Chapter Six
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
The soul who called himself Hani groaned as he tugged the sinew rope. It was tied to a giant block that scratched its way up the flagstoned dockside causeway, and Hani could see, past the dozens of souls who were, like him, straining against the rope, that it had moved only a few yards. They had been pulling for about an hour and their progress had been slower than usual.
The work-gang was shorthanded due to sudden attrition; at the last moment, as the inclined causeway was being completed, the demons had run out of bricks and had had to resort to incorporating some of the gang itself into the ramp.
Hani had knelt, eyes down, as he watched the grumbling demon Overseer’s sparking feet pass him by. Fear had bubbled up into his throat as he had contemplated the awful fate of being transformed; it was every soul’s worst fear. But he had been lucky; the demon moved away, selecting the soul two down from Hani instead. When there were some twenty souls assembled, the demons had taken them away, leaving Hani kneeling on the filthy flagstones, still not looking up but able to breathe again.
It was not the first time Hani had been lucky. He was tall and strong, sharp-eyed, clever, and not too ravaged by the Change. Lucky, he thought, but just how lucky could one stay in Hell?
Work resumed, but it was now staggeringly difficult. The twenty souls had made a huge difference, and Hani’s agonized limbs began to tremble uncontrollably. He tried to distract himself by focusing out toward the ghostly river with its sprinkling of barges. Once, he knew, the Acheron had been choked with heavy supply barges laden with exotic materials from the far-off quarries destined for the palace-mount. But that time had passed and now the building projects were more functional and pedestrian.
His tactic did Hani little good. The pain in his arms and hands only increased with every step; the tremors became more obvious. Then, as his continuing luck would have it, a great cloud of ash descended and obscured the work site. Hani groaned with relief as he let the rope slip from his shredded hands. The gang, as well as the incensed demons, was forced to stumble to shelter, the souls with their hands upon one another’s shoulders for guidance. He could just begin to feel the tattered flesh mend itself the way all small wounds did upon the souls. It might take an hour or two to completely heal if they had that much time to wait it out. The pain was enormous, but, Hani reflected as he had a million times, that was why he was here.
At the growled command of their Overseer the work-gang gathered in the lee-side of a monumental brazier so tall that neither its heat nor its light could be perceived through the blinding ash. Only the modicum of shelter that its plinth provided and the sound of its giant flame crackling and billowing gave proof of its existence. Through slitted eyes Hani tried to take stock of his fellow souls, trying to identify who had been taken. Those who remained were a ragged group, squatting on their haunches and huddled against the densely falling particles. There was Chaw, the swollen hedonist for whom work of any sort was torture. There, lying on her side, was La, the powerful female who only had one-half of a face, the other side having been rubbed completely smooth in some ancient construction mishap. She was always sharp-tongued and malicious. And next to her, kneeling on the branching limbs he called legs, was Div, a quiet, brooding male who liked watching the others get punished. Beyond them Hani could see only indistinct forms.
Hani looked back toward the Overseer; he, too, was crouched down, leaning on his whip-staff. He was facing away from the wind but also from the souls, and Hani felt safe enough to converse with his fellow workers. Infractions of any sort were always punishable by conversion into bricks. That ultimate threat, alone, was enough to maintain discipline among the most fractious of souls.
“Bad one,” Hani said, looking at Div, indicating the ashy wind with a quick shake of his head.
“Yes, but it’ll be over sooner than we’d like,” Div said fatalistically, picking a small piece of pumice from between his misshapen toes. “Aah, that’s better!”
“We need some new recruits. It’ll take us a year just to get that block up there.”
“Do I care?” Div was rubbing his foot.
“Not any more than me,” said Hani. “But they have a schedule to meet. Too many rest periods won’t sit well. And we would bear the brunt….”
They both knew what that meant. Hani ran his hand over the black orb they called the Burden that jutted, for the moment, from his left side. As they had been straining, the Overseer’s impatience could be measured by its increased stinging.
“So be it,” said Div, but Hani knew that was nothing more than idle bravado.
Hani debated opening the next topic. It was dangerous to let anyone else in on his secret, dangerous and unpredictable. But something was compelling him to share it, to bring others the message that had been brought to him.
