God's Demon

Chapter Twenty

Algol rose and set seven times before Adramalik was summoned by his Prince to join him in Moloch’s tower. He welcomed the climb to the Keep’s highest point. Not only did it finally release him from his prudent, self-imposed exile, but it also seemed to signify that the cloud of suspicion was lifting. He pulled closed his door and negotiated the many twisting corridors to the foot of the tower. The base was a hundred feet wide and buried within the mantle of flesh that lay atop the Keep. Only the uppermost portion of the tower protruded, phalluslike, through the heavy tissue, but what rose free into the sky provided the greatest unobstructed view of Dis possible. It was a clear sign of exalted rank, a token of Beelzebub’s admiration. Whereas Agares’ smaller tower was a carefully designed piece of architecture, a dark parody of the Above’s buildings, Moloch’s tower was a brutal spike bearing no friezes or adornments and windows only at the very top. Adramalik thought it almost primitive by Dis’ standards, a direct correlate to how he viewed Moloch. But what it lacked in refinement it made up for in sheer arrogant height. Looking up, Adramalik saw the stairs that hugged the tower’s tall, tubular interior ascending hundreds of feet above and lit at uncomfortably long intervals by small, inadequate braziers. Normally, annoyed, he would conjure a glyph of light and begin his ascent with an oath, but newly freed, he took the rough steps lightly, ignoring his feelings toward the Grand General who resided at the tower’s top. Still, Adramalik was in no particular hurry, savoring his freedom, and decided to take the steps rather than fly; in rare moments of blunt honesty he admitted to himself that he found Moloch difficult to predict, intimidating, another reason not to hurry. After the battle at Maraak, he was in no mood to be called to task by the general.

It had taken some getting used to, Adramalik admitted as he began to climb. The consuming of farmed or hunted Abyssals was the only real choice in the demons’ new, dark homeland; their spare flesh was uncompromisingly bitter next to the memory of repasts in the Above, but eventually he, like the others, had grown grudgingly used to it. A few, however, had, from the first day, committed themselves to another more repugnant alternative—the eating of souls, a practice that former angels, no matter how angry, could never truly condone. Moloch, Adramalik knew, felt no such compunction, and that he found revolting. Too many times had he entered the general’s chambers to watch him dining upon some flailing soul. So as not to be distracted, Adramalik would focus not upon the hungry general but, instead, upon the pooling blood, collecting in and oozing through the twin runnels that fed into identical troughs in the room’s center.

Arriving at the tower’s uppermost threshold, Adramalik opened the heavy door and was gratified to see the general already in discussion with the Prince, the joints of his recent meal tossed, trembling, in a corner while three more terrified fat souls crouched, waiting, in the shadows of the far wall. The dank smell of blood filled his nose-hole. Moloch, still licking his lips, lifted his head and fixed his many ice-blue eyes on the Chancellor General. He had to make an effort to keep the disgust from his face.

The pair was standing before one of the three wide, paneless windows that afforded the grandest unobstructed view of Dis in all of the city. As he approached, they grew silent, and the three demons stood for a moment, taking in the vastness of the world they had shaped. A sharp lightning-glyph dropped noisily from the clouds, licking the distant streets like a beast’s tongue. They all saw the fragments of buildings that it had exploded rain down slowly upon the distant, narrow streets.

Adramalik waited. Beelzebub seemed in one of those contemplative moods that he knew better than to interrupt. “Adramalik, have you ever stood on the edge of Abaddon’s Pit?” he asked finally with a buzzing intake of breath.

“Once, my Prince. And it was enough.” Even though it had been eons ago, Adramalik remembered the overwhelming stench and the nearly irresistible inward-rushing air that had threatened to pull him into the seemingly bottomless gorge. And the fear he had never known he could feel.

“Then you have an idea what it might mean for a demon to be destroyed and be brought down there. As one of his Horde.”

“Yes.” It was Hell’s hell and Abaddon was its legendary regent. Adramalik had frequently thought about the loathsome souls and the way they spent eternity. It was almost enviable to lie where you were destroyed, no matter what your condition was, aware, it was true, but not corrupted into something so far from an angel as to be unrecognizable.

“We will send him there.”

“Who, my Prince?”

“Adramalik,” the Prince buzzed, “I have given the order for General Moloch to begin amassing an army from the primary wards of Dis. It is my intention to rid Hell of Lord Sargatanas.”

