Chapter 20
Rys walked around Vallis’s extravagant desk, then noticed the lack of chairs. He pulled up a nearby chair from the side of the room.
“I’ll admit that I’ve been a little preoccupied with Mina, my regained power, and my Labyrinth lately,” he said. “Avolar’s been on my mind, but I’ve been letting Grigor, you, and the others manage the preparations.”
Vallis shifted uncomfortably. Her arms moved back and forth along her legs, and he imagined that she was straightening out her pleated skirt.
“This feels more awkward than I expected,” she muttered. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a serious discussion with you from behind this desk. Usually I walk over to you, or we’re in the war room or your office.”
Rys gestured to a table nearby, from where he had borrowed the chair. After a nod, Vallis shot up and rushed over to it.
With a relieved sigh, she sat down and grinned. “That feels better. I felt like I was a kid sitting in my father’s office, back before everything fell apart—or I know how bad it really was, maybe.”
“This is your office,” Rys pointed out.
“Sure, but you can click your fingers and turf me out.” She grimaced and looked away. “I’ve gotten used to it with Maria and Alsia. They come to me to talk and ask for help, and this place now feels like my domain. But I felt like a child playing at being powerful just then, with you on the other side of the massive desk.”
“Not to be harsh, but you should get used to that feeling and push through it,” he said. “You need to be able to project power and confidence against people you feel are above you, or that you owe things.”
Vallis chewed her lip. “Fara talked about some interesting things from the last Labyrinth trip. It, uh, sounded like you had an interesting history in the Empire.”
“A long and storied history,” Rys said drily. “I argued with both Malusian and the Devil Queen more than once, and was threatened with death on multiple occasions. Rare as they were, I had a few one-on-ones with both of them.”
“Gonna regale me about your extensive bedroom experience with the most powerful woman in Hell?” Vallis waggled her eyebrows.
“No,” he said flatly. “Ariel tried to recruit me many times—and assassinate me even more times—but her bed was never on offer. Unlike Malusian, she’s never been known for her sexual proclivities.”
“What, so she’s an ice queen?”
Rys snorted. “I doubt it. But I suspect her dislike of succubi is genuine, and not simply because most of them work for her greatest rival. My reputation as the ‘Incubus King’ didn’t do me any favors.”
“And did you ever feel like a child telling your parents about the state of the world, and that they would be smiling patronizingly at you before they pat you on the head and say ‘good girl?’” Vallis asked, being far too specific.
For effect, Rys reached over and patted her on the head. Vallis glared at him.
For a moment, he swore she was going to bite him. She probably would if he said “good girl.”
Instead, he ruffled her messy black hair, then withdrew with a smirk. “Yes.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“How old am I?”
“Uh… like 2000 years old?”
“More like 400, if you take away the time I was asleep.” Rys shrugged. “I was half that age when Ariel and Malusian put me in charge of the war effort against the angels. We had pushed the angels back to their final bastion. I’m sure you know it.”
“The Last Retreat,” Vallis said, closing her eyes. “It powers the magical barrier the keeps the shadowbeasts out. It’s survived a mountain range springing up out of nowhere underneath it, which killed millions elsewhere. The fortress is a sprawling sandstone metropolis that is abandoned now, save for Azrael and her pet helldragon, Sylvian.”
That was a new name. Rys needed to brush up on history.
“Yes,” he said. “It was also the last remaining connection to Heaven for the angels, and effectively impregnable. Both Araunth and Duar tried, before sending me. I also failed, and then the angels sank the city supplying the war effort and cut my arm off.”
Rys made a chopping motion as Vallis’s eyes bulged.
Despite his levity, he remembered those battles far too clearly. His encounter with the Angel Lord Sirion had caused him to dream of them once again.
Sirion had killed countless infernals, banished all his strongest lieutenants—including Grigor and Asa—and cornered him. But she had only cut his arm off and delayed the final barrage of her army long enough to let him evacuate the city before she sank it into the lake. That had been the beginning of their relationship, and she could have killed him before anything happened.
“Sank it?” Vallis asked.
“Vallonis,” he said. “I think it’s a myth now, but there was a magical city built by elves on top of a lake near Basette.”
Simply mentioning Basette caused memories to scratch at Rys’s mind. He still couldn’t remember why the city was important, or why connecting it to the Last Retreat seemed to matter. All he knew was that his last memories had been in that region.
