The Demon’s Cantos
Part 15
The acrid smell of ozone filled Byron’s nostrils as both the door, Tilda, and the entire island disappeared beneath an unbroken flash of white light. Byron felt a sensation similar to his stomach rising up toward his throat on a roller coaster, but different. Instead of shifting upwards, it felt like his stomach was shifting forward, straight toward his belly button – almost like it and every other organ in his body was suddenly eager to escape and go about their own business. It didn’t hurt exactly, but to call the experience merely ‘extraordinarily uncomfortable’ would not be giving it enough credit.
All at once the light vanished, Byron’s guts settled back into place, and it was raining again.
Korbius stood in front of him, gelatinous body fully saturated with water and subtly undulating, no longer frozen in place. He fixed his giant, expressive eye onto Byron’s miraculously unswollen, decidedly conscious face, and blinked wetly.
Master . . . Byron?
Byron was surprised to find himself smiling at the now familiar sensation of Korbius’s deep psychic voice speaking directly into his mind. As his brown hair started to matte wetly on his forehead, Byron realized he’d actually missed the big purple monster. He gave a little wave.
“Hey.”
For a couple of seconds, Korbius just stood there, eyeing Byron with a leery, heavily lidded look. Korbius brought a single tentacle up and brushed it gently against Byron’s abdomen. But the moment the tentacle made contact Korbius’s eyes open wide, all his tentacles stretched into the air, waving around frenetically, and he loosed a strangle gurgling warble, like the sound of several drowning turkeys.
Before Byron could resist, the giant octopus had all his tentacles wrapped around him in a firm embrace.
Will you ever cease to astound and amaze Master Byron?! To be near death mere seconds
ago and now miraculously restored after only a brief trip to the toilet! Amazing, absolutely amazing!
Squished within Korbius’s affectionate but immobilizing grip, Byron frowned in confusion, “huh?” he grunted, and managed to twist around just enough to look over his shoulder.
Where on the island the floating door had revealed a shimmering layer of energy and, beyond that, the frozen image of Tilda’s backyard, here in Tilda’s backyard there was only a dilapidated old outhouse. Byron looked through the door frame and, instead of seeing Tilda or the frozen island, there was only a sad little toilet and a single dangling incandescent lightbulb.
As Byron scrutinized the old toilet, Korbius was chatting up a psychic storm.
Korbius begs Master Byron’s forgiveness – had Korbius arrived but a moment earlier Master Byron would never have been stung. Korbius came as soon as Master Byron called.
“What do you mean, I didn’t call you.” Byron paused and raised his eyebrows uncertainly, “did I?”
Korbius let Byron go and nodded his bulbous head ridiculously. He looked like a giant, upside down speed bag in a boxing gym, except with a huge eyeball painted on the side of it – and eight prehensile tentacles whirling about.
Of course Master Byron called. Korbius had been following along the coast all day, laying in wait, like a Kras-no Nether Shark seeking a mate. The tiny human female lured Master Byron here, but Korbius only knew to attack when you became afraid.
Byron instinctively looked down at his stomach, lifting his shirt to look at the glowing blue stain there. “Wait, so this thing lets you find me,” Byron asked, ” – like gps or something?”
Korbius has never encountered the one called Geepeeehs, but knowing Master Byron’s location is one of the boons afforded by our bond.
Byron looked up and chuckled to himself in relief, “I thought it was eggs or something,” he said lightheartedly.
Korbius recoiled in disgust.
Eggs?! Master Cantor, Korbius could not have been clearer – despite Master Cantor’s great prowess and ability, Korbius will not be Master Byron’s mate!
Byron held out both his hands, palms up in front of him in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just thought —” Byron’s voice died on his tongue as he finally saw the chaos swirling above them.
Faces in the darkness, distorted by the wind of the storm, their features pressed hard against an invisible barrier. Here and there a face would swing around and slam into whatever force held them at bay. The ramming faces shattered on impact into dark fragments, pieces of blackness which seemed to suck in light rather than reflect it. These fragments would evaporate in the storm, and another face would quickly come to fill the space where the lost one had been.
The entire backyard was encapsulated by the terrifying disembodied faces. They wore snarls, jeers, monstrous frowns, or broad, toothy smiles. Byron shuddered under their psychic weight.
Korbius followed Byron’s gaze, tilting his gelatinous form backward so his eye faced the blacked out sky, then he sunk down low and flat against the ground, shutting his single eye entirely. When Korbius spoke again his psychic voice was uncharacteristically grim and soaked through with fear.
Sea Fiends. Kanak’o Tel. It cannot be, they are a myth of the Nethersea.
Byron had no idea what Korbius was talking about, but the hundreds of faces above them exuded menace like nothing Byron had ever seen. His heart was racing, and he felt his head begin to freeze up under the stress. Instinct brought his fingertips together, one by one and back again.
“We need to get this outhouse working,” Byron said, giving one of Korbius’s tentacles a firm tug, “now!”
But Korbius was absolutely stricken with terror, his flesh beginning to change color and texture to try and match the wet grass beneath him. Apparently, he was not well practiced in the art of camouflage because the effects appeared in a patchy way and, Byron thought, were entirely unconvincing.
We cannot fight this. Master Byron, we must run.
His giant eye shot an anxious glance at Byron from the ground.
Master Byron must teleport and leave this place.
Byron stopped searching the wooden frame of the outhouse for a hidden button or latch and turned toward Korbius. “Where?”
Anywhere!
Byron’s head raced as he tried to visualize someplace safe for the two of them to teleport to. He couldn’t think, looking up at all those bizarre creatures in the sky, so he shut his eyes and covered them with his hands and tried to envision someplace safe.
Someplace safe he thought to himself.
Hello. Byron.
Byron’s eyes shot open in shock. His nostrils filled spontaneously with the scent of wood ash and his mouth with the acrid taste of char. He could feel searing heat upon his bare skin and could hear only the roar of a raging fire. In his sight, the backyard was gone entirely, replaced by a world of flame.
Korbius felt Byron’s panic through their bond and looked up at him with worry. He tried to call out to Byron, but the psychic words could not penetrate into Byron’s invaded mind.
Frozen in place, Byron stood, small and alone, before the inferno.
I have found you, Byron. I see you, even now.
From deep within the infinite flames a speck appeared – a black dot which slowly grew in size until Byron could make out the shadowed figure of a man. As the figure drew near, step by terrible step, he cut a path of utter devastation before him. Byron saw then that the dark silhouette was here, walking through the storm, entering Ocracoke proper. He did not abide the streets or the sidewalks. Instead, he walked as the crow flies, each calm step bringing him closer to Byron. A house blocked his way, but it spontaneously exploded into atomized dust before his will, becoming little more than a translucent cloud through which he strode.
Byron felt the shadow’s malice, its hatred of all living things, all imperfections, with Byron foremost among them. It would not stop until Byron was ash in the wind.
Back in reality, Byron began to seize. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body started quivering violently as his legs gave out. Korbius caught him in a bed of tentacles as he crumpled to the ground. At nearly the same moment, the doorway of the outhouse came alive again with a bright, undifferentiated white light. A spider’s groping talon reached out of the portal and touched Byron.
There was another bright flash and then Byron, Korbius, and the spider leg were gone. The outhouse was just an outhouse once again and the backyard was empty.
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