An angel’s road to hell

47. Of past mistakes, future chances and a little bit of the underlying problem

Ahri Arete

The room had only one door that lead into the great library. It was a thing of massive gold, etched with runes and spells but most of them were just for show. If someone got that far, a few enchantments wouldn’t pose a problem. I quickly strode over and knocked, twice, on the door. A resounding boom made my ears ache and sparks of greenish energy traveled along the glyphs. I could hear retracting bolts and sliding chains and with a shudder the golden portal opened slowly. I squeezed through and found myself in a cold crystal cavern, the floor, walls and ceiling made of the same dark obsidian as the outside of the fortress. A variety of gems sprouted all over the cave, like bamboo shoots rising from the earth. They grew fast enough that I saw faint movement form the corner of my eye. They shimmered slightly and filled the cavern with dancing shadows and fleeing lights. The centre of the cave was occupied by a deep pond filled with a milky liquid that glowed ever so slightly in the semi dark. A black throne rose from the depth and on it sat the reason for my visit, the demon Amazeroth.

He was a shapeshifter and appeared as an elderly human male with only a little hair left, spectacles on a crooked nose and flowing brown robes, the perfect image of the benevolent and rather distracted mentor, his favourite form. I would always wonder if it was a sick joke or if he really saw himself in that role. But what ever he appeared like I knew how highly he valued manors and etiquette so I bowed low from the hip and offered a formal greeting: “my lord Amazeroth, it’s an honour to once again be a guest in your sanctuary.”

“Lady Aurora, it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Please, have a seat.” Quietly a stone chair, or rather a second throne, rose from the ground, close to the edge of the pond. It was made from the same black obsidian and even had two slits for my wings. I sat down elegantly and folded my hands into my lap.

I was fidgety and didn’t know where to start. It had been more of a whim mixed with intuition that had lead me here, I knew I wanted answers but I didn’t even know the right questions to ask. Luckily I didn’t have to untangle the jumbled strands of my thoughts. As soon as I sat down, Amazeroth took the initiative.

“I know why you are here, Lady of the Fires, but you seem lost, confused. Tell me, has your world turned grey?” The reference sent a shudder down my spine, it had been spot on. I remembered when he had first spoken these words and the promise I had made that night.

Michael, Ezekiel, Ma’kal, Hora and I had hunted a swarm of Ceti, immense parasites that leeched stars dry and left behind nothing but cooling slack. The ones in question had been nearing the populated parts of this galaxy and we had all been connected to one civilisation or the other in their path, so we had decided to drive them back. When we had arrived, the Ceti had already sucked the life out of the first inhabited system but to our surprise they hadn’t moved on. They had been clustered around one planet, their translucent bodies covering most of its surface and while we had been watching, they had started to grow, perceivably. We hadn’t hesitated. The Ceti had vanished in a storm of ravaging energies, their bodies reduced to dust and glass in a matter of seconds.

A few hours later we had still been searching the planet for whatever had drawn them there, without much success. It had been the demons who had shown us the way. By pure chance had I felt the quiet arrival of three demons, close to the planet’s core, far below the deep trenches the Ceti had dug into the surface. Ezekiel had transported us there in a heartbeat. We had entered a perfectly round cavern, filled with light and a faint humming sound. Instead of crushing gravitational forces and scorching heat, I had experienced weightlessness and the mild tingling of transcendent energy.

I had been sure the walls had consisted solely of diamonds, patterns of energy swirling in their depths, sometimes rising to the surface, sometimes dispersing before my eyes. I hadn’t been able to understand the intricately designed formations but they had appeared much more complex than anything I had seen before. The chamber had maybe been 15 meters across and on the opposite side, three demons had materialised, Amazeroth, Lilith and Delilah. Red energy had dripped from their horns as their eyes had darted from us to the shimmering object in the middle of the room, only Amazeroth had remained composed. His plain and human appearance had heavily contrasted the dark and curvy figures of his sisters.