Once he broke all the power conduits and regained all of his lost knowledge, he would finally be rid of this frustration. For now, he did his best to ignore it.
“You always have the craziest stories,” Vallis said, shaking her head.
“And I haven’t mentioned the most important part: I was 200, but Ariel and Malusian had thousands of years on me. Heck, when I attacked the Last Retreat, I bossed around Araunth, who was both a friend and over ten times my age. I always felt like a child, who had been gifted influence and power I didn’t earn by ancient beings who knew more than I ever could. But if I didn’t ignore that feeling, I never would have gotten anywhere,” Rys said.
“Huh. That’s…” she trailed off. “I never thought of you like that. You’ve always come across as an equal to all the big bad devils. Grigor always talks of you that way, and you freak out all the infernals with the way you casually talk about the big names.”
“Everyone starts somewhere. Remember that I knew Grigor back when he was a runt.”
“A big runt, apparently,” Vallis teased. “But thanks. This makes two times today that you’ve helped me. And I haven’t talked about the planning stuff.”
They finally dove into the Avolar specifics.
Much of it concerned details about finances, funding, and trade. Rys waved it off.
“I think you’re focusing too much on Avolar when it comes to war preparations,” he said.
“Last I checked, that’s who we’re about to fight,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“And who is our real enemy?”
“The Malus League.”
“Exactly. Avolar are a stepping stone at best. We can rely on loans and financial support from Tarmouth against the League, and use some of that against Avolar. I don’t think stretching ourselves is wise,” Rys said.
“Going to war against anyone is stretching ourselves.” Vallis huffed. “Grigor and Alsia are confident about it, but the former can probably bench press Avolar’s army single-handedly and Alsia wants a distraction for her warriors. Especially as I’m getting wind of a lot of rumbling against her lately.”
Rys frowned at that. “Work with Mina on the intel side of things. She has some new toys and can let the Malakin focus on their specialties instead of trying to do everything.”
“That doesn’t solve the money problem, or the fact we don’t have an army,” Vallis said.
“Then you either need to fix the money problem, or make it clear what constraints we’re working under when it comes to an army.” Rys fixed her with a serious look. “You’re the Viceroy. Although there are plenty of others with power, the only other person who even touches serious finance is Maria. The Kinadain are still too undeveloped, and Grigor is working with what he’s given.”
Vallis winced and rubbed the back of her neck. “I kind of know that, but it’s a bit rough. I don’t know half the options I have for supporting an army, establishing logistics, or how we can fund this outside of taxes.”
“Ask Grigor and Fred about options for the army—but don’t stick around for their debate, unless you want to die of starvation. They can also handle logistics, but they need local information, so tell Mina to provide that. Again, don’t stick around. She should be able to handle that herself.” Rys chewed on his lip regarding the final problem.
Ordinarily, funding problems like this would be solved by hunting down external backers or finding a more questionable funding source. Rys didn’t want to pillage Avolar, and the region was too undeveloped to even have anything capable of funding a smuggler, let alone an army.
Vallis watched him expectantly.
“Unless you can find a funding source through Tarmouth or Maria’s contacts in the archipelago, we’ll need to see if Mina’s agents turn anything up,” he finished lamely. “Maybe in the long-term I’ll have somebody I can reach out to.”
“Then I guess we’ll wait.” She shrugged. “Gorgria is the only real option, but they’ve made it clear that they see themselves as more important. I followed up on Maria’s conversation with Queen Faeris, but she made it clear that she’s only interested in you. On top of that, I think she wants you to visit her.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Rys said wryly.
At least, not yet. Orthrus had mentioned that the warp gate had the ability to somehow duplicate Castle Aion across the islands. Doing that would attract too much attention right now, but it would allow Rys to actually visit Gorgria. His teleportation spell was unlikely to get him that far in the little time he had before he ran out of power.
“I figured.” Vallis shrugged. “Anyway, I’ll see what I can do. Chances are I’ll need to talk with you again. This is the first war I’ve planned, and like the millionth for you. I’ll try to do better next time.”
“It’s better to ask me and Grigor now, and learn to do it right the first time, than flail around, so you’re doing fine,” Rys said. “But I do have to ask if you have any misgivings.”
