by Tobias Wade
“Wait in the corner,” he commanded. The demon seemed hesitant to cross the pentagram lines. When it did work up the courage it crossed all at once in a terrified dash without meeting any resistance this time. Noah began to rise as well, but Salice’s words were sharp enough to make him drop back at once. “Sit down, boy. We have six more to go before you’re finished.”
The imps came easily enough, as did the Gobblers who were little more than giant, toothless mouths embedded in a misshapen fleshy lump like melted candle wax. The Lava Salamander was much less pleasant, its purple rubbery skin scalding Noah all the way out. Despite being vaguely shaped like a salamander, the creature moved as though it had no bones in its entire body and propelled itself by stretching parts of itself until they were almost transparently thin before snapping the rest of its body into the new location.
“You must remember that a contract with a demon is one of partnership, not servitude,” Professor Salice proclaimed after a particularly nervous gobbler seemed reluctant to exit the circle. “The netherworld is a terrifying place, even for those that call it their home. Most demons are eager to work for a chance of freedom in one of the other planes, though it is up to the summoner to help them fulfill that dream once their contract is complete. To abuse their trust or attempt to cheat them would be… unforgivable.”
Noah’s forehead was burning when Salice invited him to lean against the cool glass once more, thus allowing him to pass. The Professor became preoccupied with instructing the newly summoned demons on their duties and paid little attention to Noah, who was only too relieved to escape.
Despite being told he’d be out by midnight, it must be almost morning by now. Noah was filled with restless energy after sitting for so long though, and he didn’t take the stairs up toward his mausoleum to rest. Instead he turned downward, slipping down through the emptiness toward the Whispering Room. He stood and stared at the greenish stone circle for a long time, unable to bring himself to step inside.
Instead he sat with his back against the marble dais and closed his eyes—near enough to hear the whispers, but not so close as to make out exactly what they were saying. He shivered as the cool mist drifted over him, but he didn’t suppose it could do any harm now. In that weary state he dreamed of home, so close that he might really be there and dreaming of here, and yet so far that he may never see it again. He dreamed of his daughter, and his grandson, and the taste of hot chocolate fresh from the stove, and softly he cried himself to sleep.
“The known universe is divided into three distinct worlds,” Professor Salice said in the first demonology class the next day. “The living world, also known as the corporal world, the spirit world, and the netherworld.”
This room was much less interesting than the others had been, with nothing but plain white tiles, rigid metal desks and chairs, and a dusty chalkboard at the front.
“Pssst,” Jamie leaned over to Noah. “Did you finish the letter to Mandy yet?”
“Yeah,” Noah whispered back. “A fake one anyway. It’s just addressed to a random government building in a different city.”
“The term for a soul passing from the living world to the spirit world is called death, or resurrection in reverse,” Salice droned on, sounding so uninterested in his own words that the students were obviously struggling to do otherwise. “A soul going from the spirit world to the netherworld is a banishment, and one going the other way is called a summoning. There is anecdotal evidence of souls transferring directly between the living and nether worlds, although there has yet to be a controlled experiment to replicate those results.”
“Aren’t you worried that he’ll find out?” Jamie whispered.
Noah shrugged. “It’ll buy me some time at least.”
“I think you should tell The Matriarch,” Jamie said. “She defended you during the weighing ceremony, so I think she’s taken a special liking to you.”
“Tell her what? I don’t have any proof that he’s up to something. I don’t even know what he could possibly want another Chainer for. He’s already got me hosting his summonings.”
“The diagram on page seven details this process,” Professor Salice said, turning the page. “Demonic servants can be useful for all sorts of things because they are comprised of both matter and energy, allowing them to operate equally in all worlds. From protection, to cleaning houses, or even transportation, such as the Daymare… The Mortuary itself was constructed by the demon Morogoth, who planted the great tree from a seed it brought with it from the netherworld. The ceremonies to summon such powerful demons are extremely complicated and require the minds of many dozens of souls to conceive and host them.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Jamie whispered, raising her hand. Noah tried to kick her under the table, but she swung her legs away and stretched her hand even higher. “Excuse me, Professor?” she asked.
