fiction - brigits_flame - forever and a day

[hwango]

Cyril compared his work against the diagrams in the book for the fourth time. He had spent all day preparing, and it appeared that his time had not been wasted. Everything seemed to be in order. It wouldn't do to make a mistake now, though. If he'd drawn a symbol incorrectly, put one in the wrong place, used the wrong color of chalk, or made any number of other tiny, seemingly inconsequential mistakes…well, it would be bad. Unimaginably bad, in fact.

An error at this point would be unimaginably bad because Cyril was trying to pierce the cosmic veil and bring forth an extradimensional entity of strange and wondrous power. Or, in layman's terms, he was planning to summon a demon to do his bidding.

The other reason that an error at this point would be unimaginably bad was that Cyril didn't really have much of an imagination. But the worst thing that Cyril could think of was still pretty awful, and he certainly didn't want something worse to happen to him.

Also, some of those components had cost a fortune.

After reassuring himself that he wouldn't be wasting any money or exposing his immortal soul to any additional risk, Cyril lit the dribbley candles and began to chant the incantation in the book.

Cyril was halfway through when he began to suspect that the ritual wasn't working. He'd expected the candles to flare or flicker in a spectral gust of wind. Maybe the temperature would drop, or possibly rise. Perhaps spectral voices would begin muttering at the edge of his hearing. That sort of thing always happened in movies.

Nothing interesting was happening at all. Cyril considered giving up without finishing the entire ritual, but then he remembered that whole "unimaginably bad" thing, and decided that might not be a good idea.

The instant he spoke the final syllable (which, contrary to his impressions of what diabolic rituals ought to sound like, happened to be "-foop") Cyril finally got a reaction more in keeping with his expectations – tiny bolts of lightning began to leap from symbol to symbol, and an unearthly green glow suffused the room.

In the center of the circle of runes Cyril saw a flicker of motion, and then with a sound like tearing cloth a creature suddenly appeared. One elbow rested on a bent knee, and its wickedly-taloned hand cradled the monster's chin. With its mottled black and red skin, long curved horns, fanged maw, and smoldering crimson eyes, the thing looked every inch the terrifying demon that Cyril had been hoping for, except for one tiny difference: it looked supremely bored.

"What do you want?" the demon asked in a scratchy, uninterested voice.

Cyril's expression of ultimate triumph died almost before it had a chance to appear. He summoned instead a look of stern disapproval. "That is hardly the tone with which to address your new master," Cyril said haughtily.

"No, it really is," replied the demon. "Trust me. I've been doing this longer than you have."

Cyril was uncertain how to reply to this statement, and so he chose to ignore it. "Demon, you must obey me! I command you!"

"Yeah, I know," the demon said.

Undaunted, Cyril pressed on. "I wish to live –" here Cyril paused for dramatic effect, "forever!"

"No you don't," said the demon.

"Pardon me?"

"You really don't. Or at the very least, you don't want to live forever the way a demon is going to make it happen for you. Look, I've been doing this kind of thing for thousands of years. It runs pretty much the same way every time. Some idiot gets a hold of forbidden knowledge that Man Would Be Better Off Without, summons up one of my kind, and starts asking for all kinds of stuff. Now, ask yourself this – if that worked out well for them, why do you suppose there isn't a long history immortals, or people suddenly becoming ruler of the world, or other crap like that?" The demon paused here so Cyril could do as he asked. When Cyril said nothing, it continued.

"It's because we always twist around what you ask for, or deliberately misinterpret it, or add on a catch that makes it suck. It's what we do. It's practically all that we do. And, I admit, it was fun for a while. But damn, it's so boring at this point. So, yeah, I could make you live forever – or long enough that you wouldn't really notice the difference, anyway. I could turn you into a tree, or maybe a virus, or maybe a statue with just enough incredibly minimal biological processes that you'd still be "alive," and then you could endure countless years of unmoving, sensory-deprived torment until all traces of your sanity were scoured away by the overwhelming tedium. And it might be good for a few laughs like it used to be, but frankly I'm sick of it."

A long moment of silence passed.

"So…you're not going to make me live forever?" Cyril asked cautiously.

"If you force me to, yeah, but you won't like it. Believe me," said the demon.

"Um…," Cyril said. "Money?"

"I'd steal some and make sure the criminals or government it belonged to knew where it was."

"Super powers?" suggested Cyril.

"I'd make them destructive and uncontrollable."

"Women?" hazarded Cyril.

"You're kidding, right?"

Another long moment of silence passed.

"This sucks," said Cyril.

"You, my friend, are a genius," said the demon.

"I spent all day getting ready for this, and it was a complete waste of time! Who would have thought that summoning demons for personal gain would turn out to be such a crappy idea?"

The demon chose to interpret this as a rhetorical (and very stupid) question.

"Fine, if I'm not going to get anything out of this, then I at least want to do today over again. Make it so that none of this ever happened!" Cyril ordered the demon.

The demon stared at him for a moment and then gave his head the tiniest shake of despair. "I give up," it said.

* * *
Cyril compared his work against the diagrams in the book for the fourth time. Or was it really only the fourth? An overwhelming sense of déjà vu had been gripping him all day. Still, that was hardly reason to give up now. Soon he would be immortal and possess power beyond his wildest dreams!

He lit the candles, spoke the incantation, and soon beheld his demon slave. It appeared suitably demonic, but also seemed rather bored. It also looked vaguely familiar, which was of course impossible.

"Demon," Cyril intoned, "You must obey me! I command you!"

"Yeah, I know," the demon said.

"I wish to live –" here Cyril paused for dramatic effect, "forever!"

"Bristlecone pine or cypress?" asked the demon.

"What?"

Rather than waste any more time explaining it to him, the demon just flipped a coin.

Cyril made a lovely bristlecone pine.

Comments

[balloonhat.livejournal.com]

I demand that you begin writing a novel, a novella or many short stories.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Well, at the very least I'm trying to keep up with the Flame here and write 4 short stories a month. I suspect I might more seriously try NaNoWriMo this year. I'll keep you posted. = )