Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan)

by Langland, J.

  To be honest, they should have been paid as guards for the trip. Especially considering the fact that without them the ship would have been lost. That, however had not been the agreement. They'd foolishly agreed to pay for passage, rather than be paid for it. Before, the captain had been more than happy to take their money, and their protection. Why would he have a change of heart? Did he suddenly find honesty? It just didn't make sense. Unless he was afraid of insulting someone he feared? Could Edwyrd have so intimidated them that they felt it safest to pay him what they legitimately should have owed?

  Jenn walked down the dock, having just departed the ship with her companions. She was beginning to come up with too many questions and too few answers. In her rather sleepy state, it took her a moment to notice all the people scurrying quickly off the dock as they proceeded down it. Why would they be doing that? She glanced behind her.

  Curses! She'd completely forgotten about the demon. How could she be so careless? No wonder people were in a hurry to get out of there way. The multi-limbed nightmare was flying slowly down the dock behind her, Gastropé and Rupert. Behind the demon walked Edwyrd, and behind him, Maelen. The thing was certainly frightening enough. It was bigger than an average sized man, and had those humming bird wings, and four arms and four legs, but other than that, looked somewhat, vaguely, human. Splotchy greenish but, humanoid. Well, and it had two large sets of male equipment dangling below it, between each set of legs.

  In her cobwebbed mind she had to laugh. If people thought that little thing was scary, they should just be glad she wasn't still toting that fourth order demon around. The whole city would be empty by this point if it were here. Actually, Jenn knew she had to be getting numb. The little demon, first or second order, didn't even bother her anymore. She'd been getting used to it, if annoyed by its rather crazy prattle. Finally, after living in constant fear with that fourth order for so many days, this demon was an ember compared to that bonfire of terror. All other terrors seemed inconsequential. She'd seen the Abyss itself, and lived.

  ~

  Fiernon watched as the party with the wizards and the demon departed the smuggler's ship. He memorized their faces. Memorized them so he could accurately give their description to his superiors. Memorized them so that justice might be served. There was no question in Fiernon's mind that it had been this party of maleficious sodomizers and vile reprobates that had heinously and most foully murdered 34 officers of Oorstemothian Constabulary along with a Protectator and his very own beloved mentor, the Vice-Constable Pyromancer Trelgon. No question that these maggots of corruption and putrificence had been responsible for the destruction of sacred public Oorstemothian property in the form of the consecrated Protectorate Vessel Dielsmoth.

  No, there was no question in Fiernon's mind. He remembered their faces well enough from the vessel. Remembered well the unlawful transgressions they'd performed upon his personage with their foul spells. Remembered well their unlawful and unjustifiable defiance of Oorstemothian law, their very refusal to submit to the due process of law. While true, Asmeth and his crew of smugglers would pay dearly for their transgressions. He'd see to that tonight when he put flame to their vessel while they slept. It was undeniably true, that the full might of the Oorstemoth Constabulary would be brought to bear against these vile, murdering, demon worshipping scumdregs from the pits of depravious lust and degradation, who even now surely deceived themselves into believing that they were escaping the hand of justice unscathed.

  Fiernon shivered slightly as he stared after the transgressors. He seemed to have caught a cold in his long trek from the burning ship. All that cold saltwater had done him little good. Exposing a Constabulary Officer to Life Threatening Conditions, however, was a relatively minor capital offense these pusillanimous, philandering sadist exiles from the Abyss would have to deal with, compared to their other crimes. A clipped smile of chilled enjoyment played across Fiernon's face as he contemplated the justice these reprobationary microcephalic miscreants would receive. Yes, justice would be served, he would see to that.

  ~

  Finally, they’d reached land; it had been a bizarre, cramped slow trip after the battle. If he wandered around the ship too much, Maelen would want to talk shop. He could stay in the cabin, Tizzy and Rupert spent the day on top talking; but it was cramped. Given that he didn’t sleep, all he could do was lay there. He did go up on deck a bit at night, but Tizzy would then start babbling along.

  He settled for lying in his bunk for long periods day and night trying to analyze what he’d done during the battle, turning to flame and then back. He tried practicing summoning flames and controlling their nature so they either did or did not burn things as he willed. He’d had to figure that out ad hoc during battle; now he needed to figure out what he’d done and how to control it.

