An Angel’s Road to Hell

Cassandra Pendragon

My mood had definitely dropped to a new low, which was quite the achievement, considering how I had spent my last hours. “No,” I growled. “I’m not going to stay and hold your hand. You’re a bloody grown man and you’re going to do what you can, god damn it! You’re a prince, for Christ’s sake, Mordred. Get your head out of your ass and start organising. You have a city to take care of and a foreign army to sniff out.”

“Cassy, they won’t listen to me. I’m not…”

“Make them,” I hissed exasperatedly. “You know how it’s done.” I jerked my head towards the sadly swinging, squished corpses, hung from the closest tree. “Get a few more of those sick fucks up there and the rest will fall in line. There shouldn’t be a shortage of volunteers any time soon.”

“Listen to yourself,” he almost screamed. “I’m neither an immortal nor a dragon. I can’t and frankly I don’t want to do what you’ve done. Why would you ever want me to take the reins?”

“Do you really think I wanted this,” I erupted, scaring the workers close by from their thoroughly earned sleep. We were weaving our way towards the great tree, past improvised beds and campfires, where the former slaves had drifted off after the gathering. They, at least, could boast some progress on reconstructing their new homes. A few more days and the buildings, surrounding the Garden, wouldn’t look like ruins but more like decent homesteads. “Do you really think I like what I have to do, every single day of my life? You want to know why I want you in charge? Because you’re neither an immortal, nor a dragon, share my name and you’re the only one who can call our new mayor a friend.” The warm, breathing bundle in my arms squirmed and I took a deep, calming breath, staring up at the stars. Please, give me patience. More amicably I continued: “Look, trust me, I understand why you don’t want this to happen, I really do. You’re afraid, you’re lost and the last thing you want is the responsible to care for others… guess what, I feel the same. Unfortunately nobody gives a damn. If you can name a better alternative I’m all ears but who’s it going to be? Mom? She looks like a… like a goddamned child,” not the word I had wanted to use but lolly would probably have had him scratching his head in confusion, “our dear grandmother would rather eat anyone in her way than listen, Alassara is a vampire who’s got most of the population quivering in their boots and the others are going to come with me. Who’s left? Besides, it’s not like I’m asking you to govern the place.”

“No… you only want me to make decisions for a tree and its inhabitants, who could face an army, or several for that matter, all on their own. That’s not anything too impactful, is it?”

“Spare me your snark. First off, it’s not like I won’t be around. I’ll probably return every single night in case Greta gets her roots to merge with the existing portals, and second, all you really have to do is keep the peace and arbitrate in case things go south and I’m not there. Damn it, grow a spine! What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know… let’s think. Deities are apparently roaming this city, one of which is sleeping in our own damned home, utterly clueless about what she really is, surrounded by equally clueless orphans, we have to somehow start fighting Amon, unless you want to wait until he’s had the time to rally his troupes and prepare a whole bunch of nasty surprises and then there’s the town itself, which, according to the list you gave me,” he waved the parchment under my nose, “is still chock full of assholes who deserve to be hanged. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Fine, it’s a friggin ungrateful task. Still, whom would you rather have? I haven’t yet heard an alternative. You’ve only been whining. Tell you what. I’ve got to talk to Reia anyways. Or yell at her, depending on how it’s going to go. If you come up with a name by the time I’m done you’re off the hook. If you can’t, I don’t want to hear another word of protest. Deal?” He nodded grudgingly, almost like a petulant child. When had I become the damned adult in this family? As soon as my mom was taller than 1.5 metres she could have her job back. Unfortunately that might as well turn out to take the better part of a century.

I granted my dear brother a pinched smile and kissed his cheek before I scurried off and vanished into the soothing darkness underneath Greta’s roots. My living burden stirred but didn’t wake. Which reminded me, the young dryad with an ancient heart would also have been a great choice to keep our little family together while I was gone, but since she had looked ready to strangle me, as soon as I had brought it up, I hadn’t pressed the issue. Considering I wasn’t that scared of my brother but the lessons Greta had beaten and sometimes burned into me were still very much alive it had seemed only reasonable. If she said no I’d have to accept it. Him… not so much.

