by Nazri Noor
“I give up,” I yelled. “Enough. I yield. You win.”
The assault halted immediately. The room returned to its former comfortable temperature as the fires winked out, and it was as if nothing had even changed in the Repository, as if a sentient book with an educational agenda and an axe to grind hadn’t just threatened to utterly obliterate my life’s work. I glowered at him, my arms trembling from the strain of my magic, tasting the salt of my own sweat as it trickled past my lips. The sheath of red light slipped from the shelves just as my hold on the barrier magic did, and I fell to my knees.
Dantaleon flapped his pages indignantly, like an irritated owl, then he harrumphed. “As long as you know that you were wrong, young Master Quilliam.”
My fingernails dug uselessly into the black and gold marble of the library floor. I watched as a bead of my own sweat dripped to the ground, making the marble blacker than black. Somehow it matched how I felt on the inside.
“I was wrong,” I muttered. “I won’t skip my lessons again.”
“Excellent,” Dantaleon purred, finally satisfied. “Then I shall see you for class tomorrow morning. It’s only three hours on weekdays, Quilliam.” He sniffed derisively. “I really don’t see all the fuss. There’s really no need for us to go through this song and dance every time.”
“I understand,” I murmured, waiting for the sound of the doors to open and shut as Dantaleon left the Repository.
What did that all matter? Three hours felt like nothing to someone who’d lived thousands of years, but they meant everything to me, when you multiplied them by the countless weeks I’d already spent listening to him babble about the histories of the prime hells, when I recounted the rise and fall of their myriad demon princes. How much more of my life did I have to give up to information that would prove useless, and had always proved useless to my existence? Call me a brat, but it wasn’t about the three hours. It was the knowledge that I would be at the mercy of my own heritage forever, at the beck and call of my royal mother.
And if Mother and Dantaleon were to be believed, my life was going to last a long, long time. I’d spent twenty-four years trying to figure out who I was, and I still didn’t know everything. But despite my bravado, I had a pretty good feeling that becoming who my mother wanted me to be, that spending two hundred years on wanton murder and destruction wouldn’t weigh well on my conscience.
Raze the world, she said, like a daily mantra. Burn it to ashes. I didn’t want all that. But was it something I could tell anyone? No. Hell, no. Not if I didn’t want to be ridiculed.
But at least my books were safe. I turned in a slow circle as I took in the books around me, each one another stepping stone on my long and arduous path to arcane supremacy, each representing a savored memory of victory and gratification.
“It’s good to be home,” I murmured, half to myself, and half to my collection.
Shifting among the shelves, the books rustled in answer.
6
That was the thing about me and books. My understanding of the place of magic in human society was that on rare occasions, one would be born with an affinity for the arcane arts. Oh, everyone has a capacity to learn magic if they try hard enough, if they study long enough. But some come out of the womb already wielding bizarre powers or some other link to the supernatural.
Up on the surface I knew an extremely talented seamstress who could manipulate cloth, thread, and needles with only her mind, using her abilities to craft or to kill. The human half of me was equally endowed with a little something extra in the arcane department, as the shuddering dozens of books in the Repository lovingly reminded me.
I lifted the Testament from the table with both hands, holding it to eye level, then removed my fingers from contact with the tome completely. It floated of its own accord to a vacant spot among the bookshelves, finding a place with its brothers and sisters. A shuddering rasp went up from the books, as if my collection itself was giving the newest member of our family a warm, whispering welcome.
“Play nice, everybody,” I said, continuing in my slow rotation as I studied the spines secreted along the walls. They ceased shuddering, returning to peaceful quiet.
That was the nature of my gift. Call it bibliomancy, call it libromancy. Maybe even call it an obsession. We preferred to call it Inscription. I had a strange affinity for books, enabling me to tap into their raw energies. For as long as my essence was attuned to my collection, I could call almost any of the books and they would answer my summons near-instantaneously, allowing me to consult their magics and expand my arcane knowledge in, as Dantaleon put it himself, “monstrously unprecedented directions.” How flattering. Knowledge is power, or something like that. That was the very nature of Inscription: each book that entered my collection inscribed its essence upon my soul.
