Flight of Fiends
A Quartermaster’s Tale
Written by Timm Davis
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Summoning fiends was serious business. Alben had never done it before, but he was positive it shouldn't be taken lightly. That's why he broke into the village witch's home, stole her book of fiends, and rummaged through her stash of ritual ingredients; all in the name of safe summoning as far as he was concerned.
Ms. Viera had a lot of other witch stuff: books on healing, pouches of fine herbs for healing, and scrolls for, well, healing. Alben didn't want to be a healer, he wasn't much of a people person, so he had ignored all of this extra stuff and went right for the goods: a burgundy tome with gold trim and stylized flames on the cover. He had seen it last week when he came in with a black eye, courtesy of Riven and his goons, and knew then that he had to have it.
The leather-bound tome, which now lay open before him, was as thick around as any book Alben had ever seen. Diagrams of conjuring circles and pictures of demons and devils filled the worn pages. He had skipped all the pages of wimpy imps, bloated quasits, and slimy oozes. Instead it was turned to a particularly vicious looking fiend, with a snout that looked like Mr. Tormshan's bloodhound, only with beady black eyes filled with malice instead of Pork's old, tired eyes. Two of the creature's four bulky red arms ended in crab claws which looked like they could cut an auroch half. It was a glabrezu, and it was the coolest thing Alben had ever seen. Riven wouldn't know what hit him.
Ms. Viera's sitting room was really just the whole of her house. She had a little stove, a fur-lined bed, and a lot of cupboards - one of which was open and half empty from Alben's rummaging escapade. Cold mountain air blew in from the open window by the back door. Prying it open with the flat of his dagger had been easy, he only hoped it would close properly when he left.
He was kneeling in the middle of the room, a ritual circle identical to the one displayed in the leather tome's page before him. No larger than a barrel's top, traced in charcoal, herbs, and a little bit of Alben's hair. Four ruby red crystals, each facing a cardinal direction, were carefully placed along the circle's edge. The book said they would "guide the glabrezu from hell and into the Material Plane", but Alben also just liked the way they looked. He had even drawn a few lines between the crystals, creating a cross, like he had seen on Mr. Tormshan's compass. They shimmered faintly in the light of his single candle, which was of course also borrowed from Ms. Viera.
The candle was shaped like a grinning fiend, all fangs and over-long claws with bat-like wings. The burning wick had melted the wax until the creature's head was half missing and dripping down its dull gray body. The book hadn't said anything about needing a demon-shaped candle but Ms. Viera had one and Alben figured it couldn't hurt.
He placed it in the middle of the circle. Ms. Viera had once told him witchcraft was all about the exchange of power and the intention of your ritual's tools. He didn't really know what she meant. He had been nursing a split lip, courtesy of Riven, so hadn't thought to ask, but maybe the glabrezu would see the candle as a sacrifice. Or maybe just a cool gesture.
Prepping for the last ingredient, he took a deep breath and held the knife to his palm. Pale skin and five shaking fingers stared back at him as if pleading to be spared. There was one other reason he didn't want to be a healer - he hated blood. It made his stomach turn and his head light. Yet the book called for blood and Ms. Viera didn't have any. Alben had a lot, everyone he supposed; he just didn't know how to get it out without seeing it. Or thinking about it. Or feeling it.
He released the breath he was holding and set the knife down. One missing ingredient wouldn't be so bad; in fact he was dead sure. He could summon the glabrezu without it. He had once wrangled an angry axe beak all by himself. Everything would be fine.
Time was ticking away as he began to read the book aloud. He was so focused on following the gestures in the diagram, a series of circular motions with infrequent pinching gestures, that he skipped the occasional word. He couldn't shout or else people passing by Ms. Viera's cabin would hear him, so he settled for harsh, guttural whispers instead.
He got to the page's end and there was still no glabrezu in sight. No flames or brimstone like the book described. The candle had flickered, but he was pretty sure that it was just the wind. He steeled himself against the unexpected failure and began again. This time with slightly louder chanting and more emphatic hand gestures. Each time he failed, he started over, changing the pace of his gestures or altering the pitch of his voice.
