Thaumatology 12: Vengeance (35 page)

‘Sorry,’ Ceri replied. ‘Sorry, Hiffy. Keep going.’

This time Hiffy was grinning as she started up again. ‘So the Devim decided he would do just that. Despite everyone telling him that it was impossible, he determined that he would do just as Gorefguhadget had said. He packed a little sack with water, bread, and cheese. He put in a warm coat in case it was cold, and a fan in case it was hot, and then he took off from the highest place he could find and started climbing upward. He flew and he flew. He climbed and he climbed. The air grew thinner, but he pushed ever onward, up into the sky. But no matter how high he got, the light was just light, and there was no sign of the thing which made it. And then, just when he thought his task was hopeless and he could go no further, the sky began to sparkle and he thought that he saw something above. He thought, perhaps, that it was a face. It seemed round and huge, like the face of some vast demon hidden behind a sparkling curtain. Thinking he would soon see what only the Great Overlord had seen, he climbed higher, into the sparkling curtain.’

There was a slight pause as Hiffy caught her breath. Ceri suspected it was for dramatic effect. ‘But there are some things which even the most curious of Devim are not meant to know, and as the curtain neared he felt the sting of a thousand tiny needles biting into his skin. For the curtain was made of the frozen tears of the Light, and they were as sharp as any blade ever forged. Before he could turn back, his wings were cut to ribbons and he fell. He fell and he fell, and there seemed no end to his falling. And the unforgiving rock of Mount Khed was waiting to welcome him below. And in his heart the Devim was sad, for he had glimpsed the Face of the Light, but he would never know what it was.’

Hiffy stopped and looked at Ceri. ‘And then there are two endings,’ she said. ‘The one you hear most has him crashing into the mountain, but Inak says the other one is older.’

‘What’s the older one?’

‘It goes, um… But before the Devim could fall to his death on the black mountain, Lenadenora, the glorious and beautiful wife of the Overlord, appeared and caught him, and took him back to the Castle of Bones. She had him healed of his wounds, though his wings were ever after torn, and she said to him, “Some things, little Devim, lie beneath shrouds we lift at great peril. Be happy with what you know and let the universe have its secrets.” And the Devim thanked the great Lady, and he went home, and never again did he ask a question of anyone.’

‘Wow,’ Lily said, ‘Gorefguhadget and Lenadenora in one story. Dad told me a couple with him in, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one with her as a character.’

‘There are very few,’ Hiffy replied. ‘And a lot of them have changed a little over time and she stopped being mentioned. She’s always portrayed in a softer light to her mate. I think that’s why she’s been dropped over time.’

‘I’m going to have to get Ruffa or Faran to tell me them,’ Ceri said. ‘I wouldn’t mind hearing more about them. So… if there’s any truth to that story, there’s a star up there, but there’s also some sort of cloud of crystals in the upper atmosphere.’

‘Refracting and diffusing the light,’ Cheryl put in. ‘Possibly the magic field helps it stay up, but the question would then be: where did the crystals come from? You know, we could have scientists from all sorts of disciplines
begging
to study the world over there.’

‘One step at a time. We still need to get some sort of diplomatic structure set up before we can start studying the place. Anything unusual from the scanners?’

‘No. Hiffy appears to be perfectly happy on a metaphysical level. I’ve just never had the chance to get a demon in a position where I could use a rig like this. It’s fascinating. I’m actually seeing minor T-Null decay going on.’

Ceri grinned. ‘Maybe we can make it more interesting. Lil, this is your experimental idea. Why don’t you put some sun oil on Hiffy? I’m worried she might burn.’

Lily was wearing a mischievous grin as she rose from her lounger. ‘In the interests of science?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Ceri agreed. ‘Pure scientific enquiry.’

Hiffy looked nervous.

May 6
^th
.

Donald Colbert was a slight man who tended to look a little like a rabbit caught in a confined space with a fox. He wore glasses, except when he was talking to Lily. At first Ceri had thought this was because the heavy, black frames made him look a bit nerdy and he did look better without them, so he was taking them off to impress the half-succubus. It took a few minutes to realise that it was actually because he became even
more
nervous when he could actually
see
who he was talking to.

‘We ran an experiment yesterday,’ Lily was explaining, ‘and det, lesser demons, can survive in this world without difficulty. There’s the language barrier, obviously, but we can set up schools to teach English, or humans wishing to do business can learn Devotik. It’s not a hard language to learn.’

‘It’s pretty simplistic, actually,’ Ceri put in. ‘You need to get used to the sentence structure, and there’s plenty of vocabulary. Not as much as English; they tend to reuse words a fair bit so you have to go by context.’

Colbert blinked at her. Ceri was there as ‘scientific advisor,’
not
as the Overlord. In truth, having got the basics out of the way, she was finding it hard not to get involved. Unfortunately, having what his briefing notes described as ‘probably the most powerful magician on the planet’ in his meeting was just making Colbert more nervous.

‘There, err, aren’t any demons here today, are there?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ Lily replied, ‘my father is a Lorril. I thought you knew that.’

Colbert looked over at the smiling man seated on the other side of Lily. ‘Oh, uh, yes. I meant… uh… dangerous ones?’

‘Lorril are quite powerful demons, young man,’ Faran told him, ‘however, we are less inclined to rip out people’s throats. The det Lilith made reference to are generally not quite so power-hungry as the higher demons. Frankly, humans are probably more dangerous to them than they would be to you.’

‘The Realm’s technology is basically Dark Age level,’ Ceri said. ‘They have magic, but det are no more magically talented than a normal human so they can’t work it here. We, on the other hand, have more sophisticated technology which they simply won’t understand. We have
guns
.’

