Howl's Moving Castle Fan Fiction ❯ Twilight Doom ❯ Chapter 8: The Daemon Queen ( Chapter 8 )

Twilight Doom: Part III of the Wallmaker Saga

Chapter 8: The Daemon Queen

Theresa had never flown this high before.

The buildings that passed quickly beneath them as they flew towards the center of Kingsbury were as tiny as doll houses. The vast emptiness beneath her feet gave her a horrible sense of vertigo and the little red head could not help but want to empty the contents of her stomach. But she did not want to upset her mistress. Martha did not appear to be faring much better than her apprentice and the herbalist clutched her hands around her assistant's waist so tightly that the young girl had trouble breathing. But desperation made her bold and the freckled girl flew with a confidence she had never before felt. Markl's safety depended on them.

“There it is!” Martha shouted over the wind.

Peering through green eyes that watered under the wind of their speed, the young herbalist saw the great golden dome framed against a ghastly plume of black smoke. The palace was on fire and she could see yellow flames licking through breeches in the red and yellow rubble that crumbled away from the side of the palace. The apprentice leaned forward and dipped low over the twisting streets that wove like empty grey ribbons beneath them. She could see the inner wall of Kingsbury, and the golden winged lions above the stripped heraldic crest of Ingary's capital gleamed like a guiding beacon. Suddenly, twin explosions rocked the city ahead of them. Building crumbled into rubble as two great spouts of yellow black flame reached up into the sky for them.

“Daemons!” Martha shrieked

Her words melted into a scream as Theresa banked like a swallow and dove and twisted between the seeking tendrils of the living flames. Harried by the wrathful fire, the herbalist and her apprentice plunged from the sky into the streets below. The little girl had to pull on the shaft of her hoe with all her might to keep from crashing into the cobblestones below. Cutting to the side, they sped through the empty avenues, skirting the edge of the palace as the wrath daemons surged after them, barring their way to the center of the city.

By this time Martha had recovered enough to wrench one of the glass vials from her bandolier. The royal wizard's wife threw it into the putrid flames that pursued them. One of the daemons shrieked as the vial shattered and its contents ignited, releasing a great burst of green smoke. It fell back into the hazy miasma only to be replaced by its companion, which surged forward in a twisting mass of wriggling flames. The yellow-black daemon resolving into a huge lizard-like entity, which darted out its triangular head to snapped at them in frustration.

Theresa pulled a hard right and shot down a narrow alleyway only to realize it was a dead end. But the sound of crumbling bricks heralded the daemon's presence on the roofs above them, and ash and embers rained down on them. Through the dripping fire the herbalist's apprentice caught sight of a large glass window on the street level of at the end of the passageway.

“Pull up! Pull up!” Martha screeched as the brick wall loomed before them, but they could not go up. The daemon waited for them there. Instead they would go through.

“Hang on!” The curly haired girl shouted as she hunched forward, gaining speed. Her mistress almost crushed the apprentice around her middle as they crashed through the window.

Instinct took over as Theresa wheeled and veered through the chambers of the building. Luckily the town house belonged to a rich family who could afford high ceilings and large open chambers. Only once or twice did the freckled girl crawl to a near stop to kick open a doorway or navigate through the winding rooms. As they burst into a large ballroom, sunlight showed through the tall windows that lined the outside boulevard. Theresa almost lost some hair to the chandelier overhead as they shot like an arrow through the glass panes into the street outside.

Once again the herbalist's apprentice had to careen to the side as she nearly collided with a group of red garbed witches and wizards that gathered at the foot of the great open courtyard before the palace. The royal wizard's guard shouted and pointed into the sky, scattering on foot and into the air like leaves in the wind as the wrath daemon chirped overhead and plunged into the square.

