God's Demon

Chapter Sixteen

It was as if the very buildings, their vaulting exuberance, their relative lightness of architecture, mirrored her exultation at arriving in Adamantinarx. This city, so unlike shadowed Dis with its flattened and oppressive vistas, was more alive in its spirit than most of Hell’s inhabitants.

Seated within an inconspicuous, unadorned howdah atop a giant Waste crosser and swathed in folds of skin, Lilith drew not even a single glance. Just, she thought, as Ardat Lili had not on her many treks to this place. And now she was gone and her mistress, for whom she had sacrificed all, was here.

With some effort Lilith reined in her deepening sadness. Ardat Lili had known the dangers and would have wanted her to be safely ensconced in Adamantinarx. Of all the cities, this had been her favorite. Lilith tended to look at the cities of Hell as organic, as immense bodies lying strewn upon the unholy ground. They had streets that flowed with the souls that were their blood and buildings that were their bones, lower demons that functioned as vital organs, and, for better or worse, the demon aristocracy that served as their minds. Most, she had concluded, were necrotic, and some quite insane. But this city was living, somehow rational, and its attempts at diversity and relative tolerance could only make it rise above its rivals.

As she passed through the mammoth Eastern Gate she saw Sargatanas’ Captain of the Foot Guard, Zoray waiting patiently with a small contingent of his demons, all clad in their fine, green-hued skins. Upon his shoulder sat the small, winged form of her familiar, which, upon seeing her, sprang into the air and flapped its way to her extended arm. Lilith smiled behind the cowl of her traveling skin. This was all like a dream. To be free of Dis and the Fly!

“My lady,” Zoray said, watching her dismount. “Welcome. Your journey was not too difficult, I hope?”

“My journey has always been difficult, Lord Zoray,” she said with a light laugh as she stroked the stubby-winged creature. “But I expect that will change now that I am here.”

“Your chambers await you, my lady,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the central mount.

“Is Lord Sargatanas back from his campaign?” she inquired, unfastening her cowl at the neck and letting it fall heavily to her bare shoulders.

Zoray hesitated and she could hear the breath catch in his throat as he tried not to stare at her. “He will return in a few days, my lady. Winning a battle is one thing; securing an entire province with all its wards in disarray is another.”

Lilith nodded and the small party began the long ascent to the palace complex. The long, arcing avenue that sliced through the city was really an attenuated series of steps that rose so gradually Lilith only realized they were climbing when she looked behind. Outlying Adamantinarx was fairly sparsely populated, but the crowds grew the farther into the city she walked.

Whereas her former master had viewed the uselessness of Dis’ incarcerated souls as an excuse to torture them, Sargatanas’ attitude seemed to be one of enforced industriousness. There were no souls cast limbless to the curbsides, no lines of the damned impaled against row upon row of quivering houses, and no unpredictable roundups by unrestrained Order Knights bent on simple slaughter.

Instead, as she looked around her, she saw nothing but the ceaseless toiling of souls as they built, crafted, and enriched Adamantinarx. Creaking bone scaffolds, enormous piles of winking bricks, great mounds of rendered soul-mortar, all bore witness to Sargatanas’ grand vision of his capital. Her escort pointed out many of the new landmarks that dotted the metropolis, including the monumental standing portrait of Sargatanas himself, its head ablaze in a vibrant cowl of flame. She paused when Zoray drew her attention to it.

“Was that his idea?” she said with a wry expression crossing her perfect features.

“No, my lady, it made him angry.”

“Really. I can see why; it does not do him justice.”

“That was not the reason, my lady. The statue was erected upon a decree of the Prince, and my lord does not easily suffer mandates from Dis.”

Lilith nodded sympathetically. She was all too familiar with the kind of orders that issued from within the Keep.

They gradually, unhurriedly, ascended toward the palace, cleaving easily the growing crowds of craftsmen, demon soldiers, and bureaucrats. A thin mist hung low over the streets, the strangely fragrant by-product of the soul-rendering process. Clots of workers, souls mostly, sat in open plazas stitching skins, carving bone for ornate entablatures, herding souls for brick transformation, and fabricating all of the many furnishings that would eventually find their way into the palace’s thousand rooms.

