* * * * *
Many hours passed before Adramalik felt he could approach the place where, from afar, he had seen Astaroth destroyed. The Duke had already withdrawn and was heading back to Dis via a discreet route, and Sargatanas’ legions were well into Astaroth’s wards.
The Chancellor General walked with some difficulty through the turbulent darkness of the storm, its winds seeming to delight in gusting the knee-high ash up into his face. The only sound upon the once-tumultuous battlefield was that of the wind-driven grit that pelted his bony armor. He climbed the cairn that he had watched Sargatanas’ troops build from the rubble of dead legionaries and stared up at the commemorative sigil that hung above it. It had been a marvelous victory, one worthy of his own lord—complete in its outcome, merciless in its devastation. Faraii’s performance had been incredible; Beelzebub would have to know how adept he was. And just how brilliant a commander Sargatanas had become. A foe to be reckoned with for sure, Adramalik mused.
On the positive side, Adramalik reasoned, at least he did not have to shepherd that ridiculous old demon all the way back to Dis.
Again he looked up at the luminous sigil. Maudlin sentimentality, he thought. Perhaps that and that alone was Sargatanas’ greatest weakness.
Chapter Sixteen
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
It was as if the very buildings, their vaulting exuberance, their relative lightness of architecture, mirrored her exultation at arriving in Adamantinarx. This city, so unlike shadowed Dis with its flattened and oppressive vistas, was more alive in its spirit than most of Hell’s inhabitants.
Seated within an inconspicuous, unadorned howdah atop a giant Waste crosser and swathed in folds of skin, Lilith drew not even a single glance. Just, she thought, as Ardat Lili had not on her many treks to this place. And now she was gone and her mistress, for whom she had sacrificed all, was here.
With some effort Lilith reined in her deepening sadness. Ardat Lili had known the dangers and would have wanted her to be safely ensconced in Adamantinarx. Of all the cities, this had been her favorite. Lilith tended to look at the cities of Hell as organic, as immense bodies lying strewn upon the unholy ground. They had streets that flowed with the souls that were their blood and buildings that were their bones, lower demons that functioned as vital organs, and, for better or worse, the demon aristocracy that served as their minds. Most, she had concluded, were necrotic, and some quite insane. But this city was living, somehow rational, and its attempts at diversity and relative tolerance could only make it rise above its rivals.
As she passed through the mammoth Eastern Gate she saw Sargatanas’ Captain of the Foot Guard, Zoray waiting patiently with a small contingent of his demons, all clad in their fine, green-hued skins. Upon his shoulder sat the small, winged form of her familiar, which, upon seeing her, sprang into the air and flapped its way to her extended arm. Lilith smiled behind the cowl of her traveling skin. This was all like a dream. To be free of Dis and the Fly!
“My lady,” Zoray said, watching her dismount. “Welcome. Your journey was not too difficult, I hope?”
“My journey has always been difficult, Lord Zoray,” she said with a light laugh as she stroked the stubby-winged creature. “But I expect that will change now that I am here.”
“Your chambers await you, my lady,” he said, gesturing in the general direction of the central mount.
“Is Lord Sargatanas back from his campaign?” she inquired, unfastening her cowl at the neck and letting it fall heavily to her bare shoulders.
Zoray hesitated and she could hear the breath catch in his throat as he tried not to stare at her. “He will return in a few days, my lady. Winning a battle is one thing; securing an entire province with all its wards in disarray is another.”
Lilith nodded and the small party began the long ascent to the palace complex. The long, arcing avenue that sliced through the city was really an attenuated series of steps that rose so gradually Lilith only realized they were climbing when she looked behind. Outlying Adamantinarx was fairly sparsely populated, but the crowds grew the farther into the city she walked.
Whereas her former master had viewed the uselessness of Dis’ incarcerated souls as an excuse to torture them, Sargatanas’ attitude seemed to be one of enforced industriousness. There were no souls cast limbless to the curbsides, no lines of the damned impaled against row upon row of quivering houses, and no unpredictable roundups by unrestrained Order Knights bent on simple slaughter.