The words hung in the air, their implications powerful. This was not going to be any ordinary petty border contest for territory, thought Adramalik. No, this was revenge against a powerful Demon Major. This was to be a war of scope and breadth, a war not only to recover the Prince’s Consort but also to send a message to the other Demons Major: the Crown of Hell would not tolerate disobedience.

It was a thrilling moment, Adramalik realized, one that he felt so privileged to witness that he could barely repress a savage grin. This simple order would herald a new reign of terror followed by a new era of stricter vassalage that would right some of the profound wrongs that had been steadily eroding Beelzebub’s influence.

“All to the good and long overdue, my Prince,” said Adramalik, believing every word.

“I knew that you would agree,” the Prince said evenly. “Agaliarept has, over time, given me good reason to suspect that my Consort has fled to Adamantinarx. So far, I do not know how she managed this and with whose complicity, but I want your Knights to find her and bring her back to me. I do not care what condition she is in so long as she is still able to feel pain.”

Adramalik nodded. His Knights would be grateful for the action and the opportunities, and he would personally supervise looking after Lilith when she was found.

“Chancellor General, what have your Knights uncovered in their… tireless investigation?”

Adramalik noted Moloch’s face crease with derision as he looked away.

How we despise each other! Adramalik thought. Just as it should be. He is not one of us no matter how much he tries. Once he voluntarily left the Above he stopped being one of us. A god, indeed! He looked at the general, gauging him, and came, as he always did, to the same inevitable conclusion. With all of his upstart posturing Moloch was still so formidable that Adramalik was uncertain whether his Knights, together, could bring him down. The powers his worshipers had imbued him with were broad and potent. And even if Adramalik were to challenge the deposed god, Moloch was the Prince’s champion and as such bore his unrelenting favor.

“My Knights managed to trace the Consort’s movements to the Sixth Gate, but from there… nothing. Of course, this is really Lord Nergar’s area of expertise….”

Adramalik saw the Prince’s head drop slightly. “Never mind, Adramalik. In truth, it does not matter. I have more than enough excuses to go to war with Sargatanas.”

The general snorted with barely veiled contempt. Adramalik watched Moloch move away from the window and across the room, his surrogate legs carrying him in unnaturally long, gliding strides. He stopped before the twin troughs and without hesitating plunged his hands into them. The blood sizzled and steamed as he searched for and found two objects that he pulled out and held before him. Adramalik saw them and even he felt a ripple of fear; held aloft before him were two of the most feared weapons in Hell—Puime-pe-Molocha, Moloch’s Hooks. Each bore ten vicious hooks, and even dripping blood as they were, Adramalik could see the fused-diamond inner edges, glistening and razor sharp, that no armor in Hell could withstand.

Moloch turned and looked straight at Adramalik, a predatory gleam in his eyes. The threat was unambiguous. The Chancellor General met and held his gaze but, facing those Hooks, knew that his attempt to match the general’s challenging mien was, at best, bravado. He was relieved when Beelzebub spoke.

“You are both to work together that we may be rid of him. Anything less and I will send you to give the Great Lord Abaddon my compliments personally.”

Both demons nodded.

Strapping the steaming weapons to his braided soul-sinew belt, Moloch dropped down and knelt awkwardly before Beelzebub.

“My Prince, I must gather my lieutenants and their troops. There are legions to be Summoned, blades to be sharpened,” he said, his voice flinty. “I would beg that I be allowed to begin at once.”

“Go, Moloch, and stir the fires of the Summoning Fields. And bring me Sargatanas that I may wear him upon my chest!”

Moloch rose, swung around, and headed for the door, the Hooks swinging where his legs would have been. Without a backward glance he crossed the threshold and leaped from the uppermost landing into the yawning darkness of the tower’s shaft.

A loud crack boomed through the chamber and drew the attention of Beelzebub and Adramalik back out into the ashen night. Another bolt of glyph-lightning, this time much closer, had smashed into the city, this one closer than the last. They could hear the faint dull cascading of the screaming chunks of buildings as they landed heavily upon their groaning neighbors.

“He is a weapon, Adramalik, my sharpest sword, little more,” buzzed the Prince. His body was beginning to ripple and vibrate and flies were separating, heading for the open doorway. “You are my shield. It may seem as though I favor him, but it is you and your Knights that I truly need in this world.”

