Demon of the Black Gate

The sun was just setting as Rovinkar left the Vale of the Houri, riding west out into the desert as the evening siroccos began cooling the arid sands. Clearing the small rise atop the bowl of the oasis, he sighted on a small mesa, a stunted spire silhouetted in purple far on the horizon. Denena the crystal star, centerpiece of the Serpent constellation, hung above its flat table. He would navigate by its beacon, for the night would be moonless. Chenli had been right in a way, he admitted to himself. Retrieving the demon away from the army, or any distraction for that matter, would be the most prudent course. The black rock lay swaddled in his saddlebags, oddly weighted without the burden of its prisoner. The other bag held the book of the ancient vizier and the vital pages of bones.

The desert path, if it could be called such, was woven by goat and antelope between the packed gravels and ravaged brushes that clung to a few shallow arroyos and the shifting sands that piled and blew in ripples and waves. The lone stark peak was long lost to the darkness, though with the star to guide him, Rovinkar knew by morning he would be close to the slopes leading to the mesa’s shorn top.

To lure the demon he had decided to employ air, a more powerful element, and closer to the nature of the void. The desert was open and empty, the perfect arena to contain the beast. Once the demon was re-harnessed, there would be another opportunity to clear the gate for Chenli’s armies.

Rovinkar was close to the lone mesa when the sun broke the eastern sky. He studied the eastern slopes in his view, looking for the inevitable trail that the animals will make. None were apparent, and it wasn’t until he circled the southern flanks in mid-morning that he saw the narrow, steep draw that ended in a notch cut into the table top. He would be able to ride up to the notch. The sheer skirts of rock that bordered the mesa offered no other avenue.

Once he left his horse, he made the final ascent over torn boulders and small crags that sufficed as steps up the precipitous draw. It was not a difficult climb, though his pack was laden with the book and the obsidian stone. He noted that the descent might prove to be more difficult as he neared the top, but that was the least of his concerns. Small tufts of purple and orange wildflowers clung to the top of the cut, drawing the necessary moisture for life from the updraft of air funneled up the cut. A small flight of butterflies flitted from bloom to bloom, wings layered in the purples and yellows of the flowers that sustained them.

Rovinkar scanned the surface of the mesa. It was two hundred paces across at most, and other than the tufts of scrub that gathered at the cornices, the tableland was flat rock spaced with scant patches of the dried grasses. The spare feed drew the occasional antelope or goat up to the heights to graze, though none were in evidence now. He had seen no recent spoor nor tracks of the desert cat that preyed upon them. The air on the desert floor had been heated and still. Here on the shelf of the small mesa, a vagrant wind blew, an eddy caught in the heights, buoyed by the radiant thermal of the sands below. He would be alone. He had much to do, creating the mandala of signs that would anchor the spell. He drank a long pull of water from his flask and steeled himself for the task.

Rovinkar traced his signs, etching thin marks with an iron stylus. He worked through the heat of the day. The earlier breezes died, driven aloft by the scorching floor of the desert. He wore a wide brimmed hat to protect himself from the beating sun and the laying of the mandala required chanting and intoning for the enrichment of the marks. A casual observer would have thought him mad, scratching at the rock in the scorching sun and muttering incomprehensibly. Rovinkar was working feverishly, stoked in part by the heat of the desert mesa and as well by the impatience to have the tracings done and the magic set by nightfall. The black of his robes absorbed the heat as well. At one point, he thought as he sweated that the next robes he commissioned will be white. Even that random side track of thought could be detrimental to his designs and he endeavored to keep his mind still as he worked. The one thing he did not bring was food. He did not intend to stay long, and what fasting he did served his spell.

The sun was well down in the west and the cooling zephyrs again returned. Rovinkar thought briefly of a spacious repast, a table filled with succulent meats and fruits dripping with juice. He realized that his hunger was casting his thoughts aside to more basic needs. He brought himself back with a firm resolution: ‘Food later. Tonight I re-gain the demon.’

He he finished, Rovinkar rested for a while, sipping some water and staring at the far horizon of the Camelbacks, still glowing at their peaks in the fading light. The demon was out there. He knew his magic would draw the demon in. He didn’t know exactly how long it would take for the demon to arrive. But air could move quickly. It would not take long and he would have to be ready. At last, having centered his resolve for the task ahead, placed the obsidian in the center of his marks. He edged from the middle of the mandala, careful not to disturb the runes and sigils scored into the rock. He assumed a spot at the fringe of his marks amid signs that had their own set of magics for his protection.

Rovinkar knelt and bent to the opening of the mandala. He blew lightly. A small curl of dust rose and danced along the tracing. It would take a few moments for the mandala to fill, the curl of dust splitting and running from each juncture. They would come together where the obsidian lay in the center. The curling wisps of dust split and rejoined and left a vaporous wake that caused the mandala to move like a living thing. When all the trails met at the center, he raised his arms and began to chant.