To read from the beginning: The Winding Way, Chapter 1

"I am named Lucifer, Lord of Night, and I am the Master of Chaos and Dreams. I am an Immortal, and I must return to my realms to reclaim my title, or else I am Master no more."

"Master? Chaos? What?" Aden asked, bewildered. Sure, she had a book on the Immortals, but nothing so specific.

"It is unreasonable for me to expect one such as you to know anything about these matters," he sniffed.

Still stoic and aloof. Aden hated it. She gripped the book in one hand and glared firmly. "You said you need to 'reclaim your title' -- was it lost somehow?"

Finally a hesitation. The Immortal didn't meet her eyes and stared past her at the trees, at first as though he wouldn't answer at all. Then he finally said, "I was otherwise occupied."

No further information seemed to be forthcoming on the matter.

Aden gritted her teeth and tried to think through the situation. She usually didn't have problems with people doubting her abilities -- she was a student, after all, the most respected occupation in all of the Incarnate. If not learn and succeed, what else could she do?

"Look, if you have to get back to the Immortal so bad, I can help you get there," she said, almost hating herself. Why was she so desperate to help this... being? "Do you know how to travel the Incarnate?"

Lucifer shook his head slowly, still refusing to look at her.

"Well, then I'll take you to the next town, there should be someone there who knows how to get back to the Immortal," Aden said agreeably. "I mean, how hard can it be?" she muttered after.

"It will be a long journey," the Immortal said, finally turning to look down at her. The expression in his dark eyes was unfathomable. "And in all honesty, I am unsure of your intentions."

"Huh?" Aden frowned.

"I mean, can I trust you?" the Immortal stared at her, and for a moment she felt an almost-awkwardness emanating from him. "I am, Incarnate, in need of a guide. I know not of this realm, not of time nor space nor direction -- such things are not of my Nature. I know of the ideal of Trust, but not whether I can trust you."

"Do you always speak like a text book?" Aden grumbled, using it as an excuse to mull over his question. He had a point, and in all honesty she did have an ulterior motive -- by signing on with him, she'd gain valuable experience, and most likely be the envy of her peers. Plus he was an anomaly... and beautiful. There was just something about the whimsy of it all that attracted her; semester was done for the winter, and she would have nothing to do for a full two months before heading back to classes. She didn't want to sit in a chilly town and relax -- she wanted something new. Something fun.

Now how to make a creature from an entirely different level of cosmic thought understand all of that?

He beat her to it. "How about we sign a contract."

"A what?"

"A contract, young one," the Immortal intoned. As he said it, a feather drifted down, and before her eyes Aden saw it shift into paper. Another feather floated up next to it, forming itself into a pen, already dripping with ink. "These are all-binding, but do not fear. It simply states that you will help me return to the Immortal."

"Wait, I can't read this.”

 

And sure enough, she couldn't read it at all. It was a blank piece of paper. There wasn't even a line to sign on. She placed her fingers around the quil haltingly, unnerved by its floating presence, and snatched the paper in her other hand, holding it up to him. “Look, there's nothing written on it.”

 

“Written... I do not write, child.”

 

“What?” she choked, taken aback and even more confused than before. “Can't write? Well can't you read?”

 

“Oh yes, I can read, but I do not write.”

 

“But... how?”

 

“I have no need to write, young one. The paper,” he took it from her hand without asking, “is a symbolic representation of our all-binding contract. It does not need words, nor does it need your signature. Place your hand upon it.”

 

Aden frowned, suspicious. “What's going to happen?”

 

“In the Immortal, we transfer information instantaneously, since we have no concept of boundaries. Place your hand upon the paper, and you will... understand the contract.”

 

Aden was hesitant, for more than good reason. But here was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Here was something she had never experienced before. As a Student, it was her duty to Experience as vast and wide a range of things as possible. And when was the last time an Incarnate had a chance like this?

 

“Alright, here we go,” she muttered, and put her hand on the paper.

 

A tingling against the tips of her fingers, but that was all. Then suddenly something bloomed in her chest, something that reminded her of a flower, and what felt like a huge air bubble traveled up her throat... only instead of coming out her mouth, it continued into her head, where it expanded. Quite suddenly she felt light.

 

And then the emotions funneled through. Aden had never experienced anything like it -- direct feelings and understandings coursed through her, concepts and images that she couldn't fully interpret, yet which translated into overall sensations of trust, sincerity, partnership, and... severity. There was something gray and dark hanging over the entire ordeal, as though the situation was very dire. Aden wondered once again what had happened to her new companion -- what had made him Fall into the world of the Incarnate? Had he truly Fallen, or was something exceptional happening here?

