To traverse the vast continent of the Nethris took great fortitude. Though the small of mind may see this place as being encapsulated within the bright blue sphere or Mother Earth, it was in effect more boundless than its daylight counterpart.
That idea would have made no sense to any who may have pondered the mechanics of this conundrum. However, nothing in the vast world of the Nethris made sense, at least not to the logical human mind.
Xonereth flew on the back of a zilant's swift flight. Past the open and endless fields of steel gray rushes that wavered and moaned like lost souls. The thrusting spear-like rushes mature, velvet black, and soft like the pelts of witches' kittens.
The beast that bore its proud ruler was inky dark with eyes of scintillant silver, pupils narrow and pointed like a cat. A coronet of twisted, malformed horns garnered its gargantuan head, and large bovine ears were framed beneath this bony crown.
Its wingspan was of great size, the edges sporting claws for gripping and climbing the harsh rock faces that were abundant here, like a bat. A shaggy black mane not unlike that of a lion graced its powerful neck. The almost Cheshire cat mouth sported many rows of ridged and upright canine teeth.
Part of the fantastical creature was feathered, part scaled, and part fur. Its front legs were the powerful claws of a big cat, the rear manifest as the talons of a bird. It had a long sinuous scaled tail that mimicked a serpent with a tuft of twisted fur at the end like that of a bullock or a lion.
There were many other equally fantastic creatures who would have carried Xonereth on this journey. However, the zilant or ajdaha as it was called by those of upper earth was amongst the largest and swiftest of all creatures here that soared the skies.
Xonereth would find the exiled Valefor. He knew exactly where his brother had been incarcerated to endure eternity many millennia before. It had been a different time then in his kingdom. A time of instability, a time of unspeakable deeds and betrayals.
His torn and suffering subjects had only uttered Valefor's name in whispers since that time. Mostly he was not referred to at all, except with a dark look or an obscure reference. Those exiled should in polite society truly cease to exist, and hence Valefor had.
The bitter bile, and darkened shadow that was Valefor, had indeed ceased to exist for an age. Though even in ensorcelled chains on the way to his exile, he had dared to mock his brother.
"I will live long in all your hearts in every black thought or deed, no matter how inescapable my prison." He had warned through a torrent of disheveled hair as he was dragged away. "You will not forget me even if you fear to speak my name..." He had screamed at Xonereth and Sheharizade in his exodus hatefully.
Valefor's prediction was right in a way, and the taint of his darkness was till this day a blot on the Nethris' collective soul. In many millennia they still had not completely shed his terrible legacy.
The centuries had passed and in his clemency to one of his own royal blood, Xonereth had relaxed the rigid and cruel imprisonment he had initially enforced on his antagonist. Valefor would finally be allowed to live free, as long as he did not leave the immediate lands of his exile, nor meddle in the affairs of the Nethris and society again.
By this time centuries of immobility had seen even the strong mind of a Nethris Highborn crumble. Valefor was no more than an incomprehensible imbecile, who on his release did little more than sit motionless muttering words from a language none could decipher.
Xonereth reasoned Valefor through the portent of a dark and ruptured past would no longer be any kind of danger to the Nethris as a whole. As a precaution strong magical wards were set and Xonereth had not deigned to visit the unfortunate exile again. Slowly the dark prince's deeds faded to almost oblivion, only to become an awkward moment or a name that must not be uttered in the court.
Xonereth was not sure what to expect from this meeting. He did it mostly to satisfy that indeed his long nullified sibling was still as ineffective as he had last glimpsed him all those long millennia before, when the men of earth still dwelt in caves, and learned the use of fire.
The zilant, wings outstretched, swooped low over a black body of water. The pool was still, dark, and deep. Not even a ripple to graze the surface.
During the low dive there came to Xonereth's ears the sound of a human child crying. The melody of a child's grief was a curiosity to his ears, for none of his kind ever cried in that fashion. All highborns hid their emotions well behind a mask of white.
The lesser Nethris could be quite prone to outbursts of emotion, but it was more in the manner of grief, writhing on the ground, and hair-tearing. He listened and commanded his mount to circle the pool once more. The great beast beat its wings lazily and compiled.
This time Xonereth spied the source of the commotion. The creature sat on the edge of the body of water, dog-like in appearance, but not completely canine if you looked more closely. Again it bore the hue of his world. Black rubbery skin exposed, sharp teeth, and pointed alert ears.
