The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  “Where did you come from?” “Why are you wearing Salamandrine garb?” “How long have you been alone?” “Why are you alone?” “What kind of device is that and how did you get it?” “How are you riding that Abyssal?” All these questions and many more she answered patiently, and soon she was asking them questions of her own.

  She discovered that when the Horde had passed through, the souls had hidden well beneath the surface flesh and had, thus, escaped any detection. Their descriptions of the sounds and sights of their passing were chilling. The horror at what the souls had seen was still preying upon them. And, despite what they told her of the ravaging Horde, they bravely wanted to fight. This was something to which Boudica gave great thought.

  She lingered with these souls. She listened to their tales and heard their fears and her sympathy began to grow. To her amazement, she found something welling up within her, something comforting in being with them. Was it their simple humanity? Or, perhaps, their unbridled adulation of her? That made her a little uneasy. Was she ready to lead again? All of these mixed feelings were a surprise to her, particularly since she found herself desperately missing K’ah and his people. Had she not been driven by the urge to find her daughters she might well have followed K’ah into the Margins for good.

  When at last she decided it was time to move on, the souls to a one clamored to go with her. They were eager to leave the foul-smelling protective ground pocket they had hidden in, but when Boudica saw them leaving their weapons behind she sighed deeply and shook her head. A new course was offering itself to her.

  “Take your weapons. You are going to need them.”

  21

  THE MARGINS

  Buer led them deep inside the Watchtower and it was almost immediately obvious that they were traveling inside an ancient living creature, albeit one that the demon had somehow manipulated. To her surprise, Lilith thought the smell inside the massive Abyssal was pleasant and it reminded her of burning candle wax. As they traveled the lengthy corridors, Buer gestured to and lit glyph lamps that gave a warm glow to the smooth walls carved into the Abyssal’s flesh.

  They wended their circuitous way into the Watchtower, past blind arteries and over protruding knobs of flesh. Buer kept a running monologue going, which Lilith at first thought was annoying and then embraced. It took her mind off Ardat.

  “When I first Fell here,” Buer said, her voice creaky, “I lived in a small overhang at the foot of this tower. I hunted and kept to the shadows, endlessly afraid of the Beasts. I was not sure my protective glyphs could hold against them. I tried out many glyphs against them as well … maybe some of them worked. Then, in time, I prevailed and when they began to take my offerings of food I realized the Beasts were not a threat and I could take care of myself here. Fortunately, I did not long for companionship.… I was never really alone.” Lilith glanced at Eligor at that but held her tongue. The party slid their way down a short, moist sloping tunnel. Buer’s voice trailed off for a few moments. “… I grew bolder and began to climb and explore and I found my way into the creature. It took a very long time for me to carve my way into its belly and I was always afraid I might injure something vital when I dug deeper inside. But I was lucky and the great beast was hospitable. I was little more than a tiny pest to it, I think. Centuries passed and I finally arrived at a space I was happy with.…”

  The demons and Lilith entered a vast, humid chamber that appeared to have no ceiling. Instead, the walls leaped upward into a titanic, roughly triangular open vault, the apex of which was shrouded in darkness. The walls of the room were clearly organic and the suggestion of ribs and arteries was evident. That they were deep within the creature’s chest was clear and she was sure that she felt the suggestion of the inhalation and exhalation of hot air. But, to Lilith, by far the most amazing aspect of the already-amazing interior was the innumerable glyphs that rose on every side and ascended into farthest regions of the vault. There were thousands of them receding into tiny pinpricks of lights. It was, in Lilith’s mind, magical.

  The party picked their way across the wide floor, through head-high stacks of manuscripts, Abyssal bones and claws and beaks, minerals, bits of demon armor, rolled hides, a variety of transparent polyps from arterial trees and pots. Hundreds, if not thousands, of ceramic pots of every shape and size and color. Most contained small amounts of pulverized elements, some recognizable to Lilith, most not. A mound of valuable demons’ phalerae lay spread in careless disarray across the middle of the room.

  “How did you get all of this out here? So far from any city or trade route? Did your companion bring it?”