But my favorite parlor trick was using each book as a conduit for my magic. Perhaps it was the mystical power instilled in every tome by its owner or the scribe copying its pages that helped to amplify my magics. A fire spell was only a fire spell when blasted from the palm of my hands, but channeled through the pages of five, six, twenty books? The rush of power is exquisite, orgasmic, like unleashing the breath of dragons themselves.
And in truth, that was how I felt each time I returned to the Repository to bring every book to its new, permanent home. I was like a dragon adding another pile of treasure to its hoard, a hero, or perhaps a villain in a video game gaining another level. These weren’t the standard selection of books you’d find in some common wizard’s study, either, not a paltry assortment of scrolls buried deep in a swamp witch’s trove. Each volume had been carefully researched, located, then collected from destinations around the world, or in certain occasions, acquired in exchange for a very pretty penny from some very specialized booksellers. Yes, I had a reprint of the Dictionnaire Infernal – who didn’t – a copy of the Vermiis Mysteriis, even a book of shadows written in the teenage years of some witch named Agatha Black.
But there were also quite a few written in languages I would never hope to understand, true rarities culled from merchants driven half to madness by the few pages they’d peeked at themselves. One of my rarest books, its title only pronounced correctly if phrased in the form of an agonized scream, had a tendency to explode when read indiscriminately. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t actually perused every book in my collection. Otherwise I’d be completely mad, or splattered across the walls in bloody smithereens. Those I left in a steadily-growing segment of the Repository that I liked to think of as my to-be-read pile. Shameful.
I ran my fingers across the spine of the Testament of Spheres, relishing the bumps and creases in its weathered leather. Interdimensional travel had always been a challenge for me, but that was why the Testament of Spheres was such a welcome addition to the Repository. Eventually I’d be able to break beyond the limitations of helleportation, and the Hexus itself. Transportation magic made me uncomfortable. Something to do with teleporting wrong and leaving parts of myself behind, or even embedding myself in a brick wall by accident. Don’t laugh, it’s happened to even the very best mages.
The door behind me creaked. I spun on my feet, my fingers already loading offensive spells on instinct, my tongue ready to launch either a trigger word or a brutal castigation on the servant who dared to enter when I was having a private moment in my happy place. There was no one at eye level, though, because the infiltrator was a much, much shorter individual. Think half a foot tall, unless it somehow got up on its hind legs and started walking like a person. I got down on my haunches, grinning.
“Mr. Wrinkles,” I cooed. “You little rascal.”
“Mrrow,” said the gray Sphynx cat, rubbing himself against a table leg before padding languidly towards me. If I had to pick between my favorite people to see at home, it was a pretty tough split between Pierce and Mr. Wrinkles.
Actually, you know what? Mr. Wrinkles was a safe bet for the top spot. At least he didn’t talk back with a smart
mouth, or ambush me in the dark with a pair of knives.
“How’s your day been?” I said, scratching him behind the ear.
Mr. Wrinkles didn’t answer, of course, because he was just a cat. He shut his eyes as he rubbed his entire head into the palm of my hand, purring like the world’s littlest jet engine. His skin and extremely short fur put me in mind of slightly bristly velvet. I liked it. Even the weird, wrinkly folds of his body and the fact that he looked more like an old plucked chicken than a cat had grown on me.
Wrinkles lived on a perch in my bedchambers, but he liked to prowl around the apartments like he was the master of his own household. He liked to sit with me when I spent time in the Repository, dozing off on one of the cushioned chairs, or padding over the tables and weaving between scrolls and stacks of books.
He leapt onto one just then, tilting his head this way and that, how any cat might when it was trying to listen for something soft or distant. On more than one occasion I’d caught Mr. Wrinkles looking over the pages of a book. He was doing it again, paws planted on the table as he stared blankly at the notes I had jotted down in an open journal. It was cute, like he was reading. If the little guy had any aptitude for magic, I probably might have considered formalizing a ritual to make him my familiar.
