The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (78 page)

“What the…?” Exador’s eyes were wide in shock.

“Here’s the thing, Exador,” said Randolf. “You have been a pain in my family’s side for a very long time. However, our closest allies could not move against you until you attacked one of them directly. You have now done so, unprovoked by myself or Crispin.” He chuckled. “You see, in order for the djinn to move against you, you would need to attack Crispin in a manner unprovoked by either of us. You have now done so, for which you have my greatest appreciation.” Randolf flashed Exador a very wide grin.

“My master is correct, demon. You have now given all of Djinnistan a reason to hunt you down and exterminate you like the vermin you are,” Crispin said, grinning at Exador.

“Crispin?” Randolf said.

“Yes, master?”

“I
wish
you to punish Exador for damaging my property,” Randolf said.

Crispin grinned widely, steepled his hands before him and bowed at his smoky waist towards Randolf. “Master, your
wish
is my command!” With that, Crispin and his smoke cloud quickly enveloped Exador. The sound of thunder and lightning resounded around the room even as the whistling roar of the air being sucked down the four chimneys rose to a level that drowned out the claxon.

“Quickly, everyone; we need to move fast while Crispin buys us time!”
Randolf shouted across his link to his stunned fellow councilors. He had to twist his jaw to pop his eardrums; the air pressure in the room was getting quite extreme.

Crack! Crash! Crackle! Crash! Crunch! CRASH!
The large upper windows in the foyer were being blown out by the very high air pressure in the room. Randolf had to brace himself as the wind levels within the room began to approach cyclone level. Fortunately, the air pressure had pushed the window glass outwards. Glass shards raining down on them was the last thing they needed while trying to cast spells.

Randolf shook his head and began casting a very local shielding spell around himself and his accessories before they all blew away. Gold braziers and similar instruments were heavy, but there were limits. He just needed to deflect the winds around his small area so he could actually cast some spells.

Once his local air shield was in place, Randolf flicked his wrist at the nearby brazier that Crispin had set up before his metamorphosis, lighting the components within. “
Astuos trineptos, eskelon nor tufos!
” Randolf began his incantation.

“Is that Herodite’s Horrendous Hellion Scourge?”
Jehenna asked over the link, apparently to Lenamare, yet everyone heard.

“Sounds like it. I’ve never done it myself,”
Lenamare said, having temporarily forgotten about the city’s wards. Randolf smiled grimly as he worked to cast the spell. Unfortunately, the most truly devastating spells against demons relied on a binding link between the master and demon. Thus, against foreign demons, most wizards were forced to use traditional non-demon spells which had varying effects.

Fortunately, there were a few demon-specific spells that could piggyback on a normal wizard link, such as the ones they all had as councilors. Herodite’s Horrendous Hellion Scourge was one of those. It was also seldom used due to its complexity.

He had to really concentrate on this agonizing spell, making sure he added the pre-prepared components to the brazier in order. He thus could pay little attention to what others were doing. He did note that Tureledor was sending force bolts into Crispin’s maelstrom. That was a great idea; they would have little effect on Crispin’s gaseous form, but would be able to do quite a bit of kinetic impact damage to Exador.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Davron was creating a pentagram around himself, preparing to use conjury against Exador.
Excellent.

“
Aargh!
” Exador screamed as a rapid barrage of razor-sharp ice bolts pummeled him. The bolts appeared to come from Gandros’s direction. At least, Randolf assumed they were pummeling him, as no one could actually see Exador inside Crispin’s smoky cloud. Suddenly Exador was coughing loudly. He must have inhaled after his scream; that would have drawn Crispin into his lungs.

Randolf shook his head; that was not going to be pleasant. Suddenly there was a new whistling sound as all of the smoke and soot began streaming into Exador’s nostrils. Once inside the demon’s lungs, after being initially inhaled, Crispin was able to pull the rest of his smoke and ash cloud to himself inside Exador. This was a standard djinn attack; Crispin would not only be attacking with lightning from inside, but also increasing the air pressure inside Exador. Mortal creatures generally exploded; that probably would not happen here. Exador would probably shift to fire or some other insubstantial form.

Yep, there he goes,
Randolf noted to himself as a huge blaze started inside the smoke cloud. He shook his head while reciting his spell. The wind, combined with Exador’s giant flames, were reaching out to the whipping tapestries and drapes. In moments, the upper walls of the foyer were a conflagration to match the pillar of flame in the center of the foyer.

“
Fiat Completum!
” Randolf screamed at the top of his lungs while thrusting his staff towards the flames of Exador, releasing his spell. Greenish-black tendrils each about six inches in diameter extended quickly from his staff and began wrapping around the flames.

Randolf really had to concentrate now, chanting under his breath to direct and manipulate the spell. He had to force the tendrils to wrap around all sides of Exador’s flames, as well as above and below. He was going to need to get this in place quickly. The two insubstantial beings were now at a stalemate.

Tureledor’s force bolts were now useless with nothing to impact upon; however, the stream of ice bolts was likely still hurting Exador, as the flames were sizzling as the bolts struck. While the bolts did melt, they were also poking holes in Exador’s flames.
There!
Randolf mentally yelled to himself.
And now to squeeze.
Holding his staff in his right hand, Randolf began making a fist with his left.

There was a horrendous scream from the flames as Exador began to feel the pressure. Randolf waved his staff in a scourging motion as if he were whipping Exador, which in essence, he was. The flames shifted back to the solid, winged Exador, who was red with fury and glaring with a hideous malevolence at Randolf.

“You sycophantic sociopath! How dare you!” Exador raged. The archdemon pointed at Randolf and giant bolts of lightning flew from his large index finger, crashing against the shielding of Randolf’s pentagram, even as Exador’s body was pummeled from behind by more force bolts from Tureledor.

