Demontech: Onslaught

“You have until the midnight bell’s toll, Lord Lackland.” The voice of the Grand Vizier of the archipelago nation of Jokapcul cracked like a whip in sharp contrast to the deep wrinkles in his face and the withered skin of his hands.

The Dark Prince looked down the length of his royal nose at the bent old man who dared call him by that hated sobriquet. “I do not need till the bell’s toll, old man.”

“We shall see.” The ancient vizier’s voice again cracked like a whip, but on the first words; on the last, it cracked like an old man’s. He eased about slowly, maintaining fragile balance so as not to threaten equally fragile bones with a fall, and shuffled out of the sacred circle to where magicians and kamazai stood in solemn watch. He sat in the lone chair. The High Shoton’s headsman stood behind the vizier’s left shoulder and turned the head of his axe just enough to reflect torchlight onto the Dark Prince’s face.

Ignoring the light that sparked in his eyes, the Dark Prince lifted his face to the dome of the evening sky and slowly raised his hands until his arms were parallel to the ground. He began to chant in a deep voice; slow, guttural sounds in a language so ancient and arcane few of the assembled magicians and kamazai had ever heard it.

Away from the sacred circle and its attendant magicians and kamazai, tiny creatures watched from the protection of bushes. Curious, they listened to the words he intoned. One, who understood the words no better than did the humans surrounding the chanter, rested his chin on the shoulder of one who did understand them.
“Wazzim zayyim?”

The one who understood shrugged his free shoulder.
“Zhimm’s wanttin,”
he said briefly, not wanting to miss a word of the chant.

“Wazzim wanttin?”

“Kinollitch.”

“Kinollitch whatch?”

“Woour.”
The one who understood the chanter’s words shrugged his shoulder to dislodge the other’s chin. The questions were becoming distracting enough for him to miss something.

The one who asked settled back on his haunches and considered for a long moment. Why did the man in the black robe want knowledge of war? What did he propose to do with it? Well, the creature knew a way to find out. Abruptly, he rose on bandy legs and leaned forward to knuckle the ground. He scampered off to where a dozing jinnlette softly ruffled fallen leaves.

In a moment the jinnlette was awake and spinning rapidly enough to scatter the leaves. It swept up the curious knuckle-walker and sped away with him. Midnight was nigh by the time they returned.

In the circle, the Dark Prince still stood chanting, his quivering arms still parallel to the ground. His voice no longer intoned, it croaked through his sore throat. The effort of holding his arms up brought deep lines to his face and tightened the cords of his neck so they stood out in sharp relief. Around the circle, the magicians and kamazai tiredly shifted stiff muscles and joints, anxious for the midnight bell’s toll to bring an end to the farce. The vizier dozed in his chair. The headsman once more tested the sharpness of his axe with his thumb.

The jinnlette summoned others of its kind. They whistled to his side through the trees and bushes. The knuckle-walker told them what he wanted. The jinnlettes whistled agreement to the grand joke and began spinning in unison. They spun until they raised a cloud of dirt and leaves and dust the width of the sacred circle and three times the height of a human. They advanced.

The magicians and kamazai stirred and looked in the direction of the approaching whirlwind. The Grand Vizier started awake and looked. The headsman turned his head toward the sound. Everyone looked up, but the sky was cloudless and no wind rustled through the trees around the circle. Only from the one direction was there the sound of wind, and that sound was moving their way. Such a wind could only be magical. The magicians and kamazai on the wind’s side of the circle sidled out of its way; none ran, none showed the fear all felt. Only the Dark Prince seemed not to notice.

The spinning cloud moved into the flickering torchlight, its progress slow and stately, without veering from a path that took it directly across the sacred circle. When it passed, the Dark Prince lay crumpled on the ground, his voice stilled. Before him rose a neat stack of tomes.

The Grand Vizier stood on wobbly legs. Immediately, a magician supported him on his right and a kamazai on his left as he tottered into the circle. They stopped within reach of the stack of tomes.

The Grand Vizier commanded with a hand signal, and a magician ran to check the Dark Prince. In response to another sign, the magician supporting him bent and lifted one of the tomes for the vizier to examine.

