DEMON {616}

Kendrick skidded to a stop and almost faceplanted when he first read the tag in his lens. There’s no way that can be right, he thought. Six HUNDRED?!

“Stop, stop, stop,” he whispered. Gydeon and Sahni almost crashed into him from behind.

“What is it?” asked Bellara impatiently.

“Demon. {616} aura.”

“You’re kidding.” Kendrick shook his head. “Aldiel damn this...”

His two witch companions usually sported a steady 100-150 aura—he even generously put them at 150 each. He just barely crossed the threshold of 100 aura himself. Gydeon, the newcomer, had maybe 50 aura to his name, but he was no wizard. Even taking very generous liberties with the math involved, a synchronized effort on their part still wouldn’t be enough to take down a demon of this strength.

“That explains the bad feeling,” said Sahni. “I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out sooner...”

“What do we do?” said Kendrick.

Bellara held out her hands in a shrug. “What else can we do? We get the aurimeter back. We need it.”

“Is it worth getting killed for? Why not lay low and let Sahni get her strength back first? Then we’d at least have a—”

“Okay, look at it this way. Do you want to fight for it now and maybe get it back? Or do you want to be caught unaware in the dead of night, with one of us sleeping, because we didn’t have the aurimeter, and die without the chance to put up a fight?” Kendrick had nothing to say, kicking a tree trunk out of frustration. “Right answer. Now, let’s talk strategy. Gydeon and Sahni, hang back here in case you need to make a run for it. Sahni, I don’t want you trying to help—you'll just injure yourself more.

“Kendrick, our best weapon will be the element of surprise. We can only hope that they don’t know how to use the device yet. I’ll come in from the front and create a distraction—I should be able to hold a demon of that magnitude for...” She blew a few strands of red hair out of her face. “...only a moment or so. When I say ‘now,’ you stab it in the back with the Psysword and that should buy us enough time for another binding spell to finish it off.” She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard. “Got all that?”

His heart was racing, he was starting to sweat, and he had a terrible feeling that this was all about to go very wrong, but he tried to listen to the meager hero’s spirit within him. “Got it.”

They were one member down from what they usually had when they’d faced jinn in the past, and those were hard-fought battles. Bellara had a point—if the demon was ready for them, if it was an even fight, they’d stand no chance. It had six times the aura that any of them did. It was the same type of creature that had lain waste to Bellara’s village and killed most of Sahni’s family.

And they were about to try to take one down.

Kendrick swallowed his fear.

“I see it,” he whispered.

Through a dense cluster of trees was a small clearing on the way down the slope. Toward the back was a towering demon, easily a head taller than Kendrick and perhaps twice his weight in pure gray-skinned muscle. Its horns were black with spiraling maroon rings across their lengths. It had a short black beard at the tip of its sharp chin, along with a mouth full of serrated teeth. It had humanlike hands with long black claws at the end and cloven hooves at the end of its legs.

He couldn’t get a good look at the eyes from such a distance, but its face looked contorted in anger.

Just as they had suspected, the two imps that had stolen the aurimeter were now handing it over to their master. They were either too slow in doing so or still held on too tight, as the demon snatched it away from them, sending one of the imps flying a short distance into the grass. The demon turned over the contraption in its clawed hand, cocking its head quizzically.

“Go around the back and wait for the binding spell to materialize,” Bellara whispered to him. “You have until I count to 100 to get there. Then I’ll give the signal. Don’t activate the Psysword until the right moment—the spike in utilization will trip the aurimeter. Right now, it’s merely reading ambient aura. Understood?”

Kendrick nodded and did as he was told. Carrying the dormant blade, he tiptoed through the bushes and ferns, climbing gingerly over exposed tree roots and stepping around fallen branches so as not to break them and give himself away. It was hard work balancing speed and stealth; he flinched with every footfall that was just slightly too loud, worried that each one would be his final fatal mistake.

“Obstrae ampla!” Bellara shrieked in the distance.

Kendrick was only about halfway to his mark. Crap! he thought. Was she counting by twos or what? Here goes nothing!

He burst into the clearing and ran along the outer perimeter, still angling for the demon’s blind spot. As he emerged, he saw a thick ring of white aura squeeze the beast’s midsection, lifting it just barely off the ground. The demon’s face was warped with fury now, jagged teeth gnashing and yellow, serpentine eyes squinting in a glare.

“Now!” called Bellara.

Sword, don’t fail me now, he prayed to it silently. Focusing his aura, he forced it up his arm and through the hilt and into the crystal and thuuum—it sprang to life. One of the imps scrambled to defend its bound master, only to meet the business end of Kendrick’s blade. It died in a puff of dark smoky aura. This is it. Time to—

“RAAAAUUGHHH!” the demon screamed at the top of its infernal lungs. An ear-splitting roar rang out through the clearing, dispersing birds from their treetop nests in all directions away from the sound. The noise rattled Kendrick’s bones and made his teeth chatter. A plume of what looked like black-and-purple-tinted fire escaped the demon’s maw on the trail of the roar. When it snorted angrily, steam puffed out its nostrils.

