God's Demon

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Algol had finally risen.

The din of ten thousand war trumpets and drums, of uncounted sigils flaring to light, of a million impatient, armored bodies rising to their feet, was beyond anything in war Hannibal had known or could have imagined. The ground beneath his feet trembled in response and he clenched his toes just to remain standing. He knew that if he had had a heart it would have been thundering in his chest.

Algol had climbed to its zenith and with it the great Second Army of the Ascension had taken up arms to begin its long march toward Dis. As they left their front ranks to join Satanachia for the beginning of the march, Hannibal and Mago exchanged grins, but each knew what was in the other’s mind: would they ever see Adamantinarx again? The Soul-General looked behind him toward the city and saw, still standing on the distant rostrum, the white form of Sargatanas and the less distinct shapes of Eligor and all of the others who were to stay behind until their moment came.

There had been no grand speeches, no ceremonious invocations, nothing in the host’s departure that could be construed as anything but necessary. What had been said in the past was enough for the present.

The briefing had been short and direct, with Sargatanas and Satanachia doing most of the talking. The assault on Dis was to be something of a ruse, as Hannibal understood it. The massive ground attack would ultimately prove to be a diversion from the more covert aerial attack to follow. Eligor and Satanachia’s Flying Corps commander, Barbatos, would combine their forces and train until they were sent to Dis. The generals under Satanachia’s command had been given their orders and departed for the field, leaving the two Demons Major and the Soul-General to linger with Sargatanas.

Walking slowly before each of them, Sargatanas had said, “Demons, Hannibal, I cannot tell you what we will find waiting for us in Dis or how this will come out. But I can tell you that even though we live in shadow, we fight for light. Go now, and spread that light where none has ever shone!”

Each of them had bowed and then returned to the head of the waiting army. When Hannibal found his brother he remained silent for some time, his mind swimming with the tactics and possibilities of the impending siege. His and the other ground armies, no matter how huge, were effectively a delaying force. And that meant staggering attrition. From what he knew of the Prince and his spies, the armies of Dis would know well in advance of the size and nature of the opposing legions. Little was known in Adamantinarx of the demons who might have allied with the Fly. But such was the nature of war, and after explaining what he knew of Sargatanas’ plan to Mago, he felt somehow better. Talking it through with his brother, as he had before so many campaigns so long ago, relaxed him for the time being. But he knew, as their host drew near Dis, his apprehensions would surface anew. Some said it was a sign of a good general to fret; soldiers should not have to worry, only fight. With his world of experience, he agreed.

Attendants brought up Gaha, and he had difficulty mounting the Abyssal. He could not have been more impatient for his new arm to grow in but knew that it would not be in time for the upcoming battle. He smiled inwardly; he certainly did not need more incentives to want to survive. Once he was in the saddle he swung around and made for Put Satanachia’s position. The beast was light on its feet and moved quickly across the crowded field, never misstepping. Hannibal passed rank upon rank of troops, both demon and soul, and even he, accustomed as he was to multicultural mercenary armies, was impressed with their variety. The demons that had arrived from every corner of Hell, formed and tempered and improved in the crucibles of their unending border-wars, were equipped with a dizzying array of weapons. His gaze shifted from demons who bore everything from integrated axes, maces, halberds of every shape, and pikes to more exotic legionaries from distant realms whose arms were the separated blades of great scissors or ended in huge, sharp-toothed, gaping mouths or giant claws. There seemed to be no restrictions on the ingenuity that the demons had exercised in growing implements to cleave, cut, rend, and smash one another. Such was the way of Hell; any exploitable advantage over neighboring demons could prove decisive upon the battlefield and garner a ward or two from a rival. The souls, not benefiting from the creative energies of their masters, had been equipped as best as the demons could manage with an abundance of improvised weaponry. Many, he saw, wielded the sawn-off weapons of demons who had fallen on both sides in the last battle while the rest gripped crude, but effective, weapons that had been hastily manufactured in Adamantinarx before the Forges themselves had been dismantled.

Satanachia, resplendent in his newly formed opalescent armor and standing at the very tip of the gathered legions, was waiting for him. Flattered, Hannibal realized that it was a measure of their esteem for him that the demon second in prestige to his lord would only give the signal to advance when he was present. As the enormous blue glyph, visible for many hundreds of spans, billowed up into the ashen sky Hannibal felt the vortex of fate pulling him toward Hell’s capital. As the army slowly surged forward, uncertainty flooded his mind. Whichever way the battle went, the outcome in Dis would prove to be the end of the rebellion. Of one thing he was certain: Sargatanas would not sell himself cheaply and, even if the Fly somehow managed to survive, the shape of Hell would forever be changed.