“Thank you, my Prince,” Adramalik said. It was a candid statement that he had never thought he would hear. Whether it was said merely to keep him loyal or to simply bolster him in the face of impending war he did not care. It was said and that was enough.

“Adramalik, find the Prime Minister and ask him what he remembers about Lilith’s departure. I doubt that he knows anything, but any small clue might be important.”

“Yes, my Prince.” It would be amusing interrogating Agares. He was not the most imposing of demons.

“I have not yet decided to which of you I will award Sargatanas’ wards afterward,” the Prince said, only his rapidly disintegrating face remaining. “Be careful of Moloch, Chancellor General. He might well attempt to simplify my choices.”

And then the few remaining flies spread apart and he was gone.

Adramalik looked around at Moloch’s disagreeable chamber, thought for a moment about attempting to force the doors of the adjacent rooms, and realized the futility of it. Moloch’s Arts were at least good enough to keep anyone out of them. He turned to leave and just as he reached the doorway he heard the three caged souls begin a raucous keening, clutching the bars and rattling them. Perhaps they thought he would release them. For a moment he actually toyed with the idea, relishing the anger it would elicit, but instead he closed the door, shaking his head with the pettiness of it. Or, he wondered, was it fear? For now, it did not matter; the thought of war made him open his wings, and he hurriedly dropped through the tower’s darkness to tell the Order his news.

“My lord, our spies have just this hour returned from Dis,” Eligor said to Sargatanas upon entering the newly renovated warehouse. His lord and his bodyguard and their guides had not yet made their way through the small corridor that opened into the main stables. The pervasive salt smell of the Acheron, he noticed, was almost immediately overwhelmed, replaced by the powerful odd musk of the huge creatures he could just see in their high-walled stalls beyond. It had been no small feat getting them here. Before he had arrived, a special immense Conjuring Chamber, laced in lightning, had been constructed for Yen Wang and his Conjuror General, and it was never inactive until the dozens of his beasts had been brought forth.

Suddenly they heard loud snorts, which ended in strange, grumbling words unlike any Eligor had ever heard. Some unseen Behemoth was voicing its irritation, and soon each of them took voice, sharing their displeasure until the din in the front of the stables sent vibrations through the paved floor.

“And what have they discovered in the Fly’s nest?” asked Sargatanas loudly as they walked into the open paddock. Almost as he spoke, the snorting subsided and the air was filled, instead, with the quieter sounds of the Behemoths’ wheezing breathing and heavy shifting. Eligor wondered if the sound of his lord’s voice had been, in some way, responsible for their sudden quiet.

“All traffic in and out of the city has been curtailed; Beelzebub wants none of what we have learned to get out. But we have been fortunate. The spies are unanimous in their reports that a great army is being summoned and gathered, and that it is marshaling just outside the walls of Dis. It is under the banner of Grand General Moloch, my lord.” Eligor hoped he did not look as apprehensive as he felt.

Sargatanas did not break stride but looked gravely at his feet as he walked.

They began to pass the stalls that each held a single Behemoth, and Eligor, rather than trying to speak with his lord, examined them carefully. Each bay was constructed of elaborately carved Abyssal bone, brought on the conjured creatures’ backs from the Eastern Wards and installed carefully within the foreign warehouse to make the Behemoths feel at home. Fresh slabs of yielding fatty flesh nailed to the stall sides protected them from inadvertent injury.

But as interesting as the exotic stalls were, Eligor found their inmates more so. He had found out just as much as the taciturn Yen Wang had been willing to divulge about them. In their Lives they had been great human emperors, viziers, and generals from a land known as Qin. There they had committed terrible acts upon their subjects, and so, because of their former power and ruthlessness, it had been seen fit to turn them into giant quadrupedal beasts of burden and war, at the constant disposal of their mahouts. Minus their toes and fingers, which had been removed to create flat hooflike feet, the thick-hided souls stood at least three times Sargatanas’ height. Two large arms that terminated in enormous, heavy bone-hammers sprouted from their shoulders, and these, for the moment, were relaxed and resting upon the floor. Each weapon was the mass of two or three demons. Eligor’s eyes took in their strange horn-crowned heads, their missing noses and upper jaws, their long, curving chinbones that served as weapon and ram, and he admitted to himself that he was eager to see them upon the battlefield. As he passed them their narrowed, suspicious eyes followed him and occasionally one would call out and laugh or mumble some indistinct utterance that the Captain was sure was an obscenity.