It shrieked and snapped its great jaws, swiping its claws at the red garbed figures, which darted and twisted about like a crimson flock of swifts. Theresa dodged among the airborne witches and wizards, who cast multi-colored balls of magic at the harried beast. Martha once again surfaced and retracted a hand long enough to lob another vial at the daemon. It keened a sound like metal being torn in two and crashed back against the town houses that lined the square to escape the plume of green smoke. Suddenly its brother clambered up onto the top of the inner wall, shaking its head as though to clear its mind. It teetered and clawed at the bricks only to come crashing into the courtyard with a mournful wail.

As Martha and Theresa burst out of the fray and circled higher over the creatures. As they reached a safe height and slowed to a hover the herbalist and her apprentice noticed that the witches and wizards were drawing the daemons forward. Moving through a complex series of feints involving bombardments and baiting traps, the Royal Guard of witches and wizards simultaneously pushed and pulled the daemons towards the center of the square.

“What are they doing!? They're bringing them towards the palace!” The freckled girl half shrieked as she made ready to dive from the morning sky. But Martha stopped her apprentice, her large green eyes severe as she peered down into the furious magic battle below. Although her hands were once again clamped like a vice around the little girl's waist.

“We can't see it, but there's a gigantic banishing circle in the middle of the courtyard,” the herbalist replied in a fierce voice, “Barimus described it to me once. It's another remnant from the Mage Wars that took place here a long time ago.”

At that moment two figures in red separated from the group and shot up into the sky towards them. As they drew near Theresa saw that the wizards were twins, with matching copper curls and winking merry green eyes. They circled her and Martha in perfect unison, regarding them from afar at first.

“Peoter-Deiter?” The herbalist called out the two names as though they were one.

“Since when do hedge witches fly?” The wizards called back in perfect unison as they wheeled and floated before them linked arm in arm. Theresa was at a complete loss over which was who. She had met the twin wizards only once when they had come to visit Martha's shop. But she had been too shy to speak and had gone out into the garden to hide.

“Where is Barimus?” Martha answered irritably.

“Contact with the Captain was severed just before dawn,” spoke one and where he left off his twin began, “According to her last relay, she and the Lord Councilor were headed to the shield room with a group of apprentices.”

The smiles faded from their faces as they pointed to the shattered dome on the Palace's eastern side, from which great black smoke poured. Another explosion erupted from the side of the palace and the twins cast up their arms in horror. Martha went pale with dread and Theresa faltered in the air as they watched the yellow fire bloom like a hideous blackened flower into the sky overhead. The daemons below suddenly thrummed deeply and turned towards the detonation. The wrathful lizard chirped cryptically and surged forward towards the broken wall.

Peoter and Deiter cast a mortified look over their heads at some unseen force in the sky and then shot off towards the dome.

As the daemons thundered forward beneath them, Martha and Theresa flew after the twins. The leading creature suddenly scrabbled and fell as it came to a halt like it hit a brick wall. The fiend screeched and thrashed about, held against the ground by some unseen force as it brother retreated from it with a wary bugle. For a moment, the herbalist and her apprentice could see a vast red circle of burning light, which sprang up around the trapped creature. It shrilled mournfully and then dissolved into ashes. With a surprised keen, the remaining fiend scrambled backwards and clawed its way onto the roofs of the townhouses. It gave a challenging bellow as the fleet of witches and wizards once again rose up to besiege it with magic. As the burning palace reared up before her eyes, the young apprentice cast a final glance over her shoulder at the wizard's guard.

There was nothing she could do to help them.

xXx

As the smoke cleared, Markl was jubilant to find he was still alive.

But his exultation was fleeting as the crushing weight of exhaustion flooded through him in the wake of the enormous amount of magic he had spent to hold the magic circle. Cinders choked him and the thick smoke burned his eyes as his knees trembled. The foul stench of burning sulfur made him want to retch as the young wizard struggled to stay on his feet. Suliman's staff felt like fire between his hands and the Wallmaker's eldest son knew he would be dead if it were not for its magic. But the hateful laughter that pierced the haze galvanized him in spite of the tremulous flicker that passed through the violet circle beneath him.