A box, consisting of blue fire that had reminded me of Lucifer’s wings, had occupied the centre of the cavern and had commanded most of Amazeroth’s attention. It had been a meter in every dimension and rather plain on the first glance. On the second glance I had been able to discern an ever changing line of foreign glyphs that had run along its sides and it had emitted the constant pressure of transcendent energy I had been feeling. “So it’s true…” Amazeroth had murmured. Before any of us had had the chance to speak, he had continued in a loud and clear voice:

“Spare me your already prepared threats and questions and listen, all of you. What we see before us is an abomination, a fragment of a corrupted dimension, formed to equalise dangerous meddling with the nature of reality. Let me explain, you know that our cores channel the backlash into us whenever we use transcendent energy, or any form of magic for that matter. It’s not the same for mortals. For every action there has to be an equally strong reaction, but since they are too weak to withstand the pressure, it instead disperses. Now, for most magics this doesn’t matter, the backlash isn’t severe enough to cause any problems. If mortals manage to use transcendent energies on the other hand…” he had gestured towards the cube at that point.

“A part of reality is corrupted and expelled to prevent it from spreading. You know that transcendent energy simply changes reality, overwrites its code if you so will. That’s the opposing force in crystallised form. Touch it at your own peril.” Silence had fallen over the chamber. Michael had been the first to break it: “what does it do?”

“If you take it out of this cavern it’ll start to spread, rewrite reality in its own twisted fashion. You could compare it to a virus.”

“Why have we never heard of this?” I had interjected.

“Because it has never happened before,” Amazeroth had answered. “The Eldari, the civilisation who lived here before the Ceti came were the first to ever find a means to generate transcendent energies. One of their artefacts, the mana heart, made the breakthrough possible, by allowing them to fuse their sorcerer’s caste into one being which had enough power and knowledge to meddle with the building blocks of reality. Well, the Ceti put an end to their new found strength rather quickly, the corrupted dimension must have smelled like ambrosia to them, the lingering energies a heavenly buffet.”

“You’re telling the truth,” Michael had made himself heard again, rather surprised. “In that case I’m wondering if you’re willing to make a deal. It seems obvious that we can’t allow it to spread and we shouldn’t allow another one of these… viruses to form. Would you be willing to help me prevent a repetition and to keep this one safe?”

“Reality is in flux, Michael. Trying to prevent an outcome might just as easily lead to it and fighting an inevitability is a slippery slope into a dull repetition of broken promises and shattered ideals, trying to hold together a world that has long since been gone. Not everything is black or white, the direction we chose when we roam about the murky marshes of grey is what makes us who we are. But I get carried away, you’ll have to live through it for yourself. We will help”, he had continued without even asking his sisters. “But under one condition. It has to stay a secret and I want a binding oath on that. I don’t want anyone else to meddle.”

“Yes, my world has turned into shades of grey and I don’t know what’s right anymore. Are we protecting reality? Ever since we acted for the first time before one of the corrupted dimension formed I had this gnawing feeling that we are following a different design, crippling civilisations before they even had a chance to learn from their mistakes. Right now I’m returning from a thriving world I reduced to nothingness only because their rune craft started to show a level of understanding that might allow them to control transcendent glyphs. Did you expect that to happen?” Amazeroth sat silently on his throne for quite a while. Fuzzy images swirled through the milky substance at his feet.

“Yes and no but you entirely misjudged my intentions back then and you still do now. Here is what I’m willing to do. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability but I’ll seal the memory until it’s the right time for you to know. I’ll also hide your suspicions and your impulse to visit me. It’s too soon. If you can live with that, I’ll tell you why you’re feeling like you’re the villain.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’ll have a nice conversation without any substance and I’ll bid you farewell soon after.”

Basically he was offering the knowledge at a point in time he deemed appropriate in exchange for… my drive to look for something? I didn’t even know what was bugging me I only had the impression that I was missing a crucial part of the picture, call it intuition. All I could say for certain at that point in time was that Amazeroth had a hidden agenda, reaching back at least until we had first discussed the consequences of mortals using transcendent energies. It basically came down to wether I trusted his goals or not and I definitely didn’t.

