The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (10 page)

Hilda beamed; Trisfelt got a puzzled look on his face, as if trying to remember what Hilda did for a living. “Oh no, dear,” she replied, “I’m no good at memorizing all those spells and such. I’m a healer, an animage!” Hilda smiled at her and then at Gastropé.

Jenn shook her head and glanced at Gastropé, looking for agreement as she exclaimed, “An animage? I had never met an animage in my life—I was not even sure they existed until all this craziness started—and now you are the third in the last few weeks! All completely independent of each other!” Gastropé shrugged, equally puzzled.

Hilda chuckled. “Well, I find that when ‘craziness starts,’ people in my profession do start to pop up, so to speak. Most of the time we like to keep a very low profile. Who are the other animages you’ve met?”

“Uhm, Maelen the seer, whom you may meet shortly, depending on schedules, and then Edwyrd, Rupert’s cousin.”

“A seer?” Hilda asked curiously and, it seemed, somewhat cautiously.

“Yes, an actual member of the Society of Learned Fellows. No one even knew the Society still existed!” Gastropé chimed in.

Hilda smiled, a bit more formally, perhaps. “Oh, they certainly still exist. They have a definite presence on Eton; not so much on Norelon.” She shook her head. “And this Edwyrd? He is chasing demons with a ten-year-old?” Hilda seemed rightfully puzzled by this.

Jenn somehow managed to nod her head in agreement and shake her head in disbelief in a single motion. “Yes, we met him in Gizzor Del. He is apparently, according to Maelen at least, a very powerful animage. A pyromaster and a couple other terms I’m not familiar with.” Gastropé was nodding in agreement.

“Well. Interesting, very interesting.” Hilda nodded. She looked at Gastropé. “You are, if I am not mistaken, a pyromancer? And also a conjuror, perhaps?”

Gastropé blushed slightly under Hilda’s observation. “I try my best.”

“Excellent.” Hilda gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. “That’s what is important. Always strive to do your best—that is how you grow in strength and talent. I can tell you are young, but I can See you’ve got great promise!”

Hilda beamed in admiration at Jenn and Gastropé. “Clearly you’ve been through so much, far more than wizards three times your age ever have to deal with. I’m dying to hear of your adventures, if you have time at some point?” She turned to Trisfelt suddenly. “You know, I do happen to have a couple of bottles of note with me, and a few alvaren delicacies? Perhaps we could all have dinner this evening?” She gestured to Gastropé and Jenn.

Trisfelt started nodding and Jenn was grinning but then suddenly frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry. Dang it! I completely forgot!” She grimaced in frustration, and Gastropé also groaned.

“What is it, my dear?” Hilda asked.

“We are leaving this evening for the Grove, on an expedition.”

“An expedition?” Trisfelt asked, puzzled.

“To the Grove?” Hilda’s eyes widened. “That is quite an undertaking. Surely, my dear, you’ve had enough adventures for a while?” Hilda asked, giving Jenn a reassuring pat on her forearm.

“Yes, well, the two armies outside are looking for Gastropé, Maelen and me, as well as Edwyrd and Rupert, and the Council wants us out of Freehold as of about a week ago,” Jenn explained.

“So the three of us are going with Elrose and Councilor D’Vils to the Grove and then on to Natoor,” Gastropé informed them.

Hilda blinked. “You are going with Trevin D’Vils to the Grove and then on to Natoor?” She blinked a few more times. “Surely there are… less remote places you could go to get away from the Rod? They have a bigger presence on Natoor than on Norelon. In fact, given the route to get there, you are passing through the heart of the Rod’s operations. Unless you’ve got a gateway?”

Jenn shook her head. “No, we are going conventionally, whatever that means. Given that Trevin D’Vils appears to be about 300 years old, I can’t imagine she actually intends to go on horseback and sailing ship, but you never know.”

Hilda looked slightly puzzled. She mused out loud, “Trevin D’Vils? I’m surprised she’s not dust at this point.” Jenn did not think they were supposed to hear that, but they all did. Hilda seemed to suddenly realize she was thinking aloud and blushed.

