MYRIAD WORLDS: THE DEMON LORD GILGAMESH

CHAPTER THREE: The Embrace

Gilgal sat up when he heard a knock on the door of the physician’s shop where he was staying. The room he was given was small and scanty, with a bed taking up almost all the space. The single window let in some chill to cancel out the heat from the small fireplace.

His washed clothes were hung by the fire to dry them off quickly, so he was clad in only a towel wrapped around his lower body. The bandage on his thigh had been replaced and what remained of the wound cleaned.

“Come in,” he said as his fingers drifted close to the sword lying beside him on the bed.

The door swung open and Jedaz stepped in. He looked pale and frail, shrouded by a faded tunic and ragged trousers. His hair was no longer long and he had a limp.

“Old chap,” he proclaimed, limping to sit beside Gilgal on the bed. He stretched out his back and legs, groaning with the audible pops. “I’ve gone down a ways,” he declared.

“Jedaz,” Gilgal acknowledged with a respectful and familiar nod.

“How goes it, son? When I heard tell Austinphas had been vanquished, I suspected it had to be you.”

“I’m okay, Jedaz. I can’t say the same about you though. You’re really in a bad way. Is this courtesy of the demon or should I really be worried?” Gilgal replied, turning to study the man who sat beside him. What he saw did not put a smile to his face.

Jedaz threw his head back and laughed. Then his laugh transformed into a coughing fit which doubled him over.

Gilgal frowned as he reached out to support the old Purger, but Jedaz sat up on his own and fixed him with a serious stare. “Worried? I’m just an old Messenger, dear boy. If I die today, I’ll be replaced in no time. Your only relationship with me is professional so I doubt you’ll really miss me. You, along with everyone else only know me as Jedaz, the Knight-turned-Messenger Purger of Wharfdale. Nobody knows or remembers who I am aside from that, so you shouldn’t act for my benefit.”

“You can always retire, Jedaz son of Avarice,” Gilgal replied and the old Purger shot him a shocked look. “Aye, Jedaz. I know who you are outside the profession. I admired you when I was a Squit, then trained under you as a squire and finally fought alongside you as a Knight. I remember.”

“Ah, Gilgamesh of Nur. How far you’ve come already. Your back is already covered. How many now?”

“I stopped keeping count at 809. If you add the two of them from today, that makes it 811 that I’m aware of. But about you, should I be worried?”

“Perhaps. I’m not getting younger...”

“Wolf is older than you are, but still fit as a youth,” Gilgal interrupted. “This is something else.”

“It is not something else. And you comparing me to that monster is unfair. He is a Master, able to live even a thousand more years if no Demon Lords have a say about it. Wyvrill and all the other Masters are not like you and I who only live a few centuries. Although, I confess you might be of the same constitution as them; looking just the same every time I see you.”

Gilgal chuckled and stared at his hands again. The succubus’ words rang in his head. She wasn’t the first succubus to say the same. “Might be because of Rhaido. I age, just that my physical body takes some time to realize it.”

Jedaz chuckled at the joke, then said seriously, “We lost two young Knights this time to a common Ngul Gomer chief. I wouldn’t want to be the one to present that report to the Masters.”

“I know. With the situation in the continent, we are declining at a rate faster than we’re growing. I can’t blame the young Knights any more than I can blame the Masters for sending them out before they’ve gained the adequate experience. Demonic activity is increasing and more people are preferring the profit they get from that than the stress of human life,” Gilgal replied, his eyes still on his hands, but he was looking past them. He remembered the past and sighed. “We never should have gone about that war the way we did. It only caused more problems.”

Jedaz frowned at Gilgal and his expression grew hard and strict. “I try not to judge your sentiments, Gilgamesh my boy, but that kind of talk has no place here! That war was very important! We simply shouldn’t have lost. It was our loss that has emboldened the demons and their human sympathizers!”

“My sentiments aside, Jedaz, that war was pointless. We never could have won, and we knew we never could have won. Poles has the best military; always has and always will. Other solutions were needed then, as they are still needed now. You don’t go to war on the back foot then pray for a miracle to see you to victory. That was exactly what we did then, and Poles destroyed everything. The faith of the people in us was shattered and the fear the demons had for us waned.

