When they leaned against his body, he held himself in check. Their dresses were cut open at the top to reveal the frilly black lingerie they wore. His mind reproduced a memory in bed with them, and the scent of their shampoo and scented soap. He remembered the sweet moans they made in bed when he pressed their bodies together while thrusting into them.
As much as he wanted to relive those memories, he suppressed the desire.
Something told Rys that fucking mental reproductions of the knowledge devil in charge of the Gift might allow him to be detected. Because these twins weren’t the real thing, even if they did a fantastic job of making Rys rock hard.
“I’m here to ask questions. You know, the usual thing people use knowledge Gifts for,” Rys said, ignoring his libido.
Darus pouted at him, but they pulled away. Their scent lingered in his nose long after they sat down opposite him.
“You like the change?” they asked, gesturing around them.
Teacups appeared in front of them and filled with a lilac-colored tea.
“I’m impressed at the quality of the illusion. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were really here,” he said.
The Twins smiled at him. Desire oozed from their eyes.
“We’d love to devote all of our attention to you, darling,” one said.
“Forever and ever,” the other muttered.
“But we have a lot to do these days. Lots of infernals use our knowledge Gift. Of course, only you have full access, but it’s too much work to pay attention to every request for information. We created this to improve the customer experience,” Darus said.
“Not that you’re a customer,” the other Twin added hastily, and both nodded rapidly.
Had they always been this desperate for his approval and affection?
Rys had the impression he might have fucked up somewhere in the past. To him, the Darus Twins were a footnote in his past. A curiosity because of their intelligence, ambition, and the fact they were twin devils. He had seduced them, gained their Gift, then moved on, other than a visit every so often.
Like every infernal, Darus had been banished to Hell when the Infernal Empire collapsed. The portal that sustained the existence of almost every infernal in Harrium had been destroyed along with Ruathym. It led to what the infernals called the “Forever Banishing.”
“Being here reminds me of a lot of knowledge Gifts from before the Cataclysm,” Rys said, as he drank from his endless supply of coffee. “Knowledge devils used illusions like this to create a better experience than trying to read a book in your head. Helped justify the extortionate fees some charged.”
Infernals never gave anything away for free. Most knowledge devils sold access to their Gifts in exchange for an annual fee.
Said annual fee was payable for the rest of the customer’s life. And an infernal contract signed with a devil was non-negotiable and magically enforced. Refusal to pay meant death or slavery, and running wasn’t an option.
Darus’s eyes gleamed. All four of them. Rys suspected she had taken on a similar racket in Hell.
“Ask any question you like, darling,” the Twins said together, their voices turning husky. “Our mind is an open book to you. As are our bodies.”
They ran their fingers down the front of their dresses, revealing their lingerie again.
Rys reminded himself of his objective, which didn’t include screwing Darus.
The Twins in front of him had confirmed they were mental constructs, and that the real Darus was too busy to pay attention to her knowledge Gift. That gave him the leeway he thought he had. He had worried when they had pulled him into this world, but everything was fine.
Fine, he thought, as the Twins stared at him with raw hunger.
If he alerted Darus to his survival, how long would he have before she used every scrap of information she had to track him down and satisfy that hunger? Because these constructs looked like they wanted to fuck him for a year straight.
Rys tried asking the obvious question. What happened to him?
The moment he formed the question, something stopped him. His mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t come out.
He tried again.
Damn. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. Any attempt he made to ask a question about his disappearance or anything related to his missing memories produced that same mental block.
Darus stared at him with curiosity. They swirled their tea, fiddled with their clothes, licked their lips, and let their hands linger below the table for too long.
He decided to stick with the most relevant topics for the time being. That meant he needed to skip a lot of what he really wanted to learn about, but asking too much would tip Darus off.
If somebody used her knowledge gift to ask about the last 1500 years of history, what had happened to every major infernal, and an archipelago in the middle of nowhere, then even the busiest knowledge devil would notice.
“Tell me about the Tolaran Archipelago,” Rys said. “Briefly.”
A flickering image of a map appeared in midair next to him. He raised an eyebrow.
“Why is it flickering?” he asked.
“It adds to the realism. Lots of infernals feel that static images are fake. If it moves or flickers, it tricks their stupid little minds into thinking that they’re in a real place instead of being trapped inside their mind,” Darus said.
Rys wondered what it took to not be considered stupid by Darus.
The map stopped flickering. Rys raised an eyebrow as he noticed there was a lot of missing detail on it, but certain areas were very well populated.
“I take it you don’t know much about the region,” he said.
“It’s a tiny set of islands with little of importance. We only know this much because there are knowledge devils currently active there, and we have their Gifts,” one of the Twins said.
One of the most common ways for a knowledge devil to enhance their own Gift was to acquire the Gift of other infernals. Darus appeared to be the veritable queen of knowledge devils right now, which would make it easy for her to bully weaker devils into giving her their Gift.
“Do you know where they are?” Rys asked.
