Decadence

by Matthew Ashworth

  Malakai made it out of the cave too and finally could feel more relaxed. He was no admirer of sneaking around. The narrow cave tunnels made him feel constrained. The act of having to stay quiet and taking the time to simply make it across a single room was annoying. Malakai had little patience. He liked to act fast and to get on with the matter.

  - “Damn demons. They like to see others suffer.” He spoke quietly to himself.

  He was still constantly questioning whether he was making the right choice. He had a goal of his own, and there was a high chance that allying with the Pandemonium, the strongest of all the sectors of the Underworld, would help his dreams come true. However, there was also a risk of them turning on him or sending him on a suicide mission. They could not be trusted, and for that he had to approach their every word with caution. He began replaying the scenarios in his head concerning what Alastor asked him to do. Was it a good idea to turn the sectors still loyal to the Creator against Beelzebub?

  Whilst pondering on the issue, he flew across the outer wastelands of Pandemonium, filled with nothing but ash, skeletons of various creatures from ages ago, and also discarded fragments of broken boats and other vehicles used in the Underworld. He reached the river Lethe soon enough and continued flying above it towards his home sector.

  For a brief second Aurora sprung to his mind. Something about her behaviour seemed unusual the last time he saw her. He couldn’t quite understand why though, but he decided to watch her closely for a few interims. She was still relatively new in the Underworld and could do unacceptable things.

  Finally when he reached the familiar grounds, Malakai felt completely relieved and descended through the air towards land. He had several tasks to do now. He needed to find a way to make contact with the Erebus dark angels again, and he had to set the scene just right. However, before that he was curious to find out more about this agent the demons were using in the External World to harvest souls.

  In order to obtain information about this individual, Malakai decided to send a messenger to the Pandemonium. The infernal messengers varied one from another. Some were fast, others could remember a lot of information, thirds were good spies, and so on. The spy messengers were rare, unlike years ago. Now each sector had many layers of anti-spy defences, such as creatures that could sense them for example, and therefore they were no longer efficient, unless used properly. Malakai, however, decided to take a chance. He provided his messenger with certain instructions and gave it an order to memorize every bit of information concerning the harvester of souls in the External World. If it came to the worst and the messenger was found and destroyed, nobody would be able to track down who sent it. With that in mind, Malakai went ahead with his plan.

  Chapter 11

  Reiteration of the Plan

  It was an early afternoon in the External World already, yet Azrael, Adelais, and Ethel had not still found Garridan. They were beginning to give up. Over the course of all these hours they managed to scan a very large area, but the search appeared to be futile. Adelais kept trying to convince his teammates that they would not find Garridan and that they should abandon what they were doing. He was starting to grow sick of mindlessly scanning the area. Ethel and Azrael agreed, but they did not want to deliver the bad news to Hades. They wanted to continue looking.

  Eventually they saw something moving towards them at a high speed through the air. It was Seere. As soon as he reached them, he came to a sudden halt and addressed all three of them.

  - “Good angels, your master, Lord Hades, wants you to abort the search and is now expecting you in his palace.”

  - “How is that possible?” Azrael found it difficult to believe that Hades would suddenly cancel a mission.

  - “He says he needs you urgently.” Seere added.

  - “Did he say why?”

  - “He mentioned that the current objectives need to be reiterated. That is all I know.”

  - “All right, thank you.”

  As soon as Azrael said that last line, Seere departed from them to continue his duty. Azrael and Ethel were speechless. Adelais on the other hand was gazing at them and wondering why they weren’t doing anything.

  - “So are we going or not?” he finally asked them.

  - “Yes.” Azrael confirmed.

  Leaving the External World was much easier for angels than entering it. All they needed to do was to concentrate hard, and the gateway engulfed them in by itself. Within mere seconds they found themselves being thrown out of the gateway, back at the Mount Sanctus in the Internal World. Without discussing the situation any further, all three of them flew into the air and back to their sector via the Utopian Path. It was going to take a while, so Ethel began talking to her teammates.

  - “Maybe those are news from Lazarus.” She guessed.

  - “It could as well be.” Adelais responded, “I sure hope it’s good news.”

  - “I really want to believe that too, but would Lord Hades need us urgently if it was good news?” she rationalised.

  Adelais realised that she was right. Emergency such as this could not mean good news. He was starting to get worried again and kept wondering about what exactly Lazarus could’ve discovered.

  The rest of the journey they flew quietly, contemplating on the matter. Once they reached the river Acheron, they crossed it towards their home sector of Erebus and finally headed for Hades’ palace. They were rather tired, as they had been flying for almost half a day in the External World, as well as making their way to the gateways and back. That was why they decided to land and walk the rest of the way when they got close enough to Hades’ palace. Being back in the Internal World allowed them to replenish energy automatically, but it still required some time.

  As they reached the palace, they went straight inside. Once again, they didn’t speak whilst heading along the corridor and just approached the judges. Those knew that Hades was expecting them, and so Minos snapped his fingers as he usually did, causing the doors to open. When Azrael and his team entered Hades’ room, Lazarus was inside already. Gideon and his team were there too. Hades looked stern, but a faint smile appeared on his face when Ethel, Azrael, and Adelais came in.

  - “Excellent. You’re finally here.” He announced with delight, “We can now discuss the matter at hand.”

  - “Is there something wrong?” Azrael questioned, “We had to abandon our mission.”

  - “Yes. We can continue that at a later time. More important matters have surfaced.” He confirmed.

  Every dark angel in the chamber stood still here and listened in attentively to what Hades had to say next. Hades assembled his thoughts quickly and then began:

  - “As you all remember, I sent Lazarus to follow Malakai during our last meeting. It appears Lazarus had discovered exactly what we’ve been looking for. Malakai recently headed to Pandemonium to have a meeting with Alastor, who is Lucifer’s most gifted killer. Through that meeting it had been revealed that Malakai was the one to send the army of infantry monsters to attack us.”

  - “So his master, Lord Beelzebub, knew nothing about that?” Azrael asked just to be sure.

  - “Indeed, it seems he didn’t.” Hades assured them, “This makes me wonder about Malakai’s loyalty. According to what Lazarus said, Malakai and Alastor weren’t on such good terms with each other either.”

  - “We’ll have to be careful with Malakai then.” Cael stated.

  - “We have to be careful with anyone who is from another sector.” Azrael said to Cael in response.

  - “That is correct.” Hades agreed, then, just as everyone faced him once again, he continued “Now, Alastor also mentioned that Lucifer was building an army once again. Using Garridan in the External World to harvest souls of wicked people was one such way. Another way was, as Lazarus explained to me, the Pandemonium forces have taken control over the Abode of the Corrupted, what means every soul currently locked inside it belongs to them.”

  The dark angels were shocked to hear that. Adelais
was especially revolted. He felt anger starting to build up inside of him, and he wanted with every little part of his soul to punish the demon kind for such an atrocious act.

  - “Lord Hades, we have to save those souls right away.” He quickly spoke up, before Hades had a chance to continue.

  - “We will eventually, Adelais, but at the moment there are a lot of other things to worry about.” Hades calmly replied to Adelais’ comment.

  - “With all due respect, master, this is against our nature to sit by idly when there is suffering going on out there. Those are human souls locked away in the Abode. They are just waiting for their chance to purify and to earn their well-deserved peace with the Creator. It is not fair on them to suffer more than they deserve and to become the minions in Lucifer’s army.” Adelais protested with a solid hint of persistence in his voice.

  - “Adelais, stand down!” Hades increased his voice slightly, “I have considered that. However, it would be incredibly difficult and would take a long time for Lucifer to convert any of those souls into demons. Those souls are quite safe for now.”

  Adelais didn’t speak there. Hades might’ve been right, but he still couldn’t come to terms with what was happening. It was eating away at him from the inside.

  - “Was this all that was said between them?” Azrael quickly went back to the original topic.

  - “One last thing was that now Malakai is going to try to get us to attack Lord Beelzebub, which in turn would force Lord Beelzebub to move over to Lucifer’s side. Given all this, we have a lot of tasks to do.” Hades replied.

  - “Just tell us what needs to be done, master.” Gideon was eager to hear about the next mission.

  - “Firstly, I am going to send messengers to Helheim, Purgatory, Limbo, and Den of Retribution, so that they are aware of the situation. The rest we need to prioritise. We need to locate and stop Garridan once and for all, we need to release Abode of the Corrupted from the Lucifer’s grasp, and we also need to know what Malakai is up to right now, not to mention also the reinforcement of our defences in case of an attack.” Hades summarized everything.

  - “Why can’t we just send a messenger to Lord Beelzebub and tell him about all this?” Ethel proposed, “He needs to know this too.”

  - “Yes, but we don’t have proof.” Hades pointed out, “Malakai most likely already informed him falsely that we want to attack him. If we tell him of Malakai’s actions, he is likely to consider it as a faulty attempt to try and divide his army. He is much more likely to consider Malakai’s word.”

  - “I think I have an idea that would accomplish two of those in one go.” Azrael suddenly realised, “Why don’t we head over to Infernal Pit and ask Malakai to help us in beating Garridan? Not only would we stop Garridan, but we also would be able to keep an eye on Malakai.”

  By Hades’ facial expression, he seemed to like the sound of that idea. Adelais could see why. This method would help them to accomplish several tasks at once.

  - “Yes, that does sound like a feasible option.” Hades acknowledged almost straight away, “Let’s do exactly that, and once we defeat Garridan, then we would need to assemble a small team that would go to the Abode and try to liberate it from the forces of Pandemonium.”

  That concluded the meeting. Azrael took his team to get prepared for departing to the Infernal Pit, whilst Gideon was instructed to take his team to the Abode of the Corrupted and to analyse the defences there, providing useful information for an attack strategy later on.

  All of the dark angels exited Hades’ chamber there and eventually out of the palace. Azrael and his team wasted no time. They took into the air and flew towards the Southern dock in order to head to Infernal Pit by boat. They decided not to take any other reinforcements with them, as the four of them were a solid fighting force, and also that ground troops could slow them down.

  Once they landed at the docks, Azrael instructed his team to stay put whilst he sent a messenger to Malakai about their visit. Adelais, Ethel, and Lazarus waited patiently at the docks. Adelais kept thinking about the poor souls in the Abode who were going to be sacrificed needlessly if no action would be taken soon enough. Ethel saw his distress and so approached him slowly.

  - “Don’t worry, Adelais. We will rescue those souls.”

  - “I am not too confident about that.” Adelais admitted doubtfully, “Not with the rate at which things are happening right now.”

  - “Stay positive.” She tried to comfort him, “We will do it together. Once we are done with Garridan, if Lord Hades still does nothing about the Abode, I will point it out to him.”

  - “Thanks Ethel.” Adelais gave a tenuous smile, “I can only pray to our Creator that every single one of them will still be fine by the time we reach them.”

  - “We will save them, but for now let’s concentrate on our current task. Worrying will not sort the problem out.” Ethel reassured him once again.

  Adelais did not reply, because he was still not sure. He knew Ethel was trying to alleviate his troubles and to uplift his spirit. It was a very considerate thing of her to do, but he knew that the problem could still be quite bad. He just decided to comply for now, because their current mission was going to require his full commitment.

  When Azrael finally returned, the four of them took a small boat from the dock, and the boatman began transporting them along the river to their target destination.

  Chapter 12

  Cooperation

  Azrael and his team managed to get to Infernal Pit as they planned. They got off the boat and stepped onto the sector’s grounds, where they got confronted by two guards. Azrael mentioned to them that Malakai would be expecting him and his team, and the guards let the four of them through.

  Once the guards approved, Azrael asked his teammates if they were ready to proceed. They each gave a nod in response, and finally all four of them ascended into the air and flew in the direction of the main cave tunnel network. They flew with a good pace and got to their destination fairly soon. Malakai was waiting for them just by the entrance to the cave complex, alone.

  - “Greetings everyone.” Malakai welcomed them all with an unusually warm, friendly attitude, “How can I help you? Do you wish an audience with Lord Beelzebub?”

  - “No, that’s not necessary.” Azrael dismissed amiably.

  - “Then what brings you here?”

  - “We would like an audience with you actually.” Azrael clarified.

  He could see a surprise on Malakai’s face. It seemed Malakai wasn’t quite expecting this to happen.

  - “Sure. What is it that you need to discuss with me?” Malakai asked finally after a brief pause.

  - “We would like your help in tracking down and defeating Garridan. He is a dangerous individual. You must’ve heard of him.” Azrael said it straight out.

  - “Right. The one who is using demonic powers in the External World to slaughter innocent people?” Malakai asked for clarification.

  - “That’s him.” Azrael confirmed without a doubt, “We’ve engaged in a fight with him, but he escaped, which means we are likely to need some reinforcements.”

  - “Follow me inside.” Malakai finally said and turned to enter the cave.

  Azrael and the others followed him right inside. As they began descending the tunnel, Malakai began talking:

  - “Do you just need me then, or do you want my entire team to come too?”

  - “Either way will be beneficial.” Azrael answered neutrally.

  - “I would be glad to help, but first of all I’ll need to consult my master about it. If he gives me permission, I will lend a hand.”

  - “That sounds reasonable.”

  - “In that case just wait here until I return. I will be prompt.”

  Malakai led them into a small chamber just at the side of a tunnel. The chamber was plain and empty, but a satisfactory enough waiting area. As soon as Azrael and his troop entered the chamber, Malakai left to discuss the matter with Beelzebub. Ethel, Lazarus
, and Adelais sat down, but Azrael kept standing still and waiting with patience. Malakai’s motives were difficult to figure out, but he could tell with great ease that Malakai was acting slightly strange. Even if he didn’t know of what Malakai had done, he was sure he would’ve still noticed that something in Malakai’s behaviour was different. For now he could only wait and see what came next.

  Malakai was almost at his Lord’s chamber when Aurora came across him. He found it unusual that he kept running into her so often lately. On top of that, she kept giving him a weird look.

  - “Is everything fine, Aurora?” he asked her, trying to figure out what she was up to.

  - “Yes. I’ve heard the dark angels of Erebus were visiting again.” She replied to his question.

  - “That’s right. We might be heading out with them on a mission. Just wait here. I need to confer with Lord Beelzebub first.”

  Aurora nodded in agreement and did as he said. Malakai then continued to the very end of the corridor and into the chamber with the door to his master’s private room. Once again he hovered above the part directly above a giant carnivorous worm and approached the doors, which swung open by themselves. As soon as he got inside the room, Beelzebub spoke loudly: