Kayhu saved the old man's greatest hope for his third wish: a son. This final temptation proved too much and the librarian released the demon, only to realize, too late, that he'd been tricked! He was still an old man and wouldn't be able to enjoy any of the gifts that had been bestowed upon him.
Even though he knew the seven symbols, there was no chance to catch another demon. Kayhu said he would warn the others of his kind and they would stay away from the old man. And to add insult to injury, he had a daily reminder of his folly: a fancy car, a stunning wife, and a wonderful son that he couldn't play with because he was too decrepit.
The old librarian nursed his wounded pride. He thought long and hard and slowly plotted his revenge.
He was well-versed in the ancient lore and he knew what needed to be done. It would require a great deal of self-discipline. Bad thoughts summoned the demons so he had to keep his mind clear, not dwell on his mistakes, and focus on that bright day in the future when all his dreams would finally come true.
*****
Night after night, he went to his basement and put the plan into action. In the dim light provided by a single kerosene lamp, he worked on a mask. No ordinary Halloween disguise, this mask was created from special materials that he'd painstakingly gathered, unique materials with magical properties. The demons wouldn't recognize him while he wore this mask. Kayhu's warning would do them no good if they didn't know who he was.
It was hard work, requiring many long hours and excruciating attention to detail which made his old hands ache. Everything had to be perfect or it would never fool the denizens of the underworld.
Finally, the project was complete. He took off his thick glasses, rubbed his tired eyes, and ran his fingers through what little hair was left on his head. He felt a sense of regret for his lost youth but quickly banished the negative thoughts.
"Must not summon the demons yet," he whispered. "But soon, very soon."
*****
In a deserted warehouse in a shoddy, downtown neighborhood, the old man worked through the long night, constantly checking to make sure that the mask was secure on his face. He drew a pentagram on the concrete floor and traced a circle around it. In the spaces between the points of the star, he drew the remaining five symbols: a lantern, a silver coin, a young maiden, a smiling child, and an hourglass.
It was time. Oh, how he'd longed for this moment! Ever since Kayhu had tricked him, granted him his deepest wishes but left him an old man, unable to enjoy them. He felt the pang of remorse, and for the first time in many months, he didn't try to stifle it. He let it grow and grow, knowing that the bad feelings would attract the demons.
He thought of music and baseball, two hobbies from his younger days that lost their appeal as he obsessively chased after the seven symbols.
There was a slight breeze in the old building and he glanced at the pentagram but saw nothing.
He thought of the young wife that Kayhu had given him. As he imagined her beautiful smile and lilac perfume, the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees in the warehouse. He turned his gaze towards the pentagram, but still it remained empty.
He thought of the boy, the son for which he'd yearned. He dreamt of all the things he wanted to do with him: hunting, fishing, playing catch.
The seven symbols on the floor began to shimmer and glow in shades of blue and yellow. The outer circle expanded until it reached all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
"Show yourself," the old man demanded as he removed the mask. "You've been trapped."
The vague outline of a figure began to materialize.
"You can't get away. There's no use to even try."
In response, a green-skinned demon appeared.
"To whom do I speak?" the old man asked.
"I am Baal," the spirit said in a deep voice that echoed throughout the warehouse.
"And what level do you call home?"
"I reside at the top of the pit, overlooking the lesser spirits of the lower levels."
"A powerful demon! Good, that's exactly what I need. I know you can grant me three wishes, but I only require two. First, make me young again! I wish to be twenty-nine years old."
The demon snapped his fingers and the first wish came true.
The librarian laughed with delight as he ran his hands through his thick head of hair. "And now for my second wish..."
*****
A handsome, young man played catch with his son in their back yard. "Good throw, boy. Keep it up!"
The back door of the house opened and a beautiful woman walked over and gave him a kiss. He breathed in her lilac perfume as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Are you two ready to go for a drive?" she asked.
"Yep," he replied. "Come on, son. We'll play some more catch later."
They walked around to the front of the house and climbed into a pristine, classic car. He pulled the keys from his pocket and glanced at the keychain. Kayhu, a demon with flaming red eyes, horns, and hoofed feet was trapped inside.
The librarian smiled at the demon, who glared back from his prison. He chuckled as he inserted the key and turned the ignition, causing the engine to roar to life.
"Top down?" he asked his beautiful wife.
"Of course," she replied
"Music or ballgame?" he asked his son as he turned on the radio.
"Ballgame," the boy yelled enthusiastically.
The happy family pulled out of their driveway and headed down the road.
The End
7 - Island Hopping
Part 1 - Fireball in the Sky
South Pacific
1988
Xantor Alidem was a collector. He roamed the universe in search of rare and unique creatures that he captured and sold on his homeworld of Polonius 7. This trip across the cosmos had been particularly fruitful, netting such rare specimens as a Gendorian Octofip, an Ix' Boi from the Ulmur System, and a pair of Crukniks from the Helios Nebula.
But his prize possession, the one that would bring him enough rukels to buy a new space cruiser, was an entire clan of Duvian Hoppers.
"Those bastards took off three of my tentacles and my left gonzack, but it'll be worth it when I trade in this piece of junk for a Cosmo Twinjet with an ion-propulsion system."
