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The temple was beginning preparations for sunrise services when the message came to the Dawnmother: Demon raid, alert from tower 6, stand by for details.
Soon after, Master Jazeel and War Priestess Shari were finishing the last few straps and buckles on each other’s armor. The door to their son’s room creaked open and a sleepy-eyed fifteen year old boy emerged. He yawned and scratched at the base of one of the ebon horns that were the most prominent evidence of his part-demon heritage. He came suddenly alert when he saw his parents preparing for battle.
“Demon raiders were seen approaching some of the farmlands.” Jazeel explained. He tightened a strap on his wife’s pauldron. “Our militia number has been called to respond.”
“I’ll get my gear.” Calden announced excitedly. He turned to go back to his room.
“No, Calden.” Shari said, in her firm quiet way. “You will stay here.”
Calden turned back, his expression crestfallen. “But Swordmistress Atiyeh says I am ready to join the militia.”
“Only with our permission,” Shari reminded their eager son. “You are not yet sixteen, or a squire. Until that point, you need your guardians’ permission.”
“I can fight better than any squire,” Calden insisted, folding his arms across his chest. His temper started to rise. “Why won't you let me go with you?” Calden demanded, not quite managing to keep a whine out of his voice.
“You are not ready, and not well-enough known in the city’s forces.” Jazeel sighed, repeating the reasoning his son had heard plenty of times already. “We do not want to risk you being mistaken for an enemy. It is the same reason that I fight in human disguise, Calden, despite the advantage I could gain from my wings.”
“Well, at least you have that option, to pretend to be human all the time.” Calden growled, his prehensile tail thumping the doorframe in frustration. “I don't. I’m stuck looking like this forever! The only way anyone defending this city is going to get to know me is if I go out there and fight beside them.”
“And you will, son. Next year.” Shari said consolingly. She buckled on her swordbelt and swung her light steel shield onto her back.
Calden stomped into his room and slammed the door behind him.
“We love you, Calden.” Shari called through the door. Concern marred her beautiful face.
“Yeah, sure.” Came his muffled voice from inside.
“He’ll get over it, Shari, we must go.” Jazeel said, wishing his son could better accept their reluctance to let him fight.
The skirmish had lasted most of the morning. The demon raiders would erratically attack the defenders head on, then suddenly vanish. Only to reappear somewhere else in the nearby farmlands. They were burning the crops and destroying the livestock that helped feed the armies of Crusaders camped in and around Kenabres. The defenders were whittling the demons down, though. They were appearing in fewer and fewer numbers as the morning continued into midday. The vrock demon leading the raid had been glimpsed once or twice, but it was very good at disappearing as soon as any defenders got near.
Jazeel and Shari were set as the head of one of multiple scouting teams. They methodically searched the farmhouses and barns in the area the demons seemed to be focusing on.
“What do we have, love?” Shari murmured as they approached a barn.
Jazeel focused on the area before them, using his innate ability to sense the presence of conscious thought.
“There's something in there…” Jazeel concentrated for a while longer. “Nothing intelligent, probably cows.”
“We should check inside anyway.” Shari replied, continuing towards the barn. She waved a hand for the scouting team’s quartet of young paladins to follow.
“Are you doubting my powers, love?” Jazeel whispered teasingly, leaning close to his wife.
“No, I just don't want to leave anything behind. Besides, most demons can hardly be considered intelligent.” The war Priestess snipped.
“Well, lucky for you, you married one of the intelligent ones.” He whispered back as they approached the barn door.
“I never said that.” Shari smirked.
“Ouch,” said Jazeel. He pulled open the barn door.
“You should listen to your mate more often...” Came a voice from the darkness within. It was followed by the screeching of demonic laughter.
“Ambush!” Shouted one of the young paladins.
A flock of small impish demons swarmed out of the darkness towards the defenders. A larger demon, the vulture-headed vrock, emerged from the shadows close behind. He drove the quasits onward with shouted commands in demonic speech.
Jazeel dodged the lesser demons and charged towards the vrock. A bolt of electricity shot out of the demon’s hand and crashed over Jazeel. The bolt shattered and dissipated as it met the defender’s innate resistance to magic.
“What have we here?” The demon hissed. It dodged Jazeel’s scimitar swipe and leapt to hang from the barn’s rafters.
Another spell shot forth, enveloping Jazeel in a burst of flames. He heard Shari shout his name in alarm.
“I’m OK, Shari.” Jazeel said, stepping out of the fire. His armor was singed, but his body was not seriously hurt. “I’ve got this one, go help the others.”
Shari nodded and backed out of the barn.
