It was dark. It had been dark for some time. Frostfire had carried Ellis off through damp corridors where the lights flickered like lightning, sputtered and sparked like feeble little volcanoes or no longer worked at all and so the only source of continuous illumination had come from the Spiketail’s icy pale eyes.
The quality of this part of the building seemed far worse than any of the others Ellis had seen. Water trickled in murky streams between the cobbles of the floor and seeped in between fungi-encrusted stones in the walls. The faint light from his captor’s eyes was just enough to witness brief flashes of colour. Indecent pinks, violent reds and lurid greens painted a strange, living collage. Sometimes he thought he saw them moving.
Now that he was no longer gagged Ellis was free to make as much noise as he liked, and yet he felt no desire to break the deep, melancholy silence which surrounded him. It was punctuated only by the sounds of water – dripping, sloshing, trickling quietly – and yet it seemed alive, to be breathing, slowly, stealthily. He feared that any sound he made would simply be swallowed up and that he would follow, so instead he remained silent, clutched tight to the stone bosom of Frostfire. He watched with restless, paranoid eyes, feeling like a child, trapped in the arms of a monster.
Eventually Frostfire came to a halt and lowered Ellis to the ground, although he still held a firm grip of his captive’s wrists and any attempt to squirm free was met with sudden, sharp pain.
They stood before a huge, rusty door, covered in fungi in more colours than Ellis would have believed existed, all moving and swaying as if in a deep water current. Tiny creatures of legs and feelers and claws and shell scuttled between patches of shelter beneath fruiting bodies and tangles of hyphae. Ellis watched them in horrified fascination, until a shadow loomed over them and they all scattered, hiding in cracks, crevices and claw-carved caves. Frostfire was reaching for a massive metal handle, strangely clear of infestation. It turned without difficulty, triggered a chain reaction of clicks and whirrs which unlocked the mechanism and then the door swung open and a miasma of decay drifted out.
“This isn’t right,” Frostfire said suddenly, to Ellis’ great surprise, “there should be others.”
The Spiketail was staring into the darkness beyond and shaking his head. Ellis tried to see what he was looking for, but the room beyond seemed dark and empty of all but more fungi. Then he realised, for the Lithoderms that was a problem, for, of course, this was a kind of dungeon and dungeons were supposed to hold prisoners.
Have they escaped, he wondered, are they okay? But before his thoughts could progress any further Frostfire was crushing his wrists in an enraged grip and, lifting his lizard-like head back, was calling out in a guttural growl that seemed to carry along the corridors far more easily than it ought.
Ellis fought against the pain in his wrist and, as he did so, he saw an opportunity. Tight as Frostfire’s grip was now, he was distracted and he was only holding on to one part of his captive. Bracing himself, Ellis kicked out with one leg so that it was planted firmly against the cliff-like body of the Spiketail, then he pushed hard. Ignoring the pain was not as easy as he had hoped, but he felt his wrist begin to loosen and slip free even as Frostfire’s gaze locked down on him and a wave of awareness rippled across those cold, burning eyes.
This was it, Ellis realised. He gave another hard push as the surprised creature tried to grab him once more and then he kicked off, causing Frostfire to lose his balance and stumble backwards into the waiting dungeon, even as Ellis landed perfectly a few feet away. There followed a tense moment as both man and monster understood what must happen next and each rushed to reach the door handle, but, open as it was, it lay closer to Ellis. He grabbed the handle and turned, throwing his weight against it as he did so. The door lurched forward, closing in on the suddenly startled face of Frostfire. Ellis felt a jolt run through him as the door hit against the Spiketail’s rocky body. There was a momentary battle as Ellis pushed one way and Frostfire pushed the other, but then the mechanism of the door clicked into place and as Ellis pulled the handle back up it began to do all the pushing for him. Frostfire was forced to withdraw into the dungeon, or face losing a limb. In the seconds before the door closed completely, Ellis saw his eyes lose their cool icy white and instead flicker a bright, angry red. Then the door sealed with a solid thunk and the fungal ecosystem which covered its surface resumed its vibrant, busy activity.
Without Frostfire’s eyes to light the way, Ellis could hardly see, and he knew there would be other Lithoderms along soon to answer his calls, so he picked a direction and began to follow the damp, sticky, undulating texture of the walls, in the hope that it would lead him to safety.
Siren screamed. Tarnished buttons on Franck’s jacket began to melt.
“You dare try to contain me, old man?” Her voice, modified horribly by the thing that possessed her, sounded slightly smug, but her hands were twisted into talons and her eyes had grown dark and angry, thus Franck was fairly confident that he had already contained the daemon, however he was less certain about how he was going to survive. He resorted to his classic tactics – bravado and rambling.
“Oh yes, I do dare indeed – or should that be that I do indeed dare – either way, daring has commenced, in fact I think we should be talking in the past tense here – the daring has been done, I dare say.”
Siren took a single step forwards, filling each muscle movement with menace. She tried on a manic grin for size, but it trembled at the edges.
“We’ll see,” she said, desperately trying to maintain the façade of serenity.
“Oh, but I already see,” continued Franck behind a façade of his own, “and better than that, I know. As long as those bars remain in place you aren’t going anywhere, and you can rage and curse and call me names, but you aren’t going to touch me.”
