Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (8 page)

Jenn was in charge of leading some of the younger students in search of herbs and other plants needed for healing and magic spells.  Alpert and Rodgier pulled two small wagons behind them and followed Jenn closely through the woods.  Daphne and Siegfrid ran along beside Jenn, darting back and forth between trees looking for the plants she had described to them.  Rupert walked calmly to her left, his eyes carefully scanning the ground around him. 

Rupert, Jenn thought, was always so serious.  It was perhaps a shame that he couldn't be as happy and playful as Daphne and Siegfrid, who were his own age.  Children should be happy while they could, hard work and serious study came later.  Jenn smiled fondly and remembered back when she was their age, if only she'd known to enjoy things more while she had the chance.  Now it was work and study all the time.  Goddess, she felt old for her seventeen years.  Perhaps it was just tension from the expected siege.

Rex's rumors had been right.  The very next morning after breakfast, Master Lenamare had called all the students and staff together to announce the fact that Exador had stated that he intended to take the school. Runners had been sent out to gather the peasants and recruit more men for defenses.  The past few days had been the most hectic Jenn had yet seen at the school.  Thi
s
wa
s
the first time in recent history that Jenn could think of a wizard's school being laid to siege by another group of wizards.

There had, of course, been, the Armelian invasion, over a hundred years ago, and the battle for Lord Folios' Keep, where thirty students, five masters, and three hundred men at arms had kept off the besieging army for thirteen weeks until help had arrived.  That, however, had been during war time, and then the people laying the siege had been an invading army, not the neighboring wizards' guild.  Why the
Archimage of Turelane would permit such a thing, Jenn had no idea, but apparently, Exador had no fear of being opposed.  To blatantly lay siege to a school such as Lenamare's took a lot of guts, or a lot of backing.

It was this fear of lots of backing that had really set people's nerves on edge around the school.  After all, if it was just Exador, one could expect intervention from the
Archimage and the Council, but apparently, Lenamare felt no intervention would be forthcoming, because he had talked of fighting to the last man, `to defend our freedom and our homes.'  Needless to say, that had made a lot of people nervous.  The only thing keeping people together was fear, and their belief in Lenamare and some new secret weapon of his.

Jenn, like all of the older students who had been present, knew that the secret weapon was the fourth order demon; however, all those present had been warned not to speak for fear Exador might learn, and attempt to gain more demonic support of his own.  Actually
, Jenn wasn't all too sure that what one fourth order demon could do to improve the efforts of seven or eight lessor demons against a huge army was worth the risk involved in controlling such a beast. She imagined, however, that the psychological effect of confronting a wizard powerful enough to control it, and the fear the demon itself would instill in the enemy soldiers would probably be worth it in and of themselves.  Minor demons tended to scare normal people, more powerful ones even made trained wizards nervous.

Of course it wasn't shear power that made the higher order demons fear
some, it was also their trickiness.  In addition to being more powerful, they also tended to be smarter and so could use their power to greater effect.  It was these demons that wizards had to be especially careful of; the miswording of any order could be the undoing of the wizard’s entire cause.  All too often one heard horror stories of some hapless wizard who overlooked a loophole in his or her command, only to find themselves spread out all over their tower in tiny pieces.  Of course, Jenn had never known any of these wizards or even knew of anyone that actually had known one of these wizards, who was ripped to shreds. Still, it was a well-known fact that nobody cared to test.  Enough proof could be garnered in the form of observation of the sometimes twistedly literal ways demons carried out their orders, and their general threatening manners.

To Jenn, as to all wizards, it was quite obvious that
each and every one of these malevolent and foul beings would do anything they could to destroy mankind.  As such, they were very much a two edged blade when used in combat.  Jenn personally preferred to rely on human strength and other forms of magic, rather than face demons.  Especially that new one.  True, it was the first demon greater than second order that she had seen, but that had been more than enough.  Its huge and hideous form gave her goose bumps just thinking about it.  How Lenamare could plan on using something so monstrously powerful and unthinkably old and inhuman, she really couldn't understand.  If Exador had the powerful backing everyone feared he had, then using a fourth order demon would probably escalate things and bring in more high order demons.  If the Archimage of Turelane got involved, he too could send in a fourth order demon, perhaps even a fifth, if he really got desperate.

Jenn brought herself to a halt in the forest and began to scold herself for being so foolish in her speculation.  A fifth order demon.  As if Lenamare's school could ever be so valuable.  No, perhaps the fourth order demon could save them.  The goddess knew Jenn prayed that it would never come to even using that.

