Will had never used one, but he had made sure to learn the technique, borrowing from the journals of Grim Talek’s Shimeran priests. A blood pact was simple enough, being similar to a regular spell, with a double rune construct, one for each participant. Blood from both of them would seal the deal, and if either violated the wording of the oath, the perpetrator would find their soul cut loose from their body, an instant death.

  Given Nalarin’s power and authority, it was rare for her to be asked to enter into such an agreement. “I should not need to lower mys—”

  Will cut her off, “You agree that my proposal is fair. If you won’t accept and take an oath with me, I can assure you that you will like my counteroffer even less.” His words dripped with venom. “I will allow you a minute to reconsider.”

  Nalarin’s hand made a fist, tightening over the hilt of a heavy flanged mace hanging at her side. Will’s shoulders tightened, and he wondered if he had pushed her too far. If so he would soon be in a life-or-death struggle he wasn’t certain he could win. The demon-lord’s hand relaxed. “Let us discuss the terms of this oath.”

  “How soon can you have the driktenspal?”

  “Four days.”

  “Then let us make the exchange five days hence. I will call again, but when you respond, instead of summoning, I will open a gate between us. Have the driktenspal with you, and my servants will bring it through to Hercynia.”

  “On nothing but an oath? How can I know you’ll fulfill your side of the bargain?” she complained.

  “I will remain with you in Hell,” explained Will. “In order for you to make the best use of this opportunity, I’m sure you will want to open the gate to Spela in a part of Hell that is convenient for your army. After my servants take the driktenspal, I will accompany you to that location. Once you are ready, I will signal the priests in Shimera.” Will summoned a vial of blood from his limnthal and held it up for Nalarin to see. “They already have a sample like this so they can find me.”

  The demoness considered it for a moment, then nodded. “I agree to the spirit of your idea, but now we must specify the words that will bind us.”

  They both spoke clearly, stating what their oath would be, and after a few minor changes, they agreed on the final wording. Each of them opened a cut and wrote out their part, using their own blood for ink, then they clasped hands and said the words while forming the rune constructs that would bind them.

  “I, William Cartwright, will open a portal to you, Nalarin, five days from now,” Will began.

  The demon-lord continued, “I, Nalarin, scion of Madrok, will be waiting when you open your gate to me. A full thousand pounds of driktenspal will be ready for your servants to take.”

  He nodded, then resumed his part, “Once your servants have brought the thousand pounds of driktenspal through to Hercynia, my subordinates will close the gate and I will remain with you, while you convey me to the place of your choosing.” Will paused.

  Nalarin, spoke again. “I will take you to the place where I desire the gate to be within one day of your entry to Hell.”

  Will finished, “Once there, my subordinates will open a gate from Hercynia to where I stand in Hell. I so swear.”

  The demoness responded, “I so swear.” The magic took hold, sinking into their skin while the paper that they had written their oath on turned to smoke and ash. It was done. Exhaling loudly, Nalarin unbuckled her helmet and removed it, revealing a startlingly attractive face. Her skin was an exotic mauve shade, and from her dark curls sprouted two small horns. Ebon orbs with golden irises stared at Will hungrily. “Well met, warlock. The excitement you provided has whetted my appetite. Will you dally with me before I go?”

  He answered with a cold stare. “That was not part of our agreement.”

  “Your seed would surely create a remarkable cambion. A second agreement could be made,” she suggested. “A far more pleasant one.”

  Will laughed, releasing the power that sustained the summoning. “You can’t afford me.”

  Nalarin maintained the link on her own for several seconds. “Think about it. In five days, you’ll have another chance, and we’ll have a full day to enjoy ourselves.” Blowing a kiss at him, she faded from view.

  Will remained on his feet for a short time, making certain the summoning had completely dissipated before sinking down to the stone platform and stretching out. As the adrenaline faded, he found himself completely exhausted. Staring up at the sky, he tried to absorb its clean purity, but he still felt dirty. “I really am a warlock now.”

  His many bargains with the fae had led him close to crossing the line many times, but the thing that defined a real warlock wasn’t the blood-oath or lack thereof—it was the things bartered for. A warlock bargains with things he has no right to give, his soul or the souls of others being the worst possibility.

  After an hour’s rest, his back started to hurt, and he still felt tired, so he got on his feet to resume his work for the day. The weariness he felt wasn’t so much from effort as from the weight on his heart. Evie rejoined him, and he created a travel disk to carry them into Branscombe so he could notify the teamsters when and where they needed to be with their wagons in five days.

  Gloomy as a winter storm, Will and the silver-haired cat glided down the mountain.

  Chapter 42

  The next five days were busy ones. Aislinn spent hours each day working with Emory and Sammy to ensure they could create a stable gate. Their first tests involved the easiest type, a gate that didn’t cross planes. Will would teleport to his father in Myrsta and find a quiet spot, then they’d use a drop of his cousin’s blood and his name to target him before activating the specialized gate ritual that Aislinn had devised.