The creature looked up as the zilant flew by. The torso of its body was furred, the dark strands clumping up to form wet tufts all over. Its tail twitched as it watched for signs of life. No ordinary tail, for it terminated in a completely useful hand, used to grasp and snatch its prey to the watery grave below.
Its front legs also bore prehensile hands presumably for the same purpose. This ahuizotl was the source of the crying sound. Devourer of eyes, teeth, and fingernails. He was said to take his victims directly to paradise. Xonereth chuckled at this thought and urged his mount to fly skyward.
The topography of the land that rushed beneath him had markedly changed. The endless flat sea of rushes that swayed softly sighing, the dark ponds, and interconnecting waterways, dissipated into a jagged and impassable sea of upthrust basalt stone. A world forbidden to those except by flight.
With imperious gaze, Xonereth looked down at this sight. One he had not witnessed for millennia, though he ruled here he had little reason to traverse this place of almost nothingness. The skies seemed darker here, perhaps they were. There was an absence of large wildlife, unlike the plains before. Yes, he had hoped not to come here ever again.
The dead wind ruffled the mane of his mount, and he urged it onward. The atmosphere felt heavy, leaden. Even his mount labored. The location he sought was still far within this jagged crown of peaks. There were no paths here, these environs were impossible to traverse by land. This place was the home of eternal winter, where none lived but the ghostlike Nruz, and those few in history who were exiled to an eternity of sorrow, names long forgotten to time.
The great zilant landed with an almost silent flutter on the slick rocky ledge. Xonereth dismounted and looked about him. The beast retreated to the windy ledge feeling more comfortable to easily be able to launch itself into immediate flight.
Though it was a fierce predator the creature rightly feared this place, as most wild things do when displaced from their native environs. It sat on its haunches and preened behind its array of horns and ears, in a birdlike manner. Its silver eyes shone brightly, against the dark mountainous backdrop.
In a wordless gesture, Xonereth released the creature from its service and gratefully it glided away eager to be gone.
This place was frozen in memory. It had remained unchanged. Last he was here his brother had sat speaking gibberish to the stones, unseeing. Xonereth had pitied him, to see one of his own so reduced was difficult to bear.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
He gazed about the large overhang, fine silver alum powder blew across the surface of the shining basalt rock to settle in deep sparkling quantities where the wind did not prevail. With a rustle of raven wings that was his ebon robe, he turned into the vast maw of the cave.
The first creature Xonereth was to spy was something not natural, but rather constructed. He drew himself up proudly as the creature skittered into his path. If it knew he was Regent here the creature made no gesture to acknowledge his Majesty but merely skittered away into the darkness.
A soulless thing devoid of fear or care. It had appeared sewn together, limbs that did not seem to match the body, a bowed spine twisted and deformed. Face shrouded in heavy cloth unidentifiable as an individual. It moved on all fours as the lesser but talented Grishak, who though seemingly thick of feature and dull of wit could craft devices and weapons of the greatest manifest.
On seeing this curiosity Xonereth's mind strayed to his beloved Sheharizade, she too bowed and twisted with unnatural age. The very reason he was here, for the prophecy alone would not be enough to have warranted his presence in this terrible place. He sighed and pressed forward into the umbral darkness. It was oppressive here even for one of his supernatural resilience. A fitting place to cast an exile.
Xonereth was perfectly comfortable in utter darkness and found his way as his brother must have done millennia before. He did not have far to travel, the passageway opening into an immense and cavernous room.
White flames the intensity of arc welding sparks illuminated the space in blackened steel braziers, and torches were placed at intervals on walls. They cast hard shadows in the austere chamber.
A tall, dark figure stood in the center of this place, legs planted wide. Back to his visitor, cloak dragging on the floor. Long hair not unlike Xonereth's own coursed down the man's broad back to his waist, shoulders made even more powerful in appearance by the width of the steel pauldrons he wore. His hair was straight and lank, rather than the living, sparkling, ebon tresses of the Nethris. This individual's hair appeared as dull steel, perhaps with a greenish hue. However identifiable colors really did not exist here.
His armor was the same, the shades of death, disease, and rot. Purple, primordial green, ochre, a depressing indigo blue, the shades swam to highlight the ornate metal plating that covered his body. He had a broadsword fashioned from similar materials that lay slung over his back, atop his richly embroidered black cape.
