Boudica’s mind raced. A soul.
Eligor immediately knelt, head lowered. “I can think of no better way to serve my city. And you, my lady.”
But before Lilith could speak, Ardat, wincing, pushed her way forward and put a hand upon his shoulder.
“No, Eligor, it will be me.”
He looked up and was about to object when Lilith silenced him.
“Ardat, my love, why? Why? You are healing—”
“Our journey together is at an end. It should have ended back by the towers. I was not meant to live, Lilith. Buer gave me the gift of eternal pain. Maybe it was to fulfill this … to be part of this. The pain is beyond anything the Fly ever did to me. Every movement is torture. I feel as if I am dying by inches.” Tears were streaking her cheeks. “I cannot let you watch this happen to me. I will not.”
Another thunderclap blasted through the city.
Lilith shook her head, swallowed hard, and said nothing. She took Ardat’s face in her hands and kissed her until the tears were streaming down both their cheeks.
Boudica watched this and suddenly everything became clear. With the prospect of enduring in Hell forever without her daughters by her side she, too, had felt that her life had grown meaningless. With every rise and fall of Algol, she had felt more and more hollow. The souls’ cause had been a noble one and, with any luck, another leader would rise to take up the staff, but it would not be her.
“I will do it,” she heard herself saying. “I want to be part of this. I must be part of this.”
Lilith and the Sisters looked at her. And Eligor rose and approached her.
“Boudica…”
“Please, Eligor.”
The demon took her hand. “I will do everything I can for your people. This I pledge to you.”
She did not answer but, instead, removed the necklace M’ak had given to her.
“Try to make peace with them, too. Find K’ah-aka-tuk. Tell him of the end of my story.”
A flight of demons flew low overhead. Boudica saw them approaching Abaddon and saw, too, a web of red lightning reach out and incinerate them.
“Time is running out, Lilith. This must be done now.”
Lilith nodded.
“There is something you need to know, Boudica. Something I had hoped I would be able to tell you if our paths ever crossed again.” She paused. “They were never here.”
Boudica felt as if someone had struck her.
“How do you know?”
“I asked them at Dolcha Branapa. They did not find their names because they had never been written in the Books. My way of asking was more persuasive than yours.”
“If they are not here…”
“They are where you will be,” the Legate said. “After this.”
Boudica nearly collapsed. Eligor caught her and held her steady.
Ardat moved to her side and helped her to stand. Eligor let go and stepped back.
The Legate floated in front of them and said gently, “It is time. If we wait any longer it will all be for naught.”
The soul who had been Boudica and Bo-ad and B’udik’k’ah and then Boudica again nodded shakily. She had not experienced joy in all the millennia of her existence in Hell. Nothing but sadness and yearning, bitterness and exhaustion.
She felt joy now.
She watched the winged Legate approach, holding out the red disk before her. It was saying something in a strange tongue as it pressed the disk against her. And she felt no pain, no remorse, no reluctance. Only the joy at the prospect of seeing her beloved Cammi and Mave once again.
The Legate looked into her eyes and said, “That which was will cease to be. That which ceased to be will begin anew.”
Vaguely, she heard Eligor say, “May Sargatanas’ spirit be with you.”
And then only Light.
* * *
Lilith shielded her eyes as Boudica’s burst of light entered the floating disk and then watched the Legate glide in front of Ardat.
Her love was smiling. The pain in her eyes was still there and yet there was something else. Relief. She was looking not at the Legate but at Lilith and mouthed, I love you.
Lilith reached out, but it was too late. The Legate pressed the disk against the handmaiden’s chest and she vanished.
Lilith’s breath came in short, shallow bursts. The world, her world, was changing too quickly. She barely noticed Eligor’s arms around her, supporting her.
The Legate turned to face them.
“What name do you go by?” Eligor asked.
“I am become Mahniel.”
The red demon bowed his head.
The Legate that would become Mahniel flared its corona, and within it sigils began to move, to interlock and change. Blue-white flames bled from its eyes.
“Vonpho zirdo!”
The bells of its voice made the ground tremble. The air sweetened.
She watched it push the disk into its luminous chest. The myriad glyphs began to stir, forming curls within curls, each one identical to the next, each one an expanding symmetry unto itself. Chaos and order working against and with each other. The Legate was growing, changing. It turned to begin its descent of the great stairs, down toward the god it would soon confront.
The sky had darkened considerably and Adamantinarx had the appearance of a city already destroyed. It was nearly impossible to see more than halfway down the Rule and the Seventh Gate, at its far end, was invisible due to the roiling clouds of ash. The demons were paying dearly for their city.
The terrible creature that once was the Legate and Boudica and Ardat stalked down to the avenue. It was now larger than the largest statue of Sargatanas the demons of Adamantinarx had erected. A ferocious thing of blue fire, its many-horned head was set upon a long and sinuous neck upon which a mane of flames guttered. It bore six wide wings and four sweeping arms and in its many-fingered hands were four flaming swords.
