Demon of the Black Gate

The demon’s cyclonic form tore trees from the upper reaches of the great cliffs. The funnel shortened as the demon lost the elements of the ground. He gathered, a dark cloud once again, a fell storm that raged up into the mountains as it left the Black Gate behind. The demon drifted as the boiling of his mind began to quiet and the gyrating tail of his passing, that twisting wind that ripped the land where it dangled and touched, slowly withdrew into him.

The transformations had tired him greatly, his energies depleted. This world remained, his tormentor too. The woman. Again the thought of the blind human intruded. He saw her as he saw her last, in the grotto of the great cave. He knew that place. The stones of the mountain became the beacon, the magnet that drew him. The demon had to struggle to keep himself together as the vapors wanted to dissipate but the rocks of the grotto drew him on.

The demon fell into the opening of the grotto, a swirl of dust, vapor, drawing pieces of the rim into him as he settled. He sat, chuffing for a long time. He was back in a familiar place, dark and timeless. There was no reason to move. He had settled to rock. Had someone crossed the grotto, nothing more than a pile of rubble would betray his presence. If it were possible, the demon slept, or thought of nothing. The dim light of the grotto had long passed into night, and the blackness was complete. It had no weight. It was not the void, nor did the battles and creatures of this world abide in this place.

At the apogee of its swing through the heavens, the full moon shone down on the grotto, for a few piercing moments, reaching through the opening above. The demon was bathed in the blue white brilliance. He felt his gaze go up, and with it a draw. There was none but ether, the black noise of space to hold on to. The weight of the stone that held his body anchored him, even as the moonlight drew him forth.

“I am here” said the moon, glowing white in the darkness, even as it dissolved in his gaze to the human woman’s face, open dark eyes that pulled him in like the void.

The demon felt his body lift, like that which the woman had sculpted. His body. Afloat, surging into the night, as though his eyes were drawing him upward. The woman’s face blended into the dark, luminous smokes swirling into the skirts that adorned her, writhing into arms reaching out. The bodies twined in a helix of moonlight. The demon thought of a time, another age, and the world spun as he danced. He sank into the dizzy embrace. The woman looked at him, her eyes all he saw as the world in time spun past them. He buried his face in her hair … shimmering dark locks coiling into auburn red wayward curls.

It was a collision. He tried to hold on, but the twining helix swept them apart. Time in white brilliance. The flash, the single moment in time was carried by the pulse, the endless wave from the source. The beginning without end. He fell back, carried by the wave, vibrations of sound pushing at his chest.

A wash of moonlight flared in the grotto before the orbs passage took it beyond the opening high above, casting the grotto back into a dark gloam. The demon remained, a pile of rock and debris in the darkness, as dark as his remaining dream. A persistent call echoed through the blackness of his slumber.

“I am here”.

The demon woke, the blackness faded from his dream, and the awareness of the grotto returned to him. He sat, staring at the rock, now dimly lit by the daylight that filtered down from above. It took a long time for the thought to return, the evolution of his time in this dream. The grotto. The woman.

It was her. He could see her clearly, and the unfocused dark of her eyes as she looked at him. He thought of the dream, staring into the murky gloom of the grotto, the surface of the far wall, jagged in stoney greys became his unseeing template. He remembered the helical twine. One line was him, the other her. He floated again in that moment. He let his conscious fall down the thread. Away from the moon, away from the nova that was about to happen. He coursed down the thread until he could see the mountains, and the great forest. The silver thread came from a small hole in the canopy, a pond mirroring the light, and down to a small body that lay there. Below the mountains. Beyond. It was her.

He snapped to the now. He stood, a pile of rock that growled and formed, shedding the earths and elements that no longer fit. That she had continued a great distance was apparent, and now traveled in the great forests that abutted the mountains. He could find the spot he saw in his journey ... where he had already been in the etherworld. The shifts from the watery calling and the battle and the aftermath left him bereft of time. He didn’t know how long he had been away from this persistant dream. The event of the moon seemed new, though if it had happened an age ago, it may have felt the same. The view from the cave didn’t change. He was in this dream still and he must find the woman. He stood looking up through the opening high above. He let the weight release from him, creating a rush of wind that lifted him, sweeping him to the rim that guarded the jagged opening. The edges of the Granite Mountains had been thrust up from the depths in great stone walls.

The demon let himself settle on the lip of an escarpment. The land swept out below him. No foothills clung to its sides. Far to the south, the land opened to a grassy plain before finding the sands that guarded the Northern shores of the Sultan sea. Below and to the north lay a carpet of great trees. He stood at the edge of the sheer wall, the tallest trees but flecks of green below. He thought of the hole in the canopy and launched himself off the edge, letting his body fall to dust and vapors. He fell, his thought guiding him. Her scent would be in the air. Her passage would be marked in the earth.

The descent took an age, the pressure of his flight slowing until he felt suspended. The demon could sense her now, her presence in the airs. The carpet of green grew closer and he let himself fall into it. He saw the open patch in the forest that grew larger as he fell. As the ground came to meet him, he let the swirling dusts and gases that had carried him down gather the ground. The swarm of the demon in flight marshalled in a shifting buzz, shaping the bronze image of a man.

He stood gazing at the woman before him, her form shifting and moving with the ripples of air upon the water. Her eyes opened. He heard the low, relaxed sound of her voice.

“Where have you been?”

The demon looked down at her feeling strange and compelled by her presence.

“Not here” was his answer.

That made Cerra laugh. She didn’t know what she expected to hear, but that wasn’t it.

“Well, I am glad you’re back. I have missed you.”

