God's Demon

Chapter Thirteen

Two weeks after Sargatanas’ momentous decision Eligor and Valefar descended the long, arcing causeway to the palace gate in uncustomary silence. Both demons were deep in thought, wrestling with the implications of recent events, and when they stopped just outside the gate to await the arrival of Bifrons and Andromalius they remained silent. Much had been accomplished in the brief time since that decision, but much more needed to be done. The two immense shallow-bowled braziers, mounted atop building-sized pedestals that flanked the causeway gate, cast a fluctuating orange glow and deep, wavering shadows upon the guards and the milling crowd below. Their seventy-foot flames reached into the sky with the roar of a dozen furnaces.

As he waited, Eligor surveyed the dense crowd that seemed to always gather around the gate. Mostly lesser demons seeking audiences with administrative officials, there was the odd sprinkling of Waste travelers, shepherded work-gangs and exotic soul-beast caravans newly arrived from distant cities. The confusion of noise that Eligor knew must arise from them could barely be heard against the sound of the angry flames from high above.

Finally, he spotted the floating sigils and then the tall, vertical banners of the two approaching demon lords. Both had apparently met up before reaching the gate, and their file of soul-beasts and escort-guards snaked well behind and down into the darkness of the city streets below.

The crowd parted at the prodding of the gate-guard, and two especially large military Behemoths trudged into view. Three times the size of the average soul-beast and powerfully muscled, they were former human kings designated for special use because of their lost rank. Each was ornately caparisoned in rich robes, festooned with elaborately threaded harnesses, pierced in a hundred different ways with jeweled nails and rings, and bearing smoking incense burners that trailed long, twisting lines of bluish smoke. Beneath the robes, and reflecting the new political footing, Eligor saw the dull sheen of black, volcanic armor.

Valefar stepped forward and greeted each Demon Minor as they dismounted their Behemoths. His was an affable manner, and Bifrons and Andromalius both responded in kind. One could not have imagined, Eligor mused, that Adamantinarx was on the brink of the most divisive war Hell had ever seen.

Both visitors flanked the Prime Minister as they headed up the causeway with Eligor in tow. The contrast between Valefar and the two demons was striking. They, having traveled in comfort, were swathed in their finery and sprinkled with gold and jewels, while Valefar’s dark, unadorned skins were drab by comparison. It was, Eligor thought, emblematic of this regime that its wealth was not worn for all to see.

When they reached the main palace Valefar led the party into the great entry hall. It was a large, basilica-like area, well lit, and filled with officials and guards ebbing and flowing, paying the newcomers no heed. There, in the middle of the floor and seemingly waiting for him, was a single hovering glyph of golden fire that, when he raised his hand, quickly sank into his palm. When Valefar turned to them a look of mild surprise was written upon his features. His gaze lasted for only a moment and then he led the group down a series of corridors, which grew more and more unfamiliar to Eligor with every turn. They were gradually descending; that much was clear. But the palace was so vast, so filled with administrative levels, that it came as no real surprise to him that they might be in an area that he had not traversed. As they proceeded, the number of chambers diminished until they found themselves heading down an ill-lit and doorless passageway.

The realization that he was completely lost came at nearly the same moment that they arrived at their destination. They reached the end of the corridor and stopped in an anteroom adorned only with a semicircular stone bench facing a single closed door. While the others sat at the urging of Valefar, Eligor looked at the tall door before him, framed oddly with the rarest white native rock, and noticed that there was still stone dust on the flagstones before it. Large footprints were still visible, as if recently made. And looking up, over the lintel, Eligor saw Sargatanas’ elaborate circular sigil subtly inlaid in the finest flowing silver.

Eligor suddenly realized that not a soul-brick was anywhere to be seen, that the anteroom was built entirely of stone, and that their degree of dressing was of the highest order. Fresh, white dust stuck to his dark fingers when he ran them over the stones’ surface.

They waited for some time and then, without fanfare, the door opened noiselessly and Sargatanas emerged. The two earls stood and obediently knelt before their patron. For a moment their fiery sigils separated, intertwined with their lord’s, and then returned, resuming their positions above each demon’s head.

