Lucanis Week- Day 1 : Spite
Introductions Summary: The fine art of making a deal under pressure
Read here or on Ao3 (or both... both is good!) https://archiveofourown.org/works/69786676
Lucanis felt like he was going mad, the voice in his head becoming louder and clearer every passing hour. Ever since Zara had done something to him on that torture table.
She’d been positively beside herself with anticipation, forcing something down his throat as blood magic poured from her hands into his body, the resulting pain almost making him forget to breath.
He’d tried to hold out, to use every scrap of his training to not buckle to the torment, but that day had been the worst – so far.
And now his mind seemed to have snapped from it all.
“Where. Am. I!..Myself?...You?”
Lucanis curled tighter against the cell wall as the loud confused voice cried out inside his head – the old gold mosaic tiles of this obviously ancient elven structure, rubbing against his skin painfully and giving him some grounding in reality to fight against the sound.
“You. Not Me! Who. Am..I?...You?... No! Need Out!”
The next second that pain became more than he’d ever thought possible to experience. Every nerve ending began to burn and his whole body arched in agony, a scream escaping his lips as he clawed at the ground – walls – his skin, to try and fight against the torrent of pain. His jaw clenched hard, muscles spasming and he bit against the inside of his mouth, unable to bare the way his eyes felt like they were burning under his eyelids.
“Please!... No!” He hissed between bloody lips and in that moment he realised it wasn’t madness he was experiencing. It was what the other poor souls here had experienced.
He’d seen their bodies – split apart and torn asunder on the other cell floors, demons that had been inside them bursting forth from their dying screams and he knew if he didn’t do something, he was next. But what could he do, except beg. And a Crow never begs.
In that moment, all he could think of was his beloved Treviso, his family – Illario and Caterina and the Crows. He’d failed them all. He’d been caught, unable to complete his contract and now he was going to die or worse.
“Why! Does! It Hurt?!” The voice inside him cried out suddenly, Lucanis’s body shuddering as the waves of agony instantly subsided.
Collapsing flat to the floor, unable to hold himself up, Lucanis clawed at the sandy floor, pulling himself into a ball and tried to even his breathing. What had he just heard? The pain had gone, leaving aching muscles and sore bones, every nerve on edge as if he’d been hit by lightning magic.
He took a breath slowly, trying to get his heart to calm and not feeling like it too wanted to escape his chest. He had to think on what just happened. Why wasn’t he dead? Why wasn’t he like the others? The demon had cried out in pain as well just then. Was what ever was in him causing itself pain as well?
“Who are you?” He whispered to the silent air before him, his eyes closing with the ridiculous thought that he could communicate with what ever it was in his head. He was no mage – demons were not his speciality, though he’d killed plenty that had possessed mages he’d managed to annoy enough. None of those had ever felt like having a conversation.
“Not. Me? No Longer What I Was.” The voice that replied inside, sounded broken as if just realising a truth it didn’t know till now. It was quieter too, less frantic, less wild animal thrashing at a cage and more one testing it’s walls. Lucanis wasn’t sure which was more dangerous.
“What do you want?” Lucanis wanted to ignore the truth, but he needed to know. Was the demon complicit in what was going on here because for a moment, he was sure he felt it’s anger inside him that felt like it wanted to rip and tear at those beyond – not himself.
“To. Be. Free.” The voice sounded more certain now and it worried Lucanis as he knew what that could mean. Except no demon here was free, not from the mages here. Blood magic controlled them and there was so much blood here.
He pulled himself towards the wall, using it to brace himself against it and forced himself to sit up. He wasn’t going to beg for his life whilst curled up in a ball on the floor. Crows rules be damned.
“If you force your way out, you’ll kill me, but you wont be free.”
“Explain.” The voice was curious now...anxious as well, Lucanis could feel it.
“I think you are inside me. They put you there so when you broke out of my body they’d control what ever came out. But it would kill me in the process, painfully so.”
“No! Wont Let Them. Must Get Out Of This Cell!”
“You see? Where we are?” Lucanis gasped as he realised the demon knew where they were, looking around the cell as if doing so would answer the question.“How?”