  Buer did not stop to answer but continued on to a low pallet spread over with the softened hides of Abyssals. She pointed to it.

  “All of this was brought to me over time. As payment. For services rendered. By me.”

  Ardat was laid gently out on a pallet with six floating glyphs shedding a dull glow upon her broken body. Buer removed the handmaiden’s traveling skin and the thinner skins beneath them and Lilith could easily see the crushed ribs and the side of her face. Her heart sank.

  Buer closed her eyes and, under her breath, chanted a short invocation. The sound of it was odd to Lilith’s ears.

  A being began to coalesce from azure pinpoints of light. The pinpoints merged to form the strange, luminous glyphs Lilith had seen before in Sargatanas’ Shrine. They quickly filled into the outline of a figure in the gloomy chamber. In a few moments the androgynous being stood, wavering in the realm between dream and fire.

  Lilith saw its face, formed of hundreds of tiny glyphs, turn to regard its creator. Its smile was unmistakable. And beautiful. Crowning it all, circling its head was a glorious corona of sigils pulsing with prismatic light.

  “Fetch me these, would you?” Buer asked, her tone kindly, as she traced three arcane glyphs in the air before her. The glyph spirit moved immediately to one of the walls. Four large, glowing wings sprouted from its back and it floated upward.

  “What is that?” Lilith’s eyes followed the being’s ascent upward. Buer’s companion was extraordinary.

  Buer hesitated as she attempted to put Ardat in a comfortable position. “A Legate. My personal Legate.” The demon smiled faintly. “A memento, if you will.”

  “Of what?”

  “More like ‘of where.’”

  Lilith looked at Eligor. His expression was such as to imply that he knew the answer to the question on Lilith’s tongue. She looked at the strange figure of Buer. The small demon was wearing a wing-flanged bone cap, a belt of organ containers and many tiny amulets that clicked and clacked as she moved. Her forearms were actually elongated fingers terminating in even more fingers. These she used to tug and pull the soft bedclothes around Ardat, creating a nest for the wounded handmaiden. A small tail protruded from beneath Buer’s robes, twitching with her every movement. Lilith had rarely seen a more unusual demon. But for some reason she liked Buer.

  “It was my constant companion in the Above. My rank and station in the Above required it. Somehow, I managed to keep it through my Fall. As far as I know there are no others like it here in Hell.”

  Lilith could not help but be impressed. Here was a creature of pure Light that, if not fully tangible, was unchanged from its form in the Above. And it was glorious.

  “I know why you are here, Lilith. Why you made this journey. And why Eligor is here, as well.”

  Lilith tried to not show her surprise.

  “Then I need not bore you with a long-winded entreaty.”

  “No. I have what you will need. But it will cost you. Not just in your repayment to me.”

  “Repayment?” Lilith began to reconsider her newfound affections.

  “Yes. As I said, how do you think I got all of this?” She grinned a toothy grin and spread her hands indicating the pots, the manuscripts, and the furnishings.

  “Whatever the cost, Buer. Much hangs on Hannibal’s recovery.”

  Buer turned and looked intently in
to Lilith’s red-irised eyes, her own age-filmed eyes narrowed.

  “Indeed. And even more hangs on other choices that you will have to make.”

  Lilith did not respond.

  Ardat groaned and Lilith’s breath caught, the sound stabbing into her heart, sharp and deep. She clenched her jaw and reached for her, but Buer gently pushed her hand aside.

  “Time for me to get to work.” The Legate floated down by her side and offered the demon the glyphs. Eligor nodded to his demons and the succubi to retreat into the dark corners of the chamber and, once in the shadows, they crouched, attentive and concerned. Lilith sat herself down on a pile of dusty tomes and watched as the glyphs broke apart and stretched into arcane webs, hovering above the handmaiden’s injuries. Like fine lines of fire the patterns shifted, dipped and fused, intersected and diverged, symbols flickering into existence and disappearing just as unpredictably.