He continued for so long that he was positive Ms. Viera would be back from her daily trip to the market at any moment. Though he found some victory in that he no longer had to look at the book for the ritual's incantation, the candle was soon to be at its end. The once-fearsome gray demon was nothing but a mottled blob of melted wax. The flame flickered violently, threatening to give out as it consumed the last vestiges of the wick.
Once more, Alben told himself. Then he would put everything back where he found it and Ms. Viera would never have to know he was a failed witch. He'd find another way to get back at Riven. He began once more, chanting each word with what he knew deep down to be perfect inflection. There wasn't a syllable out of place. His hand gestures followed the diagram with unerring precision. A chop here. Circular motion there. The air in the room seemed to grow warm despite the mid-winter chill blowing in through the open window.
His final motion was perfectly timed, as he pinched at the air the very moment the candles flame failed, the wick finally at its end. Or so he thought. Instead of blowing out, the flame suddenly grew taller. At first Alben thought it was a trick of his brain, exhausted from an hour of chanting and gesturing. He was proven wrong when the flame not only kept growing taller, but wider! It spread across the wax as if it was kindling. It reminded Alben of Mr. Tormshan's campfires on the nights he'd sit and invite all the kids to come hear stories of his adventuring days.
A stinky smell forced Alben to clamp his nose shut as flames spilled over the candle's melted edges and onto the floor, filling the ritual circle with orange and red embers. Alben's heart was thumping so hard it felt like his chest would burst. A voice in his head screamed for him to find something to smother the fire, a blanket or a metal tin, but he was enraptured by living flames. They seemed to have a mind of their own, cascading across the floor like a tumbling avalanche. Light flickered from within the red crystals, slow at first but then faster and faster until they illuminated Ms. Viera's sitting room floor.
The roiling fires came to a sudden halt at the ritual circle's edge. It was as if his neatly placed line of charcoal, herbs, and hair were walls blocking a herd of rampaging axebeaks. Rebuffed as if by an invisible wave of water, the flames receded to within the circle's center. Though they were still burning like a small campfire, they no longer threatened to spill into the circle and, much to Alben's relief, the rest of Ms. Viera's cabin.
The sound of panicked chittering, like hundreds of squirrels stuck in a tree, emerged from the flames. Alben, one hand already plugging his nose, used the other to cover one of his ears as the noise grew in pitch. In moments it began to settle, leveling off until the sound was no longer indecipherable. Several high pitched voices materialized from the flames. Alben, now sweating profusely from the intense heat, couldn't make out what they were saying. It was just garbled mish-mash.
A shape appeared within the fire. At first just a shadow, it began to materialize and take shape. Alben found himself so curious he uncovered his nose and leaned forward to get a better look. It was a single hand, only half the size of Alben's, then another. Spindly red arms soon followed. The hands gripped the floor through the still burning flames and gave several great heaves until the flames shot into the air, sputtered, and died until only a few embers lay burning in the ritual circle.
In their place stood a small, slender human-shaped demon no larger than a cat. It had leathery-red skin with a spattering of dark gray splotches, small curved horns like a goat, bat-like wings curled against its back, and yellow eyes the color of sick. A short tail wrapped around its waist ended in wicked-looking stinger.
"You're an imp!" Alben cried out, his voice a mixture of surprise at the creature's appearance and disappointment it wasn't a glabrezu. He'd never get revenge on Riven now.
The imp pointed a accusatory finger at him. It was spindly and red and ended in a curved claw. The imps mouth opened to reveal two rows of black teeth as sharp as needles. Harsh sounds accompanied by a shrill whine emerged.
"You have to keep it down," Alben plead, "Ms. Viera will be back any minute."
The sounds continued to pour forth from the imp's open mouth as it rose into the air on one great flap of its tiny wings. Alben fell backwards in fright and threw his hands over his face to protect from the imp's malice.
The creature's shrills grew closer until Alben felt its weight land on his prone form. He opened his mouth to cry out until a delicate hand pinched his lips together.
"Hush now kid," a gravelly voice said, "don't want this Viera-lady to know we're here...whoever that is. How's this? Can you understand me now?"
