A Deal with Zaelzagog

The Demon Zaelzagog rubbed sleep from its eyes. It could have done with another three or five hundred years of slumber. It used a tree to scratch its scaled, purple back. Stretched like a cat (specifically, its cousin, Mittens) and flicked a forked tongue over black lips. Then, because even demons had hygienic standards, Zaelz brushed its teeth with some fish guts.

The local village (of which Zaelz couldn’t remember the name; it had changed so many times in the last dozen centuries) was due to produce its yearly sacrificial virgin. She would be female, the demon knew, though not because Zaelz demanded that specificity. For whatever reason, when humans heard the word “virgin,” they extrapolated that it must be a woman. A maiden, in fact (though age was another factor he’d never stipulated).

When it materialized fully into the mortal world, Zaelzagog had an irksome feeling that today would be an unusual day. The feeling followed the demon as it glided through the mist, listening to the sweet sound of early morning birdsong gone suddenly quiet, and grew less nagging and more assured as the demon drew nearer to the village.

The villagers, brandishing torches and pitchforks, had gathered en masse at the village center.

“What’s this?” Zaelzagog growled, annoyed. “Where’s its tribute?”

A brawny woman with paint smudged beneath her eyes stepped forward, pointing a rusty spear at Zaelz. This was the villagers’ tribute?

The demon jerked its head so that it looked at her upside-down and sniffed. Then it gagged. This was no virgin.

“There’ll be no more sacrifices,” said the sacrifice, thrusting her spear thusly towards Zaelz’s snout. “Go back to your lair and ne’er return.”

Zaelzagog sighed, and the wind blew out all the villagers’ torches. It wasn’t in a destructive mood. Indeed, it was quite exhausted. These yearly wakings took a toll on a demon’s plasmatic system. Had it known the villagers were ready for extinction, Zaelz would have made itself a tea. “This is a mistake.”

“There is no mistake,” said the sacrifice. “For there will be no more sacr—”

“It heard what you said.” The demon swept its bottomless black eyes over the villagers. It produced from Nowhere and unfurled a long scroll, which rolled out upon the ground, splitting the villagers’ gathered group in half on its way past their feet. “And yet, you are contractually obligated to provide it one.”

The villagers looked at one another, murmuring their ignorance.

The sacrifice stepped rudely upon the scroll. “Be gone! We will fall not for your trickery, foul beast!”

Zaelz put a clawed hand to the place where its prune-sized heart beat (once a decade) in its chest. “Such gall. Your ancestors, at least, showed grace upon signing our agreement.”

“Ancestors?” The sacrifice lowered her spear half-an-inch. “Agreement?”

“Oh, yes.” Zaelz recalled the scroll and showed her the names at the bottom. “In exchange for a good crop yield, they promised it virginal tribute on the Prescribed Day each year.”

“But…we haven’t had a good crop yield since I was a girl.” The sacrifice leveled the demon with an accusatory scowl. “You broke the contract! We owe you nothing.”

“It will not have its honor impugned.” Zaelzagog snarled. “They asked only for a good crop yield. One.”

“They wouldn’t have been so shortsighted,” the sacrifice argued. “Why wouldn’t they have asked more of you, for such a high price?”

“It doesn’t pretend to know the impetuses of humankind.” Zaelzagog smothered a yawn in the crook of its arm and a sink hole swallowed one of their hovels. Half the villagers fled into the forest. “Apologies. Its strength grows the longer it remains awake. Mayhap if they turn over proper tribute, it can eat and be on its way?”

“No!” the sacrifice cried. “I won’t let you take any more of the people I love!”

“You don’t have to watch,” said the demon, quite reasonably.

“You’ll have me or no one.”

The demon considered her. She smelled terrible, it was true. Like a field of roses slathered in honey. Yet, something was familiar. “Has it eaten of your flesh before, sacrifice?”

The sacrifice raised her chin. “My sister. Two nieces. Five cousins. And my lover before we had the chance to—”

“Say it not.” Zaelz plugged its ear holes with four claws and began singing the Song of Infernal Symphony in D minor. The proclivity of humans to speak freely of their lewd encounters was enough to make a demon throw up all six hundred and sixty-six bones in its body.

When it opened its eyes, all but a clawful of the villagers had absconded. Zaelz wasn’t offended. It must have butchered the third verse. But the sacrifice’s spear penetrating deep into its throat was a bit much. “Its singing isn’t that bad,” grumbled the demon. It sucked the spear into its throat and sent it into the abyss of its stomach, where the iron spearhead would send up bimillennial bouts of gastritis.

To their credit, the remaining humans didn’t run.

Zaelzagog tried on a twisted smile, moving its mouth above its snout. “Tribute?”

The sacrifice dropped to her knees. “Take me, demon. Let my flesh be enough to sate your hunger.”

“You do not fulfill the contract’s terms.” Zaelz yawned and gave another feline stretch (this time more closely resembling the posture of its Great Aunt Kittykins). The dormant volcano above the village spat a gout of fiery lava into the air with every pop of Zaelz’s spine. The demon groaned in annoyance and the lava retreated, abashed, into the volcano mouth.

“You’ve doomed us all,” said a villager (the mayor, according to the word on his sash) to the sacrifice.

Zaelzagog nodded in agreement. Section fifteen, subsection eighty-two, clause three of the contract stated: “Should a virgin not be provided, all residents’ souls are subject to ingestion.” Hunting down the villagers would take (it tasted the air, assessing the villagers’ exact locations) several minutes at least. And Zaelz was just bushed. All it wanted was to devour a proper sacrifice and return to its slumber.

