The Fall of the House of Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

Now she realised things had changed, and it was Johannes Cabal that changed them. He had needed somebody with her very specific skills and asked her along for an adventure. A real, actual adventure, and it had changed her. When it was all over and they had said their goodbyes, she had found the shadows and darkness of Hell’s borderlands no longer inviting, but only dull. She had hung in her web and reminisced, reliving events over and over. The cobwebs blew gently in the sulphur-heavy air there around her, and she watched them with something new gnawing at her: ennui. There in the endless twilight she waited and waited for the slight spiritual tug that told her that she was being summoned back to the mortal world. She waited and waited, and she waited in vain. If not Cabal, then somebody. Just somebody. She wouldn’t even devour them, not necessarily. Perhaps they could go on an adventure, she and this faceless, putative mortal, who always seems to wear a black suit and speak with a German accent. She had been delirious with joy when the summons finally came, although she had taken pains to conceal the extent of her pleasure on arrival. Really, darling—a girl has to maintain some mystique.

  ‘May I ask how long this offer is open?’ she said.

  ‘How long?’ He seemed surprised. ‘You’re still not convinced?’

  ‘It’s a splendid one, and don’t think for a moment that I am not terribly tempted. Merely that I’m a tiny bit busy at present. On an adventure and everything, you see.’ She didn’t feel it necessary to add that Ratuth himself was nothing but a facsimile of the real thing, as were all the demons, as was this ‘Hell’, and that any offer made here was therefore moot, to put it mildly. It seemed rude to bring something like that up.

  ‘Ah, yes. Cabal’s little fool’s errand.’

  ‘Oh, you know about that, do you?’ Zarenyia thought it very metaphysical of a fictitious rendering of a real entity to be aware of the circumstances that had brought it about, and therefore unattractive.

  I do hope he isn’t going to break the fourth wall, she thought, or at least, generated inhuman cerebral processes that equate to a human mind thinking words much like that. If the dreadful oik starts whinging on about how ghastly it is to be fictional, I may very well scream.

  ‘The Fountain of Youth? Yes, of course. You wouldn’t be aware of it of course, but every time some mortal or another invokes the Five Ways, it impinges on Hell, often at a very inconvenient time. Happily on this occasion, it brought you to me. Who says nice things don’t happen to embodiments of elemental evil?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, I fear that we may be talking at cross purposes. I have no idea what this “Five Ways” of yours is. Johannes has got himself a little book. I forget the name—somebody’s diary, I think—but I am sure it isn’t called Five Ways.’

  ‘Oh, my dear lady, no. We are talking entirely of the same thing or, strictly speaking, things. The Five Ways is a whim of my predecessor. It exists in different times and places, and goes by different names and appearances, but it always promises much. Nor does it lie.’

  Zarenyia wondered how she might delicately raise the business of Ratuth Slabuth being a temporary copy of the real thing, and was struggling to find a way. Then she remembered that she was a devil and therefore permitted to behave very badly when circumstances called for it. This was a dispensation she greatly valued; it had made her feel quite good about herself during mass murders and when leaving dinner parties early, the latter usually because she had murdered everyone there. It was good to be a devil.

  ‘The thing is, darling—and pardon my bluntness—but Johannes’s little magic book seems to create false versions of aspects of the world and its abutting worlds, just long enough to make their point. I wouldn’t raise the matter except you seem to be quite keen to do so yourself. The meat of it is that we are here because of the book, therefore, the inescapable conclusion is…’ She shrugged, spreading her hands apologetically. That didn’t seem quite enough considering she’d just implied that Satan was a storybook character to his face, so she raised her spiderish forelegs and make an apologetic gesture with those, too.

  Ratuth Slabuth confounded all that by laughing. ‘Oh, now I begin to understand your wariness. You believe me to be just part of the fiction of the Five Ways. No. Hell is the birthplace of the Five Ways, and represents one of its trials.’

  Zarenyia’s eyes widened. ‘So, you’re saying—’

  ‘Yes. But don’t trust to my word. To be frank, you would be foolish to. Use your senses. Reach out and taste this world, this Hell.’

