The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  Not usually one to care about palace adornments, Adramalik could not help but resent everything he was learning about Pygon Az’s new ruler.

  The approach to the palace had once been a maze of magma-warmed black-watered pools—one of Lucifuge’s more inspired visions—each in the shape of power-inducing sigils, each successive one more potent and elaborate than the last. Now the fantastic pattern of pools bubbled red, filled to the top with souls’ blood. The fountains were still, but the effect of the red against the black of the ice-coated stonework was wildly different than he recalled.

  The emissary never paused, never broke step, despite his lack of a head. Adramalik had, long before, grown accustomed to the silent strangeness of the inhabitants of Pygon Az, to staring at the smooth and frozen stumps of their dismembered necks. This character was no different. His step was firm and sure, his manner abrupt, the language of his body distant. The many unseen magnetic fields of Hell were, once, the sole means whereby demons had managed to navigate the dark and ever-changing realm. Perhaps these headless individuals used the same invisible maps, albeit on a much smaller scale, to negotiate their frozen world. Adramalik’s curiosity was only fleeting.

  The route took them past a short pylon with four heavy, carved Abyssals holding up the archway and then into the palace grounds proper. Here it became clear that the building’s façade had been crudely chipped apart and roughly cleaned away. The remaining shards littered the ground forming weirdly shaped low tumuli, held fast to the stone paving by ice.

  The wind was picking up and Adramalik could smell a sharp tang riding it. Blood. Not the sickly sweet, turned scent of former angels’ blood. Souls’ blood, pungent and metallic. The source was not the pools he had passed. They lay upwind. He narrowed his eyes. The heavy scent was being sucked out from the palace entrance just ahead.

  Just inside, Adramalik saw the Bearer of the Knife, head bowed, waiting in the shadows.

  “Chancellor,” he said, his lips working past the jewelry, “presently I will be taking you into my Lord Ai Apaec’s Audience Chamber. You will follow his court protocol … you will not look him directly in the eye, you will remain on one knee, palms upon the floor, and you will not speak until spoken to. And when you do, you will refer to his lordship as ‘my god.’”

  Adramalik was careful to make his feelings about these rules clear without uttering a word. He had never been subjected to this kind of indignity in the Court of the Prince Regent of Hell and was not encouraged by what it said about Pygon Az’s master.

  “These are simple rules. Rules by which you will abide.” The Bearer’s voice was firm. He was staring at Adramalik. “Rules which will allow you to keep your head.”

  Adramalik opened his arms and bowed his head. If he needed to show such obeisance to merely survive then he would. But he would not forget.

  The final threshold beckoned—the last archway between him and this new lord—and the two figures crossed into the Audience Chamber. And even Adramalik, hardened as he was to the sights of Hell and his lost lord’s Rotunda, was stunned at the transformation of the space.

  It was a huge room—nothing on the scale of the Rotunda but appropriately sized for a lord of Lucifuge’s rank and stature. What had once been a heavily carved ceiling had fallen into disrepair with large areas having cracked off leaving deep, scarred pocks. No furnishings remained and the windows that Adramalik recalled pouring a rich, cold light upon the assemblies had been covered over, traded, for the most part, for a few inefficient braziers at the room’s periphery. Their path to the throne, which the Chancellor could just discern in the distance, was flanked by shadowed hillocks of heads. Adramalik needed to no longer wonder about the citizens of Pygon Az. Their bodies might still walk the streets of the Black Ice City, but their minds lay elsewhere.

  The Bearer’s silhouetted form strode on, his goal obvious now—a well-lit dais that Adramalik knew from the past. His narrowed eyes strayed to the piles that rose irregularly around him. Most were in shadow, but he could make out the features of the heads writhing as he passed, disdain evident upon their cracked lips. Their eyes, filled with anger and pain, followed his steps. Some of the heads began to shake, causing minor avalanches. In moments, Adramalik found himself stepping around clusters of heads that had rolled from the piles onto the unswept floor. He swore under his breath with each sidestep until, losing his temper, he merely kicked those wayward heads out of his path as he moved forward.