 

Suddenly a list of information transferred through her, and she understood what would be expected of her -- honesty, loyalty, and a vow to see it through to the end. And on his side, he was offering....

 

“Nothing?” she blinked, surprised that she could talk while all of this was going on inside of her.

 

When the Immortal responded, she wasn't sure if she heard him or felt him through their strange new connection. “You are a Student, are you not?”

 

She was surprised. “How did you know that?”

 

“I am all-knowing, young one,” the Immortal replied, with no inflection of emotion. “But your just rewards will be through the Experience, so whereas I offer you nothing, I actually offer you exactly what you want.”

 

“Oh.” So he knew. She should have guessed -- the Immortals were as gods, after all. As close to gods as existed between the worlds of the Immortal and the Incarnate.

 

“How do I know you're not lying to me?” she asked suddenly, the thought having just occurred to her. “How do I know I can trust you?”

 

“The Immortals do not lie,” Lucifer answered fluidly, one perfect eyebrow raised. “We know what a lie is, and we can tell when someone lies, but we do not lie.”

 

Aden frowned. “Why not?”

 

“Because it is not in our Nature.”

 

Another vague answer -- for a fourth-year student, Aden was beginning to feel that she had missed out on some very serious information. “So then how do you know when someone else is lying?”

 

“Because,” he said plainly, as though stating a fact about the weather, “We know everything. It is the actions of things we have no familiarity with, since we are the containers of knowledge, not the actors of experience. That is your job, Incarnate.”

 

“Look, this is impossible, every time I try to get a straight answer out of you, I get a lecture!” Aden dropped her hand from the contract and picked up the quil she had set aside earlier. “I'll come along, alright? I'll help you out. And look, even though this contract is forcing me to help you, I'm doing it of my own free will, okay?”

 

The Immortal's eyes glinted, and for a moment she got the horrible feeling that he knew something she didn't. “Of course, young one,” he nodded. “Your assistance will never be forgotten.”

 

She had to reflect for a moment on just how literally he meant that.

 

“Alright,” she said. Then, “I can do this.”

 

She set the tip of the quil to paper.

 

Scratched in her signature. A-d-e-n P. L-o-s-t.

 

“Aden Lost,” the Immortal murmured, and turned the paper to look down at it. He raised a finger, and it was then that she saw his left hand, the one he had healed, how the fingers were shaped into black, clawed points. The claws were long and glinted almost metalically, as though part of his armor. He tapped his index finger against the paper and suddenly she saw a signature appear across it; elegant, long script compared to her tiny scribble. When she focused on it, however, she no longer saw the signature or the letters, but rather... somehow... felt his name.

 

“I do not write, young one,” he reminded her.

 

“Stop calling me that,” she growled, embarrassed that he had caught her staring. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and clutched the book in her hand. For a moment they stood there like that, hesitating, silent and awkward. She kept expecting something fantastical to happen since she had signed the contract, but no event or transformation took place. The sounds of the forest grew loud. Finally Aden looked back the way she had come. “The road is that way,” she said, pointing. A brisk wind suddenly skipped up, brushing at her plaid skirt and loose brown hair. She had decided to walk home in uniform, since her university clothing was no more suited for winter than the casual summer garb she had back at her dorm.

 

“Let us go,” Lucifer intoned.

 

Aden led him silently through the trees towards the road she had been following, her sense of direction more instinctive than knowledge-based. They reached the road soon and she paused again, looking up and down the dirt track, suddenly worried. Where to go? Who in the Incarnate knew how to get to the Immortal? It wasn't a simple matter of crossing a border, after all -- this was a matter of transcending dimensions. It required not just a change in reality, but a change in Consciousness -- to walk a path that was experienced as much spiritually as it was physically, which would blur the meaning of time and space. Then there was the matter of whether or not she could even enter the Immortal, or if it would somehow transform her into something that wasn't even herself anymore.

 

Maybe she should have thought this through before signing the contract.

 

Aden shook off her doubts; as a Student, it was her job to investigate, not worry. It was too late now, and she had her Experience to consider. But which way to go? Who in this world knew anything about the Immortals, other than historians looking at dusty old texts? She couldn't very well take him to her university; this was her discovery, after all, and they wouldn't know what to do with him... and she didn't want to waste time going home if it would do her no good....

 

She riffled the pages of her book with her thumb, then suddenly she paused.