Alben opened his eyes and looked up to find the imp staring back, one black eyebrow cocked.
"I can understand you?" Alben asked.
The imp shook its head in what Alben recognized as exasperation; a look he was quite familiar with from his time being scolded by the village elders. It looked eerily similar when coming from a fiend.
"Of course you can, I'm speakin' Common. Took me a minute to get my bearings, but I remembered. Couldn't help me get out of the summoning hole, huh? Just had to watch?"
"Oh...sorry" was all Alben could think to say.
"Forget it. So uh, whaddya want?" The imp hopped off his chest and began to glide around the sitting room, peering under furniture and poking Ms. Viera's knick knacks.
"Want?" Alben felt just like the time Kiera Windblade asked him how his day was going. His mouth had been dry and his brain was full of fog then too.
"Yeah, kid," the imp popped a few of Ms. Viera's herbs into his mouth and chewed on them thoughtfully, "you summoned me, so whaddya want?"
I wanted a glabrezu, Alben thought to himself, but thought better of speaking his opinion aloud.
"I guess I just...uh...wanted to see if I could," he found himself saying. It was the truth after all. Sure, revenge on Riven would be nice, but he wanted to show someone...anyone he could do a thing without screwing it up.
The imp hovered by the open window, peering outside as if ready to fly away. He seemed to think better of it.
"This Ms. Viera, is she a blue tiefling with a basket full of fruit and herbs?"
"Oh shit!" Alben exclaimed. He gathered his pack and hurriedly began to throw the ritual's evidence into it. The imp fluttered nearby, its interest piqued.
"Help me or she'll catch us," Albean pleaded. The imp sighed but joined in, tossing herbs, charcoal, and other ingredients into the bag as Alben put the books back into the cupboard. He scurried out of the open window and closed it, but not before the imp flew out after him. The cabin's front door creaked open as Alben ran through the snow and into the woods behind Ms. Viera's house.
"Do you often summon imps when you break into someone's home, kid?" the imp asked, its wings beating a steady pattern as it followed along.
Alben shook his head, his words lost in labored gasps of excitement. "I was trying to summon a glabrezu."
The imp shook his head and chuckled a sound like crackling embers. "I think you and I are gonna get along just fine."
Alben makes a new friend (Art by 02ofClubs)
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"This town is too damn cold."
Dox rolled his eyes as he continued to trudge up the rime-covered road. He exhaled hot gasps of air with every step.
"How could you possibly know?" Dox growled in reply. He didn't care for the cold much either, but he disliked uninvited complaints even more.
"That's just insensitive," the voice replied from the pack on his back. It's tone was low and full of gravel like his own.
"Sorry," Dox muttered, "we'll head out in a day or so, but I told the witch from the market I'd bring some samples." Dox gave a shrug of his shoulders, well-muscled from years of manual labor, to readjust the straps of his pack.
"We could be on a-" the voice started, but Dox interrupted it.
"Wait," he whispered, "we're not alone."
Dox drew a massive warhammer and a handaxe from the clasps on his pack in one swift motion. The handaxe was simple in design, just a curved iron blade on the end of a notched wooden handle, but its edge was sharp and the balance was perfect.
The warhammer was the antithesis of simple. It was made entirely of polished stone with gold dwarven runes inlaid throughout. The head was the size of his torso and resembled that of an old, bearded dwarf carved in rock. The features were blocky, thick, and angled, partially resembling Dox's own hardened and scarred face. The stone eyebrows suddenly narrowed, giving the warhammer's face an angled, concerned look.
"What is it?" the voice from earlier emerged from the mouth on the warhammer's head.
Dox ignored the question, peering through the snow-covered trees with narrowed eyes. The road cut a line through the Mammoth Wood, a dense forest which ran for hundreds of miles to the north and south. The path ran between several villages, including Broken Elm, where Dox was coming from. Travelers weren't a rarity, but dangers were as common as a copper coin.
A branch cracked, a bush shook, and Dox let the handaxe fly. It spun end over end, briefly flashing as the reflection of the mid-day sun shimmered in its polished blade. It sank into a giant elm with a thunk. Dox drew another handaxe from his pack as quickly as he threw the first.