Jenn grinned at Hilda and whispered, “She’s ancient, and wears the most inappropriate clothing!”

Hilda laughed, glad not to have offended anyone. Gastropé laughed as well.

Trisfelt just shook his head in amusement. “But why Natoor?” he asked.

Jenn looked around. “My room is just around the corner; let’s go there and discuss this in a bit more privacy.”

[Animus and Mana Wielders]

~

Hilda put down her glass of wine and reached for a piece of H’skallen cheese. They had gone back to Jenn’s room and decided that since they could not have dinner together, they should at least have a late lunch; that way Jenn and Gastropé could try some of the alvaren delicacies she’d gotten from the quartermaster’s pantry. She had to be able to back up her wedding cover story, and clearly anyone who knew Hilda would naturally have assumed she would have raided a few of the buffet tables at an alvaren wedding.

However, as enticing as the wine was, with this rather insane story of Jenn’s, she had to keep a grip. As it was, she was fighting a splitting headache from the stupid wards blanketing the city. When she and Trisfelt had entered the city, she had nearly fallen off her horse. She had to pretend to have nausea from some stale travel cake at breakfast. Not very convincing, but better than the truth. She had had to quickly work out a ritual to damp down the expulsion symptoms, so she could enter. Technically, the ward was supposed to have been for demons, but clearly, it was aimed at general extra-planar beings. Fortunately, being a saint, she had a mortal background and was not a pure spirit. An archon would have had a lot more trouble with the wards. They would need to keep that in mind if the Host needed to enter the city.

Once she was settled, she could come up with something better. The best thing would probably be to anoint an amulet with its own mana pool so she would not have to maintain the ritual herself. If she got seriously distracted, say fending off a wizard who had caught on to her, she wanted the expulsion repulsion, or whatever she was going to call it, to stay on. Otherwise, the wards would send her packing.

“So, let me see if I have this right,” Hilda tried to clarify. “Trevin thinks that one of the archdemons might actually be an old goddess named Bastet, from Natoor?”

“Exactly,” Gastropé confirmed rather tipsily. Hilda had to smile; these youngsters were so much easier to loosen up than Trisfelt. That man was a professional imbiber. She had needed a few divine tricks to keep her head about her last night and get him inebriated. It really would have been nice if she had been able to let go and truly enjoy the wine’s effects. However, she had had a job to do. Moreover, today, with her headache, she was more than happy to just do her job.

A clock in the courtyard gonged that the afternoon was halfway done. “Oh, dear lord!” Trisfelt exclaimed in dismay. “I need to meet with Elrose! He needed to meet with me privately and in person!”

Gastropé nodded. “Yeah, he’s going to tell you about the expedition.”

“And,” Jenn hiccupped, “that since both he and I are going, Lenamare and Jehenna need you inside the city for their project.”

“Project?” Hilda asked. “Surely the wards are stable and the city secure?”

“No,” Jenn shook her head, “the other project, the one that got Exador to attack the castle.”

Hilda thought back for a moment. “I don’t recall what you said that was—some dispute about an artifact of some sort?”

“A stupid magic spell book they can’t figure out how to open,” Jenn said. Gastropé was nodding up and down in rather excessive agreement.

“Okay, yes, I remember now. I’d sort of forgotten that in all the other crazy adventures you’ve been through.” Hilda shook her head in sympathy at Jenn.

“I fear I must take my leave to go and see Master Elrose then, before he leaves.” Trisfelt stood.

Hilda nodded. “Danyel and I should be getting home. I am pretty clear on our route in, so we should be able to get ourselves back to the stables.” She glanced a bit skeptically over at Danyel, who was also inexperienced when it came to libations. She shook her head and gave Trisfelt a glance, as she noted that he had noticed her look to Danyel.

“Youth,” he said and chuckled softly, shaking his head in agreement as well. He seemed quite fine. Hilda was not surprised; the man had true fortitude when it came to libations. She briefly wondered if he had a similar fortitude in the romance department. Hilda blushed; clearly, the wine and headache were getting to her, for that thought to pop up!