“Over what? Invading another country? Assisting with the formation of a new Infernal Empire? Subverting the native rule of the Kinadain?” She smiled, but there was a brittleness to it. “I won’t lie and say that I haven’t thought about what I’m doing. I’ve thought a lot about what you said when Maria dragged you into the Compagnon mess. About how you didn’t know their sob story, and that it didn’t matter anyway. Because as far as Avolar is concerned, we’re the villains and they’re the ones with the sob story.”
“Do you think we’re evil? That we’re the true villains?” Rys asked, meeting Vallis’s soft brown eyes.
She laughed. “Have you been talking to Fara too much lately? I don’t think good and evil exist. Meeting you, working with actual demons and devils, and hearing about ancient history has only proved it. I hated Compagnon for personal reasons. But were they evil? No. This takes me back to the moral relativism classes in the mage tower, though.”
Rys groaned. “I hate that term.”
“Moral relativism?” She raised an eyebrow. “It seems pretty appropriate.”
“It’s an easy way to justify one’s actions as right or wrong based on social acceptability. Like I’ve said before, power is the only currency that matters. I own my actions based on my personal desires and whether they are effective. If I want something, then approval only matters because it can affect if I get it in the way I want,” he explained.
Vallis gulped. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.” She shifted her skirt and her eyelids fluttered. “It took me a while to realize the only reason you didn’t bend me over my desk was because you want me to bend over it for you.”
He grinned at her, and she shivered in anticipation. A soft sigh escaped her lips.
“I’m still going to wait,” she muttered, then coughed. “But I’ve noticed demons are the same way. I always look around me for approval, but the demons would do some very dangerous things if they thought they could get away with it. I boss them around, but other than Grigor and Terry, they only do what I say because they know that you’ll vaporize them if they lay a finger on me.”
“Damn right,” Rys said, his voice barely a whisper.
She licked her lips. “But isn’t that also a form of moral relativism? You’re defining the system of morality using your own power. Evil becomes everything that you punish, and good what you accept.”
“This is why I hate this discussion, just so you know,” he said glibly. “I don’t like conflating morals and power. It leads down a dangerous path. A convenient path, but not one that I allow myself to mentally walk.”
“Fair. That’s similar to what mages teach. The entire system of mage towers was founded by Kushan, and he’s the villain of all villains in recent history,” she said. “Kind of ruins the idea of good and evil when the place you’re learning at—full of brilliant mages—was originally created by a genuine madman who conquered Gauron.”
Rys stared at her. “I must have missed that part of history. What?”
“Your history is so spotty. I expected you to have devoured this stuff by now.” Vallis gave him a strange look, and he shrugged sheepishly. “You know the basics, right?”
“Kushan was a human mage who created evocation, thereby making humanity the most powerful mortal race, and shattered the draconic kingdoms. He also summoned a huge infernal host using Ariel’s aid, which disrupted the balance of power in Hell,” Rys said.
Said disruption also resulted in the loss of most of Rys’s Gifts.
“That’s a super simplified version, but yeah.” She sighed. “Kushan didn’t just invent evocation, he spread it across Gauron. He conquered the entire continent and created some of the oldest mage towers that still stand today, including the Towers of the Moon and Stars in Ahm. The Golden Age of Magic kicked off due to those towers basically continuing where he left off, once the dust settled a couple of centuries later.”
“So where does the madman part start?” Rys asked.
“He wiped out nearly every non-human nation on Gauron,” Vallis said flatly. “Dragons; elves; dwarves—the only elven nation he spared were the ones who trained him in magic in the first place, and he still conquered them. He just didn’t raze their country to the ground.”
That explained the vision that Darus had shown Rys, of the graveyard of dragons. He had genuinely thought that to be imagery of some form. Now he wondered if Kushan had actually slain that many dragons.
No wonder Sirion had looked so tired. Harrium had not improved in the last 1500 years.
“I did say earlier that I liked to keep morals separate from power,” he said simply. “I’m going to need to brush up on my history, as this seems like the sort of the thing the angels should have intervened in.”
“Things were a little more complicated, I think,” Vallis said. “Before Kushan, the world was ruled entirely by non-humans. It didn’t sound like a great place. Maybe it was a natural change?”
“Maybe.” He frowned.
Sirion had intimated something about how the angels had destroyed the portal to let mortals run the world themselves. But she had also felt that it had been a failed experiment.
Rys needed to know more. There was only one person to ask.
Or persons, really.