Xantor went down to the hold to check on the animals one more time before entering hypersleep. The Duvian hoppers went ballistic when they saw him. Even though they were behind twelve quintars of unbreakable poltex he still shuddered. "I'm never going after any of those buggers again," he mumbled as he headed to his cabin.
The exhausted collector crawled into his suspension chamber, pushed the button to release the dormancy gas, and entered a hibernation cycle.
And that should have been that, but long before he reached Polonius 7 there was a coolant malfunction in the navigation system. His ship drifted off course where it encountered a rogue comet that completely fried the mother board's artificial intelligence circuits.
The gentle tug of the Sun's gravity put his ship on a collision course with the Earth, though Xantor would never live to see that world. He died in his sleep from asphyxiation. But the beasts survived the journey…
*****
"Dr. Gardner, do you want me to reel in the weather balloons?"
"Hold on one second, Vogel," he replied. "Let me finish listening to the weather report."
"This sounds like one mother of a storm," said Walker. "We might have to pack up and head to another location."
"No thank you," Dr. Gardner said emphatically. "We've already done enough island hopping."
Ron Gardner was a research scientist. He and his two assistants, Vogel and Walker, were in the midst of a three-year project investigating changes in the Earth's climate. Their advanced equipment, much of it designed by Gardner himself, was notoriously fickle and they'd been forced to change location more times than they cared to remember.
Vogel and Walker were as different as night and day. The former had a sanguine, devil-may
-care attitude while the latter was a curmudgeon who always thought the sky was falling. Vogel liked to drink and was always game for some tomfoolery, whereas Walker was a teetotaler with no sense of humor. Despite their polar opposite personalities, both were top notch scientists who were dedicated to the project, and Dr. Gardner was thrilled to have them on his team.
There were two other people on the island as well. Gardner was a widower so his children, Shiloh and Josie, traveled with him as did their two Australian cattle dogs, Sydney and Melbourne.
"It's going to be a brutal storm," Dr. Gardner said as he turned the radio off. "We better retrieve the weather balloons, just in case."
Gardner's eight-year-old daughter, Josie, came in the room just as Vogel and Walker were leaving.
"It's dark already and Shiloh is nowhere to be found," she announced.
"Josie, what did I tell you about tattling? Your brother is thirteen-years-old and quite capable of taking care of himself."
"Why does he get to go exploring when I have to stay home?"
"In a few more years you can go exploring, too," Gardner said as he tousled her blonde hair.
"But he's going to miss supper," she whined.
"Don't be so hard on your brother. He's at an age where a boy needs some time to himself. And Shiloh's more rambunctious than most. Don't worry. We'll save him some leftovers."
The words had just left his lips when a monumental blast shattered the night.
"Daddy, I'm scared. Storms frighten me."
"That wasn't thunder. We better take a look," Gardner said as he grabbed his daughter's hand and led her to the porch.
Sydney and Melbourne were barking like crazy.
There was a tremendous flash of light from the northern part of the island, followed by a deafening boom that made the ground shake.
"Is it an earthquake?" Josie asked as she threw her arms around her father.
"I don't think so, honey. But whatever it is, we'll be just fine," he said. For his daughter's sake, Gardner tried to sound confident even though he was extremely concerned about this unexpected development, especially since he didn't know where his son was.
Island Hopping
Part 2 - Bless the Beasts and the Children
When Shiloh saw the fireball streak overhead, he immediately ran after it. Most people would have exercised caution, but thirteen-year-old boys believe themselves to be indestructible.
Shiloh had a wild imagination fueled by an addiction to comic books and blockbuster movies, but nothing could have prepared him for what came next.
An eerie fog covered the lagoon on the northern tip of the island. Drawn by a repeating pattern of blinking lights, the boy entered the mist and found a downed space ship half submerged in the water. The crash landing had ripped the back end of the vessel completely off. Shiloh heard movement inside and was torn between fear and fascination.
His eyes grew wide as a pack of animals emerged from the hull. It was impossible to see clearly in the hazy gloom, but from what he could tell the creatures had leathery, reticulated hides like that of a crocodile. Here and there their skin was covered with coarse, black fur.
The largest of the beasts sniffed the air, turned its lambent eyes in Shiloh's direction, and growled. The deep, rumbling tone was just the beginning of an overture of panic as the other members of the pack yipped and barked in response.
The boy's amazement soon passed through varied degrees of alarm to a state of acute panic. As he turned to run one of the creatures raised its head in a long, lugubrious howl. Shiloh glanced back over his shoulder and saw the pack rapidly gaining. Their bizarre form of locomotion reminded him of kangaroos.
Before long, their razor-sharp teeth and claws were tearing the flesh from his body.
*****
"Did you hear that?" Vogel asked.
"What am I, deaf?" Walker replied. "Of course I heard it."
"We better go check it out," Vogel said.
"It sounded like Shiloh," Walker commented. "That boy is too adventurous for his own good."
The sky had turned gray and bleak, blocking out most of the stars in the firmament, though the Southern Cross was still visible. Heavier and heavier clouds piled up to the northwest as a light rain began to fall. The concordant rumblings were portents of a mammoth storm.
