by Delmire Hart
“The more I learn, the more possibilities there are, and the more rules.” Barkley shook his head and sighed as he held his hand up, palm up.
Concentrating, a small orange flame appeared to dance in his palm. Magelights were easy for Barkley now, but the flame still required more thought than he had first assumed. The flame flickered out abruptly as his concentration slipped and he sighed again. Even now he couldn’t control it well enough to burn only select targets, let alone dance it across his knuckles like Zaxor could. He knew his lack of inherent magic made it much harder to control what little magic Zaxor gave him access to, but knowing didn’t help how frustrating he found magic at times.
With access to Zaxor’s magic, it felt like the world should be at his fingertips, even if he couldn’t personally cast the magic himself. Yet for all the wonders he had seen come from magic, it became more mundane the more he learned. Magic wasn’t magic like most people thought; there were rules involved and a great deal of thought and preparation required before anything could be achieved.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, Barkley frowned at Zaxor who was ignoring their surroundings to watch him keenly. He was tired suddenly and all he wanted to do was return to his book of translated fairy tales. Waving his hand, Barkley made a shooing gesture at the demon, done with the conversation.
Zaxor rolled his eyes but promptly vanished with a small ‘pop’. It was only then that Barkley became acutely aware of the eyes watching him curiously. With a self-conscious shrug, he summoned a magelight above his shoulder and opened the tome of stories across his lap. The light was still good, but as the sun moved across the sky, the shadows from the tents slowly stretched towards where he sat. This way he could read mostly un-interrupted until they called him back to the command center.
It was rude to ignore the officers with him, especially the old soldier, but Barkley had had his fill of conversation for the day. Eventually the officers moved back to their own quiet conversations and Barkley was left in peace as people came and went around him.
“Demontamer,” a voice called, pulling Barkley from his book.
He blinked, glancing around and taking in the long shadows and low position of the sun. Many of the others sitting around the campfire were different to earlier, and the old soldier who had been cleaning his kit next to Barkley had gone. He’d been so absorbed in the fanciful fairy tales and Frederick’s annotated explanations on cultural significance that he’d lost track of time.
“Yes?” Barkley’s voice cracked on the word and he cleared his throat. He’d need to find some water before he settled down again.
“You’re wanted at the command post.”
Barkley nodded and stood, dusting off his grey robe. After calling out his thanks to Harding for the food and the company, he set off to the large wooden building not far from the campfire. Hopefully this meant that a plan had been chosen and they were readying soldiers to move out in the morning. It irked Barkley that he was not part of the planning process; what was the point of joining as a mage if he had no more say than if he had just joined all those weeks ago?
Logically, he knew he wasn’t trusted yet, and he needed to earn that trust before he would be allowed to know more about the army’s plans. But they were making plans with a power they didn’t understand, so how could they expect to make the most of it without asking for the impossible?
Stepping into the large room that was the main command post, Barkley was surprised by the amount of people present. Seems like once again, he had been the last one summoned. He nodded in greeting to Jerry, receiving a nod in return, before turning his attention to the man in charge. The greying man was scowling, clearly unimpressed with Barkley’s attitude, and Barkley then and there decided that he couldn’t be bothered to learn the man’s name. It was petty, but he didn’t care.
“Now that everyone is here,” the commander started, his deep voice flat with irritation. “We will be sending two squadrons of soldiers north, past the enemy lines. One to each of the two known enemy encampments. It will be a week’s hard travel by horseback to reach the larger, northernmost camp, provided no trouble occurs during the ride. Right now, the enemy doesn’t know they’ve lost their entire forward base, but it won’t stay that way for long, so we must push our advantage. The two remaining camps will need to be taken out at the same time if we intend on keeping them off balance.”
He stared at each of his officers in turn, waiting for their nods of agreement before turning his attention to Barkley. They traded frowns for a long moment before he finally addressed him.
“Mage.” Oh, looks like the feeling of dislike was mutual. The commander wasn’t stooping to use the newly given nickname of Demontamer that implied a certain amount of power, nor was he deigning to use Barkley’s actual name. “Do you have more of these so-called ‘anchors’?”
“Zaxor?” Barkley called, his voice sharper than he intended.
“I may,” Zaxor replied as soon as he materialised next to Barkley. Clearly the demon had been listening in again. The demon might claim to be busy, but he seemed to spend an awful lot of time watching Barkley if that was the case.
“You’ll just be a liability with the pace the men will travel at. We need an ‘anchor’ for each of the squadrons that they can call you through, to pass messages as well as organise when it’s time to take out the camps.”
Zaxor stood very still, even his tail was held stiffly in place. Barkley got the impression that the demon appreciated being ordered about as much as he did, and the idea of playing messenger would definitely ruffle his feathers.
“I can provide two additional anchors, but I cannot be called through them.” Barkley was almost certain that was a lie but he didn’t call the demon on it. “Barkley can, however, make use of them to appear at a set time each day to check in with each group.”
