Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (7 page)

He tore his eyes off the distant mountains, and began scanning the valley below him, now that he had passed the tops of the first mountains.  Occasionally, he spotted what appeared to be dark spots on the sides of mountains.  The first one he saw, he swooped towards, and saw that it indeed was a cave, this one had some sort of strange circled `Y' engraved above its entrance. 
Apparently, it was occupied.  He continued on, when he saw a cave that was situated in what looked like a convenient location he would swoop down on it, to see if it was marked. 

To his dismay most of the caves that he examined in the first few valleys were marked, or else they were extremely shallow.  So he flew on, he had searched for what felt like several hours, when he spotted a large cave near the top of an extremely high peak.  He flew up on it in a sweeping arc, the more he flew, the more impressive looking tricks he learned.

This cave was definitely large.  At the mouth of the cave was a fairly large overhang of rough stone.  The mouth itself was about twenty feet in diameter, and as far as he could see, extended a long way into the mountain and down.  The cave seemed to be inaccessible, except by flight, since below the overhang, the gray rock of the mountain dropped drastically downward for well over a thousand feet.  The best thing about this cave, however, was the fact that Tom was unable to detect any markings around the cave mouth indicating that the cave was occupied.

What a stroke of luck, Tom thought.  He landed on the ledge and turned to look out over the valley.  Looking back the way he came, he was amazed to note that he could no longer see the plains.  Apparently, he'd flown a lot further than he had
thought.  True, his wing muscles were a bit fatigued, but nowhere near being exhausted.  "I guess one just has to go to the ends of the world to find a good home these days," Tom said to himself. 

As he looked over the valley he noted that there didn't appear to be any other caves in this valley, which suited him.  For some reason, he felt totally satisfied being alone, and he really had no desire at the moment to see any other demons. 
Well
, Tom thought,
if I am alone here, then this shall be my kingdom
.  In a mock imperial manner, the King of the Valley viewed his new land.  Truly, looking out over the majestic, rocky valley and the rugged range of mountains, he did feel like a king.

As he was surveying the valley, Tom heard voices calling his name in the distance.  Commanding him to attend.  Slowly the world began to fade around him, as the King of the Valley was forced to return to slavery.

The image of the valley was slowly replaced in his mind by that of the tower room into which he had first appeared after traversing the color world.  As the valley dimmed and the room came into focus, he was able to note that he was standing in the middle of a five pointed star inscribed within a circle.  Tangent to the circle at each point of the star were smaller circles with stars inscribed in them also.  In each of the smaller stars was a three legged metal stand with a small bowl on top.  Each bowl contained glowing embers which gave off strange noxious odors.  He also noted that each brazier was made of a different metal: gold, silver, platinum, a white faintly glowing material, and a dull gray metal unlike any other that he'd ever seen. 

Arranged outside of the circles were three individuals, an old balding skinny man, the woman who's face he'd seen in the circle that had summoned him, and the face that he dreaded, the one called Lenamare.  The old balding man was about six foot, but not yet bent with age, and weighed in the neighborhood of about one hundred and thirty five pounds, although it was hard to tell since he was wearing a large purple robe.  His face was basically skin and bones, his nose long and pointed.  He head was shaved except for a mustache and goatee.  His gaze fell upon Tom, hesitant, yet determined.

The woman appeared to be in her mid-thirties. 
Not a great beauty, her features were too sharp for that, yet she had an aura of command about her, that he imagined would pass for strong charisma, if he were more inclined to be sympathetic with her.  She was quite tall, about six-two and around one hundred and fifty pounds.  Her reddish brown hair was done in a spiraling braid above her head.  She wore a black gown trimmed in red, and cut and highlighted so as to reveal a good deal of her ample breasts.  She stared at him in a manner of contempt, mixed with a trace of caution.  By her stance she felt herself in control, but also she clearly yielded to the third person in the room.

The room's other occupant was Lenamare.  A man who Tom would not forget, a face he was sure would haunt his dreams for weeks.  Lenamare was
the shortest of the three at around five-ten, yet he stood tall and arrogant.  Under his robe he seemed trim and slightly muscular.  His gray eyes were the same color as the unknown dull gray metal brazier.  His hair was a dark brown interspersed with thin hairs of white, like white crests on a dark brown ocean.  Lenamare looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, yet his stance bespoke that of youthful strength and arrogance.  His glance was cold, totally in control, with no room for doubt as to his mastery.  It contained no possibility of ever even understanding the concept of fear, or submission.