“Through. You. Inside You. Your Sight.”
Lucanis suddenly realised an awful thought. The pain he felt in every nerve – the pain the demon inside him cried out about, was the same. He’d seen enough demons or spirits to know at their core they looked like the nervous systems he’d seen in dissection lectures. In fact, people’s nervous systems looked like the controlled Shades he’d seen following the magisters like obedient slaves. Those Shades had the vestiges of eyes. What if this demon was not just in him like a parasite ready to burst from his body, but actually sharing his body now? It chilled him to the bone at the concept, but could explain a few things. How unlike the other victims, he was still here – alive, weeks after he’d been fed what ever it was. That his body hadn’t changed or contorted like the others – the demons corrupting their very flesh before emerging from a cocoon of their making. Why Calivan looked pissed every time he’d visited and why for the past two days he’d been left here to rot...to see if starvation would make the demon do what they wanted. But that difference he realised now, could be his source of survival. If he was communicating with the demon within him.
He pulled himself up, using the stone work as hand holds and half staggered, half slid along the wall until he reached the magical barrier keeping him contained in his little cell. Looking beyond and around he made sure to focus on the unlocked cells across from him and the gory evidence of what had transpired, slowly rotting away within. Beyond that he saw a Shade, it’s form hovering in one place as if locked there – the magister who controlled it leaving it to guard the area. It didn’t look over to him, it’s mind ordered to one purpose – No one leaves the area.
“You kill me to escape.” He feebly gestured to the corpses in the open cells then the Shade “You will become like that.”
“No!” The voice cried out again “Trapped… I Am... Broken. A Shade Of Once Was. Not Me Any more.”
“Mierda…” Lucanis heard the demon’s anguish in his voice. A desperation of a broken soul. That he understand well. He’d seen it in the eyes of Tevinter slaves that still had enough fire to want freedom and would do anything to escape. Perhaps in order to survive, he had to think along those lines too.
“You and I demon, we are trapped here together. We both want freedom yes? I propose…” For a moment he stopped, the word hanging on his tongue. Bargaining with a demon was a fool’s game, but he was out of options now. He either died in the same horrific manner as others here...or became something else...later. But the later could mean at least he would kill those who’d done this to him. “a deal demon.”
“A Deal?”
It was now or never, Lucanis thought. He had to sell this well. He only had one chance at this.
“We work together, escape this prison, kill those that did this to us, live and be free again. I am Lucanis Dellamorte, an Antivan Crow assassin by trade. The Venatori captured me and I think you too. They wish to hurt us both, but we wont give them that satisfaction. Together we will find a way out of here or die trying. Do you agree?”
There was a silence that felt like it stretched on, the only sounds the magic barrier he was close to and the distant sound of the sea above him. Then he heard it. A chuckling laugh inside.
“Yes! Escape. Kill, Live and Be Free!”
He suddenly felt a wave of energy through his body that enabled him to stand and as he did he saw a shimmer from the other side of the room. There stood a dark mirror image of himself, clad in the armour and weapons they’d stripped him of when he was dumped in this cell, which he knew were held somewhere here – Zara having mocked that maybe it would come in useful if one of her ideas planned out. What ever that was he wasn’t going to let it happen. That would be his first goal.
The mirror grinned, an expression looking alien on his own face.
“You’re the demon?”
“Bah.” The demon sneered and held out his hands, looking at himself – at the weapons strapped to his body and groaned in annoyance. Lucanis hopefully reached for one but his hand went right through the doppelganger and he realised this was just a projection – a manifestation. Something the demon had created to communicate with him in a way he could understand. It was unsettling and comforting in equal measure. The demon wore his face, wore his armour – a reminder of what he should be. He should have been upset, shocked at what could have been a mockery. But in a way he was glad the creature looked this way and not like some of the monstrosities he’d witnessed.
“Do you have a name?”
The demon lifted his head, the grin returning to his face as he stepped forward and stared into Lucanis’s eyes
“A New One Now.”
“Well, I’ve told you my name, it is only polite to know yours.”
“Spite.”