Avarice Secret Unquiet CH 40

Where Angels Dare

Xonereth entered the cavernous banquet room. To describe this space as merely a room was woefully inadequate. More of a cathedral of dark grandiosity, such was its sheer magnificence and size. He gazed toward the head of the enormous banquet table, carved in its entirety from black basalt, which was designed to seat all of the highborn nobility, as it did this demon night. Noting with a dark reservation the seat at the end of the table again stood glaringly vacant. His mother the Prime Consort sat to the right-hand side of that vacant chair, and his brother Valefor sat to its left, bedecked in a robe so ostentatious it would have outshone the King's. That was if the King had bothered to be present.

Inwardly Xonereth cringed. Which pretty face was it this time? Tamiel perhaps, maybe Raphael? No, it would be Samael of that he was sure. His father was so smitten with the angels, he rarely appeared to rule. This absence from Royal duty had become a very large problem for his family, and there was much talk and pressure for Semizas' abdication and subsequent joining with the great Nethrizil. Many felt the ancient King's time had run. He had ruled for thousands of millennia, and very few demons could remember a time without his governance. Of course, his father the King had other ideas, such as toying with the God's newest creations above, the angels.

So it was to be that he would reenact the past. The Demon King had gained a millennium of experience and hindsight in the years since. Surely he could ace this test. As he paraded by all the beauteous nobles he overheard their chatter, realizing that there was about to be an important announcement made, and a heavy feeling of dread washed over him. This was the moment where everything was about to be turned on its head. The day the woes of his house began.

He took his place by his mother's side, obediently inclining his head before her in deference to her rank. The action felt strange to him as he had not bowed this way before anyone for a millennium. The table was set with the finest goblets, cutlery, and platters of Grishak design, rare black metals, and encrusted gemstones glinted evilly in the half darkness, for the demons abhorred the light. Platters of otherworldly delicacies were set before them, fruits and meats of the unknowable creatures of this world transformed by the most skilled chefs into edible works of art.

Opposite him sat a beautiful demoness, he was sure he had seen her before but he could not recall her name. His brother gave him a disdainful, insincere smile, and again Xonereth inclined his head. Valefor was heir here, and in this moment whether Xonereth liked it or not, and higher in rank.

Prime Consort Lilli Ardat then stood, and as she did so all rose from their places in one fluid motion. To the human eye, this would have appeared as beautiful choreography.

"We are gathered here for my son the Prince to make an important announcement." Lili Ardat took up the goblet of a rare black vintage that was set before her and proposed a toast. "To my glorious Son." She looked across with loving approval at Valefor, and Xonereth could see the high esteem she held him in. It was a pity as it was ill-deserved. Old emotions surfaced that he had not felt since that time, jealousy, resentment, and anger. He fought them back as this was part of the test he was sure.

The numerous beautiful nobles raised their goblets and made a toast to their Crown Prince. Valefor, well aware he had his audience stood tall and composed himself. The ravishing demoness, her long raven hair bedecked in numerous delicate silver snakes that writhed, hissed, and slithered, looked toward the prince, it was clear she was excitedly awaiting his announcement.

Xonereth already knew what this precise moment would bring, the beginnings of a stain on his dynasty. He looked toward his brother's folly and waited for the words that would change all of their destinies, and bring shame to his house.

"My evilly wicked subjects. I bring you all here today to clear the air." The Crown Prince's black eyes glittered with a barely shrouded malevolence.

The Prime Consort's dark eyes flashed with concern at her beloved son's first uttered words, but she did not interupt.

"Many of you expect me to announce..." Valefor turned towards the demoness next to him and she beamed at him radiantly exposing her rows of fine sharp teeth. "The taking of Morrigan as my Prime Consort."

The assembled guests were silent, all eyes locked on the Prince who would one day rule over all.

"However, I will politely decline." The haughty prince then raised his glass to all assembled in a gesture of pure insolence and mockery.

With that pronouncement, the banquet room erupted into hisses and many cries of anger. This union had been required and expected. Never had an heir refused to take the joining that his family had arranged, it was not done.

