An Invading Demon Story
by Paul Murray
A long time ago in a galaxy not so very far from this one there was a beautiful blue planet.
This planet, Homaz, had several continents which abounded with animal and plant life as well as a variety of clanspeople who lived in small villages all over this world.
Homaz had been created from the celestial wars of gods many millennia before this tale and now two opposing gods claimed sovereignty over the planet.
One god, the dark lord, Gavak held no love for the Noran plainspeople of the Dark Continent, Mavial. He looked upon them as a blight upon the face of the planet he had helped create. He wished only that they be eradicated and their lands possessed by the race of beings he himself had seeded – the warlike Bozars.
Gavak’s brother, Luciel, the progenitor of the Noran race, however, protected his loved ones and answered their prayers whenever they called. They were good, industrious people who lived harmoniously in the kingdom he had bequeathed them.
The Bozars on the other hand swept through foreign continents like a plague of locusts, claiming occupied territories for themselves and dividing the land among their warlords to rule over the local inhabitants with cruel intent.
They forced the laws of Gavak upon them and kept the vanquished in servility – sacrificing them as the whim took them.
These events caused enormous enmity between the brother gods, Gavak and Luciel who were locked in an eternal struggle for supremacy. Luciel wished peace and harmony for all on Homaz whereas Gavak wished only the dominion of the Bozars over all others. They sought to conquer all – land, sea and man – no matter the cost.
From time to time, upon petition from the inhabitants of Homaz, either Gavak or Luciel would send emissaries to answer the prayers of their followers.
Sometimes, however, one of the gods would send a chosen one, a walking spirit, just to find out how the people of Homaz were doing.
This story is about one of those times.
Luciel had sent a walking spirit, to Homaz. He simply appeared one night in a small Noran village. No one in the village could understand how the stockade perimeter had been breached and the stranger offered no explanation.
He was seen by a small boy who ran, shrieking to one of the village elders.
“I have seen a demon! I have seen a demon!” the small lad yelled in terror.
Sapien, the chief, heard the commotion and stormed out of his hut to investigate the clamour.
A crowd of people surrounded the strange visitor. They parted in unison as their revered chief moved forward.
The “demon” was unlike anyone they had ever seen before. He sat on the dry dust floor of the village, unmoving. Unlike their own, the stranger’s skin was pale, almost translucent and he had long, flowing white hair that cascaded over his shoulders like a waterfall.
Sapien touched his own crinkly mass of curls in an abstract manner. The stranger did likewise. Their eyes met – the coal black orbs of the Noran chief and the pale blue marbles of the visitor.
Sapien barked out an order to the gathered tribe. The word was quickly passed along until the spiritual elder was informed.
“We have a stranger in our midst. Come quickly.”
Mistre, the spiritual elder, shuffled from his hut as fast as his gnarled body would allow. Standing at his chief’s side, supported on the ceremonial staff of Luciel, he gazed in wonder at the pale stranger.
“Where did he come from?” Mistre said to no-one in particular.
“This boy saw him first,” said one of the villagers, pushing forward the wide-eyed youth who had sounded the panic.
Mistre touched the boy lightly on the head.
“Where did this man come from, lad?” he said.
“He fall from the sky,” gushed the boy. “He just falled from the sky…”
The stranger watched the interchange with interest and smiled.
“Who are you, stranger?” Mistre directed at him. His voice was forceful yet unaggressive.
“I have no name,” the stranger softly replied. The crowd took a pace backwards. That someone so strange should know their tongue was indeed unfathomable.
Sapien turned to his mage and spoke under his breath. “Do you think he is a demon? Do you think he means us any harm?”
“I do not know, lord chief but I shall conduct the invocation at once for the protection of the tribe,” Mistre replied.
Sapien nodded and the old man shuffled away to perform his duty.
The chief then turned to the stranger and beckoned him to rise and follow him.
The pale visitor rose, as if being lifted by a cushion of air, and followed the dark-skinned nobleman.
That was the way of things in those times. The Noran people were hesitant to strike out at that which was unknown to them until they had a better understanding of things. If it was a threat it would be dealt with most severely but in the meantime, the mage would invoke the spirits of the ancestors and long-sleeping warriors would be awakened to take their place in the tribe once more. If the visitor proved threatening, the warriors would despatch him at once.
It proved not to be so. Although the stranger could not explain his origins to the elders, he posed no threat. In fact, he was a fount of information. He told tales of lands beyond the seas that Noran people had only imagined in fable.
In a very short time, the stranger, who became known as Viram, had become part of the tribe. He had no home, had no memory of one and knew the tongue and the ways of the Noran as if he had been there all his life. In a sense that is exactly how it was for he was born at the moment Luciel placed him there in the village with the memories and faculties the god deemed he should require.
Viram integrated into the tribal culture and, in time, was given his own hut. He was, strangely, asexual and stranger still - had no need of food or water. He made no demands of anyone. He was just there.
But the ancestral warriors remained – just in case.
Village life went on as usual.
Then one day, not too long after Viram’s arrival, he simply disappeared.
Although there was talk about these mighty strange occurrences, the tribe went about their business just the same.
