The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  Most recently he had begun to favor two massive axes, stripped from some petty godling he had encountered during the long march. He had enjoyed wresting them from him and using them on the hapless demigod. A fine memory.

  He threw his satchel and weapons down at the foot of his pallet when a sharp sound made him twist around and peer into the shadowed corner of his sleeping tent.

  She or it—Adramalik still did not quite know how to quantify the creature—emerged from the shadows, draped in one of the long, glow-spotted Abyssal hides.

  She was dark as pumice and covered in her own spots, tiny and red and concentrated around her breasts and pubic area, and she flashed them like a lure when he looked upon her. Abaddon had done well in her creation. He had tapped into every fantasy that Adramalik had, both known to him and not, and constructed the ultimate sexual plaything. An Abyssal seductress far more potent than any succubus, she could engulf him with orifices unimaginable, enfold him in limbs unthinkable, and wrap around and into his mind with tendrils both creative and intoxicating. When he lay with her, Adramalik lost any sense of where he was, who he had been, and what had meaning. Abaddon had, indeed, done well.

  He looked at her and could not deny his appetites. He wrenched the hides off her and picked her up by her thin neck. Her green eyes opened wide in mock alarm and she made a cooing sound in her throat. That only inflamed him more and, with a growl, he picked up the fiery Abyssal stalk he used as a crop and threw her down on his sleeping pallet. When her hide was welted and tender he watched her part herself for him. The scent of her wafted up and a part of him collapsed inward, thrillingly resigned to the spell of her body. He buried himself deeply in her and felt her change around him.

  Claws came out, both hers and his, and for a while they drew black blood. They lapped at it, smeared it upon each other, and drew more. She moved her ribs apart and yet another set of limbs pulled free to caress him, to stab at him. He was lost. All thoughts of angered Salamandrines, vengeful Knight-Abaddim, Adamantinarx, even her creator, Abaddon himself, vanished in the fog of lust.

  He came with a roar in a blinding flare of fire that set the thin hides on his pallet ablaze. And the two lay there amidst the flames for some time, panting and dripping, entangled in a mass of her claws and pincers and spread body plates. She gradually recomposed herself into something like what he had seen when he entered and sat up. Silently, she picked up the smoldering hides and draped herself in them. Adramalik, the fire still burning upon him, turned his head to look at her through the flames. Her head was now shrouded in the same shimmering dark veil that surrounded Abaddon’s head. A not-so-subtle reminder of the god to whom he now owed his very existence.

  20

  THE WASTES

  “We are being watched, B’udik’k’ah,” K’ah said, pointing into the sky with his sword.

  Boudica followed his finger and saw a tiny white speck floating against the shredded clots of low clouds, hard to see in the scurrying shoals of embers.

  “Who…?”

  “Not who … what. It is some kind of flying thing. Not natural.”

  Boudica squinted, but the pale dot was too far away for her to discern any detail. Why were they being followed? And who would care about their whereabouts? Was it Eligor’s doing? She sighed. It was just another enigma added to her already-frustrating existence.

  Dolcha Branapa had proved to be an exercise in futility. Despite her and the Salamandrines’ extreme cajoling, the demon there had been utterly unable to find her daughters in the vast Books of Gamagin. Had they missed their names? Or could it be that they were not in Hell? She considered this over and over and it brought her some small joy. To imagine her beloved children not witness to the things she had seen was her greatest dream. But the uncertainty of it made her uneasy.