“Do you remember me mentioning the visions I’ve been having?”
“It’s hard not to remember. Everyone knows when you’re having them. And they’re becoming more frequent, aren’t they?”
That disturbed him. If it was so apparent to the souls, was it equally obvious to the Overseers?
“Maybe.” He paused. “I think I know what is causing them.”
Hani brushed the ash off his hands as best he could, reached into a slit in his right side just under his ribs where a small pocket of flesh had formed. He looked nervously at the Overseer and back at Div. Revealing anything to either had its risks. The soul was not the brightest individual, nor the stupidest. In Hell, intelligence was a rare and true curse. It served as a lens to focus all of the pain and loss and misery upon its bearer in a way that the more mindless souls could not begin to understand. Most souls, Hani had long ago concluded, seemed in a trance, their minds skinned over by a veil of dullness. It was his mixed fortune not to be among them. Or maybe he simply was not as lucky as he thought.
He withdrew his hand from the cleft and he stared at the small, precious object for a moment, remembering how he had come by it. He and the work-gang had been walking up the congested Avenue of Fiery Tears, trying to stay together as they marched through the shuffling crowds. She had been walking toward him, alone, clad in unusually pale and hairless traveling skins, and, as he walked toward her, they had made eye contact. This had not been broken, even when she intentionally bumped into him, placing the object in his hand. His first reaction had been shock, followed nearly immediately by fear. He looked furtively around, making sure that no one had seen the transfer.
Hani walked on for some distance without daring to look at what was in his clenched hand. When he finally had a moment to study it he had sworn under his breath. It was beautiful in every way: an exquisitely carved bone statue of a voluptuous woman with clawed feet. The finely chiseled features, the perfect, polished breasts, and even the tiny scales on its feet were depicted with incredible attention. But who was it? And why did he now possess it?
Those questions were only heightened by the onset of strange waking visions—he thought of them as the mysteries—that began to wisp through his mind while he labored. They started as brief image-skeins of her bone-white face, beautiful and placid in repose, the slightest hint of a smile traced upon her lips. These momentary glimpses had blossomed into longer day-visions, dangerous in their distracting duration. Hani saw, through a miasma, the woman he had named the White Mistress, seated in a strange, vast room, flanked by two fierce eyeless creatures and surrounded by countless kneeling souls. Where was she and what were those beasts? And all those souls, why were they prostrating themselves before her? And why was he merely standing amidst them, not kneeling as they were? He wanted to kneel; the ineffable adoration he felt for her was nearly overwhelming. But something kept him from genuflecting, from giving himself over to her completely. That disturbed him so he had taken to secretly moistening his fingertips with his tears and rubbing them into the figurine, his silent libation.
And there was something else about the visions that he c
ould not explain, something beyond their obvious message of hopefulness. After he experienced them he felt inexplicably… self-assured. He wondered if it was possible to have a more inappropriate emotion in Hell. All of these gnawing emotions he traced directly to the acquisition of the tiny figure. After so many centuries of mind-numbing sameness, the new feelings excited him.
That had been weeks ago, and the visions had, if anything, grown in potency. Now, squatting in the ash storm, figurine in hand, Hani wondered if he was doing the right thing bringing the others into his private world. They were an intolerant, self-absorbed group, steeped in their own miseries, and the chance that they would try to curry some small favor from the Overseer by revealing Hani’s secret was high. And yet there seemed some purpose to showing them.
Div was looking at him. “Well?”
He handed the figurine over to the soul.
Div took it in his rough, spatulate fingers, rolling it, examining it. He looked up at Hani and back at the statuette.
“You’re telling me that this is what gave you your visions—this thing?”
“Yes, they started when I got it.” Hani was already defensive.
Div’s face looked blank for a moment. He shuddered and then pushed the object back at Hani.
“It has power; I saw… something. A woman… a white woman for just a second.”
“It’s her,” said Hani, “the White Mistress! She is out there somewhere; I know it.” And then he took the next step, the step he was not sure that he should take. “I think… I think we are meant to worship her.”
Div looked away, obviously thinking. A cargo barge, only half-filled with stone, caught his attention as it slid slowly up the Acheron. Sargatanas’ large, fiery sigil hung low over the square bow, and surrounding it, obeying a time-worn invocation, shifting navigational glyphs steered the craft.