  He did have to get out and wander around some, but he tried to keep to himself; fortunately, the crew was quite amenable to that. He really wanted some privacy so he could do the living flame thing again. If he could get that down, along without burning things, it would be a great way to change form without having to buy new clothes all the time.

  Once they were off the ship, Edwyrd followed Tizzy down the wharf. He watched as people hurriedly scurried out of their way. Burly dock workers staring in fearful concern at Tizzy. On the one hand, it bothered him that people should look upon demons in so much fear; on the other, he was simply relieved that it was someone else who was the object of that fear, rather than himself.

  Watching Tizzy, however, Edwyrd decided that the fear in people's faces didn't seem to bother the small demon. In fact, the demon was periodically making faces at people along the way. Most often it was at some woman in better clothing, who would faint when he would leer at her. Maybe, you just got used to it after a while and it didn't bother you. Tizzy had certainly been at the demon business a long time. Edwyrd didn't know how long, but he assumed about as long as Boggy, and he knew Boggy had been a demon for several hundred years. Of course, Tizzy was also completely mad.

  Edwyrd just shook his head as they exited the wharf and made their way up hill. As they entered on to what appeared to be a main boulevard, Edwyrd once again noticed something he had noted in Gizzor Del. Astlan seemed to have a disproportionate number of really short people, if he were to be politically incorrect, he might have even called them midgets. It was really rather strange. It appeared that something like five to ten percent of the population were really short. Apparently, somewhere along the line a rather severe strain of dwarfism had entered the gene pool.

  Edwyrd almost stopped in his tracks at that point. Dwarfism. Why hadn't he thought of that before? He looked more closely at the next several short people he saw. Beards, axes, these were dwarves! He didn't know why he hadn't figured it out in Gizzor Del. Astlan was a world with wizards and demons, why not dwarves? The place obviously operated under some sort of magical set of natural laws; didn't dwarves always seem to exist in such worlds? For some reason this simple revelation, that should not have been unexpected, almost floored him.

  The existence of dwarves just seemed to put a whole new twist into his view of the world. If dwarves existed what about elves? They probably did exist. Actually, why he hadn't been thinking of this sooner rather surprised him. He had already fought a dragon, why not the entire range of magical beings? Edwyrd suddenly wondered if Astlan suffered from an inordinate number of subterranean caverns and excavations filled with monsters and treasure.

  Edwyrd took a renewed interest in people going by. He'd decided he'd look for anorexics with pointy ears. Height would not be the thing to search for. After all, would the elves be the short, traditional Irish Sidhe, or the basketball player Tolkien type? It took him a few minutes, but eventually he spotted a number of different candidates. Willowy type individuals, most of whom had hair too long to see their ears. Eventually however, he found one with ears revealed. Sure enough, they were pointy. This individual was over six feet tall.

  Just as Edw
yrd was congratulating himself on having categorized Astlanian elves as being Tolkienesque, he saw an extremely skinny dwarf with pointy ears and a childlike face. Definitely not a dwarf, although of the same height. This individual, except for hair coloring, looked exactly like the tall willowy elves, only in miniature. Hmm, apparently the elves came in a wide variety of sizes. What about those other short people? Tolkien's hobbits? Or were they copyrighted material? Halflings, Edwyrd decided, was probably the politically and copyright correct term. He didn't really see any; would he be able to tell the difference between one of those and a dwarf? Lack of beard and really big hairy feet, perhaps?

  Edwyrd was lost in thought as they wound through the city streets. As a side note, he noted that Tizzy was doing a good job of clearing the way for them. The streets they weren't on were much more crowded. He looked back over his shoulder. Maelen was still behind him. How would he word this so he didn't show off his ignorance. Casually he asked, "Maelen, you spent time in Gizzor Del, was there any trouble nearby with undead? Zombies and the like?"

  Maelen blinked, apparently taken by surprise by the unexpected question. He increased his pace to bring himself alongside Edwyrd. "Not really, the old temple on the island to the south of the gate periodically has trouble. Also a bit of sewer infestation now and then. There were always rumors of necromancers living in the sewers, but lots of cities have those stories to keep children from playing in them. So overall, I'd say not that much worse than elsewhere. Why?"

