40. Of beginnings, ends and a little bit of change (7)

Cassandra Pendragon

"It all began about 100 years ago," he continued his explanation. "An old friend of mine, Airu, a star whale, was killed. I could feel his death from afar and I simply couldn't believe it. Star whales are peaceful creatures but also powerful, they are tough and unbelievably hard to kill. I couldn't understand why anyone would even bother to try." He sighed heavily and resumed his story in a much quieter voice:

"One of my brothers, Michael, came to me with an explanation. An advanced society that had begun to conquer space stumble across Airu by sheer chance, he said. Their curiosity and greed got the better of them, fascinated as they were with a living being larger than their biggest space ships and they tried to capture him. In the ensuing fight my friend was killed. Michael claimed that he had long since expected something like that to happen. Their society was supposed to be a twisted thing where might ruled and progress was the only thing of value. He whispered into my ear how it was time to put an end to them, Airu's death was the last straw. I trusted him and filled with anger as I was it was easy enough to persuade me to eliminate the ones responsible, the upper echelons of the offending civilisation." Every time he used a word I couldn't possibly understand, like space ship, the concept emerged from my subconsciousness like an air bubble slowly rising to the surface. It reminded me of the first time I had become aware and the ideas that had flooded my mind back then.

"To cut a long story short, Aurora and I laid waste to the capital and in the depths of the citadel I confronted their leader. Which didn't quite go as I had expected. She was not much older than you appear now, maybe 18 or 20, and while her blood tainted the floor she told me what had really happened. It wasn't them, they had indeed found Airu but they had never laid a hand on him. It was Michael who had slain him and sent me afterwards to kill the witnesses, knowing full well I would believe whatever he was going to tell me." I wanted to interrupt but with a placating gesture he continued.

"I know what you want to say, it makes no sense, the whole scheme was bound to fail as soon as I arrived on the planet. It was neigh impossible that I'd kill everyone around without so much as a word. So the first thing I did afterwards was confront him. I didn't know what was going on so I kept everything to myself, I didn't even confide in Aurora and went to meet with Michael without anyone knowing why. Which was the worst mistake I ever made." His eyes glowed brightly for a moment and he said forcefully: "trust the people you care about, Cassandra, or you will be alone in the end. But I digress. Our meeting wasn't peaceful. He plainly admitted what he had done, only his intentions were vastly different. He knew me well enough to predict that I'd rush to face him without telling anyone and that was largely what he wanted. I found out later that he had set me up, told the other angels that I had been taken prisoner by demons and that he was trying to free me. If he killed me then he could pin it on the demons and wage a war for retribution. A perfect opportunity to change the order of the multiverse. But he didn't succeed, I was able to flee and I spent every waking moment afterwards to dig up as much as I could about him and what he might want to achieve." He closed his eyes and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

'I also tried to convince Aurora of what was happening, but I was too late. Michael had gotten to her first. I don't know if he managed to spell her or if he simply used honeyed words but I couldn't reach her, she wouldn't listen. I was… I still am truly alone in this." With a deep breath he calmed himself.

"Here is what I found out until now. For longer than I care to admit every civilisation that got close to or succeed in using transcendent energy has been overthrown for just one goal: to maintain a stagnant cosmos that always spins on the same spot. Without the possibility to transcend mortal boundaries the overall order of the multiverse wouldn't change, there would be mortals and immortals and to rule the one would automatically mean to rule the other. And that's what he is trying to achieve: a united immortal people under his wings."

"Why don't you simply tell on him? Make his scheme known, it stands to reason nobody would willingly put chains around their necks."

