Jess grinned, snapping at last out of her daze, pointedly ignoring her familiar purring and kneading her skull, only aware at that moment that she had taken off her helm. “It was something you had said. The magical enchantments and algorithms immersing that door were so potent that it was almost a construct. Well, to my mind, something that is magical and can move is definitely a construct, and any fool knows a door moves whenever you open it! And, as Twilight explained, the Spear of Sorrows can kill anything, so long as you are willing to pay the price.” She smiled. “The Spear and I had a talk. I reforged it not only to serve me, but so that upon completion of its task, the souls bound in torment to the Spear would be instantly freed. So, not only is the spear happy, but its curse is nullified as the target and spear die as one.”
“In other words…”
Jess grinned. “Yes, Malek. I killed the door.”
Twilight sniffed. “Only you, dear Jess, would find a way to kill a door.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Jess huffed, causing Malek to grin and hug his beloved shieldsister fiercely.
“Yes, oh silly one. You’ve managed to break or redefine every constant of magic, but hell, why not? This is the realm of dreams, and here, I suppose, you are the queen of dreamers.
Jess pouted. “It worked. Now we just have to get across.”
Malek grinned. "Leave that to me." Malek began to utter a low guttural chant, the stone floor stretched and screamed, as if it was being shattered and broken by Malek's will alone, the stone blocks streaming blood from the terrible rending of his words. Between all the mortar, from the very frescoes lining the walls, the blood trickled forth, draining down the corridor into the deep dark crevice beyond. Yet the blood did not fall. Rather, like a living thing, it grew, stretching itself to the far ledge where the shattered doorway was. Within moments, the great shattered hole dropping down into the fiery Abyss below was covered with an undulating bridge of crimson.
Eyes wide, Jess whistled her admiration.
“When you think about it, this whole vast tower could almost be considered a construct,” Malek grandly declared. “Look at those frescoes which no mortal made, forming even as the Tower’s master commits each of his blasphemous deeds. The twisted room of dark memories below where we spoke to the wizard’s past, I’d say that would count as this construct's brain. And a construct is, magically speaking, a living thing in and of itself! And what lives, bleeds.” Malek flashed a smug grin.
Jess laughed, securing her helmet once more. “Bravo! Reality is what we make of it here, dear brother! Now for the mad dash across!” And with that Jess and Malek raced to the doorway ahead, Twilight braced upon Jess's shoulder, grumbling about fools rushing where angels feared to tread.
13
Before Jess and Malek lay a vast chamber of magnificence and grandeur, resplendent with treasures, artifacts, and a vast display of murals, paintings, and golden statues, all of supernatural craftsmanship, all depicting scenes of basest depravity and torture.
In the center of the massive room lounged twelve beings of either darkest beauty or grossest horror. Dark angels so exquisitely elegant in form and gesture as to instantly take a mortal's breath away, all the more horrific for the hideous delights they savored. Other denizens of that chamber more appropriately resembled their appetites, Jess saw, being loathsome caricatures of beast and insect, dripping ichor, maggots, and shadow.
As one all the denizens, fair and foul alike, were feasting upon what they relished as the sweetest victuals and tastiest of fruits, sipping from golden cups of the most fragrant nectar, or intently savoring the screaming victims before them, writhing helplessly from the troughs they were spiked to, even as their flesh was slowly, delicately, torn from their shuddering bodies and savored with sweetest relish.
And at their center, upon a throne of flesh and bone sat none other than Lessel Turnsby himself, dressed in silken finery dyed deepest burgundy, ermine cloak draped casually about his shoulders. The picture of elegant repose, he casually held a slender wand that crackled with fell magics in one hand, a crystal chalice of dark nectar in the other. He tilted his head at Jess and grinned approvingly, lifting his chalice up in mock salute before drinking.
"And so, you have made it, dark Queen. A most dramatic battle you fought, fitting for our amusement." He then gestured with his wand at the swirling pool of mercury hissing by his feet that even now showed Malek and Jess battling for their lives against the horrors they had fought below. Jess fancied she could even hear the tinny sounds of battle coming from that potent tool of scrying.
