Chapter 1

by Breaeden Swordwind

Luzifer woke up the next day alone. There were no ashes from a night's fire near him nor were their crumbs from food. He hadn't had much of an appetite last night. He was also not near his lean-to, he had not felt the need to walk there and had just plopped himself down in a random location to go to sleep. He twisted his neck in a circle, and was greeted by the traditional snaps of bone.

Standing up, he continued stretching, not because he needed to but because he need time to muster up the courage to leave this forest. The forest, which had seen so much of his joys and pains. He sighed watching the still woods. He wondered to himself slightly, Do places retain shards of memory even after the person who had perceived them is dead? He shook his head to get rid of his sedate thoughts.

All his supplies were still dangling from his back and Luzifer immediately began to walk out of forest. The sound of crunched leaves followed him as he slunk through the shadows that the leaves gave the forest floor at high noon.

Something tickled the back of his neck, his heckles rose. He spun his head from side to side but saw no one. His mind was in a sorry state. It was barely holding together under the constant strain of guilt and grief. His emotions were being sneakier then normal; they were prying his perceptions from beneath his notice.

He had been walking for only a modicum of time when, again, he felt that something was watching him. It cast eyes that cut through to his soul, touching with fetid pleasure the open sores that Luzifer's spirit boar. The trees were staring at him. He got dizzy. He hadn't felt like this since he first stepped out into open air from his home.

"Stop judging me!" he shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth. He twisted his sword out of its scabbard and struck it against the nearest tree. The crack in his sword widened but he didn't notice.

He shook his head. What was he thinking? Trees don't have eyes. He was letting his emotions take away his precious analytical consciousness. He turned his gaze inward.

Grief and Guilt were snickering at him openly and Sorrow was barely holding in a laugh. Luzifer grinned manically. He kicked Grief square in the face and punched Guilt with his good arm breaking Guilt's nose. "Do you bastards want to end up like Lust? He shouted putting to the bricked up alcove. All his emotions looked terrified. That'll shut them up.

He came to his senses on his knees with his head in both hands and his sword on the ground. The crack faced the earth and Luzifer couldn't see it. Sheathing his sword a thought occurred to him. How does one beat up ones own emotions? Before it had merely been poetic license to say he fought his emotions but it was real now. The failings of the father, when it came to sanity, were being passed to son.

His logic was intact. His ability to reason was the same but his emotions… He had always hated them but now they were being concentrated into little devils. He must be taking Blasa's death harder then he thought. He needed time to get over it.Sitting down on the carpet of leaves, he sighed and tried to regain his sanity.

He cleared his mind and sat for what must have been an hour, judging from the position of sun when a noise broke his concentration. He felt calm and clear. Before he opened his eyes, the tiny red orbs that were dancing around him disappeared lest the "boy" see them. They knew fool well that the humans coming over the ridge now would not be able to see them but they, also, knew, only too well, thanks to what had happened to Camal, that the "boy" could see them.

The sound he had heard was the sound of a large body of men moving through the forest as silently as they could, which is to say that they were making an obnoxious ruckus. He let his breath escape him and opened his eyes. He saw a gleam begin to come up from the other side of the ridge. The gleam was from the helmet of the leader of a group of armored peasants.

Luzifer could tell they were peasants because of the sorry state of their armor- peasants never had the time necessary for proper maintenance- and because they thoroughly looked like they had no idea how to use the spears and axes they were carrying- peasants never had the time necessary for proper practice.

Luzifer had to stand up before the leader of the "warriors" noticed him. When the man did he stopped dead and the fools behind him all rammed into him, causing the "
"leader" to stagger. Pathetic.

"Who goes there?" the leader shouted, or more accurately shrieked, the bastard was terrified.

"No one deserving of introduction," Luzifer said in a distracted, yet condescending tone. He began to walk up the hill toward them. Their weakness annoyed him, maybe they would let him pass and they could go back to their bumbling.

"Why are you here boy? This here's a haunted wood. We heard a demon howling in here the other day." A weakling behind the leader said pointing his spear at Luzifer. Luzifer didn't respond at first, he just kept walking past them.

When he was past the militia by three strides, he stop and scoffed over his shoulder, hardly thinking about what he was saying, "Don't waste your time. That демон is far stronger then you are." He then went back to putting as much distance as he could between the fools and himself.

They just stared blankly at him, he suddenly realized why they were confused, "demon is stronger than you" he yelled back at them.