Morrigan stood looking at the upstart Prince in stunned silence. Her face was a mask of white, however, her displeasure was obvious. The snakes in her hair reared and spat, and tungsten sparks flew from the tips of her shining black nails. She did not speak even in her anger and shock, she knew that it would be folly to insult or strike a member of the ruling caste. In her fury, she vaporized into a cloud of black smoke.

The beautiful nobles then fell into angry disarray, they could not believe what they had just heard. The Prime Consort completely forgot her royal bearing running from the chamber to her apartments. The room cleared until it was just Valefor and Xonereth sitting in their places at a table brimming with glorious food and wine.

"I guess they were a bit disappointed brother, but she really isn't me." Valefor smugly sat and continued to calmly sip his ebony wine, as though nothing untoward had happened. "This looks good," he said, " it would be a pity to waste it." He helped himself to the fine dishes set before him.

"Xonereth did not reply, he merely gave his brother a look of disappointment and departed after his mother.

*****

He had for the time being simply reenacted the past. As far as Xonereth was aware he didn't need to do anything in that moment, or at least he had hoped that was the correct assumption. He hurried down the hallways bathed in darkness where great chandeliers hung that gave off no light at all.

As he had anticipated, his mother was in her chambers looking out over the balcony on one of the upper spires of Narkeem'ezet. He stopped behind her and quietly awaited her acknowledgment. She turned after a time, and in response, he bowed low. On rising he could see her pale face was stained by the black of tears. He wanted to say that his elder brother was not worth her show of emotion, however, he did not give utterance to the thought.

"He disgraced us." She said regally. "This union must be! How could my beautiful son do this to me?" Her bejeweled fingers with their long black nails were interlocked with one another as she wrung her fists in anger and frustration.

Xonereth stood motionless, very aware of his mother's shame and pain. It had affected him as well.

"I want you to talk to him, and if not him you must talk to your father." His mother ordered.

Xonereth closed his eyes and swallowed. He was honor-bound to do her bidding, just as he had when the world was so much newer, before their strife began. But the idea of talking to his brother about the power of tradition and why it must be observed irked him. Valefor never listened no matter what he said. As for an audience with his father? Well, he was sure that he would have to travel to the realm of the gods to get that. However, no matter how difficult all this may be the Oracle was watching in judgment, and he must find a way forward.

*****

"Not now!" Valefor whined as Xonereth entered the Royal baths. The bath servants scurried from the dark and dank chamber as the younger Prince entered.

Valefor was lying back in the large pond of silvered water, entwined in the carnal embraces of two lesser demonesses. On seeing Xonereth both of them wished to dart away, however, Valefor bid them to remain. They were however very uncomfortable with this order.

"I know you are here to lecture me little brother but my mind is made up," Valefor said smugly. "I don't care what mother thinks. One day I will be king, and I will do as I please."

Xonereth was quick to formulate his reply. "That you may brother, and as king you are free to do so many things that most cannot, however, who you join with is not one of those freedoms! You have known of this desired union since childhood brother! Morrigan is your chosen consort. By refusing her you have insulted her house and fractured the cohesion of the court!"

"She and they will all get over it." Valefor still caressing the demonesses said flippantly. "I suppose you are going to tell Father?"

Xonereth did not answer, he just stared at his arrogant brother in exasperation. He wondered if he could indeed at this point change the future? If he could only convince Valefor to go ahead with the joining? Perhaps this is what he was supposed to do. If he could do this successfully the war of the brothers would be prevented, and Sheharizade would freely be his. He would not be King of the Demons, and all would be as it should have been surely. The balance restored. With that in mind, he began to argue with his wayward sibling.

Xonereth knew then that this was the precise moment in time when the true divide began, and the acrimony that Valefor felt for him manifested. From this time forward both siblings would be locked in a deadly competition for what the other craved. They shouted and spat at those damp echoing walls, with neither winning the contest.

*****

Xonereth must try a different tactic, even if his pleas fell on deaf ears. Further bickering with his brother was futile. The arrogant Valefor must be brought to heel by some other method. He would attempt to beseech his Father to return to his long-neglected throne. Perhaps reinstating some stability to the Royal Household. Valefor still needed time and paternal guidance to become a good ruler.

