The Fall of the House of Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

  For hadn’t she done much the same herself a thousand times?

  She glared at the recalcitrant succubus, a creature of opulent form and licentious lines dressed in something that looked like she had made it herself from a borrowed spool of red satin ribbon, and returned the spool almost untouched. ‘I said—and I mark it quite clearly—don’t you dare. It seems you dared.’

  The succubus smirked. It was a salacious smirk. ‘I said I wouldn’t break him. He’s still alive, isn’t he?’

  Presently, the succubus sailed out into the brimstone sky, before arcing gracelessly (with a lot of limb thrashing and screaming due to a sudden lack of wings) downwards, and ploughing through the ceiling of a lean-to containing a dishevelled long-legged owl wearing a crown made from stained parchment. Stolas, formerly a Prince of Hell and commander of no less than twenty-six demoniacal legions, was not handling unemployment well. He watched the succubus groaning in the shallow crater she had made upon impact.

  ‘Ugh,’ said the succubus, rather less alluring for the moment.

  ‘I used to be somebody, you know,’ said Stolas. The succubus didn’t say anything to that so he prodded her a few times with a talon until she groaned again. Accepting this as sufficient to count as a dialogue, he continued, ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

  * * *

  Zarenyia flung the succubus’s wings, torn out by the roots, over the balcony edge and watched them flutter down into the shadowed mass of the shantytown. ‘Frightful rudeness,’ she said, turned in a clatter of chitinous footfalls, and clicked her way indoors.

  In the midst of the great council of Satan rose a throne, albeit a sensibly sized one, with a small table by it and, in the opposite arm, what appeared to be a horizontal loop of stone in which a goblet sat. The throne’s occupant took up the goblet, took a sip or two while it considered these new persons, and then returned the goblet to the loop where, sensibly, it couldn’t be knocked over. This was a very sensible sort of Satan.

  ‘I feel reasonably sure I know to whom I speak,’ he said, for his voice was that of a male, even if his body was a mass of strange angled bones and struts that both gave a topological hint of terrible ontological truths that would shred the intellect from any who might try to broach them whilst also resembling homemade Christmas decorative chain made by folding and plaiting paper until one forgets where one is up to and accidentally creates a topological hint of terrible ontological truths that would shred the intellect from any who might try to broach them, much as happened with Aunt Julie.* This non-Euclidean (of course it was non-Euclidean) mass was topped with a horse’s skull, and the skull wore a helmet of Greco-Roman design and splendid aspect, all gold and silver with a crest of horsehair that swayed so beautifully with every movement of the skull beneath it that psychic impressions of it might settle into the dreams of advertising copywriters and inspire the most extravagant claims for shampoos.

  This was Ratuth Slabuth.

  ‘Reasonably sure, but I should ask. May I know who you three are?’

  Zarenyia was still in a mood and not prepared to take nonsense from anyone, least of all a horse’s skull perched upon a mathematical conundrum. ‘You know full well, Slabuth, but if you insist. I am Zarenyia, devil of the shadowed tunnels, succubine of the first name of the Blinded Dodecateuch, corruptor of passions, eater of souls, and really rather put out by your poor minion control.’

  Before Ratuth Slabuth could say anything, Miss Smith—still all awash with endorphins both from her heady ride up the needle as well as proximity to Zarenyia and the intoxicating effect such intimacy with a succubine tended to have upon humans—said in a loud and penetrating voice, ‘I am the Witch Queen of the Necropolis!’ She looked around with satisfaction at the gawping sea of demoniacal faces ranged upon her. ‘You fuckers,’ she concluded, still smiling.

  ‘I see,’ said Ratuth Slabuth. He made a note in a book and placed it on the occasional table by his throne. He looked at Johannes Cabal. ‘And you, sir?’

  Cabal had been half bent over, still racked with the assorted shocks his rapid ascent had provided him. At Ratuth Slabuth’s words, however, he froze for several seconds, then slowly stood straight, bringing his gaze to bear upon his interrogator.

  ‘You…’ Words again failed him for a time, but he rallied, focussed, drew breath, and tried again. ‘You … jest.’

