Chapter 4: Imp

Korpus couldn’t believe his eyes when he stared inside the summoning circle. Still surprised, he was wondering if he wasn’t actually dreaming. He quickly played the whole procedure of the ritual in his head trying to find a part where he probably made some mistake.

“I’m certain I did everything right.” He thought and then again checked the circle itself, this time more precisely. “Hmm, the circle also seems to be drawn correctly.” Now coldly glaring at Malthazar if he didn’t know something, but he was answered with astonishment and simple shrug of his shoulders. “He also looks genuinely surprised, so I assume he didn’t do anything to sabotage the summoning.”

If that were really the case, Korpus would kill the young necromancer before him without a second thought. After all there was plenty of other, who wanted to study this magnificent art. One as weak as Malthazar wouldn’t matter, his death not even worth mentioning before the queen. He wouldn’t give him the slightest chance to become even a mere skeleton for the front rows of his army. But seeing that Malthazar was innocent, Korpus didn’t know if he should laugh or cry.

“How, under the bloody ass of mother Death, this happened?” Korpus finally snapped staring, now angrily, at the creature inside circle. Pissed about the time he lost and five precious sacrifices he made, he was almost ready to butcher the little bugger in front of him.

Malthazar, fully aware, of Korpus’s almost legendary power, seeing his mood, quickly disappeared from his sight. He would be courting death should he stay and watch what will happen and as one wise man once said: “Curiosity killed the cat.”

Still obviously confused from just being summoned, imp tried to stand up. It proved to be quite a hard task as his body was still very weak and he needed some time for it to settle down.

He was a small creature. Measuring not even 1 meter, he looked like some creepy child. His bald head was proportionally too big and round in comparison with the rest of his skinny body. Two small horns were growing from his forehead. Still covered with skin, they were quite soft and needed time to mature and harden. On sides he has long, pointy, triangular elven ears. This wasn’t typical for his race as they tended to have only small holes instead of whole ears. But maybe because the sacrifices were elves they formed this way. Yellow, round eyes looked too big and instead of normal humanoid pupils, his looked like he took it from some reptile. Nose was practically non-existent and only 2 small gapes formed in its place. Large mouth, like it wanted to fulfil the proverb: “Smile from ear to ear.” was full of small, razor sharp teeth. His tongue also took reptile traits and was slit, with two pointy ends.

From his shoulder-blades were growing two bat-like wings, which were too small to support his body in flight. Skinny arms with tiny hands had only 3 fingers. Thumb, middle-finger and pinkie barely enabled him to grip something properly. Each one having sharp, pointy claw, which was, with exception of his teeth, his only weapons. He has skinny mouse-like tail growing as extension of his spine. Lastly he didn’t have foots but instead of it hoofs. This often caused that imps moved in weird wobbly-like fashion and also used one hand as a support.

Imp, still confused with what happened to it, looked around and when he spotted Korpus he asked: “Master?” His voice sounding like annoyed child.

Korpus slowly bend down and lifted him without effort, griping him by his throat. Imp alerted and frightened started trashing his body in futile struggle to free himself. Korpus seeing this was ready to kill the creature as it was starting to annoy him. On verge of casting a spell that would end its miserable life something picked his interest.

“Stop your trashing!” Korpus commanded with cold voice, trying to calm the imp so he can have a better look.

As if somebody cut doll’s strings, imp stopped his panicking but his eyes were still full of fear as he stared at his new master.

“Hmm, you look quite weird.” Korpus commented studying him slowly, his previous anger retreating like wild animal back to its cave. “I’m pretty sure imps don’t have ears and they are supposed to have dirt brown or green skin.”

But imp before him looked like he was bathed in some dark bloody colour and when one looked really closely he had strange tribal-like symbols over his body. Same colour as imp himself only little darker. He could also feel a faint mana flow from the creature which was strange as he was sure that only evolved imps could use little magic and this one was clearly just a baby.

“Hoo, interesting.” Korpus almost chuckled when he put imp down on the ground, now in considerably better mood. “You earned yourself a life by sparkling my curiosity little one.”

“Me thank master. Me serve and help good. Me earn me life.” Said little imp, somehow understanding he was just spared from a certain death.

“Hahaha, I see. Quite an intelligent one, aren’t you?” Korpus complimented him now in good mood. “You have shown me potential. We will see what we can do with it together.”

“Me happy, me please master.” Imp said as he showed big creepy smile for being praised first time.

“Good, very good. You will need a name so we can complete our contract. Hmm, I wonder what will be a good name for you.” Korpus started to ponder as he stared at the little creature. “I can certainly feel dark magical energy from you and you actually look quite vile with that skin of yours. I know, I will call you Malakhay.”

“Malakhay.” Imp said for himself as if trying how it sounds. “Me like Malakhay. Me Malakhay now. Malakhay thank master for Malakhay new name.”

“Haha. I see you like it. Come, we have a lot of work before us and you need to learn a lot of things if you want to be of any use to me. First being the proper language and maybe some common sense.” Korpus started to make his way back to his laboratory.