  It had taken far longer than she had expected to go page by page through the massive tomes. She sat listening, sometimes from a distance, sometimes near at hand, and she thought she would always, maddeningly, remember the unending sibilance of the souls within them who had been given voice. Ultimately, she had simply reconciled herself to the seeming futility of the exercise and turned away from the demons, tears streaming from her eyes. She had left the demons squatting amidst the Books, looks of misery, defiance, and anger written upon their faces. The Salamandrines, for their part, had not been as emotional. Coldly, they had set upon the last demons of the sanctuary and, instead of quickly dispatching them each with a merciful sword thrust in final bursts of ash and rubble, chopped them slowly into small bits with their bone skinning-daggers. But, according to Boudica’s instructions, they had done this away from the Books so as not to sully them with the demons’ blood. She had asked K’ah to have the Books replaced beneath the floor for anyone else who might come searching for them. Strangely, they had respected her wishes without a word of contest. Perhaps they felt some sympathy for the souls beyond number who had fallen victim to their common enemy, the demons. And no amount of explanation from Boudica that the overwhelming majority of souls were in Hell for a reason could shake them of that notion. She was, it would seem, simply too good an exemplar of her kind.

  They left Dolcha Branapa a hollowed bone of a structure, rising in the middle of the plains. Not a demon was left alive. And its secret was safe.

  Boudica stared morosely at the wrinkled, bobbing head of Andrasta as the party left the sanctuary. Her demeanor was anything but a secret to K’ah. He had become quite good at analyzing her moods through her alien body language. And he had learned, too, when to leave her to herself. Instead, he set his warriors back on a path to their semi-permanent camp.

  In no great hurry, the war-band of roughly forty warriors moved steadily ahead and, instead of retracing their steps, deviated from the shorter route. K’ah was curious about the reaction the cities might have to their raid on Char-zon, but sensing her disinterest in fighting and, therefore, wanting no skirmishes, they took a more oblique route that led them past many soul encampments. It seemed to Boudica that he was almost offering her a way back to her people, but she had little interest in anything to do with them. Which, she thought, was probably reassuring to him.

  The towns, if they could even be called that, were meager things, scattered across the landscape. Most were comprised of a few somewhat sturdy buildings made of Abyssal bones and thick, chopped slices of the fleshy ground cover surrounded by a few dozen elaborate lean-tos and weird tents. She knew that the skills the disparate peoples brought from their Lives to Hell would be employed in creating dwellings, but the mixture of designs was visually disharmonious and arresting. As they passed these dismal settlements, ragged souls would come out of their dark hovels to either stare, sullen faced and eyes narrowed, or brandish primitive weapons at them threateningly. Souls knew all too well not to take on Salamandrines in force and the threats seemed perfunctory at best. Boudica watched them hurriedly head back into their homes as soon as it was clear there was not going to be a confrontation.

  Despite her having been in Hell for eons, the sight of souls—her kind—still made her uneasy. No two were alike. And far too few of them looked as she did, more or less human. Even with the once-ubiquitous punitive black spheres now gone, most were, in a word, horrific. Monsters in any other context. Had one of them burst out of the woods near her old tribal village, they would have been killed without hesitation. Such was the work of the demons upon her kin. And such was the nature of humanity that they had earned their place in Hell.

  Boudica shook her head. How could she go on without any resolution to her daughters’ fate? She could spend her inexhaustible life in Hell traversing its five points and yet still never find them. And then, to further confound her, there was the notion that they were not even in Hell. She closed her eyes as the wave of sadness and depression and confusion washed through her. She started to drift into sleep, lulled by the padding of Andrasta and the monotony of the landscape.

  Cries woke her. She opened her eyes and blearily scanned the
flat horizon. She recognized the minimal landmarks as just outside the immediate region of the settlement. In a moment saw what the Salamandrines had reacted to. A low pall hung over the plains in the direction they were heading. With a nod from her, K’ah sent some of the warriors speeding ahead to reconnoiter the camp and its surroundings.

  They did not return. Instead, as Boudica and Ka’h and the rest of the warriors made their way to them she saw the land around them change dramatically.

  The foul and oppressive flesh layers that blanketed Hell—brought down upon the land when the Fallen had arrived—were gone and only the black, yielding substrate remained. The warriors began to dismount with looks of astonishment on their beaked faces. Openly elated, a cry went up.

  “Our god has Risen! Our god has Risen. The Second World is upon us!”

