The Heart of Hell

by Wayne Barlowe

  In the meantime, he had a city to take. Adamantinarx would not fall without furious opposition. As easily as he had batted aside the flying demons, he knew he could not make that invocation too many times. Even a Demon Major had his limits. This was a siege of brute strength, not Art, and he was confident that, even with great losses, the numbers were on his side. And he could not discount Abaddon. He had no real idea what marvels of mayhem the god was capable of.

  Adramalik urged the Abaddim on. He had them gather and press against the gate’s massive doors in such huge numbers that the pressure became almost too much for the structure to bear. Only the great seal behind the gate, conjured no doubt by Satanachia or, perhaps, Halphas, held it in place.

  Adramalik bowed his head and closed his eyes. He insinuated a Version Tenebrous of his own seal beneath the heavy doors and began to work away at the gate’s last remaining protection, occluding its light-scribed elements bit by bit. It was a skill he had learned from his colleague Lord Nergar, the former secret-police chief of Dis, for whom entering any space was a necessary Art. No door could have held its secrets for long if Nergar had need to enter. Adramalik had never been quite as good as his tutor at this ability—truly no demon had been his equal—but the former Chancellor’s abilities were far from poor. He set to work eating away at the seal, reducing it by degrees.

  He could hear the hundreds of Abaddim growing frantic, clawing at the doors. Adramalik, picturing his progress in his mind’s eye, saw the seal slowly being occluded. He was methodical, calculating, leaving no light speck of any symbol untouched. Nergar would have been smiling his toothy grin. Finally, the seal vanished completely. A great groan went up from the gate, rising above the din of battle, as the hinges were challenged and then, with a crack like a terrific bolt of lightning, the doors collapsed inward.

  The Abaddim streamed through the shattered gate, the creatures climbing atop one another in their eagerness to enter the city precincts. Adramalik felt pride swell up within his chest. This was his doing, almost as much as Abaddon’s. He glanced back out over the tortured river basin and into the darkness beyond. And almost as he formed his prideful thought he saw red lightning spidering out from where he knew the god to be. That, alone, was enough to dampen his exhilaration. He had to tread so carefully with Abaddon.

  He turned to look back at the besieged city. He looked up and saw that most of the flying demons were again hovering in formation. Waiting. There were small gaps indicating their losses. There will be a lot more of those before much longer.

  His eyes darted to the parapet and he grew angry. A formation of demons was stooping, wings tucked tightly on a direct course toward the gate’s platform. They never slowed and, arms extended, scooped up Lilith and her fellow fighters and banked steeply up and away. It all happened so quickly that Adramalik barely had time to swear, let alone fashion an invocation to stop it. Instead, well after the fact, he hit his steed with the flat of his ax so hard that the beast roared in pain and lurched forward trampling a dozen Abaddim underfoot. He vowed he would get her soon enough. Adramalik’s mood improved almost immediately as he quickly found himself passing beneath the Seventh Gate of Adamantinarx, the city he had always hated most in Hell. A finer moment he could not remember.

  * * *

  Despite her halfhearted protestations, the demon who bore Lilith carried her back toward the palace plaza. She peered down into the city and saw just how far the Abaddim had penetrated. The streets and alleys and avenues clogged with fighting demons and Abaddim thinned out the farther up the Central Mount she was borne.

  The Sisters were dropped there just before Lilith alit, and even though she was disappointed, she thanked the flying demon who had lifted her away from the battle. She was met by the Proconsul and his guard.

  “Who ordered me removed from the gate?”

  “I did.”

  Lilith frowned. There was nothing to be done about it now. And no point in recriminations. She looked out into the distance and saw no end to the Abaddim.

  “The walls are overrun. Their numbers are too great. And their general is no novice.”

  “Who is it?”

  “No idea. His sigil was not normal. It had elements I did not recognize woven into it making it hard to read. And much of it was darkened.”

  “Who holds such a grievance against us that he would ally himself with that god-thing?”

  Lilith did not venture any guesses.

  “What now?”

  “Now we fight fire with fire, Lilith. I will command Agaliarept and the other Conjurers and decurions to redouble their efforts at the pits to summon as many legionaries as we can to stem the tide.”

  “And Eligor’s troops…?”

  “… are our last defense. We can use a third of them to harry the enemy, but we dare not use more. I am pulling the remaining two-thirds back, overhead … up here. For a final defense.”

  Lilith looked down.

  “I am not staying up here, Satanachia.”

  “I know.”

  She looked at him. His armor was thickening. And he was firing up his lance. In a moment it was ablaze with sharp glyphs that skimmed across its surface.

  “You really did not think I was going to stay up here and let you do all the fighting, did you, Lilith?”

  She smiled at him and then at her Sisters.

  “Well, then. Why, in the name of the Ascended Ones, are we just standing here?”

  With that, once again, Lilith headed to the great stairs, followed closely by Put Satanachia and the Sisters.

