by Rex Jameson
Chapter 18
Waking the Wizard
Despite his best efforts, Lucifer kept dozing off as the fish-heads carried him down the hallway. When he woke up, the colors would swirl all around him and make him nauseous. Every once in a while, though, a conversation would register.
“What the hell did he get into?” Sariel asked.
Fish noises. Lucifer giggled.
“Well, that was useful information,” Sariel said sarcastically.
“What …” Gaea said. “What is that smell?”
“Oh, I’m glad you said something,” Anne said. “I thought it might be these little guys here, and I didn’t want to be rude.”
More blurps and giggles from the guards.
“Is that …” Gaea said. “Is that paralysis fish toxin?”
One of the guards tried to explain to Gaea, but he breathed in some of the fumes and collapsed. Lucifer toppled onto the floor. He didn’t mind. He couldn’t feel anything anyway.
“He drugged me,” Lucifer managed to say. “Well, he tricked me into drugging myself.”
“That sounds like my man,” Gaea said.
“What did you do to him?” Sariel asked warily.
“I might have killed him a few times …”
“A few times?” Sariel blurted. “You killed him more than once?”
“OK, all right,” Lucifer couldn’t help but giggle. His body felt weird. “I killed him eleven times.”
“Lucifer!” Anne scolded him. “My father’s life hangs in the balance!”
“He wouldn’t stop insulting and condemning our universes.” Lucifer tried to shake away the effects of the toxin, but it was too powerful. “And he kept threatening to siphon all of our energies or something. Do you have anything that can counteract this stuff? I need my faculties back.”
He could hear someone rummaging in a drawer.
“This will work until I manage to find the real antidote around here,” Gaea said. “I don’t have a needle that can break through your skin. We’re going to have to cut his arm with a knife.”
Lucifer felt pressure on his arm.
“There we go. It will take a couple of minutes, but you’ll come around.”
“Honestly, Lucifer, couldn’t you have waited until after Batarel’s resurrection to pick a fight with the local god?” Sariel asked.
“I’m sure my husband had it coming,” Gaea said. “He sees so much and it weighs on him; it changes him. Sometimes he gets so focused on the ends that he disregards the path it takes to get him there.”
“Still, I’m sure three deaths would have made the point,” Sariel said.
“He wouldn’t stop coming,” Lucifer said as he tried to sit up. “He wouldn’t stop telling me that an alliance with the elves was useless, and that everything I loved would die.”
“Sounds like he had eleven deaths coming to him,” Sariel agreed.
“Don’t mind him,” Gaea said. “The future isn’t always what it seems. Why, if I were to look at this scene before us right now but yesterday, I would think that Sariel had attacked his brother and Lucifer was dying, even though he is only drugged and drooling all over my carpeting. I can’t see what my Jehovah sees, and I’ve never wanted to. I’d rather the future surprise me. It keeps me in better spirits.”
“Where’s Batarel?” Lucifer asked.
“He’s in the bed,” Anne said.
“Is he awake?”
“Of course not. Waking him when half his body is gone and he’s no longer overcome with super-adrenaline wouldn’t end well.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Lucifer said, as his eyes began focusing again. The light from the open windows was blinding, but the shapes in the room eventually took form.
Anne was hovering over him and had changed into a similar type of garb to Gaea’s—though Anne was far less curvy. Still, bent over as she was, Anne spilled out of her dress. She blushed as he looked at her.
Gaea giggled as she got up and headed toward the door. “I’ll search for a more potent antidote. Make peace with your uncle. He departs for the Halls tonight.”
“Tonight?” Sariel asked, his lip quivering. “He dies tonight?”
She nodded. “Jehovah has his talents, and I have mine.”
She departed and left the room in silence.
Lucifer crawled on his hands and knees toward the four-poster bed and used one of the columns to pull himself to his feet. The white linens had been tucked tightly under what was left of Batarel’s burned body, and his eyelids fluttered over rapid orbital movements. He made no sounds other than normal breathing.
