Oathbreaker ch. 9.20 - Prophecies of an Absent God (Patreon)

The Margravine brought us to her personal chambers. It is the custom of abyssal redoubts for a demon lord to seclude themself in the lowest, most buried section of a fortress, for it is expected that any serious attempt at invasion will occur from the skies, and aggression is always directed upward.

The Red Bloom bucked that tradition and dwelt in the crystal towers high above her court, closest to the maimed skies and higher hells far above the Drossian Sea. They were opulent rooms fashioned of the same carnelian stone as the rest of the structure, with candelabras of ever-burning bone and commanding windows set with red glass that tinted the hellscape beyond with a bloody hue. The Dread Princess of the Succubi claimed several towers for herself, each with an open balcony that allowed flight between them but no bridges for foot traffic.

The Margravine paced before the windows of her expansive salon, and not even the Almoner seemed willing to interrupt that brooding march. The demon lord’s hooves clipped against the orange stone of the floor, the sound a rhythmic clap of agitation that went on for some time. Her feathered wings drifted behind her, occasionally shedding smoldering feathers that drifted through the air. I dared not take one, even when they drew close enough to catch.

The Red Bloom suddenly came to a halt. “You were very brazen today.”

Though her back was to her brother, her red reflection stared at him in the window. The Almoner, for his part, maintained a sense of startling patience compared to the barely contained rage he’d displayed below. Perhaps he sensed that he’d pushed his luck.

“Take it as a demonstration of how serious I am,” he told her. “And the Prince of Ingres, really? He is a wild savage.”

“He controls the most prominent gate between Abysm and the Waste of Whist,” the Margravine explained as though she spoke to a foolish spawn. “He holds influence over the Arsenical and Dolorous Hells, has treaties with the Ivorine Lords, and has single-handedly waged war on Orkael multiple times, successfully. I would not dismiss the Beast of Bedlam out of hand.”

“All alliances are transient in this place, you know that.” The Almoner began to pace in agitation, his walk more a tiger’s stalk than the Red Bloom’s confident glide. “You cannot build a society of demonkind, Berisembri, only compel them into ebb and flow, like a river prone to floods.”

“Did you come all this way just to criticize my politics?” The Margravine asked in a droll voice, sounding bored. “You might have spared yourself the trip.”

“I came here to prevent you from being washed away in the tide,” the Almoner snapped. “And found exactly what I feared — indolence and vanity.”

Bubbling laughter filled the salon as the Margravine threw her head back in a laugh. “Indolent vanity is my regalia, Lamash! I am the Queen of Succubi, if you had not heard.”

I narrowed my eyes. Hadn’t the Almoner told me his name was lost? Then again, those syllables did not strike me like a brass thunderbolt, so I guessed it to be the same as his title — a moniker, just as the name by which he called the Margravine was merely her Kandaric name, and not her God-given one.

“I heard that you were filling your new court with pillage from the Silver City,” the Almoner said darkly. “And yet, I did not believe it until I saw for myself. What were you thinking? All our struggle to reclaim the Heavens, just to bring its relics down here for the dregs of the Drossian to pick at?”

“And why should they not see the product of their efforts?” The Margravine shrugged her strong shoulders. “Why should my sisters and daughters of the Bloom not be permitted to admire the treasures of Heaven, even here in Perdition? Let us spread the wealth of the Empyrean, I say. My palace shall become a great museum for all the denizens of the Drossian Sea to enjoy.”

The Almoner’s disagreement practically burned off him clear as the black fire rippling from his violet flesh. The Margravine glanced back at him, amusement writ on the edges of her red face, then relented.

“Speak to me of omens,” she said with an indulgent sigh. “You already spilled the jewels to the prince and my handmaidens, may as well have it all out now before the rumors grow to a pitch.”

The Almoner made a visible effort to steady himself, then nodded and began to speak. “Some time past, during my treks upriver, I heard an interesting rumor from a Hunter of Kurganzir. It told me that its brethren had been finding numerous omens in the wilds beyond Orkael. Forests growing higher and forming the shape of thorned towers, storms that echoed with the sounds of a woman’s screams and a child’s cries, soul rivers running dramatically off course as their waters turned restive. Even the beasts of Hell seem to be acting out of sorts, seeking every crevice and burrow they could, as though all attempting to find cracks into the higher realms at once.”

The Margravine shook her head, causing her fiery tresses to shift about her shoulders. “I have either been treating or warring with every abyssal lord who might have the power to cause a deluge into the higher realms. The rest who are capable of calling the Hells to war are lost too deep in the Abyss to make such a move. Or they are in the Heavens.”

