“But wait,” asked Iason.
“If the demon is helping Lemma, why do we need to stay behind so you can
summon it?”
“I know how to summon more than
one demon,” Rhoda replied. “The one I’m planning to summon tomorrow
is going to take a lot of time and energy because she’s pretty powerful. Not as
powerful as Sonneillon, but powerful enough, I hope. Anyway, I can summon a
lesser wrath demon easily, to be Lemma’s backup. Speaking of…”
She sprang up from where she’d been
sitting, then with quick, practiced motions of one foot, she drew a pentagram
in the muck we’d been using to draw maps for our plans. A sweeping motion of
that same foot, and she connected the points of the pentagram in a circle. All
told, it took her about three seconds.
She drew a nasty-looking bronze
knife from somewhere in her robes and passed it through the air over the
circle, muttering something I couldn’t make out, but it sounded nasty. She then
used the knife to prick the fleshy part of her hand at the base of her thumb,
and squeezed out five fat drops of blood into the center of the circle.
The blood sizzled when it hit the
mud, which mounded itself up, forming into a statue of a twisted, hideous
gargoyle. Rhoda shouted something violent-sounding in a language I didn’t know,
and the late-afternoon light seemed to fade away as the world turned itself
inside out. There was a roaring noise, a blast of hot air that stank like
rotten eggs, and then–
“Oh,” said Iason.
“Huh.”
I tried not to laugh. But not very
hard, which is probably why I ended up half bent over, clutching my side with
one hand and pointing at the demon in the circle.
It was still a twisted, ugly
gargoyle, of course. It was just that it was a foot tall and pastel pink.
“Who dares laugh at the mighty
Berith!?” it roared. Well, “roared.” More like squeaking,
really. Chirrupping, maybe. I’ve never been entirely sure how that’s different
from chirping. Point is, it was even funnier when it was trying to yell
at me, and I laughed harder. If it had been a humor demon, my soul’d be gone.
(Of course there’s no such thing. It
wouldn’t make sense–how would you use someone’s sense of humor to tempt and
manipulate them?)
Anyway, the demon snarled and leapt
at me, but smacked against the edges of its circle like an invisible wall. It
shrieked and beat at the walls of its ethereal prison, but they held.
“Oh, it’s you again,” it
said when its eyes fell on Rhoda.
She crossed her arms and looked down
at it sternly. “Me again. Planning to challenge my authority, or do you
submit?”
It sighed. “Nah, I know where
that ends up.” It continued, sounding weary and bored, “I acknowledge
you as my Mistress for as long as your will binds me within the circles of this
world.”
Rhoda grinned. “Great!”
She kicked at the muck, breaking the circle, and the demon flew out.
“Everyone,” she continued, “this is Berith, a wrath demon. He’ll
be helping attack Brochen. And unlike last time,” she gave Berith a
pointed glare, “he won’t fly straight into the first attack spell and get
forcibly discorporated.”
“Ha!”
My laugh earned me a glare of my own
from Rhoda. “And unlike last time, you won’t forcibly discorporate
him the way you did Sonneillon!” she informed me.
I gave her my best “who,
me?” expression in reply.
“Hang on,” said Iason.
“Are we sure it’s safe having a wrath demon around? I mean, Lemma, you can
be a little… testy sometimes?”
“Pfft.” I waved a
dismissive hand. “Okay, Sonneillon got a little under my skin, but he got
me by surprise, and I still pulled it out. Nothing this little guy can do will
break my temper.”
“Okay, so confirmation a pride
demon would be worse.” Iason grinned at me.
Why that–! I choked back my first instinctive reply, a fireball to the
face, and my second, a remark so cutting he would wish I just gave him a
fireball to the face. “See?” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Um, does your eye normally
twitch like that?” asked Rhoda.
“Yes,” I answered through
gritted teeth while Iason chuckled. Point was, I didn’t act on my
annoyance, so there was nothing for Berith to get a grip on. This would be
easy, I just had to not do anything out of anger. During a battle. With a guy
whose magic would be defined by unpredictability.
Well, maybe I’d get lucky and Berith
would get discorporated in Brochen’s first attack.
Heh, like he’d be so pathetic as to
get caught that way twice.
To be continued…
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