Lucifer's Odyssey

by Rex Jameson

  Chapter 14

  Game Changers

  Elandril jumped off the balcony and floated down without wings, and Lucifer watched in awe for a moment before following him in a winged descent. He turned to beckon Sariel to join them, but he had disappeared. Lucifer opened his mouth to call for him but noticed his purple-winged brother on the monitors raising Ganymede’s hand in celebration.

  Lucifer breezed past the slowly drifting Elandril and nudged him in the shoulder before joining the elven champion atop the mountain.

  “What a game!” he said, knowing the monitors would pick up his words over the noisy stadium. “What a contest and what a champion!”

  “Yes, congratulations.” Elandril’s amplified voice resonated around the Coliseum. “Despite Sellys’ exploits and a valiant push by Rorschaz, the Ganymede globus has won a fifth championship in as many years. Well done!”

  Lucifer cheered with his brother as Elandril touched down below the peak.

  “We have much to celebrate this year,” Elandril said. “Another peaceful, productive period with unprecedented economic growth. We have prosperous trade throughout the universe, and we’ve seen more technological and magical development than at any other point in our history, and yet despite our progress, we knew that the time would come when our secret would get out.”

  Elandril was such a buzz kill. The crowd grew eerily silent. Lucifer wondered how much forewarning the elves would have about his plea for asylum. He wasn’t entirely ready for a speech. He was still overwhelmed with the jubilation of the crowd.

  “Today,” Elandril continued, “some old friends and recent enemies have come to visit us. Many of you may wonder what this means for our civilization. Should we fall back to our Goblin moniker? Should we hide what we’re doing?”

  He let the elves argue in their comfortable chairs and tree limbs as monitors followed the faces in the crowd. There was one in particular that attracted the most viewers, though, and Lucifer recognized its features as belonging to a well-dressed forgewright. His face was sunken and hollow, and the skin on his ears appeared to melt down his lobes and onto his neck. He looked angry.

  “You’ve killed us all, you idiot!” the elf screamed.

  “This is Routan,” Elandril said in a whisper to Lucifer and Sariel. “Runner up in the election. He ran on an old school platform—namely that we should hide from the demons and build in secret, adopt the Goblin moniker permanently to give Chaos false comfort and play to your ego. Additionally, we should avoid the heretical magics at all costs.”

  “Charming,” Sariel said. “Ignorance, fear, and morals. If he doesn’t attain office here in the Elven Universe, he should try his hand in Alurabum.”

  Lucifer pinpointed the location of the man in the crowd and addressed him directly. “Revered Routan, I understand you would have the elves hide from Chaos forever?”

  “Not hide,” the elf replied defensively, “but build proper defenses until we let you demons know that we are worth taking down again. Did you not come here before when you saw how beautiful our people were? Did you not come here before when you found out we were intelligent? As goblins, we are scum who are beneath you and not worth your time. As elves, we are your betters—more ancient, more noble, and more immortal!”

  The elven mob roared their approval. Here was a proud people. Pride was something Lucifer had a lot of experience exploiting. He just had to get Routan to stop insulting him for long enough to compliment the elven people.

  “Yes,” Lucifer said. “We have a powerful contingent of extremely jealous and bitter old men in Chaos who lied, cheated, and stole their way into our political process. They won the Council’s ear, and then they usurped the whole head. Now their tyrannical leader sits in the most powerful seat in our universe, and all of you have the power to stop him.”

  “How convenient!” Routan said. “The little prince whose royal father finally died is putting the blame for the genocide of an immortal race on someone else’s shoulders!”

  Lucifer swallowed hard. That wound might never fully heal over. “Those who know me, know that I am a demon of few words.” He motioned to Sariel for King Veldin’s assassination viewing orb. “I would rather be known for my actions and intentions.”

  “Like your intention to destroy our primal pattern?”

  “I will fight the destruction of your primal, even if it means my death!”

  Routan’s eyebrows raised and a smirk spread across his face. “For a man of few words, you sure make mortal vows easily enough.”

  “I see before me an amazing race of immortals that have exceeded us demons in almost every way. Please don’t sink to our level and mistake the craziness of one man for the intentions of an entire universe. My family took in Elandril, and we loved him like he was our own kin. My uncle Batarel saved your princesses and kept them away from Eranos and his bloodthirsty Council, saving your primal pattern in the process.”

  “More words, demon, and not a shred of proof …”

  “You don’t have to take my word for it,” Lucifer said. “But perhaps you would listen to your king?”

  “He is not our king yet!”

  “I’m not speaking of Elandril; I’m speaking of your murdered king. Would you like to hear his intimate account of the source of our regrettable war?”