The wrath daemon thrust its head through the smoke as the daemon queen strode out from its flames. Mrs. Danna's collection of daemons clambered about her feet, flickering like shadows in the heat of the crackling black fire that twisted about her. She seemed to glow a sickly green, like there was a fire beneath the thin membrane of her skin. Markl could not help but flinch as she turned endless black eyes upon him, her face splitting to reveal a set of cruelly pointed teeth. It reminded the russet haired boy too much of the puppet daemon and he shuddered in spite of himself, going weak with terror.

“Suliman!” Barimus gasped in astonishment. And the young wizard cast a glance at his uncle only to find him thunderstruck as though he had seen a ghost. The twisted healer turned her vicious gaze to the prone royal wizard and she snorted contemptuously.

“Do not confuse me with the dead, red wizard. You will be with your master soon enough!” The daemon collector's voice boomed through the broken shell of the room like a clap of thunder.

As Mrs. Danna approached the edge of his magic, Markl could feel the tremendous power she wielded. Her presence exuded a physical force that compelled him to submit, threatening to crush him even in that very moment. Rearing up, she stretched like a living fire, loosing all semblance of humanity as her daemons reached out for him hungrily with sharp claws. She was terrifying, but Markl stood firm, and the light of his magic solidified. The daemon queen regarded him with eyes of pitch and the ground beneath her feet snapped and froze as ice encased the chunks of rubble beneath her shades.

“Give up, boy,” her voice rang like a chorus of malicious metal bells, “I promise to prolong your suffering as long as you could have hoped to hold out.”

“Markl, run!” Barimus shouted hoarsely.

“Wait your turn, red wizard!” Danna cackled nastily, rippling like a mauve conflagration.

Markl may not have had the strength to reply, but he would not submit. The silver sorceress' son knew that he was the only thing that stood between his family and oblivion.

“Your have inherited your mother's stubborn streak, son of the Wallmaker,” the daemon queen growled like a great cat as she extended her obsidian talons threateningly. Again she bared her fangs as a voracious looked crept into her eyes, “I will enjoy ripping it from your flesh!”

Before she could rush forward, a series of magical ballistics pelted Mrs. Danna and her wrath daemon. The witch of fire and ice bowed under a curving shield of black ice as the fire sizzled about her. One of the daemons at her feet dissolved in the flames and winked out of existence with a mournful wail. The witch gave a furious screech that mirrored her flame lizard's cry of surprise as it was forced to the ground under the furious aerial attack.

“Peoter-Dieter!” Barimus cried exultantly as the twin wizards swooped down from the sky overhead. As one of the copper haired men focused his energies on the wrath daemon, the other bombarded the dark healer with a barrage of golden-red magic.

But Mrs. Danna cast aside his attack as though it were a fly buzzing in her ear. The crackling bolts of black ice she hurled in their direction shattered mid air, assailing them with thousands of jagged obsidian knifes. One of the wizards threw a shield over he and his twin, but the two men could not stand against the force of the shadowed witch's blow. Together they were dashed to the ground not far in front of the fire lizard. With a predatorial screech, the daemon slashed and harried at them with its teeth and burning claws, thrumming in excitement.

Out of the blue above fell a glinting rain of small glass vials.

As the ampoules shattered on the wrath daemon a series of green smoke explosions rose up around the beast as the liquid within ignited in its fire. The beast gagged and moaned in a rasping gurgle as it choked on the herbaceous smelling miasma. While it was distracted, Peoter and Dieter were able to escape into Markl's circle. Even Mrs. Danna was affected by the jade mists and the daemon queen dwindled back to her human form as she staggered. Coughing and gasping for air, she disappeared into the thick emerald fog.

Martha and Theresa dropped from the sky like a pair of valkaries and landed inside of the protective barrier of the purple circle. Seeing his aunt and her apprentice made Markl's heart soar with hope and gave him strength.