[Mana Pools and Anima Jars]

Estrebrius handed the waiter demon another coin for his second mug of Denubian Choco-Coffee
TM
. This was really a crapper of a day —actually, the last two days. He had been hanging out in his penta-cage at his accursed master’s laboratory when that damned crazy expulsion spell had hit him. He had nearly puked out his non-existent guts and released his non-existent bowels. He had headed out of the city as fast as possible and seen the last half of the fateful battle before being dispatched by those bastards in the flying boat after the battle.

Then, still recovering, his accursed master had summoned him! That had been very painful, although the magic of the summoning did help accelerate his healing. However, his accursed master had apparently become completely unhinged. This stunk! Master Vaselle was the best accursed master he had ever had. He never wantonly tortured and only did modest and appropriate punishments when warranted. Plus he let Estrebrius hang out in Freehold with him, which was a much more interesting place than the outlands of the Abyss, and safer than the Courts.

He was not a huge fan of the Courts, but when you needed a drink there weren’t a lot of other options. Estrebrius sighed; he wished he could cry. He felt so despondent! How would he ever find this new demon lord? Everyone in the Abyss was trying to figure out who he was and what he was up to, and no one knew anything! In addition, there were plenty of others trying to find the demon lord. What chance did he have?

Even if he did find the demon lord, what then? Assuming the demon lord did not eat him for lunch, he would never agree to see Vaselle. He was going to fail in his task and likely die in it. The only thing worse would probably be to succeed. Well, maybe that would not be worse than dying, unless he died in that option too. The point was, if the demon lord did agree to meet with Vaselle, he would surely kill the wizard and then he would be out a particularly good master. Not that it was such a bad thing, but he had never had much luck staying free, so it was better to be bound to a decent master.

“Hoy, Estrebrius! Why so glum, dear chap?” Estrebrius looked up to see Boggy joining him at the table. He was happy to see that Boggy had recovered from his post-master-slaying drinking binge. Estrebrius had checked out early from that party. He had not wanted a hangover when Vaselle summoned him to work the next day.

“I am up the Styx without a paddle,” Estrebrius whined despondently.

“Why, what happened?” Boggy asked.

“You know that big demon that kidnapped the knight of Tiernon?”

Boggy beamed extremely brightly. “I certainly do!”

Estrebrius shook his head, not understanding why Boggy was so enthusiastic about it; but of course, if he had been in the Courts he could not not know about the demon. “Anyway, my master, Vaselle—”

“The one you keep telling me is a decent fellow? The one I insist can’t be?” Boggy interrupted.

“Yes, him. He has gone over the edge. Bonkers! And he’s set me to an impossible task!” Estrebrius ground his eyes into the palms of his hands.

“Ahh, finally tortured you. I told you, they all do it eventually!” Boggy patted his arm.

“No… If only!” Estrebrius looked up, dropping his arms to the table. “It’s worse than that. He is completely insane! And he’s given me an insane task that I can’t possibly complete!”

Boggy nodded. “Cor blimey, I hate it when they do that. We aren’t djinns, for the Concordenax’s sake!” Boggy sighed. “So what does he want you to do?”

“He wants me to locate that demon lord that kidnapped the knight yesterday and set up a meeting between himself and the demon lord!” Estrebrius raised his hands in the air and shook them, as if crying out to a heaven that certainly was not there for him or any demon.

“Oh, is that all?” Boggy shrugged. “Well, I’d have to admit that does seem sort of stupid, even for an accursed master. However, if that is all you need , my lad, I can set it up.”

Estrebrius dropped his arms to the table and stared at Boggy as if Boggy had just gone insane as well.

~

Tom, Rupert and Tizzy were sitting outside the cave while Tizzy regaled them with tales of his accursed masters. Suddenly Tizzy stopped his nearly continuous monologue, and his nose started twitching. In fact, it started twitching up, down, right, left, and then his face began scrunching and contorting in all sorts of weird and vaguely disturbing ways.

“Tizzy? Are you okay?” Rupert asked, putting his hand on Tizzy’s upper shoulder.