Lilith looked at the haunted, gray faces in the crowd, the faces of those she and Ardat Lili had worked so hard to reach out to. And she was met, not surprisingly, with frequent looks of startled recognition. Some silently reached out a hand as if to touch her. She knew then that across Hell, and in as many cities as her handmaiden had visited, she was known. She knew she would have to talk with Sargatanas about them, that he, perhaps, would take the first steps toward freeing them.

The party passed through the palace gate and there, Lilith noted, the buildings took on a grander aspect, their scale broader and their surfaces more ornate. Souls were in little evidence, replaced by robed bureaucrats, elite troops, and the occasional caravan of carts bringing goods up from the city. What is so different here? The buildings, the open plan of the city, or is it something else? It took her some time to realize what had seeped into her unconscious. All of the demons here, and indeed in the whole of Adamantinarx, went about their business with their heads held up, in contrast to their counterparts in Dis who always seemed to be looking over their shoulders as they performed their errands. Lilith felt the weight upon her heart lighten.

Zoray led her up a series of wide staircases, and atop the final flight before the wide entrance to the palace she stopped and turned to survey, once again, her new home. Her eyes lit upon the distant Eastern Gate and beyond, toward Dis. She knew that Beelzebub would not be pleased when he discovered her absence and that once he ascertained her whereabouts there was little doubt that she would be putting this city in jeopardy. Was it nothing more than selfishness for her to put Sargatanas in this position? Or was there a deeper reason for her to have left Dis behind, something, as yet, unclear? She turned to rejoin Zoray, who waited patiently under the threshold. The sense of self-determination, of being in control, for once, was as overwhelming as the newness of her surroundings, and she vowed never to get used to either of these newfound emotions.

Eligor patted the ash from his skins and watched it sift slowly down forming a ring of ash, like the shadow of a nimbus, upon the flagstones.

The sealed chamber-doors, built tall and wide to accommodate his wings, were just as he had left them, his red seal affixed to the center, his handprint intact: As he swung the doors aside he smelled the familiar and comforting odor of his space and his possession within. Sometimes, when he was abroad, he would call up that smell from his memory, to distract himself from some of the other smells prevalent in Hell, and sometimes simply to comfort himself. Orange light, shimmering in through the leaded-obsidian windows, bled through the darkness, playing upon his many things, and he smiled.

Valefar had given him one of Astaroth’s generals’ axes, hand still attached, and this Eligor hung from a pair of outstretched fingers on his wall. As he lit his many small braziers he saw that all his clutter was as he had left it. Strange bits and pieces of his travels, his wars, his past, adorned nearly every flat surface visible. There by the twin windows and seated upon a carved table were a hundred small effigies carved from various native stones by the Waste tribes, each one mute evidence of some obscure cult created to quell the fears of their fierce surroundings. Near them stood the chiseled apex of a pointed column, all that remained of the distant city of Slavark after Sargatanas had leveled it. Beyond that an entire wall-cabinet, bone framed with translucent quartzite panels, contained his collection of bizarre souls’ skulls, each so outlandish that one had to look upon it very carefully to see any common marks of humanity. Next to that, his library of skin-scrolls gathered over the eons from a hundred different wards throughout Hell was neatly tucked into an alcove near his writing stand. And there, just as he had left it, was his ongoing project, his diary, open to the last entry, the precious feather quill—his sole intact quill plucked from his own wing just after the Fall—lying upon it. A beam of firelight from outside touched the inscribed vellum as if its import was greater than he felt.

Eligor perched himself, wearily, upon his stool, his tingling wings nearly touching the floor behind him. The trip from Astaroth’s capital had been nonstop and tiring; the Flying Corps had flown into the hot, buffeting wind nearly the entire journey back. He closed his stinging eyes, and shreds of the events of the last few days passed through his mind. As with all campaigns, there was much to remember, much to write down. These campaigns were finally wearing upon him. Eons of fighting and all for what—endlessly shifting borders, vague alliances? Sargatanas was right to feel the way he did. Right to want an end to this way of life.

