by Langland, J.
With one of his attackers down, Tom had more room to move. He swung around trying to grab the other demon clutching his left side. It swung around with him. Annoyed he reached over and grabbed the demon.
Wham! Crash! A flash of light from behind him startled him momentarily. Quickly he looked over his shoulder to see where two demons were attacking Jenn. One of them was reeling and smoking. It looked for all the world like it had been hit by a bolt of lightning. It probably had been, he thought raggedly. He ripped the demon off his side. Its claws raked along him, causing him pain, but he didn't have time to think.
He'd promised to protect these guys and he wasn't doing too great a job at the moment. The second demon got on its feet and charged Tom. Angry, frustrated and in a hurry, Tom took a deep breath, concentrated all his ki in his right fist, as his instructor had taught him, and brought it back, preparing to strike. As the demon charged in, Tom released his fist with all his strength and put his body behind it. His mind was tightly focused on the ki in his fist. The demon came in, Tom's fist moved forward. Tom imagined he could almost see the ki glowing in his fist.
Neatly, as if in slow motion, Tom's fist came together with the onrushing demon's face. As the two connected, Tom released the ki, with a loud "Kiya!" As the ki was released with the punch, Tom felt his fist smash into the demon, even as the demon was enveloped in a cloud of red light growing from Tom's fist, expanding as he felt his kiya expand from his lungs. The demon screamed once, loudly. The next thing Tom knew, there was a smoking corpse laying at his feet. Even that faded before his very eyes.
As the demon faded, Tom heard another nearby demon scream in pain. To his right, he quickly noticed that a fifth demon had grabbed Rupert and was holding him in the air, by Rupert's waist. The problem however, appeared to be that the demon was now bending over in pain while holding the boy. He was bending over in a way that Tom, as a male, fully understood. Apparently, having been lifted to the correct height, Rupert was able to get a good kick in to a critical anatomical piece of the demon. The kid must be a lot stronger than he looks to cause a demon that much pain, admired Tom.
As the demon was cringing over, Rupert, who's hands were free, pulled his hand back, and jammed two fingers into the demon's eyes. Once again the demon howled in pain. This time, however, in an attempt to cover its eyes, it dropped Rupert. Bringing its hands up to its face. At that moment, Tom heard a loud scream from Jenn.
He looked over to where she was. She'd been grabbed by the two demons attacking her. Apparently they were only trying to capture her, not kill her, because they seemed to be taking pains to hold onto her. Knowing he had to get over to her, but also knowing that he couldn't leave Rupert alone, Tom decided that one good kick deserved another. With a flying charge, Tom moved into the demon who's hands were covering its face. With another kiya, he kicked the demon with all his strength, in the same critical location Rupert had. The hovering demon howled in agony and was propelled upward and over through the air for several hundred feet.
Tom moved toward Jenn, trying to make his way around the screaming horses. The demons holding her looked up and saw him coming. One of them seemed to smile. As he did, the other spoke something and a burning ring of fire appeared in the air behind them. Tom came around the horses as fast as he could, but even as he rounded them, the demons stepped back through the hole. Tom reached out to grab them, but already the hole was closing around his fingers. The hole popped shut, leaving Tom grasping nothing.
Tom heard shouting from behind him. It was the demon he'd just wracked. It was shouting obscenities at him and Rupert from a distance. Something about eternal vengeance, blah, blah; Tom didn't care. He was just ticked off. He began flying towards the demon, intending on forcing it to tell him where the others had taken the girl. As the demon saw him approach, it quickly shut up and closed its eyes. Before Tom could reach it, it had faded from sight.
Tom sighed, and turned back down towards Rupert. He flew down to where the boy had picked himself up. Rupert seemed to have tears streaking his face, but the expression on his face told Tom they were tears of frustration not fear. "They got Jenn! How could they do that? I couldn't stop them! Why couldn't you?"
Rupert danced around in frustration. "Tom, what'll we do. They'll probably rape and mutilate her! Oh goddess! Where can they have taken her? Where!" He looked up angrily at Tom.
