“Thanks to the cunning of Nekushtan and the scouts provided by Arthryx, we’ve located and tracked patterns of movement in the Heavenly Host that pinpoint what I believe to be the location of their command center, where the demon Kaelus…”
Harsh snarls and furious shouts drowned out Malith’s voice for a moment as the demons vehemently protested his naming Kaelus as one of their own.
“Silence!” Malith barked, and his voice echoed with the sound of Mephistopheles’s own resounding power. The banner of flames behind him flared at his command, momentarily silhouetting him before their eyes. The demons shrank back and stared in fearful silence until Malith had glared at each one to impress his authority over them. He pointed at a portion of the map.
“Here is where Kaelus can be found,” he said confidently. “Notice where our patrols have been slain and what areas have been kept clear. Notice the patterns both in motion and here in stasis. I acknowledge Gerard’s brilliance, but this time he outsmarted himself.”
Malith’s smile was predatory as he studied the map.
“Aesthma, you have begged for another chance to face Uriel and his Archangels,” the Black paladin said, looking at the insectoid demon. Malith pointed at a separate space on the map. “I can almost guarantee he will be here.”
Aesthma hissed and his wings twitched and rasped in agitation behind him. He tilted his head and firelight gleamed on the facets of his marred, jeweled eye.
“I humbly request permission to lead the force you send there, Lord Malith,” Aesthma rasped in what passed for a respectful tone. “Give me one more chance, and I will obliterate the so-called Fist of God and spit him on his own fiery sword.”
“You shall have that chance, demon lord,” Malith said with a vicious grin. “Cut the heart out of the Archangels and shatter that jewel of Heaven called Uriel. You will have only a single strike force of your childris, however, no more than you had at the cauldrons of Arthryx. Most I keep in reserve, the rest will be a part of the other task force, which I place in the hands of Azazel and Succubus.”
Azazel’s eyes gleamed and he grinned, revealing pearly-white, needle-sharp teeth behind blue-black lips. Succubus licked her own ruby lips and pressed against her twin, caressing his chest and leaving deep scratches where her nails passed, from which seeped streaks of crimson blood so bright it looked like trails of flame coursing down the demon’s chest. Her smoldering eyes glowed as she looked up at Malith, who found himself suddenly aching to be embraced by this deadly temptress and lose himself to her unearthly perfect body.
Malith took a firm grip on such mortal urges and quickly strangled them. When he engaged in carnal lust with a woman, it was he who did the taking and forced her to submit. He would never succumb to the wiles of the demoness, but even so, Malith avoided her eyes until he dismissed the demons, and he made certain she was gone and engaged with her twin before he left in search of his own tent.
- 3 -
Shadow Company and the Archangels were greeted with cheers of celebration and praise when – two days after the fall of Arthryx the Bender – they returned to the stronghold Uriel had recently erected. The armies of Hell had stopped to lick their wounds, both from the death of Arthryx and from an ambush laid by Mikal’s warriors on the unprepared flanks of the main demon army. Kaelus had sent word that the demons would be at least two or three days in catching up to them, so they were all looking forward to a brief respite from fighting.
Almost all of them.
Brican’s feet carried him slowly away from the laughter and huzzahs, his thoughts morose. He felt the days and weeks ticking away like the countdown on some gnomish explosive device. How long had they been in Heaven; two months? Three? It was easy to lose track of the passage of nightless days. How much time had passed back on the mortal plane of existence? Brican’s twin children were growing inside of his wife, and if the war of immortals didn’t end soon, his children might die before they took their first living breaths.
Probably a little more than a month had passed at home for all the weeks here, and in that time, what had they really accomplished? Hell still stormed ever onward toward their goal, and no matter what delaying tactics and guerilla strikes they might make, no matter how many demons they slew, still the beasts kept coming. So much time gone already. How much time did his children have left?
Brican said nothing of his worries to the others. Deep down, they were all worried on his behalf – his and Danner’s – and voicing his anxieties would do no good. Instead, he put on his best face and pushed onward with resolute determination.
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall behind him, and without turning Brican knew it was Garnet. Brican stopped and waited, staring blankly down the hall at an irregular pattern on the wall ahead of him where the corridor turned a corner. The Red paladin slowed and stopped next to him. Garnet glanced at him once, then stared down the hallway in the same direction as Brican.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Garnet asked.
“No.”
“Okay then.”
By silent consent, they both stepped forward at the same time and walked in-step down the hall. They turned the corner and walked another minute in silence before they heard the voices. At first, they were too vague to make out, but as they neared a half-open door, Brican finally recognized the voices of Trames and Perklet.
“…always been able to heal people,” Perklet was saying. “Sometimes I think I was even healing before I became a paladin, but I think it was just the medicines and tender care at work.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Trames replied in his bright, ever-cheerful voice. “There have always been men who healed, even back to the ancient shamans and medicine men who lived among primitive men. I’ve read accounts, already old before the Merging War, of pagan tribes whose ceremonies centered around men who were reported to have fantastic healing magic.”
“But…” Perklet fell silent at some unseen prompt from Trames.