"Come out," he called into the snowy thicket, "or the next one hits flesh."
The bush rustled once more as a spindly figure emerged. Dox breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't stow his weapons, at the sight of a young half-elf boy. Dox knew better than most that threats came in all shapes and sizes.
The child couldn't be more than twelve. He had the pointed ears of an elf and olive-green skin of an orc. Jet black hair, dusted with snow and adorned with broken twigs, stuck straight into the air as one pointed clump. He wore simple furs and hides and didn't seem to have been traveling long; likely a Broken Elm villager, though he seemed to be coming from up the road where the witch lived. His dark eyes, nestled in narrow yet somehow cherubic features, didn't show a single hint of fear.
"You're not wearing any boots," the boy pointed to Dox's feet, which were bare and exposed to the frigid air. Thick black hair grew in patches at odd angles due to a series of criss-crossed scars.
"What're you doin’ hiding in the bushes?" Dox demanded, his posture still rigid as the stone of his warhammer.
The boy seemed to think about his answer for a moment. "Hiding," he finally decided.
“From?"
"You," this time the boy didn't need to think about his reply. Dox grunted in confusion. The boy pointed to his handaxe, its blade buried several inches deep into the trunk of a tree, in answer.
"Oh," Dox muttered. He stowed his handaxe and leaned on the hammer's hilt. "Sorry."
The boy shrugged and leaned down, rummaged through the bush, and pulled out a bag overflowing with books and what looked to be other odds and ends. There were herbs, the hilt of a dagger, and a.... red rock? Or perhaps a crystal? What was a child doing with all of that in the middle of practically nowhere? The witch's apprentice perhaps?
They stood in silence for several moments, the sound of falling snow creating a hushed and still atmosphere. A raven cawed from the tree branches above. The boy's eyes began to dart between Dox and the road leading to Broken Elm. The dwarf finally realized the child was waiting on him.
"I'll uh..." Dox pointed to the hilt of his buried handaxe and made to slowly step forward.
"Oh yeah...okay," the child muttered. Though the boy seemed to shrink into himself as Dox drew his handaxe from the tree trunk, he stood his ground.
"Yer good at hiding," Dox observed as he continued on his way, "just watch for snapping twigs, they gave ya up."
"Good advice," the boy started in the opposite direction, "now Riven is especially doomed."
"That was nice what ya did back there," Dox's warhammer noted as the witch's home came into sight.
"Hm," Dox grunted.
"You gave him advice," it continued, "and scared a lesson into him. That was a real teaching moment."
Dox ignored the hammer stowed on his pack as he rapped calloused knuckles against the wooden entryway. The door creaked open, revealing a single-room home in a state of utter disarray. Eldemeen Viera, the town's resident witch and healer, was in the midst of tearing books from shelves and flipping furniture over. The faint stink of sulfur stubbornly clung to the air. Eldemeen was so engrossed in destroying her own home, Dox was halfway through the threshold before she noticed him.
"Oh...I didn't see you there," her voice was soft and lilting. Her sky blue face was creased with worry lines. She seemed to stare straight through Dox as she absent-mindedly scratched at the horns on her head.
"Mam?" Dox grunted to bring the tiefling's wandering attention back to reality.
"Of course, sorry, you're the traveling merchant. Dox, right?"
"Yes mam," he replied with a bow of his head, "we spoke in the market this morning about healing potions and other supplies. I brought some with me for you to peruse." He gestured to the pack on his back.
"Sure, potions," she continued to look around as if not registering a word he said.
"Summin' wrong?"
"Quick one, ain't ya?" the weapon quipped in his mind. Dox resolved to leave the weapon in a dark chest overnight.
"I'm afraid so," the witch said, "when I got home, things felt...out of place I guess you could say. Just a feeling, but I was right. Many of my ingredients are missing and...some other things."
Dox remembered the young boy and his pack full of overflowing goods. Yet the witch wasn't telling him everything. She seemed to purposefully not mention exactly what was taken, and she was favoring her left foot, as if ensuring he would not suddenly tear up the rug underneath.
