The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 8
The Haunting of Guaritori Diolco, Part 8
Chaos Breaks Out
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“Pointing at someone is not necessarily an accusation,” said Elijah slowly.
“But in this context, how are we to interpret it but as an accusation?” asked Zeus. “Hermes is dead. We know Guaritori is somehow involved. Then Hermes’s. . .ghost appears and points at him. What else could such a gesture mean under those circumstances?”
“He was asking me for help,” I said. My voice was more like a hoarse whisper than the confident statement I had intended it to be, but at least I got the words out.
Zeus turned in my direction, his eyes flashing like lightning. “I heard no such request, and I was closer to the apparition than you were.”
“I read his lips,” I replied, knowing how lame that sounded.
The king of the Greek gods laughed so loudly that the chamber echoed with the sound. “How are we to believe such nonsense?”
“And yet it does make sense,” said Medea. I felt marginally less tense now that she had found her voice—and sounded a great deal more confident than I did.
“How does it make sense?” asked Thoth, his eyes glowing an angry silver.
“Contrary to the picture Zeus is trying to paint, Hermes’s relationship with Garth, brief though it was, was also cordial. Hermes trusted Garth enough to endow him with magic and knowledge. Perhaps the son of Zeus appealed to Garth because he knew that Garth could help him best.”
“Surely, his borrowed knowledge cannot surpass my own,” said Thoth. “And Hermes and I have an undoubted connection. Why, then, if he came to ask for help, would he not ask me?”
“Or appear on the Olympian plane and ask Hecate?” said Zeus. “Her knowledge of magic surpasses even Hermes’s own—much less whatever incomplete form of that knowledge has been passed on to the accused.”
“It is apparent that Hermes is having trouble manifesting at all,” said Medea. “He couldn’t make himself audible, and he became visible only for a few seconds. Perhaps he chose this place because his magic within Garth helped him to manifest.”
“That is a plausible theory,” said Ptah.
“But hardly the only one,” said Apep.
“There is a way to test it,” said Medea. “If Hermes is having difficulty manifesting, let us help him along a little. Most of us, Garth included, either have a connection to Hermes or at least, a particular kind of magic that might be helpful. If we all work together, we can probably get the information we need from Hermes.”
“It is improper to involve the defendant in such an exercise,” said Apep. “Not to mention some of his colleagues. How are we to know if what they conjure up is the real Hermes?”
“How do you know what we just saw is the real Hermes?” countered Medea.
“That was the real Hermes,” said Zeus. “I felt his presence.”
“Then you have much to gain by agreeing to my proposal,” said Medea. “Asclepius reported that no one could find the soul of Hermes on the Olympian plan. Yet it was just here. If we can keep it with us, there is hope that it can be returned to his body. Is that not what you want?”
“I am well aware of your devious ways,” said Zeus slowly. “But I know what we just saw was not some trick of yours. If there is even a slight chance that we can bring Hermes back, we must take it. I am willing to wait for a final decision on Garth’s fate until we have made the attempt.”
“Both parties have agreed to try this. . .experiment,” said Patriarch Matthew quietly. “Do you agree to recess this hearing so that Medea’s suggestion may be implemented?”
Predictably, Apep voted no, but the other four judges voted yes. I might just live to see the end of the day, after all.
Except for Thoth, the judges withdrew to one side of the chamber, with Apep grumbling all the way.
“How shall we organize the magic we will need?” asked Thoth. “Keep in mind that I will be watching you very carefully.”
“I would expect no less,” said Medea, smiling as if she and Thoth were good friends. She motioned Urania, Lian, and Matteo forward. “Mateo, please shield us from any evil influences. We don’t know where the spirit of Hermes ended up—or what might try to follow him to us if we call him.”
Mateo closed his eyes, and in a moment, a white glow surrounded us.
“Thoth, please enclose us in a magic circle, and create a smaller one, over there, into which we will try to summon Hermes.”
