Page 63 of The Simurgh
Lord Enoch had said very little. He’d nodded. As though what Lucifer revealed to him was already known.
Not for the first time Lucifer suspected that was exactly the case. He’d always wondered at the ease with which he’d been able to secret a battered and lifeless prince out of an abaddon, and all the way to Lady Satine’s doorstep in Holly Village. And at the way one of his rather lack-lustre illusions continued to fool those who guarded the abaddons, into believing Vassago safely in his prison, after all this time.
The reasons behind such leniency were not hard to find. He and Enoch shared a brutal secret. Lucifer knew it was the lord’s blow that ended Seraphiel.
Vassago was not to blame. Certainly the prince had inflicted a severe injury, whilst gripped by a beserker rage and the gods knew what else, but, despite what he’d been allowed to believe, Vassago was not responsible for the angel’s death.
Lucifer faltered. He reached for the stark remains of a trunk that jutted from the cold mud to steady himself.
The angel’s growing madness had been frightening to observe, the times when Raph would wake as though from a trance, unsure how long he’d been sitting there, or where he’d intended to go. He was absent for great periods of time, and would not speak of where he’d been. Worse were the occasions, in the later days, when he’d arrive at Lucifer’s rooms with a dazed look upon his face, his hands bloodied, and no idea of whether the stains were his, or belonged to someone else. His secretive work on Vassago too, was deeply worrying. The wild prince grew wilder, and Seraphiel’s hunger for greater violence showed in every erratic swing of the Dominion’s vestige.
Lucifer had lost the angel, long before the day Seraphiel prostrated himself before the Ophanim Throne, begging Enoch for release.
‘I will betray you, my lord. I do not trust my own mind, my own divinity, any more. The waters of the lake are toxic and I’ve not been careful enough. I fear Samyaza’s power will corrupt me, as it did him. Please, tell him, Lucifer, you know me best of all. And I know you view me more and more with a stranger’s eyes. I endanger Arcadia. I cannot be allowed to continue.’
Seraphiel had as good as forced Lucifer to sign his death warrant. He’d not forgive him for it, but nor could Lucifer have lied. The power of a Seraph could not be left to the whims of unpredictable madness. The angel was only one step away from the gods, who all seemed to have abandoned him in his hour of need.
But Lucifer’s own hand in the angel’s death haunted him, sickened him. Made him do utterly foolish things.
And the Lord Enoch said nothing of it as the king went to his knees before him, bringing word of traitors and hidden princes in the world of the purebreds. Begging forgiveness.
Instead, the Lord of Arcadia had given Lucifer a Trumpeter, made him its Herald, and told him to right the wrongs.
‘Take my blessing of free will. Do what you must. Go where your instincts take you, King of Daemonkind.’
The audience had ended then, not another word said.
Lucifer shook off the memory, touching at his chest to ensure the Trumpeter was still with him. He focused upon his boots to bring himself back into line, cursing his poor choice of footwear. He’d been in such a rush to act on the kitsune’s information, to see for himself if there was any truth to this place being the lair of the Morrigan and their traitorous angels, he’d not spent a second considering his wardrobe. Such things were trivial. Until they were not. Now his feet ached with the pinch of sodden socks, swelling the fit of his boot far too tight.
At least the view was more pleasing.
Ahead, the terrain took on a remarkable change. A sprawl of forest challenged the marshlands, the unique flora, unlike anything one could see in the purebred world, or Arcadia for that matter, glittering and sparkling with fanciful displays of prettiness. Rising from the density were a cluster of identical pristine white towers: half a dozen at a quick glance, though likely more in the distance where the purple haze that bathed the land made it difficult to discern. The towers were like great lengthened toadstools, each with cobalt caps trimmed with a gold design that resembled a simple crown, accented with evenly spaced pearls of gold.
Lucifer quickened his pace, vexed, and yet encouraged, by the compulsion to move on. Ahead lay the way he must go. He was as certain now, as he’d been about the need for Vassago to have the pendant watch.
It was not pleasing, to be so influenced and bandied about.
Today he’d allow Seraphiel’s strange, posthumous influence to guide him only so far. He was done with being made a servant to his grief. Lucifer touched at his chest. He could not feel it through all the layers but by the gods he could not forget what he bore beneath his clothes. Hanging there so simply upon its chain was a return to reason.
Lucifer’s toe caught at something beneath the muddy ground, and he growled at the wetness of the soil, the emptiness of the landscape. He glanced over his shoulder, as he’d done countless times since he’d stepped into the cockaigne. Always with a suspicion he’d find the ankou there. He’d done his level best to ensure the blasted creature was kept away. The soppy fool was infatuated with Vassago, ruled by cock and mostly-dead heart, and sickeningly devoted to ensuring the daemon’s well-being.
With Silas’s resurrection of the Valkyrie, he’d proved himself far more formidable a creature than when Lucifer first met him at Holly Village. The ankou would never have agreed that the righteous path lay in ensuring all the dangers annihilated, including his beloved, unsteady prince.
Neither had Mr Ahari been convinced, so Lucifer had taken a different tack there. Taking to blackmail immediately. Threatening every kitsune in the purebred world.
‘Ernest Weatherby may not be the only nine-tailed turncoat.’ He’d told the old man, who’d been wide-eyed and sickly pale. ‘A thorough investigation is paramount. And the violence of that inquisition shall rely upon you, Mr Ahari. Do as I say, and perhaps there’ll be few who end up so tormented as that creature.’
Unsavoury business, this entire debacle. And Lucifer’s own duplicity was a festering ulcer in his gut.
He covered what remained of the marshlands quickly and with much relief set his foot upon the more solid ground of the forest. Walking into its depths Lucifer peered with great disdain at the sparkling light beneath the canopy. Gods, was there nothing dull in this realm?
After a short while he slowed at the sound of distant voices. Lucifer crouched behind a fanning plant of opal hues, waiting. The voices grew clearer, and his ears needed only a few moments to absorb the conversation in order for his aptness for translation to take hold. Languages, whatever the species or race, were no obstacle for daemon kings and Higher Angels of Arcadia.
The fellows who chattered so casually and loudly were Elven. Lucifer had a collection of books on the fae species gathering dust somewhere in his libraries. In fact, he had collections of so many of all the worlds’ inhabitants, Faelands, Arcadia or otherwise, that Seraphiel teased him with suggestions that Lord Enoch may one day demand all be transferred to White Mountain for his own shelves.
‘I think you are more drawn to those books then you are to me, Luci.’ He used to tease, a glint in his eye.
No. Never.‘Some of them perhaps.’