Iris of House Domina

The dark chamber that Lucas led the young woman into brightened into a more conventional and far less scary hexagonal stone-walled room. It was clearly ment for summoning or practicing some kind of heavy-duty magic. Inscriptions along each wall and the doorway read as protective spells.

The whole floor was covered in rich dust, colorful ash, and waxy residue from what appeared to be old summonings or rituals. It unnerved Iris slightly that perhaps Lucas kept summoning things just to ...

"What is it you do in here, Professor?"

"Lucas, please," he said, "I summon things. What does it look like I do?"

"Well, I mean... why? What do you bring here?" Iris fiddled with the sleeves on her robe, nervously.

After a long, thoughtful pause, Lucas said, "old friends."

"Ooooookay, totally way to go creeping me out," Iris muttered as Lucas set up the room. Since Iris wasn't well versed in the summoning arts, she didn't much know what he was doing. She knew the basics of course, everyone was taught to recognize certain things. The protective symbols on the floor had long been burnt in and were being reinforced by the new set of candles Lucas set down.

"Don't spill that," Lucas said, "bring it here. It's a bit of mercury." He pointed to a tall bottle. When Iris handed it to him, he explained how certain elements did different things in combination when in summoning circles.

And as always, and yet again, Iris was bothered by the apparent dichotomy that Lucas presented. Here he was, ready to summon something that he intended her to fight, but he was all chatty about how-to this or that, always the bright instructor. She listened closely to his instructions when the circles and protective diagrams had been etched into the ashes on the floor.

"When the ghoul appears, it will be slightly disoriented. Use this moment to your advantage. I assume that you have quick scrying or informative spells?" Lucas said. Iris nodded.

"Always," she said. Then, suddenly, Iris' heart quickened. "But - I don't have my wand!" She almost panicked, but Lucas straightened.

"I thought most of House Domina's students didn't require such things." He said, with a smirk. "Hold on."

With his left hand Lucas gestured and a sort of small window opened. "Tell it where your wand is," he said.

Iris said, "in my chambers, third floor last door on the right, on top of the big chest of drawers." She peered through the silvery-rippling portal, and saw a dash of motion. Then, a pause in the blurry image, which focused on her wand. Suddenly it hovered in the air nearby.

"Take it, it'll drop," Lucas said, turning back to his inscriptions. Iris grasped the wide glass wand-staff and it felt good in her hands. As she prepared herself, and as Lucas took pinches of this powder and that dust, Iris thought about what she'd be doing in a moment.

Information. That was the first key. She'd have to find out ... what? Where it was from was largely irrelevant, wasn't it? Then, something she'd used many times came to mind. She would be able to sense this ghoul's fears just as readily as a child's sleeping mind. She'd done it dozens of times if not hundreds. Checking in on her favorite charges in the dreamlands.

But then what?

She barely had a moment more to think, when Lucas spread the last ash and flicked the bright red dust over a candle flame. A burst of red-black smoke filled the second of many concentric rings that lined the floor, and a shape appeared in it.

It was larger than an imp by twice or three times, but certainly not even the size of a human teenager. Skinny, gaunt even, and its visage made Iris wince. It looked as though all its flesh had been burnt off of it's...

No time to think on that. Iris gripped her wand and it glowed. The moment of surprise for this poor ghoul had come. It was apparently in the middle of something entirely else, when summoned here. It paused, threw its thin arms over its head and shrieked.

A sound like rending metal reached Iris' ears, but she was already concentrating on what visions her wand was giving her. An outcast? Perhaps - and this creature feared being caught by its old master. Oddly familiar.

But it had dozens of imps in its past, so what Lucas had said was true: they were just minions. And it was possibly the case that this ghoul was also someone's minion and had escaped.

Moments later, though, this ghoul stood back up and snarled. "How dare you rip me from my sanctum!" The hair on Iris' arms and neck rose. "I'll boil you in tar! Strip your skin from your flesh!"

"I'll send you back to your master," Iris said, hissing and with a gleam in her eye. The light from her wand burned brightly, and the ghoul stiffened like a puppet on taut string.

"You wouldn't! You couldn't! You dare not!" It cried, dancing around its little circle helplessly. "Tacks and stones!"

Iris realized that was a spell incantation a moment too late, but true to his word Lucas (who was merely watching from the doorway half a room away) protected his student from any serious harm. Stones rained around Iris, and a field of tacks dropped from an invisible place onto the floor beyond the circles where the ghoul was kept. Iris didn't move from her spot, hence she didn't step on anything.

Iris noticed about then that Lucas had placed her on the opposite side of the circles from him, so she would be the only thing visible to the ghoul when it showed up. He was hardly noticed, while the ghoul spun in its angry circle. Iris met Lucas' eyes and gave a little smirk when she realized that he was protecting her precious glass wand as well as her own body.

The ghoul saw that she was immobile, and wasn't seeming to mind the rain of stones. Snarling fiercely, the ghoul uttered a string of curses that caused the air around Iris to turn hot, and then frightfully cold. On impulse, Iris brought up a protective spell that kept elements at bay.