  The horse skull gazed at him, perhaps even through him. ‘I do? How odd. I am not generally known for my jocularity. But the nature of whatever it is that you think amusing is unclear to me, so I shall ask again; who are you?’

  Cabal glared back, the recent indignities visited upon his person momentarily forgotten in the face of this new one visited upon his pride. He knew this was not the real Ratuth Slabuth, but felt impelled to answer it as if it were. Rationally, he reassured himself that this was necessary to permit them to work their way through whatever challenges this place might impose. Heavens forfend he have any emotional reasons.

  ‘How quickly they forget.’ Cabal said it as if to himself, and larded it with a surfeit of nuance. ‘You really don’t remember me, Corporal Ragtag Slyboots?’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from the watching horde, which expressed amongst the bone demons as mournful toots as if upon ocarinas.

  ‘Ragtag Sly … Slyboots?’ The new Satan looked down upon the dishevelled human with astonishment. Then he astonished the dishevelled human by laughing. It wasn’t even the classical ‘Nyahahahaha!’ laugh beloved of those who are about to dump their unloved interlocutors into an acid tank, or shoot them, or kick them off a convenient cliff. It was—apparently—the honest laughter of a jolly uncle on being caught in some harmless practical joke sprung by his infant niece. ‘Hohohohohoho!’ he went, thereby upsetting Cabal, who had rather been hoping for the ‘Nyahahahaha!’ variety as proof that the barb had struck home.

  ‘I haven’t been called Ragtag Slyboots in some time,’ said Ratuth Slabuth, wiping figurative tears of mirth from his vacant eye sockets. When his mirth had subsided (accompanied by the plaintive toots of bone demons letting their breaths out), he continued. ‘Ah, Cabal, isn’t it? Yes, I remember you. All that business with the Carnival of Discord? That was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of very little infamy indeed, it seemed. ‘That was me. You were a general, and then Lucifer reduced you to the ranks, because of me. Because of me.’

  The reaction when it came was not quite the one anticipated.

  ‘Mr Cabal,’ said Satan, ‘thank you so very much. I owe everything to you.’

  Cabal’s vocabulary clattered to an empty halt. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Let me tell you how it happened.’ Ratuth rose grandly from his throne and for one profoundly awful moment, Cabal thought he was going to sing.

  ‘When Lucifer hied himself off to wherever it was he hied himself off to,’ said Ratuth, ‘as you might imagine, things became rather fraught in his absence. All the Princes and, indeed, the Princesses of Hell—as an aside, does anyone know why the princesses are called princes, too? No? I don’t suppose it matters really—were instantly forming little alliances and backstabbing one another, and doing the sorts of things demon lords and ladies are supposed to do. Have you ever noticed that such things are ultimately unhelpful for society as a whole? All that energy and resources expended in internecine squabbling. Silly, isn’t it? One would think entities of great antiquity would pick up a few ideas about common cause and cooperation, but no. Conspiracies and backstabbing, backstabbing and conspiracies. All of which they predicted, counter-plotted against, which was taken into account, spawning counter-counterplans, ridiculously complex matryoshkas of concentric schemes, all constructed to conceal the innermost goals that were so compromised by that point that they had the overall effect of tying shoelaces together. Mountains of effort for molehills of effect. Laughable.

  ‘So I simply left them to it. As you so correctly point out, I was a mere nothing, a spear-carrier. Why would th
ey concern themselves with me? Asmodeus, Mephistopheles, all my former colleagues, my brother generals, my lords and ladies … suddenly I was of no more worth than one of the flies buzzing around Beelzebub’s arse.

  ‘And that was perfect.’

  ‘Even a Prince of Hell has only so much time, so much energy to expend, and they burnt it all in a magnificent bonfire of their vanity. Demons, you will understand, have a great deal of vanity; it was a conflagration. And when it was all over, they had employed every trick, squandered every favour, cast away every precious asset, and every back was heavy with knives. That was all. Otherwise, things were much the same. Pointless.

  ‘This is Hell’s trouble in a nutshell. Everyone is so busy being evil, they forget to get anything done. Not me; while the princes and the dukes and all the rest of them were wasting their time, I was putting together my own little army. It didn’t have to be large, and it wasn’t. All it had to be was coherent, disciplined, and determined.’

