The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  “Clearly, K’ah. I am honored that he allowed me to stay here.”

  “It is not simple hospitality, B’udik’k’ah. We have never encountered one like you. Of course, we knew of your kind’s existence … we watched from afar as the demons used your kind in numbers beyond count and in terrible ways. And we felt a certain sympathy for your kind. But we never saw one of you out in the Burning Lands accompanied by demons as you were.”

  “Much has changed since the fall of the Prince.”

  K’ah nodded crisply. He served the clan not only as a warrior but also as their spirit-artist, and now he was proving, as well, to be an excellent instructor in the ways of his people.

  “What is that thing you wear around your neck? It looks like neither a demon nor a soul.”

  Boudica’s hand went to the carved pendant. It was too complicated to explain.

  “Just an ornament. Little more.”

  The Salamandrine tilted his head.

  “Are there others like you … other souls sent out with demons on missions?”

  “Not to my knowledge, K’ah. All souls, as you must know by now, are free, but, apparently, my standing with the demons was something unique. I could not have known this until I was liberated. One demon, a rather extraordinary lord, saw me as … how do I put this … that which made him act. Like a spark that lights a great blaze. He rebelled against the ruler of Hell and caused the great changes you have seen. He’s gone now.” She glanced into the sky, toward Zimiah, the blue star, uncertain as to whether she should pass on the pervasive myth that had grown up around its sudden appearance.

  K’ah was silent for a moment, staring out into the Wastes.

  “We need to understand our old enemy, to see our world through their eyes, and, perhaps, you can help us with that.” He paused. “There is something you will need to do, something that will accord you even greater status among us. Then we can listen to you as one of our own.”

  Boudica looked down at her sword hilt, running her chalky fingers over the hilt’s carving.

  “I’ll do what I can to help, K’ah. Despite their behavior toward me of late, despite the kindness of a few, I am no friend of theirs.”

  Again, K’ah bowed his head. He turned once more to look out into the Wastes, sniffing.

  “A firestorm is approaching … I can smell it. It is still a long way off, but it will come within this Algol-rise. The creatures of the Burning Land will be running before it. It will be some time before they are near. It’s an opportunity.”

  “For whom?”

  “You.”

  “Really?”

  “You’ll be able to practice your skills. In preparation.”

  “For what?”

  K’ah rose and indicated to Boudica that she should follow. They walked the length of the narrow aisle that led to his stall, passing many Salamandrines who bowed their heads to her. A decorated Abyssal skull hung above the doorframe of K’ah’s stall and she saw him part the skin curtain, reach in, and bring out his long, black sword, a heavy coil of rope of tightly braided skin, a short dirk, and a sling. All of the warriors carried similar swords and she recognized them as symbols of rank, something one attained only when one was ready to ascend to adulthood.

  K’ah handed her the sword.

  “This … this is what you seek, B’udik’k’ah. One of your own. It will tell the clan that you are one of us.”

  She weighed it in her hand, and as she did the small teeth, dried eyes, and bones that depended from its hilt by a cord rattled. It was far lighter than she had expected—half the weight but more than three times the length of her own sword.

  “Hollow?”

  “Yes. Like a bone. But more flexible,” K’ah said. “It comes from a creature called a Great Gouger. Mine was at least five spans of my height.” He paused, remembering, as if the creature stood before him. “This I took from one of the many spines atop its head.”

  “And these?” Boudica said, indicating the rope, the sling, and the dirk.

  “These are the ones I used. They all have a purpose. The sling is used to stun the Gouger, the rope to climb upon its back, and the dirk to slay it and free the spine. Once you have killed it.”

  Boudica’s eyes were wide, her mouth agape.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “We will practice with the sling until it’s time. The Gouger is a dangerous but slow-moving spirit. And you are an adult, not one of our adolescents. They are thrown into the Burning Lands with no training at all. If they prevail they are warriors. If they perish they are food.”

  K’ah let that sink in.

  “You have an advantage over them … you are already skilled in weapons.” The Salamandrine took up the sling, stretching it taut, testing it. “You know how a ha’rakha works?”

