Demon Made Flesh Ch. 2

Khulan panted shallowly as her orgasm subsided, the weight of Torolchi's sweaty body pressing down on her chest making it difficult to breathe. Her lungs started to burn, hungry for air, but she knew better than to move before he was ready: she forcibly reminded herself that she was just lucky his lust had intervened on her behalf earlier, overriding his anger over her late arrival, the last thing she needed was to do something else to provoke him now. To take her mind from the growing ache in her lungs, she tried to concentrate on the warm tingle between her legs left over from her climax, and the pleasant fulness of the softening cock still buried in her. However, she found her thoughts turning, instead, to her encounter in the library: remembering the way his eyes had burned into hers, and the heat of his flesh against her skin. What would it feel like to lie beneath such a creature? She was startled by a shiver of excitement at the thought. She knew full well that demons' took pleasure only in the infliction of pain and torment, any notion of finding pleasure with one was laughable.

* * * * *

In the airy, ornately-furnished council chambers of Ayil's Hall of Mages, Mistress Al-Alta Erdene sat at the head of the polished mahogany table, presiding over the hastily assembled early-morning meeting. There was nothing overtly authoritative about the short, pleasantly-plump woman's appearance; but her manner and bearing were unquestionably those of one accustomed to being in a position of leadership, and the easy self-confidence in her rich contralto voice commanded attention as surely as the gruff bellow of any military commander.

Al-Alta cast her eyes over the hastily assembled council members, gauging the reaction to her news. As she had anticipated, their reactions ranged from grim resolve to the righteous anger of Usun. Of course, there was one predictable exception: as she glanced at the lanky, silver-haired old man seated to her right, she noted that the venerable Master Khan was gazing out at the garden through an open window. To all outward appearances, Erlik Khan was blissfully unaware of the existence of the rest of the council, let alone of the pressing concerns confronting them. Al-Alta cast glance out the window herself, immersing herself for a moment in the serine beauty of the flowers and the sweet fragrance of roses wafting in on the gentle summer breeze. Her attention was reluctantly brought back to the issue at hand by Master Usun's loud interjection:

"So, that vile fiend, Sechen, stirs the fields of power and as usual we will do nothing but sit around gabbing about it like a bunch of old harpies." Usun growled, his voice shaking with unrestrained outrage, "Well I for one have had enough!" He slammed his meaty paw down on the table for emphasis, and the teacups rattled in their saucers sympathetically. "I say we attack now, before he has a chance to put his foul plans into action." His dark eyes flashed beneath bushy brows, challenging the others to defend their sloth and inaction.

Mistress Ibakha rescued her tea just before Usun's fist hit, and staring frostily, at the dark-haired man, over the rim of her bone-china cup: his unseemly displays of temper never failed to ire her. The moment his initial eruption subsided, she rounded on him, confronting his heated words with the cold calculation of a striking snake: "Speaking as one of the 'old harpies', I should like to point out to the Honourable Council Member that, if we attack the keep directly, the fortress' own defences will slaughter us without our dear colleague Khuyildar Sechen having to so much as lift a finger."

"Well, I didn't mean attack directly," Usun huffed indignantly, "I meant get through the defences and then attack."

"I see, so you do have some way through the defences worked out then?" Ibakha inquired dryly.

"Well no," he muttered petulantly into his thick beard, "not 'worked out' exactly."

"If I understand you correctly then," she continued, your great plan is that instead of 'wasting our time' discussing the matter, we attack at once via some hole in the defences that you have yet to discovered?"

Although somewhat deflated by her acerbic reply, Usun was by no means defeated. He quickly changed tactics: "We can attack him outside the keep." He blurted out. Then, warming to this new idea, he started to bluster again, gesticulating emphatically, "We'll surround the foul beast like hounds on a fox, cut him off from the force and . . ."

Ibakha did not even bother waiting for the large man to finish this time: "We don't even know if he leaves the keep, and even if he does, how do you propose we find him, send a polite note asking him to please let us know next time he steps out? Perhaps invite him around the Hall for tea? Or are you actually so foolish as to think any of us will be able to track a mage of his power?"

