23.1

Hell's Gate lay at the edge of the Astral Plane, a dark maul sucking in all light. Great black, thorn-covered rose bushes grew on either side of the demon-crafted metalwork that marked the entrance.

When Zyrdicia stepped through the swirling magical storm at the border of demon realm, she felt neither exhilaration nor fear in being in this sacred place. A great churning blackness inside her had obliterated every sensation but the hurt and rage that had taken over the moment she left Castle Blackpool.

As she approached the Gate, great hordes of small, flying imps swarmed around her, attracted by her flesh. She repelled them with a word in Azriok's tongue, scowling at the beasts' impertinence.

She yelled her dark angel's name loudly, further terrifying the little demons still scurrying about. Her tone was disrespectful and impatient.

A black mist formed inside the Gate after several minutes. The agonizing slowness of the materialization seemed to her to be an effort to annoy her. It eventually coalesced into a boyish, perfect, familiar black-winged form.

Azriok's ebony eyes beheld her for a long moment, appraising her through the entry way. Minutes passed as they stared silently at one another.

"Deesh," he crooned warmly. "The dreamworld is but a pale substitute for seeing you here."

His lush tone caressed her ears with its divine cadence, bringing a hint of a smile to her lips. His voice always sounded lovely to her when he spoke his unholy native tongue. She finally felt a twinge of sorrow and the familiar bitterness of regret as she gazed into the dark depths of her angel's eyes. She was painfully aware of a destiny that would never truly allow her to belong with Azriok.

Zyrdicia willed herself to look away only to find that she could not. Her stare was trapped by the mysterious cosmos contained in Azriok's eyes. She found a soft reassurance in them. The old longing for him stirred somewhere deep within her being.

She confessed, "You were right about humans being vermin. I should have never doubted you."

He smiled then. Its deceptive gentleness felt like a tender embrace, despite the distance separating their bodies. The great, wise eyes seemed to suck in her consciousness across the Gate into him.

She sensed that he already knew why she was here. He looked at her as though he expected every step she took long before she ever even contemplated taking it. He had every answer she sought, and more. The dark, infinite wisdom in the angel's gaze seemed somehow possessed every secret since the dawn of time.

Zyrdicia suddenly was unsure whether she stood inside or outside the Gate. Azriok seemed frightfully near. She inhaled slowly, feeling his magic at work up on her, tugging at the edges of her consciousness. She lost all sensation in her body then. She was floating inside his eyes, a small speck within his massive blackness.

Awareness flooded cruelly back into her when she tumbled forward. Her limp body crashed against the icy, rose-covered gatepost gracelessly. Sharp thorns tore at her hands as she steadied her balance, willing herself back into her body. He had jerked her soul out of her body so quickly that she had not even had time to think of fighting it. It had found its way back to her, but it was not quite seated in her body now. She grew breathless with the sensation of the continued, relentless pressure upon her soul within her body as Azriok silently tugged on it.

The dark angel's eyes filled with a mysterious mixture of curiosity and vexation. The piece of my soul inside you wants to come home to me, precious. It begs to escape its confinement in your flesh. Why do you resist it so?"

"It belongs to me now," she said weakly.

"My own soul screams to reach through to you to be reunited with the piece of itself I entrusted to you. There is no help for it. We have become two beings with a shared soul desperate to be rejoined. We will both suffer until we are together."

Azriok's dark eyes glittered. He leaned as near the Gate's opening as he could and coaxed, "There is now mortal spawn clinging to life inside you. Let us devour the last remnant of your mortality together, here in Hell. You have no place in the flesh world anymore. Your place is with me, as a god."

Zyrdicia found herself unable to draw a breath. She leaned heavily against the Gate, feeling as though she were being crushed by the weight of his words.

"Deesh, together we can exact revenge upon the mortal world such that even Hell will tremble. Together, we have enough magic to rip open the fabric of the cosmos. I will bring armies of demons to do your bidding. We can torment the flesh-vermin for eternity. There are modes of torture at my disposal that you have not yet even imagined. We can inflict all of them upon that world together."

"What then?" she gasped.

"We shall destroy Zyr. And we shall reform the world as we wish. With all the magic we share, we can ignite a second Creation. We shall be together forever, Deesh. It was always destined to be so."

Zyrdicia shivered at the thought. It was at once deliciously tempting and dangerously terrifying.

Azriok whispered, "No one in the cosmos adores you as I do. My adoration is eternal."

Zyrdicia's lips twisted into a reluctant smile at the music of his words. It sounded so sublimely perfect. She needed to hear this more than anything at this moment.

