Chapter 5
The Lottery Winners
Lucifer emerged from the vortex before his brother and kissed the ground of his homeland. Blades of grass changed from green to purple as he rubbed his face against them. Ants scurried across the dirt, dissolved into the terra and reappeared in other places as they chirped their protests at Lucifer for disturbing the entrances to their subterranean villages.
He leaned his head back and took a long, deep breath of the slightly acidic air. Above him, white clouds floated into each other and canceled themselves out—revealing the binary stars that circled the large land mass suspended in space that housed the Chaos capital. He wished Azazel would have lasted long enough to see Alurabum one last time, but his friend died halfway through the vortex.
Lucifer looked around and recognized the location. Sariel and he were fifty miles outside of Alurabum, and they could be at the palace within minutes.
“We’re so close to home,” Lucifer said. “Should we send word ahead?”
“Already done,” Sariel said with a grin. “Let’s go ahead and start walking toward the Courts of Chaos. That will give them plenty of time to prepare a welcoming party.”
As they strolled along a cobblestone path, Lucifer reminisced quietly to himself. He had lost his virginity inside one of the half dozen perpetual tornados above Ebih Hill to the left. His brothers and friends had played hide and seek in the nearby woods, which periodically changed between deciduous and coniferous leaves. The thought of his childhood brought back memories that he had suppressed since the Great War.
He wondered what Elandril was doing right now. Would the Goblin Prince have returned from his training in the distant celestial forges? Elandril probably knew about the Great War by now. How much of what Michael had told them on Earth was true? Did Chaos really start the war out of deep-seated racism?
He shook his head to clear his mind of the depressing topic and looked at his brother, who appeared worried.
“Heard anything from them yet?” Lucifer asked.
“Not a word.”
“Did you try sending out another push?”
“Yeah. I even touched Batarel’s mind for a brief moment. Maybe he’s in a meeting.”
Lucifer cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms. “I can’t wait to be back in the capital. I’m so stoked. My hands are shaking. Look at this!”
Lucifer held out his arm and shook it exaggeratedly. Sariel laughed with him as they walked together and waved at a couple of lesser demons who had hurried to the roadway. They saluted Lucifer sharply, but one of them was chewing on his lip and looking at his friend in an excited, odd way.
“There he is,” the demon said. “It’s actually him!”
“Did you get a hold of Batarel?” Lucifer asked his brother.
“Yeah,” Sariel said.
“And?”
“He said we need to stay put.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say. They are apparently sending a party to us right now.”
“Batarel didn’t say anything else?”
Sariel didn’t respond. He moved toward the two lesser demons but they bolted back to the small metal shack they had just come from.
“What the hell was that about?” Lucifer asked.
“I think something is up.”
“Batarel didn’t say anything else?” Lucifer repeated.
“He said not to fight them.”
“Don’t fight who?”
But Sariel disappeared. Apparated just like their uncle did. At least Sariel had the decency to see Lucifer back home first. Batarel, on the other hand, had some explaining to do.
Lucifer walked toward Alurabum again, but he stopped when he saw hundreds of red wings approaching. The demons ran along the ground with their tendrils and kicked up a mighty dust cloud behind them.
Leading the unit was a greater demon named Nergal, whom Lucifer had promoted to captain shortly before he left for Earth. Within seconds, the company had surrounded Lucifer. Their looks weren’t at all what he’d been expecting.
“Prince Lucifer Kadingir,” Nergal greeted him. “We will need you to come with us back to the Courts of Chaos.”
“Is that an order or a request?”
Lucifer’s instincts told him to grab his sword. He could feel his wings moving under his skin in agitation. Thirty to one? He had handled worse.
“Please, Prince Lucifer,” Nergal said. “Your presence is requested at the Courts of Chaos. My men will escort you back.”
“Will you walk with me?” Lucifer asked.
“Of course.”
Though Nergal assumed a deferential stance, his thirty, hulking and fully-armored demon escorts never let their hands fall from their sword hilts.
“What’s going on, Nergal?” Lucifer asked.
“A committee has been formed to investigate the Jehovan conspiracy.”
“Jehovan conspiracy? Those bastards are all in Order now. We would better spend our time formulating how to stop the pattern jet that is coming toward us. What are they doing about that?”
Nergal didn’t say anything for a long while. Lucifer stopped to await an answer, and a guard pushed him forward.
Lucifer spun on his heel and put his finger into the demon’s cheek and summoned Michael’s old sword from the ether. Nergal’s fingers covered Lucifer’s sword hand and he moved between the offending soldier and the Demon Prince. “Please, Prince Lucifer. Walk with me for a while. The rest of you, mind your distance.”
Lucifer nodded and dismissed his sword. He put his hands behind his back and strolled beside Captain Nergal.
“After 500,000 years not seeing my homeland, I was hoping for a better reception.”
“You’re not impressed with the Royal Guard?”
“Royal Guard? I think I would know my own Royal Guard!”
“500,000 years!” the soldier behind Lucifer blurted. “More like 125,000. Just like a pampered royal to exaggerate his plight. How terrible you all have it!”
“That’s about right,” Nergal corrected him. “Time flows faster in Order than it does here, Adaru. From the briefings I’ve received, Prince Lucifer traveled through Chaos for about 100,000 years. The 25,000 other years were 400,000 in Order. From his perspective, he’s experienced 500,000 years away from Chaos.”
The soldier Adaru grumbled and turned away from his captain. Nergal decided to lead the conversation in a different direction.
“You asked what has been done about the Order pattern jet. That’s probably the best place to start.”
All along the path, demons were coming out in droves to see Lucifer. He could see small children running from door to door, screaming into the windows, and then stomping back to the path with neighbors in tow. None of them cheered. They just gawked.
