(Sadly, the instructor of that course, Denise Gess, passed away at the untimely age of 57, but I'll never forget how much I enjoyed the course she taught.)
Rahasia and the
Demon Bottle
Rahasia was meant for greatness. Her mother, father, aunts, uncles,
brothers, sisters, cousins and grandparents all thought so, and why shouldn’t
they? They were all accomplished wizards, every one, and they naturally
expected the youngest member of the clan to carry on the glorious tradition of
the Goomdomberous family. The only problem was that she was not very good at
magic; in fact, she was terrible. Her fireballs were decidedly green and only
lukewarm; her illusions, tired and thin-looking; and the rabbits she produced
from her hat, dead.
Her instructors (really her aunts, uncles, and older cousins) had all
tried to improve her disappointing conjurations to no avail. They did not
understand that she was bored with the wonders of teleportation, and that the
arcane mysteries of turning lead into gold only put her to sleep. In fact, the
only magic she excelled at was shapechanging. Rahasia could transform herself,
with a speed and accuracy her family could only admire, into dogs, cats, birds,
and even small insects. But there her magical proficiency ended, and her
siblings shunned her as a pariah, except for her brother Sethan, who was all
too attentive to her shortcomings. He made a point of upstaging her at every
opportunity, as if the issue of who was the better spell-caster was really in
doubt. Maddeningly enough, he was in a way a better shapeshifter than she, for
he could become the very largest of animals, a trick that still eluded Rahasia.
Once, when irritated by her quick transformation into a wolf (speed-changing
was something Sethan had still to perfect), he had changed himself into an
elephant and chased her all around the backyard. Rahasia could not believe such
a large animal could move so quickly, and only her split-second shapechange
into a sparrow had saved her from being squashed. The trumpeting laughter that
had mocked her as she fluttered to safety seemed to haunt her through the
frustrating days and weeks of fruitless lessons she endured.
The truth was that she did not want to be a wizard at all, but she
reluctant to disappoint her relatives by abandoning the family vocation. Still,
in her secret heart she dreamed of becoming a witch, a wild woman of the
wilderness, who ran in animal form and practiced woodland magic, and who spoke
with animals as if they were tea-companions (although she wasn’t sure if
witches took tea at all). Unbeknownst to her family, Rahasia had already
exchanged a word or two with the local fauna (the exchange was limited mainly
to concerns of food or weather), and had begun the brewing of several herbal
potions, but she kept her newfound abilities a closely-guarded secret. Wizards
of all types scorned witches as untutored rubes, and Rahasia honestly did not
know what her family would do if they discovered a budding witch right in their
midst. She had heard stories of how her great-grandfather had turned one of his
own sons into a bird just for speaking with a witch, and had left him in that
form for six months. She wasn’t sure that this was true, but since she had
little desire to join her mother’s prize parakeets in the arboretum, she kept
her silence.
Her days passed slowly, and her frustrations rose to a fevered pitch,
until she knew that she would have to do something to change her lot or else go
mad. Perhaps if she could give her family a demonstration of just how hopeless
a wizard she really was they would cast her out, leaving her alone but
untransformed - and free to make her own way. With this in mind, she crept into
her father’s study, where thick tomes sat stolidly upon shelves that groaned
from their burden of knowledge. She took no particular care of the watch-imp
that guarded the area, as the poor thing had lately become alcoholic and spent
most of its time sprawled in a boneless, drunken heap on the window-sill (her
father was aware of the imp’s disability, she knew, but since good watch-imps
were costly to conjure, he tolerated its excesses). Rahasia was an intelligent
girl, and after a few hours of study she had found what she needed, more in
fact than she had hoped. Filching a quill and a piece of parchment from her
father’s desk, she copied down the information she needed and crept out of the
musty room, leaving the imp to its spirits-induced slumber. The next day, with
a bag of stolen food slung over her arm, she set out at dawn from her family’s
luxurious estate for the legendary ruins of El-Eventir.
A week later, after an arduous but uneventful journey (hastened by
shapechanges into various fast-flying birds), she had set foot upon the hill on
which stood the remnants of the ancient tower
of El-Eventir
With a glance down at her travel-stained garb (the dust-stained tunic
and breeches hung loosely on her narrow, wispy frame), she resumed her climb,
and in due course she came to the broken stone arch that served as gateway to
the ruins. Silence lay over the hill-top like a shroud, and nothing moved or
breathed in the shattered mess of stone that was once a home of magicians. She
found herself wondering if anyone else in her family had ever been to this grim
place. Taking a deep breath, she passed under the arch and made her way through
the rubble, stepping carefully around pitfalls and crevices that scarred the
area and clambering over piles of stones that lay across her path.
