The Summoning

As the hooded man slipped out of the building into the night, Percival de Montfort closed the door to his room, unwrapped the battered leather tome and read the title on the cover, “Summons of the Dark Planes.” He gasped. This was better than he could have hoped for.

It had been a big decision to pay the equivalent of three months rent to the man in the hood. They’d met in the tavern last week where a drunken Percy was complaining that he was still searching for a truly impressive spell to perform at his interview with the Mage Graduate Approval Council. If the Council agreed that he had finished his training, they’d give him the phoenix-winged badge of a fully-trained mage. The hooded man said that he could get hold of some good spells, for a price.

The book was held fast with an ornate clasp. Percy pulled at the clasp and dropped the book as a green flame engulfed it. A cracked voice boomed out, “Enter here only the strongest of mind.” The young mage shrugged, retrieved the book and tugged at the clasp. When it still wouldn’t open, Percy peered closely at it. He scoffed, drew his wand from his belt, tapped the clasp and spoke a simple opening spell. The clasp instantly fell open.

Still holding the book in one hand, Percy scurried across the room to his desk and swept the half-finished experiment onto the floor with his other arm. He laid the book down on the desk and opened it. With a trembling finger he began to trace over the faded letters on the first page. He sighed with exasperation as he realised the words were written in ancient Mesean. He’d attended some classes in the language, but had always struggled. He’d need a Mesean dictionary again. He frowned as he tried to remember whether he still had the copy he’d borrowed from the library. He turned to his bookshelf by the desk and started pulling books from it. Tucked away at the back he found the dictionary he needed. Percy pulled out a stool from under the desk, sat down, conjured a globe of light and began to read.

Four hours later Percy stretched and yawned. The book made for slow reading. He’d needed to use the dictionary far more than he had anticipated. He’d only read a third of the spell book, and so far it was as unadventurous as his tutors with the author beginning every other sentence with either the phrases, “You must…” or “Do NOT…”.

The unmade bed under the window looked inviting, but Percival was determined to read through the book before dawn. After translating only five more pages, Percy flicked through the book wondering where the summon spells where. Right at the back, written in spidery, red handwriting was just what he wanted, a page whose title translated as “To summon a Zarquill Demon”. He continued reading the preparations to make the summoning.

Percy’s student room was only 20ft square, but the spell said he’d need a syllabic, tokenised, radial pentagram 25ft in diameter. He stacked up most of the wooden furniture behind the door and thought that as he couldn’t make his room any larger, it would have to do.  He drew out the pentagram on the floor in the specified grade A ochre powder, finishing off with grade B powder when the grade A powder ran out.

The reader was also asked to place a candle, two foot tall and three inches in diameter, at each point of the pentagram. Percy only had one foot tall three inch diameter candles. It was too late to go looking for the correct size and he really did want to try the spell tonight, so he duly placed his smaller candles around the pentagram.

Percival positioned himself outside the pentagram between two of the inscribed points. He inhaled sharply and began to read aloud from the tatty leather book. Several of the words were unfamiliar, and he stumbled, but within five lines of the spell, the room had begun to darken. With each successive spell line, the room darkened further and a red haze first appeared and then began to pulse and swell in the centre of the pentagram. Flushed with his success, Percy’s voice rose in pitch and his breath quickened. He could practically see himself receiving his phoenix wings from the leader of the Mage Council.

Slowly the room brightened again as the red haze transformed into a glowing red sphere that crackled with lightning and hovered three feet off the floor, illuminating the area surrounding it. It grew steadily larger and larger, engulfing the candles and changing their sickly yellow flame bright green.  Surrounded by green flames, a huge, muscular torso materialized in the centre of the pentagram. Reaching the last portion of the spell, the student was now reading so quickly that he almost forgot to pause between sentences. As he finished reading the last word he looked up.  Crouched in the centre of the pentagram was an immense 15ft mould green demon with red glowing eyes and a sneer.

“I’ve done it. I’ve summoned a Zarquill demon,” screeched Percy.

The green dark plane dweller frowned, “A Zarquill demon? No, THE demon Zarquill,” it announced with a grin.

“Oh wow! A unique demon, a named one, not just some minor minion. The Mage Council will be so impressed. Now I know I can summon you, I’ll send you home, and summon you again next month when I have my phoenix-wings interview.”

Zarquill glanced around the room. He cocked his head,” You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

Percy looked at Zarquill. He drew himself up to his full height of just under 6ft, and looked the demon as squarely in the face as he could. “I am Percival de Montfort the magnificent. I have summoned many creatures in the past. I have summoned you, and now I will send you back.” He glanced down at the book to find the unsummon spell, whilst still watching the demon.

“As you are such an experienced mage, then you will have studied the necessary protections and items need to create not just a successful, but a safe summon?”

“You’re here, and confined to the pentagram.”

“Or until those have burnt out.” Zarquill motioned to the stubby candles spluttering at the points of the pentagram.

The colour drained from Percy’s face. He’d turned over the page with the summon spell written on it, expecting to find the unsummon spell. Instead, he found the torn edge left by a page being ripped out.

Zarquill chuckled and cracked his knuckles as one by one the candles blinked out leaving the demon’s red eyes the only visible feature in the room.

“Get back,” Percy stammered as the demon leaned towards him.

“Little Mage didn’t even draw a protective circle about himself, did he?” Zarquill mocked, lowering his face to within inches of Percy’s face. Percy could feel the demon’s hot, fetid breath as it growled gutturally in a language Percy did not know and placed its clawed hand on Percy’s chest. Flames erupted from the touch and Percy stared in disbelief as the flames quickly spread across his stained robes. He staggered backwards frantically patting them to try to extinguish them.

Percival collapsed onto the floor trying to smother the suffocating flames.  Zarquill looked through the window to the moonlit night outside. He placed his massive hands on the wall on either side of the frame and pushed.  The window and surrounding wall crumbled beneath the pressure and tumbled to the street twenty feet below.

Without pausing to look at the blazing inferno that had once been Percival’s home, Zarquill leapt out of the hole, breaking the stone pavement slabs beneath him as he landed.  He stretched to his full height and strode off down the street.

Across from the burning building, a figure watched from the shadows. It had been so easy to get the naïve young mage to perform the summoning from the book. He put his hand into a pocket tucked deep into his cloak and pulled out a folded page. He opened the page out, noting the torn edge. Removing that from the summoning book had been easy too. He screwed the paper into a ball and tossed it into a nearby bin. All that remained were for the others to be told that their lord, after thousands of years in captivity, was finally released.