“Barimus!” The herbalist cried in mixed joy and terror as she jumped from behind her apprentice and stumbled through the rubble to her husband's side. The red wizard stared up at the dark-haired woman and smiled as though she were the hint of rain over an eternal desert. The healer kissed him soundly and the red wizard clung to her as she went to work. Martha managed to pull suitable bits of wood from the rubble near by to make splints for his legs. The twin wizards coughed and wheezed, gasping in the clean air inside the edge of the purple fire as they grimaced.

“What kind of magic is that?” They sputtered in unison, gazing out into the green haze with horror.

“It's not magic,” Theresa replied as she tore the long hem of her tunic into bandages for Barimus' broken legs, “Its agrimony tincture.”

“You two,” Martha barked and the twins jumped to attention, “Get Barimus behind the inner shield.”

The red wizard gritted his teeth and nearly fainted from the pain as the twin wizards shifted him. Barimus weakly reached for his wife as his guards carried him past the golden barrier. As Martha looked after them as she stood, her green eyes dark with emotion, she clutched the ruby that her husband had given her and went to follow.

“Wait!” Markl cried, turning his attention away from the green haze a moment too late as the twins and his uncle disappeared behind the inner shield. King Ferdinand met the Peoter-Dieter, and the royal wizard with a burst of soundless shouting and wild gesturing. The copper haired men jumped to attention, having gently turned over the royal to the cluster of apprentices. The ruler of Ingary apparently order the wizards back out into the fray because they rushed forward and hit their heads as they tried to return to Markl's side. Martha stared at them in consternation, going white with surprise as she realized they could not return through the barrier. Not even King Ferdinand could pass, and he was not a wizard.

“They're stuck!” Cried Theresa; the herbalist's apprentice had lagged behind in concern for her mistress' nephew, who was pale and damp with exertion. The circle beneath their feet was beginning to pale; the russet haired boy could see that as plainly as the look of stern apprehension on his aunt's face. Martha came over to his side fixing him with a questioning expression before darting her eyes back to where the glass spire gleamed brightly like a trapped star.

“You can't see it, Aunt Martha, but its there,” Markl explained weakly, “The shield is one-way only; they can't come back through.”

Suddenly a great wind ripped through the crumbled shell of the shield room and the green haze split as though it had been sliced with a knife. It drew back to reveal an enraged Mrs. Danna, who looked grey and sick but just as formidable as she cast aside the jade smoke. Her wrath daemon reared its head into the clear air and the ground shook as it stumbled to his feet, keening for retribution. It was answered in the distance by the cry of another daemon and Mrs. Danna began to gather herself up once more, the shadows in the room darkening as she seemed to absorb all light. She fixed her eyes on Martha and their lidless black corridors filled with such a venomous expression of unadulterated hate that Markl felt his heart go cold.

“YOU!” The former healer snarled as her humanity fell away like the cloak of night before the wrath of the daemon born magic within her. The witch of fire and ice stalked forward one more, burning eyes fixed on Martha. The herbalist went white with terror and stumbled back as she snatched Theresa to her protectively. But as the monstrous woman approached the edge of the violet barrier she began to slow as though she were wading through water. But Markl regarded her defiantly, holding firm in spite of his fatigue.

Suddenly, another barrage of magic fire fell from the sky. The Wallmaker's eldest son cast his eyes into the blue only to catch sight of the flock of the red garbed Ingarian Wizards Guard circling high overhead. Deftly, as though she were made of shadow, the daemon queen danced around their fire and shouted a loathsome spidery word. It oozed like a leech through the young wizard's mind, leaving him feeling sick and filthy. The onslaught from above pattered uselessly against a black membrane of ice that domed over the daemon collector. Markl gritted his teeth and firmly planted his shoulders against the shower of friendly fire that deflected off of Mrs. Danna's barrier and shattered in great sparks against his shield.

The daemon queen screeched another word in the hideous language of the Dark as she pointed a clawed finger at the wizards above. The wrath daemons swiveled their triangular heads to the sky; with frustrated screeches and snapping jaws, the beasts sought and harried the airborne witches and wizards with tongues of fire and tails of flame. Silver threads snicked through the air, flying like volley of needles cast by silent death into the sky above. The puppet daemons that killed Cyanine faded in and out of solidity beyond Mrs. Danna.

