For the next week, Clara again spent most of her waking moments in the manor’s basement. The difference was that she had Jak to accompany her. The routine didn’t change very much with his presence - she still spent most of her time battering the wall with fire, and now shadows, but that was broken up by the occasional duel where, to avoid the past incident repeating itself, they took static positions across from each other and tried to break through the other’s defenses with fire. On the fourth day Jak surprised her by being able to produce a shadowy tendril of his own, and his beaming grin made her understand why teachers chose their craft, even though she truthfully had little to do with Jak’s breakthrough.
At the start of the following week, Clara was again informed that Holden had requested her presence in his study. She made the short trek across the manor to the room, and found Jak already waiting outside. He shrugged at her, as if to ask whether she knew what the summons was about.
“You may enter,” came the sound of Holden’s voice from beyond the door, so Jak pushed it open and stepped inside; Clara followed.
“I trust the two of you have been using this past week well?” Holden asked, but plowed on without waiting for a reply. “I have a mixture of assignment, test, and reward for you. Take a seat, if you would,” he said, gesturing to two chairs seated across his desk from him. Clara and Jak both sat, and Holden continued.
“I have recently been made aware of a small settlement of cambions to the south, just on the border between Regnael and [southern kingdom]. Cambions, since I’m sure you are not aware, are kin to demons, though with a stronger tie to the material plane - they require no summoner or planar breach to maintain their presence here. This settlement has been described to me as a primitive one, but cambions commonly grow a flower that is just as steeped in infernal energies as they themselves are. Such a thing would be a valuable reagent to have on hand, so I am sending you to collect some.
“Before I send you out on your own to brave the road and potentially hostile forces, however, the rewards that I mentioned.” From under the desk, he pulled out a tome that was almost indistinguishable from the one he had sold to Clara - nondescript brown leather titled in a language she did not understand, though by now she could only assume it was demonic. “You have both mastered the basics of shadow and flame, the underlying fundamentals of all infernal magic. Everything will stem from the manipulation and combination of these two forces… but anything beyond the basics is also, regrettably, difficult to teach. This tome contains a bestiary - a collection of what we know of many breeds of demon - as well as some more advanced rituals, not least among them the ones designed to summon the very beings in the bestiary.
“You might be asking yourselves: why I would provide you with more rituals if true infernal magic is supposed to be contained only by the will of the invoker? Unfortunately, shadow and flame are not capable of everything you might want to do. Locating a person by their belongings, speaking an unknown tongue, or seeing a distant place - these things are normally outside the capabilities of infernal magic, but over the years our predecessors have determined some combinations of symbol and spoken word that transform infernal energy for more generic effects, at the cost of time spent in preparation. Bringing a demon through the gulf between planes and binding it to one’s will is possible without a ritual, but requires an inordinate amount of both infernal power and force of will, and these requirements only grow exponentially the stronger the demon is. A summoning ritual bypasses these prohibitive conditions, thankfully.
“In addition to the obvious benefits of utility and having more robust demons to watch your backs, they are instinctive users of the selfsame magic that you are just barely tapping into. Understanding them - and more importantly, what they are capable of, will help you grow as infernalists. Take the tome, and find the ritual to summon a hellhound. I believe that such a creature will be easy enough for the both of you to master, and it will be an invaluable companion on your impending journey.”
Clara nodded, trying to keep her eagerness from being too apparent. “Are we to share this, then?” she asked, realizing that there was only the one tome.
“Ah, yes. Jak, unfortunately, never had the opportunity to learn his letters. I am hoping that you will help teach him how to read, and aid him with the summoning ritual. I believe that another week from now will be long enough for you to master it, and shortly thereafter set out on your way south. Now, unless you have any further questions, you are dismissed.”
Clara rose from her seat and picked up the new tome, her excitement over the fresh material almost entirely overriding her irritation at Holden’s swift dismissal.
“I suppose we should head down to the basement and begin our research,” she said to Jak as they both stepped out of Holden’s study.
“Aye, fair enough. I’m eager to get to it, though, well…” He looked down at the floor, his face reddening a bit. “Gonna have t’rely on you fer readin’ it, fer now.”
“Of course, and think nothing of it. You can’t be blamed for not having the opportunity… though it does raise the question of how you learned the first steps without being able to read.”