Professor Salice looked up from Twelve Signs Your Imp Might Be Plotting To Kill You. The sour look on his face would have been extremely appropriate on the cover. “What is it, Mrs. Poffin? I presume you do not need to use the bathroom.”
“Could a Chainer be used to host more powerful demons than a non-chainer?” she asked. “Even if it’s only one soul, it’s heavier than normal souls because of how many lives it lived, right? We saw that at the weighing ceremony. Does that mean it’s also bigger?”
Noah felt the eyes of the whole classroom fall upon him. He wanted to try and kick Jamie again, but he couldn’t manage it now without being seen. Instead, he pretended to be extremely interested in the soul transfer diagram in his textbook.
“Yes,” Professor Salice said, his voice barely above a whisper but clearly audible in the suddenly still room. Even the two imps who had been wrestling in the back stopped to listen, their squabble forgotten. Noah looked up and met Salice’s gaze for an instant before turning back to his book, a feeling like ice in his veins.
“Professor Humstrum might have told you that all souls are created equal, and perhaps they were, but that should not be confused to mean that all souls are equal,” the Professor continued, his voice still low and hushed. He began to pace between the rows of chairs, but Noah kept his eyes firmly on the book in front of him. “An animal that lives its life in a cage before being slaughtered has had little chance to expand its soul. It has little experience of new things, new feelings, or new thoughts. And if it were to never live again, its soul would remain small and cheap, disposable and useless for any greater purpose. But one who has lived many lives, who has learned and grown from each, and loved and lost so many times…”
His voice trailed off as he stood directly over Noah, who stubbornly refused to look up.
“Pain,” the Professor said, almost purring the word. “Suffering, loss. Like the accumulation of scar tissue, it may harden the soul against future injury. Such a soul can endure and be used for many useful things.”
“You’re bonkers,” Walter whispered, perhaps louder than he’d intended in the quiet room. He winced immediately as other students suppressed quiet laughter around him. To their surprise, Professor Salice only smiled and returned to the front of the class.
“If death has taught you anything, it should be this,” Salice replied, “that sanity, morality, and our fragile cultural beliefs are nothing but the current whims of those who happen to be alive at the same time and place. Reality does not care whether or not it is popular. Page eight, you will find descriptions of the different stones used for sealing contracts. The unique attributes of each stone will determine whether it is best suited to add duration, fine control, or protection in case the demon rebels, etc. You will each be required to memorize the twenty four most common forms of opal and be able to recite their strengths and weaknesses.”
The lecturing drone continued through the rest of the period, although there was an interruption near the end that jolted Noah back to alertness.
“Professor?” Brandon asked, his voice high and ingratiating with artificial respect. “Can we c
ome back as demons next time?”
Noah watched Brandon out of the corner of his eye. Was he asking out of curiosity, or did he know something about his demonic affinity? Brandon didn’t seem to notice Noah and gave no hint as to what he was thinking.
Professor Salice closed the book on his podium with exquisite delicacy. “Some consider such a transformation to be the highest obtainment possible for a soul, something which bridges them with the divine. Would you choose such a path?”
“Of course, Professor!” Brandon said in his whining voice. “I think demons are amazing. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be.”
“Is that allowed though?”
It was the first time Noah heard that girl speak. He’d always assumed she’d been a boy because of her closely shaved hair, but hearing her voice it was undeniable.
“Hand, Rachelle,” the Professor barked.
Rachelle raised her hand and continued, not waiting to be called. “In Chapter 16: Demonic Stigma, it says that human transformation into demons was banned in 1940 by Theodore Oswald, then Magistrate of the Trans Dimensional Department. It says—”
“I do not need to be lectured on the contents of my own textbook, Mrs. Devon,” Salice said with a sneer. “If you were listening earlier instead of reading ahead, you would remember that public opinion is as arbitrary as it is inane.”