"It's too late. I…I killed two angels, two of his supporters. I didn't destroy them, only their bodies but it was enough to paint me as the villain. When I fled from Michael's ambush, gravely injured, he lost no time to enact his charade and attack the demons in the name of justice. He knew I was still alive so he prepared accordingly. When I showed my face to talk to the immortals I'd consider friends he ambushed me, again. I am… you are one of the strongest if not the strongest immortal there is and I didn't hesitated when I saw Michael with two other angels approach me, weapons drawn. It wasn't much of a fight but that hadn't been the purpose. He conveyed my attack to everyone and made himself out to be the victim, narrowly able to escape after his deranged brother had faked his own death, instigated a war between angels and demons and now had killed two of his own people. It was well enough executed that it even appeared as if I had tried to destroy their cores, only Michael's heroic intervention had prevented me from doing so. One of his powers is persuasion and with the ground work he had put in before hand, nobody doubted his story. To everyone else I am a raging lunatic set on destroying the immortal races."

"Are you? Set on destroying them, I mean."

"Yes and no. I have an idea how I might take them out of the picture for a while, let the universes develop freely for a change. But there are only a handful of angels and demons I would truly kill."

"Whom? Whom would you kill if you had the chance?"

"Those that truly believe a stagnant world, ordered and determined, is something desirable. Those that have made trillions of lives miserable just because they came too far. Michael, Ezekiel, Ma'kal and Hora on the angel's side, Amazeroth, Lilith and Delilah for the demons."

My emotions were subdued, the horror I had experienced in the last hours was far away and even my anger and grief were barely perceivable but when I heard him say Amazeroth's name an icy shower ran down my spine. It must have shown on my face because he said immediately:

"Stop. I can see that you know at least one of them. Don't tell me how or why. Sending information from the future to the past or vice versa is a tricky thing. I don't much care for the consequences but you should, you can't deal with the backlash, not yet." I was seriously starting to hate the word backlash. "Let me make this very clear, if you tell me anything at all that causes my actions to change, there will be a ripple effect and you will have to withstand it or perish. Your immunities may make it possible, but I highly doubt your mind is ready. Right now, for example, I am living through most of the injuries and deaths you will never have to suffer because we have this talk." Alright, two things were very clear: I wasn't going to talk about my life and Lucifer was a serious psychopath. If he was truly living through every eventuality that wouldn't be thanks to his meddling, and he did so without an outward sign of the strain, I would have a long way to go before I even got close to his inner strength.

"Understood. Can you at least tell me something about them?"

"Stay away from every single one for as long as you can. If you run into them anyways, it will largely depend on the stage of your development. If you have already gained access to all of your abilities you should be fine. If not and they mean you harm, you're screwed. Michael, Ezekiel, Hora, Amazeroth and Delilah are cunning schemers where as Ma'kal and Lilith are more like blunt instruments. You can run from the second two, they aren't bright enough to follow you if you take a little care, but the others are cunning. Find out what they truly want and use that. That's pretty much all I can say. As for their abilities: Michael's wings are neigh indestructible, the only thing I know of we can't burn with ours. They reflect his will, indomitable and absolute. Consequentially he is a genius in matters of persuasion, manipulation and mental attacks. You don't have to worry for yourself but don't trust your allies when they have been alone with him. Hora is the angel of time, she can freeze, slow or speed it up and her wings can capture you within a pocket of time. Again something you don't need to worry about too much, just don't let her catch you off guard. Ezekiel isn't dangerous in a confrontation but he is the smartest of the bunch. He is closely tied to fate, having spent most of his existence trying to predict the future from past actions. I don't really know what he is capable of in form of abilities. Ma'kal is a brute. His body is much stronger than anything else I have ever encountered and he can augment it in ways you can't imagine. Don't let him catch you or he'll squash you into a pulp. Unfortunately I don't know much about the demons and their specialities."

"Why not? If we have been around for as long as you claim, you must have picked something up."

"Well, most of my time was spent fighting against demons, to tell you the truth. You might have already guessed but free will is sort of my schtick and pacts, especially the tricky kind demons love to set up with transcendent energy, binding generations or whole dynasties to their will, have always been a red flag for me. Let's just say they usually stay well away from me."

"Great, what do you want to do, or rather what do you expect me to do?"

"I intent to seal the immortals in the void. It will take them at least a couple of aeons to claw their way out if I do it right. As for what I expect of you: nothing, really. You know why you have died and why every immortal you are going to meet will treat you like an enemy. Hide, live a quiet life, apologise to Michael or take up my fight. Do whatever you want, but I am out of options and you are me so I thought you would be rather sympathetic to what I have done."