“Oh, Holden taught me the basics hisself. Didn’t have any book fer me like he did fer you.”
“Well, we’ll see what I can do to remedy your lack of education.”
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As it turned out, Jak was both a fast learner and not entirely illiterate. Despite his rough accent and common upbringing, the boy had a clever mind and already knew at least the letters that made up the kingdom’s language; though he couldn’t read the complex words contained in the tome on his own during those first few days, with some assistance from Clara he didn’t have much trouble with its contents.
Summoning a hellhound also didn’t seem like it would prove much difficulty. According to the tome, they were hulking beasts with only a modicum of intelligence, but possessed of a ravenous hunger and keen instincts; their lacking intellect made them relatively easy to control and as such the ritual to summon them was fairly rudimentary. By the end of the first day of studying the new grimoire, Clara felt that she would already be capable of calling the beast into the world off of memory alone. She wondered if Holden would allow her to reference the tome during the summoning, or if he expected her to do it from memory. Either way, she was confident that she could do it without any trouble.
By the end of the second day she had also gotten Jak to memorize the summoning ritual, so she spent the rest of the week alternating between helping Jak learn to read and perusing the rest of the bestiary. There were all manner of creatures that made their home in the Hells, it seemed; from a more detailed description of imps, to the almost-human succubi and incubi and on to the pit fiends that seemed to be something like demonic nobility. Of particular interest to Clara were Nightmares, demons that were allegedly indistinguishable from mortal horses but for their burning gazes and fiery hoofprints. If she had to embark on a journey it would be a handy demon to have under her control, and the ritual was barely any more difficult to learn than the hellhound’s, so she consigned it to memory as well.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
With all this considered, Clara felt more than prepared for both summoning her hellhound and the following expedition when she was called to the manor’s basement at the beginning of the next week. Holden, as expected, was already waiting there and gave her a terse nod when she entered the training chamber with the new tome tucked under one arm. Jak showed up only a few moments later, and Holden launched into speaking immediately upon his arrival.
“The grimoire, if you would, Miss Elwin?” he said, holding a hand out towards Clara. She passed it over to him and he nodded again. “I intend for this summoning to act as another test of your capabilities, and to pass all you will need to do is complete it without the book’s assistance. If you are able to do this, then I will have no worries about sending you out on the following task. If not, I will find another to carry it out, and while avoiding the chance of danger may sound to you like a good thing, it is by merit alone that you will rise above your fellow students. Think of this as a chance to prove yourselves to me, and therefore be worthy of advancing in our hierarchy. With the explanations out of the way, all you need to do is summon a hellhound. If you’re both prepared, you may begin.”
Clara glanced at Jak, who only gave her a shrug in return. A few pieces of chalk rested on the room’s table, so Clara grabbed one of them and stepped forth into the center of the room and crouched down to start sketching out the ritual circle. The uneven stone flooring made it a bit more difficult than she had expected, but the lines and symbols that made up the summoning glyph were still fresh enough in her head that it only took her a few minutes to complete it without - she thought - any mistakes or deviations. Stepping back to stand at the edge of the circle as she had done when summoning her imp more than a month ago, she started to intone the verbal components of the ritual.
It started in much the same way as that previous summoning - infernal energy was pulled from within her and into the chalk-etched sigils, causing them to glow a deep red. Slightly more attuned to the magic now, she could sense the Eternal Pit that lay just beyond the small rift of the energized circle; at once so close she felt like she could touch it, a brilliant inferno that threatened to swallow her whole, and so far away that she could as much reach it as she could reach the stars in the sky. She also felt a presence on the other side, and for a brief moment her mind and that of the hellhound were one.
Endless hunger. A desire to hunt, to kill, to rip apart, to shred, to eat, to consume; to be let loose into the world, free to indulge in all of these things and more. The smells around her grew intense - Jak and Holden in particular reeked of power, of flesh and blood… of a meal to be devoured. That ravenous craving almost overwhelmed her, but she pushed back against it. She was Clara Elwin, not a mindless beast, and holding onto that mental image of herself she pulled the hellhound through the rift and into the material plane, commanding it to submit to her will.