He tilted his head to one side, gazing intently at Jess. “I do wonder, however, why you trouble yourself so. A creature as potent as yourself. Does my presence in this realm of dreams really offend you? I find it strange, considering that it is by maleficent works such as my own that shall allow us to finally breach the wards protecting the realm of Dawn, so that we might feast upon the succulent fruit trapped within!”
One of the Fallen with the countenance of a brooding angel stood up to gaze at Jess with haughty disdain. No no twisted amalgamation of broken souls and sorrow was this. One of the original Fallen, torn free of the Heavens above, Jess realized, tasting its essence even as it gazed at Jess with seething contempt.
"Why even exchange words with this interloper? If it seeks to test its metal, it need only meet my challenge, and we can dance the most sacred of all dances and see who emerges victorious!" He grinned savagely, his inhumanly beautiful face twisting in a mockery of angelic majesty. "Come, Hellion. Accept my challenge. Dance with me! Release yourself of all covenants and contracts with a final fearsome Rite of Conquest, so that all your powers are open to me even as my blade opens your flesh. Accept my challenge, so that I may feast upon the legions of souls that serve you, and taste the sweetness of your power!"
"Calm thyself, Vol'quir!" hissed one of the insectoid demons. He too radiated the seething power of an ancient, one who had once soared the heavens above, before choosing to Fall to unimaginable depths of depravity. A true Power of Hell, as all of them were, Jess realized.
"We know not its designation, status, or desire. You should know by now that an opponent neutralized is as good as a foe dead, without jeopardizing your own immortal existence. Let us treat with this creature, and see what it wants from us before we choose to act. Perhaps an accord can be reached, to our mutual benefit."
Even as the insectoid demon hissed and chittered words of caution, the abomination offhandedly tore free a rib from the screaming soul squirming before it, sucking upon the flesh with evident relish.
"By the gods, Jess." Malek choked back an outraged sob. "That poor man is being eaten alive. You can see his heart beating!"
"That's the point, Malek," Twilight said quietly from his mistress's shoulder, Jess focused intently on the creatures before her, visibly restraining herself from launching into a berserker's fury. "True creatures of Hell enjoy the suffering of others. The broken bodies you see squirming upon the plates of these Fallen are no longer among the living, for all that they can feel agony still. They are souls being feasted upon by these creatures, their very essence sucked and drained away with their screams."
Vol’quir smirked at the insectoid creature giving him counsel. “Very well, Suqualiit, I shall ask.” He turned to face Jess, his contemptuous sneer still in place. “Well, odd creature with the aura of a Queen and the countenance of a mortal, why are you here?”
Jess’s gaze took in the object of her mad quest, the poor girl she had known in such innocent sweetness but hours or days before, time passing strangely in this realm, now strapped upon a massive crystal slab, tubes cruelly piercing her body, dried blood crusting over those wounds and many others, her thighs oozing from vicious burns given to torment and mutilate, her mound raw and bloodied. Her face was a mass of bruises and sores, yet her eyes gazed upon Jess with a desperate hope.
“Jess!” Onnika whispered “By the gods, Jessie, please help me!” Her plea broke dow
n to desperate weeping, too exhausted to stir any further.
Jess shook with darkest fury. Her words rang throughout the chamber, seeming to resonate far longer than the laws of nature could account for. "My name is Jess, Paladin of Turnsby. My desire is the return of Onnika, and the living heart and soul of her father who has ravaged his own child and betrayed my land, committing fell acts of diabolism and treachery!"
Lessel’s laugh was full of dark mirth. He crinkled his eyes in amusement, as if entertaining a truly humorous jest. Several of the Fallen making up his council, however, hissed is sudden alarm.
“Paladin? There are no paladins left in that realm. We made sure of that, centuries ago!”
One of the monstrous lords gazed carefully at Jess, its pulsating body undulating with increasing rapidity, dozens of eye-stalks going rigid at once. "What is that… creature upon your shoulder, one called Jess?" It hissed strangely.
