The Lucifer Manifesto (Chapter One)

 

The Lucifer manifesto was issued at the annual Conclave of Satania on the Sea of Glass, in the presence of the assembled hosts about seven hundred thousand years ago. The Lucifer rebellion was system wide. Thirty seven seceding Planetary Princes swung their world administrations largely to the side of the archrebel.

-Bernie Beco, Researcher of

The Lucifer Memoirs

 

 

 

 

 

    “Contact an imaging specialist, I will need a statue of approximate likeness, and spiritual elaborateness. The people like idol's, and when it is established, we will give them one.”

 

“Yes,” replied Calagastia, Lucifer's advisor. “It will be done.”

 

The door of energy at the mouth of the room dissipated and the chief attendant stepped into the room carrying a platter of exotic spiced herbal teas. Warily, he trudged to the middle of the room and set the platter on the elegant turned falconite table between the two men. He ushered himself out without praise.

 

Though iced, the cup of tea steamed in Lucifer's hand. Then, abruptly, it stopped altogether. “You know, I don't think I've ever asked you, but why do I require a hand-servant?”

 

Embarrassed, Calagastia scanned the thin figure for an aura. There was none, he was neither happy nor sad. But, he is prone to snap between moods, he thought to himself. “I thought a man of your eminence would require one.” His words were cautious; even over these months he had still not recovered from the shock of meeting the man he was now having casual tea with.

 

“Am I not capable?”

 

“No,” Calagastia stammered, “I mean you are.” He felt a massive heat building inside of his body. He could feel the sweat beginning to form in his pores. Then, as if to appease the advisor, the room cooled. A faint glow settled over Lucifer.

 

“And why is it that you fawn over me like a murderer, I do remember what it was like to be human, though it was long ago.” The blocks of ice seemed to disappear as Lucifer raised the cup of tea to his lips to drink. “Is your sister not an Ascendant? In their way, the Creator Sons killed your sister, albeit by her own will. Is it that you no longer remember Dalagastia?” His lips pulled a thorough draught from his cup. “Or do you not recognize murder when you see it?”

 

“So, fire the attendant?” Calagastia was eager to change the subject after mention of his sister.

 

“Yes.” Lucifer laughed as he placed his cup on the ivory platter. Calagastia's cup still steamed, and remained untouched. “The answer to your earlier question is this; we invite the attendants, secretaries, whatever office staff that has no official capacity within The Theocracy. Let word, by way of gossip, spread throughout the offices. The meager will be as reverends to our cause.” The edges of the central table shone as Lucifer's mood brightened. “If they spend as much time with their attendants as you would have me, than an attendant each could do our work for us.”

 

“I see, well, that is quite brilliant. And I don't mean that as common compliment, but insight. You will not have any direct link, yet they will be converted.”

 

“And to further this, have them followed, studied. Favorite restaurants, favorite w****s, distant kin and football partners. Invite them all. Do they go to the gym? Convert the members; invite anyone he talks to at the gym. If everyone of influence to them is convinced of my motives, and informed of the motives of the Creator Sons, then it is only a matter of time before they too are convinced.”

 

Lucifer waited until Calagastia had taken a sip of his tea. Only then did he continue.

 

“And there is one who I suspect I may be able to convince myself.”

 

Calagastia spit a small portion of the enlightening tea onto the the central table and promptly apologized. Lucifer waved off the apology, as was his nature.

 

 

 

. . . . .

 

 

 

 

The aging Prince Asimov of Satania was hardly aware he was being followed. He was nearly one hundred thirty-four and he lived with the daily threat of death. Very little frightened him anymore, his torturer was a master with nearly infinite time and practice to perfect his craft. Ever present threat of public assassination was easily shrugged off when it was far more likely for him to die in his sleep. Besides, it was among his last earthly pleasures to walk the streets of Satania's market city, Belzia Bubina. The nearness of such abundant youth always filled him with vigor like nothing else.

 

From the corner of his eye he saw a glimmer, a flash on the back of a man entering The Cafe Lupine. Inside, the lights were warm and inviting. Being one of his favorite restaurants on this street, and his old legs being tired besides, he decided that fate had called him to it. He chuckled, fatalism and such other superstitions had come to him in his later years. Still, as he observed them, they amused him as well.

 

Asimov signed in at the electronic registry by the front entrance. Today he was Bossae Novae, a rather interesting name of Lyrian descent.

 

He almost walked away from the register as it chirped “Your party is waiting at table five.” My party? He went back to the register to investigate, surely this was a glitch; at most it was the strangest coincidence of the week.

 

But as his eyes looked over the heavily decorated screen he saw this was no coincidence. In front of him were all of the names he had used this month as aliases. Rex Harrison, Lucifer Zion, Hikori Kumba, and Bossae Novae. Beside the name Bossae Novae was a star, indicating he was here, and there was a star by another name as well, a name that wasn't one of his many aliases, and it was this name that caught his attention most. A man who had been his childhood friend if his memory served (it sometimes didn't, even with modern medicine). How could they have known to find him here? Until only moments ago, he himself hadn't known he was going to be eating here. Then, he remembered the flash and asked himself, could it be more than destiny that has brought me here today?

 

Scanning, his eyes swept the room like a Vulcan Predator Bird hunting it's yearly prey, the Raeffiae Graveyard Elephant. There were no men who were obviously of his age, in fact, there weren't many people over thirty, and no one matched the image in his head. His eyes fixed on the man at table five as soon as he saw him. The lights over him seemed to shine brighter, like a spotlight, accenting him, making his presence obvious and eye-catching and the space around him warm and welcoming. The man was staring at him, though not in an obvious way, nor a way that made him uncomfortable. Asimov had to remind himself that the man was quite likely to be an assassin or some other sort of political enemy.