  Already, she could see the effect the conjuring pits were having on troop strength. The streets were nearly impassable and the avenues were little better. Cohorts of still-steaming demons seemed to be moving in every direction. Everywhere command glyphs were flying and troops were hastening to their positions. Lilith knew that the apparent chaos was, in fact, better organized than it appeared. But she also knew that movement and fighting within a city was one of the things generals dreaded most.

  As she considered that, a glyph arrowed in to the Proconsul and Satanachia absorbed its meaning. Lilith was grateful she had been away and was not bearing the brunt of all the command decisions as was her co-regent. As they tried to make their way through the crowded avenue the Proconsul sent a large glyph back and shared what he had learned.

  “My field commander, Lord Belmathagor, tells me that our troops are holding ground in most of the city. Just. The Seventh Gate was the focal point of the heaviest attack. As you know, we failed there, and he is sending three full legions to attempt to staunch the flow of the enemy that continues to enter there. Thankfully, as we hoped, the pits are doing their job. Legionaries are pouring out at an unprecedented rate. We barely have enough centurions to lead them.”

  And then he said almost as an afterthought, “Also, Belmathagor tells me neither Halphas nor Agaliarept nor the decurions know how long the pits will be useful before they are spent.”

  That thought lingered in Lilith’s mind.

  Up ahead she could hear fighting, and eager to push the thought of empty lava pits aside and join the fray, she elbowed her way through the marching demons.

  She did not have long to wait. Down at the foot of the Rule the Abaddim were making steady gains and a somber and disturbing cloud of destroyed demons’ ash hung low over the avenue. Anger flooded through her and she redoubled her pace down the avenue.

  They hit the Abaddim like a firestorm. Satanachia, swinging his lance with two hands to and fro, set to clearing a wide swathe before him. Lilith’s nostrils filled with the stench of burned Abaddim. She and the Sisters widened the swathe even more. For some time they fought the many dozens of Abaddim that crossed their paths and yet it seemed to make no difference. It was, as the demons sometimes quipped, “like trying to blow out a lava field.” The odds were simply too great.

  Satanachia’s spines flared and he bent to his slaughter with even more vigor, leaping into the thickest of the Abaddim and roaring w
ith fury. The flames above his head grew until they covered his entire torso and burned to cinders anyone who came too close. He became a thing of fire and destruction. And even this was not enough.

  Lilith, pausing and breathing hard, saw the hollow expressions on the Sisters’ faces. As fierce and adept as they had become, this was proving to be too much.

  Three glyphs suddenly converged upon Satanachia, and Lilith watched him drop back. The Sisters covered him, blades swinging, as he faced Lilith.

  “Reports are coming in from Flying Guard captains. They think they can see the rear guard of Abaddon’s army. It is not infinite. We knew that. They also think they can see Abaddon himself in the darkness.”

  “Is Abaddon moving forward?”

  “So it would seem.”

  Lilith sidestepped a thrust from the mandibles of an Abaddim and severed his head. She reached down and picked it up.

  “This looks like a demon.”

  “It is. Or was. We are fighting our own dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Eligor just told me that he recognized one of their captains. The Knight-Brigadier named Melphagor he slew back in Dis.”

  “A Knight. From Dis. And a captain, no less.” Lilith grew thoughtful. Who were the generals who actually led this host? Something was eating away at her, but she could not put her finger on it.

  “We must keep going.” Satanachia looked grave. “It hardly matters who these things were in another life. It only matters what they are about now.”

  “Agreed.”

  They, once again, leaped into the fray and did not stop swinging their weapons until Algol had sunk below the horizon. When the gloom finally set in, she and Satanachia looked at each other in silent affirmation. They were weary and had done what they could for now and must let others fight on. The Abaddim had thinned out around the gate, pushing buildings new and old down in an effort to evade the fury of Lilith, the Sisters, and Satanachia. Their flanking attempts did not succeed.

  “I am going to send in the contingent of flying legions, so we may rest for a bit,” Satanachia said, panting. “With any luck they will keep the Abaddim busy for a while. And I am needed in the Fifth Ward, Lilith. You can handle this, right?”

  Lilith nodded, exhausted. She was unscathed, but two of her Sisters were bleeding from minor wounds. She saw Satanachia form a large purple command glyph and saw him launch it into the sky. She did not even look back as she and the others withdrew. But she could hear the deep rushing of wings from above, the shouted battle cries and the scythe-inflicted carnage that was ensuing as she made her way back up the Rule. The Sisters needed their wounds attended to and Satanachia did what he could with glyph work as they filed away. While the palace beckoned she resisted the urge to withdraw completely and return there.

  Instead, she found a broken corner of a building and crouched, chin resting on her sword, watching the darkness grow and the red flickering of lightning on the horizon.

  25

  THE WASTES OUTSIDE ADAMANTINARX

  The ranks of her army had swelled into the hundreds of thousands. She looked behind and it covered the rough terrain far into the gloom. Souls. Her people. Her followers.

  She had been a queen in her Life and was a queen again in Hell. She had become a living legend. A soul who could hold her own against demons. A soul who had been accepted by the fierce Men of Wrath. A soul who, even though she was consigned to Hell, thought in large terms. As they had marched, she had brought them together in a common cause. What she had offered was not the petty internecine squabblings of greedy warlords and their fiefdoms but, instead, the dignity of nationhood. Nationhood in Hell. She told them the time was right, that after what they had endured for millennia they deserved the respect of the demons. And they loved her for it.

