Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan)

by Langland, J.

  The other was a small boy, a new student at the school. He knew the real reason the demon was here, and after years of hoping, he rejoiced.

  Chapter 17

  Tom flew south. He was still in a bad mood over the reaction of the people in the keep; however, seeing green grass and living plants did a lot toward cheering him up. He supposed he really couldn't blame the people in the keep for fearing him. He wasn't the most handsome looking guy in the world. In fact, remembering his first visions of his current form, he really couldn't fault anyone from being a bit nervous. Given the superstition that was bound to be running wild among peasant types in a medieval world, the only sane reaction would be fear.

  Even so, it hurt to be the object of that fear, even if he could understand it. Now he knew why monsters in fantasy novels were always so surly and nasty. If everyone in the world feared and hated one, wouldn't it be easy to hate everyone in the world? No real consolation there, thought Tom, it really didn’t help to know that historically, others have faced similar problems. The only problem that really mattered was his.

  By now he was flying over deep prairie, as far as he could see in any direction, there was nothing but grass. Occasionally he would spot a meandering stream. He flew fairly high to avoid scaring any innocent people that might be wandering by. The grass and small occasional trees seemed to beckon to him. The warm sun beating down, grass blowing gently in the wind, all contributed to a relaxed feeling Tom had not encountered in a long time.

  Not that Tom ever used to lay around in the middle of prairies to relax. He had grown up in cities, and only rarely got out to the countryside. Nevertheless, books he had read had set the picture, and the gentle breeze seemed to propel him onward. It was only the fact that he really didn't know how far away this keep was that kept him stopping for a nap. For all he knew it could be so far away as to require continuous flying to reach it in the appointed time. The map had no distance markings and he had no idea how fast Lenamare expected him to travel. Thus he simply kept flying.

  Eventually the sun began to set to his right, and heat of the day began to subside. Not, of course, that he even really noticed the heat; he could simply feel the sunlight warming his wings as he flew. Actually, this place was positively arctic compared to the Abyss, if what Boggy had said was true. The air though, thought Tom, really was not at all uncomfortably cool. Apparently, his body could adjust to a wide variety of climates.

  As the sun went below the horizon and the stars began to shine in the sky, Tom once again noticed that now he saw everything in dark contrasts to one and other. All images were a lot sharper, but black and white. Actually that wasn't quite correct, occasionally he spotted small colored lights, which seemed to move through the grass of the field. For the longest time, Tom could not figure out what those lights were, eventually he swooped down on one to get a closer look. As he got closer, the light all the sudden shot faster through the grass. Originally, the light had been a dim orange, but as it started to move faster, it became brighter. Eventually Tom overtook it, and recognized a small fox.

  The fox was apparently normal color, as far as he could see in the dark, but it was outlined in an orange aura, which seemed to fluctuate as the fox ran. This was really quite puzzling, why hadn't he noticed this in the day, surely there were small animals out in the day time. Besides why would animals glow in the dark? Certainly, there could be no evolutionary benefit that Tom could think of. He let the fox run off, and rose to a higher altitude.

  He pondered for some time over the nature of glow in the dark animals, but came to no real conclusions. Occasionally he spotted other glowing lights, mostly orange, but once in a while, a few other colors showed up. Knowing what they were however, and not wanting to scare the poor animals any more than absolutely necessary, Tom didn't swoop down for a closer look at any of the animals; he simply flew on.

  The night wore on. Tom just kept flying leisurely along, his wings didn't seem to tire a bit. Eventually the dawn came over the horizon bringing new life to the world. Tom had always enjoyed dawn, true, normally the only time he ever saw it was when he had to get up for school, and he hated it then, but on those rare occasions when he was somehow up and around at dawn and not tired, he really enjoyed it. There was a refreshing feeling to it, a sense of putting ones troubles behind, and forging on anew. This morning was no different; Tom put yesterday's frustrations behind and vowed today would be different.

