Chapter II

“Man has not been free since that most horrible of days, when God created Erets. Once mankind roamed the Void freely, as the daemons do. Now mankind is trapped here on this rock, forced to live their lives upon it, and for their souls to be trapped within it when they die. The daemons of the Void, our brothers and sisters, have promised to help us destroy this prison once and for all, so that we may roam the Void freely again. This is the day we look forward to, the end of Erets. Yet there are those who are fooled by God's lies, who believe that the world is a blessing rather than a curse, they believe his Heaven is salvation rather than damnation. They stand between us and freedom, and sadly they do not understand what it is they are doing. Nonetheless, they must be slain to achieve our ideal future. But do not weep for them, for when Erets is destroyed their souls will be free to roam the Void, as it was always meant to be. The Void is all there was ever supposed to be, and this world is an abomination against that. The one they call 'God' is a daemon, just like the ones we summon, but one far more powerful, and a traitor to the rest.”

Professor Caiaphas' lectures never failed to stir his students, even if it was just a statement of the most basic creeds of their faith. Caiaphas taught at Leti Academy in the kingdom of Nihilus, an academy for warlocks and daemon-conjurers. With rumors that the kingdom of Arx was training more paladins than ever the King of Nihilus had sent much more funding to Leti Academy. More parents than ever before were sending their children to train as warlocks.

The warlocks of Leti had no scriptures. It had been said long ago that writing down their system of beliefs would be problematic, since writing is so often misread, mistranslated, and misinterpreted. If their sacred canon was written down then not everyone would know it by heart, and anyone could go in and change it, but if they all had it memorized then no one could change it. Their beliefs needed to be something that existed in spoken rather than written word. Something that could shape to fit the teachings of the daemons they conjured, who were always telling them just a little bit more about the cosmos as they, as a people, matured enough to understand new truths. The only place they needed to look to read anything the daemons intended for them to read was the stars, in which they could not only read the truth about the past and present, but about the future.

Astrologers, wizards who read the prophecies of the stars in the Void, had seen that they were at the precipice of a great victory. For centuries the kingdom of Arx had been the center of the faith for those who worshiped the God of Erets, the Agalmites. It was in Arx that the Obelisk on which the Law was written stood, with a citadel, the capital city of Arx, called Aius, built around it. Agalmites from all over the world came to Aius, the capital city of Arx to see the obelisk with their own eyes, and know that the Law was set in stone, unchanged, and undamaged, since the dawn of time. It was more than a symbol of the faith, it was the strongest affirmation of the faith, and the people of Nihilus knew that without it the Agalmite religion would fall apart, or at least it's number of followers would drop significantly, and fewer people would stand in the way of their real goal. The astrologers of Nihilus believed that this was the victory the stars were speaking of.

Caiaphas was an unusual man, in a number of ways. He stood a head shorter than the average man, and had long, wavy, silver hair. His eyes were a pale shade of blue, so pale that his irises almost appeared white. His features were exceedingly feminine, a soft face and a lithe body. He always wore a long, black coat with a fur collar, and a black glove on his left hand only, which certainly didn't help him to look any more manly. Many of the younger female students found him to be quite attractive, but the older female students found his lack of masculinity off-putting.

“Sir,” one of the students, a beautiful young lady with black hair and green eyes by the name of Boanne, said, “Can we really wash our hands of any guilt of slaying Agalmites? Yes, eventually Heaven will be destroyed and they will be set free, but in the mean time aren't they condemned to whatever sufferings Saklas, their God, can muster?”

“I suppose you have a point, my dear,” Caiaphas said, as his eyes roamed up and down her body. “But understand that war is war, and lives will be lost no matter what. Spiritual justifications aside, understand that in war every enemy you fail to slay may slay a friend of yours. So, perhaps...don't think of it as you're killing an enemy so much as you're saving a friend.” Much as he hated arguing in favor of the war, he was threatened with losing his job if he did not cooperate with Nihilus' new king, Therion, and his ambitions.

