Into the Abyss

“Well then,” Tom’s voice boomed down from above as he came in for a landing between the knight and the boy demon. “How about fighting an adult? Man to man, rather than slaughtering children for sport?”

Talarius stepped back in surprise and shock as the giant twelve-foot tall demon landed. The entire circle of priests stepped back giving them more room, the priests behind the front row getting shoved violently back.

“What lies are you spewing, demon?” Talarius asked Tom.

“First: I thought you were a Holy man, sworn to goodness? You sounded a bit smug and egotistical talking to Rupert. You know what they say: Pride goeth before the fall? Vanity is the root of all evil? And so on.”

Tom could see the knight’s eyes twitch within his helmet; he’d hit a nerve. “Second, Rupert is just a child. I don’t think it’s very honorable for a great and glorious knight to go around killing children for sport, do you?”

“That demon is no child; it’s a demon.” Talarius told Tom sternly, “and removing evil from this world is not a sport; it’s a duty. A solemn duty.”

Tom shook his head in exasperation. “What, you think demons don’t have children? You’ve seen his human form. That’s what he really looks like; that’s who he really is. And you killed him, in your own tent, for no reason other than he’d been flying overhead the night before.”

“Lies, lies! He came with you through a portal to take over the world!” Verigas pushed his way forward to yell at Tom.

Tom shook his head in pity at the priest. “Verigas, you were meddling where you shouldn’t have been. I needed a doorway to get my human charges back to Astlan; you simply provided that gateway. No one harmed you. We even arranged for you to escape; if we meant you harm, you wouldn’t be here now.”

“Liar, all demons lie. You seek to confuse us with your lies!” Verigas shouted.

“You are as crazy as those damn wizards, blinded by your own paranoia and fear. You can’t even see the truth when it’s presented to you because you are too wrapped up in silly superstitions and prejudices.” Tom told him.

“Enough chatter demon!” Talarius shouted; “You simply seek to delay us so that your compatriots can destroy us!”

“Destroy you?” Tom waved his arms around. “We, my compatriots as you call them and I aren’t the ones who were lying in ambush outside the city waiting for us to be driven out against our will where you could begin slaughtering us!” Tom raised his arms above his head in frustration.

“You have seriously got to be kidding me.” Tom continued. “It is you who seek to destroy us; we are simply trying to get out of Freehold thanks to a spell cast by wizards; the only people getting killed are demons! Look around!” He waved his arms more vigorously

“Your words are ever so cunning; Greater Demons are ‘greater’ not just for their size but for their cunning and deceptiveness.”

“Dude,” Tom said, “and I say that in most laid back way I can; you are seriously tripping! I don’t have to be cunning or deceptive; you guys are falling all over yourselves with your own paranoia and self-deceptions.”

“Why do you prevaricate? Let’s have this out.” Talarius commanded, rather than asked.

Tom sighed. “So you want to fight me?” The knight tilted his head in agreement. “Very well, here’s the deal. We fight just you and me, no one else; if you win, you guys get to continue on with what you were doing before I arrived. If I win, you and the Rod stop attacking the demons and let them go their own way in peace. Agreed?”

Talarius’ eyes narrowed in calculation for a moment and then he finally nodded and said “Agreed.”

Tom nodded and gestured for everyone to step back. The priests surrounding them did, as did the three demons behind him, Rupert, Tizzy and Antefalken. Tom looked around the circle using his demon sight. He wasn’t sure if he trusted these guys, but they were supposed to be goody-two-shoes, so they should keep their word.

Hmm, Tom had to blink; there were tons of links here. Links of a style he hadn’t seen before. It seemed like every person here, all the Rod members had one or more links to people dressed like priests and these priests had links to fancier dressed priests. The fanciest dressed priests seemed to collect all the links from the lower priests and then had massive cords sort of going up to the sky and fading out as they left the plane. How very weird. He could see that the giant cords to the sky seemed to be carrying mana; actually, there seemed to be two lanes, one going up one going down.

Was this like a wizard link that Rupert had described where wizards could share mana? But if so, who were they sharing mana with? Someone off plane apparently? Gods? Angels? Holy shit! That put a completely new spin on reality! Oh fuck! Were these gods real? Priests did cast spells; everyone said they did; were they really miracles?