  Suddenly a deep moaning arose from a large pile just before him and he searched the mound for the cause until his eyes alit upon a small pack of fist-sized Abyssals that were tugging at the flesh of the heads beneath them. Scavengers in the throne room! Each bore an interesting blend of horn-sheathed nippers, serrated-toothed hooks, and distended jaws, all emanating from fat maroon bodies that glowed with faint patterns. They were indelicate and undiscriminating feeders, plucking loose fleshy bits from wherever their limbs fell, restlessly sidling from one head to the next. Their constant, clumsy motion upset the heads, setting off the small cascades that Adramalik had at first thought were a result of the heads themselves.

  Adramalik saw a dozen or more headless warriors carrying long-handled clubs arrayed before a low platform. Atop the dais stood two impassive throne guards, each bearing large, staffed-mounted tumi blades. Rising behind them was a pile of flesh and bones that occupied the same spot where once had stood Lucifuge Rofocale’s elaborate throne. But before the Chancellor could focus on the seat and discern whether any remnant of the once-resplendent throne still existed beneath the layers of offal, his attention was drawn to a huge warrior—a champion, who shuffled and pushed his ponderous, bone-decorated body through the assemblage and squatted down before the Bearer, a club-like arm held before him threateningly. He was nearly twice the height of a soul and thick around like one of the pale, bloated worms that Adramalik had frequently seen sliding through the shadowed alleys of Dis.

  The Bearer indicated a spot for Adramalik to position himself directly before the huge soul. The Chancellor glared briefly at him and then, with a show of unhurried dignity, Adramalik gathered his skin robes and dropped to his knee. The Bearer remained standing, the occasional clinking of his adornments the only indicator of his proximity.

  Now that he was closer, the Chancellor saw a huge seated figure, headless like all the other throne-room occupants, its texture and hue almost indiscernibly different from the necrotic flesh that surrounded the huge seat. It was, he guessed, some long-dead god’s body, even larger than that of the squatting champion. Apart from the steady rise and fall of its massive chest, it remained motionless, waiting, it seemed. A thrill of fear coursed through Adramalik. What is this creature capable of? Why the headless theme throughout this kingdom?

  Even as he pondered these questions—questions he had asked himself long before he had been brought within the palace confines—he heard a loud shrieking rise from the Abyssals and, along with that shrill sound, a clattering as of innumerable hard-shelled bodies blundering into one another. The sound faded, replaced by another—a hollow breathing that grew louder, closer.

  Suddenly he felt something brush past him. And then he saw it—a large, dark form that scuttled upon eight attenuated legs toward the throne, leaping from one small pile of bone to another until it reached the seated giant. Pivoting, it arranged itself delicately, obscenely, upon the shoulders and then, thrusting short spines through the throat beneath it, pulled itself down upon the neck of the figure. It inhaled deeply and, as it did, the massive figure came to life, spreading its arms in a slow, pantomime of welcome. Simultaneously, Adramalik heard a dull, whispering chant begin from the countless heads. He nearly turned, startled by the deep sounds that so many throatless heads produced.

  “You seek refuge. For now, you have found it.” The voice was deep and Adramalik imagined that it found its resonance in the thick throat of the massive body it squatted atop.

  “Tell me, former Chancellor Adramalik, briefly, of the
demise of your lord, the Prince Regent.”

  Adramalik cleared his dry throat.

  “There was a rebellion … my god. One that was not easy to ignore and less easy to put down. At first, my former lord, Beelzebub, was convinced that the Heretic Sargatanas was merely attempting to expand his wards. He realized, too late, that this was not the case. When the Heretic Demon rallied the souls to fight for him the weight of numbers made it impossible for the Prince to prevail. His champion, General Moloch, was destroyed, as were the remaining armies of Dis and the Prince himself.”

  There was a moment during which Adramalik heard only the deep inhalations of Ai Apaec.

