#especially when it's cold outside and it's supposed to be bleak and melancholy!!

[jiangwanyin]

maybe i'm a little predictable and easy to please but truly nothing like starting october with some fresh strawberries from the farmer's market 🙏

[thatboomerkid]

Her, with the Gun

Her, with the Gun

An excerpt – from the work-in-progress – of a story starring The Old Wishtwister; brought to you absolutely free, as always, by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Old Wishtwister Shaibriri had been feeling simply awful.

Busted down. Burned up. Dried out.

Wounded. Humiliated. Sick to his very heart.

Hollowed and shelled and left quiet, cold and miserable, the ageless demon sat in the middle of the floor in the basement of a rotting, long-abandoned hunting lodge high in the nameless wooded mountains of furthest Zi Ha.

Light-headed and shuddering, he sat for days upon days and weeks upon weeks, alone. His breaths were ragged, slow and shallow. He was in great pain.

Crouched and aching, the Wishtwister hugged himself in a motionless melancholy. Unsleeping but exhausted, he let wordless hate roil within him deep in the echoing dark. The old fiend occasionally sighed very softly with pity for himself; he otherwise all-but-silently nursed his pain as months crept by and the snow settled in drifts around him. He wept, curled in a heap.

Outside, thin wind howled.

Sometimes the ageless demon touched his tender wounds, wincing and sucking sharp breath over his wolfish fangs, and he thought about death. He flinched, more than once, simply at the reliving of nasty memories and old failures. Icy, oily sweat dripped from his fevered brow.

He shivered, often with hate and sometimes with sorrow.

In the grey fog between two moonless nights, something scuttled across the floor above his basement hiding-spot; a writhing coil of ugly hate spasmed into the world without a blink of the demon’s bloodshot eye, and all was still once again. After a few days, he could smell sweet rot; three weeks later, the stench of the unlucky animal finally dissipated. Thunder could be heard pealing from far-away mountain peaks, and the sound of rain on forest canopy; a season passed.

One bleak morning, the Wishtwister stood with a smile on his face.

“I’m hungry,” said the ancient fiend, simply.

The dank room creaked, and seemed to shrink away from him in sudden fear, and the demon laughed.

“Yes. Yes, let’s have dinner. And dancing, and wine and song; screams and blood! Fire and wailing and jumping and laughter, indeed. Why, let’s make it a date.”

Something small and round, no bigger than the ball of a child’s thumb, clattered to the damp floor as the Wishtwister stood. It was single bullet -- a once-perfect sphere crafted of thrice-blessed cold iron, now pitted and stained with a crimson crust of demon’s blood. It was cold, and misshapen from where it had pressed against the ageless fiend’s heart. It rolled across the floor, making a soft ticking sound, then fell still and spent.

The Wishtwister stretched his long limbs, and cracked his elegant fingers and snapped his sharp teeth; he tried on a warm smile, and found to his surprise that it fit his face perfectly. The great, wicked curling horns which swept back from his thorn-wreathed brow scratched at the high ceiling.

“Yes. You know, I feel better already.”

Then, with a gleeful twist of the mind, Shadibriri was gone.

A cold breeze blew through the empty mansion.

---

The sun was setting as the demon walked through the early summer evening of Quantium a moment later. The warm wind blowing off the bay was alive, deep with heat and salt and the glow of sunset, as Shadibriri delighted at the feeling of his cloistered stink blowing away into the unnatural desert encroaching from the west. The city gleamed and glittered; he wore his best and brightest glamer: all deep purples, livid greens and shimmering gold over skin like creamy chocolate, and tipped his hat at all who caught his eye.

In no time at all, he found the modest apartment of his wizardly friend.

He did not have to knock, or clap, or ring a bell at the wooden doorway -- that was one of the nice things about being friends with a wizard. A silent alarm began to sound, the demon knew; in no time at all, the mage arrived in a huff.

“I’m entertaining.”

Shadibriri shrugged. “Really? I never thought so. Not particularly, anyway; I mean, you’re funny looking enough, I suppose, but your sense of humor is --

“By which I mean that I have guests,” the wizard spat. “Colleagues, over for dinner. What do you want, demon?”

The fiend chuckled. “Spell power, and everything you know about rifles.”

“And what,” the wizard asked after a moment, “does that mean?”

“Well, I’m off to kill a girl with a gun, up in the north; I have reason to believe that she’s an ordained holy warrior of Iomedae or someone similar, and I would like to have her blasted into bits from several hundred yards away. Or whatever the best distance is, in your professional opinion.”

