An angel’s road to hell

81. Of armies, acolytes and a little bit of dreams

Cassandra Pendragon

Pete was…fun to talk to. Even though we quickly came to what he knew about the acolytes the round of introductions was still enough to get a sprinkling of his humour. He even took it in stride when Erya renamed him from “Lucky Pete” to “Smelly Pete” and doused him with a jet of conjured water even thigh the rain had washed away most of the filth. He had the necessary distance to what had happened, especially in regards to Viyara “putting away”, his words, not mine, most of the people he knew and the way he talked about his childhood as a street urchin wasn’t bitter, maybe even a little proud. I understood his “the devil may care” attitude and quite enjoyed his quips. “When the going gets tough the tough get going” was his explanation, for example, why he had, “poised and in complete control of his mental state”, stoically asked for help.

He was also a treasure trove of information and gave us a brief overview of how the pirates were organised and what we should expect on a common ship. The most influential captains, 7 by now since we had killed the one commandeering the ship with the blood red sails and Galathon had killed off Captain Sinclair, formed the council which was headed by the king who was voted into office every five years. They operated mostly independently and the council only came together to react to possible attacks by Free Land or other affairs that impacted everyone. Two years ago that had changed, though. He didn’t know why but since then the pirates had slowly been turned into an organised fleet. They had started dealing with politics and had even been forced to incorporate at least five acolytes into each crew to better allow them to deal with unforeseen threats and to make instant communication possible.

Those … things were hardly human, pale as death with markings all across their white skin. They didn’t talk to the crew nor did they join them during meals. Mostly they remained in their quarters and only appeared to relay information or crush an opponent. Pete described vividly how they had once turned two ships that had been hunting for them into ashes. From his recollections they had uncaringly slit the throat of one of their own and turned his lifeblood into an array of spells that had torn, unimpeded, through their pursuers while the crew had only been able to stare on in fear.

Pete didn’t know where they were coming from but every time they lost one of the acolytes, a replacement would soon appear, either waiting for them in the next port or onboard another ship they’d meet. They all pretty much looked the same, their individual features marred by runes and scars and some of the pirates had even started believing they were wrathful spirits, there to take revenge upon the living. Considering what the poor fellows had had to go through to turn into those kinds of abominations, I suspected that was rather close to the truth.

For us the implications were quite clear: the acolytes were willing or forced to use their own life and probably soul to fulfil their orders, sacrificing both if push came to shove. Depending on how many of them were together, that could make them incredibly nasty to deal with and a spike of fear shot through me when I did the math: three ships, at least 5 aboard each one. If they were cornered that’d mean 14 sacrifices and one unbelievably potent caster, powerful enough to challenge Erya or Viyara. If we allowed the pirates to unite that number would double… there was no way I’d be willing to risk that and I had to contact Ahri, immediately.

Our conversation was short and strained. I informed her of what Pete had told us and that there was, most likely, a second batch of ships heading for them, Pete had overheard the orders after all. We, Viyara, Erya and I, would try to intercept them but it wasn’t a given. We didn’t know the direction the ships would be coming from but with Pete’s knowledge of the local ports we could make an educated guess. She in turn told me that they had already dealt with the acolytes on one ship when the dwarfs had bombarded it. She thought that they had enough practitioners with them, the kids were a tremendous help, to keep the rest in check, at least for now. I didn’t prolong our conversation, she was extremely busy and it’d be a terrible idea to keep her distracted, even if it were for only a few seconds longer.

From the looks of it they were fine for the moment but I didn’t want to image what would happen if another group of pirates was to join the fray. We had to find them before they could reach the island, of that I had no doubt by now. Ahri’s goodbye still swirling through my thoughts I rejoined the conversation:

“My friends are holding on but we can’t allow more ships to reach them. They’d be overwhelmed. Pete, where did you say the most likely ports they’d be coming from were again?”