  It was nothing to sneeze at. The technical aspect was identical to what they would have to do later when connecting to Hell; the main difference lay in how much power would be required. Of all the planes Will had traveled to, Hell was notorious for being the hardest to reach. That was a good thing for the most part, since it was the main reason the human realm had never been subsumed by the demons. Apparently, the power requirement was even greater if one tried to create a gate from within Hell to reach Hercynia. In his introductory classes at Wurthaven, they’d simply said it was impossible, but once he had reached the more advanced classes, there were additional explanations.

  Will didn’t fully understand why, but there was a gradient, similar to pulling a cart up a hill. Hell was metaphysically located beneath every other plane of existence, and because of that, it was easier to create a path there than to create a path from there. The second reason was that Hell didn’t have ley lines, or any other naturally occurring concentrations of turyn that could be used. The plane itself was described as parasitic, since the demons subsisted on the sacrifices of souls and turyn from other places. In the worst case, other planes, like the one the Cath Bawlg came from, were caught and anchored, like a ship being boarded at sea. Forcible connections were made, and Hell would then poison and suck the turyn right out of the other plane.

  That was what had almost happened to the human world the previous year, when the Shimeran priests in Darrow had run amok and gone too far in their summoning. What Grim Talek had planned this time was a slim degree better than that. This time, a nation would be desecrated, but hopefully the rest of the world would be spared.

  That wasn’t good enough for Will, though, and he was preparing to risk his life and soul to achieve a better outcome.

  Their next tests created gates to the fae realm and to Muskeglun. The fae realm was easiest, since it was almost as close as the ethereal, and Muskeglun was slightly harder. Each time, they succeeded without trouble, although Emory and Sammy definitely noticed the strain when they created the gate to Muskeglun.

  That worried Will, since he knew from personal experience with summoning circles just how difficult piercing the veil between Hercynia and Hell could be. A gate would require an order of magnitude more turyn than a summoning. He kept his fears to himself, however, since confidence was crucial to will. Doubt would weaken them faster than anything else, which was probably why Aislinn made them practice with easy locations. She told them Hell would be a little more difficult, but definitely understated her warnings.

  When he wasn’t needed, Will spent his spare time working on three things. One was his normal daily spell practice, which probably went without saying. The second was his new sound barrier, and the third was the two spells he’d adapted using Grim Talek’s turyn frequency for dragons: wind-wall and light-darts.

  It didn’t take long to get to the point of reflex casting those two spells with the changes, so with his extra time, Will explored the use of his sound barrier against a wide variety of attacks and materials. The results he got varied, but followed a discernable pattern.

  The amount of effort required to block something depended greatly on the density and solidity of the physical matter involved. Fire was the easiest, followed by air. Water was often denser than earth, but its fluidity made it somewhat easier, except that Will often got sprayed by droplets when he first adjusted the shield for an aqueous attack. That was fine ordinarily, but it was something to seriously consider if acid was thrown at him. Solids were the hardest, but it varied a lot depending on the rigidity of the material. Some things shattered and disintegrated much more easily, while metals had a lot of ductile strength that made them incredibly hard to divert or break up.

  Essentially, if someone threw an iron ball at him, Will was likely to get hit, unless he prepared for it well in advance and had a lot of turyn to spare. Similarly, an unexpected crossbow bolt might see the wooden shaft destroyed while the point continued onward to strike him, albeit with less forward momentum.

  For many things, an elemental-shield or a force-shield made a lot more sense from the perspective of both efficiency and effectiveness. The more an attack relied on pure energy, like flame, the better the sound barrier worked, although perversely, for anything that was entirely energy, it did exactly nothing. Lightning passed through it without any impedance, no matter how much turyn Will used.

  The light-darts he used so often were similarly capable of piercing the barrier, but there was some effect. If Will cast them, his acoustic barrier caused them to diffuse over distance, so that they became useless after ten feet or more, which ruined their main use case. If they were fired at him, the shield helped little, because the blurring effect wasn’t enough to decrease their effectiveness over the two or three feet between his body and the shield.

  Force attacks and energy beams like a disintegration spell completely ignored the shield.

  Other than its effectiveness against fire and some elemental attacks, the sound barrier did have one considerable advantage, though. It wasn’t purely defensive. The acoustic shield was devastating against flesh and bone. Any opponent who tried to run through it would find that out the hard way, not that a bloody pile of goo distributed across ten or twenty feet had any chance of remembering such a lesson. Will could also see through the shield, and unlike a force effect, it didn’t block his use of turyn.

  When using a full force-dome, the caster usually couldn’t do much, even if the ground at their feet wasn’t blocked. It was difficult to work around such an obstacle. Inside a complete force-cage or sphere, any magic beyond the boundary was impossible. The new sound barrier had no such problems.

  There were many more possibilities beyond just creating a shield around himself, but it would probably be years before he could master all the potential uses. Will nearly lost a hand trying to make a sonic fist attack, which showed him the wisdom of going slowly. Only his ready access to a regeneration potion kept him from being permanently maimed.

  Aislinn came to observe him during a brief lull in which he was able to get Sammy’s help. His cousin was using the boundless energy provided by the ley lines to blast him with flames of incredible intensity, and when they stopped, Will was covered in sweat. His barrier could neatly and perfectly divert the fire, but the heat radiating around him still caused him to perspire.