During that entire conversation, if you could call it that, he had been distracted. Those emotions of his were gone. Completely. He wondered whether it was his meditation that had done it or if something odd had happened.

Luzifer, however, had not heard the arrogance in his own voice.

The men behind were awe struck. The boy must have tried fighting the demon and been wounded because their was blood all over the front of his shirt. They didn't know it was the blood of a girl.

Luzifer knew about the blood that had stained his blue shirt and turned it a disgusting purple and decided he would slink into town and buy some new cloths. Yes, he would buy these because he knew it would be tougher to steal the clothing he was going to have made for him.

Luzifer entered town and hatched a plan for obtaining the money. He took up a station outside an inn in town where merchants and trader often stopped on their way through town. He leaned against the tavern wall, next to the doorframe and, after putting on an impatient and intolerant face, had all the look of a bouncer. He waited patiently for an hour before a mark appeared. Luzifer touched his sleeve in a seemingly involuntary motion. The merchant was covered in tassels and ribbons, looking very Flemish. He also had pouches of gold

The merchant began to walk up to the door and a bouncer, an awfully young one at that (oh well he looks menacing enough with the blood on his shirt) opened the door for him. The boy made a formal back-and-forth motion with his hand and seemed very submissive. Finally, a peasant who knows his place is to hold the door for the successful. He performed his one-nostril sniff that he did around those of lower station and later would remember the boy's yellow eyes. Didn't some thief-girl tell me about a boy with yellow eyes? Ah yes, it was that she-devil who cut me!

Luzifer almost snickered. The fool hadn't noticed that the knife had slipped out of his sleeve as he had made his formal gesture. Hadn't noticed the knife had slit the rope holding the pouch causing it to fall right into Luzifer's hand on the next pass.

His financial difficulties having been solved with a little dexterity, he turned his attention to getting his new cloths. As he moved through the bustling trade town, to the irritating sound of hawkers, people stared at him in the most obtrusive manner. So what if he was cover with the blood of an innocent girl he had murdered in cold-blood? As if they were any better.

Luzifer moved past the gawkers and the hawkers into the shop of a tailor. The place was filled with cloths of all kinds that showed off her skill and devoid of people, which showed off how little her skill was appreciated. A young woman was sleeping at the counter. You might have said business wasn't booming for her.

The girl started when she heard the door open and nearly fell over when she saw all the blood on Luzifer. "Are you alright, sir?" she said walking from behind the counter. The intruding boy merely nodded.

Readjusting herself and putting on her most saleswomanly face she smiled at him, "Is their something I can get you?" The boy nodded curtly. She waited for him to continue but he seemed to already be looking through her stores selection. Young people today, she thought to herself with all the superciliousness of a woman five entire years older then the boy standing opposite her.

She was shaken from her pre-mature maturity when the mute began to speak. "I need a sling for my arm." He said only half paying attention to her.

She sighed. At least he can speak. "Will you also need cloths to replace your stained ones?" he nodded again, this time turning to face her She noticed his eyes and face. How handsome, she thought idly. She began speaking, and a very immature, slightly infatuated, sound could be heard in her voice, "Then I will need to measure you."

The tone of voice and slight redness that began to appear in her cheeks was lost on Luzifer. Living alone most of one's life had made him very negligent of the subtleties of the human voice and face.

The measuring process was a rather annoying and tedious affair. She took a piece of rope with periodic markings attached to it and pressed it against several of his appendages and his torso. After it was over she said to him in a thoughtful voice, "I'll get to work on this right away and I'll have it done by tomorrow." He nodded. She told him the cost and he paid.

Luzifer began to make his move toward the door when he was halted by the women's voice of his shoulder, "Why don't you stay here for the night? You shouldn't walk around in those bloody clothes anyway. Call the cost of staying her part of the cost of the cloths."

Luzifer stood there a second with the door ajar, letting in a cool, sobering breeze. He could feel a twitching in his head, a slight instability at the whims of fate, which had deigned to send him from a girl he had…cared about and murdered to another girl who was offering him a room. No. He couldn't let himself get close to a woman, never again. He only ended up killing them. He was born to wander from place to place never finding a home except in his sword arm and his books. "No thanks. I have walked around in worse." He moaned and, before she could respond, slipped into the cold and gold autumn sun.

The wind was a gnawing cold that bit into his soul. It was refreshing to feel the burns and scars that recent events had place upon his mind feel the salve of the cold northern winds. It was said that Zephyr, the west wind, brought healing, but for Luzifer it was Boreas, the north wind. The wind blew through him carrying away his pains, at least for a little while. His feeling always came back like a loyal dog. A loyal dog he wanted to kill.

