“Sargatanas took up the sword in an effort to purge Hell. To start to cleanse and change it, and, in so doing, he showed that he was worthy of divine reconsideration. Against overwhelming odds, he succeeded. But his success was limited. He knew it could never be completed by him. He knew it was just the beginning.”
“But we were never of his former world. Or of any of the fallen demons’. We cannot go back to someplace we have never before been!”
Lilith felt a pang in her chest. How many times had she said the same thing to him about herself? Would these naïve creatures have a better chance at the Above than she? And the answer made her bitterness rise up. For no matter what she did in Hell, the path was forever barred to her.
The same was probably true for them.
“It was his fervent belief that that path he opened would be open to all,” Lilith said with all the earnestness she could muster. “Sargatanas told me that he envisioned a select group of demons … females all … a sisterhood that would be his missionaries here in Hell. He wanted his message spread.”
Ardat’s eyebrows arched fractionally as she heard this.
A feral smile brightened Liimah’s face, her pointy teeth glistening.
“I would be a Sister of Sargatanas!”
She had named her own cult. There was more to this creature, Lilith saw, than a simple, mindless courtesan. She was a clever one.
Araamah, Dimmah, Kaasah, Mashtaah, and Asaakah, each one vehemently repeated the sentiment; each one bore the same wide-eyed, fervent expression. In a moment their lives had been given meaning. In a moment they had become acolytes. And in the same moment Lilith and Ardat had become something more. They were now priestesses in a cult dedicated to Sargatanas the Ascended.
It suited them both. They had suffered so much for simply existing. This would be a cult of retribution, a cult that expiated the sins of the souls and demons alike at the point of a sword. There were, Lilith reflected, so many who deserved that in Hell.
“There is a bend of the Acheron not too far from here. When our bellies are full we will make our way there.”
* * *
They heard the river Acheron long before they smelled or saw it. Its distant, muffled cries reached for the party with thin, tentative fingers long before they could grasp their souls more firmly. Sheets of mist hung above the pale, viscous river, its thick curtains undulating like living things. As the party made their way toward it, the sting of the mist in concert with the mournful wailing brought a great sadness down upon them all. Lilith remembered that effect well. It was why most avoided the river, why, other than the once-great city of Adamantinarx, there were so few settlements along its banks. The sorrow it created was too deep. And only a leader steeped in his own sorrow for a lost world and life would choose it as a residence.
The succubi grew silent and all that could be heard was their soft footsteps on the moist tissue of the ground.
Lilith had thought long and hard about how to initiate the succubi. This would do well.
The riverbank dropped nearly vertically into the slowly flowing river below; the edge of the land looked etched and eaten away by the bitter waters. It had been a very long time since Lilith had seen the Acheron. The sad memory of her lord immersing himself in it was as vivid and shocking as when she had watched him. It had never left her and now, it would seem, it would take on a new meaning.
At the river’s edge, with tears involuntarily streaming down her ivory face, Lilith stripped off her garments and embraced the Acheron.
Ardat, almost as willingly, did the same, watching her naked mistress wade farther into the river. The succubi, seemingly astonished, hesitated but then one by one unfastened and dropped their garments and tentatively walked into the sluggish currents until they were ankle-deep.
Lilith had to admit to herself that the sensation was very nearly unbearable. It was her heart that nearly burst from the torrent of sadness that filled it to overflow. Here was the collective misery, both immense and trivial, of every thinking species that had ever populated the world she had once inhabited. Here were the terrible losses, the victims of awful crimes, the casualties of wars beyond count, the neglected, the sick, the abandoned, the shamed, the regretful, the unloved—all of their tears joined and magnified.
They drowned her in their immeasurable sorrow.
She saw but did not see. Somewhere on the darkened fringe of her awareness she saw the others, now knee-deep, stopped and watching her. Eyes wide. Were they seeing her reaction? Was it their own?
Suddenly Ardat and the succubi and their initiation rite faded like dissipating smoke as a dolorous intoxication seeped into her mind.