"I don't know." replied Tom helplessly.
Chapter 35
Red-golden light shown through the Corinthian pillars to Exador's right. Exador had just teleported into the entranceway pavilion of his erstwhile allies. The pavilion was neo-Grecian in Exador's mind. Large white marble Corinthian columns, twenty feet high supporting a marble roof.
To his left, about forty feet away was a solid marble wall with a single large curtained entranceway in the middle. Ahead of and behind him were more large columns separating the pavilion from the outside. The outside was pleasant, if a bit unusual. The sky was a translucent red, streaked with golden strands of clouds. No sun was visible from Exador's position.
The ground around the pavilion was covered with a wide variety of pleasant looking, if scrub like, plants. The soil was a reddish brown in color. Actually, to Exador's mind, it reminded him of images he'd seen of the place the columns came from, except it was all seen through rose colored glasses. Even the sporadic local fauna, reminded him of the images, there were some people and also a number of reddish, vaguely demonic looking centaurs roaming the grounds, apparently tending the plants.
Not caring to waste any more precious time admiring the admittedly artificial landscape, Exador proceeded through the gold silk curtains draping the single entranceway. Through the entranceway was another large chamber, apparently some form of antechamber. Along each of the walls were more columns, similar to those outside. Directly opposite the portal through which he'd just come, was a set of closed double doors. To the left and right of the large doorway stood minor demons of about the second order. Exador marched directly towards them. They came to attention as he approached. Apparently, however, they were expecting him, as the one on the left opened the doors before him.
Exador kept right on marching, ignoring the demons, and went into the room beyond. As he stepped into the room, the doors closed silently behind him. This room was smaller, but by no means could it be considered 'cozy' by human standards. It was approximately twenty feet on a side and square, with no other visible exits. The floor had an inlaid geometric design of black and white marble with inlaid gold. Exador quickly assessed the design, and determined it was not used in any sort of magical trap. Turning his attention from the floor, he noted the walls had relief carvings of people and animals doing all sorts of things, including coupling. In the center of the room was a large marble table, with no chairs around it.
Across the table from Exador was the first of his 'allies' and to the left side of the table was his second. Both, were most unusual looking allies. The one straight ahead was obviously male, of gigantic proportions. He was approximately nine feet tall and built literally like a god. His skin was a brilliant bronze color that almost glowed of its own accord. His eyes were a piercing, brilliant deep black, with almost no pupil. For clothing, he wore more jewelry than actual clothes. His actual clothing was limited to a silk loincloth held up by an intricately carved, large golden belt. On his head and shoulders he wore what his ally described as a 'pharaoh’s crown.' What exactly a pharaoh was, Exador did not know, but presumably, it somehow tied in with the landscape.
In any event, it was a gold crown that streamed down the side of the man's head onto his chest, with a large gold striped white cloth covering the rest of his head. In addition the man was wearing golden wrist and ankle bands and a large pendent with a truly massive ruby in it. Not to be outdone by his own looks, the man, who's ego was probably even greater than Lenamare's, had styled himself Ramses Maximus. Exador, knew of course that it was completely fictitious. He had little patience for the panopolistic games Ramse
s Maximus liked to play, and so simply called the man RM, which tended to annoy him.
His other ally, the one to RM's right, was not quite so ostentatious in attire or attitude, but was, in fact even more striking. She, and she was unquestionably a she, was only six feet tall, but her appearance was even more radical than RM's. For one thing, she was completely nude, except for an exquisite golden collar that while good sized, was not out of proportion to her body.
Bess, as she liked to be called, was the perfect figure of the ideal, shapely woman. Perfectly proportioned and completely sleek. Her skin color however, was ebony. Not ebony as in human black, but true ebony. She looked like an ebon statue. Her very skin was shiny and smooth like a statue yet incredibly flexible and lithe. Her skin however, was not her most unusual feature. Her most unusual feature was her head. Bess, had the head of a cat. Or rather, Bess had the head of an ebon statue of a cat. She had no hair like a cat, but rather her face appeared to be that of a cat's carved in ebony, with small pointy cat ears on the top of her head.
Both of his allies' forms were as artificial as their calling names and as artificial as the grounds around them. Exador had little patience for such games. He much preferred shape changing others rather than himself. Unfortunately, sometimes one had to take one's allies as they came. At least until they could be disposed of. Exador braced himself for the question he knew was to come, and looked Ramses Maximus in the eyes.
The question came, however, from Bess. "So, Lenamare got away? We thought you said you could take him with no problem?"
"I said," Exador corrected, turning his eyes to Bess, "that I could take him. That it might take time, but in the end, I could take him and get the book."
"It appears, however, that he's gotten away from you," stated RM.
"It appears," Exador retorted, sarcastically, "that he took out most of OUR army, and escaped with the book."
"Yes, that was most annoying." Bess purred.
"He's made it to Freehold, and is petitioning against me in the courts. The petitioning is just a stalling game, to give him time in the relative safety of Freehold."
"Time?" asked Ramses.
"Time to figure out how to open the book. He needs to hole up some place that he thinks is safe from me, to give himself time to study the book. By going through the legal process, he has good reason to be at Freehold, and further, to try and keep me and mine away from him while there."
"So you don't think he's succeeded in opening the book then?" asked Bess, staring at him intently.
"Would we still be standing here discussing this if he had?" responded Exador.
"Perhaps," interjected Ramses, thoughtfully, "it might take him a bit of time to get around to us. With his ego, he'd likely try to fry bigger fish than us first."
"Maybe, but I doubt he's so insane as to start out without some practice first. And if he had started, the Courts would have been in a state of total uproar." Exador countered. "If he'd succeeded with someone higher up than ourselves, he wouldn't lay low about it, and if he'd failed, he'd be dead."
"What about this fourth order he pulled out of nowhere? Are you sure this isn't his practice." Bess asked.
"No, it's legitimate. He either had it around for some time, keeping it a secret, or he just got lucky. I think the latter. I'd almost have to say it's a fresh catch. While extremely powerful, it isn't using its abilities to their fullest potential. If so, we'd have had a hell of a lot more trouble from it. That would indicate that it’s either new, or it’s playing political games with Lenamare."
"How often does one end up finding a newcomer that's fourth order? Not that often. If it's not using its abilities, I'd assume its master-demon politics and Lenamare just really doesn't have a clue to what it should be able to do." Ramses stated.
"Or doesn't want to push things, by allowing it too much freedom. Lenamare is not stupid, I remind you," added Bess. "He may know exactly what it can do, and just doesn't want to chance giving it a free hand."
"Either way, I am sure the demon is incidental. Lenamare hasn't opened the book yet." Exador insisted emphatically.
"So what's the next step?" Ramses asked.
"Well, one of our bungling search parties located a fleeing caravan. They intercepted it and got trashed by the fourth order. This was probably Jehenna's caravan. Lenamare may have been in it also, but he is already in Freehold, the caravan couldn't have made it there yet.
"I've sent out demons to intercept the remains of the caravan and hopefully they can tell us where the book is or more precisely what Lenamare is up to. I am relatively sure, however, that Lenamare has the book with him in Freehold. He'd be a fool to let it out of his sight." Exador explained.
"So we can confirm what we're already pretty sure of. How do we recover the book?" Bess asked.
"We've got to get someone into Freehold to steal the book for us. If we get anyone from the caravan, I may be able to influence them, or trick them into stealing the book from Lenamare, once they're reunited with him."
"Any possibility of a more overt move?" asked Ramses.
"I don't like relying on one of Lenamare's people being subverted. What about one of our people going in directly?" Bess proposed.
"The council members are blind fools, wrapped up in their own petty concerns. If something went wrong with this, and we were exposed in doing something; it would complicate things enough to get them questioning the whole situation. We don't want them to know about the book," Exador stated.