Sargatanas looked up occasionally but more often slowly stroked the restless bones of his jaw or pursed his hard lips in thought. Neither the foul odors of their dung and their musk nor the barks of their imagined insults seemed to affect him. Eligor knew that Sargatanas had been looking forward to visiting the stables and felt a pang that his message had been so ill timed to ruin the moment. Only when the party approached the last stall did Sargatanas look up at him.

“It would use Its greatest general to put an end to us. To this city and everything within it,” the demon lord said, almost to himself. “It is sooner than I wanted; our legions have only just made camp. But that is, perhaps, the Fly’s design. This battle was inevitable, Eligor. Make haste to Valefar and tell him this: He must gather our new allied Demons Major and Minor in council and have them brief their junior officers. Tell him that they must then begin the deployment of their legions immediately, as I will do with my own. And have Hannibal called back from his recruiting with whatever army he has managed to amass. The battle with Astaroth was but a skirmish compared to what we will face at the hands of Moloch and his legions.”

“I understand, my lord,” said Eligor grimly.

“I am finished here,” Sargatanas said peremptorily to Yen Wang’s guides. “Ask your lord to prepare the Behemoths for combat, as well. I may find it necessary to deploy them.” Turning back to Eligor, he said, “I am returning to the palace immediately. If you need me I will be in the Conjuring Hall. There is an invocation that I must perfect.”

“My lord.” Eligor nodded and when he stepped out upon the street it was with a sense of urgency that he ascended to find Valefar.

The Prime Minister stood hunched over a table, his angular body backlit and red limned against the wide windows of his study. Before him lay an open coffer that had disgorged two dozen odd objects—found bits and pieces both natural and soul made—flotsam from the Wastes that the demon had collected on his last foray. Eligor knew that Valefar had a creative bent, that many of the assemblages that adorned his walls and those of his fellow demons were the product of days of consideration and labor. The pieces were deceptive in their simplicity, intentionally imperfect, even, some chided, deliberately obscure in their meaning. Eligor’s chambers, like many palace dwellers’, bore its own Valefar-crafted creation, which the Captain proudly showed to his visitors. It was a dark frieze composed of translucent layers of Abyssal scales and spiny plates, some of which still glowed or shone silver-black, and though Eligor readily admitted he did not understand its meaning, he did find it in some way evocative.

He crossed the chamber, noting the ever-present, ever-shifting drifts of documents, and waited patiently behind Valefar, not eager to break the demon’s stream of thought. The low pulsing of the heart-clock, more felt than heard from the next room, measured the slow minutes.

“What is it, Eligor, that has your wings twitching even while you stand there?” he said finally without taking his eyes off the carefully arrayed items.

“It is war, my lord,” said the demon, frowning at just how easily he was read.

Valefar shifted a bent splinter of Abyssal bone until it juxtaposed with a rippled piece of dry skin. The demon then fused them together with a word and stood back.

“Is it what Sargatanas wants?”

“So it would seem.”

Valefar appeared to weigh the answer. Eligor saw him tilt his smoke-shrouded head, still apparently evaluating his work, and then with a curt nod to himself he swept aside the fragments, pushing them to the far edge of the table and clearing the surface. He turned and, without meeting Eligor’s eyes, stood for a short period slowly taking in his surroundings, his smoky-silver eyes focusing on nothing in particular. He frowned and then proceeded to make his way through the organized jumble of vellums until he stood before a tall, open cabinet containing innumerable rolled manuscripts. Taking them down carefully in twos and threes, he began to empty the shelves until the bare wall was revealed behind. Once Valefar was finished, Eligor saw a nearly imperceptible line tracing a narrow, vertical rectangle almost his own height upon the age-dusted wall.

Valefar removed the shelves and, springing an unseen latch, opened the once-hidden door. More dust billowed forth, and Valefar pulled back, waiting until it had settled. When it had he reached into the dark compartment with both hands and withdrew a long, metal box that Eligor had seen only once, when Valefar had first appeared, so long ago, upon the crag that was to become the palace’s home.