“Your father ordered a lottery,” Nergal continued.
“For what purpose?”
“Most of us are asking the same thing, but I believe that this menace from Order that you speak of may be the root of the matter. It’s an especially large lottery, and there has been some disagreement among the lower and middle class about who should pay for it.”
“There has been an uprising?”
“There is an ongoing investigation into the royal family’s affairs,” Nergal said delicately.
“Because of my scoundrel of a cousin?”
“And your brother Michael. And your cousin Gabriel. Many demons believe the Kadingir clan has bled the people in a meaningless civil war between family members.”
“Those twenty-five thousand demons died on a military mission,” Lucifer said, “and we couldn’t have anticipated the lengths that Jehovah would go to. Even the Council was unprepared for the pattern magic that was used on Earth.”
“I don’t doubt that. Pattern magic is out of my expertise as well. But between the lottery and the King’s reluctance to tell us what this culling would accomplish, the people have demanded justice.”
“Justice?”
>
“My apologies,” Nergal said. “Answers. The people would like answers.”
“How big was this lottery?”
Nergal balked at answering again. He turned to Lucifer. “One million.”
“One what?”
“Million.”
Lucifer’s jaw went slack, and he looked at the thousands of faces peering back at him along the road. No wonder they weren’t cheering. He was surprised they weren’t throwing food at him. Perhaps the sight of this new contingent of the Royal Guard was enough to dissuade them.
“I will find you answers, my people,” Lucifer yelled to them. “I will get to the bottom of this. I promise!”
A few demons nodded, and maybe a flash of hope crossed a fraction of the faces, but most still looked on with borderline hatred. Many of these demons had probably lost loved ones to the lottery. A million demons represented a significant portion of the immortal population. The last census was only about ten million in all of Chaos.
The solemn walk continued for another five miles without another word from Lucifer or the Captain. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucifer saw something blurring and coming back into focus.
Every couple of minutes, it reappeared somewhere else. He looked closely at a five story red-brick building that was situated along the trajectory of the blip. Within minutes, a face and body appeared beside the building and then disappeared into a faint black mist.
Sariel was still around. That was a comfort.
Lucifer fell back slightly and turned toward Adaru. “May I speak with you?”
Adaru grunted and shrugged his shoulders, but he refused to look at Lucifer.
“Did you lose family in this lottery?” Lucifer asked. “Is that why you hate me?”
“I lost my sister and mother. My father opted to take the place of my brother, who was also picked.”
“I am very sorry for your losses,” Lucifer said. “Where is your brother now?”
Adaru pointed across the square formation of guards to a smiling, red-skinned demon who briefly bowed his head.
“And you?” Adaru asked with only slightly disguised malice. “Who have you lost?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to any of my family here in many thousands of years. When I get to Alurabum, that will probably be the first thing I do.”
“I can save you some trouble. None of your family died in the lottery.”
Adaru looked away, and Lucifer set his jaw and ground his back molars. But this soldier had lost a lot, and Lucifer felt a strong kinship with any military man. He had been one for most his life.
“I lost twenty-five thousand brothers on Earth,” Lucifer said. “The last one died on me in the vortex back there. I carried him on my shoulder for half a trillion light years. I dressed his wounds, and I laid him to rest in a fountain of energy in the deep recesses of our primal pattern. I have no idea if I’ve lost anyone in this lottery, but I have fought my way through hell and back again to return to you.”
“Your father ordered the deaths of my sister and mother,” Adaru said. “He would have killed my brother too if my father hadn’t taken his place. You should have come back sooner and stopped him.”
“Jehovah blocked my return,” Lucifer said. “My father has always been a just ruler. I know you don’t want to hear it, but those one million lives probably saved our entire realm from destruction. He wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
Several soldiers grumbled and grunted.
“How many of you lost loved ones in the lottery?” Lucifer asked.
Everyone raised their hand, including Nergal.
Lucifer hung his head until his chin touched his chest. He dropped to his knees and put his hands to the dirt, exposing his neck.
“Get up,” Adaru said, pushing Lucifer with his foot.
“If the royal family did not lose a single person to the lottery, then we owe you all a debt,” Lucifer said. “Let it start with me.”
The only answer was a shuffling of feet from those along the roadway. Lucifer could see hundreds of shoes and legs from his vantage point but not much else. “If you need royal blood to be shed, I’d rather you do it than Jehovah. If my death will cease this madness so we can at least put up a fight to save ourselves from annihilation, then I will gladly pay that price.
“Just give me a man strong enough to carry it out without the need to curse at me, despite my service to this universe. Give me an executioner who will let me move on with the same dignity that I gave my last soldier, Azazel. Make it quick. Make it clean and bury me in Chaos soil.”
No one moved toward him. He thought he heard someone chuckling, and he jumped to his feet and drew his sword from the primal pattern once more. But as he turned, he saw that the company of soldiers was sniffling and not laughing at him, and Adaru was the loudest of the bunch.
Adaru dropped his sword to the ground and knelt in front of Lucifer. “Forgive me, Your Highness.”
“No,” Lucifer said, bowing his head in respect to Adaru. “Forgive me and my father.”
Lucifer watched Adaru close his eyes and take a deep breath.
“I cannot speak about your father,” Adaru said, “but I have already forgiven you.”
Lucifer put his hand under the soldier’s arm and helped him to his feet. As he was doing so, he locked eyes with a tall, blond demon he hadn’t seen since the Goblin War. He nodded to the wizard, and Eranos Agalal bowed low in response. There was something about the wizard’s smirk that set Lucifer’s teeth on edge. He couldn’t place where he had seen that half-smile before, but it would haunt him all the way back to Alurabum.