Momentarily, Kendrick wondered if demons were capable of speech, like jinn, or if they were dumb like imps and could only make animalistic noises. They seemed to be fond of roaring.

The demon closed one of its clawed hands around the binding ring. Its skin burned on contact, but it looked far more motivated by anger than pain. With one squeeze of its hand, the aural ring was already starting to bend with a grating, resonant, metallic sound.

For one fleeting instant, Kendrick remembered what an analog clock was in his home universe. Not the kind with numbers all in a row, but in a circle, with numbers 1-12 on it. If the demon were facing the number 12, he was finally coming up on its 5 o’clock—he raised his sword—and then the spell broke. The ring shattered.

Thump. One backward kick was enough to dispatch Kendrick. The hoof barely touched him, yet it was sufficient force to launch him backward into the woods—the Psysword went flying. He landed hard on his back.

“Ow,” Kendrick wheezed. “Ow...” He panicked as he was unable to draw in a new breath at first. Oh, it dawned on him. This is... getting the wind knocked out of you... I remember this...

Far-flung memories of childhood visited him in his temporary paralysis. He remembered a playground, playing with other children, sliding down a slide in the cold heart of winter—off onto the hard ground below, flat on his back, and the breath was squeezed out of his body like water from a sponge. Wheezing, gasping, followed by crying... He heard someone scream his name... Then or now?

There was no time to reminisce, though, as the demon was towering over him. In a moment, it would crush his head like a gourd.

He rolled aside in the nick of time. The demon’s hoof made a small crater in the dirt and it snorted at him again like an angry bull. Luckily, it took this opportunity to let out another skeleton-jarring roar, giving him time to duck back into the woods and look for his fallen weapon.

Please, Bellara, cast another spell already! he pleaded silently. Please, please, please! He’s right on top of me!

He darted into the foliage where the Psysword might have been. It was inert again, since it wasn’t tethered to his aura any longer, so he had to look for anything vaguely gray and metal-ish. Aha!

“Pyrios!” shouted Bellara. An imp let out a diminutive screech. “Pyrios! Hey, you! Big ugly horned fellow! Look at me!” The demon’s attention was momentarily diverted. Kendrick retrieved the Psysword from another bush and reactivated it. “Obstrae ampla!” Another higher-level binding spell imprisoned the demon in an aural ring the width of Kendrick’s arm.

Now’s my chance! He sprinted at it with his sword at waist level, ready to run the monster through—and he did!

Shink. In one deft motion, he buried the sharpened blade of the Psysword into the demon’s side, just above the ring. Kendrick could feel the resistance of its thick hide give way to the piercing blade. He looked up expectantly, waiting to see the demon’s face go blank in death, or for it to dissolve into dark aura... but nothing happened.

Its head swiveled toward him and it bared its teeth like a cornered dog. Clink. It broke the binding spell again, with even more ease this time. What happened next happened so fast that he scarcely had time to react, but before he knew it, the demon’s huge, clawed hand was wrapped around his neck and lifting him into the air. Just as he was starting to breathe normally again.

“Die,” the demon growled. Its voice was much deeper than any human or orc voice Kendrick had ever heard, and there was an odd vibration underneath it, as if the demon had an extra set of vocal cords meant only to add a menacing effect to its speech.

So, Kendrick thought, they can talk after all.

He studied the creature’s face, realizing that this would be the last thing he’d ever see. His time had come. He wondered, would death send him to some afterlife here in their universe, or would it send him back home? Was there even anything after death in his home world? He wondered when his old life would flash before his eyes, as it had already done in fragments here and there, but all he saw were snippets of memories made here in the Ecumene. Quivering darkness surrounded his vision on all sides and the demon’s ugly, twisted face receded down a long, empty tunnel of black. This was the end.

“Obstrae dynamus!”

Thud. Suddenly, Kendrick opened his eyes and saw the sky staring down at him. There goes the wind again. He wheezed for another breath.

When he finally sat up, he saw the Psysword’s hilt at his feet, dark and empty, and when he looked up farther, he saw an incredible sight. Not one but two perpendicularly intersecting, thick rings of white aura bound all four of the fiend’s limbs, tightly so that it could not break free or even move anything but its fingers and its head. It roared again and spat searing black flames. Even at a slight distance, Kendrick felt the heat.

He stole a glance at Bellara—she was on her hands and knees, a trail of blood trickling from her left nostril. She, too, looked behind her, to see the caster of the impressive spell that finally managed to subdue the demon.

It was Gydeon.

“I can’t maintain this for long!” he grunted with the effort. “Do it!”

First things first, Kendrick thought. His body worked in adrenally effortless synchronicity—he snatched up his armament, stood, and charged his blade in one fell swoop, plunging it into the demon once more. Its previous wound was already pouring black blood and dark aura. This time, Kendrick raked the blade through the monster’s insides and out the back through its spine. Black blood splattered the ground behind it.

“No, you,” said Kendrick with a satisfied smirk.

