No1 could do nothing but return to the bench and bear the insults of his classmates. And there were plenty of those, usually accompanied by a missile or blow. But somehow No1 ignored these latest humiliations, staring instead at his own hand. The one that had turned wood to stone. Could it be true? Could he actually be a warlock? And if he was, would that make him feel better or worse?
A toothpick bounced off his forehead onto the bench. There was a sliver of gray meat stuck to the end. No1 glanced up to find Rawley grinning at him.
“Been trying to get that out for weeks. Wild boar, I think. Now, pay attention, Runt, Master Abbot is trying to educate you.”
Oh yes, the history lesson. It was amazing how much Leon Abbot managed to insert himself into demon history. To hear him tell it, you would think that he had single-handedly saved the 8th Family, in spite of the meddling warlocks.
Abbot studied the hooked talons on his fingertips. Each one could gut a large pig. If Abbot’s own stories were true, he had warped at age eight while wrestling one of the island’s wild dogs. His fingernails had actually changed into talons during the fight, lacerating the dog’s side.
No1 found this story highly unlikely. It took hours to warp fully, sometimes days, but Abbot expected them to believe that his warp was instantaneous. Hogwash. And yet all the other imps lapped up these self-glorifying legends.
“Of all the demons who fought in the last battle at Taillte,” droned Abbot in what he probably thought was a good voice for history lessons, but in what No1 thought was a boring enough voice to turn soft cheese hard, “I, Leon Abbot, am the last.”
Convenient, thought No1. Nobody left around to argue. He also thought: You look your age, Leon. Too many barrels of pork fat.
No1 was an uncharitable imp when in a bad mood.
It is the nature of out-of-time spells that the aging process is drastically slowed. Abbot had been a young buck when the warlocks had lifted Hybras out of time, and so the spell, combined with good genes, had kept him and his huge ego alive ever since. Possibly a thousand years. Of course, that was a thousand years in normal time. In Hybras time a millennium meant very little. A couple of centuries could skip by in the blink of an eye on the island. An imp could wake up one morning to find that he’d evolved. A while back, every demon and imp in Hybras got up one morning with a stubby tail where his magnificent long one used to be. For a considerable time after that, the most common noises on the island were the sounds of demons falling down, or swearing as they got up again.
“After that great battle in which the demon battalions were the bravest and fiercest in the People’s army,” continued Abbot to hoots of approval from the imps, “we were defeated by treachery and cowardice. The elves would not fight, and the dwarfs would not dig traps. We had no choice but to cast our spell and regroup until the time was right to return.”
More hooting, plus stamping of feet.
Every time, thought No1. Do we have to go through this every time? These imps act like they’d never heard this story before. When is someone going to stand up and say: “Excuse me. Old news. Move on.”
“And so we breed. We breed and grow strong. Now our army has more than five thousand warriors, surely enough to defeat the humans. I know this because I, Leon Abbot, have been to the world and returned to Hybras alive.”
This was Abbot’s golden nugget. This was where anyone who stood against him withered and blew away. Abbot had not come directly to Limbo with the rest of Hybras. For some reason he had been diverted to the human future, then sucked across to Hybras. He had seen the human camps and actually brought his knowledge home. How all this happened was a bit hazy. According to Abbot, there had been a great battle, he’d defeated fifty or so men, then a mysterious warlock had lifted him out of time again. But not before he’d grabbed a couple of things to bring back.
Since the warlocks had been explosively removed from the 8th Family, nobody had much of a clue about magic anymore. Normal demons had no magic of their own. It had been thought that all the warlocks had been sucked into space during the transferal of Hybras from Earth to Limbo, but according to Abbot, one had survived. This warlock was in league with the humans and had only helped the demon leader under threat of grievous injury.
No1 was highly skeptical of this version of events. First of all, because it came from Abbot, and secondly, because warlocks were being cast, once more, in a bad light. Demons seemed to forget that if it hadn’t been for the warlocks, Hybras would have been overrun by humans.
On this particular day, No1 was feeling a special attachment to the warlocks, and he did not appreciate their memory being sullied by this loudmouth braggart. Hardly a day went by where No1 did not spend a moment praying for the return of the mysterious warlock who had helped Abbot. And now that he was certain of magic in his own blood, No1 would pray all the harder.
“The moon separated me from the rest of the island during the great journey,” continued Abbot, his eyes half closed as if the memory had him in a swoon. “I was powerless to resist her charms. And so I traveled through space and time until I came to rest in the new world. Which is now the world of men. The humans clamped silver on my ankles, tried to make me submit, but I would not.” Abbot hunched his massive shoulders and roared at the roof. “For I am demonkind! And we will never submit!”