“IT’S LIKE BUTTAH!” Tizzy suddenly shrieked in his yenta voice. Rupert, having never heard this voice so up close and personal before, jumped so high he fell off the ledge and it took him a few seconds to fly back onto it. At that point, Tizzy had reared up on his rear legs and was sniffing in all sorts of directions as if trying to locate a scent. He really was quite tall when he stood all the way up, Tom reflected.

“What is it?” Tom asked.

“Well, it ain’t popcorn, but it’s gotta lotta buttah!” Tizzy said again in his yenta voice. Rupert looked at Tom with concern.

Tom shrugged, and then he thought back to his own arrival. “Tizzy, are you saying that you smell a new arrival?” he asked, suppressing a belch. Even talking about butter made his indigestion act up.

“Yes! Very strange… I did not see this one coming. New arrivals aren’t usually this frequent.” Tizzy shook his head, still sniffing. “I think you will want to come with me, Tom!” he said, sounding something like a yenta matchmaker.

“We’ll all go!” Rupert said with excitement. “What’s a new arrival?” He was looking back and forth between the two demons.

“Can’t you handle this on your own, Tizzy?” Tom asked. He did not want to take Rupert and have to explain what a new arrival was. That would complicate his own story.

Tizzy scrunched his eyes and looked at Tom, then looked away and made other weird facial expressions. “Nope, think you need to come with me. Boggy’s not here and he normally goes with me.”

Tom sighed, and then remembered Talarius sleeping in the cave. “Rupert, we can’t leave Talarius alone. If he wakes up and no one is around, he’s liable to do something crazy.”

“So?” Rupert asked, realizing he was about to be stuck babysitting.

“So I don’t need him freaking out any worse than he probably already is.” He really was not sure what the knight’s mental state was.

“But I want to come with you guys!” Rupert complained.

“I know, but we are getting stretched too thin. We have commitments to honor, which sort of happens when you kidnap someone. You become responsible for them and their safety. Plus other demons are probably looking for him; I need you to defend him if any of them show up!”

“But he tried to kill you, and he did kill me!” Rupert complained. “Why do we care about his safety?”

“Because we are the better people. We have honor and integrity. It’s what
we
do,” Tom told him sternly.

Rupert frowned and made an annoyed face. “Okay, but don’t be gone too long! If a demon army shows up, I’m not going to be able to protect him.”

Tom shook his head. “We shouldn’t be more than a couple hours, I hope.” He had no idea, but this would force them to limit the time. He really did not expect any demons to come looking for Talarius; only Antefalken, Boggy and Tizzy knew where he lived. It was not like any of them would be playing tour guide.

~

Tizzy had taken off at nearly warp speed and Tom really had to work to keep up. It was amazing how fast that little demon could move when he was in a hurry. They quickly left the mountain range and then headed south, or at least what Tom thought of as south, over the giant plain with the pillars and fireballs. Within about fifteen minutes, they were crossing the Styx and continuing on. Tom really had no good sense of direction and was not quite sure how Tizzy knew where he was going. It was also odd that Tizzy could smell a new arrival from this many miles away.

Within about half an hour of leaving the mountains, they were heading towards a somewhat squat, very wide pillar. It was more of a mesa, Tom guessed. The mesa was roughly three to four thousand feet above the ground and maybe half a mile to a mile across, depending on which direction you measured and where you were. It was not particularly oval or round in shape; it was more like a series of adjacent mountains that all had their tops sliced off at the level where they were still merged.

On that mesa was a demon running around in circles, wildly swinging its arms and periodically yelling or making weird gestures. As his long-distance vision focused on the creature, Tom noted that it was a rather handsome demon. Mostly humanoid with dark burgundy skin, goat hooves of course, rather hairy lower legs. A tail more like a monkey’s; it seemed rather weirdly animated. Large bat wings, four arms with absolutely massive pectorals and tight abs. Holy crap —the demon’s junk was huge! The demon itself was probably no more than seven feet tall, but its male equipment was nearly as large as Tom’s. Which made it appear really big on the much-thinner demon.

The demon also had a Van Dyke goatee and moustache, and a rather human face, albeit very chiseled, and rather interesting dreadlocks for hair. Overall quite handsome in some odd manner. As Tizzy and Tom landed, the demon had begun shouting again. He was marching the other way and had not noticed them.