“No. They’re not stupid enough to let me know that. But somebody has summoned a few permanently, I believe,” Darus said.
Fara had mentioned that other infernalists came to the archipelago. That wasn’t an exaggeration. A permanent knowledge devil summon meant that Rys had some competition, even if they likely weren’t anybody too dangerous.
He moved on, standing up and analyzing the map.
The archipelago consisted of four large islands plus several smaller islands. The larger islands were called Kavolara, Gorgria, Dalyros, and Kinaria. The smaller islands appeared to be unpopulated according to this map and lacked names.
“There isn’t much detail here,” he said.
“Like I said, a tiny set of islands with little of importance,” Darus said. She pouted at Rys’s annoyed expression.
Then she brightened up. One of the Twins stood up and wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling her face into his back.
“There’s a special piece of information about this archipelago that only you can access,” the seated Twin said, her smile turning wicked. “Only your knowledge Gift can see it. We’d love to read it out for you, darling. To feel you tap into a part of our mind that nobody else can touch.”
“Absolutely not,” he said flatly. If there was ever a way to be detected by Darus, that was it.
Information that no other knowledge Gift could access? Tempting to learn about, but stupid. At least right now.
The Twins pouted at him.
“What about the Labyrinth in the Tolaran Archipelago?” he asked, choosing to focus on something closer to home.
“We don’t have any information about it.” The Twins frowned and their eyes darkened.
Rys hadn’t expected that. Given how impressive the magic behind the Labyrinth was, he expected Hell to know
all about it. Then again, he had known nothing about it when he had been around.
The mystery of this archipelago deepened.
“I don’t need to know about history, but who are the major powers right now? Who do I need to worry about?” he asked.
“Humanity, mostly,” Darus said.
An image of a city replaced the map. It began to move, racing across the cityscape.
Hundreds of spires reached for the heavens. A massive sprawl of buildings stretched out for miles. Tens of thousands of people clustered into the city streets like ants.
“This is a human city?” he asked.
“This is Ahm, the largest metropolis on Gauron. It’s a royal city-state and represents the most advanced magic on Harrium. At least, the most advanced magic known to humans.” Darus giggled, raising their hands to their mouths. “We’ve helped them along a little, but it’s amusing to watch humanity rediscover so many ‘secrets’ of magic.”
He frowned. “So they’ve gone backward.”
“Oh, no. Humanity is far, far more powerful than ever before.”
The city vanished, and in its place appeared what appeared to be a graveyard of dragons. Massive bones littered a wasteland.
“A human mage called Kushan invented a new type of sorcery, called evocation. Only humans can use it. It changed the world. You should learn it,” Darus said. “It’s less powerful than infernal sorcery, but far more flexible. And almost every human can use it.”
“Quantity over quality,” Rys said. “The opposite of dragons. This is metaphorical then?”
“Oh, no. Dragons are all but extinct.” Darus smirked. “Kushan overthrew their kingdoms. Humans practically hunt the remaining ones for sport whenever they show up. Those that survive are immensely powerful, however.”
Rys really wanted to ask about Kushan, but he felt that was a deep rabbit hole to go down.
“And the angels? The Infernal Empire might have collapsed, but the angels still remained,” he said.
Dragons might be practically extinct, but if there was one threat that could crush him in an instant, it was a host of angels. All it would take is a single Primum to learn he was alive. The Primum were the champions of the angels. They could teleport to where he was and obliterate him, given how weak he currently was.
“Not to worry. They’re gone now,” Darus said.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“They’re gone. Or missing, at least.” She shrugged. “There was an invasion by a new divine race 130 years ago—we call them the shadowbeasts. The angels threw everything they had at them, but it wasn’t enough.”
Once again, a moving image appeared in midair.
This one horrified Rys to look at.
A black mass covered the entire ground. A glowing barrier held it at bay, but the mass pushed up against the glimmering shield of light. Lumbering beasts formed from pure darkness waded through the endless horde and slammed into the barrier. It shimmered in response, then vaporized the larger monsters with a blast of blinding light.
But more shadowbeasts replaced the losses. They stretched out to the horizon. No life could be seen on the far side of the barrier. Only endless monsters.
“What the everloving fuck is that?” he asked.
“That is what remains of the northern half of Gauron,” Darus said. “We don’t know for sure, but we believe that the angels sacrificed themselves to build the barrier. The archangels are still around—sort of, given two of the three are now missing—but all the ordinary angels are gone.”
Fantastic. A world-consuming threat had appeared and nearly caused a second Cataclysm while he had been sleeping.
Then something slowly occurred to Rys. Very slowly.
“So, what you’re saying is all the ancient powers are gone,” Rys said. “The Infernal Empire has vanished, along with all the infernals. The angels are missing. The other divine races were destroyed in the Cataclysm. And they’ve been replaced by humanity, who still haven’t rediscovered things that I learned as a child. There aren’t even many dragons left.”
“That’s right,” Darus said.
