The Ahara Chronicles, Chapter Two: An Infernal Awakening
By Dave Mollett
And so, as the prophecies had intended, some nine months later did the young mortal woman give birth. She did not survive the ordeal, of course, on account of her progeny’s two sharp little horns and spindly little wings. She bled to death over a period of about three hours.
The first despicable act of her infernal daughter, for that matter, was to lap up the blood as it drifted out of her, and, since her incisive teeth were already fully formed, and had actually proven themselves useful in the womb, she also took quite a few healthy bites out of her flesh once the blood had dried up. Thus did she earn her name, Ahara, which in a certain language roughly translates as ‘the eaten one’, or even ‘the eating one’, or something equally similar and distasteful.
She was psychic, to start with. Once she had finished her first meal she looked up to her father, the Balor Lord Malevans Phn’Glaz Razz’a'el (the third), who had been there to witness the unholy birth, together with his faithful right hand fiend the Molydeus Lydus, and daughter the Succubus Lilith, and telepathically sent to him that she was pleased with the feast. The attendant company smiled.
“She’s going to be a feisty one, alright.” Remarked the Balor to his daughter, “Didn’t I say her mother would produce excellent offspring?”
“Pity she’s dead really,” Lydus said.
“Pity!” roared Lord Malevans, “Are you feeling pity, Lydus?”
Lydus looked a little abashed (well, as abashed as demons can look anyway), and replied “It’s a figure of speech. What I mean is it’s a shame she won’t be able to produce anymore offspring.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” The Balor said, “We can always resurrect her, when we’re feeling in the mood, so to speak.” He used the royal we, there, as he was indeed entitled to.
Ahara looked up with her deceptively cute little gleaming red eyes, blood and flesh dripping from her mouth, with a suspicious look on her face.
Her primary childhood progressed rather unremarkably, it has to be said. Well, unremarkably in Tanar’ri terms, that is to say. She spent her days half in learning the wicked ways of the demons, learning all about their ’sacred’ war with the horrid Baatezu hordes from the planes of Hell, and half in idle play among the gaping spires and magnificently carven walkways which stretched across the various parts of her father’s palace, high up amongst the damned peaks of the Abyss.
And her wickedness grew with every day. To start with, though she kept it only to herself, her human half did not show at all, for she was never once given to remorse, or fear, or love, or any other of the pathetic emotions which humans plagued themselves with. When captured adventurers were paraded in front of her at the numerous banquets which her father held she never once requested to the Balor that any one of them be freed, or granted any kind of mercy. All in all, her father was well pleased with his new daughter.
And Lili too, was well pleased. And inside she longed forward to the day when Ahara would come of age, and be moist, and warm, and desiring, and, lustful, and… and…
And thus did that time dutifully arrive. The years passed, and seemed to pass, in a word, in an instant - although of course we must not ignore the fact that on the other planes time does pass in different ways. And on some of them of course time itself decides how fast it wants to travel, thank you very much, but that of course is entirely something else, so -
Ahara had reached the tender age of fifteen when she first looked at her sister Lili in a way which could be deemed, sexual, and gorgeous.
Now the Succubus Lilith often wandered the vast passages and hallways of the palace attired in nothing but the wispiest of dresses, beautiful translucent dresses which simply flowed with the grace of their owner. Her perfect curves accentuated themselves beneath the soft, smooth motions of her gowns, and just as so many mortals before had become inebriated with the luxurious warmth of that figure, so too did the lady Ahara, perhaps for the first time revealing that human half of hers, find herself falling within that beguiling spell.
They were in Ahara’s own chambers, Lili was sitting upon the lavish four poster bed, while the young Ahara gazed out of the window with the absent-mindedness of youth, wondering what evil delights lay out there in the distant future.
“Have you been to the prime?” She asked her sister, turning around to face her.
Lili gazed at her younger sister, knowing within herself that the moment had come, her legs widening a little, “Yes, I have, many times. But I wouldn’t concern yourself with it, my love, all its pleasures are fleeting, its joys shortlived, and its inhabitants possess a limited tolerance for torture. You’d soon grow tired of it.”
“Maybe,” Ahara replied, “but you know I have to go there to see for myself, don’t you?”
“Oh Ahara,” cried Lili, getting up off the bed and over to her sister and embracing her, “I know you want to go there, and I will not stop you - I couldn’t anyway - but I want you to always remember what you have here, what you will miss.” And she kissed her, long and hard on the lips, and let it last for a long moment.
“You don’t want me to go, do you?” Ahara asked, plaintively.
“No, of course I don’t,” she replied, “I love you, just as a sister should.”
“Or a lover?” Ahara suggested, for the first time. “I’ve seen you looking at me, as I’ve grown, seen you admiring my figure, wondering who of us is more beautiful. Who do you think is more beautiful?”
“Why,” responded the Succubus, smiling, “you of course.” And with that she kissed Ahara again, passionately, beautifully, strongly.
Ahara responded herself, embracing the Succubus and holding her firmly hard against her own gorgeous form, her young breasts pressing against Lili’s. And then she threw her onto the bed, glaring with those perfect red eyes, her wings shifting a little in excitement, and stood over the Succubus, basking in the domination that her little spell had given her. The suggestion incantation was working, and working powerfully, even on her sister and even though it was her first time. Lili was powerless. But of course, you would not have noticed the difference. Lili would say later that Ahara had not needed to cast such a charm upon her. Although it did heighten the sensuality of the experience. That she would admit.
