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Dig, dig, dig... My paws felt like they would wear off before I finished the den. At least I’d managed to get past the permafrost last spring when I started the den. A whole year gone by! It hardly seemed possible, but there was no denying the season. This time last year I’d left my shallow hole and gone off to visit my friends, expecting to attend a wedding and have some fun.
I certainly hadn’t expected the chaos that had followed, but all that was over now and I was back to digging. I paused a moment to gauge my progress. I was at the bottom of a downward slanting tunnel that was tall enough that an average human would only have to stoop a little. It ran for about five feet, but it needed three times that length for optimum comfort. I was seriously considering shortening it a bit. My paws hurt! I pushed a mound of loose earth out in front of me as I emerged from the hole. I shoved it out vigorously so it would scatter. I didn’t want a huge mound of dirt showing anybody who cared to look where my den was. Out in the open I stretched a bit, then turned and went back down again.A number of hours later I quit the mind-numbing work to watch the sun set. This time of year the days and nights were of fairly ordinary length, but when summer arrived the sun would stay in the sky far longer. And in winter it hardly showed. I knew most of my friends thought that the barren hills, far north even of Icecrest, were a terrible place, but to me they were the closest thing to my tundra home I could find on this world.
As darkness fell I descended into the tunnel. Even in spring the nights were cold and it would be warmer there. I fell asleep almost immediately. And it seemed that no sooner had I laid my head down than I was sucked into a dream. It was dark, I could see nothing at all, but I could hear a deep throbbing, like a heart, or perhaps some strange drum being beaten by incomprehensible beings. At first the sound was just strange, but gradually it began to seem frightening. The beat went faster and faster and I could feel my hear racing along with it. I tried to run, but in the darkness I couldn’t be sure if I was even moving. My feet hit a featureless smooth floor, but there was no breeze of motion, no sense that I was moving. Still I raced on, hoping to somehow escape that dreadful beat, beat, beat. The sound didn’t change, and it was impossible to tell from which direction it came. Still I ran until at last with a great crash I ran into a wall.Gasping I awoke. For an instant I thought I was still in the dream, so dark were my surroundings. Then I turned my head and saw starlight shining down from the end of the tunnel. I let out my breath with a whoosh. It was only a dream. With a sigh I settled my head on my paws and went back to sleep. If I dreamed again I forgot it on awakening.
The sun didn’t enter very far into the tunnel, I had faced the tunnel mouth southward, but I had light enough to work, so back to work I went.Yesterday’s work had added another four feet to the tunnel, and I figured that by sunset today I’d be almost finished with the tunnel and ready to start digging out the actually living chambers. I sighed at the though of months of sore paws and set to work.
It took another two days before I finally gave in and shifted. My paws ached beyond bearing and my claws were being worn blunt. The front chamber was hardly even begun, and I wanted at least four other rooms besides. So with a sigh I gave up on completing the den as my ancestors had done and changed into the from of a badger. After that things went much faster. Unless you’ve seen it it’s hard to believe how fast a badger can dig. I completed the front room in a mere three days and another week saw the smaller chambers all done. Fortunately I had encountered only one boulder too large to be moved. A tiny tip of that monumental rock poked up in the center of one of the two guest rooms. I had dug down several feet around it before I decided it probably went down clear to the bedrock. It would take a mage, or perhaps the stone working skill of a dwarf, to remove it, so I decided it lent the room character and let it be.I now had a spacious front room, two guest rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen. I had even begun to furnish the rooms with heaps of furs. I had needed to hunt often over the past few weeks and I saw no reason in letting any useful part of my kills go to waste. So I had stretched the hides and then chewed them soft the way I’d done a hundred times while helping my mother back in the tribe. It wasn’t as good as real tanning, but it made them soft and kept them from reeking. With a particularly large elk hide hung over the entrance, the den was now quite cozy. Eventually I would want a fireplace, but excavating a chimney was beyond me at the moment and would have to wait.
