Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (65 page)

Edwyrd found the palace to be a welcome change from the outdoors, the Abyss and the cramped crew quarters.  Their room was decently sized, not huge, but good
-sized, and there was an incredible amount of space in the palace.  Since he didn’t sleep, once Rupert was asleep he’d headed out to do some exploring.  He eventually found a suitable unused store room down deep in the palace bowels and shut the door behind him. 

He was very paranoid of anyone seeing him so; particularly with all the wizards around so the first thing he did was to try and concentrate on shifting just his eyes so he could look for auras in the room.  He wanted to make sure there were not magic scrying spells or whatever spying on him.  He didn’t know how to detect this, but demon vision certainly saw more than normal vision, so he tried simply shifting his eyes.  It was surprisingly tricky,
but he eventually got it to work, sort of.

The room appeared very mundane, just like it did to normal sight.  It was a good sized room, most likely used for winter provisions.  The ceiling was about 15 feet high, which is why he chose it.  He needed room to relax and be himself.

Further, beyond just relaxation, he could actually practice the flaming body trick and other ‘pyromaster’ tricks.  If he was going to go around claiming to be an Animage, he needed to figure out some tricks or ‘spells’ or whatever magic it was animages did, so he’d at least seem plausible.  That seemed like as good a way to spend his nights as any other.

~

Gastropé and Edwyrd surveyed the city laid out below them.  The two were standing on the top of one of the palace's many towers.  They’d started to get antsy after a few days of just hanging around Lenamare’s wing of the palace.  After lunch, the two had decided to explore the palace a bit, having little else to do.  Maelen had gone into the city to look up some friends or associates of his; Edwyrd wasn't sure which.  Jenn was busy having a reunion with friends of hers from the school.  Apparently, just before lunch, a group of students who had taken an alternative and longer route from the school had arrived. 

They had just sat down for lunch when a girl with frizzy hair had run in and given Jenn a big hug.  The girl had been followed in short order by two
young men of roughly the same age and a couple of younger teenagers along with some of Lenamare's soldiers.  Jenn had introduced the girl as Alvea and the older students as Willis and Bromagni.  The teenagers were Trensom and Ystern.  Jenn didn't know the names of the four guards, but they'd introduced themselves, Krispin, Briem, Zed and Aria.  The last had slightly puzzled Edwyrd, but eventually he'd decided Aria was a woman, although it had been extremely hard to tell.  She looked nastier than her male counterparts did. 

During lunch Alvea had told her tale.  By
comparison, their journey had been long and uneventful.  No ambushes, no demons and only a couple wild boar charges.  After lunch, Jenn had gone with the new arrivals to help them settle in.  Maelen had excused himself earlier and Rupert decided to go back to the room and read.  Gastropé had suggested they go exploring and having nothing better to do, Edwyrd agreed.

As Edwyrd had found
the first night the palace was extremely large.  They'd wandered down multiple corridors managing to lose themselves completely at several points.  The two had passed through several large chambers intended apparently as either audience halls or ballrooms.  Eventually they'd found the staircase that wound its way to the top of one of the flat roofed towers.  They now stood at one of the stone crenulations looking over the city.

It was at moments like this that Edwyrd felt the full impact of having been suddenly transported to a medieval realm.  Except for the palace, almost no buildings were over four stories tall.  Most had thatched roofs, although a large number also had red or orange tiles.  The streets seemed to wind in labyrinthine mazes
, many suddenly ending in a courtyard or just a dead end.  Others would go along and then jog at funny angles as some building reared up in its path. 

One part of town, on the far side of the palace seemed to have buildings that nearly overgrew the streets, cutting them off from the light of day.  Edwyrd guessed this was due to the  upper stories project
ing over the streets so the owners could throw trash and sewage out into the middle of the street.  He liked to imagine that that part of town was the city's Maze or Warren or whatever the locals liked to call their local thieves' quarters.  Maybe it was silly, making such assumptions, but then who would call a twelve-foot tall greater demon disguising himself as a teenage boy in a fantasy world silly for having such thoughts.

