Now Lenamare spoke alone, “by the power of my will, by which I command thee, Tomasedwardperkinje, I hereby relegate my authority to the wielder of this ring. Let the wielder’s command of thee be second only to my own. Let all know that today, as forever, thou art bound. Bound by my will, and bound by this ring. May thy soul be trapped in the Neverending Loop of Confinement, ad verti sig fallum. Dros Faustus tan Varn, sid Ekelios, fel Mephistum.”
Together they all chanted, “Embodiae sig fallum, Dominae sed nostrum, deskripten sig fallum, verti et sebuam. Bound unto forever Tomasedwardperkinje, hielphistos sorbum amenetorum.” With the final pronouncement, the ring flashed a bright white light. Tom felt his pupils automatically contract to block the light, but other than that he felt absolutely nothing.
The three wizards stared at Tom intently, as if trying to determine something. Jehenna put the ring on the middle finger of her right hand and pointed it at Tom. He winced, fearing that more pain was coming, although none did. His reaction apparently satisfied her, for she nodded. “Demon,” she said, “kneel before me.”
Not really knowing what was going on, but not really wanting to feel the pain that Lenamare had already inflicted, specifically, not wanting to test whether or not he could face it down again, he complied. Again, seeming satisfied, she nodded.
“Any other tests?” Lenamare asked.
“No, I think we’ve demonstrated that it works,” Jehenna said. The old man simply nodded his head in agreement with Jehenna.
“Very well then, Jehenna, if you would care to do the honors?”
“Certainly,” Jehenna waved her arms toward Tom and said, “be gone now, Demon; get thee hence, return to thy own plane until we should have need of thee. Depart in peace, and take none that is ours with you.” At this apparent dismissal, Tom relaxed, knowing he would soon be out of this tower and away from these people. As he relaxed and imagined his ledge, the tower room began to disappear around him. Shortly, he was once again standing outside his new cave.
Chapter 11
“God, those people really piss me off,” Tom said to himself as he looked out from his cave, “with their mixed up thee’s and thou’s and their pseudo-Latin mumbo jumbo.” Slowly he turned around and descended into the cave to explore it. “Would I like to show them a thing or two.” As he descended, he thought about this last encounter; and the more he thought about it the angrier he got. Just as in any confrontation situation, where one feels one is the loser, Tom replayed all different scenarios, envisioning how things might have gone. If only he could have broken the barrier, if only he had thought of this, of that, of several different things.
He wandered down the cave, thinking of all the things he might do next time, to teach Lenamare and his toadies a lesson. He let out a lot of mental steam and frustration, knowing he’d probably never get a chance to exercise his dreams of vengeance. It was, he thought, just like the bullies; he had dreamed and dreamed of someday getting even, but he never did, and now never would. The closest he’d ever come to doing anything about the bullies in Junior High had been to take Tae Kwon Do lessons for over a year, before giving them up out of laziness. Occasionally he berated himself for not going further, only a few more months and he’d have had a black belt, but he’d gotten mad at people in the club and decided he didn’t want to put up with the lessons and a few of the other students.
The tunnel was, Tom guessed, pretty dark inside; he could no longer see light from the outside; however, he had no trouble seeing. His demon eyes, he realized, could see very well in complete darkness, better even than a cat. Everything was in black and white, but it seemed almost as light as a very overcast day, and different objects stood out in sharp contrast to one another. Here and there the passage would narrow or widen and twist or turn. “Good grief this tunnel is long, I guess I’ve found a pretty good cave.” Suddenly the cave opened up into a larger cavern. Nice, Tom thought looking around the cave, he was still too wound up to really appreciate the cave.
Lancing pain!
“Shit!” Tom yelled as what felt like huge knives ripped into his right arm and wing area. The blow sent him off balance and forward. He glanced behind him and saw something. What it was he couldn’t be sure, but it was big, bigger by far than himself, and it had a huge claw with which it had tried to slice him.
A five foot long snout was suddenly in his face, as the creature repositioned itself, blocking the only visible exit to the cavern. The snout was very reptilian, and had huge teeth and mesmerizing eyes. Behind the head was a long curving neck which eventually merged with a large scaly body with wings the size of theRoc models Tom had seen in museums, and claws that looked like giant swords. Shit, thought Tom, it looks like a dragon. Quickly, Tom looked around the room, but he could see no other tunnels leading out. Since he was still wound up over his encounter with Lenamare, and because the pain had given him a massive adrenaline rush, and since the fight or flight syndrome was definitely going full bore, and he couldn’t do the flight part, he decided to fight. Trying to think as little as possible about what he was doing, Tom put all his body strength into a back kick right to the nose of the dragon.
Crunch, was the sound from the dragon’s nose scales. The dragon reared back and bellowed a horrendous roar of pain. Tom had forgotten how his bull-like legs were very well suited for back kicks, and how much stronger he now was. Put both of those facts together with the Tae Kwon Do he had learned, and he supposed he must have a pretty powerful kick.
Acrid smelling, steaming blood spurted out of the dragon’s nose. Infuriated, it opened its mouth and let loose a gusher of liquid. The liquid fell on Tom’s hide, and burned. Did it ever burn, it felt like he was on fire. Every nerve screamed in pain. Without pausing to think, Tom leaped forward swinging his right hand in an open karate chop at the dragon’s neck, just as his instructor had taught him, what seemed like so long ago. He spread his fingers slightly, to get better advantage of his long nails. Tom knew that if he stopped to think rationally that he would probably run, even though there was nowhere to go, but he was too keyed up from his imaginary scenarios with Lenamare, and was too pissed off at this damn dragon, to do so. As easily as they had dug finger holds, his claws raked through the scales of the dragon, causing it to scream again.
This time the dragon’s blood squirted on Tom, and if he had thought that the breath acid had stung, well this was somehow worse yet. The dragon reached down and tried to bite Tom on the head. Viciously, incisors bit into Tom’s shoulder, one canine type fang punctured Tom’s chest. He gasped in new pain, as lancing bolts of agony shot up from the puncture wound. Because of the puncture, he couldn’t really use his left hand, not only did the tooth in his chest interfere with his pectoral muscles, but his left arm was partially in the mouth. Everything went dark around him as the jaws clamped shut. The small incisors hurt, but he hardly noticed them compared the fang in his left chest muscle, and the complementary top fang scraping along his left side. The dragon’s tongue kept poking Tom on the head as it tried to bring him into its mouth to chew him up.
In a desperate attempt to avoid being eaten, Tom wildly swung his right fist towards where his own face would be. He felt his fingers tearing into the softer underside of the dragon’s jaw, ripping muscles and scales. The dragon shuddered and screamed with its mouth shut. With his head inside the mouth, Tom’s ears rang horribly, painfully even. He pulled down with his right hand, desperately using all his strength. His hand hit jaw bone; he pulled, and pulled, at the same time trying to gouge his nails into the bone.