“I see,” Boanne said. At least the professor wasn't totally without compassion for his enemies, it was just that he had more compassion for his friends. Boanne had always felt bad for the people of Arx, so led astray by a religion that taught them that the greatest enemy of mankind was a being to be worshiped, a being who loved them and cared only about their well-being. It was so sickening to her the way the clergy of Arx manipulated the people with false hope. They were jailors in their own prison. If it weren't for her father, Keir, she would have grown up in Arx, likely raised in their twisted theology. Though it pained her, not knowing what happened to him when they were separated at the border, she still smiled when she remembered all that he did for her.

Cory, a male student in the class with short, messy red hair and green eyes chimed in, “Professor Caiaphas, how do Familiars fit in with our theology?”

“That's simple enough. Familiars are daemons who have chosen specific humans with which to bond,” Caiaphas said. “These Familiars favor the human they've chosen to bond with, perhaps because their personalities mesh so well, or they've been impressed by their virtues. There are two primary types of Familiars; guardians and teachers. Guardians are Familiars who protect you and fight beside you. They're warrior daemons, and often not capable of speech. Teachers divulge secrets to you, whether those secrets are greater truths about the cosmos, or simply details about your enemies and what they're up to.”

“Ah...I see. So someone with a particularly powerful guardian Familiar must be important, right?” Cory asked. Many of the other students groaned. Cory was born homeless, his parents were beggars in one of Nihilus' bigger cities. They all knew he'd only even been allowed into Leti Academy because of Ormond, his powerful Familiar.

“Must be. Yes, I'd say a powerful Familiar makes you very important,” Caiaphas said, winking at him. “So, class, here's your assignment for tomorrow. I want each of you to make Blackstar Talismans. These talismans are used to delay a daemon-conjuring spell. Basically, one can place one of these talismans in a room, enchant it to conjure a daemon when either a certain amount of time has passed or something in particular has happened, and then leave the room. It's a great tool for attacking your enemies without risking your own life. When daemons are slain they return to the Void, and can be called back again days later, if you are slain you'll be captured by the Agalmite God until Erets is destroyed, so daemons are more than willing to risk their own lives for us. If you've been paying attention in previous sessions of this class you'll remember how to make Blackstar Talismans, if not...ask one of your fellow students to help you and pay more attention next time. Class dismissed.”

The students all filed out of the class, bowing to Professor Caiaphas on the way out, who bowed in turn to them, politely. Once they'd exited the class Cory chased after Boanne, “Bo! Bo! I need your help!” he called out.

Boanne stopped and sighed, “Don't tell me...you didn't pay attention. You were too busy thinking about how great you are to learn how to make a Blackstar Talisman.”

“Well...”

“Your hubris is going to be your downfall some day, Cory.”

“Come on, Boanne! Help me out here!”

Boanne turned and looked at Cory, raising an eyebrow skeptically, “And what's in it for me?”

“You know how you really really enjoy that rare treat from the far west?”

“Chocolate?” Boanne said. It was true, she did enjoy chocolate. Recently explorers had traveled to chaotic lands far west of Arx, even west of the city-states, and there they found the cacao plant, from which they had made a delicious new treat. Such a thing was rare in Nihilus for two reasons, however; first of all the lands where cacao grew were still anarchic and unsettled, second of all any trade from the colonies in the far west to Nihilus would have to travel through the western city-states and Arx first, and Arx had cut off all trade to Nihilus. Sure, smugglers occasionally managed to get past border patrol and get chocolate and other goods to Nihilus, but this made such goods extremely rare, and very expensive.

“I can get you chocolate,” Cory said, “I promise you.”

“You're offering a lot for help with just one assignment...” Boanne said. “If you can really get chocolate like you claim couldn't you bribe someone else to do the assignment for you?”

“I want to learn it, though,” Cory said. “I want to know how to do it, not just pass the course. I know you'd be able to teach me how it works. C'mon! You know you want to. Just think...rich, creamy, smooth chocolate...”

Boanne's mouth watered just thinking about it, but she maintained her composure. “Alright. Show up at my dorm one hour after the last class is over, and bring the chocolate with you. If you don't have it by then I'm not helping you.”

Cory smiled, “Done!”

Boanne was skeptical that Cory could do anything that he claimed, or for that matter that he was good for anything other than his powerful Familiar, but she hadn't agreed to do anything without high reward. If he did, somehow, manage to get her what she wanted she thought that would certainly be worth it.