Solemnly, the Prime Minister carried the box to the cleared table, placing it, with apparent reverence, in the center. With head bowed, he whispered something that Eligor could not hear, and with a hiss and the angelic word gemeganza issuing from within, the box sprang open. Eligor’s eyes grew wide as they lit upon an ialpor napta—one of the flaming swords of the War. But all had been lost in the Fall! he thought. Yet one is here, in Hell! He could not take his disbelieving eyes from the blade.

It lay, lightly, in its cushioned box, a thing so thin that it seemed little more than a memory of a sword. Shaped like a long, slim primary feather, it hardly seemed substantial enough to cut vellum. But he knew what the angry seraphim could do with such a blade; he shuddered when he remembered how many angels on both sides had fallen under such weapons.

Valefar slowly picked the sword off its gossamer-gold bed and held it aloft. A single ominous point of fire traveled from the hilt to the tip.

“Let me tell you a small story, Eligor,” said Valefar, studying the blade. “It took place long ago, on another eve of war. But I can remember it as if it was two days ago. I sat upon a hill near the Tree basking in the Light and enjoying the rainbow-purple chalkadri as they swooped and played in the burnished azure sky, their calls echoing like glass pipes. The air was cloudless and crisp and smelled like… well, you remember. How I miss that air.” Valefar paused, dropping the point of the sword only a little as his memory flew backward.

“Sargatanas came to me that brilliant afternoon, as I sat, and before he spoke I could feel the anger that seethed beneath the surface in him. It had been Lucifer’s anger, but now it was his as well. I shared it, too, Eligor, as did you, but not with the fervor he did. Sargatanas’ resentment was palpable. He stood next to me, just as you do now, and told me what had been said in the last meeting with Lucifer. And I felt myself growing sadder with each word. Not angry, not then, but unhappy knowing that nothing would be the same again once the War began. With his hand trembling upon his sword’s hilt… for he wore it always at that point… he repeated Lucifer’s unfortunate rhetoric. I asked him then, as I just asked you, if war was what he wanted. Just at that moment, just as he vehemently said, ‘Yes!,’ a young chalkad flew down, landed upon the ground, and paused, cocking its head as if listening to us. Sargatanas, blinded by his rage and frustration, drew his sword and, in a move as swift as a dark thought, cleaved the creature’s serpent-body in two. Perhaps he feared the Throne was listening to him through the innocent creature; I do not know. But upon seeing what he had done to one of the Throne’s own he knelt down, tears streaming from his eyes, and gave me his sword. This sword.”

Valefar turned the great blade in a quick shadow-parry. Heat waves from a sudden burst of blue flames caused the air around it to shimmer. “He told me that he did not want it, any more than he wanted war. But, he said, the anger had taken root and would never go away, and that war was inevitable. I took the sword from him and because he was my great friend followed him into war and, not wishing to waste such an important weapon, I wielded it in the Great Battle. Of course he had another ialpor napta, but like all the other Fallen save myself, he lost that one eventually in the Fall.”

“Why did you get to keep it?” asked Eligor with genuine curiosity.

“I do not know. It lay there next to me in the crater when I awoke. At the time I thought nothing of it; I imagined that all demons had retained their weapons.”

“It is odd.”

“Yes, odd.” Valefar spun around cleaving the sizzling air with a practiced flourish, grinned fiercely, and then, quickly placing the sword back in its box, closed the lid and sealed it with a word. “And so we have another great war at hand, Captain, a war unlike the incessant wars we have been fighting since we were sent here. Again, Sargatanas chooses to go to war, but this time, I believe, for the right reason.”

Eligor looked at Valefar and knew, more then than ever, that Sargatanas had chosen his most trusted friend well.

“As do I,” Eligor said. Both demons turned toward the door.

Valefar paused. “We will need him, Eligor.”

“Who?”

“The Baron. As potentially dangerous as his troops are to us, we are going to have to put our trust in them and use them. And keep a very watchful eye on their fractious leader. If we keep the Baron and them in line, they will do grievous work upon the armies of the Fly.”

“I understand. I will go to him now and see how his newfound solitude has affected his disposition.”

Valefar began to create a series of command-glyphs in midair and then enfolded them into a hovering pyramid of light, which he sent off to Faraii. “Are you prepared for what will come?”

“Yes, Prime Minister. And yourself?”

“For Abaddon’s Pit, if that is how it ends,” he said with a half grin.