Due to the higher concentration of aura, the demon’s sublimation was not as wispy and easily carried off by the wind as that of an imp or a jinn. Its body degraded in clumps from leathery flesh into dense black aura that clung toward the ground like thick fog. He remembered the same heavy smoke that towered over the town of Timberford. What had taken five spellcasters to accomplish there took only three here—two, if one didn’t count Kendrick.

That reminds me, he thought. He tapped his lens.

GYDEON

{98}

HUMAN WIZARD

“Kendrick,” Bellara murmured, lightly spraying the scarlet blood now trickling down her chin, “you did it. That was... incredible...”

“Sshhh,” Sahni whispered. “Save your strength. Bhisalva...” She knelt next to her scarlet-haired friend and healed her from the brink of aura loss. Kendrick would have been more worried for Bellara if he hadn’t been so concerned about the impostor among them.

“Sahni,” said Kendrick, “why are you using your aura when you’re already in such a weakened state yourself? Let’s let Gydeon give it a try. He’s almost at {100} aura, even after all that. Skilled wizard to boot. Do you know healing spells?”

“Hold on,” said Gydeon, “I can explain—”

“Oh, my lens here already gave you away, so you can save it. Before, it had you tagged as a regular human, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag now.”

“Cat’s out of the bag?” Bellara echoed.

“It means his secret is revealed,” said Kendrick. “It’s an expression.”

“Oh, I get it. Like, ‘the shlorbis is out of the salt cellar.’ I understand.”

“What the hell is a salt cellar?”

“Listen,” said Gydeon, “I know that I have not been honest with you three, and for that I am sorry. Will you let me explain?”

Sahni and Bellara both regarded him cautiously, but with more kindness than their male companion. Kendrick folded his arms, still holding the lit Psysword tightly in one hand, and stared coldly at him. “Your words up until this point are pretty much worthless now. This had better be good.”

Gydeon sighed, running both his hands through his ear-length brown hair. He averted his eyes shamefully. “I was using an illusion spell. It’s a low-aura spell, simple enough, but it hides you from detection by any magical device. Only the most adept aura-sensitive individuals can see through it. That, and shades and imps are drawn in like normal. I’ve been using it to keep a low profile out here. For one, it’s dangerous to proclaim your status as a wizard and broadcast a high aura count. Especially around here...

“But to make matters worse, I’ve been ashamed of my wizardhood as well. I didn’t tell you the full story of why I was in Wallbyrde.” He shook his head. Closed his eyes. “I... I just wanted to help them. I went there... to help. And I couldn’t.” A single tear rolled down his cheek. “I couldn’t save them like I wanted. Now look at it... Wallbyrde is ashes because I failed. So, I wanted to be done... I just wanted to go home and not try to help anyone else. I couldn’t bear the thought of failing like that again.”

“Bhisalva,” Sahni whispered. “Gydeon, it is not your fault.”

“It is my fault!” he protested, beating a fist against his chest. His voice quavered with guilt. “It is! If I had just done things the right way, if I had given them the right message...” He looked up suddenly, wiping his eyes. “I-I just... I am no wizard. I never should have been, and now I see that. But I know that I shouldn’t have lied to you either.”

“You are a liar,” said Bellara, “and you are also a skilled wizard. Those... are two things that you are. I know both when I see them, because I’ve been both.” She took a stuttering breath, wincing while Sahni healed her. “But one thing you are not... is a failure. We’ve come across our fair share of villages... that could have used our help earlier, too. We haven’t saved everyone. But we saved some... and that is worth it.” Another ragged breath followed by a weary smile. “Just like you saved us today.”

“Hm,” said Kendrick. He tapped his foot, sizing up Gydeon. “You did come through right on time with that spell, allowing me to slay the demon. I’ll give you credit for that. But I’d be lying if I said it was enough to make me trust you.” He let the Psysword go out and held it down at his side, wandering off into the clearing. He found the aurimeter depressing a circle of grass where it had landed during the fight. “Found it!”

“Yes!” Sahni and Bellara exclaimed in unison, the latter quieter than the former, a first.

I knew I was right not to trust this guy, Kendrick thought as he walked the device back over to his witch friends. Question is, what else is he hiding that we don’t know yet? There’s gotta be something. Or... maybe the guy really is just grappling with some survivor’s guilt. I know how that goes. Maybe I should cut him some slack? ...No! I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt already and he proved he was a liar! I just wish I could talk to Bellara and Sahni on their own about this.

Or maybe I can.

“Let’s set up camp in this clearing,” he announced to the group. It felt oddly exhilarating to take over Bellara’s usual role of group leader, if only for a moment. “We’ll sleep one at a time tonight for extra protection. Then we’ll head out once we’re all north of {100} aura again, so we’re more prepared if there’s anything else out there. Sound good?” The others nodded, Gydeon hesitantly so. “Hey. No hard feelings about keeping your magic under wraps, okay?” He held out his hand for the covert wizard to shake.

Gydeon took his hand gingerly and smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Kendrick. I am happy I could be of some small help to you today. You are a true hero. And as penance for my transgressions against you, I promise to give you all the supplies and food you three will ever need when you escort me home. Just come with me to Tornbie and I will make everything right. I swear it in Aldiel’s name.”