“That is what I thought,” the Almoner agreed. “Though you know as well as I that there are some powers in the further depths that might push Hell upward should they stir.”

I could tell that disturbed the Margravine. She wheeled on her brother. “But we would have felt it. I rule the very gates of the Abyss!”

The Almoner held up a placating hand. “Yes. Obviously, I made inquiries to see what might be occurring. At first I thought it was you, bringing up more fodder for the war in the Empyrean, but it soon became evident that more was at play. I strayed near the borders of Orkael. The Zosite have also been disturbed. They are trying to be subtle about it, but the Iron Hell is mobilizing to some purpose, that much was obvious. Zos himself has expanded.”

“The Iron Carcass is always growing,” the Margravine said with a bored wave of her hand. “It’s a weed.”

She adjusted her crimson robes, which she’d pulled up to cover herself after leaving the throne room. They were several shades darker than her scarlet skin, fashioned to secure around her neck to leave her arms and back bare, a necessity with her wings. They were both robe and form-fitting dress at once, and lacked adornment. The Red Bloom did not need jewels and finery to enhance herself. The strange instrument she’d played for the Prince of Ingres stood by the balcony doors, on a stand made from several conjoined skeletons fashioned from delicate white glass.

“Growing dramatically,” the Almoner said in a dry voice. “Enough to cause tremors even in the Material Plane. It became obvious that some extreme event was occurring, a shift in the cosmic balance, but not so shattering as to be obvious to anyone not looking for omens.”

“The Kandaric Monks should have sensed something,” the Red Bloom mused.

The Almoner did not repeat his opinion of the Order that he’d confided to me. He continued his narrative. “I investigated further. I spoke with many contacts both in the Hells and in the higher planes. I contacted warlocks, narrowed down the source of the disturbances. It became clear that there was a shift in the Empyreal Fabric, new fractures in the superstructure of Creation. I can only think of a handful of events that would cause the planes to tilt in such a way.”

A grim chuckle escaped the Margravine’s lampblack lips. “Have our kin found another dupe, then?”

“It is the conclusion I have come to,” the Almoner said with a resolute nod. “Another Heir has been selected. There is a new god in Creation, and not just any. The signs all indicate that Abysm is expanding, and the Iron Hell grows to contain it. Not growing fast enough, in the latter case.”

“That does not mean it is the King of Antriss,” the Red Bloom argued. “Others aligned to our axis have ascended since the Silver City fell.”

“But if it is him?” The Almoner insisted. “We cannot stand idly by and wait for the Dark Lord of the Abgrûdai to come to his full power and supplant us.”

“Supplant us?” The Margravine asked, her face tilting in the window.

The Almoner made a fist and took a step forward. “You do not think it possible? The Abyss’s children have grown to a strength far past anything we might have once predicted. Asteroth did not help matters when he stirred them up and convinced them that…”

He cut himself off and glanced at me, his gaze a dark glower, then he gave me a command.

“Do Not Hear.”

And I did not. There was a strange buzzing in my ears, like they were suddenly full of flies, then all noise ceased and I was lost in a total absence of sound. The two continued speaking, and I played at being baffled even as my mind raced at what they spoke of. Ascended? Heirs? What was this? I knew of the prophesied Dark Lord of Antriss, but was He not already risen?

The Gatebreaker had led us to victory over the God-Tyrant. Many of us believed it to be him.

The Gatebreaker. Ager Roth. Asteroth, to his fellow Onsolain. His name among demonkind was a Kandaric bastardization of that divinely given name, just as Berisembri and Lamash were.

Though I’d been deafened, I could still read lips and follow their exchange. The Margravine spoke as mortals speak, and her brother followed suit. I watched the beautiful curve of her mouth in the blood-hued window and caught much of the following conversation.

“We are Abgrûdai,” the Margravine said.

“Please.” I could almost imagine the scoff in the Almoner’s reply. “We have tamed them, but surely you have not convinced yourself that we belong here, in the place of our exile? I was in full agreement with overturning the Odfather’s rule, He had become old and impotent, but you do not take the beasts as your brothers simply because you have been cast into the fields.”

The Margravine, who had taken many such “beasts” as much more than that, turned to face her brother. At least, the one who had been her brother in the eyes of their maker. “What is it you want, Lamash? I have what I want. I have punished those who wronged me. I have shared the fruits of Heaven with my sister succubi and given them the luxuries of divinity. Already, innumerable cults across the mortal sphere worship my disciples as goddesses and angels in their own rights. We have cracked open the gates of Hell and spread our hands out across these planes!”

