#hellweave

He had meditated for tendays to attune to the Crown, and now it fit on him like it was his skin, nearly melded with his horns. In his human form it was a little more precarious, but could not be easily removed unless he willed it. Still, he moved over to a mirror to admire the artifact, as he did every day - several times a day.

The House was particularly loud today, outside his private room. Several wings had been added by his personal mason and an army of sane-enough debtors to accommodate the various generals and officers of Raphael’s growing military. There was a pit fiend at the head, and several orthon, including Yurgir. A few lesser devils, but ambitious ones.

They each had their own small entourage of staff, and so room had to be made for them, as well. Raphael didn’t mind the increased population, or even the noise, as long as rules were obeyed.

One of those rules was that no one outside of a select few were to enter his wing of the House. So he frowned as the reflection of the door to his suite was thrown open wide.

At first, there was nothing. A short moment later and several guards burst in, as well as debtors, all scrambling and frantically searching. Had the debtors not already been dead, being crushed underfoot by the devils around them would have done the job.

He turned to face the intruders, scowling. He took a few breaths - his patience ever tested since he began leading an army - and crossed his arms.

The debtors bowed to him, despite being trampled by the frantic soldiers who were less quick at recognising his displeasure.

“What is the meaning of this?”

A flash went by him — browns and whites, and the ruffling sound as an arrow was let loose, imbedding itself in a portrait across the room behind the Archdevil’s shoulder.

Raphael snapped and the devil responsible crumpled in pain.

“It broke in, my Lord,” one of the debtors stammered, their pointed finger following a quickly moving shadow Raphael hadn’t previously seen. He raised his eyes up to the vaulted ceilings where something small and quick flitted in the darker space.

Perhaps an imp sent by one of the remaining Archdevils. Another arrow, more carefully aimed away from the Archdevil supreme, grazed the creature and a few soft, brown feathers floated to the floor. A bird? A druid, perhaps?

He shot a spell at it, the magic of the Crown thrumming through his skull, down his neck, across his arm and exploding, white hot, from an extended forefinger. It looked like the spell struck - but it fizzled out.

He had been counterspelled.

“What in the Hells?”

“Raphael!” A small voice cried from above. “You are Raphael? Tell them to stand down!”

The creature was speaking - with a voice. He raised a hand to the guards, and after a moment the flying thing swooped down. It limped toward him, quite small and panting.

“A tressym?” He said. He had seen many wild tressym on his trips to Cormyr - fascinating creatures.

“Raphael,” she panted, padding close to him. Her paw was bleeding, likely what had been grazed by the arrow. Despite her obvious pain, the feline creature sat on her haunches and wrapped her fluffy tail around her folded, bird-like wings and looked up at him with green-grey, intelligent eyes. “I came to ask for your help.”

He laughed. He did not mean to be insulting to the minute creature, but to be the rising Archdevil Supreme and have his House broken into by a cat wanting his help was beyond hysterical. So funny, in fact, that it put him in a much better mood despite the rude intrusion to his private rooms.

He waved the debtors and guards away, not at all concerned about the creature in front of him.

“Sir, it broke in-” one guard began, his crossbow still in hand, bolt at the ready.

“And I’m permitting it to stay. You were ordered to leave.” He gestured to the still writhing devil on the floor with a jerk of his chin, “take them with you.”

The cat lowered her head, her little chest still heaving, when the devils and debtors departed, closing the door behind them.

“Come,” he patted the top of a table, sitting down at it. He moved some paperwork aside, not concerned that the creature would read them, though they weren’t terribly confidential.

The nimble creature was markedly less so as she leapt from the floor to the chair opposite him, and then onto the table.

Had it been any kind of humanoid that had interrupted him and breached his home uninvited he may have been much less forgiving - but he liked the small, furry creature.

“You know who I am,” he said, relaxing back into his seat as he readjusted his robe. “But I haven’t had the pleasure—”

Her whiskers twitched and a low growl came from her, barely audible, before she said, “Oh yes, I know.” She did not sound pleased.

“Forgive me,” he said, holding up a hand. “You came to me - don’t sound so dour.”

Her tail flicked. She was bleeding onto his table.

