Sunlight filtered down onto Jadis’ face, a glorious sensation she’d been missing for far too long. A fresh scent of pine filled her nose as she breathed in a deep lungful of wonderfully clean air, untainted by the dank staleness of uncounted years in a cave. She smiled, eyes closed, appreciating the warmth of the late summer day for a few moments longer before sighing in resignation.
“There’s no way we’re fitting through there,” Jay informed her companions. “None of us could fit through that hole, not even Eir.”
Syd hung from a ledge in the rock formation along the cavern ceiling, nearly thirty feet off the floor. A small hole in the rock proved to be the source of the wind Kerr and Eir had heard, a mostly straight tunnel that led to the surface. It looked more like the product of natural erosion than a tunnel dug by some creature, to Jadis’ admittedly untrained eye, but either way the hole was far too small for any of them to fit through. Leading up into the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle, the channel went through at least fifteen feet of rock. Even with her immense strength, Jadis was certain she wouldn’t be able to break her way through that much solid stone, not without risking some kind of collapse, and definitely not while awkwardly hanging from the ceiling.
“Where do we go from here then?” Aila asked after Jay had explained what her other self could see from her position.
“P—perhaps we should fan out. Um, sort of, spread out from this cave, see if we can find another exit?” Thea suggested, looking up at where Syd was still hanging from the ceiling.
“There’s no guarantee there’ll be another way out nearby,” Kerr said with a grimace, cursing under her breath.
“Lacking other options, I say we just search the area like Thea says,” Dys shrugged. “Unless someone has another idea?”
No one else did. And so, once Syd had dropped down, the group began a thorough search of the cavern and adjacent tunnels near the small open shaft teasing them with freedom.
It was decidedly a challenge for Jadis, being so close to the surface and not being able to escape, but she tried to keep positive about the situation. At least she now had proof positive that they hadn’t somehow ended up five miles under the surface and were hopelessly lost in the tunnels that crisscrossed the underside of the world. That had been a serious concern of hers for a while there.
The group was methodical in their search, marking each tunnel by carving signs into the stone as they went. Several of the tunnels led downward but Jadis made sure to check them anyway, at least up until it became clear that the tunnel wasn’t going to start heading upward. Kerr and Eir were constantly listening for signs of the surface, ears twitching at every hint of a sound, but nothing ever caught their attention like the one ceiling vent. At one point, the group came across a cave chamber that looked like it had been home to some predator in years past, bones and shells of all kinds scattered about the stone floor, but there was no sign of the predator itself, or any exit.
After a couple of hours the group was forced to call it quits, weariness having grown too great for those with lesser endurance. They decided to camp in a tunnel with a dead end leading directly off of the main cavern. As tired as most of them were, Jadis was too wound up to sleep right away and told them all to get rest while she worked on a project.
One of the bits and pieces they’d found discarded in the one chamber was a large piece of pill bug shell still in good condition. The purple chitin was thick and strong but not particularly heavy in Jadis’ opinion. The shell curved slightly and was smaller than Thea’s old shield, but with some effort Jadis was certain she could put together something usable for the guard to equip. It took a few tries to get it right, but with the use of her daggers, some of the hydra bones, and a lot of effort, Jadis managed to carve the shell into a rough approximation of a shield, with a piece of bone affixed between two holes on the upper and lower curves to act as a handle.
It took a few hours, but Jadis was eventually satisfied with the results. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a big step over nothing.
As she sat there in the dark surrounded by various bone materials, staring at the product of her labor, a thought went through her head, a reminder of an earlier question that she had put aside. The others were asleep and there was nothing else to keep Jadis occupied, so she decided to indulge the whim. Quietly, Jadis pulled open Aila’s backpack and retrieved the metal and glass cube containing the demon hatchling.
One of Jadis’ bodies stood guard near the tunnel exit, but the other two sat down with their legs spread out before them, making a diamond shape between them. Setting the cube down in the middle, Jadis took a few of the various bones she’d collected and placed them around the cube with about a foot of space between the bones and the container.
The small demon wriggled inside of its cube prison, its one large neon-blue eye staring first at Jay, then Dys, then at the collection of skeletal remains. Aside from some small shifts in its tentacles and the occasional movement of its pupil as it looked between her and the bones, Jadis saw no reaction from the demon.
“Okay, a little closer then,” Jay whispered, then pushed the bones so they were directly next to the cube, some even touching the glass.
Still there was no reaction from the demon. No magic runes floating in the air like she’d seen from bone thieves regenerating in the past, no attempts from the demon to break its way out to get to the bones. It just sat there, watching.
“What are you doing?”
Jadis nearly jumped at the whispered words, her two selves having focused entirely on the tiny demon in its box. Looking over, she saw Aila sitting up from her bedroll, brows furrowed as she took in the scene.
“I’m testing to see if it will try and use the bones,” Jay whispered back, motioning for Aila to come closer.