In demonstration, she reached out with her scarlet fingers as though stretching them to grasp distant stars. Those hands closed into fists, and she lowered them as she fixed the other Fallen with a baleful glare and said, “I will not spend the rest of eternity chasing the ghost of our maker. Let Him rot in whatever faraway hinterland He has fled to, I do not care. I have a kingdom to run.”

The Almoner spread his hands out with his palms up, a strange inversion of his sister’s more belligerent gesture. “Every wall and pipe of our reality was made by His hands. He made much of it from what came before, true, and with our labors, but you cannot escape His influence, Berisembri. This prophecy came from Him, and so far, every element of it has come true.”

“So what?” The Margravine swiped her flattened hand through the air and turned, so her four wings shrouded her expression. I still caught the movement of her lips in the window. “So what if this foretold king arises? If he wishes my obeisance, then I shall test him, as is my right, and decide from there.”

“Do not be a fool!” The Almoner replied with a flare of shadowy fire that indicated a snarl. “One of these new godlings will one day sit the Throne. If it is the one who commands the Abgrûdai, then they will sweep across Creation and tear it up by the threads. We will return to the time of the First, to a senseless chaos ruled by raving lunatics and silence.”

The Margravine turned her head, and a movement of her wing obscured her face both in the flesh and in the reflection. I did not catch her reply. Whatever it was, it seemed to calm the Almoner. There came a moment’s quiet before he spoke again.

I watched the Almoner shape the words, “Our brother believes it. He is searching for this half-breed as well.”

The Margravine turned, paused, and a thoughtful look came over her statue-perfect face. The golden slivers at the center of her eyes found me where I stood waiting by the door, and she pursed her lips.

“What do you propose be done?” She asked. Though I knew she spoke to her brother, the direction of her gaze and the Almoner’s deafening command made it seem as though she posed the question to me.

“I have already allowed one notable soul to escape my custody,” the Almoner said. “It will no doubt find its way back to the mortal realms soon. It will do so with a useful body and my lips to its ear. We find the half-breed and destroy it. If possible, we find whatever incubus sired it and peel answers out of him.”

The Margravine smiled slyly. “How do you know the mother wasn’t the demon?”

That seemed to offend the Almoner, though I could not understand why. “Whatever the case, we must act quickly. Asteroth will attempt to fulfill the Odfather’s prophecy. You and I should join forces.”

Strange, I thought, that they used their brother’s old name. I was missing something there.

“Alliance?” The Red Bloom mused, her eyebrows lifting a fraction in a motion of mild surprise. “You wish to join forces, after what you did?”

The Almoner was quiet a long while then, and I sensed this to be a dangerous topic. He seemed to tread forward lightly. “I would ask that you not allow the petty squabbles of the past to ruin our future. We have an opportunity to build anew, as you yourself seem to wish. I am willing to let bygones be bygones.”

“Are you now?” The Margravine took her gaze from me and placed it on her brother. “Then give it back to me.”

The amber gleam of the Almoner’s eyes narrowed. “Berisembri…”

“I will make no other demand,” she said, and though I could not hear the words, I sensed them to be as cold as the air around a mountain’s peak just before the molten blood beneath tore it apart. “Give. It. Back. Can you do that? Can you fix the past, brother?”

“You are being obstinate,” the other Fallen said.

“Because if you cannot do that,” she continued over him as though he had not spoken, “if you cannot heal the wounds of our eternities, then you are just a shadow of them, and I have no time to spare you.”

The Almoner seemed ready to argue further, but even he seemed cautious of the Red Bloom’s quiet anger. He bowed his head and said, “I will give you time to consider. I must make my own preparations and wait for word from my agents. Will you permit me to reside here in the city?”

“So long as you are not underhoof,” she agreed, then turned her gaze back to me. This time, the attention seemed more focused. “Now, show me what you have brought me. Your pet looks fit to flense us with its eyes.”

The Almoner spoke a word, and I had my hearing back. The uncomfortable sensation of insects crawling in my ears persisted, and I had to fight the urge to claw at them. At a gesture, I stepped forward to stand in the center of the salon. I was not used to being bashful, but it was difficult not to be while standing in the empty space between two of the most ancient and wicked beings in all Creation. I’d not forgotten how quickly and casually the Margravine had destroyed one of her handmaidens for but a moment’s mistake.