Twilight's laughter was low and profound. With perfect feline grace, he leaped from his master's shoulder, striding toward the increasingly nervous-looking mound of tentacles and eye-stalks, squirming in a nauseating mass. "Ah, Zovich. Don't tell me you have forgotten me? It has only been, what? Seven thousand years? Not so long for creatures such as you and I."
“Midnight!” It hissed, eye-stalks madly flickering between Jess and her familiar. “This creature cannot be… her!”
"And why is that?" a grinning Twilight queried, utterly relaxed among the group of monstrosities gazing so intently at him, indulgently scratching an itch behind his left ear.
“It should have faded to dust, eons ago! Dead like its dam! Such a thing cannot be allowed to exist!”
Twilight's chuckle was low and mocking. "My dear Zovich, are you truly so blind, with all those eyes at your disposal? Spying into so many realms, as I know you do, you have truly not sensed our dear Lilith, very much alive, still trying to stake her claim upon the mortal worlds, even now?"
The cat's eyes flashed and more than one of the terrible figures hissed and lurched back in fear or startlement, as if sensing something dire in his gaze.
Twilight flashed a feral grin. "Don't worry about Lilith. My mistress and I will deal with her when the time comes. Cross us, and we shall deal with you as well."
Zovich's swarming mass of tentacles and eye-stalks appeared to grow increasingly agitated. Food now untouched, it levitated off of its plump seating, heading for a flickering sphere of energy Jess could sense was a portal.
“Going so soon?” Twilight smirked. “Was it something I said?”
Suqualiit turned his gaze away from her familiar and the fleeing Zovich, peering at Jess carefully with its multifaceted eyes. "Jess, you said your name was, creature? Paladin, your designation?" It ground its mandibles unhappily, turning towards Twilight. "You fool with dangerous forces, Ancient One. Should disaster strike, you would be the first to fall."
Twilight’s gazed coldly at the insectoid hellion. “That is a risk I’m willing to take. The question is, are you?”
Suqualiit hissed, turning to Jess. "I have no quarrel with you, queen of Hell. I would leave in peace, and I will not hinder you, nor kill your Onnika lying helpless on the slab, whom you value… alive, I think."
Jess glared at the massive insectoid demon, caressing her mithril blade that begged to be unsheathed, to carve a sweet swath of death and destruction throughout that council hall, consequences be damned. But with sick certainty Jess knew that at least one of those Fallen demons would butcher the terrified girl, broken and helpless, gazing at Jess with such desperate hope even now, as a final act of hate, even should Jess have the power to defeat beings so potent as these.
Jess nodded coldly. “I suspect you mistake me for another. Nonetheless, should you leave now and cross me no further, I will have no quarrel with you.”
Suqualiit hissed his laughter. "No mistake made by I, ancient queen. Though dear Midnight plays a terrible game as like as not to kill him, one day." His mocking laughter sounded like a man's death rattle. "I plan to be far away from these realms when that red day finally comes." The terrible insectoid creature then bowed his chitinous head. "Farewell, dread queen. May your days of peace before final madness strikes extend far, far into the future."
Lessel’s face had become livid, his countenance splotchy with rage. “Suqualiit! How dare you threaten my vessel! And now you bargain with this interloper to flee? She is just a girl! Mortal and foolish. Whatever temporary power Delving has granted her, it is no match for a council fit to rule a newly birthed realm of Hell!”
The pair of Demon Lords proceeded toward the oddly pulsating portal, coldly ignoring the one who thought he was their equal. “Zovich! Suqualiit! We had a bargain!”
"A bargain is not worth our lives, you asinine fool!" Hissed the multi-tentacled Zovich as he slipped at last into the portal. "The one request we made of you, you could not keep!" With that, the undulating demonlord stuck a tendril into the flickering blue light, and Jess could feel the creature instantly transporting to a great road that traveled to the darkest planes of Hell. She shivered, somehow understanding all too well what walking down that road entailed.
Suqualiit gazed at Lessel with eyes that radiated contempt such that even the grandiose diabolist paled and shrunk back in his chair. "Your scholarship was flawed, mortal. The tomes you brought to our attention lacked that which was clearly in your history. For that alone, I would rend your flesh and take your soul, but I suspect it has already been claimed by another." He hissed his chilling laughter, gazing a final time at Jess before he too entered the portal, and fled upon the Great Road beyond.