To persuade Semiazas was going to be difficult. The old ruler was completely besotted by the newest of God's creations the angels. He spent most of his time in the upper planes, 'the heavens' as they were labeled by the humans who dwelt below. Xonereth's father Semiazas was known to the humans by another name Satan, Lucifer, or the deceiver. He who had convinced some of the more rebellious angels to live free from the laws of God, and their omnipotent creator was losing his patience with them. Xonereth chuckled when he thought of all the foolish mortals who desired passage to that place of empty light and soundless nothingness, proof to him that they must all be deliriously witless.

The light of the heavens did not harm the demons in the same way they were seared by daylight on the human plane. In those days before the banishment, both angels and demons could walk the heavens side by side in their beauteous guises. Xonereth rarely traveled there as he was truly repulsed by the bright pastel colors, insipid and ugly to his taste. The Heavens were an aesthetic that made him bilious. Not only that, but Semiazas was both unapproachable and stubborn, and he barely gave his second-born son a glance. He had left the kingdom in the hands of his consort and he was only moderately interested in Valefor's progress. Yet it was a mission that could not end in failure.

Before Xonereth departed, he made a stop at the base of the great Nethrizil. The anchor of his world. He allowed himself a fleeting trace of a smile as he closed his ink black orbs and knelt beneath Nethrizil's encompassing branches of darkness. In the past, he had never thought of his visits here as a simple pleasure. He was a highborn demon, he could have any pleasure he desired, and yet this... this... He had no words for this feeling. A light breeze ruffled the tree's unbroken mantle of ebon leaves. Creating for those demon ears that might hear, discordant music. Oh, how he had taken his world for granted, just as he had his high station. In that moment Xonereth absorbed every sensation the moment offered. Grateful for the chance to return to the past even if only for a little while, to admire how truly great his world was. To remember poignantly what he fought to save.

He had drawn strength from the great icon of his world, and just before he departed he inclined his head in silent reverence to the ageless gnarled tree. "I shall save you," he whispered, "by all that I am and have you will be as mighty as before."

He had then taken a willing Zilant's flight upward beyond the darkness. Higher and higher they climbed as the black faded to an ethereal gray mist and slowly transformed to white. The air was different here in these upper reaches. Gone was the comforting heaviness of his world as he slid from the Zilant's back, to be replaced by a light freshness that was for demon-kind hard to describe. With a few powerful wing beats, the beast flew away, he longed to go back with it to all that was familiar.

The ground under his bejeweled sandals was harsh and bright. He could see no pebbles, grasses, or soil as he walked. Only a monotonous stretch of fluffy white cloud that was somehow miraculously solid beneath his step. There were no trees curtained in heavy dark foliage, nor craggy mountain ranges to draw the eye. No inky black rivers that wound sluggishly through plains of black grasses and shining basalt rock. No cries of the tortured souls or of the many-toothed and clawed monsters that hunted them. This was an empty world. What did his father even see in this place that could pull him away from the beauty of Narkeem'ezet?

The ancient King was not difficult to locate, the dark amongst the light. Xonereth on seeing his Sire bowed low, so low that his forehead caressed the floor, black hair flaring out across the bright expanse like a dichotomy of contrast. He knew such obeisance was something his father wished to see from all who addressed him, be they prince or the lowliest Grishak miner. He waited in silence to be noticed.

Despite his vast age, Semiazas was still entrancingly handsome. Be it by sorcery or by the merit of his bloodline. He was seated in all his dark glory surrounded by the adoring bevy of angels, who were in their innocence completely naked with only their great white wings to shield their modesty. They did not speak but communicated in almost inaudible sighs. Their skin was a flawless perfect paleness like that of translucent porcelain, their hair a perfection of spun gold that cascaded over their shoulders. Light emanated from their physical beings and their eyes mirrored the demons in that they had no pupils, but only glowed with a diffuse golden light. Their large wings held them aloft white like great swans, and they beat the air as they half hovered about the demon in their midst. Caressing, kissing, laughing, and worshiping his very difference.

For a prolonged time, they ignored his approach. Xonereth was unused to such treatment, however, he steeled himself to endure. Never breaking from his formal bow. Waiting for the angel's lilting laughter to die away and their wings to part thus revealing his father to him.

Finally, Semiazas spoke. "Ah... my second born, why is it you seek me?"