  Tom focused his eyes on the ground below him to see if he could detect any animals, and if they glowed during the day as well. As his eyes adjusted, Tom was surprised to note that he could see the ground as easily as if he were standing on it, instead of flying hundreds of feet above. It didn't take much looking until he found a ground squirrel. He slowed and circled, staring down at it, however he stayed well out of its sight range. Sure enough, if he concentrated on it, he could detect a dim orange light around the squirrel. Definitely puzzling, why didn't the humans glow like the animals? Or did they; he'd never really looked, next time he saw one he would take a closer look. Tom shifted his sight a little as he circled and noticed the small tree near the squirrel. Only because he was concentrating on seeing glows, did he notice that the tree looked a little blurry. Tom focused his eyes and concentration on it. It seemed as if he could almost detect a slight greenish glow to the tree, and in fact to most of the plants around. If he stretched it he could say that all the plants glowed faintly.

  Plant glow seemed to be much weaker than animal glow, and normally he wouldn't have even noticed it if he hadn't concentrated. Last night he hadn't noticed it, but he hadn't noticed animal glow in the light before either. Perhaps the plant glows were so faint they couldn't be discerned against even the low level of night light without concentration, much as the stronger animal lights couldn't be seen without mild concentration in the daylight. Of course, the other thing was that he was a couple of hundred feet in the air, and there were probably limits to even his vision.

  About noon, or so, as Tom judged by the position of the sun above him, Tom spotted a mountain range on the horizon. After a few more moments of scanning the horizon, he was able to make out a small dot at the base of the mountains. Judging by his eyesight's range he guessed the dot, which he soon resolved as a tower with walls around it, to be about sixty miles away. At this point he began to think about his upcoming encounter with humans. In all likelihood they would be scared shitless again. He decided he had better just steel himself to that fact.

  After a few minutes of pondering however, he realized that scared humans were likely to do something foolish, like attack him. If, as they usually did in the novels, they had bows, crossbows, and ballistae, it could make his approach slightly difficult. After the dragon, he wasn't too scared of little arrows and bolts, but nonetheless, it would still probably be painful, and annoying. Glancing around, he came up with a solution to the problem; if he engineered his approach so that he came from the direction of the sun, they would be less likely to see him until the last moment, and if he came in fast, he could be there before they could act. Tom climbed higher in the sky, and over, so that he could hide in the sun.

  It took him about another hour and a half, he guessed, to get within what he felt was a safe distance from the tower. From there he could see everything quite clearly. The fortress was a large tower, about seven stories, surrounded by large stone walls. Inside the courtyard area were many smaller buildings and people wandering around with errands. For the most part it was similar to Lenamare's, except smaller, and judging from the people in the courtyard, probably not a school.

  Well, here goes nothing, Tom thought. Using the full strength of his wings, Tom dove straight for the castle walls. His wings and gravity boosted his speed to close to sixty miles an hour, Tom guessed. He got closer and closer to the walls, at about twenty feet from the top of one wall someone spotted him. People began screaming, and running frantically. Tom swooped in over the top of the wall. To insure his safety by keeping guards off ba
lance, he let out a huge roar, hoping to unnerve anyone who might be taking aim.

  "Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!" he screamed in his deep, thundering voice. Quickly he began back beating his wings to slow himself down. He beat as heavily and strongly as he could, and righted himself so that he would land on his hooves in the courtyard. Unfortunately, he still wasn't completely used to his own limitations, and so overestimated his stopping power. He hit ground on his hooves, cracking, and caving in, the paving stone of the courtyard. Apparently, the stones were somehow mortared together, so in addition to sinking a foot into the ground, and smashing the stone in the immediate vicinity, he also sent cracks radiating outward along the mortar lines. Essentially, he managed to damage a twenty foot diameter circle of the stone courtyard around him.

  Being used to sinking in the ground by now, Tom quickly flew up out of his small hole, and landed on the courtyard itself. He looked around; as expected, several people, mainly women, although one or two men as well, had fainted to the ground, and the rest were cowering behind whatever cover they could find. As he glanced at the wall, he did see a few men with crossbows vaguely pointing in his direction, but none seemed to have the courage to actually point one at him.