Only one thing more to do and I would be ready to move it. I needed storage space. There were all kinds of other finishing touches of course. Flooring other than bare earth, maybe siding for the walls too, furniture, decoration all that. But I wanted to get all the digging done first, so I picked out an alcove in one corner of the kitchen and began digging again.I dug a tunnel slanting steeply downward. I would hollow out a cellar below the kitchen. But before I had gone more than a few feet down, I broke through into large open space. My first thought was great! I won’t have to dig as much! But then I wondered how this space had gotten here. This was dirt I was digging in. You don’t find caves in dirt unless someone or something dug them. Just as this was dawning on me I noticed something else. There was a faint glow in front of me. I see very well in little light, and the diffused glow of the sun several passages removed had been just enough to dig by, but now an even dimmer radiance fell on my eyes from ahead. What was it? Curiosity killed the cat, but I couldn’t just go back up and leave some strange thing lurking under my kitchen. I had to go see.
Shifting back to my natural form, I set off down a narrow passage toward the distant light. The tunnel I followed twisted and turned several times, the light getting stronger with each bend. There were several branching, but I always headed toward the light. Then all at once I rounded a corner and found a brilliant crimson glow. I squinted till my eyes became accustomed to it, although a human would have found it to be a bit dim. But a human would have been blind in the tunnels I had been following. The light spilled from a large cavern just ahead. I could see now that I had descended to the point where the cavern walls were of stone. Mere dirt would have fallen in on such a large room. I stepped forward to see more and I was confronted with a sight the likes of which I had never seen and hope never to see again. The room was lit by the ruddy glow of leaping flames, though they seemed to burn nothing. And around those flames capered a collection of horrible things. Some of them were winged, some were scaled, some warty or with scabrous sores. Some had horns and spines, others were horribly smooth and slimy. The walked, flew, hopped, slithered, and crawled, but they were all horrendously ugly. I could think of no better name for then than demons.I shrunk back into the passage, but it was too late. One of them had seen me. They raised a cry, and the noises they made were just as awful as the way they looked. With my fur all standing on end I turned and fled back the way I came. In the confusion of flight I missed my way and before I knew it I was hopelessly lost. Fortunately I had also managed to lose the demons, and I figured that I could scent track myself back home. First however I had better give the demons time to forget about me. If I went back now I’d only run into them again. So I say in the dark. Here the red glow was almost to dim even for my eyes. The darkness at first seemed comfortingly safe, hiding me, but then I began to feel edgy. There was something wrong. I sniffed, but I couldn’t smell anything. I couldn’t see anything either. When I tried to listen I found it. So faint it hadn’t really registered consciously, a sound beat on my ears. A familiar sound like a great heart beating in the darkness.
Panic stricken I fled unthinkingly into the dark. But unlike the dream I knew I was moving, could see faintly the walls of the tunnel flashing by, feel the breeze of my movement flow over me. I slowed. Running in panic would only get me into more trouble. I stopped and took stock of my surroundings again. The throbbing beat was a bit louder now, and the dim light a touch brighter but otherwise the rough stone walls were just like any other stretch of tunnel I’d been in. Not content to sit and do nothing I decided to search out the source of the light. My sense of direction told me I had been headed almost directly away from the first cavern the whole time, so the glow ahead had to be something else.Taking extra care to move silently I crept down the hall. The source was much dimmer than the flaring flames that had lit the huge cavern, so I didn’t realize I had found the origin of this light until I was standing in the doorway of a chamber where a few feeble flames flickered against the opposite wall. Standing between me and the flame was a dark winged figure with hands upraised as if to cast some demonic spell. I bared my fangs, hissed, and put my ears back, expecting to be blasted into cinders any moment. Nothing happened.