It appeared in the center of the circle in a flash of fire, a monstrous figure that only vaguely resembled the earthly animal it was named after. The hellhound came up to about chest height at its shoulders and it was all lean muscle contained under leathery red skin pulled tight around its frame, with a whiplike tail and jaws lined with viciously pointed fangs. The thing snarled at her as it appeared and then snapped at the edges of the summoning circle as its infernal glow started to dim, so Clara mentally ordered it to stand down. It responded with a whine, which sounded terribly strange coming from such a fiendish creature, and then settled back on its haunches. Much like with her imp she could still sense it in the back of her mind, though it was a much stronger presence that continued to emanate hunger and a desire to run down its prey.
Clara realized she was breathing heavily and sweat dripped from her brow as she turned away from the cowed hellhound to look at Holden and Jak. Holden was simply nodding in approval, while Jak had a mixture of awe and fear on his face. “I believe this counts as a success?” she said, motioning to the demon behind her.
“That it does. Very well done; now, Jak, it is your turn.”
The commoner audibly gulped as he stared at the charred stone where Clara’s summoning circle had burned away and hesitantly took a step forward. Clara patted him on the shoulder when she passed by him, hellhound in tow. “You’ll do fine; I helped you learn the ritual, after all.” He responded with a slightly less anxious nod and took up his own piece of chalk to start drawing a new sigil.
“It might be a touch awkward to get out of the city with that following you around,” Holden said as Clara took up a place by his side to watch Jak’s handiwork. “Luckily, there is a rather easy method to deal with that; all you need to do is imagine the demon going back whence it came, while holding on to the bond between it. You will need to draw another summoning circle to bring it back, but with the bond intact it won’t need to be forged again.”
Clara nodded and shut her eyes to focus on following Holden’s instructions. As she envisioned sort of… pushing the hellhound away, back to its home in the Hells, she felt its presence in her head recede - still there, but quickly growing more distant until it was even weaker than that of her imp. When she opened her eyes, it was no longer in the room.
Just as she did so, Jak started to recite the words of conjuring. Clara immediately felt that something was off - the way he pronounced some of them was wrong, and he stumbled over more than a few. He let out a horrible scream when his hellhound appeared in the circle a few seconds later, immediately leaping towards him. The summoning circle provided him no protection, and the demon crashed into Jak in a flurry of fang and claw.
Clara acted without thinking, tendrils of shadow flowing from her to wrap around the hellhound and pull it from Jak. The infernal beast thrashed wildly in their grasp and the tendrils stretched, then snapped. The hellhound turned on her instead, snarling. Glancing to the side at Holden, she saw that he was just standing there with his arms crossed. She would have to deal with the loosed demon herself. But how? she thought as it tensed up and prepared to pounce.
Her eyes passed across Jak’s sigil on the floor, and a thought crossed her mind. ‘You will need to draw another summoning circle to bring it back…’ In the moment that it took for the hellhound to jump towards her she flung out her hand, calling forth hellfire. She directed a thin stream of it into the shape of a summoning circle in the air, accompanied by a desperate mental calling to her own hellhound. It appeared in mid-leap, just in time to slam into its brother.
The two demons struggled on the ground, and Clara lost track of which one was which. A few seconds later the jaws of one snapped around the neck of the other. The victor stood over its fresh kill, looking up at Clara proudly as the body of the defeated hellhound started to burn up and fade away, leaving behind only a pile of ashes and embers. “…Good boy?” she managed to gasp out after a moment.
“How very interesting,” Holden said in a thoughtful tone, apparently unconcerned with most of what had just happened. “I honestly hadn’t thought of that possibility before. Congratulations, Miss Elwin; you’ve surprised me. Ah, as for the other one…” He waved his hand, and a few seconds later his imp - or so Clara assumed - flew into the training chamber with a bundle of bandages in its arms, grumbling all the way as it started to bind Jak’s wounds.
“Even if I don’t count his embarrassing mishandling of the summoning as a failure, I doubt he will be in any state to travel for some time. You will be fine on your own, I trust?” Holden said, turning to Clara with barely a second glance at Jak.
“I… Yes, I believe I will be,” Clara said, though she wasn’t entirely confident in her words. Would she be fine? It was only with the assistance of Gideon that she had made it to Calador in the first place; the solo portion of that adventure hadn’t gone very well at all. But she had learned some things since, and she would like to see how she fared on her own.
“Very well. Enjoy your last day of rest, then - you will be leaving in the morning.”