The Assassin and the Knight

by Rick Bonogofsky

  “Ariel, dear,” Zhun said softly. “We need to go.”

  Ariel either ignored her or did not hear. She did not move from her place.

  Sympathizing with the angel, Zhun placed a comforting hand on the angel’s shoulder. “I know this is hard to come to terms with, sweetie. But we need to go. The vampires who caused this are out there, and they have your brother. We need to save him. Then we can come back and see to it that your people get a proper burial. I will personally see to it that your people get home, but only after the current situation is dealt with.”

  The soft and kind words seemed to pull Ariel out of her despair. Between her sobs, Ariel managed to choke out, “Those vampires are going to die for this.” A new fire burned in her eyes behind her tears, and Ariel rested Lailah’s head gently on the ground. She stood, clutching her spear, and walked out of the warehouse. Zhun and Vurga followed closely after her, resuming their invisibility. Along the way, Zhun contacted Kizrack again. The other end of the line was a mixture of sounds, ranging from gunshots to screams to general mayhem. It took a moment for Kizrack to answer, but his voice finally came through.

  “Kizrack,” Zhun said, “we’ve found out what happened to the angels. They were attacked by an unknown force and were completely wiped out.”

  “Motherfu- Fine,” came Kizrack’s response. “And Berron?”

  “He was killed as well,” Zhun reported. Though her voice was calm and level, there was the unmistakable undertone of intense pain and grief.

  “Shit…” Kizrack said after several moments had passed. “Come to me. The king started the charge and things are getting ugly really fast. We needed those angels!”

  “Keep an eye out for a new contender,” Zhun said. “Whatever killed them all has to be powerful, and I don’t think it is entirely vampiric. It left an odd scent.”

  “Good to know,” Kizrack muttered. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

  Adrian awoke the next morning to the smell of warm food on the bedside table. He rolled over and looked at the bowl of steaming porridge. It smelled bland and vaguely of oats. He pushed himself upright and picked up the bowl. He instinctively reached for the spoon with his right hand, but soon remembered it was still in his satchel at the foot of his cot. Sighing, he gingerly placed the bowl in his lap and balanced it there while he ate with his left hand. After he had eaten, Adrian dressed himself with some difficulty and left his room to roam about the place. He made it to the common room, where some of the residents sat, either reading books, conversing among themselves, or simply enjoying the warm fire in the hearth. They all paused to look at the demon as he walked into the room. He waved awkwardly at them before sitting in an open seat by the fire. Most of the people in the room went back to their respective activities, but a few kept watching the demon. One approached him and sat in the chair next to him.

  “Can I help you?” Adrian asked.

  The young man, maybe in his early twenties as far as Adrian could tell, took several moments to answer. “So, you’re a demon, right?” he asked.

  Adrian gave him a blank stare. “Um… yes. Yes I am.” He had tried to come up with something more interesting and clever to say, but the simple truth came out before he could. The effects of the truth spell were apparently still in place, much to Adrian’s annoyance.

  The young man smiled despite himself. “What is it like?”

  Adrian shrugged. As much as he wanted to say something sarcastic, he was forced to give a simple, truthful answer. “I’m… me. It isn’t something I can just describe.”

  “Do you eat babies?”

  “I haven’t, no. It’s not really a habit for me.”

  “Do you possess people?”

  “No, I’m not a spirit.”

  “How do your kind procreate?”

  “That’s a little personal. Like humans do… I guess...”

  “Why don’t you have any horns or a tail?”

  “Genetic lottery?”

  “How long after a summoning are you allowed to wait before you have to show up?”

  “We can’t be summoned like that. At least, not demons. Devils, on the other hand, can be summoned. But I don’t know the answer to that question. Summon a devil and ask it all the questions you want. Look, I really don’t have the time or the energy to answer all of your questions. Can I just relax by the fire? I’ve been on the road for days without much real rest, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I only have one arm and traveling like this gets pretty tiring, so if you would just go sit somewhere else, or stay there quietly, I would much appreciate it.”

  The young man’s face fell and he looked as if he had been kicked. “One more question, and I promise to leave you alone, okay?”

  “I’m getting really tempted to kill you,” Adrian warned.

  “Oh… okay, then… Um… Oh, I have it. If you were to kill me now, would I go to Heaven or Hell? I mean, I feel like I’ve been decent enough to go to Heaven, but as per the Christian faith, I feel that might damn me to Hell…”

  “Now, there’s an interesting philosophical question,” Adrian said, leaning forward in his chair. “That, I might actually be able to answer. Half of it, anyway. See, souls are indeed judged when the body dies. According to the Christian faith, if you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. However, your Christian God is not exactly who, or what, you think He is. Things are much more complicated than what your Bible tells you. If you do gain favor with whichever being is doing the judging, you don’t go to Hell. You don’t go to Heaven either, at least not for very long. You would enjoy a brief stint in a type of personal paradise, then your soul is sent back to Earth to be reincarnated.”

