Damien swallowed, but his throat was still completely dry.
He stood as straight as he could and sent his feeble amount of magic into the runes at their feet. A dark tendril emerged from Henry's side and touched the runes. They flared with a mixture of pulsating white and black light.
"You will not harm any humans, intentionally or not, unless I say you can. By harm, I mean a mortal's definition, not yours. You will also do your best to be a good companion for me, and I will do my best to meet any of your requests I believe are reasonable. We may both agree to end the contract at any time," Damien said, his voice trembling with exhaustion.
Dozens of eyes glared at him with every word he spoke.
Once he had finished, Henry repeated the words.
A hammer of energy slammed into Damien's battered head. The runes flared so brightly the barn lit up like a miniature sun.
For the briefest instant, Damien knew Henry. He saw the true nature of the creature he'd entered a contract with. It was utterly alien. He immediately understood the persona he'd come to know as Henry was nothing more than a front so Damien could communicate with it. There was no Henry, there was only It Who Heralds the End of All Light. There wasn't a single human thought or emotion to be found within the eldritch creature. Damien saw the inevitable end of the universe, and he knew without a doubt Henry would be there.
At the same time, It Who Heralds the End of All Light knew Damien. For the first time, it truly knew the thoughts of a mortal. Damien's emotions, his determination and fear, mixed with his longing to live. For the first time in a millennia, the creature saw something it didn't understand.
As quickly as it had come, the feeling vanished. Damien was struck with the incredible feeling something was missing. At the same time, he felt…different. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he could instinctively tell that something had changed. Damien's head felt fuzzy. The pain was still there, but it was muted.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"I've acted according to our contract," Henry said. "If you had truly witnessed my entire form, you would have been torn apart so thoroughly I could never put you back together. Even so, you had seen too much for your fragile mortal mind. I locked away the exact details of what you saw to preserve your sanity. I have no desire to be tied to a madman."
Damien searched through his thoughts, but Henry was telling the truth. He remembered dying, but he couldn't recall what he had seen when the eldritch creature had first been summoned.
He couldn't quite bring himself to thank the monster.
Damien just sat and closed the Summoner's Almanac. The blood had started to dry on his face, but his nose still hurt badly. The bruises on his body pulsated, reminding him of their presence.
Henry transformed into a streamer of dark energy that twirled through the air and entered Damien's body. Unlike the last time, there was no pain. Damien felt something shift in his mind, but it wasn't uncomfortable, and he was too tired to care.
Damien watched the doors on the barn, half-looking forward to and half-dreading the moment when his mother came looking for him.
Just under a half an hour after he'd sat, Hilla Vale kicked the doors of the barn open. Emotions washed over her face without restraint. Her expression cycled from relief to worry.
She stormed to the circle Damien had drawn, a bright white light forming in her hand. The barrier shattered like flimsy glass under the mere presence of the energy as she rushed over and wrapped the boy up in a hug, tears streaming down her cheeks. They held each other tightly, sobbing. Neither of them had any words to speak.
"You sly little mortal," Henry said from within Damien's mind. "She never would have killed you."
Damien didn't respond. He didn't need to. Henry sat back within the boy's mind, watching the scene play out with all the curiosity of a cat observing a drowning mouse.
Damien was clever, but the contract was far from foolproof.
As rushed and desperate as it was, Henry had already prepared to take a much worse deal. Giving half a soul away was problematic to a mortal but, for a creature as old as Henry was, he wasn't particularly concerned.
For all his plans, though, Henry missed one vital detail.
He'd prepared to give many things in order to gain a foothold on the Mortal Plane, but he'd never even considered what he'd be gifted in return.
The half of Damien's soul—no larger than a single speck of dust in comparison with the ocean that was Henry—sank into the ancient creature's very being. Unable to harm it as per the terms of their agreement, Henry could do nothing but watch as the insignificant little speck of mortality set roots into him.
Hilla helped Damien to his feet, still too worried about Damien to be angry, and took him back to the house. They left the Summoner's Almanac discarded and covered with blood on the ground in the barn behind them.
"What happened?" Hilla asked, dabbing some of the blood from Henry's face with a wet towel.
Damien' eyes watered again. He opened his mouth to search for the proper words to explain what he'd done, but nothing came out. He just broke down crying again. His mother rubbed the back of his head, waiting patiently until he could bring himself to speak.
"I already know you tried to perform a summoning," Hilla said. "You didn't close the cabinet right. I thought we'd been robbed and you were injured, but no thief would have left the gold while taking the Summoner's Almanac.
We can discuss that later. I just want to know what happened after you tried to perform the ritual."
"I messed up a line in one of the runes," Damien finally said nasally. His voice quavered.
"And? Did the summoning work?"
It had, and Damien told her as much. He was largely honest, but he kept the details of exactly what he'd summoned a secret. Smart boy. There are beings in the Void mortals don't want to know about. Eldritch horrors they'd prefer to believe never existed. Creatures like me.
"So…you've got a companion?" Hilla asked slowly.
Damien hadn't told her everything. Unfortunately for her, she was smart enough to recognize that. However, she didn't press him further. "What did you make a contract with?"
"A creature from the Plane of Darkness," Damien said. It wasn't a bad choice of a lie, all things considered. As the one of the planes farthest the Mortal Realm, humans knew little about it. Many of the creatures that roamed it had yet to be discovered by the inhabitants of this world.
Companions from the Plane of Darkness were few and far in between. Hilla fought to keep the shock from her face. Of all the things she wanted to do, encouraging Damien after an act this foolish was at the bottom of the list.
"Is it intelligent? Did you speak with it?" Hilla asked, running a hand gently along Damien's nose to check if it was broken.
"It is, and I did," Damien said, wincing at her touch.
"It…tested me. Wanted to make sure I was strong enough."
"You won a fight against a creature from the Plane of Darkness?" Hilla asked, cocking an eyebrow. She leaned back and let out a weary sigh. His nose wasn't broken, just very badly bruised.
"It wasn't a real fight," Damien said. "But I got disoriented and walked into my barrier."
"Which was the smartest thing you did today," Hilla said, shaking her head. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving only the worry and stress behind. "You're lucky whatever you summoned didn't just kill you. It could have done immeasurable damage to not just us, but the entire town if you'd made a bad contract! Who knows how long it would have taken other mages to get here and contain it."
"I'm sorry," Damien said, hanging his head.
"We'll deal with it tomorrow," Hilla said. "Mistakes happen in life, but this was a big one. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision, Damien. You planned this out."
He nodded. There was no denying it.
"Don't summon your companion, okay? Contracts have more workarounds than you think, and you've bound something with considerable strength. We need to be very careful."
She had absolutely no idea. Damien nodded once more.
"Good. Go get some rest. You'll be very sore, but you'll be fine. Don't waste too much time regretting your decisions. Instead, think on how to be better in the future."
She gave Damien another quick hug before Damien staggered off to his room and closed the door behind him.
"Fascinating," Henry said. "You were a single ring of weak runes away from ending civilization as humans know it, but your mother told you not to feel too bad about yourself."
"Are you going to talk all night? I'm exhausted," Damien muttered, his voice as low as possible. "And I didn't tell her what you are. We won't be telling anyone what you are."
"Very well. In that case, I, too, shall sleep. The journey from the Void was arduous. Do not wake me unless your life is in danger."
"I think I'll live through the night," Damien said. Then he paused. "Wait, how long are you going to sleep?"
There was no response.