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Lucifer had been in Hell for thousands of years before he heard the cries.
Hell was a desolate wasteland, a collection of jagged rocks and fiery pits broken up only by Lucifer’s throne thrust into the air like a lone finger. The throne itself was a cruel cosmic joke played by his Father. This is your domain, it said. Look upon your rule of nothing.
He often thought — when the loneliness pressed in close and it became hard to breathe except in gasps — that Nothing would be preferable to Hell. To exist in that endless void that stretched between universes, weightless and timeless, would be better than what passed for a life wallowing in the Pit. Nothingness would have been a relief, but it was that which Lucifer was not permitted. He was a prisoner serving out a sentence, after all.
It came as a surprise, then, on a day that was no different from the many thousands that had come before it, that Lucifer discovered he was not alone.
He had lived for so long in monotonous silence that it took him some time to identify noise. It was not the delicate music of the Silver City; it was not the sound of his brothers and sisters united in song; and yet there was a similar rising and falling in the cadence. It was not the sound of fire or crumbling rock. It was the sound of a voice.
His search for the source of the cries brought him to the gates of Hell. It was a place Lucifer never visited; he did not want the reminder that his realm was also his cage. He hovered in the shadows at the edge of his kingdom and looked out.
In front of the gates sat a creature.
It was a hideous thing. Lucifer thought it looked somewhat like a human, or perhaps the result of a trick his Father had played on one. It appeared to have two arms and two legs, but the entire creature was tiny, easily one tenth of the size of a regular human. Lucifer couldn’t imagine it was much good for anything.
The thing appeared to be naked, its dark brown flesh already streaked with the ash of Hell. Its eyes were closed, but its mouth was wide open, allowing the horrible noise that had brought Lucifer to this place to spill out in undulating waves. He could see only the barest hint of teeth, no doubt ineffectual at doing much of anything. Viscous, clear liquid poured out of its eyes and nose in equal measure. It was repulsive.
Lucifer didn’t want to touch it, didn’t even want to look at it. He didn’t understand how it had come here, but no doubt it had been abandoned and left in Hell to rot. Perhaps this was what his Father did with all creations that displeased Him. It would be best, then, to let it perish in peace. The creature looked weak. Most likely it wouldn’t survive long.
He moved to turn away.
The sound of his footsteps caught the creature’s attention. Its eyes flew open, and its cries became, if possible, even louder. Its stubby little arms reached upwards in a pathetic attempt at an attack. Lucifer eyed its hands, and noted it didn’t even seem to have claws. No wonder it had been left at the gates of Hell.
The cries changed. No longer were they a horrible outpouring of sound, but they had taken on meaning.
“Mama!” the thing called, its arms still outstretched. “Mama!”
So the thing had a mother. No doubt its mother had abandoned it here when she saw how little and useless her offspring was.
He thought of his own Mother: Her light shining through the Silver City; the soft hum of Her voice; Her inaction in the face of his Father’s rage. Lucifer looked at the disgusting creature on the ground in front of him and pushed those thoughts away.
“I am not your mother,” he told it. “I am Lucifer, the Morningstar. I am the king of this realm, and you will treat me as such.”
Even though he had corrected it, the creature did not stop. It continued to cry out for its mother. No wonder its mother had abandoned it, if it were stupid as well as ugly.
His anger flared. After so long living in silence, being forced to put up with so much incessant wailing was too much. “Stop that at once,” he told it, stomping over until he stood directly in front of the wretched thing. It ceased its cries, blinking up at him. “That’s better. Now, answer me. What manner of creature are you? How did you come to be in this place?”
The wretch only continued to blink up at him, his words wasted. It reached out one of its hands and grasped at the fabric Lucifer wore around his legs. It gave a pitiful tug. As far as attacks went, this one was truly pathetic. Lucifer’s newly-created siblings had a better strength of attack. He extracted himself from its grip easily.
The creature reached out to Lucifer once more and used his legs to pull itself up onto its feet. He recoiled at the feeling of its pudgy little hands on his body, and the way it looked up at him expectantly.
“I’m leaving,” he told it. “You’ll probably die soon anyway.”
It only looked up at him. It hadn’t understood a single word he’d said. It would be a mercy for Lucifer to kill it, he thought. It would be a mercy to put it out of its misery rather than leave it here to die slowly.
But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He was short on mercy these days, it seemed. Hell stripped even that from him.