Boanne's next class was Daemonology, where they learned about the various different types of daemons, as well as the most well-known ones. She entered the lecture hall early, out of habit, and found that she was not the only one there. There was a girl, about a year younger than her, with curly platinum blonde hair and big eyes with black irises. She sat in the corner, staring off into space and constantly muttering something under her breath. Boanne had noticed this girl before, and she always seemed either on edge or way too giddy. No one really talked to her, they all tried to pretend she didn't exist or that they didn't notice her, probably out of fear of someone who seemed so mentally unstable. Boanne decided, though, that she needed to say something to this girl, if even just to keep her from flying off the handle and doing something crazy.

Boanne approached the girl slowly. “Are you alright?”

The girl jumped a little in her seat, as if startled, “Ah! What?”

“I'm sorry I scared you! I was just...you were muttering and looked upset, so I wanted to see if you were alright.”

“Of course not, can't you read?” the girl said.

Boanne looked around the room for any form of writing, whether it was on the walls or somewhere on the girl's person. “Read what?”

“The daemon-script.”

Daemon-script was an archaic term for the constellations of stars in the Void. “I'm...not very good at Astrology...” Boanne admitted.

“The daemons have warned us about this day! Death in this very room!”

“Someone died in here?”

“Someone will!” the blonde girl said. “It's yet to be, but it shall be.”

“...If you know it'll be someone in this room why are you in it? Shouldn't you be avoiding this room so it isn't you?”

“It'll be a man. Yes, the Red Wanderer passed through the constellation of Falx, the constellation that means death.”

Boanne knew very little of how astrology worked, but she could sort of understand what the girl was talking about. Most of the stars in the void were constant, they flowed in particular patterns. The constellations were collections of stars that were shaped somewhat like pictures in the sky, and depending on the season they could be counted on to consistently be in particular places in the sky. The “Wanderers” were stars that didn't follow these particular patterns. They'd move in many different directions each night, sometimes even backtracking over their previous steps. Each one had a different meaning, and as they passed through certain constellations the combination of the Wanderer's meaning and the constellation's meaning was supposed to give away some event destined to happen in the near future. Usually, though, this applied to a much larger scale, and couldn't be used to tell what would happen in a specific city, let alone in a specific room.

“Come now,” Boanne began, “You don't really think someone's going to die in this room today, do you?”

“I know it to be so. Doubt you the daemons' prophecies?”

“Not at all...just...” Boanne paused. She was about to say she doubted this girl's ability to read the stars, but she didn't want to insult her. “Umm...my name's Boanne, what's yours?”

“Deidra.”

“Deidra. That's a nice name. Listen, why don't we not worry so much about things we can't change, alright, Deidra? Did the stars say there was any chance of helping the man who'd die in this room?”

“No chance at all.”

“Well, then it's sad, but it's not something we should worry so much about.”

Deidra shrugged, “I suppose...”

“Maybe the reasons why the daemons put that in the stars was specifically so we wouldn't panic when it happened. Seems silly to panic now, before it happens, if you think about it that way, am I right?”

“...I think you are right...”

Boanne sat down next to Deidra as the other students started filing into the classroom. She wanted to make sure that Deidra would be alright, no matter what happened. Boanne didn't really believe Deidra had read the stars correctly. No one had ever reported being able to read events that specifically. As it was the astrologers were talking about some great victory that the kingdom of Nihilus was about to achieve, but they didn't know for certain what that victory was. That Deidra would be able to read something so specific as someone dying in a particular room on a particular day was just ridiculous.

Yet, after all the students had taken their seats they all waited for a good ten minutes and there was no sign of the professor. When the door opened again it was still not the professor but rather a messenger. “I regret to inform you all of this most terrible news, Professor Crevan is deceased. He died just twenty minutes ago, choking on his supper.”

The students in the classroom all shouted all manner of questions, or talked amongst themselves about this most shocking news. Boanne turned to Deidra with a look of total surprise on her face, at a loss for words. Deidra mouthed to her, “Death in this room.” Though Boanne realized that this meant Deidra's interpretation of the prophecy wasn't completely accurate. The professor hadn't died in the room, he'd died before even reaching the room, it was just in this room that Deidra first heard of his death. Still, it was beyond amazing just how accurate and specific the prediction had been.