Some time back, I rescued Mr. Wrinkles from a psychotic wizard, but I think it’s fair to say that Mr. Wrinkles saved me just as much as I saved him. That excursion had mostly been about me stealing – I mean, collecting a new book for the Repository.
That was when I found Mr. Wrinkles being held in a filthy cage in a mad wizard’s kitchen. Just horrible. I might be technically a villain – and on most days I like to think I truly am, albeit one with a terrific head of hair – but I’m not a monster. Plus, isn’t having a cat around the lair to villainously stroke one of the requirements of becoming an evil genius, anyway?
To keep a long story short, I released Mr. Wrinkles from his cage, when the wizard tied me and Pierce up. And Mr. Wrinkles – well, there’s no better way to put it. Mr. Wrinkles shot beams of searing red light out of his eyes that mangled the wizard in extremely painful ways.
He lived in my dimension like a king, eating only the best food and freshest water that a life-saving cat could ever hope for. I wasn’t sure if he had a fondness for mice, but if he did, then Mr. Wrinkles would have been the only cat I knew of in existence that could cook his own food. Firing lasers from his eyes was a total fluke, of course. Mr. Wrinkles never did it again, though his explosive display erased any reservations I held about taking him directly home with me.
I took my spot at my favorite working desk, retrieving the journal Mr. Wrinkles was looking at and perusing my notes. It was a laundry list of how I intended to tackle the contents of the Testament. My pen guided my eyes down the page as I read. Why don’t I use a quill like my namesake, you ask? Shut up. That’s why.
“Short-range teleportation,” I muttered. “First order of business. Then medium – say ten city blocks – and long, before I even think about interdimensional travel.”
Mr. Wrinkles jumped into my lap just then. My pen clattered onto the desk as I dropped it in surprise. I chuckled despite myself when Wrinkles rolled onto his back, exposing his belly.
“Oh, fine,” I said. “Papa can spare a few minutes for belly scratches.” Mr. Wrinkles blinked at me – cat language for “I trust you implicitly and will allow you to live another day” – and commenced his jet engine purring as I obediently scratched furrows into his little stomach.
They say that animals and pets are great for relieving stress and tension, and I have to agree with the research. What does a spoiled, brattish heir of one of the Seven prime princes have to be stressed about, you ask? Why, you’ve just answered your own question. Being one of Asmodeus’s hellspawn came with its own, shall we say, specific difficulties.
“Master Quilliam?” said a voice from the doorway.
I should have shut it as soon as Mr. Wrinkles came. I sighed, turning to peer through the crack and finding the face of one of the servants. “What is it? I’m kind of busy.” It was true. Giving Mr. Wrinkles belly scritches was practically a part-time job.
The servant audibly gulped. “It’s your mother. Prince Asmodeus would like to see you at once.”
7
My feet dragged as I traversed the corridor leading from the Repository to the receiving room, though I fought to keep my pace brisk. Mother didn’t like to be kept waiting, and though the Prince of Lust was rightly known for her specialization in the matters of fleshly pleasure, she was equally experienced in the art of inflicting pain. Two sides of the same coin, truly, and Mother wasn’t shy about reminding both her children and her servants about the darker side of her portfolio.
As for why she was a prince was all up to the hierarchy of demons and the very nature of the ruling class themselves. The prime hells had always been ruled by princes, demons powerful enough to shift their forms into any shape they desired. Gender meant nothing to infernals, though some among them, like Mother, had developed particular preferences for the bodies they liked to occupy on a regular basis.
Weaker demons needed to requisition skin suits from their superiors to wear on earth. These disguises, or husks, as they were called, hid their horns and tails and whatever else happened to be in vogue among the infernals at any given time. Being only half demon meant that I had no need to hide myself in a mortal husk before visiting earth, which suited me just fine. I was more than happy with the face and body my unholy mother had blessed me with. Say what you want about Asmodeus, but the Prince of Lust gave her offspring great genes.
