Chapter 16: Asmodeus and the Flying Monkeys

Nevianne

“Please don’t kill me!” Sabina begged, an expression of horror on her face. There were tears dripping off her chin as I got myself back erect, pulling my dress back into place.

The poor thing was terrified, and with good reason. Nannakussi was furious. He already had his knife out. Sabina’s eyes were fixed on it, seeing death glinting in the sun. Mother was furious. Blæda was furious. Even sweet, imperturbable Winky was furious. Chulëntët was beyond furious; she resembled a little green walrus with her too-long fangs, and she had puffed up to twice her normal girth.

“We’re not going to kill you,” I told Sabina, as comfortingly as I could. I was furious too, so it was hard to be comforting. I probably sounded more chilly. I was thinking of my lord taking that whack on the back of his head. She could have killed him!

“Why shouldn’t we kill her?” demanded my mother. Nannakussi echoed her in his own language, then echoed himself in English. “Cut the bitch’s throat and be done with her! She’s nothing but trouble,” he added helpfully.

“It wasn’t her that did it,” I snapped. “It was that damned wizard again. He’s been watching us remotely. One of us must have called our lord by name. Asmodeus ... Jack wouldn’t kill her for something she had no control over. You know that!” I had decided on the spot not to use my lord’s demon name again.

“I would put her down like a dog,” said Mother contemptuously. Both she and Nannakussi were more old-fashioned than I or my lord were.

“You’re sure it was Palégos and not her?” Nannakussi snorted. “You’re sure she’s not his creature?” He didn’t trust Sabina, probably as much because of her past as the way she swung a chunk of wood. To me, it was hard to imagine that she was a plant of the wizard’s. Adding her to our family had been too random, unlooked-for by all parties.

“Tell us, Sabina,” I demanded. “Tell us what happened. You said it wasn’t you who did it?”

“No, domina! No! My will was seized from afar! I was myself, but yet not myself. I was another and the other was in control. All I could do was watch, try though I might!”

“You see?” I demanded.

Nannakussi looked doubtful, but Chulëntët said: “That’s what happened to me, nuxa! It was the wizard who hit dominus Asmogee!” The fangs – more like tusks, actually, were gone and she looked liked herself again.

“So leave her alone,” I told Nannakussi, more crossly than I intended. “What about the creature you shot?”

The creature had tried to crawl away, but Nannakussi had caught it by the neck. Winky found a length of leather strap in their travel bag and he used it to tie the thing’s neck to the wheel of our cart. He gave the monkey thing a good slap across the face when it tried to bite him. “Try that again and I’ll cut your throat,” he told it. He wanted to see someone’s blood!

It started to cry, sounding very human, but then it imposed control on itself, trying to look defiantly impassive. It succeeded in looking impassively frightened, assuming there is such a thing.

“Come and help me, Sabina,” I ordered our slave. “Nannakussi, give me your sharp knife.”

He turned it over without argument and Winky gave me their water bag. Sabina held the creature still while I cut into the flesh around the arrows. It took me a bit, but I pulled them out of the creature’s wing and leg. Neither had hit bone, but both had ripped up muscle. They were steel broadhead hunting arrows. Luckily, both arrowheads were still attached to the shafts, so they came out, rather than remaining inside or having to be pushed all the way through. We had to wiggle them to get the barbs to release. That caused the creature to faint. The thing’s flesh looked human, and its blood was as red as ours. When it revived we already had both arrows out. It stared at us with intelligent but sick-looking eyes as we cleaned and bound its wounds. I laid a spell to keep down infection, and I added another one for pain relief. It took a drink of water and kept it down. It looked like it wanted to take a nap. I didn’t blame it. I hadn’t enjoyed cutting it anymore than it had enjoyed being cut, but we had more important concerns.

“Can you speak?” I asked it.

It turned its yellow eyes to me and tried to speak. The sound was an inarticulate gurgle. Its teeth were too big to shape its words, and I think its lips and tongue were formed wrong. Its tongue looked like it was too broad for its mouth. Still, it tried.

“You understand our language?” I asked it in Saxon.

It simply looked at me. I tried the same question in my ungrammatical Latin.

It hesitated, then nodded. We were communicating at least.

“Are you a demon?” I asked it.