As Markl caught sight of the fiends, a blinding ferocity bloomed within the young man's mind. Cracking Suliman's stick against the large stone he stood on, a wrathful purple wind erupted around the young wizard like the leading edge of a storm. Beneath the two puppet daemons twin banishing circles exploded into life. With a shriek like a rusted hinge being forced open, the creatures dissolved into ash as they were expelled from the mortal world.

The abruptness of their exit seemed to pain Mrs. Danna, who shuddered in surprise as she felt them ripped from her control. The daemon collector snapped her attention back to Markl and she regarded first the apprentice and then her dead sister's staff with a baffled expression of frank alarm. Although she was in her full daemon form, the look of doubt on her face was as mortal as any human's. Something passed across her face, an expression lost to the yellow-black fire of her outline. Regardless, it chilled the rage that had momentarily consumed Howl's apprentice.

Suddenly the shades at Mrs. Danna's feet began shifting about in a frantic jumble as the witch of fire and ice threw out her hands, dexterously dodging around magic missiles from above. The wrath daemons paused in their defensive positions and bugled in response to the woman's magic. The beasts began to fade like mist and they sank to the ground, pooling into reservoirs of viscous darkness where once they had been solid. But their clamorous roar remained and lost none of their intensity. It splitting the air and causing the rubble beneath Markl's feet to shift; his magic circle began to weaken as its boarder fluctuated beyond his ability to control.

“Get inside the barrier,” Markl cried in desperation as he clung madly to Suliman's stick.

“Not without you!” Theresa screamed reaching for him insistently as Martha fought to hold her back.

“I can't hold the circle from inside,” The young wizard shouted back as the building gave an unsetting lurch. Cold terror gripped him as the daemon queen snatched her hands inward and the darkness that was the wrathful beasts rushed towards her like a swell of black water. It crashed around her like wave smashed upon the rocks, twisting upwards to engulf her. But Mrs. Danna was not gone; the trailing edges of his other-senses seared under the ice of the stirring power that skittered outwards from the dark shape. The survivors of the wizard guard overhead sensed it as well, hanging back in the sky with wary trepidation.

All of a sudden, a membraned wing as black as coal burst from the ooze, followed by another as an obsidian hydra erupted from the freezing cocoon. The behemoth reared back and thrashed its tail and rending the ground with its claws as it threw up its many needle snouts to bellow at the sky. The snarling nightmare loomed up over the exhausted apprentice, snapping its jaws. The air around them began to freeze and Markl could clearly see his breath as black ice sheeted over the rubble around them. The hideous thing clawed at the ground with knife like talons, shrieking with the unholy chorus of its rage. The young wizard was petrified; only in the darkest of his dreams had he ever imagined such a creature. There was only so much an apprentice could do, even with Suliman's stick in his hands. With cold certainty, the Wallmaker's son knew in his heart that this fight was beyond him.

As Markl's knees buckled, the circle beneath his feet went dark.

Martha seized her nephew by the hood of his patch worked cloak and hauled him backwards into the safety behind the inner shield. A cacophony of shrieking voices and heated shouting assaulted the boy's ears a moment before he was blinded by a blue flash of light.

xXx

Like a coiled spring, Howl waited.

The witches and wizards from near and far were gathered in a circle around him, so near that normally the raven-haired man would have itched to flee. But his intense concentration was focused on the singular point of the green jade necklace that hung around his neck. The thin wizard held it in the cup of his graceful hand, staring at it as though there were nothing else in the world. Calcifer circled above his friends head lazily, darting his eyes about as he caught one of the other witches or wizards staring at him.

“You'd think they'd have seen a daemon before,” the living flame muttered under his breath petulantly as he tinged an irritated orange.

Howl didn't reply.

