The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (80 page)

Danner remained silent throughout the entire funeral,
wrapped in an impenetrable armor of guilt and sorrow. As they all slowly turned
to walk away, Danner was the last to leave. He knelt beside Trebor’s grave and
held his hand over the freshly turned earth. Even then, he did not speak, but
silently mouthed words of apology to his slain friend. Then he slowly stood,
turned, and walked away.

- 3 -

Afterward, the Shadow Company officers met up with Birch and
the remnants of his
jintaal
in one of the training classrooms in the
Prism’s chapterhouse. Nuse, James, Perky, and Garet had survived the battle in
relatively good form. They gathered with Danner and the others at Birch’s
request. Moreen, Alicia, and Hoil were also present.

“We were all wrong,” Birch said. He was the only one in the
room standing, and he stared silently at the door for a long moment before
breaking the silence.

“I remember almost everything now, however little good it
does me,” he said. “We were all working under the assumption that
Mephistopheles was trying to impose Hell on our world, but the King of Hell has
a much larger, much more problematic goal in mind. He never wanted our world,
he wants what was denied him untold eons ago, before the dawn of creation. He
and the other demons and all of Hell were cast apart from Heaven, and now he
has returned to assault God’s throne.

“Except God does not sit on the throne of Heaven, any more
than Satan sits on the throne of Hell,” Birch said heavily. “You were right,
Marc, in thinking that the symmetry of
Dividha
was a sign of something
more. God and Satan have both removed themselves from taking active roles in
the world and even from their own separate planes of existence.”

“How do you know all this?” Hoil asked. He was not quite
skeptical. Not quite.

“I remember almost everything from my own imprisonment, and
some little bit from Kaelus that is no longer locked away in his own mind,”
Birch said. Then he sighed wearily. “I was all but dead. There is no doubt
about that, but Kaelus caught me at the threshold of death and did something to
me that brought me back. I felt him struggling to save my life and force my
body to survive, and when that didn’t work he took it a step further. He gave
me a small piece of himself, a sliver of his own
self
– his
āyus
.
I am now part immortal, in a similar but very different way than Danner, for he
comes by his heritage naturally.”

Marc cleared his throat reluctantly.

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid it’s more than just that, Birch,” Marc said. “I
read through some of the texts Vander had recommended to me, and I found
something on the way immortals reproduce.”

“What?” Garet said in surprise. “Why would immortals need to
reproduce? They’re immortal.”

“That’s just a convention of language,” Marc said in
disagreement. “As we’ve seen quite plainly, they
can
be killed, so they
aren’t immortal in the strictest sense of the word. They do
not
,
however, die of natural causes. If no one attacks and destroys an immortal,
whether angel or demon, then it would theoretically live on until the end of
time. But since they can and do die occasionally, namely in the Great Schism
and in our own war with the demons, they naturally have to have a way to
replenish their numbers.”

“Go on,” Birch said.

“For an immortal to reproduce, they do pretty much what you
described,” Marc continued. “They divide their very essence and separate a
small piece of themselves. But for an immortal to do that, it lessens their
āyus
,
which is their strength and power – well, it’s like you said, it’s their
self
,
much like the souls of mortals. The general masses of demons and angels are
without strong, individual identities, because they have little or no spiritual
strength of their own, so it’s no big deal when a regular drolkul or a
rank-and-file angel divides itself to create another drolkul or angel – so long
as they have the strength to sustain such a division. I guess angels are a
little different, since they don’t divide into species like demons do – they’re
all angels, just of different strength classifications.”

He saw more than one set of eyes glaze over, so Marc quickly
hurried on.

