Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (43 page)

Anilords

Curriculum
Historia: College of History

University of the Council States

No term inspires more
sheer terror than the term "Anilord."  The last of the Anilords were slain over one thousand years ago.  Unfortunately, knowledge of exactly who they were and what they were capable of largely died with them, at least from a scholarly perspective.  All that remains are the myths and legends of these beings, most of which have been tailored to frighten children.

What scholars do know, is that a little over 1900 years ago, the Council of Anilords, made up entirely of animages and proto-wizards, overthrew the Council of Magi, the ruling body of the two continents of Norelon and Eton.  This
new body ruled the two continents with a black iron fist of terror for nearly a thousand years.  Between their elite Time Warriors who could bend the very forces of time around themselves, and the dreaded "Mind Reavers," capable of splitting a sentient being's mind apart like an onion, there was little opposition to their reign.

One clear distinction is that there was no such thing as modern wizardry as we know it today.  Wizardry as we know it was actually a sub-discipline of
Animastery.  In fact, what few surviving treatises we have from the time of the Anilords refer to wizardry as "crude mana engineering."

Modern wizardry is an outgrowth and extension of this "mana engineering" that came about as an effort to codify the knowledge of the animages, and make it safer and more accessible.  Politically, its promulgation among the magi and the churches was also, in part, to help ensure that the abuses of the Anilords would not be repeated.

Talarius watched the oily black clouds of smoke twist their way skyward, as if in some macabre dance, harshly outlined against the dark grey overcast of the sky. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-seven sickly black pillars of smoke, each unique.  Unique like the beings who made them.  He brought his eyes down to the source of the
smoky trails.  Twenty-seven pyres, one for each of the villagers who'd succumbed.

Talarius grimly watched the scene.  Dimly making out the barely visible gyrations performed by the agonized figures, hidden by the flames and smoke of their own living funeral pyres, moaning and pleading for release upon their stakes.  Talarius blinked as a particularly pungent curl of black smoke licked at his eyes.  He wanted to close his eyes.  Wanted to shut out the grisly scene from hell.  He forced himself to watch.  Watch his own work.

The sight of each blazing bier, containing some former villager, some man, woman or child, bringing back painful memories.  Memories he'd rather forget.  Memories he would never forget.  He hated this.  Tiernon knew he hated this.  Situations like this were what made him question his vocation.  Situations like this, that in the end, always reaffirmed it.

If only this was the plague he was dealing with.  The plague might be more frightening in the minds of many, but at least the plague killed its victims.  Bubonic plague cast a long dark shadow over many lands, bringing death to thousands.  Death, clean and simple.  Death with the chance of reward or punishment.  Death, something final.  Not this.  Not the unending hunger that these poor souls were damned to.  Not the
lifelong agony and unholy thirst that would drive men and women to perform actions otherwise unthinkable, in order to survive. 

For that's what it eventually came down to.  Survival.  Survival at any cost.  Survival and temporary surcease of the agony.  Any cost, even that of cannibalism, even that of one's immortal soul. Talarius allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment, remembering.  Melissance...he forced his eyes open, forced the memories back.

No cost was worth that.  Better to die.  Die, burnt at the stake than to be forced to eat the living flesh of others in order to survive.  Better to die than to risk passing on the disease.  Die early, before the weight of sin dragged what little was left of one's soul down to the depths of the Abyss for all eternity.  Hopefully, by dying now, even unshriven, these poor souls might, just barely, escape damnation in the sight of their respective gods.  Talarius prayed to Tiernon it might be so.  Prayed as he had every night for twelve incredibly long years.

Many of the figures had ceased their moaning.  Succumbing at last to the cleansing flame. 
Succumbing to the flame even as they'd succumbed to the foul creatures that had done this to them.  Talarius gritted his teeth.  If only, if only Sir Etrian hadn't failed.  Failed in his test of faith.  If only he hadn't succumbed to the lure of damnable immortality.  If only he hadn't given in.  If he hadn't failed in this test, then the foul bloodsucking creature of the night would have been stopped sooner.  Perhaps stopped before any more victims had fallen to their half-finished attacks.

Half-finished, if the vampire didn't completely kill its victim, or lead it into damnation, this was what was left.  Victims half dead, knowing their state, hating every moment of it.  Hating the
all-consuming agony in their bodies that drove them to seek the living flesh of others to try and ease their own half-dead state.  Trying to bring a little more life into their drained bodies.  It never worked.  Not for long.  Oh, they could appease the hunger for short whiles, have a few moments of respite, but the hunger would return, they would be forced to prowl again.

