Bound to the Abyss (2 page)

Compared to the more simple runes that represented individual words, summoning runes were the most intricate of them all; the complex shapes and letters twisted together in a manner that was difficult to get perfect. One slip or misspelled word and any number of creatures could crawl out of the Abyss, if the spell didn’t simply fizzle out of course. It took him three tries before he was happy with his work. Ean examined the completed rune.

“Perfect,” he said and set the finished piece on the floor with the rune facing up.
 

Taking a deep breath, he mentally prepared himself for the pain that came with a summoning. After a few moments of peace, Ean braced himself. Placing his left hand on the rune, he activated it by tracing a finger along the proper symbol set in the center of the design.

An iron-tight grip began to squeeze his chest as the spell took hold. The rune carved into the clay began to glow with a dark blue light that bathed Ean’s entire room. As the light grew in intensity, the piece of clay began to dissolve into the floor. Once the glowing rune actually touched the floor, it flared once, causing Ean to squint. Then it was gone, replaced by a pinprick of blue light shooting into the ceiling. The small speck grew into the size of a coin and continued to grow. When it finally stopped expanding, a circular opening twice the size of a dinner plate rested on his floor. A dark blue, purplish mist made seeing into the hole impossible, but Ean knew what was on the other side.

Ean couldn’t help but grin a little bit through the pain at the sight of the knee-high imp rising out of the gateway. Claw marks and burns covered his light brown, humanoid body. His cheeks and small pointed nose looked bruised. His normally erect, long pointed ears flopped forward like bent blades of grass. Out of the eight nails at the end of his four fingered hands, six were broken. The worst injury appeared to be a broken toe bent at an odd angle. Zin had a large smile on his face, though; Ean imagined the imp was just as relieved to be free of the Abyss as Ean was to see him back in one piece.

As soon as the imp’s body was completely free, the gateway closed on its own, shrinking back into a tiny beam of light before winking out. The pressure vanished from his body, signaling that the spell had run its course. Reappearing at the end of the spell, the clay piece was slid into Ean’s pocket as Ean collapsed onto his side. “Welcome back,” he said to Zin in between heavy breaths.

“Why, thank you. It’s good to be back,” Zin said, that mixture of a half grin and half smirk he usually wore showing off his rows of razor-sharp teeth. “It looks like you had just as rough of a time up here as I did down there.” Moving over to Ean’s side, the imp dropped his little pack onto the ground and sat on the floor. “I’m glad you decided to bring me back a day early. It only took me half the time to get what I needed, which meant I spent the rest of the time either getting kicked around or doing my best to hide.”

“Yeah well, as you can see, I got kicked around quite a bit as well. Almost right after you left, in fact.” Ean used his good arm to push himself slowly back up into a sitting position. “Krane didn’t waste any time getting his revenge for making him look like a fool.”

Zin’s eyes opened wide. “So quickly? That’s a surprise. I swear that boy is slightly insane.” A mischievous grin appeared on his face. “But we won’t have to worry about him much longer. Time for your present!”
 

The imp reached over and grabbed his bag, opening it up and digging around inside. When he pulled his hands back out, he held what looked like a writing utensil, but it also could have easily been a severed finger from some large creature with blue skin and red nails. “Here is the key to your future,” Zin gave an elaborate bow as he presented the hard won prize. “May it help us to finally get out of this armpit of a village. The only other thing we need now is The Book.”
 

Ean smiled, but said nothing. Feeling underneath his bed, his fingers touched the rune carved into the planks of his floor. On instinct his finger moved to the activating symbol, the sudden glow coming from beneath his bed signaling the activation of the rune and effectively opening up his Pocket. A miniature gateway into the Abyss, it connected him to a small, secure area that held his most prized possessions. His hand dissolved through the floorboards for a moment before he pulled out a rough cloth bag. He pulled out a book from inside, its cover a thick black leather about as wide as his leg. Since the cover had no distinguishable markings, he had started calling it The Abysmal Tome, or just ‘The Tome’. Ean deposited the book in front of Zin before he tossed the bag aside.

“All right, what page are we looking for?”