  Zarenyia gave Ratuth Slabuth a wryly suspicious eye, but did as he suggested. Creatures of the under- and overworlds have certain senses denied to mere mortals for the simple reason that mere mortals would never need them and, should they ever develop them, madness would shortly overwhelm them as they became aware of the superficiality of mundane existence, the great depths that undermine it, and the great heights that overarch it. Zarenyia reached out and found threads of happenstance and need, the weave of interactivities, the fabric of reality. She could smell that it ran threadbare out in the desert behind her towards the end of the endless cemetery, but here it flowed as it did anywhere, uneven as a web woven by a drunken spider.

  ‘Ah,’ said Zarenyia. ‘Unless my senses deceive me, this really is Hell.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Ratuth Slabuth with monumental complacency.

  ‘Lucifer has truly abdicated his role as Satan?’

  ‘I believe I said as much, yes.’

  ‘And you’re the new Satan with all Lucifer’s powers devolved to you?’

  ‘I would term it “unto you” as a more elegant phrasing, but yes.’

  Zarenyia was feeling uncharacteristically overwhelmed. ‘The offer is real.’

  ‘A Princess of Hell. Indeed. I am entirely in earnest.’

  Zarenyia, needing time to absorb that the offer—breathtaking enough even when she hadn’t believed this reality—was genuine, changed the subject, albeit to one in which she was keenly interested. ‘This Five Ways, what exactly is it?’

  ‘Just one of Lucifer’s whims, and let me tell you, there’ll be far fewer of those sorts of shenanigans henceforth. Focus on core business, that’s the ticket.’

  ‘If Lucifer devised it, then why does it follow through on its promises?’

  ‘Because no one really wants what they think they do. Briefly, the Five Ways manifests in different ways depending upon the culture it broaches. It always offers the moon, however; sometimes literally. It will draw in five individuals, and they will be challenged in five ways, hence the nervously brilliant name of the thing. At the end of it, assuming they haven’t died or been driven mad or just become distracted along the way, they will receive their hearts’ desire. These boons will, naturally, destroy them, as is the way with achieved ultimate goals.’ Ratuth Slabuth fluttered a tangent dismissively. ‘I’m convinced he was just at a loose end when he came up with it. Seems like make-work, doesn’t it?’

  Zarenyia was totting up names in her head: herself, Miss Barrow, Miss Smith, and the brothers Cabal. Five.

  ‘Oh, bother,’ she said. ‘I like to think of myself as quite the wily one, but I appear to have gone galumphing into a trap like an utter ingénue. It’s quite damaging to the old self-image, I must say.’

  ‘Hardly a trap, dear lady. You can walk out of it at any time, and now you know what it is, you have no reason not to.’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’ She turned her attention to Satan. ‘In which case, to business. A princess, you say?’

  ‘Princess, palace, and power. All yours for the asking.’

  ‘Well, then. I suppose, allowing for the usual caveats about how if the deal isn’t what it appears to be, I reserve the right to get violently cross about it, I accept. I just need to get Johannes and Miss Smith along the way, and then you shall have my full attention.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Satan settled himself more comfortably upon his throne. ‘In Miss Smith I have no interest. She may return to her precious necropolis in the Dreamlands with my blessings, fo
r whatever they are worth. Very little, I would guess.’ He coughed slightly, an affected noise that rattled his vertices. ‘Johannes Cabal is, however, a different matter. He will have to be dealt with.’

  Zarenyia showed no emotion, but she felt it. ‘You gave the impression that all was forgiven and forgotten, viz. Johannes.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Those were lies. Fathering them is expected of me these days. Be assured, Mistress Zarenyia, I am in no wise done with that necromancer. He was the author of my humiliation, he conspired against me and brought me low simply for doing my job.’

  ‘Which was…?’

  ‘Trying to engineer his destruction. He is a very awkward and recalcitrant man, you know? But I was never anything but professional in my dealings with him.’ Ratuth Slabuth … Satan rose from his throne, and the awful geometry of his form unfolded until he towered, massive and emanating malevolence. ‘But he humiliated me, made me look a fool in front of Lucifer, and that was all that was required.’