He began to walk away. The creature clambered upright and tottered after him on unsteady feet.
“Absolutely not,” he told it with abject horror, coming to a stop. “You are not to follow me. Do you understand? No.”
Those sorts of commands had worked on his younger siblings, who would have long fled his side by this point. This creature only continued its shuffle forward.
And that was how Lucifer gained his first subject.
Every day followed a predictable pattern. He would begin his days by wandering the labyrinth of Hell, and it wouldn’t be long before his lone subject found him, running after him on ungainly feet and looking up at him with its large eyes.
Lucifer always tried to lose it. It was hardly a difficult feat, the creature being so small and slow. But not matter how far he went in his kingdom, it wasn’t long before the little wretch was after him once more.
It wasn’t all bad, having a subject, Lucifer decided one day. The creature made for a terrible companion, what with not being able to speak properly and having no discernible skills whatsoever. But it was better than being alone.
After some time, he decided to see if he could teach the creature to speak. It gave him something to do, and it would be nice to have a conversation with another being again, even if surely it had nothing interesting to say. The process was agonizingly slow-going, hindered by the fact that the creature seemed incapable of producing the sounds of the Celestial tongue. What emerged from its mouth was a garbled approximation of his language, resembling nothing like the song-like, joyful speech he had shared with his brothers and sisters.
It was just as well, he decided. Hell wasn’t the place for songs or joy.
One morning — or what passed for morning in Hell — the creature used its growing speech to give itself a name.
“Rakshasa,” it announced proudly.
“Excuse me?” he said. He continued down the path between two sets of jagged rocks. “That’s not a word. What are you trying to say?”
“Rakshasa,” it repeated, following along doggedly behind. “You are Lucifer. I am Rakshasa.”
He stopped and turned to look at the creature. It was baring its teeth in what might have been a smile. He hadn’t thought it possessed the intelligence to create new words, much less name itself.
He’d been wrong.
He examined it more closely. Now that he thought on it, it did look slightly larger than it had the day he’d found it at the gates. It was nowhere near as tall as he was, but it had grown. And it had been learning, these past couple of years — slowly, but there had been progress.
Perhaps it wasn’t as stupid and useless as he’d first thought.
“Rakshasa, then,” he said. He beckoned it — no, he corrected himself. He. Beings that were intelligent and gave themselves names were not things. He beckoned him forward. “Come. Today you will learn how to fight.”
As far as company went, Rakshasa could be worse. He proved to be a good fighter, with time, although he was a terrible conversationalist. He’d spent his entire existence in Hell, as far as Lucifer could determine, and the problem with Hell was that there wasn’t much to talk about. Once you learned how to describe rocks and fire, the list of topics took a sharp dive off a cliff.
They could talk about cliffs, too. But that was pretty much it.
That was until one day, a door appeared.
Lucifer knew the moment it appeared. He could feel the seismic shift, the way Hell roiled and expanded before settling once again. He was the king of Hell, after all — the movements of his kingdom were in his very bones.
Rakshasa found him in the hallways as he stalked towards the newly formed splinter in Hell. “Lord Morningstar,” he panted, coming to a halt. “Something strange is here.”
“I know,” he replied, not breaking his stride. “Have you seen it?”
“Yes. But I don’t understand what it is.”
Lucifer came to a halt. Pressed into the side of the labyrinth, looking as if it had been there all along, was a door. He touched the edge of the frame, skimming his fingers along the wood. Its texture was rough and foreign after millennia of the smooth and polished obsidian that made up Hell.
“What is it?” Rakshasa asked, blinking at Lucifer in confusion. They were nearly the same height, Lucifer realized. They had been for several years now.
How strange.
“It’s a door,” he said.
“Door,” repeated Rakshasa, mangling the word entirely. “What does it do?”
Lucifer pushed the door, and it swung forward. “It opens.” Together they stepped into the most strange sight indeed.
On the other side of the door was a creature — a human, Lucifer realized. He sat on the stump of a tree at the edge of a field, a clay pot in his hand with a some drink inside. He took a drink and made a pleased sound.
Rakshasa edged forward uncertainly. “What are these things?” he marvelled. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The human, hearing Rakshasa’s voice, whirled around and scrambled off the tree stump. He dropped the clay pot, which smashed against the ground, spilling a frothing brown liquid everywhere. “Cain?” he asked wildly, throwing up his hands. “It’s me, Abel! Your brother! Please, don’t —”
Abel slumped suddenly, a large gash blooming on this head. He collapsed onto the ground, for all purposes looking extremely dead. Lucifer crouched down beside his body. There was something wrong with this human. Something very wrong indeed.