“Look for a hand with a rune inscribed on the palm,” Zin said. “I‘m pretty sure I saw it towards the back.”

After a couple of moments flipping through the worn pages, Ean found an illustration of a hand with one of the most intricate runes he had ever seen drawn on the palm. The number of different shapes and inscribed letters was astounding. He let out a low whistle.
 

“This looks pretty complicated. Are you sure I’m up for it?” All Ean could make out were the simple words for “abyss” and “rune.” The majority of the rest he had never seen before. He started to shake his head. “I don’t even know if I can figure out which parts are the activating words and which are just descriptions of what the rune does.”

Zin’s finger floated over the book as he scrolled over the words. He was careful not to actually touch the Tome lest his hands burst into flames again. The imp scanned over a few of the passages and then stopped at what appeared to be the middle of a paragraph. “That’s it, right there. This won’t put you in the kind of pain that summoning does. All you have to worry about is getting the rune perfect on your right palm.”

Shrugging, Ean reached down and picked up the finger-like item. “Whatever you say.” Ean moved The Book from the floor onto his lap so he had a clear view of what he was doing. He stared at the drawing, trying to take in everything, all of the curves and lines, trying to see it as one continuous rune as opposed to a series of interlaced ones. When he was finally comfortable with the design in his head, he dipped the strange nail down into the ink. As soon as the tip touched the ink, the fingernail drained the inkbottle and the entire finger began to pulse with an eerie blue glow. Ean glanced over at Zin, eyebrows raised. The imp simply nodded back and then waved him on to continue. With a shrug, Ean took the item and placed the tip against his palm. When nothing happened, Ean relaxed a bit and started to draw.

A jolt of pain lanced through Ean’s entire body as soon as he moved the nail even the tiniest bit along his skin. Dropping the finger, Ean shot Zin an angry look. “What in the Abyss was that? Are you trying to play a joke on me?”

“Of course not,” Zin replied. “You didn’t think a powerful spell like this would be painless, did you?” The imp flashed him a smile, showing off his tiny, jagged teeth. “Trust me, from what I’ve gathered, the new power you will acquire will more than make up for what little pain you endure now.”

“Little pain?!” Ean almost yelled but controlled himself. The last thing he wanted was Cleff coming up to check on him at this particular moment. “It felt like I had stuck my hand in a hornet’s nest and then gave it a good shake.”
 

Against his better judgment, he picked up the finger and tried again. The pain returned as he started to draw, but Ean kept reminding himself that the pain would be worth it in the end. Hopefully. He had gotten the first major design finished, a swirl of lines that curved around and back on itself so many times it became difficult to follow, when a particularly nasty jolt made him drop the finger again. As soon as the nail left his palm, the entire rune he had been drawing disappeared.
 

“Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“Well, look at that. I guess you have to finish it in one go.” Letting out a little laugh, Zin climbed up on the bed. “I guess I can take a nap until you actually get it right.” Taking a few moments to glare at Zin, Ean turned his attention back to his hand and tried again.

Ean had no idea how long he attempted to get the rune inscribed on his palm. Each time he would get only so far, when a jolt of pain made him mess up again. After a round of cursing, he started again from scratch. As the sun started its downward descent towards the mountains to the West, Ean finished. The completed rune stayed on his palm, giving off a slight glow and the tiniest bit of heat.
 

Ean showed it to Zin, who was lounging on his side. “Looks good, doesn’t it? This better be well worth the effort.”

“Oh, it will be. You’ll see,” Zin said. He climbed down off the bed and looked down at Ean’s book. “All right, you remember which parts to read, correct? Is there anything you need help pronouncing?”

“No, nothing too difficult there. Should be easy compared to actually getting it drawn on my palm.” Looking down, he slowly went through the passage in his head twice and then began to recite the words aloud. The language of the Abyss was strange, with many of the words consisting of noises that sounded more like a person clearing his throat than an actual language. He had gotten quite good at pronouncing the words; it was just unfortunate that he did not know what most of them meant. When he finished, the rune on his palm grew cold and started to dim. For a moment, Ean thought he had failed and would have to start all over again, but then the light of the rune sprang back to life, bathing his tiny room in a dark blue glow. Proud of his accomplishment, Ean glanced at the imp expecting him to look impressed. His smile froze when he saw worry lines etched into Zin’s brow instead.