"I am, I truly am but I just can't see how I can change anything on the scale you just described. I am 7 years old for crying out loud. How could I possibly challenge heaven and hell?"

"The same way I am going to: with little hope and a lot of trickery. But you misunderstand. What I am trying to change has gone on for longer than most galaxies exist and whatever will lead to my death is already well in the past from your point of view. You won't have to do anything right now, even if you decide to follow in my footsteps. But sooner or later you will come into contact with other immortals and I want you to know how things truly stand. Your decision, when you have to make one, will be yours." He paused for a moment and continued:

"There is one last thing I have to tell you, afterwards you can ask me anything you like. I don't yet know how he intends to achieve his goal but I do know that Michael wants to become the uncrowned king of the immortals, well of the angels at least, I don't know his plans for the demons but if I had to guess I'd wager on eradication or suppression. It's a safe bet to assume he has succeeded by the time we have this conversation."

"That sounds terrifying, but I don't… now that I think about it… I don't seem to care. Nothing of what you have told me nor the loss… nor my current situation faze me in anyway at the moment. How is that possible?"

"That's my fault, sort of. You are much closer to me, or rather your past state of mind. While you still are yourself with all your memories and experiences you feel like I do at the moment, which is to say not that much at all." Poor guy. "I always thought I should have a name with ice in it instead of light." He mused.

"Who named us, or you, in that case?"

"Well, there aren't as many secularised civilisations as you would expect. If we interact with mortals openly we will usually proclaim to be servants of whatever deity they are worshipping, thus they name us angels. Someday it stuck. For the demons it's a little different. Their ability to form pacts with others has always guaranteed that they would be much more engaged in mortal affairs than us. They call themselves demon, it means "original" in their high tongue. Most depiction you can find in legends or myth are based on one true demon or the other. Our individual names are usually given when we incarnate, like your parents named you Cassandra. Sooner or later we discover our heritage, as you already have and then it's up to us which name we chose to carry. Lucifer is our true name or rather a description of it. It means "light bringer" in a little known language but I rather like the sound of it. And before you ask, no I'm not gonna tell you why we are named light bringer. That's something you have to find out for yourself."

"Can you at least tell me a little more about who I am? What I can do and why Michael put so much effort into neutralising you? Are you.. are we that dangerous?" He smiled at me:

"I told you before, I…you…we are maybe the strongest immortal in existence. We are immune to any form of magic, even transcendent energies. We can't be compelled, our perception can't be altered and we can kill other immortals for good. These wing on your back are much more powerful than you can imagine. Wouldn't you do anything in your power as well to eliminate the only one who could end your existence for good, especially if you knew that he despised what you are doing with every fibre of his being?"

"Than what do you mean by maybe the most powerful? I thought the abilities of angels and demons as well for that matter, were quite similar."

"No, not really. We can all use transcendent energies and augment our magic with it, that's what makes us who we are. But the abilities we gain are different for each individual and also vary from angels to demons. Firstly, demons have the ability to form transcendent contracts, pacts if you so will. That's something angels can't do. Secondly each immortal has a unique property, ours is our immunity. Combined with our wings there isn't much we can't destroy and we aren't subjected to the abilities of others. Do you see where I am going with this?" I did. While there were many individual traits that made it difficult to judge the power of an immortal, the fact that none of them could touch me while my wings could slice through any form of protection made me incomparably dangerous, at least some day. "The connection is failing, if there is something else, ask now."

"What are my limits?" Everything started to blur and I could already feel my connection to this place weaken and waver as he replied with a smug smile: "Limits? Here, judge for yourself."

While the room around me was dissolving into different colours and I felt my presence rush towards another place, another time, he concentrated and one of his wings shot forward. It sliced cleanly through whatever place I was stuck in and I could see a patch of the crystal cave clearly behind the gap. With a flick of his hand he threw a small ring at me before he closed the tear in time with the same wing. I felt the cold metal of the ring in my hand while I disappeared.