demons
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Sun  6-Jul-1997 11:05

        Some say that the shadow is the very soul of a person, and 
that if you cut it away with an enchanted silver knife on Year's 
Long Day, it will be lost forever--just as you yourself will be lost
too, a priceless essence gone away from you.  Still that is but one
tale of shadows and their powers.  Here is another:

        Long past and far to the north of Tchanga, where the jungle 
gives way to grasses and they in turn give way to a vast desert lying
beyond the mountains where the great eagles fly, in the heart of the
burning wasteland there dwelled a demon beside a crystal pool in a 
heavy laden grove of pomegranate trees.  Now you must realise that
this was a marvelous place, being in the core of a sandy furnace as
it was, for water is priceless, in such a fiery realm, and to have
the precious gift of pomegrantes as well...ai, it was as if a part
of paradise itself had fallen unto the earth.
        Now it so happens that one day while the demon was in the
golden city on the other side of the world tending to several of
his many affairs, a young Man whose caravan had been attacked by 
robbers and he himself left for dead, a young Man who came stumbling
and reeling over the dunes and falling and crawling and lurching to 
his feet only to stumble and reel and fall and crawl again, a young
Man who was delirious and within a hairsbreadth of death, that young
Man came slithering on his belly down a last long dune and into the
oasis of the demon.
        And the young Man plunged his face into the crystal pool and
drank deeply.
        And at that very moment across the world in the golden city
the demon screamed, "Someone is stealing my water!"  And in fury he
flew up into the sky and raced across the world.
        But ere the demon could get to the oasis, the young Man
plucked a pomegranate from one of the trees and bit into the flesh,
red juices staining his lips and running down to drip from his chin.
        And the demon, who by this time was halfway there, shrieked,
"Someone is stealing my pomegranates!"
        Onward flew the demon, maddened with rage, and when he came
to his oasis he found the exhausted young Man asleep, his thirst
quenched, his hunger sated.
        Reaching out with his long claws, the wrathful demon was 
on the verge of rending the youth asunder.  But of a sudden the 
demon bethought to himself, "Ai, I could tear him to shreds with my
mighty talons, but would he truly suffer as he should?  Nay!  He 
would be dead ere he even awakened.  And I would not have him get
off so easily; instead I want to make him agonise for the remainer
of his life for his heinous crimes against me."
        And so the demon drew back his swordlike talons and did not
rend the young Man to ribbons.  Instead he went to his nearby forge,
and--bellows whooshing, fire roaring, hammer clanging--he began 
crafting a magic nail, muttering all the while.
        Now the clamour and clash of this noise served to awaken the
young Man, and he crept near to discover the noise of the thunderous
din.  And when he saw the demon at work he was sore afraid, yet he 
crouched down behind a rock and watched and listened.
        And in between mighty hammer strokes he heard the demon 
cursing: "Steal MY water, would he?"--clang!--"And eat my pomegrantes,
too?"--clang!--"This will fix him forever!"--clang!--"A punishment
to fit the crime!"--clang!
        The young Man immediately knew that the demon was crafting
some magical item to punish him for nothing more than saving his
own life.  Oh, how did he fret, wondering what to do.  He knew that
appealing to the demon for mercy was futile, for demons have no
mercy.  He knew, too, that he could not flee, for the demon would 
find him no matter where he ran.  He could not fight the demon, for
demons have enormous strength and terrible claws and tusks and fangs.
The young Man was in despair, for how could he, an ordinary mortal,
hope to escape the hideous fate of the demon, whatever that might be?
        At that very moment the demon cried, "Ha!  It is done!" and 
he turned away from the anvil and began rummaging about in a great
tool chest.
        In stillness the young Man crept forward and saw what 
appeared to be an ordinary nail lying on the anvil.  Quickly, he
substituted a nail from a nearby barrel of nails for the demon-forged
one, slipping the demon-forged nail into his waistband.  And although
he did not know what the nail was for, he took up a nearby hammer and
slipped that into his waistband as well.  And then swiftly and silently
he ran back to the poolside and lay down and feigned deep sleep.
        Shortly came the demon who shook the young Man by the shoulder
and roared, "Wake up, robber, miscreant, theif!  Accept your just
punishment!"
        The young Man sat up and rubbed his eyes and yawned.