As Mahniel strode down the length of the Rule, it swung its long swords and cut down the panicking Abaddim by the hundreds. Long gouts of fire were left where clusters of the enemy had tried to flee.
Lilith watched its progress with a mixture of awe and horror. There truly was no other way to view this creature born of pure wrath.
Mahniel worked its way down the avenue and as it drew close to Abaddon red lightning began to lick at it. It seemed not to notice but, instead, moved from a plodding to a ground-shaking trot. With all of its swords raised it rose into the air and swooped down, charging Abaddon, and a deafening crack of thunder rolled through the sky.
Four swords tore through the dark deity, converging on his center, and then, reversing, tore their way back out.
A blinding blue light bathed the lower ward and, when it faded, only Mahniel remained, majestic in its wrathful potency. Lilith gasped. It had been so fast, so decisive. So overwhelmingly powerful. She saw the black flames of the Abaddim gathered in the streets below gutter out and then the life leave them. She saw the dark clouds that had lowered over the city begin to dissipate. And there, up in the sky, was the blue star, shining more brilliantly than it had ever shone.
Mahniel’s light began to fade and even as it was growing fainter it raised it swords toward Lilith. It was gone in a moment, the sound of bells echoing in the air.
Silence fell over the city. A breeze began to blow.
Lilith turned to look at the Sisters and then Eligor.
“Take me down there, Eligor. Please.”
The demon put out a hand and gathered her up. They flew in silence. Neither knew what to say. Neither said anything.
A crater lay where Abaddon had been. Lilith pointed to its center and Eligor descended, landing lightly.
The ground was hot and glass smooth, smoking from a thousand azure embers. She walked gingerly, until she found what she was looking for.
She knelt and, brows knit, picked up the hot black disk that had been Abaddon. She was frightened of it as she turned it in her hands. It seemed too weighty a
nd smelled foul. But she kept hold of it as she walked up and out of the crater.
As she emerged, she saw Eligor looking up. She followed his eyes and stared at the sky. The star seemed to be moving. But then she realized that it had split and the brighter half was moving toward them.
In a moment the blue radiance had grown much larger and suddenly the ground shook and a single huge peal as from an unthinkably large bell rang out. Lilith took a deep breath and a lush, heady perfume filled her nostrils, a scent the like of which she had never encountered or even imagined.
The blue radiance glowed even brighter and then took the shape of a winged being carrying a standard. It settled before them and raised a hand in greeting.
“A Herald, Lilith!” Eligor whispered.
The being stepped forward, its breastplate gleaming blue, purple, and green, its gorgeously hued wings trembling.
“I bring a message from the Above,” the Herald said in a voice full of strange and rich harmonics. “He returns.”
The Herald bowed ceremoniously, spread its wings, and in a few short moments was gone.
27
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
The acrid smell of cinders and fire had penetrated the Audience Chamber. A miasma of fine ash particles suffused the air of the vast space and Lilith realized she could barely see the chamber’s far, curved wall. When her eyes traveled up to the oculus she could only see smoke, torn by the winds, skimming across the sky.
Algol had risen and fallen four times since Abaddon had been destroyed and the city was still burning.
Lilith sat upon her throne atop the pyramid and saw her Sisters climbing the last few steps. Satanachia had gathered as many of the city’s higher demons as could be spared from their pressing duties for the investiture.
In all of the urgency of the moment, as Boudica had been embraced by the Legate no one had noticed the disk of Adramalik fall to the pavement. Only after the destruction of Abaddon did Lilith see it and stoop to recover it. It was not long before the Sisters recounted how the demon had been overcome. And it was clear to Lilith what the fate of the disk should be.
She could not have been prouder of her Sisters. Fierce and loyal, they would serve her well. And, even as she formed that thought, she saw Naamah, Lamatsu, Agrat, and Eisheth gather around Satanachia’s throne as he gathered his robes and sat. Naamah and Lamatsu put their hands upon his shoulders, and Lilith saw them both gently caress him. It chilled her.
Only Satanachia could perform the Elevation. Lilith saw the disk in his lap as the Sisters gained the platform and approached. As one they knelt, with Araamah at the front, and stayed motionless upon their knees, coifed heads bowed.
Put Satanachia rose and stepped before Araamah.
“With this disk, Araamah of the Sisters of Sargatanas, I Elevate you to the status of Demon Minor. Yours will be some of this former demon’s powers. Be strong when you discover them; be careful when you choose them; be wise when you use them. Rise, now, Araamah, that you may receive this token.”
Araamah rose to her feet and, as she had been instructed, she parted her white robes to expose her dark gray breastbone.
Satanachia held the disk forth and pressed it against her chest and Lilith could hear its high-pitched sizzling as it embedded itself into her. It glowed red for a moment and then faded. She did not flinch.