“Wake up, man! Wake up!” The demon was shouting, apparently to himself. “I want this trip to end. Now!” The demon pinched itself, and from where they were behind him, Tom guessed the demon had pinched one of its four nipples. “Aaaahhh… Fuck! Gotta not do that. Shit, I’m hard again. What’s up with that! Stop it, stop it… Goddamnit, this crazy-ass nightmare needs to end!”

Tizzy gestured at Tom to interrupt the ranting demon. Tom shrugged and coughed loudly. The gesticulating demon stopped in its tracks and then slowly turned to face them. It then shrieked extremely loudly and fell over backwards. Tom frowned at the bizarre behavior.

Tizzy shook his head. “Surprisingly, not an uncommon reaction.” He walked over to the demon and bent over at his lower waist to peer at his face. “He’s a pretty one, gotta give him that!” Tizzy stroked the demon’s chiseled jaw line with his upper right thumb. His lower right index finger had started tracing the outline of the demon’s lower left pectoral.

“Are you going to wake him up or just stand there molesting him?” Tom asked.

Tizzy shook his head suddenly and stood up. “Sorry… he’s an incubus. Has that sort of effect on people. Men, women, doesn’t matter.” Tizzy waved all four of his hands as if trying to shake off the spell. “I’m normally into the ladies, myself, but these incubi are something else.”

“What is an incubus?” Tom asked.

Tizzy shifted around to stare back at Tom. “You ever heard of a succubus?”

“Uhm, yeah, a female demon who has sex with men and steals their strength, or their soul,” Tom replied.

“Exactly. Succubi steal animus from men, typically, and sometimes from women so that they can combine it with the seed of a male demon and produce a child,” Tizzy explained.

“Okay, and an incubus is like the male version?” Tom asked.

“Exactly. They take the seed of a male demon and deposit in a female host to create a child,” Tizzy said.

“They take the seed of a male demon? They don’t use their own?” Tom was puzzled.

“Incubi and succubi are pure instruments of delivery and pleasure. Or well, actually, the succubi bear the children too, but they don’t use their own eggs or sperm; they are infertile. They use those of another demoness. Same for incubi,” Tizzy stated, staring down at the incubus again.

“Okay, I know I’m going to regret asking this.” Tom knew he was, but hell… “Why wouldn’t a demon who wanted a baby just do it themselves? What’s with the middleman? Or middlewoman?”

Tizzy turned back to Tom and beamed a bright smile at him while raising and lowering his eyebrows. “Many reasons: anonymity, size differences between the two parents, but the two most important ones are one, succubi and incubi are experts at pleasure and are really fun to play with; and two, more important from a political point of view, they are capable of having trans-planar sex!”

Tom had to shake his head at that. “Trans-planar sex? You mean extradimensional sex?”

Tizzy was grinning from ear to ear. “An even better way of putting it, they can receive or deliver their packages, so to speak, to the Planes of Men from the Astral Plane.” Tizzy was still making those crazy eyebrow motions as if he were revealing some wondrous surprise.

“But why would you want to do that?” Tom asked.

Tizzy shook his head and made a tisking noise at Tom. “Because the host demon can have a child with a human and not have to materialize or incarnate on that plane! In the case of an incubus, this results in a virgin birth, which is always impressive to mortals. They also do not have to kill a bunch of people to get at their target. They can find and make love to their target in the target’s sleep, while they are dreaming. Very few humans have any defense from an attack like that!”

Tizzy started pacing as he talked. “In particular, if a demoness wants a baby with a powerful king or a wizard, there’s not a lot that can stop a succubus. Their magical seduction spells are highly sophisticated and work between the Astral Plane and the Planes of Men, and are very strong against sleeping targets. Same with an incubus and a virgin bride!” He was going around in circles waving his arms and looking more than a little lecherous, if Tom thought about it. “Most kings protect their daughters’ virginity as a precious treasure. An incubus can easily screw over plans for a royal wedding by impregnating a virgin locked in a tower!”