The Demons of Rome

IX - The Summonings

"Right, Niana here has some lots," said Claudius and gestured to his demon.

The leopard took the sign and transformed into a black human form with four hands, each holding a pot with small stone tablets in them. The pots were labelled with a symbol of an element each.

"You will be given the choice of an element to take but the demon itself will be selected at random. I would suggest sticking to your affiliation; it will make it much easier. Amber, you may go first as I like you the most, then Iatus."

The rest of the class looked down in shame and the dark stares started up again, this time they were also directed at Amber though. Niana moved over to Amber and she selected from the air bowl without a second thought. Then Niana moved over to Iatus. He thought for a minute. Now, what would Aelith want me to do? He came to a decision and reached for the air bowl but Aelith clamped his talons into his shoulder and he withdrew his hand sharply. He glanced at the bird and followed its gaze. It was looking at the water bowl intently. Iatus gave a mental shrug and began to pick up each of the lots in turn.

"Come on, hurry up," the voice called out again and this time Iatus saw it was the fat boy he had seen at the start of class.

Iatus shot a look at him and continued rummaging. Eventually Aelith clamped down on his shoulder again and Iatus withdrew the tablet. On it was engraved the image of a newt like creature and on the back was the name 'Gopple'. Aelith gave a small, owl smile and closed his eyes contentedly.

"Ha, he took so long he even sent his owl to sleep," the fat boy interjected again and those closest to him laughed into their hands.

The Tribune gave them a look and they all fell silent again, "Iatus is doing the right thing by carefully selecting his demon. Were you not listening to what I said earlier? Impatience will get you nowhere in this school."

Niana moved her way around the semi-circle of students, each drawing a stone tablet.

Once everyone had drawn a tablet, Claudius continued his lesson.

"Now, I will show you how it is done first, then you may each have a go, that will do for your first lesson, do not be disheartened if you do not succeed first time, it takes practice as the wording and pronunciation must be EXACTLY right. Niana will be on hand to assist you if you succeed in summoning but fail in binding it, now watch. I take my lot, then turn to the correct spell. On the first page of these books is the general summons spell, as you can see it is only two words: not very specific, it literally means 'come demon', thus it takes the most mana of any spell, however it is better than being wrong. So, now, we turn to imps, lesser imps, fire imp summons. There are a few different types of fire imps here but I shouldn't bother with that for an imp, unless you are really struggling for mana. Now I simply read it and insert the demons name at the end."

Claudius spoke the words and as he said the name a fire ball spun into life.

"Now we bind it. The binding spell we will be using is again short, it literally translates too 'I name you and bind you'."

He spoke the words and the fireball spat out a smaller fireball and then disappeared. The smaller fireball seemed to float in the air for a moment then grew a fiery set of arms, then legs, and then black eyes and a mouth painted themselves onto it.

Claudius turned back to them and gestured to the fire ball, which was running around madly in the circle. "That, is a fire spirit, a lesser imp but it is useful in large quantities as a decoy or as part of a swarm tactic. Don't underestimate them, they can be dangerous if you let them, sure a jinni will eat them whole one on one, but a summoner can summon eight of these for every lesser jinni he can summon, so watch out. The most common tactic is to use a trusted jinni as a squad leader and have it manage your imps for you, thus giving you time to look at the big picture and manage any human cohorts you might have with you. Now, Iatus, your turn."