His arms were spread like he was being crucified upon the gusts of air and the townspeople were beginning to stare at the bloody breeze-aficionado in there midst. He sighed in a half-depressive half-hopeful manner. People sure knew how to ruin a fleeting panacea.

Luzifer had a lot of time to burn and noticing a bookstore came to the realization that he had depleted his reading material and would have to procure more. The store was built into the basement of a one-floor house and Luzifer descended the stairs into the relative heat of Gaia's bosom.

Opening the door Luzifer looked in upon shelves upon shelves of books, which formed a waist high labyrinth that the boy found difficult to navigated. From behind a stack of books skittered an impish, hoary, and decidedly short old man. He seemed to be in a constant state of hyperactivity, buzzing around, being distracted by the slightest thing. The man looked at the intruder in his domain with a strange grin, "What have we here? It's not often that I get warriors in here." He said in German that sped through the air like droplets of a waterfall to their homes in the lake. He suddenly started scurrying over to Luzifer, "Watch your sword! You almost knocked over that stack of books."

Luzifer bowed his head in apology. The man accepted it and kept talking as Luzifer began to comb through his inventory, "Yes warriors are indeed truly rare customers for me. They spend most of their time lusting after women and swords. No offense intended." The man added as Luzifer gave him a brief glare over his shoulder. The man noticed that Luzifer had already taken out three books from the shelves and decided to change his subject before he said something to anger his customer, "You seem to be quite the scholar. Is it that warriors are incredibly stupid or incredibly smart with nothing in between? Because the last person who to took such an insatiable interest in my…love-nest of the literati was a warrior-women. She was something. White hair hanging over her eyes, constantly barking at me about 'transmution this' or 'nigredo that'. A true… alchemical anarchy. She bought about twenty of my books so I guess I can't complain too much." Luzifer walked out of the maze of books and indicated that he was ready to pay. "Speaking of purchases, is there a rhyme or reason to your choices as the four books you chose seem to have no correlation."

Luzifer was looking at the limits that the world had set on him and spoke in a distracted stoic manner, "They're the only ones I haven't read."

Stepping out into the still early afternoon, with his satchel bulging with sharp corners, Luzifer pondered what he would do. He began to wander aimlessly through the streets, carelessly deflecting off travelers as he buried his gaze into the ground. After he had been wandering for the majority of an hour, he decided this was as good a time as any to look up. Laden der Neugier was written in flowing script. He felt something odd exuding from the curiosity shop. A sort of kindred spirit that understood him all to well. A single eye with a blazing iris.

Luzifer gripped his forehead in pain as he absent-mindedly pushed through the door. There were a few people quizzically staring at various items, a mask from Cathay here and an odd beaded necklace from the Araby there. None of it seemed to be of any interest to anyone, much less a traveling swordsmen, but there was something tugging at him. He eventually came to a counter were the shop owner a miserly man who looked much older then he was watched the customers like a hawk, or maybe a vulture.

The boy's presence interrupted the merchant's revelries of falling coins and the man asked him, with no lack of impatience if he wanted anything. Luzifer stood there for a couple seconds trying to think of a question to ask. Yeah, do you happen to possess an item that displays a marked tendency to have a magnetic affect upon murderers? Heh… "Do you have anything particular of interest to those of a scholarly mindset?"

The man gave the question some thought and then pulled a box out from under the counter. The box was an approximate cube, maybe a bit wider then it was long or tall, of a dark stained wood, and had on the front a large and intimidating lock. It was approximately the size of a man's head. The vendor pulled a key from inside his shirt and inserted it to the clean, dark-steel padlock. He could her the mechanism catch and the man opened to box revealing…a shard. It was mostly red and seemed to be of steel in most parts but in another it was flesh. The similarities between that shard and the weapon used by the knight who had destroyed his prison were startling. This was mostly ignored upon the revelation that this was what had been calling to the Luzifer.

The feeling of malice that exuded from it wafted into Luzifer's brain clouding his mind and sending him into a euphoric stupor. He thought that the merchant was talking but Luzifer was flitting upon the tide that the shard sent ebbing through him. The twisted pleasure that it churned within him. He felt stronger and smarter near the shard and he came to the decision he must have it. Later…for now he was drifting in the ecstasy of the moment.

