by Langland, J.
"Tiernon shall protect me, his sword and his shield shall enfold me."
"Well you can enfold yourself all you want later, just answer my question or I'll enfold you inside out." Gastrope's right hand started to glow. Jenn grimaced at Gastrope's trick of using Were Light to threaten the priest.
The priest turned whiter. "In the big robe’s pockets in the wardrobe." Gastrope' regagged him. Jenn walked over to the wardrobe. Strange, it didn't seem like there were as many clothes in there as last night. She must have been more tired than she thought. She reached into each of the pockets in the only robe left. In the back pocket she found a small green pouch. She took it out.
Pulling its mouth apart, she gently poured three gold coins and nine silver ones onto her hand. Not a lot, but hopefully enough. She showed the others. Gastropé nodded and looked down at the priest. "Thank you for your donation, gentle sir." A lot of his courage had come back now that the demon was gone, and he was away from Exador. "Now you could perhaps tell us how to get to Freehold from here?" He brought the intensity of light on his hand back up into the visible range as he removed the gag again with his other hand.
"Don't know. I...I...never heard of the place."
"Never heard of the place." That gave Gastrope' pause. If a supposedly educated priest had never heard of Freehold, it couldn't be too close.
"Turelane?" The priest shook his head. "What about the wizard Exador? You ever hear of him?" The priest was about to shake his head, then stopped and thought for a moment.
"North and east, I think. I'm not sure though. He came to visit Duke Swery about four years ago." Gastropé looked over to Jenn.
"Well it's something. Maybe we can find a sage with a map. Look," she turned to Edwyrd, "you're Rupert's cousin you should know where he lived."
Edwyrd took a moment, "I know where he lived before he went off to school."
"Oh." Unfortunately, Jenn didn't know where that was. It wasn't clear to her that a little kid like Rupert would know how to make the necessary coordinate translations between the school and his old home. It would probably just be easier to find a sage. "Ok, gag him again. I guess we'll go look for a sage.” Gastropé complied.
"What are your plans? You said you were passing through," Jenn asked Edwyrd.
"Well, since he seems to somehow have gotten separated from his teachers, I feel it's my duty as his cousin to make sure he gets back safely." Edwyrd responded, also starting to pace slightly.
"So you're coming with us."
"Looks that way." Edwyrd smiled rather shyly.
"Fine. Now we've got to go out and get supplies and directions. The problem is, I don't want to leave the priest alone."
"I can watch him," Edwyrd volunteered. Tom really didn't want to go back outside again so soon. He was afraid he was going to lose it any moment. If these guys would all leave, he could go into the kitchen away from the priest and turn back into his true form. True form! Aaaggghhh, Tom thought. What's happened to my mind? This is my true form, not the demon one.
Gastropé looked at Edwyrd closely. "Aren't you even going to ask why we have a priest tied up in his own temple? Before offering to guard him?" Gastropé asked suspiciously.
"Well...Rupert explained to me that he was this evil priest that had captured you after his henchmen attacked your caravan and killed a bunch of the people. You managed to turn the tables on him and now had him tied up so you could get away. Isn't that what happened?" Edwyrd asked, as if trying to confirm Rupert's story.
"Close enough," Jenn said, trying to cut Gastropé off before he gave too much away. "Rupert, do you think it's a good idea to leave the priest with Edwyrd?"
"I'd trust my cousin here, with my life. The priest won't get away while we're gone."
"Ok then," Jenn looked to Gastropé for agreement. He just sort of shrugged, apparently having nothing else to offer. "You wait here for us, with the door locked behind us." She said to Edwyrd. "We'll be back in an hour or so and we'll knock like this," she demonstrated. "Don't untie him for anything."
"Sure." Edwyrd said, looking a little less tense for the moment. Jenn went and opened the door carefully, looking to make sure they weren't observed. She motioned for the others to precede her out the door. When they had, she said "bye," to Edwyrd and shut the door behind her.
