Chapter 35

When he reached the library, it took him a few minutes to find a section about space magic. It was a large hall, full of crooked cabinets that were one light shove from falling over. He carefully picked through them, taking any books that looked interesting.

Before long, Damien had surrounded himself in a makeshift fort of instructional manuals. He rubbed his hands together eagerly and grabbed one, flipping it open and starting to read. Off to his side, Henry formed an eye with a tiny tendril attached to it and floated over to another book to read it.

Damien considered telling him to stop, but nobody was in the area, and he couldn't blame his companion for wanting to learn more magic. He buried his nose in the book he'd chosen, scanning over it closely to see what secrets he could draw out from it.

As he'd expected, there were hundreds of Space magic spells. They ranged in complexity and difficulty, but he mostly stuck to the intermediate ones. He wouldn't admit it if anyone asked, but the fancy spells were a lot cooler than the basic ones, and that was having more than a little influence on his search.

Time ticked by and books shifted piles while the two flipped through them. Several hours passed before either of them knew it.

"Well?" Henry asked. "Any thoughts yet?"

Well, I want a defensive spell. I saw some defensive spells that were higher level for Space magic, but they were seriously complicated. But while I was looking at some other spells, it looks like there's a lot of messing with, well, space. Like bending it or moving things to other locations. Would it be possible to make some kind of one-way portal?

Henry let out a gleeful cackle. "Keep going. Let's assume it is. What would this portal be for?"

Ideally, I could just make it and block anything someone threw at me by sending it somewhere else.

"It's possible," Henry said. "Not everything, but a lot of it. You've got a starting point. I'll give my approval – if you can get this working, it would be very useful. It's worth the time."

Damien rose to his feet, grabbing several books that he thought might be useful. Henry slid a stack of books over to Damien, adding them to his pile wordlessly. Damien stacked them on without glancing at their contents, too lost in his own thoughts. He glanced around at the pile surrounding him. They twitched, almost as if they'd realized he was finished, and floated back to their spots on the shelves.

"Wow," Damien muttered. "I wonder what runes they're using to do that."

He examined the cabinets. Henry poked him with a barb of mental energy. "Come on. One thing at a time. If you let your attention get split, you'll never master a spell before you move on to the next. A few well-honed tools are far superior to a dozen rusty ones."

Fine, fine.

Damien turned and walked back to the entrance of the library. A librarian took note of the books he'd taken, then sent him on his way. He jogged all the way back to his room and was rather winded by the time he got back.

After stopping for a moment to catch his breath and not look completely pathetic in front of Sylph, Damien stepped into the room. She sat on her bed, her legs crossed and eyes closed. Motes of dark energy flickered around her.

Damien crept past Sylph, doing his best not to bother her. He sat down in the training room and set his books out around him, flipping them open to the pages he needed.

"This spell is one of the high-level portals," Damien said, tapping one page of a book. "I don't get all the runes, but if I'm not mistaken, this outer ring of runes is the one that sends the person walking through it to another location."

Henry didn't say anything. Damien flipped through another book, searching through it for a few minutes before stopping on a page depicting another spell. He grabbed a piece of chalk and got to work on the ground, sketching out runes.

He went from book to book over the next two hours, adding notes and runes to his rudimentary sketches.

Finally, he rocked back and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

What books did you end up wanting me to bring, by the way? I never got a glance.

"Nothing too crazy. A history of the school and the continent. Information about what you'll be learning each year. A bestiary of every known monster. And whatever that book that the lunch lady was reading."

I suppose that makes— Wait. What? Why in the Seven Planes do you need that book?

"Humans put a lot of culture into their smut," Henry said. "You never know what you'll learn from it."

You made me check out Love Making for the Uninitiated and Lustful?

He picked through the pile of books Henry had made him get. Sure enough, the book in question was there.

Along with it were eight volumes of Dredd's Demon's and Monsters and a bunch of other history books that were completely uninteresting to him.

Bleh. You do you, I guess.

"I will," Henry replied. "You need to make me a room so that I don't have to worry about getting discovered. I want to read. I could just wait until she's asleep, but I feel strangely drawn to start immediately, despite how illogical that is."

It's called being impatient. Human emotion.

"Well, I don't like it," Henry said, the glower apparent in his tone. "It makes me feel antsy."

We don't like it any more than you do.

Henry grunted. Damien's shadow peeled away from his feet, rising from the ground like a ball of darkness. Two tendrils emerged from it as eyes blinked to life all around Henry's form. Henry picked up a book and brought it closer to himself as Damien stepped out of the room.