“But didn’t that happen right after the purges?” Rachelle persisted. “A lot of people were being killed by—”
“Do not mislead this class with such idle propaganda. We can discuss it after class, if you wish,” Salice cut her off. “Noah, perhaps you will stay as well? I believe you have something for me.”
The harpies had begun to screech outside, and the students were gathering their things to leave. Noah crumpled his note tightly in his hand while waiting behind Rachelle.
“You are correct that demons perpetrated a good deal of slaughter during the purges,” Professor Salice was saying to her, “but your presumption of guilt is unfounded. Magistrate Oswald of the T.D.D. began the conflict by persecuting the large population of liberated demons. They were on the verge of earning voting rights from his progressive rivals, the Elmond twins, when Oswald vilified the movement as nothing short of a demonic uprising in order to stay in power. The escalating tensions led to the mass banishment of free demons at a political rally, which in turn sparked actual demonic attacks. Oswald used these as justification to begin the mass banishment of demons, an unforgivable act known as the purges. You must understand that these are demons who had served their contract faithfully for years on end, only to finally earn their freedom and be banished before they could make use of it.”
Professor Salice was powerfully animated by the conversation, the topic obviously close to his heart. He seemed to have forgotten Noah was even there.
“But I heard that the demons attacked first. Did Oswald get rid of all the free demons then?” Rachelle pressed.
“Most of them,” Salice said, his eyes wandering over the girl’s shoulder to Noah. “It was rumored that the Elmond Twins helped a few of them transform into humans to escape the purges, but again this is the type of political fear mongering that has never been proven. His ban on human transformation was not meant as an actual policy, rather a mean-spirited attempt at convincing his followers that former demons could be hiding anywhere. If you really want to learn more, I recommend the book Those Teeth Are For Smiling: The Misunderstood Demon. Now Noah—where was that letter?”
Noah wordlessly handed over his note and turned sharply from the room.
“Not even a thank you?” Salice called after him in a sardonic tone. “I am doing you a favor, boy. Best remember that.”
Noah couldn’t get away fast enough. Demons… who killed people… who became human to escape punishment. If only he could outrun the implications of that thought as well.
Qari Olandesca Illustrations
Halloween
The thrill of new discoveries did not come without the burden of learning, and Noah had hardly any free time. Besides the main subjects of Necromancy, Demonology, and Transhumanism, there was a never-ending stream of guest lectures that Noah was forced to attend. These were intended to broaden the student’s perspective on life and death.
Noah had never stopped to consider what it must be like to live a hundred generations as a turtle before spending one as a bird, but Ikella, the finch, explained at length. On a different occasion, an old man named Barosca who wore his beard like a belt said that he spent all his years gambling five hundred years ago. Fearing he would disappear completely, he swore a death of austerity. After that he hasn’t spent a day since, and he swears he couldn’t be happier, although admittedly he’d wished he wouldn’t have minded being twenty five again.
The Necromancy class consisted of a lot more anatomy than Noah expected, and they were required to learn the names of every bone and muscle fiber for them to weave magic into. Noah would have expected his medical knowledge from his previous life to serve him well here, but despite his proficiency in naming the muscles he always had trouble getting them to respond.
Professor Wilst said that lurching zombies were an unfortunate stereotype caused by amateur Necromancers who made sweeping commands like ‘Kill them all’ without telling the poor confused zombies how to do it. The studying was exhausting, but it was all worth it when Noah was able to get his corpse to raise its hand and wave for the rest of the class. That was at least as well as Jamie or Walter could do, and considerably better than Mrs. Robinson who hardly ever bothered to show up for class at all.