Instead, as she looked around her, she saw nothing but the ceaseless toiling of souls as they built, crafted, and enriched Adamantinarx. Creaking bone scaffolds, enormous piles of winking bricks, great mounds of rendered soul-mortar, all bore witness to Sargatanas’ grand vision of his capital. Her escort pointed out many of the new landmarks that dotted the metropolis, including the monumental standing portrait of Sargatanas himself, its head ablaze in a vibrant cowl of flame. She paused when Zoray drew her attention to it.
“Was that his idea?” she said with a wry expression crossing her perfect features.
“No, my lady, it made him angry.”
“Really. I can see why; it does not do him justice.”
“That was not the reason, my lady. The statue was erected upon a decree of the Prince, and my lord does not easily suffer mandates from Dis.”
Lilith nodded sympathetically. She was all too familiar with the kind of orders that issued from within the Keep.
They gradually, unhurriedly, ascended toward the palace, cleaving easily the growing crowds of craftsmen, demon soldiers, and bureaucrats. A thin mist hung low over the streets, the strangely fragrant by-product of the soul-rendering process. Clots of workers, souls mostly, sat in open plazas stitching skins, carving bone for ornate entablatures, herding souls for brick transformation, and fabricating all of the many furnishings that would eventually find their way into the palace’s thousand rooms.
Lilith looked at the haunted, gray faces in the crowd, the faces of those she and Ardat Lili had worked so hard to reach out to. And she was met, not surprisingly, with frequent looks of startled recognition. Some silently reached out a hand as if to touch her. She knew then that across Hell, and in as many cities as her handmaiden had visited, she was known. She knew she would have to talk with Sargatanas about them, that he, perhaps, would take the first steps toward freeing them.
The party passed through the palace gate and there, Lilith noted, the buildings took on a grander aspect, their scale broader and their surfaces more ornate. Souls were in little evidence, replaced by robed bureaucrats, elite troops, and the occasional caravan of carts bringing goods up from the city. What is so different here? The buildings, the open plan of the city, or is it something else? It took her some time to realize what had seeped into her unconscious. All of the demons here, and indeed in the whole of Adamantinarx, went about their business with their heads held up, in contrast to their counterparts in Dis who always seemed to be looking over their shoulders as they performed their errands. Lilith felt the weight upon her heart lighten.
Zoray led her up a series of wide staircases, and atop the final flight before the wide entrance to the palace she stopped and turned to survey, once again, her new home. Her eyes lit upon the distant Eastern Gate and beyond, toward Dis. She knew that Beelzebub would not be pleased when he discovered her absence and that once he ascertained her whereabouts there was little doubt that she would be putting this city in jeopardy. Was it nothing more than selfishness for her to put Sargatanas in this position? Or was there a deeper reason for her to have left Dis behind, something, as yet, unclear? She turned to rejoin Zoray, who waited patiently under the threshold. The sense of self-determination, of being in control, for once, was as overwhelming as the newness of her surroundings, and she vowed never to get used to either of these newfound emotions.
* * * * *
Eligor patted the ash from his skins and watched it sift slowly down forming a ring of ash, like the shadow of a nimbus, up
on the flagstones.
The sealed chamber-doors, built tall and wide to accommodate his wings, were just as he had left them, his red seal affixed to the center, his handprint intact: As he swung the doors aside he smelled the familiar and comforting odor of his space and his possession within. Sometimes, when he was abroad, he would call up that smell from his memory, to distract himself from some of the other smells prevalent in Hell, and sometimes simply to comfort himself. Orange light, shimmering in through the leaded-obsidian windows, bled through the darkness, playing upon his many things, and he smiled.
Valefar had given him one of Astaroth’s generals’ axes, hand still attached, and this Eligor hung from a pair of outstretched fingers on his wall. As he lit his many small braziers he saw that all his clutter was as he had left it. Strange bits and pieces of his travels, his wars, his past, adorned nearly every flat surface visible. There by the twin windows and seated upon a carved table were a hundred small effigies carved from various native stones by the Waste tribes, each one mute evidence of some obscure cult created to quell the fears of their fierce surroundings. Near them stood the chiseled apex of a pointed column, all that remained of the distant city of Slavark after Sargatanas had leveled it. Beyond that an entire wall-cabinet, bone framed with translucent quartzite panels, contained his collection of bizarre souls’ skulls, each so outlandish that one had to look upon it very carefully to see any common marks of humanity. Next to that, his library of skin-scrolls gathered over the eons from a hundred different wards throughout Hell was neatly tucked into an alcove near his writing stand. And there, just as he had left it, was his ongoing project, his diary, open to the last entry, the precious feather quill—his sole intact quill plucked from his own wing just after the Fall—lying upon it. A beam of firelight from outside touched the inscribed vellum as if its import was greater than he felt.
