Richard Knaak - Scales of the Serpent

“Will I, my dear Uldyssian?” Her tail slapped lightly on the floor, sending odd bits of the senior priest scattering. Lilith leaned forward, letting her ample bounty display itself unhindered. “But how splendid…as that is exactly what I want!”

Her pronouncement startled Uldyssian. Belatedly, he realized that his mouth hung open. Face flushing, he closed it, then tried to gather his thoughts. Yet again, Lilith had proven her mastery over him with but a few words.

“Yes,” the succubus said, smiling widely. Her inhuman eyes flashed with enjoyment at his consternation. “I want you to take down the Triune! I want you to put an end to the temple…”

“But—” Uldyssian finally managed. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Now that you control the Triune…”

“Ahh, but it makes perfect sense, my love! It makes perfect sense! It is a sign of my affection for you that I tell you all this, which even my unlamented brother’s servants do not know! Yes, my little nephalem …you will destroy the temple for me…and the Cathedral of Light, too…”

But if Lilith desired something of him, Uldyssian desperately thought, telling him would surely make the man want to do just the opposite…

She either read that thought—not impossible for her—or simply understood his mind better than he. “Oh, but my dear Uldyssian! You will not have any choice in the matter! You see, if you do not do your best to stir your nephalem powers to greater life—and also those latent in the fools that follow you—I will have the Triune utterly crush you! Do you think that this is all my poor brother gathered to him? There is so much more! My brother was very clever, his only mistake was in underestimating me—”

Suddenly, Lilith stood face-to-face with Uldyssian. How she had gotten so near without him aware of it, he could not say.

“—just as you, too, always have, poor darling!”

Before Uldyssian could stop her, the demon kissed him soundly. She had done the same in the past and so he should have been prepared for it. With as much irritation at himself as hatred toward her, Uldyssian grabbed for Lilith, but the demon slipped from his grasp.

“I won’t do as you plan, damn you!” he growled. “I’m through playing your puppet! I’ll not create an army of nephalem ready to do your bidding!”

That was what she truly wanted, he knew too well. She had been among those who had created Sanctuary, but for her murderous ways—including slaying most of her companions—she had been exiled by her lover…an angel, if Lilith could be believed about anything. Those murders had revolved around the children—the first nephalem—born through the unions of the renegade demons and angels. Uldyssian could grant her credit for wishing to save them, but now it seemed that all their descendants mattered to her was as fodder or soldiers to use in her mad campaign of vengeance.

“Will you not?” she teased. “Will you not, dear love?” The demoness pulled back. “Then, why have you not attacked me yet?”

Lilith had him again…but for the last time, Uldyssian swore. He stretched out a hand toward her—

The air around the demoness started to ripple…but Lilith was no longer there. Instead, Uldyssian felt her materialize behind him.

“Much improved, my darling Uldyssian…much improved.”

He did not turn to face her, instead merely concentrating on where she was.

But…again, he was too late.

Now Lilith’s voice echoed throughout the chamber, though she herself was nowhere to be seen. “However, you still need a little more practice, I think! After all, you must be your best when facing the power of the Triune…much less sweet, treacherous Inarius.”

Try as he might, Uldyssian could not sense Lilith anywhere and that told him just how insufficient all his might was. He had expected to be able to face her much better than this, but, as before, both emotionally and physically she had played him perfectly.

“Come and face me, Lilith!” Uldyssian shouted as he turned in a circle. He sought her in every dark corner, but there was nothing , absolutely nothing save her voice, projected from far, far away.

“All in good time, my love. A little more practice first. Why, you can start by perhaps still saving some of your friends ! You have so few left already…”

Her voice faded away. Caught up in his anger, he did not at first pay heed to her last comments. Then…then Uldyssian felt the terrible threat without, a threat he could only assume that Lilith’s cunning skills had shielded from his “vaunted” perceptions.

Rather than keeping Mendeln, Serenthia, and the rest safe, he had left them right where the demoness had wanted them.

In a place that was not a place, the black-shrouded figure stared beyond his empty surroundings into that realm called Sanctuary by the knowledgeable few. He noted the terrible strife overtaking the city of Taraja and had already begun calculating the possible repercussions.

“He is moving too quickly,” the shadowed man said to the emptiness. “Too irrationally…”

He moves as he must…as do we …

The voice would have stilled the heart of most, for it was as much presence as it was sound. Yet, the one to whom it spoke merely nodded, for he had known the speaker so long that even its uniqueness had become too familiar.

Failure had also become too familiar, and he did not want to face it again. Failure threatened the Balance and despite centuries of learning to focus his emotions inward—where they could be controlled—a deep frown slowly spread across his marblelike countenance.

“Then…we must become more active…”

As he spoke, above him there suddenly glittered what seemed to be stars. Yet these stars moved, gradually forming an immense, serpentine figure, a creature half-seen, half-imagined…and to most, completely myth.

A dragon…

More active than the initiating of his birth brother? the stars asked, the tone invoking irony.

“More…” the shrouded figure returned defiantly, “although Mendeln ul-Diomed is far exceeding my expectations. I would almost swear that he…”

Is directly of your blood, yes…it would also explain why she chose the elder sibling for her goals. You sensed the strength slumbering in them. So would she .

“My mother would, you’re correct. So, too, would my father…” His frown deepened. “Yes, so, too, would my father.”

The stars swirled, briefly losing resemblance to the fabled beast. Of whom we have heard nothing …

The man nodded, his focus once more attuned to Sanctuary. “Yes, and that troubles me more than anything.”

As it should …The shape coalesced again. Yes…a more active role must be taken, just as you have said …

Wrapping his voluminous cloak about him, the hooded figure prepared to leave. “As I said,” he murmured more to himself than to his vaguely seen companion. “Even if it means revealing my survival to both my parents…” Mendeln expected to die. He watched as the hammer fell, knowing that he would never move swiftly enough to escape it. None of the words in the strange tongue that he had begun to learn in his dreams came to him. A crushing death was to be his imminent fate, and although he tried to be as detached to that realization as he had become to so many other fateful moments of late, Mendeln nonetheless felt an overwhelming bitterness.

He had believed that some other destiny awaited him—

Someone collided with him. Both figures tumbled to the side just as Dialon’s hammer smashed into the marble floor, creating a fissure of broken stone more than half a dozen yards in length.