Randolf laughed. “Wizards use pentagrams to protect themselves from demons, in case you were not aware of this.”

“To the Abyss with your pentagram!” Exador screamed at ear-splitting levels before he started choking again as Crispin again tried to fill his lungs when he inhaled. Perhaps at some point Exador would learn better, Randolf thought, grinning. Around a smoke-formed djinn, breathing was a seriously bad habit.

Exador dove to the floor with both fists forward, slamming hard into the floor while screaming a very loud, very deadly curse word. The ground rocked with the impact, far more than Exador’s actual weight would have caused. He had done some sort of geomantic spell; that was obvious now as cracks began radiating out from the impact point of his fists.

The foyer shook with the force of the quake and the smaller tremors that followed. It had to have been some sort of ground-quake spell. Randolf began whipping harder, which naturally caused Exador to scream in pain again.

“He’s got two columns!”
one of his fellow councilors shouted over the communications link. Randolf could not tell which one it was, but he turned his attention enough to see that a crevice had reached and opened up the ground under at least one of the nearby columns.
Crap!
The columns were definitely load bearing, and were starting to collapse.

“I will work to prop the columns up!”
Gandros shouted over the link.

“I’d help, but I’m trying to redirect the crevices from Lenamare while he works on the wards!”
Jehenna shouted.

Randolf glanced at her; she was gesturing and chanting rapidly to redirect or ameliorate a very large crevice coming at her and Lenamare.

He turned his attention back to the ground at his feet. His pentagram had successfully stopped a crevice at its borders. Small cracks began appearing all around the pentagram, but not inside. It could block these because the pentagram had been tuned to Exador specifically and it was his magic causing the crevice. He had not been sure whether that level of indirectness would work without a true name, but it was.

Randolf glanced at Davron even as he kept on scourging Exador. Davron’s pentagram would not be tuned; fortunately, no large crevices were splitting off near his position. Red tendrils were now twisting out of Davron’s staff and were heading towards Exador.

CRACK!

A cracking noise far worse than the windows breaking, came from above. Randolf glanced up to see the ceiling cracking open. He mentally cursed; between wooden beams that were rapidly charring, the tie rods now most likely burnt from the flaming wall curtains, and the shifting of the columns, the stone roof was about to give way.

Exador cursed loudly as Davron’s red tendrils began raking him with a new level of pain, added to what Randolf was inflicting. Randolf looked at the demon to see his right fist swing out towards the columns on the other side of the room. As if in slow motion, his giant fist struck through first one column, and then another. There was a large groaning and creaking noise as the archways above the two struck columns began to give way under the weight above them. The archways lurched and suddenly there was a terrific cracking sound from above as the ceiling stones gave way.

“Gandros! If you can keep the side wall from collapsing, I’ll take care of the roof tiles!”
Jehenna shouted over the links.

“Will do!”
Gandros replied, even as the ceiling stones began falling down into the foyer. Jehenna gestured and flung the largest stone away from the area of the fight into an empty part of the room. The ceiling was rapidly fragmenting in a chain reaction. She was going to be busy.

Randolf whipped at Exador with renewed emphasis.

Exador screamed and stared directly at him again. “Okay, you lying deviant! I have had it with you and playing in your world! Time to come play in mine!” he screamed in pain and rage. He twisted his left hand in what almost looked like a rude gesture, and suddenly a circle of flame appeared on the floor halfway between the two of them.

Randolf blinked to see a portal exactly like the one the greater demon had used to kidnap Talarius. He glanced over to see that Ruiden was still stuck under a great mound of ice.

“Let us see how your pentagram works when there is no floor under it!” Exador shouted.

Randolf suddenly realized that the circle of flame was expanding to move under his pentagram. It was an extra-dimensional space. Dung droppings! It was highly unlikely that the pentagram would notice it. It was not an attack targeting him or the pentagram; it was just a void that would happen to come between him and the floor onto which the pentacles were inscribed. However, Randolf’s body would still fall right through it, as would all of his gear.

Before he could even begin to try a spell to reverse the hole, the circle passed through his pentagram and he was falling! He was in free fall in a very, very hot place. He looked up to see a twenty-foot-diameter hole in the red sky, with Exador peering over the edge in glee.

“Crispin! I
wish
to be transported to a safe location in the foyer!” Randolf screamed vocally and over their master-djinn link.

Randolf slammed into the floor at the back of the foyer as his djinn did a line-of-sight teleport through the hole between worlds.
Dung beetles, that hurt!
Randolf thought to himself as shooting pain raced up his legs from the impact. He heard Exador scream once more in rage and fury. Randolf’s spell had been broken when his components had fallen into the Abyss, but Davron’s was still affecting the archdemon. However, Randolf suspected it was not pain but the fury of being thwarted that had spawned Exador’s outburst.

“Enough of this!” boomed an incredibly loud voice from above, startling everyone. Randolf looked up to see Alexandros Mien floating through the very open skeletal remains of the ceiling. The still-violent winds were only moderately ruffling his robes, although his thin hair was standing on end and fluttering rapidly.

“Exador, you are no longer welcome in Freehold!” The ancient mage raised his staff as if pointing to something in the sky and swept it quickly down at Exador. As he did, there was an ear-splitting whistling or roaring noise, completely unlike that of the chimneys.

Almost without warning, a large black-and-red object about fifteen feet in diameter came racing out of the sky and smashed into Exador’s head with brutal impact, sending both the object and Exador spinning through the hole into the Abyss. Alexandros waved his staff again in the same sweeping motion and another black, fiery object came hurtling out of the sky and through the hole into the Abyss at an even faster rate, smashing into the falling archdemon.