She took another step forwards and her body seemed to grow larger and more grotesque, with her black hair dripping down to the floor like foul, ancient water.
“And what gives you that idea?” she snarled.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he said calmly, “and only I know how to release the bars. If I remember my Daemonology correctly, and I invariably do, that puts us in the position of making a deal.”
Ellis stumbled. He had caught his foot on yet another stone of the buckled, uneven floor. He reached out, hoping to grab something before he fell, knowing full well that that was instinct, not common sense. He was expecting to hit the ground anyway, to feel the strain running up through his wrists, jolting his shoulders, perhaps to roll and bruise a rib, or hit his face and taste blood. Instead, he found himself suspended in mid fall, held on either side by something which felt a little like rope.
He pulled himself upright again and felt the rope begin to loosen. It seemed to slither around the muscle of his arm, then pull away into the darkness. It left a trail of sticky moisture on his shirt. He shuddered.
It was still too dark for him to see much of anything, but in spite of that he had encountered any number of strange lifeforms in these dungeon corridors. Some of them had glowed beautifully, flitting through the air between the clumps of almost coralline fungi on either wall. Some of those had danced ahead of him for a while, lighting his way and enabling him to see the strange diversity growing and moving and living all around him. He had felt things brush past his feet, some scuttling like large insects, others slithering and sliding, others still seemed to have methods of movement he had never seen or heard of before. He could hear things buzzing as they span around between patches of shelter like little spinning tops. Nothing seemed to want to harm him, but he was wary nonetheless - wary and lost, he knew that, with the increasing complexity of the ecosystem must only be travelling deeper into the dungeons of the Silverspire, which meant he was going the wrong way entirely.
Even so, he pressed on. There was, after all, one obvious benefit of going this way. So far he had neither seen, nor heard, any sign of the Stoneskins who ought to have been pursuing him. And the life all around him, disturbing thought it might be, seemed to want to help him. He wondered, briefly, if he was being led somewhere, and if so, why?
The darkness spread out before him and it writhed with intent.
“You want to make a deal?” The daemon cackled in disbelief. Franck couldn’t help but feel sorry for Siren. He knew that she would never behave that way.
“In a nutshell, yes, that’s what I said.”
“And you really think I will consent to this?” she laughed again.
“I really think you have absolutely no choice in the matter. Circumstances dictate your actions, as always. You are bound to a mortal, trapped within time and so, you have lost the fullness of your eternal free will.”
“Is that what all your books say?”
“That’s what all the books say. That’s what the Universe itself says.”
The daemon quivered, sending an unnatural shudder through Siren’s body. It was not happy, but, Franck could see, it would give in soon.
“So,” it said after a long, tense pause, “what kind of deal would you make? Immortality? Riches? Power? The usual?”
“There’s nothing usual about me, or the circumstances we find ourselves in and so I have a request that is a little more unusual.”
The daemon snarled, “Spit it out then!”
“I will bind you to this building, setting you free from the cage and from that body, on the condition that you get things under control. As I’m sure you’re aware, this place is infested with Lithoderms and currently under the control of one Doctor Barkham. I want her bound – alive I might add – and her army destroyed. There’s also another human up there somewhere, a young man named Ellis – I believe you’ve already become acquainted with him. He is to be left unharmed!”
“You’re asking for a lot, and in return I get bound? How does that help me? Why should I do any of this?”
“You’ve been as good as bound to this building for millennia, haven’t you? What I’m offering is only a little less than what you had before and, you must know, if you’re not bound to something I have no assurance that you’ll do any of this after I let you out of here.”
“You would have my word.”
“The word of a daemon is less than mud, not unless it’s a bound daemon. Trust me, this is your only way out.”
The daemon took a step back and Siren’s features twisted across her face as it seemed to ponder its options, then it let out a roar of rage and frustration, extending Siren’s mouth beyond anything possible, displaying bloody fangs and many twisting, dancing tongues. All at once it returned to normal, looking like little more than a dazed, confused Siren.
“Alright then,” it said at last, “we have a deal.”
The room seemed to hum for a moment with suppressed energy and then there was the sensation of something snapping and Siren seemed to slump with exhaustion.
“Good,” Franck said, looking satisfied, “it’s complete.”
“Yes,” the daemon hissed, “now let me out so I can vent my frustration on your enemies!”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY: The world of Shadow has a very mixed sort of cosmology. It's certainly not one I have fully planned out, because I like to be surprised by the world as much as, I hope, the readers are, but I've always intended it to draw on the kinds of supernatural fantasy and horror that I enjoy. Demons, in particular, interest me as villains because I am, believe it or not, a Christian and I occasionally like to explore the fear of that spiritual enemy in my writing. So far I have rarely tapped into it as a genuine spiritual excercise and I do try to steer clear of having an unhealthy interest in these things, but I think it helps the overall cosmology of Shadow to have demons included at this stage. It gives me plenty of room for other spiritual aspects to the story in future as and when I feel they are appropriate. Don't worry, though, I'm not here to preach (as I'm certainly not doing in this episode) just write and have fun, but it's natural for aspects of the writer to appear in his/her work, so don't be surprised when they do. :)
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