"Summin' I can help you replace?" he offered. "No charge," he added at her look of sudden incredulity. Dox had never cared for money. His role as a merchant had always been more of a hobby than an occupation.
"I doubt it," she said, her face softening. He didn't pry. It wasn't his business; it was as simple as that.
"Help cleanin' then?"
Eldemeen took him up on his deal, allowing him to right her furniture, sweep the floor, and even restock some of her wares from the goods in his pack. They spoke little until the last bundle of herbs was set into her cupboard and Dox broke the silence with a gravelly cough.
"Mam-"
"Eldemeen, please," she corrected.
"Right...Eldemeen, do you have an apprentice?" Dox didn't want to pry, but he found himself doing so anyway. Such was the nature of things.
"No," the witch said, a look of confusion plastered on her face.
"I only ask because I encountered a boy on the road leading up to your home. He had a pack full of books and what looked to be spellcasting ingredients..."
Eldemeen paled, her face changing from a sky blue to stark white in mere seconds. She looked around her home as if seeing it in a new light.
"What did he look like?" she implored.
"Black hair, green skin, elf ears, slight-"
"Alben," she gasped, though she didn't look entirely surprised. She paced the room for several moments, sparing furtive glances at Dox.
"Is it true what they say about you?" she suddenly asked. Dox raised a bushy gray-blue eyebrow in response.
"I've heard the rumors. You help people. For Trilla's sake you've already given me half your pack for free," she pointed to the herbs and potions he had unloaded onto her shelves, "even if half of the stories they tell are true-" she looked to his hammer leaning against the wall.
"Don't believe everything ya hear," he grunted.
"Even so. I think Alben is in greater trouble than he realizes. He's in possession of an item, two really..." she trailed off as if hesitant to reveal the full truth.
"I can't help em if you're not honest with me."
Eldemeen pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She suddenly released a great breath and sunk down into a fur-lined armchair.
"A candle and a book," she admitted. "Either are enough that if used, he would be in danger, but if he used both..." she trailed off.
"What kind of danger?"
Her ice-blue eyes met his, "If he has used either of them, someone will be coming for him shortly."
Dox knew he had to help the boy. Though he had rebuffed her inquiries, the rumors were true enough. He couldn't help that he liked to help. The warhammer telepathically grumbled its approval.
Eldemeen didn't wait for his answer. She began to dig through her cabinets, withdrawing spell components faster than Dox could draw weapons from his pack. She teetered across the room, her arms overloaded with herbs, crystals, and jars of glowing oddities. She kicked aside the rug she had been hiding earlier to reveal a tiny ritual circle carved on her stone floor. Remnants of ash and melted wax were scattered around as if brushed aside in a rush.
The witch wiped away the remains and instead began to set down her own components. She was halfway through tracing a ritual circle with a clump of white chalk when she looked up, her eyes wide as if noticing him for the first time.
"What are you still doing here? Go! I will do what I can to help from here."
He was halfway out of the door when she called out after him. "He has no one, Dox. We're his only friends in the world."
Just a short hike from the witch's hut, Broken Elm was little more than an over-large village nestled within the crook of the Frostgrave Mountains. Just prosperous enough to survive deadly winters but too destitute to be of any worth for raiders, it eked out an existence which was the very definition of adequate.
Built several days hard journey from the main road which lead from the coastal city of Gloomfell to the stone fortresses of Darubur, there was little reason to visit Broken Elm. Yet Dox, who lived out of his wagon year round, found a change of scenery to be necessary to maintain his sanity.
The villagers were mostly hunters, though some dabbled in farming during the warmer months. Dox found them to be simple people. Polite but not over-kind. Quick to forgive but not afraid to resort to violence if called for.
Intent on searching for Alben upon returning, Dox was instead drawn to a growing crowd in the village square. Several two-story buildings, the largest you could find for miles, leaned out over the amassed villagers. Stowed stalls and loaded wagons pushed to the side were the only sign a bustling market had been in full swing earlier that morning.
Villagers crammed into the square as unrelenting gusts of wind blew down from the mountainside, forcing them to huddle for warmth and making it impossible to push through the crowd without force. Little could be heard over the howling wind.
