Hope's Light

Chapter 17

by Erisian

Book 6

 

If you have yet to read the saga - the tale starts here:

Into The Light

Hope you enjoy!

 

Chapter Seventeen - Needles

 

Beliel’s Tears, the waters of Lethe. The stuff had many names and had spawned legends both in Hell and on Earth.

And had almost allowed a Chaos-infected jerk subsume and conquer the angelic princes of the damned.

Imbued with Beliel’s desire to forget tragic history, the ice which had surrounded the ancient throne within the inverted tomb he had created for himself would work that effect upon those who drank or were splashed by enough of it. For demons and souls it was employed to wipe the mental slate clear when eternity became too much a burden to carry, but for fallen angels it did something worse: it threatened to dissolve their coherency entire, as with hollow cores deprived of a connection to the source of all things the only way they had to keep themselves together was to fiercely maintain a grip on who they once were. To block those memories would untether them from their sense of self, unraveling their will to even exist. Hence the substance being universally banned by the Sarim due to the threat it posed against them.

Which, of course, meant the Tears immediately became available on the black market at outrageous prices.

I stared at the giant green mantis. “If they’re going after the Lilim traders, won’t they be going after you too?”

He clicked uncomfortably. “Me?”

“C’mon Tuthos, you were in charge of the Hole before Valgor’s mistress got annoyed with you. They’ll know that there’s no way you weren’t involved in the mining and smuggling operation to get that stuff out. Erglyk’s gathered fortune just for acting as a storage depot here at Epsilon probably pales in comparison to yours. Vance and the Lilim got the stuff off-realm, but their traveling troupe were transport not supply.”

“I…I am innocent!”

Light flared from my eyes. “You and I both know better.”

He flinched and looked away. “Orders are for me to return on the next delivery train back to the Hole.”

“Then they’re going to arrest and kill you too. What are you going to do?”

“I…I do not know. Out here, there is nowhere to run.”

Unfortunately he was likely right about that. “How did you hear about the trial? They wouldn’t have let on.”

A thin black tongue flicked past insect lips. “Word regarding the Lilim came from, shall we say, less official channels. From those who are in my debt.”

I thought for a moment. “Did they arrest Valgor?”

“Not that I was told.”

“But he was in on it.” Closing eyelids, the Light searched within - and found the moment when I’d also touched the corpulent duke and all the enslaved souls within him. Huh, he was even fatter than the portrait above us displayed.

“They possess no proof. If the Lilim included him in their bribes, I am unaware of it.”

The past filtered through the remembered contact. “The Lilim were careful. Duke Valgor received oversized payments to allow the traders to travel the outposts, and he was encouraged to keep you and Erglyk in your positions. Amongst others. He suspected exactly what they were doing - but deliberately had no direct knowledge of it. The entire operation must have been Vance’s. Much to my lack of surprise.”

Barry huffed. “If’n Vance implicates the Duke to that Council, they’ll kill Valgor too. The Duke’ll need the Lilim executed quick-like to ensure their silence. Him being tha mighty hero whose forces defended the Hole from Azazel’s effrontery won’t protect him from this.”

I smirked ruefully. “My forces, you mean.”

Tuthos stuttered. “Under contract!”

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved the demon off. Thinking further, I turned to Nick who’d been uncharacteristically quiet. “Any thoughts?”

The Grigori was sitting there slowly twirling his bronze cup. “Yeah, but you’ll not like ‘em.”

That earned him a snort. “I’d tell you to spill it, but that cup of yours is empty.”

A tattooed palm let go of the chalice. “You’re missing the bigger picture.”

“Oh?”

“You really think Vance would work such an enterprise without his mother’s approval? Remember where their portal went. You know, the one they carried you through when you were Chaos-cursed. Which made you a pain to follow after, I might add.”

Things finally went click, and I groaned. “The storage racks phased out of sync. They used Lilith’s embassy in Dis to store the Tears.”

Nick nodded. “Diplomatic cover. Clever.”

I chewed at a thumb. “Abagor was a victim at the Conclave. But he’s the ultimate ruler over Beliel’s Rock. Could he have known?”

The magician shrugged. “If he did, he’d have violated his primary charge of custodianship. And if he wasn’t aware…” Nick looked meaningfully at me.

Implications were obvious, even to the idiot sitting in my chair. “If he didn’t know, he’s gonna be super pissed.”

“Yep.”

Oh heck. “Then either way, he’ll want everyone dead.”

“Like I said, you weren’t going to like it.”

