He descended and started back down the cave. As he was walking back to the cavern, Tom suddenly realized that the dragon, when it was alive would have had to twist and constrict itself to get through the passageways. It was dead now, and Tom would have to carry it out somehow. Fun, Tom thought, this is going to be messy.
Tom was just pulling the last of the dragon’s legs out of the cave when a voice hailed him from above. “Ho, Tom, what you got there? A giant drumstick?”
Tom turned around and saw Boggy descending from the sky.
“No, just doing a little house cleaning.” Tom was actually glad to see the little demon. It was nice to have someone to talk to, after dragging random dragon parts out of the cave and dumping them, for the last hour.
“Nasty looking termites you’ve got,” Boggy commented as he landed on the ledge.
“Actually, not only nasty looking, but just plain nasty.”
“I can see. Must have been a great fight.” Boggy was eyeing Tom’s wound’s with an appraising eye. “How long ago did you kill it?”
“I don’t know, I slept for a long time after. The fight was probably about eight hours after I woke up beneath the ledge.”
Boggy raised both his eyebrows, which of course were hairless. “Then definitely a nasty fight. That would have been two Astlanian days ago. If that’s all the more healed you are, then you were in bad shape.”
“Yeah, he sunk a fang clear through me.” Tom pointed to his chest wound, and to the smaller scar he’d discovered, where the fang had come out. “And his acid breath squirted me all over.”
“Well how did you finally kill it then? Those things are mean S.O.B.’s.”
“I spotted a weak spot, under its neck, and jumped with both feet for it. When they got in, well, I just kicked its guts until it died.” Tom felt a small glow of pride in telling his tale.
“Lucky you spotted that weak area. I don’t know what plane those fellows originally came from, but their anatomy sure makes them hard to locate a vital area.”
“Plane they came from?. This isn’t another demon is it?” Tom got nervous, he’d thought he’d just killed some stupid monster. Not another human being in demon form.
“Yep it is, but don’t worry,” Boggy hastened to add, seeing Tom’s stricken look. “They were never humans, like you or I. They belong to some sort of warm blooded technological reptile race out on the edge of some distant galaxy, in god knows what universe. They hate humans and human demons. They always do their best to kill us, so we either try to kill them too, or avoid them if they’re stronger than us.”
“Oh,” Tom said, somewhat relieved. He still didn’t like killing another intelligent being. He wondered why though, it hadn’t bothered him until Boggy had mentioned the possibility of it being another demon. Of course, it wasn’t like he’d had much choice, the thing was trying to kill him. But, his conscience nagged him, Tom had invaded its cave.
“I guess Tizzy didn’t mention the fact that just because a cave isn’t marked, doesn’t mean it’s empty.”
“No, he didn’t,” Tom replied hesitantly.
“Well, all human demons mark their caves, but some of the alien ones don’t. That dragon living there was also probably the reason you don’t see many other demons out this way.”
Curious, Tom asked, “Boggy how did you find me?”
“Wasn’t too hard. When I finally got back, I found Tizzy and he showed me where he’d left you. I simply went towards the mountains looking. It took me quite a while, but eventually I spotted this cave and saw the ‘T’ on it.”
“You saw that mark from way up high?”
“Sure, demon sight is a lot better than any mere eagle sight. Just concentrate on something at a distance. If they can, your eyes will focus on it. Try it sometime.”
“What other things, besides the eyesight, the regeneration, and the aliens not marking their caves haven’t I been told?” Tom asked suspiciously.
Boggy smiled at him, “Now lad, you can’t expect me to tell you everything, that would take all the fun out of it. Besides itis sometimes best if you find out for yourself what you can and cannot do. That way I don’t limit you by telling you what you should and should not be able to accomplish. Who knows, different demons can do different things, maybe you can do things that I consider impossible.”
“Yes, but...”
“Now, except for the oversight on the markings, we’ve told you everything really necessary for survival, don’t worry. Besides, there isn’t much that can permanently hurt you here.”
“Speaking of permanently hurt,” Tom realized, “why did this dragon decompose and I regenerate. How did I actually manage to kill it.”
“That is a bit complex. But basically speaking it has to do with the basic differences in the energy patterns between us and the dragons. The dragons, regenerate faster, but not if you kill them. You and I regenerate fairly slowly, but still incredibly fast compared to a man. Dragons regenerate about three times faster than we do. The only way to slow them down is to cut off their heads and destroy their hearts. Which, it appears that you inadvertently did. Now, once you do that to a dragon, it can’t regenerate its old body, so it just abandons it. It then has to form a new one from scratch, and that could take a couple hundred years before it gathers enough energy to form one. We, on the other hand, don’t stop regenerating after a certain point. The largest part of our bodies left after a fight, somehow gathers up what’s left of our field and begins rebuilding. So, we generally stay with essentially the same body. Which, I might add, is many times faster than starting from scratch.”
“That’s handy to know. Here, fly with me, while I dump this.” Tom launched in the air and took off to the dump site, Boggy following.
“So,” Boggy asked, “have you seen your accursed master again?”
“Yes,” Tom answered as they flew. “It was kind of strange. This time there were only two people with him, and they had some sort of ring and did some sort of mumbo jumbo about binding me to the ring and some Neverending Loop.”
“Hmm,” Boggy said knowingly.
“What were they doing?”
“Well, it sounds to me as if they are preparing to control several demons at one time. What they did was bind you to a talisman. Which basically means that any wizard who has the ring, can command you without first doing a bunch of rituals to bind you. Essentially, anyone wearing the ring is as protected from you as if you were in a pentagram, and they can command you in the name of the master who did the binding.”
Tom reached the place where he was depositing the dragon bits, and let the leg go. As he turned to head back he asked, “Now just exactly, who can normally command my service.”
“Well, basically any wizard who knows your true name and does the required bindings for a demon of your power, or any wizard with the ring who knows how to use it. Now, the first wizard to bind you has precedence over any later wizards binding you; unless, the later wizard is a lot more powerful than the first. Actually, I really wouldn’t worry too much about it. You’ll know whose orders to follow, by being able to carry out those orders when they conflict. For now, just realize that anyone who’s guts you can rip out, can’t command you.”
“Great.” Tom didn’t relish the idea of going around ripping people’s guts out to determine if he should follow their orders; that really wasn’t the best way to make friends. Tom also couldn’t feel the bloodthirsty attitude towards the Astlanians that Boggy did. He didn’t like them, but that didn’t mean he wanted to kill them. Sure, for a while he’d wanted to strangle Lenamare, but that was only one Astlanian, and that only for a short while after being bullied by him.