"Probably the most interesting thing they've seen in years," a voice purred at Dox's side.
He turned to find a scalene standing idly behind him, leaning on a long metal staff topped by a blue orb held between the wings of a miniature white dragon statuette. Where most people in the square were bundled in leathers and furs, he was armored in mail and cleric's vestments. The scales of his head and armor were colored in cascading shades of frost blues and ice whites. The symbols on his vestments looked to be a white dragon bearing down on its prey.
"Wouldn't know," Dox grunted in reply. It didn't take a mind reader to know the scalene was related to whatever was happening in the square, and it would be some coincidence if this wasn't all related to Alben; Broken Elm wasn't particularly known for its events of interest.
"Wouldn't you now?"
"Hm."
The scalene sidled forward, his eyes taking in Dox from scarred face to naked toes, lingering on his hammer for several moments too long. Recognition flashed in his eyes, one an earthen brown, the other a stark blue to match his scales.
"That couldn't be...you're-"
"-mistaken," Dox interrupted, "just a merchant traveling through. I was leaving when I saw the crowd."
The dragon cleric's heterochromatic eyes stared at him for several moments in obvious disbelief, but he nodded and let the issue drop.
"We all have our pasts, I suppose. Mine has yet to fall behind me."
Dox wasn't sure what to make of the scalene. Dragon clerics were known to adopt many of their deity's characteristics. If this one was anything like the white dragon gods Dox knew of, he was worth avoiding.
"The show is about to start," the man purred once more. He gestured for Dox to follow him as if they were old friends. The crowd parted before his armored form like a line of infantry faced by a wave of cavalry. Dox, deciding to discover what the source of interest was, slipped behind the scalene, muttering apologies to those he bumped with his pack and hammer.
They broke through the crowd to find a tiefling woman, proselytizing in the onlooker's midst. Her deep gold skin sparkled in the winter sunlight. She wore a cleric's vestments much like the scalene, except hers were emblazoned with a rising sun. The wind had died down as if on cue, her words carrying across the square with ease.
"Good people of Broken Elm," sparkles of light shooting from her outstretched palms, "there is evil in your midst." The shimmering lights turned blood red. Gray clouds floated across the sky, blocking the sun's light and bathing the onlookers in shadow.
"A fiend walks among you. Its infernal machinations will be the undoing of all that you hold dear. The creature will carve a path through your quaint village, gathering souls until it has the strength to open a portal to its fiery realm, where an army of fiends awaits! What is worse," she added, "it was summoned to this world by one of your own!"
The onlookers gasped, exchanging looks of worry with their neighbors. The scalene raised an eyebrow of shimmering blue scales at Dox but remained silent.
Voices began to emerge from the crowd.
"Death to the fiend!"
"That can't be!"
"It's the witch!
"What can we do?"
A sharp hush followed by a pregnant pause hung in the air as the tiefling held up a finger for silence. She began to pace a circle in front of the captivated onlookers.
"Raella," her voice a whisper carried on the wind, "goddess of the sun and smiter of evil, shall provide." Her voice grew in volume with every word. "She shines down upon Broken Elm, her glory be upon you!" A ray of sunlight burst through the clouds, illuminating the village square. The golden tiefling raised glowing hands into the sky. "Look to her agents as your saviors!"
A pillar of shimmering light shined down from the heavens, forcing all in attendance, including Dox and the scalene, to shield their eyes. When the blinding white light faded, several dozen well-armed fighters and mages stood in the previously empty square. A blazing sun was emblazoned on their chest plates and robes. In their center stood the tiefling, her golden eyes still sparkling with fanatical faith. The stunned villagers looked on, powerless in the face of the sun god's zealots.
"It would seem I am not the only hunter," the scalene mused before turning his unnerving gaze onto Dox. He stepped towards before turning back once more, "No offense, but if you are who I think you are, I hope we do not meet again." He slipped into the crowd just as the tiefling's voice rose once more.
"Find it," she commanded, "and kill all who stand in your way."
Dox takes a moment to rest (Art by Federico Avila Corsini)