The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  Mounted on a huge Abyssal that Abaddon had created just for him, he urged the great beast forward, fascinated by the Abyssal’s many floating limbs, shifting fins, armored plates, and spines. Abaddon had been at his most creative conjuring this creature and, Adramalik knew, it spoke to his trust for his demon general that such a magnificent thing could have been fashioned just for him.

  He surveyed the glass-smooth plain and shook his head slowly. There was nothing there. Only a handful of massive chunks of Keep, floating on conjured lightning, their crackling audible even from this distance. Where once had stood a city he had known as well as anyone could have done, a city whose twisted alleys and imperial avenues were as familiar as the wrinkles and veins and callouses on his hands, there was only a dark landscape riven by channels of lava. That, and the imposing tower of Moloch, its shattered shards floating high into the surging cloud banks. Put Satanachia’s enormous personal glyphs guarded it, rotating slowly around its base. Of the Keep there was no sign. It is incredible, he thought, that a demon-made mountain, the Keep, could have been be so thoroughly razed. As if a giant sword had simply scraped it into the lava. He was sure Satanachia’s sorcery had aided in its demolition. There was no other way. And yet why had he left that tower? Moloch was, thankfully, no more. Perhaps as a marker of the battle that had been won? Or was it a reminder of his now-supreme power?

  Without the massive Keep and its mantles of flesh obscuring the base of the tower, he thought it looked more than ever like one of Moloch’s awful Hooks. Even with as much time as had gone by his breath caught for a moment as he remembered those weapons.

  He and the Horde drew nearer to the site of the destroyed city and he saw thousands of workers still slaving away at what little remained of Dis. Even the shallow grooves of the many thousands of foundations were to be erased. Such hatred for the place! And such hubris that Hell would suddenly be transformed into a better place by the Heretic’s vain gesture. Ascension, indeed! Pathetic mewling wishes of the weak-minded. He was a disgrace!

  But as the thought formed itself, Adramalik’s eyes wandered up to the improbably blue star that hung over Dis’ grave. And his eyes narrowed.

  The demon swore and reassured himself by reveling in the vast army of Abaddim that surged around him. They were unstoppable. They had so rapidly carved away the surface of Hell that it had shocked him. Their advance had left behind a virtually unrecognizable Hell, smooth and black and covered in a pall of darkness. The waste of the Abaddim’s voracious consumption of the mantle of flesh—Abaddon’s cloak—hung low over the ground behind them. And somewhere in that seething, lightning-shot cloud, Abaddon himself followed, watching everything unfold just as he had, for so long, envisioned.

  There was no denying Abaddon and his magic. It was not the refined magic, the various schools of Arts that Adramalik and other demons wielded that had their origins in the magic of the Above, but something strange and equally potent. A primal magic of creation that tapped into the spirit of things. The Lord of the Second World could re-form the ground they walked upon, level mountains, divert lava flows, but he could not singlehandedly rid Hell of its unwanted inhabitants. Why was this? Adramalik wondered. Could Abaddon only destroy through the act of creation, by adapting and re-creating the dead to do his killing for him? A god with paradoxical limitations? And while he had known his deepest thoughts, why had he not been able to see into the Heretic’s mind? Or had he, and had he simply thought what he found there advanced his own plans? These were among the many ineffable questions about Abaddon for which he might never find answers.

  As he looked about him, Adramalik shook his head at a not-unexpected result of Abaddon’s rise. Intermingled with the Abaddim were war-bands of Salamandrines. While the very sight of them in their sooty Abyssal-hide garb turned his stomach and the memory of the countless successful hunts resulting in them piled high was easy to conjure, he grudgingly acknowledged their usefulness in scouting out the terrain ahead of the Horde. But oh, how he loathed them. They eyed him with the same revulsion and ferocity that he bestowed upon them. The ancient hatred went both ways. And he recognized that were it not for his elevated status among the Abaddim, they would surely have separated his head from his neck long ago.

  The Salamandrines were allies now, uplifted, as he was, by their risen god. No matter his open hostility, Adramalik would not allow them to diminish his ecstasy in watching Hell be dismantled, one shred of flesh after another. Beelzebub had not appreciated his talents, Ai Apaec had treated him as a fool, and Abaddon—this bizarre god from below—had finally given him his due.

  Adramalik raised his hand, cast a luminous command glyph into the sky, and spurred his mount. The creature bellowed in response and glided forward, its floating ebony spines fanning outward majestically. The demon, surrounded by jostling and chittering Abaddim, covered the ground rapidly and soon the first of the workers, demons and souls alike, were screaming, impaled on blood-slicked mandibles.

  Adramalik carved away a few thousand of the Abaddim and maneuvered them toward the remaining fleeing workers, forcing them into a wide peninsula of rubble surrounded by what remained recognizable of Lucifer’s Belt. Thousands of demons and souls suddenly found themselves with no avenue of escape and, satisfied, Adramalik halted the Horde. They might not understand the pleasure inherent in watching the workers’ panic turn to the absolute certainty of destruction, but he certainly did. Again and again he wondered what the Abaddim remembered of their demonic lives. Perhaps somewhere deep in their chitinous skulls a shred of the demonic remained. It mattered not at all.

  He moved his mount forward slowly. He wanted to see the workers’ faces, their expressions, their eyes. And, best of all, hear their pleas. He was not disappointed. The chorus of entreaties was almost deafening. A thousand desperate voices, a thousand outstretched hands begging for clemency. It was all so satisfying … and arousing.

  Adramalik slowly raised a hand, a gesture to calm them, to silence their fears, almost as if he were considering bestowing his mercy upon the herded workers. He smiled beneficently. And then dropped his hand sharply.

  The Horde burst forward, past him, and he never once took his eyes from the slaughter that followed. The sheer press of the bodies and the frenzy of the Abaddim caused the workers at the back to spill into the lava and Adramalik, seeing this and enjoying it even more than the usual carnage, urged the Horde to push and butt the workers rather than carve into them. Whether they were whole or cut to pieces, the workers were toppled slowly into the bubbling lava. There, to the demon’s profound pleasure, they would spend their eternities in incandescent agony.

  “Come to me, Adramalik,” intoned the voice of his new god in his skull, breaking his concentration on the delicious mayhem before him. Reluctantly, he turned his steed and headed back toward the lightning-riddled cloud. Thunder rolled from the sky and Adramalik grinned at the easy fear that must have induced in the superstitious Salamandrines.

  He rode for some time through the Horde, noting how they did not pay him any attention, only moving aside as if he were a boulder rolling in their path. Somehow, Abaddon had conditioned them to obey him and never challenge him, and that made him feel prideful.

  When he finally saw the looming form of Abaddon, now free of his quicksilver lake, he nodded, silently marveling, not for the first time, at the sheer size and strangeness of the being. He saw a throng of fifty or more high-ranking Salamandrines surrounding their god. The nomad chieftains, wearing their strange featureless masks and carrying carved staves, watched him approach through slitted eyeholes and he had to admit that they were intimidating. Covered from head to toe in Abyssal-hide robes, decked out in bone ornaments, and armed with their characteristic long swords, they appeared barbaric and ferocious. After watching them in battle, he had come to respect them despite his hatred. And, more important, he knew that with one dark word Abaddon could have him set upon by them and he would not last long. He knew he could never show them his true revulsion
or, worse, any sign of weakness, and so he rode head up, eyes directly upon them and hand lightly on his sword hilt. That said, a defensive glyph was always on his lips should he need it.

  Abaddon was robed in heavy, ornately worked deep-red hides covered in what Adramalik imagined were sacred patterns picked out in fine, black bone work that were unique to the Men of Wrath. He could only imagine how long it must have taken for their females to create such huge robes, and the effect, despite the truly bizarre aspect of the god, was one of genuine, regal holiness. Less holy were the hundreds of small winged Abyssals that had accompanied him, perched, wings folded, on his back, shoulders, and head, chirruping, shifting, squabbling, and defecating. The once-lavish robes were streaked with their dung. Of them Abaddon seemed to take no note.

  “Prince Adramalik,” the voice said. The demon looked up at the darkness that shrouded Abaddon’s head. Red flashes of lightning hinted at what lay within the shadows.

  “These Exalted Chieftains and Shamans are agitated. They wish me to focus solely on the cities. They say that is fitting punishment for millennia of genocide. Further, they say the Abaddim are corrupting their land. What say you?”

  Adramalik did not hesitate. “The cities must fall, my god. As for the land—”

  Abaddon uttered a phrase to the throng of Salamandrines and they turned and glared at the demon. One of them raised his staff and shouted at Adramalik and soon the remaining chieftains were chanting angrily.

  “They do not like you, my demon prince.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “They see in you everything they have despised about demons for millennia.”

  Adramalik sucked in his breath. The Salamandrines certainly had their reasons. He needed to tread carefully.

  “My people have wronged them.”

  The web of lightning intensified around the god’s head, as did the chanting.

  “And I am using your dead to right that wrong, Prince. There will be many more demons joining the Horde before I am finished. This does not trouble you?”

  “No. They are of no concern to me. Only my enemies remain.” He had learned to answer quickly, before any negative thoughts could color his words.

  “And to that point, Prince, your former Knights will be joining us in the push toward the next city … the one called … Adamantinarx.”

  It was impossible for Adramalik not to react.

  “But, my god, they will remember—”

  “They will and they do. But they obey me.”

  “Am I to lead them?”

  “They have their orders. And yours will be to stay away from them. If you value your existence.”

  Adramalik’s mind raced.

  “As you will it, my god.”

  Adamantinarx! That much, at least, gave the demon great pleasure. To utterly demolish the Heretic’s own city, to make his successor, the upstart Put Satanachia, kneel before he wiped him and his “enlightened” capital from existence. Now that would be the culmination of everything he had dreamt of since before the fall of the Prince Regent!

  The dark clouds flickered briefly. Abaddon spoke to the Men of Wrath. As the god spoke, the gathered Exalted Chieftains knelt and began to carve away at the ground, reaching deep down until they yanked free chunks of the blackness from below.

  Adramalik had seen this practice many times along the way during the march of the Abaddim. It was some kind of offering to Abaddon, a rite that the chieftains believed symbolized the rebirth of the land. Or some such nonsense.

  The Salamandrines briefly lifted their masks, licked the black substance, and immediately spat upon the ground. It was clear to Adramalik that something was wrong. The Salamandrines were growing more agitated by the moment. Each of them, their faces again hidden in their elaborate masks, was turning to look upon their god. Each of them was carrying a heavily ornamented staff and the bolder ones had the temerity to be shaking them at the recumbent god.

  “They say it does not taste right. They say they are offended! OFFENDED BY WHAT I HAVE DONE TO THEIR LAND!”

  Abaddon’s rage was barely contained and the demon involuntarily cowered, not wanting to misspeak and bring disaster down upon himself.

  Adramalik feigned cluelessness.

  “Idiot of a demon. The ground!” Abaddon roared, reading his thoughts, and even the Salamandrines in their arrogance flinched. “They say it tastes … of your kind! Their ‘sacred ground tastes of the vomit of demonkind’ is exactly how they put it. They say it is because the Abaddim are of your kind … originally demons! They hoped it was not the case everywhere, but it is! They say they cannot live on land so befouled! The land that I am cleansing for them!”

  Remembering Faraii’s warning, Adramalik caught his foul thoughts about the Salamandrines before they fully formed. “But their camps … they chop them deep into the black ground they call sacred.”

  “They have a purification rite for that. They sprinkle it with Abyssal blood before they settle on it. They say, now, there is not enough Abyssal blood in all of Hell to purify what has been corrupted.”

  Adramalik’s jaw clenched. These things, these miserable creatures, are confronting their god? Outrageous! And yet would he not do exactly the same thing in their place? Am I feeling respect for them?

  “Respect? You feel respect for them, Adramalik? Perhaps you should follow them back into your so-called Wastes where they are threatening to retreat? And see what they would do to you.”

