Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [130]
Surrounding the echo chamber and the suit was a circle of resonator masts. These electrically powered tuning forks vibrated at different wavelengths, designed to form a cage of frequencies through which a daemon couldn’t pass. Crake checked the cables, following them across the floor of the sanctum to the electrical output he’d had wired into the wall. Once satisfied, he turned them on one by one, adjusting the dials set into their bases. The hairs on his nape began to prickle as the air thickened with frequencies beyond his range of hearing.
“Well,” he said aloud. “I suppose I’m ready.”
Standing on the opposite side of the echo chamber from the armored suit was a control console. It was a panel of brass dials, waist high, set into a frame that allowed it to be moved around on rollers. Next to the controls was a desk, scattered with open books and notepads displaying procedures and mathematical formulae. Crake knew them by heart, but he scanned them again anyway. Putting off the moment when he’d have to begin.
He hadn’t been so terrified since the first time he summoned a daemon. His pulse pounded in his throat. The cellar felt freezing cold. He’d prepared, and prepared, and prepared, but no preparation would ever be enough. The cost of getting this wrong could be terrible. Death would be a mercy if an angry daemon got its hands on him.
But he couldn’t be cautious forever. To be a rank-and-file practitioner of daemonism wasn’t enough. He wanted the power and renown of the masters.
He went to the console and activated the echo chamber. A bass hum came from the sphere. He left it for a few minutes to warm up, concentrating on his breathing. He had a feeling he might suddenly faint if he didn’t keep taking deep breaths.
It’s still not too late to back out, Grayther.
But that was just fear talking. He’d made this decision long ago. He steeled his nerve and went back to the console. Steadily, he began to turn the dials.
There was an art to catching a daemon. The trick was to match the vibrations of the equipment to the vibrations of the daemon, bringing the entity into phase with what the uneducated called the “real” world. With minor daemons—little motes of power and awareness, possessing no more intelligence than a beetle—the procedure was simple enough. It was rather like fishing: you placed a sonic lure and drew them in.
But the greater daemons were another matter entirely. They had to be caught and forced into phase. A greater daemon might have six or seven primary resonances that all needed to be matched before it could be dragged unwillingly before the daemonist. And, once there, the daemon needed to be contained. It was a foolish man who tried to deal with an entity like that without taking measures to protect himself.
Crake wasn’t stupid enough to think he could handle a greater daemon yet. He was aiming lower. Something with a doglike level of intelligence would suit him very nicely. If he could thrall an entity like that into his armored suit, he’d have a golem dull enough to be biddable. And if it proved troublesome, he had procedures in place to drive it out and back into the aether.
But summoning daemons was dangerous in many ways. A man didn’t always know exactly what he was getting. He might fish for a minnow and find a shark on the line.
Crake had made calculations, based on the findings of other echo theorists and his own ideas. He’d identified a range of frequencies where he’d be likely to find what he wanted. Then he commenced the hunt proper.
The echo chamber began to vibrate and whine as he searched along the bandwidth. Daemonism was as much about feel and instinct as science. Crake closed his eyes and concentrated, turning the dials slowly.
There it was. That creeping sensation of being watched. He’d found something. Now he had to catch it before it slipped away.
He set up new resonances, starting high and low and then moving them closer together, feeling out the shape