Best Laid Plans of Dragons and Men

Irritation suddenly flashed across Izagor's mind. Who was this twisted creature from the otherworldly plane to lecture her on how she would live her life? It was patronizing beyond belief for Kurzadakathan to act as if he could understand what she truly wanted better than she herself could. "I said: sign the contract or I'll banish you and try again with some other demon that doesn't talk so much!"

"Deny it if you want, but know that you are only lying to yourself." Kurzadakathan shrugged his shoulders. "So be it. We can do it your way, boss lady." He snatched his pen out of the air and scribbled his name on the signature line and slid the contract back out of the summoning circle. He offered his pen to Izagor, but Mason spoke up quickly.

"Don't take that. Don't even touch it. Just use your own pen."

Izagor used the pen she'd written the contract with and signed on her own line.

Mason breathed a silent sigh of relief. It seemed that he and Izagor had some serious things to discuss with each other, but only once the demon had held up his end of the deal. "That should be it. Kurzadakathan will create the crystal and then return to the otherworldly plane. Hand him the contract and we should be done here."

"I must say—this is a very detailed contract. Very efficient, but so detailed. Few sorcerers are so meticulous." Still sitting on the floor cross-legged, Kurzadakathan took back the contract from Izagor. "I had a contract just like this one only a few days ago...or was that a few years? Time is such a mortal concept. But now it's time to hold up my end of the deal. First, my payment..." The summoning circle flashed with energy as the demon pulled energy from it. "And then your half." Kurzadakathan clasped his hands together and crushed up the contract into a paper ball. When he unfolded it, a pale white crystal tumbled out and bounced onto the floor. "There you have it. This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

Izagor saw that the crystal looked just like the one which had transformed her into a human, but before she could relax, Mason drew in a sharp gasp of breath. "Something's not right," he realized, "the demon should have been banished once the contract is completed."

Kurzadakathan was still sitting inside the summoning circle. "No," continued the demon, "actually this crystal is not what you wanted, but it's what you asked for. Or to be more precise, it's what you thought you asked for. You had such a good contract, but you forgot one basic thing. So basic I could hardly even believe it when I first read your contract. Do you want to know what it is? Here, watch me repeat this trick—take a closer look." The demon crumpled up the contract and created a second crystal, identical to the first. The summoning circle flashed again. "Still no clue, you clever sorceress? Pay more attention. Let me show it to you again." The scrunched-up ball of paper collapsed into a tiny glowing pin-prick of light, and the summoning circle flashed as Kurzadakathan created a third crystal, appearing out of thin air and landing on the floor.

"What are you doing? Stop that. The contract said one crystal." Izagor was no expert on summoning, but even she could realize that something had gone very wrong. The summoning circle was flashing continuously as Kurzadakathan created more and more crystals, forming a small pile on the floor.

Mason felt his skin (his scales) grow cold. An uncontrolled summoning was the sort of thing every sorcerer had to be prepared for, but which they all hoped would never happen. "No, no, no. Our contract was wrong somehow. Get out of there, Izagor!" He scrambled to the side of the room, where a crossbow was hanging from the wall. In the event that a summoning went wrong, the weapon could be used to perform an emergency banishment—the crossbow was loaded with a bolt cast from an alloy of telanium and silver. The projectile would have no special effect if fired at humans or other mortals (beyond the standard effect of inflicting high-speed penetrative ballistic trauma), yet even the slightest touch of this metal would instantly banish a being of the otherworld.

"The contract said one crystal, but the contract never said it could only be done once. Perhaps you should pay more attention to such technicalities in the future. In another life, perhaps." Each time a new crystal was created, the summoning circle flicked as four morts of energy was drawn from it—slowly weakening the defensive wards every time. Although originally completely transparent, the half-dome which formed the summoning circle was beginning to grow cloudy as it ran out of power to sustain itself. Now it looked like Kurzadakathan was sitting behind milky glass, creating more and more crystals.

Mason's paws were unwieldly as he held the crossbow, and he had to awkwardly balance on his hindlegs. It was hard for him to work his fingers into the trigger mechanism, and even harder for him to properly aim. "The demon's breaking free! Get out of the circle now!" When Mason tried to pull back the charging handle, the weapon slipped out of his grip and tumbled to the floor. "Izzy!"