The Margravine approached me with her great wings drifting behind her like a wind-caught cloak. Like the Almoner, she was inhumanly tall and could alter that height as she saw fit in this realm, where spirit and flesh were one and the same. At the moment she would have exceeded eight feet on the mortal plane, while I had subconsciously fixed myself at a similar height to my time in Kaida’s body.

This meant she towered over me. The Margravine began to pace, inspecting me from every angle. It caused her trailing wings to curl, forming a spiral of dark red feathers trapping me in place. “I can see that it burns with questions. Given that you deafened it before, I will assume that it’s not above asking them?”

“My crew pulled her from one of the Dross’s rivers some months ago,” the Almoner said. She could hold a conversation within weeks, and even restrain herself from bloodshed.”

“You say she,” the Margravine said, pausing. “Her preference?”

The Almoner paused as he realized he’d never asked. “It is obvious she is a succubus. I had believed she might be one of your agents slain in another coil. Even if not, I know you take an interest in all spawn who might be molded into your image. I considered it a… reconciliatory offering.”

The Margravine paused in front of me, staring down into my face. Her red fingers, long and firm as the musician she was and tipped in nails black as onyx, touched my face. I closed my eyes and poured all my will into composure. When I’d stood before the Exalted and felt the power of his supernal presence, I’d merely become wet. Being inspected and touched by the Red Bloom made me fear I might melt.

“Definitely one of mine,” the Margravine purred. She seemed amused, as though she saw what lay behind my stillness. “I will take her. Is there anything else, Almoner?”

“…Not at present, Margravine.” The Almoner’s sudden formality told me that he’d retreated back into his own private council. “You shall hear from me soon.”

“I do not doubt it. Enjoy your time in my city.”

The cord holding my neck slackened and dropped to the floor, obsidian doors cracked closed, and I was left alone with scarlet doom. I swallowed my fear and lust and poured every ounce of will into appearing demure. It was not lost on me that I still appeared half beast, with spiked fur on my spine and fangs too large for my mouth. My moment of lapsed control in the harbor had left a mark on my form.

There was no single defining form of beauty in the Court of the Red Bloom, I knew. Some of the handmaidens in the throne room had looked like beasts, or walking anatomical models with muscle and bones exposed. They had been a menagerie of nightmare, but each and every one had sculpted their own ideal of alluring sin. I was still trying to gain control of my own ichor, and it embarrassed me.

“Look at me,” the Red Bloom commanded. I could not help but obey, and not because of any exertion of quasi-divine will as when the Almoner had commanded me not to hear. She tilted my chin up and studied me like a merchant might an animal she wasn’t yet sure she wished to buy. “You had all of that between my little brother and I, didn’t you?”

Lying is the passion and the pleasure of succubi, but I was too afraid to lie to the Queen of the Drossian Sea. “I read your lips, Your Glory.”

That seemed to please her. “Lamash has always dismissed you as lower spirits. He is all too happy to lord over you, but to believe you capable of matching him? Prophecy and uprising might frighten my kinsman, but he does not see you as an individual. I know better.”

Her fingers lowered from my cheeks and curled around the chitin collar enclosing my throat. She brushed her thumbs up the front, eliciting a shudder from me. Then, with a downward motion of her thumbnails, she cut the collar and freed me from it. The twin shards clattered to the floor.

“I am sure he is in your thoughts,” the Margravine told me. “It shall be up to you to find the will to repel him, if you wish to, but I will meddle this much. Tell me, my clever gift, do I know you?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could she leaned close and stopped my words, stalled my breath. She came so near I could feel the furnace heat of her breath on my face. Those red-and-gold eyes bore into mine, her sight lancing through and inside.

“I do!” She breathed, and let out a small laugh. “Is that you, my pernicious one?”

I might have started to weep. “Forgive me, my lady! I went astray.”

“Hush now,” she commanded softly, and I did. Her wings folded in for a soft, feathery embrace. “Ah, you have been wounded, sweet sin, and not just by accursed iron. Tell me all of it.”

When I stood before Urizen Taar’uk, I had presented myself as the great demon, and he had swallowed it. When I walked the streets of Rot Voraag, its people had averted their eyes and whispered my name with fear in their hearts. Even those few souls I’d drawn close to me and called ally had held secret hate, which in my conceit I’d been blind to.

Wrapped in the guise of the Adversary and drunk on the blood of Heaven, I’d believed myself strong.

And yet, it still hurt. Those words which had rung through my being even while I’d been insensate and starving inside the Dross.

You slithered into our lives and cursed us.

She asked me to kill you.

You’re a bad dream, Shyora.

I bowed my head in shame. “I am a poor student, my lady. I could not make them love me.”