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Furfur stood unsteadily. He swayed slightly, trying to keep his head held high and his drink on a level that precluded spillage all at the same time.
Despite these minor difficulties he felt the evening was going well. Here he was, talking and drinking with some almost important demons, on whom he was really trying to make the right impression and, he thought, succeeding. He decided to enter the conversation:
“What I always say is…”
He’d spoken just a little too loudly and this had the effect of silencing the other demons around him. They were all looking at him expectantly now, and he flushed as he realised that he had absolutely no idea what it was he “always said”.
“What. I. Always. Say. Is…” he tried again, slower this time, in case repeating these initial words would some how encourage the rest of the sentence to come out from wherever it had hidden and join the conversation.
Silence reigned supreme and Furfur began to flush horribly as he surveyed the expectant faces around him.
Luckily he wasn’t entirely without allies: “you always say how hard we work” Shax filled in for him quickly. She wasn’t sure that’s what he had meant to say, but she was right next to him and felt that his failure might make her look bad too.
“Yes! That’s exactly what I always say. We work hard” Furfur said triumphantly. “Very hard” he added for extra emphasis.
His moment of panic over he sat down abruptly and neatly split half his drink onto his lap. He elbowed Shax affectionately in the ribs and muttered “thanks luv” in what he imagined to be a subtle whisper.
After a stunned moment of silence the conversational waves began again and soon washed over this little gaffe. Furfur downed his drink and looked furtively around him. Would anyone notice if he crept home now? The near-gaffe experience had frightened him enough to want to get out of here.
As a fairly junior demon his furtive abilities were not quite up to scratch and he was noticed before he managed to edge out of the room. He was grabbed and forcibly sat down, which this time did spill his drink in his lap. He was secretly pleased about losing his drink, having realised he’d had quite enough thank you, but not particularly pleased at the damp patch on his crotch.
His drink-less state wasn’t to last long either, as he was almost immediately handed another cup of something with faint wisps of green steam rising from it. He squinted at the demon who’d passed him the unwanted drink.
“Weren’t you in my legion?” he asked drunkenly, but in a turn-about from his previously loud whisper this question came out far too quietly to be heard.
He stood again in the hope he might make that exit after all, but quickly abandoned the idea. From next to him he could hear Shax simpering at someone. She had obviously found someone either useful or important enough to try to make an impression on. He wanted to ensure he was near enough to remind the demon that he had been at the party "with Shax" if he needed anything from them himself.
He turned and saw a freakishly tall figure with very long arms swaying slightly in front of her. The arm movements were vaguely hypnotic, undulating along on their own as if they had a life independent of their owner. He thought the demon was from procurements.
That figured he thought. It was always good to have someone onside in procurements, in case you needed something. Useful to have allies everywhere really, it was all part of the game. Office politics. Making an impression. Fighting a subtle, social war to get ahead. He hated it.
Given the quantity of alcohol sloshing around in his system he decided to voice his dislike of the current system. He started forming an explanation in his own head, but failed to concentrate properly and announced the last part of it loudly to the room at large before he’d perfected the sentiment.
“…and I don’t see why demons as served together, fought and put their-self in the line of danger together, I don’t see why they should… why they shouldn’t…”
He lost the thread a little, but picked it up bravely: “demons in my legion no less. Side by side, going into battle on the plains of Heaven. Now thinking they're above everyone else!”
From the general he broke into the specific “if that prancing red-haired bastard was here I’d tell him. I’d remind him…. remind him where he was from… side by side we was… he was right next to me… in my legion!”
A voice behind him growled “my legion, I think you’ll find”.
Furfur attempted to turn to the speaker, but was a little unsteady and ended up facing back the way he had been. He was angry now too: “…and what makes it your legion more than mine, I’d like to know?”
“Well, I commanded it, for a start”.
The words dropped like a lead balloon and the previously overlapping waves of conversation were splashed violently to the edges of the room. There was now a circle of silence around Furfur and the speaker.
Furfur had opened his mouth to speak, but luckily hadn’t got as far as forming words before the meaning of what the strange demon had just said sunk in. He shut his mouth and looked sideways towards where Shax had been sitting. She would rescue him wouldn’t she?
Shax wasn’t there. No-one was there. He was surrounded by empty chairs and silence. Whatever small creature lived inside of him curled itself up into a little ball and fled down towards his feet. Hoping no doubt to disappear his conciousness into the floor beneath him.
It failed and left him standing there, all alone, without even the brain he needed to form a response. After a few seconds of silence his wits began to return a little and he reluctantly started to turn around. He was suddenly much more sober than he had been before and dreading the confrontation.
He remembered who had led his legion and it wasn’t someone he wanted to get on the wrong side of. It was someone pretty damn senior and not known for either his sense of humour or his forgiving nature. He thought of maggots and hell-fire and the fate of those unfortunate enough to cross him (whispered by mothers in dark places to frighten their young - of course).