Suddenly realizing the danger, Izagor tried to step backwards out of the outer circle, but Kurzadakathan was faster. In a motion that was inhumanly smooth, he twisted to his feet and slammed his clenched fist against the barrier of the summoning circle. The spell shattered with a tremendous rumble, shaking the whole house as a crack appeared in the floor and splitting the summoning circle into two. Mason had been trying to pick up the crossbow, but he dropped it once again as the floor shook. Izagor also stumbled and dropped into a half crouch, but Kurzadakathan stood upright and unshaken.

"Contract complete," snarled the demon. He opened his fist and gestured. A flash of white light flew from palm and sent Izagor flying back across the room. She crashed against the wall and tumbled to the ground, and the world went dark.

--

Out of complete blackness came an explosion of meaningless colour, swirling around in lines and strange patterns. Izagor's eyes were open and she could perceive shapes and colours, yet somehow she couldn't actually see anything. A huge swatch of light blue colour took up most of her vision, but it took a few long seconds for her to realize that she was staring at the open sky. More objects started to resolve themselves—green and brown lines turned into trees, and a moving mass of grey turned into a drake who was leaning over and shaking her body. "Oh, no, no, no... Izagor? Izagor, can you hear me? Please, please don't be dead."

"I'm not dead. Are you dead?" Izagor murmured. She glanced around and realized that she was lying on the forest floor. She could smell the sea breeze again, but strange rumbling noises were coming from somewhere nearby. "Mason? What? How...?"

Mason let his forehead rest against her shoulder. "Thank the emperor. I thought you were gone for sure. I think...I think you stopped breathing for a moment when Kurzadakathan hit you with that death spell. It should have stopped your heart instantly."

"Only a fool would try to kill a dragon with magic. We're mortal, but still creatures of magic. It's like trying to drown a fish." Izagor glanced down and remember that she wasn't actually a dragon at the moment. A stinging, tingling sensation was running through her whole body from the magic that had tried to kill her, but perhaps some innate part of her still remembered that she was a dragon and not a human. "Did the summoning go wrong?"

"Yeah. Generally, the demon shouldn't be allowed to try and murder the sorcerer. Sorry. I must have forgotten a clause relating to the demonic contract termination, and that allowed Kurzadakathan to break the summoning circle. It's a rookie mistake."

Izagor patted Mason's neck. "It's ok. It might also have been my bad writing. To be honest, I half-expected something like this to happen."

"Regardless of how it happened, I should have... I had a plan even for a failed summoning. There was a plan. I always have a plan for everything..." Mason shook his head—a failed summoning was highly dangerous, but also very embarrassing for a sorcerer of his experience. "I had a crossbow made using a telanium alloy which banishes demons on contact. It was supposed to be my backup plan in the unlikely event that a demon breaks free, but these paws are too... I couldn't aim. Then when you got blasted I just...ran. I threw you over my back and ran out here as fast as I could. We're out in the forest, just a short distance from my house."

"We're both alive and uninjured. It could be worse," Izagor said, trying to sound optimistic. "What's that noise?"

Mason turned to stare into the forest where repeated booming noises were coming from; the closest sound Izagor could match it with was stones being smashed against each other. "Kurzadakathan has, ah, he's broken completely free of the summoning circle. He appears to be in the process of demolishing my house." Mason chuckled quietly, but there was little humour in his tone. "Hmm. At least he's focused on my property and not the nearby town. Once the guild hears about this, I'll probably have my sorcery licence revoked for allowing such a dangerous demon to escape."

"Well we can't have that, can we?" Izagor got to her feet and brushed herself off. "So what's the plan now? You always have a plan, right?"

"There is no plan." Mason shook his head. "Or at least, it won't be my plan anymore. I'll fly over to the town and contact the local Magician's Guild office. They'll dispatch a hunter-killer team to handle Kurzadakathan."

"Why do we need to rely on them? Why do we just banish that demon ourselves? We can do it."

Mason looked uneasy, but he didn't immediately refuse this plan. "Trying to fight a demon is dangerous."

"A bit dangerous, maybe, but you also said you would lose your licence if this heard about it, so it seems to me the solution is we banish that demon before anyone from your Magician's Guild realizes what's happening. Simple enough."