“What’s he doing?” Rakshasa asked. “Why did he fall over?”
Lucifer stood up slowly. The world around them reset: Abel was alive and whole once more, sitting on his tree stump, happily quaffing down his drink, oblivious to what had just transpired.
Of course. This had to happen eventually. Hell was a place of punishment, of torment. Humans — sinners — would make their way to him when they died.
“A human soul,” Lucifer said slowly, looking Abel over. “Humans — the bad ones — come here when they die.”
Rakshasa looked down at his chest as if he could peer inside it. “Where is my soul?”
“You don’t have one,” Lucifer told him absently. “You are a demon. One without a soul.” On his stump, Abel flinched backwards and called out to Cain once again.
“Then where will I go when I die?” Rakshasa asked. “Will I stay here?”
“It will be the end for you,” Lucifer said. “It’s a gift, Rakshasa, to have an end. You live in the moment. You won’t be strung along in God’s machinations for the rest of eternity.”
“Oh.” Rakshasa looked carefully at Abel, then shook his head. “It is not good, to have a soul,” he declared. “This way is much better. To be a demon is a gift.”
Lucifer looked around the strange place that had manifested inside of his Hell. Was this his Father’s will, for wicked human souls to find their way to this place after death? Was this the true purpose of Hell, to be the resting place of those too twisted and evil to enter the Silver City and bathe in the light of their creator?
Hell was a prison. It was a prison made of blood and rock and fire in order to punish Lucifer for the sins he had committed. If human souls had been sent here, it must be for the same reason. All souls would be punished in Hell.
“Rakshasa,” he said, looking at his companion of many years. “How would you like a purpose in this place?”
In time, they discovered how the room worked. Lucifer could shape Hell as he saw fit; he could swap out the stump, change the field, change the clay pot. He could make it so that Rakshasa’s appearance changed upon entering the room.
The loop was always the same, no matter what they did. They could stretch it, could play with the details, but nothing ever really changed. Abel was forced to live out his worst memory, over and over again, for the rest of eternity.
It wasn’t long before an eerie wailing sounded through Hell once more.
Rakshasa dropped into a defensive crouch, looking ready to take on whatever threat appeared. “What is it?” he asked. “It is another human soul?”
The sound stirred Lucifer’s memory. It had been years, by his count, since that fateful day of Rakshasa’s arrival. He had almost forgotten what it was like in the time before his constant shadow, and the hideous creature that he had once been.
Without a word, Lucifer swept towards the gate, Rakshasa following intently behind. There, just as before, sat another small and deformed monstrosity.
“It’s ugly,” Rakshasa said, nudging the creature with his foot.
“You were no beauty either,” Lucifer remarked. He stared down at the creature in disgust. Where were these things coming from? Were they another one of his Father’s failed experiments? Were they being spat out by Hell itself?
“What do we do with it?” Rakshasa asked. “Do we torture it, like we do with the human?”
Lucifer unfurled his wings with a snap. Rakshasa took a step back. “Do what you like,” he told him. “I’m going to find out where these things are coming from.”
Lilith. Of course it was Lilith.
It had been startling to be out of Hell. There was a landscape to look at, not just endless rocks and yawning pits of fire. A lush green plane stretching out before him; mountains capping the skyline in the distance, tall storm clouds gathering at the peaks; Lucifer could smell the rain and hear the faint echoes of thunder booming.
His Father may be a megalomaniac, but even Lucifer had to admit that He’d created something beautiful.
And in amongst the beauty: Lilith, sending her ill-begotten children down to Hell.
Stretching his wings out to the side — it felt nice to have them out without having to worry about ash sticking to the feathers — he took flight, spiralling back down into his domain before one of his siblings could force him back.
He had his pride.
Rakshasa was at his side soon after his arrival back, dropping out of a full sprint. Another creature — small, but not the small thing that Lilith had sent to the gates so recently — raced behind him.
“Lord Morningstar,” Rakshasa panted. “You’ve returned!”
“Goodness, it’s nothing to get so worked up about,” he told the demon with a frown.
“You’ve been gone for ages,” Rakshasa said. “Years and years. We’ve been alone down here without you.”
