An angel’s road to hell

39. Of beginnings, ends and a little bit of change (6)

Cassandra Pendragon

I was exhausted, empty, it was a struggle to even muster the strength to turn around. Greta appeared peaceful, somehow she had come to rest in an almost natural position, her legs angled and her arms buried beneath her torso she laid on her side. My gaze traveled over the familiar shape of her face and I shuddered when I saw her eyes. Where cataract filled orbs should have been, gaping black holes, smouldering at the edges were all that remained. Her eyes had been burned away, the only visible sign of what she had been through. I scrambled to my knees and reached for her, I wanted to pick her up and get out of here as fast as possible but I was thrown back on the floor when the crackling noise outside subsided for a moment, only to return even stronger, accompanied by a rushing sound and a tremor that shook the very foundations of the tower I was in. Whatever Greta had done, it had worked and I had to hurry.

I gritted my teeth and stood up when the room had stopped shaking. I still wanted to take her with me but as soon as I tried to pick up her frail body I was forced to realise that I would be lucky if I was able to fly by myself. I was weaker than I could remember, my core wasn’t depleted but Greta had still used much more of my power than I had ever channeled before and even though she had taken the brunt of the backlash, I didn’t get away unscathed. My muscles were shaking and it took all of my concentration to move my wings. I didn’t have enough strength left to carry her with me.

My tears flowed freely and I brushed her hair out of her face. I would have liked to close her eyes but the eyelids were burned away. Up this close I saw that she held two tiny things in her hand. One was the focus she had used to work her magic on me and the other was a large cherry stone. Even in my rattled condition I could feel immense energies coursing through it.

I kissed her forehead lightly, gently pried open her fingers to retrieve the focus and seed and whispered: “thank you. You will never be forgotten,” before I turned away and left her behind. With staggering steps I crossed over to the window and without a second glance I flung myself outside, I had one last obstacle to overcome before I could allow myself to break down.

The scene outside had changed, dramatically. The raging storm was gone and the darkness of the night was illuminated by a bright glow from somewhere below. I could smell fire, hot enough to burn the very air and while I soared out of the window, Boseiju in its entirety started to tilt to the side. Warm winds rose up around me and they quickly picked up in speed and temperature. I was grateful for their support, I might not have been able to rise into the sky without it. The stench of decay had disappeared and the plants in the palace garden below me had turned into dead and unmoving things, the unnatural energies that had corrupted and sustained them were gone. The curse had been broken. “Well done, you saved the islands.” I mumbled.

Riding the updraft made it easy to quickly get away from the tower and the branch and I shot up and through the canopy until I hovered above Boseiju’s crown. The view was breathtaking and humbling. I saw white hot fire pour out of Boseiju’s roots, hot enough to singe the tips of my fur even this far away. Of the garden nothing remained but a dreamlike landscape of heat and light, shades of orange, red and white flowed together to form an alien composition of colours and movement.

Boseiju’s trunk rose out of the inferno, the bark blackened while flames were slowly climbing upwards. He was free of the curse but tonight would see his end. The mighty tree had already lost much of its sturdiness and it was slowly titling to the side. It was only a matter of time until he would fall, the burning trunk unable to sustain its weight. I took in as many impressions as I could, I would never forget nor forgive what had happened today. And one day I would have my revenge.

With an effort I pulled my gaze away from the flowing lines and dancing lights below to search for airships I desperately hoped I would find, but all I could see was fire and flames, the air was dry and hot, carrying with it the smell of burned wood and heated stone. The crackling noise had become more intense and I couldn’t hear a single thing but the accumulated explosions when superheated water blew from twigs and branches. I turned left and right, flew higher up and dropped down, closer to the dying tree but wherever I turned I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Had they been too slow? Was I truly alone on top of a dying world? No, I wouldn’t even imagine that possibility.

I circled Boseiju’s crown once more and carefully peered below every branch from different angles and finally, when I had almost finished my round I saw two dark silhouettes above the hellish landscape. They had left the shadow of Boseiju’s branches where they had been hidden form my view and were slowly approaching the cliffs. Once I had discovered them, I could even see a bonfire lit on one but the flickering light and raging flames all around had prevented me from spotting it sooner. With an elated cry I folded my wings and rushed downwards.