Valefar then turned away and Eligor opened the door. Something made him look back at the demon, who was again standing before the window, back to him, his steaming hands upon the long box. His head was bowed, his jaw seemed to be moving, and for a moment Eligor thought he might be silently praying. It was such an improbable notion that, as Eligor pulled the door quietly behind him, he shook his head slightly and then, as he started toward Faraii’s quarters, began to focus on the difficult conversation that undoubtedly lay ahead.

When he arrived outside Faraii’s chambers Eligor knocked upon the door, and when he heard no response he pressed his ear against its cold surface. He heard a faint rasping from within and, puzzled, pulled the knob-latch on the door. With some difficulty he pushed his way into the darkened room, smelling the tang of blood, stumbling over some unseen obstacles on the floor, and then, reflexively, invoking a glyph-of-illumination to better see his surroundings. The room and its objects were as he remembered them from his last visit, but only when he entered farther did he see the damage wrought. Every bit of furnishing, every square foot of floor and wall, was hacked and sliced as by a very sharp blade until the flesh of the bricks hung in long, bloody tatters, the floor was uneven, and the sparse furniture teetered on sword-chiseled, bony legs. And punctuating his examination was the ever-present rasping of what sounded like metal upon stone.

Eligor’s eyes narrowed as he put his hand upon his sword hilt and walked slowly in the direction of the continuous sound. There is madness here. But when he actually set eyes upon the Baron, seated upon an untouched chair, Eligor was no longer certain. Faraii appeared composed, even serene, and were it not for the conditions of the surroundings and the whetting of his black sword, performed with ominous deliberateness, Eligor would have thought nothing amiss.

“Faraii, are you…?”

“I am fine… Eligor.”

“These chambers are not fine.”

Faraii shrugged. “I was angry.”

Eligor’s hand stayed upon his sword hilt.

“And are you still?”

“Of course I am. I was sealed in my quarters for doing my job too efficiently. I think that would bother you as well.”

Eligor saw the other demon’s eyelid flutter.

“But,” continued Faraii, “does that mean that I am unable to perform my sworn duty to Sargatanas?” The words hung for a moment, accompanied by the measured sound of the sword.

“Will you stop that while we talk?”

The whetting stopped.

“I just received word of the coming war along with my orders,” the Baron said matter-of-factly. “My incarceration, it would seem, has ended as of your arrival. Imagine that, Eligor; my lord suddenly has need of my services and I am free.”

“He does. We all do.”

“So, am I to be released simply to fight? Only to be put back in my cage afterward?”

“No, Faraii, that is not Sargatanas’ intent. He is offering you a chance not only to regain your former status but also to win his trust back, a second chance,” Eligor said with an edge to his voice, “and I am reasonably certain there will not be a third.”

“There will not need to be.” The Baron stood suddenly, as if a string had pulled him up from his chair. He sheathed the sword with an abrupt and perfect flick of his hand. His eyes gleamed with fervor. “I will serve my lord, Eligor. I have truly grown, both wiser and stronger, as a result of my punishment.”

In the half-light of the glyph Eligor saw, again, the nervous eyelid-flutter.

“Of that I have no doubt, Faraii,” said Eligor, but his suspicions and doubts were many and strong. Something ineffable about the Waste-wanderer had clearly changed. But, Eligor could not help wondering, why has he changed? Why has he gone from that outsider I found so admirable, quiet and self-assured, to this blatantly arrogant, defiant demon? What is eating at him? Even though Eligor knew that Sargatanas needed his leadership in battle, he personally would keep a watchful eye on the demon. Faraii’s ferocity was not something he wanted turned toward Sargatanas.

“All this,” Eligor said, indicating the ravaged rooms as he walked to the door, “will have to be addressed. For the moment, I will keep it between us and have it taken care of.”

Faraii stood amidst the chaos, arms folded and looking at his feet, his only thanks a curt grunt.

Troubled, Eligor ascended into the skies above Adamantinarx. He peered down, taking in the absolute dark magnificence of it, its broad avenues and great domes, its thousands of fire-lit buildings teeming with demons and souls, its many-colored, blazing glyphs, its frozen army of monumental statues, and wondered how it would be changed by the events that were to unfold in a war with the greatest forces of Hell. And then his gaze fell upon the slow-flowing Acheron, the River of Tears, and the unwelcome thought entered his mind that it was perhaps, after all, an unfortunate landmark, an uncomfortable omen for a city whose future was now, at best, ill defined.