He had to stop and correct himself.  He seemed to have forgotten the crucial point.  He actually was a teenager, trapped in the form of a greater demon, who was then re
-disguising himself as himself in a fantasy world.  He shook his head.  If he thought about it too much he was going to end up going in circles.  He was continuing to have self-identity problems, unsure as to whether that self was the demon or the kid from Harding.  He wasn't sure he liked the way his mental processes were running lately.

"Yello!"  Tizzy shouted at them from behind.  Gastrop
é jumped but Edwyrd had heard the demon's wings buzzing in advance of his arrival.  "How goes your sojourn into Lenamare land?"

Gastrop
é and Edwyrd both turned around to face the demon.  "Fine," Gastropé said, "Lenamare is slightly more congenial than Exador, but only slightly.  At least he's not trying to mutate me."  Edwyrd gave the wizard a sideways glance.  Mutate him?

"It's going about like I expected."  Edwyrd commented.

"Hmm, that well?"  Tizzy smiled.  "I've had fun.  Mainly in the city though.  Palace is too much of a hassle to really try and bother folks."

"Too many wizards make you nervous?"  Gastrope' asked.

"No.  Too many damn demons.  If I'd wanted so many demons I'd have gone to the Courts of Chaos."

"What?"  Gastrop
é and Edwyrd asked together.  "What do you mean, too many demons?" Edwyrd asked.

"It's a real pain to scare someone as a demon when they're already up to their necks in demons."  Tizzy went on oblivious to his companions.

"What exactly are you talking about?"  Gastrope' demanded.

"
’Course, stupid wizards just ignore them.  Maybe they just don't care anymore.  Out of sight, out of mind, ignore the lower class help, you know, that sort of thing.  After all, they must be some sort of servants for these council people.  Why you have invisible demon servants is a might weird.  But then so are wizards in my book."  Edwyrd grabbed Tizzy by his front left shoulder.

"Tizzy," Edwyrd said, trying to catch the demon's attention.  "What demons are you talking about?"

Tizzy just looked at him as if he couldn't figure out why Edwyrd would even ask such a question.  "Why all those invisible demons standing around in the hallways.  Must be one in every corridor of the building."

"Big demons?"  Gastrope' asked nervously.

"Nah, little guys, smaller than me.  Little Ones, you know sprites, imps and shadows mainly.  Course shadows don't need to be invisible being shadows, but the imps and sprites, they're invisible.  Still seems like a waste of energy to turn all your servants invisible.  I mean, I know these snooty wizards don't like to have to dirty their own hands, or acknowledge any help they get...but to actually make your servants invisible.  Mighty egotistical if you ask me."

"Is such a thing common practice?"  Edwyrd asked Gastrop
é.  The wizard just shook his head, puzzled.

"No, it's much too dangerous.  No wizard or group of wizards would want to try and
control that many demons at a time for so little a cause.  It would be crazy.  A few demon servants you can keep your eyes on are no problem for a wizard, especially if they are just imps or shadows.  But in every corridor? Especially ones with people walking down them?  No, it would be insane, eventually one of them would work its way around its instructions and start rampaging around the castle."

Tizzy was just staring at the wizard.  Tizzy blinked and looked at Edwyrd.  "You know, this kid's brain really isn't full of mud.  I guess I owe you one."  Edwyrd had no idea what the demon was talking about.  "He's a bit stereotypical.  Actually, I'd have to say he's being something of a bigot really."  Tizzy tilted his head.  "However, bigot or not, he's got a point.  Given enough time, one of them would start causing problems.  Take a lot of work to keep that many demons in line.  I counted about two hundred or so
, before I stopped counting."

"Two hundred demons?"  Edwyrd said, unbelieving.
  Tizzy made a motion indicating a lot more than that.  He'd really have to start trying to make improvements to Edwyrd's eyes so he could see things like he could in his true form.  He couldn't believe he'd missed them all.

