Hunting in Hell (23 page)

EIGHT

F
uel was somewhat sparse in the oasis, and the exposed beach cooled rapidly.
 
By the time they had enough for a fire, both Alsvior and De la Roca were looking forward to the promise of warmth.
 

Alsvior had taken her jacket and slung it around his waist, tying the sleeves together behind him.
 
It looked like a serving apron, and the first time De la Roca laid eyes upon it, a smile had curled around the corners of her mouth - until he turned around, exposing himself to her in another way.
 
She had nearly keeled over with suppressed laughter.

The task finished, they sat mostly in silence.
 
It was clear from Alsvior's semi-constant stare that he wanted to talk, but De la Roca needed to organize her thoughts and tease out which questions to ask first.
 
After two hours, she sighed in exasperation, no nearer to a plan than when she started.

"My name really is Alsvior."
 
He threaded through his hair with his fingertips and looked down.
 
After hours of his stare, the lack of eye-contact was a relief.
 
"I was a messenger, famous for my affinity with horses.
 
I trained the steeds that carried the chariot of the sun across the sky.
 
I trained all four of the horses of the Apocalypse.
 
I even green-broke Pegasus, although I let Heracles take the credit."
 
As he spoke, his chest swelled and his posture straightened, but then he rounded his shoulders forward again, collapsing in on himself.
 
"Yet I am only remembered for one thing now, if I am remembered at all, and that is for being a traitor."

De la Roca stared into the fire.
 
The last few days had been a constant series of lies and betrayals.
 
She wondered if some would consider
her
a traitor for going after Laufeyson - even with the Angel's command
- although who even knew if the Angel was real?
 
Every pass through those halls of her memory revealed more tiny flaws and inconsistencies.
 
Was he a trick, a mirage, sent by someone with their own agenda?

"Sometimes, to live with ourselves, we do selfish things.
 
Do you understand?"

His murmur had been quiet, but she heard him well enough.
 
Unsure of his meaning, but wanting him to continue, she settled for a nod.

"I did something … something little.
 
When discovered, it was determined that I did not
appreciate
the benefits of my station as an angel.
 
The head of the Pentarch wanted me dead.
 
The rest of them reached what was ultimately a much crueler compromise; they stripped me of my wings and turned me into a mount.
 
I have had many riders - including Cleopia, a woman I once loved."
 

She noticed his hands were clenching into fists.
 
For a moment, she considered not pursuing the question, but she could not stop herself.
 
"What happened to her?"

His eyes were invisible behind the fringe of his dark hair.
 
"I don't know, although my heart tells me that she is dead."

"Why didn't you tell me?"
 
She was surprised by the frustration in her own voice.
 
He must have noticed it as well, as he raised his eyes to meet hers.
 
She was surprised by their hollowness; how could they be so different from the eyes of a few minutes previous?

"De la Roca, I had no voice."

"There are other ways."

He shook his head.
 
Ironically, his elegant neck made the gesture more equine than human.
 
"You do not understand.
 
Your punishment has lasted three hundred years, but during that entire time, you have been mostly free to do as you pleased.
 
Now imagine, instead, being a mere participant in your own life, with every decision made for you.
  
I could not decide if I wanted to rest, to sit, to stand - much less choose if I wanted to fight at risk of my life!
 
Can you understand what that is like?
 
To constantly carry someone upon your back, someone that makes all of your choices for you, knowing they regard you as nothing more than a brute animal?"

"So you just gave up?
 
I
trusted
you."
 

His eyes flashed.
 
"And that is why you used your
akra
upon me?
 
Had you known I was not truly an animal, would you still have strangled me?"

She had forgotten that day.

Alsvior was speaking of the
akra
that De la Roca used least often, the choke-chain of control that allowed her to bend an animal to her will.
 
With a simple hand motion, she could close off the windpipe, squeezing until the animal acquiesced.
 
She had only used it on Alsvior once, but their relationship had not been the same after that.

"I don't even know why it worked, then.
 
It's never worked on a human or a demon, just on simple beasts in the wild.
 
How was I to know what I was doing?"
 
She wanted to argue more, but the resolute set of his jaw silenced her.
 
Perhaps, in his position, she would have done the same, or worse.
 
And she could not honestly say that, given the ability to control those around her, she wouldn't take advantage of it.
 

He surveyed the beach around them, the wind ruffling his hair, while the firelight sparkled in his obsidian eyes.
 
The tension held out a moment longer, and then he sighed, his decision made.
 
"Forget it.
 
The important thing, right now, is to survive.
 
And to do that, you need to understand the
now
.
 
Your ignorance of our world is
astounding.
"

She bristled, but he continued without pause.
 
"First lesson.
 
The distinctions you hold between Angels, Gods, Demons, and whatever else - they don't really exist in the way that you think.
 
Our
world is really divided into two kinds of beings - the
mortal
and the
magical
."