“Thank you for your gracious offer, lord Amazeroth, but I have to decline.”

“Too bad”, he said, almost wistfully. Oh oh. Before the thought had fully formed, the milky liquid in the pond rose up and drenched me to the bone, much too fast for me to react.

“Hello Lady Arete, it’s a pleasure to meet you, although very indirectly.” A soothing voice was whispering in my ear but I couldn’t control my body. Somehow I knew that he wasn’t talking to me, but someone else while I laid on the ground, my consciousness barely there. His energy held me in stasis and I could feel his words disappearing behind the wall he formed in my mind as soon as he spoke them.

“If I don’t mess up royally, you’ll see this memory in the far future, in a time when your name will no longer be Aurora and the chains of your oaths don’t bind you anymore. If I have done my job well enough, you’ll be with Lucifer and you’ll both be struggling to figure out your past right now. I’d like to give you a couple of pointers. First, I’m not your enemy and neither am I Lucifer’s. I’m expecting we’ll have met under antagonistic circumstances on the new planet but rest assured, I will only be following orders from a pact I’ll need to break free of much more problematic obligations. It might be advisable for you to find whoever is holding my leash and put an end to them.

Secondly, you were used in your past. Aurora’s instinct served her well, she is indeed a weapon, wielded by a villain. Everything you just remembered, from the corrupted dimension to Aurora’s last act of destruction, were the first pieces of the puzzle and it paints an ugly picture. I suspect Michael and some of the other angels and demons as well for that matter have become corrupted, or infected by the virus. I don’t yet know how it was possible or who they are but I hope I’ll know more once we meet in person. Which leads me to my next advice: trust no immortal besides Lucifer, not even me when we’re going to meet. The main purpose of this little talk through time is to give you access to a rune that should allow you to tell who has been infected. I’m going to brand it on your core as the rest of you should change, but you don’t want to be around for that. I hope we can continue this conversation some time in the future, face to face.” His energies pushed harder on my mind and the last remnants of my consciousness fluttered away.

Cassandra Pendragon

Holy shit, so many questions ran through my mind while Ahri had been talking. Why would Amazeroth insist on a oath of secrecy? Why did my wings look like a corrupted dimension? Where had Amazeroth gotten his information from? Did he imply that he had bound himself to the emperor voluntarily? What obligations could possible make him take such drastic action? Had he known about Mephisto?… the list went on. But when Ahri finished, her lips trembling and tears in her eyes, they all didn’t matter anymore. There was only one thing I could say. With a fleeting kiss to her cheek I whispered:

“Thanks for telling me, but it wasn’t necessary to worry, I don’t care.” She stared at me, completely confused and I had to hide a smile.

“Did you understand what I just told you? I’m one of the angels you have been fighting against, no, you died fighting against. I know your dreams as well Cassandra, you talk in your sleep, you already know about the crusade you started in your last life! And you don’t care?” She was crying in earnest now and I gently took her into my arms and curled my tails more tightly around her middle.

“Now, of course I care but not in the way you think. To be honest I’m feeling much better about my own dreams now that you have told me that story. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but here is what I think: Michael and who knows who else were corrupted somewhere along the way, they were corrupted, they didn’t chose that path voluntarily and ever since you have been used to further their agenda, unknowingly I might add. You tried to get out but unfortunately you stumbled form one scheme into the next. None of it is your fault and surely won’t change what I think about you or how I feel.” To prove my words I kissed her again, firmly this time.

After a moment I whispered against her lips: “if you think about it, we are actually much better off. The one person who had me trembling turned out to be a friend in disguise, did he not?”

When we separated she replied breathlessly: “if we are lucky and if it isn’t another one of his schemes. Cassy, you do know I love you, right?”

“For all eternity”, I answered quietly.