Rys carefully returned to his seat and sat down. The Twin who had been hugging him nestled herself against his neck. Her arms remained locked around his waist.
No wonder Fara had freaked out when he summoned Grigor. The world had changed. He had grown up in a time when demigods lived in his home city.
But to Vallis and Fara, those demigods were practically mythical. While those shadowbeasts scared the crap out of him, the barrier kept them locked away. Had there been a major threat to Harrium since, if somebody of Grigor’s power terrified Fara?
Maybe Rys could take over the world once he got out of the castle. The idea of building an empire became much more appealing, but he would need a way to manage it despite being sealed. Or he’d need a way to leave the castle.
Problems for him to ponder over.
Which left one final topic.
“What can you tell me about the Tornnes family?” Rys asked, curious if there was anything in Darus’s knowledge Gift about Vallis or her family. It was a longshot, given how minor a player she was in the world, but knowledge devils knew all sorts of weird things.
Darus raised an eyebrow. He suspected the one buried in his neck did as well, but didn’t check.
“A once-wealthy noble family from Blacktaffe,” Darus said, mentioning a city in south-western Gauron. At least, it had been a city in Rys’s time. “They failed to fulfill certain martial duties of their title and were stripped of it, along with all of their wealth.”
“That seems rather mundane,” Rys said.
“I left out the part where most of the family were killed in a failed attempt to reclaim their fortune,” Darus said with a cruel smile. “I don’t have much on them until Gregory Tornnes turned up in the Tolaran Archipelago nearly fifty years later. Even that is quite boring. One of my connected knowledge Gifts suggests that Vallis Tornnes is the sole surviving member of the family.” Darus’s gaze turned stony. “But you don’t need to know about that empty-headed harlot, do you?”
He kind of did, but something about Darus’s expression made him wary of asking.
Rys decided to ask about his other ally. “What about a fox named Fara? She works with Vallis Tornnes.”
The Twins scowled at him. It was the first time they had shown open displeasure with him.
“Do you really need to know?” the one buried in his neck asked.
“Yes, darling. You don’t need to know about that whore,” the other said.
That escalated fast.
“This is a knowledge Gift. I’m asking for knowledge,” he said flatly.
The friendlier twin rolled her eyes and huffed. “Fine. She’s a flat-chested hussy from Pharos. She arrived on the archipelago with Gregory Tornnes. Minimal connections with the fox clans of Pharos. The sort of woman that would barely catch the eye of a slave trader, let alone a man who will conquer the world.”
“Her head might look good mounted in our palace,” the other Twin said, a rictus grin frozen on her face.
Whatever had happened in the last 1500 years had changed Darus. They had been clingy and jealous before, but not like this.
“Let’s change the subject,” he said.
“Yes, let’s not talk about that slut,” the Twins said in unison. Their expressions returned to normal.
The friendlier one returned to massaging him, her hands exploring more and more of his torso until they were only inches away from his crotch. The other rubbed his calves with her bare feet, smiling at him from across the table.
He half-expected them to try to please him sexually here, but the constructs likely had orders not to do things that might trouble customers. Time passed very slowly while Rys was in this mental world. Enjoying Darus might cause some physical difficulties when he returned to reality.
He was still wearing pants in the real world, for one thing. Darus might receive some complaints if her customers so
iled their clothing in public while consulting her knowledge Gift.
“Do you do this sort of thing with your other customers? Make them feel at home?” he joked.
The Twins froze. Their eyes narrowed. The one buried in his neck stood up, walked over to her stool, and sat down.
“Never,” they said. “Only for you, Rys. Darling.”
Okay. That got weird.
Before he could say anything, expressions of hurt crossed their faces. “This is all for you. Nobody else can dream of touching us. We sit on the other side of the curtain and answer their questions. The idea that any pathetic human or infernal would feel our touch is—”
“I get the point,” Rys said hurriedly. The Twins went off the deep end fast and he had no interest in entertaining them.
At least not while he couldn’t do anything with them for real.
Darus pouted. “All you need to do is tell us where you are. Then we can make a note and—”
“No!” Rys roared.
The Twins shuddered. Their eyes rolled up into their heads, tongues lolling out of their mouths. A pair of sweet sighs escaped their open lips.
“Say that again, darling,” they moaned. “Like that. So forceful.”
He stared at them.
He was a man of many talents, particularly in bed. Trained by the Succubus Queen, he knew how to please women in ways they barely understood.
But he had never had the ability to make women orgasm with only his voice.
Something was very, very wrong with the Darus Twins. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that something was, or how he had managed to make them so enraptured with him.
“It’s been a pleasure to see you again,” he said, rising from his seat.
They whined and shot toward him, their hands pawing at his chest. Their eyes were full of need. Too much need.
He left without another word or even a look back.
When he returned to reality, he sat on his bed for a solid thirty minutes. Eventually, Grigor entered.
“You look disturbed,” Grigor said.
“I spoke with Darus,” Rys replied, his voice hollow. “Or copies of her, through her knowledge Gift.”
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