"Foul little wench!" It spat, and aimed a full blown and rather powerful force blast at Iris. The ghoul couldn't know that Lucas was carefully keeping an eye on such things, and the blow was deflected to a spot just near Iris, near enough to make it look like she'd been hit and hadn't been damaged or moved in the slightest. Weary of this, Iris decided she'd seen enough.

"Behave yourself," Iris said, curtly. "It would take a moment to send a message bird to your old master. I'll have him here before you can say another spell."

Cringing, then, the ghoul whined and nodded. "Bring me here will you... think you're clever and you're just cruel. Make a good ghoul you would." It said.

"Hardly," Iris said. She was left with a strange feeling, but she knew that this was the end of the line for their little conversation. She would have to dispell this creature herself.

She didn't quite know how, but she wound up with a spell incantation that went along the lines of 'replanting in the same place through time and space'. The ghoul vanished in a greasy blot of smoke.

Panting, but not really exhausted from any particular exertion on her part, Iris looked at Lucas from across the room.

"So that is a ghoul."

"Yes."

"And it's higher on the scale than an imp."

"Yes."

"... What's next?"

Laughing, Lucas cleared the floor of debris. Stones and tacks and ash and all swirled gently into the air and were separated as to their future usefulness.

Lucas escorted her to the edge of his domain, and when Iris had turned out of his long hallway, he went back into the summoning room.

There, he replayed a spell that brought the ghoul back to his chambers.

"Rat bastard - you caught me in the middle of catching a rabbit!" The ghoul growled.

"Sorry," Lucas said, leaning against the stone wall. "What do you think?"

"Think? I think that vixen is trouble for me! Worse than you!"

"Good. Good."

"What's so good about it!?" The ghoul hissed, but had an odd grin on its twisted face.

"Perhaps your master will find out," Lucas said. At that mention, again the ghoul stiffened, but then slipped into a more conspiratorial pose.

"Do you think?" It cackled. "Is that what you're up to?"

"We shall see. She was on the path anyway. I apologize for breaking your hunt. You were... necessary for her training."

"I'd curse you," the ghoul said, preparing its own portal to return to its home, "but you're already so bleak it's a wonder humans even think you're one of their kind any more. I don't hope to hear about this again unless it's to say that His Lordship is dust."

"I am sure that you won't be the only one interested in that." Lucas said, a private smile on his narrow lips.

***

Over the course of the next few weeks, Iris concentrated intensely on these new studies of hers. She had no idea that this far into her magical career she'd find something different and beyond her original scope. But she also found that this course of action gave her life some meaning that it perhaps hadn't had before.

While she wanted to help people, her dreaming manipulation was good for that, she pretty much waited and watched instead of acting first. She would still prefer to do that, but now had a more defined knowledge of the levels and ranks of the disruptive forces of Darkness.

Every day, or nearly so, she would attend Lucas' Dark Arts Defense course, and then have a private session every few days. In this manner, she began to see the heavy layers of tradition and influence that the dark forces exerted even upon itself.

"This minor demon lord, then," Iris said of an image in a big musty old book, "he's got a dominion that the other lesser demons and ghouls and such reside in."

"Just like a king presides over his subjects, yes." Lucas said. "It's all very organized, but not always clear. If you'd been there you would be able to tell immediately who defered to whom."

The way he said that put Iris on edge. "You make them sound almost human," she said.

"They were almost human. They are a civilization after all. Just brought up in a rather different manner than humanity and its ilk." Lucas seemed a bit uncomfortable himself. "They understand domination and fealty. The stronger of them, however," he paused and took a long serious gaze at Iris, "are also the smarter. The higher up the chain, the deeper into Darkness you look, demons are more powerful, smarter and harder to defeat."

"This comes from experience," Iris said, half offhand.

"Yes, it does. I served a demon lord for more than forty years," he said, and that haunted look he was well known for plastered itself on his face. He looked as though he didn't want it there any more. "In Hell."

"But you're alive." Iris said. "You can't have been in hell - like, the hell, and survived."

"Don't tell me what you think," Lucas said, "tell me what you see. I would hardly say I thrived there, but I did most certainly survive. It is a miserable place. If you ever get the chance to go there," he said with a strange contradiction on his eyes, "...don't."

After an uncomfortable silence, Iris fiddled with her wand and set it aside. "Why were you serving a demon? Or should I ask that? I mean, you drive a mean dark arts course, but ..."

Sighing, Lucas looked away. "I was sold to him. It was hardly my idea. It was luck and timing that saved me from that place and that demon lord."

Iris folded her eyebrows together. If there was one thing Iris was, it was intelligent. She began to put two and two together.

"Then you ... what. You're training me to fight demons?" Iris said. "I don't know if I'm meant to be flattered or terrified! You could have said something."

"You would have declined and backed away entirely. And now you are much too far along and intense in your training to doubt that it is what you are meant to do." Lucas said. His voice was weak, though he clearly did not doubt himself, or his actions, he did obviously feel bad about not having told her.

