by Rex Jameson
“She boasted to me that she had as well,” Ashton said. “She claimed that she’s a champion of nature. She told me that she’s even made creatures on our world.”
Jayden shared a meaningful look with Cedric, but Ashton had no idea what transpired. Cedric shook his head adamantly.
“You and I both know the truth about the Holy One,” Jayden said.
“The truth is that I fight demons when other men cannot,” Cedric said. “The truth is that I’ve done plenty of good. I’ve sent many naurun to the Void.”
“There’s no point arguing with you about this,” Jayden said. “I know you cannot change the past, and you won’t even speak to it. My people do not fight the Queen now. We fight Orcus who retreats from Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons. You and your people can still make a difference at Uxmal. The demon lords are each looking for a path to the surface. They would make our world a furnace and crust over the land with new conduits to attack each other and Mekadesh.”
“What do they want?” Ashton asked.
“Their reasons are their own,” Cedric said, squirming with discomfort in his cooling bath. “Who knows why they do what they do?”
“Some fight for dominion,” Jayden said. “Demogorgon fights the other demon lords to establish his dominance. The naurun we’ve questioned say he’s never lost a plane of existence.”
“A plane of existence?” Ashton asked.
“From what I understand,” Jayden said, “demon lords fight for control of what they call a level of the Abyss. Each level was once a world like ours, and once it was conquered, it merged into the Abyss as one of these lairs or planes of existence. The demons we’ve captured claim that Demogorgon has the most planes under his control. They say he is so powerful that he can hypnotize other demon lords into subservience by simply gazing at them with his two heads.”
“Is that true?” Ashton asked.
“No idea,” Jayden replied.
“He has two heads?” Ashton asked.
“That’s what they say,” Jayden said.
“You can never trust a demon,” Cedric said, his voice dripping with melancholy. “If you heard this from a demon, you’ve probably been misled.”
Jayden laid a hand on Cedric’s shoulder. He patted the paladin and then withdrew his hand.
“So, you’ve never seen this Demogorgon?” Ashton asked.
“No,” Jayden said.
“Nor I,” Cedric said.
“Who is Orcus?” Ashton asked.
“A rival of Demogorgon,” Cedric said. “Lord of the Undead. A chief rival to the Prince of Demons.”
“He raises people from the dead?” Ashton asked. “Like I do?”
“Your power’s source is undoubtedly due to his presence in our realm,” Cedric said, “but he certainly doesn’t just raise people. The dead simply respond to him wherever he goes. They rise up without him saying a word.”
Jayden nodded in agreement. “We fought many of our own kind in the caverns of Chejit and Daydira.”
Ashton’s heart sank. He wanted nothing to do with demons. He had seen enough of their work at Mallory Keep. His power couldn’t have come from Orcus.
“But you don’t know that for sure!” Ashton said, pleading with Jayden.
“In the thousands of years we studied magic before they arrived,” Jayden said, “not one case of necromancy had been reported in any kingdom of Nirendia. Orcus came and the undead were everywhere underground. It’s unlikely to be a coincidence.”
Ashton gnawed at his lip, trying to twist the source of his power in his mind.
“But that doesn’t mean anything, does it?” Ashton asked. “I didn’t ask for these powers. So what if they come from a demon? If I help people with them, can I not still use them? For good?”
Cedric stared ahead, and Jayden looked at the paladin. Again, Ashton felt something unspoken was passing between them. He felt like this awkward silence had a long history between these two people.
“Can I give this power back?” Ashton asked. “I don’t want it.”
“A demon’s power always has a cost,” Cedric said, “and not so easily undone.”
“Am I a demon?” Ashton asked.
“Are you a demon?” Cedric repeated. He turned to Ashton with confusion on his face.
“If I’m empowered by a demon,” Ashton said, “then what separates me from them?”
“They put a darkness on our souls,” Cedric said. “Maybe you have a darkness. Maybe not.”
“Are you going to smite me?” Ashton asked, looking at the paladin’s hammer in the far corner next to the door. “To remove the darkness placed on my soul?”