“Did Gaea tell either of you how long the rebirth will take?”
“It could be months.”
“I have to wake him,” Lucifer said.
“What possible reason would you have to do that?” Sariel asked.
“I need guidance.”
“He needs to die in peace.”
“He will be reborn, brother. But in a few months, Jehovah may consume both of our patterns.”
“What are you talking about?” Anne asked.
“Jehovah didn’t divert the apocalypse to Alurabum to simply cause us an inconvenience. It’s part of one of his deranged experiments. He seeks to enslave our patterns and use them as fuel for his Hall of Souls. He has created beings with souls and wants to inject more energy into his universe by stealing from ours.”
“And what do you think Batarel will tell you?”
“Hopefully, he’ll tell me how to stop the destruction of our two universes.”
“Lucifer,” Anne said. “If I wake him up, I won’t be able to put him back to sleep. The drugs Gaea gave him were meant to last him through the night. I have an agent that will wake him but getting him back to sleep is beyond my skill set. I’m an assassin, not a doctor.”
“We’ll handle that when we get there,” Lucifer said. “Wake him.”
“Lucifer, please,” Anne pleaded with tears in her eyes.
“He’s the only wizard I can trust, and I need to talk to him before Jehovah has the opportunity to corrupt him. I don’t ask this lightly. He’s my uncle.”
“He’s right, Anne,” Sariel said. “I was never interested in the quantum physics that drive the primals to project universes. I can burn the hell out of someone, but I wouldn’t know the Hall of Souls from a hole-in-the-ground.”
Sariel took a seat next to a window, and Anne rummaged in a purse that Gaea must have given her. She drew out a leaf and unfolded it to reveal a white powdery substance. She lay down on the bed next to Batarel and looked at Lucifer.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’m giving him a type of plant venom that will make him lucid. It will also numb his pain receptors for about five minutes. After that, I can do nothing more for him.”
“I understand.”
She hesitated for a second and then pressed Batarel’s cheeks inward, causing him to open his mouth. She sprinkled some of the powder onto his tongue and then poured some water into his mouth to force the venom into his gullet.
The effect was instantaneous. Batarel’s eyes wrenched open and scanned the room. He tried to sit up, but he only had one arm and it was pinned underneath the sheets.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in a hospital bed in Order,” Lucifer said.
“Why the hell did you bring me here?”
“You’re dying, father,” Anne said from her place beside him. “We brought you here so you could be reborn through the Hall of Souls.”
“Fools!” the wizard coughed. “You should have let me die.”
“So, you don’t trust Jehovah?” Anne asked.
“No, I just know what he’s capable of and where his priorities lie.”
“Can you fight him? Can you fight through the Hall of Souls and return to us?”
“I can’t even fight my way out of some dry linens,” Batarel laughed before choking on his own liquids. “Anne … give me some
more pain killers.”
“I can’t, father,” she cried. “Gaea gave you a potent sedative, and I had to wake you with negeltu powder. If I give you anything else, you’ll die.”
“Batarel, we don’t have much time,” Lucifer said. “I met with Jehovah, and he told me that he will destroy the Elven Realm and Chaos and both of our primals. He saw the events in visions. The jet directed at Alurabum is meant to siphon away souls or energy or something.”
“I know,” Batarel said. “Or at least, I suspected as much. The deflector has stopped it for now, but we’ll have to move the Courts. The jet will even siphon the zinanbar of the shield if given enough time.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Jehovah knows more about that than anyone else in Chaos. I can’t even give an accurate guess. Could be a thousand years. Could be a million. No idea.”
“Can we stop him?”
“You can put a blade in his chest.”
“I tried that.”
“Outside of Order …” Batarel wheezed. “Anne, the pain …”
“I know, father,” Anne grabbed his hand from underneath the covers and kissed it.