  There wasn’t a vocal reply for over a minute. Chairs creaked and soft thuds could be heard as elves clumsily dropped out of trees and onto the aisles below. Eventually, the crowd regained their senses. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Lucifer snatched the orb from Sariel’s hand and threw it high into the air. The stadium monitors circled the orb and then aligned themselves opposite the layer of mist that was produced as the viewer spun in place.

  “Your proof!” he shouted as an image flickered into view.

  On the view screen, an elderly elf in blue robes paced the floor of the royal throne room in Arnessa. He was reciting something to himself, and his eyes didn’t leave the ground until he finally looked at the recorder. At first, he smiled, but then he must have realized what he was looking at.

  He didn’t appear to panic. He didn’t try to run for the door. Instead, he hailed the person who had placed the recorder.

  “I have something to tell you before you kill me,” Veldin said.

  The crowd gasped, and Lucifer put his arm around Elandril, who was tearing up. The new king was watching this for the first time, too.

  “Make it quick,” Eranos said from the shadows. “And turn around so I can watch you die …”

  “I understand that you are here because you are angry at my son …”

  “He defiled my baby.”

  “The oracles told me,” Veldin said. “And they showed me what the little girl would have looked like. Beautiful. Half-demon, half-elven. She would have united both universes.”

  “She would have been an abomination!”

  “We are of the same line, you know,” Veldin said.

  “Turn around so I can kill you,” Eranos replied.

  “I still have something important to tell you. Tonight, you will murder your first king, but it will not be the last. And the other’s eldest son will see you to your own grave. But first, know that the union you sought to sunder will be made whole once more. You will not destroy the Elven Realm, for your champions and our champions are the same. Your line and our line.”

  Eranos soundlessly moved behind the King, and the crowd gasped as he unsheathed his black daggers. “It’s time.”

  “Many years from now, he will take your left hand. I’m fresh out of lefts, but I can spare a right …”

  Veldin spun on his heel and in one fluid motion connected with the assassin’s jaw. His follow through pressed him against Eranos’s body, and they both stumbled toward the door. The King didn’t push himself away. Instead he seemed to lean more heavily against the demon, whose wings were dancing behind him.

  Eranos stepped back and the King fell to the floor. A pool of blood spread beyond th
e view of the recorder as the assassin rubbed his jaw.

  “I may not kill the Goblin Realm,” Eranos said, “but I sure as hell killed you, didn’t I?”

  He walked over to the recorder and reached down to turn it off, and the screen froze on Eranos’s face. Lucifer looked up at it and snarled. For a moment, he forgot where he was. In his mind, he relived his father’s and mother’s last moments from his caged viewpoint. He watched as their heads bounced and rolled down the stairs, and he smiled as he recalled tearing Eranos’s left arm from the rest of his body.

  “Your King knew what would happen,” Lucifer said. “He knew that I would be here before all of you asking for asylum. We have a common enemy—a deranged demon who killed both of our Kings to feed his own ignorance, hatred, and greed. This demon has led all of us astray, and we find it hard to trust each other given our history. It’s easier to isolate ourselves and hide from the truth, but what has hiding from the truth ever done for either of our races? Temporary peace bartered with ignorance, fear, and economic depression.”

  “We’ve done just fine without you!” Routan yelled, and the monitors whirled back to him.

  “But imagine what we can do together. Your champions and our champions. Your line and our line.”

  The monitors circled around the stadium, and viewing maelstroms focused on Lucifer’s face.

  “All we ask is for the chance to prove ourselves to you.”

  Elandril turned toward Lucifer. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well,” Lucifer said, “we are here to watch a Certamen, are we not? What better way to show our progress and willingness to learn from you than to participate in your new favorite pastime?”

  “Against who?” Elandril laughed, pointing to Ganymede. “Our champion globus?”

  The crowd showed similar mirth, and Sariel pushed his brother aside. “Actually, we were hoping that you would let us fight all of them.”

  Rorschaz, Daniel, Shep, and the other globi joined Ganymede at the top of the mountain.

  “You must be joking,” Ganymede said. “Are you wanting some of us to fight on your side?”

  “If I were joking,” Sariel said as he smiled for the cameras. “I would have opened with the one about the three-nippled scientist walking into a bar. Have you heard it?”

  Ganymede shook his head.

  “Maybe later,” Sariel said. “Anyway, us two against your ten best globi. We win, we stay. You win, we leave. What do you say?”

  “I think you should start packing your bags,” Ganymede laughed.

  “I say you two have yourselves a deal,” Elandril said to the delight of the crowd. “If you manage to beat a few of our champions, you gain our respect. If you manage to beat all of our champions, you gain your asylum.”