Seething, but unable to come up with a satisfactory rejoinder, Usun settled back into his chair and glowered balefully at the slim woman sitting across from him. At 114 years (though looking to be in her early thirties), Ibakha was more than 50 years his junior; yet the insufferable bitch persisted in speaking to him - her respected elder - as though he were nothing but a cranky child! And none of the others ever said a thing, always maintaining complete obliviousness to her insults; whereas Erdene and Sokhor fell on him like rapid dogs if he showed the slightest disrespect to that demented old fool, Khan. Usun clenched his teeth angrily as he contemplated the outrageous injustice of it all.

Al-Alta Erdene watched the altercation between the young mages with well-concealed amusement. The versatile, quick-witted Ibakha had only joined the Hall last year, but Erlik had immediately seen the 'little one's worth and insisted she be included in the council. Meetings since then, though increasingly productive, had simultaneously grown more volatile as 'little one' and 'bear' spent more and more time at each other's throats. Two months ago Al-Alta had finally confided in Erlik, her fears that she would have to transfer one of the two to a different Hall just to prevent bloodshed. He had laughed uproariously at her suggestion, and it had been several minutes before he'd regained sufficient composure to inform her, with affected sobriety, that she needn't worry as the two 'mortal enemies' would be lovers before the year was out. She'd been sceptical of course, and had retorted that if Ibakha and Usun ever did become lovers, it would doubtless end with Ibakha consuming him in the manner of mating praying mantises. However, watching the two since then, Al-Alta had to admit that there was a certain spark between them that she hadn't noticed before: it was something about the intensity with which they looked at each other.

Displaying his usual, unnerving ability to anticipate her thoughts, Erlik Khan abandoned his contemplation of the rose bushes for just long enough to convey to her, in an exaggerated whisper, "Look Ali, little one is practising her mantis impression again."

Ibakha frowned disapprovingly at Master Khan, who merely grinned at her in the gregariously innocent manner of a large, friendly dog, then returned to his surveillance of the vegetation. She shook her head in annoyance: at least the Usun disrupted council meetings by presenting actual opinions, the idiocy of which could be pointed out to him; Khan, on the other hand, seemed to take an infantile delight in spouting utter nonsense, against which logic was gallingly ineffectual. Then there was his disgraceful attire, a simple tunic and plain brown trousers: even when attending council the man dressed like a peasant! Not to mention his inappropriate insistence on calling people by pet names, she thought, adding this to her mental list of his shortcomings - 'little one' indeed, she grumbled to herself: it made her sound like an innocent little girl. She could see the temptation in the case of burly Usun, 'the bear', but still, it was most unbecoming for a mage of Master Khan's stature to show such utter contempt for social mores. Unfortunately, that same contempt rendered any attempt to chastize him an exercise in futility. With an exasperated sigh, she turned back to Usun.

"Well then, perhaps we need to discuss the situation a little more after all." Ibakha stated, correctly interpreting Usun's continued silence as being as near to an admission of defeat as she was going to get out of him. Entirely unmoved by his 'humph' of indignation, she gave the sulking Usun a flagrantly insincere smile before turning to Mistress Erdene, who appeared to have finally recovered from the sudden fit of coughing that had come upon her following Khan's comment. "Did the watcher have anything more to report, Mistress?"

Al-Alta composed herself as best she could. She could sympathize with Erlik's impatience with social niceties, but it still would not do for the head of council to burst into laughter at one of the council members, particularly not at the invariably proper Ibakha. She need not have worried though, for the moment she started speaking her own sombre news drove every trace of amusement from her. "He said that before it collapsed, the pattern had the same basic symmetry as the initial weavings of a transportation spell, but that there was an additional element that he did not recognize supporting the main pattern," she paused before adding the final, and most unsettling fact, "and the pattern was much too large, extending well into all four planes."

Up to that point Master Duua Sokhor had been sitting quietly, scowling morosely at the table while fiddling with the finery on his brocaded silk robes. At Mistress Erdene's words he looked up, startled: "All four?" he exclaimed incredulously, "Even a portal to the other side of the world would not require a foundation a fraction of that size! Obviously Sechen's finally gone quite mad."