The box closed and the locked was set back into place snapping Luzifer out of his revelries. "…a pretty fascinating peace of material if I do say so myself. I heard a rumor it is part of Soul Edge. What that is I haven't the slightest." The merchant said as Luzifer came back to reality.

From Luzifer two words could be heard undercut by need and lust, "How much?"

The merchant said, with a smile and false friendship, the cost.

Luzifer was walking to an inn, one different from the tavern he had pick-pocketed the penny royalty in front of. He had a plan and was laughing.

The thief walked on the streets of the town she had taken up residence in and was bored out of her mind. She now had enough money for the next few days of living if she spent it right but it still could not hold a candle to the sums of money she had back in the prime of her thieving days. She remembered the idyllic days of robbing merchants on the roadside, sleeping under the stars with her not-so-loyal band of rogues and murders, and saving her money so that one day she could buy her way into the nobility and be freed from the shackles of the peasantry. As she sat down on a rock near the edge of town she gave a sigh. Such days of joy cannot last and she could remember that early morning when it all collapsed.

There was nothing foreboding in the singing rays of the sun or in the light-hearted choruses of the birds, not like in stories where it was always at night or in the rain that such tragedies occurred. She led her group of men to their usual stomping grounds and they set up an ambush on both sides of the road. She walked onto the road to find a sucker to lead into the baited trap. When she saw someone coming over the horizon she signaled for the bandits to be ready as she began to run to the person in a split skirt and leather tunic that had a v down the middle which she had removed the strings from as part of her duties as the band's siren.

She came up to the boy who hardly reacted to her with more then a glance of the eye and kept walking, "Would you help me" she had said, "I need help reaching my home which seems to be in the direction you are traveling. I don't feel safe with out someone strong near by". She almost barfed every time she said that she hated acting weak for some guy but she new the pay-off would be worth it.

His golden glare turned her soul to ash, "Stop feigning meekness I can see the knife in the hem of your skirt." She hadn't expected this and if her men attacked someone with as much competence as this boy demonstrated one of them might get killed. Best thing to do was to try and distract him. She hated doing this; it made her feel a whore.

She caught up to him and matched her pace with him as she grabbed his left arm with her right. I felt cool to the touch and it didn't react to her fingers. "I'm sorry but would you mind if I accompanied you to town. Maybe we could grab a room at the inn and…" she left him to finish the sentence. His eyes again moved to her and they threw balefire at her.

"Don't be so low." He said but before she could respond they arrived at the ambush point, "excuse me." He said as he pulled himself away from her without moving his left arm. "Come out, mortals! I know your there!"

The bandits attacked without surprise but en masse but they never stood a chance. He rode the updrafts of the tumult like an eagle rides the thermals of the sky. Gliding through slashes while using his sword whenever a killing blow could be struck. When he fought one-on-one against someone he used speed and his weapon length to his advantage, he jumped in and out of range staying in a constant state of motion, never loosing his precious momentum.

When the last male corpse hit the ground he sheathed his sword and looked at her over his shoulder, "I imagine you were trying to lead me into that ambush". He began to approach her. She snatched her dagger from her skirt and pointed it at him. He sighed. Before she knew what was happening he had grabbed her wrist, applied pressure, and whipped the weapon out of her hand. "Don't worry. I do not kill women…intentionally," he said that last part with a heavy tortured sigh. She tried to back away but only succeeded in falling on her rump.

The son of a sword offered her his hand and she accepted it. "Just please do me a favor and don't act weak." He said in distracted and lecturing voice, "You should always be strong no matter what." His had was on her shoulder because her knees had suddenly decided that they weren't up to their normal status quo and would prefer to leave her once again on her butt. She looked into his eyes and became very secure but terrified at the same time. And he who shall open the way to hell shall have the eyes of storms. A random sermon from the priest she had slept to as a child intruded on her thoughts. I was conscious during one of his sermons? Returning to wear she was she began to feel the need to lean on him and rest but once she had been standing for a moment he let go of her and began to walk away. He stopped and spoke into the wind, letting the breeze do the work of carrying his words to her, "Don't ever do what you did to me right before the ambush. If somebody asks you for something like that you have my permission to lacerate him."

She had stood stunned for half an hour when a merchant came up to talk to her. She let him take her to the nearest town after she had grabbed her knife. The ride was annoying thanks to his tendency to sniff through one nostril and to speak down to her and everyone else. He had even made a pass at her when she was leaving and she had exercised the right the boy had given her. At least five times… on the lecher's face.