“Welcome, Brothers. It is good to see my two closest neighbors again after so many centuries. I understand that you both prosper, and for that I am pleased,” Sargatanas said plainly. “However, I am sure you are both aware that your wards, sharing common borders with my own, are threatened by Lord Astaroth’s intentions. As are mine.”

Both Demons Minor nodded.

“For the hundredth time we are going to have to defend ourselves against one of our brethren—be it Astaroth or one of Beelzebub’s clients—who thinks it necessary to upset the balance among us. It is a cycle seemingly without end. A cycle that has its origins in the First Infernal Bull issued so long ago during the first Council of Majors—that we may never attack a sovereign capital. ‘We may wage war to gain territory, only as it does not jeopardize another demon’s existence.’ So says the Bull and so said I until of late. Now, however, I cannot subscribe to this law any longer,” said Sargatanas, pausing, waiting for the statement to sink in. “Bifrons… Andromalius, I am about to shake the very foundations of Hell. With your aid, I am going to challenge everything that this world stands for. Brothers, I am Heaven bound.”

Eligor saw the shock written upon their faces. They sat transfixed by their lord, looking at him with mouths partially agape.

Andromalius regained himself and said, “Lord, you do not really think that engaging in a war such as you envision can—”

“I do,” Sargatanas said, his voice resonant. “It is naive to think that what transpires here is not being watched from Above. Would we miss an opportunity to watch Them if we could? What have we shown Them after these countless eons here in Hell? We have fulfilled every one of Their claims against us, proven ourselves to be anything but the angels we once were, and denied ourselves any consideration for return. We must show that after all of these grim millennia, after all the pain and punishment, we are capable of change. I am convinced that if our intentions and actions are clear—that our opposition to Beelzebub and his government is in earnest—They will take notice. And that is the first step to regaining our lost grace.”

Bifrons stood. He looked agitated. Eligor almost felt sorry for them. They had no choice but to go along with their patron, but they did not have to accept his precepts.

“You are talking about total war,” Bifrons said, shaking his spined head in disbelief, “a war that would engulf all of Hell. No demon would be able to remain neutral. And to what end?”

“No demon should remain neutral,” said Sargatanas acidly. “As to what end… the end of all this. And a beginning—the beginning of our Ascent.”

“You do not really think—”

“I do think and I do dream, but I do not really know, Bifrons. What I do know is that I cannot shake my memories. Nor, I suspect, can anyone else present.”

Without waiting for an answer, Sargatanas turned and put a steaming hand upon the door latch. “Yours has been a long and tiring journey and I will send you on to your chambers shortly. But first it is important for you to understand what lies beneath my decision.”

He opened the door and Eligor could only see darkness beyond.

“We are directly below the throne in the Audience Chamber,” said Sargatanas. “I had construction begin on this… shrine when I decided my course.”

The others followed him, a dark silhouette outlined in a scalloped tracery of steaming embers, into the narrow vestibule, and the only faint illumination was from their flickering heads. Eligor could see, between the shadows of their passing and then only dimly, pale walls covered with neat lines of incised angelic inscriptions. He found that provocative, curious. It was a small heresy to write in the old style; it was a much larger one to commit that writing to scone.

The walls fell away on either side as they entered a larger, circular room. The hollowness of their footsteps echoed through the unseen reaches, making the group sound larger than it was. Sargatanas uttered a word and suddenly the room was suffused in pale light. The dark, cloaked figures of the five demons contrasted starkly with the luminosity of the space. Eligor’s jaw dropped and Valefar audibly released his breath, while the two visiting earls looked as if they might turn and run at any moment. All this Sargatanas measured as he stood back and watched the demons.

Eligor squinted, his eyes adjusting to the brightness. He took in the lambent room and realized that for all this to have been completed in such a short time—a matter of weeks—his lord must have driven Halphas and his laborers very hard. And then Eligor remembered the sounds of masons ringing through the long nights.

The joinery of the stones, their perfect dressing, and the care with which they were chosen all bespoke a level of craft that Eligor thought must have been augmented by an Art. Only the fairest, palest stones, laced with delicate veins of gold and silver, had been employed. The walls were punctuated at regular intervals with columned niches, each home, Eligor could discern, to a miraculous lifelike statue of a many-winged figure. The low-domed ceiling, hewn from an unimaginably huge pale-blue opal, flickered with flecks of inner fire, a perfect evocation, Eligor remembered, of the coruscating sky of the Above. Such a room, he knew, was not meant to exist in Hell.