  "No real reason. Just thinking. What about other, aggressive non-humanoids?"

  "Aggressive non-humanoids? You mean monsters? Mainly just the occasional demon," he pointed to Tizzy. "Occasionally someone would kill off some form of cerebus hound up in the more mountainous regions. About ten years ago, there was a hydra causing a bunch of problems. Other than that, nothing unusual. Most of the real problems, of course, come from people, as is always the case. Most monsters are too stupid to cause too much real trouble, unless they're something like a demon. Even then, those are mostly the result of some wizard playing games.

  "Of course, that's why undead are usually more of a problem than your typical monster. Necromancers using them for various ends cause all sorts of problems. Naturally, since necromancy is illegal in most places, regulating the practitioners is a real problem, so these things can sort of get out of hand." Maelen continued. "No, Gizzor Del is something of a frontier town, so it does have its share of problems, but nothing too extraordinary though."

  "Do you know anything about Freehold?" Edwyrd asked.

  "Freehold. Is that where you're headed?" Edwyrd nodded, reluctantly. "What a coincidence. So am I." What a surprise Edwyrd thought sourly. How had he guessed? "Well, that's actually a tricky question to answer on the part of Freehold."

  "Why?"

  "Well, Freehold, for one thing, is a lot bigger. For the other, it's the home of both the Council of Wizards, which is the closest thing to an independent regulating body for wizards on either continent, and the Council of Magistrates, the regulatory body for trading and dispute resolution among the local city states. Thus it is also a major trading center, and the most powerful city-state for about a thousand leagues in any direction. As such, the city has a lot more magic running rampant around it than Gizzor Del, on the other hand, it's much more closely supervised than Gizzor Del."

  Maelen shrugged, "So you are more likely to find a lot of unusual beings there, including quite a few demons and maybe some carefully controlled undead, but you won't find many that cause real trouble."

  "How big is Freehold?" Edwyrd asked.

  "Well, again that's hard to say, the flux of people is pretty high. I suppose I'd have to say there's something over a hundred thousand people." Maelen shrugged again, indicating his uncertainty. Edwyrd though, was rather impressed. While one to two hundred thousand wasn't a lot compared to New York, it seemed pretty big for a medieval city with no subway system. No cars or freeways for that matter.

  Jenn had stopped up ahead. The group puddled together in a small square. "Well, how are we going to get to Freehold? Rupert, I assume still doesn't want to ride?" Rupert nodded shyly. At least Edwyrd understood why this time.

  "I'm not so fond of that idea either." Edwyrd added in.

  "Why, am I not surprised?" Jenn asked throwing a hand up in the air. "Well, we're too short on money, I think," she glanced at the pouch Edwyrd had, "to buy horses anyway." Edwyrd held up the pouch. He opened its drawstrings and poured out what was inside. The bag contained five gold coins. A refund plus three gold. "At least we're better off than we planned to be." She looked at Gastropé, then she noted that Maelen was standing there with them. She gave him an inquiring glance.

  Maelen answered, "Well, Edwyrd says you're going to Freehold. Coincidentally that's where I'm going as well. If you don't mind, I thought I might travel with you. I can promise not to be a burden. Plus, I also know how to get there."

  "Humph," Gastrope' said. "That's more than we really know." He looked from Edwyrd to Jenn.

  "Fine," was all Jenn said. Edwyrd gestured his acquiescence.

  "So OK, then I guess you're with us. The more the merrier. However, we need to get some food and supplies." Gastropé started looking around for a likely place to buy such.

  Edwyrd handed him the pouch with gold. "Why don't you handle purchasing that? I'm not a particularly good negotiator at such things. Although I should get some new clothes, so I can give Maelen back his." Edwyrd had been wearing an old robe of Maelen's. He had given the money to Gastropé because he didn't know anything about pricing, and didn't want to end up like a tourist on the streets of New York. Further, since he didn't eat, he figured it only fair to let those who did choose the food.