The tome’s cover was the white of milk just beginning to go bad. It was flexible, like parchment, but it wasn’t the texture of kidskin. It was adorned with indecipherable script, and an eagle bearing a shield was spread inside a circle. The vizier waved a hand and the magician opened the book at random. Another random opening, and another. The assisting magician lifted each tome in turn and showed its cover and contents to the vizier. All were filled with the same indecipherable script as the covers. But the pictures! Never had the vizier seen pictures of such clarity. The Dark Prince was stirring under the ministrations of the magician.

“Dark Prince,” the Grand Vizier said, using the preferred title. “It appears we have not been using the demons in the right way.”

He examined the covers of the tomes again. Much of the script was different on each one, but all had three things in common. Each bore the circled spread eagle. Each had writing in the upper left quadrant that began with the strange symbols FM. At the bottom, each bore the legend: FIELD MANUAL, UNITED STATES ARMY.

Whatever that symbolized.

That same night, a third of a world away in the archipelago nation of Frangeria, priests of a half-dozen religions filed into an alabaster temple to observe an experiment to be conducted by a renowned philosopher—or to watch him destroy his reputation and career, which was what most of them expected. The interior of the temple shone with lamplight that reflected from its polished walls. Rows of marble benches circled the room. Brilliantly painted statues of gods and heroes stood in niches mounted higher on the walls than the head of a standing man.

The white-robed philosopher stood calmly in front of the altar and watched the priests. His bland expression gave no indication that he saw the skepticism and disbelief that adorned most of their faces, or that he heard the disparaging words they whispered to each other. They were fools, he knew, to believe as they did. None of their gods had ever manifested themselves, not unless one gave credence to ancient legends and myths. Ancient legends and myths had value, to be sure, but they shouldn’t be considered as history. What he was going to demonstrate to them this night was real; he’d seen it himself on his journeys to the western edge of the world.

The last priest filed in and took his place. The High Priest of Tomarnol, the ranking personage in the assembly, sat in the place of honor, directly facing the altar. There was a muffled swishing and bumping as the rest of the priests sat. The High Priest signaled attendants, who moved to extinguish four out of the five lamps.

“Hold!”
the philosopher said, speaking for the first time. “There is no trickery here, no legerdemain. What I am going to demonstrate can be seen in clear light. Nothing need be hidden.”

The attendants looked to the High Priest of Tomarnol, who in turn examined the philosopher speculatively for a moment before signaling them to return to their stations and leave the lamps lit.

The philosopher bowed thanks to the High Priest, then slowly rotated as he looked at all of the priests. He seemed to look each in the eye, and many squirmed under his gaze.

“You are holy men,” the philosopher began. “You hold with your various gods and seek their assistance. You believe not in demons save as foes of gods and man.
Know you that demons are real!
They are not foes of god nor man, and they can be made to do man’s bidding.”

Tittering broke out in the temple, and cruder expressions of disbelief. The philosopher cocked his head and looked around with the slightest trace of sadness on his face.

The High Priest angrily flipped a hand in the air, and the exclamations ceased. Again the philosopher bowed his thanks.

“I have seen demons do man’s bidding,” the philosopher continued. “I have learned how to call and command them. Observe and you shall know.”

He lifted his face to the dome of the temple, raised his hands till his arms were parallel to the floor, and began chanting in a language few of the assembled priests had ever heard and none knew well. Those who did know a bit of the language were so impressed at the ease with which the philosopher chanted that they never guessed the philosopher knew the language hardly better than they did.

Curiously watching and listening to the proceedings, two smallish creatures scrunched behind the feet of a statue in one of the niches.

“Wazzim zayyim?”
one of the creatures asked.

“Nasurre. Zhims nunchiation nawgud,”
the other replied.

They listened intently for a few more minutes, trying to work their way through the philosopher’s mangled vowels and garbled consonants.

“Zhim whanns leadumzhib,”
one of the creatures said uncertainly.

“Thinzo,”
the other said slightly less uncertainly.
“Trainem mebbe?”

“Mebbe.”

“Givvim?”

“Whyynaw.”