“What is healing?” Trames asked. “From a paladin’s teachings and perspective, I mean.”
“It’s a manifestation of the virtue of love,” Perklet said. “You’re giving something of yourself and taking some of the pain and injury from the individual, one of the greatest expressions of love you could give. It taps into the holy power of God and shares His love, which heals the individual. That’s what I remember from my teachings anyway, which seem like a lifetime ago.”
Brican looked at Garnet, who had a strange look of anguish on his face. A quick glance in his friend’s thoughts revealed the source, and Brican was forced to withhold a grin.
He kythed to Garnet, “I didn’t even know Trames and Kala were here.”
“Birch told me when I was in the main hall,” Garnet replied, then flushed slightly.
Trames, meanwhile, had started speaking again.
“So what’s to say that ancient shamans weren’t just drawing on their own love and using it to heal?” the old man asked. “A virtue is a virtue even if they didn’t know what to call it yet. It’s universal, yes?”
“Is it me, or is Trames actually making sense?” Brican kythed. In response, Garnet held a finger to his lips. Brican quirked his lips to show Garnet he was being ridiculous and tapped his head, but Garnet turned away without comment.
“You know, I’ve always wondered about some myths that I read in some of the histories about the Great Schism,” Trames said suddenly when Perklet didn’t answer immediately. Brican glanced questioningly at Garnet, who shrugged.
“Myths? In the history books?” Perklet asked in surprise. “How can there be, it’s all given directly from the words of the immortal angels.”
“So it says, but one in particular I can’t help but question. There are accounts that the Seraph Raphael, known as the greatest healer in Heaven, actually healed the wounds of demons. Seems to me that the holy and unholy have never been able to mix. Just look at Kaelus and one of the angels whenever they touch. Healing a demon shouldn’t have been
possible, which is why I wonder if it was a bit exaggerated. You know, she was such a great angel, she could drink an entire ocean and spit you out a meal of succulently cooked fish, and oh yeah, she could even heal demons.”
Perklet laughed.
“Believe it or not, I remember the exact passage you’re referring to,” Perklet said in his gentle voice, “and I remember having troubles with it as well.” He paused. “I suppose it might have been an exaggeration at that, or perhaps the observer mistook what he saw. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”
They were silent, and Brican was about to move on when he heard Trames speak again. The strange old man’s words were so silent, Brican had to strain to overhear his aged voice.
“If it is true, then where does healing come from, if not from God’s power of good?” Trames asked quietly. “I wonder if there’s something beyond that.”
Perklet’s shock was evident in his voice. “Beyond God’s power? You mean, greater than?”
“If not greater, perhaps just other than,” Trames mused, sounding distracted. Then he barked a short, self-depreciating laugh.
“Ignore me, Perklet,” he said, and Brican could hear the deranged smile in his voice. “Just the ramblings of an old man. It’s a well-known fact that I’m crazy, that’s why Kala has to look after me. Isn’t that right, my dear?”
A sleepy yawn crept out through the door, and Garnet shifted nervously.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Perklet said softly, “we didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s no matter,” Kala said sleepily. “Have the Archangels returned yet?”
“Yes,” Trames replied, “Shadow Company is back.”
Garnet motioned with his head for Brican to leave, and he looked as though he had every intention of leaving with him.
“What?” Brican asked.
“Let’s go,” Garnet thought to him.
“Garnet, why did you come here?” the denarae asked him.
Garnet’s flush told him the answer.
Instead of leaving, Brican knocked on the door and quickly opened it before Garnet could duck out of sight.
“Ah, Perklet there you are,” Brican said brightly, “and Trames, too. Perfect. I was half-afraid I’d have to search the whole citadel to find you both.”
“Can we help you, Brican?” Perklet asked politely.
Brican glanced at Kala, whose eyes were only for Garnet.
“Yes, I, uh, Birch sent me to look for you, something about that dakkan of his acting strange,” Brican improvised. “Said he wanted you to take a look for anything wrong with it.”
“Of course, of course,” Perklet said. He made a brief bow to Kala and directed a troubled glance at Trames, then he left quickly in search of Birch.
“And me, Brican?” Trames asked. There was a mischievous gleam in his eye, and Brican knew here was a fellow conspirator.
“Flasch and I were talking earlier, and we missed having you around, hearing your stories and those little ditties of yours,” Brican said with a sincere smile. That at least was true. “Mind coming to sit with a couple tired soldiers?”
He turned to Kala. “You don’t mind, do you, Kala? We’ll keep him out of trouble, I promise.”
Kala hesitated, which Trames apparently took for acquiescence, because he leapt to his feet with a grin and grabbed an empty jar and a piece of parchment, then hurried to the door. He turned to Brican and said, “Coming?”
Brican bowed to Kala and winked at Garnet as he turned away toward the door. As a finishing touch, Trames turned to Garnet.
“Would you mind keeping my ganashir company, good sir?” he asked the big man. “I don’t want her getting lonely.”