"Punishment?  How so?  What for?"
        "For drinking my water!" roared the demon, and with a wave of
his hand the pool disappeared.  "And now it lies where you'll never 
reach it ninety-nine leagues to the east!"
        "You punish me for drinking water?" cried the young Man.  "Oh
how terribly unjust and cruel."
        "And for eating my pomegranates!" roared the demon, and with
a wave of his hand the grove disappeared.  "And now they lie where
you'll never reach them, ninety-nine leagues to the west!"
        "You punish me for eating fruit?" cried the young Man as the
hot Sun shone down from above now that the shade was gone.  "Oh how
unjust and cruel."
        "Unjust and cruel?  You know not the half of it!" roared the 
demon, and he waved his hand again and now the sand underfoot became a
vast adamant rock.  "I'll show you how unjust and cruel I can be."
        The demon knelt down and with a hammer he nailed the young
Man's shadow to the rock.  And at the youth's puzzeled look, the
demon laughed a wicked laugh and said, "Now you are trapped here
forever, and any magic you may have had is gone.  You may travel
only as far as your shadow permits, nailed as it is to this forever
rock by my unremovable spike.  You may run anywhere you wish, as long
as your shadow falls across the nail.  Now what do you think of that?"
        The young Man knelt at the demon's feet and said, "Oh, demon,
it is a cruel, cruel punishment, a punishment fit only for one who is
just as cruel."  And with that he hammered the true magic nail into
the demon's own shadow.
        The demon roared in pain and made a grab at the Man, but 
the youth was too agile and swift and leapt away, beyond the reach
of the demon.  And the demon waved his hands in arcane patterns,
but all of his magic was gone.  And he bent down and tugged at the
unremoveable nail, but it did not budge from the forever rock.  And
weeping and gnashing his teeth, the demon cursed the young Man, 
dreadful words rolling off the demon's forked toungue, calling out
for crows to pluck out the youth's eyes, for foul disease to rot
his bowels, for virulent sand wyrms to poison him--all to no avail
for the demon's power had vanished.
        The young Man struck out across the desert and nearly died
before he was rescued by a passing caravan.
        The demon, though, was trapped by the nail hammered through
his shadow.  In the dark of the night he could travel wherever he
wished, for in the blackness his shadow was everywhere and so he was
free to roam.  But at sunrise every day he was compelled to the east 
in order for his shadow to fall across the nail--oh, he could be
leagues and leagues to the east, just as long as his shadow was pinned.
But as the day grew toward noon and his shadow shortened, he had to
move westerly, and as the Sun came to the zenith, he had to stand on
the nail, for the Sun was directly overhead and his shadow directly 
underfoot.  And as the Sun sank in the west, to the west the demon
could fare, his shadow cast easterly behind him and lying over the
nail.
        But the greatest irony of all was that at ninety-nine 
leagues to the east and west the pool of crystal water and the
grove of pomegranate trees were just barely beyond the demon's
reach, where he could see them but never sip the refreshing water
nor taste of the sweet fruit, the tantalizing prizes right where he
had placed them to torment an innocent young Man.
        The demon roared in rage and wept in frustration and
slaughtered any wayfearer unfortunate enough to come within his
reach, and soon the region became a place to shun for there a demon
dwelled.  They say that even to this day the desert in that compass
is unsafe at night, for the demon yet roams the waste, and he is
terribly angry and terribly stong.
        They also say that at high noon you can see the demon, standing
still in the sunlight like a great tall rock, faintly stained red as if
from pomegranates eaten long past.
        They also say that other demons heard of this one's plight
and they came to see for themselves, and they shuddered in terror
at his dire fate, and although they tried to free him they did not
succeed, for the spells he had cast were entirely too strong for any
of them to break.
        And they say that the demons took an enchanted silver knife
and tried to cut away the trapped one's shadow at high noon on 
Year's Long Day, but the magic in the charmed nail was beyond the
power of the silver blade and so they abandoned that plan.
        And lastly they say that the terrified demons cut away their
own shadows that day, so they themselves could never suffer such a 
dread fate.  And now you know the whole of the tale and why demons
are without souls, all but one that is, and that demon's soul is
nailed firmly down to a rock, surrounded by hot, burning sands.

                                                Dennis L. McKiernan