All the pain he had felt in the color world seemed
, to Tom, to be the sole responsibility of the man before him.  He could easily understand how Boggy would want to obliterate his master.  Tom still didn't exactly feel like ripping Lenamare to shreds, but he certainly wouldn't have minded returning a little of the pain that Lenamare and his associates had inflicted on him.  Tom took a step closer to Lenamare, intending to try and stare the man down.  Tom felt confident, that with his superior height and new found strength that he should have little trouble in intimidating this man who was five to six feet shorter than himself.  However, as he stepped forward, his hoof encountered resistance.  He looked down and saw that his hoof was blocked by some invisible barrier at the edge of the circle.  As he looked up quickly, he caught a slight smile on Lenamare's face which seemed to mock his attempt to get closer to the wizard.  The smile seemed to be so mocking, that for an instant Tom simply wanted to smash it off the man's face.

"Know, Demon, that thou canst not cross these barriers that we have set for thee.  Thou art our servant, thou hast succumbed to my will, 
Thou wilst obey my orders and those of my lawful assistants," Lenamare said commandingly to Tom.

Tom tried harder to push his foot through.  When this didn't work he stepped back and pushed with his hands against the invisible barrier.  As hard as he tried, he couldn't make the barrier even seem to flex.

"Try as you will demon, thou art trapped and thou art mine."  Lenamare smiled, and then quickly twisted his fist in a counterclockwise gesture.  Pain exploded in Tom's chest.  It felt just like what he'd imagined an incredibly severe heart attack must feel like.  It was almost crippling, he began to buckle, to go down on his knees, but out of the corner of one of his eyes, as he bent over, he noticed a cruel grin on Lenamare's face.  No!  Tom thought, I will not give him the pleasure.  Stiffly, Tom gritted his teeth and slitted his eyes.  Using all of his strength, he forced his legs to straighten to their normal position, and he raised his head to stare directly into Lenamare's eyes.

Lenamare's grin faded, and his eyes became more serious.  Eventually, after what must have been only a few more seconds, but which seemed like eternity to Tom, Lenamare nodded, and released his fist.  The pain suddenly vanished from Tom's chest.  Slowly, he relaxed.

"So, Tomasedwardperkinje, be defiant.  But know that was but the mildest of the tortures and pain I shall inflict on thee, if thou dost not obey my commands.  Jehenna, the binding."

The woman called Jehenna raised her right hand before her
; in it she held a ring.  Softly she began chanting something that Thomas couldn't make out.  Before his eyes, he almost seemed to perceive the green smoke rings that he had seen the other day.  "...by the ancient rites we command thee, be unto us our slave.  Let they who hold this ring control thy fate as surely as Lenamare the Magnificent. 
Ek rios et veltos dok run se falos
."  At this point Lenamare and the old man joined in.  "
Rieman et sveltos, kriolbus nek vistrum, Dominae set servitus.  Creistes,  sen feltos.  Rhiallan mak velddrum.  Nor fiels sans bartos,  kryptos nos vermumn
.  Thou art ours, thou art ours."

Now Lenamare spoke alone, "by the power of my will, by which I command thee, Tomasedwardperkinje, I hereby relegate my authority to the wielder of this ring.  Let the wielder's command of thee be second only to my own.  Let all know
that today, as forever, thou art bound.  Bound by my will, and bound by this ring.  May thy soul be trapped in the Neverending Loop of Confinement,
ad verti sig fallum.  Dros Faustus tan Varn, sid Ekelios, fel Mephistum
."

Together they all chanted, "
Embodiae sig fallum, Dominae sed nostrum, deskripten sig fallum, verti et sebuam
.  Bound unto forever Tomasedwardperkinje,
hielphistos sorbum amenetorum."
   With the final pronouncement, the ring flashed a bright white light.  Tom felt his pupils automatically contract to block the light, but other than that he felt absolutely nothing. 

