Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [32]
Pleeancis followed his gaze and bit back a snarl.
Jennah-she-lay there in her little glass case like some red haired doll with alabaster skin. Pleeancis wished he had gouged out one of her eyes over the years. He could've blamed it on a rat or something.
The Boss walked across the room to the case, his face wistful. He reached out and laid a hand on the glass.
"Soon, dearest," he whispered. "Soon."
Pleeancis ground his fangs and squinted his eyes in anger. Damn it! He did not want her back.
Since the Boss's back was to him, Pleeancis took what vengeance he could-he stuck out his forked tongue and made a terribly obscene gesture taught to him by a dretch demon. She, of course, made no response.
Pleeancis used the claw on his forefinger to pop the candle from its mold. He picked it up and held it in his hands. He wondered if it would hurt him to eat it. After all, no candle, no her. He sniffed it. It smelled loamy, vaguely like tenday old mushrooms. He opened his mouth- "Pleeancis!"
He dropped it with an alarmed squeak. The Boss rushed over and gingerly picked up the candle, as though he were holding an infant.
"I was just smelling it, Boss." Pleeancis took a step back, prepared to take flight, but the Boss didn't seem angry. Relieved, Pleeancis beat his wings and halted his retreat. "It smells funny. Kinda like the dirt covering dead people. What's in it?"
The Boss secreted the taper in an inner pocket of his black and purple robe.
"Souls," he answered cryptically, his eyes aglitter. "Life-force. Enough to overcome the resistance that has prevented the efficacy of my spells. Enough to ensure that my next attempt will bring my love back."
He looked past Pleeancis to the glass case. Pleeancis rolled his eyes.
He didn't understand the human obsession with love. What a bunch of tripe. It was neat that the Boss had put souls in the candle, though. No wonder many of the houseslaves had disappeared recently. Pleeancis giggled, then he remembered that the candle would bring her back. He stopped giggling.
"How can it bring her back, Boss?" he asked and stole a quick, hateful glare in her direction. "It's just a candle. If you couldn't do it by yourself…?" He let the rest of the question go unspoken. If the Boss-one of the more powerful wizards in Shade and one of the preeminent practitioners of shadow magic-couldn't bring her back with his spells, how in the Nine Hells could a candle?
The Boss smiled absently, but his eyes burned with intensity. "This is a special candle, Pleeancis, one that draws upon the Shadow Weave. When its light casts a reflection of a…" he stuttered over the next word, as though embarrassed to say it aloud, "… a corpse, the reflective surface becomes a portal, a doorway to the place where the soul of that corpse resides." He reached into his pocket, no doubt to touch the candle while he spoke. "The soul can return through that portal, re-inhabit the body, and thereby return to life."
Pleeancis wanted to puke. He glared at her, showed her his fangs.
"Now that the candle is complete," the Boss went on, "the critical factor is the reflective surface."
Pleeancis hung his head and snarled softly. He wanted to hear no more. The familiar kicked petulantly at the books on the table. He and the Boss had spent years alone together. They did not need her. Stupid love.
The Boss continued on, lost in his own world.
"In this case, for the shadow magic to work, the reflective surface must be the dusky scales of a living shadow dragon."
Pleeancis's head snapped up. His wings fluttered with perturbation. "A shadow dragon!"
The Boss merely looked down on him, still smiling, and nodded.
Disbelieving, Pleeancis took wing and fluttered before the Boss's face. He snapped his scaled fingers to bring the Boss back from his madness.
"Shadow dragons are tough, Boss. Tough. And there's only one around here-"
"Ascalagon," the Boss finished for him and nodded again. Unbelievably, he did not look afraid.
"But Ascalagon is ancient,"