“How can we stop the fall of the Elven Realm?” Lucifer asked. “Jehovah said he saw it clearly through the Order Primal. Can he do that? What can we do to stop it?”
“There is no limit to what Jehovah might be capable of. You may have to convince him to stop his assault.”
“I tried that.”
“Try harder.”
“He wants to see his experiments succeed,” Lucifer said. “He’s created creatures with souls, Batarel. He claims he has done it without needing the primal’s help. He says it will make his pattern more efficient. Humans will become immortal. So will a dragon creature and some huge tub of lard.”
“Save … th-th-the r-r-realm,” Batarel said in quick bursts. The pain appeared to be getting the best of him.
“We’ll need you, Uncle,” Lucifer said. “Don’t let him take away part of your soul. Fight it. You’re our only hope against this god.”
“If h-h-he’s out of his element …” Batarel spat and slurred, “he’s no longer a god. It c-c-comes down to you, L-l-l-uke. F-f-find a way. T-t-take back the throne and d-d-deny him the Elven Realm. He’ll try to split the al-l-liance between the elves and the d-d-demons. Make the union strong.” He lifted Anne’s hand. “F-f-fight for our survival.”
His back arched, and he screamed. Lucifer put his hand over Batarel’s mouth and motioned for Anne to shut the door, which she did and locked it as well.
“What can we do?” Sariel asked as he came to the bed to help restrain the wizard.
One of the bed posts caught fire.
“Did he just do that?” Lucifer asked.
“I think so,” Sariel replied. “We don’t have much time.”
“Uncle, we need you to control it, or you are going to burn down the room.”
“It’s worse than that,” Sariel said. “Batarel is the most powerful wizard in the cosmos. If he loses control of his powers, it won’t just be the room that is destroyed. We have to do something.”
Lucifer looked meaningfully at Anne. “You said there was only one option.”
“Don’t make me do this,” she said. “I don’t want to kill him.”
“You didn’t kill him. Lord Phillip did. You just kept him alive long enough to be reborn in Order.”
“Lucifer, I can’t …”
“Hold him, Sariel.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sariel said as he patted down the flames that had appeared on his suit jacket and sat on his uncle’s chest, which only caused more screaming. He tried to muffle him, but he looked to Lucifer when he ran out of hands and legs to use. “Do you mind?”
“Use your wings, doofus,” Lucifer said.
“Right, right.”
Lucifer moved around the bed to Anne and sat down next to her. He picked up the leaves and grabbed her hand from Batarel’s grasp. His uncle appeared to regain his senses for a moment and stopped fighting against Sariel.
Lucifer looked into Anne’s eyes and rubbed the top of her hand.
“He’s all I have,” Anne said.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Lucifer said.
“Don’t mind me,” Sariel interjected. “I’m just smothering a dangerous, unhinged wizard.”
“Shut up,” Lucifer said.
Sariel looked down at his mentor, who had stopped fighting, though pain clearly showed on his face. Batarel was looking at Lucifer and Anne. Lucifer nodded to him.
“My uncle believes a stronger union is needed between the Elven Realm and Chaos,” he said. “A marriage would certainly do that.”
“A marriage wouldn’t be enough to convince elves like Routan,” Anne said, smiling.
“A son then?”
“You have a problem with daughters?” Anne retorted.
“Not if they’re half as beautiful as you.”
“I’m going to throw up,” Sariel said. “Or I’m going to burn this whole place down myself. I think the severity of my reaction is going to depend on how quickly you two end my misery.”
Anne’s head tilted, and Lucifer smiled as she rubbed her hands though his short brown hair. He immediately felt a burning sensation.
“Oh gods, the powder!” Anne said as she frantically reached for something nearby and dumped a potted fern onto his head. She rubbed it over his scalp, and the cool soil and water made him feel immediately better.
“I’m sorry,” she said, laughing only a little bit. “I’m so sorry.”
