Unbinding the Demon

Blades and Bones

Shallow crimson liquid gently trickled across the ground, forebodingly weaving it's way through the jagged dark stones and plethora of sullen bones from bizarre unfortunate critters. A thick black haze rested heavily in the air, making it impossible to see the creatures that screeched and hissed within the depths of it's unsettling darkness. Swirling misty tendrils yearnfully stretched their way up, bleeding into the blackened skies. Other than the perilous looking ground, it gave the illusion of being in a black void, surrounded by complete abyssal darkness. 

Sagacor's menacing looking saddle clanked beneath my butt, gently bouncing me up and down, as his slow steady steps softly splashed through the seemingly never ending sanguine stream.  Every so often bones and skulls would crush beneath his large black hooves, causing loud pops and crunches to resonate throughout the air.   

Even though Valarendrik was guiding Sagacor with the reins in front of us, I still felt like a total badass riding an awesome undead horse through such a macabre part of The Abyss. I held the abyssal book in one hand, and a veggie and cheese sandwich in the other, while diligently practicing the unbinding incantation.  

"...Duhmall.. temel.. demohl..?" I slowly said with squinted eyes and furrowed brows. The all consuming darkness was making it rather difficult to read. "Am I saying that right?" My gaze drifted away from the book and over to Azathoth, who was leisurely walking along beside me. 

"Yes, you said it perfectly, actually." He smiled at me, then began inconspicuously eyeballing my sandwich. "Also, it's good to remember that focus and intent are equally as important as pronouncing the words correctly. It's one of the basic fundamentals of magic that you should learn." His face leaned in towards my hand with a devilish gleam in his ambery golden eyes... "Oh wow! Look over there at that weird thing!" He suddenly pointed off into the distance with an overly exaggerated look of awe. 

"What? Where?" I quickly glanced over, and saw nothing but darkness. "I don't see anything?" 

My gaze snapped back over to him just in time to see his big fat fanged mouth chomping down on my sandwich. Stealing a huge bite right out of my goddamn hand! I glowered at the surreptitious sandwich bite thief, as he mischievously stared me dead in the eyes while chewing with a guilty smirk.

Ancient evil demon my ass! More like immature gourmandizing trickster!

"Well, it's not like I'll really need to know the fundamentals of magic once you're unbound." I bitterly stated, because I was miffed about his deceptive food thieving ways. Then I tried to shove an angry bite into my mouth right as Sagacor stepped over a large rock. My whole body bounced, causing me to miss and accidently smack the cold sandwich against my nose. "Oof!"

Azathoth chuckled and gently wiped the tomato goo off my crinkled nose. "No, but it would be a waste not to. Your soul is already so naturally bright that magic would be easy for you to master. You'd make a great sorceress, and trust me, there's no one better to learn magic from than a demon." He proudly used his thumb to point at himself. "Come to think of it, it would probably be best to teach you fire protection spells first..." He distantly mumbled to himself, while looking at the bone covered ground in thought.

I apathetically shrugged. The old yellowed pages created soft swishing noises as I nonchalantly flipped through them. "I don't know. Maybe I'll consider it... Maybe." 

It was hard not to feel nostalgic and miss my aunt while looking over the book. I had years of memories of her obsessing over the troublesome thing. She had even let me look at it with her from time to time. It was strange to think that, unbeknownst to me, it had been a gateway to another world the entire time, and that she had been secretly practicing sorcery. It was even stranger to imagine myself following in her footsteps.