by Langland, J.
“This will be the final death for all of them.” Tom heard one of the priests say. Final death. He’d heard something about this. Boggy had said demons could be permanently slain, given enough time and effort. Was that their plan?
He was so tired. Slash went one of his wings, he fell to the ground. As he rolled on the ground he saw one of those giant umbilical cords to the sky. All that mana, he needed it. It suddenly felt like he was dying of thirst. If he could link on to one of those umbilical cords, he could get mana and recharge. Tom reached out with everything he had and tried to grab it. It was too slippery, it evaded him. He could barely sort of hold onto it with his mental hands but he couldn’t poke a whole into it and insert a mana string from himself. He needed a fucking needle.
He was desperate, this was entirely his fault, he should have just let the knight send Rupert back to the Abyss and left well enough alone, now it was the final death for them all. Vaguely he noticed struggling over where the other demons were. This was distracting lots of the priests. Oddly, Talarius hadn’t been doing much. He glanced at the knight who was being healed by the priests. Those fuckers had really cheated.
His eyes fell on one of the hollow arrows beside him. He stared at it for a second, a fucking needle. A needle blessed by the fucking god whose mana he wanted.
~
“Did he say final death?” Bess asked.
“That’s what it sounded like.” Ramses stated.
“These folks are definitely feeling rather pissed.” Exador stated.
“Do you suppose we should intervene?” Bess asked.
“Why?” Ramses asked.
“Just sort of seems like the right thing to do; after all this is Good vs. Evil, all us demons are Evil, and the Rod is Good; shouldn’t we help out our fellow Evil? If only to defeat Good?”
“Hmm, you make a compelling point.” Ramses pondered.
“Yeah but that would mean blowing what little remains of our cover, exposing ourselves and jeopardizing our plan to get our hands on the book.” Exador responded.
“Better point.” Ramses noted.
Bess was nodding her head. “You, of course, are correct.”
“So why,” Ramses asked. “Isn’t the Type IV leaving? He should have enough mana left to fade to the Abyss. The little ones over there,” he pointed to the other three demons, “may not be able to do so on their own.”
“Particularly inside that weird net thing.” Bess observed.
“But the big guy?” Ramses asked.
“Quiet, something is happening.” Exador commanded.
They looked down on the field.
“So demon.” Talarius was standing over the greater demon who had been flailing around on the ground with no feet, only one wing and one arm. That arm had been flailing around a bit as if trying to throw something at the priests but not much had happened. “You are defeated, and now you and your immediate compatriots will face the true death.”
“You cheated.” The demon croaked.
Bess and Ramses chuckled. Exador shook his head thinking about how times had changed the Rod; then he smiled, obviously, he must have had some influence on the development of the Rod’s ethics.
“There is no such thing as cheating when fighting Evil.” The knight took his helmet off. He almost looked sad as he stared down at the demon.
“So you say. I disagree.” The greater demon said. The demon was smoldering a bit now. The demon let out a loud sigh and suddenly there was nothing but glowing ashes on the ground.
“Finally,” Bess stated. “The suspense was getting to me; I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t leave.” Exador chuckled and Ramses grinned. They turned back to the drama.
“Curses!” The knight yelled. “He fled back to the Abyss!” He turned back to the group of priests that were not trying to contain the other demons. “How are the preparations going?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” A man who appeared to be a general asked. “This is the sort of stuff that can have unintended repercussions.”
The knight sighed, “I understand Barabus, but these are clearly the root of the problem we and the Sky Fleet have pursued and we need to deal with them once and for all.”
“Do you not want to question them?” Barabus asked.
“What good is questioning demons?” Talarius asked. “We’ll get better results from their human henchmen.” Barabus was nodding as a senior priest nearby suddenly threw up.
“Are you OK?” Barabus asked. The man was seriously pale and shaking his head no, he was gasping and too weak to speak. Another high priest suddenly turned pale and fell on the ground vomiting. Then another, and then a fourth high priest.