  “A sling. Yes. But it’s been some time.” She could not help but marvel at the universality of weapons.

  “It will come back to you.” K’ah looked at her intently, head tilted. “I know, B’udik’k’ah, this is rushed. But you need to join us in a way that is beyond M’ak’s question.”

  He looked down, beak slightly parted.

  “We need your help.”

  Boudica nodded shakily. “And I need yours.”

  She instinctively understood their plight. They were a dying race, but, that said, they were never simply going to melt away into the darkness. Not without a fight. And, now, not without her.

  Still, her nerves were showing and she hated it. The Salamandrines’ adolescents were half again her height and, while lightweight and wiry, quite strong. Untrained or not, she knew they were used to their harsh, nomadic life, to the creatures—or Spirits as they called them—of their world and their behavior. She had seen enough of the formidable Abyssals in her brief travels and none had seemed as if they would be easy to kill. Having fought the least hospitable environment imaginable, they had won, evolving protective carapaces and armored limbs that seemed impregnable. How could a sling and a dirk prevail against any of them?

  K’ah stood and, without a word, disappeared into the camp. Boudica watched his retreating back and then stared down at the black floor, sighing. All this, to find her daughters. Who could have guessed the twists her path was taking to achieve that? Had she really believed she could have simply wandered, unchallenged, through Hell to arrive at their doorstep? It would be worth it, she knew, worth it just to simply hold them in her arms again. She just had to get past this trial. She heard a sharp snort from outside the encampment’s wall. The Salamandrine had returned mounted on a fleet Skin-skipper, the reins of a second beast in hand. He held them out, shaking them in mock enticement.

  Boudica climbed out of the encampment and approached K’ah, who handed over the reins. Her Skin-skipper sniffed the air, shuffling uneasily on its many jointed legs. She ran a hand over the skin between the plates of its carapace, noticing that the glowing spots upon its skin were cool to the touch.

  “Give it a name … it will be yours. You’re its first owner.”

  She smiled—an expression undoubtedly unfathomable to K’ah. The creature’s name came to her easily, the name of the goddess who had forsaken her in the end of her Life, after all the reprisals, after all the slaughter in her name.

  “I’ll call you Andrasta.” She made a wry face and then said, “May you bring me the victory in my quest that your namesake kept from me in my Life.”

  She turned to K’ah. “It’s done. Its name is Andrasta. And it and I are ready to begin the training.”

  * * *

  Boudica saw the first red drops splatter the pommel of her saddle as she and K’ah set off. Blood rain. Or so it had been called by the souls. It was almost impossible to know whether the droplets were actually blood or evaporated water from the rivers colored by the side effects of volcanism. So many of the rocks contained reddish ores, she reasoned, that it could well have some influence on the rain. She did not give it much more thought, as the rain came down harder, finding the
small gaps in her oversized traveling skins and gradually soaking her. The moisture did not last long as her body’s heat burned it off quickly. K’ah had promised her a new set of skins—better-crafted garments with hidden pockets and ornaments—but those, he said, would take time to make to her unique, non-Salamandrine proportions.

  K’ah led them hurriedly away from the camp, following a tear in the landscape that skirted the low foothills of K’oba K’ul. A scout had run up to him, breathlessly describing a Great Gouger that he had spotted in the foothills tearing up the ground-flesh in search of prey. It was an old individual, and K’ah’s eyes had twinkled with the prospect of Boudica’s kill. He had virtually run to his mount, Boudica barely able to keep up, and then they had leaped over the camp’s wall and into a headlong gallop.

  Andrasta’s gait took some getting used to. Its movements were springy and it crossed the terrain in long bounds that jarred the soul with every landfall until she learned to move her body with the Skin-skipper’s. The rain, which barely slickened the hot ground, did not seem to impede the surefooted creature in any way, but Boudica found herself clutching the front of her hood tightly to keep her face dry.

  Ahead, the vast mountain vanished into the ruddy sheets of rain, its tower of fire seemingly rising from no visible source. Only the nearest rocky foothills, now steaming and made wet by the pelting rain, had any real definition, glistening from behind by the light of the sky-borne fires. For all her discomfort, Boudica could not help but be impressed by this alien vista. What a world I am now in!

  As if to punctuate the thought, a startled pack of Abyssals burst from their dry skin-pocket shelter and nearly collided with the pair, their small, strangely disjointed bodies black and barely visible save for the glowing blue markings on their elongated heads. K’ah veered away just in time and Boudica reflexively followed suit, digging in her spike-shod foot just the way he had shown her. He looked back and nodded crisply, approvingly. It was a small thing, his gesture, but she felt good about it and good about him as well.

  She saw the trio of Abyssals dash off pell-mell. Without hesitating he veered back and around into their midst, and she saw him lash out with his sword. The move was so deft and swift and his re-scabbarding so precise, she was not entirely sure of what she had seen. Still moving, he leaned down and retrieved the kicking Abyssal, draping its bleeding, trembling body across his saddle.

  The remaining pair of Abyssals ran frantically straight into a cavernous mouth that suddenly roared open in the ground. As she passed, the huge toothed flap of skin closed around the creatures, dark blood squirting from the corners of its shredded lips. She shuddered and turned hastily away. What a world, indeed!

  K’ah pulled his mount off the trackway and began to coax his mount up the side of a hillock. The terrain quickly grew much steeper and it soon became impossible for the Skin-skippers to progress any farther. They dismounted and cut holes in the ground and tied them down, leaving the beasts to stand, grunting disconsolately, in the rain. K’ah pulled the dead Abyssal from his saddle and flung it over one shoulder.

  The pair began to head upward, toward dull, intermittent sounds that were clearly not a part of the volcano’s deep, rolling thunder.

  Boudica wrinkled her nose. “That smell?”

  “The Gouger is not a clean beast.”

  She began to notice bubbling rivulets of blood streaming down from above, and then small fragments of rock and thin chunks of skin tumbling down the hillside. The sounds grew louder as she and the Salamandrine skirted larger outcrops, keeping out of sight. Then, rounding a tall pinnacle of rock, up in the gloom of falling rain and debris, she saw a massive form pawing at the angled ground with huge clawed hands.

  Even through the rain, the beast’s light spots shone fiercely, blazing rows of angry red against its slick, dark sides highlighting its bulk. Boudica’s breath caught in her throat. How can I possibly kill that? In the rain? On a steep hill? It’s madness.

  She felt K’ah put a hand on her shoulder. He put his beak near her ear and whispered hoarsely over the driving rain and thunder.

  “We need to lure it down to the flat ground. See its short rear legs? It’s perfectly built for the foothills—its natural home … but on flat ground it’s clumsy, slow.”

  She nodded sharply, nervously. So that was the plan. Simple but still fraught. Still, it must have worked countless times. And for adolescent Salamandrines, no less.

  K’ah half-rose and let out a piercing whistle. Unslinging the dead Abyssal, he began to swing its still-glowing body over his head, the blood from its severed neck spattering the ground and Boudica.

  The Gouger turned abruptly, its heavy beaked jaws filled with offal it had pulled from the hillock, saliva cascading. With a single gulp it downed its huge mouthful. And then a deep, low groan issued from it, echoing in the hills, trembling the ground. The huge Abyssal, its four yellow eyes fixed on the Salamandrine, slowly rose, sending a boulder bouncing and tumbling past Boudica and on into the darkness.

  With remarkable control, K’ah turned and began to slide down the wet slope dragging the dead Abyssal behind him. Boudica, shaking her head, followed his lead less assuredly, narrowly avoiding a jagged upthrust rock in her otherwise speedy descent.

  K’ah landed easily on his feet at the hill’s bottom, and Boudica, spurred on by the monstrosity drawing ever closer, scrabbled furiously and fell clumsily to her knees. Regaining herself, she bolted, trying to catch up to the Salamandrine.

  “Your ha’rakha, B’udik’k’ah!” he shouted. “Now is the time!”

  Boudica shot a glance over her shoulder as she ran. A great cloud of rocks and debris was cascading down the slope and within it the huge shape of Abyssal twisting to stay upright.

  K’ah stopped and dropped to a knee. His sword was drawn.

  She skidded to a stop and frantically reached into her pouch, fishing out a heavy metal-ore bullet for the sling. In a moment she had loaded it and was twirling the sling overhead, its leather cords whistling rhythmically. And then she turned to face the behemoth.

  It was even bigger than she had imagined, a mountain of a creature, thick and heavy and four times taller than K’ah. It sniffed at the dead Abyssal, snapping it up and swallowing it whole. And then turned and bellowed as it began to move toward her, lumbering on short hind limbs, its scythe-like floating claws fanning out from its blunt, round wrists to find her.

  She could feel the rush of the air being cut as the long blades tried to slice her. So much angry meat!

  Boudica let fly and the bullet sped straight, hitting the Gouger in its right eyes. It stopped, spray flying from it, drenching her. Boudica stood her ground, loading another bullet while keeping her eyes locked on the Gouger.

  She could see that the creature was keeping one eye closed—her shot had hit home—but the three other yellow eyes glowed balefully through the rain at her. A low, deep sound came from its throat, half moan, half angry challenge. Slowly it began to move forward, each lumbering step making the fleshy ground faintly tremble.

  Boudica stood firm, whipping another heavy bullet at the creature’s face, and it roared in pain and outrage. She saw that both of its eyes on one side of its face were closed and, just as she had been told by K’ah during the long hours of practice, she seized the moment and raced across the slick ground to the Gouger’s blind side.

  The animal turned but not quickly enough. Its claws again raked empty air as Boudica lassoed a spine and pulled herself up and onto its side. In moments she was atop the roaring creature, grabbing spines for balance, pulling herself along its armored back, and making her way toward its thick neck, her dirk glistening in the rain.

  The Gouger stopped so abruptly in its tracks that she had to grab a dorsal spine to keep from flying out over its head. Futilely, it began to violently shake its neck and paw at the air above its head in an effort to dislodge Boudica. She clung tightly to the spine and twice nearly dropped the wet dirk. But ahead she saw the reason she had
challenged this creature, the embodiment of her newfound hope with the Salamandrines—the Gouger’s precious spike swaying from side to side with each of the beast’s jerky movements.

  Steeling herself, she carefully, methodically, leaped from armored plate to plate to the juncture of the creature’s wildly bobbing head and neck and, summoning every bit of her strength, plunged the dirk deep into the fleshy cleft. The Gouger groaned in pain and Boudica dragged the serrated blade back and forth through the tendons and into the stiff spinal cord between its vertebrae once, twice, a third time. She felt a snap and the huge armored head jerked forward, sagging limply. With only one breath left to it, the creature lurched forward and slowly sank to the ground without another sound.

  Boudica yanked her dirk free and, trembling, made her way shakily to the spine. She knelt and began sawing at its root, a dark fluid pooling around her feet. In a moment she had sawn through the horny tegument surrounding it. She stood and began to twist and pull on the sharp blade, but the tendons beneath it were too tough and it remained loosely in place, like a child’s tooth that would not come free. Just as she heaved a sigh, strong hands grasped the spine, twisting it sharply, and the prize ripped away. K’ah knelt and, eyes fixed on her, offered up the future weapon.

  “Your life in the Burning Lands begins anew.”

  11

  PYGON AZ

  The bone-white Abyssal had been just as challenging to bring down as Adramalik had feared. His Knights, stressed and weakened by their miserable food and lodgings, were not what they once had been.

  The Chancellor had watched with grave concern as his Knights had been handed old, poorly kept lances by headless servants and filed out of their domiciles and out onto the ice to search for the god of Pygon Az’s next feast. They were unsteady, nervous, their spirits as low, their moods as dark, as he had ever seen them. Which, in turn, made him wary. It was exactly these kinds of low periods that he had tried to avoid back in Dis simply out of self-interest. Unhappy Knights were dangerous Knights and he knew their unease could readily be turned in his direction. What could he offer up now to placate them? He had nothing, no succubi, no exotic feasts, no souls for playful torturing. Somehow, I will have to take control of them without igniting their wrath.