“But as immortals gain in strength, they eventually develop
a strong identity of their own, and they’re reluctant to let go of that sense
of self,” Marc said. He was suddenly very glad for the countless hours he’d
spent poring over the books Vander had recommended, even at the cost of his
sleep sometimes. He felt slightly didactic addressing this group, a feeling
heightened by their training locale. “Technically, Mephistopheles himself could
divide his
āyus
and create another version of himself and,
depending on how much of himself he gave, it would either be mindless or could
have enough power to develop its own personality right away. It would
not
,
however, be just another Mephistopheles running around. It would become an
entirely separate demon, with whatever power he had granted it.

“But for a demon like the King of Hell, that’s an abhorrent
thought, because he could very likely lose his throne if he lessens his power
in any way. The more powerful demons and angels never divide themselves,
because they lose standing in the hierarchy of their existence.”

The others stared at Marc as though he’d grown a second
head. He shifted uncomfortably.

“So what you’re saying…” Moreen said, but couldn’t finish.

“Is that I have the beginning sliver of a demon developing
within me,” Birch finished for her, his voice cutting in like a headsman’s axe,
“and if it can develop separately from Kaelus, there’s a chance it will not be
so benign as my current inhabitant.”

“Not only that, but consider this,” Marc said. “Kaelus was
an extremely powerful demon, second only to Mephistopheles himself, which is
why the King of Hell feared him so much. Kaelus was apparently also released by
Satan to accomplish a specific purpose, whatever that may be. If he’s given
over a piece of his
āyus
to you, will he still have enough strength
to accomplish his goal?”

They stared at each other in silence, searching for answers
none of them had.

“I don’t think Kaelus would have taken a chance on something
he wasn’t sure about,” Birch said. “Both with respect to his own power, and the
nature of the budding
āyus
inside me.”

“Perhaps,” Marc said. “It’s entirely possible the
āyus
has truly become a part of you, which would essentially meld its immortality
with your individuality, and there would be no danger to you.” He paused. “Or
at least, that’s my guess. It’s not like this has ever been done before,” he
said a bit defensively when they glared at him.

“Yes, it has,” Danner said quietly, surprising them all.
He’d said almost nothing aloud since they had learned of Trebor’s death.

“Me.”

They all turned to look at him. Hoil’s face looked troubled.

“How is it possible for an immortal being to mate with a
human?” he asked pointedly. “Immortals obviously wouldn’t have the natural,
internal biology necessary to create a child, would they?”

“No,” Marc said slowly, “although perhaps if they were able
to completely take human form. Your mother obviously maintained a wholly human
form while she was on Lokka, so I’d have to assume she also created the
necessary, ah, internal biology, as you said. Unless we’re fundamentally
misunderstanding how Danner was created, she would have had to had the same
genetic mechanisms for making a baby as any human.”

“And if mortal and immortal combine?” Danner said grimly,
bringing his friend back to the point at hand.

“What? Oh, yes, I think you’re probably right.”

“What?” Hoil asked. “What do you mean he’s right?”

“Danner is half immortal not on some genetic level, because
immortals don’t really have anything like that, at least not that we know of,”
Marc explained. “Instead, he would almost have to have been born and created
just like anyone else, then infused with his mother’s
āyus
. She
divided herself and gave her own sliver of essence to your combined seed, which
eventually became Danner. It might be worth speculating how and if this might
one day be passed on to his children…”

Marc trailed off at the grim look on Danner’s face.

“It really doesn’t change anything, dad,” Danner said, his
expression softening. “I’m still your son, and I still came from a joining of
you and mom, just not
exactly
in the way everyone else comes into
being.”

Marc looked uncomfortable.

“Finish it, Marc,” Danner said firmly. He didn’t know what
his friend had to say, but Marc’s hesitance made Danner suspicious.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about what’s been happening to you
since we first noticed your heritage, and specifically about what you said
happened when Trebor died.”

“And?” Danner asked softly.

“And it’s almost as if it’s evolving or even
mutating
inside of you,” Marc said. “You’re certainly more powerful than you were
before, that’s plain to see, but the obsessive control it takes over you,
especially when demons are involved, is probably
not
something normal.
Maybe it’s because of the mixture of human and immortal, I don’t know.”