  Buer stood back supervising the spells, uttering guiding words under her breath, and waved her gnarled hand. A few pots of mineral elements sparked and sizzled and smoked, sending wreathing tendrils of vapor into the air. The acrid odor filled Lilith’s nostrils and she saw glyphs form within the smoke, curling one into another and forming elaborate equations only to blow away into the darkness, leaving behind the strange smells. It was all very hypnotic and soon Lilith found herself looking inward as she sat, motionless, entranced.

  She simply could not get away from the sadness of loss. That and love, that most impossible of Hell’s emotions. Everyone whom she had grown close to had left her. Lucifer, Sargatanas, and now Ardat? The old familiar numbness was threatening to take her again and she was not sure how she would handle it. Not this time. Her bond with Ardat was complicated. Not like the infatuation she had had with Lucifer or the deep soul sharing she had experienced with Sargatanas. Ardat’s love was the love of a near equal, of someone who had shared so much with her from the very beginnings in Hell. And, to be entirely honest to herself, Ardat’s suffering at the Fly’s hand had imposed a heavy burden of guilt that had stayed with her, since the handmaiden’s punishment had been undeniably her fault. She had only been able to push that guilt aside when they had finally consummated their love for one another and she had told her about it. Ardat had held no grudge and that had only made Lilith love her all the more.

  A complex network of luminous dotted lines soon covered Ardat, the myriad, multi-layered intersections concentrated on her caved-in side and face. As she watched Buer conjuring she saw the demon’s face changing, bone plates hidden rising and sliding across her countenance, puzzle-like pieces locking and unlocking, tiny teeth emerging and melting back into bone, until the small demon was no longer recognizable. Lilith knew what this meant, saw the strain the conjuring was putting Buer under.

  Suddenly the curving lines, the tiny glyphs, the ancient symbols and patterns ceased to shift, locking in place inches above the handmaiden’s skin.

  Ardat began to tremble, but the curative web work never moved and Lilith saw the slowly mending bones shifting under her bruised skin. The muffled grinding of bone was unmistakable and unsettling as ribs began to re-form.

  Buer stepped back, never taking her eyes from her charge, moving slowly toward a worn bone bench. She sat heavily, exhausted, and drew her feet up. The Legate dissipated away in a cloud of blue sparks.

  “Just as difficult as I thought it would be,” she muttered to no one but herself. “Nothing to do but wait.”

  She pulled her robes around herself and closed her three eyes and, as she grew still, her face began to resume its former aspect.

  Lilith rose and approached Ardat, followed quickly by Eligor.

  “Do not touch her! Or all will be undone!” Buer was staring wide eyed at her.

  The shrieked command hung in the air. And, somehow, the Legate was suddenly, urgently, in front of Lilith, who stopped in her tracks. She started and Eligor put a hand softly on her shoulder.

  “It was not your fault, my lady.”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. She turned and walked toward the bench, the cool light of the Legate’s presence fading away again behind her.

  She sat down quietly on the bench a few feet from Buer, who was already asleep. Nerves, exhaustion, and doubts filled Lilith’s mind and she closed her eyes, taking shallow breaths perfumed by the wisps of whatever Buer had used in her ritual. Soon she was fast asleep, her paleness almost luminous in the gloom of the chamber.

  * * *

  A familiar cough woke her.

  Ardat was sitting upright, her arms shakily propping herself up, her expression one of bewilderment.

  Lilith hurried to her and knelt by her side, putting her hands delicately on Ardat’s knees. The web of lines was gone from her battered torso and Lilith could plainly see, through the purple and red, the ribs had fully healed. She peered up at Ardat’s face and, apart from the bruises, all seemed as it once had been. And yet there was something different in the handmaiden’s eyes. A torpor, a distance, perhaps, Lilith thought. Or was it pain?

  “Where am I?” Ardat’s voice was weak, brittle, and dry.

  “In Buer’s chambers. Deep within a Watchtower.”

  Ardat looked around trying to focus on her surroundings, slowly peering up.

  “Am I all right? I hurt. A lot.”

  “You have been healed. You were terribly wounded, my love.”

  Ardat looked back down and into Lilith’s face. A tear streak glistened on her cheek.