But it was not the walls, nor the beautiful ceiling, nor even the heretical statuary that stirred the demons most. It was the running mosaics with tiles so small that Eligor could barely see them and the nearly floor-to-ceiling friezes and their incredible imagery that took the demons and wrenched them and pulled them in. And reminded them.

Each of the demons approached these shimmering murals and each walked slowly, silently, transfixed. Eligor found himself not looking at the friezes but into them, so rich was their execution, so vivid their portrayals. They began, at both sides of the room, with simple renderings of the Above, of the clear and glowing air, of the lambent clouds and the jeweled ground and the vast sparkling sea. And farther on, the great gold and crimson Tree of Life, heavy with its ripe, swollen fruit set amidst broad and sheltering leaves. Eligor saw, looking closely, the fabulous serpentine chalkadri flying through its boughs, their twelve wings picked out in rainbow jewels. He remembered their mellifluous calls and the Tree’s sweet fragrance and could not imagine how he might have forgotten them.

Eligor paused to look at his fellow demons. Thin wisps of steam, barely visible in the light, streamed from their eyes. The two earls had given them-selves over to the images and were breathlessly sidling along the walls, murmuring to themselves and each other. Valefar walked a few paces unsteadily, occasionally putting a tentative hand out upon the wall for support. And at the room’s center, standing by a raised altar and watching them all with his intent, silvered eyes, was the fallen seraph, a dark figure as immobile as the angelic statues that surrounded him.

Eligor turned back to the wall and saw the twelve radiant gates of the sun and the twelve pearlescent gates of the moon and the treasuries that housed the clouds and dew, the snow and the ice. There he saw the first depicted angels who guarded those storehouses, and it was a shock to see them, for he had tried very hard to forget their gracefulness.

Valefar, who was ahead of the other three demons, reached the farthest tableau, and something there that Eligor could not yet see caused him to cry out. He reeled backward, as if struck, nearly colliding with his lord. Sargatanas put out a hand and steadied his friend.

As if he were clinging to the side of a cliff with his hands, Eligor guided himself tentatively along the curving wall, examining its images, pausing to remember. The mosaic-bordered bas-reliefs showed more and more of the glittering hosts and their cities of light. Eligor knew what would follow: the ten greatest cities of creation, tiered like enormous steps upon the flank of the celestial mount, ascending toward the Throne.

These spired cities, crystalline and pure, filled with their multitudes of seraphim and cherubim, seemed, to his pained eyes, alive with the angels’ comings and goings. He was sure that he even recognized some of the angels, so great was the craft of the sculptors. In stone and jewels and metals the angels marched and sang and toiled, and as he looked at them Eligor recalled doing all of those things.

When he reached the foot of the Throne in all its soaring radiance he saw that it was surrounded by the six-winged archangels, swords in hand, singing praises as he had seen them do. The echoes of their celestial harmonies were so loud and the vision of them so real that he stumbled upon Andromalius, who, along with Bifrons, had reached the spot ahead of him. They were both upon their knees, gasping, hands outstretched against the wall. Eligor caught himself and, with pounding trepidation, looked upon the sublime Face of God. Its evocation was so glorious and terrible, so threatening and full of love, that he, too, exclaimed aloud. How did I forget? He found that he could not look away. Its beauty burned fiercely into his mind like a brand, like sparking iron—but not nearly as powerfully as when he had been in its presence so long ago. He could not control his shaking and, with steam blurring his vision, staggered away to where his lord and Valefar stood.

Sargatanas, his chest rising and falling, appeared moved by their reactions; Eligor heard his breath, deep and rhythmic like a bellows. He had not strayed from the room’s center, but in his hand, drawn from some hidden sheath, Eligor now saw a new-forged and unfamiliar sword, downward bent and vicious, wreathed in vapor and glyphs. A new sword—a Falcata—consecrated for a new war. Sargatanas held it up before him, and all of the demons’ eyes were drawn to it.

Looking at each of them in turn, the Demon Major said coldly, “Brothers, we will look upon that Face again.”