Head nodding forward, Eligor found himself drifting willingly into the state that was neither sleep nor wakefulness. He floated on the feathered wings of his past, through the smoke of his present, falling and rising and falling gently.

A soft knock roused him and he stood slowly and walked to the door. One of Valefar’s messengers knelt before him and, then rising, bade him to follow him to his master’s chambers. With heavy footsteps Eligor passed through the many glyph-lit corridors to the Prime Minister’s anteroom, where he waited for only a moment before being ushered in.

The large, open rooms were part office, part living quarters, the abode of one whose work was an integral part of his life. Bolts of red heat lightning flickered soundlessly outside the panoramic window, momentarily negating the soft brazier-light that suffused the chambers and casting vivid light upon its familiar contents. A large and intricately vesseled heart-clock mounted on the wall beat a steady and muffled rhythm. Valefar sat in his robes, hands folded in his lap, looking every bit as weary as Eligor felt. A giant stack of vellum dispatches and orders lay ominously upon the Prime Minister’s desk awaiting his attention, having grown to staggering proportions in his absence. Even as Eligor watched, one of Valefar’s aides entered and placed an armload of tattered documents upon a side-desk.

“As if the workings of Adamantinarx were not enough, I now have to deal with the mess that is Askad,” Valefar said, indicating the newly arrived pile and rolling his eyes. “When I am finished with these I am going to suggest that they be reused to rebuild that ruin of a capital!” The Prime Minister sighed. “You know why I called you here, Eligor?”

“I can guess.”

“The Baron. Unlike you, I have never really been able to have anything but the most cursory conversations with him.”

“He is a mannered individual.”

“He is a headstrong individual.” Valefar closed his eyes and shook his bowed head slightly.

The heavy candles guttered noticeably as the door opened and Baron Faraii entered, still wearing his black battle-armor and Abyssal-skin field-cloak. Eligor saw something in Faraii that he had not seen before, a predatory look in his eyes, a certain insolence in his bearing. It was challenging, and Eligor did not like it.

The Baron strode purposefully up to Valefar’s desk and stopped crisply. Faraii assumed a position not unlike his customary drill stance, feet apart, hands clasped behind him.

Valefar did not lift his head when he spoke.

“Faraii, we two have never been close, have we?”

“No.”

“Well, we do not need to be. But we do need to agree on one thing. Our duty to our lord.”

Faraii shifted slightly. “That is open to debate. Sargatanas is making choices that may not be sitting well with all of the demons, Major and Minor.”

Valefar lifted his chin. “And by that I take it you mean yourself?”

Red lightning scoured the room and threw Faraii’s hard features into sharp contrast for an instant.

“Interpret it as you will.”

In the brief flicker of light Eligor thought he saw a tiny movement upon the far wall. It had looked like a finger or, perhaps, an ear.

Valefar rose and with a single sweep of his arm scattered the pile of documents to the floor, in a gradually settling mound. His eyes wide, his bony jaw jutting, he placed his fists on the desktop and leaned forward.

“You are evasive at best and treasonous at worst!” he hissed. “Very close to the edge, Faraii. All of this, as well as what seems to have been questionable behavior on the field of battle, suggests to me that you are not to be trusted. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Are you going to destroy me where I stand or allow me to get back to my troops?” The mocking tone was unmistakable.

Eligor moved slowly across the room to the far wall, listening as he passed the bristling Baron. He had seen something—a thin trickle of black blood that seemed to surround a sudden protrusion. It looked like an ear.

“Ah, yes, such commendable loyalty to your troops!” Valefar said. He turned his back on the Baron, hands clenched at his sides.

“At least my troops are demons. An army of souls, indeed!”

Valefar’s chin dropped in resignation.

Eligor was nearly at the wall. The soul-ear that jutted from the gray wall tilted fractionally, as if it heard him approach.