At her beckoning, Aila joined Jadis and sat leaning against Jay’s side, legs curled up under her as she watched the little demon.
“No reaction, I take it?”
“None,” Jay shook her head. “I’m not sure it’s a bone thief at all, since it isn’t doing anything like I’ve seen the others do.”
“Maybe it’s still too young?” Aila mused, looking at the hatchling in much the same way a chef might eye a suspiciously soft vegetable. “I have no idea how long it takes demons to reach a point where they are more than hatchlings, but I doubt it takes all that long. If it did, we wouldn’t have so many of them ravaging our lands, destroying everything they can.”
“Maybe,” Jay murmured, considering the possibilities. After a few moments of further inaction on the hatchling’s part, she tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Time to remove a variable.”
With that, Dys reached out and unlatched the metal cube, opening the top and laying it on its side. With bated breath, Jadis watched to see what the demon would do.
Slowly, with what looked like hesitance or caution, the hatchling slipped first one, then a couple more of its tentacles out of its steel and glass cage. With almost glacial movements, it wiggled its way out of the container and onto the cave floor, its eye darting around in many directions. As it moved, one of its tentacles made contact with a bone and the demon recoiled, inching back for a few moments before it stretched its dark, almost jet-black appendage out again, slowly running it across and around the piece of bone.
Now that she was seeing the hatchling wriggle across the ground, Jadis decided that it looked more like a messed-up starfish than a squid or octopus. There was no bulging sack body or mantle on the creature, just a large single eye on top of a central core from which a dozen tentacles radiated. If the demon didn’t have the cyclopean eye, she could have been convinced that it was just some odd natural creature native to the shores of Oros instead of a highly destructive force of evil.
After a minute or two, Jadis noticed that the demon seemed to gain some confidence in its movements as it slid across the collection of bones more quickly, wrapping its tentacles around them curiously. It still made no attempt to cast any kind of spell that Jadis could tell. No bones moved or shifted to create a bone thief shell or core and nothing obviously harmful occurred.
“I’m not seeing anything magical happening,” Jay finally commented aloud. “How about you?”
“Nothing,” Aila replied, “But that doesn’t—”
Her words were cut off as the hatchling’s eye swiveled around to look at her and Jay, then it began gliding across the cave floor towards the both of them.
“Woah,” Jay said as the demon moved close to her leg. “Stop right there, little guy.”
It continued forward and, realizing it was dumb to expect a demon hatchling to react to her words, Jay slapped her hand down on the ground in front of the wriggling mass of tentacles and more firmly growled out a single command like she was talking to a disobedient dog.
“No!”
To her surprise, the demon stopped. Its tentacles pulled in close to its body as it curled up, making its profile small as it came to a complete stop. Its neon-blue eye stared up at Jay, unblinking and focused solely on her.
“Oh,” Aila whispered softly. “That’s unexpected.”
“Yeah…” Jay trailed off, staring at the little hatchling.
After another few moments of no change, Jay mentally shrugged and lifted her hand from the ground, then pointed at the cube.
“Back,” she commanded sternly, her voice as deep as she could make it without getting loud.
The hatchling’s eye looked at the pointing finger, then back at Jay, but otherwise the demon made no attempt to move from its curled-up position.
“Back!” Jay repeated, motioning with her finger to point first at the hatchling, then at the metal and glass cube. She repeated the command and hand motion a third time after another minute of no reaction.
To both Jadis and Aila’s shock, after the third command, the demon hatchling moved. Slowly but steadily it wriggled back across the cave floor, moving across the pile of bones to reach the cube. Without any hesitance it slid back inside and curled up again, staring out at the two women as they watched in silence.
After waiting a second to make sure nothing else was about to happen, Dys reached over and tipped the cube back upright and closed the lid, latching it firmly as the demon sat patiently inside. Once the lid was secured, the hatchling seemed to relax, its tentacles unfurling as it started moving around inside the cube.
“Alright, that was kind of weird,” Jay said, watching the hatchling resume its normal activity inside of its cage.
“Very…” Aila agreed, clearly nonplused.
“Kind of like a dog,” Dys mused, running a hand through her white hair. “Sort of listens to commands.”
“And went back to its ‘kennel’ when we told it to,” Jay continued the line of thought.
“I don’t think it’s wise to think of a demon as some kind of puppy,” Aila said with a frown. “But I see what you mean, to a certain extent.”
“Alright, that’s enough experimenting for tonight,” Jay sighed, picking up the cube and looking at the demon curiously for a moment longer before tucking the hatchling away into Aila’s pack. “I think I’m ready for some sleep now.”
Wrapping Aila up in two sets of arms, Jay and Dys laid down and tried to rest while Syd kept on watch for a while longer. For a long time, though, Jadis’ thoughts continued to spin in circles over the possibilities and implications of having successfully commanded a demon into doing what she wanted.
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