Now, how would this demon have gotten two humans into this cave? Unless the humans came by themselves, of their own free will, which was most unlikely, the demon must have brought them. That seemed to squash his theory that this Tom didn’t know material transport. Given that the humans were sweating, they must have come bodily to the Abyss. Bodily meant that he’d used an Abyssal Gate of some form or the other, and one large enough to drag anything through.
The question was, if the demon could do that, why not bring some decent furniture? Antefalken peered around again at the rather shoddy cave. Unless, of course, all this was a front. Perhaps some higher up demon slumming it for some scheme? Pretending to be a novitiate demon? Very possible, Antefalken thought to himself, stroking his chin as he paced around the room. While admittedly, it had only been a moment ago he’d been chiding the demon on not knowing any matter transport, safely transporting multiple humans implied a bit too good of control for a novice.
It was a lovely puzzle, certainly. Antefalken would love to talk to this Tom fellow. Find out for sure what the guy did and did not know. Unless the man were exceedingly clever, Antefalken felt certain he’d be able to place this Tom in the overall scheme of things. This story of Boggy’s, insisting that Tom was only 16 or so, didn’t seem to hold water. While the cave would support this hypothesis; a teenager undergoing a shock bigger than puberty, suddenly turning around and transporting humans back and forth to the Abyss and messing around in big league politics in less than a month’s time of being a demon just didn’t ring true.
Damien would certainly love this. Antefalken wished he had some form of prescience so he could scan the cave to get more information, but no such luck. He carefully inspected the rest of the cave with all his normal senses, looking for any other clues. He found no others unfortunately. He decided he’d just have to be happy with what he had. He’d also have to come back later in the hope of catching Tom at home.
Edwyrd stood by the same rail on the forecastle at which he’d met Maelen. He was gazing up at the stars in the night sky. He breathed the salt air in through his nose and mouth in large, deep breaths. It had only been an hour ago that he’d realized that he hadn’t been breathing. He’d have to be more careful about that. As in his true form, no, he corrected himself, as in his demon form, the Edwyrd form didn’t need to breathe and so out of recent habit, didn’t, except to talk. He’d realized that that could be dangerous if anybody happened to notice.
That Maelen fellow would probably be the one to notice also. The man seemed just a little bit too observant. The way he looked at Edwyrd made him nervous, as if the man were trying to see right through him. Edwyrd hoped the man couldn’t read minds. Rupert had hinted that some animages could. He was a goner if the man could.
Actually, between trying to avoid Maelen and trying to avoid expanding back into demon form and ripping his clothes to shreds, Edwyrd didn’t know how he’d made it through the afternoon. It was for that reason he stood up on the deck, trying to relax. Relax as much as possible and not shift back, that was. He’d had to plead seasickness to avoid having to eat about an hour ago, and told people he needed fresh air.
Actually, he should have thought about the food thing earlier. He hadn’t had to eat when he was Tom, and Edwyrd’s body didn’t seem to get hungry either. Having never eaten in Astlan at all, he wasn’t sure what would happen if he did. He hoped he had some sort of normal internal organs, but he wasn’t sure. Boggy had indicated that demons could eat, drink or breath, but Tom had never tried. Breathing seemed to work. As far as he could tell he had lungs, his chest expanded when he inhaled What bothered him was that when he’d fought the dragon, he’d gotten ripped apart pretty good, but he didn’t recall seeing any real internal structure or organs in his demon body.
He assumed he had normal plumbing internally and that everything worked, but he hadn’t seen any evidence so far. He cursed himself for not taking a moment of privacy to explore this before. Presumably, if he ate stuff, it would be processed in the normal manner. Again it came down to the close quarters of the ship, he had to live under real close scrutiny. Eventually he’d have to eat, and excrete, just like he had to keep remembering to breath. If he didn’t, people would surely catch on. All these annoying little details humans had to put up with. Demonic life certainly was simpler.