 

The book. A brief foray into the world of the Immortal. She was holding it in her hand.

 

And all books had authors.

 

She snatched up the text quickly and checked the front cover, then the binding; it was an old, leather-bound thing, and no marks adorned the front or side. How could it be that she hadn't checked the author's name before? She opened it, turning to the title page... and let out a sigh of relief.

 

“And to think, when I pulled you out of the school's library for some vacation reading, you would have come to such use,” she told the book, straightening her glasses. “Written by Elo J. Hymn.” Luckily right below the author's name was the city and date it had been printed. Since authors usually printed their own books, and printing itself was a fairly new, bulky, and awkward process, chances were he would be found in the same city. “Krishna,” she murmured.

 

The Immortal was standing silently next to her, then he looked down at the book. “This book holds information about the Immortals, how did that come to be?”

 

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

 

“I do not guess.”

 

“Don't be so literal,” she sighed... she wondered if Immortals could be anything but literal. “Well somebody wrote it, and we're going to find him and ask him how to get you home. We're headed to the city of Krishna -- let's see here...” she stopped for a moment and rummaged through her book bag. Finally she produced a map. “According to this, we continue on this road for a bit, then take a fork about a mile or two that way,” she pointed into the forest in the direction she had been heading. Thankfully Krishna wasn't back the way she'd come; she didn't want to risk running into any of her schoolmates who lived closer to the university. She'd only been walking a few days, after all. Still, the town was awfully close to the border between the Goodlands and the Opaque. Evil was a force in the Incarnate that could not be ignored... they wouldn't be crossing into its domain, but they would be damned close.

 

The Immortal hardly looked interested. She turned to look up at him, curious, and her breath caught in her throat all over again -- if this was her traveling companion, then the trip was bound to be easy on the eyes. His ribbon-and-feather plated hair was the most perfect black she had ever seen, his skin flawless, his features smooth. He was ageless, it seemed, embodying all of youth and all of wise years into one perfect being. She knew she didn't look like much with her mousy brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses, but in this situation, that didn't matter in the least. Immortals were not sexual creatures. He probably could care less about how she dressed or what condition her eyes were in.

 

Black feathers still managed to be falling and dusting the ground around him, though she was never sure where they fell from, since his wings had solidified into metal ornaments. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps the feathers somehow melted from the armor itself.

 

“Let's get going,” she said, and started off down the path. “Just stick by me and we'll do just fine.”

 

“I know,” he responded, falling into step beside her.

 

Aden couldn't help but feel a boost of confidence at this. Immortals didn't lie, after all. They knew everything.

 

This winter vacation was going to be better than she ever anticipated.

Night had just fallen when they finally entered the dark, shadowy expanse of the woods. The Moaning. Aden tried not to show too much fear as she stepped under the black branches -- it was so dark in the shadows that she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. She winced.

"We should camp out here and wait until morning," Aden suggested, stumbling in the dark.

"Light," Lucyfer said, as though commanding her to produce it.

She sneered. "No, half-wit, I don't have any light, otherwise I'd already-"

Fzzzz!

A sudden bright, burning light shot up into the air, making Aden blink rapidly, momentarily blinded. Lucyfer reached out and grabbed her hand so she didn't fall backwards, she was so startled. She brushed him off, uncomfortable with the gesture.

"What was that?" she asked, unnerved by his lack of surprise.

"A light," he said calmly. "What, you think we Immortals do not have abilities of our own?"

She gawked at him, unsure of how to respond to that. Abilities of their own? As in, powers to do certain things? "Like what?" she asked quietly.

He smiled then; a cold, quizzical smile that was purely gesture. "I have simply embodied Light as a means to guide us. That ball of flame is actually a part of me."

"A part of...?" Aden frowned.

He didn't answer; rather, grabbed her by the wrist and began leading her forward, thrusting her before him. "Walk, human," he directed, the light hovering about her head. His tall shadow cast a long row in front of them. "Direct me to where these paths diverge."

"Uh... alright," Aden stuttered, pausing for a moment to get her bearings. She yanked the map out from around her belt and checked it, staring at the jumble of lines that ran across the pages, some of them stopping and starting suddenly for no reason. It all made very little sense, and yet when she looked closely enough....

"I believe it's this way," she said, and continued following up the path. The flame cast barely enough light to see within five feet in every direction, and most of that was blocked out by thick, gnarly trees. The grass was thick underfoot though and softened all sounds, so she was left to listen to the distant pounding of rain on the overhead foliage and the slight rustling along the forest floor. It was eerily dark and quiet. Unnaturally so.