Cedric laughed involuntarily. “No, boy. You’re not a demon. You’re just a man.”
Ashton breathed a sigh of relief. “So, what does this Orcus want with me?”
“Maybe nothing,” Jayden said. “Your power may have been accidentally bestowed. Orcus wars with Demogorgon in the underworld. The undead swarm the naurun. The naurun swarm the undead, and somewhere out there, Mekadesh may even field her durun against the both of them. On and on the battle wages beneath us, and we are powerless to stop it.”
“And sometimes, it spills out,” Cedric said, “and that’s where you’ll find what remains of the paladins.”
“And the dark elves,” Jayden said.
The pair stopped talking as the creaking of foreign footsteps approached outside the door. The paladin left the water and carefully crossed the floor to his weapon without making a sound. He stood there, naked as a newborn, deadly and ready to strike whoever entered. A knock came on the door, and Cedric poised his war hammer for a swing.
“It’s Harold,” the familiar voice said through the door. “Are you decent?”
The paladin gently placed his weapon back into the corner and retreated to his tub.
“Never,” Cedric said as he slipped back into the cold water.
The door opened and Harold smiled above a tray of three wooden mugs.
“You’re a saint,” Cedric said.
“In your order?” Harold asked mockingly. “No thanks!”
The paladin grabbed a mug and Harold offered the next one to Jayden. The elf raised the mug to Harold in thanks before gulping down the contents. Ashton took his mug last and held it between both hands.
“You sure this one is old enough to drink?” Harold asked, turning his head toward Cedric.
“I’ve seen you serve this swill to five-year-olds,” the paladin replied.
“I only want to know if he can hold his alcohol,” Harold said with jovial mirth. “I have enough to clean up downstairs already.”
Harold looked at Ashton with rapt attention, apparently waiting for some witty remark—for Ashton to join in on the banter.
“Can I hold my liquor?” Ashton asked. “Is that what you’re asking?”
Harold nodded.
“No,” Ashton said with a straight face, “but I’ll be sure to splash my vomit with a little bit of bath water.”
The elf and paladin laughed.
“Maybe just put down another layer of rushes,” Jayden said. “That’s how Harold here cleans up all his messes!”
“Attaboy!” Harold said, slapping Ashton wetly on the shoulder after he pressed the empty tray between his arm and his chest. “Hey, don’t expect any further room service like this, lads! You want more, you have to come downstairs!”
Cedric and Jayden raised their mugs. Ashton joined them but too late for Harold to see. Harold turned around and exited the room, closing the door behind him.
The three men silently drank their ale for a few minutes, letting the cool water soak into their skin.
“So, this Queen of Chaos,” Ashton said, “this Mekadesh, she was the first demon lord to come to our world?”
“15,000 years ago,” Jayden agreed. “Invited by the dark elf Selenor.”
“And she took Balahambria, a dark elf city?”
“She tried,” Jayden said. “We sealed the city wi
th ice magic. Selenor told us that the naurun were creatures of fire. We tried to take precautions. We covered the land with ice magics for nearly a thousand years in preparation for the Queen’s arrival to isolate her and seal her into the space beneath Surdel. The demon lords seek a path above the ground to flank and surprise their rivals. That’s what our captives have told us. That’s why they assault our dark elven cities. They are the only gateways to the surface.”
“Where did she go next?” Ashton asked.
“She didn’t go anywhere,” Jayden said. “We didn’t hear from her for thousands of years. Maybe she traveled back and forth between Nirendia and the Abyss. Maybe she left and only came back when she needed to.”
“Why?” Ashton asked.
Jayden shrugged.
“Because the other demon lords arrived,” Cedric said. “Orcus and then Demogorgon. That’s what it says in our archives. She wasn’t as interested in gaining a new plane like the others. She wants something else.”
“She told me something similar,” Ashton said. “She told me she was here looking for something that was hers. She mentioned something about a vision of a general guy named Maddox? I don’t know what any of this means.”