“Malakhay listen to master.” Said imp, slowly following him, trying not to lag behind.

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“Good morning master.”

It was a few days now from summoning incident that Malakhay lived together with Korpus in his laboratory. As Korpus promised him before, the first thing he taught to the imp was proper use of language. At first he was very surprised with Malakhay’s quick progress but also very pleased. Korpus was now confident that Malakhay was special, because normally imps were very stupid creatures. One could say it almost bordered with dementia. They were used only as messengers or fodder against the enemy if summoner was in danger.

That is after all one of the reasons they weren’t summoned anymore in this age. Today warlocks, witches and necromancers got a lot more power when compared to the past, so they always tried to summon higher tier demons. Of course if summoner wasn’t powerful enough for binding, the demon killed them instantly and claimed their soul and knowledge for itself. The more knowledgeable and powerful the demon was, the harder his binding.

Another peculiar thing about Malakhay was that Korpus definitely could feel magical energy, more commonly known as mana, from him. This should be impossible for a new born imp. At first he tried to teach him some basic spells, but Malakhay wasn’t able to cast them. It was like his mana was already in use for something else, but Korpus couldn’t find out for what. He liked this little mystery and wanted to find the reason for it. Also the mana in Malakhay was of dark element. But every imp summoned in past had a fire element. Korpus in the end had a theory that Malakhay must have been favoured by some high demon lord or a very powerful monster in Phanthasmos, a plane of existence where all souls, together with demons and spirit monsters reside.

“Good morning to you too Malakhay. Today I have something special prepared for you.” Korpus told him when he saw that his little servant isn’t sleeping anymore.

Being said this Malakhay started to pay his full attention to his master. In these few days he understood that Korpus is very knowledgeable and he could learn a lot of things from him that will help him survive.

“As I already explained to you, today I will send you to obtain your first soul core. I found a perfect creature for it, not too far away from here, in the woods, which should have a good affinity with you. It’s a shadow lurker. It probably came here for easy food, from Abandoned plains, after legion started with corruption of the woods. Normally it would be impossible for you to kill it so soon, but it should be weakened as the corruption of the land still isn’t complete. Also I need its poisoned fangs. So after you kill it you will take the soul core for yourself and fangs for me. But don’t use that soul core just yet as it will leave you vulnerable to attack. First you must return back here. Do you understand?” Korpus asked, not really sure if his explanation wasn’t very complicated for Malakhay.

“Yes master. I will go, kill the creature, get the core and fangs from it and return to you.” Malakhay answered him quickly, knowing his master likes when everything is done exactly as he wanted.

“Good.” Korpus was showing his satisfaction with Malakhay’s quick understanding. “I said it wouldn’t be impossible to kill that shadow lurker, but it will be still pretty hard for you. So I have some things I want to give you.” As Korpus said this he brought out some items.

“Firstly, here are some clothes. It’s nothing special, just some spare robe I fond and has it adjusted to your size. I also enchanted it, so when you are wearing it your mana can’t be detected. A lot of creatures, shadow lurker is also one of them, track their food thanks to the mana their pray leaks so with this you should be safe if they don’t spot you directly.” He explained as Malakhay put the robe on.

It covered his whole body, only round head was poking out of it, until he put the cape on over it. Now, that nothing was visible, the imp looked like some dark sorcerer in miniature size. Korpus was pleased when he tried to trace Malakhay’s mana, but couldn’t detect any from him.

“And here are some weapons for you. They were made from bones of elven children that were used for your summoning.” He said as he handed two daggers to Malakhay. When Malakhay equipped them he could feel the connection between daggers and himself.

“Master I can sense these daggers, it’s a weird feeling.” He said while curiously inspecting them.

“As I said they are from bones of the summoning sacrifices, so you are connected to them. In your hands they should slowly feed on life force of your victims. They will stay sharp and can’t be broken, but only in your hands. One of the best things about them is that, they won’t cut you. When somebody else tries to use them, they are just garbage.”

Malakhay unsheathed one dagger and he found black, sturdy bone. They had double edged, curved blade. In the middle of both blades were carved identical runes. They weakly shined with bloody red hue, resembling Malakhay’s skin. At the bottom side of the hilts was a small mechanism that allowed connecting both weapons together when you needed one of your hands free. When separated they were simple and easy to handle weapons, but together they required a mastery of higher level to use effectively. He could tell that they were also very sharp, one thrust was enough to pierce almost anything. When he tried it on himself he noticed that his master was right, the dagger didn’t leave a single mark on him. Happy with the gifts he received, he hid the daggers in his long sleeves, so they aren’t in a plain sight.

“Thank you master I will treasure these things.” Malakhay said while bowing with respect.

Korpus received it with wave of his bony hand.

“Ok, now you must go and don’t forget that I need those fangs in their best condition. I will give you seven days. That’s the longest I can wait for them.”

“Yes master, I won’t disappoint you.” Those were the last words of Malakhay as he vanished in the doors.