Something tugged on the edges of Birch’s memory. A
conversation he’d once had with someone. Something about the human soul.

“The potential for ultimate good mingled with the capability
for ultimate evil,” Birch murmured. “The ability to choose is the greatest
power a mortal or immortal can ever have.”

Then Birch remembered the source of that comment, if not the
rest of the conversation, and he shuddered involuntarily. It had been none
other than Satan Himself who had said those words to Birch.

“You’re right, Marc,” Birch said, too softly at first to be
heard. He repeated himself and then had their undivided attention.

“The human soul is a mixture of good and evil, and we have
the ability to choose between the two,” Birch said. “Free will. Danner’s
heritage is Heavenly, but because he is half mortal, he has the ability to
apply that power toward evil, should he so choose. It is a holy power, yes, but
it might just as easily become tainted and turn unholy if the wrong decisions
are made.”

Birch turned to look seriously at his nephew.

“Mortals were never meant to cope with the sort of power
inherent in our immortal counterparts, and your power seems addictive, as
you’ve said,” Birch said. “It consumes you, and it feeds upon itself to draw
you ever further within its grasp. If we had a choice, I’d say never again use
your powers.

“But I doubt we have that luxury,” Birch said, and suddenly
he looked much older than before. His shoulders slumped, and he looked tired.
“I somehow doubt Heaven was expecting this sudden shift any more than we were,
and Hell may very well have taken them completely by surprise. The Iridescent
Gates could be under assault or even be overrun even as we speak.”

Their conversation lapsed into silence as Birch’s words
brought a pall over the room.

“So what?” Hoil asked with a shrug. They all turned to glare
at him, and he flinched slightly, but did not back down. “I mean honestly, if
the immortals want to continue some age-old feud between themselves, why
shouldn’t we let them? As long as they leave us alone, why should we care what
happens?” He scowled at them. “Now don’t look at me like that. I don’t like the
thought of the wholesale slaughter of angels, but neither am I exactly a man of
God. What does some internecine civil war between immortals mean to us?”

“It’s not that simple, brother,” Birch said.

“It never is,” Hoil grumbled under his breath.

Birch smiled faintly, but the expression was a ghost that
faded away in the same instant it appeared.

“The human soul is a blending of good and evil,” Birch said
again. “As is all life in our world. Imagine the two immortal planes being held
apart from each other.”

He turned to a nearby easel with a piece of glass resting
over a white background. He lifted a marking stick treated with a chemical that
would stay on the glass, but was erasable afterwards. Birch drew two long,
parallel lines.

“The upper plane is Heaven, the lower Hell. They are always
opposed, always
exactly
opposite each other, always balanced,” he said.
Then he shaded the space between them. “When the two were originally rent
apart, that’s what we call Creation – the dawn of the world of Lokka. It is the
separation of Heaven and Hell and the resulting mixture of good and evil that
allows life to exist at all. Continue these lines infinitely, and you have all
the life on our world.”

“And?”

“Now take away one of those planes,” Birch said. He used his
thumb to wipe away the upper line, then the shaded space. “No more conflict. No
more separation. No more life. At all. If Hell overruns Heaven and destroys
that half of the balance, all life will cease to exist in our world.”

Hoil stared at his brother a long moment.

“Oh.”

“So what do we do?” James asked.

“We regroup and prepare for the worst,” Birch said. “This
isn’t the end for us. Kaelus’s role has yet to be discovered, and Satan’s hand
has yet to be played. This war, this immortal
game
we’re all involved in
has yet to reach its conclusion, for any of us.”

Birch did not tell them the rest. They didn’t need to know
yet. His death and the miraculous intervention of Kaelus had shaken his sense
of his own role in the dangerous game far more than he had let on to anyone
else. For now, it was enough for them to know that the game continued, and the
stakes had been raised to the fate of all creation.