I threw open the doors to the receiving room, Mr. Wrinkles trotting after me and weaving between my legs even as I strode up to the central platform. Five braziers that never went out were arranged around it in an unlined pentagram, issuing sweet smoke that smelled of ancient extinct flowers and herbs, of forbidden pleasures. I clasped my hands dutifully before me, a sign of respect to my mother, and Mr. Wrinkles waited on the floor by my feet, looking up at the walls of the receiving room. I waved my hand, and the doors clanged shut behind me.
Each of the walls was made of brass burnished to such a high sheen that they were as reflective as mirrors. The receiving room itself was shaped like a pentagon. Mother had a similar room in her Palace of Veils, one built with seven sides and installed with seven ornate thrones facing the center, perfect for receiving the apparitions of her counterparts. Fortunately, I had no reason to furnish accommodations for receiving the Seven themselves. I had to deal with one prince in my life, and that was more than enough.
The wall directly ahead of me gleamed, and a physical representation of the prince in question appeared in the burnished brass.
“Mother,” I said, nodding once.
“My son,” she said, her voice echoing around the receiving room. “My beloved boy. You look well.”
A formality, I thought. Nothing more. “As do you, Prince Asmodeus.”
She was clothed in her favorite skin, at least the one I’d seen her wear most often growing up: black hair cut into severe bangs, blood-red lips, and eyes as black as night. Asmodeus sculpted and contoured her features and body shape as often as a human changes clothes, but the eyes looking out of her myriad perfect faces were always the same. Her body was dripping with jewelry, dressed in nothing but long tangles of gold chain and endless trains of pearls and gemstones.
Asmodeus cast a quick eye across the room, then settled on a spot on the ground just by my feet. Her nose wrinkled. “I do wish you wouldn’t show such emotional dependence on that creature, Quilliam.”
Mr. Wrinkles rubbed himself against my shins, his purring too soft for me to hear down below, but vibrating up my leg all the same. “He’s not a ‘creature,’ Mother. He makes me happy. I thought we were supposed to revel in the things that bring us pleasure.”
The visage of Asmodeus rolled her eyes and sighed. “I wish I hadn’t taught you that. Very well. It can’t be den
ied that the feral little feline helps temper and calm you. Perhaps one day it will even serve as a fine familiar.”
I tried not to scoff. Mother wasn’t wrong, exactly, and I’d thought very much the same myself several times in the past. The difference was that I saw Mr. Wrinkles as a companion with potential for a little magical augmentation. All Asmodeus saw was a four-legged arcane battery.
“But you must know why I’m calling on you today.”
My face betrayed nothing, but my muscles stiffened. “I have a good feeling,” I said.
“Dantaleon says that you skipped your lessons again.”
The words were so simple, and not at all spoken in anger or disdain, but still the receiving room felt darker. Somehow I was just a boy again, waiting on my mother’s punishment.
“I’ve had enough lessons,” I muttered.
The jewels adorning Asmodeus’s body tinkled as she mockingly turned her ear towards me. “What was that? Surely you didn’t just say that you’ve ‘had enough lessons.’ Because then you’d be prepared to fulfill your destiny. Then you’d be prepared to shatter heaven and earth in my name.” The braziers around me flared, throwing flames up to the ceiling. Mr. Wrinkles yowled and scampered towards the doors, scratching and hissing. “Well, Quilliam? Are you prepared to destroy the universe?”
My gaze fell to the ground. “No, Mother.”
Asmodeus scoffed, her tone haughty. “Then clearly you are far from prepared. Clearly you have plenty more to learn from your long-suffering mentor.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She paused, letting the weight of her words linger. Her jewelry clinked again like little bells when she folded her arms in expectant annoyance. But when she spoke, her voice was sweeter, affectionate. I swallowed in silence, still staring at the ground. Something was coming, and I wasn’t going to like it.