The mage stroked his thin goatee, suddenly curious. “The best range on the most commonly-produced rifles available in Avistan? Less than half that of a well-thrown fireball, in all honesty -- firearms are weak peasant-magic novelties, really.”

“Agreed, without prevarication,” the demon said with a grin.

“Hmm. But why my spell-power, instead of your own?”

“The target,” Shadibriri allowed, “proved both uncannily and frustratingly resistant to the better part of my offensive mystical repertoire, much to my chagrin. And then she shot me. Several times.”

“Ah,” the mage said, gazing into the early-evening street. “You presume her to be warded against demon-magic. So a true holy warrior, then, and not some fat local potentate with an exotic, gilded blunderbuss and a parish named after him?”

“A hero,” the ageless fiend sighed. “Champion of a just and righteous cause of some type or another, of course; knight-in-shining-armor sort of stuff -- quite literally, in her case. I still remember my last one of those; gods, how he struggled at the end!”

“How unpleasant,” said the wizard, simply.

“Yes. Good for a bit of a laugh, as always ... but I find I’m ready to put this little adventure to bed. Coming with me?”

The mage frowned. “I’m not sold. What, precisely -- other than shoot you, of course -- has this lady hero done to earn your particular enmity?”

“Is that not,” the demon asked with stunned shock, “quite enough? She shot me, as I said. Several times! With blessed & demon-warded bullets!”

“Hmm. Unlikely -- those weapons are infamously slow to load.”

Shadibriri darkened his gaze. “Well, I was there; I, for one, found that she had no problem firing upon me with both great speed and deeply unpleasant accuracy. At her touch, bullets flew from her bandolier into her rifle with an alacrity matched only by the speed with which they thereby exited in my general direction.”

The mage shrugged. “Some have a ken for swift firing, I suppose, just as some have a talent for the harp, barn-dances or the loom. So she shot you several times; what of it?”

“I didn’t like it. Once was enough to get me angry; the last one nearly undid me.”

Rolling his eyes, the wizard looked back into his house before continuing. “And why did she do that?”

The demon smiled. “Well, in her defense, I was killing an awful lot of people at the time. Striding around a village whilst it was on fire, pretending to be one of the Spawn of Rovagug, if I’m being honest. Tore down most of a church, actually, and threw the whole altar right in a river. Always wanted to see if I could do that. Kicked a vicar right in half. Then she yelled at me, and then when I turned around I got shot. And then again, and several times more.”

“You really are a terrible human being, do you know that?”

“Oh, I’m neither. I’m the very model of roguish charm, for one -- and if I was ever a human, I’ve long forgotten about it. Now, what can you do for me?”

The mage frowned, a look Shadibriri was well familiar with, then shook his head in an emphatic negative. “Nothing. I’ve no desire to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, in general, nor any interest in facing off against a gun-toting northerner paladin in full plate, in particular -- especially not one that has already bested you. Now, as I may have mentioned, I also have dinner guests, so--”

“She got lucky.”

The wizard rolled his eyes again. He was getting good at it. “Be that as it may, she and I have no quarrel, and I dare say that you’re mad to face off with her a second time. Furthermore, any woman capable of shrugging of your not-inconsiderable barrage of unholy death-magics would hardly be expected to succumb with due haste to anything that I might unleash upon her.”

The Wishtwister smiled sweetly. “Like you said, perhaps she’s only warded against demons -- and not against the spells of you mere mortals. Perhaps you can disintegrate her while her back is turned.”

“A gamble I would not hastily wish to take, and certainly not wager at the cost of my life. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll rejoin my dining companions.”

Shadibriri folded his hands. “You do know that I would reward you greatly, yes? For help in this endeavor?”

“You’re offering me a wish?”

“Yes. Sans twist.”

The mage blinked. “Good gods -- this girl has really gotten to you, hasn’t she?”

“Do I hear interest in your voice?”

“Yes. Meet me after dinner. Where we met the first time.”

---

They met in a dark alley by the waterfront, the wizard and the demon.

“You smell like death.”

Hunched in the pitiless black, the Wishtwister smiled. “I think I killed a fox or possum or something by hating it so hard that it exploded. Might have been a deer. It was making a bit of racket while I was feeling ... thoughtful. Months ago, and I haven’t washed yet.”