"Walk closer to me," Lucyfer spoke suddenly, his voice hushed. "There is... something ahead."

Aden didn't ask how he knew -- she backed up instead, until she felt his hand on her shoulder. It was just firm enough against her skin to reassure her, and she continued forward through the night, careful of where she stepped in case of snakes.

Finally, after almost half an hour of stumbling forward along the path, which had become quite overgrown, the forest suddenly opened up. They stepped into a wide clearing, where the trees lengthened and broadened, turning from bent and wretched to proud and tall.  The trail ended in the center of it, and from it several pathways opened and wove off through the wilderness, some paved in stone, others barely visible from the overgrowth. For a brief, spiraling moment she felt dizzy, like her sense of direction was purposefully being fooled by the place. Aden took a faltering step forward.

"Well, Lucyfer?" this was the moment they had banked on, the reason why she had brought them this far. "Which path should we take?"

The gift of the Immortals was that they contained all-knowledge. They knew the information about anything, including the proper direction to take. In this instance, they were both hoping that Lucyfer would be able to pick the correct path once he was presented with a choice. True choice could only be made by true Knowledge, after all.

But Lucyfer stood there for a long time, silent, his head bowed in thought. Several times he shifted his weight, but said nothing. Aden watched him in the dim light, shivering in the brisk wind, wishing her schoolgirl uniform was just that much thicker and longer.

Finally Lucyfer folded his arms thoughtfully. "They are not those kinds of paths," he said, his eyes closed.

Aden paused, looking him over, surprised and altogether nonplussed. "What?" she asked flatly.

"They are not... paths in that sense of the word, it seems," he said slowly, as though having difficulty relaying his thoughts into words. He grunted in what could have been annoyance. "Usually I don't need to explain anything."

She nodded, relaxing slightly. "Well, go on then, what are they if not paths?"

"Well, they are pathways in a sense, just... the direction they take is not one that involves space, or distance, or...." Lucyfer trailed off.

Aden was even more confused now, though she had a certain suspicion forming that left a cold patch in her stomach. "Well, what should we do then?"

"We ask for directions," Lucyfer murmured.

"What?"

The tall, black-clad man stepped majestically over to the border of the wood and stooped down, and Aden's eyes widened when he picked up a small object. On closer inspection, it was a frog. He held the frog close to eye level and said, "I need ask you a question, good sir."

His rich tenor seemed to strike a certain chord in the air, and Aden watched, curious and somewhat entranced, but as the minutes stretches on, she began to grin.

"Haha, look Lucyfer, maybe you don't realize this but animals don't talk in the Incarnate." She laughed, rolling her eyes. "See, you Immortals think you know everything, but there's always room for exception--"

This time it was Lucyfer who was grinning, and there was just such a sharpness to his grin that it brought her words to a stumbling halt. "What's so funny?" she asked.

Lucyfer was still turned toward the frog, but watching her out of the corner of his eye. "You should realize, my young lady, that the Immortal and the Incarnate cross and effect each other in all instances. In this case, what I can do in the Immortal realm, I can demand to do in the Incarnate realm, and it is my right... I am not bound by the Incarnate's laws." He turned back to the frog. "Are you awake now, my new friend?"

Aden's eyes widened as she watched Lucyfer's sharpened, black-gloved fingers trail across the frog's body, a wisp of extra mist seeming to swirl around it. Then she gasped -- no, not from around it, from inside of it! She was looking at the frog's... well, essence. The frog's soul.

Lucyfer grinned at her expression.

"My Lord of Night," the frog said, its voice a croaky, low vibrato. "How might I serve your needs?"

"I seek the path that leads to the Dreaming Keep. Which one will lead true?"

The frog croaked for a moment low in its throat, then the words burst and streamed forth from the mist surrounding its body. "All paths lead True," the toad croaked. Aden frowned, trying to understand its muddled speech. "Yet all shall lead False if the journeyman proves False."

"What?" Aden murmured.

The frog continued. "One must be true to one's own self and one's own judgement, and choose the path they should walk down. This path," the frog mist motioned to their right, "leads to Happiness, this path leads to Honor, this path leads to Justice," he continued pointing, "this path to Liberty, and this path to Knowledge. Choose one."

Aden stood, her feet twitching, gazing at the paths that circled them on all sides. The stone path of Knowledge, the dank earth of Honor....

"What if we choose the wrong one?" she asked.