  “What about those who don’t get that?” the young man asked.

  “Well, there is a place in Hell for those who deserve to be punished for eternity. It’s called the Pits, and it was discovered by a human wandering into Hell. All he saw of Hell were the Pits, so all he was able to report on was what he saw. The Pits are a terrifying place, even for demon-kind. There are many levels in the Pits and each soul is judged by the king of Hell and sent to the appropriate level. So be good. I don’t want to have to deal with you again.”

  Having much more to ponder than he thought he would get, the young man moved to another chair across the room. Adrian watched him go and shook his head. As he moved his gaze back toward the fire, he noticed the old man from the night before standing in the doorway. Adrian stood up and walked over to him.

  “What’s the word?” he asked.

  The old man gave him a withering stare. “You told him more than he needed to know. You have taken away the chance for him to have any kind of faith.”

  Adrian shrugged. “Is that really so bad? I mean, sure, faith is a great thing to have, but is it really so bad that he knows the truth? It’s better than him going to some church and getting his head filled with lies or accidental falsifications. Besides, there are very few people who actually go to the Pits. The vast majority of people get reincarnated.”

  The old man shook his head, waving the discussion away. “Follow me. I assume you’ve brought your arm with you?”

  Adrian patted his satchel. “This arm here is my right hand man,” he chuckled, earning him an unamused glare from the old man. “Screw you, I’m hilarious,” Adrian muttered indignantly. He followed the old man through the main level of the building and down several flights of stairs.

  The architecture looked more and more medieval the farther they went, until they reached what Adrian could only have described as an ancient dungeon that had been converted into a room specially designed for experimental spellcasting. Scorch marks and deep gouges marred the stone walls, and some small craters had been filled in with cement in the floor. As he looked around the room, Adrian noticed the faint outli
ne of a summoning circle had been burned into the floor. The soot was still fresh, telling him someone had attempted to summon something recently. Seeing the demon looking over the circle, the old man spoke up.

  “We tried summoning another devil to help you last night, but we were unsuccessful,” he said.

  Adrian offered him a cautionary glance. “Good thing, too. Devils really don’t like being summoned. Plus, I would have had to either kill it or swear it to secrecy anyway. I can’t have the fact that I’m alive get out to the public.”

  The old man nodded, but his face clearly stated that he did not understand.

  “You know, I’m really hating this truth field you have here,” Adrian muttered.

  “It is necessary when dealing with anyone who comes here seeking power,” the old man explained. “Far too often I have had to expel a student for disobeying the rules. I find it is simply easier to force everyone to tell the truth at all times and weed out the undesirables.”

  “Fair enough,” Adrian shrugged. “I do have some questions about this place, though.”

  “Don’t you want your arm back?” the old man interrupted.

  Adrian was taken aback by the man’s impatience. “Well, yes, obviously. Aren’t old wizards supposed to be the very picture of patience and deliberation?”

  “I don’t like you, and I want you gone from my home. Demons do not belong here.”

  “Fine,” Adrian sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The old man chanted a spell and waved his hands over a portion of the stone floor, causing the stone to turn to soft mud. He willed it upward and formed a long slab. When the stone had resolidified, the old man stopped his chanting and motioned for Adrian to lie down on the creation. The demon did as he was bid, slipping the strap of his satchel over his head and handing the bag to the old man. Pulling the charred appendage out of the satchel, the old man placed it on the table next to the Adrian. He ran his gnarled fingers over the limb and inspected it.

  “This was done by demon fire,” he surmised.

  “That is true,” Adrian nodded. “In fact, it was my own magic that did it.”

  The old man shot him a confused look. “How is that? Demons are immune to the harmful effects of their own magic.”

  “I’m apparently not completely demon anymore,” Adrian replied flippantly. “Therefore, my magic turned against me. I still have access to the power within me, but I can’t use it without it trying to consume me.”

  “Hmm… That’s rather interesting.”

  “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me the whole time I’ve been here,” Adrian quipped.

  The old man continued inspecting the arm. “I’m not doing this for charity,” he admonished. “I’m doing this because the others here see the value of having a demon in our pocket.” He kneaded the burned flesh and prodded with his withered fingers. “The flesh is beyond my aid. I have not the magic at my command to fix it, nor, I dare say, does anyone else in this place. It would take the power of a deity or a dragon to undo this damage.”

  “Not hopeful, then,” Adrian sighed. “Wait… Dragon?”

  “Not for the flesh, anyway,” the old man replied, ignoring Adrian’s question about dragons. “The bones, however, are still quite strong. In all honesty, I’ve never seen a specimen with such strong bones.”

  “I take back what I said earlier. That is the nicest thing you’ve said to me this whole time.”

  The old man ignored the demon’s quips and pulled out a knife from his belt. He sawed through the charred skin and removed it piece by piece, exposing the pale ivory beneath. Adrian had to agree, his bones certainly looked stronger than he had thought they would. After several minutes, the old man finally removed the last of the large pieces of flesh. All that was left were small bits of ruined muscle tissue, cartilage, and leftover sinew. He held it aloft with one hand and passed his other hand over the bones, calling forth a hot flame to burn away the excess. Within moments, all that remained was bone. The old man gingerly set the arm down on the table and looked pointedly at Adrian’s stump.