"There's nothing simple about banishing a freed demon. The guild rules are that they will overlook minor demons escaping if the sorcerer acts quickly and banishes them right away, but this is not minor. Kurzadakathan is not some imp or low-level creature; we are talking about a seriously powerful demon—"

"Who has tried to kill me once, and failed," Izagor pointed out.

"All the more reason to not give him a second chance."

"Alright, how about this—let's go back to your house and see if we can grab that banishing crossbow you were talking about. If it's too dangerous we'll back off, but at least we can see if there's a chance we handle this situation on our own. We summoned the demon, so we should be the ones who banished it. Does that sound like a good plan to you?"

"I don't know..." Mason said, but this didn't sound like a refusal.

"Alright, let's do it. We can get some...uh...assessment of the situation. Reconnaissance. Here's the plan! Get the crossbow, banish the demon, save your house. Onwards!" Izagor started creeping back towards Mason's house, moving sneakily (or at least, trying) from tree to tree. Mason shook his head, but he followed after her regardless.

--

As they came to the forest clearing, it quickly became obvious that one part of the plan had already failed—Mason's house was in ruins, having been quickly reduced to rubble by Kurzadakathan. The demon was still in a vaguely humanoid form, although now its whole body was wrapped in fire and it stood more than thrice as tall as a normal human, rising up out of the building like a flaming giant.

Hiding behind a tree trunk, Mason and Izagor got to watch as Kurzadakathan punched and kicked the remaining walls of the house with lumbering brutish rage; not content with merely knocking apart the structure, but apparently intent on reducing the whole place to dust. "There's not much house left to save," Izagor muttered.

"At least he's so focused on demolishing my house that he hasn't noticed us." Mason spoke too soon, for right at that instant the demon grabbed something out of the rubble and flung it in their direction.

"Watch out!" yelled Izagor. She and Mason both scrambled out of the way as a stony chunk of wall crashed into the bush they'd been hiding behind.

Mason darted behind a tree for cover, but when he glanced around he realized that Izagor had run in a different direction. "Izagor! Let's back off!" He hurried pulled back his head as another piece of rubble impacted against his tree, shaking it.

Izagor did not back off. "It's okay, we can do this! Mason, I need you to breathe fire and keep that demon distracted!"

"What?! How? I can't breathe fire!"

"Are you an ice dragon then? Just breathe something at him!"

"I'm not an ice dragon either! I'm human, remember? I don't know how to breathe anything!"

"Oh." Izagor brushed her hair away from her face as she considered this. "When this is all over and we've banished that demon, remind me to teach you."

"Banished the...? I thought the plan was to play it safe?" yelled Mason.

"Change of plans! Just keep him distracted." Izagor leapt out from behind her tree and darted from point to point, quickly sprinting around the forest clearing to try and circle Mason's house.

Kurzadakathan was bellowing out barely-coherent curses as he flung bits of rock and rubble at Mason, but it appeared that the demon's focus was entirely on the dragon. "He's got a good throwing arm," Mason muttered to himself. Leaves and branches pelted him from above as the tree took impact after impact, until finally it could take no more and began to topple over slowly. Mason hurriedly sprinted to try and find some new cover; he dodged left and right as Kurzadakathan continued to toss debris in his direction. With a tremendous crash, the falling tree landed on the forest floor.

Izagor had circled around the clearing by now. Kurzadakathan was facing away from her and still busy with Mason, so she sprinted into the remains of Mason's house and searched for the room where they'd done the summoning. "Come on, come on..." It was hard to tell rooms apart with most of the house demolished, but backtracking through the path of the demon's destruction led Izagor back to the original point where Kurzadakathan had first been summoned.

Finally she spotted the glint of metal on the floor—she hurriedly pushed away rubble to uncover the crossbow...which was snapped in two pieces. The telanium bolt was nowhere to be seen, and the crossbow itself was an unusable wreck. Izagor dropped the broken weapon. "So much for that plan..."

Suddenly she heard Mason yell. "Izzy!!"

It appeared the Mason was having difficulty with holding Kurzadakathan's attention. Izagor hurriedly ducked away as a floor lamp came spinning through the air to crash into where she'd just been standing. She had to vault and climb over the debris as she scrambled to get out of the house, but Kurzadakathan started chasing after her, taking wide steps and making loud roaring noises as he kicked his way through the rubble.