“What am I to do with you?” Valefar continued. “Our lord, while angry regarding your mistreatment of Astaroth, was pleased with your performance at the head of your troops. If it was my choice alone, Faraii, you would not leave this room alive. Your loyalty is deeply in question. Despite that, your lord has seen fit to test you, one more time, upon the battlefield. But be careful, Baron Faraii; the battlefield can be a very unpredictable place.”

Without turning back to him, Valefar raised his hand in dismissal.

“Indeed it can,” said Faraii plainly.

Valefar spun around, silvered eyes intense, dark wrath written upon his features. But Eligor saw him regain himself quickly.

Faraii pivoted on his heel and strode toward the door, glancing at Eligor as he passed through the threshold.

At nearly that instant, Eligor’s hand darted out and, amidst a brief spray of black blood, wrenched the ear from the wall. He immediately put his own ear to the spot and heard a faint whisper from within the brick. The susurration stopped and was picked up, again and again ever more faintly, as it traveled deep into the wall.

“Who do you think arranged that?” Valefar asked, pointing at the hole.

“It could be anybody. I will try to trace it. Why does Sargatanas not simply cast him out?”

“He knows too much, Eligor; clearly somebody feels attention should be paid to him. And he is too good with his sword and his troops.”

Eligor nodded.

Wiping the blood from the side of his face, Eligor held up the dripping ear for Valefar to see and shook his head. The Prime Minister looked at it, took a long, deep breath, and sat down heavily. Eligor tossed the ear into a nearby brazier, where it sizzled momentarily, and, with a nod, he left Valefar’s chambers. The dullness Eligor felt within his body he knew was due, in large part, to his vast weariness, but he also felt it deeper. His regard for Faraii was irretrievably altered, and as he headed slowly back to his own chambers, he knew that he could never speak with him as freely as he once had. And that he could never trust Faraii again.

Tales of the victory outside Maraak-of-the-Margins were already being passed from soul to soul in the streets as Hannibal Barca made his way through the jostling throngs. Returning troops, still covered in the battlefield’s black blanket of ash, marched in tight, well-disciplined columns back to their barracks inside the city. Many among them bore the severe scars of conflict—arms hacked, heads cleft, and pole-arm piercings abounded. And many, too, proudly bore the newly acquired phalerae of their victims. From some distance, Hannibal caught a glimpse of dozens of Demons Major and Minor, the returning general staff accompanied by their guards and banners, and next to them he discerned Sargatanas and Valefar and Eligor as they climbed the long stairs to the fortress above. It really was odd, Hannibal thought, how pleased he was beginning to feel being a part of this demons’ world.

Hannibal knew that he had much more than that to be pleased about, for walking a pace behind him, flanked by their newly created demon bodyguard, was his once-dead brother, Mago. Finding him—Hannibal’s only request to Sargatanas—had been a miracle wrapped in a coincidence. In a spare hour Valefar himself had pored over the Books of Gamigin, locating Hannibal’s brother faster than any soul could have done even had he or she been able to read the complex angelic script. And when, tracing down the page with his clawed finger, Valefar came upon Mago’s name, he closed the book and looked up at Hannibal with the slightest smile. Mago’s entry had recently been updated, Valefar told the soul, with an eternal punishment for attempting to incite his fellow souls to rebellion. It was Hannibal’s turn to smile. Mago had, for his troubles, been transformed into a brick and was located not too far from where they sat. The walk to him and the resurrection together probably took less time than it had to locate his name in the great book. And now Hannibal’s beloved brother, Mago Barca, perhaps the only human he could truly trust, was again walking by his side, as he had done so long ago along the paths of his Life.

Hannibal looked at him, at his wiry frame, at his familiar, vigorous stride, and at the flattened face that only half-smiled back at him. Hannibal understood the less than perfect resurrection; there would always be the stamp of the brick upon Mago. That was Valefar’s little reminder to both brothers.

