We had learned about demons in the Academy, as they were one of the most dangerous threats against the safety and sanctity of all life on the continent, although that threat had vanished thousands of years ago.
It was a good thing that demons were impossible to find; one would have to go deep into the earth or other dangerous and forbidden places around the continents for a chance to see them.
A small demon Imp had been brought to the class one time to describe the appearances of demons, and something peculiar had happened to everyone when the Imp was brought into the class; goosebumps had broken across everyone’s skin even before we knew what was causing it.
Later, we learned that the demon was not even real, but a projection conjured by one of the mages to teach us.
The same thing happened here, but it was ten times, no, a hundred times worse.
And even as a part of me fought against the knowledge that perhaps I was wrong, reality slapped me in the face as the first demon cleared the lip of the crack as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
It emerged and simply began moving, low and fast, without any hesitation, as if the concept of the surface world was something it had been waiting ten thousand years to reach, and now that the waiting was over, there was no reason to be cautious about it.
I had no framework for what I was seeing. The Academy’s demonology curriculum was three lectures and a pamphlet, because demons were theoretical historical accounts, traveler’s tales, the kind of thing serious scholars footnoted and moved on from.
Nothing in three lectures and a pamphlet prepared you for the reality of one, not even the projection of that Imp.
It was low to the ground, perhaps a meter at the shoulder, and it moved on six limbs, the front four functioning as both arms and legs depending on what the moment required. Its hide was the color of old iron.
Its head was narrow and long, set close to the body, and it had no eyes that I could identify. What it had instead were structures along its jaw and the sides of its skull that looked like they might be sensory organs, pale and slightly wet, moving with the small, constant adjustments of something that was always listening.
It was as if a spider, a centipede, and, weirdly, a human had been joined together to create this demon.
It covered forty meters in the time it took me to register that I should move.
Pell did not move either; he was standing three meters from the crack with an empty supply crate in both hands, frozen in the posture of someone whose body had received the threat signal and was waiting for the mind to catch up and issue orders, and the mind was taking too long.
The demon went through him like he was not there.
I will not describe what happened to Pell in detail. I will say that it was fast, and that the sound it made was not the sound I would have expected, and that I looked away before it was finished, and when I looked back, the demon was already moving again, already past him, already angling toward the next nearest body, which was Bari.
"Bari, move—"
He moved. He had his Staff out; I had not even seen him draw it, and he flung himself sideways, and the demon’s leading limb caught only the edge of his field coat and tore it clean from his shoulder.
Bari hit the ground rolling and came up already casting a Surge discharge that cracked against the demon’s flank and made it check its stride for half a second.
Half a second was enough for me to get my own staff up.
I cast Spark.
It was the wrong spell. I knew it was the wrong spell as I cast it.
Spark 9, was a candle-flicker, it was the first-week exercise that serious Acolytes filed away and forgot. I cast it because it was the only Surge cast I could produce quickly enough to matter, and because doing something felt better than doing nothing, and because the alternative was standing still while the demon turned from Bari to me.
The Spark hit it on the side of the jaw where one of the pale sensory structures was, and I saw several of those white tendrils wiggle like worms.
The demon halted,
It was a complete stoppage of movement that was extremely unnatural, lasting perhaps a full second, as though the signal between its intent and its body had been briefly interrupted.
Then it turned toward me, and even with no eyes, I knew it was looking at me.
"That’s right," I heard myself say, which was possibly the most foolish thing I had ever done in my life.
"Here."
It came.
I will tell you what fighting a demon felt like in the plainest terms I can manage, because the honest account is more useful than a dramatic one.
This was a lesson taught to me in the Academy, and in this moment of crisis, my mind fell back to my teachings, as they were the only thing I had to hold on to.
My Auxillary Skills, Concentration and Observation helped here, I believe, making it so that I could record the most horrific moment in my life in such a dispassionate manner.
It felt like being hit by something that did not have a concept of restraint.
I did not sense cruelty as the demon came for me. Cruelty implies awareness of the other person’s experience.
This was simpler and worse than cruelty... It was efficiency.
It was as if the demon did not see me as a person, just a roadblock.
’Like ants,’ my mind echoed, and indeed, up close, this creature looked a bit like a mutated ant.
The demon hit me with one of its leading limbs. The force of it lifted me off the ground and deposited me four meters away against a supply crate that collapsed under the impact. The pain was the bright, total kind that temporarily removes your ability to think about anything else.
’I am going to die.’ A calm thought rippled through my mind, and I was surprised at that moment that there was no panic inside me, just the acceptance of the truth.