Hannibal looked at him, at his wiry frame, at his familiar, vigorous stride, and at the flattened face that only half-smiled back at him. Hannibal understood the less than perfect resurrection; there would always be the stamp of the brick upon Mago. That was Valefar’s little reminder to both brothers.
Hannibal had spread his words like seeds upon fertile ground. A soul who had once been a general was recruiting an army to fight alongside demons. Recruits were to meet at the Plaza Napeai. At first, he had been told, the message was met, predictably, with incredulity, with disbelief. The sheer ludicrousness of it made countless souls either snort with derision or fearfully redouble their efforts at whatever tasks they were laboring over. Strange rumors were always swirling about the souls like sparks on the wind—fast traveling and equally fast dying. They never knew what was real and what was malicious trickery.
But Hannibal reasoned that he could count on many, like himself, whose awareness of the currents in Adamantinarx told them that changes were in the wind. They would serve as the foundation upon which he would build his army. And eventually others would join.
He and his party strode through the streets quickly, purposefully, their destination the aptly named Plaza Napeai—the Plaza of Swords. Clad in tattered skin robes and carrying a long, wrapped bundle, Hannibal held his chin and eyes level and looked the demons he passed directly in the eye—a luxury he would never have dreamt of before his commission. He told Mago, as well as the burly bodyguards in tow, to do the same. Attitude was everything in Hell, and Hannibal was not about to relinquish that which had been so hard-won by adopting anything less than the mien of a great general. And, ironically, the demon bodyguard, under their lord’s direct orders, would defend this new right to their destruction.
A giant, fiery-headed statue of a fallen demon crouched upon a soaring stepped pedestal at the head of the plaza, and Hannibal saw this in fleeting glimpses as he approached the wide space. Its bent back was spined with dozens of angelic arrows, but its fist, clenching a broken sword, was raised heavenward. There were a hundred such statues, he was told, strewn throughout Hell, but forever afterward he would regard this one as special. Two large piles, covered with shrouds of stretched Abyssal skin, lay at its feet, guarded by souls picked by Hannibal himself.
Gray crowds were streaming in and he found himself forced to use the bodyguards to clear a way before him. They were efficient legionaries, and their mere presence and number caused enough commotion to part the shuffling souls. Mago tapped Hannibal’s elbow and pointed up toward the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. There he saw the dark forms of scattered flying demons leaning on shields and lances, their attitude attentive. A precaution, he thought, nothing more. To Sargatanas, Hannibal was still someone to be watched and measured, and he knew that his demon lord would be swift in his response should any move he make be interpretable as insurrectionist.
But even the presence of heavily armed demons could not dampen Hannibal’s elation. This was a watershed moment in his afterlife, a moment that he had to take the fullest advantage of, for there would surely never be another. He saw himself as a torch, one that would either ignite the cold furnaces of emotion in every soul around him or immolate them and himself as well.
At the base of the stepped pedestal Mago cupped his hands, and Hannibal used them to climb up to the next level. Reaching down, he grasped Mago’s hand and pulled him up next to him. In this manner the two rose up two more levels until they were twenty feet above the massed murmuring souls. Hannibal had been mended, somewhat, by his new lord and stood tall, a surge of emotional power coursing through his body. He had addressed hosts before, hosts that had been disparate and doubtful, and his formula had always been the same: one part lie to one part hope. This is not hypocrisy, he thought. An army is no different from a sword. It first needs forging and then needs to be trained with and tested in battle. Lies, hope—they are the hammer and tongs one uses to forge the blade. The better they’re used, the better the blade.
He stood with his back to them, adjusting the straps on the bundle so that it could depend from his improvised belt. When he turned abruptly around to face them silence descended upon the plaza. It was an old trick that he had learned as a young prince on the walls of his father’s city. Mago smiled.
“My name is Hannibal Barca and I remember my Life!” Hannibal began, his voice carrying clarion clear against the distant sounds of Hell. “Yesterday I was as you are now. Tomorrow you will be as I am today!