The wind whipped fiercely over Eligor’s straining body, snapping at his folded wings, as he clung, one-handed, to the gently rounded exterior of Sargatanas’ dome. The heavy, bifurcated prongs of Eligor’s newly issued climbing-staff were firmly lodged in the crack between two massive roofing stones and had, regrettably, damaged the surface where they had been inserted. He had been dismayed when Sargatanas had outlined his planned training regimen, knowing that the final exercise was going to do extensive damage to the once-majestic dome. But Adamantinarx was no longer the city it had been, and the Captain was gradually growing accustomed to the unfortunate changes the city was undergoing.

Looking through the shifting clouds at the gray curve of the dome, Eligor saw the generalized shapes of his dying troops, hammers in hand, begin the mock-assault for the tenth time. They, like Barbatos and his flyers performing the same exercise on the dome’s opposite side, would only be ordered to actually strike the building when their tactical maneuverings were satisfactory, an achievement that Eligor guessed would be about a week hence. While the breaching of Sargatanas’ dome would only be executed once, for obvious structural reasons, the Guard Captain wanted to feel completely confident that the hundreds of flyers were able to move about comfortably in a high wind on a curved and polished surface. He saw the other flyers trying to hover above where the giant hole would be opened, and even as he watched, chaos erupted as a particularly strong gust buffeted them and sent hundreds of them crashing into one another. And then, to worsen matters, Eligor felt a few drops of blood hit him and soon a steady light rain began to fall, spattering the already treacherously smooth dome, slickening it dangerously. Truly, he thought, this was a good and difficult test. Within moments the rain had streaked the dome shiny and red and, almost mesmerized, he watched myriad thin rivulets winding their way like fast, thick worms downward. He saw how his demons scrabbled and slipped and suddenly one lost his handhold and slid down into another and then another and, before he could warn them, more than twenty of the flyers were tumbling, trying to disentangle from one another and open their wings. But, to his mixed disappointment and anger, they did not succeed and plunged headlong to their destruction upon the cloud-shrouded pavement far below. A good and difficult test indeed, Eligor reflected.

He watched the remainder of the exercise with a decidedly disagreeable attitude. The planning and subsequent training for the assault on the Fly’s palace was proving to be about as difficult as Eligor had envisioned; he had known all along that the whims of Hell’s weather would play havoc with any aerial assaults. Finally the thousand-odd demons were in their stations, some bearing hammers and focused on breaking through the stone, some ringing about where the hole would be smashed, and the remainder, lances in hand, hovering as best as they could in formation above and awaiting a command to drop through into the palace beneath. A dense cloud passed in front of him and, for a few moments, he could only see the tiny lights of their unit-glyphs through the patchy haze. He held them there for some time; it would be good for them to wait, to lock into their minds their respective roles. Then, satisfied only that they had finally reached the exercise’s end, he raised his free hand and issued the command to withdraw and return to their camps. He saw his glyph circle the dome once and vanish and then watched the blood-wet demons break away and drop into the clouds.

Eligor sent a signal to Barbatos at the opposite side of the dome and wondered if his demons had fared any better. He unhooked himself from the dome and spread his wings, descending in a slow, controlled drop through the reddish curtain of clouds. When his feet scraped the flagstones of the plaza it was just in time to see the last of his Flying Guard entering their barracks. And he also saw the crumpled forms of three of his demons lying in twisted piles, their broken wings reaching up like slender fingers. Already he could hear the creaking wheels of an approaching bone-cart sent to remove them.

Limbs stiff and trembling from the exercise, Eligor made his way up the palace stairs and entered the empty entrance hall. Usually, after newcomers entered the palace from a downpour, there would have been attendants ready and waiting to towel them down, but now there was no such courtesy. Instead the metallic tang of the blood and the uncomfortable feeling of it drying upon him only heightened his growing sense that all was not well. When he was back in his chambers he would have to spend much time cleaning himself. Only the distilled and still-irritating saline waters of the Acheron would remove the stain, a ritual that, considering his exhaustion, he did not look forward to.

For some reason only a relative few of the palace’s many braziers were lit, and the shadowed areas that Eligor passed through seemed to him like ominous lakes of darkness. Trudging through the halls, past the infrequent distracted functionary or brick-laden worker, Eligor noted again with now-familiar sadness that the entire geography of the immense building had been altered. The mandated removal of any and all soul-bricks, a process that was still under way, had caused the complete rearrangement and, in some cases, structural weakening of the interior, leaving great holes, collapsed ceilings, or crudely supported walls. The dust of deconstruction was everywhere. And more than once he saw it kicked up by winds that, in the past, would never have been possible in the building when its integrity had been sound.

