Chapter Five
Eligor wandered into the palace Library exhausted. He removed his heavy cloak and piled into a huge chair that already had a comforting clutter of books surrounding it. Now that the palace’s construction was complete, life had settled down to a routine that Eligor found to be demanding and predictable. As Captain of the Flying Guard, he found himself ceaselessly occupied reviewing the various weak points of Adamantinarx. Outside threats, mostly in the form of spies, were an unending problem.
His thoughts, though, were never far from the palace Library. Here, in the company of his friends—the countless ancient tomes that had been written and collected over the ages—he could try to understand the world that he had left and the newer world to which he now belonged. Many of the volumes were reference works, books that contained elaborate formulas for arcane spells or incantations. Much had been lost by the demons’ separation from their angelic counterparts, and these books were often sad attempts at reconstructing the elusive, vaguely remembered rituals.
Here, too, were the innumerable Books of Gamigin, the Books of the Dead Souls. Stretching for bookcase after dusty bookcase, these incredible books, many of which were yet to be cataloged, compiled an accounting of every soul who had ever descended to Hell and his or her sins. And more fantastically, every soul who ever would arrive, a concept that even Eligor had trouble wrestling with. Reading even one of those immense books was tiresome work. The books of the souls were interesting, but the books that Eligor found most engrossing were the memoirs, written shortly after the Fall by so many demons trying, as best they could, to come to grips with what had befallen them.
All of the books, their vellum pages made of souls, were capable of mindlessly reciting their contents in their many droning voices but had been prudently silenced by a glyph from the Librarian, an equally quiet demon named Eintsaras. When he was alone, Eligor found ways of countering the glyph and would sit, listening to some ancient soul quietly recounting a life lived long ago. Eligor suspected that Eintsaras knew his secret, but the two never brought the issue up.
Eligor enjoyed all of his time in the Library, but he truly enjoyed the moments, as today, when he would encounter his lord buried behind a stack of enormous volumes, slowly turning the thick gray pages and poring over some forgotten passage. He kept his powers sharp and Eligor watched him occasionally scribing an old glyph in the air repeatedly, incorporating its essence into himself.
Eligor picked up the nearest book and began to read, taking notes as he did, but it was not long before the low and measured intonations of his master’s voice distracted him. The Demon Major was focused and Eligor studied him, trying to view him objectively. Eligor was so used to the towering demon that it seemed he never pulled back to actually look at him.
In the uneven light of the candles Sargatanas was an imposing figure, dark and potent, with thin coils of steam rising from him. After the Fall, many demons had faces that seemed in keeping with their true being— tortured, prideful, and violent. Sargatanas was not among them. His massive head was deeply sculpted, bony, and strangely handsome. Even without its nose, the long face in repose still bore much of what had made it angelic, noble. Floating a few inches above his head were the three small horns of his rank. These, Eligor knew, could be withdrawn for protection and were considered a great prize if taken in combat. Over the eons Sargatanas had filled a small cabinet with those of his enemies.
He was clothed in his ruddy flesh-robes, his customary raiments when he went about the palace. The glare from his fiery pectoral sigils highlighted the prominent veins and creases of the thick garments that crossed his upper torso and flowed into the wide cloak that trailed him. Beneath them the fused rib-carapace bore a hole, ragged and sharp edged, where the demon’s huge heart had once been. A slowly pulsing glow, not unlike that of a cooling furnace, illuminated the terrible wound, and like the persistent flames that played upon his head, this inner fire, like that of all Demons Major, was slave to Sargatanas’ temperament, gathering in brilliance when he was angry. Such was not the case, now, as Eligor studied him. The studious Lord of Adamantinarx, book splayed before him, was at ease.
This was the Sargatanas that Eligor was most accustomed to. But he had seen that other side of his lord, the fierce, turbulent personality that none in Adamantinarx, and only a relatively small number in all of Hell, could withstand. His fury could be immeasurable, and the changes it wrought on him physically were astounding. Eligor remembered sudden, organic metamorphoses that rendered his lord utterly unrecognizable. The more agitated he became, the more rapid were the shifts. Such was the fearsome power of a Demon Major. They were changes that a Demon Minor could not fully comprehend, and, to be sure, Eligor himself sometimes found them frightening.
“If you like, I will stand up so that you can get a better view,” Sargatanas said, looking up, a twinkle in his silvered eyes. He rose up from his seat, enormous. “But I will turn away so that you can continue staring surreptitiously.”
Eligor laughed. “I am sorry, Lord. I was trying to look at you as if I had never met you before. I wondered what Faraii and all the others must have thought upon meeting you.”
“Why, they are supposed to be completely awed, Eligor,” he said, a hint of mockery in his tone. “I am not so different than any other Demon Major, am I? Surely you have better things to do than to sit about in such ‘deep’ thought. How is the northern border these days?”
“Secure as always. To be truthful, Lord, I was also trying to remember you as you were. I only saw you in the Above a few times, and those were from afar.”
“That is strange, Eligor. I was trying to remember that, myself, a while back. I almost could. Much time has passed.” Sargatanas sat back down. An unidentifiable expression clouded his features.
Eligor closed his book. He could see some deep emotion working at his lord.
“Tell me, my lord, if you would. What was he like?” Eligor asked. “I was just a lance-wing in the War. I never met him. And you were so… close to him.”
“Him. Him I can remember. After all this time. I can see him just as he was. Lucifer,” said Sargatanas. “I have not said his name aloud in millennia.” The Demon Major paused, looking up toward the vaulted ceiling. “He was the best of us, Eligor. Something truly special among us. He shone with… with a ferocity that made us pale by comparison.”
“Everyone I have spoken with, or read, says the same of him,” said Eligor.
“He was beloved by the Throne and he knew it. But that was not enough,” Sargatanas said as if he had not heard Eligor. “He was not content. There was something that he had to fulfill. He called it… his restless vision.”
Eligor looked quizzically at Sargatanas.
“He could not understand the purpose behind the creation of humanity. They seemed, he said, like a new and unthinking child, suddenly thrust into the world and loved just as much as the old. Because of this he felt they were a threat and Lucifer wanted the Throne and all of us to see their potential flaws. Many of us agreed with him. Too many.”
“Or not enough, depending on one’s point of view,” said Eligor. But his attempt at vague levity fell on deaf ears.
“Eligor, what we did was wrong. Catastrophically wrong. Of that I am now certain. Lucifer’s truest gift—no, his greatest curse—was his ability to convince us to follow him. Of course, there were far too many of us who needed no excuse to go to War. The rhetoric, the very words were like shards of ice; once plunged into you they melted and flowed deep within, permeating your soul with their coldness. It was impossible not to hear them again and again, even in moments of rest. It seems never to have occurred to us what we might lose if we heeded them. I, for one, was entirely seduced.”
Sargatanas was silent, his head bowed.
“My lord, it all made sense at the time.”
“And now?” Sargatanas’ voice was a husky whisper. Embers floated languorously from his head.
Eligor shrugged.
“Now we must try to be what we are, not what we were,” said Sargatanas. “That, at least, is the theory.”
“And what of humanity?”
