An Angel’s Road to Hell

Cassandra Pendragon

Of course it wasn’t going to be that simple. For a moment I thought I was out of the woods but before I could congratulate myself wholeheartedly she tried to transform again. The darkness in her eyes stirred and black smoke streamed from the sockets, hiding her behind a flowing veil of black velvet.

“Enough,” my voice was soft, barely more than a whisper but Shassa twitched away from me as if she had been whipped. My wings swirled around her, tearing through the magic that was still pulsing from her eyes. Silver consumed the shadows that had come to do her bidding and for the blink of an eye she was clothed in light, her form illuminated by the dancing torrents of energy. It was over in a heartbeat, her magic consumed or destroyed before it could fully manifest.

Again she tried to move, to get away from me but I held her tight and applied just enough pressure to keep her on her knees.

“Enough, I said.” I followed a hunch but I thought I wasn’t far off the truth. If Amazeroth had left her with a spell to ensure her survival, he had had to have foreseen this precise moment. After everything I had heard it stood to reason that he wanted us to work together to overthrow Amon and presumably free him from his binds. If so, then he would have left a second spell with Shassa or maybe even some of his memories to ensure we wouldn’t tear each other apart down here.

“Before you force me to damage you permanently, use your magic on yourself. Search for a still active enchantment or a seal in your mind. If I’m not mistaken, whatever you’ll find will spare us a lot of grief.” She stared at me, her mouth open and her eyes wide while I stood before her brimming with energy, a remnant of primordial times when existence and power had been one and the same.

I saw her eyes lose focus as she dove into her own mind and her body relaxed against my wings. She swayed like a drunk and I had to keep her upright, much more conscious of the tight embrace I held her in, now that she wasn’t struggling anymore. Painfully aware of the state of my dress and how we were locked together I couldn’t help the blush that rose to my cheeks. Damned developing body and its blasted mood swings, if she saw me like this, she’d never take me seriously. Nevertheless I used her current distraction to take a few steps back while I still held her down with my wings. It might be less imposing but at least I didn’t feel like I was holding my lover anymore.

Time ticked on slowly and just when I was starting to wonder if she had gotten lost, her expression changed. Her eyes were twitching and quivering behind closed lids, her mouth fell open in a silent scream and shivers ran up and down her body. She was throwing herself against my wings in a desperate attempt to get away from whatever she was seeing and a sudden impulse told me to let her go. I retracted my wings and she fell on her back, undiluted fear written all over her face.

As soon as she was free of the restraints, she stilled. The shivers subsided and her head fell back to hit the ground. Nervously I shuffled from one foot to the other, unsure if I should wrap her in my wings again or if I should rather check her vitals. Getting too close to her while she was free to move seemed like a very bad idea, one bite of those nasty teeth of hers would probably guarantee that I wouldn’t wake up again unless she wanted me to. And betting my life on whether or not I could cleanse my blood faster than she’d be able to knock me out didn’t hold much appeal.

When she stirred a few seconds later and opened her eyes, she effectively put an end to my deliberations. Apparently I wouldn’t tie her up again. She stared at me for a long moment before she finally spoke:

“You’re even more than you appear. I shouldn’t have doubted you.” Her voice was just like I remembered, a deep, velvety cadence that reminded me of warm but starless nights. “Thank you for my freedom. I assume you know my name but I’m Shassa. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She hadn’t bothered getting up and was still sprawled out on the ground in front of me. Since she hadn’t conjured the dress I had first seen her in, I had to hide the blush that was again rising to my cheeks. I didn’t know why, but somehow the spider, despite the circumstances, could push my buttons much more easily than Erya, with all her flirting, had ever been able to.

I cleared my throat and forcefully kept my eyes on her face. “I’d love to say likewise, but… if you don’t mind me asking, what did he show you?” She smiled at me honestly.

“Not the past, if that’s what you’re worried about. He allowed me to glimpse two paths to the future. One where you’re my enemy and one where you aren’t. I’m not keen on exchanging one hell for another when I could have gotten what I wish for, instead. Hopefully that’s enough because I won’t tell you more. My future is my own and something I won’t share, not even the parts that could still be rewritten.” Fair enough, neither would I.