Tom went to the door and put the bar across it. He looked over at the priest who was staring at him with pleading in his eyes. "Sorry," Tom said. "But I've got my instructions. How can I trust you after what my cousin says you did?" The priest shook his head. Tom shrugged an apology and went into the kitchen.
As soon as he was out of sight of the priest, Tom started to relax. The change hurt still, but not quite so bad. Suddenly, Tom realized he had a problem. His clothes! Already his legs were constricted in the pants, and the shirt had come untucked by his growing taller. He concentrated on halting the process. It wasn't easy and the breaches creaked as if the stitches were about to give way, and then it stopped. Concentrating on his human form as hard as he could, he felt the clothing get looser again.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he quickly stripped the clothes off into a pile. Finally, Tom thought and let the change occur. He gritted his teeth, but the pain almost felt like pleasure, this time he controlled it a little better. He changed slower, less abruptly. Finally he could completely relax. He was himself, or rather, he corrected sadly, he was his demon self.
This was really bothering him. This horrid demon form just felt so much better. Even now, not under any pressure, just thinking of trapping himself in that flimsy little white bag of flesh that was his old body made him feel uncomfortable. Why? A week ago, he'd have thought that's all he wanted. Actually, even now, he'd love to go back to his normal old life. At least he thought he did. It was just that his old body was so weak, so flimsy. Actually, he thought, and this really disturbed him, it was rather ugly. Ugly? Like who should talk. This demon form was monstrous, as a human he at least looked normal. Why then, did he all of the sudden find normal so repellent?
Tom rested his head in his hands. Looking down at the pile of clothes on the floor, he thought how lucky he'd been not to rip them to shreds like the Incredible Hulk. A thought struck Tom suddenly. He looked at the clothes, he looked down at his body, his demon body. He was naked! He'd been running around naked all this time as a demon! It had never even occurred to him! Here he'd gone out in public, flown around, hung out with a girl! naked! Even now he was sitting here in the nude, and other than the fact that he didn't want someone walking in and seeing a demon, he didn't care if they saw him without any clothes!
Tom was shocked. Not by his nudity, but by the fact that he didn't care about it, not before, not now. Intellectually, he knew he should be embarrassed to have people see him naked. Well, not exactly embarrassed. He gave a small smile of pride looking down between his legs. Not embarrassed at all.
Humor aside, he should feel uncomfortable naked, he always had before, now he no longer did. It was like he had no shame. Kind of like Adam and Eve before the apple, he thought suddenly. He supposed, though, that at least for the sake of others, he should put something on, even as a demon. Looking down at the clothes however, he remembered how strange they'd felt, even on his sickly, oversensitive human skin. They'd been most uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as the thought of wearing something now in demon form, but they hadn't been pleasant. At the time though, the sensation of needing to blow up had overwhelmed him and he hadn't noticed the additional discomfort.
He tossed around the idea of a loin cloth, but even that sounded kind of restraining and unnatural. He'd only be wearing it for others, and they hadn't objected before. Actually, his demonic privates hanging out in the wind probably didn't disturb humans as much as simply his overall demonic presence did. He guessed it would be kind of like trying to cover up one part of a giant toxic landfill in your backyard with a throw rug. Actually, it was also a moot point for the moment, since he was planning on only going out in public in Edwyrd form
. Edwyrd would have no choice, society would demand clothes on him. Not to mention the fact that his tepid looking skin would probably get sun burned and otherwise damaged without clothes.
That was really one of the nice things about his own nice burgundy colored hide. Not only didn't he get sunburned, he didn't really feel hot or cold unless he was trying to. He also usually didn't feel swords, daggers and spears either. Dragon blood and other demons hurt, but not much of anything the humans had thrown at him even bothered him. He almost had to laugh at the guy in Exador's camp who whacked him with the sword. Poor fellow didn't stand a chance in hell. Literally.
Tom supposed that if he were to be objective in fact, preferring this demon form wasn't necessarily totally crazy. So far, he'd been upset about his seeming brainwashed preference for his demon form over his old human body, but what if it was just his common sense? After all, if he really thought about it, why shouldn't he prefer the demon form?