“Jazeel?” The vrock squawked delightedly. “Oh, my Lord has been looking for you for a long time, traitor, she has offered great rewards!”
“She’s welcome to come visit me in Kenabres, any time,” Jazeel taunted. “I’d love to watch the Wardstone’s aura burn her to ash.”
“Why does it not burn Jazeel, I wonder,” the vrock mused.
“Because I’m too pure of heart.” Jazeel smirked. In truth it was a magical amulet hidden beneath his armor. It protected him from the Wardstone’s demon-bane aura. It was given to him by Terendelev (Kenabres’ silver dragon guardian) many years ago, when Jazeel had proven to her that he was truly redeemed and could be trusted in the city.
“Ah, that is right,” the demon sneered. “Jazeel is the incubus who thinks true love will save him from damnation.”
“Couldn't hurt.” Jazeel shrugged. He shifted his scimitar to his left hand and picked up a nearby pitchfork. He wondered how well it would fly if he threw it at the vrock.
“Oh, but yes, hurt it could...” the demon squawked. He began what Jazeel recognized as preparations to teleport.
Jazeel threw the pitchfork, hoping to break the demon’s concentration, but missed. The demon vanished, leaving behind an echoing laugh.
A second later, he heard a scream from outside the barn. It was Shari’s voice! Fear blooming in his chest, Jazeel rushed to the door.
Outside, it was chaos. The quasits were starting to overwhelm the defenders. They were standing with their backs to the barn. A paladin was on the ground— merely unconscious, Jazeel hoped, but the pooling blood suggested otherwise.
“Report!” he snapped. “Where is Shari?”
“The vrock grabbed her, flew yonder, then dropped her from the air.” A young paladin reported, pointing to a nearby field of low-growing crops.
“A call for aid has been sent to the main force, no reply yet.” Added another.
“Ja-zeeel!” came a taunting, sing-song call from beyond the flock of quazits.
At the edge of the chaos, the demon was coming to a landing. A dazed-looking Shari was sprawled on the ground in front of him. Her helm lay a few feet from her on one side, her shield and scimitar on the other where they had fallen from her grasp. Jazeel charged through the swarm towards his wife, cleaving a quasit in two with his scimitar as he ran.
The vrock cackled, hauling Shari up by her hair so that she was kneeling limply in front of him, facing Jazeel. The demon held her with his claws poised to tear out her throat. “Beg for her life, incubus!” he called.
Jazeel skidded to a halt a dozen feet away.
“Hold,” he shouted. “I submit!”
He carefully laid down his scimitar and raised his hands, not taking his eyes off the demon. He was trying desperately to stall him by playing to his greed.
“Take me back to your Lord and claim your reward. Leave her alone, and I will go willingly. Harm her and you get nothing.” Jazeel hoped his desperation wasn't creeping into his voice. He saw Shari begin to come to her senses again and start struggling against the demon’s grip.
The vrock laughed triumphantly. “Hah! You’ve been away from the Abyss too long, incubus! My Lord’s reward isn't for bringing you home… It’s for causing you anguish by destroying anything and anyone you love.”
A jagged humanoid shape suddenly slid out of the vrock’s shadow. As its dark form coalesced, Jazeel’s heart stopped. He recognized the babau assassin Mangvhune. Long ago, Jazeel had delivered countless contracts to him at the behest of his Demon Lord.
Time seemed to slow as the babau raised a dagger formed out of pure darkness. Jazeel started to move forward, but something was hindering his movements. Mangvhune plunged the dagger into Shari’s heart, she screamed as her soul was severed from her body. Jazeel’s own anguished howl shifted from panic to rage as the babau turned and grinned at him.
Nocticula sends her regards, Jazeel, the babau sent telepathically. Your debt to her is paid. As for the other Lords you’ve angered, She leaves you to their own ‘mercies’.
The demon assassin gave Jazeel a bow and vanished into shadow once more.
“Nooo!”
The scream still echoed in Jazeel’s throat as he charged the only target left, the demon holding his wife's limp body. Jazeel dropped his human disguise. Wings appeared with a leathery snap as his form shifted to a grey-skinned humanoid with curving black horns, bestial hooves, and two sets of deadly claws. He leapt towards the vrock in a haze of fury and anguish.
In an instant, Jazeel’s hands were closing towards the demon’s throat. It cackled as it dropped Shari’s body. It writhed, slipping free of Jazeel’s grasp. The vrock launched itself into the air. He did not get far, Jazeel leapt after him. He entangled the demon’s feet with his tail as he caught hold of a black feathered wing. Jazeel slammed a fist into the demon’s side, knocking it out of the air and back into the ground with a crunch of shattering bones.
