Quipilias

Sean Fenian

A snippet that may or may not become a future novel

"We whom you call demons or djinni are not always malicious," she told me.  "Some, it is true, enjoy acting without consequence.  And the names of those of us more inclined to willingly do such deeds have a tendency to become known among those who would summon them to do such.  But most of the deeds laid at our feet are by the command of those who have summoned us.  Theirs is the malice, theirs the evil.  We have little or no choice in it.

"Unusually, I am free to act of my own will — only because you interrupted the summoning before I was actually bound.

"I don't want to be here.  I don't WANT to be in this body that is not mine.  I want to GO HOME.  The owner of this body is still in here with me.  I can hear her wailing, screaming.  I feel her anguish.  I don't know how much she can hear me.  She wants her body back, and I want to give it back to her.  But I cannot do it on my own."

[… somewhat later …]

There was a last despairing psychic wail.

"It is done," the sacerdote declared.

There was silence for a moment, then the woman's hand shot out.  She grabbed the sacerdote by the throat with more-than-human strength and lifted him off his feet, staring furiously into his face.  He dropped his sistrum and his thurible, and they landed with a ringing clatter on the flagstones, smoldering incense spilling out of the thurible.

"You IMBECILE," she snarled.  "I TOLD YOU you were doing it wrong.  You were supposed to banish ME!  Not HER!"

The sacerdote's face paled.

"Quipilias?" I asked hesitantly.  She nodded.

"Yes," she said.  She visibly struggled for control, then carefully set the sacerdote down.  He staggered back, gasping.

"Curse your tricks!" he said.  He glanced at me.  "I TOLD you demons cannot be trusted!"

"This is no trick of mine," Quipilias said.  "You banished the wrong soul.  And I tried to tell you, and you refused to listen.  And now HER soul is lost ... who knows where.  And it is YOUR DOING."  She glared angrily at him, then sighed.  She looked at me, then back at the sacerdote.  "If you could just have brought yourself to trust me even JUST A LITTLE, this would not have happened.  Things are worse now than before we started."

"All is not lost," the sacerdote began, bending to pick up his sistrum again.  "We can still banish—"

"NO!" Quipilias shouted at him.  "You must not!  Not now!  If I leave this body now before she is returned to it, the body will die.  She will be lost forever.  I WILL NOT ALLOW that.  I WILL NOT be a party to the death of an innocent woman."

She turned toward me, taking a deep breath, but kept the sacerdote within her sight.

"We MIGHT still possibly be able to get her back," she said slowly.  "But it will be very hard.  It will be very dangerous.  And I will not be able to do it alone.  I will need help."  She looked me straight in the eyes.

"It is a lot to ask, I know.  You have already done much.  But I have nowhere else to turn.

"Will you help me?  Please?"

I thought for a long moment.

"Yes," I said.  "I will help you."

____

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