Thoughts raced. “How long do these trials take?”

Tuthos shook his head. “A real trial can take cycles. But urgently political ones with predetermined outcomes rarely delay.”

“Then I need to be there.”

Nick coughed. “You think you can take out Abagor? He’s a Prince of the Maschitim, a created destroyer. And he has his own cohort. Maybe we should find Camael first and-”

A fist pounded the table. Fortunately it still didn’t break. “No! That will have to wait. I have to go. Like right now.”

“The train,” Barry said while tugging on his long beard, “It won’t arrive fer many more sleeps, and transition through the Hole will take-”

I cut him off too. “No train. And I’ll slip through the Hole myself - if I can fall through a hotel, I can do this.”

Nick crossed arms, hands going under his armpits as if cold despite the warmth of the dining hall. “No offense, but I’m not stupid enough to be a part of challenging Abagor and his crew. Maybe you can survive that, maybe not - but I know when I’m outmatched.”

Anger tried to rise, but empathic reason squelched the flames. Even if Nick as Barakiel again had his wings and was at the prime of his might, he was right - he’d not be able to stand against such a greater power.

Whereas I had to believe that the Light was.

If I could wield it well enough.

I stood, the chair’s legs under me scraping against stone as it pushed back. “Thank you, Captain Tuthos, for the excellent dinner. If you would, please take care of Barakiel here until I return.”

The mantis demon lowered his head. “Of course, milady.”

Turning to Barry, I said, “Was wonderful seeing you again.”

The bear of a warrior rose to his feet and tossed arms around for another fierce hug. “Aye!” I had to eventually tap his side to get him to let go.

I flicked eyes to Nick. “You’ll wait for me?”

He offered a weak smile. “Sure. They’ve got great wine here. And hey, if you two fight it out, be kind to the rest of us - do it off realm.”

“That will be up to Prince Abagor. I shall return as soon as I am able.”

Stepping away from the table, wings flared out - and with their anchoring, I released the direct manifestation I was holding within the realm.

But before I entirely faded out, Tuthos raised his long and narrow head and with solid grey eyes sparkling bright reflections, spoke quietly to himself:

“For she shall find the way.”

 

~o~O~o~

 

On Earth there is a clear delineation between spirit and the physical, with the entire pattern supporting and enforcing the blend of the two. The rules for the physical are incredibly well-defined and fixed, with everything tuned just so, consistent from one end of the cosmos to the other. Laws, be they of electromagnetism or gravity or even entropy, are immutable within the framework. Even magic, which seemingly works around the more apparent and easily reproducible laws, is actually baked in under the covers - acting as an additional modality of energy transformation granted by the hooks afforded spirits moving through the given mediums.

This is not precisely the case in the realms purely of spirit and dreams.

Take, for example, the Rock forged by the fallen Archangel Beliel, made as an inverted bowl pulled around and behind him. From the central mountain peak, his unobstructed gaze for untold eons fixated past the outer layers of Creation and into the Nothingness beyond. Here souls and demons alike manifest in their various forms, taking on the pretense of physicality - in effect the region simulated a subset of the rules. In this way spirits stand in a coherent space, are able to communicate and interact with each other, and become part of the cycle of energy maintaining the whole. Or, more properly, maintaining the attentions of that entirety.

Nathanael, when pretending to be just another fallen human soul, had once let slip his greater knowledge in describing the importance of perception - and how the act of perception itself can anchor a spirit’s surrounding reality. For only in a shared perceptual experience can a ‘place’ actually exist.

Or, conversely, only when a person or being is perceivable does it truly also exist within a space. And I was beginning to understand the true ramifications of such a concept.

Because angels themselves are a part of the rules and laws upon which even spirits and dreams are built.

In releasing the manifestation I held within Epsilon’s keep, I slipped behind the realm’s physicality - behind the agreements of shared perceptions which bound them together. Yet I maintained my own perceptions upon it, albeit from a layer once removed from immediacy.

I had no body, yet I had connections to where my attention focused, seeing and sensing far more information than was available through the moderated manifestation. Yet in my sense of myself I still had form and wings, with the wings blazing as circuits tapping the Light’s intent maintaining all things - even here in Hell.

As pure energy I flowed then across the jagged hills dotting the plains between Epsilon and the Hole, where once engineers had dug a channel between the outer side of that bowl and inner landscapes within it. And as disembodied awareness I flew through that opening, using it as a guide for the perceptual shifts - my connection sliding along the structures within the realm itself.