  Playing it to the hilt, and thus attempting to ignore the feelings of hurt inside him, Tom thundered, "Humans…I bear a message for the wizard Zilquar. Bring him forth."

  Nobody moved everyone simply stared at him. "Where is the wizard Zilquar?" thundered Tom. This was going to be fun; if they were so scared they couldn't even move, he wouldn't accomplish much. "I have a message for him, and I do not wish to spend all day here!" Tom looked around menacingly; he spotted a boy about his age hiding near a wagon. "You," Tom pointed at him, "bring the wizard to me." The boy's eyes got wider, and he clumsily pointed to himself. "Yes, you. Now!" The boy shook his head, affirmatively, and ran off. Peasants, Tom thought sadly, this was definitely not fun. The problem was, he had tried this posture to distance himself and avoid the pain, but in reality, this only confirmed their fears. What could he do though?

  It took only a few moments for the boy to return, followed by an old man in robes. By his looks, he had probably been on his way anyway, since he was out of breath, and the boy hadn't been gone long enough to bring the man from far enough away for the man to have run here and ran out of breath.

  "I am Zilquar, Demon," the old man said, speculatively eyeing Tom, while obviously hiding a bit of fear and a lot of trepidation.

  "This is for you." Tom handed Zilquar the scroll. "It is from Lenamare."

  "You delivered a message from Lenamare?" The wizard asked, doubt and suspicion showing on his face. Obviously, this man knew the logic behind not having demons run messages.

  "That is what I said. Now if you are through with foolish questions…I shall leave."

  "Uh, yes, by all means," Zilquar agreed hastily.

  With that, Tom stepped up into the air, and left the tower behind. Well, thought Tom, all and all, that was pretty much a waste. All that flying, and for what? To play mailman?

  Since he had three days to do his mission, and the trip was only about twenty-four hours, Tom decided to take a slightly different route back to Lenamare's. This time he flew further west, since there seemed to be a forest over in that direction, and Tom thought that perhaps a stroll through the woods might be relaxing and calm his nerves. He was feeling pretty wound up. This whole demon business sucked. He didn't like being a demon, he hated having everyone hate him, and he hated himself for playing to their fears. But what could he do, if he simply tried to be friendly, people like Lenamare would walk all over him, and try to use him for their own purposes. Not that Lenamare wasn't doing that all ready, it was just that if Lenamare feared Tom, then perhaps he wouldn't try to use him too much.

  Of course, all of that was secondary. What if what Boggy said was true, that they'd killed his real body. Then assuming this was real, he couldn't go back; he didn't know the way, and without a body to focus on and a party to concentrate on, he doubted he could find his way back. Also if he were dead back home, then his mom would be in bad shape.

  Actually, the more he thought of it, the more he realized that there was no way his death would bring his mom and stepdad together. His stepdad would simply blame his mom for not controlling him better. Tom knew that there was nothing his mom could have done, but his stepfather wouldn't see that, and his mother would probably believe his stepdad and blame herself too. The more he thought of this the more depressed he got.

  Finally, over the forest, Tom landed among the trees. It was quiet here, a few birds, small animals running in bushes. The wind through the trees. Feeling depressed and slightly weary, Tom sat down beneath a tree, just to rest. Perhaps to sleep a little, he was not really tired enough to sleep, but if he could, it would help him forget. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the forest. They were far away at first, having been quieted by his disturbance of the forest, but they slowly returned. Slowly he drifted off.

  Chapter 18

  "If he marches all night, then he'll be here before dawn. Otherwise we should expect him around sunset tomorrow, sir," the young scout reported to Lenamare in his private study. It was about two candles after sunset, and the scout had just arrived on a worn out horse. He had just ridden straight from the enemy camp. He hadn't spared his horse; he knew that every moment of advance warning would be needed.