True it was rather frightening and turned people away and caused them to faint. That hurt, that hurt a lot, but was it always his problem? How much of it was people's irrational (OK, so maybe rational, given history) biases against demons. If people gave him a chance they'd like him, he was sure. Look at Rupert; well maybe he was a weird case. Look at Jenn, she didn't trust him completely, but she was at least starting to deal with him as a person, not an object. He also had Tizzy and Bogsworth as friends. Gastropé was still a problem, but he wasn't sure he wanted that guy as a friend anyway. Yeah, he felt lonely, but no lonelier than he'd been in Harding, and things were getting better.
Now true, the demon form was also symbolic of the slave state he was in, although since Jehenna had summoned him last, and then cut and run, he hadn't had to worry about his slavery too much. He wondered what those guys were up to? In the end, it was also true that he was stuck in this form for a long time. Well not completely stuck, he now knew he could pretend to look human. If he really wanted to. The scary thing was, he was no longer sure he wanted to. Ever.
After all, if he looked at the positive side, there was a lot to be said. One, he was stronger and tougher than anybody he'd met, at least physically. He could fly, that was fun and handy. He hadn't really worked much with it, but apparently he could shoot some form of energy bolts and things like that. Or at least his Tae-Kwon-Do was translating a little too literally around here. All of his senses were keener than the wildest animal's. He had telescopic vision, some form of infrared vision, and who knew what other similar things. No normal weapons could hurt him, even if they did, it was nearly impossible to kill him. At worst any wounds would send him back to the Abyss, where he could regenerate. He could shape change! Crap, he was damn near a superhero!
He didn't get hungry or thirsty. He wasn't like one of the little humans so dependent on shelter and weapons to protect themselves from nature. Humans got hungry, humans got sick and came down with diseases. As far as he could determine from what Boggy and Tizzy had said, he wouldn't age either. He was immortal! He could live for thousands of years.
If he was going to toil his life away in slavery, that could be a problem; but if he went out and did something with his life.... Talk about a chance to overcome existential dread! Given all that, who would want to be a scrawny teenaged boy? Who would want to go back into the tiny little alabaster pimple of a body that humans got stuck with.
Face it Tom, he told himself, what are you bitching about? It was every guy's dream come true. Superhuman powers, flight, super strength, invulnerability, telescopic vision, trans-dimensional hearing, energy bolts, shape changing, dimension hopping. What comic book hero could ever do all that? If this were a video game, he’d kill to have a character like himself! He was almost a minor god! Well maybe not a god, let's not get carried away here, he was not that powerful. Most the wizards he met could bend him to their thumb. Something close to godlike but not so powerful, and with more limitations. What he was, Tom suddenly realized, was a demon!
Chapter 49
A demon! Well, it had literally been staring him in the face for some time. He'd even kind of pretended at it for a while. It had simply never hit him like that before. It was kind of a, what was the word? an epiphany, that was the word. So what kid wouldn't be thrilled to be a demon? 'I Was a Teenage Demon!' was a perfect name for a grade B horror movie Tom thought. A TV show would be ‘Teen Demon’ or better yet, the ‘Demon Diaries’. Who wouldn't be thrilled? Well apparently he wasn't.
Not to take away from his moment of revelation, but Tom had to admit to himself that he hadn't been having the greatest time of his life. Subjectively, at least. Of course, it seemed to Tom that that was one of the rules of having an adventure. 'Never enjoy an adventure while you're on it. Wait until it's over and look back on it with longing.' That's always the way it seemed to work. He just didn't have the necessary objectivity to view the whole thing like he was reading a book, or remembering it from a long time past. How was one supposed to get that level of objectivity? Tom certainly didn't know. At the moment this 'adventure' was just a pain. Tom halted himself in mid-thought. To be fair, he had to admit that cruising around Astlan was a lot more fun than sitting in an empty cave waiting to be called by his 'master.'