“It’s hard to tell specifically but that doesn’t matter. They could either have been hidden in Free Land or somewhere around the Pirate Islands. Either way they’ll be to the East. We can head a little further north until we draw even with the course they have to take and head towards your friends. Either we see other ships on the way in which case we’ll attack or we won’t and we’ll help out as soon as we get there. With a dragon joining the fray my former colleagues would have to be suicidal to try and stay their ground. But I don’t know if that makes a difference. Free will seems to be a rather sparse commodity around pirates at the moment.” I wasn’t so sure. True, the captains were most likely spelled but that didn’t mean the crew would just willingly go to their deaths if they didn’t see any way to win the fight. When the alternative was a dragon’s gullet I imagined mutiny would become much more attractive, even if the captain had a tight hold on his men. And from what I had seen, loyalty wasn’t that highly valued amongst them anyways. Real negotiations in the form of - if you throw your captains and the acolytes over board, my huge, fanged, fire breathing friend won’t eat you and turn you ship into ashes - might actually work.

Viyara corrected her course and with the rising sun to our right we headed north. After a while the clouds dispersed and we sailed through an immaculate sky. The temperatures started to rise and drove the water from our clothes. The quiet atmosphere and vast expanse of blue all around us made it difficult to imagine that somewhere to the west my family was fighting and I felt the last day slowly catch up to me. My eyelids became heavy while the sun rose higher and I had to struggle to keep focused. From time to time a gust of wind shook Viyara and more than once the sudden movement was the only reason I stayed awake. I tried to concentrate on the danger we were still in and which grizzly surprises might await us once we caught up with the pirates but it became increasingly more difficult. It had been a while since I had experience anything as peaceful as flying through the open sky with no one but friends around and my mind simply wouldn’t entertain the idea that a fight might be imminent.

I couldn’t say how long I had been sitting there, my head slowly sinking lower until I practically laid flat on Viyara’s head. The rushing air smelled salty and clean after last night’s thunderstorm and lured my thoughts away, pulling my imagination towards strange coasts and magical places, far away from the emperor. When I felt a soft touch and Erya’s voice whispered into my ear: “sleep, we’ll stay alert and wake you if something comes up. Sleep, Cassandra, you’ve earned it,” I finally succumbed and within seconds my eyes closed completely. The last thing I knew before the world faded away was the warmth of her when she pulled my head onto her lap and quietly started singing a foreign lullaby.

I watched silently and sank even deeper into the shadows as the first of a group of demons passed below me. I was hidden in the cracks of a towering cliff that guarded the entrance to my least favourite place in all of creation: hell. Endless wastelands filled with the remains of tortured souls and a searing wind that never calmed, endless fields of black glass, the edges sharp enough to cut through everything that had the misfortune of stumbling into them and the occasional demonic stronghold didn’t exactly make it one of the most sought after spots for a family vacation. And that was without considering the smell, clouds of sulphur, poisonous gas and the occasional nose full of decay made my eyes water just thinking about it. Once again I cursed Michael and his cronies, I really didn’t want to be here, but still… may the chasm claim their souls, I just didn’t know what else I could do.

I was in the void but contrary to the silver city, hell was within its own little dimension and the only known entrance was beneath the cliffs of grief. The void was special in a way, it didn’t contain anything of its own, except for the chasm, but it showed shadows or imprints of whatever was going on in the real world. Planets, cities, stars… everything had a shadowy duplicate but they usually didn’t stick around. The void was hungering for energy and it devoured its own creations faster than they could form. The only way something would endure was, if it was filled to the brim, black holes for example or the central planets of star faring civilisations. Their imprints would remain as long as energy was still coursing through the original, a small part siphoned off to satisfy the void’s endless hunger.

The cliffs of grief, or rather their counterpart in reality, had been the scene of one of the last battles between the nine families and ambition’s corpse had been put to rest within, guarded by transcendent enchantments, his slowly dispersing life force an anchor amongst the tides of the void. The great gateway that led to his burial chamber was hidden deep within the rock and on this side it was a portal, a portal to hell and the place I was headed for. My mind drifted as I asked myself for the umpteenth time what might possibly have happened to the ninth family, Arete, but that was a mystery I wasn’t here to solve.