Off to her right Daphne screamed.  Quickly, Jenn spun to her right.  She motioned the other three children with her to huddle together as she ran to where Daphne sounded to be.  She dodged through a few trees and came upon the frightened child.  Siegfrid was cowering with her, both were trying to back away from what menaced them. 

What menaced them Jenn quickly saw, was a man.  Not just any man either, he was scroungy and dirty looking and wore the trappings of a forester.  His cloak however had a bright badge of purple and gold.  Exador's colors.  This man, who was
advancing on the children with a dagger, with the obvious intention of silencing them before they could give warning, was one of Exador's scouts.

Fearing for the children, Jenn reached in her pocket and pulled out a small vine.  "
Esticten tomros sed nesten.  Verdet et suprestum entreppum sid faltos.  Xiat et lux.
"  As she said this she concentrated on the forest growth around the man's feet, she twisted the vine in her hands into a loop. 

Mimicking her gestures, the roots of nearby trees and bushes, rose to twine around the man's feet.  Cursing the man stumbled and fell to the ground.  Looking up, he grimaced angrily as he saw Jenn.  Hurrying, before he could get free, Jenn shoved the children back towards the wagon, and then grabbed more vines from her pocket.  Carefully she repeated the spell, this time wrapping the struggling man's right arm and then his left.  After this she roped him around the waist.

Reaching into another pocket she pulled out a rock and began the spell that would make her other spells last long enough to get people back here to capture this man.  "
Eternum solidum, vectos sed altos entreppum se kreolum.  Sig fielos soy dernum.  Kiapum der bindus.
"  Using all her strength she broke the rock she held with her hands, releasing its centuries old hardness and solidness into her previous spell, so that it might have some of the lasting power that this rock had had.  Since the rock was only limestone, because that was all she could break with her own hands, the spell wouldn't last that incredibly long, but it should last without her for several hours, long enough for her purposes.

She then left the man, still struggling and cursing and led the children back to the wagon.  As a final precaution, she took out a small crystal and stared into it.  Concentrating, she tried to detect any other humans in the area.  As far as she could tell though, the scout had been alone, or certainly was now.  It wasn't fool proof, and she wasn't the best at this sort of scrying, but it was still better than nothing 

Feeling relatively safe now, she headed the children back to the tower.  At least the children would have something to talk about.  As would she, Jenn realized.  What was more, Jenn suddenly thought, she, herself, had made an important contribution to their defense by stopping a spy, and by capturing someone who would have information on Exador.  Shaking from the past few moments of stress, but proud of herself, Jenn returned home with her charges in tow.

For the second time since smoking the grass, Tom awoke in the demon plane. 
Oh well,
Tom thought,
still here
.  Tom had hoped he might have woken up at home, proving that the whole thing had been a dream.  It was still real though.  What was happening at home? Tom wondered.  Was he in a coma some place, or was he, as Boggy said, dead.  He hoped he wasn't dead.  He hated to think of all the pain it would cause his mother if he were dead.  Hi
s
dad had died in an explosion 10 years ag
o
, and just recently his mom had divorced his stepfather, so Tom was pretty much the only person she had in her life. 

What would his friends say
?  He imagined that if he died at Reggie's party, they'd all be shitting bricks.  Even if he was only in a coma, they'd still be majorly freaked out.  Serves them right, Tom thought vindictively, for giving him that bad grass.  They could go home that night, even if they didn't sleep well.  Tom was stuck here, either forever, or until he woke up, if it was a dream.  In the meantime he'd have to be constantly living in fear of more intense agonies.  Thinking of pain, Tom noticed that he was sore all over.  Noticing that brought him back to where he was.

Quickly, he looked around.  The large cave was deserted, only he and the dragon body were in the cavern.  Actually, sans dragon, the cavern was pretty nice and roomy.  However, Tom tried inhaling, which caused a great deal of pain where he'd been bitten, and he caught a powerful smell of rotting.  The dragon corpse was stinking really bad.  Apparently he'd been out for some time.

He looked down at his legs to see if he'd ever walk again, and was surprised to see that they were almost back to normal.  Touching them, he noticed that they were quite tender, but all the muscle had pretty much returned.  Looking down at his chest, and feeling it with his hand, he noted that the puncture was closed, and only a large indenture and some scarring was left.  It seemed that demons bodies repaired themselves.  Carefully he tried to stand.

He wobbled a bit, both from weakness
and from still not being totally familiar with his new legs.  After he got to his feet, he tried flexing his wings.  They definitely had a twinge to them, but, as far as he could tell, were fully functional.

Well if he had to be stuck in a video game it was good to have regeneration as a power.  It might have been nice to have designed his own character so he knew what it could do.  Character?  Tom shook his head.  There was no character, it was him.  He was the
demon warrior fighting dragons!  He had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to avoid freaking out.  He needed to get to doing something, stop thinking about this.