The woman lay immersed in the water before him. Her curly hair heavy and matted with water. She looked up at him. Eyes that didn’t see. She shimmered with the water that beaded on her skin. Her breasts were full and floating at the surface, the rest of her a rippled blur beneath the surface. The spirit of the waters flushed through him as well as flashes of a time before the void. The female. Intoxicating. The word that Rovinkar had unwittingly left in his subconscious rose again, alien and unused in aeons: ‘beautiful.’

“Beautiful” was all he said.

Cerra felt a thrill she didn’t know could possess her. She never worried or wondered about her looks. She could not see the mirror or the flaws it revealed. She was laying back in the darkness of her world, in the sensual embrace of the water, gazing at the only energy to penetrate her sight in ages. She felt truly beautiful at that moment.

She wanted to laze there for an age, but instead offered her hand. “Help me up, or my beauty will shrivel in this pool.”

He stepped into the water and reached to draw her up. She let herself fall against him. His energy and heat electrified her. She knew she could not hold on for long, but for the moment it thrilled her, and a shiver passed.

“You are chilled.” said the demon. She wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. As his arm embraced her to help her stand she held him close for a second, feeling his energy. His heat. She pressed where she brushed his thigh. She could not help herself.

“Hold me for a moment. Please.” she said softly. She let the energy course through her, more than she could endure if she didn’t hold on. Her cheek lay against his chest, The blueness of him in her sight enveloped her like the moon had in her dream the night before. She heard the winds of the canyon with the breaths he took. The space between sounded the sound of ocean waves, fluid and incessant. The slow thrumming of power for a heartbeat pulsed like the earth itself, his skin felt like smooth rock on a hot day. The fire of his body penetrated her until she couldn’t stand. She felt separated, aloft, bourne by the winds. She clutched, she pushed her groin against his thigh, moaned softly, and was lost. The demon caught waves of desire emanating from her thoughts and sensed her collapse. He held her up a moment before laying her on a grassy patch near her clothes.

Cerra sank back, exhausted. Energized. Her eyes fluttered shut, and the blue white image of the demon faded, her mind racing with the powers she had felt coursing through her. Like the gods of the earth and sky.

“You are not well?!” said the demon, neither a question or statement, but he felt uncertainty. The being that would cast him back to the void wielded great power, but this small creature with the flaming hair and blind eyes had called him three times, and held him. Yet she had never commanded him.

He saw her eyes flutter open. They looked through him, stirring another flash of eyes that had beheld him in the same way. A pang as sharp as it was momentary.

“I am very well.” she sighed. “Sit. Please. While I dry in the sun.” her voice was soft. The woman lay without her garments. The waves of a desire from another time and place chipped at his conciousness as he sat next to her, facing the pond.

Cerra let the sun warm her naked body. Even the sun seemed to penetrate her closed lids with an amber glow. She may have even slept for a bit, she wasn’t sure. The birdsong lulled like the sound of a cascading creek could, a constant veil of sound that surrounded her.

Finally she spoke, her voice soft.

“You are elements. I have felt them all. They were in me. I also felt like you could have pulled me in. And I’d be lost.”

She was quiet for another moment.

“You know, part of me doesn’t mind being lost.”

She smiled, the birdsong took up the interval of her silence. The demon would not talk much. He never did. The cat finally came over to her, and started licking at her face. She laughed herself from her reverie and raised herself up. She mused aloud at the cat as it wove about.

“Well we won’t get far today, will we Kamir?”

She looked at the image of the demon still sitting there. He hadn’t moved, staring at the lake.

“You were gone for many days. I think it was six. Do you know where? I’m really glad you are back by the way. Am I still going in the right direction? Where am I going anyway?”

Her sudden volley of question and statements elicited a slow rumble, what Cerra had learned was a laugh. The demon was becoming familiar with this emotional paroxysm as he spent more time with this creature. He tried to formulate the past stretch of existence into the unfamiliarity of conversation.

“I was not here, but … this world. I was called back to the river gate. I was water.” The demon struggled with the words. “Rain. Ocean. Storm. I was all of it, and it was me. The great sea is alive.”

“Like a person?” said Cerra.

“A being.” was all the demon said. Cerra thought about that for awhile. She had always thought of trees as beings, and felt their thoughts and feelings about her all the time. It was the only way she could see them. The water too? There were many strange creatures in the world. Who knows what forms they could take.

“The wizard called you there?” She asked though she already knew the answer.

“The being with the blackness. Wizard? Yes. That one. The one I must destroy.”

“He will try again?”

“He will try again.” agreed the demon.

He thought about where they were. He had seen the great expanse clearly from the top of the great cliffs, and not fogged by his transformations.

“You are not lost.”

“Good. The view hasn’t changed in awhile. Where am I, anyway?”

She was glad for someone to talk with, even the short mostly unemotional responses from the demon. She sensed the words were not be easily found.

“You are near the grasses. As large as the sea. Between us and the sea. We will cross that. And the sea.” He paused, searching for the word. “South.”

Jessann had taught her a great deal of geography. Most of it was meant to augment her knowledge of the exotic plants spices and herbs that she dealt with. The Alatian Plains grew from the Eastern edges of the Assai Desert, and fanned out to the Northeast in a great unbroken steppe.

“South. We are going to Abyssin, then.”

“The city. Abyssin.” He said the name as if weighing it. “Yes. That is where I must go.”

“We.” she corrected.

The demon turned and looked at her. The untouched. The innocent. He needed her power to defeat the being, the wizard. He needed her. He felt vulnerable looking at her and turned his gaze back to the pond.

“We.” he said.