Iris sat, momentarily unable to do anything but fume. Slowly, though, she sorted her thoughts. She was never able to fit in to a House until Domina came along. It gave her the first sense of belonging that she'd ever had once she'd crossed into the magical lands. And that had been almost a decade before.

Now, she felt she did have purpose, a direction to take. She had wandered long enough? No, she would still wander... But now...

"You can't defeat that demon lord yourself?" Iris finally asked.

"It isn't that," Lucas said. "I could. But there are hundreds more just like him. Believe me. I met them. He would take me to their ... parties." He shuddered unconsciously, and his eyes had glazed over slightly. "Iris, you are a pure light of hope. Do you know how long it has been since there was hope for the humans in that place?"

"... There are more?" Iris said, more than a little stunned.

"Of course there are," Lucas said, flatly and too defensively. "If I had been the only one to live through it don't you think I'd be parading myself around as a miracle of nature?" He blinked, looked away again. "Sorry. Yes, there are many magical realm and even mundane folk forced to live there. Servants to demons and devils. The more people that can get free of their bonds, the better. That is where you come in."

"You're a very convoluted person," Iris said. "I wish that you had just told me."

"No," Lucas said. "I was told, when I was to be given off. 'Lucas you are of no concievable use to me any longer'" He mocked someone in his past, "'and so I have found someone who can get some use out of you while you yet live. Have fun.' He said." Lucas had closed his eyes, "and there I went." He snapped his fingers, to illustrate this. "Putting you into this without first preparing you and showing you the steps necessary, would have done the same thing to you as it did to me. Do you think I'm this way because I want to be? I was tainted by external forces that wouldn't let me die. You ... you have the ability to shrug many of those things off and still come away with a smile and a kind word. Do you have any idea how valuable that is?"

"... I guess I didn't," Iris said. "Are you still going to teach me more?"

"There is much more, but I think you might find it easier on your own. Or, more challenging and more rewarding - either way." He said, "But either way of course I will be here to help you if you need it."

"Okay." Iris said. She was drained, and was pretty sure that Lucas felt the same way. The silence became a bit stifling, but then as if to clear his head and make some attempt at being civil, Lucas rose and waved his hand for Iris to follow him into a chamber where many odd devices and items were kept on shelves.

He reached for a particular item, it looked like a fracture of ice, a three-dimensional snowflake of glass. It was about the size of his fist, held under glass. At first, he almost looked like he didn't want to pick it up, but then he glanced at Iris.

She was still so full of wonder and potential.

"Do you know what this is?" He asked, picking up the glass covered object. It seemed to remain in one fixed direction, though it floated freely in its bell shaped enclosure. When he brought it off the shelf, and held it at half-arm's length to himself, it turned a strange color.

Black, unreflective and tarry, the clear crystaline substance looked as though it had been dipped in some caustic goo.

Iris shook her head, "no, I've never seen anything like it. What is it?"

Fascinated, Iris watched the glimmering light.

"It's what is called a soul-scrying crystal. It ... reflects the nearby souls." Lucas' voice was distant, hollow.

Iris snapped out of her little trance, thinking about how he'd held it and... "Oh." She said, a little edgy.

"Yes, 'oh'." Lucas said. "Now, is it more clear why I want you to help me?"

"... yes and no?" Iris said. "Look, I can't-"

"He holds a portion of my soul, Iris," Lucas said, a hissed whisper. "It was given over to him by my master - a safe trade to make sure I couldn't get out of it. My soul is in pieces and some of it is still sitting in Hell, in the hands of a demon who at any time might come calling for the rest of it. It wasn't my idea," he sighed.

"I am nowhere near strong enough to help get a piece of a soul I can't even say I would recognize if I saw it, out of the hands of a demon in Hell!" Iris said.

"I can't ask you to do that, I want you to help me do it. When and if you're ready." Lucas admitted, softly. "If you never are, then it will be my weight alone, again. It has been long enough, I am used to it."

Iris fumed again. Lucas was so ... It was true that she didn't want to hear everything he'd tell her. She was afraid there were things he would say that could make her lose her mind, or fear for herself more than she already did as a mage. But if all he had to do was ask for help, he could have an army of wizards!

"You could have asked the-"

"No," Lucas said, flat and firm. "I have asked, already. I cannot risk asking again. Individual mages, witches like yourself, certainly. But there are not nearly enough of them at your level who operate independantly from the Schools. I will not risk endangering too many people with responsibilities - and yours so far is purely to yourself and those you place under your care voluntarily."

Iris wasn't sure what to do, but Lucas put the soul-scrying crystal back on its shelf. She couldn't help but notice how he flared his nostril in anger at it when it turned black again, before going softly crystaline again. He turned to her and gently took Iris' shoulders. She looked up at his eyes, which had all the signs of being about ready to burst into tears.

"I am asking you, Iris. Will you aid me, freeing whoever is left under his Lordship's power, and getting my soul back?"

Iris blinked. Then she put her hand onto his - he gripped her fingers tightly.

"I will need some help, but yes. I'll be your paladin, Lucas. We'll get it back. I can't say when, but we can try."