Damien spent the rest of the day practicing the Devour spell in the original training room. By the time that night had fallen, he was completely spent. He poked his head into the room Henry was in.

"I'm going to bed," Damien said. An eye on the shadowy blob's head turned to look at Damien, and Henry made an annoyed grunt.

"Fine."

Henry set down the book, which Damien couldn't help but notice was Love Making for the Uninitiated and Lustful and sank into the ground. He returned to a shadow and reattached himself to Damien's feet.

"Say, can't you read these instantly? Why is it taking you so long?" Damien asked.

"There's a difference between reading and enjoying," Henry replied. "I'm bored. This is something to do, so speeding through it wouldn't do me any good. Unless you want to go back to the library already?"

"I think I'll pass," Damien said, grimacing. "We can drop by it tomorrow or the day after."

Damien took a quick shower. Sylph was still meditating on her bed when he finished.

He climbed into his bed and tossed his cloak out from under the covers. He was tired, but he felt good. His magic was progressing at a good rate, and Henry was actually working with him. The companion's sarcasm had even reduced slightly.

Damien rolled over to face the wall as the embrace of sleep welcomed him into its arms. As he slept, a familiar sensation passed over him.

He found himself standing in a sea of darkness. His body had been replaced with a glowing yellow form, and the stars far in the sky above him seemed to shift out of the way when he looked at them.

"Shit," Damien muttered. An alien presence brushed against his mind. The stars spiraled downward, forming a sparkling body one mote of light at a time. "What do you want?"

"That is not the question," It Who Heralds the End of All Light said. "The question is what do we want?"

"I don't understand," Damien said, narrowing his eyes.

"But I know enough to know you aren't Henry. We both know I don't trust you."

"And that's the problem. You trust Henry."

Damien shrugged. "He's been honest with me recently."

"Such is the problem. He is of the Void, but he treats with a child as if it is his equal."

"As do you," Damien pointed out. "Spit it out, Herald.

You want something. What is it?"

"Herald," the starry figure said, rolling the word over in its mouth like a hard candy. "A shortened name. I suppose that will work. Very well. I shall be blunt. The Mortal Plane is in grave danger."

"That's hardly news. There are five of your kind walking around trying to destroy it," Damien said. "You'd be doing the same thing if the contract didn't stop you."

"You are wrong," Herald said, its voice multiplying and contorting in a different manner with every word. "The other Void creatures are not the threat. Henry is."

Damien would have raised his eyebrows if this version of him had any. "Henry? How? As far as I can tell, he's pretty reasonable compared to you."

"Bothersome creature," Herald said, but its visage didn't shift from the perpetual flat expression it always wore.

"You do not understand my—our—purpose. We exist to ensure the Mortal Plane is reborn not destroyed. Henry has strayed from his purpose, and he puts the realm at risk. It must be reborn. If the Corruption takes root too deeply, the Cycle will come to an end forever."

"Corruption?"

"Consider it as another entity beyond your understanding. It seeks to end the Mortal Plane permanently."

"Are you seriously telling me the Void creatures exist to…protect the Mortal Plane?" Damien asked. "That didn't seem like the case when I first summoned you. You were eager to destroy it."

"It must be destroyed in order to be reborn," Herald said. "Death and life are part of the same cycle, but the Corruption is not. It will remove the Mortal Plane from the Cycle permanently."

"And what would that do?" Damien asked. "If I humor you, I fail to see how dying to the Corruption is any worse than letting you destroy the world, at least from my perspective."

The stars that made up Herald twinkled in what Damien suspected might have been the slightest hints of annoyance.

"There is nothing that I can say that could convince you of the truth of my words," Herald said. "The Corruption works slowly, but by the time it is plain to your mortal eyes, it shall be too late. Thus…" A starry hand raised toward Damien. His glowing body froze in place, rejecting his attempts to move as a single finger tapped his chest.

Hot pain seared across Damien's chest. He gasped, grasping at it, but his glowing arms found nothing. The line twisted, carving some sort of pattern into his chest. Then, as quickly as it had started, the pain vanished into a dull throbbing ache.

"What did you do?" Damien asked, his voice shaky.

"I have begun preparing your weak mortal shell to contain the full strength of your soul."

"That's horrib— Wait. That sounds like a good thing," Damien said suspiciously.

"We have the same enemy, boy. Even if you fail to realize it. Do not allow the new power to overwhelm you. As friendly as you believe Henry to be, he will not hesitate to take control of your body if you lack the strength to keep him out of it."

With that final piece of advice, the starry night shattered like a mirror hit by a hammer. Fragments of stars flew past Damien as something wrapped around his body and dragged him downward into the darkness.