And with that, Brican and Trames disappeared quickly before Garnet could gather his wits. He walked quickly so he could try and catch up with Perklet before the Green paladin could get far in his misbegotten search.
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” Brican picked up the question from Garnet’s thoughts, and this time he did laugh.
“Go enjoy yourself, Garnet,” Brican kythed in as serious a mental voice as he could manage. “That’s an order.”
Trames looked questioningly at Brican as he suddenly howled in laughter.
“I’ve been waiting for months to do that to him!” Brican half-shouted in glee, then dissolved into gales of laughter yet again.
Chapter 29
Philosophy is what happens in life, not just in marble towers.
- Violet Paladin Gadjin Tealor,
“The Rising Star” (5 AM)
- 1 -
The Voice again. Always it came when he was blind and alone, and whenever he resolved to ask his captors about the Voice, somehow he never did.
“I have often longed for a mortal’s perspective on this question,” the Voice said without any warning as to its presence.
He laughed. “Ask away, dream.”
“Dream?”
“I cannot see you nor touch you, bound and blind as I am. Perhaps then you are only a figment of my imagination, a voice of delusion speaking to me from the edge of insanity.”
“Fool the senses and the mind will sense the fool,” the Voice said, “but fool the mind and mind the senseless fool.” The Voice laughed. “I like you, mortal, and that is a good thing. Think of me as you will, whether dream or reality, but dismiss me at your own peril.”
“Ask your question then, and I’ll attend.”
“Poetic. Very well, mortal, answer me this. Is something good because it comes from God, or is He God because He is wholly good?”
“All of God’s acts are good, and we are taught that goodness comes from God, so logic and training would compel me to say the former.”
“Logic, is it? Well then, what say you if God were to decree that every firstborn child of every household must be sacrificed to Him? Or that it was permissible to seduce a man’s wife so long as you didn’t get a child on her? Or that rape is acceptable if a man can prove he was provoked by the woman? Or any number of other depravities. Would you call these things good if God were to sanction them?”
“God would never propose such evils.”
“Is He capable of doing so?”
“Perhaps, but He never would.”
“Assume, for the sake of our discussion, that He did. Would it make the act good?”
“No.” The word drawled reluctantly, as if dragged forcibly from his mouth, and he began to see where the arguments would lead.
“So some things are inherently evil then and by default some are inherently good?”
“Yes, but your argument is useless, because God would never make such decrees,” he asserted again.
“Why?”
“Because He is God.”
“Insufficient. That is a child’s answer, ‘just because’,” the Voice said derisively. “It lacks even a basic attempt to understand.”
Grudgingly, he answered, “Because He is good.”
“Ahhh!” the Voice sighed with satisfaction. “Suddenly the idea of good is completely separate from God. Good is not God, but rather ‘He is good,’ thus implying that goodness is a separate determination, an independent moral absolute, from Him whom you call God. So you’re saying God can do evil acts, but chooses not to.”
“I said nothing of the sort, but I can’t argue against your conclusion. It is possible, given my limited understanding of the divine. I acknowledge I cannot truly understand God.”
“Who can?” the Voice asked facetiously. “To be omnipotent, one must have the ability to do or not do as one chooses. And if God was incapable of doing anything other than good?” the Voice asked. “If God had no choice in the matter, but was compelled by the nature of His existence to do only that which accords to the absolute morality of goodness?”
“Then He could not be truly omnipotent,” he replied reluctantly, then added, “and therefore neither could Satan. Both must be limited by their inability to act outside their nature, both ruled by a separate mo
ral determination of good and evil. Absolute morality, as you say.”
“An apt conclusion, mortal,” the Voice said. He thought perhaps that some of the mirth had gone out of the Voice with this last observation.
“It might also suggest the existence of a higher authority, from which spring these governing absolutes,” he added quietly, “for something has to determine good from evil. But what could have a higher authority or existence than God?”
The Voice gave no answer, and he had no way of knowing if his words were ever heard.
- 2 -
Birch awoke with his head spinning amidst a thousand half-glimpsed memories and dreams. A hundred conversations with the Voice – a presence he now knew to be Satan – were relived in his sleep, replaying in his subconscious as though being scanned for some elusive thought or truth they contained. Some were scenes he hadn’t yet remembered, so Birch reached into his pack on the floor and drew forth a small booklet and a dwarven writing stick. He wrote down as many thoughts and memories as he could, quoting verbatim the conversations he’d had with the Voice.
He also wrote down the visions and memories he’d had of various tortures. Once again, he’d seen the image of a black tower in his dreams. It was a source of pain, the place where most of his torture had taken place, and he had to force himself to write down his memories of it. This was his private journal, which he kept separately from the memoirs he was compiling of his journey in Hell.
Nearly an hour later, he finally finished recording his thoughts. Birch returned the book and writing stick to his pack, then quickly dressed himself. Selti was curled up in a scaly ball at the foot of the cloudy mound Birch used as a bed. The gray dakkan raised his head and peered curiously at his paladin.
“Time to get moving, Selti,” Birch told him in a grim voice. “The demons are expected to strike today, and I’ll need you with me.”
Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Page 40