The first order of business, Tom decided, was to remove this unwanted corpse from his new living room.  Tom walked over to the dragon
’s head, and carefully picked it up.  Actually, Tom thought, it might be nice to have a souvenir.  He reached into the mouth with his right hand, and steadied the head with his left.  Deftly gripping one of the fangs, he pulled.  Crack, snap, the tooth came loose from the mouth.  It was covered by decomposing flesh and was pretty sick, but Tom figured, it was worth it.  He then repeated the exercise with the other three fangs until he had a nice set of four dragon fangs. 

Tom then picked up the head in both heads and proceeded to carry it to his entrance.  When he reached the cave mouth, he looked over the edge.  Now, where to put it?  He could toss it over, but that was likely to draw scavengers that he really didn't want to deal with, so perhaps it was best to take it away someplace.  He glanced up, and around the valley.  Nowhere here, Tom decided.  As he'd been taught
, Tom began walking towards the center of the valley.  When he reached the edge of ledge he kept on going.  He then reoriented himself, and flew up and over his mountain.  He'd decided that his best bet would probably be to dump it a few valleys over.  He flew down the backside of his mountain and then up the next mountain and into the next valley.  When he got to a likely spot, he simply let go of the head and watched it fall.  He then returned to his cave.

As he landed on the ledge, he realized that he hadn't marked the cave yet.  Thinking that marking would be the best way to keep unwanted visitors away, Tom imagined himself walking up a ladder to the top of the cave mouth.  His wings complied, and there he was.  Now, what would he use as a mark?  Tom really didn't feel too creative today, so he finally decided on a cursive `T' with a flourish of a circle around it.  True, it was imitative of the other demon who had used a circled `Y,' but who was to know.  Using the nail of his index finger, Tom carved his symbol in a relatively smooth space above the mouth.

He descended and started back down the cave.  As he was walking back to the cavern, Tom suddenly realized that the dragon, when it was alive would have had to twist and constrict itself to get through the passageways.  It was dead now, and Tom would have to carry it out somehow. 
Fun
, Tom thought,
this is going to be messy
.

Tom was just pulling the last of the dragon's legs out of the cave when a voice hailed him from above.  "Ho, Tom, what you got there? A giant drumstick?"

Tom turned around and saw Boggy descending from the sky.

"No, just doing a little house cleaning."  Tom was actually glad to see the little demon.  It was nice to have someone to talk to, after dragging random dragon parts out of the cave and dumping them, for the last hour.

"Nasty looking termites you've got,"  Boggy commented as he landed on the ledge.

"Actually, not only nasty looking, but just plain nasty."

"I can see.  Must have been a great fight."  Boggy was eyeing Tom's wound's with an appraising eye.  "How long ago did you kill it?"

"I don't know,  I slept for a long time after. 
The fight was probably about eight hours after I woke up beneath the ledge."

Boggy raised both his eyebrows, which of course were hairless.  "Then definitely a nasty fight.  That would have been two Astlanian days ago.  If that's all the more healed you are, then you were in bad shape."

"Yeah, he sunk a fang clear through me."  Tom pointed to his chest wound, and to the smaller scar he'd discovered, where the fang had come out.  "And his acid breath squirted me all over."

"Well how did you finally kill it then?  Those things are mean S.O.B.'s."

"I spotted a weak spot, under its neck, and jumped with both feet for it.  When they got in, well, I just kicked its guts until it died."  Tom felt a small glow of pride in telling his tale.

"Lucky you spotted that weak area.  I don't know what plane those fellows originally came from, but their anatomy sure makes them hard to locate a vital area."

"Plane they came from?.  This isn't another demon is it?"  Tom got nervous, he'd thought he'd just killed some stupid monster.  Not another human being in demon form.

"Yep it is, but don't worry," Boggy hastened to add, seeing Tom's stricken look.  "They were never humans, like you or I.  They belong to some sort of warm blooded technological reptile race out on the edge of some distant galaxy, in god knows what universe.  They hate humans and human demons.  They always do their best to kill us, so we either try to kill them too, or avoid them if they're stronger than us."

"Oh," Tom said, somewhat relieved. He still didn't like killing another intelligent being.  He wondered why though, it hadn't bothered him until Boggy had mentioned the possibility of it being another demon.  Of course, it wasn't like he'd had much choice, the thing was trying to kill him.  But, his conscience nagged him, Tom had invaded its cave.

"I guess Tizzy didn't mention the fact that just because a cave isn't marked, doesn't mean it's empty."