Without commenting, Thoth encircled us with silver light just by pointing at the ground and moving his finger until he had completed the circle. He moved similarly to make the circle designed to allow Hermes to manifest—and then hold him here.
“Lian, we need some Plutonic energy to help reach the dead and to promote rebirth.”
Lian summoned up an energy that was black but flecked with red. Somehow, it coexisted with Thoth’s silver and Mateo’s luminous white rather than darkening them.
“The rest of what we do will focus on summoning Hermes. Urania, you will provide the channel. Zeus and Thoth, in addition to calling Hermes to us, you will also ensure that it is Hermes we are seeing. Garth, the moment Hermes starts to manifest, use your abilities as a psychopomp to hold onto him.”
I’d never been in a room with this many former gods at the same time, nor with so many involved with the same magic at the same time. The air around me crackled with magical energy, and my ability to sense magic felt as if it was being pushed to the limit. I was afraid that I wouldn’t see Hermes even if he did appear.
But the spirit of Hermes, having appeared so recently, had to be close, and after a while, I could at least feel his presence, though he hadn’t yet manifested in any other way. I remembered what reaching out for Francesca’s spirit had felt like, and I tried to replicate the magic that had produced that feeling. As I did so, I could sense the air around me growing even thicker with magic as Medea and Thoth reached out with different spells intended to invoke the presence of Hermes.
At last, the messenger of the former gods appeared. He was almost faint enough to be invisible, but he was there.
“Someone is attempting to interfere!” yelled Mateo, his voice sounding strained. But I would have noticed what was wrong without his warning. What little manifestation Hermes had managed so far wasn’t in the designated circle. He seemed to be trying to reach the circle, but a black mist far darker than the power conjured up by Lian was forming around him, holding him back.
As I looked more closely, I saw that the intruding force wasn’t completely black. Bits of rainbow color flashed through it, making perceiving its exact nature much more difficult.
I remembered the figures running toward me as I opened a portal to Alexandria. Could this force be connected to them? Unless it was the wildest coincidence ever, there must be some kind of link.
Blocking the spirit of Hermes was one thing, especially as he seemed weaker than I would have expected. But I wondered if the black/rainbow forces had prepared for the amount of opposition former gods could generate.
“You. . .will. . .not. . .take. . .my. . .son!” yelled Zeus as his power, bright as lightning, crackled through the black mist. It yielded ground, but it did so grudgingly, inch by inch. Either it had to be powered by enormous magic or it was resistant to Zeus’s kind of power.
But Zeus did not stand alone. Thoth poured moonlight into the mist, warring against its darkness. Medea somehow managed to generate both moonlight and sunlight at the same time, something I’d never seen her do before. Like Thoth’s power, hers drove back the darkness, but neither had any more luck than Zeus had with banishing it completely.
At that point, Ptah stepped in, his vibrant green energy embodying the very power of creation as he sought to change the darkness to something else. It twisted and shrank, but it would not change for him.
The palace was solidly constructed and had much magic within it—but it wasn’t designed for the impact of so much magic contained in such a small space. Cracks began to run across the floor and up the walls. The structure creaked and groaned as it tried to accommodate the continuous stresses caused by so many competing energy streams.
If the building couldn’t take it, how long could we? Mateo had shielded us as best he could, but I could feel some magic rippling over my skin. He wasn’t used to whatever the black rainbow force was, and he certainly wasn’t used to having to deal with so much magic that was nominally on the same side it was. Though fueled by faith, his power was still targeted by intent, much as ordinary magic was.
Ptah, sensing the danger, switched for attack to defense, and for a moment, my skin stopped tingling from the various intrusions. Ptah’s green force also filled in the cracks in an attempt to stabilize the structure before the roof came down on us.