While I made my way up the spiralling stairs I allowed the last hours to pass before my inner eye. Ever since Ahri had vanished it had been one bloody nuisance after the other. That she had dropped our prisoners from a height that had turned them into broken puppets on the ground, parts of their entrails squirting over the closest bystanders, hadn’t helped much. As soon as I had managed to return with another barely breathing child, leaving behind nothing but a smouldering ruin, it had been one series of explanations followed by irrelevant and honestly stupid questions. To sum it up I had been forced to explain what we had been doing while the whole town had been listening. That part I wouldn’t have minded, except for a tiny little problem. Our captives had been dead as door nails, even their souls had crumbled as soon as they had snuffed it, thanks to the damage I had already inflicted beforehand, and the kid had been out cold in my arms.

That little snag had made most of my assertions seem like fantastic tale and I had been forced to repeat my earlier stunt, using my voice to tear the necessary answers straight from the dead bodies. Which had returned a modicum of credibility to me but also emphasised how easy it’d have been for either Ahri or me to simply ignore anyone and do as we damn well pleased. In and of itself that hadn’t been much of a surprise, but the resulting debate, raised by none other than my dear friend Serena Brightblaze, had still been utterly exhausting. Now, in the long run she had done me a favour, dragging everything out into the open, but while I had sat there and endured an unending litany of superficial bullshit, all the while itching to run after Ahri or at least look after Brianna, Pete’s friend who incidentally bore a striking resemblance to the statue I had burned, or care for the little hybrid I had carried from the flames, it had taken almost all of my, admittedly meagre, self control to not storm away. If Ahri hadn’t contacted me as soon as she had arrived, I wouldn’t even have bothered to return to the Garden after all.

In the end the continuous bickering had at least yielded a few results. As my brother had prophesied Richard had been nominated as mayor, an entirely new position, the duties and privileges of which had yet to be decided. Furthermore yours truly had somehow been granted the honour… the task to take care of her patch of land. At first I hadn’t thought much of it until Alassara had revealed that she hadn’t just bought the market and the neighbouring, devastated buildings, but a good chunk of the city, namely the streets surrounding it, which she had already signed over to me without so much as asking. Long story short, by now I didn’t only have to worry about a bunch of creatures who might as well have crawled from the pages of a fairytale, oh no, I also had to deal, respectively govern, order and protect, a considerable part of Free Land, which had somehow turned into prime real estate over night. Judging from the few conversations I had overheard, everybody, their relatives and their trusted pets had been interested in purchasing a small patch of land or a building close by.

If it hadn’t been my time on the line I would have laughed at it all. I mean, at first they had been scared out of their wits, then mistrustful and now they were lining up to live close by. The sheer fucking hypocrisy was on entirely different level. Still, I had never thought of myself as greedy but when I had imagined how much money, and I mean that in a very metaphorical way, more in line with favours and influence, I’d be able to make, a smile had crept across my face. In that regard I wasn’t as different from my mother as I had always believed.

Bottom line, the town had been divided into several sections which would each elect a hetman, who in turn would sit in the city council, where most decisions would be made. Every hetman was going to have a single vote while the mayor himself held three. Considering how influential Captain Nightshade and Captain Brightblaze still were, they were almost guaranteed to earn the seats of their respective neighbourhoods. Alassara would also have been a given if she hadn’t signed over most of her land. Now that dubious privilege probably rested with me, but since I didn’t plan on being here all the time whomever I’d put in charge would find themselves on the chopping block. One of the reasons why Mordred had no intentions of playing ball.

In theory I was quite enamoured with the idea but its practicability was an entirely different matter. While elections could be organised by simple meetings and open hand signs, the money and power the council would need to actually enforce its decisions, especially if they weren’t in line with what the more influential hetmen wanted, had to come from somewhere. We’d need a true city watch, probably a treasury and the means to fill it. And the way I saw it, the only people who could provide were living in my gods damned treehouse. Whichever way I spun it, I wouldn’t be able to stay as detached as I had hoped. Sure, I had probably already dipped my toe over the line when I had gone ahead and eradicated the Ironhands without asking, but I truly wasn’t looking for anything official. Especially nothing resembling the local executioner or vigilante.