She came to what she guessed was the center of the ruins and stopped
there, looking around and waiting for something mystical to occur. The wind had
picked up a bit, and it now whistled emptily over broken rock and rustled
through weeds that had grimly fought their way up between shattered flagstones.
After a few silent minutes, she began to wonder what was taking the spirits so
long. After a half-hour she was quite annoyed that the undead guardians of the
place had not appeared to decry her as outcast (the thought that they might do
far worse than that had not entered her mind). It was not as if they had
anything better to do, she mused, irritably kicking at a loose stone. What else
did any ghost have to do, other than to wreak havoc on helps mortals?
An hour passed, and she settled herself on a huge, flat stone, eating
what was left of her stolen supplies and cursing her lot. It was just her luck
that the spirits that guarded El-Eventir were foolish enough to find her
acceptable, and without a test even! Perhaps new spirits were needed. After
all, such an important place deserved to be haunted only by the most dedicated
and qualified of undead, not any old ghost. She finished her makeshift
meal and was just getting to her feet when she spied a flash of metal from
under a nearby rock. Could this be an otherwordly sign? She hurried over to
check, getting down on hands and knees to reach under the stone, but came out
with only a old bottle. It was a fine piece of work to be sure, fashioned of
some strange reddish metal and intricately engraved, but hardly remarkable in
terms of supernatural phenomena. She decided then and there that she would
endeavor to change to rules governing ghosts, if ever she became one. She
sighed, and with nothing better to do, pulled out the stopper, unmindful of the
danger that might be involved.
Glowing green mist issued from the bottle’s narrow opening, and
Rahasia gasped and hastened to replace the cap. But the flow was too strong to
allow her to position the stopper, and the smoke continued to stream forth. She
dropped the bottle and scurried behind a nearby chunk of stone, berating her
own foolishness. As a child of wizards, she knew better than to fool around
with unknown artifacts found in magical areas, but she had been so bored and
disappointed that she acted without thought. She briefly considered casting a
protective spell, but wisely decided that her own magical ineptitude might
endanger her more than whatever she had foolishly unleashed from the bottle.
The glowing mist coalesced into a hideous green face, complete with
fangs, horns, small red eyes and a large, bulbous nose. It turned its fearsome
gaze upon her and spoke with a voice like stones dragged through a gravel pit.
“Look upon me, yon tasty morsel, for here is thy doom!” it boomed. She shivered
in terror, wishing that she had never come here and tempted the spirits.
“Come forward, “ the huge face commanded. “Come forward where I can,
er, canst get a better look at thou. Thee. Thou.” She shook her head, unwilling
to move even if she could have unlocked her shaking knees to take a step. “Be
not afraid, scrumptious. I will not devour thine pitiful bones until thou
has...hast duly and rightfully...uh...losteth my challenge.”
Rahasia stopped shaking for a moment as its words sank home.
“Challenge?” she squeaked, barely able to keep her voice steady.
“Indeed. I must needs...no,wait...I am duly dothly...oh, damn!” The
face grimaced gigantically. “Look, sweets, let’s cut to the chase. I have to
defeat you in a fair contest before I can eat your delightful flesh and steal
your soul. Now come out where I can see you, dammit. My eyesight hasn’t gotten
any better over the millennia, you know.”
She emerged from behind the rock, keeping what she hoped what a safe
distance from the huge, disembodied head. It seemed large enough to swallow her
with one gulp, although she saw no visible stomach in which she would be
digested. “Fair contest?” she ventured. “But what if I win?” She jumped back as
the creature howled laughter that shook the entire hilltop.
“Not a chance!” the creature chortled, its gross nose wrinkling with
mirth. “But, in the occasion that you do, which is as likely as my seeing two
hundred again, I must serve you until the end of your insect existence.”
She shook her head in confusion, scarcely able to believe what she was
hearing. “Well,” she replied, clearing her throat nervously. “Why don’t we make
it easy on both of us? I’ll just leave now, quietly, and you won’t have to risk
becoming my life slave. Deal?”
“Not a chance, luscious,” the head replied, grinning wickedly. “If you
try to leave without taking the challenge, I am authorized to eat you
directly.”
She stomped her foot angrily. “That’s not fair! I had no idea what I
was getting into when I opened that bottle.”
Again the demon smirked. “When is life fair, my juicy? Now, select a
mode of combat, while my appetite builds to full force.”
“Mode of combat?”
“Oh, you know, weaponcraft, riddles, games of chance,” the creature
remarked casually. “That sort of thing.”
Rahasia pondered, but her mind seemed to have to turned to clay; she
had never been good at reacting under pressure. “Suggest something,” she said
finally.