  Ratuth Slabuth gestured out towards the horizon, dark as clotted blood. ‘This is what I wrought. I found the high and mighty resting after their exertions, and I cast them down. Again. One would think after being kicked out of Heaven, they would take steps to ensure some degree of job security, but I can only assume that they were under the impression that they could fall no further.

  ‘I proved them wrong. I threw them out of their palaces, dissolved what was left of their legions, cast them into the gutter, and I have taken precautions to ensure that they never rise from it again. They made mistakes, and Hell is not a very forgiving place.’

  Cabal was in an argumentative humour. ‘But you yourself rose from the ranks twice. Isn’t it a flagrant hypocrisy to deny the same opportunity to others?’

  Ratuth Slabuth looked at him quizzically. ‘You do realise that I’m Satan, don’t you? Hypocrisy really is part of the job.’

  To this Cabal had no answer, and he fell into a truculent silence.

  ‘So, you’re not cross with dear Johannes, then?’ asked Zarenyia.

  ‘My dear lady, he is my unwitting benefactor. Of course I was angry at the time, but things worked out so splendidly, how could I possibly remain so? All’s well that ends well, after all. I am Satan, my position is unassailable and will remain so because I will not take my eyes from any potential enemies.’

  ‘You should thank me, then.’ Cabal was still in combative mood.

  ‘I think the operative word in my previous utterances was “unwitting”, Johannes, old stick. One cannot be thanked for causing an accident, no matter how beneficial that accident later turns out to be. No, I think my gratitude will be confined to simply not having you thrown into a sulphur pit for all eternity. That’s quite nice of me under the circumstances, isn’t it?’

  Cabal found himself suddenly nostalgic for Lucifer.

  Ratuth Slabuth continued, ‘Now, a small matter of bureaucracy. The demons of Hell all belong to a well-defined and rigid hierarchy. I have recently had to redefine it for reasons that must be obvious…’ He produced from the impossible angles of his body a green folder bound in black ribbon. ‘I have diagrams here, if anyone is interested? No? Well, in any case, the term “devil” is applied to those infernal entities that are not subordinate to this system. Being at the top myself, I am therefore the only resident of Hell that may call myself “devil”, a distinction that gives rise to the popular if technically inaccurate term “The Devil”.’ His equine skull somehow managed to smile at all those there present, even managing the nuances required to make it plain that it was an insincere, managerial sort of smile.

  ‘It complicates matters, however’—the skull turned to regard Zarenyia—‘when an unaligned devil without a portfolio wanders from the outer darkness into Hell proper. Rather makes a mess of the nomenclature.’

  ‘Lawks,’ said Zarenyia. ‘How inconvenient. Poor nomenclature.’ She bent her neck towards Cabal and whispered sotto voce, ‘What’s a nomenclature?’

  ‘Therefore some sort of accommodation must be reached, and a note made for any such future situations. Can you believe that the previous administration simply skated over matters such as these? Lucifer trusted to laissez-faire decisions and unregulated improvisations, if you can credit such a thing.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Cabal innocently, ‘he really was evil.’

  ‘Well, quite,’ agreed the new Satan. ‘But it’s one thing to spread venality, corruption, and despair in the mortal realm, quite another to have shoddy bookkeeping in one’s own domain. Whatever was he thinking?’ He sighed. ‘In any event, we must normalise Mistress Zarenyia’s classification while she is within the borders of Hell proper. If you would follow me, madam?’

  And, so saying, Satan sloped off like a mid-level functionary, a somewhat bemused Zarenyia following along. Cabal and Miss Smith were left alone with a lot of seemingly embarrassed demons.

  ‘Is he like this all the time?’ Cabal demanded of them. There was no vocalised reply, but a few surreptitious nods gave the answer all the same. Cabal spread his hands to his audience in supplication. ‘I am so sorry. This was impossible to foresee.’ The demons nodded ruefully.