Xonereth felt a strangeness to hear the voice of his father again, but he could not say it evoked any kind of love in him. He rose gracefully from his prostrate position, drawing himself up like a king. On gazing at his father again after a millennium he felt a flush of inexplicable emotions grip him. Sorrow, anger, regret, and a coldness toward one who had never cared for his progress in life. His father had never valued him, he was a spare, a nonentity. Something that would only have value if the unthinkable happened. Semiazas had never shown the slightest interest in his second-born son. There was an unrestrained part of him that wanted to tell his Father that he had been wrong, that he was now ruler. That Valefor was as he had often stated unfit for Kingship and had been long ago exiled.

Perhaps the Oracle had hoped that he would break at this moment, but he would stand firm. He willed himself to obey formality and began to speak as a subject would address his king. Though inside he burned with an unabated fury, tinged with a feeling of helplessness.

"I was sent at the Queen's behest my King." Xonereth attempted to sound as neutral as possible.

Semiazas looked at him for long moments as Xonereth's reflection was caught like twin mirrors in his father's bright, baleful eyes.

Then Semiazas spoke with deliberation, sarcasm laced his every word. "Ah I see, she misses me... Does Geryon no longer suit her desires?"

Xonereth did his best to ignore the mocking tone and pressed on with his mission, remembering last time he had failed just as he expected he would this time. The lure the angels had over his father was just too powerful. "It is Sire I regret to say, something far more deeply troubling. The Crown Prince has publicly refused the union with Morrigan. Your Consort and the court require your return." Xonereth didn't miss the unmistakable flash of anger behind his Father's gaze on hearing this news. The angels felt his anger too, and one by one they backed away and flew off soundlessly into the mist.

The two demons were now alone, darkness in a field of light.

Semiazas' next words were laced with vain glorious pride. The demon pulled himself up to his full height in an intimidating gesture. Sparks flew from his black fingernails, and his light-less orbs glittered malevolently. Most would have shrunk away, but Xonereth was no stranger to such power and fury.

The demon inhaled deeply scenting the air, his nostrils flaring. He tilted his head to one side. "I sense a weakness in your flesh my son. Perhaps you spend too much time in the lives and arms of the weak humans, yet you scold me for the company I keep..." His blackened lips were drawn into a thin cruel line, his sharp teeth clearly visible peeking out to rest on his lower lip.

This time though the audience was slightly different, and Xonereth remembered that the blood that coursed in his veins now ran red. His body was tainted by mortality. His father could obviously sense this and he became even more alarmed as he wondered if he had somehow already failed the oracle's test, and in trying to change the future he had also changed the past.

He was snapped back to the present by his father's vitriolic outburst. One that was so vehement and thunderous it surely must have awoken the gods and scoured all the heavens. "I am your King and you can tell me to do nothing! Of course, Valefor is not ready, nor do I wish him to be. My time is not yet run. Now be gone you!"

With the angry utterance of that command, the dark robes Semiazas wore swirled about him, and wings of a raven's black manifested from the demon's pale shoulders. Identical they were in all but hue to that of the angels he so pursued. As Semiazas rose his upward flight buffeted Xonereth like the lashing of a fierce squall. Yet the prince stood firm against the demon's palpable anger.

Like it or not it was the King's directive that he leave. The audience was concluded and there was nothing more to be said. Semiazas' regal form was absorbed by the swirling purity of the clouds, and Xonereth was left in a field of soft nothingness that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see.

Silence flooded his senses, painful in this void of white. Yet Xonereth's mind was far from numbed. As ruler, the demon king had always been so sure of his edicts and actions. He had never second-guessed himself even for a moment. Yet now this feeling of gnawing uncertainty ravaged him as he stood there torn as to what he should do. He felt so helpless. He could not win against his power-drunk sibling, he could not even affect the king's return in a time of unprecedented crisis. What was he learning from these experiences? Could he save and restore Nethrizil and his world, and what about Sheharazade? Xonereth was unused to failure, and his emotions sat heavy on his shoulders like a shawl crafted of leaden thread.

Again the question spoke to him with silent dread. Do I change the past to mend the future, or do I resist the temptation to do so? He was no closer to his answers.