When out the other side, I more tasted than saw the bright Spark hanging in the air as it shone across the curving farmlands and deep forests, the scent of the souls bound within aiding its shine flicking across with newer and crisper flavors than I’d experienced here before.

It tasted of new possibilities.

It tasted of growth, change, and renewal.

It tasted of all the feelings I’d sent into Beliel’s Mace, there before the Archangel’s instrument had rejected the Darkness trying to swallow and consume all.

As the immense metal Shroud slowly rotated around the Spark to grant the realm’s day versus night, that emitted shine and flavor sank into everything below.

Even through the rocks and into the stew I had surprisingly enjoyed.

Speeding above the rebuilt houses and protective wall surrounding the inner side of the Hole, I felt it all. I’d left this town unconscious after a terrible battle, the surrounding fields shredded into trenches of death, horror, and dismay.

Whereas now the city breathed with Life.

Those fields were now green, a more vibrant green than any farm I’d witnessed when chasing demons through dark forests. The souls working them, while still bound to demonic masters, sparkled with greater resilience and purpose.

Even the rain falling from clouds oddly hovering above the Spark’s glow came not as miserable wetness, but as a refreshing wash. So dramatic were the differences that I slowed to savor the sensations.

Banners of my former Duke hung from the repaired battlements. There, in a field lying fallow between crops, pennants streamed above charging graxh-mounted lancers practicing maneuvers despite the mud. Words shared in a rare moment of candor by their full-plate wearing leader, recognizable by the extraordinarily long and pointy nose sticking forward from his helmet as he rode before them, came to mind. A discussion on how shallow and tasteless existence in these realms had become, and how the burdens of eternity weighed upon the residents all.

Until eventually they’d give up. And seek out their own demise.

The sobering reflection reminded why I needed to keep moving. With a thought the landscape sped past once more, now filled with verdant crops, even denser forests, and sporadically placed holdings tending especially to hug the many waterways curving between the rest. These rivers then continued on, eventually reaching towards the base of the watery volcano taking up most of the center where a rare Archduke had taken control and built a central city, naming it naturally after himself: a place called Kigal.

Compared to Dis and to most modern cities back on Earth, it was a small fortified cityscape containing less than half a million souls, devils and demons. Towers stacked from crimson stones hewed from the mountain towering behind it rose at most twenty to thirty stories tall, with the other structures mostly half that.

Graxh-driven wagons carried goods into the city to support the populace not only here but in other realms, linked by wide shimmering multi-hued portals maintained by demonic practitioners. The mines under the mountain also fed raw ore to the numerous smelters, which in turn spilled out ingots further fueling the bustling inter-realm trade. In return, the Rock received manufactured items unattainable locally due to the odd and dangerously inconsistent behavior of electricity within the domain, a quality enforcing a more medieval technology supplemented by coal-driven steam.

But what drew immediate attention was the crowd of souls and devils pressing around a deep circle dug directly into the rocky ground. Packed seats lined the edges to create an arena, one with a tall drop from the lowest seat to the solid stone at the bottom, with many metal-gated openings leading further underneath making obvious its true purpose.

This was a pit built for gladiatorial combat, including layers upon layers of protective spells to contain all the explosive violence practiced in blood and gore upon its floor.

At the center, a platform had been erected upon which bronze and silver armor-clad demons had gathered, all holding sharp and deadly implements as well as banners declaring their loyalty to the powerful dukes who had clustered in fancier sections of the restless audience. In one such reclined Duke Valgor, his wide flesh filling a clearly custom-built throne. Beside him was his spidery consort, the Duchess Ruchinox. Due perhaps to the occasion, she wasn’t broadcasting the illusion of being a slender fae lady like she had when last we met, so her full size of nightmare spiderness was apparent to all - including the too numerous crimson eyes tracking all around her as potential prey. She also was clearly no longer pregnant.

Not that I focused on them. Being marched towards the platform which held three stone blocks with half-circles carved from their tops were those I’d actually come to find.

The Lilim: Vance and his twin daughters, Yaria and Ruyia.

With hands and feet shackled by rune-covered chains preventing their use of any mystic arts, they shuffled forward at spearpoint, the barest remnants of ragged and stained cloth hanging loosely upon them. One of Vance’s still-proud eyes had swollen shut, and all three were smeared with blood covering the many bruises visited upon their skin. Someone had shaved their heads with an unworthy blade, leaving the daughters with random tufts of what once were glorious manes of shimmering night. Yaria, supporting her sister who barely had the strength to take each staggered step, was glaring about with a fierce hatred - and something much worse underneath.