The speed of my passage made my vision blurry but the closer I got the more details stood out to me. The two ships were badly damaged, huge parts of the rigging had burned away and even parts of the hull were blackened where it had made contact with the ravenous flames. The decks were full, I could see dwarfs and I thought I spotted Mordred, clinging close to my mother. But I couldn’t see Ahri’s fiery wings, wherever I looked. Despite my exhaustion panic settled in. I didn’t think I would be able to cope with yet another loss.

I fell threw the sky, faster and faster but she wasn’t there. Maybe she had lost consciousness, like she had predicted and was stowed somewhere below? I desperately hoped that would be the case. When I was about 100 meters above the ships I unfurled my wings as far as I could and slowed down. The strain was almost too much and I felt my muscles protest and my ligaments groan under the pressure, but I pulled through and touched down on the ship where I had seen my family. The dwarfs on deck had spotted me and quickly cleared an area where I could land.

As soon as my feet touched the deck my knees buckled and I dropped inelegantly to the ground. So much closer to the inferno, every breath I took seemed to leech the moisture from my body and the heat was so intense I felt like I was being cooked alive. Before I managed to get my bearings a torrent of question flowed over me, so many people were talking at once that I couldn’t understand a single word. Hands were gently wrapped around my arms and I was hauled back on my feet.

Xorlosh had picked me up but it was my mom who threw herself into my arms and cried openly. A moment later my brother joined us and we turned into a veritable fountain, tears streaming down our faces while we clung to one another. Still I managed to croak: “where’s Ahri?” Mordred, who had a tad more self control left answered: “she’s fine, don’t worry. She got us out, used up pretty much all of mother’s and my energy but we made it. She collapsed as soon as we reached the ship. She’s downstairs in one of the cabins. You want to see her?” I managed to nod through my tears and answered: “join me, I don’t want to let go of you right now.” The dwarfs stepped back respectfully and arm in arm we three made our way downstairs. We didn’t talk, we only held each other to make sure we weren’t alone.

Suddenly I stood before a wooden door, I hadn’t even realised we had left the deck. Mordred opened it while I still clung to him and my mom tightly. I could see a small cabin behind, nothing more than a bed and a wardrobe. Upon the bed Ahri laid resting. Her wings had vanished but I couldn’t see any injuries and her chest rose and fell smoothly. She was alive! Without any warnings my vision turned dark and the last thing I felt were the arms of my family tightening around my body to keep me upright. My consciousness fled and everything became black.

I was sitting cross legged in a crystal cave. Hues of purple and blue shimmered along the walls while the roof was a light yellow colour. The crystals emitted a faint glow, just enough to make out the shapes of different treasures scattered all over the floor. I could see weapons and armour, golems and automatons, glowing gems and tomes of knowledge, heaps of gold and small mountains of magically infused metals. It was a hoard fit for a dragon. With a small chuckle I thought how close that came to the truth. But I wasn’t here to congratulate myself on past victories. I was here because I feared I might not survive what was about to come and I had to make sure I wouldn’t forget, even if I were to die.

My concentration returned to the black amulet I held in my lap. It was an inconspicuous thing, a small, black pendant made of metal with a black pearl at the centre but it was maybe the single most valuable artefact I had ever gotten my hands upon. With a shudder I remembered how I had crawled through the depths of hell to retrieve this precious trinket. It was made of primordial materials and allowed the user to breach the confinements of space and time, at least once. Contrary to my own powers it wasn’t something violent, the laws governing the multiverse wouldn’t be broken or torn apart but rather slightly nudged to allow a brief connection to the past or the future, an undetectable one at that.