The wizard sighed. “Let’s get on with this, then. What do you know about the woman you’re up against?”

“She’s very pretty, and ... “

“Oh, is this a sex thing?”

The old demon suddenly sat up straight. “Why, you know -- it might be! Since you mention it, that very well could be the case. I quite like human women, I’ve found; I would gleefully impregnate half of the human females you might care to name. Perhaps I’m simply smitten!”

“I would be very careful with that, if I were you.”

“Hmm. I’m now imagining us romantically intertwined. Things would no-doubt get broken -- a small shed, perhaps, and a family and maybe a church. I like the idea.”

---

The demon giggled. “You know, I once knew an assassin who had never been in a fight?”

“Really?”

“Well, that was his claim. I think it much more likely that he had simply never won a fight; he certainly never took a swing in anger ... nor even in self-defense, that I know of. He could tell you quite a bit about knives, but I don’t think he ever used one except in surgery -- which, I suppose, includes autopsies.”

“Fascinating.”

“I agree! It was a real delight to watch him work -- he claimed that he didn’t like to look his clients in the face when they died. He was much more of a puzzle-solver than a brute. I liked him - a real passion for the craft. Very good at pushing people off of cliffs and into traffic.”

---

This was a dangerous gamble, but it was going to be worth it -- if it paid off.

He stood in front of the black monastery for three days, letting the cold wind of the Menador Mountains blow past him. He hummed to himself, and rocked back and forth on his ankles, and twiddled his thumbs.

On the third night, a wizened abbot carrying a single black candle came to the door; he gazed at the demon with a look of calm disgust.

“Hello,” said the demon with a smile.

“You are unwelcome here,” said the priest.

Shadibriri smiled. “I’m offering you -- and your temple -- a wish. That’s all. You know what I am, and you also know that I mean you no harm. Well, no more than I mean anyone else.”

The old abbot frowned. “What do you want?”

“I want to kill a woman, far to the north. She is a priestess of Iomedae, and warded against me; she carries a gun. I request the use of one of your assassins. One who can deflect bullets fired at him.”

“Will he be required to kill this woman for you, demon?”

“I’m hoping to use him as a distraction, actually.”

---

“What do you think it is that he saw?”

The thin, pale sword-saint looked at him blankly. “Hmm?”

“Zon-Kuthon. The Dark Prince. What do you think it was that he saw, which drove him up the wall and over the edge, out in the blackness between planes?”

“I do not know.”

“Well, of course you don’t know. But it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? What did he see that made him unravel? What mysterious and inexplicable force made him what he is today?”

“It is,” said the holy-warrior after a long, calm moment, “utter heresy to ask such questions.”

“Yes. That’s one of the reasons I delight in asking it.”

---

“A wise man once said ‘A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.”

“I like that!

“He continued: ‘This is common sense, really ... Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.”

---

“Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you? I’m a tracker -- and you leave very specific tracks.”

“So, you’re the sheriff, now. Good for you.”

---

“After this, I’m riding to the Worldwound. And I’m taking guns with me.”

“Ah, yes? Frightfully dreary place; I certainly won’t be joining you.”

She arched one eyebrow. “I’m a little surprised that you aren’t more concerned.”

“Concerned? About what?”

“I’ll be doing my best to slay demons, obviously.”

“Oh, that! Yeah, no, I don’t care what happens to them. Their plans have absolutely nothing to do with me, and I don’t like any of them. More power to you, I say.”

---

She couldn’t see him. That was good.

“You know,” he whispered in her head, “I do really quite respect you.”

She laughed out loud at that. “Is that so?”

“Oh, yes! No kidding, no lies, no taunts -- I think we’re beyond all that by this point.”

“You respect me,” she said with a frown. “Why is that, may I ask?”

“Because you, like me, are sane. And I’ve noticed that sanity is at a real premium these days.”

“Sane?”

The demon smiled. “Oh yes. You can actually see the big picture, which is rare enough. And of the few who can see it, most people snap. When someone gets a good glimpse of the total shape of things ... well, when that happens, a lot of folks shut down completely. But not you -- you’re looking out for number one.”

“I wouldn’t call what I do ‘looking out for number one,’ precisely.”

“Oh, but you are! Let’s think like sane people for a moment: eternity is much longer than non-eternity, I’m sure you would agree?

She nodded, her sharp eyes scanning for him in the wooded dark. “Yes.”

“And since it’s going to be so damn long, it’s best to have the best possible afterlife, yes?”