  Zarenyia weighed this, and thought it sounded like grapes of the sourest vine. ‘You mentioned something about sulphur pits, earlier…’

  ‘Molten sulphur, yes. But, no. Entirely insufficient. I have much better torments lined up for him.’

  Zarenyia sighed. ‘Darling, I think I’ve been involved in enough innuendo-laden conversations to know where this is going, but I shall have to disappoint you. I cannot destroy him for you.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Satan.

  ‘I have given my bond not to harm him nor any of his merry crew.’ She neglected to explain that this did not technically extend to the late addition of Miss Smith, but she liked the necromantrix and did not care to give Ratuth Slabuth any options there. Nor did she feel the need to clarify that the giving of her bond had involved saying ‘dib’ a lot.

  To her concealed dismay, he seemed to take this philosophically. ‘Of course. I anticipated something of the sort. Why else would he travel with a whimsically inclined killer? So, he trusts you?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’ Another lie of omission; she was fairly sure she trusted him, too; an unusual sensation for a devil.

  ‘Excellent!’ He rubbed together a couple of extruded extremities that he used for handling things. ‘Then that is all that is necessary. You will not harm him—a bond is unbreakable, after all—but you shall be vital to his downfall. The passion of Johannes Cabal shall begin with his betrayal…’ He regarded Zarenyia through empty sockets darker than the most corrupt thought, and the bone of the skull creaked as he smirked. ‘Princess Zarenyia of the Ninth Circle.’

  * * *

  It was enough to turn a girl’s head. Power, privilege, and as many murders as she cared to commit, which was quite a few. It might pall eventually—things usually do—but she would have a glorious few millennia reaching such a state.

  And yet she found herself testing the Hell around her at first from a sense of disbelief and then as a reflex. It passed every sniff and touch she gave it, psychically and otherwise, but she knew it would. Rationally, she was as positive as she had ever been about anything that this was truly Hell, and that Ratuth Slabuth’s promise to her was his bond. All she had to do was betray Johannes Cabal.

  She knew she wouldn’t be hurting him directly; her own promises to him precluded that. Not hurting him physically, at least. Thinking back, she had failed to extend her bond to cover allowing him to come to harm by the hands, claws, and writhing thorned tentacles of others or any other such bit of petty weaselry. It had never occurred to her to do so at the time. After all, she was a solitary creature, spending decades at a time in the web-shrouded caverns of the outer darkness. She knew no one to connive with, no fellow devil with whom to conspire.

  Then along came Johannes Cabal, and there had been fun and murders galore. The best time she’d had in … well, forever. And then he’d gone again, and she was by herself once more in the long silence. Not even a postcard. Funny how he only got in touch when he wanted something. Typical man. Typical human.

  It would be a small betrayal, really. She would simply lead him up the garden path as she had with so many of his species, and then leave him there to dry. Alone and undefended while Ratuth Slabuth did whatever it was he planned to do. She hadn’t asked. She had no desire to know. There would be a brief unpleasantness for Cabal that would last no longer than eternity, and she meantime would be Princess Zarenyia. It was sad, but you can’t make an omelette without damning a few souls to everlasting torment. It was a fact of life.

  Yes, existence was full of hard decisions that would sting for a while, but one just had to think in the long term. The very, very long term. She stiffened her resolve. A brief moment of pain, and then everything would be all right.

  * * *

  ‘Hello, darlings!’ said Zarenyia as she breezed back into Satan’s throne room, a shambling, scuttling sound in her wake assuring her that Ratuth Slabuth was following. ‘Forms signed, bona fides authenticated. You will be delighted to hear that I am now declared a legal visitor to the scenic heart of Hell. Hooray for me!’

  ‘Finally.’ Cabal looked up sourly from the table where he, Miss Smith, and the demons De’eniroth and De’zeel were engaged in a game of cards under the eyes, antennae, and other sensory organs of the hellish horde there gathered. He flung down his hand of cards and rose, removing his jacket from the back of his chair as he did so. ‘I lost interest in this ridiculous game somewhere during the initial deal.’

  There was another of those idiosyncratic sharp intakes of breath from the audience of demons; they took their cribbage very seriously.