Eligor perched himself, wearily, upon his stool, his tingling wings nearly touching the floor behind him. The trip from Astaroth’s capital had been nonstop and tiring; the Flying Corps had flown into the hot, buffeting wind nearly the entire journey back. He closed his stinging eyes, and shreds of the events of the last few days passed through his mind. As with all campaigns, there was much to remember, much to write down. These campaigns were finally wearing upon him. Eons of fighting and all for what—endlessly shifting borders, vague alliances? Sargatanas was right to feel the way he did. Right to want an end to this way of life.
Head nodding forward, Eligor found himself drifting willingly into the state that was neither sleep nor wakefulness. He floated on the feathered wings of his past, through the smoke of his present, falling and rising and falling gently.
A soft knock roused him and he stood slowly and walked to the door. One of Valefar’s messengers knelt before him and, then rising, bade him to follow him to his master’s chambers. With heavy footsteps Eligor passed through the many glyph-lit corridors to the Prime Minister’s anteroom, where he waited for only a moment before being ushered in.
The large, open rooms were part office, part living quarters, the abode of one whose work was an integral part of his life. Bolts of red heat lightning flickered soundlessly outside the panoramic window, momentarily negating the soft brazier-light that suffused the chambers and casting vivid light upon its familiar contents. A large and intricately vesseled heart-clock mounted on the wall beat a steady and muffled rhythm. Valefar sat in his robes, hands folded in his lap, looking every bit as weary as Eligor felt. A giant stack of vellum dispatches and orders lay ominously upon the Prime Minister’s desk awaiting his attention, having grown to staggering proportions in his absence. Even as Eligor watched, one of Valefar’s aides entered and placed an armload of tattered documents upon a side-desk.
“As if the workings of Adamantinarx were not enough, I now have to deal with the mess that is Askad,” Valefar said, indicating the newly arrived pile and rolling his eyes. “When I am finished with these I am going to suggest that they be reused to rebuild that ruin of a capital!” The Prime Minister sighed. “You know why I called you here, Eligor?”
“I can guess.”
“The Baron. Unlike you, I have never really been able to have anything but the most cursory conversations with him.”
“He is a mannered individual.”
“He is a headstrong individual.” Valefar closed his eyes and shook his bowed head slightly.
The heavy candles guttered noticeably as the door opened and Baron Faraii entered, still wearing his black battle-armor and Abyssal-skin field-cloak. Eligor saw something in Faraii that he had not seen before, a predatory look in his eyes, a certain insolence in his bearing. It was challenging, and Eligor did not like it.
The Baron strode purposefully up to Valefar’s desk and stopped crisply. Faraii assumed a position not unlike his customary drill stance, feet apart, hands clasped behind him.
Valefar did not lift his head when he spoke.
“Faraii, we two have never been close, have we?”
“No.”
“Well, we do not need to be. But we do need to agree on one thing. Our duty to our lord.”
Faraii shifted slightly. “That is open to debate. Sargatanas is making choices that may not be sitting well with all of the demons, Major and Minor.”
Valefar lifted his chin. “And by that I take it you mean yourself?”
Red lightning scoured the room and threw Faraii’s hard features into sharp contrast for an instant.
“Interpret it as you will.”
In the brief flicker of light Eligor thought he saw a tiny movement upon the far wall. It had looked like a finger or, perhaps, an ear.
Valefar rose and with a single sweep of his arm scattered the pile of documents to the floor, in a gradually settling mound. His eyes wide, his bony jaw jutting, he placed his fists on the desktop and leaned forward.
“You are evasive at best and treasonous at worst!” he hissed. “Very close to the edge, Faraii. All of this, as well as what seems to have been questionable behavior on the field of battle, suggests to me that you are not to be trusted. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Are you going to destroy me where I stand or allow me to get back to my troops?” The mocking tone was unmistakable.