Raphael frowned and touched a forefinger to her delicate paw. Her fur was soft, even with the matting and the blood. Power from the Crown hummed through him, through his blood and his bones, traveling to his hand and into the little beast - and her wound knit itself closed. A snap of his fingers and the blood that she’d bled around his room vanished.

“Impressive,” she said with a slow blink, though she sounded no more pleased. “If you are quite through with your parlor tricks, I am in regrettable need of your assistance.”

He laughed at her again. Had she a human or elf face he’d have cut such a disgusting, rude tongue from her mouth, but coming from a cat it was almost endearing. “I had a few more, but I suppose they can wait.

“What can an Archdevil do for you, my dear, feline friend?”

“We are hardly friends,” her tail flicked again, brushing some paperwork, but her tone softened. “My friend - my Ga - Mr. Dekarios.”

Raphael’s ears perked up at the name, but he was careful to keep his features in check.

“He does not have long. And you are the only person who can help him, I fear.

“He told me not to come - but I had to do something.”

***

“Where is he, then?” Raphael asked as they stood together in the portal room - the tressym a small shape on the floor at his feet. “Waterdeep, I presume?”

Tara shook her furry head and looked between the portals. “He was. When the artifacts stopped working - even the incredibly powerful ones - he took some supplies from the tower and bid his poor mother farewell.” She made a worried sound and took a step toward a portal before stepping back again.

“She thought he would be back in a tenday. When he wasn’t, I went looking for him. I brought him as many artifacts as I could find. Resorting to theft if you can believe it!

“Oh,” she worried. “He’s in a cave somewhere. Somewhere between Neverwinter and the Evermoors.”

“That’s a big area.” Raphael mused. He tried not to smirk at the way the feline stamped a paw and flicked her tail.

“That’s the point. Big and empty. If he had a boat he would have rowed himself out to sea.

“Oh, I don’t know where he is. I only know how to get there.”

“So, we ought to start in Waterdeep and walk?” The Archdevil Supreme snorted at the idea. “Let me in, tressym, and I’ll see where.”

Green, slitted eyes raised to him and her little triangular ears folded back. Her teeth bared and she nearly hissed, “Are you suggesting I let you read my mind, devil?”

“You said you knew how to get there,” he reasoned. “I can travel much more quickly than you.”

Her tail flicked quickly as she pondered.

“I’m sure Gale has time for you to make a decision,” Raphael said, shifting his weight onto one leg in a relaxed manner. “When you decide, I’ll be in my room. You know the way.”

“Wait!” The cat gave a heavy sigh, “Fine, do it. But only his location.”

“Of course!” Raphael extended an arm. He would much rather hold the small creature than ever kneel to its level. She took the hint and jumped, flapping once and scrambling up onto his upper arm and shoulder. “Concentrate on the route-”

***

The space was dark save for an eerie, pulsing violet light. It not only illuminated the space, but bathed everything in its hue. The tressym tensed on Raphael’s shoulder, her now purple eyes stretched wide - slitted pupils round - as the Archdevil continued toward the source of the light.

Her fear was sharp and quite different in flavor than the fear of mortals he was more familiar with. Her long fur stood on end, tickling his neck annoyingly and her feathers ruffled loud by his ear.

He could almost taste the Karsite Weave radiating out from the lump on the floor. Not on his tongue, but in his being. Immense and powerful like the Crown - but volatile.

The person that had been Gale Dekarios - former Archwizard and Chosen of Mystra - was naught but a thin, pale husk of man, lying on the cold cave floor in the dark.

His body trembled and his breaths were shallow and ragged. The skin around where the orb had imbedded was black and fetid - he reeked of decay.

A year had not yet passed since the wizard, having beaten the odds and grasped a taste of the power he had once known under Mystra’s yoke, had fell the perverted Elder Brain. He had been healthy and powerful - now he was a skin-wrapped skeleton being slowly, surely devoured by the orb.

“Oh - Tara-” His lips were dry and cracked and didn’t move as he tried to speak. He was aware that he was no longer alone, but did not open his eyes or move anything more than his tongue in his lax mouth. “Go.”

“Please,” the tressym hissed into Raphael’s ear.

The Archdevil considered the pitiful being lying, barely conscious, in front of him. He could easily stabilize the voracious orb - could heal the wizard. And yes, Gale had his soul, but what sort of prize would that be under these desperate circumstances?

