23.10

Tristan gestured silently to the small cave mouth gaping from the face of a mountain not far from the arcanium mines above Geshna. To reach it, they had to make their way carefully up a snow-covered, narrow path.

Zyrdicia did not mind the inconvenience. Besides, if Tristan could really do what he promised, it would be worth it. The thought of finally sorting out the problem with her magic filled her with giddy anticipation.

Inside the cave, they made their way through a series of winding passages carved straight into the mountain. Eventually they reached a giant chamber not entirely unlike the Sephiroth shrine she had found not so long ago with Dirk the night the werewolves had nearly killed him. This one differed only that it was clearly dedicated only to Pindara. Zyrdicia glanced around carefully, searching for the opening Tristan promised. "There is no Hell Window here, you fucking liar!"

"Of course there is. Have you ever seen one?"

"No. But look around - there's nothing here."

Tristan knelt to the floor and began pressing against the black, square tiles in the center of the chamber. One by one, they flipped beneath the pressure he applied. Eventually the shape of a great, red octagon emerged on the floor's surface. Spindly black, magical runes embedded upon every crimson tile cast a smoky hue over the design. As Tristan uncovered the last of the tiles, the temperature in the cave dropped suddenly.

"I need Sephiroth blood to open the portal," Tristan said. "I'm told yours will do."

"Azriok told you that?" Zyrdicia stared at him, her face a mask of outrage.

Tristan nodded and said, "Last night, I dreamt it."

"I'll summon a Sephiroth for you," she said frostily.

"There aren't any to summon. Azriok has been systematically killing every one of them. Anyone who escaped would not dare come near you now for fear of attracting his attention. Your blood, my lady?" He pulled out a small dagger and handed it to her.

She accepted the knife bleakly. She pulled the blade across her wrist, her eyes devoid of emotion. She had done this so often that she scarcely felt it. She watched the large red drops of blood fall upon the enchanted floor's surface, splattering against the tiles.

She felt the portal's magic begin to activate. Dirk had been right about one thing, she realized - she really was a demon now. A shiver of anticipation ran up her spine. The tiles glowed brightly as her blood seeped into them. A large black keyhole opened in the stone where her blood had fallen.

Tristan knelt down then and pulled a large, black key from a chain that hung around his neck, hidden beneath his shirt. When he inserted it and gave it a sharp twist to the left, the ground began to rumble, The magical tiles began to melt away as dark clouds of hell-spawned magic seeped through them. A small tremor shook the cave; an eerie silence followed. Finally, a shimmering darkness appeared in the space above the tiles. A dozen feet high and as many wide, the Hell Window was open.

Ignoring Tristan, Zyrdicia stepped near it, eager to get a better look at whatever lay on the other side. Hell's interior was a mystery to her. She stared at swarms of flying beasts soaring above a vast sea of red, bubbling magma. To her, it was beautiful. Minutes slipped by.

The sound of beating wings filled the Window. A moment later, the familiar form of her dark angel appeared in the dark hell-sky just above the portal. He lowered himself to the opening with a small twitch of his enormous black wings.

Zyrdicia smiled, enjoying the sight of him flying. Tall, beautiful and clothed in shadow, his pale skin glimmered with perfection. She had a sudden urge to reach through the magical portal to touch him in Hell, on the other side.

Just as they had done before at Hell's Gate, Azriok's slender fingers moved from his side as though he intended to reach through to her. His hand stopped midway through, hitting against an invisible barrier. He pressed his palm against the unseen wall, then dug his sharp, black nails into it as though he could rip through it somehow.

He scowled in frustration. He truly loathed his confinement. When the air failed to yield to him, he peered at her, all the yearning of the entire cosmos coalescing in the dark depths of his eyes.

Zyrdicia frowned, feeling his yearning as her own. She lost track of the boundary of where his ache for her ended, and hers for him began. Despite all the ties that bound them together, the Window was irrefutable evidence of the fact of their separation.

Zyrdicia's despairing loneliness welled up again, stabbing her suddenly with its intensity. All of her emotional vulnerability felt shockingly obvious under Azriok's gaze. She was ashamed of it.

Zyrdicia pressed the hand that Tristan's dagger had so recently sliced open against the Window to meet his Azriok's. She pressed it into his open fingers, through the Window's opening. It felt as though she were reaching through invisible, gelatinous ice. Her hand hung suspended there, just a few inches into a realm no mortal could ever enter.