Batarel laughed, too, which was apparently a mistake. He coughed up blood, and more curtains caught fire. Lucifer leapt from the bed and used his suit jacket to pound out the unnatural purple flames.
“You have my blessing,” Batarel howled, wincing as he formed the words. “You have my blessing.”
“I haven’t even asked her anything,” Lucifer said.
“Blessings come before you ask something important, dear,” Anne explained.
“Elandril will bless this crazy romance too, I’m sure,” Sariel said, throwing his enflamed vest to the ground and pounding it out with a wing. “Are we going to do this or not?”
“Yes,” Anne said.
“I still haven’t asked the question,” Lucifer said.
“Is everything OK in there?” a nurse asked from behind the door.
“Everything’s fine,” Anne called back.
“We could ask her to administer a sleeping agent,” Lucifer said.
“It wouldn’t work with the negeltu powder in his system. By the way, because I put some on your scalp, you won’t be able to sleep for a while either.”
“I’ll have to think of something to pass the time I guess,” he said, smiling.
“Seriously going to throw up over here,” Sariel said.
He had stopped trying to put out fires that weren’t within arm’s reach minutes ago. A low temperature fire like this couldn’t hurt demons or elves anyway. If Batarel started raining down chaos maelstroms, or channeling a chaos bolt, that was a different matter.
“Anne, will you marry me and become the Queen of Chaos, once I take my rightful place on the throne?”
“I already said yes.”
“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ask the question.”
She pressed into him, and they locked lips for over a minute. Lucifer would have kissed her longer had flames not singed his clothes. They broke from their embrace, and he panicked as he tried to think of a way to explain to Gaea why all of her furniture and drapes were on fire.
“Sariel? What the hell, man?”
“I got caught up in the moment,” Sariel said.
“You’re so lazy,” Lucifer said.
Sariel shrugged. “I blame bad genetics. Welcome to the family, Anne. I mean officially and not in an adopted way.”
“Thanks.” She shook her head and opened the negeltu leaf. There was still plenty of powder left. “We
need you, Daddy. We need you to start your journey through the Hall of Souls and come back to us. Find your way back to us.”
Batarel sputtered and gagged on his tongue. She grabbed one of her knives and pried apart his teeth before placing the leaf whole in his mouth.
He grew immediately lucid and the pain seemed to ebb away. He smiled at her, and Sariel let him go. Batarel reached to her face and held her by the chin. “I’m so proud of both of you.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“Gaea has a warm heart, but don’t trust Jehovah. The fate of our universes depends on the strength of your union. Our salvation was promised by the Arnessan oracles. That’s why I’ve kept you hidden and safe.”
“They did what?” Lucifer exclaimed. “Am I the only person in this universe who doesn’t know what’s going to be happening to me in the future?”
Gaea burst through the door and shrieked as flames leapt all around her. “I can’t leave you three alone for five minutes, can I?”
“I’m pretty sure we managed well over eight minutes this time,” Sariel said.
Gaea stormed out of the room and came back with a platoon of nurses who doused the furniture, curtains, and bed with buckets of water before a practical woman fixed a hose to a nearby sink and drenched the room properly.
Gaea strode angrily up to Lucifer and Anne and was clearly about to give them a good scolding before she noticed they were holding hands and smiling at each other. “Oh …” she said. She looked behind them at the bed and saw Batarel’s closed eyes and serene expression. “I see.”
“Well, I guess I’ve been wrong before,” she said. “Sometimes, it’s just a person’s time to move on. Nothing we can do about that.”
She took the couple’s cheeks in her hands and squeezed them hard. “You guys are going to have such beautiful babies! Oh, I can’t wait! I’ll have to prepare a nursery.”
“We’re not even officially betrothed yet,” Lucifer said.
“Oh, you just leave that to me!”
Anne hugged his sopping wet shoulder as they followed Gaea out of the crispy, tattered room. Sariel wasn’t too far behind.
“Who’s hungry?” Gaea called back to them.
