Chapter 20 - Landing

Lazar didn’t look up when the dungeon door creaked open and footsteps descended down the damp stone stairs. Only a single torch allowed any light into the space, and the long shadow of the approaching figure stopped just in front of him, the outline familiar and recognizable. Despite his position, Lazar found himself smiling.

“I believe I still have two more days left,” he said. Now that he spoke out loud, he realized how hoarse his voice was. He coughed, attempting to clear it, but his throat was too dry for it to make much of a difference.

“You’re crazy,” Julius said. His voice was quiet, but it still echoed slightly in the confined space. He shook his head. “One day,” he corrected, still in that low voice, like he was scared of being heard.

Lazar raised his head, and a deep frown was etched into the other seraph’s face.

“Oh, really? I didn’t realize that much time had passed.” He’d thought he was fairly good at estimating, but perhaps he was out of practice.

He heard a rustle as Julius crouched down, putting them at eye level. His pristine clothes and wings looked out of place among the filth and grime of the dungeon. Lazar shifted, wondering just how bad he looked. He assumed it was very bad, because Julius’s frown only deepened, and he cursed under his breath.

“Why did you do it?”

Lazar blinked, surprised at the question. “You know why.”

“Then why didn’t you tell them the truth?” Julius pressed. He seemed to be searching for something, but Lazar couldn’t tell what it was.

“The punishment for interfering with a guardian’s duties is significantly less severe than the punishment for deliberately allowing a soul to fall.”

“I’m not interested in hearing you recite the law.” Julius inhaled, gritting his teeth, and he looked more visibly frustrated than Lazar had seen in a long time. “I can’t stand it when you get like this.”

Lazar furrowed his brow. “Like what?”

“That’s what I mean!” Julius’s voice raised, but almost immediately he deflated again, slumping back down and rubbing his forehead tiredly. “Sometimes,” he muttered, “I can’t tell if you actually understand a thing I’m saying, or if you even think the same way. I don’t get you at all.”

He seemed to catch himself and shook his head, pulling himself out of his trance.

“Let me see the wounds,” he instructed.

Lazar did so, shifting on the stone ground and carefully maneuvering his wings so that he didn’t hit the other seraph as he turned. From the corner of his eye, he could see how dull they looked, the feathers matted with grime and dried blood and ruffled into messy patches. Even the brief sight of them hurt far more than the wounds on his back did.

“I think they’ve mostly healed,” he said. “They’re not that bad.” Based on the way Julius cursed under his breath, he didn’t agree.

“Light, which guardian was this?” The judgement in his voice was practically tangible.

“Juno.” Out of the current eleven active guardians, she was neither known for being exceptionally merciful or for being particularly harsh. Lazar hadn’t interacted much with her in the past, but he always got the impression that she was dutiful and efficient, always carrying out the Light’s orders with exact precision.

Julius was quiet for a few moments, likely thinking something similar. “Well,” he finally said. “At least it wasn’t Jael.”

Lazar hummed in agreement, remaining still as Julius began checking the wounds, muttering to himself and clicking his tongue as he did so.

“I think,” he finally said, “this is beyond my abilities. But I should be able to alleviate things somewhat.” He raised a hand, and his palm glowed a rich forest green. The seraph spoke a quiet chant, and Lazar felt the pain in his wounds dull, a few of the smaller ones closing under the influence of the swirling essence.

“Your healing magic has gotten quite good,” he complimented. Julius snorted.

“I would hope so, or all that practice would’ve been for nothing.”

They soon fell into a steady rhythm, the only sounds echoing in the dungeon being Julius's voice as he ran through strings of chants. The green light continued to glow, soft and steady.

Lazar remained quiet through it all.

“You’re crazy,” Julius had said. Lazar heard those words repeating in his mind, over and over, and he didn’t know why.

And despite his own efforts to brush them aside, to focus on the present, they remained—lingering like a trailing whisper.

—

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Lazar acted on instinct. With every last ounce of strength he had, he slammed his halberd into the cliff side, digging the blade deep into its surface. He heard a piercing screech as the metal dug into hard stone, barely clinging on.

Sparks flew. Long hair whipped in his face, and he recognized the strands as Ciel’s. The demon had heard him after all, and he felt his own shoulders burn from the combined weight of both himself and the taller demon.

He could feel them slowing a bit, and he grit his teeth, tightening his grip on the weapon.

The halberd caught on something hard.

They jerked, lurching as the blade slipped out. Lazar ignored the searing pain in his shoulders and desperately tried to force the halberd back into the rocky cliff face. They wouldn’t be able to survive if they landed from this height with this much momentum.

And then a second hand wrapped around the blade. Ciel shoved the halberd deeper into the stone with a small extra arm growing from her elbow. A second hand, her real hand, reached out. Its fingers sunk into the stone, digging into the cliff face beside the blade to further halt their fall.

