As soon as he had tumbled out the other end of the portal, Sozo vomited. A lot of blood came out with it, and several dead rose petals. Whatever had been growing inside him was withering without the presence of the Gardener, which was good news.
The bad news was that he didn’t appear to be in his home realm.
Instead, he was in a cathedral-sized room of chiseled stone. A dozen or so finely-dressed people were staring at him with disgust, and some of them were edging away. Wiping the vomit off the corners of his mouth, he gave a slight bow. “Ladies and gents, I apologize for my sudden entrance. With your leave, I shall depart just as quickly.”
“Get him!” one of the people screamed, pointing a bejeweled finger at him.
It was that day that Sozo learned how much it hurt to be pelted with platinum rings.
About fifteen minutes later, things had calmed down considerably. Sozo had climbed a dozen feet up the wall to a relatively safe alcove, and the guests had moved their glittering party to the other side of the room. Most of them had lost interest in climbing up after him after he’d stepped on enough fingers, but one young woman was still looking up with restrained curiosity. He coughed politely at her. “So, how’s the party going?” he asked.
The young debutante continued to stare. “They’re going to sacrifice you to the Faceted One,” she said simply.
“Ah, lovely.” Sozo’s eyes wandered around the large room, empty except for the guests and their finery. “So, would you mind telling your friends to let me come down? I’d like to make a ritual circle leading out of here, and I’m happy to take anyone who’s sick of this party.”
“It’s too late,” the debutante replied. “She’ll be here soon to claim us.” And as she spoke, the top of the cathedral-sized room was lifted up and a gargantuan demon stared in through the hole that used to be the ceiling.
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The trouble with demons wasn’t that they had too many tentacles or eyes, although many of them also had those. No, the main issue with demons wasn’t so much that they were creepy, but that they were fundamentally wrong. Not only were they like Carrington in that there was there ‘more’ of them than the human brain could handle, but they also enjoyed using that power to molest the Creator’s beautiful laws of reality. Perceiving a demon was horrific to a mind-shattering degree.
With demons of lesser power, sufficient training could mitigate this effect, to the point where humans like Sozo could hold a conversation with or even fight them. The Faceted One was most certainly not a demon of lesser power. A human looking at the Faceted One was like a ‘70s microcomputer trying to process a full-length 8K movie, except the file for the movie was corrupted.
The best description that Sozo could give of the Faceted One, except that her presence hurt his brain and eyes and everything else, was that she looked a bit like a walking diamond.
The Faceted One placed a pair of cages in the center of the room and reached for the debutante. Having been reduced to a quivering huddle, the young woman whispered, “It is an honor to be an adornment.” The demon placed her in a cage, attached a chain to the top of it, and placed the chain around her neck.
Then the Faceted One turned her horrible attention to Sozahauni, and the next few minutes were a blank space in his memory, his mind taking refuge in the mercy of oblivion. The last thing he recalled was being snatched from his alcove and placed in the second cage to the grateful whispers of the other guests.
And after that? What else could there be but an endless parade of madness? Sparkling gems the size of mountains, all dripping with the finest organic jewelry. Bracelets made of twisted trees, crowns of tendons and bones, living beings caged in necklaces and lockets and rings. When Sozo tried to avoid looking at the demons, he instead looked at the walls of the room they were in and found them to be made of slowly pulsating flesh. The realization almost made him laugh out loud: if a tiny lifeform like him was a high-grade gem, then this wall must be the equivalent of ordinary stone.
Somehow, although for the life of him he couldn’t remember any of it, he had gathered his wits enough to draw a ritual circle inside his cage and slip into another world. The multiverse had been merciful enough to let his hand remain steady this time, as he had wound up in his home realm.
Sozo took a few deep breaths, watching the cars drive past. Carrington would be pleased to hear of his success, but he needn’t report back immediately. Which was good, because he was ready to spend the entire evening at the bar.