I had to do something before it was too late. Hermes had almost vanished. I threw every ounce of power I could muster into an effort to hold Hermes as only a psychopomp could. The effort rapidly shot my pain level from headache to migraine to steel spike through the skull. Having had no time to prepare myself, I screamed, but in the chaos around me, I doubted anyone even noticed.
I felt the spirit of Hermes shift toward me—but not far enough. In the magical maelstrom the room was rapidly becoming, I couldn’t get a solid grip on him.
The Philosopher’s Stone could have fueled my magic indefinitely—but as I’d learned time after time, it couldn’t protect me from the pain using that magic could cause. I tried to pull endurance into me, for the stone could grant me that much. But I could only take so much pain before my mind would shatter completely. I needed to try something else.
Reluctantly, I let go of Hermes. Without knowing the nature or strength of the power I was fighting, I had no way of knowing whether or not the battle was even winnable.
I could draw directly on the stone’s power, but its effects were more limited in type than those Hermetic magic could generate. I couldn’t hold the spirit of Hermes with it, for example. But could I follow Ptah’s example and try to change the hostile magic into something else?
The ability to see magic I’d inherited from Hermes was no help to me now. The magic I was trying to analyze gave up no information to such vision. So I used the same strategy I’d used to analyze banestones, which blocked magic but not the power of the Philosopher’s Stone—I filled my eyes with the power of the stone and looked again.
The stone revealed the truth to me. The energy was some seemingly impossible combination of all four alchemical elements, plus nyv—the faerie name for magic and spirit—and anti-nyv, the name I’d given to the force that animated banestones. Such a combination should not have been possible. Yet here it was, writhing before me. The attacks the others were launching at it were not completely successful because they attacked some specific characteristic of it, like its darkness, rather than its underlying nature, which none of them could perceive correctly.
“The force we’re fighting is all of the basic components of creation,” I yelled hoarsely, though I doubt anyone heard me. Zeus’s power alone was enough to create a sound like continuous, ear-splitting thunder. And in the magical chaos around me, I doubted I could get through with any attempt at psychic communication. Even the network among Medea’s followers was down as far as I could tell.
For better or worse, I was on my own.
I could use the power of the stone to change the hybrid magic—but to what? Flicking a banestone from anti-nyv to nyv was easy enough, but even converting some of the energy before me to pure nyv wouldn’t solve the problem. Whoever the enemy was could still manipulate the energy.
For a moment, I considered trying to convert everything to anti-nyv. The animating force in the golems, by virtue of coming directly for God, shouldn’t be affected. Nor should the Philosopher’s Stone. Every other supernatural force in the room would get blocked, though. And that would mean the spirit of Hermes would be blocked as well, defeating our purpose.
The ground shook beneath my feet—a reminder that I didn’t have much time left to ponder. The silver magic circle created by Thoth had become a silver mist and started to float away. The conflicting forces were nearing a breaking point from which neither Ptah nor Mateo—nor both together—could hope to shield us.
I tried to look more deeply into the hostile magic. It was confusing by design. No one would create such a combination otherwise. Take out the constituent parts one by one, and it would become less confusing, more vulnerable to the attacks upon it.
I started with the anti-nyv, converting it to nyv as quickly as I could. The sheer amount of energy was larger than I had realized, and even the stone could not reverse all of that power in an instant. But I did make headway, and the power before me convulsed in response.
But then, as if our hidden enemy realized what I was attempting to do, the hostile power level increased, and suddenly the darkness was everywhere, twisting deviously around as it looked for holes in our defenses which it could exploit.
The stone might theoretically enable infinite vision—but the human mind was incapable of receiving such a gift. Despite my best efforts, I began to lose touch with the reality around me, both magical and physical. I could no longer see more than a constant rainbow, punctuated by darkness, swirling all around me. I could no longer hear anything, not even the thunder of Zeus. I could no longer feel anything, not even the ground beneath my feet. It was as if I was floating in a void.
It was in such an atmosphere that I at first missed the fact that all-too-physical hands had reached out of the darkness and grabbed me.
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