Mark of the Fool
Chapter 609: Blood Ritual

Alex eyed the finished tonics as he searched for the right words.

He knew that Theresa was having doubts and feeling uncertain, so he didn’t want to push, or influence her in either direction.

“Last year,” he said. “In one of my magic theory classes, we learned that a good way to make decisions is to make a list of the pros and cons of whatever it is that you’re considering, then summarise the situation, then choose whichever has the most advantages.”

Theresa raised an eyebrow. “How does that have anything to do with magic?”

“We sometimes learn logic and different life skills in magic theory,” Alex said. “Professor Jules told us during one of her labs once that,” he cleared his throat, mimicking her speech pattern, ‘There are few things more dangerous than an impractical wizard: magic’s impractical enough as it is, you don’t need your brain to be impractical too,’ or something to that effect.”

“Okay…so what about this list? Do I just list what would be the good points of each decision, and what would be the bad ones?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Sounds reasonable, I’ll start with the bad then. So, if we do this…” She looked at Brutus. “First off, if anything happens to me, it hurts him even more than it already would under normal circumstances. He’d go from only being sad and pining, to also being weakened. Maybe even dying. Second, I’d suffer the same consequences if he died. It’d hurt me even more too.”

“Right, and what about the cons for not doing it?” Alex asked.

She listed them off on her fingers. “One, he’d die a lot earlier in life. Cerberi live longer than an average dog, but they only live for about twenty years, if they’re lucky. Two, he wouldn’t be protected: if anything nasty attacked our home and we weren’t around and he needed to defend himself, he couldn’t. Not against something very powerful like a greater demon. Three, he’d have to stay home most of the time: we’re fighting tougher and tougher opponents: he couldn’t do that for much longer, which means we’d be spending less time together, and he’d be miserable being stuck at home.”

“Alright, and what are the pros?” Alex asked.

“Well, if we didn’t do it, his lifeforce wouldn’t be damaged if I got killed, and mine wouldn’t be damaged if he got killed. We’d ‘just’ be heartbroken forever,” she said, her tone grim. “The pros of doing it is that—one—he could protect himself if our home gets attacked. Two, he’d be able to keep up with me in battle which means we could keep spending lots of time together: we could protect each other. Three, he’d live as long as I would. Four, he’d be healthier and stronger for his whole life: and as I got stronger, he’d get stronger. Five, he’d be with his family for a lot longer. And…I think that’s it.”

“Right,” Alex started. “And—”

“Wait, there’s one more,” Theresa interrupted him. “Six: if he keeps fighting beside me, he’ll learn more about how to fight different opponents, which will make him safer when he’s alone.”

“Okay, that’s a lot of reasons both for and against,” Alex said, replicating how his teachers walked their classes through decision-making exercises. “Do you find things look any clearer?”

“Yes, actually,” Theresa admitted. “Honestly, there’s a lot more reasons to do it than there are not to do it…and I plan on getting stronger to protect him. Which would make him stronger too, and let him protect himself, as well as our whole family. And, honestly, the one thing that stopped us from getting killed in a lot of situations was having a strong team that worked better together than our enemies did. Our team’s gotten us through a lot.”

“Yeah, I agree with that,” he said. “And by making Brutus more powerful, it would also make our whole team more powerful.”

“Alright, then as his mother.” Theresa nodded decisively. “I think we should do it. It’ll make him stronger, healthier and happier.”

“And I’ll protect you both.” Alex said, putting the tonics on the table.

“No.” Theresa stood, kissing him on the lips. “I’ll protect you both.”

Alex almost wrapped his arms around her, but remembered how much smudging that would mean for the sigils and glyphs he’d painted on her body. “Maybe we should just protect each other, then.”

“Yeah,” she said. “So, are you ready to begin?”

“Absolutely, we just need to wake up Brutus and—”

“He’s already awake.”

Alex looked over to find the cerberus stretching, three mouths yawning wide. Giving himself a shake from his tail to his heads, he straightened up and padded over to Theresa, sniffing her, begging for attention.

“I see you boy, I see you.” She scritched his ears, “don’t you worry, we’re going to take good care of you. Are you ready for the ritual?”

Brutus cocked his heads at her.

Alex chuckled. “I don’t think he’s suddenly going to say—” He made his voice sound like a ‘talking-dog’s’. “—res reresa, I’m reary for the ritual! I hope rou give me Rutus snacks!”

“Oh, by the Traveller, Alex.” She rolled her eyes. “I love you lots, but you are a silly, silly man.”

“Hey, you’re the one talking to a dog,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Now let’s get Brutus ready. Keep him still for me.”

The cerberus watched in curiosity as Alex picked upa bowl of pigment and a brush with a blood magic glyph etched into its handle, from the nearby table.

“It’s okay, boy, it’s not a bath.” Theresa promised, kneeling down beside him. “Just keep still for your dad, okay?”

Alex bent down beside the curious hound, dipping the brush in the crimson pigment and slowly brushing it across his fur. One of Brutus’ heads turned, wanting to sniff the brush, but Theresa gently turned it back.

“Keep still, boy,” she said.

And he kept his eyes on her, panting and watching her with large, inquisitive eyes.

Once the first symbols were complete, Alex conjured Wizard’s Hands and had them join him, taking up brushes waiting in bowls of pigment on a nearby table. Together, they swarmed over the hound from top to bottom, painting symbols and red lines along his entire body.

Soon, the diagrams and symbols covered him from tail to noses, glowing in the red light of alchemical flame.