“She talked to you often?” Cedric asked.
“Just once in Dona,” Ashton said. “I’ve just been thinking about it ever since, trying to understand it.”
“I told you,” Cedric said to Jayden. “The books are not lies.”
“Well,” Jayden said, “I guess you’d know best.”
Cedric gave Jayden another warning glance over the top of his mug.
“I only mean that your archives would obviously be the more complete,” Jayden said innocently. “Your connection to demons is stronger than mine.”
Cedric growled.
“I have no intention of provoking you,” Jayden said, “but if the boy wants answers, it’s difficult to dance around these subjects just so you feel better. Perhaps you can tell him.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Cedric said.
“Tell me what?” Ashton asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cedric said.
“The paladins entered the fray about 9,000 years ago,” Jayden said. “They had a unique power over demons. Of all the magics we had ever studied, theirs was the most potent against the naurun. For 7,000 years, dark elves and paladins kept the undead and the naurun in check. We fought the demons in the caverns of Xhonia in the north and Shamat in the far northwest.”
“Demogorgon took Shamat around 2,000 years ago,” Cedric said. “Shamat was where we saw the first deathknights deployed. They rode up the caverns on a twisted type of horse they call nightmares. Jet black. Flames for manes. They moved quickly, and the undead men on top of them wielded green fire. Some type of fel energy. They’re smarter than the naurun. Much smarter.”
“Shamat fell within days,” Jayden said. “We had to seal it quickly, freezing thousands of elves in the city and caverns.”
“Orcus took the biggest prize,” Cedric said.
“Ul Tyrion,” Jayden said. “Our capital. Home to our main library and university. We lost everything. My father died there. All of my grandparents. My mother and I escaped, and the city was sealed behind us. We’ve been fighting ever since.”
“He didn’t hold it for long,” Cedric said. “Demogorgon’s deathknights came from the west, and they took the caverns under the city as fast as they had conquered Shamat.”
“That all happened about 1,500 years ago,” Jayden added. “Demogorgon and Orcus continued to fight for centuries without us knowing about it. The next catastrophe happened a thousand years later at Xhonia.”
“What happened?” Ashton asked.
“We were betrayed,” Jayden said.
“By whom?” Ashton asked.
Jayden looked at Cedric, whose face grew white as a sheet. The dark elf waited for the paladin to finish the story, but Cedric uttered not a single word.
“The paladins had no effect against The Queen of Chaos’s forces,” Jayden said. “In fact, they helped her. Turned on us. Many dark elves fell under their weapons. We sealed that city with an ice magic device and again lost thousands. The paladins fought us as we retreated, but as the city was sealed, they seemed to come to their senses. She lost her connection to them, and they broke free.”
“The paladins were disbanded by the King,” Cedric said simply. “We could not be trusted. We lost all land and titles. We couldn’t even call ourselves knights. We scattered across the land.”
Ashton began to understand the dark knight’s melancholy.
“Phiol fell to Orcus a hundred years later,” Jayden said. “He kept moving east, taking Chejit and Daydira. We sealed him in, and one-hundred-years-ago, Demogorgon overtook Phiol with naurun cavalry and deathknights. Fifty-years-ago, Demogorgon pushed Orcus out from under Chejit, and the Demon Lord of the Undead retreated north from Daydira. We’re not sure if Demogorgon is there yet. All we know is that he’s winning.”
“How many dark elven cities are left?” Ashton asked.
“Just one,” Jayden said. “Uxmal to the far east.”
“And once that is sealed,” Ashton said, “the demons are trapped forever?”
“Who knows?” Cedric asked rhetorically. “We haven’t seen everything they’re capable of. We survive because they’re distracted. Whether Uxmal falls or not is irrelevant. They know that when they finally turn their attention to us, we’ll melt before them like wax to flame.”
“Uxmal is not just an opening into this land,” Jayden said. “It’s the last remnants of my people. If it falls, my people are done.”
“You should just seal it,” Cedric said.
