“Please go on, lord,” Colvetis Pol urged.
“The sudden withdrawal of support from the cousins of the infant enabled his sire to elude our clutches for but a short time. It is passing odd, though,” and here the rotting, hollow voice and the bearing of the thing seemed all too human, “that no augury, no divination, not even of the lowest magnitude, could pierce the curtain which hedged the three.” The shadowed opening of the cowl swung to face the two, and priest and mage pulled back just a little. Yet the daemon spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone, imparting knowledge as if to equals. “Had we not been so close, all would have escaped. Much of the contest will be played out on the material plane, and some different, unknown force has aided those who oppose us…”
“I have detected nothing of the sort,” Sigildark stated flatly.
“Do be still,” Colvetis Pol admonished the spell-worker. “I have seen some slight change in certain castings,” the priest of evil said to Poxpanus. “When your hound has devoured the infant, will the interference dissipate? Or will it not?”
The daemon studied Pol. If ever was a mortal bound for lichdom, this one was. Ambitious, powerful, skilled, and dedicated to the malign might of Hades. Unlike the upstart Sigildark, a paltry factor, Pol had served on the highest councils of Nerull for decades. Poxpanus knew him to be two centuries old.
Although the man’s outward appearance had changed little in the last several decades, the daemon could see into the inner creature, and it knew that the spirit there glowed with unnatural light and black force. Pol drew upon the negative energies already, and soon enough the priest would pass from the status of a mortal human to that of an eternally undead lich-lord. All the better, for Colvetis Pol was a useful servant to Hades.
Poxpanus noted that the priest was studying him, even as he gazed upon the man. Pol had the power to see clearly in darkness, and no shadows or even dweomered darkness could prevent his vision from working. It made the daemon a little uneasy to realize that the assessment, the weighing, that was going on was mutual. “The interference will be weakened. That is certain. And what is weak can be made to disappear.”
“What if your hound should fail, lord?” The priest was not inclined to take Poxpanus at his word.
“That would be my failure, and such a condition is not possible,” the nether-thing said with hauteur.
The mage seemed satisfied at that, but Colvetis Pol slightly raised one of his thin, sharply arched brows. “You can predict the unpredictable, know the unknown. I am impressed, lord.” His tone was perhaps the tiniest bit sarcastic.
“You will see in a short time, priest!” Poxpanus spat the words out in his anger at being japed at by even so powerful a man as this priest, for Pol was still but a human. There could be no doubt that he was also one who was growing overly ambitious. He would be dealt with to stringent fashion, Poxpanus assured himself, soon… soon. “Now I grow weary of this puerile banter. I shall retire to my private chambers.”
“Virgin’s blood, lord-fresh and warm.” The servant set a flask on the table next to Poxpanus and backed out of the room hastily.
Now within the deep enclave that was the special guest chamber of the temple, the nether-being was preparing for what he must do next. He quaffed the satisfying refreshment quickly, for it gave him the energy and power he would need to execute the task before him.
The words of the priest had caused Poxpanus to consider. His queries were too pointed. The daemon had spoken hastily, and now it was time to make certain that what he had said was no mere boasting. First there would be a sending of sickness. Although the daemon did not know exactly those whom it would visit, their locale and general descriptions were sufficient, for he was near and full of vigor. Some of that strength, however, had to be saved for the second part of his effort.
The ritual of the sending was similar to the complex incantations and conjurations often practiced by mages. Sigildark would have seen much he recognized. So would Colvetis Pol have recognized certain ceremonial portions used by those who invoked clerical powers. Poxpanus worked with speed and deliberation, but he did not rush. Even a netherlord could make errors, and the daemon knew that well. Soon enough the sending was completed, and then he turned his attention to Rheachan.
Although that creature served as his hound, Rheachan was his own offspring, a thing sprung directly from Poxpanus. The beast was therefore controllable, loyal, and totally predictable. If it drew upon the daemon’s own strength, it also fed him when it fed. The relationship was complex, symbiotic in a sense, an unbreakable extension of the vilest portions of Poxpanus’ mind and body too. Rheachan had never failed. Still, something in the priest’s words had made the daemon uneasy. The unknown was, after all, just that Better to be too cautious now. Cautious, that is, in assuring the strength of his hound-offspring as it did its work.
There was no mystery involved in Poxpanus’ calling down sickness and disease upon an enemy. Pol and others steeped in the arcane knew well that such powers belonged to daemons of stature. Rheachan was an altogether different matter. Something that was strength could also be weakness if enemies were aware of the resource. To avoid any possible spying on what he planned next, Poxpanus set about cloaking this innermost cell of the temple. With drawn glyphs and murmured chants, the nether-being began to build layer upon layer of wardings. First was the shield against the mind, then the prying forces of magic, and finally came the guards that prevented priestly scrutiny of any sort-even that assisted by beings of other sort than humans.
When the triple protections were set, Poxpanus added to each, strengthening here, tightening there, until he was satisfied that each was sufficient to withstand even a major assault for the time he needed to do his work. To be even more sure, however, the daemon then wove the three wards together, meshing them so that each supported the other, and over all three he built a screen of such stuff as to make the whole invisible and undetectable except to the most exacting scrutiny. No sweeping search would discover his carefully built fortress of energies. To have it otherwise would invite the attention of all sorts of unwanted intruders, evil as well as those who fought against it. None could be trusted, none could know. The axiom of Hades, perhaps of all the lower planes, was a simple one: Strength is mastery: the weak are ruled.
In the web of energies, the complex tapestry of magic, and planar powers, there was yet an opening. The mesh allowed Poxpanus a place where his own particular psyche, those vibrations that were uniquely his own, could pass into and move out of the confinement of the fortress. It was but a small opening, a tiny weakness in the structure. In time a being of might would find and exploit such a tiny flaw, but time was not a factor. Poxpanus would use the protection for but a short duration-a few minutes, a few hours, a day at most. After that, It would be finished. With success, the daemon lord would return to the nether planes. Then there would be a reordering of the ranks, and only Infestix would be greater than he. Long had he contested with Anthraxus and the rest to assume the second position in Hades, Viceroy of Glooms as it were. Soon that struggle would come to an end.
“Rheachan!”
“I watch, and I wait, as you instruct”
The reply was crystal clear. Poxpanus sent his force out along the channel. “Good,” he thought, as he saw In his mind what the daemon-hound saw with its eyes.
“It is pleasurable to me that you find me suitable, Paterfamilias.” There was no lie in that, no deception. Rheachan was unsatisfied and incomplete without contact with Poxpanus.