Thursday 22 September 2016

Guardian of the Realm

As the moon inched towards its apex in the sky, he watched in silence as the cool, white light cast an eerie glow across the land. People say that moonlight is beautiful, but he didn't think so. He thought it was rather harsh and clinical - stealing the colour from everything its greedy fingers touched, and leaving dark pools of shadows where it could not reach. The land looked very stark, very empty and very unforgiving.

His name was Giovanni and he was a strange figure to be roaming the desolate ruins at this bewitching hour. It was difficult to distinguish his features as he lay shrouded in shadow, but if one looked close enough, you could make out the heavy spill of his cloak and the wide brim of his hat (although the colour was quite indistinguishable). He looked up at the moon with displeasure; he disliked the light which both revealed and hid everything all at once. He was impatient and the person he was meeting was late.


As he waited, he cast a dispassionate eye over the surrounding area, scanning for danger. It was dangerous to be out this close to midnight but the impending threat did not bother him. He could handle himself. The ruins looked almost pure white in the moonlight - a mocking imitation of what the city once was before the demons came. Once this had been a thriving metropolis, but now very few even dared to set foot here, and even fewer at night. As it was, the city was deserted apart from Giovanni as far as he could tell. He was hiding in the shadow of what was once the central clock tower, now blasted in two with the delicate cogs spilling across the ground upon which he was standing. Across what remained of the square he could see where the bell lay broken on its side, tolling the hour no longer.

He checked his watch. His companion was almost an hour late and probably not coming. He sighed, partly with frustration and partly at the loss of the exchange that would no longer take place. He turned to leave, but as he did so he heard a soft rustling sound, followed by a loud snap.

He froze. His breathing was shallow now, waiting in anticipation of what was approaching. "Friend or foe?" He wondered, but he dare not speak aloud to ask. He dare not move for fear of giving away his position - he tried to think, but could not hear his own thoughts over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. He had almost decided to cut his losses and leave when a voice called out to him.

"Wait," The voice said. "I know that you are there, human. I can smell you on the wind."

There was no wind. Giovanni knew that whatever was out there was much more than human and a thousand times more dangerous. He began to quickly analyse his predicament.

"There is no use in hiding from me human, I know why you are here and I know what you seek, but I can tell you that you have had a rather wasted trip. Nobody is coming to meet you human, I found your companion hours ago and I can tell you he didn't last long. He was rather pitiful in the end, all that begging for his life; he just kept vomiting information in the hopes that I would spare him. He told me all about you and your foolish quest. I can tell you this, many have tried to find the door to our realm and seal it, but all have failed and you will be no different."

He felt a sense of despair flow over him before his magic chased it away.

"Ah, a fear demon then," Giovanni thought. "Tricky to deal with but not impossible".

With a whirl of cloth he spun into action. He hurled around the corner and blasted bright blue sparks in the direction the voice was coming from, followed by a barrage of the loose coils like deadly Frisbees that embedded themselves in the chunks of stonework left standing.

The voice laughed. He had missed by quite a large distance and the demon was looking at him with a twisted expression of what may have been amusement on its lopsided face.

It was an ugly thing. Skin as dark as pitch and oozing black slime from several large, angry-looking sores on its body. Its eyes were solid white and peered out from a face that was triangular in shape. It had a wide, gaping mouth to one side full of gnashing fangs and a forked purple tongue. Its nose was a razor sharp horn with wicked looking spikes on the underside of it, and there were four more large horns protruding from where its ears should have been.

"Is it my turn now?" The demon said in a mocking tone.

Giovanni drew his wand.

"Ooh, scary," It laughed. "Are you going to poke me with your little stick?"

Giovanni grimaced. It was bad enough that the damned thing was here but now it was making fun of him as well. This would not do. Quickly, he formulated a plan to dispatch the foul thing. Its arrogance would be its undoing.

Yelling a ferocious battle cry, he leaped into action hurling spell after spell at the demon and running towards it. The demon, perhaps stunned by his audacity, took a step backwards, followed by another. The spells did not appear to be having an effect on the demon, but that was not Giovanni's intention. He showered the demon in sparks of every colour under the sun (and a few colours that weren't) and made shrieking noises and bangs that caused a ringing in the ears. The demon continued to retreat and retreat, so overwhelmed by all the magic that it did not realise the folly of its actions until it was too late.

With a startled bellow, the demon tripped over a stray bit of masonry and tumbled down the rather large hole it had not seen behind it. There was a high pitched keening noise and then all was silent again. Giovanni inched closer to the top of the hole - cautiously, in case the demon was luring him in and preparing to leap back out. As he peered over the lip, all he could see was blackness.

He conjured an orb of light and sent it floating down into the hole, anxious to learn of the demon's fate. His plan had worked. As he had been conjuring flashy magic to distract the demon, he had also been working on the pit behind it, transforming it into something much more deadly. Spikes of black glass covered every facet of the hole below - wicked sharp and gleaming menacingly in the pale light. It was on these spikes that the demon lay impaled and motionless. No-one would fear it now.

Satisfied the demon was dead, he put his wand away, sat down and leaned against the corner of a building that was still standing and began to catch his breath.

"I must be more careful," He thought. "I'm not such a young wizard anymore and that took more out of me than it should have done."

He checked his watch again and scrambled to his feet. It was almost midnight and that was when the really nasty thing began to crawl out of the woodwork. Slowly, cautiously, he began to make his way to the edge of the city, wanting more than anything to be done with this cursed place. He picked his way through the chunks of stone more quickly, anxiously waiting for something worse to show up. He could see now why this place was all but deserted - it was too broken and too deadly for most people (even skilled sorcerers) to make the effort.

As he was leaving the ruins, he noticed a small duffel bag hanging from the lowest branch of a skeletal tree. Clearly the demon had thought it beneath his notice, but he knew better. Giovanni smiled as he retrieved the bag and checked the contents. It appeared that this had not been quite such a wasted trip after all...

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