A small sigil appeared over her breast, simple yet beautiful.
Lilith could not help but smile.
* * *
Lilith gazed out at a city in ruins, at a river dammed, at a world changed. She sat, knees up and bird feet tucked, on a marble bench on the Palace Plaza overlooking the smoldering city below. She turned to Eligor, seated nearby on a step.
“So, are you going to tell us how you lost your eye, or not?”
Eligor scowled. He was fingering the Boudica’s Salamandrine pendant hanging around his neck.
Satanachia, seated opposite Lilith on a bench, put down the scrolls he was reading. He looked pointedly at the red demon, a light smile playing upon his lips.
“It is not exactly something I am happy about, Lilith.”
Lilith simply looked at him and tapped one of her clawed toes impatiently.
“Fine. I met up with an old friend. From my days before the Rebellion. Perhaps you remember him … the Baron Faraii. Only this was not exactly the Baron. He had been changed by Abaddon into one of the Abaddim. Only a special form. He had arms. And he had something like his old sword … the black one made from Abyssal horn … which he could conjure from his hand. We recognized each other across an avenue and we fought. For what seemed like an eternity. Me flying in tight circles, he turning so quickly it was amazing. He had lost nothing of his abilities. In fact, his four legs made him even more dangerous, more agile, more unpredictable. My sword barely touched him. He knew well enough not to let my sword touch his sword … the flames would have destroyed it. So he weaved and dodged and touched me with it until one blow took my eye. It was a performance of unthinkable skill. I was quite overmatched. Until he made a mistake and my sword took him.”
“What did you do with his head?”
“Oh, that. In a box. Somewhere.”
Lilith looked at him, not a little disbelieving. A loud sound—a building collapsing—made her turn back to the city below.
“What is left for us here, Eligor? Just look at it.”
Eligor stretched, his wings shaking.
“It looks like Hell to me.”
Lilith snorted, despite herself. She felt numb, disengaged. The loss of Ardat was almost too much to bear. She found herself welling up at the strangest moments.
“We should open the palace up to survivors. Most of the city is uninhabitable. Rebuilding is going to take forever.”
“We have nothing but time, Lilith,” Satanachia offered. “First, we will need to set the river straight again. Break down those disgusting bridges and rebuild ours and cleanse the riverbed with fire. None of that will be easy. Perhaps we can ask the souls to help. Once they appoint a leader to sit alongside us, that is.”
Eligor nodded.
“We can ask.” Lilith smiled gently. She closed her eyes, remembering. “She was remarkable. Boudica, I mean.”
“Yes. Sargatanas must have known just how remarkable. Must have seen something deep within her when he first encountered her. It was his Art, after all … to see things hidden.”
“It was,” Lilith said. “He certainly found things hidden within me.”
Another pang of sorrow stabbed her in her aching heart. She had lost too many loves.
She looked up at Zimiah. The gate. And wondered for the thousandth time who was returning.
EPILOGUE
THE MARGINS
A lone figure made his way across a lava river, picking his way over the sharp rocks. He was swathed in dark traveling skins that bore the faded emblem of Pygon Az. He used to respond to the name Lucifuge Rofocale. But now, when he was approached by far-flung travelers, he gave up no name. And when he asked, in a voice that buzzed oddly, of any word of the sighting of a giant Watcher named Semjaza, he was very careful to keep his hood lowered so as to not allow anyone to see that his head was formed of an angry mass of flies.
ALSO BY WAYNE BARLOWE
God’s Demon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WAYNE BARLOWE is an artist, author, and film concept designer whose bestselling book, Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, is a modern classic, as are Expedition, Barlowe’s Inferno, and Brushfire. His concept designs have appeared in Avatar, Pacific Rim, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hellboy and Hellboy II, Blade II, and his own Discovery Channel program, Alien Planet. His artwork has appeared in galleries and museum shows across the country, as well as Life, Time, and Newsweek. His screenplay, The Blackness, is currently in production for a theatrical release. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
1. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Cheron
2. The Frozen Wastes
3. The Wastes—Ember Fields
4. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron
5. Pygon Az
6. The Vale of the Freed
7. The Pyroclastic Falls
8. Pygon Az
9. The Vale of the Freed
10. The Wastes
11. Pygon Az
12. The Wastes
13. The Wastes
14. The Pit
15. The Wastes
16. Pygon Az
17. The Wastes
18. The Wastes
19. The Plains of Dis
20. The Wastes
21. The Margins
22. The Wastes
23. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron
24. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron
25. The Wastes Outside Adamantinarx
26. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron
27. Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron
Epilogue: The Margins
Also by Wayne Barlowe
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE HEART OF HELL
Copyright © 2019 by Wayne Barlowe
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Wayne Barlowe
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
The Heart of Hell Page 28