  ‘His Lord Satan here’—Zarenyia carelessly jerked her thumb over her shoulder in Ratuth Slabuth’s direction—‘has been an absolute doll. I believe we now know where we should be going to next.’

  Miss Smith unfurled a jet-black parasol and placed it upon her shoulder to ward off the rays of a non-existent sun. ‘Excellent. We should be moving on, really.’ She nodded politely. ‘Thanks, Satan. Lovely Hell you have here, but time is pressing, I should think.’

  ‘And where precisely is it that Ragtag Slyboots here thinks we should be going?’ said Cabal, having apparently lost at the card table any vague sense of diplomacy he may once have enjoyed.

  ‘Still trying to bait me, eh, Cabal?’ said Satan, and chuckled. ‘I really don’t have the luxury to indulge in such pettiness these days, I am afraid. I wish I could indulge you, but simply too busy. You understand, I’m sure?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Cabal. ‘You being in charge of Hell is tantamount to a second undermanager at a Pompeiian olive orchard being given responsibility for the Roman Empire. You are a small sort of demon, Ragtag. You were over-promoted once and it didn’t end well. I don’t see it going swimmingly for you or your charges this time, either.’

  ‘We shall see, shall we?’ said Ratuth Slabuth, and chuckled again. He gave the air of being very pleased with himself. ‘But I haven’t answered your question. In the centre of the Ninth Circle, below the now disused throne of the old Satan (I really can’t be bothered with all that lava and so forth, and as for a basalt throne, whatever was he thinking of? Terribly uncomfortable, believe you me), there is a tunnel that leads down to his original stronghold, the Ivory Citadel. It is a place secreted away and forgotten by almost all. There, all and every destined time and inevitable place may be reached. There, Fate itself awaits.’

  ‘That sounds like a powerful sort of location,’ said Cabal, his suspicion evident. ‘Very useful in a variety of ways, I would think. Why, then, is it secreted away and forgotten?’

  This time Satan did not chuckle, but the jaw of the horse’s skull he used for a head curved into a deeply satisfied smile. ‘Because who truly wishes to confront their fate, of course?’

  * * *

  When Johannes Cabal had undertaken to find the truth at the heart of The One True Account of Presbyter Johannes by His Own Hand, he had at no point imagined that it would involve leading a procession of demons through the ruins of the Ninth Circl
e to the great shattered edifice that had once been the palace of Lucifer, before he decided to resign and seek opportunities elsewhere. Yet here he was, striding alongside the shambling disgrace of planar geometry Ratuth Slabuth that—in the real Hell—would be a resolute foe, accompanied by Zarenyia the succubine spider-devil and the dead and dismantled (yet looking very good on it, considering) Miss Smith the necromantrix. In their wake walked, shuffled, and oozed a horde of demons, who seemed to be along out of curiosity as much as representing any sort of court for the second Satan.

  The former throne room was a very different place than Cabal remembered it. Then it had been heated and underlit by a vast pool of lava, the throne of Satan rising massively in the centre of a peninsula thrust out into the deadly lake. Without an army of imps equipped with pokers, however, the lava’s surface had been permitted to cool and was now a ruffled field of grey stone, liquid caught and frozen forever in flows and wavelets.

  Cabal considered the physical organisation of Hell as he understood it, and now saw the significance of this place. It had begun to dawn upon him how he had misinterpreted the geography of Hell as they approached Lucifer’s palace and he could see that it rose up limitlessly above the surrounding plains until it was lost from sight in the crimson gloom. When he had come here on previous occasions, he had descended directly through the rings via the palace itself—a spindle in the midst of endless open spaces, its base here in the Ninth Circle, its zenith forming the gatehouse to Hell in the middle of the Desert of Limbo.

  It seemed that perhaps not even the Ninth Circle was truly the palace’s foundation; if what Ratuth Slabuth had told Zarenyia was true, then below it was a place that extended the spindle’s ability to touch every circle of Hell out into all else. To Cabal’s mind there was a rightness about this. So much in the occult followed “as above, so below”, then here, of all places, should contain the archetype of the principle.

  ‘This way!’ said Ratuth Slabuth, leading the conga of the damned across the isthmus towards the empty throne. He seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Almost there!’