"No, he didn't," Tom replied hesitantly.

"Well, all human
demons mark their caves, but some of the alien ones don't.  That dragon living there was also probably the reason you don't see many other demons out this way."

Curious, Tom asked, "Boggy how did you find me?"

"Wasn't too hard.  When I finally got back, I found Tizzy and he showed me where he'd left you.  I simply went towards the mountains looking.  It took me quite a while, but eventually I spotted this cave and saw the `T' on it."

"You saw that mark from way up high?"

"Sure, demon sight is a lot better than any mere eagle sight.  Just concentrate on something at a distance.  If they can, your eyes will focus on it.  Try it sometime."

"What other things, besides the eyesight, the regeneration
, and the aliens not marking their caves haven't I been told?"  Tom asked suspiciously.

Boggy smiled at him, "Now lad, you can't expect me to tell you everything, that would take all the fun out of it.  Besides i
t
i
s
sometimes best if you find out for yourself what you can and cannot do.  That way I don't limit you by telling you what you should and should not be able to accomplish.  Who knows, different demons can do different things, maybe you can do things that I consider impossible."

"Yes, but
..
."

"Now, except for the oversight on the markings, we've told you everything really necessary for survival, don't worry.  Besides, there isn't much that can permanently hurt you here."

"Speaking of permanently hurt," Tom realized, "why did this dragon decompose and I regenerate.  How did I actually manage to kill it."

"That is a bit complex.  But basically speaking it has to do with the basic differences in the energy patterns between us and the dragons.  The dragons, regenerate faster, but not if you kill them.  You and I regenerate fairly slowly, but still incredibly fast compared to a man.  Dragons regenerate about three times faster than we do.  The only way to slow them down is to cut off their heads and destroy their hearts.  Which, it appears that you inadvertently did.  Now, once you do that to a dragon, it can't regenerate its old body, so it just abandons it. It then has to form a new one from scratch, and that could take a couple hundred years before it gathers enough energy to form one.  We, on the other hand, don't stop regenerating after a certain point.  The largest part of our bodies left after a fight, somehow gathers up what's left of our field and begins rebuilding.  So, we generally stay with essentially the same body.  Which, I might add
, is many times faster than starting from scratch."

"That's handy to know.  Here, fly with me, while I dump this."  Tom launched in the air and took off to the dump site, Boggy following. 

"So," Boggy asked, "have you seen your accursed master again?"

"Yes," Tom answered as they flew.  "It was kind of strange.  This time there were only two people with him, and they had some sort of ring and did some sort of mumbo jumbo about binding me to the ring and some Neverending Loop."

"Hmm,"  Boggy said knowingly.

"What were they doin
g?
"

"Well, it sounds to me as if they are preparing to control several demons at one time.  What they did was bind you to a talisman.  Which basically means that any wizard who has the ring, can command you
without first doing a bunch of rituals to bind you.  Essentially, anyone wearing the ring is as protected from you as if you were in a pentagram, and they can command you in the name of the master who did the binding."

Tom reached the p
lace where he was depositing the dragon bits, and let the leg go.  As he turned to head back he asked, "Now just exactly, who can normally command my service."

"Well, basically any wizard who knows your true name and does the required bindings for a demon of your power, or any wizard with the ring who knows how to use it.  Now, the first wizard to bind you has precedence over any later wizards binding you; unless, the later wizard is a lot more powerful than the first.  Actually, I really wouldn't worry too much about it.  You'll know whose orders to
follow, by being able to carry out those orders when they conflict.  For now, just realize that anyone who's guts you can rip out, can't command you."

"Great."  Tom didn't relish the idea of going around ripping people
’s guts out to determine if he should follow their orders; that really wasn't the best way to make friends.  Tom also couldn't feel the bloodthirsty attitude towards the Astlanians that Boggy did.  He didn't like them, but that didn't mean he wanted to kill them.  Sure, for a while he'd wanted to strangle Lenamare, but that was only one Astlanian, and that only for a short while after being bullied by him.

Tom and Boggy went back inside the cave to get the tail and the lower torso of the dragon.  Boggy dragged the tail out and Tom
what was left of the torso.  It was a tight fit, but eventually he got it to the cave mouth.  Tom leaped into the air and Boggy followed, puffing as he hauled the tail along.  Tom's section was bigger and heavier, but Boggy was the weaker demon.  Eventually they both made it to the dumping site and unloaded the last of the dragon.

"I noticed as I was chopping up the dragon, there was very little blood on the ground.  Some of the ground had been dissolved, but there really seemed like more blood in the dragon when I fought it," Tom commented as they returned to Tom's cave.