“And where does that leave us? Are we suddenly best friends?”

“That’s entirely up to you. I’ll freely admit that I wouldn’t be inclined to trust me if I was in your place, especially after everything I’ve done in the last few minutes. Unfortunately there isn’t much I can do to convince you, except give you my word but that’s not worth a lot. It all probably comes down to how much you truly need me.”

“The paradox of evil,” I murmured quietly enough that she wouldn’t hear. It was a conundrum I had quiet enjoyed reading about during my studies on Boseiju. One ancient warrior monk or the other had basically asked himself why we were still here. In an isolated instance, greedy, selfish or uncooperative behaviour in general usually yielded much better results. Excluding the rather naive assumption that all sentients were inherently good, it stood to reason that the races would sooner or later eradicate one another in perpetually fought wars. He had simply been musing on why we hadn’t and his answer was perfectly showcased by our current situation.

Without trust and goodwill, cooperation became nigh impossible and since most endeavours needed several people to be successful, basic decency would pay off in the long run. Given enough time, communities based on respect and cohesion would flourish while the ones formed under duress and through force would perish. Fascinating as that might be in theory, it still didn’t help me in dealing with Shassa. Any sane person would insist on some kind of reassurance before they handed over a weapon to someone who had just tried to suck them dry for breakfast.

“Precisely,” she said. Holy hell, her ears were better than my own. “I can’t even say that I’m sorry, only that I won’t try it again. Honestly, if I were you, I’d kill me on principle and deal with the fall out later but I guess that’s not who you want to be. How about you tell me what you actually want from me. Maybe we can find a way to make it work that you can live with.”

“Fine.” I took a few steps forward and offered her a hand while I slung my wings around my body, partly out of modesty and partly as a precaution. She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected me to agree but allowed me to pull her up after a moment. Her hand felt soft and cool in mine and when I let got I could feel an echo of the touch tingle on my skin for a few more seconds. She stared at her fingers and absentmindedly rubbed her thumb against the tips of the rest. Finally she looked at me again and said:

“I can apply my poison in this form through a simple touch. Did you know that?” Damn it…

“No, I didn’t. But you haven’t used it. Why? It’s potent enough to work instantly, isn’t it?” She shrugged.

“Maybe. I even thought about it. But… Cassandra, I meant what I said. I’m not going to harm you. I have much more to gain with you alive than I could hope to accomplish on my own, even if I managed to somehow devour a small part of you core. I know I can’t truly consume your power.”

“And you didn’t know when you woke up? That makes no sense.”

“I did know, I simply didn’t care. A spark of eternity is still more enticing than you can imagine. Plus, the last immortal I met wasn’t exactly a blessing. Admittedly, he did more than I thought but he left me here for centuries. I wasn’t going to take that risk. I’d rather have died free than be bound to this place for another second. I’m sure you can understand that much.” She sighed.

“Also, you’re young, practically a child. How old is your body? Not even 10 years, I’d say, filled to the brim with magic. You are what I’d call a feast and I was hungry, so unbelievably hungry. You healed my body but I haven’t had a decent meal in ages, I’m starved. When I could move for the first time in… I don’t even know how long, my instincts took over as soon as I smelled you. I’m a spider, not a human.”

“You seem pretty relaxed right now, though. Did you hide a sandwich somewhere or am I missing something else?” With a smile she answered:

“Amazeroth left me a little more than just a bunch of scenes from the future. I’m fine for now, but I’ll have to eat sooner or later, in a day, two at the most. I don’t need sentients to survive but I do need living meat, a large animal or two would work. It’s not an immediate concern, so why don’t you tell me what’s actually going on? I think we have established that I’m not going to go for your throat the first chance I get.” True, even though technically she already had had her first chance when I had helped her up. She hadn’t said anything about the second and the third. But what was I supposed to do? In all honesty, this had gone much better than I had had any right to hope for. I’d have to take a risk and deal with the fall out later, as she had put it.