  “I do not feel right.”

  Buer joined them and said softly, “I did what I could.”

  She scuffed off and returned with a heavy obsidian goblet of thick red liquid flecked with gold, which she offered to Ardat. “Drink this.”

  “What is it?” Ardat’s quiet and even tone bordered on angry.

  “Certain Abyssals … tiny ones … eat the polyps on the artery trees. They expel this liquid. It is medicinal for demons,” Buer said as she made for the center of the chamber. “And I have added a few things.”

  Ardat sniffed it, pursed her lips, and then drank down the entire potion in hungry gulps.

  Lilith smiled when she saw Ardat’s eyes grow more attentive. She stood, squeezed Ardat’s shoulder for reassurance, and followed Buer some paces away to the pile of phalerae.

  Buer began nudging the disks around with her foot. “Your handmaiden will never be alone,” she said quietly. “Pain will always be her companion.”

  Lilith’s face fell. “But this ritual…?”

  “As I said. It was the best I could do. She would have succumbed had I not been here.”

  Lilith looked down at the hundreds of charred phalerae at her feet. The squashed and distorted demons’ faces on them, their teeth bared, their mouths set in grimacing smiles, seemed to be mocking her in her misery. She felt the bitterness welling up in her. But she had to be strong. She had to be clear eyed.

  “When will she be able to travel?”

  “She can travel now. But she cannot fight. That would be too much for her.”

  “Good. I need…” Lilith hesitated. Buer had already done so much for her that asking for any more help seemed greedy.

  “I know what you need.” Again, she summoned the Legate and gave it a brief instruction. But this time, instead of floating upward, it waved its hand, and slowly, almost serenely, the disks began to float up around them until the pair were surrounded in a cloud of them. The Legate briefly scanned the demonic trophies and plucked an especially large deep-red disk from the center of the cloud. This it handed to Buer almost ceremoniously.

  The demon held up the phalera with thumb and index finger.

  “This.”

  Lilith reached for the disk, paused, and then took it from Buer, her hand dipping as she took hold. It was incredibly heavy for something so thin. She studied it and noticed that when shadows played upon its surface pits and wrinkles tiny faraway stars of light could be discerned. And when it was shaken slightly she could hear a distant deep sound,
she thought, almost like war drums. Am I imagining this?

  “Remarkable, eh? That is the only Disk of Transmutation I have ever come across, Lilith. My Legate identified it as such. It is the oldest phalera in my collection.”

  “Whose was it?”

  “I do not know. But, to be sure, a powerful, forgotten god. Slain, undoubtedly, by a more powerful and forgotten god. Or demon. Something like this does not get passed along as time goes on. It is held on to. To be either used or secreted. You will find this interesting. It was found well beneath the Fly’s Keep in a chamber intentionally flooded with lava. The Prince was clearly afraid of its power.”

  Lilith swallowed hard. She had not known the Fly to be afraid of anything or anyone.

  Buer held her clawed hand out. And Lilith, confused, handed the disk back. The demon handed it to the Legate, who bowed, flared, and vanished, taking the disk with it.

  “I am giving this to you, Lilith. And my Legate is going to bear it for you and help you when you need to use it. I will teach you how to summon the Legate when you require both it and the disk.”

  “You are sending your only companion away?”

  “Yes.” She frowned slightly. Buer shifted on her feet, uncertainty clear in her manner. “This is how you summon my … the Legate.” And she whispered a phrase into Lilith’s ear. Lilith mouthed it soundlessly until she felt she had mastered its inflection.

  “I do not do this lightly,” Buer said. “The need is great.”

  Lilith was shocked. Hannibal’s plight was her guilt to bear. Why was it so important to Buer?

  “And I do not do this without the expectation of repayment,” Buer continued. “This is the disk of a fallen god. I expect payment in kind. A disk of equal value for a disk. I do not care how long it takes you to bring it to me.”

  “And the Legate…?”

  “Will return to me or not. I do not control it. No one can. I merely brought it here. Time will tell.”

  “There is more goodness in you than Hell deserves. You have our thanks.”