Needless to say, the imps went into overdrive. The entire room heaved with their exertions. In No1’s opinion, Abbot’s entire performance was wooden to say the least. The we will never submit speech was the oldest page in Abbot’s book. No1 rubbed his temples, trying to ease the headache. There was worse to come, he knew. First the book, then the crossbow, if Abbot didn’t deviate from the script. And why would he? He hadn’t in all the years since his return from the new world.
“And so I fought!” shouted Abbot. “I kicked off their shackles and Hybras called me home, but before I took my leave of the hated humans, I fought my way to their altar and stole away with two of their blessed objects.”
“The book and the bow,” muttered No1, rolling his orange eyes.
“Tell us what you stole!” begged the others on cue, as if they didn’t know.
“The book and the bow!” proclaimed Leon Abbot, pulling the objects from beneath his robe as if by magic.
As if by magic, thought No1. But not actual magic, because then Abbot would be a warlock, and he couldn’t possibly be a warlock, as he had already warped, and warlocks did not warp.
“Now we know how the humans think,” said Abbot, waving the book. “And how they fight,” he proclaimed, brandishing the crossbow.
I don’t believe any of this for a minute, thought No1. Or I wouldn’t, if we had “minutes” in Limbo. Oh, how I wish I were on Earth with the last warlock. Then there would be two of us, and I would find out what really happened when Leon Abbot came calling.
“And armed with this knowledge, we can return when the time spell fades, and retake the Old Country.”
“When?” cried the imps. “When?”
“Soon,” replied Abbot.“Soon. And there will be humans enough for us all. They will be crushed like the grass beneath our boots. We will tear their heads off like dandelion flowers.”
Oh, please, thought No1. Enough plant similes.
It was quite possible that No1 was the only creature on Hybras who had ever even thought the human word simile. Saying it aloud would have certainly earned him a thrashing. If the other imps knew that his human vocabulary also included words like grooming and decoration, they would string him up for sure. Ironically he had learned these words from Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow, which was supposed to be a school text.
“Tear their heads off,” shouted one imp, and it quickly became a chant, taken up by everyone in the room.
“Yes, tear their heads off,” said No1, trying it out, but there was no feeling in his voice.
What’s my motivation? he wondered. I’ve never even met a human.
The imps climbed onto their benches, bob
bing in primal rhythm.
“Tear their heads off! Tear their heads off!”
Abbot and Rawley urged them on, flexing their claws and howling. A sickly sweet smell clogged the air. Warp muck. Someone was entering the warp spasm phase. The excitement was bringing on the change.
No1 felt nothing. Not so much as a twinge. He tried his best, squeezing his eyelids together, letting the pressure build in his head, thinking bloody thoughts. But his true feelings shattered the false visions of bloodlust and carnage.
It’s no use, he thought. I am not that kind of demon.
No1 stopped chanting and sat, head in hands. No point in pretending; another change cycle was passing him by.
Not so the other imps. Abbot’s theatrics had opened a natural well of testosterone, bloodlust, and bodily fluid.
One by one, they succumbed to the warp spasm. Green gunge flowed from their pores, slowly at first, then in bubbling gushes. They all went under, every one of them. It must be some kind of record, so many imps warping simultaneously. Of course Abbot would take the credit.
The sight of the fluid brought on fresh rounds of howling. And the more the imps howled, the faster the gunge spurted. No1 had heard it said that humans took several years to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Imps did it in a few hours. And a change like that is going to hurt.
The howls of exultation changed to grunts of pain as bones stretched and horns curled, the gunge-coated limbs already lengthening. The smell was sweet enough to make No1 gag.
Imps toppled to the floor all around. They thrashed for a few seconds, then their own fluids mummified them. They were cocooned like enormous green bugs, strapped tight by the hardening gunge. The schoolroom was suddenly silent, except for the crack of drying nutrient fluid and a rustle of flames from the stone fireplace.
Abbot beamed, a toothy smile that seemed to split his head in half.
“A good morning’s work, wouldn’t you say, Rawley? I got them all warping.”
Rawley grunted his agreement, then noticed No1. “Except the Runt.”
“Well, of course not,” began Abbot, then caught himself. “Yes. Absolutely, except the Runt.”
No1’s forehead burned under Rawley and Abbot’s scrutiny.
“I want to warp,” he said, looking at his fingers. “I really do. But it’s the hating thing. I just can’t manage it. And all that slime. Even the thought of that stuff all over me makes me feel a bit nauseous.”