To rend, to tear the very living flesh of friends, family, strangers, any living being they could find.  All to digest a little bit of that person's vitality to prop up their own
beleaguered state.  Not just blood, like a vampire.  Their systems weren't refined enough for that.  No, ghouls needed the flesh and needed it in greater quantities.  Talarius had seen that early on in his life.  No, he would not dwell in the past.  She was gone.  Gone as these poor wretches.

Talarius was sure it was the acrid smoke causing his eyes to water.  He couldn't let himself pity these few remaining writhing individuals.  Their fate was unkind, but so much better than if they'd been allowed to continue in their hellish state.  Etrian, Talarius cursed the man.  He knew it was wrong of him to pass
judgment on other people.  Etrian however, had given up that claim.  Given it up when he'd renounced all he stood for as a Knight of Tiernon when he'd sold his soul to that blood sucking fiend. 

Talarius cursed Etrian now as he'd been unable to when he drove the stake through the former knight's heart.  Then he'd only been doing his job.  No curses, no remorse at the loss of a friend.  Only a job.  Only knowing that his fellow knight would never experience Tiernon's reward, but would at least be spared too great a weight of sin in whatever afterlife there might be for the truly damned.  With vampires, there probably
wasn't even damnation.  From the effects of their passing, Talarius had to suspect that they simply ceased.  Whatever life force they had simply dispersing into nature.

Talarius
had killed the other fiend in the same manner.  The  only really effective manner, stake through the heart, cut off the head, a day of sunlit exposure.  Failing the sun, as had been the case here in this grey and dingy land, a dousing with Holy Waters and then a burning would suffice.  The ashes had to be scattered to the four quarters, of course.  Not trivial.  Not pleasant.  But far better than this.  Burning ghouls, former people, at the stake.

The other villagers, the survivors, hadn't been too receptive to the idea.  Eventually he'd managed to convince them that there was no other choice.  No cure.  No release but death in flame.  It had taken all of his most persuasive talents
; he hated using them in this manner, but there was no other choice.  Tiernon knew if there were, Talarius would have found it.  Found it twelve years ago.  Perhaps the worst were the mothers, knowing their sons or daughters were damned, both on Astlan and in the hereafter, and the only possible hope of avoiding the second was to burn horribly at the stake.

They were survivors though.  They'd lived through one of the worst nightmares a village could go through.  They'd survived.  In the end, Talarius was sure that that experience, more than any charisma on his part, had persuaded them as to the necessity.  They were a brave folk, even though none had come to join him on this vigil.  He didn't blame them.  He didn't want to be here, watching.  Someone had to though. If not only to bid farewell to these poor souls, then to also assure none escaped.

The fires continued to burn, but Talarius could hear no more sounds from the stakes.  He could see no more contorting bodies.  It was nearing the end.  All that was left was to watch these remaining fires burn out.  Watch, as he had the day before when he'd burnt the bodies of sixteen of his men.  Twelve had been dead.  Killed outright.  The other four had been in the same Tiernon-forsaken state as these sad creatures.  He felt the loss of each of those men as if they were a part of himself.

He couldn't let that loss stop him
, however.  He had a job to do.  People to save, a mission.  He would meet the challenges set forth before him.  He would meet and conquer them, as he had in the past, as he would in the future.  While he would grieve in his own way, if he faltered or halted in his mission, Tiernon alone knew how many would pay the price of his hesitation.  How many had already paid in the past.  Melissance...Trian...Kiernon...Baxtion.  Talarius shook his head.  He would lead men wherever the right took them. He would never let his own inactions allow another innocent to come to harm again, not if he had any say in it.

The last of the fires had burned out.  Twilight was
beginning to set in.  It was hard to tell in this dark land where the sun never seemed to shine, however the general light level seemed to be decreasing.  Talarius trudged back towards the village.  He would get the villagers to bury the remains of the ashes, or whatever they cared to do with their loved ones.  The ashes were not his concern.  He'd inspected every smoldering burned out heap of ashes.  Inspected them to insure that nothing evil had escaped.  Clean.  Clean and pure at last.