"Yeah, and that's just the little ones."  Tizzy said.  "Didn't mention those bigger ones."

"Bigger ones?  How much bigger ones?" Edwyrd asked suspiciously.

~

Rupert wandered down the dark corridor.  He had told everyone that he was going back to his room to read, and he had been. He'd just had a better idea while en route to his room.  He'd gotten to thinking about what a big fortress this place was.  From everything he'd read, such places usually had dungeons to torture prisoners in and store treasure and other valuable things.  He'd wondered if this fortress had a dungeon.

As he came across a stairwell leading down, he'd decided to find out.  Thus a spur of the moment excursion had turned into three hours of wandering deeper and deeper into the bowls of the palace.  It was rather exciting really.  He simply took every downward bound stairwell or stairs that he could find.  Occasionally he'd hit a dead end and have to go back up and then down some other set, but eventually he'd gotten quite deep.

He could tell he was quite deep because the walls had gotten quite cool to touch and he didn't encounter any more windows.  He also didn't see much in the way of people.  In fact he hadn't seen anyone in the last half hour or so.  The other thing was that the halls were lit by torches, and these had become scarcer as he went.  In fact it had gotten quite dark between torches.

So that he didn't trip over anything, Rupert allowed his eyes to shift slightly.  Like he had in the Abyss, this let him see fine in the dark.  Actually, having done this, he noted that periodically there were other light spots, besides the torches that he hadn't seen before.  Some were floating in the hallway and some seemed to come through cracks under various doors.  Really rather strange actually.

The other thing he'd noted as he paid closer attention was that some of these glowing spots that floated, also moved around almost as if intelligent.  That rather spooked him.  He didn't know what those spots were.  Ghosts maybe?  He had to chide himself.  Here he was, a demon, getting spooked by ghosts.  It was just that he really still thought of himself as a human more than a demon.  It hadn't been that long ago that he'd finally even admitted it to himself.  And even less time since his first trip to the Abyss.

He was just about to turn around and go back, deciding there was nothing interesting in this region, when
a softly glowing door that he noticed out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.  He turned around to look again at the door, but found only blank stonewall.  That was strange.  He'd been sure there'd been a door there a moment ago.  He went to the wall and peered more closely.  Wall all right, why had it looked like a glowing door?

Rupert allowed his eyes to shift even more, he then stared at the spot on the wall as if trying to see through the stone.  Slowly a door began to appear, superimposed on top of the stone.  The harder he looked, almost squinting, the more he could see it.  After staring intently for several
moments, it seemed to solidify and the appearance of stone behind it vanished altogether.  There was definitely a door there, and it did glow.  What was going on here?  Some sort of illusion? Rupert wondered.

He examined the door with his hands.  Yes, now that he could see it, he could feel it too, there really was a door here.  It was, not surprisingly, locked when Rupert tried it.  That was a pain.  All that trouble and he couldn't even get through it.  Rupert thought for a moment.  There was a very simple spell for unlocking locks that weren't magical.  Given that the door had been hidden though, it was probably magically locked as well.  He shrugged, the worst he could do was fail. 

"
Ek fen, bien lok.  Fret net zien lok. Dok den ber abien.
"  Rupert said twisting his fingers in the requisite gesture.  He heard a clicking noise from the keyhole!  It wasn't magically locked.  Apparently, whoever hid the door must have believed the illusion and relative seclusion to be sufficient.

Rupert opened the door carefully and peered in.  It was a small room.  The room was about fifteen feet on a side with a door on the opposite wall.  The only furniture was a table with a small glowing ball sitting on it off to the left.  The room was otherwise empty.  Rupert slipped into the room.

He stepped towards the door on the opposite wall.  As he did so, a glowing light appeared about two feet from him.  Actually, looking carefully, the light was only visible to his special sight.  Normally it wouldn't have been visible.  Suddenly there was a four foot high demon standing in the room where the light had been.  This demon was visible to any sight.