Edru's Last Ritual “Balak,” the sorcerer said, drawing a rune in the air before him with his staff. He was down in the deep below, somewhere far beneath the surface of the earth, inside of a vast network of caves. This cavern opened up next to a chasm that seemed to stretch endlessly below him. There he stood casting an incantation at its edge. He clutched his staff tight, and it seemed to thrum in his hand, as if it were a tuning fork reverberating after being struck against a wall of brick. “Neshul,” he said, adding a second smaller rune above the first, which hung in the air like an apostrophe he could almost see. The staff felt hot in his hand. He had read about this, and was prepared. He pulled out some chalk from the pocket of his long gray robes and chalked up both of his hands. Then he drew the first rune with his staff again, this time in the ground at his feet. The earth here was hard, dark and gray, more granite than dirt, and by the time he was done with the first rune, he was sweating from the effort. It had taken him three days to descend to where the ritual was to take place. Three days of walking deep, deep into the mountainous cavern that seemed to open into the underworld itself. “Balak,” he said again. He added the second rune, the one that amended the contract. “Neshul.” The air seemed to crackle with electricity, the hair atop his head stood on end like the time he had touched a tree that had been struck by lightning. He thought he might drop his staff it was so hot, but he knew not to from the Tome of Dreams. Instead, he clutched it tighter. Slowly, vapor began to coalesce above the vast chasm in front of him. This was it. After this, there could be no turning back. He wanted to remove his robes, it had grown so hot, but the Tome of Dreams counseled against such, and so the sorcerer kept them on, despite the fact sweat was now pouring forth from his pores. He wiped at his forehead with one of his long sleeves. Soon, Edru, thought. Soon there will be no mage mightier than I. He drew another rune in the air before him, the same as the first, but this time the very air itself seemed to rip, leaving a trail of brilliant white light in his staff’s wake.
“Balak!” He cried, not realizing he was yelling to be heard over the whine of electricity which crackled loudly throughout the air now, and seemed to be permeating his brain. The vapor before him took shape, a tall figure, seemingly taller even then the cavern would even allow. The figure towered over him, a hundred, nay, a thousand times the sorcerer’s size. It was as if he were made of mist, a thick miasma which seemed to coalesce into the shape of a horned man. He was the Great Horned One. “Neshul!” Edru cried, and if the air seemed to rip with the rune he drew before, it was akin to opening a window a crack, and then following that a moment later by throwing the thing wide open. Strange stars Edru had never seen appeared before his eyes, metamorphosing into constellations terrible in their unfamiliarity. A gust of hot wind blasted him in the face redolent with a stench that stank like a wagonload of spoiled eggs. He was sweating profusely, and not just from his exertion at drawing the runes in the resistant dirt. The cavern had been cool and calm when he first entered, and the only sound had been the sound of water dropping into a distant puddle somewhere. Now it was as if the twin suns of Soltara were shining down on him alone, both at their apex, and all was chaos. Flames bubbled up the side of the chasm like a river overrunning its bank. Then a voice spoke from the towering figure of smoke. “Leshka no bloggohassha,” it was a whisper, but a whisper which could rip trees up by the roots. The smell of spoiled eggs intensified. Edru nearly gagged and barely managed to cover his face with one sleeve, though it did little to block out the smell. Edru could see through the shifting stars of the constellations, beyond the veil of azure he could still see a roost of bats clutching stalagmites. “I- I don’t understand,” he yelled, holding one arm across his brow to try and shield his face from some of the heat. “LESHKA NO BLOGGOHASSHA!” this time it was no whisper, but a roar, and it felt like Edru and stuck his face in an open oven after baking bread. He turned, trying to avoid the wave of heat which accompanied the words. “Please, Great Horned One,” Edru said, down on his knees, despite the fact he did not remember kneeling. “I do not know your speech.” A voice like a serpent’s slithered from the black maw that may have been the mistform’s mouth. “I ssay I sserve no massterss.” “Neshul! Neshul! I command you! Neshul! Three times I bind you!” Edru was back on his feet. He held up his staff and shook it at that terrible figure. “By the laws of Gods and Men, give me power beyond limits! Grant me the strength of the Ancient Ones!” For a moment there was nothing, simply silence, but then the earth began to shake. It’s happening, Edru thought. Here it comes. Now I will know real magic! Then he realized the ground quaking was not a transference of power in the sense he thought it was, but merely the Great Horned One laughing. “Foolissh man. Thought you to bind me? You assk for the sstrength of the Ancient Oness. When wass the lasst time you heard them called as ssuch? The lasst time they sspoke, to anyone at all?” Edru racked his brain thinking of countless volumes he had read over the course of his life, so many songs and stories of Soltara. When was the last time the Ancient Ones were mentioned in a song? A hundred years ago? A thousand? “S-Senec. Senec West. He was blessed by the Lady of Glory, to aid his arm against the L’ree-” “Sshe tasted ssimply divine…not much meat to her though. Sshe wass but a morssel next to the one men call Clang. The one they call the Lord of the Forge. One by one, I ate them all. Now there are none left. The Ancient Oness are without sstrength. Iss that what you desire? Endlesss oblivion?” Edru shuddered. It could not be true. Had this demon really consumed the Ancient Ones one by one? And now there were none? “No. I want power. Power beyond limits. The p-power I was promised.” Edru’s knees were knocking together now. The ritual said nothing of the demon speaking back; it was to do his bidding, and nothing more. What had gone wrong? Edru felt a warm trickle run down his leg. “Who? Who promissed you thiss…thiss… power?” “The Tome of Dreams!” Edru said, he dropped his staff and collapsed to his hands and knees. He did not know how he was able to keep talking at all. He had never felt fear as he did then, and he had peered down some very dark holes in the fabric of reality. Again came that quaking laugher. This time, the bats took flight from their roost, arcing toward Edru in a flock. He flattened himself to the ground while they flapped over his head. That noxious scent returned forcefully, this time it was as if the entire chasm below was filled with spoiled eggs. Sick. Sick. Gonna be sick. Gonna be sick. Gonna be sick. “The wordss of men…dabbling in thingss they do not undersstand. Tell me, ssorceror, do you still want power?” It was all Edru could do to nod, wiping away bile with the back of his hand. His brain felt like it had been boiled. “Then remove your robesss. Prepare yoursself. You sshall make…a mosst perfect vesssel...” Somewhere in Edru’s battered brain, some part that had held out against the demon’s spell since it had first been conjured, cried out ‘NO!’, and that the runes on the robe were all that were standing between himself and being a vassal for the Great Horned One. But the part of himself that lusted for power every day for as long as he could remember won out over that tiny voice that was growing smaller by the second, and before he knew it, he was standing nude before the demon. “Now the ritual is complete.” The spirit form burst toward Edru just as the bats had done previously, but instead of passing harmlessly overhead, the Great Horned One filled Edru with his presence. And just as the towering form seemed to stretch impossibly beyond the limits of the cavern, so, too, was Edru filled, seemingly to impossible limits. He felt infinite. This must be what it is like to know the grace of God, Edru thought. His eyes rolled back into his head, and when they opened again, they shone not with the light of a man’s eyes, but with the black, ageless gaze of the void. Hellfire flickered in his eyes. Soon it would be night.
The ground did not quite shake, and the sound that came out of Edru’s throat was not quite Edru’s, but most certainly it was a laugh. A deep, throaty death rattle that sounded of bats fluttering by. The malevolent laughter of a man possessed.