She grew dizzy and faint and fell forward, the river enfolding her as she sank. The bitter waters entered and filled her, the voices in her head roaring. A deep blue began to suffuse her inner vision and she began to feel a strange sense of rushing forward while floating in place. She traveled like that, trapped in the thick water, for some time, the pain of the medium she barely moved in caressing her body with a thousand claws.
The blueness took some form. She saw a distant plateau hovering in cold space, indistinct in its full shape. From beneath the enormity of that timeless dream landscape she grew to understand that upon this plateau was a city—the tiny blue lights in the azure shadows glittered, casting a cool radiance from what she thought might be windows in countless small domiciles. But, too, tiny lights were flashing in her mind against the drone of voices and she could not be sure of anything she perceived.
Pain and Sorrow were her psychopomps casting Lilith upward, atop and over the plateau and into the blazing, frigid light, urging her forward, the odd, rounded ghosts of buildings passing beneath her by the thousands. A vast white mount, tiered by an Intent beyond her understanding, loomed ominously over the landscape, a shaft of purest light reaching from its peak into the blue Nothingness above. Incomprehensible. Cold.
The Above!
She saw ahead with greater clarity, jutting into the deep azure Void, a white tower, one among many, from which an elliptical balcony extended. Toward this tower she flew, her eyes unblinkingly fixed upon the balcony. And leaning on the parapet, she saw gazing into the emptiness a single lonely figure. Wings floating motionless, garbed in iridescent, nacreous armor, the language of his body was forlorn. He turned, his sad copper eyes meeting hers and widening, a look of surprise lighting his pale face. He began to smile and—
—hands grasped her roughly, clutching at her slick body, pulling her free of the viscous bosom of the Acheron. Lilith screamed. He had been right there! She knew he had seen her! And now these fools had ripped her from him!
She lay gasping for breath upon the river’s shore, her eyes unblinking, staring up at the blue star. The succubi gathered around, attempting to get her to sit upright, but she batted them aside, the disappointment and sorrow making her blows harder than was necessary. As one they turned and slowly walked off, eventually sitting by the shore and casting furtive glances at her. Only Ardat had the sense to busy herself making cords from the Abyssals’ tendons.
Lilith lay there for some time. The irony of the situation struck her. She had had confidence that the powers imbued in the waters of the Acheron would be transformative. She had been trying to create a bond between them all, to fashion the foundations of something much larger than these foolish creatures and their prattling admiration for Sargatanas, a demon with whom they had had no actual contact. Each was to have been a vessel to carry forth the spirit of his enlightenment. Instead, the river had chosen her to be the vessel. Perhaps that was fitting.
* * *
That star! It was the same cold azure of the Void above that tower. And Sargatanas. His demeanor had been disconsolate. Almost that of a prisoner. How much of that vision had been real? How much had been her wild imaginings? She gathered herself and sat up, head pounding, brow furrowed. Ardat came to her side to lend a hand as she got to her feet, but Lilith waved her away. The images lingered
in her mind, not in small part due to the vapors of the river. They would haunt her every step as she made her way to Buer.
16
PYGON AZ
It was some time before Adramalik could speak again. His training—the Knights’ special Art Protective—had staunched the pain of the vigorous clubbing by Ai Apaec’s champion for quite some time. Until it had not.
Between blows, as if he were an outsider watching the torture, he had noticed odd things: the way the ornamental bones embedded in the headless giant’s torso had rattled with each stroke, the dust clouds raised on the floor with each scuffling readjustment to better the blow, the cold sweat running in thin rivulets down his sides, the way the ropey tendons tightened on his improbably thick arms.
Perhaps the headless giant had known how long it would take to batter the demon’s defenses away. Demospurcus’ execution may have been informative. Maybe the giant had been instructed to keep beating him until he started to scream. Or stopped. Or maybe the mindless thing had simply been told to hit him until his huge arm grew weary. Without a head, he could not see the Glyphs of Protection that surrounded Adramalik’s body, one by one, dissipate into ineffective embers.