"What about one of our people or us, shape changed to look like one of Lenamare's people?" Ramses asked, pacing back and forth at his end of the table.
"Possible, but we'd need to know who to impersonate. It would have to be someone relatively high up in the school, and someone we'd have in our custody, dead or at least out of the way."
"Jehenna?" asked Bess, licking her lips.
"If she is with the caravan then maybe we can. However, as if impersonating her wouldn't be hard enough, if she’s not in the caravan then getting her out of the way in Freehold would certainly be difficult and noisy." Exador stated, exasperated. Bess had a couple three bones to pick with Jehenna.
"We must come up with something, however." Ramses insisted, trying to get the others to start coming together on a plan.
"We will," stated Exador, "our lives depend upon it."
Chapter 36
"Let go of me you stupid, lichen eating, moss bearing, demonic scumbags from hell!" Jenn shouted as she squirmed trying to make the demons let go of her. By any measure that she could think of, she should be scared out of her mind. Her anger seemed to be keeping fear at bay. For the moment at least; or maybe the close proximity of that stupid fourth order demon for a prolonged period had numbed her sense of self-preservation. Jenn didn't know, but she did know she was upset.
The demons had grabbed her and pulled her through some sort of gateway before Tom could get to her. At first she'd been scared they'd take her to the Abyss and do vile unspeakable acts of violence upon her person. After the nerve-shattering transition however, she'd found herself and the demons in the middle of an army camp. An army camp that had lots of wounded. From the insignias on the soldiers' uniforms she was pretty sure it was Exador's army, but it was a lot smaller than before and she didn't see Lenamare's castle over the tents surrounding her and the demons. Surely Lenamare couldn't have destroyed the entire castle as well as this many men. Exactly how powerful was that spell of his?
One of the demons held her tightly as the other explained to a guy in a uniform with lots of medals exactly what had happened. The officer, or so Jenn assumed he was, looked her over a couple times as the demon accurately described her kidnapping. Finally the demon finished and the officer stood lost in thought for a moment. At last he looked up to where the hovering demon was holding her and addressed Jenn directly. "So, you were wandering the countryside in the company of a greater demon? Amusing. You don't look old enough or powerful enough to control such a being, but maybe yo
u had some control device?
"In either case, I am sure Lord Exador will wish to speak with you upon his return."
Aha, her guess was confirmed. She was in Exador's camp. Where, though, was the rest of his army? What exactly was that device of his that got so many soldiers wounded? Finally, where was Exador if he wasn't here now?
"Remove her robe, and make sure she has no spell components or magical items in her clothes underneath the robe. Then bind her hands and feet and put her in the prisoner tent." The officer instructed the demons.
Working together, the two demons quickly had Jenn trussed as directed. Despite her best efforts to struggle, they were just too strong. When they took her robe, Jenn became concerned. The mysterious book was in it, and she really didn't want them getting a hold of it. While she didn't know what it was, she was pretty sure Lenamare would be upset if it fell into Exador's hands. The loss of her spell components was also annoying, but expected. She could make do without them, assuming she ever got her hands free. Fortunately the weather was warm enough that her blouse and riding breeches would be warm enough without the robe.
The two demons hauled her over to a large center pole tent that had two human guards at the entrance. At the demons' approach, one guard raised the tent flap and stepped aside so the demon holding her could toss her in.
She fell hard on her face. The demons had tied her hands behind her back and her ankles were also tied together. As she rolled to her side, the light in the tent darkened as the tent flap closed behind her. The tent was basically empty except for a rather worn rug on the floor, and one other human inhabitant. The other prisoner was tied similar to herself and was leaning against the center pole of the tent. He was dressed in clothes that resembled a hodgepodge of Lenamare’s soldier’s uniforms and silk clothes. He was young, maybe slightly older than Jenn and his golden hair was disheveled, his face was red with white spotches. It appeared that he'd been crying a bit recently.