The figure just stood there with his arms in the air. I was about ready to make good my escape when the flames that flickered at the back of the room flared higher. The demon I had feared was raising his hands because they were chained to the ceiling.I pricked my ears forward and ceased snarling. Then I stepped into the chamber to get a better look. The being who hung in chains was indeed winged, but his wings were of soft white feathers more appropriate for an angel than a demon. One of them was folded neatly against his side, but the other trailed limply to the ground, broken. The rest of him was human, with pale skin and dark hair. The eyes that peered at me with a kind of tired fear were sky blue. A peculiar collar of rough dark iron set with an huge flawless ruby was around his neck. An Aerian no doubt. I realized what I must look like to him, a huge white cat with flame markings. No doubt he thought me just a less ugly demon. He groaned softly and stood up on his toes, trying to take some of the weight off his manacled wrists. Blood dribbled down his arms from where the manacle rubbed against his skin. He had obviously hung here for some time.
As I drew near he flinched away from me."Will you never let me die in peace?" His voice was as worn as the rest of him, but it carried a note of defiance.
"I have no intention of letting you die at all. I’m not a demon, I just stumbled into this place while digging my cellar. Now hold still and let me see if I can get you loose.""Loose? You’ll free me?" Hope sprung up in his eyes, then dies again. "No, this is just another torture, a more clever one."
"I’m no ruse, I’m real. Besides if they wanted to torture you with freedom I think they’d probably send you a pretty winged girl, not a firecat, if I know anything about demons." I had gotten close enough to get a good look at the chains. In this form at least there would be no loosing them."I’m going to do something a bit surprising. Please try not to scream or faint." Without waiting for his reply I shifted into the from of a dragon. Not a particularly impressive dragon, since the larger ones would not fit in the small chamber, but big enough.
I could see the Aerian flinch as I changed, but he stayed silent and conscious. No doubt he’d seen worse things down here. Taking a chain in my now scaled and clawed hands I pulled with all my might, trying to break it off. No luck. I hadn’t expected to succeed so easily, but I had hoped. With a shrug I turned to my second plan. Taking a deep breath I blew out a thin stream of fire. With all my concentration I directed hottest flame I could manage in a tight stream at the chain. The metal turned red, then yellow, then it melted a flowed away. I stopped breathing fire and it cooled and stopped flowing. I hadn’t quite timed it perfectly though, for one single drop remained liquid long enough to drip off the chain and fall onto the Aerian. He let out a sharp hiss of pain as it struck his shoulder. I probably would have screamed my head off had it been me.I quickly grabbed the other chain and repeated the process. This time I managed to cut it off perfectly. The Aerian sighed in relief and slumped to the ground as at last his weight came off his wrists and shoulders. A moment later he was on his feet.
"Thank you, whoever you are! I could not have stood it much longer." I’m Aidan, but much as I’d love to stay and chat I think we’d better be moving on. I assume that you aren’t a demigod and that you haven’t managed to kill off al the demons?""Definitely not a demigod, just a shape shifter." I shifted back into my usual form. "And I agree, we should get going."
He took a few steps forward, then gasped as his injured wing was jostled by his own stride. "Apparently that is going to be easier said than done," he said in a shaky voice.I looked at him. Slender, the way all Aerians have to be in order to get off the ground, and light boned as well. He couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds or so... I grinned. "Not to worry, I’ll carry you."
He hesitated, the nodded. I crouched a bit to make it easier. He swung his leg over my back. He gasped again as the motion shot agony through his broken wing. Then he was mounted and I moved. I took care to walk evenly as possible to keep from hurting him. Then with my nose testing the air to find my own scent I headed back the way I had come. What had taken a few minutes of made flight took much, much longer creeping along cautiously, but our care was well justified. Three times I froze and tried not to breathe as demons passed across intersections mere yards from where I stood. And once I flattened myself to the wall and fervently wished I didn’t have white fur nor Aidan white feathers while a particularly ugly specimen of demon-kind went by in the same passage, slithering along close enough to touch.At last I reached a place where my scent went two ways. One would lead to the great cavern, the other to my home. I tested the air carefully, judged the quality of the light, and chose. With even greater care I padded down the tunnel. Then I felt Aidan tense.
I whispered softly, "What is it?""Listen."
I pricked my ears forward, then I heard it. The thudding that had been in the background the whole time was noticeably louder."He’s coming."
"Who?""The head demon, the leader. No time for caution now, run!"