“This part is going to be bad,” Zin said. “Just do your best to ride it out.”

“Wait, you said—” He lost his words when pain suddenly dropped him to his knees. Molten lava coursed through his veins. His arms and legs flailed violently. Muscles contorting, he writhed on the floor, trying to escape his own body. Sweat drained out of his pores. Was that his heart pounding in his ears or a war drum? The sound was blighted out by the force of his scream that could not be contained. He had never known such agony.

The light from the rune disappeared, and with it, the pain. Ean’s body went limp, a few aftershocks of the agony he had been in making parts of his body twitch randomly. His mind was blank, his body exhausted. The door crashed open and a moment later he sensed someone kneeling beside him. “Nightmare,” Ean breathed out, although how he had thought of the lie so quickly, he’d never know. He clenched his right fist to hide the rune. The figure at his side wordlessly picked up Ean’s limp body and put him back in bed. Ean was out soon after.

* * *

When Ean awoke, the green light from the first moon cast the room in a soothing glow. He stretched out his free left arm, feeling tired but good. Actually, he felt pretty great. Taking off his sling, he moved his right arm about, bending the elbow and twisting his wrist and forearm about. It wasn’t even sore! Next, he checked out the rune on his palm.

The rune was still there, giving off a faint glow that mixed with the moonlight and turned his room a faint purple. However, there was more now. Small, dark blue lines ran out of the rune, moving along his palm and up his fingers. The lines wrapped around his hand and seemed to converge on the back, creating a swirling design. From there, smaller lines shot out and moved up the back of his fingers as well, ending at his fingernails.
 

“Well, that’s new,” Ean said to himself, turning his hand over and back repeatedly as he inspected the new addition on his hand.

“That’s just the beginning.” Ean looked over and found Zin sitting on his dresser. “The longer that rune is on your body, and the more you use your power, the faster your strength will build. At least that’s what I gathered it was supposed to do. Oh, and sorry about lying to you about the pain. I figured it would just make you nervous if you knew it was coming.”

“Oh, yeah. It was much better not knowing,” Ean half-heartedly threw his pillow at Zin, which the imp easily snatched out of the air. “So what’s different now? What can I do, summon stronger creatures? Actually be able to control the creatures I summon?”
 

“I have no idea. Let the magic settle into your body and then we can see what happens. Remember, all I know is that your power and tolerance should increase.” Zin jumped down off the dresser and made his way over to the bed. “There is one thing you can do right away.” He reached under the bed and pulled out Ean’s bag. The Book was still sitting on top of it.
 

“Wait!” Ean exclaimed. “Cleff didn’t see this stuff, did he?”

“Nope, thankfully, when your body started jerking around, The Tome landed on the bag and I dragged them both and the finger under the bed before he broke in. How about you hide these things away again?”

Ean grabbed The Tome and the finger, carefully placing both into the bag. He was about to start crawling under the bed to access the rune to his Pocket, when Zin’s raised hand stopped him. “No. Just use your hand. You should be able to create runes now just from your power alone. Just try visualizing your finger as a knife carving the rune.”

Ean cast a funny look at Zin but went along with the imp’s suggestion. He sat on the floor and started to trace the same designs he used to open his Pocket onto the floor. As Zin predicted, the design began to glow with a faint light, rising a few inches off of the ground, before dissolving into the floor. When he had finished, the rune light grew, rising a few inches off of the ground before disappearing as the gateway to Ean’s own personal storage space opened up before him.
 

Ean couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t even needed to retrace the activating rune at the center of his design. This would be much more convenient in the future. He grabbed his bag with his scarred left hand and slowly lowered it into the Pocket. Once it was inside, he instinctively placed his right hand on the edge of the portal and tried willing it to close. As he expected, it closed on its own, replaced by the rune used to summon it. With a brush of his hand, the rune disappeared as well. The only light now came from the rune on his hand and the green moonlight coming through his window, the two mixing into a hazy combination of both colors.