Part 14

Iblis soared through vast reaches of space, floating in an unending sky devoid of light. He had no bearings; up was down and down was up; he'd no idea whether he was moving forward, backward, or even if he was moving at all. He had no way of knowing, no landmarks to judge by in the unending sea of darkness. He felt only the motion, as if he were floating in deep waters with eyes closed. The silence was as vast as the sky itself... no rush of wind, no pounding of blood in temples, no sigh of breath. He felt something... a pull, a tug... as if he were part of something greater than himself, as if he were part of another... yet he was alone. Bonded in solitude, but to what he knew not, only that he was drawn to it now... whatever it was.

It was then that he saw the moon.

He'd never seen such a moon before... so crisp, so clear... he remembered, a moment of clarity in his dreamlike state, a man (his father?) pointing out the "face in the moon" to him as a child, the play of shadows across its surface forming the illusion of a human face. He could not find that illusion now. Only the cracked and cratered plains of a dead orb suspended alone in the endless night. He saw details in it he'd never seen before, ridges and valleys he could not recall; a spiderweb of history laid out upon it that could be read by a trained eye. But despite all the minutiae, there was one thing it lacked... Wonder. He saw it now as never before. The light by which he'd lived most his life was now naught but a worthless rock hung limply in the sky. He reached out as if he could somehow grasp it, study it, contemplate the changes in it... but he couldn't see his hand... it wasn't there. Weakly, as if his body were new to him and he were testing its limits, he pawed at the moon, but still he could not see his hand before him. It was then, somewhat bewildered, morbidly curious and more than a little frightened, that he realized the moon reflected no light at all. It was nothing but a reflection itself. With the realization, the moon he'd been soaring towards seemed to retract through space as if spewed away by the breath of a vengeful God, and Iblis cried out in anger and pain as he was reborn into this world. First the moon, a spark of light within pupils of the purest black. Then the feathery halo of palest blue, irises which seemed to shine with an inner light. A khol-darkened eyelid closed over it all, contrasting exotically with alabaster skin, all framed by cascading waves of golden hair blowing softly like gossamer threads in a light breeze. Each image, each world, each realization, came like the beat of a heart, pounding into his senses then fading even as the next came on... each still visible within the last, a whole truly more than the sum of its exquisite parts. Yet this journey took only the slightest fraction of a moment in time.

Moon... Pupil... Iris... Eyelid... Face... Hair... until he was fully born to the darkness. Born of the night. Born of Illestra.

And even as he adjusted to his new sight, as he smiled up at the dark, pale beauty of his Goddess as she cradled him, infinite sadness and eternal companionship in her eyes... eyes which widened in shock as the point of a sword protruded grotesquely between her breasts, inches from his face...