On the other hand, compared to just getting up in the morning in his own home where his mom was, and going to high school every day, caused both cave and Astlan to pale. At the time, he hadn't really realized what he had in Harding. Things always seemed better in hindsight. So great, Tom thought, I now know how stupid I was not appreciating Harding. So I guess this is the part where I click my Red Hooves together three times and say 'There's no place like home, There's no place like home, There's NO place like home!'
As was to be expected, not much happened. He still wasn't in Kansas, or in Tom's case, New Jersey. Actually, Tom had to admit, a lot of Jersey was more like the Abyss than Kansas anyway. Tom sighed. He was just standing there looking down at Edwyrd's clothes. He tried to walk around a bit, softly, so as not to scare the priest. He'd love to go out and stretch his wings a bit. The little Edwyrd body had made him feel claustrophobic and the fact that he kept gouging the ceiling beams with his horns didn't help. He leaned against the wall so he could stick his legs out and stretch them. His knees in each leg were starting to get a bit stiff, or so he imagined. He was sure it was just being cooped up that made him feel that way.
How long had it been? How long had he stood there wrestling with the horns of his dilemma, or more precisely with the lack of horns of his dilemma, thought Tom looking at Edwyrd's clothes. The others might return soon. While they couldn't walk in and surprise him due to the bars on the door, if Edwyrd wasn't already back by the time they knocked, it might get tricky. He doubted he could change back and dress quickly enough not to arouse suspicion.
Of course, Tom thought, still looking at the clothes, I could stay in this form; point to the clothes and say I'd gotten hungry and eaten Edwyrd. Tom smiled, it wasn't completely wrong, Edwyrd was inside him. He suspected, however, that it wouldn't make Jenn trust him any more than she already didn't. But...he reminded himself, he could see Gastropé faint again, especially if he could manage to make his stomach growl while he was looking at the wizard. "Tom, you're just evil," he said to himself softly with a smile.
Edwyrd wandered out of the kitchen. It really was rather dark in this place since the candles went out. The light seeping around the doorway didn't do much. In his Tom form he didn't notice the darkness, but Edwyrd's feeble human eyes had trouble seeing. Tom supposed that if he ever got good enough, he could probably make improvements on Edwyrd's body. Strength, eyesight, little things so that Edwyrd still looked human, but had some of the advantages of being a demon. Unfortunately, for the moment, it was all Tom could do to keep control just being Edwyrd.
There were some cupboards with more candles in them, Edwyrd supposed he should light some, but he wasn't sure how. He didn't have a lighter or any matches, and didn't know how to use flint and steel even if he found them. He knew fr
om experience that Tom could probably light them by force of will alone. He was afraid, though, that in his current form, if he concentrated hard enough on creating fire, he'd lose control over his body. That was his real problem. No matter what he did he felt like he had to hold part of himself back to maintain control.
Idly he looked through some drawers, hoping to find some way to light the candles. The priest went "Mmmmphh, mmmmmph." Tom looked over to the priest. The priest was wiggling trying to attract his attention. Actually, Tom thought, here was a chance to maybe get some nonbiased information about Astlan. Of course the guy only wanted to escape, but maybe he'd talk, thinking that by talking he could get free sooner.
Tom walked over to the priest and sat down rather stiffly on the floor. It felt really weird to sit down like that. He hadn't done it in so long. He kept expecting to bend his tail painfully at any moment. He pulled the gag away from the priest's mouth.
"Son, son, you've made a terrible mistake, you've been fooled by a group of evildoers." The priest quickly tried to warn Tom. "You've got to help me get free. There is great danger to the entire city. Nay to the entire world!"
Tom would have to try to turn the guy's attention for a bit if he was going to get any information. "Why should I believe you? After all, didn't you summon a demon to attack my cousin and his friends?" Actually Tom was pretty amazed at how easily lying came to him. He supposed that being a demon made him a natural.
"NO! Not at all. All to the contrary. They are demonic cohorts. At first I'd thought they were slaves of a Greater Demon, but now I see that they're actually wizards! Wizards of such vast power as to be able to command the very lords of the Abyss. They came and brought with them two demons of horrific might."
"I don't see any demons around here now." Edwyrd commented, looking around as if for demons.
