Soul of Sorcery (Book 5) Read Free Page A

draw breath. 
    “You’re going to fall asleep now,” said the Old Demon, “and when you wake up, you will forget our little chat.” 
    Lucan growled, trying to fight his way free from the spell. He reached for his magic, trying to summon arcane power, but the Old Demon’s magic was like a tower of iron. Lucan could no more have opposed the Old Demon’s strength than he could have tried to extinguish the sun. 
    “But don’t forget,” said the Old Demon, “that the Demonsouled are the cause of your woes. Every ill that has befallen you, every last shred of pain…lay it at the doorstep of the Demonsouled.” He grinned. “Of me.”
    He snapped his fingers. 
    The pressure holding Lucan vanished, and he collapsed to the floor.
    Darkness swallowed him.

    ###

    Lucan blinked.
    He felt the cold stone floor resting against his cheek.
    Confused, he sat up, leaning against the wall. His tower room was deserted. 
    Why the devil was he on the floor? 
    He stood up, frowning.
    He remembered walking through the door, considering a new location for a workroom. And then…and then…
    Nothing.
    Lucan turned in a circle, hand raised in the beginnings of a spell. Had he been drugged? Or had someone cast a spell upon him? He worked the spell to sense the presence of magic and felt nothing, save for the wards against the San-keth and the undead Timothy deBlanc had cast over the entire castle. 
    There was no trace of any spell cast upon Lucan. And had he been drugged, there would have been other symptoms – dizziness, nausea, something.
    So what had happened to him?
    Tentatively he reached for the well of Demonsouled power within him, left behind by whatever strange ordeal he had suffered after the destruction of the bloodstaff. But the power was quiet, waiting for him to call upon it.
    “Exhaustion,” muttered Lucan, shaking his head and sitting down upon the bed. That was it. His ordeal with the shattered bloodstaff and Corvad had drained him, and he hadn’t yet recovered. 
    And yet…
    He felt…better.
    Lighter, somehow. As if some heavy burden had been lifted. Or if all his cares had been taken away. For a moment Lucan felt the absurd impulse to go enjoy himself, to get drunk and seduce the first willing woman he could find. Or why bother with willing? He knew enough spells to override the will of another, to force the victim to comply with his wishes…
    He shook his head, annoyed. He had better things to do with his time than to debauch himself like a drunken caravan guard. He had sworn to fight dark magic, to keep others from suffering as he had suffered, and he would do it.
    Lucan would do whatever was necessary.
    He titled his head to the side, puzzled.
    For the first time, the thought filled him with anticipation.

    ###

    Darkness swirled, and the creature that some men called the Old Demon stepped out of the shadows and onto the ramparts of Castle Cravenlock’s curtain wall. 
    He did not worry that anyone would see him. A hundred nations had risen and fallen in the centuries since he had mastered the spells of concealment and disguise. True, Mazael’s pet wizard had mantled the castle in warding spells, but those spells were like candle flames against the inferno of the Old Demon’s might. It required only a thought to bypass them. With the tiniest effort of will, he could have shattered the spells and left their caster a drooling idiot. He could have killed every last man, woman, and child within the walls, and reduced the castle itself to a pile of smoking slag. 
    But only if they attacked him first.
    His vast power carried limitations. 
    So he had to use others as his tools, as his weapons. 
    And he had become very good at it. 
    His eyes fell over the dome of the castle’s chapel, and the rage in his mind stirred. Mazael had defied him in that chapel, and few of his children had ever done so. And with that cursed sword of his, Mazael could have hurt him, as the ancients had foretold so very long ago.