"This might have been a bad idea..." Izagor muttered. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Kurzadakathan was almost on top of her. The demon raised two giant fists wrapped in fire and swung them down towards her. But just before the blow connected, Kurzadakathan suddenly stumbled forwards and missed.

Mason had come running up from behind the demon, carrying a large tree branch in his jaws with which he had just smacked the back of the demon's knees. The leaves on the tree branch immediately smouldered and began to catch fire on contact with Kurzadakathan's burning body; Mason tossed aside the branch and dashed forward towards Izagor while the demon was still trying to recover. "This isn't working! Let's leave!"

"Good plan." Izagor hurriedly climbed onto Mason's back, clutching onto the harness which he was still wearing. The drake leapt up into the air and spread his wings. Flapping as hard as he could, Mason desperately tried to gain altitude and leave the forest clearing. He was focused on flying, but he did spare one brief second to glance behind and see what Kurzadakathan was doing—the demon was angrily chasing after them with both arms raised, but even in its massive form it couldn't catch up to a flying dragon.

"Uh, Mason...the demon's picking something up..." Izagor warned. Mason had almost made it over the tree line, where the forest would shield them from anything else Kurzadakathan threw, but suddenly Izagor screamed and pulled on the harness. "Watch-out-watch-out-watch-out! Tuuuurn!"

Without looking back, Mason instantly rolled sharply towards the left. A huge object came flying through the air, only narrowly missing him. Then they were past the treeline and out of Kurzadakathan's sight. The last projectile crashed back onto the ground some distance away, with paperwork appearing to explode out of the impact site. "I think that's my desk! He threw my desk at me!" Mason exclaimed. "Are you alright?"

"Are you talking to your desk? How does it talk back?" asked Izagor.

Mason almost laughed aloud. "I'm not talking to my desk; I'm talking to you, obviously. Are you alright?"

"Ah! Right...I just...thought that maybe desk been enchanted with sorcery or something. Like maybe you had a pet demon secretary inside it that does your paperwork? Is that a thing?"

"That's not a thing."

"Oh, ok." Izagor adjusted her position so that she was riding Mason more comfortably. "I'm alright—a few new scratches, a few new bruises, but nothing serious. Are you alright?"

"I'm not injured. Physically, that is," Mason confirmed. "Mentally I might be slightly traumatized, and I'm now seriously considering a change in careers. I don't think I like sorcery anymore. Let the Magician's Guild handle that demon—I don't care if they suspend my licence."

Izagor let a sigh and slumped forward, resting against Mason's neck. "If that crossbow hadn't been broken, I bet we could have banished that demon. Oh well. Plan failed, but at least we tried..."

"We tried," Mason agreed. He turned and flew towards the nearby town of Klosk Harbour, but then he changed course and flew down towards where his desk had landed. "Actually, now that you mention it... I might just have another plan."

Pushing herself back into a sitting position, Izagor glanced backwards to check if Kurzadakathan was still following them, but from the sound of it the demon had gone back to pulverising Mason's house. "Oh? You have a plan?"

Mason flared his wings as he came in for landing right next to his desk. The desk was burnt from where Kurzadakathan had held it, and badly dented from the impact with the ground. "If I remember correctly, my desk should have a backup to my backup..." He trotted over to the desk and started pulling open drawers. Izagor slid off his back and also helped him search.

"What are we looking for?"

"That crossbow was actually a new replacement I just bought a few months ago. Before that, I had a different weapon—also made from telanium-silver alloy, capable of instantly banishing demons on contact..."

Izagor found something buried in the dirt, which looked like it might have been attached to the bottom of the desk—a large hammer. "Is this it?" The hammer had a plain wooden handle that was about as long as her leg, but the blunt head was made from iridescent metal.

Mason stopped his search and nodded. "Yes. That's it."

Izagor clenched her hand around the hammer's handle, wondering how she would get close enough to swing it at the demon. "I'm all for trying to banish that demon ourselves, but how would this work? This hammer is too heavy to throw, and we can't engage at range like we could with a crossbow. That demon is coated in magical fire, so if I get close I'll end up scorched."