Truth visualized Thrush’s summoning token. It was a little metal disk he had etched, quite deeply, with the imp’s binding. An utterly standard thing, notwithstanding the small refinements he had added from his time in Siphios. Thrush was an air imp. There was only so fancy a binding you could apply before things got silly.

The token was battered, scratched, worn down and generally looked like it had been through Hell. Truth had been wearing it around his neck or keeping it in a pocket… during those times when he had pockets… until he had to leave it with the luggage outside of Happori village. He had hidden it more than an hour from the security perimeter of the village, and there was really nothing of value in there beyond his scarf, the bird suit, and Thrush.

Truth had an alarming amount of life experience regarding the term “search radius.” The bigger the radius, the longer the searchers had to search. Truth flat out refused to believe that, after everything, the explosions, the angel, all those dead seniors, EVERYTHING, Starbrite would have the time and energy to sweep an area more than a two hundred kilometer diameter circle around the village. A circle filled with mountain forests, streams, caves, foot paths, old mines, shacks belonging to backcountry folk, wild demons, whatever unnatural horrors the collapse of the village spawned…

Sweeping through all that and turning up a single buried duffel bag and a wingsuit? No. And if they had caught Thrush, they would have used the token to try and trace him weeks ago.

Truth started drawing the ritual on the ground. He had bound the demon. Even if he wasn’t holding the token, he could make some effort and give it orders. Just took more work.

Ten minutes later, he had an entirely new appreciation of what Etenesh and Jember could do with a wave of their hands. He had already fixed four mistakes, and he wasn’t done drawing the ritual yet. By minute twenty, he was ready to pack it in and summon an entirely new imp. He persevered.

By minute thirty and swear eighteen, he had it done, checked over, corrected, and checked again. Then a third time because if it blew up in his face, he was packing in this mage nonsense and going off to the coast to learn how to fish. He could punch a mackerel. He had that confidence.

It all looked right. He was about to jump right in, but hesitated. It had been a busy day, his energy reserves were far from full, and he was frustrated. The sun was wandering towards the horizon, but he had a little while until sunset. Truth inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, and started cultivating.

He didn’t try to think. He just let his body flow through the forms. Reaching out for that thinning energy shared by the Sun and the other excellencies. Feeling the warmth of them. The strength of them, flowing through his veins.

As he moved, his mind drifted to those moments of unreality. The increasing awareness that the world was paint on glass, the shine on a soap bubble. That the reality which kept hurting him wasn’t as real as it wanted him to think it was. “Reality” was a bully with a bad heart. It made you punch your own face, and convinced you to give up your lunch money to make the beating stop.

In and out. Steady and smooth. Moving his body easily and gently through the forms. Feeling his apertures refill. More slowly than they used to, but refilling nonetheless. That old comfort warming him.

The eminences must exist on that level, in that world on the other side of the glass. This was just the filtered, distorted light that made it through. Could he… cultivate with the light directly? Some people refused to cultivate when the sun was out, but he loved it. He could take the heat and warmth. Could he stand up to the unfiltered cosmic energy?

He had no idea how to even try. But it was pretty interesting as ideas went.

It took a little longer than it used to, but he topped off his energy reserves, and spent half an hour practicing the Meditations of Valentinian. His body was the foundation. He would have to be crazy to neglect it. Finally calm and energized, he approached the ritual.

He pressed two fingers to the triangle within the circle marked for them, and let his energy flow. The ritual energized, knitting and spinning in ways he had never understood. He knew how to make the ritual, not how it worked. Just one more thing he didn’t know. There was a soft thrum, and the spell went live.

“Master? How good to hear from you. I trust your various endeavors have been profitable?”

Thrush’s voice was smooth and rich as always. Unctuous- a word Truth had only read in the more flowery romance novels, seemed to fit.

“Financially? No. But in other ways? Certainly. Speaking of, you were undetected and undisturbed?” He discreetly focused more power into the bindings. Demons could lie to their masters, but there were consequences if they did.

“Master kindly buried his goods two meters into the earth, stomped the earth flat, and then covered his tracks with leaves. There has not been so much as a mouse or mole come to visit, let alone a snooping human or demon.”

“Would it be safe for you to come out and fly to me?”

“On balance, I regret it would not.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oh? They are still searching up there?”

“There were no searches in this area. The world is simply a hostile, dangerous place. Safety is barely an illusion.”

Of course.

“I require your labor and my things. Get ready for a long flight.”

“Yes, Master. I trust you intend for me to travel unseen?”

“As best you can. Do you think you could pilot the bird suit as well as carry the luggage?”

“So long as you provide sufficient energy, it should be manageable, Dread Magus. Should I take the location of your ritual as my target?”