  This was taken up by all of the Salamandrines and even K’ah seemed excited and genuinely pleased.

  One by one the feared Men of Wrath knelt to press their beaks reverently against the newly revealed and near-sacred ground.

  Boudica and K’ah dismounted and fell to their knees. She felt the warmth and soft texture of the blackness beneath her fingers and saw how dully the surface reflected the ruddy light. K’ah sat transfixed for a few moments before leaning forward.

  “It is the prophecy made real,” he said quietly to himself.

  But before Boudica could press her face against the surface she recoiled as a cry of outrage rang through the air and, one by one, the Salamandrines rose with revulsion visible in their movements. Something was terribly wrong.

  “It is corrupted!” someone shouted. “Our land has been fouled!”

  K’ah stopped in mid-bow, just as he was about to press his beak to the ground. Instead of standing, he slowly lowered himself down and kept his beak just above the black surface. His tongue came out and tentatively rasped the ground and he then closed his mouth. He raised his head a bit. Boudica watched him hold this position for a few moments and then he straightened and rose.

  “The Burning Land … our land is being corrupted. Something is very wrong.”

  “But the God of the Second World would never…”

  K’ah did not answer but, without a word, ran to his mount. Boudica only hesitated long enough to see the other Salamandrines following his lead, racing to their own Abyssals. Once they were all in their saddles K’ah spurred his mount and set off at a fast gallop.

  They rode for a very long time, negotiating so many similar dark hills and valleys that Boudica soon wondered if they were going in circles. Only when they approached a singular rock formation did she know they were nearing K’ah’s settlement.

  The large pit was still there, its edges torn and disfigured, but the destruction within it was significant. The once neatly arranged partitions were shattered, some lying outside the periphery of the encampment, apparently dragged by some kind of stampede. Sleeping skins, Abyssal-hide curtains, small possessions, were all scattered about as if they had been trampled, picked up, and flung without any restraint. Only the black idol, the image of the Lord of the Second World, remained upright and untouched as it had been. Boudica saw the tribe hard at work trying to reconstruct the clawed embankment of backfill that the Salamandrines had carefully put in place. Strangely, though the chaos of destruction was profound, none of the females or young or elderly seemed injured apart from minor cuts and bruises. All this K’ah took in as well. Spotting the chief, M’ak, he pivoted his mount and headed toward the old Salamandrine.

  “What has happened here?”

  “Prophecy has happened here. Abaddon’s Horde has risen from Below along with our Lord and ‘cleansed’ the Land.”

  K’ah looked stunned.

  “How can that be?”

  M’ak looked down. Boudica’s sympathies rose for the old Salamandrine.

  “It can be because it is, K’ah. Prophecies are only perfect when they are explained by the willingly fooled. The prophecy only predicted a new world … a Second World … would be brought into being. It said nothing about its hardships upon us. T’Thunj is of this world. The demons are not and, therefore, the Horde is not. I am told by some of the tribe that saw them that the Abaddim are ‘demons in disguise.’ Perhaps that is why this has come about.”

  K’ah flinched, the equivalent of rolling his eyes.

  “What, then, is the point of our worshipping a god for eons that does nothing to help its worshippers? That, in fact, hurts its worshippers?”

  It was as if M’ak had not heard the question, and he seemed even older and frailer than he had when Boudica had last seen him. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon.

  “The Abyssals have fled. Our time here is over. We must move away. To lands that are not ‘cleansed.’ Since the fall of the demons we have changed as a people. Adapted. We will continue as we have in the past.”

  K’ah sat down heavily on a pile of hides. Boudica could all too easily imagine what was flooding his mind. She and her people had had to deal with the same kinds of concerns. They had chosen to stay. To fight. And to ultimately be eradicated.

  “B’udik’kah,” K’ah said without looking at her. “I cannot disagree with the decision of my chief. Nor do I think he is entirely wrong. You heard him. We are going to move away from these, our ancestral grounds. Probably to the Margins. We could use your leadership out there.”