“You know what to do,” he told Vallis, before leaving.
He found a quiet room, ensured that he wasn’t going to be bothered, then dove into his knowledge Gift.
His eyes opened to find himself surrounded by lavender curtains shrouded in darkness. As always, a small round table with ornate gold trim sat in the center of the illusory space. Three small stools surrounded it.
He didn’t have a chance to sit down before two small forms pressed themselves against him.
“Darling,” two women gasped out, their voices oozing desire and lust. Their hands pressed against his crotch, massaging his cock through his pants. “You’ll stay awhile, right? Your visits have been so short.”
Both women appeared to be identical—because they were. These were the Darus Twins. Or illusory copies of her, at any rate.
Darus was one devil with two bodies and acted like it. She was a pair of identical twin knowledge devils, of the Calosceme species. The same as Tyrisa, in fact. Given the right clothes and makeup, the three could almost pass as triplets, as Caloscemes all looked far too similar. That’s why Tyrisa maintained her illusory horns.
Speaking of clothing, the Twins were changing things up. Ordinarily, they wore extravagant, frilly dresses that accentuated their ethereal beauty and lithe bodies. But today they wore complementing clothes.
One wore nothing but black lacy underwear, revealing her ghostly white skin. The other wore a sheer lace nightgown that fell just above her knees and transparently lacked the underwear of her other half.
The one wearing the underwear pouted at Rys and obstructed his view of the much naughtier Twin. “Don’t just look at her, darling. Don’t I look great as well?”
“It’s not often you wear different clothing,” he said diplomatically, deciding not to point out that one of them was currently revealing everything. That nightgown left nothing to the imagination, given it was see-through.
They both pouted at him. “You’re so tame, darling. We thought this would be to your liking.”
“I didn’t even know you could change your clothing,” he said, alarm bells beginning to sound in his head.
“It’s a function to reward customers,” they said with bewitching smiles as the pressed their nearly naked bodies against him and ushered him to a stool. “Although we would never separate the clothes like this for anybody but you, darling. Or touch other filth.”
As a pot of perfectly brewed coffee appeared on the table alongside a cup of fine china, the Twins stuffed their heads into his hair. They inhaled deeply and noisily. Their hands ran along his back and chest as they did so, and he did his best to ignore them as he poured his drink.
After the first dozen or so times, this act got a little repetitive. Although looking at them was a little more stimulating than usual.
He still adhered to his rule of not fucking Darus’s illusory copies. Doing so was liable to attract the attention of the real deal. He really didn’t want that, as he didn’t know what might happen. She was still too powerful for him to risk alerting, even with his additional strength.
If Darus could hold her own in Hell against Ariel and Malusian, Rys had a long way to go before he could handle her personally.
“I want to brush up on my history, specifically what’s gone so wrong in Gauron over the last thousand years or so,” he asked. “You went over it briefly last time, but I need more details. Things don’t add up, especially regarding the angels.”
The Twins paused. “We agree. There are many gaps in our library of knowledge regarding the actions of the angels after the Cataclysm that do not match expected behavior, or even the knowledge we otherwise have.”
Shit, had he aroused suspicion? There was a good chance that he knew things that Darus didn’t, and knowledge Gifts were a two-way street. While Darus couldn’t learn what Rys knew, she could learn things from the questions he asked.
“Where did you want to start, darling?” one Twin asked, her face sliding against his cheek.
He frowned. “Kushan. His actions should have attracted attention from the angels.”
“They did, but only very limited intervention,” they said. “There are many theories.”
“Start from the beginning.”
They huffed, then settled into their seats. A floating image appeared in the air next to him. It depicted some surprisingly familiar figures.
“Those are Fae,” he said and his frown deepened. “They were the defenders of the continent of Pandemonium. With its destruction in the Cataclysm, they should be long gone. When is this?”
“During the Fae Marches, immediately prior to the rise of Kushan,” Darus said with a pair of wicked smiles. “The angels took limited actions to stop them, leaving it up to the mortal nations. Eventually, Kushan appeared, having been trained by the Aefir. He was the most powerful being to walk Gauron since your disappearance, save the archangels.”
So the Aefir had been responsible. That explained a lot. They were the most magically capable caste of elves, and the only mortal race that devils respected. Many devils took on elvish forms purely due to the magical capabilities of the Aefir, and it was no coincidence that elvish and devil languages were similar.