  And from where had this idea sprung? She fingered the white necklace, the precious carving of the White Mistress, she wore and knew the answer.

  In moments of quiet reflection, surrounded by her growing army, she knew, deep down, that the only way she might get the demons to respect her, to take her seriously and answer her greater question about her daughters, was at the head of a great host. Every leader had his or her reasons for leading, This was hers and she was not going to let anyone stand in her way. Doubters and malcontents were left behind. Violent opposition was met with more violence. This was no pacifist army.

  But the notion of statehood for souls? More often than she cared to admit, she heard herself discussing the eternal future of the souls and could not really believe much of her own lofty rhetoric. Was she seriously thinking souls could break entirely away from their dependency on demons and truly be left alone to build their own future? It was a grand idea, an idea to fire the imaginations of souls, an idea that she felt she could present to the demons who had set her free. They had even said she was special, that their lord, Sargatanas, had considered her important. Why not go back to Adamantinarx and make a case for independence instead of codependence? And with an army of this size behind her how could they refuse?

  They had had to march more quickly than the Abaddim so as to stay undetected and had veered well past them, losing sight of the enemy. Boudica remembered that the Acheron bowed around the back of the city, and there, where the river was somewhat narrower, and at great risk, they would have to suffer the river’s punishment to gain entry without the Abaddim seeing them. With all the souls in her host, that was a risk. But it had its advantages, as well. In an army this large she felt certain someone would figure out a way to ford it. She had still not made any close alliances with any of the souls and so she would have to rely on word of mouth to find that individual. As much as she wanted to see her people treated fairly, she, herself, still had many reservations about them.

  They marched the final leg to Adamantinarx without stopping to rest. In a show of solidarity, Boudica gave up Andrasta so that she could march on foot alongside her fellow souls.

  It was not easy to send the Abyssal on its way. She had grown truly fond of it and its strange ways. But, with a lump in her throat, she removed its tack and consulted her Finder and pointed the creature as best she could in the direction of K’ah’s last camp, swatting it hard on the rump. It never looked back as it trotted off, its biolights eventually fading into the gloom, and Boudica thought that was just as well.

  When she saw the city she actually felt a dark pang of nostalgia. She had been away a very long time and yet that place had been her home for far more time. It had not been a good home and she shook her head, silently wondering if going back was the most foolish decision she had ever made. She took a deep breath and moved on.

  They crested a ridge and Boudica frowned. The river should have been sliding through the landscape before her, pale and luminous and dangerous. Instead, she saw only darkness where it used to flow. As she drew closer to the banks she saw that it was gone. Or, more probably, elsewhere. Had some unknown force diverted the mighty river? It was not her concern. The way was clear!

  She turned to look at the far side of the city and saw dense, ashy clouds lying low, obscuring the taller spires and statues. In the distance, command glyphs were silently tearing through the artificial darkness and occasionally red lightning flickered. The Abaddim were already there and laying siege!

  A few keen-eyed souls closest to her pointed into the turbulent air high above the closest gate. A sentry had spotted them and, hovering for just a moment more, suddenly took wing, bolting away.

  Boudica grew uneasy. She signaled that the army should begin to cross the dried riverbed in haste and make their way to the gate. Best to make a bold statement. Trumpets fashioned from Abyssal horn blared and the army surged across the wide riverbed. No need for stealth now, she thought.

  Despite the lack of flowing water, the Acheron’s effect began to eat away at her. It must have still been in the air or rising from the mud of the riverbed. She found tears streaming down her face. Uppermost were the sad memories of her daug
hters, their sweet childhoods, their trials, their rapes. Sobbing, she recalled the death of her father, the countless deaths of her ancient tribespeople. It all washed through her. And, she could see, the others all around her were just as affected. Perhaps she and her army would fill the riverbed again with their tears.

  The army began its slow way across the wide and muddy riverbed. It passed a few abandoned transport barges deeply mired in the ooze, their triangular sails flapping, their cargos of natural stone from far away still secured on deck. The ships only highlighted the melancholic mood of the place.

  Boudica insisted on crossing first, in the vanguard of her army, and, all the while negotiating the uneven footing, kept her tear-filled eyes toward the sky. She was convinced that the demons would confront her from the air. She was only partially right.

  Just before she had made it to the opposite shore, she saw a flight of demons approaching. One bore a brilliant blue-flame sword unlike anything she had ever seen in Hell. It shone almost like that blue star they called Zimiah. They were only six in number and so Boudica ordered weapons to be lowered. These were emissaries.

  The demons alit and as they moved toward her a look of recognition crossed Boudica’s face.

  “My scout described you to me. There is only one soul who could lead an army like this.”

  “Eligor?”

  “Yes. I do not have much time to spend on pleasantries, Boudica. As you can see, we are under attack; the city is under siege. Are you here to aid us?”