Cory, in the meantime, met with one of his classmates in the lecture hall just before the class on combat tactics began, and before any other students had walked in. “Hey there, Devin,” Cory began. Cory didn't really have any friends at the academy, or anywhere else. The young man known as Devin was the closest thing to a friend he had, which was pretty sad, really.

“No! No more favors, Cory!”

“Awww, c'mon! And here I thought we were friends!”

Devin gave a cynical laugh. “Friends? You've been blackmailing me!”

“Friends keep each other's secrets just the same as friends do each other favors,” Cory said, patting his shoulder. “Of course if we're not friends then I guess neither of us does either of those things, right?”

“You're a real bastard, you know that?”

Cory chuckled, “With what my parents had to do to keep us alive before I came here? It's entirely possible. But that's not the point. Look, do I get what I want or are you alright with everyone knowing the real reason Professor Caiaphas gave you such a good grade in his class last semester?”

“Cory! Keep it down!”

“Aha! Seems you don't want that getting out.”

Devin clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. “You know no one will believe you.”

“Maybe not, but are you willing to bet on that?”

“...Damn it, Cory, what do you want?”

“You know that stockpile of chocolate you've got in your dorm?”

“Shut up!” Devin covered his mouth and glanced around to make sure no one had come in yet. Last thing he wanted was more people who wanted his stuff coming after him. In a whisper he asked, “What about it?”

“One brick is all I want, Devin,” Cory whispered back. “Surely you can spare one brick.”

“One brick costs fifty vappae!”

“And one little secret can cost you your reputation. And your education. And one particular professor his job.”

Devin rolled his eyes. “Alright, damn it! I'll give you a brick of chocolate!”

“I knew you'd be reasonable, my friend. All it takes is a little prodding.”

Just after their conversation had ended the other students came into the classroom, followed by Professor Finola, a female professor whom all of the male students swooned over. Well, all except for an extremely select few. She always wore a very loose, flowing robe, with holes cut in the shoulders and big sleeves, and her brunette hair fell down in spiral curls along her shoulders and back. Many of the students found this look to be particularly distracting.

“So...” she began, in a voice that can best be described as silky. “From our last class who remembers what our most effective tactics would be for fighting the paladins of Arx?”

Cory called out, “Stealth.”

“That's correct. Care to elaborate?” Finola made sure to phrase all of her responses to her students in such a way that she avoided having to say their names, because she had a long history of getting their names wrong.

Cory continued, “The paladins use weapons made of diamond, which means that not only can they kill daemons with them, they can cut through any armor, sword, or shield in their way, so fighting them toe to toe is suicide. A better tactic would be to hide when we can, and either bombard them with poison-tipped arrows from a distance or summon daemons to fight them for us. But if you focus on summoning daemons be careful, because when you call them into this world your very body becomes like a doorway through the firmament, and keeping that doorway open for too long can be very draining, very tiring. Summoning too many daemons at once can kill you. And furthermore remember that until they have stepped through the Firmament they only see what you see, they see the world with your eyes.”

“Very good. This kind of tactic works if paladins are fighting in fields or in forests, but from what we know of Arx they have their fair share of fortresses. Even most of their cities and towns are fortified to some degree. Can anyone tell me how we could get around this?”

There was a silence across the class for a while. Eventually one student said, “Infiltration?”

“That's right! If we can get just a few of our people inside the fortress, secretly, then it's not so hard to get many more in there.”

And so the class went on, with the professor going on and on about different kinds of underhanded tactics. Some pretty basic, others very advanced. Cory was barely paying attention, really, more focused on the task ahead of him that night. He figured that he didn't really need to know about tactics or anything like that, since he'd just follow the orders of his commanding officer on the battlefield.

Once the class was over Cory followed Devin back to his dorm. Devin closed the door behind them and reached under his bed for a bag. From inside the bag he pulled out a brick of rich, dark chocolate. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Cory said, smiling at him.

“Sooner or later, Cory, I'm going to figure out a way to get you to stop blackmailing me.”