Well - he couldn’t very well draw up a contract with a hardly conscious man, anyway. He would have to bring the fallen hero back to health before any agreements could be made.

He could remove the orb - but it was unlikely that Gale Dekarios would survive such an extraction.

Raphael sighed. If Gale was in this state now, he would soon fall into ruin again without Raphael’s continued mercy. Once he was restored, a proper contract could be drafted. If Gale refused his terms, Raphael did not think he would have to wait long to harvest the orb from the wizard’s once-again emaciated corpse.

He knelt, tipping the anxious tressym off his shoulder as he did, and pressed a palm over the pulsing orb.

He licked his lips, savoring the power that thrummed beneath his hand. He could feel it pulling at the magic that flowed through him - desperate - starving. Very slowly, like trickling water into the mouth of a man dying of thirst, Raphael relented to the orb’s demands.

His magic flowed through him and into the orb. At first, nothing happened. Then the orb grew hot - even for the devil - and hotter still as it glowed brighter.

Brighter and brighter. Hotter and hotter. Louder and louder it thrummed as Raphael continued to feed it. He heard his own cry of pain as the orb, hot as Hellfire, felt like it was melding with his own flesh, and somewhere in the white nothing of pure energy the tressym wailed -

And all was dark.

***

It was warm - uncomfortably warm - and wet.

Wet?

Gale opened his eyes. There was soft light - the sound of running water - the smell of pastry, wine, and coffee - and Raphael’s face-

He flailed - unprepared for the strength in his own limbs, and his head was submerged in warm, almost effervescent, water. He swallowed a mouthful as a cry of shock tore from him.

Before he could drown, strong clawed hands lifted him out of the water and held him upright. He coughed and sputtered and vomited a bit as his lungs screamed for air.

Claws raked gently through his wet hair, brushing it back out of his face and allowing Gale to see the cambion in front of him.

“Oh, he’s cute,” Raphael’s face and voice said - but something was wrong. “Such pretty eyes -”

“Hands off, harlot,” a familiar voice snapped from elsewhere, with a familiar intonation.

Before Gale could look around, he was in the water again. And then jerked back up out of the water - sputtering.

“How was I supposed to know what you meant?” The false Raphael snarled to someone behind Gale, holding him again out of the water. Fiery eyes turned onto the wizard and the fiend smirked at him. “Exceedingly specific or dreadfully vague; whatever suits.” He shook his head, as though he and Gale were sharing some inside joke, before being told off by the familiar voice again.

“You were instructed to clean him, not tote him around like a doll,” Raphael said. Gale was turned, feeling very much like a doll in the large fiend’s grasp, to face toward the chest-deep pool he had become quite familiar with.

Near the edge of the pool, on a low chaise lounge, Raphael sat - in his cambion form, one leg crossed over the other, an unrolled scroll in hand. He raised his eyes to the half-drowned wizard, but all Gale could see was the crown that seemed to be woven into his mighty horns.

“If you are not capable of following instructions, harlot, your mouth would serve better purposes with the generals than with smart comments.”

The fiend pulled Gale down onto its lap in the water, the wizard still shocked and trying to regain his wits, and began to work fine smelling soap over the human’s bare arms. He felt the fiend chuckle, perhaps too quietly for Raphael to hear.

Raphael turned his attention back to the page in his hand. “But lo! A stir is in the air. The wave - there is movement there. As if the towers had thrust aside, in slightly sinking the dull tide - as if their tops had feebly given. A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glow - the hours are breathing faint and low -” Raphael paused and Gale considered the poem.

“And when, amid no earthly moans,” Gale continued, and he saw Raphael’s lip curl into a small smirk. “Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell rising from a thousand thrones, shall do it reverence.”

Before Raphael could respond, Gale was in the water again as the fiend behind - and below - him stood.

“Nope,” the bathing devil said. Gale got his feet beneath him in time to see the nude fiend rise from the pool opposite Raphael, his hands raised. “Cat, take him back.

“I don’t care if he dies - where are the orthons?”

The devil that appeared like Raphael changed suddenly, a faint glow about him as he did, until he appeared to be an elvish man with red wings and a tail. An incubus. Gale had only seen approximate sketches in books.