"But your wing...""It doesn’t matter. I’ll manage. Better to hurt for a little while and escape than to be caught and hurt for a very long time. Now run!"
I didn’t argue with him, I ran. I could feel his fingers clutching my fur, partly just to hang on, partly out of pain. I dashed down the tunnel, pausing only to make sure we were still going the right way at every intersection. I ran with everything I had, but it still didn’t seem to be enough. The thud, thud, thud grew ever louder. Sunlight, impossibly diffused and faint, but just barely visible to my keen cat eyes, was ahead, but the red glow behind us intensified every second. Though I progressed now in great leaps and bounds, still the demon gained. The thudding was almost deafening now and I didn’t dare look back for fear of what I would see.Then ahead of me rose a sight that made my heart sink. A demon blocked the path. A hideous thing that looked like a cross between some kind of crustacean and a mad dog, all fangs and glowing eyes and spikes, it raised a pincer-tipped arm menacingly. I snapped at it futilely. With Aidan on my back I could hardly fight. He realized it, for a second later he slid of my back and staggered to the side where he would be out of the way.
Unencumbered now I threw myself at the demon. I knew I had to kill it soon or the thing behind would catch up. With fangs bared I went for it’s throat, only to have my teeth slide off hard plating. I dodged the thing’s returning slash easily and leaped at it again. This time I raked my claws across the thing’s eyes. It howled, a horrible sound made all the worse by the fact that you could hear a trace of the forlorn cry of somebody’s pet dog in it. But now it was blinded and easy prey. I darted at it again and this time I found a crack in the armor. It went down in a spray of black blood.A deep booming laugh told me I had triumphed too late. The demon lord had caught up with us. I whirled to face it, determined to go down fighting against whatever hideous monster I should find. But the demon lord, unlike his subjects, was not hideous. He was in fact just the opposite. I stood, stunned. Before me stood a man, dark skinned and dark haired, broad shouldered, well muscled, and dressed in loose trousers of black silk. If it hadn’t been for the smoldering red eyes and the folded bat-like wings I might have mistaken him for some human prince.
"You’ve caused quite a disruption you know." His voice was dark too, a rich bass with the cultured inflections of a nobleman. I just snarled. No matter what he looked or sounded like he was a demon."What shall I do with you? Cage you with my other prisoner perhaps? He might enjoy some company for a time. Yes, I think that would be splendid. I keep him fed just enough to keep him alive you know. If I don’t feed you, how long before you overcome your civilized sensibilities and eat him I wonder?"
I blinked in surprise. Either he had two prisoners, or he hadn’t noticed that Aidan had gone missing. I resisted an impulse to glance at the Aerian. Could he at least escape? There was not time to form a plan, I could only hope.With a tiny flicker of hope now in my heart I faced the demon lord. I gave him a defiant snarl. "You’ll never hold me, you ugly excuse for a nightmare."
He bristled at that. Maybe he was sensitive about his looks. I grinned. If nothing else I could have the satisfaction of making him kill me quickly instead of slowly torturing me to death."I’m surprised that any of these pathetic monstrosities you command can even stand to look at you, much less follow you. How did you get top be the leader, have a beauty contest and elect whoever lost?"
Now it was his turn to snarl, showing a few more teeth than you’d find in the average human’s mouth. "How dare you!""Very easily. I’m surprised that the whole lot hasn’t revolted against you. You’re certainly revolting enough." In winced internally at my own bad pun, but pressed ahead. "Do you even have any mirrors own here or did your ugly mug break them all?"
Apparently that was the last straw. With a tremendous roar he started forward. His skin seemed to ripple as he moved. He got redder and redder and then, mere yards away from me and much closer than comfortable for the sake of my poor eyes, he sort of bulged out into a truly ugly thing. He really could have lost a beauty contest, even competing with the other horrors I’d seen down here. He raised a slimy clawed and horny hand in my direction. Power glowed around it. Then a beam of red light shot from his hand toward me.When the demon lord’s hand had begun to glow Aidan got to his feet and threw himself between me and the beam. It lanced at us and then seemed to twist in mid air, altering it’s course slightly to be sucked into the ruby that Aidan wore around his neck. For a single instant the scene seemed frozen. Aidan hung in the air, the ruby glowing. The demon lord stood with an expression of dismay and shock clearly written on his exceedingly ugly face. Then time started forward again and the world exploded.