But even with conditions as they were, the palace retained some echoes of its grandeur, and the closer to its Audience Chamber he walked the more the great building resembled its former self. On his way to the stairs leading to his chambers, he peered through the columns of the arcade into the great space beyond and looked to the top of the pyramidal dais half-expecting to see Sargatanas seated on his throne. But only the shadows and emptiness greeted him. Algol’s beam, almost always visible, was absent, occluded by the heavy weather above—something that he tried hard not to view as an omen. He imagined that Sargatanas was in his Shrine or his chambers, perhaps with Lilith. It was a thought that only served to deepen Eligor’s melancholia; their time together, whether his lord got his wish or was destroyed trying, was drawing to a close.

And then the realization hit him like a hammer-blow. He understood, for the first time, just how much he would miss Sargatanas. Since the rebellion had begun every act, every word, had been about Beelzebub, his defenses, his armies, his cities, his tactics. Eligor had been so preoccupied with his office that he had not really had a moment to envision his world without his lord. Sargatanas had been a mentor and a paragon, a focal point and a guide, and now that Eligor saw a glimpse of what it might be like, of the emptiness he would feel, he did not like it.

He continued to his chambers, up the long, curving staircase and down the wide hall, past Valefar’s sealed chambers and then to his own. As he entered and lit his braziers with a cast flurry of glyphs, he questioned if Sargatanas’ vision was worth all of the incredible changes that had been wrought upon Hell. If the rebellion did not succeed would it have been the greatest act of selfishness imaginable to have plunged them all into this war? The question hung in his mind as he dipped a soft capillary-knot from the Wastes in the water and began to sponge himself as best as he could. The dull burn of the Acheron upon his exposed flesh and bone almost felt like welcome penance for the guilt he felt in doubting Sargatanas.

They left the Shrine together for the last time, and as they exited, Lilith could not help but wonder if Sargatanas had not brought her there as a last effort to get her to change her mind. He pulled the thick door shut and then turned to her and her suspicions were confirmed.

“You can change your mind, Lilith. If I do go back, it will mean that the way is clear for others. You could—”

She reached up and put a finger to his mouth.

“My love, this is the way it must be. As much as it will pain both of us.”

He nodded and, as she watched, the beginnings of his armor blossomed forth in the manner of demons and angels alike, coming up from his skin like rising white magma, smoothing and shaping itself to conform to his body.

He shook his head and took her hands.

“Why, why do I reach for Heaven when it’s already in my grasp?”

“Because the Heaven you reach for will give you that which you desire… a world of sublime tranquility. Beatitude. That I cannot offer you.”

Lilith paused to see his reaction. The pale armor continued to exude from within him, encasing his head and shoulders. He did not say a word but looked at her, the inner turmoil obvious. She almost felt that a single word from her could dissuade him from his path, halt the assault on Dis, and keep him in his city, in Hell. But she did not utter it.

“You are a seraph, Sargatanas. The highest of angels. You can never be anything else, no matter what shape you take. No matter where you are. You’ll never be content unless you are back where you belong.”

He let her hands slip out of his and she knew, then, that there was no turning back for him.

His new armor was nearly fully formed, its congealing surface swirling and blending and smoothing. When Lilith stepped back to look at him she saw a mountainous figure of power and intensity, unquestionably heroic yet almost physically unrecognizable to her save for his unchanged face. His sigils suddenly flared to life upon his breast, flanking the dark hole where his heart should have been, piercing the shimmering steam that wafted in curling sheets that were denser than normal from the armor’s formation.

“We must go,” he said. “Zoray awaits his Elevation. And then…” The demon’s voice traded off and Lilith tried not to think about the future.

“Yes, and then.”

As they walked the darkened palace corridors toward the Hall of Rituals, Lilith realized that, even with her sadness at Sargatanas’ imminent departure, she was actually eager to see the ceremony in which he raised the Demon Minor to the status of a Demon Major. An Infernal mirror of angelic Risings, it was not a commonplace event, and while she had heard about the ancient rite, she had never witnessed it in either Dis or Adamantinarx. The city was to be left in his hands and Sargatanas wanted his former Foot Guard commander as well equipped for the job as possible. She was relieved that Sargatanas had not chosen her; while she felt capable of governing Adamantinarx, it was a task best left to someone who had been in the city since its founding. He and Andromalius, the new provisional General-in-Chief of Adamantinarx, would be able officers of their posts.

Lord Zoray was, as Sargatanas had predicted, awaiting their arrival clad in the ornate symbolic six-winged trappings of the occasion and surrounded by his staff. Some of them would, as a result of his Elevation, be carried upward in station as well, and they fidgeted and shifted in anticipation. Zoray’s eagerness, too, was undeniable, and when Sargatanas strode ahead of her Lilith watched the soon-to-be governor kneel and prostrate himself. This was to be Sargatanas’ last official duty and, as she watched the heavily armored figure begin to fill the air around and over Zoray’s form with line after line of fiery glyph-script, she began to formulate plans for the time when she would be alone.