Oh well, for now I intended to pawn the whole trifle off anyways. There were two more things, maybe three, I really had to take care of, but afterwards, by the morrow if I had my way, I’d be off. But first I had to talk to the people who wanted to come with and to Rachmahn, make sure Greta could merge her roots with the portals the vampires controlled and deal with the dragon-ish bomb Viyara had dropped on me. Her dear grandfather had sent her two young dragons to protect her and keep her company. That would have been enough of a headache all on its own but apparently there was quite a bit of history between Sera and the overgrown lizards in general. Which, of course, meant that I had to ensure that my granny wouldn’t bite them in two, as soon as they arrived, and that the two of them wouldn’t in turn transform our home into a furnace. Oh… and I’d also have to tell the centuries old vixen-dragon hybrid that I hadn’t even considered handing over the keys to my kingdom to her. Since my argument truthfully boiled down to: I don’t know you well enough and I don’t really trust you yet, I wasn’t really looking forward to that particular conversation. What I had told Mordred had just been me making a point. The old lady was surely wily and experienced enough to keep her temper in check. She was probably much better at it than I was myself, which rendered any point concerning her tantrums rather moot.

“And here I was, thinking you’d be glad for a reason to abandon ship,” a soft voice wafted from a cloud of sparks, materialising on the wooden platform, halfway up the stairs, I had just vacated.

“Don’t you have anything better to do,” I snapped when the dryad fell in step behind me.

“Not really. I’m an entirely magical creature now, connected to every little part of this tree. Which means I can harass you all I want and still have my roots grow and merge with the weave.” To emphasise her words she tugged on one of my tails, forcefully. I hissed in surprise and whirled around but the infuriating elder only smiled innocently. “By the way, it’s going to work. Not as quickly as you’d like but sooner or later I can use the lattice to spread to different islands. All I need is an anchor. The portals will do nicely but you can also use my seeds. Erya was right, once they bloom they can become gateways.” Torn between grudging amusement and indignation, since I couldn’t even move properly and strangle her with the sleeping child in my arms, I had only listened half heartedly but now she had my full attention.

“So basically I have to get to the Emerald Island once and we can travel there on a whim?”

“Yes… even though the getting there part might be more onerous than you think. I can already feel how far the ancient network spans and you won’t be able to get there directly. It’ll be at least two days with an air ship, provided you can find one. As far as I know the closest island you can reach is uninhabited.” I frowned.

“Why? What’s the point of a portal leading to the middle of nowhere?” She looked at me with a peculiar glint in her eyes and I managed to lower my head just in time, otherwise she would have smacked me... for old time’s sake. She nodded almost approvingly before she explained:

“Think, Cassy. The portals aren’t new, they’ve been around for ages. Once upon a time the place wasn’t desolate but ruins won’t help you much, will they. Luckily you can fly by yourself and so can the others you intend to take along… I hope.”

“You hope?”

“Well, the elves live far to the north… you’ve never been there but the weather is different. If you fly into a blizzard… I’m sure you, that dragoness of yours and her vampire will be fine but the rest… maybe you should leave them behind until you can establish a direct link.”

“Reia will be delighted,” I replied haltingly, her complaints already ringing in my ears.

“For her it shouldn’t matter too much. There are enough birds that have evolved to live in the north but you should still make sure she knows what she’s doing. I can help you out. I’ve seen her magic and I’m sure I can guide her towards the necessary changes. You can leave that to me. What you’ve got to do is make sure you can actually use the portals without destroying them.”

“And welcome our newest bunch of dragons in the morning,” I added with a groan. She cocked an eyebrow, silently urging me to continue. “Haven’t you heard? Viyara… she’s got family left, a towering, golden grandfather to be precise. He’s sent two dragons here. Considering my luck they might just as well insist on accompanying us and I’m not even sure if that’s such a bad idea. That way I can at least make sure they won’t get into a fight with Sera and burn the town to the ground. Which reminds… I should probably tell her about… why are you grinning?”

“No reason, except I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry much about spreading the news. She already knows.”

“She… damn it.” I sent a trickle of power towards my eyes and one of the fireflies, dancing across the pond below us, lit up like a Christmas tree. Ever since I had gained control over my life force my vision had also changed. I could not only see spells and magic but the innate life within a creature, which meant that, even though I still wasn’t able to spot the transformations of our family, I could very well tell that a bug wasn’t supposed to have enough energy to light up a continent. Not to mention that the insect in question was slowly making its wobbly way towards us. “How long have you been listening,” I asked more annoyed with myself than her. I should have seen this coming. The traits our family shared were curiosity, a pronounced disregard for personal affairs and a slight over abundance of magic after all. From one second to the next the firefly pulsed and was enshrouded in a golden mist, only to reveal my granny, grinning at me toothily.