Not everything has worked out as we had hoped. Thermoporo completed the Unbinding ritual and started his workings again. He called forth from the One wondrous, strange power. But he grew greedy, his thirst for Magia unquenched. The working went straight through him. The spell lifted him into the air and drained his body dry of power. He collapsed in front of us, nothing more than a lifeless corpse.
Daelius in his unbound state has become something strange and frightening. His wife and children report unusual behavior. They said he ate his food with the dogs and howled. He tore their pig’s throat out with his teeth. He left messages in a script I have never seen made of bizarre letters formed with circles. Our Master says this is more evidence that the One uses Daelius as a vessel, for the One only speaks in the old language.
Daelius came to us, the black toga and cloak of the initiates floating around him as if blown by wind and suspended in water, though no wind flowed and the rivers had long since dried. His eyes were pits of darkness glimmering as if from inside a long, deep well. The others feared him, afraid of the fierce power of the One. It was as if he was possessed by some nocturnal deity, but we had called forth no demon. Daelius had only called Magia to him, only the One.
When he sacrificed two young boys to the Underworld in order to summon the spirits of the dead, our Master put a stop to it.
“This is against our laws,” He said, “Daelius must be stopped.”
“But why is this happening?” we asked our teacher, for we were afraid and wanted to become bound again for the protection our talismans brought.
“The soul of Daelius is not yet perfected. This can only be done through an understanding of the world and of what is good. The One uses him as a puppet, a vessel, but not an equal. There is danger in what we have done.”
We shut Daelius in a cavern in the mountain for fear that through him, the One would rip a hole through the world and walk through it at will. He, being the merciful, wise man that he was, worked for many days and nights to find something that could bind us again to protect us from the One. At last, He told us he had found a way to bind us again.
I have added the instructions below.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BINDING TO A TALISMAN OF POWER.
“He did it,” Max breathed. “The bastard found it. A way to fix them.”
“If what Dani did was a spell to unbind her from her objects …” I began, thinking aloud, “then that—thatthingthat is tearing through her body, that made her kill Maya, and nearly throttled us, that’s destroying her from the inside out, it’s—”
“It’s Magic. Or the One, as they call it,” Max said. “Raw Magic, going straight through her. Just like Daelius. Because she had first bound to an object and then unbound from it, her Magic and body didn’t know how to react. Without any objects to take the brunt of the Magic, her body is operating as the object instead. She’s taking the full force of it.”*
I paused, looked down at the book, running my fingers over the ink. A thought I didn’t like wormed its way through me.
“But she’s not casting any spells …” I said slowly. “I mean, she was unconscious before. Thermoporo had cast a spell that was too strong for him, but … Dani’s not casting any spell.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “No … it looks like the Magic’s doing it for her.”
I was afraid, suddenly, of the power I’d felt under the soles of my shoes on campus, buzzing with a strange and steady hum. I hadn’t realized before, but it sounded almost … louder now. Hissing and swirling and beating like a living, breathing thing.
“There’s something else.” My eyes scanned the last words on the page.
Three talismans are required for the workings this time, instead of one. The brothers have sold everything for possession of the rare gems. So far, the spell has worked for two of the other initiates. After the ritual, they have scarcely parted with their talismans.
It has not worked for Daelius, who is still alive in the caverns. Sometimes, when we meditate or go for walks, I can hear him scream.
Master has done all he can. Once a person has been Magically unbound for one cycle of the moon, the Binding charm is no longer possible. Magia will take permanent ownership of the vessel.
Tonight, I think of Daelius and mourn, for the last of his water will surely run out soon.
Slowly, the realization dawned on us both.
“Oh, God.”
I did a quick sum in my head. A month! If I’d arrived on the fourth day of Dani being possessed, that only left …
“One day, Max. We have one day until we can’t turn her back. Until … ‘Magic takes permanent ownership of the vessel.’”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DANICA STEWART
APRIL 2ND[THE DAY AFTER THE MURDER]
Wouldst thou, great Jove, thou Father of Mankind
Reveal the Demon for that Task assign’d,