“What the hell is going on?” Talarius was looking around. “Verigas? What’s wrong?”
The high priest named Verigas was very rigid and saying nothing, it was like he was locked in some sort of internal struggle.
“Oh, this is a strange turn.” Bess stated. “I’m really glad we didn’t tune out. I’m thinking this is even more interesting than our spat with Lenamare.”
Exador glared at her, aside from distracting him from the spectacle below, she was taking her eye off the real prize, the book.
Ramses just chuckled.
“I wish I had some popcorn!” Bess told the others.
The high priest Verigas seemed to wake from his trance and turned to face Talarius.
“Well, knight, you said that in the battle with Evil, there is no such thing as cheating.”
Talarius looked at the priest strangely, clearing sensing something was not right. “So, I’ve decided to pull out all the stops.” The priest said.
“Verigas, what the hell are you talking about?” Barabus asked the high priest.
Verigas smiled a rather wicked looking smile. “What makes you think I’m Verigas? Where are your paranoid conspiracy theories now when you need them? You’ve really pissed me off, Talarius: you cheated; you have no honor, no integrity.”
“Oh shit.” Talarius stated, the blood draining from his face.
Suddenly the embers where the greater demon had fallen burst into flame. A whirlwind of embers and smoke rose into the air over the site of the fallen demon. Suddenly the smoke and embers joined into flame, growing and growing. The knight and priests stared as the flames grew and melded into a humanoid form, a large humanoid form.
The high priest Verigas let out a shriek and fell to the ground, collapsing in a heap like a discarded marionette. No one moved to attend him.
The flames grew to twelve feet tall and then solidified in the form of the demon they had just defeated.
“I’m afraid you won’t get rid of me that easy, Talarius.” The demon grinned.
“Oh, goody, round two!” Bess shouted with joy.
~
Tom smiled at the shocked knight and the priests who were still unaware of what was going on amongst their ranks. He wanted to enjoy their shock while he rebuilt his mana supply and solidified his hold on the Rod members he was infiltrating. He was busy gulping in as much mana from the umbilical cords as he could.
The trick had been the Holy Arrows. They had provided the needles to the umbilical cords. He’d managed to object link them to himself and then somehow, lift them, telekinetically or something to the mana cords and pierce them.
Once inside he’d managed to send his mana, guided by some animus, he guessed, downward into the priests below; he’d had no desire to go the other direction. He had forced himself to spread quickly through the links to the people below the priest; and was still doing that, letting himself flow among them.
He’d then proceeded on to other high priests and their umbilical cords to heaven. He’d gotten five of them, including Verigas. He worked to secure his connections to the high priests and their lower priest as fast as he could. Once he felt tethered, that’s when he felt confident enough to start diverting the mana for himself. The process seemed to take forever, but in reality must have only been a few minutes.
It was when he turned on the mana flow, started sucking it in for himself that the high priests had started dropping. It probably didn’t feel too good, Tom had laughed to himself. Verigas was the last high priest he’d tapped and he’d suddenly remembered his discussion with Rupert about possession. He had been, and still was, pouring parts of himself into everyone in the chain; creating personal links to them; he decided to put a lot more into Verigas.
It had been a struggle, but he’d managed to somehow seize control of Verigas by pouring his essence into the priest and suppressing the priest’s consciousness. It was very weird, and very taxing, but he now had a huge mana stream to draw on, which helped considerably.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t really enough of him to go around to both possess Verigas and inhabit his own body; so he’d had to release Verigas from his control to inhabit his own form; he kept the mana tap of course.
“So, you’re back?” Talarius stated, putting his helmet back on.
“Yes, I am, and you cheated.” Tom shook his head. “Seems to me that violates the Knight’s Code of Ethics?” The knight winced slightly this time.
The knight sighed, “As I’ve said, there can be no mercy in fighting Evil.”