  With a vast effort the demon cleared his mind and shook his head slowly as he looked up at the bizarre, enraged figure of Abaddon.

  T’Zock, the World Eater, looked down upon his disillusioned children, his Salamandrines. Instead of cringing, they stood, almost defiant, in the face of their god. Words did not need to be uttered.

  “Go … go, then, and find your way back to the lands that you find so acceptable. There will be little enough of them left to live upon when I am through!”

  The Salamandrines turned their backs on Abaddon and started to filter away, their anger clear in their contemptuous gestures toward their god and especially Adramalik. The demon tried to conceal his pleasure at their departure, but the god before him would have none of it.

  “This gives you joy?” the god roared. And winds began to rip through the air. “My children turning their backs on me! When all I am doing is freeing their land?”

  Stunned, Adramalik reflexively fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground. The black substance beneath him filled his nostrils with a rank, foul odor.

  “No, my great god. Forgive me. For too long have I wrongfully despised them. Do as you will with me.”

  The blackness around Abaddon pulsed as the lightning within him crackled incessantly, angrily.

  “We will march at the next rise of the star you call Algol. Despite my children’s abandonment, I will destroy that last bastion of demonkind. Your kind. Go back to your tents, wallow in your pleasures, and wait, Prince. Once the Arch Abaddim … your Knights … arrive we will venture forth.”

  Adramalik rose slowly, unsteadily, the winds howling around him. His Knights were coming. And he could barely keep his fear in check. He did not remember reaching for the saddle on his mount.

  The demon turned his steed and left the divine presence, passing aggressively through the Salamandrine chieftains. True to form, they pushed back as he pressed forward. He could already see the Men of Wrath withdrawing from the field. He sucked in his breath in one long and deep intake, spurring on his Abyssal as if in an effort to distance himself not just from the god but also from the dark revelation he had just imparted.

  His betrayal of his Knights had weighed upon his mind since the moment it had happened. Not because of some misbegotten morality. No, this was purely about his survival. Soon, while fighting the demons of Adamantinarx, he would also have to look over his shoulder on the battlefield as if his former demons-in-arms were the enemy itself. Every move I have made has had dark consequences.

&n
bsp; His tents were lavish, befitting the Prince of Hell he had become and the future ruler of whatever demons and souls Abaddon permitted to live in Hell. Due payment for leading the Abaddim and if he alone of the demons survived, then so be it. When this was all over, Abaddon would look after him.

  He dismounted, scowling, and, with a glyph shot into the ground angrily staked his steed outside his entrance tent. He pulled aside his tent flaps, entered sending a half-dozen glyphs speeding into the tents to shed some pallid light on their interior. With the Salamandrines leaving, how would he transport these fine things? Would Abaddon fashion new creatures for him to carry the tents and their contents along? Unsure, he sighed and looked around, pleased with his possessions. Campaign furniture made for him by resentful Salamandrines, simple but light and sturdy, filled the tents, as did the random spoils he had looted from towns and outposts that had fallen to the inexorable advance of the Horde. In one corner a table stood, laden with a huge, bloody Abyssal joint he had begun to eat and surrounded by small dishes of exotic organ fruit plucked from various artery trees along the way. Scattered about were small, precious things he had collected: carved skulls, ornamental braziers, chests of fine stones, goblets, hides from exotic Abyssals, and weapons. Many, many weapons. He had become something of a discriminating collector, choosing different and strange arms to use as the Abaddim moved across Hell. It was interesting to him how many different ways he could dispatch souls, for example. One moment crushing blows were something to investigate, another broad full-arm slices. In his days under the Prince, the favored weapons had been fiery swords—metal at their core but flame enhanced by powerful glyphs—and eventually those had become the sole weapons the Fly would allow his Knights of the Priory. Those feared swords became associated only with them and, now, Adramalik saw just how limiting they were and so he collected as many different kinds of weapons as he could. He relished every first moment with each of them, testing them and gauging their efficiency and discarding the inferior ones with complete indifference. It was how he kept himself from growing bored.