As they neared the shore, Vogel and Walker could hear the murmuring waves. A fragrant breeze carried the smell of coconuts and papaya. When they reached the white sands of the beach, they got a better view of the woods. Something had cut a swath of destruction through the thicket. Bizarre, misshapen prints covered the bare patches of ground near the upturned trees.
Vogel tried to make a joke but it fell flat.
The blood-curdling bay of some demonic beast could be heard above the discordant sounds of the approaching storm. It was impossible to tell from what black wells of fear or feeling, from what unplumbed gulfs of extra-cosmic consciousness that half-articulate howling was drawn. But the effects on Vogel and Walker were plain to see.
They turned and fled their nameless, monstrous pursuers, but the furious chase was all but over before it began. All Vogel saw as his throat was torn open was a pair of luminous, bulging eyes.
Walker put up more of a fight, but his fate was sealed when his glasses were knocked off. He stared myopically as he emptied the contents of his pistol but to no effect. What followed was complete pandemonium as the pack battled over his flesh.
*****
"Why are Sydney and Melbourne carrying on like that?" Josie asked.
"The storm has them spooked, honey. That's all," her father said. He wanted to believe it, but he knew the truth was more complicated. Vogel and Walker should have been back hours ago, not to mention Shiloh. He knew his boy was resourceful, but he couldn't help but fear the worst.
Dr. Gardner pulled the curtains back and glanced outside. He wasn't worried about the storm. There was something out there. A pack of creatures that made his blood run cold. His undergraduate work was in biology and he knew these beasts were not of this
Earth.
He didn't want to scare his daughter, but he started to barricade the door. Before he was done, he heard the dogs whimpering in pain. Josie screamed. He took his daughter in his arms and tried to comfort her as best he could as lightning threw ominous shadows across the window.
He covered Josie's ears so she wouldn't hear the howling demons. A cataclysmic peal of thunder scared the animals away, but only temporarily.
For Ron Gardner and his daughter their last night amongst the living was a never-ending nightmare, so much so that it was impossible to tell where reality ended and fantasy began. They fought the good fight. They battled the odds. But their efforts were in vain.
Morning came wanly. The night sounds ceased as the Sun appeared on the horizon. The storm had blown itself out. There was much to be done, but no one alive to do it. A supply ship was due in a week. The crew would find the carnage. They would also find the Duvian Hoppers, or rather the Duvian Hoppers would find them.
*****
The storm had flooded the lagoon on the northern tip of the island and the morning tide pulled the crashed space ship into the blue waters of the Pacific. It drifted aimlessly for many days until ocean currents carried it to South America where the rest of the animals in the hold of the vessel ventured forth.
The End
8 - The Doll House
"What am I doing here?" Jack Roseman thought as he glanced nervously around the room, casting a wary eye at the other people waiting to see the psychiatrist.
"The doctor is ready to see you now, Mr. Roseman," the receptionist announced. "Go through the archway and down the hall. Her office is the last one on the right. She'll be waiting for you."
He picked up his briefcase and his coat, nodded to the receptionist as he left the waiting room, and walked down the hallway. When he reached the door, he knocked quietly, and a tall woman with dark hair and glasses greeted him. "Good morning, Mr. Ros
eman," she said with a warm smile. "Please, come in. I'm Dr. Sara Evans."
"Should I go ahead and lie down on the couch?" he asked after he'd hung up his coat.
"If you'd like, Mr. Roseman," she said. "May I call you Jack?"
"Sure," he replied as he reclined his head back on a soft pillow.
"First visit to a psychiatrist, Jack?" she asked as she adjusted her glasses.
"Yes."
"Well, relax. Lots of people visit the psychiatrist. It doesn't mean you're crazy. It just means there's something on your mind that you want to talk about it."
Jack closed his eyes and let out a loud sigh.
"How have you been sleeping?" the doctor asked as she picked up a pencil and a yellow notepad.
"Not well. I have trouble falling asleep and I wake up a lot during the night."
"Do you have any recurring dreams?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about them."
"Well, there's one in particular. I'm in a box. I struggle to get the lid off, crawl out, and run as fast as I can. I get tired and stop to rest. I doze off, and when I wake up, I'm right back in the box again."
"Interesting," the doctor said as she jotted down some notes. "So, Jack, why did you make an appointment? What did you want to talk about?"
"My daughter had her seventh birthday last week," he began and Dr. Evans once again started to write down some of her thoughts on the notepad.
"What's her name?"
"Amber."
"That's a pretty name," the doctor said. "Go on."
"We had a party last week and one of the gifts she received was a doll house. When all the girls gathered around and started to play with it, I remembered something. Something I'd blocked out of my mind for years."
"About how many years would you say?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe five."
"Continue."
"I was driving home from work on a Friday. It was in the winter, around Christmas time, and it was already dark. I'm in sales and I often work late at that time of the year. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of blue light in the sky. The purest, most brilliant shade of blue, like the water around a tropical island. The next thing I know, I'm at my house, it's almost midnight and I'm talking to my wife—"
Forgotten Realms Page 3