It was hard to keep the scowl off his face as Zaxor not so subtly volunteered him for the role of messenger. Glancing to the side, he caught the briefest curl of Zaxor’s lips before he schooled his face back into boredom.
The rest of the details were of no real consequence to him, but Barkley hung around anyway, just in case. Once it was clear the main part of the discussion was over, Zaxor vanished off as was his wont, leaving Barkley by himself.
The worst part about the plan was the time spent waiting. There was no way around the travel time and Barkley understood the need to take out the large enemy encampments close to the border. Already he was helping to make his family safer than before, but he wasn’t looking forward to more idle days and the feeling of helpless frustration inaction caused.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sitting under the huge pink tree in the middle of the demon fortress was how Barkley had decided to while away his days. János often joined him, and slowly, bit by bit, Barkley was able to get more words from him. The tree itself was called a Zullarian tree in the Althulean tongue while the flowers had their own name that meant Valley’s Tears. The tree featured more than once in the fairy tales Barkley had read, and he added little titbits of relevant information to the translated book for Frederick.
The topic of childhood fantasies seemed like a bittersweet one for János, and he could only talk about them for so long before withdrawing into himself, but Barkley still counted any conversation as a win. He didn’t have to befriend the sorrowful winged man, but the more Barkley learned about him, the more he couldn’t help feeling a connection.
János had contracted Zaxor to save his dying sister. In Althulean society, the use of contracted demons was forbidden and taboo. They had their own source of magic, but it was not enough to counter the sickness that ate away at his sister. It was a magical disease, János said, brought on by the careless dumping of magical waste near where a few children of their community played. It was their secret hideout away from all the adults, and they had all been exposed to the contaminates for days upon days before the disease manifested.
Six Althulean children died. Jáno
s’s sister held on after the rest, her body painfully wasting away a bit more every day. Magic could heal it, but they didn’t have enough concentrated magic amongst their community to save even the one life. So, against all of his teachings, János had reached out to Zaxor and traded his life, his soul, for his sister’s. In doing so, his sister was saved, but he was exiled and rejected from his family before he was taken to the demon plane where he has lived since.
The pain in János was not just from being separated from his people, but was also from their rejection of his help, his sacrifice. Barkley learned that he hadn’t even been given the chance to see his sister once she was healed to say goodbye. Regret ate away at him while a sense of resigned duty to fulfil his end of the contract kept him from wasting away completely.
It was the same way that Bel regretted, when he removed himself from his books long enough for him to remember. Barkley was beginning to see a theme.
Barkley was sitting quietly with János, pink petals occasionally drifting down on an unseen breeze, when they were joined by Belvadair himself. He stormed up to the two, dark robes swishing noisily around his legs, before halting to stare long and hard at Barkley.
“You’re fucking the demon.” It was not a question.
He nodded in reply, surprised that Bel hadn’t heard already. Everyone seemed to know from the first time he had visited Zaxor’s fortress in person. Although, from what he understood, Bel rarely interacted with anyone by choice and spent nearly all of his time cooped up in his room with his books.
“What are you thinking?!” Bel exclaimed, anger and shock warring across his features. “Are you an idiot?! He’s not a human! He’ll chew you up and spit you out and where will that leave you? Whatever you are getting from this arrangement, it cannot be worth it.”
“Getting? I’m not getting anything.” Well, other than sex, Barkley supposed. He flushed at the thought before shutting down that particular line of thinking. If he visibly reacted in front of these two, he would be mortified.
Bel paused and stared incredulously at him. “Is getting fucked by him really that good that you’re willing to take the pain and humiliation when he inevitably throws you away?”
“Making such presumptions about our bedroom activities, Bel,” Zaxor’s deep voice piped up as the demon himself appeared lying beside Barkley. He pushed the book from his lover’s lap so he could settle his head there instead, earning an eye roll in return. “Not that our choices are any of your business. Don’t go casting your regret onto Barkley; Wesley is six hundred years dead and has nothing to do with him.”
Bel flinched, his gaze sliding away uncomfortably, and Barkley’s heart went out to him.
“Thank you for being worried about me,” Barkley said as he placed his hand over Zaxor’s mouth to keep the demon from talking. He licked his palm in retaliation but Barkley didn’t remove his hand. “But our arrangement isn’t whatever you think it is.”
The silence between them stretched out, Bel refusing to look at them while János looked between everyone with wide eyes. How interesting that the casual closeness between Zaxor and Barkley had helped János relax and trust Zaxor more, while it was having the opposite effect on Bel. Deeming it safe enough, Barkley took back his hand, wiping away the saliva on Zaxor’s shirt.
“You know, if you are that jealous, I highly recommend the services of the incubus residing here—” Barkley slapped his hand back over Zaxor’s mouth, cutting him off mid sentence. Clearly it had been a mistake to remove it.
“You aren’t helping,” he hissed down at the demon in his lap. “And stop licking my hand! What are you, a child?”
Next to him János snorted, the sound the closest to laughter that Barkley had heard from the winged man. The awkwardness of this conversation was worth it for that alone.