The three wizards stared at Tom intently, as if trying to determine something.  Jehenna put the ring on
the middle finger of her right hand and pointed it at Tom.  He winced, fearing that more pain was coming, although none did.  His reaction apparently satisfied her, for she nodded.  "Demon," she said, "kneel before me."

Not really knowing what was going on, but not really wanting to feel the pain that Lenamare had already inflicted, specifically, not wanting to test whether or not he could face it down again, he complied.  Again, seeming satisfied, she nodded.

"Any other tests?" Lenamare asked.

"No, I think we've demonstrated that it works," Jehenna said.  The old man simply nodded his head in agreement with Jehenna.

"Very well then, Jehenna, if you would care to do the honors?"

"Certainly," Jehenna waved her arms toward Tom and said, "be gone now
, Demon; get thee hence, return to thy own plane until we should have need of thee.  Depart in peace, and take none that is ours with you."  At this apparent dismissal, Tom relaxed, knowing he would soon be out of this tower and away from these people.  As he relaxed and imagined his ledge, the tower room began to disappear around him.  Shortly, he was once again standing outside his new cave.

"God, those people really piss me off," Tom said to himself as he looked out
from his cave, "with their mixed up thee's and thou's and their pseudo-Latin mumbo jumbo.”  Slowly he turned around and descended into the cave to explore it.  "Would I like to show them a thing or two."  As he descended, he thought about this last encounter; and the more he thought about it the angrier he got.  Just as in any confrontation situation, where one feels one is the loser, Tom replayed all different scenarios, envisioning how things might have gone.  If only he could have broken the barrier, if only he had thought of this, of that, of several different things. 

He wandered down the cave, thinking of all the things he might do next time, to teach Lenamare and his toadies a lesson. 
He let out a lot of mental steam and frustration, knowing he'd probably never get a chance to exercise his dreams of vengeance.  It was, he thought, just like the bullies; he had dreamed and dreamed of someday getting even, but he never did, and now never would.  The closest he'd ever come to doing anything about the bullies in Junior High had been to take Tae Kwon Do lessons for over a year, before giving them up out of laziness.  Occasionally he berated himself for not going further, only a few more months and he'd have had a black belt, but he'd gotten mad at people in the club and decided he didn't want to put up with the lessons and a few of the other students.

The tunnel was, Tom guessed
, pretty dark inside; he could no longer see light from the outside; however, he had no trouble seeing.  His demon eyes, he realized, could see very well in complete darkness, better even than a cat.  Everything was in black and white, but it seemed almost as light as a very overcast day, and different objects stood out in sharp contrast to one another.  Here and there the passage would narrow or widen and twist or turn.  "Good grief this tunnel is long, I guess I've found a pretty good cave."  Suddenly the cave opened up into a larger cavern.  Nice, Tom thought looking around the cave, he was still too wound up to really appreciate the cave.

Lancing pain!

"Shit!" Tom yelled as what felt like huge knives ripped into his right arm and wing area.  The blow sent him off balance and forward.  He glanced behind him and saw something.  What it was he couldn't be sure, but it was big, bigger by far than himself, and it had a huge claw with which it had tried to slice him. 

A five foot long snout was suddenly in his face, as the creature repositioned itself, blocking the only visible exit to the cavern.  The snout was very reptilian, and had huge teeth and mesmerizing eyes.  Behind the head was a long curving neck which eventually merged with a large scaly body with wings the size of th
eR
oc models Tom had seen in museums, and claws that looked like giant swords.  Shit, thought Tom, it looks like a dragon.  Quickly, Tom looked around the room, but he could see no other tunnels leading out.  Since he was still wound up over his encounter with Lenamare, and because the pain had given him a massive adrenaline rush, and since the fight or flight syndrome was definitely going full bore, and he couldn't do the flight part, he decided to fight.  Trying to think as little as possible about what he was doing, Tom put all his body strength into a back kick right to the nose of the dragon.

Crunch, was the sound from the dragon's nose scales.  The dragon reared back and bellowed a horrendous roar of pain.  Tom had forgotten how his bull
-like legs were very well suited for back kicks, and how much stronger he now was.  Put both of those facts together with the Tae Kwon Do he had learned, and he supposed he must have a pretty powerful kick. 