Hannibal had spread his words like seeds upon fertile ground. A soul who had once been a general was recruiting an army to fight alongside demons. Recruits were to meet at the Plaza Napeai. At first, he had been told, the message was met, predictably, with incredulity, with disbelief. The sheer ludicrousness of it made countless souls either snort with derision or fearfully redouble their efforts at whatever tasks they were laboring over. Strange rumors were always swirling about the souls like sparks on the wind—fast traveling and equally fast dying. They never knew what was real and what was malicious trickery.

But Hannibal reasoned that he could count on many, like himself, whose awareness of the currents in Adamantinarx told them that changes were in the wind. They would serve as the foundation upon which he would build his army. And eventually others would join.

He and his party strode through the streets quickly, purposefully, their destination the aptly named Plaza Napeai—the Plaza of Swords. Clad in tattered skin robes and carrying a long, wrapped bundle, Hannibal held his chin and eyes level and looked the demons he passed directly in the eye—a luxury he would never have dreamt of before his commission. He told Mago, as well as the burly bodyguards in tow, to do the same. Attitude was everything in Hell, and Hannibal was not about to relinquish that which had been so hard-won by adopting anything less than the mien of a great general. And, ironically, the demon bodyguard, under their lord’s direct orders, would defend this new right to their destruction.

A giant, fiery-headed statue of a fallen demon crouched upon a soaring stepped pedestal at the head of the plaza, and Hannibal saw this in fleeting glimpses as he approached the wide space. Its bent back was spined with dozens of angelic arrows, but its fist, clenching a broken sword, was raised heavenward. There were a hundred such statues, he was told, strewn throughout Hell, but forever afterward he would regard this one as special. Two large piles, covered with shrouds of stretched Abyssal skin, lay at its feet, guarded by souls picked by Hannibal himself.

Gray crowds were streaming in and he found himself forced to use the bodyguards to clear a way before him. They were efficient legionaries, and their mere presence and number caused enough commotion to part the shuffling souls. Mago tapped Hannibal’s elbow and pointed up toward the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. There he saw the dark forms of scattered flying demons leaning on shields and lances, their attitude attentive. A precaution, he thought, nothing more. To Sargatanas, Hannibal was still someone to be watched and measured, and he knew that his demon lord would be swift in his response should any move he make be interpretable as insurrectionist.

But even the presence of heavily armed demons could not dampen Hannibal’s elation. This was a watershed moment in his afterlife, a moment that he had to take the fullest advantage of, for there would surely never be another. He saw himself as a torch, one that would either ignite the cold furnaces of emotion in every soul around him or immolate them and himself as well.

At the base of the stepped pedestal Mago cupped his hands, and Hannibal used them to climb up to the next level. Reaching down, he grasped Mago’s hand and pulled him up next to him. In this manner the two rose up two more levels until they were twenty feet above the massed murmuring souls. Hannibal had been mended, somewhat, by his new lord and stood tall, a surge of emotional power coursing through his body. He had addressed hosts before, hosts that had been disparate and doubtful, and his formula had always been the same: one part lie to one part hope. This is not hypocrisy, he thought. An army is no different from a sword. It first needs forging and then needs to be trained with and tested in battle. Lies, hope—they are the hammer and tongs one uses to forge the blade. The better they’re used, the better the blade.

He stood with his back to them, adjusting the straps on the bundle so that it could depend from his improvised belt. When he turned abruptly around to face them silence descended upon the plaza. It was an old trick that he had learned as a young prince on the walls of his father’s city. Mago smiled.

“My name is Hannibal Barca and I remember my Life!” Hannibal began, his voice carrying clarion clear against the distant sounds of Hell. “Yesterday I was as you are now. Tomorrow you will be as I am today!

“Change has been thrust upon us. Hell is changing around us as we stand here. That I stand here before you, addressing you in this way, should be proof enough of that. I know who I was and what I did in my Life. And what I must do now. The path to our redemption lies before us, and it is Lord Sargatanas who will lead us.

“The Fallen are no longer of one mind! The hierarchy of demons no longer united. Some have started to question things… to change things. Our lord is one such demon; the White Mistress is another. Most of us know something of her; some of us have even been touched in some way by her. She has been fighting this place in the only way she could… by reaching out to us. It was she who led me to offer myself to her ally, our lord Sargatanas. And it was he who gave me back my past.