  “What?” the demon asked nervously.

  “Well,” the old man began. “I am going to have to cut you open and reattach this end back to the piece of bone that is still in you.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad. Do you have any magic that will dull the pain?”

  “Not really. The way I see it, you can either be awake for the procedure, or not. If you would rather be asleep, I can arrange that. However, I will say that it would be much easier for me to gauge the success of my work if you remain awake and aware.”

  “Which means I get to feel you cutting into my skin,” Adrian stated.

  The old man nodded.

  “Fuck it,” Adrian sighed, waving his left hand for the old man to get to work.

  The old wizard casually wiped his knife blade on Adrian’s cloak and positioned it above the exposed stump. “I don’t have a clever euphemism for this,” he admitted. “You’re going to feel this blade slide into your skin, and it is going to cut you open.”

  “I really hate your bedside manner,” Adrian muttered. “I almost miss Ariel.”

  The old man began cutting into the flesh on Adrian’s stump. The assassin grunted in pain and kept himself from crying out. He quickly realized that the old man’s knife was not as sharp as it could be, but he kept it to himself. After a few agonizing minutes, the old man peeled back the flaps of skin and pinned them in place higher up on Adrian’s shoulder. The remainder of his humerus stuck out from the bleeding flesh and the assassin had to stifle a joke about funny bones despite the pain. The old man lined the bones of the severed limb to the exposed bone and weaved some magic to fuse them together.

  “I’m going to need you to hold completely still,” the old man said. Adrian nodded his compliance and got comfortable. The old man looked at the bones with trepidation in his eyes and rubbed his gnarled hands together. He began chanting again and held his hands outstretched over the bones. Dark green tendrils of necromantic energy flowed from his fingertips and poured into the bones. The darkness swam through the bones, spreading like oil on water. The bones themselves began to twitch and come to life, turning a sickly green, then slowly darkening to black. As they twitched, Adrian felt the necromantic magic spread out from his arm, across his shoulder and up his neck. The energy finally wound its way into his brain and he felt a surge of new feeling entering his mind. Suddenly, he could feel his arm again, and not simply as a ghost of itself. The realization that he finally had control of his arm again nearly made him flex the bony fingers, but he kept his promise to the old man, who was still busy pouring his magic into the renewed appendage. As more necromantic energy was fused into the bones, the stronger Adrian’s connection to his arm became. He could feel new strength in his arm, and he could feel the pure magical energy seeping into the rest of his body. It soon became clear to him that the old man was adding more than just control of the arm, but a renewed connection to the magical forces of the world itself. As the new feeling grew, Adrian felt his old, demonic magic fade away, pulling away that which threatened to consume him at all times. He felt stronger with the new connection, having never realized that the demonic energy he held within himself was slowly draining away at his life force ever since his first death.

  After finishing his magical work, the old man unpinned the flaps of flesh that once covered the stump, and laid them over the bone. The skin shrank away from the necrotic bone, and knitted back together around it within seconds. As it closed and curled around Adrian’s shoulder, the old man stepped back and wiped the sweat from his brow. “All done,” he said. “Get up and give it a try.”

  Adrian swung his legs over the edge of the makeshift table and sat up, pushing himself off with both arms. The addition of the new weight threw him off balance at first, but he quickly corrected. Having his weight more evenly distributed again was an immense relief to the assassin. He brought his hand forward and flexed hi
s fingers, curling them into a fist, then stretching them out again. Adrian could not suppress a grin as he tested the full range of motion. To his amazement, he found he actually had greater freedom of movement with his new arm than he ever had before. He leaned against the stone table and did a few short pushups, putting all of his weight on the arm, with no troubles. Curious, he unbelted his sword and removed the sheath, grasping the hilt in his skeletal hand. The connection he had thought was lost after his first death was now back, and having the familiar feeling once more was even more profound to him than having his arm reattached. He gave the sword a few test swings, stepping into a routine of rhythmic motions and swirling arcs. He nearly fumbled the sword twice due to the lack of flesh to grip the hilt, but his added dexterity helped him keep a hold of it. His magical connection to the limb let him feel the leather wrapped handle under his fingers, and he was able to adjust the pressure of his grip with ease. He twirled the sword around his new hand and concentrated on it as it sliced through the air. The blade glowed red for a brief moment, then slipped between dimensions, cutting a rift in the air and disappearing into the pocket realm that acted as its sheath. Adrian held out his hand and mentally called for the sword to return, and he was not disappointed. The weapon materialized instantly in his outstretched hand. He smiled with unabashed happiness to see the renewed connection with the weapon that had been forged with his own blood. He flipped it around and sent it back to its pocket realm, secure in the knowledge that he could summon it again as he had countless times in the past.