“I know what you’ll say, Jedaz, but that is a lie we tell ourselves. There are only five Masters still left in the Order, but there are eight Demon Lords. If the Demons prosecute another war, we’ll lose.”

Jedaz fell silent. The silence in the room grew oppressive as the seconds ticked by. Then finally he sat up with a familiar light in his eyes. “I might be a Messenger now, Gilgamesh, but the same fire burns in me now as when I was still a Knight. The same fire that burned in us when we fought and lost against Poles. It is a fire I know you’re familiar with, my boy. It is the fire of The Embrace, Gilgamesh. We preserve and sacrifice our lives for the greater good! You had that fire when you led the younglings against the demon princes in Poles 300 years ago.

“Mark my words, Gilgamesh: should even the Prince rise again from wherever he’s been hiding this past millennia, I’ll stand against him and know no fear! And even if the gods do not help us, I will die knowing I fought to the last.”

“Oh, they won’t help us, Jedaz. You don’t need to wonder at that. They only helped last time to cast away the Prince, because his ambitions threatened to seize the throne of supreme godhead from his father, Fondor,” Gilgal spoke. He glanced at the old Messenger and sighed. “You misunderstood me, Jedaz. That fire still burns in me, but that does not mean I’ll actively seek The Embrace when there’s a better method that can assure us of victory.

“The battle against Poles 300 years ago was pointless and wasteful because we lost and because we didn’t fight the enemy. Even had we won against Poles, it would have still been a defeat because the demons orchestrating these events are safe in the Lower Aether. To truly succeed is to take the fight to them there. In a place where their power is naturally suppressed! A place where our own powers would be enhanced.”

Jedaz was already shaking his head in disagreement before Gilgal finished. “It is true that crossing from one’s birth Aether to another will greatly increase their power beyond the natural suppression of their birth Aether, but the Lower Aether is not a place meant for humans. We will be powerful enough to truly threaten the demons, but at the cost of our very humanity. This, I believe, is why the Masters keep refusing your idea. It’s not worth it, my boy.”

Gilgal grunted and kept quiet. The Masters indeed made the same argument every time he brought up the idea, but they were wrong. Cambions could live in the Lower Aether after all, and he had no doubt that he was a half human. He just had never asked any of the Masters because the truth might mean his banishment from the Order. He sat in the silence and pondered the succubus’ words again. His Parenthood was a mystery, but so was that of nearly every Purger.

He glanced at Jedaz who was watching him and wondered if the man knew the lay of his thoughts. Jedaz was one of those who’d been present during his knighting ceremony, and was among the few who knew the torment he withstood from the enchanted pentacles he wore.

The Masters had called it an abnormal constitution, but Gilgal believed otherwise. He reacted to the pentacle just as other demons and cambions did, and that was no coincidence. But if the Order was prepared to give him the luxury of their feigned ignorance, then he’d take it. It was more than the demons had ever done for him.

“I understand,” he said finally.

“Good,” Jedaz said seriously, before his expression softened again. “So how are your wounds and how soon can you travel again?”

“I can be on the road this evening, but the dead Knights need to be burned and I’ll take back their effects to the castle.”

“I can arrange for that while you rest up,” Jedaz said as he stood up and stretched himself again. He started for the door, then stopped and smiled back at Gilgal. “By the way, your girlfriend rode through here not more than two weeks ago. She must be wintering at the Castle this time too.”

“We broke up ages ago, Jedaz, even if you refuse to acknowledge it. I might be softhearted, but Nur will eat your heart if you keep on with this. It’s bad enough for her that my adopted homeland and her name are exactly the same,” Gilgal replied with a smile also.

About eating the old Messenger’s heart, Nur Haley wouldn’t go that far, but she’d certainly bruise him. She was indeed one of the Purger Knights that he didn’t duel with easily. The possibility of losing always kept him on his toes.

Jedaz chuckled at the reply, then laughed until he was out of the room. Gilgal watched the door for a long time, thinking about how much longer the winter at Castle Org would be now with Nur Haley around. He sighed and shook his head before lying on the bed and resting his head on the folded bed sheet. He could focus on such a trivial matter only because he didn’t want to contemplate the more pressing ones. The world was changing around him and most people seemed to misinterpret it. He sighed and closed his eyes.