That was an annoyingly good question. He looked around. He was in a clearing in the foothills of some mountain he didn’t know the name of. It would actually be a bit of a pain in the ass making his way back towards the Great White Mountain. There were fields, so presumably there were farmers, but it was probably about as private as he was going to find.

“Yes. Move to avoid detection. Bring all my things with you.”

“As you command.”

Truth poured power into the ritual. A minute or so later-

“Ah, enough! You are generous, almighty magus. Even the crumbs from your table stuff this little bird full to bursting.”

Truth rolled his eyes.

“Be fast, be careful. Be here, with my things, undetected, by this time tomorrow or sooner.” He cut the ritual. It would be done.

Now, what to do with the day to come? He would have an early sleep, then start heading back either on foot, or by snagging a ride on a passing train. Probably on foot, if he was honest. He would have to drop off the train again anyway.

An oppressively long run. He wanted that wingsuit for more than just the pleasure of flight. Was there any food around here? Truth looked out over the fields hopefully. There were a few tiny shacks, but nothing that looked like a town or village.

He didn’t want to break in and eat their food. They probably didn’t have much, and what they had wouldn’t be very good. As for a bed, or even a sofa- forget it. He made up a nice “comfy” pile of leaves, fell down on it, and was asleep before the sun finished setting.

Some instinct woke him up in the middle of the night. Incisive, giving him a sudden thrill of alarm. He rolled to his feet and tried to spot where the danger was coming from. There was nothing in sight.

Truth was a firm believer in “Don’t stand on the X.” He ran. The danger seemed to come from no particular direction. From the fields, maybe? He ran up the mountain. “Away” was almost always the right choice.

There was a drone, a high pitched whine, coming from downslope.The sound bounced off the stones and made the green leaves shiver. The stars slowly turned dim, then red. He could feel a build up of cosmic energy in the area. Just how wide was it spread? Truth kept running. It seemed like he was on the very edge of the phenomenon.

Lightning bolts tore up the ground. From up on the mountain, he could see the lightning striking homes, the ground, trees, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. The sky was crawling with lighting, writhing with it, like fighting dragons and worms. The worms came in all colors, all shapes, all lightning twisting and fighting in a sky without clouds.

Truth nodded decisively and quickly dug another little tomb for himself in the rock face. He wasn’t feeling that ripping negative pressure, but he wasn’t going to wait around for it.

<>

Eh?

<>

Truth nodded. The lightning was freaky, but “too much cosmic energy” had never been a problem for him. The more the merrier, really. Maybe he would have a nice round of cultivation-

There was a sound. Rustling, screeching sound. He had heard it before. Where had he…?

Truth clawed his way out of the hole, spun on his toes and ran flat out up the mountain. Fist sized holes opened in the air, and from those holes fell thousands of insects. Millions of insects. Hornets and centipedes, locusts and beetles, an endless tide of chittering vermin. All the lowest tier of demons. Pandemonium Goetia. And not a spell bowl in sight to contain them. They would vanish when the magic ran out, but until then? They were endless. Truth got up over the mountain and launched himself down the other side. Jeon was roughly south of here. Good enough.

A very, very tired, very dirty, very irritated Truth stalked into the mountain village. What village, he didn’t know. He was pretty sure he was still in Onis. He found a shop. The signs were in a language he couldn’t read. Onis.

He popped the lock on the local convenience store and stomped in to sleep in the back room. Someone was already sleeping there. He swore a blue streak and made his way to the police station. There was an open cell. He laid down in it and slept. He was so tired, the two centimeter thick pad felt heavenly.

He woke to the sound of nothing much. Not usual, he remembered hearing. Jails were surprisingly noisy, and sleeping in wasn’t really a thing that could happen. He left the cell and started looking around. There was the village policeman, sitting and staring at the scry with a look of horror. Some of the villagers were there with him. Truth glanced over. Then glanced again, longer.

There was a tear. That was the only word he could use to describe it. There was a hole ripped open in the middle of a town. It looked like it was shrinking, but… the town was gone. Billions of demons had swarmed through. Tiny little ones, mostly. Level Zero, almost all of them. But billions of them. Enough to coat the street. Coat every home. Every business.

White faced soldiers, hands shaking with fatigue, swept back the swarm with fire belching fetishes. It was a holding action. Everyone knew that. It was just until the hole closed on its own. Periodically, higher level mages would fly over and soak the town in flames. Thin out the hoard. But more always poured through. Hell would never run short.

The news cut back to the presenter. Truth didn’t understand what he was saying. Then it cut over quickly to a picture of the flag of Jeon, then soldiers locking down the border. Summons strode purposefully through the air. Something had happened on the border of Jeon. Something bad. And Osin was willing to go to war over it.