“Also, is that the blue incubus I see around sometimes?” Barkley asked, the thought just occurring to him. “He’s been avoiding me and I’m not sure why. Every time I see him he bows then disappears.”
Zaxor pulled his hand away to answer, nipping at the fingers as they left. “He’s just nervous about causing a fuss. Unlike most of his kind, he only feeds from men and believes I’ll kick him out if I think he’s messing with you. Seeing that he has nowhere to go and would most likely die if he left here, forgive his overreaction.”
“He would die?!”
“Humans are in short supply now; few wander into the demon plane and none venture as far as you did.” Zaxor intertwined their fingers, then pulled their joint hands to rest across his chest. “Sex demons cannot feed off each other, and he is even more limited by his inability to feed off other genders. He was near death when we forged our contract. Any demon that is housed here permanently has only bound themselves so tightly to me because they felt they had no other choice. If they had somewhere else to go, they would be there instead.”
“All of them?” Barkley wondered out loud. “But there’s so many!”
“A collection a few thousand years in the making.”
“So no one is here willingly.” Bel’s flat voice brought their attention back to him. His face was twisted with what looked like pain.
“I did not say that. No one contracts a demon without a reason, and no one gives up their life for a whim. But the choice to do so is still just that, a choice. They bow to me, but in return they live, and live well at that. None of the demons here regret their decision. For some reason, it is humans that struggle to make their peace with the choices they have already made.”
Zaxor did not look at János, but Barkley knew it was aimed at him as well. The Althulean looked pensive and Barkley couldn’t help but reach out to gently squeeze his thin hand. He jumped at the touch, it was the first time Barkley had crossed that boundary, but he seemed to understand as he gave him a thin, pained smile in return.
Turning back to Bel, Barkley forced a small smile. “You should go get a book and come sit with us.”
“Why?”
“You don’t have hide away forever.” It struck him then that the phrase ‘forever’ had such a different meaning now than it had held before. “It’s nice out here, especially with friends.”
János startled, his already large eyes widening further at the casual insinuation.
“Friends.” Bel’s voice was flat, disbelieving.
“Mm. I think you two in particular should get to know each other; you have something in common, after all.”
“Oh?”
Barkley paused, deciding if he was taking it too far. But it was already too late, he had started, so he forged on ahead, saying the one word that might hurt them as much as it might bring them together. “Regret.”
Both Bel and János froze and stared at each other for a long time. Bel was the first one to move, wrenching his gaze away as he whirled around to stomp off. Barkley hoped he would come back with a book like he had suggested, but he wasn’t sure. Surprisingly, Zaxor said nothing. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep, although Barkley doubted that was the case.
Bel’s concern for him wasn’t unfounded though, and Barkley hadn’t given this strange new relationship with Zaxor much thought. Because, it really was a relationship, of a sort, although more affection and less love than a term like lovers suggested. In all honesty, Barkley was ignoring the future, be it his future with Zaxor, his future with his suddenly expanded life, or the future of his family.
They were concerns he could face once he had finished his self-appointed task.
And he had no doubt that worry about them he would, once he could tear his mind from the here and now. Right now, he oscillated wildly between confidence that they would succeed in stopping the war and worry that they were already too late to save the people he cared most about. What was the point of sacrificing himself if he couldn’t even protect his family? Except, he knew the point. There were more Rilian lives at stake than the handful he knew.
That knowledge didn’t make it any easier to sit around waiting for thei
r next move or worry any less. In fact, those feelings were only compounded every morning when Zaxor teleported him to each of the swiftly moving squadrons of soldiers. As Barkley took the daily reports to relay back to the headquarters, his feeling of desperate helplessness over his inaction grew. Each day of feeling useless was harder to escape from the last. Even now the reminder had soured his mood, threatening to send him spiralling back down into despair.
Pulling himself away from those thoughts, Barkley turned his attention to the demon in his lap.
“Zaxor?” he paused, waiting for the hum in reply before continuing. “What benefit do you actually get from taking our souls? Besides a prestige thing to show off to other demons.”
It was a thought that had occurred to him before but one that had only been skirted around, never directly answered. That probably had more to do with Barkley’s vague questions than Zaxor intentionally talking around the answer though. The demon in question cracked an eye open to stare up at him thoughtfully before huffing.
“You are referring to the actual soul itself, not the creature as a whole, correct?”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t surprised when Zaxor didn’t immediately reply, his expression thoughtful as he played idly with Barkley’s fingers. Next to them, János was unashamedly listening in, a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty lining his features.
“To explain, I must explain a theory that exists amongst the demons. Many of the different races that exist in many different dimensions have similar appearances or physical traits. They all look vaguely human.”
Barkley glanced up at János, meeting his startled eyes as he did so. It was true that they shared a strong resemblance. They walked upright on two legs, with two arms, a proportionate chest, and a head. The location of the eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, fingernails; it was all the same. The differences lay in the Althulean’s wings and the changed musculature to enable him to fly. Thin, lean muscles, light bones, small stature, large eyes.