For two weeks the Second Army of the Ascension swept across the gray fields of Hell with all of the incandescent savagery of a surging sheet of lava. Opposition during the long march had been minimal, but when small armies of the Fly had been chanced upon Hannibal had watched as Sargatanas’ legions had flowed over the enemy, the encounters barely slowing the advancing souls and demons. He had no time for the niceties of negotiation, nor did the enemy seek it. It was a time of change, and the Soul-General felt proud and honored to be a part of it. Finally, his eternity had some meaning.

The landscape outside of Adamantinarx was something largely unfamiliar to those souls who had not been in the first great battle, and even those veterans who had grown quiet when they passed the limits of familiar territories. Their march took them past the Flaming Cut, where they saw the great cairn, and on into the wards of the enemy, and Hannibal saw that the closer they drew to Dis the more hostile the terrain became. It seemed as if Beelzebub, creating a first line of defense, had imbued the very ground and peaks and blood-rivers with his own anger. No town or outpost had been left standing, a curious fact, Satanachia had remarked, in light of the Fly’s historical reluctance to let go of his territorial possessions.

Whenever the vanguard of the army approached the blasted remains of happened-upon outlying settlements, demon sappers were called forward and the rubble was immediately demolished. Any freed souls who were whole enough to spring unaided from the resulting piles of brick and who were not immediately amenable to joining the army were destroyed on the spot, but, Hannibal always noted, with little surprise and a thin smile, they were few.

When, eventually, there were more of Beelzebub’s wards behind them than in front, demons and souls alike saw the air ahead, heavy with haze, suffused with a red-gold lambency, and Satanachia informed his generals that, due to its location, the source of this effulgence was most probably the Keep.

A scouting party was sent forward and after a day came back to the gathered general staff with news of the city ahead. Or, more properly, with news that the capital, in its familiar form, was no longer and that most of its buildings, like those of Adamantinarx, were gone. In the brief weeks since the battle of the Flaming Cut, Beelzebub and his Architect General had not been idle. The Keep still stood, surrounded by its ring of lava, but its mountainous form was now encased in an immense and featureless wall. And waiting at its base was an army nearly equal in size to that of Sargatanas.

None of this was comforting news, and the generals’ silence reflected their inner misgivings. Hannibal, too, struggled to find something in the report that might point to a weakness in the Prince’s stratagem. Every advantage seemed to lie with the Fly. Only Satanachia seemed unaffected by the circumstances, and he did his best to bolster his staff.

On a high escarpment just outside Dis’ immediate outskirts, Put Satanachia sent the order aloft for Yen Wang’s Behemoths to form up in multiple wedges in the host’s front ranks. With this first battle order the Second Army of the Ascension would descend upon the vast plain that had once been Dis and, however the battle went, the fate of Hell itself would be decided.

She saw him from afar, from a window in the tallest turret left in his palace. Standing upon the high parade ground, he was a white figure in a sea of ranked deep-olive flyers. Eligor strode at his side, as did Barbatos, each, she imagined, receiving his last orders. The wind, furious and steady, whipped at them almost as if they were already aloft, and Sargatanas’ ivory flight skins flowed around him, billowing dramatically. The time had come and in moments he would be gone. Gone from Adamantinarx, gone from her existence. And soon, in all probability, gone from Hell.

Lilith turned away and walked back into her chamber, heading toward the area she had devoted to her sculpting. From the open window the sound of rank after rank of flying demons taking to the air suddenly filled the room, a loud roar of wings accompanied by a steady wind that rattled her sculpting tools on their small table. She would not stand by the window and watch him ascend into the clouds. She did not want the sight of him disappearing into the dark clouds to be burned into her memory.

Instead, she sat holding the large block of compressed Abyssal bone in her cold hands, turning it stiffly as if she were actually considering what to transform it into. She even picked up a tool just to convince herself that she was actually intent upon her new project. But as she lingered, scraper poised, she caught sight of the traveling skins, Ardat Lili’s skins, a corner of which peeked from beneath the flat, carved lid of a long chest. All of the possessions Lilith could carry from her life in Dis and her long journey away from the capital were within that chest, and she thought, with some pleasure, that, with the exception of her cherished tools, she had had no need of them since she had arrived in Adamantinarx; she had only to have hinted about any need and Sargatanas had provided it. Now she was not so sure that some of those items within the chest—the skins, the masks, the long dagger Agares had secreted in her bags—might not be useful yet again.

Lilith listened to the wind of the wings and when, after a very long time, it had subsided she placed the scraper and the untouched block back down on the table and rose. At the window again, she saw that the parade ground was empty, a dark and heavy cloud lowering to make it indistinct. As dark and indistinct, she thought, as her future now seemed.