By now, La and Chaw had edged in to hear the exchange.
La reached out and Div, first looking to Hani for permission, handed the figurine to her. She looked at it with disdain, weighing it in her twisted hand, and then passed it right to Chaw. The obese soul smiled lasciviously when he saw it, rubbing his finger over its breasts stupidly. Hani had expected that.
“Where did you get that?” La said stiffly. She thought of herself as the workers’ leader, but Hani suspected he knew how the others regarded her.
“It was given to me.”
“More likely you found it. Probably belonged to one of them,” she said, nodding in the Overseer’s direction. “It will have us all turned to brick if they find it on you. Get rid of it!”
“No, La, I won’t,” Hani said evenly. “No one’s found it yet and no one will. Unless one of you tell them. And, as you said, we all know the repercussions of that.”
The small group was staring at him.
“Tell La and Chaw what you told me,” Div said seriously.
Hani hesitated. There was ash in his mouth and he took the moment to spit it out. The others took it as a sign of disrespect.
“I’ve been seeing her,” he said, pointing at the figure, “in my mind. Ever since I was given it, these visions have been growing clearer, stronger. I don’t know who she is but I think that she has given that little idol the ability to speak for her. And I think she wants me—us—to pray to her.”
Hani could not believe what he had just said.
La snatched the figurine away from Chaw’s gross attentions and flung it to the ground. It disappeared into the ash.
“Souls are not meant to own anything!” La spat. “Except their pain!”
Hani rose, shaking with rage. “Pick it up!”
“Turn to brick!”
He struck her sharply, and though she was larger and more powerful than him, she reeled and fell, sending up a dense cloud of ash. She rose again, eyes blazing, but Hani was ready for her. He was about to strike her again when he saw the Overseer rise and turn toward them, whip in hand. Hani sat down quickly trying to conceal his anger. The demon flicked his whip ominously and approached, trying, Hani thought, to analyze the situation.
“Get up! Work again!” the demon barked in their language, and the souls slowly scrabbled to their feet. The storm was abating and Hani, still in a rage, looked down at the ground frantically. He could not leave the little idol; it was all he had. Everything. When the demon prodded them forward Hani lifted his gaze and focused on the back of La’s head. He would never forgive her. He would find a way to have her turned.
As they marched back toward the work area, Div sidled up and cautiously held his hand out, and, to Hani’s utter relief, he saw the little white figure in the soul’s calloused palm.
“It was in the ash right by my feet,” he said, looking oddly at Hani. “Take it, but I wondered if I could borrow it sometime soon. I will give it back; I swear.”
Hani sensed the sincerity and urgency from Div. And something else that might have been respect. The idol was working on him as well, just as Hani guessed it was supposed to. He looked at Div and smiled.
“Keep it for now. Tell me what you see, later. But tell no one else. Something must be taken care of before we can talk of this again.”
“Be careful of her, Hani,” the soul said, jerking his head toward La.
Hani picked up the sinew rope; his hands were only partially healed, but he felt strong, even confident. As he and the others strained to tug the reluctant block up the causeway, Hani’s eyes narrowed as he studied and gauged the heavy female.
It had not been hard, after all, Hani thought, to deal with La. He had been right to assume that most of them would either help to remove her or stay back. Hani found that stepping into the role of leader, even while she was present, was somehow natural. He had waited a week for the right moment, and when it came he had found that his strongest ally came, not surprisingly, in the form of Div. It was easy, with his help, to maneuver her into a position so that she could be crushed by a huge block. She had been so badly flattened that, with little thought, the demons unceremoniously added her to the pile of bricks that the workers drew upon. Hani, himself, helped haul her to the pile, tossing her high atop the stack, a grim smile upon his lips. As the work progressed, whenever Hani passed her, he could feel the hatred emanating from her. Once, when no one could see him, he even spat on her and watched his spittle sizzle off from the heat. La glared angrily back at him but could do little more than blink. It was, he thought, good practice for when she would be a brick.
Div told Hani of his many visions; they were, for the most part, the same as Hani’s own, but with one difference. Div’s visions seemed more supplicatory, more servile. It was a difference that was not lost on Hani.