“Years?” Lucifer repeated. “It’s only been a few — ah.” Of course, he thought sourly. Of course his Father would make such a system where a mere day on Earth would mean years upon years in Hell. “Time moves differently down here in Hell.” He looked at the new creature, staring at him openly with wide eyes. If it had been years, then this would be the same being that had arrived just before he left. “Who is this?”
“Who are you?” said the new creature, her speech just as garbled as her brother’s.
Rakshasa hissed angrily and smacked his sister in the ribs with the butt of his staff. “This is Lord Morningstar,” he said. There was reverence in his voice. “He is the king of this place. He has given us purpose here.”
And Lucifer found that having the respect and admiration of two demons was not such an unpleasant thing after all.
Time in Hell was a slithery thing. It moved in strange ways: at times crawling at an agonizing speed, and at others darting forward in a blur. Lucifer began to mark the time between arrivals in Hell: both the demons and the damned.
The damned human souls arrived in a rapidly accelerating curve. They were breeding on the surface, Lucifer thought, if so many were arriving at his doors. The day would come when there would be a new soul bound for Hell every single day on Earth, the surface teeming with them. It made Lucifer’s skin crawl to think of the masses of humanity.
The demons arrived in a steady drip with little variation. Now that he knew what it was, it wasn’t unexpected, and he had little interest in the newly-formed demons that came to his domain. Rakshasa and the others took care of their own. He found more satisfaction in walking the halls, examining the loops, and doling out punishment at he saw fit.
It was one morning, walking down one of Hell’s many corridors, that he found Lilith huddled in the doorway. He blinked, and realized his mistake — just one of her many children, if a startling good likeness. As he made to move past her, she leapt up with a growl and swiped at him with a sharpened rock.
He knocked her back to the ground. Again. And again. And again.
“You don’t quit, do you?” he huffed at her. It was amusing. He hadn’t been amused in years.
At his voice, she stilled into a crouch. “You don’t speak Lilim like the rest of us,” she said.
“I don’t speak Lilim at all.”
“You’re not one of my siblings.”
“I should hope not.” He eyed her. She was a feral thing, but she had spirit. “And why are you trying to kill one of your brothers?”
“They tried to kill me first.” She shifted uneasily, dropping even deeper into her defensive crouch. “You’re Lord Morningstar, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” As if there were any doubt. “And what name have you given yourself, little demon?” he asked.
She eyed him suspiciously, but answered. “Mazikeen.”
“Very well, Mazikeen. As you were.” He strode past her, following the turns of the corridors on a whim. There was a new batch of souls that he had yet to visit. That would keep him occupied for a while.
It wasn’t too long before he realized he had a shadow. He sighed, coming to a halt once more. “What do you want, Mazikeen?” he said. “I’m busy.”
She slunk out of the shadow of a nearby door. “You torture the souls?” she said. “I can help you. I’ve done it before.”
He didn’t need help torturing souls. He’d been at it for far, far longer than she has existed. And anyway, the daily grind wasn’t much his style — he preferred to drop in, alter and tweak as needed, then leave the demons to their devices. He told her as much.
“I can help you,” she insisted. “I’ve seen my siblings do it lots. I’m good at it too. And I’m good in a fight.”
Of that, Lucifer had no doubt, it her earlier display was an indication. Sometimes winning a fight was about the grit, not the technique. Still, the idea that he, Lucifer Morningstar, needed a demon protector — in his own kingdom — was laughable. He told her that too.
“I got your back,” she told him. It didn’t really make sense, the words that she was saying — not bad enough that the demons had taken the Celestial tongue and butchered it, but it seemed they were making up new words and phrases all the time. He got the gist.
“Hell is a dangerous place,” he said drily. “Even the powerful need a bodyguard these days, it seems. One simply never knows when one will be attacked with a rock.”
Mazikeen titled her head. “I’ve never heard anybody talk like you,” she said. “I can do it, Lord Morningstar. I can protect you. I can help you.”
Lucifer considered her. He wasn’t stupid; she obviously wanted to stick by him in the hopes of gaining protection for herself. If she was with him, the other demons would be unlikely to attack her. He wasn’t in the habit of offering protection for warring demons, but this one — this one was amusing. He’d certainly entertained worse company for less.
“Come then, Mazikeen,” he told her, gesturing for her to follow. “We have work to do.”