“Alright,” Alex said. “The symbols are ready. While I prepare the staff, why don’t you two drink your tonics. There’s a bowl there for Brutus to drink from. Make sure he drinks every drop of his tonic.”

The Thameish wizard began painting his staff with the extracted red lily dye, each symbol burned with power on completion, siphoning the dye through the aeld’s inner magics. When he’d finished preparing the staff, its crystalline blooms boiled blood red.

“Alright, we’re ready. Are you both?”

Brutus was lapping up the dregs of tonic in his bowl, as Theresa placed her empty bottle on the table.

“We’re done,” she said.

“Okay, then step into the circles and relax, stay very still,” Alex said. “The process won’t hurt, but you’ll be paralysed while the ritual is being completed. Don’t panic. It’s all part of the magic.”

“Okay,” she said a little uneasily. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he said as she and Brutus stepped into their circles.

After some coaxing from Theresa, the cerberus laid down on his image,then the huntress did the same. She exhaled deeply. “Ready whenever you are.”

“Then, it’s showtime,” Alex said, stepping in front of the circles.

Concentrating, he poured his mana into the staff, manipulating the inner magics. Crimson light flared from the crystalline blooms as the braziers simultaneously flared, bathing the room in ruddy light.

“And so we begin,” Alex said, his voice booming through the laboratory. “Blood binding to blood. Soul touching soul. Two bodies as one. Fate intertwined.”

The flames blazed higher at his words.

Brutus whimpered, one head cocked as the circlesflared with power.

“Let the magic take you,” Alex’s voice rose, resonating in the room. It sounded ancient, low, boundless.

The hairs on the back of his neck began rising as magic—old magic—joined with the aeld staff’s, and his own power. He felt like a first year student again, watching Professor Jules conjure a shoggoth deep within the Cells.

“Let the power fall upon you, keeping you still. Let the power take you and make you more,” he intoned.

The staff struck the ground two times, each impact rumbling like thunder.

Brutus’ and Theresa’s forms slowly relaxed. Their muscles grew limp. Their breaths lighter.

Their eyes flickered, slowly closing.

The rings surrounding them glowed even brighter.

“By the oldest of magic, I call the lives of these two forth. One greater in mind. One lesser in mind. One greater in body. One lesser in body. One of sapience. One of nature.” He held his staff high. “But stronger together.”

Alex continued to manipulate the mana within the aeld, and power pulsed from the burning braziers, striking the staff from five directions. Instantly, a red, five pointed star pulsed into being, connecting the staff to the flame at each tip.

Power, in a growing tidal wave of life blood, swelled around the young wizard.

He could feel the lifeforce pulsing through Theresa and Brutus, made more malleable by the tonic coursing through them.

Ready to be moulded as easily as clay.

“By the power of blood and life—born at the dawn of creation and lasting until the end of light—I now join these two beings together as master and familiar. Two lives joined not by mana, but by blood and life. Two halves. One stronger whole.”

He charged the mana within his staff.

The aeld’s blooms were like blinding red suns.

His hair was tossed about in a gusting wind.

“Let these two beings be bound! By my power and their life! Two as one!”

These final words crescendoed, echoing through the laboratory—and gripping his staff with both hands—he drove it into the stone floor, rattling the chamber’s walls.

Without a sound, Brutus and Theresa floated from the ground, gradually rising into the air.

Higher and higher, they hovered—held in the grip of blood and power—their bodies twisting until they were posed in the exact image of their diagrams within the circles. Red lines running across their flesh burned with bright light, and glyphs across their skin rippled like water.

Their mouths opened.

Two streams of lifeforce poured forth, writhing through the air like serpents reaching out for each other. The flow of life pouring from Theresa glowed brighter and thicker than that streaming from Brutus, yet, without hesitating, each moved toward the other. They drifted along, forming a red bridge between the two circles.

Pulses, sounding like hearts beating, thrummed through the air as the life energies intertwined, wrapping around each other, joining like cords forming a single rope. Red lightning crackled from the braziers as Alex guided the mana through his staff and the ritual.

He could feel the lifeforces of Brutus and Theresa, winding together, ready for the final step that would join them as one.

Alex closed his eyes, guiding the mana through the last steps.

His staff pulsed again, and the red symbols across it flashed bright, immediately consumed by crimson flame. Beams of red light lanced from the aeld’s blooms, striking conjoined cords of connective lifeforce, sealing themtogether like fire magic would a pair of steel rods.

For a moment, the cords oflifeforce flashed a blinding white. Joining. …linking two lives as one, becoming master and familiar.

Slowly and steadily, Theresa and Brutus floated down, settling in the centre of each circle. The tide of blood magic began to ebb, as the staff’s energies ran low.

Alex was spent, feeling like he’d run a dozen miles as the crimson flames dimmed to a flicker, sending the lab into a ruddy gloom. The aeld’s blooms flickered softly, returning to their natural hue, and the cord of life tethering Theresa and Brutus, faded from view.

For several breaths, all was silent.

Then the huntress sat up, covered in sweat.

“How’re you feeling?” Alex knelt beside her.

“Tired,” she said. “And—ah!—not so loud.”

Alex paused, confused. “But, I’m talking quietly.”

“Really?” she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. “It sounds like you’re yelling, and by the Traveller, you smell like chemic—wait…”

She slowly opened her eyes. “…I can see better, and hear better. A lot better. And—, Brutus!” she cried, whirling toward her cerberus. “I can feel him, something’s different!”

In his circle, Brutus growled, slowly climbing to his feet.

He shook himself once.

Then twice.

Then—came the dry sound of bone shifting—and he began to change.

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