All that remained of the pale visitor’s presence was a vacant hut with a neat straw bed in it.
Very soon after Viram’s disappearance, another stranger arrived. This time though – he arrived from the south armour-clad, riding a snorting war-horse and brandishing a wicked blue titanium sword.
This stranger was also unlike anything the Noran had seen before. He was even darker than they, with flashing red eyes and the stature of a giant.
He was, indeed, a demon – an emissary of Gavak and a purveyor of destruction.
The Noran did not know this and thus greeted him at the stockade gate as they would any stranger to their village.
Sapien stood on the ramparts of the stockade and called down to him.
“Hello, stranger. What business brings you to these parts?”
“Oh, Noran chieftain,” the stranger boomed in reply, “I hear tell that you have been invaded by a demon. Another resides in your neighbouring village of Parduk making mischief and sowing discontent…”
Sapien’s ears pricked at his words. He had had no word of trouble at Parduk.
“A demon you say. We have no demon here, stranger unless you account for yourself in such a manner…”
The horseman laughed uproariously, spinning on his bucking steed as he did so.
“Who are those fine souls who stand alongside you, oh noble chief?” the stranger asked, pointing to the ancestral warriors with a flourish.
In truth, at the approach of the stranger, Mistre had invoked more warriors to be on hand in the event of any trouble.
Sapien bowed towards the stranger. “These are our ancestral protectors, sir. Warriors like yourself.”
“And what need do peace-loving herdsmen have of ancestral warriors?”
Sapien considered his response carefully. How had the stranger known of the other visitor? It was clear too he seemed to know the ways of the Noran just as Viram had.
Cautiously he replied: “We had a visitor here, yes. But he was no demon. It is the custom of our people to invoke the protection of our ancestors when all foreigners arrive unannounced…”
“Such as myself, good chief?”
“Such as yourself, good sir.”
“I have no quarrel with the Noran, chief. I wish only to help. Allow me into your stockade and I will present my bona-fides. I bring only protection with the might of my sword against the demons who threaten your villages.”
Sapien bade the stranger wait and convened a hurried conference with the village elders.
The counsel was divided. Six voted against allowing the stranger entry. Six voted the other way, arguing that he may have vital information about Viram and his agenda. It came down to Sapien’s casting vote.
He was suspicious of the dark warrior but not afraid. The warriors of his ancestors and Luciel’s grace had kept them secure for generations. He had faith in that.
He voted that they allow the stranger entry. It was the hospitable thing to do. They were a hospitable, trusting people after all.
The gate was opened and the black hooves of the horse thundered across the drawbridge like a summer storm.
The village was prepared to welcome the stranger into their midst for food and refreshment – an offer which he took up with gusto, quaffing large mugs of grain beer and wolfing near raw meat from the spinning carcasses on the spit.
Once the hospitality had been courteously extended to a degree where Sapien felt he had discharged his rightful duty, he asked the dark stranger about demons.
“Tell us, stranger, of this demon in our midst.”
The giant wiped his dripping whiskers with a club-like fist and fixed the assembly of elders with a penetrating stare.
“Your customs call for warriors to be summoned when foreigners invade – not so? I see many warriors all around me, good people. Not all for me I’d wager.”
“Granted,” Sapien said with a wry smile. “It is our way.”
“You say your visiting demon has gone and yet your warriors remain. Why is that, sir?”“It is our way, sir. They are one with the tribe now…”
The stranger made a dismissive snort and rose to stand in front of the assembly. “I put it to you, Noran folk that this demon remains in your midst – insidious and intent on despair.”
“But look around you. He is not here. He is gone and he was no demon,” Sapien said.
“Invisible to you perhaps,” the giant roared. “But I can smell him. He is here. And some of the villagers know it too. They conceal the beast.”
Sapien stood up now, disturbed by the turn of events. To accuse his people of subterfuge was an outrageous insult.
“Sir,” he said. “I must ask you to leave our village. We shall provide you shelter for this evening but I must ask you to be on your way at sunrise.”
The dark warrior guffawed at this remark and smashed a huge fist down on the table.
“You don’t seem to understand do you? I have a duty to discharge and that has been prescribed by powers beyond your understanding, Noran folk.
“I am here to protect you and for this I must have your co-operation.”
Sapien, even at full height, could not rise enough to meet the stranger’s eyes.
“Who sent you?” he said.
“My bona-fides,” the stranger growled, exposing a medallion from the folds of his chainmail robes. It was the crest of Gavak.
The elders gasped in horror.
Mistre stepped forward.
“We have no need of that foul blasphemy!” he yelled.
“Oh you have need of help, my friend,” the giant replied. “You had better pray for it.” And so saying, he drew his sword and struck in a single fluid movement. Sapien’s head lifted from his shoulders with the savagery of the blow, the chieftain’s body collapsing horribly into the salvers of meat before sliding onto the bench and the dusty floor below.
Women screamed, the ancestral warriors leapt forward engaging the terrible demon in mortal combat. Swords flashed and sparked, limbs parted from their torsos and blood erupted in plumes within the banqueting hut. Never before had any one man acquitted himself with such ferocity and deftness of hand. The ancestral warriors buckled like mown wheat as he hewed his way through their ranks.
