The Forbidding

"NO!" Kir screamed, struggling against his captors. They bent his wings upward, forcing his face into the stone as the merchant shoved the girl aside and stepped around her, careful not to get his clothes dirty.

"There you go, Boss," the elf said, stomping on Kir's hand as Kir tried to conjure a ball of compressed water, only to fail as pain shot through the join of his wings and his hand.

The spell had been too slow because of the hunger Kir felt.

He couldn't see what was happening above him. He couldn't stop the nameless, greedy man as he lowered the knife toward Kir's wing...

"Eh... something wrong, boss?" The human Kir had kicked asked, still holding his stomach.

"I... can't... for some reason... My body... won't let me..."

Kir felt a burning sensation on his chest. He didn't know how, but he could sense mana filling him as if coming from the demonkin in front of him... like he was draining him.

"A Forbidding... no... no!" The merchant clutched at his chest, collapsing onto his knees as Kir used his newfound well of power to cloak himself in fire.

Kir didn't know how he knew, but he knew that the fire he'd made wouldn't burn him. The elf and human clutching his wings let go, trying desperately to put themselves out as they were burned all over.

The other human, seeing this, ran, taking off toward the dock.

He got a half dozen steps before, suddenly, the man fell into two halves, bisected from head to crotch. Stepping out of a portal was the last person Kir wanted to see, and he watched the men Kir had set on fire fall to the ground and scream their last.

"Maledict..." The merchant wheezed, hurriedly forcing himself into a kowtow as Kir's father walked up to them at a leisurely pace, disguised in the form of the bard Kir first saw him as.

"Corlwin... I'm disappointed in you," Maledict said as if talking about the weather. "I thought you were smarter than this... after all, you still had decades left on our deal. A deal you went back and forth for hours over..."

"Maledict," Kir interrupted, "Please... he stabbed that girl," Kir pointed at Nona. He hadn't dared to move close to her because he was still wrapped in fire.

Maledict looked over at the small human child. "Now why should I care about that, son?"

Corlwin, still kowtowing, started to beg. "Please, sire, I didn't know... I thought he might be an angel in disguise..."

"You thought of how much his feathers would make you," Maledict spat, "and failed to see the family resemblance."

"Maledict, please, she did nothing wrong..." Kir said, before closing his eyes and focusing as he finally put the fire around him out. As soon as that was accomplished, he ran to the girl, pressing his hands against the knife wound and pressing down, hearing her blood sizzle as the heat of him cauterized the wound.

The knife had gone deep, though, and between shallow, desperate breaths she coughed blood.

"You stay there and stay quiet," Maledict said to Corlwin, before walking over to Kir. "Now son, you should have guessed how this would work... I'm going to need something in return."

"Fine, what do you want from me?" he asked, crying.

"Not from you..." Maledict said. "Her."

"She's a child..." Kir argued.

"Then this will be a very informative lesson for her," Maledict said mercilessly.

"She's bleeding in her lung," Kir said, "She won't last long enough for you to write out a fucking contract!"

"Son... Shut up." Maledict reached out to the side and produced a contract from thin air. "What is your name?" he asked the girl.

Her mouth moved for an ineffectual moment until she found some breath "Nona..."

"Nona... place your blood here, and you will live. In return, you will come with me to Hell, and once you have completed your training, I will return you here, to this world, to protect my son in whatever foolishness he manages to conjure up next. Do we have a bargain?"

Nona nodded.

Kir watched as Nona tried weakly to raise her hand, covered in blood, toward the line on the contract.

Maledict made no move to help her, and at the moment Kir saw her arm start to collapse, he grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand into the line, hoping that he hadn't just doomed her to a life of suffering.

"Excellent," Maledict said, rolling up the scroll and tucking it away into thin air.

"She signed... now heal her," Kir demanded.

"One moment, one moment..." Maledict stood, walking casually to the boar man and turning him over with a light press of his foot. He then stomped through the unconscious man's throat, and Kir watched in horror as blood-red bands of light transferred from the dead assailant to Nona.

Nona started coughing fiercely, spitting up blood, but when she finished, she took one long breath after another. She was healed.

A portal opened up next to Maledict, and Kir felt some small relief at seeing a rather normal-looking stone hall at the end of it. He saw demons beyond, waiting in an opulent room of dark stone with tall, multifaceted windows. True demons with features similar to how Maledict's real form was, and more than one that looked like succubi or incubi. "You go on ahead, dear Nona. I will see you soon."

Nona nodded, taking one step before she turned to Kir.

"Thank you..." she said hoarsely, tears still streaming from her eyes. A few steps was all it took, and then she was gone.

As soon as the portal closed, Maledict rotated his neck, cracking it. "I do so hate having to speed up time... but fortunately our business here is almost over, son."

Kir finally noticed that outside a radius centered on Maledict, things moved at a very slow pace. He pointed at Corlwin, who was still on the ground, tiny whimpers escaping him. "Now what do you want to do with him?"

"Please, sire, I won't do it again... I'll give you everything..." Corlwin stammered.

"Shut it," Maledict said, and Corlwin's mouth slammed shut. He turned to Kir.

"I only came because I couldn't believe one of my own would be so stupid as to try to harm you so soon after the Forbidding went out. But then I thought to myself... What possible situation would Kir be in that one of my own would even try that? And here you are, playing the hero... saving little orphan girls..." He started to clap his hands slowly as he came within arm's reach of Kir. "Bravo... Bravo."

Kir clenched his fists. He tried to punch Maledict but suddenly his father was a step back and next to Corlwin.

"Tsk, tsk, son. So emotional over someone you don't even know... But speaking of people you don't know..." he squatted and tapped Corlwin on the horn. "You have a decision to make. I'll give you one minute before I head home... I'll even-"

Kir wanted to think he wouldn't kill intentionally. That he would always find a way to do what was right... In fragments of memory, as he raised his hand, he felt an echo of knowing from his past life that was so powerful, he could not resist agreeing with it.

He sent a tiny nova blast into the back of Corlwin's head, disintegrating it and hoping that the radiation would give Maledict cancer. The power was low, but it was just enough to make the head explode, sending red mist and chunks of bone spraying over Maledict's disguise.

"Well... I'm impressed," Maledict said, ignoring the blood on him as he reached down, pulling a key out of Corlwin's pocket, taking the purse off his belt, and dropping it in. "I was going to sweeten the deal, but you managed to make a decision before that. There's a true demon in you yet." He chuckled. Then his tone became matter-of-fact. "Anyway, I have no use for his things... and as my son, you do get to inherit the goods of his contract since you killed him. So how about I drop you off at his shop and you can make your way from there? A parting gift from dear old dad."

Before Kir could decide either way, Maledict snapped his fingers and Kir dropped, landing in front of an esoteric-looking shop named "Corlwin's Curios and Cures."

Kir looked up to see his father waving at him through a portal in the air. "Clean yourself up. And give my regards to your guardians," he said as the portal closed.