It shook its head. I had been sure it wasn’t, but I had to ask. There was always the possibility they were lesser demons who hadn’t recognized or who had rebelled against their lord.

“You are a slave of the wizard Palégos?” I asked it.

It nodded again. Good. That meant it wasn’t some other denizen of the underworld, like the imp had been. I had no idea what else resided under the sway of the highest of devils, or even if they had names.

“Now,” I pointed out, “you are our slave. You understand? No longer are you the property of the wizard, but of the family of Lord Asm ... our lord.”

It hesitated again, for a long time. Then it sighed and nodded dejectedly. A tear rolled down its cheek. It had been defeated. It was our spoil under the law, just as Nannakussi, Winky, and Sabina belonged to our family.

“Can you write?” I asked it. It had three fingers and a short thumb at the joint of its wing. A fourth finger, corresponding to the little finger of my hand, extended to the end of its wing. That was the way the web of the wing was attached. It looked like the fingers were usable for some tasks. I hadn’t noticed when it was flying, but there was another joint halfway between its shoulder and the “hand,” like an elbow. I guessed it was lockable.

It nodded its head, surprising me.

I had a notebook I kept recipes and spells in. I gave it to him along with my stylus and ink pot. Nannakussi reluctantly untied the strap around its neck. It was family now, whatever it was.

“Meum nomen Kogwahee est,” he wrote clumsily in capital letters.

It was an odd sounding name. It made me think of the northern native clans, the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois as they were called. As far as I knew, none of them had wings and very few of them had monkey faces, and that only individually ugly, as with any other group.

“My name is Nevianne,” I told our new servant. “This is the family of Jack, King of Demons. Where are thy people?” It occurred to me that “Jack, King of Demons” sounded ridiculous, no matter how much I loved him. I decided just “King of Demons” would do.

“We are of the Onondaga,” it wrote in Latin. “Palégos has put his spells on us. We must serve him or die.” The Onondaga were in fact one of the northern clans, of the Iroquois country. They had a reputation for cruelty to prisoners, which meant I worried even more for our lord.

“Will you die now?” I asked. If so, I would set him free. Some spells ended in death if the bond was broken. Until he healed up he was no harm to us.

Again it hesitated, then shook its head.

“Thou art transformed?” I asked. It had finally gotten through my fuzzy head that the creature was human. Sometimes it takes awhile. Often I wish I could think as quickly as my lord. Such a creature had never been seen before, therefore it was a product of magic.

It nodded.

I conferred with Mother and Blæda, both of whom had much more experience than I. It had never fallen to me to undo someone else’s transformation. It wasn’t very long ago that I was panicking because I couldn’t get the tip of my nose out of my lap. Luckily, Mother knew a counter spell that might work. It required only a fire, oak leaves, acorns, a pinch of salt, a dash of gunpowder, and blood – animal blood would do. We had a bit of salt with our cooking supplies, and we were close enough to some red oaks to gather leaves and acorns, though it was early for them. There would be enough still on the ground from last year. Even the wild hogs couldn’t eat them all. Nannakussi set off with his bow and Sabina gathered wood for the fire. She was a dutiful enough servant when she wasn’t fainting or conking our lord on the back of the head.

It didn’t take long for Nannakussi to return with a rabbit, freshly killed. We had the fire going already. It was a lively fire, stirred by a breeze. I saw visions in it that I couldn’t understand, but that made me sad. Somehow I knew they were of the past, of my father and his death, so I worried not. I watched and listened as Mother intoned her spell, trying to learn. Sometimes she would pause and check her own notebook. The salt went into the fire first. Next Mother wrung the body of the rabbit, squeezing the blood into the fire while she chanted. I could hear its bones breaking and felt sorrow for it, even though it was dead. The first oak leaf went into the fire as she started the next verse, followed by an acorn that exploded with a “pop!” She added more blood, followed by the second oak leaf and another acorn. She started the third verse, then added the gunpowder, which fizzed, burned a noxious yellow, smoked, and stank.

I wondered how my lord would have handled this problem. Probably more directly than casting a spell, I guessed. I don’t think he even knew any. He would probably just refuse to believe in the creature. I wondered if it would revert to its true form when he did, or just disappear entirely.