“I suppose then, it’s a matter of how, or who, you define as Evil.” Tom stated. “Personally, I’m getting tired of being called Evil, when there are plenty of other people around behaving far more dishonorably and despicably than me.”
The knight got a steely look in his eyes. “Enough of your prevarication, demon. I’ve slain you once; I’ll do it again.”
“Not if I cheat first.” Tom said softly, but still loud enough for the knight to hear. “Fire!” Tom commanded. In his mind, he projected an image of Talarius as a god forsaken evil that had to be destroyed. They had to destroy him.
Suddenly large numbers of archers among the Rod raised their bows and began raining arrows upon Talarius. Some were the same hollow arrows from before, and others were more traditional.
Tom had hoped mostly for shock and distraction, what he hadn’t counted on was that the Blessed Arrows of the Rod couldn’t be stopped by the Blessed Armor of Talarius; to all intents and purposes, the two sets of blessings canceled each other out.
Talarius fell to his knees, crouching and covering himself with his shield as best he could, trying to minimize the exposed parts of his body. While he did this, Tom flew over to the net and quickly ripped it to shreds. “Get ready to move on my mark; there will be a few more surprises I have planned.” Tom was going to try to give the knight one more chance; if the knight didn’t take it, it would be time for plan B.
Tom returned to his position by the knight; by this point, the Rod members not under his command were subduing those he was commanding. Tom didn’t care, as long as they kept each other busy, he sent feelings of fear, anger and rage through his links encouraging his people to defend themselves and fight back. He came up behind the knight as he started coming out of his crouch, grabbed him by the legs and began thrashing him over again; this time watching out for any priests that tried to help the knight.
He smashed the knight into the ground about a dozen times, kicking him as hard as he could between slammings. Periodically he would stop and do a jab with his claws between the joints to try and do damage, and then he’d smash the knight a few more times. The armor held up amazingly well, but Tom was betting the knight inside was taking a serious beating.
Finally, after Tom had lost track of smashings, the knight cried out, “Enough! Stop, please.” Tom stopped.
The knight crawled to his knees then tossed his sword and shield away. He took his helmet off and put it under his arm. “I surrender, you have defeated me, demon!” Talarius shouted. It certainly looked like he had, the knight was black and blue all over his head; he had blood running out his nose, several cracked teeth and various head injuries.
“Kill me now, and be done with, oh vile demon! Know that you have beaten Talarius.” The knight sobbed, tears running down his cheeks. Tom was moved, somewhat.
Tom relaxed and allowed himself to shift to human form. He didn’t shift to Edwyrd; he wasn’t that stupid; but rather he shifted to a young man a few years older than himself; someone who looked vaguely like his friend Paul, but a bit more fit, and a bit older. With all the mana he had to draw on, it was surprisingly easy.
Naturally, he was naked. “I don’t want to kill you, Talarius.” He walked over to the knight who was on his knees.
“I do not hate you, nor do I wish to destroy you. I only want to protect my friends and my people.” Tom said staring down, slightly at the knight. His current form was about the same height as Talarius standing, so the knight’s head was at his chest. “I’m not different, nor are they,” he waved to Rupert, Tizzy and Antefalken, “than any other man. All we want is to live our lives, the same as you.”
The knight looked at him suspiciously, and skeptically.
“Killing you would only perpetuate this stupidity. It needs to end. This whole Astlan Demon thing needs to end; we have to start somewhere. Why not here?”
The knight shook his head. “I don’t know. You make no sense demon.”
“Talarius, you don’t have to change your opinion now. I don’t expect that. I am going to simply spare your life today so that you might, possibly, start to think that not everything you’ve grown up believing is true.”
“OK?” Tom asked.
The knight hung his head, “OK,” he whispered.
Tom smiled and put his hand down on the knight’s shoulder.
A searing pain lanced through his stomach, far worse than anything other than his first formation had. Talarius shouted in triumph as Tom bent over in agony.