Despite delaying the inevitable for a long as possible (with a very slow pivot dragging his feet round first and waiting for his reluctant upper body to follow at it’s own pace) Furfur was now facing Hastur. Not that he was actually “facing” him per se. No, he was more looking at his boots. Large clumpy boots with a crusted coating of Hell’s mud.
Before he looked at anything further he glanced to either side, hoping for a way out. He saw the circle of demons had widened even further and he was totally on his own. Finally he looked upwards, into large, black eyes. He stuttered slightly, then Hastur spoke:
“Yeah, you was in my legion. I remember you. You was ok. I remember... stabbin’ and shouting and stuff. Giving them Hell…. Hell I said…. giving them Hell”.
Hastur gave a fierce, hooting cackle at that comment. It was at this point the relieved Furfur realised Hastur was quite clearly very drunk indeed and certainly not about to destroy lesser demons with Hell-fire or anything worse. He managed to nervously join in with the possibly-laughter.
Hastur held out one of the two drinks he was clutching. When there was no reaction he jabbed the cup at Furfur with the unavoidable implication that he was to take it. Once he’d unenthusiastically taken the cup, Hastur yelled: “drink to our fallen comrades!”
“To the fallen” was an old toast used by demons for millennia, but Hastur’s words were more of a command than a toast. Furfur eyed the drink warily. It was in a very thick metal lined cup and even so there appeared to be some corrosion around the edges of the rim. It looked very much as if the liquid was dissolving the metal lining of the cup.
Hell’s drinks were sometimes human, sometimes not. There was a story about demons in the deepest pits taking pails of sulphur from the fiery lake and distilling it with toxic herbs to make a drink so potent it could kill lesser demons. If such a drink existed this might well be it. He tried inhaling slightly just to get a sniff of it and nearly fell backwards at the merest hint of the vapours.
He looked up at the Duke of Hell before him and realised he had no choice. He had to drink. Taking what he thought may well be the last breath, for this corporation at least, he downed the whole mug in one.
He felt the fiery liquid pass through his body and start to melt his socks. A flush of burning flames engulfed him for a few seconds, before dying down to a not totally unpleasant warmth. He swayed and tried not to breath in as waves of heat caressed him.
He could still feel the glow of Hell-fire around him and, through the tears that were suddenly streaming down his face, he saw Hastur’s expectant face. “To the fallen!” he shouted hoarsely and was immensely relieved when some of the other demons joined in.
The fearsome demon Duke also downed his drink and was momentarily distracted by his own hell-fire plume. This gave Furfur the opportunity to drop the cup and let out the cough that had been burning the back of his throat. A new jet of Hell-fire escaped with it, roaring out from his mouth and nose. He desperately gasped in some cooling air and bent double as he fought the urge to sink to the floor, assume the foetal position and rock with pain.
Through the haze of agony and burning alcohol he could feel eyes watching him. It felt like this was some sort of test. He forced himself to stand up straight and pulled his shoulders back in an attempt to stand to attention. His head swam and he could feel the flames licking around the edges of his coat. Nonetheless he managed to give a passable salute, holding his breath in case more of the Hell-fire escaped.
Hastur nodded at him with approval and then began clutching and pulling at his own coat. He seemed to be looking for something that eluded him.
Hastur swung round in a full 360 a couple of times before he managed to locate his pocket. Out of it he pulled a yellow looking item and thrust it towards Furfur.
“Here y’go, it’s a… a… thing. For old times sake. For you”. He didn’t seem to know what it was he was handing over, but obviously felt his former comrade in arms had earned some reward.
With that the senior demon completed a half turn and managed to reach the door in three long strides. He spoiled his exit a little by bouncing off the door-frame a couple of times before getting out of the room, but leave he did, with head held high.
The room was still in the thrall of an awed silence. Dukes of Hell didn’t give presents out, certainly not to junior demons. It didn’t matter what it was. It was an unheard of dishonour, and a dishonour bestowed on a lesser admissions demon at that. They were utterly stunned.
Furfur clutched the thing to his chest with one hand, the other swinging through the empty space around him. He looked wildly about the room, as if someone was threatening to take the thing from him. All eyes were on him now, but he felt good about it. Shax had imperceptibly managed to sidle up to him until she was right by his side once again.
Although she had disappeared at his moment of greatest need, his flailing hand instinctively reached for hers in his moment of triumph. He clutched her hand, pulling her towards him, and took a deep breath, eyeing the circle of demons around them.
“To the fallen!” he cried, realising he hadn’t got a drink just a little too late. It didn’t matter though. There were now at least five or six of the other demons all trying to press their drinks upon him.
He was a demon of note now. He had been remembered. He was important. Furfur’s chest swelled with pride and he gave a happy grin.
It wasn’t until he was alone that he felt safe to actually look at his prize. It was a book entitled “Demon’s Guide to Angelic Beings who Walk the Earth”. It was stamped as “Hastur’s Copy”.
Furfur took out his best quill and licked the point with both curling forks of his long tongue, just to be sure. He then crossed out Hastur’s name and proudly inked in his own.