Acrid smelling, steaming blood spurted out of the dragon's nose.  Infuriated, it opened its mouth and let loose a gusher of liquid.  The liquid fell on Tom's hide, and burned.  Did it ever burn, it felt like he was on fire.  Every nerve screamed in pain.  Without pausing to think, Tom leaped forward swinging his right hand in an open karate chop at the dragon's neck, just as his instructor had taught him, what seemed like so long ago.  He spread his fingers slightly, to get better advantage of his long nails.  Tom knew that if he stopped to think rationally that he would probably run, even though there was nowhere to go, but he was too keyed up from his imaginary scenarios with Lenamare, and was too pissed off at this damn dragon, to do so.  As easily as they had dug finger holds, his claws raked through the scales of the dragon, causing it to scream again. 

This time the dragon's blood squirted on Tom, and if he had thought that the breath acid had stung, well this was somehow worse yet.  The dragon reached down and tried to bite Tom on the head.  Viciously, incisors bit into Tom's shoulder, one canine type fang punctured Tom's chest.  He gasped in new pain, as lancing bolts of agony shot up from the puncture wound.  Because of the puncture, he couldn't really use his left hand, not only did the tooth in his chest interfere with his pectoral muscles, but his left arm was partially in the mouth.  Everything went dark around him as the jaws clamped shut.  The small incisors hurt, but he hardly noticed them compared the fang in his left chest muscle, and the complementary top fang scraping along his left side.  The dragon's tongue kept poking Tom on the head as it tried to bring him into its mouth to chew him up.

In a desperate attempt to avoid being eaten, Tom wildly swung his right fist towards where his own face would be.  He felt his fingers tearing into the softer underside of the dragon's jaw, ripping muscles and scales.  The dragon shuddered and screamed with its mouth shut.  With his head inside the mouth, Tom's ears rang horribly, painfully even.  He pulled down with his right hand, desperately using all his strength.  His hand hit jaw bone
; he pulled, and pulled, at the same time trying to gouge his nails into the bone. 

Suddenly he heard a cracking sound nearby, and felt less resistance against his right hand.  Then the fang was out of his chest, the head rearing back in pain, as part of its jaw hung broken from its mouth.  As the head reared back, Tom noticed what appeared to be a more vulnerable spot, down where the dragon's neck met it's
body.  It was about fifty feet away now that the dragon's neck had arched back and up. 

Tom ran as fast as he could towards the front of the dragon, he used his wings to add to his speed.  This had never worked in practice, he'd always fallen flat on his face, but then he'd never had wings before to help him, he prayed silently that this would work, otherwise he'd be a dragon snack.  When he got to what he felt was the right distance away, he jumped, spinning in midair.  He again tried to use his injured wings as best as possible to aid his flight.  Almost before he could think again, his feet impacted on the spot, doing a double reverse spinning back kick.  His sharp hooves plunged into the dragon's body, just as they had into the ground after his fall from the pillar.  Up to his thighs Tom plowed.  The dragon screamed, if possible, even louder than before.  Quickly before he could be plucked out, Tom began to kick his legs, back and forth inside the dragon, praying that he would disrupt something vital.  Thrashing madly the dragon tried to remove Tom from its body.  It screamed and shrieked, spun and thrashed.  Tom grabbed onto scales to hold on, wincing as his left hand closed, and his arm flexed.  Slower and slower the dragon spun, Tom kicked and kicked, all the time his legs screamed in agony as dragon blood ate away at his skin and muscle.

Finally, after a small eternity, the dragon's throws subsided; it ceased its screaming.  The thrashes turned to mild rolls, then to rocking and finally it stopped.  When convinced it was done, Tom crawled out of the dragon.  His legs were shriveled and the muscles were partially dissolved almost down to the bone in places.  All over his body scales were missing, dissolved away by the acid breath, and the even more acidic blood.  On the left side of his chest was the gaping hole where the dragon tooth had speared him, green pus oozed from the wound.  Apparently it was what passed for demon blood.  He was still functional, so apparently no important organs were located in that part of his chest.  Tom was exhausted; but, to be safe, he crawled over to the thinnest part of the dragon's neck.  Clumsily, he plunged his fingers in, and began to hack and rip the dragon's head off.  He wanted to make sure, before he slept, that this was one nightmare that was over.