“I am not permitted to make suggestions,” it shot back, grinning once
more.
“Why not?”
“Because that’s the way it works, sweets.”
“Says who?” she demanded, anger momentarily overcoming her fear.
“What, does someone set the rules even for such a mighty demon-creature?”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” the demon thundered, but Rahasia
could sense its seething frustration. She reflected that the sorcerers of
El-Eventir had been powerful indeed, to have subjugated such a potent creature.
The demon interrupted her musing, adding slyly, “You have thirty seconds to
decide, or else forfeit the game.”
She started in fear. There was a time limit! This got worse by the
minute. She started to protest, but held her tongue in the face of the demon’s
smug grin. She racked her mind desperately, searching for some talent or
interest she might possess that the demon would not. All of her skills and
experience seemed so pedestrian when faced with a creature of such power!
“Time’s up, toots!” it exclaimed joyfully.
“Wizardry,” she cried at the same time. “We will fight with wizardry.”
The demon smiled. “Well now, there’s an idea,” it rasped, licking
green lips thoughtfully. “I have not exercised my mind-boggling abilities in
some decades; I am due for a little workout. Besides, I love the taste of
wizards.” Rahasia’s heart sank. How could she ever hope to defeat a being of
such extraordinary power, when she could not even prevail over her obnoxious
brother?
“To the death?” she asked weakly, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of
her situation.
The demon sniffed disdainfully. “Hardly. I am of course immortal, so
you cannot hope to harm me. You however, will die immediately upon my victory,
which is as obvious and inevitable as my superiority.”
“And your modesty,” she muttered under her breath.
“Eh, what was that,” it demanded. Evidently the demon’s long stay in
the bottle had done nothing to sharpen its hearing. “Uh, what I said was, you
have a lot of honesty,” she replied.
“Umm. Well, let’s get on with this,” the demon rumbled, seeming put
out. “As a sign of my-” it giggled evilly “-good faith, I will let you have
first shot.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, suppressing an urge to stick out her tongue.
It was bad enough that the demon was evil without also having to contend with a
warped and decidedly unfunny sense of humor! Nevertheless, she set herself,
breathing deeply, and searched in her mind for the most destructive spell she
had ever been taught. She thought of searing flames, rending bolts, and
crackling blasts of lightning and thunder, filled her mind with thoughts of
power and its uses. With a final breath, she chanted arcane words and pointed
at the demon, unleashing a wave of magical energy that enveloped the horrid
creature before her...and turned it blue.
The demon looked down at itself, which required it to bend its entire
face weirdly. It laughed long and loudly, a horrible sound of crunching glass
and falling rocks that made her clap her hands over her ears. “Nice try,” it
mocked her, at last getting the better of its mirth. “I only wish it had been
red. It’s a much better color for demon sorts of things, you know. I mean, you
turn the wrong color, say, pink, and soon you can’t strike fear into the hearts
of mortals, other demons stop respecting you, your hideous visage no longer
inspires terror-”
“Can we get on with this please?” Mercy, but the creature was
smug!
“Of
course, my dear,” the demon said patronizingly. “I was just getting to it.” It
blinked bulging eyes, and in an instant, Rahasia found to her chagrin that she
was entirely naked. The demon licked its lips again. “Hmmm, I have not seen a
more buxom dainty in three hundred years.” She looked down at her modest
endowment, deciding that if the demon truly thought her buxom it had definitely
spent too long in that bottle. It was toying with her, she realized, rightfully
unthreatened by her puny powers, and getting a good laugh at her expense.
Fuming, she began another spell.
A puff of black smoke exploded around the demon, and when it cleared,
she saw to her dismay that the face was unaffected, except for a profusion of
bright red flowers that sprouted from the demon’s blue forehead. “Very
interesting,” it mused, flexing its face once more to examine Rahasia’s latest
blunder. The flowers waved gaily from the motion. “They should prove an
acceptable seasoning to the main course.” It concentrated, wrinkling its
flowered brow, and she felt the unmistakable tingle of magic. She closed her
eyes, expecting the worst.
She realized what had happened as soon as the felt the cold air hit
the top of her head, and when she opened her eyes she was able to verify that
she was indeed entirely hairless. Her patting hands told her that even her head
was now smooth and hair-free as a baby’s.