Still, the contract’s conditions had to be fulfilled. It readied itself to ingest the disgusting sacrifice first, hesitating only to suppress an erupting yawn. These yearly awakenings were too much. Why had it agreed to these taxing terms? Perhaps it had been flattered when the villagers thought it a god (there wasn’t much distinction between demons and gods in the world humans couldn’t see, but even then Zaelz had been too knackered to explain such complexities the rudimentary mortal mind couldn’t hope to grasp). It vowed to consider the next contract more carefully.

Zaelzagog – mouth opened wide around the sacrifice’s head – paused. “Perhaps they would have interest in updating the terms and conditions?”

“What?” The sacrifice’s words echoed against Zaelz’s cheeks.

The demon drew back. “Ask of it a new boon.”

“New boon?” The sacrifice wiped green drool from her face.

“Indeed,” said the demon. “Surely, you must want something. Another good crop yield, perhaps? Or two, even. Anything you wish.”

The mayor cleared his throat. “Is it truly possible for you to grant any request we might have, demon?”

“In its own way,” said Zaelz.

“And what would the price be?” the sacrifice asked.

Zaelzagog scraped gunk off a tooth (the equivalent of a demonic shrug). “All things are negotiable.”

The remaining villagers huddled together and spoke in whispers.

Zaelz politely pretended not to hear them, though its hearing was better than a thousand dogs’ combined.

The sacrifice backed towards them, keeping her eyes trained on the demon, lest it pounce when she wasn’t looking.

Another yawn worked its way up Zaelz’s throat. The demon was unable to suppress this one, and the world’s sea level rose three feet. “It may be immortal,” Zaelz said, “but it hasn’t got all day.”

“We have our request,” said the mayor. “We want industry, like the coastal cities.”

Zaelzagog thought to tell them that those cities were currently up against some disastrous and permanent flooding, but it didn’t seem pertinent just then. “What manner of industry?”

“The kind that enriches our village,” said the mayor. “The kind that gives us an advantage to be used in trade.”

“A broad request.” Zaelz’s smile wrapped all the way around its head.

“With a condition,” said the sacrifice. “No more human sacrifices.”

Zaelzagog chuckled, and every insect within ninety-nine miles dropped dead (excepting cockroaches, of course). “Without tribute, there can be no deal.”

“Will you not take some other payment?”

“Impossible.”

“Then there will be no deal.”

The mayor told a few men to seize her, and the sacrifice was handled roughly and a hand clamped over her mouth. “We will honor you with tribute, if you can give us industry,” said the mayor.

With a theatrical flourish, Zaelzagog recalled the contract and vomited blood upon the parchment. “It doesn’t suppose you have a handkerchief,” it asked the mayor, who stood there trying not to faint. Zaelz harrumphed, thus erasing from creation a small marsupial called the cambally. The demon used its snakelike tail to wipe the blood from its lips, then planted its face upon the parchment and roared. Once the words had nervously rearranged themselves into a contract that satisfied it, Zaelzagog lifted its blood-smeared face and showed the villagers every tooth in its mouths.

The smell of excrement warmed Zaelzagog’s soul.

The mayor swallowed thickly. “W-what does it say?”

Zaelzagog conjured a pair of reading glasses into existence. “‘The undersigned parties do hereby agree…’ blah blah blah ‘…both sides shall honor the terms and conditions…’ et cetera and so on… Ah! Here’s the good stuff: ‘The villagers shall be provided with an initial spark of knowledge, which shall grow exponentially as their bloodline proliferates. For centuries to come, technology will advance. Factories will sprout. Vehicles. Airplanes. Computers. Artificial intelligence. Social media—’”

The sacrifice broke free of the men restraining her. “And the price of all this progress?”

Zaelzagog read ahead to the bottom of the contract. “‘The cost of the above will come from the earth itself, until it is unable to bear the cost any longer.’”

“That’s when you’ll come to collect,” said the sacrifice.

“Indeed,” the demon replied. “When you are long dead, and your names are lost to the ever-deepening chasm of history, buried beneath false idols and uninspiring battles, and the forced memorization of insignificant dates in classrooms…when industry has poisoned the air and killed the animals and wrought extreme changes in the climate. Then…” Zaelzagog drooled. “Then it will come to take what is left. It will take the blood from your offspring’s children’s progeny’s descendants’—”

“Yes, alright,” said the mayor. “Where do we sign?”

“W-what?” the sacrifice stammered. “No! We can’t do to our descendants what our ancestors did to us!”

“It’s a good deal,” the mayor reasoned. “They’ll thank us for making their lives easier.”

“The cost is too great!”

“No more yearly sacrificial virgins,” Zaelzagog said. “It thought you’d be overjoyed.”

“Maybe they’ll come up with a solution,” said the mayor, “to avoid their extinction. As we did.”

“It isn’t for us to decide!” the sacrifice shouted.

“Enough.” The mayor snapped his fingers and the sacrifice was hauled away, kicking and screaming. “I’d hang her as a witch, if she wasn’t my sister.”

“Maybe you should,” Zaelz suggested.

“Maybe I will,” the mayor agreed as signed the parchment.

Zaelzagog giggled all the way back to its lair. Humans were always ready to sacrifice the future for the now. Probably because they were mortal. What did they care what happened after they were dead and forgotten?

The demon went to bed, grateful for the long rest ahead. It dreamed of the apocalypse, drooling a little on its pillow.