Rys didn’t bother delving into the specifics of the elves, as he doubted it was important. But he noted that the Aefir had been important here.
“And?” he asked.
“He stopped the Fae,” Darus said. “Then went home, overthrew the elves who ruled his homeland, and built his own kingdom. You’d know the place, in fact. It was close to Basette. I recall that you were often active there.”
Rys stared.
Oh no.
“Question: is Kushan related to me?” he asked, the words escaping his mouth before he could think about the repercussions.
The Twins laughed. “No. That is a very common question. Ferra herself checked when she served Kushan on Ariel’s behalf. She was quite disappointed that you hadn’t secretly been operating as Kushan.”
Ferra had been one of the many devils he had received a Gift from. Rys hadn’t thought that he was close enough to her that she would care to look for him.
“Good riddance,” one of the Twins spat.
The other nodded rapidly.
But apparently, he was close enough to Ferra that Darus felt she deserved death. Such was the price of sleeping with another woman.
“Good to know,” he said, glad that his lost memories of Basette hadn’t been related to fostering a descendent who conquered most of the damn world centuries later.
That was Rys’s job, after all.
“Where do the angels come into this? I know the part where he murders all the non-humans,” he said.
The Twins rolled their eyes. “There are suggestions that Samael visited Kushan and a dispute occurred. Given Kushan remained active afterward, that suggests he won any dispute.”
“Bullshit. Samael obliterated entire armies and fleets in the Cataclysm. He was the most powerful archangel by far. Nobody even knows how Pandemonium brought him down,” Rys said.
“The new archangels are nothing like the old ones. In more ways than one.” The Twins laughed, then glowered at him. “Samael is far weaker than the original. Krisanem fought her in a duel once and said it was disappointing.”
Rys wanted to know more about that, but didn’t want to ask too many questions that would arouse suspicion.
“What about the angelic legions?” he asked.
“They remained inactive. It is possible that this was considered a mortal affair.”
“Before or after Kushan summoned half of Hell to conquer Gauron?” Rys said sarcastically.
Darus shrugged. “This is a gap in our knowledge. Just like the presence of Fae on Gauron. The angels were surprisingly inactive for some time, although they became considerably more active after this. Or more accurately, Azrael became more active.”
That piqued Rys’s interest. “Only Azrael?”
“Yes. Azrael intervened in multiple mortal disputes and prevented significant events from snowballing out of control. The most notable occurred when the Golden Age of Magic ended,” Darus said.
“Wait.” Rys raised a hand. “What happened to Kushan?”
“Ah.” The Twins smirked. “He died. A new power rose up, far greater than anticipated, and crushed him. In turn, it was crushed centuries later when it tried to conquer Gauron in what is called the Great War. Having learned their lesson, nobody allowed a second conquest to take place, and the continent united. Azrael intervened here as well.”
Azrael, Azrael, Azrael.
Why were the rest of the angels doing nothing while an archangel stepped in? Did it have something to do with the fact that Azrael was the only remaining archangel?
Too many questions, too few answers.
He tried to ask Darus about Azrael, but the moment he tried, his mind froze up. He couldn’t ask it. In fact, he couldn’t even focus on Azrael’s motivations without his mind blanking out.
Bingo.
Without anything to guide him, he had been unable to find gaps in his memory. But Darus had led him here.
He had somehow become involved with the new Azrael in the past, after the Cataclysm, and had forgotten about him. And whatever that involvement had been, it had something to do with Azrael’s involvement in the many crises that Gauron had faced over the last 1500 years.
“Let me get this straight,” he said, trying to sort out history. “There were the Fae Marches, then Kushan, then the Golden Age of Magic, then…”
“The Great War, the shadowbeasts, and now… you,” Darus finished, smiling brightly.
Yeah, somehow Rys knew that when the real Darus finally checked on her knowledge Gift and saw everything that had come from him, things were going to become interesting.
But damn, Gauron had been busy and not in a good way.
“I think I’ve learned enough for one day,” he said.
They pouted at him and rushed out of their stools. “Don’t go, darling. There’s so much more fun to be had!”
As their hands desperately tried to undo his pants, he retreated from the illusion.
He hadn’t truly gained answers, but he now knew the sort of questions he needed to ask in the future and where to look.
More importantly, Rys knew that he could expect a visit from Azrael one day. If only he knew what made the area near Basette so important.