With a thought one of my wings sliced through my skin and a drop of blood fell onto the black pearl. It vanished instantly and the pearl turned a silvery blue colour before it started to shimmer, a myriad of different images appeared within its depth, but they vanished too fast for me to make out any details. After a moment the nauseating cycle stopped and I could see a face, beautiful, feminine features adorned with cute fox ears surrounded silvery glowing eyes, my eyes. A smile spread across my face, I didn’t mind my future aesthetics one bit and I was really glad I even had a future to look forwards to, I hadn’t been sure. A name drifted to me through the pendant still clutched in my hands: Cassandra. As soon as I formed the last syllable within my mind the image moved and I thought she was looking directly at me.

Everything turned into a stream of colours and light and when my vision settled again I knew something had changed. I was me, Cassandra Pendragon, and I knew how I had gotten here. I remembered falling unconscious in Ahri’s room and how the memories I had suppressed earlier had claimed me that very same instant, but that seemed so very far away. Now I was a bodiless spirit, somehow manifested within the pendant I… the former me was holding tightly. I could see the cave and hear his breath but I couldn’t feel or smell anything and even the impressions that reached me were… distorted as if they had to cross a vast distance and some of the information was lost along the way. I stared at myself unblinkingly.

A handsome face, quite similar to mine stared back. Glowing silvery eyes I knew very well from every mirror I had come across during my lifetime zeroed in on mine and an honest smile spread across his features.

“Hello Cassandra, it’s my pleasure to meet you, well, not in person but at least in spirit. My name is Lucifer and I am your past whereas you are my future. I imagine you have a lot of questions. We have some time so I will answer them to the best of my ability. But that’s not the reason for this meeting. I have to tell you some things about your past, my present, and I pray I’m not too late already. Will you listen to the echoes of a time long gone?” What a stupid question. First of all I didn’t have much of a choice, I was stuck in a pendant after all, and secondly who would willingly reject information about a previous life? I probably had to deal with the consequences anyways, whether I knew what caused them or not, so I might as well be prepared. Lucifer’s smile became even wider:

“You really are like me, I’ve never seen anybody glare at me as fiercely simply because I stuck to common courtesy. But first things first, can you answer me?” I tried and to my surprise I could somehow project my thoughts so that my image would appear to talk, even though I didn’t have a body.

“Yes, which leads me to my first question: what is going on? Why am I here, or rather why am I not you if I remember this scene?”

“Because I paid a hefty price in sweat and blood to make it possible. The pearl that is currently channeling your essence comes from a being that lived long before concepts like time and space brought order to the multiverse. The pearl allowed me to create a shortcut, if you so will, to link my present to my future, or your present to your past. Don’t worry, it won’t hold for long and you will be back to normal. There shouldn’t be any consequences, at least as far as I know. I already told you the reason for all of this. There is a story I have to tell you, a story important enough that I had to make sure you would not only remember parts of it. Now, before we get lost in mysterious allusions I think it would be best if I simply told you what I have to say.” He took my silence as approval and continued.

“I don’t know how much you already found out about who you are but I guess I should start from scratch. You are an angel, one of the only two races who are truly immortal, or at least hard enough to kill that it doesn’t make much of a difference. There are 333 angels in existence as well as 333 demons. I don’t know why we exist or why we are as many as we are but since the beginning of time…” he hesitated and continued: “No, even before time, we simply were. We were there to watch empires rise, universes collapse and the multiverse change. And we always stuck to a simple rule: we would fight for our ideals, even against one another, we would try to influence or change the fate of nations but we would never strive to rule. We would allow nature and the peoples to make their own decisions, their own failures and follow their own paths. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we would still wage war when they crossed the line but we always respected their freedom.” He closed his eyes for a moment and a deep sigh escaped him.

“At least I always thought so, but alas, I was wrong. There is a faction of angels and demons who have long since started to meddle in the affairs of mortals far more than I thought possible. Every time a nation has reached its pinnacle, approaching the threshold to true power, they swooped in and razed it to the ground without regards for anything other than protecting the status quo. They froze the multiverse in a constant ebb and tide of rising and falling empires, a stagnant world filled with fruitless struggle.” He chuckled darkly. “Well, at least up until now. If I have any say in the matter, they soon won’t be able to control their own fate, much less anything else. But I don’t know if I have the strength to succeed and if I die, when I die, I will need you to know why and, if you are willing, to continue my work.”