“I always de-hair my meals,” the demon explained smugly. “But don’t
worry, sugarhips, you’ll get one more chance to win.” Again, the demon greedily
licked its blue lips. “After that I really must get something to eat. The
ravages of hunger, and so forth.” With that, Rahasia knew that the demon’s next
spell would be for real, and that her next move would either seal her fate or
save her life. In desperation, she thought back to all her years of training,
tried to remember every incantation, conjuration, or evocation that might
defeat this vile enemy. The problem was that all the enchantments she could
hope to carry out could never harm such a powerful opponent, but the ones that
might actually do the job were far beyond her limited capabilities. She needed
something else, something not even the formidable demon could anticipate.
Suddenly, she remembered her great-great-grandfather Samanious, who
had lived to the great age of nearly 150 years by brewing and drinking his own
youth potions. In his last years, after the potions had stopped working, he had
lost most of his magical capabilities, but his mind remained keen. Rahasia had
spent many hours listening to him retell the stories of the many magical duels
he had fought and won, sometimes against wizards of far greater power. “I won
them all, my dear,” he would tell her, gesturing with a bony finger that
trembled with palsy. “I won them because I knew my own strengths, and I fooled
my enemies into fighting by my rules. It’s the mind that makes the
wizard, not the magic.” These words rang clearly in her mind, and in that
moment she grasped her only chance at survival.
She
faced the demon, her face set, and before it could taunt her, shifted fluidly
into the shape of a wolf, sleek and black-furred. The demon frowned. “Now I’ll
have to devour you re-haired,” it pouted, mouth tight with annoyance. “But if
it must be so-” It glared suddenly, and sent out its killing spell, a dart of
pure energy, red as fire and pulsing with enormous power. But Rahasia was now
quick and agile, and with wolfish cunning she dodged the bolt easily, growling
a challenge.
The demon’s frown redoubled. “Hmmm, I don’t usually miss, but then it has
been a while. Very well, I’ll play your game, and beat you at it.” The demon
shimmered and became a huge black bear, which swiped at the wolf-Rahasia with a
deadly claw.
But Rahasia had made her move, and was already shifting to cat-form.
The claw whistled harmlessly over her head, as she was now considerably smaller
than the wolf. The bear reoriented and struck again, but now she was simply to
small for it to get a clear shot. The shapechanged demon rumbled angrily,
already beginning another shapechange. Soon it was a dog, large and
fierce-looking, but still small enough to effectively pursue the cat, which it did.
But even as it moved to attack, Rahasia shimmered and became a tiny mouse,
which darted in and out between the dog’s sturdy legs. It snapped at her, but
once again she was too small for it to attack.
The demon now became a rat, although still considerably larger than
the mouse, and it leapt at Rahasia with its sharp teeth bared for the kill. But
Rahasia outmanuevered it again, changing into a mosquito and buzzing up and
away from the rat’s limited reach. The demon-rat squeaked in pure frustration,
fed up with this nonsense, and it flashed into the form of a wasp, with a long,
wicked stinger. The wasp zoomed to engage Rahasia, certain at last that it
would finally make the kill despite the many distractions.
Rahasia saw the wasp heading straight for her, and in at that moment
she accomplished her last shapechange for the day. She snapped back into human
form, and before the demon could react, slapped her palms around it, squashing
it flat and grinding it with a wringing motion of her hands. “I win!” she exclaimed
in elation. Of course she knew that demon had not actually been killed, but she
hoped that she had indeed defeated it according to the strange rules of this
game. She released the crushed remains of the insect, and even as it fell it
resumed demon form. The huge face was still blue, although significantly paler
than before, and she saw fear and wonder in its eyes. It gazed at her with new
respect.
“Damn,” it said at last, with
considerably less arrogance. “I never expected such cunning from a”
“From a creature of insect existence?” she finished sweetly. It
glowered threateningly at her, but she feared it no longer. If the creature
truly was bound by the rules of the game, as it seemed logical to assume
(otherwise it would have eaten her without so much trouble), then it was indeed
under her command, for the rest of her life. But how would she command it?
Nearly anything was possible with the powerful entity at her side, and her mind
whirled at thought of the power she now had at her fingertips. Now she could
finally seek out the witches, and leave her life of botched wizardry behind her
like an unpleasant dream. Her family would damned well respect her decision,
too, or else she would have the whole lot of them transformed into turnips!
The thought of transformations turned her mind to more personal
considerations. “Can you show me how to transform myself into a dragon?” she
asked the demon, which was still eyeing her warily.
“No problem, assuming the necessary spells can be grasped by your
laughably limited mind,” it replied. After a moment, it added, grudgingly,
“Mistress.”
Rahasia ignored the small slight as her thoughts centered on her first
and most thoroughly enjoyable command for the demon: she would have it show her
how to transform herself into a dragon. First, because it was a feat no wizard
in history had ever accomplished; second, because it was the only creature she
knew of that was bigger - and faster - than an elephant.
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