The Heavenly Host

“Could they have survived as individuals, reduced in stature to demon level?” Moradel asked.

Beragamos shrugged. “I suppose anything is possible, but the level of humiliation that would entail is more than I can imagine any of them could deal with.”

Sentir Fallon nodded. “I think it far better to assume that this woman is, as she appears to her compatriots, an archdemoness who just happens to take on a form favored by Bastet.”

Beragamos was making odd faces as if trying to recall something. “As I recall, she was particularly moral. I can’t see her consorting with demons. Killing demons, as a cat would kill vermin? Yes. Consorting with them? No.”

“Now, on the other hand, this sword could be a problem,” Beragamos said.

Sentir Fallon sighed. “Talarius bore Excrathadorus Mortis by right of being the most senior Knight Rampant. Does anyone know where he acquired this Ruiden? Is it a holy artifact of Tiernon? I have never heard of one of our swords being able to shapeshift.”

Beragamos snorted. “You know how old I am — I have never heard of any sword being able to shapeshift and walk around looking for its owner. This is completely unprecedented.”

Moradel asked, “Are we sure it is actually a sword? It sounds more like some sort of being that shape shifted into the form of a sword.”

“All good questions, to which we have no answers.” Sentir Fallon shook his head from side to side in puzzlement. “It just strikes me as unnatural. Metal — pure metal is inhospitable to animatic creatures as far as we know. When forging a blade, spirits are generally attached to an anima jar linked to and embedded in the blade. Did you see any crystals?”

Hilda shook her head. “It is possible that its two black eyes might have been some sort of stone or crystal, but they struck me more as being like polished hematite or similar shiny black metal.”

“And you say it did not attract much attention?” Beragamos asked.

“Well, it did when it approached me; everyone was staring at it. How it got through the city without being accosted, or for that matter left, is something of a mystery. I left it in the hallway off the storage room,” Hilda said.

“One would think the city guards and various wizards would have stopped it to question it. They can’t be that jaded,” Moradel said.

“One would hope.” Beragamos shook his head in wonderment.

“I will make inquiries with those of our people who have worked the most with Talarius to find out where this sword came from. But it does not sound like a holy artifact dedicated to Tiernon,” Moradel said.

“One would think we would have heard of something so wondrous and unusual,” Beragamos said.

∼

Vaselle was nearly beside himself; however, he could not decide if it was from fear, joy, excitement, terror, anxiety, love or exactly what. With great trepidation and more than a little fear, he had ventured out of the city this morning to summon Estrebrius to see if the dark master had come to any conclusions regarding his fate.

Much to Vaselle’s joy and fear, the dark master himself had come forth to instruct him. He had told Vaselle that he had to be sure of Vaselle’s devotion. The dark master would only take him and his soul if it was freely given and Vaselle was totally committed. In his infinite generosity, the dark master had also told him that should he change his mind, or be unable to complete his task, the dark master would not hold it against him and he would be free to go. Could one ask for anything better from such an awe-inspiring being?

The task? Vaselle had to figure out how to cast a familiar binding on himself and then hand the ownership of the binding over to the dark master. It was inspired, Vaselle had to admit. He had had no idea of how demons bound their wizards; clearly, it was a closely guarded secret of the demon lords. However, this made so much sense he could not believe he had not thought about it. A warlock was to all intents and purposes a demon lord’s familiar!

It was so logical, so ingenious — and by requiring Vaselle to enslave himself, to debase himself to the level of a familiar, it was perfect! Of course, the problem was, he had no real idea of how to reengineer the spell. The dark master had told him he could have time to figure it out, and he was certainly grateful. He would need to spend some serious study time at the palace library. While obviously there were plenty of books on binding demons to oneself, he was reasonably certain there would be no books on binding oneself to a demon. However, he was sure he could piece something together.

∼

Jenn poked the milky-white wall of her stateroom aboard the Nimbus with her forefinger. It was surprisingly solid, for a cloud. To say the... uh, ship was a bit odd was an understatement. Apparently, the entire cloud they had seen from the ground was the ship. Unlike a normal ship, however, the passengers were all inside the cloud rather than on top. The top deck was mainly for launching and landing flying carpets.