Lazar breathed and put as much strength into the weapon as he could. They were slowing down, he thought. But would it be enough?

His vision was blurry, black spots dancing around. He could see blood flowing freely from the wound in his arm. His whole body ached and burned, and the wind pressed mockingly against them, as though emphasizing his wingless back, his hollow soul. He forced himself to peer below them. His eyes widened.

Instead of a longer descent to the bottom of the ravine, a stone ledge jutted out below them, forming a crude platform. It was too close. They wouldn’t be able to slow down enough by the time they crashed into it.

“Ledge!” he yelled, unable to form anything more coherent. He felt Ciel shift, and in the next second, something warm surged past him, its surface still bubbling and undulating as a mound of flesh rushed past, the last of the demon’s reserves.

It wrapped around them just as they crashed into the ledge, and everything faded to black.

—

The first thing he registered was softness. His limbs sunk down when he shifted his weight, and he slipped and slided as he forced himself up.

Instead of the hard stone he’d been expecting, they’d landed on the makeshift “cushion” Ciel had created. The fleshy substance was barely formed, and it quivered and squelched as he moved—an amorphous, gelatinous surface.

Lazar wheezed, desperately trying to catch his breath. The pain in his shoulders had increased sharply, and the wound in his arm was bleeding more than ever. He registered a persistent aching throughout his body, but it was mostly drowned out by the burning sensation in his shoulders and arm.

The seraph inhaled, counting to himself as he forced his breathing to steady. He squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to pull his mind away from the growing panic rising automatically as a response to the pain. It’s nothing, he repeated to himself. You’ll survive. You’re still breathing. It’s nothing.

Carefully, Lazar rubbed his forehead. His vision was still blurry, but it was beginning to clear enough to take in their surroundings.

They’d landed on the ledge. It was a simple platform of stone that jut out from the cliff face, and it thankfully seemed quite sturdy to have supported their fall.

It was darker this far down into the ravine, the distant glow of the realm gate the only real source of light. The red sky was rendered into a thin strip above them, those rolling clouds barely visible. They must’ve fallen a significant distance for there to be such a difference.

If Lazar squinted, he could barely make out the winding path running along the cliff face that they’d followed originally, a few cave entrances breaking up its seemingly endless descent. This ledge was located fairly close to the path, he noted. Close enough that a jump might be able to get them back on it.

His eyes shifted. Fortunately it seemed like the flesh eaters chasing them hadn’t immediately gone after them, likely assuming that they’d died or that they weren’t worth pursuing, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, this close to the Abyss’s center, they would certainly run into another demon soon. He turned his head.

He couldn’t see any demons around them currently, but he was acutely aware of how exposed they were. A groan sounded to the side. Lazar spun around, and he saw Ciel rising a few feet away.

She’d detached the flesh “cushion” from her, and her fingers were bloody from where she’d dug them into the cliffside. She didn’t seem to have any other serious injuries. If the demon hadn’t been so fast to soften their landing, both of them would’ve been in significantly worse conditions.

“Are you alright?” Lazar’s voice was raspy, and he coughed to clear his throat, tasting hints of iron.

“Marvelous,” the demon drawled. Her golden eyes flashed darkly, betraying her otherwise casual voice.

She frowned down at her bloody hand. Now that he got a better look at it, Lazar could see that the fingers were visibly crooked, bent out of shape and caked in as much dirt and grime as blood. Ciel moved one of them, a snapping sound ringing out as it twitched and jerked.

“Wait!”

The demon paused, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s better not to move it for now. You might make the injuries worse.”

Ciel snorted in amusement, shaking the hand and eyeing it with a mix of indifference and a hint of disgust. “I think ‘making it worse’ is the least of our problems right now.”

“Even so,” Lazar said, “I’d rather avoid causing more damage unnecessarily. I can take a look at it once we find some cover.”

“And where do you propose we do that?”

Lazar carefully rose to his feet, stumbling a little as he maneuvered around the bits of quivering flesh. He spotted his halberd a foot away, and he grabbed it. The flesh itself was beginning to rot, he realized, a putrid stench rising from its surface as it began to decay.

His fingers tightened around the halberd, now so filthy that it was barely recognizable. Its weight, usually a reminder of his new weakness since he’d fallen, felt comforting in the moment.

He stepped to the edge of the ledge. The narrow path wound close to a cave, which would make for a decent temporary hiding spot.

“We should be able to jump over,” he said. “After that, we can deal with our wounds.”

Ciel raised an eyebrow, eyeing the distance critically. She strode up to the edge as well, and her lips stretched into a sharp grin as she took in the gap and the sheer fall. “Risky,” she said. “I like it.”

She waved her bloody hand carelessly, and a few spray drops flew out and splattered on the stone beneath them. “Come on then. Let’s go.”

Lazar gave the ledge, the blood stains, and the decaying flesh a final cursory look before he nodded and turned towards the path. The sooner they were in the cave and out of the open, the better.