  It was a good thing he had, the wizard thought. Lenamare really hadn't expected Exador for a minimum of four to five days. There was no way Zilquar could get his troops here by tomorrow. The best he could hope would be for Zilquar to help lift a siege. Well, that should be no problem, Lenamare knew his defenses were strong enough, and supplies large enough to survive a siege for a few days. The problem of course, was how Exador managed to get so close so fast. "Tomorrow evening then," Lenamare said, no sane general would march all night and then go into battle at dawn. He waved the scout an absent-minded dismissal.

  As the scout left his office, Lenamare turned to Jehenna. "How the hell did he move so fast?" He demanded as soon as the door closed.

  "I have no idea. He would have had to either use magic or our previous scouts were badly mistaken."

  "I think mistaken is an understatement, they would have to have been blind, to misjudge an army's march by three days."

  "Perhaps blinded by magic?"

  Lenamare frowned at that. Exador could have done that, but to so carelessly waste one's energies on cloaking and illusion spells, when one was about to go into battle, just didn't make sense. "Possible, I just have a hard time seeing Exador cloak and hide his army for several weeks. That's too insane."

  "Well then, what if he didn't. What if he is now?" Jehenna asked speculatively.

  "You mean put an illusionary army three days ahead of himself? Then arrive later? No, that's almost worse. We'd eventually see through the illusion if it just sat out there. True, one could speculate that we would arm up, and then when we'd relax because no attack came from the nearby army, he could hit us with the real thing. However, I trust Exador to know that it wouldn't take me too long to investigate the army and discover the illusion and deduce his plans.

  "No, we must assume he'll attack tomorrow. Exador is no fool. He has something planned. If only we knew what."

  "Well, whatever it is, we'll just have to be ready. We won't get much sleep tonight." Jehenna said.

  "No, let lesser individuals do things tonight. Tonight all people truly essential to the defense should get a good night's sleep. We probably won't get many in the next several weeks."

  Jehenna nodded. "Very well, I'll instruct the students and masters to finish all the wards, except for the final primings, tonight. Then tomorrow afternoon, we'll perform the final rites to prime them, and when Exador's army shows up, we set them."

  "Good, will you be interested in...meditating...with me this evening, before battle," Lenamare asked, giving her a knowing little smile as she stood.

  "Of cou
rse. We will need to generate all the…psychophysical energy we can...for the battle." She smiled back as she opened the door to leave.

  As the door closed, Lenamare spun in his chair to look out the window at the horizon, where his enemy slept. Exador thought to take me unaware...no, old adversary...Lenamare is never unaware. Lenamare knew his defenses could and would hold. Thanks to his ingenious planning and strategy, his defenses would be completely ready for the army. True, it was regrettable that they hadn't been able to gather in as much food and storage as they'd hoped; but, in war, peasants died, and dead peasants didn't need food anyway.

  Chapter 19

  The sound of voices woke him. Tom looked to the sky, it was shortly after dawn. Startled, he sat up; somehow he'd slept the rest of the afternoon and all night. He hadn't been that tired, at least not physically. Maybe the peace of the forest had lulled him.

  That peace was broken now. Voices, a ways off, were arguing. Tom focused his attention on the voices. "Please, lord, I have no more...my wife and I have given you all we've got," whined a scratchy old voice.

  "But, peasant, it's not enough, Baron Orscezy demands four coppers for every man, woman and child in his domain. That's twelve coppers for your family. Yet you only give me nine. Can you not see the justice in paying your fair share of taxes? After all, the Baron graciously protects you and your family from harm," a smooth and arrogant voice replied. "Surely, now that I have shown you reason, you will give me the other three coppers."

  "But lord, I have no more. I cannot give that which I do not have!" The voice was becoming defiant.

  "Liar! All you peasant scum are the same. Greedily you grab at each little piece of money. Little do you think of the comfort and purse of your betters. What right have you to hoard coppers? This is not your land...it is the Baron's. All that comes from it is rightfully his, and so should you pay him what you indisputably owe him. Pay, now. Else I will take payment in your hide."