“I suppose.”

“People’s afterlives are a lot longer than their lives, after all; a whole lifetime is nothing but a mustard burp in comparison to eternity. And nobody treats it with any kind of sanity.”

“What’s your point?”

“Well, most people don’t really believe in the Abyss. They don’t actually believe that it’s an actual place that they might actually go to. Not really. Not like ‘up the road to the bakery’ level of real. If they actually thought it was real, people would spend every moment of every day doing anything they could to not go there. Not even for a minute, let alone for all eternity.”

“That’s a scary way of putting it.”

“I’ve been to the Abyss. It’s quite a bit scarier than I’m making it sound. But the really sick part is that every mortal creature, in this world and in all the others, is going to wind up dead at some point in the future. In the relatively near future, by my standards; sooner than that, if I get an opportunity. There’s a chance, I suppose, that you’ll never go up the road to the baker’s ever again ... but at some point, you are going to be in the afterlife. It’s truly and finally inevitable. No exceptions.”

“People know that.”

“Do they? Do they really? Then they behave as if they don’t, which is madness. There should be no one in the whole world under the impression that murder is a good idea, or that it can be gotten away with -- and yet murder happens nonetheless. There’s literally no such thing as a perfect crime; the soul suffers for the sins of the flesh, and souls burn longer than stars. It’s fascinating to watch, and I love it. People are fundamentally insane.”

“And you’re not?”

“No, not at all! I’m already in my afterlife. Nothing wrong with trying to have the best one, I should think. But I respect you, because you’re working a lot harder to make a go of it.”

She sighed. “You respect me because you think I’m doing this -- all of this -- trying to get into heaven. And, of course, that’s what you would be doing, if you were still mortal and capable of being redeemed?”

“I’m not saying you’re cynical, my dear. I’m not just being rude to you for the sake of rudeness. As I say, we’re well past that point. You are to be admired: neither conniving nor ambitious, but willing to put in the work. I’m saying that you’re going about existence -- living life and planning for the afterlife -- sanely. There are only three kinds of people you can’t corrupt; did you know that? Opposite kinds of people, really.”

“How so?”

“Well, as a very smart little boy once said, ‘The way spies turn people is, they get them to commit a little sin, and then they use the little sin to blackmail them into a bigger sin, and then they use THAT sin to make them do even bigger things and then the blackmailer owns their soul.’ -- there are only three ways out of that little trap.”

She sighed. “And they are?”

“You don’t want to guess?”

“No. This is your villainous monologue moment; go crazy.”

“Fine,” the demon pouted. “The three kinds of people you can’t corrupt are simple: the first are the stalwart. Those rare folks will never commit a single little sin. You can’t trick them into accepting the gift of something stolen from an enemy or an unrequited love; you can’t get them to break some small promise or utter some small treason. That would be you.”

She gave a wry chuckle. “I’m hardly incorruptible.”

“Ah, then maybe you’re the second type: the penitent. They’ll fess up as soon as they make their first mistake -- or at least before they make their final misstep -- and simply refuse to be dragged any lower. They’ll demand to be allowed to atone and martyr, publicly weep and gnash their tear and rend their garments in sheer shame at their own wrongdoings ... and woe be on to anyone who stands in the way of a true penitent getting revenge on themself.”

“And the third?”

The demon smiled. “The brutal psychotics. They don’t respond to threats of blackmail, because they’ll willingly let their name be tarnished. They wear the stains and scars of betraying civilized rule like war paint. When someone goes to push them into the Abyss, they dive.”

She frowned. “Do they?”

“Yes. Everyone else responds to treachery; the line of folks who are simply waiting to be blackmailed is unbelievable.”

---

She smiled. “A very smart man once wrote, ‘Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.’”

The demon smiled back. “Yes. As he also said, ‘It is a hard life, sometimes lonely, often short.’”

---

 “And where,” the demon asked, “are you of to after this? Assuming you survive this, I mean.”

“Home. To my wife.”

“And your god ... approves of this coupling?”

She smiled, still scanning for him. “I cannot say as I know my god’s specific feelings on the matter, I’m afraid. It’s possible he’s slightly miffed about it, as is my father. But I’m certain we can work that out -- it’s what loving families do.”

---

“This is why you disappoint me, little devil -- you’re a technician. A cog; a conscripted soldier, a punch-clock performer of mechanical duties. You have no love of what you do. I, on the other hand, am a born artist.”

—

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