“Are you really the one to tell me what I should and should not do?” Jayden asked testily. “Besides, this one’s father,” he pointed at Ashton, “apparently unsealed Xhonia, took the device and allowed demons to potentially invade the surface a few years ago. What good is all of this sacrifice if one man can undo all of it? Perhaps this Karl character and his bandit friends have all of the devices. Hundreds of thousands of my people might have died for nothing.”
Ashton felt a deep wave of shame flow over him. His father had always been an embarrassment. To think that Karl Jeraldson might have also damned the world was a bit too much. Ashton felt tears welling at the corner of his eye. He rubbed a fist against his face.
“I cannot answer for my father,” Ashton said, “but if there is a way to fix this, if there is anything I can do to help, then I’ll do it.”
“Xhonia is likely swarming with demons now,” Jayden said. “We’d need to either retrieve the device or find a new one. Then, we’d need to fight our way down to a point that would actually seal the area around it. We can’t just leave it outside the gates and hope for the best.”
Ashton nodded. “Maybe I can raise an army to help us fight.”
“And fight the demons and their undead with your undead?” Cedric asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s the point?” Cedric asked.
“We don’t need to beat them, do we?” Ashton asked. “I mean, did the elves ever beat them?”
Jayden shook his head with disappointment. “We’ve only bought the rest of the world time.”
“And that’s all we need, right?” Ashton asked. “Just enough time to bring the device to where my father had taken it and then reactivate it.”
Jayden shrugged. “Maybe. But let’s say we succeed in sealing Xhonia again. The demons will just move on to Uxmal.”
“What do you want to do?” Ashton asked. “Give up? We buy more time for your people. We stick to the plan.”
“There is no plan,” Jayden said. “There is only what the demon lords want and how long we can hold them off.”
“Fine,” Ashton said with frustration, “then what do the demons want? If we know what they want, maybe we can use that against them.”
Cedric laughed. “Now, we’re supposed to understand the intentions of demo
ns? Maybe they just want to kill us all and rule this world.”
“Each demon lord wants something different,” Jayden said.
“And you would know what they want?” Cedric asked.
“As much as they’re willing to say,” Jayden said, “and what their minions have revealed to us when pressed.”
“And what were they willing to say?” Cedric asked.
“Orcus wants to be Prince of the Demons,” Jayden said absently, staring into the door. “He needs to gain more planes of existence. Demogorgon wants to solidify his power further in the Abyss. The Queen of Chaos wants something different…”
“What does she want?” Ashton asked. “Does anyone know?”
“Maybe,” Jayden said. He leaned back against his barrel and sighed.
“And?” Cedric asked.
“She came to me in a dream when I was young,” Jayden said. “She was dark and beautiful and trapped under the world. I was engaged to my one true love at the time in Ul Tyrion. Mekadesh told me that my betrothed would die and that I would need a new dark princess. She told me I would be her next husband, and that we would create a new race of creatures the universe had never known. Dark and powerful and wielding all the magics my people had developed over the millennia. She promised me infinite power, and a spot by her side for all eternity.”
Cedric’s mouth was agape. Prince Jayden’s description reminded Ashton of his dreams of Riley in the Underworld. He wondered if the Queen of Chaos had been playing with his mind too this whole time, before he had even met her in Dona. She hadn’t promised him power or eternity. She may have simply been toying with him and enflaming his passions. Then, she may have appeared to him at Dona to entice him into thinking about commanding her legions, to channel that passion for justice into leading her creatures.
The idea fit in his mind, but he didn’t want to be part of her plan. He’d much rather Jayden be her true target.
“The Queen of Chaos,” Ashton said, “is here for you?”
Jayden nodded slowly. “That’s what she told me. She told me that she would kill my mother, and I would be King of Etyria. She would marry me, and she would be queen of yet another race of creatures. She told me that where she failed in leading the durun and creating the naurun, she would succeed with the dark elves. She told me I would smite her old lover Demogorgon and drive Orcus into the Abyss. I would roll through the other demon lords like a scythe through dry grain.”