"Wells and ponds."
 
She could hear the Mademoiselle's voice in her head.

He eyed her with a look she could not read.
 
"Accurate, if a little strange.
 
But just as one can flood a well, a human can cross over to the spirit side.
 
A being could even be a bit of both.
 
The important point is that the distinction between different kinds of non-human is like the distinction between the different human races.
 
It exists, but only superficially, and is mostly in a set of wings and the eye of the beholder.
 
Understand?"

The logical nature of the material he was presenting her was a welcome respite from the reveries about the past.
 
Whether she understood or not was irrelevant; she wanted him to continue.
 
She nodded.

"In the beginning, there were no humans, only Gods, including the God which is our Maker and the Maker of Earth, of Heaven, of Hell, and of few others.
 
There are other Gods, other makers, but they are irrelevant to now.
 
Do you understand so far?"

She nodded again.

"Heaven actually came first.
 
As far as we know, it is the smallest world that our God has ever created.
 
According to our lore, He used it until He grew lonely, and decided to bring the first angels into being, imbuing them with pieces of His own
kevra
.

"What
kevra
is that?"

"We're not really sure, although most think He just gave us, you know … the gift of magic."

"
How
did he do that?"
 
As far as she knew, she was the only being that could fully use another's
kevra,
and only by stealing it from the ashes of conquest.
 
A world of possibilities suddenly opened up in her mind.
 
Could she give, as well as receive?
 
Were there other beings in the world like her?

Even now, she could feel the power of the Thyrsus stone in her belly, lazily coiling around her entrails, a rich source that she still didn't know how to tap.
 
In a moment of sudden curiosity, she gathered the power and
pushed
it towards Alsvior, but he gave no sign of having felt it.

He cleared his throat.
 
"We don't know.
 
We don't even know if that part of the Lore is true.
 
But the point of the story is that eventually, he grew discontent with them, and created something different - a race without magic. "

"Humans?"
 
Her interest in the new topic disrupted her experiment, and the stone settled back into a lazy thrum in her stomach.

"Yes."
 
He sighed.
 
"I often wonder if God knew what issues the birth of Humanity would bring.
 
Many angels were displeased, in the same way that a beautiful woman is displeased when she discovers her man has taken with an uglier woman of lower status.
 
We were jealous, angry, and in our minds, justifiably so."

She wanted to ask another question, but he answered it before she had a chance to speak.
 
"In the same way that a mother might divide two squabbling siblings, our Maker divided us.
 
He created Earth, a large, varied world, which he gifted to the humans, giving them room to multiply.
 
He created its twin - a mirrored world, Hell, and he gifted it to the angels.
 
And then, in a move that surprised us all, he abdicated."

"He
what?
"
 
Her jaw had fallen open.

"He disappeared."
 
He held her stare in the following silence, waiting as she processed the information.

"So … where is He now?"
 
She flipped a hand into the air to punctuate the question.

"Do you honestly think that if we knew, we would not follow Him?
 
Nobody has any idea.
 
He just threw us into exodus from Heaven, sealed it off, opened a waypoint, and stepped through.
 
It closed before anybody had the chance to figure out what was going on.
 
Some of us sat there for
years
, just waiting for him to come back."

He read the astonishment on her face and continued, "Don't be so surprised.
 
You knew it already, in a way.
 
I mean, if God loves Man so, if he loves the angels so, then why is His influence no longer clear on either plane?"

"And when was this?"

He shrugged.
 
"At least a thousand years ago."
 
His eyes softened, and she could see he was reliving the day of the Abdication.
 
"I had just delivered a message between realms.
 
And when I returned, the air felt different, empty.
 
We were all mad at him, for pushing us out of Heaven and into this new world, but when I reached the Valley of the Winged in Hell, it was as if a tornado had torn through.

His eyes half closed, either from fatigue or pain.
 
"His disappearance ignited a storm of utter chaos.
 
Angels are a hierarchical sort, and the vacuum of power created by his absence … really
fucked
with us.
 
I mean, since our inception, we had been dogs obeying the master's orders.
 
A dog without a master goes feral, finds a new human, or starves."

He shook his head.
 
"There was a lot of bloodshed, at first.
 
I mean, can you imagine it - a world of infinitely powerful beings, dealing with the pain of their father's abandonment?
 
None of us had an inner sense of morality or empathy.
 
Hell, we had been
immortal
, and when God disappeared - suddenly we could
die.
 
We had no concept of our own
mortality.
 
We couldn't even
fly
anymore!
 
We were
earthbound!
"

"It was
centuries
before a group of angels banded together, ready to restore order and end the violence.
 
Yet they were far from perfect, and there were an equal number of angels that had just discovered freedom and independence and were not willing to sacrifice it at
any
cost.
 
Many years passed and many souls were taken before the Consortium strung together enough victories to establish itself as the ruling power.