“You will ask why I should follow a demon master who has oppressed me. And I would answer by telling you what you already know: Sargatanas’ temperance and leniency are like no other lord’s in Hell. Our torments, which could have been greater by tenfold, are as nothing to that which he has endured for all these thousands of years. For, unlike us who left our earthly lives behind like corrupt vessels drained and broken, he lost a life of beatitude… a life at the knee of his creator. Lord Sargatanas can no longer endure the punishments and privations of Hell. As you long for an end to your torment, he longs for that which he lost so long ago… the tranquility of Heaven.”

Hannibal heard the word “heaven” uttered from a hundred twisted mouths and for just an instant wondered what he was offering them. He, himself, was not certain. He had to be careful not to go too far.

“We are all here to be punished for our past lives, and rightly so. None of us are here unjustly. And yet which of you would not try to redeem yourselves, to prove that at your very core you can be more than you were in life?

“Your souls have been punished for what you did in your Life, and that is how it had to be. There are some among you whose heavy sins ensure that you will never leave this place. And that, too, is right. But for most of us, our torments need not be eternal. Just as the transgressions are behind us, so should be the punishments. For what is the good of the lesson if one cannot apply what one has learned?”

Hannibal began to open the tied bundle at his waist. He glanced at Mago, who was nodding encouragingly. Hannibal looked again at the mass of humanity and saw every eye upon him. With a sudden flourish he let the wrapping fall from his waist and grasped the hilt of a sword, pulling it free of its scabbard to hold it before him. He heard a gasp issue from a thousand throats. A soul with a weapon! It was unheard of! He felt their rising excitement.

“If you truly wish to make amends for your sins, then you must take up arms in this holy cause,” he shouted hoarsely. “Sargatanas’ Rebellion may fail and we all may be committed to oblivion or, worse yet, punishments beyond our reckoning, but at least we will have fought against those forces whose dark influences put us here in the first place. And Heaven, whose lambent Gates may never open to us, will know that good can come from those who seem irredeemable. They will know that even from the darkest bowels of Hell souls can reach for the Light!”

He took a deep breath and raised the sword Sargatanas had given him above his head. Some in the crowd were shouting with newfound fervor, giving voice to a dormant sense of self they had suppressed for so long.

“Will you reach for that Light and fight for my lord Sargatanas and our White Mistress? Will you fight for me? Will you fight for your eternal souls?”

An enormous cry of approval rang through the plaza and Hannibal heard “For Hannibal!” evenly mixed with “For Sargatanas!” Seeing that his words had had the desired effect, Hannibal signaled to the guards below. In an instant they pulled back the skins from the great mounds and revealed a huge pile of weapons, which the suddenly surging crowd began to take up. Hannibal looked up and saw that the demons atop the buildings were paying very close attention; this was a critical moment. The mob could turn either way, and even Hannibal worried that a thousand armed souls might march through the streets to foolishly attack the palace.

He stepped right to the edge of the plinth and shouted, “For Sargatanas!” It took a moment for the souls at his feet to notice him, so engrossed in their new weapons were they, but within a minute, like a tide surging away, the chant was picked up, echoing across the plaza. Abyssal flyers, which had been perched along the high ledges of the buildings in the hundreds, suddenly took wing startled by the noise. Hannibal watched them ascend, and their dwindling body-lights looked like stars climbing into the heavens, perhaps an omen. Again he looked around at the encircling demons and now, with the shouts of “For Sargatanas!” ringing in their ears, he saw that they had relaxed, satisfied. One by one they, too, took wing, vanishing into the dark sky, and Hannibal smiled, even as he continued to pump his sword in the air. He was himself again. Almost reluctantly he sheathed his sword and turned to Mago, who beamed at him and walked toward him. As they clasped hands his gaze traveled up the crouched statue and rested upon the ash-dusted clenched fist, its broken sword frozen in defiance, and he wondered whether this war, already so full of hope, might not end as that one had. He looked high into the sky and saw the stars still climbing upward.