Vol1: Chapter 22

Zaere drummed taloned fingers on the velvet draped orb. It had taken half a day from his return to hell to find it, and another half to wrest it from its former owner. That unlucky soul was still spiked to the wall of the throne room by his head: Zaere had wasted no time, once the orb was his.

He turned from the sphere and addressed its keeper, a succubus who’d shown the good sense not to protest when he’d defeated her master and claimed the scrying device for his own. “No one removes that cloth without my consent. See to it.”

It was rare for mortals with the evil eye to live long. The more they Saw, the more attractive their scrying orbs were to demons hunting souls. And having demons crowded into the back of their minds generally wasn’t… good… for the mortals who’s eyes were linked to the orbs. He’d already inflicted too much damage with too little finesse forcing apart the wards on it. But no matter. He’d seen that the girl would survive before covering the orb and closing her Eye.

The succubus had knelt and bowed, her wings folded tight against her back. “Your will be done, my lord.”

Zaere scowled and turned back into the keep – his keep, by right of conquest. It’s denizens cowered at his passage, but he wasn’t interested in destroying more of them today. In the throne room, he pulled his sword from the wall. The deposed demon lord fell to the ground and did not rise.

“This keep is mine,” Zaere growled. “Leave it now.”

The demon fled.

Zaere sighed and settled in his throne. It had been a violent day, but too busily so for him to have had the time to enjoy it. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne, talons clicking on the bones it was carved from. He was looking forward to luxuriating in the evening’s final reward. That it hadn’t arrived yet only heightened his anticipation and hunger.

While he waited, he dispatched messages to his old allies in hell and psychically surveyed his new holding. Formed from the icy aether of the land, it was held together merely by will. Where appropriate, he exerted his own upon the structure, changing it to suit his tastes. It was simple busy work to occupy the time, but Zaere did not have to wait long.

A demon could not touch the world through a scrying orb, but souls were another matter. In a twisting swirl of aether, one of the souls Zaere had marked as his arrived, sprawling on the throne room floor as the aether around it assumed the form it remembered best from life. The damned shade stood unsteadily and Zaere smiled, crushing it back into the ground with a simple thought. Then he stood up from the throne, his wings flexing open in anticipation.

“Hello, Vessadial,” Zaere said as he reached down and seized the necromancer’s wraith by its ankle. “Welcome to my castle,” he snarled – and with another thought teleported them both to his recently refurbished dungeon. “I believe we both have earned this,” the demon said, tossing Vessadial into the clutches of a pair of imps. He turned from the wraith and looked over his workbench – and selected a pair of slender tools, newly added from his earlier remodeling. “And I don’t mind admitting that I, at least, have been looking forward to it for centuries,” Zaere added with a smile, and turning back to his prisoner.

Though the dead took on the forms they knew in life, souls did not sleep; did not lose consciousness. Vessadial did not stop screaming until late the next evening, when his tattered wraith was capable of no more than mewling whimpers and uncontrolled sobs. Zaere did not stop for much, much longer than that.

Continue to Volume 2