Because the internal bruising apparent to my senses spoke a horrible story all their own.

Will and power gathered, and would have manifested in an instant except for an interrupting voice:

“You intend to intervene.”

A lifetime ago a mighty dragon once pulled me into an astral mindscape for a discussion, and now another did something similar - except this time perceptions simply split as attention remained on the scene in the arena below as well as branching to the shared vision abruptly offering itself: of an angel sitting upon the mountain’s tallest peak, wings with feathers a misty grey folded behind a figure in matching colorless immaculate suit.

His hands were empty, but the scabbard at his side held a weapon whose power had been taken from outside Creation.

Though he sat remarkably still, his presence alone radiated a sheer calculated violence - capable of slicing through worlds entire.

I knew him, of course, just as I recognized the others hovering around and behind us - high-cheekboned angels wearing armor of purest silver, each glittering in perfect reflections of the Spark above.

To the leader of these fallen Maschitim, I responded. “They are my friends.”

“That may be. But they have broken one of our strictest laws.”

“So make them pay a fine and banish them from your realm.”

“We both know this realm is not of my making. I am but an assigned caretaker.”

“You still hold the authority.”

“For now. And the penalty for infractions such as theirs is clear and unequivocal.”

Energy within me pulsed. “You owe me, Abagor. And if it hadn’t been for these three, I would not have been able to save you and the others at the Citadel.”

“Yet if not for their violations, Azazel’s threat to us never would have existed. He would not have gained the ready supply with which to weaken me - and thereby weaken those in my service who guard the deeper pools and treasure beyond.”

Below us, the three prisoners were forced up wooden steps to each stand before their individual blocks while a two-headed frog-like demon in a tailored shirt and vest held out a ridiculously long scroll and began bellowing the full list of their crimes.

Keeping attention split, I asked, “Are you denying the debt owed?”

The fallen Destroyer, whose immense potential for violence rivaled even Camael’s, rested bare chin on the back of a hand. “I find myself contemplating what can or cannot be done in recompense.”

“Samael has abandoned his duties. Did he make this law? Or Lucifer, who departed these realms long ago?”

“Should this matter?” he countered. “The experience at the Citadel testifies to the obvious truth of the need for such restriction.”

“I am not sure that I care.”

“Are you so eager to defy required order? What other laws should then shatter to your whim?”

“Maybe I should ask instead whether you secretly allowed their activities. Or expand perception enough to bear witness direct.”

That gave him pause, and time outside our pocket of communication also slowed - or perhaps our perceptions sped up. The dual-throated croaking of the frog-like demon stretched out its final words, the barking baritone sinking deeper still. Abagor, perhaps more to himself than to me, finally asked, “Do you truly possess the Lightbringer’s power?”

“I tremble at the possibility - yet so far have encountered no limits other than those temporarily imposed from without or within.”

Again he considered, further rubbing the chin. “I hear you met with Asmodeus.”

It wasn’t a question. “Word travels fast.”

“Have you taken what was offered?”

“He awaits my decision.”

“Embrace it and your authority to act in this matter becomes clear. Take the crown, and by so doing rescue your friends. What say you?”

A spear of entwined Light and Darkness appeared, held high so he could clearly see. “I say that such a matter is not to be decided by force of blackmail, Abagor of the Maschitim.”

The angel’s eyes widened and he leaned away from the pulses of duality emanating forth from the spear to shake the notional pocket he’d created. “You have acquired a new weapon of Chaos?!”

“As bound by the Name of Elohim. With this, I no longer fear the blades forged by the Archon Alal.”

Blanching, he rose first to his feet and then further into the air. Despite the disturbed and conflicted expression across those beautifully shaped cheeks, his voice remained steady and clear. “Then, in acknowledgment of the debt that lies between us, I offer the following: me and mine shall not interfere this day. Take what actions you will, along with the consequences. But I implore you to look deep, Amariel of the Light and Dark, to understand two things.”

“Which are?”

The presence of him and his cohort began to fade. “Divine the true purposes of the pageant unfolding below.”

“And the other?”

Holding my eyes with fixed attention as he bowed, he declared the rest:

“That the power of the Throne is not what binds the Chaos which you wield. For it is your Name alone within that artifact which secures both. Solve that mystery, I beg of you, before it destroys us all.”

And he was gone.

 

 

Thanks for reading...and especially for commenting!

- Erisian