“The Red Queen died long ago! There hasn’t been a warrior queen in centuries! It was a moot point!” Lessel screamed at the fading forms, to no avail.
The other demons, fair and foul alike, hissed and cursed and debated in a language as old as their original Fall from grace. Terrible blasphemy that made the very stone pillars at their feet crumble with age, the souls between them screaming in torment, Lessel himself hissing with sharp pain even as poor Onnika screamed, her ears bleeding from the terrible sibilant whispers that threatened madness with every syllable. And Jess blinked, realizing she could understand every guttural whisper, clearly hear every word.
“We must strike her down, as one!” The inhumanely beautiful dark haired Vol’quir demanded, his dread blade half unsheathed, the air screaming as if it were being sucked down into the very Void until he slammed his longsword back in its sheath, signifying his intense displeasure as others hissed, cackled, and screeched to be heard.
“You know what that creature is, don’t you? We dare not risk it! If it awakens fully, we will all perish,” whispered one of the shadows.
One boar-like demon snorted. “Surely if it truly was what you fear, Zakatiil, it would have already consumed all our souls! It is but a pale shadow of a nameless fear, no doubt constructed to appear just so! My voice is with Vol’quir. We destroy it, together!”
Zakatiil, a being of shadowy darkness hissed his disagreement, taking counsel with several other of the most ancient of their number. As one the four shadowy Elder Demons nodded their heads in accord. “Let us offer a contest. A duel. Our champion against hers. Sealed in a circle of blood. If she has the ability to defeat one of us where we have achieved Primacy, she is a power to be feared. If we defeat her, the point is mute. And the circle will contain even an extreme burst of… excess, should all not go as expected.”
“Even a blood circle sealed by mutual pact will not stop the Immortality Weapon once it Ignites!” A hideously undulating mass of eyes and tentacles protested. “Its power is infinite! There is no limit! It will destroy all universes in all directions until it burns out, decades from now. We will all perish in flame!”
“That weapon is a myth,” another hissed. “Lilith went mad and perished, along with her hideous child, millennia ago!”
“Midnight of the Moonlit Realm gazes at us even now, you fool!” whispered another of the shadowy forms.
“Ever the counselor of she who I shall not name, that remnant never was one for petty lies. If he says Lilith still walks the Dark Paths, it would be wise to discover how and why she has hidden from us for so long, and so well.”
The shadowy demons nodded as one, even as a monstrous, pustule-ridden creature roared, it's beady porcine eyes bulging with animal-like terror. “You all felt Lilith's forging reignite! Each and every one of you sensed its monstrous gaze peering out at us, its hideous black soul caressing our own! We all sensed its awful presence when it opened itself to true madness, you all heard the clock of eternity tick that much closer to the final hour!”
One of his boar-headed fellows squealed in protest, so agitated as to draw a blade of undulating shadow, his companion stepping back and hissing, drawing his own falchion of oozing crimson. The porcine demon shuddered, as if gathering ahold of himself, though his weapon cut jagged slashes into the bleeding air as he roared. “This is but a wizard's familiar granted an infernal aura, you gullible fool! A familiar of diabolist pets belonging to our enemies conspiring against us even now, playing upon our fears as if we were simple fools! And what we sensed was but a dark whisper, a memory of the Void, an echo of ancient powers long past. All the Dreadseers agree!”
And on the Dark Lords argued, completely ignoring an increasingly agitated Lessel’s demands.
Twilight yawned and turned toward Jess. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Jess smirked. "That we just go and get Onnika, and kill only those who interfere? Sure."
“Bloody hells, Jess. You do make a strong impression on people, don’t you?” Malek grimaced, shivering as he carefully circled the fiercely debating demonlords who kept sneaking baleful glares at Jess.
“It’s not my fault this time, I swear!”
“It’s irrelevant,” Twilight said sharply. “Whatever delusions those fools are plagued with, if it allows us to get out of here with one less bloodbath, so much the better.”
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