The demon’s cackle started to wheeze, it rolled out of the way as Jazeel came down out of the air. It got to its feet, beginning to attempt another magic spell. Jazeel didn't give it a chance. Jazeel’s fist swung towards the demon’s head. The demon dodged the first blow, but missed the second, which connected with his birdlike jaw with a crack. The demon staggered back, dazed by the pain suddenly wracking his entire body. Jazeel dove at him, fingers closing around the demon’s neck as he slammed it to the ground.
The demon still tried to laugh as his throat was crushed beneath Jazeel’s hands. It flailed, clawing at Jazeel’s arms and face, drawing slashes of dark demonic blood from Jazeel’s grey skin. Yet Jazeel held on, strangling the life from the demon’s body, feeling a dark pleasure as he continued slamming the demon’s head against the ground again and again. The demon’s struggling stopped, yet Jazeel continued to vent his rage and pain on the mangled body. Still hearing its mocking cackle mingled with Shari’s scream as she died.
Dimly, Jazeel became aware of someone calling his name. The haze of rage cleared enough for him to recognize the voice of one of the young paladins under his command.
“It's dead, M-master Jazeel—.” The paladin’s voice cut off with a gulp as Jazeel released the corpse and turned on her. His eyes still blazed red with wrath, demon blood splattered across his unnaturally handsome features. The paladin raised her shield in defense. The holy symbol of Sarenrae emblazoned there briefly reflected the Summer sun, blinding Jazeel. He reflexively covered his eyes, all he could see for a moment was a glowing after-image. An image of a haloed woman with outstretched arms. The goddess he had pledged his life to so many years ago after leaving the Abyss. Jazeel took a deep shuddering breath and collapsed onto one knee, bowing his horned head as he struggled to regain control of himself. He slowly shifted back to his human disguise, forcefully reminding himself he was not that demon any more.
“Reinforcements are here, sir.” The armored woman said to him hesitantly. Most of Sarenrae’s worshippers at the temple: clergy, laypeople and paladins, knew him well. He was a teacher and master alchemist and herbalist there. Very few knew Jazeel’s secret. Witnessing his transformation was undoubtedly a shock to her, Jazeel thought. She had been courageous to even approach him in his rage.
“Sister Geraldine is tending to the wounded.” The paladin said as Jazeel stumbled to his feet, rubbing at his eyes.
Jazeel’s vision cleared. He saw the kindhearted healer kneeling beside Shari’s body, examining the damage with expert eyes. Jazeel approached her, his heart breaking anew as he saw his love’s lifeless body.
“Please say you can bring her back, Sister.” Jazeel whispered. He choked back tears as he helped the healer arrange the body into a more restful pose. He closed her staring, lifeless eyes.
“I will try,” the Cleric murmured. “But it has to be the will of both Sarenrae and The Lady of Graves for it to happen, Jazeel, you know that.”
Jazeel nodded as the sister retrieved the components for the ritual. She began to recite the prayer, and the initial steps began, repairing the damage to the body. The bruised skin faded and the knife wound began to close, but stopped. The sister’s chant faltered, and she shook her head.
“What? What's wrong?” Jazeel asked frantically.
“I don't know,” Sister Geraldine frowned. “The ritual is not taking hold. Something is blocking it. This is beyond my power, we must take it to the Dawnmother.”
--
Jazeel was carrying Shari’s shrouded body the eternity-spanning distance back to Kenabres. He refused any help or solace.
The Dawnmother had met them in the field. Though she was one of the most powerful clerics in Kenabres, she had not been able to bring Jazeel’s love back to life. After her own failed attempts at resurrection rituals, Dawnmother Zariyah had communed with Sarenrae. She was informed that a magical effect of the shadowy murder weapon was hindering their attempts to reunite Shari’s soul with her body.
“I am sorry, Jazeel,” she had told him then. “Even if we did find a way past this effect, Shari’s spirit has passed on. Her time in this world is over, her soul awaits Judgement by Pharasma.”
It was then that Jazeel’s heart had truly broken. His tears flowed freely, sobs wracking him as he held Shari’s rapidly-cooling body, wondering if he would ever feel her warmth again. Most mortals wondered at the fate of their souls after death, but none truly worried about their immortality like Jazeel did. No one really knew what would happen to Jazeel when he died. He was formed out of abyssal matter fused with the energy of a soul that had lived a mortal life, been judged by the Lady of Graves, and sent to the abyss for its crimes. Would his good acts in this new corrupted form of life give him a chance to be judged again? He had left the Abyss under his own power rather than a magical summons. If he died on this plane the energy invigorating his body would be destroyed, lost forever into nothingness. He could only continue to follow Sarenrae and have faith that his goddess would intercede at his death. And allow him to one day see Shari again.
