The Demons of Rome

XIV - Imps a Plenty

Iatus and Amber stood facing a small circle each. The rest of the class was being supervised by Claudius at the other end of the long hall that was the classroom. They each had a list of demons, Iatus had 61, but he couldn't tell about Amber as her list was rolled up in a scroll. They began their summons simultaneously, chanting the verses in almost perfect time and imps appeared in the circles together. They summoned another, then another, then another.

After about the twentieth, Iatus began to feel the strain of summoning so many demons at once. Amber looked across at him and smiled harshly at his discomfort. When they hit thirty however, it was Amber that collapsed into a kneeling position, breathing heavily, strain showing on her face. Iatus felt tired but not overly so, like he was carrying something heavy on his back.

Amber looked up at him in disbelief, gritted her teeth, stood up and continued summoning. The Pentacles were looking pretty full as the demons swirled about, trapped in a cylinder that rose, invisibly, from the circle. It was amazing the variety of imps there were; little balls of fire, living rocks, birds without feathers, bats with large eyes and small ears, lizard things he couldn't place and many more weird and wonderful things. Iatus summoned his 30th imp then he heard a thud to his left and looked around. Amber had sat down heavily on the floor, she lay spread eagled and breathing raggedly. He went over to her with a concerned look.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," she spat.

"You don't look fine."

"Well, I am. Go back to your circle."

Iatus picked up the list of demons she had been trying to summon. There were easily 100 names on there.

"Amber, how many were you trying to summon?" he asked, slightly shocked at the girl's ambition.

"251. That would give me a mana level of 260. One more than the current record," she gasped between breaths.

"How do work that out?" Iatus asked.

"1 level for each lesser imp, 2 for every greater imp, 8 for a lesser jinni, 10 for a greater, 40 for a lesser shedu, 50 for a greater, 120 for a lesser mara and 150 for a greater... roughly."

"Oh." Iatus said and looked up from the list.

Claudius called a stop to the summons and went over to see what had happened to Amber.

"Are you okay there Amber?" he said in a kindly voice.

"Yes, sir, just tired."

"Don't worry Amber, you will get used to the strain as you grow with it, when I started I could only just keep a jinni, but now I can hold a lesser shedu.

"So you're a level 50?" Iatus enquired.

"46, actually, where did you get 50 from?" Claudius said, surprised.

"Well, you said you can summon a shedu, and you keep Niana, so I presumed you must be able to hold both."

Claudius smiled, "Rank isn't everything Iatus, I wouldn't trade in Niana for a mara."

Iatus frowned, "Why not?"

"Demons aren't just about power, they are individuals just like us, with their strengths and weaknesses, Niana is exceptionally smart and brilliant in her own way. Nothing could replace her in my mind. The dark element is a strange thing anyway, its focus is based on stealth and deception, so pure magical power isn't as important. The most powerful dark mage ever could only hold one mara. Now, let me take care of Amber and you get back to your summons, what are you on?"