It was the boy who had stuck out most in the story. He was probably four years her junior but he seemed aged and enlightened. Half of her hated the kid's guts for killing all her men and leaving her high and dry but the rest of her…

Either way, she needed to see him again. He had triggered emotions in her too strong to be left to their own devices. Maybe she should just leave now and find him. She had nothing to tie her down. No possessions. And she had just stolen a tidy sum of money to sponsor the trip.

She would find that yellowed eyed boy and figure out what she felt towards him.

Luzifer stood outside the store in his new clothes. Among them was a loose-fitting red tunic with some tough leather on the right shoulder. "You look like a warrior" she had said, "You would need such things." His pants were loose as well and were black with yellow flames winding their way up from the feet. "heh, I thought you would look good in them." His sling was also black, his dead left arm gently swaying in its grip, and he had a red cloth headband around his temples. "Your hair needs something to hold it back and this contrasted well with your eyes." The tailor had been a strange girl.

A wealthy and suitably pompous man walked into the curiosity shop. Luzifer immediately shadowed him. The wealth man immediately struck up a distracting argument with the merchant who was drawn away from the counter. This gave Luzifer the opportunity he needed. He reached behind the counter and grabbed the box that held the shard and began to walk out. He was behind stand when the merchant glanced at him. He knew the man couldn't see what was in his hand so he just nodded amiably as possible. The man was then distracted by the rich ones argument on how some such item was a fake Arabic sword.

Luzifer ducked out of the store and ran.

When he was alone in the woods he got out the hatchet he had stolen almost a year ago to cut would and began to hack into the dark wooden box. As the need for the item it contained began to intensify the power and ferocity of his strikes also began to increase. Finally at long last the top broke inward and he was able to retrieve the shard.

It felt euphoric, euphorisch, эйфористический, eufórico. It was a consuming dead-end feeling, one he knew would lead him nowhere but he didn't care. The sheer act of having the senses tingled by it was enough. It made him feel a bit more complete, like he had found a missing piece of himself. It was a kin in consciousness. It was a like-minded entity. Yes it was a thinking thing as much as him. The feelings the shard had intermeshed with his. He might have stood there for days had his self-loathing not been there to stop him.

Stop! He tossed the shard to the ground. I'm evil! I murder those I love! If this shares a similar consciousness with me it must be evil as well. I must destroy it! The world cannot bear two murderers the scale of me. The shard quaked in terror on the ground without making a motion. Hadn't he heard this was part of something called Soul Edge? Did that mean the weapon the nightmare that had attacked his castle had used was Soul Edge? At the very least this demanded further research. If Soul Edge proved to be as much an abomination as Luzifer was then…well that would be decided when the time came. He picked up the shard and began to ponder what to do with it. It was still trying futilely to bribe him with pleasure but he had resisted such things before. He clutched it hard into his hand, almost with the force to break the shard, when he felt it sink into his hand. He opened his palm and stared into the wrinkles and lines on it with wide eyes. He felt his left hand twitched and his eyes grew even more.

Abelard entered the tavern in town and began to canvas it for people who had seen a yellow-eyed demon. None had but he still had a lot of the bar to ask. This was taking to long so he pulled a stool up as he adjusted the two-handed axe on his back. Once he was taller then the surrounding people he yelled out with a determined voice the silenced the merriment that was taking place, "Has anyone seen a yellow-eyed demon-boy".

A rather rich looking man in a corner opened his mouth in response, after he had sniffed through one of his nostrils, " I don't know about a demon but there was a boy here with yellow eyes. He stole some money from me and I haven't seen him since."

Good, thought Abelard. Soon vengeance would be his.

But the events in the bar were not completely over. At one table a man with a tankard said in a drunken drawl, "I hear rumors that every baby born is dead even before it leaves it's the mothers womb. I think the end times are upon us. The antichrist will soon release the legions of hell upon us."

Another man at the table nodded, " You want to know who da antichrist is? It's one of those goddamn Lutherans. Trying to escape from the light of the Mother Church."

A farmer nearby took offense at that comment and pushed the man's seat out from under him, "No, you bloody fool. It's the pope. Selling out good in order to furnish their pulpits. They are the true deceivers."

A large brawl broke out and each man took a side and started randomly swing punches at anybody within arms reach, friend or foe. The entire tavern was eventually destroyed in the chaos and fifteen men were killed, including the two instigators of the violence.

Both of those men took to their graves opinions that were wrong on so many levels.

Not much to say except to review, comments and critism encouraged.