Balcombe placed the bowl on the floor. Extending his left arm off the edge of the couch and over the bowl, he opened the razor and positioned its keen edge against the ball of his palm. He lingered like that for several moments, savoring the anticipation of what he was about to do. A fine lattice of hairline scars paralleled the shining blade. With a glint of dementia in his eyes, he applied just enough pressure on the blade to push a shallow crease in his palm. Then, smiling tightly, he drew the blade slowly toward himself. As it slid, the parting flesh rose slowly up the side of the blade as the metal sank into the skin. A thin trickle of blood flowed out from beneath the steel, then ran in a warm red stream across his tilted palm to drip into the bowl on the floor. The flow surged in rhythm with his pulse, and his head nodded in time with the soothing beat. Soon tiny streams of blood crisscrossed his hand, following the minute network of lines etched there. A few moments after that his palm was drenched and growing sticky as the crimson fluid began to coagulate.
The discovery that the sight of his own^blood calmed him, that the sensation of his own pain thrilled him, had come on a horror-filled night ten long years ago. On that damp, moonlit night a broken apprentice mage had teetered on the brink of the Abyss only to ultimately cheat death by striking a deal with the devil himself.
Balcombe had learned much since then. The former initiate had secured a position as court mage to a paranoid and disenfranchised Knight of Solamnia in a forgotten corner of Abanasinia. He had become free- even paid-to hone his magical skills in the lap of luxury, without interference, without unwanted attention. He was free to stoke the flames of bitterness toward those he held responsible for his failure of the Test in the Tower-, the Conclave of Wizards, which had administered the Test and then left him for dead.
He never could decide which of the three orders he hated most for participating in his humiliation. The head of the conclave, Par-Salian, was a powerful wizard of the White Robes. The one time Balcombe had met him- when Balcombe had received his first assignment as an apprentice-the middle-aged archmage of Good had acted distant, as if the conversation were a distraction keeping him from his real work, which seemed too caught up in theory. Balcombe thought it likely that Par-Salian had designed the Test.
At the time of Balcombe's Test, Justarius had recently been appointed head of the Red Robes, the order Balcombe had sought to join. Now Balcombe found that order's neutrality infuriating, especially since it likely kept Justarius from intervening on behalf of the young Balcombe in his time of need during the Test.
That left LaDonna. Also middle-aged, the dun-haired wizardess was head of the Order of Black Robes. Balcombe knew less about her than the others, because during his formal training he had never considered wearing the Black Robes. In truth, he held her the least responsible of all because of her alignment toward evil.
That was why he sought to replace her in the conclave.
What greater revenge against Par-Salian and Justarius than to call Balcombe, a failure of their impossible test, their peer? He would achieve far greater power than he had ever dreamed possible when he made that first journey to Wayreth Forest.
If only Hiddukel held up his end of the deal.
Balcombe had learned much about bargaining since falling into this arrangement. Ten years and countless souls after he had struck his deal with the evil god in the darkness of Wayreth Forest, the mage had a plan that would help him reach his goal and stop his indenture to Hiddukel all at once. He would offer the god of deals, the dealer of souls, a spirit so pristine and priceless that the god would be willing to nullify his verbal contract with Balcombe just to get it.
But Balcombe intended to ask a higher price than even that. Hiddukel had long ago promised him both power and revenge. The former had been delivered, as Balcombe was certainly the most powerful wizard in the region. Now he would also have his revenge by claiming LaDonna's position on the conclave.
As he thought about how he would approach the subject with the god, Balcombe compressed the wound on his palm until the flow of blood stopped, then he wrapped it tightly with a clean strip of silk from an enameled box near the foot of the divan. He returned with the small bowl to his laboratory. There he mixed sweet-smelling powders with the thickening blood to make a paste. This he placed over a red-hot brazier, then thrust his head into the billowing cloud of smoke that streamed up from the bowl. This cloying vapor cleared away the exhaustion of the previous ten hours and left Balcombe feeling quick and sharp-minded.
It was a ritual he had performed countless times before invoking Hiddukel. Each encounter with the sharp-tongued god was a contest of wills. Hiddukel was the immortal sovereign of contracts. Anything said during a conversation with him, no matter how insignificant it might seem, could become eternally binding. Balcombe had long ago realized that any degree of caution was justified when dealing with such a being.
Feeling clarified and invigorated, Balcombe strode from his worktable to a heavily ornate floor cabinet standing in the corner. Inside were symmetrical shelves top and bottom, with an array of small drawers in the middle. The mage selected one drawer and pulled it completely out from its slot. He then reached back into the empty space and withdrew a smaller, square, completely closed box made of highly polished gray slate, approximately two inches on a side. He pulled a second drawer from its slot and nimbly popped open a hidden panel along its back edge and withdrew a tiny bronze key from the secret compartment thus revealed. Returning to the slate box, he turned it round and round in his hands until he found the side he sought. As he carefully passed the bronze key over that side of the box, an impression appeared in the shape of the key. Balcombe pressed the key into the notch and instantly the box folded itself open to reveal a small, royal blue velvet pouch.
Balcombe carefully unfolded the pouch, which appeared to be empty. Its most striking features were six tiny, steel hands, which held the mouth of the pouch tightly shut. The wizard spoke the sounds, "buldi vetivich," releasing the magical wards protecting the bag and causing the six tiny hands to disappear.
Tingling with anticipation, Balcombe tipped up the apparently empty bag and from it tumbled a perfectly cut, fist-sized ruby. Holding the gem up to the light of one of the many candles in the room, Balcombe could barely make out the frightened young face deep inside the gem's wine-colored facets, looking this way and that, trying in vain to see what was happening outside the magical prison.
They'd made it so easy for him, the knight and his son, and most especially the unwitting Delbridge, who by revealing the secret plan had provided everyone but himself with an alibi. Placing the gem in Rostrevor's sheets while supposedly casting magical seals on the area was child's play. The instant the squire touched the gem, he was drawn into it and trapped like a genie in a bottle. When Balcombe unsealed the room in the morning, he simply pocketed the gem unnoticed. Everyone else was too preoccupied with the inexplicable disappearance of the squire to notice anything.
But trapping a soul was no small task, even for a wizard of Balcombe's advanced skill. First the wizard had to prepare the vault, which had to be a gem of extraordinary value or it would shatter when the soul was forced into it. Next it was necessary to ensorcel the gem, making it receptive to magical effects. Then the wizard had to create an enchanted maze inside the gem, thereby forming a prison capable of containing a soul. All of these steps were necessary prior to the magical casting that actually trapped the soul and had to be performed ritually each and every time Balcombe sought a victim to soothe Hiddukel's hunger.