Mistre shuffled away from the carnage as fast as his old legs would carry him. He stumbled into his hut and busied himself with incantations for the sake of their very survival. The stranger had been right – there was a demon in their midst but he was neither Viram nor invisible.
The old man struggled to keep his mouth moist as he mumbled the ancient invocations. It was to no avail. As quickly as the royal guard appeared, the demonic giant cut a swathe through them like a barque through a swell.
The ancestral warriors were lost to them. As realisation dawned, Mistre opened his eyes to face the horror at his door. The dark stranger filled the doorway, his eyes wild, his mouth curled into a snarl. The blood of warriors and innocents alike dripped from every part of his body. It ran in rivulets down his arms and gathered in pools on the floor of the mage’s hut. It was over.
Gavak’s charge growled as he approached the old man, now bowed in submission. He raised the sword, two-handed, over his head and slashed down with such force that Mistre was cleaved clean in two. Now there was no more chance of ancestral warriors being summoned to assist.
In a matter of hours, the tribe was cut to half its original number.
Within days, Taztak (for that was the demon’s name), had reduced the village to a dysfunctional gathering of automatons. They did his every bidding but were systematically despatched if it didn’t please him. His appetite for destruction was insatiable. It was his very purpose.
The stockade walls too had been breached. In the night, the opportunistic scavengers dragged helpless babes from huts, mothers wailing into the night after the sounds of cackling hyenas.
Taztak fed on despair and fear. It was what sustained him. The problem was there was no end to the overwhelming bloodlust. It consumed him.
Very soon all the men had been slaughtered. He feasted on their remains and tossed the offal to the circling vultures. Next went the boys until all that remained of the Noran community were the weakest – the women and children.
In less than a week they also met the fate of their loved ones, the last girl child skewered like a bug on a thorn.
The village was no more.
Taztak lit a firebrand and torched the huts as he saddled his war-horse. He had cured the village of its demon all right. He had done as bidden.
As the village blazed behind him, he realised that he had only just begun.
There were many villages ahead of him and they all imagined they had a demon somewhere. When he had coerced them into allowing him in under the pretext of aiding them, they would soon find out who the real demon was.
Within a few days, he crested the hills of Rolak to gaze down on the village of Parduk. Smoke wafted from cooking fires and the general air about the place was one of welcoming innocence.
He knew that Luciel had sent a spirit-walker to this village too. It was ripe for the plucking. Now just to turn the recent stranger into incumbent demon…
The ritual was the same. He spun on the snorting horse while the chieftain hailed him from the ramparts asking him his business.
“I bring you sad news from the village of Rashuk, noble chief,” the demon called.
“How so, stranger? What news of Rashuk?”
“A demon has destroyed that beautiful village I quiver to inform you.”
“A demon?”
“A demon, good chief. A demon such as the one who until recently has been residing in your village with your very own blessing.”
“What are you talking about, man?” the chief asked.
“Don’t tell me that all those ancestral warriors were summoned just for little old me – an emissary of the sacred word and all that is worthy in the name of Luciel.”
The villagers bowed their heads at the mention of their god’s name.
“The last stranger was no demon,” the chief said.
“Then why the protection?”
“It is our custom.”
“Ah yes, your custom. But if there is no threat then what need of warriors?”
“I told you, stranger. It is our custom. They are one with the tribe once summoned. Only a new threat may despatch these warriors. It is neither within my power nor my desire to do such a thing.”
Taztak was becoming agitated at the old man’s resilience.
“I am bound by my calling to offer protection to the plains people of Mavial – protection from the invisible demons that pervade your villages and lands.”
“We have no demon, sir. I thank you but we must decline.”
Taztak snarled, his horse rearing at the sound.
“Can you explain to me where that stranger came from then chief? Or why he was here? Or why he disappeared? Your own actions speak of a threat. Your warriors verify it.”
“We shall deal with our own problems thank you. Good luck with your crusade, sir and goodbye.”
Taztak howled his displeasure, rage rising in him like magma in a crater.
“You fools!” he shrieked. “You worthless fools! You shall pay for this. You shall pay with your lives!”
“I think not, sir,” the chief replied and turned on his heel from the conversation. It was over.
Taztak was powerless. There was no uncertainty or fear here upon which to feed. He could not fuel his lust for destruction. He would perish were he to try.
And so the tiny village of Parduk thrived, its ancestral warriors on hand to deal with any opportunistic or passing threat. The pale stranger’s hut remained empty, as if in anticipation of his return one day. But he never returned.
When the stockade walls crumbled or got damaged the villagers mended them. When marauding tribes laid siege to their village, the spiritual elder summoned ancestral warriors aplenty, many of whom were sacrificed in their defensive endeavour.
But the evil Taztak never returned with his duplicitous treachery.
The Noran had learned from the sacrifice of Rashuk. It is not certain how they found out but you can be sure that a spirit-walker had something to do with it.
This was the way of things back then.
And to tell you the truth – not much has changed at all.