  * * *

  ‘So what’s this about really, darling?’ Ratuth Slabuth and Zarenyia had retired to a side room of modest dimensions, being only mildly gargantuan in scale. Beneath a gleaming dome of stone, within the marbling of which the faces of the damned seemed to writhe, Satan settled himself into one of his comfy thrones with the throw cushions, and Zarenyia settled herself upon a bed of leather pillows, lovingly wrought from the skins of used-car salesmen. ‘I have wandered the highways and avenues of Hell on many occasions without halt or hindrance. I find it hard to believe you really wish me and those like to carry passports in future.’

  ‘You are very perceptive, Mistress Zarenyia.’ He settled his sharp angles more comfortably into his throne, making some of its more sensate members emit muffled screams. ‘You are quite right, of course. I have brought you here by means of a small ruse. Naturally, there are no concerns regarding your status here; I long since devised a deviltry clause, right from the first of my hierarchical analysis green papers. I mean, really. What sort of Satan wouldn’t?’ He smirked bonily. ‘Apart from my predecessor, obviously. No, no. I wanted to take you aside for another matter entirely.’

  Given her nature, Zarenyia wondered if Satan was proposing what she thought he might be proposing. It quickly became apparent that, no, he wasn’t. She felt an uncharacteristic degree of relief at this. She didn’t care much for Ratuth Slabuth’s personality, and his physical form presented a few challenges, too.

  ‘The thing is, Hell is large and complicated. Then there’s the whole business with the mortal world. One thing I have learned in my sojourn thus far, much to my chagrin, is that one has to delegate. I envy the other chap his omnipresence, omnipotence, omni-this, and omni-that. It would make the administration all so very much easier. Alas, it is all too much for my humble self.’ He seemed to be one of those entities that took great pride in his humbleness.

  ‘You have a small army of arse-kissers out there,’ said Zarenyia sweetly. ‘Form a cabinet.’

  ‘Oh, nothing would be easier,’ said Ratuth Slabuth, but without enthusiasm. ‘We are never short of sycophants in Hell. Competence, however, is a rarer commodity. The princes, for all their self-regard, were a necessary part of the apparatus of damnation. I brought them low because they presented a threat to the long-term stability of the realm and of my new regime. Their ability was never in question.’

  Zarenyia realised with a small shock where this was going, but said nothing, expressed nothing. She had not survived as long as she had by being naive, no matter how she might behave.

  ‘I need new princes,’ said Satan slowly, regarding her through narrowed eye sockets. ‘New princesses.’

  ‘That you can trust?’

  His laugh was sudden and, by his lights, honest. ‘Good heavens far, far above, no! Trust is as rare as a devil’s tears here. I don�
��t expect it, nor set much store by those who profess it. No, common interest is a far more reliable bond. For example, I am thinking my first appointee should be primarily concerned with the mortal realm. I would need someone whose curriculum vitæ involves a great deal of interaction with humans, somebody who can pass amongst them undetected, sowing sin in his … or her … or possibly its wake. I need a personable demon. A people demon.’

  There seemed little point in pretending she didn’t know what he was getting at, so she said, ‘You are fond of operative words, Satan. I think the one there is demon. I am a devil.’

  ‘Through choice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can understand and respect that, but the fealty of a Princess of Hell weighs far less heavily than that of a common lemure. You would be a free agent for most of your time. The occasional conclave to decide this or that, but otherwise footloose and fancy-free to do as thou wilt. Common purpose, you see? Your natural inclinations lie in the same direction as my needs for a new and senior demon.’

  Zarenyia rose from the pillows and walked up and down before the throne, hands behind her back, ruminating on Satan’s words. ‘You’re tempting me,’ she said at last.

  Ratuth Slabuth shrugged, the angles of his form rattling at the gesture. ‘Again, rather part of my job. Just think of it, my dear: no hiding in the outer darkness any longer; all the souls you can eat, just providing rather more actually reach Hell; and you shall never have to be summoned to manifest again, as the ability to do so at will is a gift of the position. Oh, and of course a palace constructed to your design and furnished to your every whim. Really, what else can I offer you? Doesn’t every girl want to be a princess?’

  Zarenyia did not answer, but only continued to pace back and forth. Not so long before, she might have told this new Satan, thank you, but no. She liked the outer darkness. She liked being her own creature. She liked being a devil.