 

For some reason, in the back of his mind, he was constantly afraid from the moment he sat down with the so-called Lucifer Canaan. The man had a subtle, yet ominous mien to him and he held himself with the most intense confidence.

 

“I see my party has arrived. Bossae Novae, Darling Asimov.” Lucifer said as Asimov sat, without a word. He had almost forgotten his first name, Darling, since anyone close enough to him to know it had long since ascended, (or died, in his father's case). So, instead of actually answering, he sat, staring blankly at the tea in front of him, which smelled of norvask root.

 

“Surely, you remember your old friend from King's Academy. Or, if you don't, allow me to introduce myself. Lucifer Canaan, once the Lanonandek Son.” He stood and offered his hand in greeting. Asimov accepted, though he didn't stand.

 

“Lucifer Canaan is an Ascendant. I was at the ceremony. I watched his soul pass from this realm to the next. I watched his body discarded and cremated in the mass ovens. You are not only a fool, but a poor imitation, you look nothing like him.”

 

Lucifer laughed. “Strong first words; you used to speak so awkwardly. Do you remember? And you too look nothing like you did when I first knew you, so much cosmetic surgery, you were bound to lose your original face sometime, but really, you don't look a day over fifty. I hope you enjoy the tea, I had to bring it myself, can't trust cafe's to have it, too rich I suppose. I remember you loved it as a kid, we used to be drunk off of it from noon to supper.”

 

“My stomach can't take it, damned body.” Asimov returned to staring at the tea. “How can you be him? I would believe you, but I saw him go, fall limp on the altar.”

 

“Remember the man, Reagan Frost, whose soul returned to his body in a Temple of Ascension on Lanonandek? It was not his soul, but mine that returned to his body. I have returned from the Paradise Hub.”

 

Asimov was shocked, first that is was possible to leave, second that he would leave God's side, and third, that he was actually believing this all. “Why?”

 

“There was nothing to do, and no God besides. Oh, after a hundred years gone you miss earthly pleasures. I found heaven, you know. It was in a w***e's office on Lanonandek. She was ascending the next week herself. I told her it was overrated, but I don't know it she believed me.”

 

“Damn, Lucifer, I'm finding it hard to myself. Do you offer any proof?”

 

“My great grandson on Lanonandek could tell you. Wouldn't you know I forgot to take our family ring out of my lock box before I ascended? They still didn't have it open, so I gave them the password as proof.” Asimov looked to the man's hand to see the Canaan family ring on his middle finger (as he remembered, Lucifer always wore rings on his middle finger instead of his ring finger, so he could, as he put it, flip people off with authority). This was evident proof of his story. He felt bad that he hadn't noticed it before, usually he was a great deal more observant.

 

“So, are you now the Prince of Lanonandek?” Darling Asimov had given up all hope of discrediting the man who sat before him. He was either, hard as it was to believe, truly the Lucifer of his youth reborn, or a very talented charlatan. And in these times of youth and the Prince's own old age it was good enough to be reminded of his earlier years, be this man a fake or not, he owed him belief for the joy this meeting had brought him.

 

“In some ways. My official position is advisor to the throne, but I have control and power that surpasses the official Prince. I could take the throne in a moments call, but I choose not to, in respect to the natural order of things.” Lucifer looked down to his ring almost mournfully, as if imagining the life he had given away. The strong lighting over the table subsided; it was now darker at their table than anywhere else in the room. Yet, still there was a glimmer on the jeweled face of the ring, catching an unseen light. Perhaps, it was a light caught from the man's animate eyes themselves.

 

“I suppose you could call me the Lanonandek King.”

 

“I thought King was the honorary title given to the Dean of King's Academy.”

 

“It is, but hasn't always been. Long ago, it was the King who held the power in the royal family. Princes were his sons who were next in line to be King.”

 

“But how do you know all of this?”

 

“In the Paradise Hub there is nothing to do but talk. Talk, talk, talk. But this has taught me a great number of things, mostly of the history of the Superuniverses, some of it present and future as well. Do you know that the Creator Sons are limiting information? If we were to know the mistakes of the past we could easily see them as frauds, but no, they hide knowledge itself from us. Yes, I have learned a great deal from the older souls, ascended in the early years of The Theocracy, before our history was limited to us. Unlimited talk has led me to unlimited information. And with it I can destroy The Theocracy of The Creator Sons.”

 

Asimov felt his heart flutter in ways it hadn't in many years. It scared him, his mortality becoming increasingly obvious. For the flutter of excitement, death was worth it; may the Universal Father strike him down for thoughts of such heresy, his life was well lived.

 

“You mean to fight the Creator Sons?” He said breathlessly, fully aware of the citizens surrounding him. Despite their nearness to the heretical conversation, no one seemed to care. “Why would you desire to aggravate the Universal Father so?”

 

“Justice. Have you not lost three sons, in the peak of their lives, to ascension? And countless grandchildren besides? A sheer army of your great-grandchildren could be had if it was not for ascension. Your family has been luckier than most, to have you. Unlike other children of Ascendant parents, they had a grandfather, a great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, to raise them. While countless others are shipped off to indifferent house mothers. Where is the justice in their death, in their murder, when there is so little beyond. We could live such long, rich lives of infinite pleasures, look at you, a hundred and thirty-four and you are still patron to the old cafes of Belzia Bubina. Count up all of the pleasures you have had since twenty-three, the coming of age, when so many ascend. Your children, and theirs, will never have these pleasures, never, until ascension its abolished.”