‘We should add technology control to the list of things to discuss,’ Lily said. ‘If some Lord gets his people armed with machine guns…’ Ceri grimaced at the thought.

Colbert’s mind was on other things. ‘The, uh, det you brought over to check, they didn’t leave the house did they?’

‘She was on the roof for a while,’ Lily replied, ‘but we weren’t going to risk the press seeing her.’

The Junior Minister nodded. ‘Good. If everything works out the way we expect, it seems logical to consider this place as the Consulate for the Realm. Basically that means she didn’t leave the Realm when she came here.’ He gave Ceri a small, slightly timid, smile. ‘I understand there are tax advantages. Aside from anything else, they won’t ask you to declare your income from, uh… your other job.’

‘Useful,’ Ceri replied wryly. ‘I need that money to run things over there, not to pay tax over here. You know, you’re talking like this is all a foregone conclusion…’

Colbert said nothing for a second and then turned to the woman sitting behind him with a laptop. ‘May, if you would stop taking minutes for a moment.’

‘Of course, sir,’ May replied, and pointedly closed her laptop. ‘Consider my fingers to be in my ears,’ she added, her lips curling slightly. A civil servant with a sense of humour, who knew?

‘We’re under some pressure to make this work,’ Colbert said, lowering his voice as though he might be heard outside somehow. ‘We know that Otherworld is ahead of us on negotiations to start trade with the Realm, and we’ve had a number of departments, ministries, and other agencies coming to us with ideas which could be extremely fruitful or just useful.’ He gave them a wide-eyed, amazed look. ‘Someone at the BBC has put together a budget proposal for doing an “Overseas” broadcast service there.’

‘They don’t have radios,’ Ceri pointed out.

‘The proposal includes costs for manufacturing and distributing low-power radios using the transducer technology you and Doctor Tennant invented.’

Ceri opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to say, ‘Cheryl invented the transducer, I just helped with the testing and designed the Battersea generator. Smaller assemblies
could
power small electrical devices in the field over there. That’s damn clever. Could you ask whoever came up with that to drop by the LMU some time?’

‘I’ll have the message passed along. The point is… Well, the more the Cabinet considers this, the more they see advantages in it. There are worries, obviously, but the fact that the Overlord of All Demons is a human suggests that we can likely avoid a full-scale invasion as long as we don’t annoy you. The Fae, on the other hand, could be an issue. They’re independent, and if they have access to the magical wealth of the Realm on top of their own power… We could end up like Ireland.’

Ceri thought that a little unlikely, but a little pressure to move things along could not hurt. She turned to Lily, pulling herself up straight. ‘Lilith?’ she said, putting some firm authority in her voice.

‘Yes, Shivika Ayasha?’ Lily replied, picking up on the shift in position.

‘We are inclined to accelerate negotiations. Perhaps the humans would like to push forward an announcement of the diplomatic overtures, declare the creation of a Consulate, and iron out the details of trade agreements and the like following that. It would allow their commercial agents to be involved in the treaties prior to signing, and permit demons to become involved directly.’

Lily nodded, grinning. ‘The Overlord is most wise,’ she said. ‘I will pass this proposal to the human representative so that he can discuss it with
his
superiors.’

Colbert
almost
laughed. Instead he turned to May. ‘Did you get all that, or does Lily actually have to say it all again for you to minute?’

May opened her laptop. ‘I think I can doctor the minutes appropriately. I’ll make you both sound good, don’t worry.’

‘She’s good,’ Ceri commented as May began typing. ‘You don’t want a job “overseas,” do you, May?’

‘Please, Doctor Brent,’ Colbert said wearily, ‘don’t poach my staff with offers of work in another dimension.’

Holloway.

‘You think they’ll agree?’ Cheryl asked, sounding a little eager. ‘I mean, if they do we can go ahead with the Australian project far more easily. The American one would be simpler if we could get demons to place the pylons at Trinity. We could maybe even invite Aktik and Brebbam over to the Thaumatology Conference this year!’

‘Slow down, boss,’ Ceri replied, grinning. ‘Yes, I think they’ll go for it, but you may be going a
little
fast.’

‘Why?’ Cheryl replied. ‘The engineering projects are crying out for people able to handle large amounts of thaumic energy, and demons are as immune to Wild Magic as you are. Inviting some of the theorists over would demonstrate that sharing knowledge can have advantages.
You
told them that they should let people study magic. Now it’s time to demonstrate why.’

Ceri frowned. It made sense, of course. It was just that… ‘It’s all going too fast.’

‘I suppose it is, in a way. You’ve got good people to help you, though. You don’t
have
to do everything yourself. I know you feel some responsibility for the demons, having put on the crown, but no one rules even a country alone. You’re dealing with a whole
world
. You’re allowed to have assistance.’

‘Lily does say I’m a bit of a control freak.’

‘And she’s right, but you’re also intelligent enough to know your limitations. When we’ve got the conference sorted, I’m sure Gwyn would help…’

Gwyn had been keeping quiet at a computer perched on the corner of Cheryl’s desk. She looked up at the sound of her name, however. ‘I might be willing to accept an advisory role,’ she said.

‘I was thinking you could just run things and I could take the credit,’ Ceri suggested.

‘No you weren’t, dear,’ Gwyn replied blandly. ‘You
are
too much of a control freak for that. I’d say you got it from me, but I think tens of thousands of years of separation have likely diluted
my
effect on your personality. You’ll have to blame your parents.’

‘My Dad,’ Ceri stated. ‘This is a man who made his daughter practically invisible to boys to save her virtue.’

‘Perhaps a little extreme, I agree, but you know what boys are like: only after one thing.’

‘Yes,’ Cheryl agreed. ‘Thankfully they never grow out of it.’

Soho, May 8
^th
.