Eligor moved slowly across the room to the far wall, listening as he passed the bristling Baron. He had seen something—a thin trickle of black blood that seemed to surround a sudden protrusion. It looked like an ear.
“Ah, yes, such commendable loyalty to your troops!” Valefar said. He turned his back on the Baron, hands clenched at his sides.
“At least my troops are demons. An army of souls, indeed!”
Valefar’s chin dropped in resignation.
Eligor was nearly at the wall. The soul-ear that jutted from the gray wall tilted fractionally, as if it heard him approach.
“What am I to do with you?” Valefar continued. “Our lord, while angry regarding your mistreatment of Astaroth, was pleased with your performance at the head of your troops. If it was my choice alone, Faraii, you would not leave this room alive. Your loyalty is deeply in question. Despite that, your lord has seen fit to test you, one more time, upon the battlefield. But be careful, Baron Faraii; the battlefield can be a very unpredictable place.”
Without turning back to him, Valefar raised his hand in dismissal.
“Indeed it can,” said Faraii plainly.
Valefar spun around, silvered eyes intense, dark wrath written upon his features. But Eligor saw him regain himself quickly.
Faraii pivoted on his heel and strode toward the door, glancing at Eligor as he passed through the threshold.
At nearly that instant, Eligor’s hand darted out and, amidst a brief spray of black blood, wrenched the ear from the wall. He immediately put his own ear to the spot and heard a faint whisper from within the brick. The susurration stopped and was picked up, again and again ever more faintly, as it traveled deep into the wall.
“Who do you think arranged that?�
� Valefar asked, pointing at the hole.
“It could be anybody. I will try to trace it. Why does Sargatanas not simply cast him out?”
“He knows too much, Eligor; clearly somebody feels attention should be paid to him. And he is too good with his sword and his troops.”
Eligor nodded.
Wiping the blood from the side of his face, Eligor held up the dripping ear for Valefar to see and shook his head. The Prime Minister looked at it, took a long, deep breath, and sat down heavily. Eligor tossed the ear into a nearby brazier, where it sizzled momentarily, and, with a nod, he left Valefar’s chambers. The dullness Eligor felt within his body he knew was due, in large part, to his vast weariness, but he also felt it deeper. His regard for Faraii was irretrievably altered, and as he headed slowly back to his own chambers, he knew that he could never speak with him as freely as he once had. And that he could never trust Faraii again.
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
Tales of the victory outside Maraak-of-the-Margins were already being passed from soul to soul in the streets as Hannibal Barca made his way through the jostling throngs. Returning troops, still covered in the battlefield’s black blanket of ash, marched in tight, well-disciplined columns back to their barracks inside the city. Many among them bore the severe scars of conflict—arms hacked, heads cleft, and pole-arm piercings abounded. And many, too, proudly bore the newly acquired phalerae of their victims. From some distance, Hannibal caught a glimpse of dozens of Demons Major and Minor, the returning general staff accompanied by their guards and banners, and next to them he discerned Sargatanas and Valefar and Eligor as they climbed the long stairs to the fortress above. It really was odd, Hannibal thought, how pleased he was beginning to feel being a part of this demons’ world.
Hannibal knew that he had much more than that to be pleased about, for walking a pace behind him, flanked by their newly created demon bodyguard, was his once-dead brother, Mago. Finding him—Hannibal’s only request to Sargatanas—had been a miracle wrapped in a coincidence. In a spare hour Valefar himself had pored over the Books of Gamigin, locating Hannibal’s brother faster than any soul could have done even had he or she been able to read the complex angelic script. And when, tracing down the page with his clawed finger, Valefar came upon Mago’s name, he closed the book and looked up at Hannibal with the slightest smile. Mago’s entry had recently been updated, Valefar told the soul, with an eternal punishment for attempting to incite his fellow souls to rebellion. It was Hannibal’s turn to smile. Mago had, for his troubles, been transformed into a brick and was located not too far from where they sat. The walk to him and the resurrection together probably took less time than it had to locate his name in the great book. And now Hannibal’s beloved brother, Mago Barca, perhaps the only human he could truly trust, was again walking by his side, as he had done so long ago along the paths of his Life.
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