too sick to survive, for he was impervious to all ill. He became a legend."
"What became of him?"
"Vanished into myth. Bound, or destroyed most likely. The authoritative tome is The Golden Tribulations of the Paladin Revel V Ramos by Winstock the Sage. It was his final work, he vanished while investigating rumors Ramos had passed into Amechee lands."
"So, he never undid the curse?"
"Never. This sort of transformation is rare, and in nearly all cases I've read, the victim is driven completely mad and succumbs to the most bestial nature of sïthur. Destruction is inevitable. Excepting in certain cases…"
Charlot paused. He had Emymu's full attention, and he spoke with exacting care.
"…where the one who is changed was a bit of a demon to begin with. Am I correct?"
Emymu lowered her head and shut her eyes.
"Yes," she said and, for an instant, her voice was nearly human, raw with despair.
"As I suspected."
"But I do… I want to change. This isn't merely a ploy. Well, of course, I can't help but try to gain freedom. But I truly desire redemption. Please, trust me."
Please, trust me, from the mouth of a devil!
"Will you trust me first? Release the hair to me without a fight. If it's truly a hair of the boy, I will know."
The demon drew her head back, her eyes alight with suspicion. It was the only card she had left to play.
"If I do will you release me?"
"If you do, I will negotiate with you. It may not even be the boy's hair."
"Whoever's hair it is, I am dangling from it, the abyss below me. I will trust you."
Emymu held out a palm, and this was a dicey time. To draw something from the circle was to create a rift. It was possible she might try to escape through it. But she was still as he worked the intricate spell to draw the hair through the circle of protection.
The effort to pull a single hair through the circle of protection was such that when he was through, his heart raced and his breath was short. But at last, he held the hair in his hand, it was white and curly.
It belonged to the boy. He looked at Emymu. Here was the point where he could double-cross her and seal her within forever. It was by far the safest, and wisest, choice. She even expected it. The sïthur let out a heavy sigh at his hesitation, thinking she'd gambled it all away for nothing. Charlot tucked the hair into a pocket and turned his eyes back to the demon.
"Let us deal," Charlot said at last.