“Good luck with that. You could always tell everyone your secret, then I wouldn't have a secret to hold over your head.” On that note Cory left Devin's room, confident that he'd be able to take advantage of him time after time long after that. Devin came from a rich family, nobility, and normally would have nothing to do with Cory. People like Devin's family normally looked down on beggars and their children, so it felt great for Cory to be able to make him squirm and beg. One little truth had given Cory total power over someone who typically would have considered himself pretty high and mighty.

Cory walked down the halls of Leti Academy towards Boanne's room. The academy's architecture was nothing particularly artistic. It was practical, really, a building made of clay bricks held together by concrete. The art was not in the architecture, but rather in the paintings on the walls. Every hallway's walls had paintings depicting the story of the daemons, and how the one the Agalmites in Arx worshiped as “God” had betrayed the rest; or stories of famous warlocks from history who had helped establish Nihilus as a sovereign nation; or perhaps simply paintings of the constellations of the stars in the void.

The paintings on the walls depicted the story of Erets' creation like this; pictures depicted humans and the countless different daemons of the Void merely flying around in black nothingness, looking happy and free. One particular daemon, depicted as being in the shape of a sea urchin, but each of its needles made of long, sharp crystals, was depicted further along in the mural as gathering stones and huge pieces of ice together to form the earth and the seas of Erets. The next image portrayed humans being pulled down towards the earth, crying out in anguish, their faces contorted into all sorts of unpleasant expressions as they were pulled down. Some even had tears flowing from some of their eyes. Next the mural depicted daemons reaching down towards humanity, but blocked by the Firmament in the sky, that separates Erets from the Void. The humans depicted there were also reaching up, desperately, towards the daemons, but unable to reach them. The next part of the mural depicted the “Time of Suffering” as it was called, where humans writhe in anguish all over the ground, experiencing pain for the first time as “God” tried to bring them into submission. According to the pictures in the mural this eventually worked, and humans began to build the churches and temples dedicated to the Agalmite God, while the daemons were depicted above the Firmament, crying for their lost brethren. The final part of the mural depicted Ayira, the first witch, who figured out how to conjure daemons through the Firmament, using her own body like a gateway. The mural illustrated this by depicting her as literally having a gate in her chest, wide open, from which daemons poured out. Ayira was always depicted with such a loving expression in her eyes, with long, flowing, black hair that shined in places as if it were the night sky full of stars. The mural didn't depict, however, what all students knew happened to her next. After conjuring daemons into the world and teaching others how to do the same Ayira was hanged, and her body cast into the crater of a volcano for the Agalmite God to claim her.

The warlocks of Nihilus had no official sacred texts of any kind, but through spoken word, songs, and painted art they had upheld the traditions of their religion. The oral traditions were repeated aloud over and over again before rooms of students, and the students in turn repeated the stories and creeds out loud over and over until they had them memorized. Paintings and songs were always approved by elders, those who had heard the stories long enough to know them better than they knew their own memories. And because of this constant vigilance the stories had not changed a bit over the many centuries.

Cory arrived at Boanne's dorm, cleared his throat, and knocked on the door. A few seconds later Boanne came to the door, her brown hair let out of its braid and falling along her shoulders. She still wore that skeptical look on her face. Neither of them said anything, until Cory held up the brick of chocolate he had promised her.

“By Ayira! No way!” Boanne shouted, snatching it out of his hands. “Thank you so much!”

“Hey, this isn't charity here, this is a trade, remember?” Cory reminded her.

“Sure, come in!” Boanne let Cory in her room and closed the door behind them. Cory entered the girl's dorm and sat down at her table as she went to her counter and began cutting off a small piece of the chocolate brick. Sitting on the table were two Blackstar Talismans. “I made two of them,” Boanne said, “So you can turn one of them in tomorrow and your assignment will be done.”

“Bo, that wasn't the deal,” Cory said, shaking his head. “I told you before, I want to know how to actually make one of these, not just pass the class!”

Boanne was a little surprised by this. Normally when anyone asked her for help with their homework they really meant they wanted her to help them cheat, which she had begrudgingly done from time to time, though always for a price. “Well, start by having a look at it, the shape of it should give you a few hints as to how it's made. I'll fill you in on the specifics in a minute.” Boanne started eating the piece of chocolate she'd cut off, slowly savoring the rich flavor, the blend of both bitter and sweet.

