Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [129]
Condred’s sanctimonious charity had galled him then, but Crake took some comfort in knowing that Condred regretted the offer now. Condred had envisioned a short stay. Perhaps he thought that Crake would be quickly shamed into moving out and getting a good job. But he’d reckoned without his younger brother’s determination to pursue his quest for knowledge. Once Crake saw the empty wine cellar, he wouldn’t be moved. He could endure anything, if he could have that. It was the perfect sanctum.
More than three years had passed. Three years in which Crake spent all his free time behind the locked door of the wine cellar, underground. Every night he’d come back from work, share an awkward dinner with his disapproving brother and his snooty, dried-up bitch of a wife, then disappear downstairs. Crake would have happily avoided the dinner, but Condred insisted that he was a guest and should eat with the family. It was the proper thing to do, even if all concerned hated it.
How typical of Condred. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, all in the name of etiquette. Moron.
The only thing that made life in the house bearable, apart from Crake’s sanctum, was his niece. She was a delightful thing: bright, intelligent, friendly, and somehow unstained by the sour attitude of her parents. She was fascinated by her uncle Grayther’s secret experiments and pestered him daily to show her what new creation he was working on. She was convinced that his sanctum was a wonderland of toys and fascinating machines.
Crake found it a charming idea. He began to buy toys from a local toymaker to give to her, passing them off as his own. Her parents knew what he was doing and sneered in private, but they didn’t say a word about it to their daughter. She idolized their layabout guest, and Crake loved her in return.
Those three years of studying and experimenting had brought him to this point. He’d learned the basics and applied them. He’d summoned daemons and bid them to do his will. He’d thralled objects, made simple communications, even healed wounds and sickness through the Art. He corresponded often with more-experienced daemonists and was well thought of by them.
All daemonism was dangerous, and Crake had been very cautious all this time. He’d gone step by tiny step, growing in confidence, never overreaching himself. He knew well the kinds of things that happened to daemonists who attempted procedures beyond their experience. But it was possible to be too cautious. At some point, it was necessary to take the plunge.
The echo chamber was the next step. Echo theory was cutting-edge daemonic science, requiring complex calculations and nerves of steel. With it, a daemonist could reach into realms never before accessed, to pluck strange new daemons from the aether. The old guard—the ancient, fuddy-duddy daemonists—wouldn’t touch it, but Crake couldn’t resist. The old ways had been mapped and explored, but this was new ground, and Crake wanted to be one of the first to the frontier.
Tonight, he was attempting a procedure he’d never tried before. He was going to bring life to the lifeless.
Tonight, he was going to create a golem.
He stopped his pacing and returned to the echo chamber, checking the connections for the twentieth time. The echo chamber was linked by soundproofed tubes to a bizarre armored suit that he’d found in a curio shop. The shopkeeper had no idea what it was. He theorized that it might have been made for working in extreme environments, but Crake privately disagreed. It was crafted to fit a hunchbacked giant, and it wasn’t airtight. He guessed it was probably ornamental or a sculptural showpiece made by some deranged metalworker. At any rate, Crake had to have it. It was so fascinatingly grotesque, and perfect for his purposes.
Now it stood in his sanctum, ready to accept the daemon he intended to draw into it. An empty vessel, waiting to be filled. He studied