His luminous blue eyes flickered with inner light as the fey look on his face melted into uncharacteristic fierceness. A mark of blue fire swam into life above the necklace as the Wallmaker straightened with an exultant shout. The otherwind ripped to life around him, lifting him off the ground as the wizard's glowing nimbus of blue and purple fire cleaved a portal into the otherworld. Calcifer dove through the magic doorway into the next world, leading the way for the sorcerers and sorceresses.

“Go!” Howl barked and as they hesitated the sapphire aura around the raven-haired man crackled ominously, “Now!”

The magical reinforcements streamed through the portal into a place of twilight doom. As the last dropped into the indigo veil below, Howl plunged through the portal casting a look at the blue sky overhead as it faded into a velvet navy devoid of stars. But glimmering points of light winked into existence far beneath his feet as he sank slowly and for a moment the inverted juxtaposition was disorienting. Many sorcerers feared this place, which existed like a dream between the mortal world and the beyond. The green hills were deceptively calm and it was easy to loose oneself in it constant winds. But the Wallmaker had never dreaded this place. It seemed like an eternity since the lanky man had last set foot in this world, in spite of the fact that it had only been barely four days since the handsome wizard had visited this place. So much had happened.

And even here all was not well.

Raucous silent echoes rippled throughout the otherworld, heralding great unrest in the green plains. Howl felt the disturbance physically and it tingled through him like the unnerving sensation that comes with sitting in place too long. Something had happened here, something involving great magic. The echoes were too crisp and new to have come from the mortal world. They pulsed like red and violet waves, rolling back and forth through his mind in a cacophony of distracting lights. The Dull Wall was intact, that much Howl knew for sure. But the Wallmaker was greatly distressed by the instability in the indigo veil and experienced a compelling moment of indecision: should he seek out and remedy the disturbance in the otherworld? No, he dashed that thought from his mind as the memory of his family rose through his conflicted thoughts.

Casting his eyes into the distance, Howl could see that the other witches and wizards felt the echoes too. Although it appeared to be far more debilitating for them; the foreigners listed uncertainly not far away from the raven-haired man. Calcifer was madly darting back and forth around the sorcerers and sorceresses, trying to get them to follow him to no avail. With swift efficiency the Wallmaker twisted weightlessly in the air and propelled himself forward with a movement of his hands. In the distance of the indigo veil he could see a tiny point of sky blue, which stood out like a misplaced beacon against the dark firmament.

Follow Calcifer! Howl sent the deafening thought to the witches and wizards. His voice echoed like thunder through the veil and the blue eyed sorcerer winced regretfully. It would no do to be booming about this hallowed place, especially what was responsible for the magical unrest might hear. But his words had an effect on the sorcerers and sorceress, who seemed to return to themselves and began drifting after the living flame toward the distant portal to the mortal world.

Howl felt their arrival before they appeared, a keen sense of pressure flitted through his mind like the beginnings of a headache.

The star daemons fell from all directions like a great meteor shower, sparkling and gyrating about the journeying witches and wizards. But the normally playful nature of the shimmering beings was replaced by frenzied and impassioned behavior the blue-eyed wizard had never seen before. The groups of sparkling lights were ancient spirits, normally calm and wise, their dark eyes brimming with unspoken mystery. But now they harried his companions, even reaching out with shining tendrils to pluck at their clothes and pull them off course. The witches and wizards recoiled in terror, conjuring shields and fire as they regarded the circling lights with trepidation. Howl shot forward just as the voices of the star daemons invaded his mind like the dissonant calls of a flock of crows. The ear-splitting racket pierced his inner ear painfully and the Wallmaker clasped his hands over his ears as he gave a silent cry of pain.

Calcifer erupted into a roaring ball of red and purple flames, snarling toothily at the other daemons as he clawed at them with burning talons. The living flame darted and chased off the majority of the lights, which evaded him easily as they circled off only to regroup at a distance. The fire daemon returned to Howls side, still baring his sharp teeth as he flickered darkly.

You alright, Howl? Cal asked.

What do they want? Howl asked shortly, shaking his head to clear his mind.