I awoke a second time and was momentarily puzzled at the warm presence next to me. Then I remembered the demons and Aidan. He was still sleeping soundly with one arm thrown across me and his face buried in the thick fur of my neck. I could feel his breath blowing regularly into my fur. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation.
It lasted only a moment longer before Aidan awoke. He yawned and stroked my fur absent-mindedly for a moment before waking fully and realizing where he was. Then he started away from me as if I’d bit him and gasped as he jostled his wing."I’m terribly sorry!"
"Well I’m not," I grinned at him. "So why worry about it?" He seemed at a loss so I continued. "We need to do something about that wing of yours. If you leave it like that it will try to grow back together all wrong. I’m no expert in bone-setting though, and the nearest one is several days away. I can’t take you without hurting you a lot more, and I certainly can’t just leave you here. So what do we do?"He considered for a long moment. "I’m not exactly an expert either, but I do know how it’s done. If you’re willing I’ll give you instructions and you can set it yourself."
I made a face It beat both the other alternatives, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Still, I nodded. So Aidan directed me while in finding an appropriate splint and bandages. Then he told me how to pull on the bones and how to tie them up. Taking a deep breath he clenched his teeth and muttered, "Go ahead."I was wearing human form because I needed the hands. I knelt next to him and grabbed his wing. The feathers felt just as soft as they looked, but he hissed in pain, so I hurried forward. He let out a soft exclamation when I pulled, but I continued while he gasped and bit his lip. At last it was done and the wing splinted securely. He gave me a shaky smile and I smiled back.
"Well now that that’s out of the way, I’m curious. Admittedly that’s what got me into that mess, but I still would like to know how you got there.""It’s a simple enough tale. That demon lord was pretending to be human and I didn’t know any better, so I tried to steal something of his. This, in fact." He tapped the ruby at his throat. "It was quite a challenge since he never seemed to take it off, not even to sleep. But I tailed him diligently. Fortunately we were in a town where Aerians are somewhat common, so he didn’t notice me. After almost a week he finally took it off. The second his eyes were off it it was in my pocket. I flew out of there fast! But as soon as I got to what I thought was a safe height I just had to try my new treasure on. The instant I snapped it on my neck I heard a tremendous roar. Then up through the clouds comes the demon lord. He still looked kind of human, the way he looked when you first saw him, but it didn’t take me long to figure out what he was. Then I flew for my life, but it was no good. He caught me easily. He brought me to the warrens here and chained me up trying to get me to take off the collar."
"Turns out that this thing has the power to protect whoever wears it from demon magic. That’s how he got to be the demon lord, nobody could hurt him. But now I had it and he couldn’t magic me. He had to make me take it off. The way the magic works is it can’t be taken off by force and the magic is nullified if the person wearing it dies. I was very glad of that last part, otherwise he’d have taken it from my corpse. So he just tortured me hoping that I’d remove it to end the pain. I might have too, eventually. It was getting pretty bad. But then you came along. The demon lord didn’t notice you’d freed me, so he tired to use his magic on you. When I got in the way it backfired on him and buried the lot of them.""I guess that makes us even," I said. "I’ve saved you and you’ve saved me. But what are you going to do now?"
He looked at me with those blue, blue eyes. For a long moment he said nothing then, "I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find a place to stay till I can fly again and head home."I grinned cheerfully. "Do you have any idea where you are?"
He shook his head.My grin widened. "You’re north of Icecrest. There’s nothing for miles and miles and miles but me, you, and a bunch of reindeer and polar bears and such."
He looked a bit dismayed.I patted him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry. Lucky for you I dug the cellar last, so there’s a nice guest room for you. I don’t really have a bed I’m afraid, but you should be comfortable enough."
He gave me a tentative smile. "You don’t mind?""Mind? I’m absolutely delighted!"