No matter. The outcome was inevitable and the beating did stop. Adramalik’s punishment for leaving Pygon Az without permission was complete. His voice long since gone from screaming, he had been deposited back into his domicile to curl up in a corner and contemplate his immediate future. The Bearer of the Knife, who had been present throughout the clubbing, turned as he left the dark room.
“When Algol rises again … and it will do so shortly … you will come and explain to your god why you were disobedient to him. And perhaps he will spare your Knights. You had best be persuasive. He is an angry god.”
* * *
The pain in Adramalik’s joints and ribs was like the gnawing of some toothy Abyssal. He was convinced more than just his leg bones and plates had been seriously damaged. He could no longer open his right wing and hoped that it would mend on its own. He was not optimistic. He regained himself enough to chant the palliative spell from the Litany of the Arts Curative, but he made disabling mistakes the first three times and grew furious with himself as he limped miserably behind the Bearer. After he took extra care with his enunciation, the spell finally took hold and the demon stood a bit more erect, strode with a little more confidence. Not that he felt in any way in control. He had no idea how the message he had been given to deliver would be received. But he could guess.
Ai Apaec did not disappoint him in his wrath. As Adramalik approached on all fours yet again he saw the Decapitator standing squarely before his throne. In his huge hand he held Lucifex dangling by the head, his palm across his mouth and his fingers tight around the Knight’s skull. And with little effort, he squeezed the writhing demon’s head until it burst, brains flying and gore dribbling over his hand and down onto the dais. The ensuing ash cloud settled slowly to the floor.
Adramalik dared to say nothing.
“I gave you asylum here, Adramalik. And you pissed on it. Why should I allow you and your companions to continue to thrive in my city?”
And so it began.
“My god,” Adramalik whispered hoarsely, “it was out of my control. I was summoned by a force much greater than myself. An irresistible force. It pulled at me until I had to seek its origin.”
The Decapitator crossed the blood channel in one quick stride and stood over the prostrate demon.
“What force?”
Adramalik swallowed hard.
“A god … a god native to this place, to Hell. He has many, many followers. And many names. For you, he chooses the name Abaddon.”
“Abaddon,” Ai Apaec rumbled, weighing the name upon his tongue.
The mounds of heads began murmuring the name as it had been spoken. The murmurs grew in intensity, filling the space with their echoes. Ai Apaec glared into the gloom and the vast chamber grew silent again.
“Yes, my god. And he wishes to hold council with you and your court. He has heard of your kingdom and your power and your wealth and wishes nothing more than to form an everlasting alliance with you and your subjects.”
“Why? Why do I need any alliances when I am secure upon my throne here in Pygon Az?”
Again, Adramalik swallowed. “Because my god, if you do not ally yourself with him, you will find him to be an enemy worth fearing.”
Ai Apaec roared in outrage.
Around him, the huge champion and the other headless bodyguards rose to their feet.
“A council? To take the measure of me? To see if I am as powerful as he has heard? Adramalik, are you now his envoy, his creature that he can command to deliver his demands?”
“No, my god, I am nothing.” And this Adramalik actually believed. “I am nothing more than a go-between, caught against my will between two gods. It brings me no joy to relate this message.”
Ai Apaec paced and fumed, came very near kicking the demon who crouched before him.
“Can you send a message back to this Abaddon or must you return to him in person?”
“I can, my god. Your words will be heard just as you speak them.” And that Adramalik now knew to be true, for he was sure that the God of the Second World was paying close attention to this exchange.
“Tell him, demon, that I would meet him halfway, at the Pit’s edge. I will not descend into its bowels of his world and will not ask him to enter my city. This I will do at the setting of Algol.”
“So soon?” the Bearer asked.
Ai Apaec turned on him and he flinched like some cornered Abyssal. “You cannot make the arrangements hastily?”
“Of course, my god … of course I can.” But clearly, the Bearer was in doubt and knew what would befall him were he to fail.
Ai Apaec turned to Adramalik. “Send the message!”