  “And this Heretic Demon. Does he still walk the burning fields of Hell?”

  Adramalik hesitated. “No, my god. He has left our realm.”

  “‘Left our realm’?”

  “Some say he is back in the Above. Ascended.”

  “And what do you say?”

  “I do not know. And do not care. He is gone. But his influence is felt in the five points of Hell. Souls now have putative equality and are left to fend for themselves—”

  “All this I know. What I want to know is why you still exist. Why you did not loyally go the way of your Prince. I want to know what kind of creature I am harboring in my nest.”

  Adramalik nearly forgot himself and rose. “I am,” he said, his voice barely under control, “the former Grand Master of the Priory and Chancellor General of the Order of the Fly, His Most Exalted Prince Regent Beelzebub. There was no one more trusted by the Prince than me. My god.”

  “And his trust was obviously well placed. Or so I have been told.”

  Adramalik sucked in a deep breath, taking a long moment to carefully craft his response.

  “I supported my Prince until the end … my god.”

  Ai Apaec studied him. His eyes glittered from within the deep shadows cast by his beetled brows. He was running his broad hand over some rounded object at the throne’s side.

  “And your very hasty exit from the Prince’s Rotunda?”

  “There was nothing anyone could have done in the face of Sargatanas’ fury. Nothing. Not by me. Not by my Knights. We withdrew rather than be destroyed, my god.”

  “Very loyal, indeed.”

  Adramalik ignored the slight.

  “My god, how is it that you know so much about those last moments of the Prince?”

  “I had, at hand, a witness to those events,” Ai Apaec said. He reached down and picked up the object he had been caressing and placed it squarely on the arm of the throne. It was the head of Demospurcus.

  Adramalik slowly closed his eyes, hoping that his bowed head concealed his expression. Demospurcus’ suffering was at an end. He had been a good, if not impulsive, Knight. There were so few of them left and now there was one less. He was surprised to feel the loss so strongly.

  “I see, my god.”

  “You feel his loss? More than you are willing to admit, yes?”

  “Yes. My god.” Adramalik found that unnerving.

  “I know because I am no stranger to loss. I know what it tastes like.” He paused and Adramalik heard the dry, heavy sounds of the huge figure shifting his weight upon the throne. Long, jointed legs stretched out on either side of the scabby legs of the body the god was mounted upon. The great curved talons at their ends scratched across the floor like knives dragged across bare-laid bone.

  “Because of your former station in Hell I will tell you how I feel. There are so few demons of high rank that pass through here.” The god paused. It almost seemed as if he was talking to himself, musing. “I came to this place a god newly fallen. In my day, I had worshippers so plentiful and so eager to please me, to curry my favor for their meager crops, that they willingly, joyously, brought me the heads of their loved ones. I was called the Decapitator and I saw my image everywhere. I was feared and beloved. I was hated and adored. I was the ravenous center of those miserable creatures’ lives. But they did not satisfy me; they never could have. They were weaklings, unworthy of having created me. And for that, I let them die, enjoying their famines, their wars, their disease. Their inevitable extinction. I was so sure that I was omnipotent, so sure that my immortality was not linked to their pitiable existences, that I let them go and, in so doing, destroyed myself. Now I sit in a frozen wasteland with nothing. I cannot be what I once was and I do not care to be more than I am. The ice has numbed me.”

  Adramalik took this all in. His mind, still off-balance from the head that continued to stare at him from beneath the Decapitator’s hand, raced with the many reactions he could frame. He could think of nothing to further his and his demons’ cause in Pygon Az. They were all at this god’s mercy and he could easily decide to destroy them with the wave of a disinterested hand. And then the god, himself, provided the answer.

  “If you and your Knights are to stay here,” Ai Apaec said, “you must become useful in some way. I have grown tired of the pickings in the palace and hungry for Abyssal flesh.”

  Adramalik, too, had become hungry for Abyssals. The dull, insistent burning between his legs was a constant reminder of his nearly unbearable lack of sexual gratification. Oh, how he would become a zealous hunter of young Abyssals! This god would get them when he was finished with them.