Despite the experience of his previous life not helping much, there were bits and pieces which did come to him as sudden revelations. The more he read, the more it felt like he was reviewing long forgotten information rather than learning something new. When Professor Humstrum asked the class whether plants had souls, Noah knew at once that they possessed something similar but distinct which spiritologists have named the life-force, which instead of having a unique soul meant that their essence was returned to fuel the cosmic tree and its millennial bloom.
When Noah was asked how he knew since it was not in the required reading, he made up an excuse about Professor Salice mentioning it during his apprenticeship to hide the fact that he didn’t know how he knew. Noah could only assume that one of his previous selves knew the fact, and that somehow all those experiences were still buried inside him somehow.
Despite Noah’s aversion toward Salice, he confided in Jamie and Walter that Denomology was actually his favorite class. He still hadn’t told Walter about his demonic affinity—being a murderer seemed like more than enough to test their friendship—but it was demonology more than anything that caused these feelings of deja vu. As soon as Professor Salice mentioned that the full moon can make it easier for the host to find demons in the netherworld, Noah not only remembered that different phases of the moon can help find different demons, but he also remembered that the Boarheaded Thimbler could only be found during a solar eclipse.
If Professor Salice had realized that Noah gave him the wrong address yet, then he didn’t mention it. Their relationship had even improved on account of how much additional time Noah spent with the Professor as his apprentice. Salice responded to Noah’s interest with encouragement, and he spent as much time receiving private guidance and tutoring as he did actually working on Salice’s behalf.
There were only two things about this period at the school that Noah did not enjoy. He didn’t like how Brandon and Teresa treated the imps, which was almost as bad as how they treated him whenever he tried to defend them. And he didn’t like that he couldn’t stop thinking about the Whispering Room.
Noah couldn’t bear to enter again after the morning he’d fallen asleep there, and for several nights afterward all he could dream about was his daughter’s tormented whispering. At the same time he blamed himself for allowing that fear to prevent him from checking on them. Not to mention poor Samantha who must be so frightened
by the spirits she sees, and Claire who would have loved to know how well Jamie was taking care of Mrs. Robinson.
Their first real opportunity to interact with the living world came sooner than anyone was expecting though. Noah was playing a game of knucklebones on the grass with Walter and Dolly Miller when Elizabeth Washent came bounding through the high grass in the graveyard.
“We’re going to have a Halloween surprise!” she exclaimed, bouncing vertically on the spot, “and I’m going to spoil it! Who wants to know what it is? I heard it straight from The Matriarch’s own mouth.”
Elizabeth was quickly surrounded by students who came scrambling out of their mausoleums from all around to hear. Everybody knew that The Matriarch had taken Elizabeth as a personal apprentice because Elizabeth had made sure to tell everyone that very same day. She had never been very clear how exactly a rabbit was able to fulfill that duty, or what the duty even consisted of, but it was hard not to be swept up in her contagious enthusiasm.
“We’re each going to have our own imp for the day!” she squealed, unable to contain her excitement.
“What would we want an imp for?” Walter asked in disappointment. “The ones we have don’t do anyone any good.”
“Well that’s because they’re stuck here on the island,” Elizabeth said smugly. “We’re going with our imps to the mainland to make mischief in the living world!”
“Why would we want to cause mischief?” Jamie asked, appearing from the graveyard gate with Mrs. Robinson on her shoulder.
“That’s what’s expected on Halloween!” Elizabeth said in exasperation. “The Matriarch said people would be disappointed if they didn’t have their laundry all died pink or have toilet paper thrown over their house.”
The more they thought about it, the more sensible Elizabeth’s excitement became. Walter’s apprenticeship with the Spiritual Operator hadn’t given him the chance to make any calls, so he decided this would be his chance to finally send his girlfriend a letter. Bowser also wanted to check in on his family, although he was only planning to use the imp to terrify the superstitious father of his household who had never once given him a treat or called him a good boy. Noah overheard Brandon making a list of all the people he wanted to get revenge on, but he’d be hard pressed getting to every name in that notebook in a single day.