At first the frog didn't respond, then Lucyfer prompted it and the beast croaked, "If you are True to yourself, you cannot choose the wrong one."

"True to myself... true to myself?" Aden muttered, turning back to the paths. Lucyfer thanked the frog and set it back on the ground, coming to stand next to her.

They stood for a long, silent moment, his orange light fizzling between them, giving off warmth. Aden folded her arms around herself and glanced at her silent, shadowy companion.

"You know, at times I think I almost have memories of doing this kind of stuff, in past lives," she said with a wry smile.

Lucyfer nodded absently.

"Think we knew each other in one of my past lives?"

"I have known few humans," Lucyfer said vaguely.  "You do not seem like anyone I have known before."

"Huh..." she chewed her lip for a moment, tuning to look at the sandy dirt of Justice. "True to myself... how can you be true to yourself, Lucyfer, if you can't even feel? I mean, how do you choose the path that's right for you?"

"Perhaps it is easier for me, because I don't feel," Lucyfer said quietly. "It is obvious to me that I must take the path of Knowledge, since that is the way of my kind."

"Huh, I don't think that," Aden grunted.

"Don't you?"

"Nope, I think you should challenge yourself, you know? I mean isn't that the point of a path? To move along it?" Aden paused and chewed her lip a moment more, thinking. "The frog warned us to be true to ourselves. I think in that case it means be true to what you really want. If you take the path of Knowledge, you're just standing still because it's not taking you anywhere, you already know everything it has to offer. You'll just end up where you started." Aden stood for a long time once again, deep in thought. "I think we're going to have to take separate paths."

"Yes," Lucyfer agreed.

"I think I've decided."

With that Aden slung her book bag over her shoulder and headed for the sandy, overgrown path of Happiness.

"What's that?" Lucyfer called after her. "I thought you were supposed to challenge yourself?"

"This is a challenge!" she called back to him, already disappearing through the bushes. The light he had created trailed after her.  "Have you ever known anyone to have reached Happiness? But it seems like the only thing worth pursuing!"

The flash of her high white socks disappeared into the trees.

"Hopefully it will not land you in more pain, young one," Lucyfer murmured. He didn't bother relighting his lantern -- with the understanding of all things, he had no need for eyes, especially since the path before him was not one of time and space. Yes, the path of happiness did seem to be an attractive choice, but in the end, it was only an emotion the girl was chasing. Lucyfer couldn't take that path even if he wanted to. Happiness meant nothing to a being that couldn't feel pain.

Instead he turned back to the diverged paths and mulled his options over thoughtfully. Honor and Justice were both attractive, with their grassy knooks and shrubs. Being that these were not normal paths, he was not worried about getting lost on them in a normal way. Considering his purpose, they could serve him well -- the path of Honor would certainly see that he got his revenge. The path of Justice more than likely the same, though possibly along a much more political slant. Politics in Olympus, ugh, how he tired to think of it. Very rarely was a power play made, only once in what was measurably thousands of years, if such time frames existed inside the Immortal. This time, however, he had been distracted... busy and preoccupied and lazy enough to fall for the rival Lord's trap. And now here he was, wounded and limping and barely a shadow of his old might. That would change once he set food inside the Immortal again, but such beings as the Lords could not predict the future, and as long as he was inside the Incarnate, the future blocked him from seeing the outcome of his return to Olympus.

Still, there was something empty about Honor and Justice that left him feeling somewhat unsatisfied. For eons he had existed inside the Immortal -- he had been one of its first creations when the joining between the Immortal and the Incarnate had taken place. He knew all about Honor and Justice. He knew all about Fate and Destiny and those other idealistic concepts as well. His eyes traveled back to the route of Knowledge, and then ever further to the route of Liberty, one more sorely overgrown than all the rest. Liberty, huh? Liberty was something different. Liberty was... freedom. Freedom to become whatever, do whatever... feel whatever, without consequence. Yet unlike Honor or Justice, one couldn't have true Liberty unless they had Knowledge... and then a certain choice was always required. A certain... awakening.

Could he do it? Could he choose a path that would challenge his very nature? He thought of what Aden had said and suddenly it seemed clear that it was the only path he could choose. She was right; unless he challenged himself, he would only stay put, not move forward... as the paths were obviously intended. He would need to challenge himself, and so far Liberty was the only one that presented any sort of problem.

He would walk the path of Liberty. He would see all that it offered. And in the end, perhaps... perhaps he would find a way to pacify his unsettled soul.