Death After Death

Despite the fact that there were hours of daylight left, they searched the city no further that day. Instead, every effort went into finding the young man, but there was no luck there. There were moments when Simon smelled a whiff of sulfur in places besides that living room that made him think that there was more going on than met the eye, but he never saw enough to support his suspicions.

The young man had simply vanished into thin air. Everyone was sure he hadn’t left the small three-room home, but he wasn’t there. It was like he’d gone into the pantry in search of the grimoire, and he hadn’t come back out again.

Eventually, they searched the surrounding houses and buildings without result. Sir Rozman stayed terse and disciplined despite how upset he obviously was. Still, when that was done, and the horizon was growing red, he ordered the house put to the torch, and they returned to the campsite.

The man was obviously mourning his charge, but he’d done the right thing. There was something hidden in that house, and only its complete and fiery destruction had any chance of striking it down. Still, even that victory cast a pall over the camp that night, and though there was discussion of what else they could do on the following day while they ate, it was half-hearted, but Simon couldn’t blame anyone for that.

“What could have happened to him?” was the most common question that anyone asked, but he didn’t have an answer for them.

What could have happened to him? That question nipped at his heels long after dinner wound down, and he took the first watch. Eventually, it transformed into a slightly different form, though, which was, “What did his disappearance have in common with everyone else's?"

That was harder to answer. It was difficult for him to believe that everyone else in all of Daramoore strolled into the dark pantry one after another. Still, it wasn’t until he caught the scent of sulfur that he put the pieces together.

Someone or something was prowling the darkness nearby him. He couldn’t see it, not really. Simon saw only the occasional glimpse of movement rippling out from trees and other living things.

Can demons be invisible? He wondered. Simone had considered how an invisibility spell might work, but it was too complicated to cast and would have to be drawn on an amulet or breastplate. He didn’t really know what demons were capable of, but he was about to find out.

Simon moved toward it, getting further and further from the campfire with the torch in hand. It took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out that it was the light of that torch that kept whatever it was he faced at bay.

The shadows! He realized. That was why the squire had disappeared in the pantry, but no one else had been affected. Everyone else had a light.

It was ironic that the same thing that protected him kept him from solving the mystery, but he didn’t hesitate to drop the brand and snub it out under his boot. He’d take this thing out regardless.

As soon as the light vanished, the shape of the thing clarified. It was like a worm or a snake that wove between the trees like a Chinese dragon, though making out the details was impossible.

The world around him had been dark up until now, but when he extinguished his torch, it became pitch black. That didn’t blind him. He’d been using his sight to see the outlines of the trees around him as he searched for the disturbance. All of that was gone, though, as the ugly maw swallowed him whole. It didn’t look quite solid. It was more like the shimmer of a portal to another level.

Simon didn’t run. Instead, he drew his sword and met it head-on. He was prepared to strike it, but that blow did little; he might as well have been trying to slice smoke in two. After that, he was in the belly of the whale, so to speak.

In this case, it was more of an eel, though, or a worm. His rising anxiety was enough to blur his vision, but the darkness did nothing to hide the smell of sulfur, moist garbage, and rotting flesh. It didn’t hide the feeling of the ground slowly sliding beneath his boots, either. No, not sliding, undulating. He’d been swallowed, and now he was being digested.

Ignoring the stink, Simon took several deep breaths and refocused. That was when he saw he wasn’t alone. There were corpses here, too, or at least pieces of corpses, but there was a survivor, too, moving weakly in the dark. While using his sight as blindsight didn’t give him enough details to see who it was, he doubted it could be anyone but their missing squire with an aura that bright.

Simon tried to attack the walls of the beast that had consumed them with his sword first, but that worked no better than slicing at its maw had. It barely seemed to notice. After that, it moved to the boy and checked his neck for a pulse.

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The squire squirmed to escape his touch, but when Simon said, “Peace, I’ve come to save you,” he calmed somewhat.

“I… you can’t,” he gasped, sounding barely coherent. “The darkness feasts. It feasts on us and we are damned!”

He ignored that and tried to decide what the best move was here. He’d just been devoured by a demon that was made of pure shadows. It didn’t seem to be intelligent like the devils he’d mostly dealt with in the past. It was more like an earthworm the size of a street. If I die here, does my soul end up in hell? He wondered.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He was going to get out of here. He just needed light, and fortunately, he had a quick way to generate that.