“The Holy Dagger of Tiernon!” Talarius raised his arm showing off a dagger on a switchblade mechanism on his forearm. “It is instant, permanent death for Evil!”
Tom was in pain; he had been expecting this; OK, maybe nothing quite this nasty. The blade was gone, but the wound was there. He tried to flash to fire but something was preventing him, some poison or magic from the blade.
Tom tried hard to flash to flame, he poured in mana from his linked priests and Rod members; but it wasn’t enough. He was seriously bleeding. Blood and animus were flowing out. He had to staunch this. He needed more power.
No choice; he’d been careful to only pull mana from downstream the umbilical cord. He’d have to go upstream. He groaned as he felt the upstream mana start to flow his way. Holy shit! Literally, this was different; this was like highly processed, refined mana or something. He had five streams of it and he poured it into his wound.
The heavenly mana suddenly interacted with the wound…holy crap! He was healing! The divine mana was from Tiernon, exactly like the magic on the blade and was curing it. He stood up smiling. Staring at the bright white glow between his fingers.
“Talarius?” Tom said smiling. The knight turned from receiving his cheers. The knight’s face went cold as he saw the golden light at Tom’s midsection. Tom pulled his hands back to reveal the wound glowing with brilliant white light and closing.
“Do you recognize the aura of that light? What magic it is that heals me?” The knight was staring at Tom’s midsection in shock. Tom turned to face Barabus and the fancy priest beside him. They turned completely pale with shock. Tom rotated to face the still shocked Knight.
He reached out and snapped the dagger from the knight’s wrist. The knight just jerked in response, too shocked to react. Tom stared at the dagger, it was engorged, and literally swelling with whatever it was that had been his wound. He directed the same healing mana at dagger, concentrating on shoving it in and through as hard as he could. Cleansing, wiping, eradicating and healing the evil, the disease that was in that dagger. He willed healing and health and purity into the knife, channeling the god mana as fast and as furiously as he could until he could sense no more darkness.
The blade was glowing with a pale white light, previously black, it was
now a bright silver. He tossed it over towards the feet of the general. Talarius was now staring at his knife in just as much shock. Tom looked at the knight again.
“One question, Talarius, when I was blasting you with fire, you deflected that with your sword; but wasn’t the air super-hot? How did you stand that?”
The knight was still in shock, not even thinking he just mumbled, “The armor, keeps me safe in any environment.”
“Good, that’s what I had hoped.” He looked over to his demon friends. “Tizzy, Rupert, Antefalken get ready to play catch.” He gestured to the ground at Talarius’ feet. The other demons nodded; Tom couldn’t read their expressions well: Antefalken and Rupert seemed somewhat in shock and Tizzy seemed bored and, well, sort of like nothing unusual was going on.
A spark started between Talarius’ feet, and then it was a flame. By the point that the knight realized there was a fire at his feet, the fire had turned into a ring that began expanding between he feet. It looked like empty space below, well empty except for a few balls of fire.
“Talarius?” The knight looked to Tom. “Time for a vacation! Off you go…into the Abyss!”
With that, the hole widened and Talarius fell through it screaming. It was going to be a long way down. Tom gestured to his friends. “Make sure he doesn’t hit ground, OK?” Rupert laughed and dove in followed by Antefalken and Tizzy. Tom began quickly pulling his mana net out of the priests and Rod members he had infiltrated.
Tom turned to Barabus and Iskerus and said. “Don’t worry; I’ll try to keep him safe.” They simply stared at Tom in even more shock. Tom reeled in the last of himself, took a last gulp of super mana and then severed the links, all of them, yanking his links back, pulling the holy arrows along with them into his two hands. He didn’t want anyone following them back into the Abyss. With that, the naked human looking demon stepped over the gaping hole to hell and let himself fall through into the Abyss.
The hole shrunk and closed behind him.
The Demons of Astlan continue in Volume II:
