14 Lucifer

ASTRA DAR KNEW something was wrong when she awoke in a puddle of black ooze. The room’s lamplight was weak, the oil in the lamps almost gone, suggesting dawn wasn’t far off. However, there was enough light for her to see the ooze gather, and flow back into her body.

She rose naked and ignoring the chill Zalanthian air, and stepped out onto her stone balcony. The mountain fortress was high enough that below her the world was wreathed in a sea of white cloud. Snow and ice encased the rocks beyond her windows, but the slumbering fires of the mountain beneath kept the fortress warm.

She still did not feel whole. One of the soul fragments had resisted, fighting her summons. At the time, she had not understood its significance or the identity of the soul. It had been an absence within her as though a piece of her was missing, but she knew the fragment’s name now, Rade Wyn. Since their re-joining, Astra had awoken to herself, memories of her childhood of a thousand years ago, her parents, her brothers and sisters, all wizards and witches, but none with her immense talent. She remembered Cydra Dyre possessed by the undead soul of Aiyana Todralan who had gone back in time, of the events which followed as she fought to stop Rasnal Nalrost, all of it leading to her and her son’s death.

She gripped the icy edge of the stone balcony, ignoring the numbness spreading up her arms. She wanted to numb her entire being, but there wasn’t enough cold in the world. She remembered who she was, the sorceress of old, but she could also recall all those individual lives, memories of dozens of parents, of being born rich, poor, living in a desert, a tropical jungle, of being Liviana Avitus and Lorn Larthuz, of being Rade Wyn. She recalled the children she had borne, murdered, lost, those who’d become estranged to her. All those lives melded into one, making her ... what?

She didn’t know, and worse, something inside her felt wrong. I should feel complete. I should not feel as though I am held together with stitch and thread, the seams about to burst.

‘You don’t look happy this morning, my dear,’ said a voice, and Astra whirled, ripping the skin from her palms and fingers as she let go of the frozen stone rail, the pain barely registered.

The fortress chamber was empty. ‘Who are you? Show yourself, damn you! Always whispering to me in the darkness. You’re a coward, whatever or whoever you are.’ She stepped back inside, into the warmth though she felt anything but. She reached for her clothing, which lay tossed across a chair, and dressed. She drew a short bronze knife from the wooden sheath on her belt.

‘Well, that won’t do you much good,’ said the voice again, ‘unless you plan on stabbing yourself. I wouldn’t advise it. Suicide might seem the beautiful choice, but I won’t allow it until I’m finished with you. Then you can die in whatever manner pleases you.’

Astra turned this way and that, searching for the source of the speaker, for sign of a shadow where there should be none.

Nothing.

‘Oh, my dear, you are going to be a chore, aren’t you? Very well, I have tired of this game anyway. Try looking in a mirror. I warn you, you may not like what you see.’

A chill, deeper than anything the cold of the mountains could instil, froze her to the spot. She knew where the voice was coming from, and her heart pounded in her breast. ‘I don’t want to look.’

‘Well, you can avoid looking, or I could reveal myself in all my glory. My dear, you don’t want that, let me tell you. You are of use to me so long as your mind remains intact. So, let’s be civilised about all of this. Go and look, and I will reveal myself gently.’

A mirror of polished bronze sat on a short wooden table along with several personal items. She had no need for mirrors or combs, but her servants had provided everything. Servants; she had no idea where they’d come from, or how she’d ended up in this tower in the mountains, and yet she could recall multiple lifetimes without effort.

She reached out and picked up the mirror, turning it to look at herself. At first, she saw her own face, and felt a wave of relief. She hadn’t known what to expect to be honest. Then she saw it. A dark glow, a shadowy aura surrounding her like a nimbus of night. It hadn’t been there a moment before, and then it was.

‘Yes,’ said the voice. ‘You can see me, but not as I am. Like I said, you wouldn’t like that. You and I are going to get along fine. So long as you do as you are told.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Don’t be foolish. You are not an imbecile nor an infant. You know who I am, or rather what I am. Lying to me is one thing, but lying to yourself is ridiculous.’

‘Tartaros,’ she whispered, feeling so cold, her numbed fingers dropped the mirror to clang onto the heated stone floor. ‘How is this possible? What have you done to me?’

‘The ancient soul of Astra Dar, split asunder and cast through time, reassembled into ... you. This has allowed me access, not just to you, but to your world and soon to all those others.’

There was a faint knocking at the door, and at first, she didn’t register it. Too late, as the door opened, she called out to her maid to flee.

Then darkness descended on her.

When Astra next opened her eyes, she collapsed in horror, her knees hitting the stone floor and splattering blood.

Not her blood but her maid’s. There was an awful lot of it too. The chamber was smothered in it, floor, ceiling, and walls. Not much remained of the body, but for a face and some tufts of hair. She had not just killed the woman, but obliterated her. She didn’t remember doing it, but she knew she had.

‘Yes,’ said the voice in her head. ‘You and I are going to get along. I enjoyed that small diversion, didn’t you? So many ways for them to die, and each scream, each death, so deliciously different. Death, my dear, is an art and I the artist.’

‘Who are you?’ she cried, sobbing, not really wanting an answer. Killing herself seemed like an attractive option.

‘I am the bane of this world, of humanity, of this filthy aberration called existence. I am the essence of Tartaros given form in your reality. I am the end of all things you know and love—’

‘Who are you!’ she screeched, clawing at her face in self-loathing and horror. ‘What is your name?’

‘I am Lucifer, your prince and master, and the end of all you hold dear.’