  A hot wind was whipping up. The charred smell of it was not pleasant. Boudica looked down at her feet and saw a small bone object—a carved child’s toggle fastener—begin to roll across the black ground. She bent to pick it up, clasped it tightly, and put it in her pocket.

  “A memento?”

  “Yes, K’ah. I cannot go with you. I think you know that.”

  K’ah went down on his knees, arms outstretched. This was a rare thing, she knew. Any sign of affection was viewed with suspicion, seen as weakness. But their relationship had been unique from the start. He enfolded her in his arms, the fierce Salamandrine and the fierce soul, both finding something they had only touched on for all this time.

  “Where will you go?”

  She had not thought too deeply about her next move. Would it make sense to simply roam the Wastes in search of her daughters? To travel from one misbegotten or dangerous soul village to another in a vain effort to describe them to the souls she encountered? In a moment she made up her mind.

  “Adamantinarx.”

  K’ah looked surprised. “Probably best to not mention anything about Char-zon when you get there.”

  Boudica grinned. Affection and sarcasm. K’ah was a changed Man of Wrath, indeed.

  Head bowed, M’ak had heard all of this and slowly reached for a pendant hanging around his neck, pulling it with shaky hands over his hooded head.

  “Take this, B’udik’k’ah Two-swords. Remember us and what we were about. Tell them in the demons’ capital that we simply want to be left alone. To hunt and live until we are no more.” He paused and his four old eyes glittered fiercely. “And tell them, too, that if they follow us into the Margins we will shred them.”

  Without examining it Boudica nodded and put the necklace around her neck. She watched M’ak-aka-tua turn and walk slowly, solemnly away.

  K’ah gently took Boudica’s arm and peeled up the Abyssal skin until the spiral tattoo was visible. There were many more than just the first one she had earned.

  “Remember, you are always a part of us. And you can always seek us out and know there is a place for you. Take your mount and ride swiftly.”

  Boudica felt a welling up.

  “I will never forget you, K’ah-aka-tuk. And, never is a very long time in the Burning Lands.”

  K’ah bowed his head. As if they had heard her, the other Salamandrines bowed their heads, and Boudica had to bite her lip to keep tears from flowing.

  She cinched her swords and satchels and turned away from him and, as she walked toward Andrasta, she heard him quietly say, “Keep your swords sharp, little one.”

 
* * *

  Boudica’s fingers idly worked over the Finder’s bone and metal surface as she stared into the distance. Fiery dust devils skirled across the low hills nearby and she found she could not take her eyes from them. Their unpredictable courses mirrored her own. Did she really want to go back to Adamantinarx? What would she find there? That demon, Eligor, might try to be helpful, but she was sure he had other things to attend to. And it had been he who sent her off on her quest in the first place. Yet the new capital seemed the only place remaining that bore any semblance to civilization in Hell since the war had upset the long-standing order of things.

  She was not in any hurry and the pace she set included the occasional feeding detour, affording Andrasta frequent opportunities to inhale the tiny airborne creatures that swarmed around the fumaroles. This, in itself, was fascinating to watch under normal circumstances, but Boudica’s distraction was all-consuming and she barely paid the spectacle any attention. At least the creature was content.

  For a while she avoided soul villages. Her interest in other souls was marginal, and, from what she had seen of their ferocity and total lack of conscience, they were well to be given wide berth. And, so, when any hint of humanity and its settlements became evident she veered far off course to remain unseen.

  All of this care at avoidance had worked well until she stumbled directly upon a hidden settlement that had been tucked away in a dark cavern, a pocket in the black substrate. As she passed, the souls within came streaming forth and, instead of meeting her with naked belligerence, blades bared and threats thrown, they beckoned her to stop and tell them what she knew. She sighed and dismounted and cautiously approached the small band, noticing that most of them were far less grotesque than souls she had been familiar with. This was a comfort to Boudica, who found herself opening up to them without even knowing why.