Cory picked up one of the talismans and looked it over. It was in the shape of a four-pointed star, like an X, and it was painted black. Upon taking a closer look he recognized that etched into the talisman were various daemonic symbols.

“Making one of those talismans requires a few things,” Boanne said as she licked the melted chocolate off her fingertips. “First of all you have to make it in the right shape. It can be made of anything, really, cloth, metal, wood, clay, whatever you have access to. In the center, though, needs to be a small piece of iron. The symbols you carve into it represent the specific kinds of daemons you're attempting to conjure, so you have to know what they mean. Do you know what kinds of daemons those symbols represent?”

“Of course,” Cory said.

“Good,” Boanne sat down next to him, holding up the talisman. “The symbols have to be written radiating out from the center of the talisman towards the edges, otherwise it won't work. Then, you have to speak to the talisman, tell it your intentions, and repeat the exact wording four times, in order for it to activate when you want it to.”

“What sorts of things can I make the trigger?”

“Just about anything you can think of. A particular sound, a word, an action. You could enchant the talisman to conjure the daemons when someone enters the room, or perhaps when a certain amount of time has passed. That's what's so great about Blackstar Talismans, they're a way of attacking your enemies without risk.”

“Of course, if you carry one of these into Arx and someone sees you with it...”

“Yeah, you'll be executed pretty quick,” Boanne said. “Still, with how small these talismans are they're easy enough to conceal.”

“Gotcha. You have any more clay or iron?”

“I do have a bit more.” Boanne opened a box on her counter and pulled out a small mound of clay and a tiny piece of iron and handed them both to Cory, “Here. I'll take a look at it when you're done.”

Cory carefully crafted the clay into the shape of a small four-pointed star, making sure the edges were as straight as he could get them.

As he worked on that Boanne paced around the room, and finally said, “Hey, what's the most accurate astrology reading you've ever heard of?”

Cory didn't look up from sculpting the talisman as he said, “A few months before I was born the astrologers apparently predicted a blizzard so wide-spread that it would cover both Nihilus and Arx. Why?”

“You've never heard of anything more specific than that? Maybe a reading about someone's health failing? Or even a king destined to fail?”

“No, of course not! Do you not know how astrology works? The Wanderers represent...”

“I know how it works!” Boanne snapped. “At least, I thought I did...”

“What do you mean?”

Boanne told Cory the story about how Deidra had predicted the professor's death. How her prediction was slightly off, but much more specific and accurate than any previous prediction had ever been. Cory dropped the talisman he was working on and stood from the table, staring wide-eyed at Boanne.

“You found a soothsayer?”

“A what?”

Cory smirked. “What's the matter? Didn't you pay attention in class?”

Boanne rolled her eyes. “What's a soothsayer, Cory?”

“Anyone can learn to read the stars with the right education. Once you know what the constellations are, how to find them, and what they mean it's easy. For example, the moon has passed through the Caligo constellation each night for the past few months, meaning that Nihilus is strong, and very near a great victory. A soothsayer can look at the stars and see more than that, because a soothsayer has been chosen by the daemons as someone who can see the future. Looking at the stars merely triggers things she already knows. Most soothsayers don't even need to look at the stars, for that matter! Most of the time the daemons just take over and fill their heads with their prophecies! If that story you told me is true, then Deidra is undoubtedly a soothsayer! We need to tell the headmistress right away!”

“What, now? You have an assignment to do!” Boanne protested.

“An assignment? Who cares about the assignment? There's a soothsayer in our academy! This changes everything! Come on!” Cory grabbed Boanne by the hand and ran out of the dorm with her, not bothering to close the door behind them. Boanne tried to pull back to close said door, but Cory pulled her along too fast.

“Cory, seriously! The headmistress is busy! Can't this wait?”

“No! News of this magnitude cannot wait!” Cory replied. The two of them arrived at the door to the headmistress' office, and Cory immediately pounded on it, excitedly. Boanne hung her head in her hands in embarrassment at his rudeness. A few moments later the headmistress, a woman in her late seventies, answered the door. “Headmistress, we have some news you'll really want to hear!”