“One thing, my god. Abaddon made a request that we bring my Knights along. He has never seen any demons other than myself and would like to set eyes upon them to enjoy the variety.”
Ai Apaec looked down at the demon and Adramalik heard the deep-bellows intake of breath. Had his creativity gone too far? Had he, in an effort to free his Knights from Pygon Az, shown his hand? He waited for the blow, but it never came.
“Send the message, demon!”
Adramalik made a fine show of tracing fiery, complicated, and meaningless glyphs upon the floor, waving his hand and sending them speeding away, but he knew the message had already been received.
* * *
The winds slid through the black ice fields, whining and clawing at the hollowed formations of ice like a hungry beast. Overhead the sky was dark with heavy clouds lit red from above, churning and corkscrewing in constant movement; it all added to Adramalik’s sense that everything was in motion. And out of his control.
The processional that wended its way through the black ice fields was slow and stately, befitting a god and lord of the realm. At the front were two dozen standard-bearers each holding aloft standards ornamented with short, flapping banners and ice-glazed heads arrayed in various patterns and surmounted by the Decapitator’s personal symbol—the ubiquitous tumi blade. Adramalik’s remaining Knights trudged alongside these standard-bearers, dazed by their own sudden release from incarceration, silently—perhaps resentfully—regarding Adramalik and undoubtedly wondering what game he was up to. Behind them rode the court officials, mounted on white-shelled, multi-legged Abyssals that seemed only half-tamed and barely appeared to be capable of staying in formation. The air was frequently rent by the snapping of the officials’ whips and the hoarse whinnying of the protesting beasts.
Ai Apaec, dazzling in his gold-threaded Abyssal mantle and layers of golden finery, further encrusted in bone and gold jewelry, was carried in a massive gold sedan chair borne by twelve souls almost of a size to rival the redoubtable champion who strode arrogantly alongside. The Bearer of the Knife, less ostentatiously bedecked in dark robes festooned with silver plates and chains and
crescents, walked stiffly on the ice with a staff made from a single stretched soul. His stride, Adramalik thought, was less arrogant than it had been, slowed perhaps by his tireless efforts to organize the elaborate expedition on such short notice. He was flanked by his underlings, each dressed in simple ceremonial garb but nonetheless exuding an air of studied, and to Adramalik’s eyes ludicrous, self-importance.
Trailing far behind the important personages, winding through the wind-carved ice formations, stumbled a long line of souls, garbed not against the cold but for show in thin, gaudy robes pulled from Lucifuge’s musty warehouses. None could have guessed that the souls normally never ventured outside of their dark, dank domiciles, let alone the wide ice world that lay outside the city’s walled perimeter.
Adramalik, walking only a few paces from Ai Apaec, thought the procession not very dissimilar from those that had entered Dis from far and wide by the thousands over the eons. Like this one, most had had an air of cheap, forced regality, but this one was different in one way. Only he, his Knights, Ai Apaec, the Bearer, and twenty other officials had heads upon their shoulders. And this simple fact lent the entire march an air that made the demon shake his head in silent bemusement.
There were no encampments, no pauses to rest beast, demon, or soul, along the way to the Pit. The perilous trek through the mountains was endured silently and, notably, without complaint. When souls fell from icy ledges no one stopped to watch their twisting forms plummet, nor were those frequent losses even acknowledged. Ai Apaec sat upon his movable throne, a look dark and dangerous upon his scowling face. Adramalik felt his baleful eyes upon him, watching him intently as he sent glyphs forward, guiding the procession. The hatred was clear and it made the demon wary of his back.
Eventually, after a labored climb, the front of the column topped a low mountain and Adramalik saw the foothills of the carved mountains that he had been so careful flying over. This short mountain—a tall, craggy hill really—had the first of what would be many of the totems set upon it to warn travelers away from the region. Something about the discouraging spells it projected made Adramalik’s stomach turn, and he understood the power that the totems held. But Ai Apaec seemed unaffected by them and with a clipped chop of his hand he waved the column on.
The Heart of Hell Page 16