Al-Alta Erdene pursed her lips in a frown. The thought of madness had crossed her mind as well: to weave a base that immense for a portal was overkill on the order of extinguishing a candle by dropping a lake on top of it. After all these years of isolation, had Khuyildar Sechen just gone mad? Could it really be that simple? However appealing the idea might be to her reason, her gut told her no.

"You know, I think the yellows are blooming much better this year, Duua. What do you think?" Erlik asked, nodding his head in the direction of the roses in question.

Master Sokhor took a fleeting glance at the blossoming shrubbery: "Yes, I suppose they are, what's your point, Khan?"

"I can remember when they were planted 40 years ago, do you remember Duua? Jebe spent hours preparing the beds for them: loosening the sod, digging in all those barrels of manure." Erlik smiled fondly as he recalled the old gardener. Jebe's son looked after things now, but Erlik felt that the boy didn't share his father's intimate understanding of the plants.

"Yes, I remember," Sokhor responded impatiently. He didn't actually: the damned things could have been dumped there last week for all he knew or cared.

"Those scraggly little seedlings looked ridiculous in those large beds. One might have thought him mad for planting them thus," Erlik chuckled, "but they look good now, don't they?" He indicated the lush bushes again, "It was not insanity that drove him at all, but rather his knowledge of what he was planting."

"This may come as a surprise to you, my dear Khan," Sokhor snapped, finally losing patience with the other's ramblings, "but we do have slightly weightier issues confronting us than rosebushes. Would you kindly get on with it?"

"I believe that what Master Khan is trying to say, Master Sokhor," Al-Alta interrupted good humouredly, "is that since Sechen possesses vast knowledge of magic, we should assume he is not preparing the foundation in order to plant a scraggly little portal." She turned inquiringly to Erlik, "The question is old man, what sort of rosebush is it?"

"He's trying to open a gate again, and one that reaches deeper this time from the sound of it." Erlik Khan commented, in the same matter-of-fact tone with which he had been discussing transplanting rosebushes.

Sokhor blanched and fell silent again, looking slightly ill.

Al-Alta looked at Erlik sharply, "That's what he did in Lion's Keep, isn't it?"

Erlik just nodded; his grey eyes wore a distant, haunted look, as they always did when the subject of the Fall of Lion's Keep came up.

He never spoke about the Fall, and before this moment it was not something Al-Alta had ever pressed him about. What little she knew about that night, some two hundred years ago, had been horrible enough: four hundred and seventy-six men and women had died that night at Khuyildar Sechen's hands. Sechen's timing had been perfect, by striking during the annual meeting of the High Council he guaranteed that most of the mages of the lands, including nearly all the high-ranking ones, would be in attendance at the keep. By the time morning dawned, nearly all that was left of the once glorious Guild of Power was a hundred or so novices and initiates. Erlik was one of the few senior mages to survive, and he was the only person to make it out of the fortress alive. All the other survivors, such as herself, had been elsewhere when the attack took place.

Usun looked around the table at the others, making sure that Ibakha looked as confused as he was before admitting he had no idea what the three older mages were saying. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, "Deeper into what?"

"Hell." Erlik said softly.

"Are you telling me he means to open a gate into hell?" Usun spluttered, "But that makes no sense! Why take the risk when he can conjure a demon anytime he wants?"

"Only one of the wee beasties," Erlik replied with a wry smile, "the real baddies don't come when called - you have to go to them."

There was absolute silence for several minutes following this piece of information. Then Sokhor demanded to know what Sechen would want with one of the greater demons; while Usun pounded the table and expounded vehemently on what needed to be done to someone of such vileness, and Ibakha pointed out to him the impracticality of doing any of it to Sechen.

"I need to think." Erlik announced abruptly, to no one in particular, then leaped from his chair and strode grimly from the room, his face expressionless.

Even for Erlik this was strange behaviour, and Al-Alta gazed worriedly after him as he walked out. She adjourned the meeting the moment she could get Usun and Ibakha to shut up long enough for to her to make the pronouncement, then hurried off in search of Erlik.

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Thanks to all those who have taken the time to vote, and most especially to those who have sent me comments about what they liked and/or disliked in my stories. Last but not least, thanks for reading.