Chapter Seven
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
The small party left the palace and headed down the center mount to one of the many stables. On their way they followed the edge of the Acheron, descending the newly finished causeway, passing the endless work-parties that stopped their labors to turn and kneel as they passed.
Eligor led them into the sprawling square walled-in stables that covered acres. There, like the many similar paddocks that dotted his wards, were a hundred long, low buildings that housed a full regiment of Sargatanas’ mounted troops. Eligor liked the stables, liked the bustle of activity and the look of the soul-beasts that hunkered in their individual cells.
They were souls that had been manipulated into steeds, giant, solid chargers that could bear heavily armored cavalry quickly over the infernal battlefield. This was a Household regiment, which meant that they were bulkier, better trained, and that their trappings were more ornate. Their mahouts, usually former Waste dwellers, silently went about their rigorous training programs leaching the last of all the enlarged souls’ reticence from them until they responded with complete obedience.
Eligor entered one of the stables and before long had arranged for a small caravan of soul-steeds as well as a contingent of his Foot Guards.
They all watched as the huge embroidered
carpetlike blankets were tossed over the rough-skinned backs of the steeds, which shifted from hand to hand, rolled their fogged eyes, and made deep sounds in their throats. Intricately worked, solid copper saddles were cinched in place, and reins were first passed through the huge single nail that penetrated each of the steeds’ broad foreheads and then fastened to the light bridle-rings that pierced the souls’ lips. Eligor shook his head with disgust as long streamers of gelatinous foam drooled from their slack mouths as they each took their bridles. Careful not to step in the puddles, each of the demons donned traveling skins, mounted their souls, and gathered in the stable courtyard.
Waiting for them were twenty of Eligor’s summoned Foot Guard, tall warriors dressed for the Wastes in long silvery-black Abyssal skins, scaled and dotted with tiny glowing lights. About a dozen more travelers bound for Dis waited to join the trek on foot. All lesser demons, they had come from many parts of Adamantinarx and waited to travel, hoping for the much-needed protection of the Demons Major and Minor and their Guard to survive the treacherous Wastes. They stood about, a group varied in rank and occupation, all pulling on their hooded skins and adjusting the straps of their heavy satchels and pole-mounted sacks. For them, the weeks-long trip to Dis would be an arduous journey that tested their endurance. Truly, Eligor thought, they do not make this trip to Dis lightly. And, as far as he was concerned, the destination was worse than any of the potential hardships of getting there.
Half of the Guard preceded the ranking mounted demons and led them out of the courtyard. The demons on foot were followed by the remaining Guard, who balanced their pole-axes on their spiny-armored shoulders. The caravan proceeded down the Avenue of Sorrow, easily cleaving through the crowds, passed beneath a huge arch commemorating the War, and headed for the river. As they crossed one of the Acheron’s many bridges, Eligor stole a wistful glance back toward the city and clenched his jaw.
Adamantinarx’s massive fifty-storied Eastern Gate rose before them, giant banners flapping in the wind. Sargatanas’ sigil floated above it, throwing its upper parapets into stark silhouette. Eligor stared up, trying hard to find the tiny figures that he knew looked out past the city’s walls. They were soldiers of the gate-garrison, Zoray’s archers, each of whom bore a long bow that Eligor knew was composed of a single stretched, shaped, and bent soul. His friend Zoray, who was a marvelous archer himself, had told Eligor that the final step in becoming one of these prestigious archers—each risen from the Foot Guard—was the fashioning of these bows, a task that each candidate performed in a solitary ritual somewhere out in the Wastes. The bow-souls were picked carefully, the demons’ Art being in the ability to find a soul upon the streets to match the specialized task. Only then could the marksmanship training begin. Many demons never found their weapon and walked the streets, seeking the right candidate, for years, finally giving up only to fade back into the Foot Guard or, discouraged, re-enlist in a less demanding, less elite part of Sargatanas’ army. Eligor could barely see them high atop the gate and resolved to actually visit them when he came back. It was a mind-trick, he knew, to focus on the return; it helped get him past the feeling of dread that always accompanied a trip to Dis.
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