  “My Knights and I hunted the plains of Dis often, my god. For sport. We can bring you what you desire.”

  “Let us see how you do, then, Adramalik. I will expect results within the first setting of Algol. Only the largest Abyssals will do. And variety, Adramalik, variety. For each rise and fall of the Watchdog that you do not provide me with a fresh kill, I will have one of your Knights brought to me.”

  The Decapitator patted Demospurcus’ head for emphasis and the demon closed his miserable eyes. Adramalik thought he could hear a short, light laugh and the tinkle of metal from behind him. The Bearer of the Knife was enjoying the exchange.

  Adramalik nodded his assent. “Yes … my god.”

  The Abyssals that could be found around Dis, Adramalik remembered, had been stocked there for sport. Their ancestors had long ago been exterminated. Somewhat accustomed to the presence of demons as they had become, they were difficult enough to kill with twenty mounted demons at one’s side, thought Adramalik. These wild Abyssals, used to the frozen climes, would provide him and his Knights with potentially more trouble than they could handle—all to satisfy the bored whim of a minor fallen god. And large Abyssals—how could he enjoy those? The Chancellor’s spirits sank. He looked sidelong at Ai Apaec’s crouching champion and thought were things to take a turn for the worse, he was not at all certain he and his Knights could make their way out of Pygon Az.

  9

  THE VALE OF THE FREED

  The hot winds blew through the seventh town with such an unabated fury that Ardat suggested, hand over mouth, perhaps it existed only to cleanse the filth and stench from the buildings. Lilith made no response. Her scarlet eyes were focused on a large, irregular building composed of massive Abyssal horns, bones, and skin that towered a hundred feet above the surrounding squalid huts. At one point, the distant roughly designed pile must have been well maintained, even imposing. It had the self-important, almost ludicrous look of a makeshift palace. But now it had fallen into disrepair, its outer walls, doors, and many ladders hanging askew and flapping noisily in the fierce wind.

  Traveling skins whipping about her, Lilith began to move slowly toward the edifice with Ardat a few paces behind. Both could hear eerie, indistinct sounds above the wind. And both were ready to turn and run should they encounter any scavenging Abyssals. The fifth and sixth villages had been host to dozens of Skin-pickers—quick, many-pincered Abyssals that had, over the millennia, developed a taste for easy-to-catch runaway souls. With the onset of soul-upon-soul warfare, the numbers of opportunistic creatures boldly seeking an easy feast were growing.

  A long row of curved Abyssal tusks lined the causeway to the palace and Ardat followed her former lady beneath them. Li
lith clenched and unclenched her hands as she strode forward, the sights to either side of her tightening her throat, forcing the air out in shallow, staccato bursts. The souls whom they could see were mostly impaled on short, serrated spikes, pierced and tied where they lay and utterly unable to escape their torment. In most cases, as the pair passed them a frenzy of limb-fluttering entreaties followed, creating a sound that Lilith knew she would not soon forget.

  The palace entrance yawned before them, a darkened rectangle against an expanse of reinforced tattered skins. The bone framework behind them was exposed in many places, and as they drew nearer to the wide doorway they could see vague silhouetted shapes moving within. Lilith hesitated at the threshold, her fingers running for the briefest moment over the crude carvings that ran up the frame, her nostrils flaring at the dank, heavy air from within.

  Lilith knew they were not alone. Before her foot crossed the threshold, scuffling sounds betrayed the souls who tried to move unseen amidst the huge mounds of items that were gathered randomly upon the floor. Shafts of reddish light penetrated the gloom from above, stabbing downward from evenly spaced slits in the lofty ceiling, light beams that were intermittently broken by the shadowed forms that seemed to be gathering before the pair. The gloom did nothing to hide them from her. She was a creature of the night and the palace’s interior was, to her adjusted eyes, as light as the world outside. Ardat, however, had no such heightened ability and, careful as the former handmaiden was, Lilith heard her stumble as they entered.