Azriok drew her fingers to his face, inhaling the scent of her. He kissed the wound at her wrist gently, tasting it. He said, "I taste the sadness in your blood. It is an affront to your birthright in the cosmos to let a mortal cause such displeasure, precious."

Zyrdicia nodded her head. He was right. No mortal should be able to send her careening into such a pit of blackness. She admitted, "I made a terrible mistake by falling in love with him. I have to kill him."

"Yes, Deesh. You must kill him."

Desiring to change the subject to deflect attention away from her own unhappiness, she said, "You promised you would fix the problem with my magic if I opened the Window. At least make that part of my life work again."

The dark angel smiled mysteriously and beckoned for her to come nearer. Cautiously she stepped onto the magical tiles that contained the rift between worlds. She understood the rules perfectly: as long as she did not choose to come all the way through to him, he could not win. She could stand within the opening without crossing over. The risk was thrilling.

She pressed herself into the narrow band of frigid, uncomfortable magical netherspace. She was balanced precariously between two worlds. Azriok leaned near and began whispering gently in her ear. The lovely Tenaebran words soothed her anguish, reminding her of her earliest magical instruction with him. Lessons from childhood, shrouded in the fog of memory, came swirling back to her mind's surface.

In the liminal space of the Window's opening, Azriok could touch her for the first time in a century. His fingertips grasped her shoulders, halfway through the magical space. Frightfully strong, he held her there. Azriok pressed his cold body against her and bent his head to hold her warm cheek against his own icy one. He crooned, "Come to me now. We shall be happy together, precious."

"No, Azriok. We won't. I've come to understand that happiness doesn't really exist. It's an illusion. Misery is the thread binding the fabric of life. But I want to destroy this world to make the misery just a little more bearable. If you want to prove to me that you still care about me, send me an army from Hell to destroy this world."

"When I'm free, precious."

"Not in a few centuries. I want an army of demons now!"

"Sending an army out of Hell is a very large undertaking, even for me."

"But you can do it. I know you can. You did it to get me out of Death's kingdom. Just do it once more. For me. Then we can be together."

"To send an army to you, I need one of your annihilation spheres to open a rift between Hell and that world."

"No problem," she said quickly. She had hoped to use all six of the magical spheres to slay Azriok some day. But now she would have to make do with five. She called one of the spheres to her from its magical hiding place. "Here's the Sphere. Now what?"

"Activate it."

"Here?!"

"Yes."

"The explosion will kill us both."

"Not as long as we stand here, in between worlds. The Sphere's magic will tear at the fabric of the Window. It will cause a great, gaping hole in the fabric of the universe between Hell and that world, precious."

"A hole you can send an army through, even though you are still trapped in Hell?"

"Yes, Deesh."

Zyrdicia had nothing to lose. Once Dirk surrendered to Eric, she would use Hell's army to annihilate the entire material world. It had been the scene of so much suffering for her. She said the word to unleash the sphere's magic.

Instantly, a black wave of violence exploded around them both. Azriok pulled up his wings, protecting her from it. She clung to him, waiting for it to subside. The magical reverberations seemed to last an eternity.

When it was finally quiet again, Azriok stared at her, his black eyes piercing through to the depths of her soul. "I shall grant your wish, precious. You shall have an army of demons to do your bidding."

"When?"

"The night the fifth full moon rises, I shall unleash my legion in that world."

"That's five months away."

"In our reckoning, Deesh, it is but five days."

She noted the subtle barb in the statement. He was correcting her gently, steering her to think in terms of aeons rather than hours. She knew he underestimated just how capable she was of doing just that. She sighed petulantly, and filled her mind with impatient, frustrated thoughts. She demanded, "Show me how to access all the power you put inside me in the mean time."

She let her mind drift back into deep recesses of memory then, pulling out recollections of the emotion she had felt for Azriok as a girl. She let the recollected adoration for him wash over her then projected the sentiment to him.

She whispered, "I used to love you because of the way you taught me to take ownership of the power inside me."

He cocked his head curiously. It was rare his pupil could say something that surprised him. She intrigued him now with her retreat to a past where she was so dependent upon him.

She closed her eyes then, deliberately concentrating on the emotion conjured by the memories. "We were never closer than when you were teaching me magic, Azriok. I want to feel that closeness again. I need to feel it. I still ache for what we once were. I want to trust you the way I did then. Be my teacher the way you used to be. Give me a reason to adore you the way I once did!"

"So be it," the dark angel purred.