  “Are you planning to use that in Hell?” asked his grandmother.

  His actual purpose had nothing to do with Hell, but it was a trick question, and both of them understood the reason. “Yes,” he lied, providing her with the cause she needed to give him free advice under their current bargain.

  She responded with a twinkle in her eye, “If you were facing an even hotter flame, something so powerful it could melt stone and steel, for example, the radiant heat around you still might be enough to cook you alive. A cooling spell to provide thermal insulation would be helpful at times like those.”

  Aislinn had definitely divined his intention, and the hotter flame she referred to was almost certainly dragon-fire. Will nodded. “I’ve been through Hell once before, and while I never saw a fire that hot, it is unseasonably warm. I’ve given some thought to learning a spell like that. Do you have one to teach?”

  “Many demons prefer fire attacks, so your request is reasonable. Pay attention.” The spell she taught him was around third-order in difficulty and would keep the air around him cool and pleasant under all but the most extreme circumstances. He recorded it in one of his journals. Once upon a time, it would have taken him a week just to cast a new spell of that difficulty, but his expertise had come a long way since then. He succeeded on the first try.

  Will would have it memorized within a day, though it would probably be months before he could reflex cast the spell.

  “Thank you,” he told her.

  Aislinn tutted at him, wagging a finger. “Thanks implies gratitude, and gratitude implies a debt. Careful with your words, child.”

  After days of working with her, it was hard not to feel some affection toward his grandmother, but Will remembered her betrayal the year before. Whatever kindness existed between them was purely fictional, a product of his human heart seeking reassurance where there was none to be had.

  The fifth day came, and Emory and Sammy prepared the circle for their gate ritual while Aislinn watched. Once she saw that they had made no mistake in the rune layout, she left. It wouldn’t do for the demons to get wind of any fae involvement. After the disastrous ending of the last agreement between the two factions, the demons would be unlikely to react well to such a thing. Evie also withdrew, though only under protest. The current incarnation of the Cath Bawlg didn’t know anything about demons, but she definitely didn’t like them.

  Sammy didn’t need to prick her finger on this occasion. She called out the demon-lord’s name, and that notable’s positive response was enough to set the ending location. Emory invoked the circle, and Sammy funneled turyn from the ley lines toward him.

  They almost succeeded, but the intense flows of power required became too much for Will’s cousin. Just as the gate started to open, she began to wilt under the strain. Sammy’s knees went weak, but before they could fold, Will moved instinctively forward to offer a hand, taking some of the load. The gate opened and stabilized.

  Beside him, Will could see that Sammy had recovered, so he withdrew slowly. The power needed was less now that the gate was fully open, and she was able to take over smoothly. What bothered him more was the fear in her eyes. She knows she failed, and now she’s wondering if she’ll be able to do it without me. The seeds of doubt could easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy, leaving Will stranded when the time came for them to make a way out for him.

  Nalarin was waiting on the other side, still clad in her heavy armor, though she trusted him enough now to leave her visor up so he could see her eyes this time. Directly behind her was a flat stone block, on which rested neatly stacked billets of black metal. Driktenspal was similar to iron in density, so the thousand-pound pile was smaller than most would expect, measuring only two and a half feet on each side and perhaps a foot and a half high.

  The demon-lord was surrounded on all sides by hulking subordinates. At her command, they began moving the bar stock from the pile in Hell and restacking it on the stone platform not too far from Sammy and Emory. Will watched with an arrogant, satisfied expression, and once the transfer was complete, he stepped close to his cousin, whispering in her ear, “You’re stronger than you realize. Everything will be fine. Love you.”

  The distress in her eyes when he looked back after crossing over the threshold of the gate said something entirely different, but Sammy kept her silence. Emory slowly removed the power sustaining the gate, giving Sammy time to readjust. Since they were working together, neither could make sudden shifts without endangering the other. She scaled back her draw from the ley lines, and the gate slowly shrank.

  Smiling, Will winked as the gate closed. He hoped she took his final words to heart, for he had no idea if she was actually strong enough, but confidence was key. Without it, there was no hope at all, since the amount of power she could channel was unlikely to improve in just twenty-four hours.

  In the worst case, he could actually do what Grim Talek expected and use the token he’d received that would signal the Shimeran priests, but Will couldn’t stomach that thought. His life wasn’t worth the multitudes who would die if he completed the deal in that fashion. The demon-steel was in the hands of his allies now. Once it reached Cerria, Grim Talek and the mage-smiths there would create the weapons needed to kill the dragon.

  At this point, Will was expendable.

  Not that he had any intention of giving up that easily. Alone and without allies, Will walked beside his enemies, knowing they would kill him given the tiniest of excuses, and yet for once, he had no fear. After the stress and anxiety of the preceding weeks, it was a relief to know there was no going back. The stone was cast.

  The turyn in the air was relatively abundant, but oppressive and toxic. When he had first traveled through Hell on the back of the Cath Bawlg, he’d had to use the demon-armor spell to protect himself from the negative energies infusing the plane. Now his innate turyn conversion was sufficient for the task.