The handsome and unnerving apparition did not turn to acknowledge the visitor on the threshold. Arrogantly he made the ruler wait. Perhaps he had not noticed? Though Xonereth knew otherwise.
Finally, the figure spoke. "Truly brother, I am named for such terrible deeds when all I have done is only whisper in select ears." The voice was dulcet vitriol.
"I see Valefor you have finally found your voice, and you are in no way chastened by your years of exile?" Xonereth returned in a veiled manner.
The darkness that was Valefor turned then slightly but refused to face his Lord. The shoulders of his armor bore the likeness of human skulls. The eye sockets shone with some vague ethereal light. "Why? Do you come here to gloat? You have me vanquished and I do not wish to see you. A millennia would be too soon." Voice both bitter and cold.
"I wish to be sure of you brother."
Valefor visibly stiffened and pulled himself up even more proudly. "Sure of your pathetic victory?" He snarled. "I knew you would come one day." The demon took a step away.
"You are afraid of me." Xonereth deliberately goaded. "You should be brother, however have I not been merciful?" The jibe was intended to sting.
Valefor turned sharply, his heavy cape billowing behind him to face his long-hated adversary. Xonereth stood both fascinated and filled with abhorrence. Imprisonment and banishment had not been kind to his twin sibling. Instead of the pure white and perfect flesh of his beautiful people, Valefor's skin was a dull, slick grey, his high cheekbones were starkly prominent, and the sides of his face hollow and waxen. But most alarming his eyes glowed, no longer the characteristic sparkling black orbs of the Nethris. Xonereth did not know what to think as he gazed at this terrible specter.
"Yesss, go ahead, gloat, laugh, take it all in. Wallow in my demise." Valefor preached and spat, passionate words interspersed with a deep and terrible laugh, as he eyed his brother viciously. "But, I know something you don't." He rasped, as he broke into a familiar recitation. "The unending oceans shall continue to rise, until the first leaf of Nethrizil graces the earth. You've seen it or you would not be here, am I correct?"
He laughed again, the sound unhinged even from the perspective of demonkind, and drew closer to the long-reviled object of his torment.
"The unassailable shall witness another hue come to pass..." The broadsword Valefor carried slivered in a deadly arc over Valefor's shoulder to strike the unmoving Xonereth high in the breast. Then coming to rest insolently on Xonereth's shoulder at the base of his neck.
Valefor smiled and closed the space between them. "Beautiful and strange isn't it, the ichor of life?" The exiled demon tasted his brother's blood lasciviously from chain-mailed fingers. Red coursed slowly in rivulets from the superficial wound into the folds of Xonereth's magnificent robe.
"And those beautiful, straight and true will be bowed in a mantle of white. Ah, our beloved Sheharizade, it could be no other, she deserved so much better you know...And you...you, the great ruler, the powerful Xonereth... mortal. I could slay you here."
"Perhaps." Xonereth countered calmly.
"Oh, do not worry brother. "Valefor continued snidely. "I would hate you to miss the rest. For you know as I do there is more, a lot more. He who will not grieve shall find it in himself... Hum, I wonder, who that might be? I hope you grieve so bad my brother dearest. To feel as I have felt, the despair, the hopelessness, to watch all you love and care for be swept away from you and blasted to ash."
Valefor took on the expression of demented unliving in the harsh light and the unflattering shadows. In his passion dark hair trailed across his face as he bared his teeth in a skull-like grimace. He was to Xonereth's eyes disturbingly un-beautiful. Perhaps Valefor's inner self had now risen to become his facade for all to see?
The demon was repeating the prophecy by rote, animated, in a glazed-eyed zeal, it was obvious Valefor the exiled had longed for this moment, and he had existed each century hoping for this chance to arrive.
As he spoke the tip of his sharp sword lay heavy on Xonereth's shoulder.
"For nestled in the breast of the soiled and weary mother, those autonomous shall become as one. There is more brother...You wish to hear? Something to the fashion of. As light as he is dark, the demon son..."
"SILENCE!" Xonereth's voice boomed, and the echo in the chamber recoiled like a gunshot. "You brother may feel you have some upper hand, but I assure you I RULE HERE! Unlike you I can leave." In a ruffle of raven's feathers and blue steam Xonereth was gone.
"For now, brother for now." The demon addressed the empty place his brother had stood just moments before, gazing into the unsearchable darkness. The brooding menace of Valefor the exiled, sheathed his sword and strode from the chamber.