By the time Jazeel and the other defenders made it back to the temple, carrying their dead and wounded, he was empty of tears, emotionally and physically numb. He laid Shari’s body on the summer grass in the wide courtyard at the center of the temple complex, feeling like nothing could ever pierce the haze of sorrow surrounding him—.
“No! Mother!”
Then Jazeel heard his son’s anguished cry, and his heart found a new depth of sorrow.
Jazeel turned in time to catch Calden in his arms as his son ran to the shrouded form.
“She is gone, Calden,” Jazeel told him.
“No!” Calden yelled, struggling to reach his mother’s body. “The Dawnmother, she can bring her back, I’ve seen her do it!”
“She tried, Calden,” Jazeel murmured. He turned his son to face him. “It didn't work. She was killed by a babau assassin, something he did blocked her soul from returning.”
“This is your fault!” Calden spit, pushing himself away from his father. “If you had let me go with you, I could have protected her!”
“You’d just be dead too!” Jazeel yelled. “You wouldn't have been able to stop the assassin.”
“You don't know what I can do,” the teenager raged. “You’ve never really watched me training, I know I could have protected her.”
“No, you couldn't, Calden.” Jazeel snapped at his son. He began to rage at himself. At his own inability to protect Shari. At his evil past that he naively thought he had left far behind. “The assassin killed her for no other reason except that she was loved by me, he would have killed you just as quickly.”
“I could have saved her!” Calden screamed. In his rage and grief, he drew his scimitars and attacked the only target his mind could latch on to.
The suddenness of Calden’s rage caught Jazeel off guard. His instincts took over, shifting to his demon form for the second time that day. He dodged Calden’s initial wild swing. He slammed a fist into Calden’s upper arm, causing him to drop one sword. Calden spun, slashing at his father with the other scimitar, but Jazeel caught Calden’s wrist and plucked the weapon away. Jazeel tugged on the wrist, pulling his son off balance towards himself. He wrapped his arms around Calden’s upper body, pinning Calden’s arms to his sides. He held him against his chest in a tight embrace.
“Damn it, Calden, stop this,” Jazeel cried. “I’m sorry. I failed to protect your mother. I know you are angry and hurting, but at least you know you will be able to see her again. This life is all I’ve got for sure. I can't lose you too. I’ve got to protect you, if any agents of my former Lords find out that you are my son—.”
Calden twisted himself free from his father’s embrace. “You don't have to worry about that,” he growled, backing away. “No one will ever know who my father was, I’m forgetting it myself!”
Calden turned and ran from the atrium, leaving Jazeel to collapse to the ground next to his wife's corpse. He pulled his bestial legs up to his chest and let his head fall down onto on his knees. He wrapped his wings around himself, folding them up around his head. It blocked his view of the chaos around him as the temple denizens reacted to an incubus sitting in the center of Sarenrae’s temple courtyard. He sat in silence, oblivious to the world.
“Jazeel,” came a calm but forceful voice. It was Dawnmother Zaryah. Her cool hand rested on his wing. “Listen to me, my son.”
The incubus flinched away and curled into a tighter ball of misery.
“Jazeel, you need to return to human form,” the Dawnmother urged. “Your amulet only partially damps the Wardstone’s effects when you are in your demonic form. Your skin is starting to burn.”
“I don't care,” Jazeel whispered. He parted his wings and raised his head crowned with its curved glossy black horns. His handsome face was numb, devoid of emotion. He looked the Dawnmother in the eye and pulled the amulet out from under his armor. He began a movement as if to tear it from his neck. Removing the amulet would expose himself to the full force of the Wardstone’s aura, it would kill him in seconds.
“Hold!” the Dawnmother commanded. Her word contained a holy spell that froze Jazeel in place. She knelt on the grass in front of the incubus and tried to gently pry the amulet from his hand. “You are needed here, Jazeel. Do not cause the Wardstone to destroy you. I know you are in pain, Calden is too. He will recover, in time. He will need you to be here, alive and well.”
Jazeel released the amulet, shifting back to his human form with a sob. Dawnmother Zaryah placed a hand on his head, she whispered a prayer, healing his burned skin. As the blisters faded, she prayed again, this time for solace for her friend. Then the Dawnmother wrapped her arms around the broken-hearted Risen demon and held him closely as he cried.