I was here to enter hell unseen and get my hands on the ring of dominion, a remnant of the first war between angels and demons. It was a small, black thing, formed in the shape of a dragon from what I had heard but it was maybe the single most hated object in all of creation. Long before time and space had been divided, back when our will had been the only thing to shape the multiverse, things had been simpler. I couldn’t remember much of that time, like most of my siblings I had given up the better part of those memories willingly. It had been the first time angels and demons had agreed on anything but the atrocities of the first war had to be forgotten, otherwise there would have been no future. Only Metathron and Amazeroth had kept their recollections as a safeguard against us going down the same road once again. One of the few things we all remembered though, was the ring of dominion.

Forged from primordial materials with the blood of every demon in existence it had been a weapon, made to channel their ambitions and will into a single purpose that would have swept away everything that would have dared to stand in their way. But like most weapons it had two edges and while it could focus the energy of every demon onto a single task it also allowed the wielder to control them, to influence their minds and very essences. The catastrophe that had followed its creation had been unrivalled.

In a straight up confusing war the ring had wandered from hand to hand, its wielder decimating the angelic armies wherever they had met. Betrayal, greed and the angels efforts had guaranteed that it hadn’t remained in the possession of a single demon for long and our people had been stuck in a vicious circle of mutual destruction until, one day, Amazeroth had gotten ahold of it.

He hadn’t used it with one exception: he had sealed the thing away in the deepest parts of hell, bound with enchantments strong enough to withstand the onslaught of an immortal army.

And now I wanted to put that assumption to the test. Over the last years I had finally understood why Michael had wanted me out of the way or at least branded a traitor. Step by step he was trying to convert the heavens into an army that would change the multiverse into a sterile and stuck incarnation of perfect order. It had started small, erasing civilisation that had been on the brink of truly achieving greatness, I had even been a part of some of his plans, or whispered words of advice and a little help behind the scenes to change the face of the cosmos into something that was more to his liking.

With time he had become more aggressive and by now he openly promoted that the immortals should act to change creation as they saw fit, their prerogative and even sacred duty as shepherds of the lower races. Damn right I’d do everything in my power to put a stop to that, which had brought me to the cliffs of grief, waiting for the portal to open, so I could slip into hell unnoticed and hopefully steal the ring of dominion. If I had to use an army of demons to make the angels see sense, than, so help me, I would. I had never been a big fan of negotiations anyways.

I waited for another few minutes until the demons’ footsteps had faded away and quickly dropped from my perch. Without a sound I landed in front of a yawning cave, its interior dark enough to make it seem like black light was spilling from its depth. It had been aeons since the last time I had set a foot in there and the creepy vibe of the place hadn’t changed in the slightest. Oh well. Carefully I glided forward, my wings and limbs well away from the rock around me. The second I entered everything became muffled, the constant grinding of the void far away even though I hadn’t moved more than a few meters. I stained my eyes but I couldn’t see a thing, the darkness heavy around me like something tangible. I knew the tunnel would lead straight down until it reached a carved portal made of black diamonds with ancient runes from a primordial time engraved along the sides. I retracted my wings, their glow might alarm the demons who were still somewhere in front of me, and followed the path deeper into the depths.

I closed my eyes and focused solely on my hearing, trying to pick up even the lightest sound aside from my rhythmic breath. After some hundred steps my skin tingled and I felt the energy in the place shift. Air brushed against my skin as a gust of wind rushed down the corridor. The portal had been activated, the entrance to hell was open.

I had counted four demons, one of them a knight of hell, and from the looks of it they were just now passing through. I had to hurry. Abandoning caution I unfurled my wings again and raced down the tunnel, the silvery light highlighting carved runes and sigils that covered every centimetre of the walls around me. If I hadn’t been who I was I would probably have been fighting against a myriad of wards and enchantments right now. The thought made me smile sadly, I had never expected to be forced to sneak anywhere, let alone hell of all places.

I couldn’t spare a single moment, if the portal closed again, I’d be forced to wait for the next time it’d be activated or tear it open which would certainly alarm every demon in existence. Accordingly I rushed forwards, faster than a thought, and filled the tunnel witch crackling energy. Suddenly the walls retreated to form a huge cavern, a pedestal at the centre with the obsidian arch on top of it. Multicoloured lights danced across its surface and I had to suppress an exclamation of delight, the thing was still open. Less fortunate, the knight hadn’t yet passed through and with a look of utter surprise Chaleb whirled around, his heavy axe at the ready.