“Right, where do I start? I think it all begins with someone you know intimately. Amon is by now the ruler of an enormous empire on the other side of the world and somehow he has developed an interest in his old home again. For all I know he is meddling with a fragment of the mana heart right now…” I didn’t explain how I had come to meet him or what had happened on the dragon’s island but I told her everything I knew or suspect about our current predicament. I told her that we knew that he was currently trying to open a portal to physically reach our continent and that he was probably using a fragment of the mana heart to power it up. His spells were going to activate the seed and since both artefact were attuned to aspects of time and fate, the time stream was going to go wonky. I explained that I had met her before and that she had helped me to go back to a point just on the cusp of the ripples the activation of the seed was going to cause.

If nothing changed, the seed would try to feed on her but since she wasn’t bound to the statue anymore, I didn’t know what was going to happen.

“I think I know,” she interrupted. “I’m not really needed as a source, it was pure cruelty that kept me prisoner. The forgotten sorcerer used my innate magic as a blueprint to grow the seed and now it can take in the very energy form the world around it, similar to how I can feast on souls. The seed will charge up, whether I’m there to feed it or not, but this time it’ll rip the necessary energy from everything living within range that isn’t strong enough to resist its pull. And trust me, short of an immortal, there is nothing that can withstand its power.” Great, basically I had made everything worse up until now. Hopefully the second half of the plan would work out better.

“In that case, I’m quite happy that there is still more to my story. Listen, a while ago I stumbled across a few strange statuettes…” I didn’t describe where exactly I had gotten them, even though I suspected that she had already heard of Shafeer. The dragon had been old enough to be around for the better part of her imprisonment as well as the rise and fall of the sorcerer who had crafted the mana heart. Additionally, he had had the statuettes in his possession. It wasn’t far fetched to assume that he, at least, had known about her, given that he had built his lair practically next door.

I made sure she understood which statuettes I was talking about, mainly by recounting what her alternate version had told me.

“You, that is, the you, whom I have already met, said that there was a chance you could use them to shut down the seed and maybe even the fragment of the mana heart it’s linked to. Prevent our temporal troubles all together. But she also warned me not to hand them over lightly, as they apparently can make you even more dangerous than you already are. Do you see my predicament?’ This time she laughed out loud and I had to admit, it was a beautiful sound, similar to the plashing of a small spring in a shadowy glen.

“Indeed I do. Allowing me to stand freely is entirely different from handing over ancient artefacts of which you know close to nothing. Well, I can help with that but the decision won’t change. Anyways, cryptic as I might have expressed myself in the future… past… whatever, it’s actually pretty simple but first you have to understand what those gods truly were: thoughts and ideas that became conscious, a ghost in the machine, provided by thousands of sentient minds linked together. Over time, they grew until they were connected to and kept alive by a whole people. Now, this is where those statuettes came in. They aren’t made of stone, but crystallised souls. How do you catch a predator? With bait and I had to offer them something more enticing than what they already had. Plainly speaking I had to create something that could potentially provide them with more power than they could gather from the living.” Her eyes glazed over as she apparently relived days long gone.

“After each battle, after every death, wherever Amon and I went, we collected the souls of the fallen and slowly forged them into four of the most powerful artefacts this world has ever seen. A reservoir of living energy, the perfect trap for an ethereal, hungry being. But as you might have guessed by now, it can also be used as a weapon. If the seals are opened, all that power, the power of a fallen people, is at the disposal of whoever wields the statuettes, provided they can survive the onslaught of the imprisoned gods.”

I remained silent for a few minutes, trying to wrap my head around what she had told me. I couldn’t say that I was surprised she had had a hand in creating something as disgusting and damnable as those statuettes but I still felt repulsed. Enslavement that didn’t even end with death was just wrong on so many levels, there were no ends that could justify those means and the very idea that I had touched them, never mind using them, sent cold shivers down my spine. I wouldn’t doom us by being stubborn and standing on principle but as soon as they had served their purpose, those things would have to go. Still, even if we used them how would she…

“But aren’t they useless, then? You said that the imprisoned spirits would attack whoever opened the seals. I assume you can’t beat them, otherwise you wouldn’t have locked them away in the first place.”

“You’re right, I can’t. But I think you can. They are pure energy, they don’t have a body or another way to directly influence the material world. They won’t be much more than a breeze against your skin, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve seen enough of your magic, you might very well be able to devour them whole. That is, if you can bear to become the master of a people in eternal chains.”