“Change has been thrust upon us. Hell is changing around us as we stand here. That I stand here before you, addressing you in this way, should be proof enough of that. I know who I was and what I did in my Life. And what I must do now. The path to our redemption lies before us, and it is Lord Sargatanas who will lead us.
“The Fallen are no longer of one mind! The hierarchy of demons no longer united. Some have started to question things… to change things. Our lord is one such demon; the White Mistress is another. Most of us know something of her; some of us have even been touched in some way by her. She has been fighting this place in the only way she could… by reaching out to us. It was she who led me to offer myself to her ally, our lord Sargatanas. And it was he who gave me back my past.
“You will ask why I should follow a demon master who has oppressed me. And I would answer by telling you what you already know: Sargatanas’ temperance and leniency are like no other lord’s in Hell. Our torments, which could have been greater by tenfold, are as nothing to that which he has endured for all these thousands of years. For, unlike us who left our earthly lives behind like corrupt vessels drained and broken, he lost a life of beatitude… a life at the knee of his creator. Lord Sargatanas can no longer endure the punishments and privations of Hell. As you long for an end to your torment, he longs for that which he lost so long ago… the tranquility of Heaven.”
Hannibal heard the word “heaven” uttered from a hundred twisted mouths and for just an instant wondered what he was offering them. He, himself, was not certain. He had to be careful not to go too far.
“We are all here to be punished for our past lives, and rightly so. None of us are here unjustly. And yet which of you would not try to redeem yourselves, to prove that at your very core you can be more than you were in life?
“Your souls have been punished for what you did in your Life, and that is how it had to be. There are some among you whose heavy sins ensure that you will never leave this place. And that, too, is right. But for most of us, our torments need not be eternal. Just as the transgressions are behind us, so should be the punishments. For what is the good of the lesson if one cannot apply what one has learned?”
Hannibal began to open the tied bundle at his waist. He glanced at Mago, who was nodding encouragingly. Hannibal looked again at the mass of humanity and saw every eye upon him. With a sudden flourish he let the wrapping fall from his waist and grasped the hilt of a sword, pulling it free of its scabbard to hold it before him. He heard a gasp issue from a thousand throats. A soul with a weapon! It was unheard of! He felt their rising excitement.
“If you truly wish to make amends for your sins, then you must take up arms in this holy cause,” he shouted hoarsely. “Sargatanas’ Rebellion may fail and we all may be committed to oblivion or, worse yet, punishments beyond our reckoning, but at least we will have fought against those forces whose dark influences put us here in the first place. And Heaven, whose lambent Gates may never open to us, will know that good can come from those who seem irredeemable. They will know that even from the darkest bowels of Hell souls can reach for the Light!”
He took a deep breath and raised the sword Sargatanas had given him above his head. Some in the crowd were shouting with newfound fervor, giving voice to a dormant sense of self they had suppressed for so long.
“Will you reach for that Light and fight for my lord Sargatanas and our White Mistress? Will you fight for me? Will you fight for your eternal souls?”
An enormous
cry of approval rang through the plaza and Hannibal heard “For Hannibal!” evenly mixed with “For Sargatanas!” Seeing that his words had had the desired effect, Hannibal signaled to the guards below. In an instant they pulled back the skins from the great mounds and revealed a huge pile of weapons, which the suddenly surging crowd began to take up. Hannibal looked up and saw that the demons atop the buildings were paying very close attention; this was a critical moment. The mob could turn either way, and even Hannibal worried that a thousand armed souls might march through the streets to foolishly attack the palace.