I don't know. They're upset about something, but they're not making any sense. The fire daemon replied with a deep purple frown. Cal flitted aside as a nearby wizard latched onto the raven haired man.

Save us, Wallmaker! He cried in terror, but Howl easily extricated himself from the man's grasp. He pushed the man back at the huddled group of humans and pointed at the blue light in the distance.

You don't need saving! Howl couldn't help but be short with the blubbering man. How did he ever become a wizard, he would never know. Just follow Calcifer through the portal. I'll distract the star daemons.

The Wallmaker called to the group, which gave a start and then shot off in the direction of the doorway back to the mortal world. The fire daemon did not seem inclined to agree, and Howl nudged him after the floundering group. Calcifer dwindled smaller for a moment and seemed inclined to argue with his friend, coloring a worried blue.

Tell Markl I'm right behind you. Howl requested as he smiled encouragingly. The mention of his eldest son seemed to convince the little flame, who nodded and shot off ahead of the foreigners.

Almost as soon as his friend had gone, the voices of the stars invaded the Wallmaker's mind once more. Apparently the daemons were no longer interested in the other witches and wizards, because they fell in a circle around the handsome raven-haired man. They danced around him with cryptic calls reaching and beckoning as their fretful voices cutting at him like cold diamonds. Howl realized very quickly that they were not trying to be cruel and that their fierceness was simply frustration over the language barrier that separated them. Howl regretted having sent Calcifer away for the fire daemon might have been able to interpret what the shining lights were desperately trying to tell him. Suddenly the cacophony of crystalline voices ceased as another star fell from the sky. This being was the oldest among the star spirits, Howl could tell by the way the others drew back in deference. The lanky man had met this daemon before, when he and Barimus had taken Markl into the otherworld for the first time. Indeed the creature had been trying to warn him, Howl realized in bitter retrospect.

The elder star was the brightest among the daemons; it drew near, reaching its sparkling arms imploringly to the wizard. The tiny orbs that blinked at him from the corona that was its head were swirling pools of blue and violet. The Wallmaker's mind went immediately back to the tiny charm Akarshan had given him. Reaching into his pocket the wizard drew out the stone and stare at the mirror likeness between the two beings. The creature seemed to flare like a burst of magnesium fire at the sight of the charm and the chiming chorus of their voices invaded his inner ear once more. But instead of meaningless sounds, the handsome man understood the elder's words.

Howl. It spoke his name exuberantly.

What do you want!? Howl drew back hesitantly. His pale face was serious as his eyes glittered luminously with his magic.

Come. The star daemon all but demanded, reaching for him with tendrils of light.

No. Howl replied firmly as his eyes crackled with blue fire and he threw up his hand to hold off the creature's advances. The tall man followed up his refusal by sending an image of Kingsbury on fire to the sparkling daemon. That seemed to give the being pause, but it shrugged off the peril in the mortal world and reached for him insistently.

Sophie! It cried in a tremulous voice, returning the wizard's mental reply with an image of the Wallmaker's wife.

With his inner eye Howl saw the silver haired woman reaching pleadingly to the star daemon, a mixture of love and despair plain in her brown eyes as she spoke his name. Her face was aged, almost as old as she had been when the hatter's daughter had first turned up in his castle. The wizard recoiled in horror from the dark tendril that wrapped around her neck. In the vision he could see it snaking like a viper in the green grass to the ravenous black bricks of the Dull Wall. The revelation shattered Howl once more, reducing him into a stunned shock as the image of his wife's face burned in his mind. Everything else was forgotten as the very sun seemed to rise from the tattered pieces of his soul. The Wallmaker filled with elation and it felt as though he were warm against after living for ages in the cold.

The ring lied. Sophie was alive!

Instantaneously, the thin wizard dropped his shield and the elder star daemon encircled Howl's shoulders with its arms. The raven-haired man was propelled across the velvet sky as the shimmering procession of shooting stars streaked across the indigo veil. Together they fell from the velvet firmament toward the looming coal smudge that was the Dull Wall just as the portal to the mortal world winked out of existence.