  It took almost two hours to assemble the food, supplies and additional clothing they needed. For clothing, Edwyrd decided to choose a robe similar to the one he was wearing, along with pants, shirt and underwear. Astlanian underwear, he noted, was not quite up to Inspector 12's standards, but it would have to do. With the money left from the priest and the extra gold from the ship captain, they had enough money for Edwyrd's clothes, some basic cooking utensils, bedrolls and enough food to last the journey. Actually, more than enough since Edwyrd didn't need to eat, nor did he suspect, did Rupert. Rupert, however, seemed to be in the habit of eating, so it was probably best to assume he would continue to do so. Maelen also chipped in money for his part of the supplies.

  While all this was going on, Tizzy hovered around their staging area smoking his pipe. The demon was completely, abundantly—obviously, naked so he wasn’t sure where the demon was storing his extra tobacco. He saw nothing that looked like a tobacco pouch. Nor for that matter did he see any way for the demon to store his pipe when not in use. However, there were a great many times when the demon didn’t have his pipe in hand. Where was it going in the meantime? The only answer he came up with was prurient and juvenile, and if it was correct, the thought of the demon putting it in his mouth made him nauseous. Edwyrd just shook his head at his own thoughts.

  In addition to the supplies, Jenn also insisted they purchase a small donkey to carry things, her argument being that they would be able to move faster if none of them were loaded down with large packs. They didn't have enough to weigh the donkey down, so it should be able to move at a reasonable pace. Naturally, the donkey didn't like Tizzy, and neither Rupert nor Edwyrd got close enough to it to determine how friendly it felt towards them. Thus it was that Jenn led donkey at the head of their procession. Gastropé walked along beside, Maelen followed the donkey, then Tizzy and finally Rupert and Edwyrd.

  They started out with about three hours to go until sunset. While it might have made sense to stay in town and start out the next morning, they had no money left for a room. Thus Gastropé argued reasonably that they start out then and just camp. It only took Edwyrd about an hour and half of walking to figure out what was wrong with their entire plan.

  Edwyrd's squishy little body was not made for
endurance. Unlike a demon body, Edwyrd's got tired. While he remembered going for long walks in the past, as Tom on Earth, he hadn't done so for a while and his legs would probably have been out of shape anyway. Edwyrd's body on the other hand, had never walked that long. If he thought about it, Edwyrd was less than a week old. No wonder he got sore so fast. If only Edwyrd had the endurance of Tom, or rather demon Tom. As a demon he'd flown for nearly a day without stopping. That was endurance. If he intended to keep using this body, he'd certainly have to make some improvements.

  "You know," he said quietly to Rupert, "I really like flying better. This walking thing is not all it's made out to be."

  Rupert smiled up at him. "I'll take your word, for now. I can't wait to try. You'll show me how? Soon?"

  Edwyrd smiled back. "Sure. As soon as we can get a chance to safely switch back." That really sounded like fun to Edwyrd. For one thing, the idea of changing back was extremely attractive, and the second was that having someone to fly around with here in Astlan also seemed nice.

  As they were whispering, Tizzy's demonic hearing apparently heard their whispers, he rotated in mid-air. The octopodal demon kept flying in the same direction, only backward now. Edwyrd wondered how the demon did that. He didn't think it was aerodynamically feasible, but Tizzy was doing it anyway. It probably helped to be crazy and not know that what you were doing was impossible. "Don't forget me. I want to go out and cruise around some more as well. And I know a thing or two about the finer points of flying." Tizzy whispered conspiratorially. Apparently true, Edwyrd thought as watched the backward flying demon.

  ~

  The night air near the docks was a lot noisier than Fiernon would have thought it should be. Apparently, the people of Hoggensforth were moral turpitudenalists of the lowest form, performing who knew what sort of vile and depraved acts of debauchery under the cover of darkness. Docks and the regions surrounding them were renowned in general as being dens of illicit moral and criminal iniquity. Fiernon was not surprised therefore, as he rounded the last building between him and the docks, that this one should be no different. He had hoped for quieter surroundings in which to exact justice upon the seagoing serfs of sin led by the perfidious Asmeth, but he'd have to do what he could. Justice must be served whenever the opportunity was available.