He stepped right to the edge of the plinth and shouted, “For Sargatanas!” It took a moment for the souls at his feet to notice him, so engrossed in their new weapons were they, but within a minute, like a tide surging away, the chant was picked up, echoing across the plaza. Abyssal flyers, which had been perched along the high ledges of the buildings in the hundreds, suddenly took wing startled by the noise. Hannibal watched them ascend, and their dwindling body-lights looked like stars climbing into the heavens, perhaps an omen. Again he looked around at the encircling demons and now, with the shouts of “For Sargatanas!” ringing in their ears, he saw that they had relaxed, satisfied. One by one they, too, took wing, vanishing into the dark sky, and Hannibal smiled, even as he continued to pump his sword in the air. He was himself again. Almost reluctantly he sheathed his sword and turned to Mago, who beamed at him and walked toward him. As they clasped hands his gaze traveled up the crouched statue and rested upon the ash-dusted clenched fist, its broken sword frozen in defiance, and he wondered whether this war, already so full of hope, might not end as that one had. He looked high into the sky and saw the stars still climbing upward.
Chapter Seventeen
DIS
He fell back heavily upon his pallet and heard the thing scrambling noisily in the darkness to get away from him. He had pleasured himself with it for the third time, pleasured himself until it had cried out terribly in pain, which did not make him stop but only redouble his fierce thrusting. He roared ferociously in his moment, and that had only terrified the creature more. Adramalik looked over into the corner of his sleep chamber, into the blackness, and saw only its tiny lights, shivering, and heard its whining, gurgling breath as it panted in its fear of him.
The Order Knights had conspired behind his back; of that he was now certain. There was no other conclusion to reach. They had had an odd look to them when he had returned from the battle. He had spoken to each of them to get their individual reports and each had, in his own way, seemed less than forthright, unwilling to look him in the eye. That had aroused his suspicions. And when, accompanied by so many of them, he had entered his suite of chambers they had seemed expectant and for a moment, an irrational moment, he had thought that perhaps they were about to assassinate him. He remembered lighting the first brazier, the one by the sword stand—just in case—and remembered the enormous surprise at his first sight of the two-legged Abyssal, a young Skin-peeler. The Knights had captured it, filed down its teeth and spines, clipped its blade-hands, bound and gagged it carefully, and covered it in thick skins so that its luminous spots would not give it away in the darkened room. He could still hear their peals of laughter when, as they had pulled away the skins, he had jumped. Now that he thought about it, the room had been perfumed with the acrid aroma of the beast, a whiff of the Wastes. The Knights had honored him with this present, and he felt so much emotion toward them that his mind raced. They would have to be rewarded, not immediately and obviously, but in ways that were significant to each one. And there would be surprises. Just to make them jump, as well.
He lay in the dark, reconstituting himself, gathering himself for another assault upon the creature’s quivering silver-scaled body. What would he do this round? Compel it to come to him with a potent, irresistible glyph or bludgeon it with his fists until, resigned to its fate, it surrendered? He heard it mewling, and he felt himself growing powerfully aroused again. He sat upright on his pallet, and just that movement alone caused the creature to let out an anguished shriek. This really is too delicious, Adramalik thought, a grin twisting his bony features.
A light suddenly appeared, casting an odd glow upon the chamber’s contents, and in the farthest corner, amidst an overturned table and chairs, he could now see the beast cowering, its eyes wide, both battered mouths agape and drooling blood. The serpentine tendrils of an approaching glyph had entered the suite, finding him in its deepest recess, his sleeping chamber. It formed into a fiery, purple glyph of summoning—Agaliarept’s curious handiwork—and its urgency was not to be ignored. Adramalik closed his eyes and shook his head, feeling his passions—as well as his fearsome erection—dwindling. The Skin-peeler would have to wait.
What could Agaliarept be about, summoning me to him so late? It was a thought Adramalik repeated bitterly as he swung his cloak about his shoulders, as he latched his door behind him, and as he walked the corridors toward the Conjuring Chamber. His mood further darkened as he found himself traversing the tubular, offal-strewn corridor beneath the Rotunda, a place he was never pleased to venture. At the threshold he felt the chamber’s stagnant, hot air and discerned a faint and echoing twittering as from a hundred tiny throats.
He heard, too, the Conjuring Chamber’s occupants before he saw them, and when he entered he saw that not only was Beelzebub present along with Agares, but they had been joined by the Prince’s greatest general, Moloch. Different from a Demon Major by his former status, he was the most powerful of Those Forsaken, the Pridzarhim, a relatively small and especially feared community of sullen former seraph-turned-lesser-gods who had been forgotten or discarded by their subjects. Moloch, like his brethren, was mighty and proud and bitter. Adramalik feared him and was no stranger to the tales of his savagery both upon the battlefield and in his administration, as Imperial Mayor of Dis and as Prince of the County of Tears that ringed the city. He bore upon his scarred chest the Grand Cross of the Order of the Fly, a decoration shared only by Adramalik in his role as Grand Chancellor General Knight of the Order.
As he spoke with Moloch, part of Beelzebub’s face peeled away to watch Adramalik make his way through the orbiting bricks and glyphs, toward the chamber’s depressed center.
“What is it, my general? You seem distracted,” the Chancellor General heard the Prince say to Moloch. Adramalik saw their dim forms in the gloom, the broad corona of symbols, ancient and unglyphlike, slowly rotating around and lighting the old god’s head. Moloch, giant in stature, shifted uneasily upon the crutchlike wing bones that twisted out of his back, spindly substitutes for his burned-away legs. Their seeming fragility, Adramalik knew, belied their strength and agility. He had seen Moloch upon the battlefield, a veritable cyclone of carnage.
“Prince, I am disgusted by the refugee demons that pour forth from Astaroth’s wards into your wards… and, indeed, into Dis… by the hundreds of thousands. There are no Demons Major among them and only few Demons Minor have been seen. They were mostly petty officials and as either lower functionaries or common laborers would be useless, never having been properly trained by their incompetent lord. I think that, like a cancer, their very presence will corrupt those around them.” Moloch paused, clenching his jaw. “What would you have me do with them?”
“Why, Moloch, I would have you do whatever you please with them,” Beelzebub said agreeably. “Be as creative as you like; pry away any information they may have. But, in the end, I want them as part of my city. Gather what is left of them, turn them to brick, and brand them with my Seal.”
“As you wish, my Prince.”
Adramalik stopped before the Prince and bowed. Beelzebub nodded and solidified his face to look fully at his Grand General. The towering god’s head was lowered, deep in some dark thought. Charred flakes fell away as he rubbed his jaw.
“Do you miss that place, Moloch? The Above?”
“No, my Prince, never. There was weakness there, as there was in the realm of men. Men are fearful and wr
etched, and watching over them when I was a seraph was… tedious,” he snarled. “That is why I played with them… why I lost favor and why I,” he indicated his missing legs, “was burnt. But I do miss their offerings… their children. Their hopeful, futile burnings. They had no idea how much I enjoyed the smell of that smoke! Had they but known, they would have stopped in a day. If I could get them to do that with their own children, imagine what I could have done with more time.”
Adramalik felt something brush past his foot, but when he looked down he had only an impression of a small, vague shape heading toward the center of the chamber. Others, too, were converging there.
“He yearns for the Above,” the Prince buzzed.
“Who, Prince?” asked Moloch.
“Sargatanas. I have heard that he sits on his throne staring through the hole in his dome, staring upward… toward the Above. He has spent all these long millennia here and yet, as dim as it must be, he can still see the Light. He is stirring the same feelings in others among the Fallen. I cannot let this continue. Minister Agares and I have been hard at work drawing up plans for ridding Hell of him, plans that you, my general, will execute. You will take up those grievous Hooks of yours and with them tear away his dreams!” The Prince’s form shifted and billowed with anger. “With you victorious, I will take back Astaroth’s wards and Sargatanas’ as well. And I will wear him around my neck, crushed as you leave him, as a reminder to all that the line between Hell and the Above shall never be crossed!”
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