He cast around for something to write on, and then, when he found it, he used his sword to slice open his left forearm. He started to bleed on the ground immediately, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the discarded shield. He was pretty sure it was the way out of here. Simon cast down his sword, then, using his right hand as a pen and his left as an inkwell, he began to draw the symbol for light. He considered greater light, but he doubted his blood would activate it.

Strictly speaking, it shouldn’t be necessary, either, he told himself. If a torch can hold it at bay, a word of minor light is probably enough.

Almost as soon as the light blossomed from his bloody mark, the hellish world around them began to dissolve as a keening scream erupted from the throat of the monster that sought to consume them. One moment, he’d been devoured by a worm that was dragging him deeper into the darkness along with all of his other victims, and the next, that ugly mucus-covered flesh was dissolving to reveal the world beyond. They’d barely traveled through the woods, and though Simon couldn’t see the distant bonfire, he could see the threads that connected Sir Rozman with his squire.

More than the young man and Simon had been spat out by the hellspawn. There were partially dismembered bodies, along with weapons and armor that were more or less corroded. Simon didn’t worry about any of that, though. Instead, innervated and still bleeding, he stumbled back to camp carrying the boy.

The squire tried to talk to Simon about what they’d seen several times, but he was largely unintelligible. He could make out a few words like angel and light, but beyond that, there were only random sounds strung together. I hope he didn’t suffer some kind of brain damage, Simon thought, worried for him. He’d only been inside the demon for a short time, but the squire had been in there for half a day, and it showed in his sunken cheeks and feverish brow.

They stumbled across a patrol before they got back to camp, and while Sir Harvin looked at Simon’s appearance with alarm and raised his sword like he was about to attack, that calmed as soon as he saw who it was Simon was carrying.

“Gods, man, where did you go, how did you find the lad?” the knight asked, lowering his sword and escorting him back to camp.

“I… he was swallowed up by the darkness,” Simon answered. “The pantry… that’s where it was hiding earlier. No one else saw it because they came in with torches, but when this young man went in alone, it swallowed him in a single bite.”

Sir Harvin was incredulous at that answer, but Simon was more concerned about returning his charge and getting clean than being believed. Fortunately, when they reached the camp and Sir Rozman saw them, his reaction was much more gracious.

That night, they quizzed him intensely on how he’d been snatched up by the demon and where it had taken him. He explained to them that it seemed to be a creature of pure darkness, and that he’d glimpsed it with his sight. “It was my own fault,” he admitted. “I wanted it to come closer so I could slay it, so I extinguished my torch, and then, when the clouds were thickest, it swallowed me completely.”

He and the squire were allowed to rest after that, though most everyone else was up for the rest of the night investigating the clearing that they’d been deposited in. In the morning, though, Sir Rozman approached Simon almost as soon as he was awake and dressed.

“My squire said some… interesting things about where the two of you were. He claims that you summoned an angel with a word and that you were freed by a blow from their radiant sword.” Sir Rozman said finally, after the uncomfortable silence. “I see no taint on you, but…”

“I’m not sure what to say to any of that. He wasn’t in good shape when I found him.” Simon asked, pretending he had nothing to hide.

“You could tell me that it wasn’t true,” the knight answered. He was trying not to let it show, but his aura rippled with suspicion. “He said it carved into the body of the beast itself with a blade of light. What do you say.”

Simon swallowed. That was certainly close enough to the truth, though he’d hoped the sunken-cheeked youth would have been too far gone to notice. In this moment, he was sure that if he lied, the other knight would see it, so he looked for ways he might bend the truth instead.

Eventually, he settled for the easiest out. “I didn’t summon or carve anything,” he said, which was arguably true. He’d cut himself open for blood, but that was just a shallow wound to give him the blood he needed to trace the mark that had set them free. “As to the light, all I can say is that my prayers were answered.”

Sir Rozman studied him skeptically for a moment before finally answering. “I’m glad you're both safe. My report will reflect prayer as the weapon that banished the demon, but don’t be surprised if the powers that be have more questions for you once we return to the Broken Tower.”

Simon nodded. He knew that magic was a risk, but in that moment, he didn’t really have another choice. He’d been swallowed by a demon, and light had been the only weapon likely to set any of them free. Better to be burned at the stake upon my return than roasting in hell forevermore, he reminded himself as they prepared to depart.