The mud and wattle huts of the village seemed to almost blend into the brown and grey landscape and sky.  He wondered how the villagers could go on here, day after day.  They did though.  Perhaps that was what he most admired in the human spirit.  The ability to carry on, no matter what.  To fight against the odds, to grit one's teeth and hang on against all that the gods threw at one.

As he entered the village, the mayor, or what passed for a mayor, came out to tug pitifully at his cloak.  "Sir, Lord Talarius?  Is it over?"  Talarius looked sadly down into the man's frightened eyes.  The weight of pain and fear seemed to bow the man over, as if he bore a great burden.  Given all the troubles the village had undergone, he probably did.

"Not Lord, Gasmon.  I told you that before.  I am simply Talarius.  No more, no less.  If you wish, you may call me Sir Talarius, but that is the highest honor I aspire to.  I am but a man, like yourself.  And yes.  It is over.  Finally over."

Talarius looked back over his shoulder to the charred remains of this man's friends.  The man's wife even.  "It is over.  They have all gone to what awaits them in the afterlife.  I pray that many of them have been forgiven and will find the rewards they so otherwise deserved."  He rested his hand gently on the man's shoulder.  He smiled gently, but sadly, down at the mayor as he said.  "You may go and do as you see fit with the remains of your people.  No more harm will come from them or to you."  The mayor nodded his thanks and quickly scurried off to gather his fellow villagers.

Talarius made his way towards War Arrow.  He'd sent his few remaining men on ahead.  He'd left this last task for himself alone.  He stopped by the bench outside the inn to gather his saddlebags.  He'd left them there this morning, in
preparation for leaving as soon as this job was done.  He then continued on up the road to his steed.  As he approached his companion, he shook his head, trying to clear it.  This chapter was over, another was about to begin.

He had already received a request for assistance from Iskerus.  Demons it seemed.  Talarius almost smiled.  Not quite, but almost.  Demons were much harder to deal with than vampires or ghouls.  Demons were the worst of the forsaken.  They were the very essence of the Dark.  Nearly impossible to permanently kill or defeat.  A challenge if there ever was one.  A challenge he grimly relished.

With demons, there was no question.  The entire issue was black and white.  No humanity involved.  No lingering doubts about doing the right thing.  Demons must die, must be defeated if mortal kind was to survive.  Demons were the antithesis of all that was good, all that was life.  In slaying a demon, Talarius wasn't killing some poor monster that had once been human.  No creature who's soul had been sacrificed at the vile whims of another.  No being that had foolishly given up his or her life in the pursuit of fleeting dreams of physical immortality, and who might later regret such a hasty action.  With demons, there was no question of killing unshriven.  No worry about forgiveness.  Demons had no guilt, no remorse, no doubt, no repentance.  Even if they did, they were the most damned of the damned, there was no possibility of parole or pardon.  With demons, it was out of Talarius' hands, his mission was clearer with demons, there were no doubts, no fears.  Only action.

~

"Any luck?"  Lenamare asked Jehenna as she walked into their chamber, not really expecting a positive answer.  He was not disappointed; he didn't get one.

"None.  I retraced back to the ambush sight. 
Apparently, some of our people survived.  Our dead seemed to have been buried, and the wagons salvaged.  From the looks of things, the survivors headed for Freehold.  The book was gone."  Jehenna reported.

"So!  If our people lived, then they must have won, and taken the book.  If they're heading to Freehold, they'll be here any time.  Naturally, out of deepest concern for my students
, I should personally arrange to go and meet them.  And the book, of course."  Lenamare jumped from his chair in excitement over the thought of getting his book back.  He began pacing the room, planning.  Jehenna was already shaking her head though.

"One would think so.  However, I followed the trail all the way to Freehold.  I found some of our horses wandering free, plus the packs.  No sign of the people, or the book."

"Damn!  How sure are you?"

"Very, it's hard to miss things in spirit form when you know how to look for them.  I then scanned the entire area.  No sign of anyone.  Given that there isn't really any
way to leave the trail, until much closer to Freehold than they could've gotten, they must have flown or teleported."

"Exador excrement!" Lenamare shouted.  "They could be anywhere on the damn planet!  Why are those idiots doing this to me?  Do they enjoy frustrating me?"  Jehenna said nothing.

"How?  How am I going to find that book?  I can't even get the Abyss blessed fourth order to answer a summons.  None of my other demons will have a clue on how to find the book or the students."

"You could send them all on a wide scan search, I suppose." Jehenna didn't sound too convinced her own suggestion would work.