Ahara pulled her own translucent gown up her body and over her head, avoiding any snagging on horns, as her sister lay watching her on the bed, then ordered, “Take off your dress.” Lilith did as she was told, Ahara grabbing it as it was at neck level, and wrapping it around the Succubus’ throat, pulling it tight and then pulling her violently from the bed with it, then thrusting her up against the wall. Lili let out a gasp as her back hit the stone. Then Ahara quickly caught hold of her wrists and pulled them up high, fastening them into the pristine and shining onyx manacle holders that hung there, their short fastening chains embedded into the wall. They were at a perfect height, and Lili’s bare arms were stretched upwards above her head, as Ahara brushed her sister’s long golden hair back over her shoulders to reveal her naked breasts.
Then quickly she took hold of the Succubus’ ankles, and pulled them apart, and shackled them, too, into manacles, making sure the chains were tight and that Lili could not draw her thighs together at all. Last came the onyx belt, a thick and rigid piece which wrapped itself around Lilith’s waist, just beneath her stomach, and also attached to the wall to hold her firmly in place there.
Ahara pressed herself up hard against Lilith, clasping her hands into her sister’s, her mouth not one inch away from hers. Lili tried to move her head forwards to kiss, but Ahara drew away, gradually, maintaining the distance between them.
“Oh Ahara,” cried Lilith, “I love you. You won’t be able to do this on the prime. Please stay, and we can do this every night. Please stay.” Tears welled in her eyes, half of joy, that her sister wanted this with her, half of sadness that, deep down, she knew she was about to be left alone, again.
“Oh Lili,” Ahara responded, kissing her lightly on the neck, then moving downwards, kissing all the way, “I have to go, you know that. I read the books in father’s library. They mentioned me, you know. Have you read them?”
Lili moaned her answer, as Ahara’s lovely kisses reached her breasts, “He never let me.”
“I would let you, my love. I would let you.” Ahara kissed lower now, moving across Lilith’s stomach, “They’re prophecies. They talk about me, journeying to the prime, to a city called Dylath-Leen, though I’ve never heard anyone speak of it. And -”
“Ohhh.” Lili moaned as Ahara’s kisses travelled lower.
“Infiltrating the city’s hierarchy, and opening the gates, to let us through.” Ahara kissed the Succubus’ thighs now, now wet with moisture, and ready.
“So you see, I have to go.”
Ahara broke off, stepping away from her half-sister and first lover. She stepped away and went to the bed, where lay the Succubus’ whip, a faint red aura glistening around it, its magic, its power. She took it up, held it in her own demonic hands, thinking for a moment, then turning towards Lilith, with the demonic look spreading across her face, raised it above her head and cracked.
Lilith closed her eyes as the blow came, and cried out in pain. Drops of blood in a line came up to the surface where the whip had struck. Ahara let forth another blow. Another cry. And another. And another. Lilith squirmed in almost pain with every strike, writhing as much as she could beneath her bonds.
Then she looked at her sister. And fear came over her face. It was no spell. In her sister’s eyes she saw something more demonic than even she had felt, something she’d only seen in her father on the rarest of occasions. Her red eyes glowed, glowed brighter and madder than she’d ever seen them, as the whip cracked against her beautiful and bare torso just one, last, time, and she cried out in an ecstasy of pleasure.
Tears flowed from her eyes and down her cheeks.
“I will be the creature that I mean to be,” Ahara said, with eyes aflame and then threw down the whip on to the bed again and rushed over to her sister, embracing her, kissing her and kissing her tears and holding her, brushing back her beautiful golden hair from her face and loving her, as always loving her and pressing hard against her and softly moving with her, and tears came to her eyes now as she said “and you will be there with me, you will, for always you will be there with me.”
The gorgeous Succubus Lilith held her head up and looked into her half-sister’s eyes. “Always?” she said.
“Always. Always.” Said Ahara, and kissed her again.
The two of them awakened together in the same bed the next day, having slept embraced in each other the whole night, without moving, displaying some kind of human side which both of them possessed but which they would never, never reveal to their father, who would never suspect, despite all the wicked things he had within the walls of his profane library.
Ahara approached her father later that day.
“Father,” she said.
“Yes, my little one?” Her father replied, munching on a spicy fried Abishai wing.
“I want to go to the prime. I think it’s time.”
“Oh you do, do you?” The Balor said, thumping his dinner on to the table. “And what makes you think you’re ready for that?”
“Nothing makes me think I’m ready, father. But everything makes me feel that I’m ready. That’s the advantage of being half-human, isn’t it - I know instinctively what to expect. I want to go there and, and,” Ahara got agitated somewhat then, “and triumph!”
The Balor calmed down a little. Then he spoke. “Well, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go now. You certainly don’t lack any of the demonic qualities you’ll need to survive in the human society, and I very much doubt you can be corrupted by them, to think the way they do, I mean I don’t think there’s any danger for you. And I hear your magical powers are coming along fine.”
And then he was silent for a while, thinking. Ahara looked up at him, anticipating, expectantly.
Until at last her father spoke.
“Fine then. You may go.”
The young Ahara leaped for joy.
“You’ll have to wait a few weeks though, while I make the arrangements with our man in Ta-Hebesh, or our fiend, rather, but after that, fine, fine. Go and get ready.”
And so Ahara went to get ready.
Which, of course, did not amount to much. She spent the next few weeks, her last in the Abyss, entirely in the company of Lilith, her half-sister. And oh, the things they did together, in those lonely and forgotten chambers high up in the hidden recesses of the palace, the gorgeous cries which strange guests would sometimes hear emanating from the rarely trodden passageways which snaked their ways within that titanic demon edifice, the flashes from windows as the whips struck, and the howls of pleasure as fanged kisses buried themselves into bare flesh. Such things as are not meant for you humans to be told of. They’re all in the tomes that gather dust in the Balor’s library. See, he is reading one of them now, with a strange expression on his divine countenance hinting at an emotion somewhere between dark melancholy and gracious lust.
He knows the future.