Unthinkingly, she closed her hand around one of the enchanted roses growing around the Gate's cold, black post. The razor-sharp thorns pierced the soft, white skin of her hand. She focused on that sensation's distraction, closing her eyes. The physical pain grounded her consciousness in her body, distracting her from the power of Azriok's call.

When she opened her eyes, the dark angel moved his hand, as though to reach through and caress her. An invisible barrier prevented the gesture. His fingers flattened against the magical, open space of the gate, pressing hard as though he could force his way through to him.

She plucked the blood-stained rose in her hand free. Then her own hand moved up to meet Azriok's. Careful not to let her hand cross through the Gate's barrier, she held the end of the stem and passed it into his fingers. He drew the flower to his face, inhaling the scent of her blood on the thorns.

Azriok's attention moved from the cherished flower back to his pupil's face. When he spoke, his words had an electrical intensity that sent a shiver down her spine. His voice echoed through the astral emptiness like a magical command, resonating deep within her psyche. "We are one. We shall be together, forever."

She took a deep breath, feeling dizzy as his soul pulled viciously at its place in her body's cage. She groaned, "Not yet. Only after mortal world is destroyed. I will come to you then, if you help me destroy that world first."

"Deesh, I left a Hell Window for you in that world aeons ago for this very purpose." the dark angel said, sounding resigned to the delay. "Open it."

She stared at him, surprised that a Hell Window could be of any use. She had heard about these fabled openings years ago, but Philip was convinced they did not really exist. They were rumored to be direct holes between the material world and the realm of demons - tiny openings where the worlds touched. "Where is this Window?"

"Near the arcanium you so covet."

She frowned, displeased that he knew of the arcanium in Karteia.

Sensing her thoughts, Azriok said, "You must never underestimate the depth of the past you and I share, Deesh. It was I who entrusted that arcanium to the earth thousands of years ago for you. I spilled my own blood into mountains. Where it flowed, arcanium ore appeared."

Zyrdicia nodded mechanically, remembering Azriok's capacity to delight her with his myth-making genius as a child. She murmured, "I know that you were once in that world as Pindara. I saw a statue there."

The Sephiroth lord smiled fondly, revealing the sharp, ivory tips of his teeth. Zyrdicia felt the timeless bond with the dark angel even as she struggled to deny it. She asked, "How do I open the Hell Window?"

"The key will present itself."

"Just tell me where to find it!"

"Through the Window I will show you how to remedy the imbalance in your magic," Azriok said confidently as though it were impossible for her to refuse him. "Once you learn to stop resisting my magic, together we will unleash Hell's fury there!"

"You know about the problem I'm having with my magic?"

Azriok gazed at her impassively. When doubt crept into her expression, he said tenderly, "In my soul, I have felt you falter as you draw upon the energy flow. I will teach you to master it. But there is a price."

"I already agreed to come to you here after that world is destroyed!"

"Not just you, precious. You must also promise me the spawn."

"I promise," she said automatically, feeling detached from the sound of her own voice.

Azriok smiled then and brought the rose to his face once more. He kissed the thorns colored with her blood delicately. He then motioned elegantly with one hand, and turned away from her. The Gate swung slowly shut then.

Zyrdicia was again alone on the Astral Plane. She would have wept if she had known how.

23.1.1

At this moment, Zyrdicia found it nearly impossible to trust anyone about anything important. Trusting Azriok about eternity in Hell was simply too much to ask of herself.

She thought a very long time about her predicament and the need for an exit from it. She sensed that Azriok had weakened himself considerably in giving her a piece of his soul. If that were true, perhaps Zyr had weakened himself in creating her all those years ago. Maybe, just maybe, all these games had taken a toll on them, too. If she was right, then their weakness opened the possibility of finding a way to destroy both of them, herself and the entire cosmos in the process.

Right now she had no idea where to go or what to do with herself. She was too heartsick to have an interest in carnage, too sad to even feel like finding company in Lyr. She could not return home - not that she even knew for sure where 'home' was anymore. Her finely attuned psyche could sense Portia was acting as Dirk's messenger looking for her. Apparently, he had thought of more words to say to hurt her and was looking for an opportunity.

Zyrdicia was tired of Portia's divided loyalty. Her assistant cared much too deeply for Cai, and that made her too easy a pawn for Dirk. Zyrdicia had never had an assistant dare to fall in love with someone else during a term of service. To Zyrdicia, this was an act of betrayal. Portia would have to be killed soon too.