Chapter One
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno. Some impacted far apart, setting up their realms in relative seclusion and safety, while others, less fortunate, found themselves in close proximity, able to see the rising smoke of their neighbor's arrival. These close arrivals began plotting and campaigning as soon as they could gather about them enough minor demons to form a court. The fratricidal wars that erupted lingered for millennia, occasionally flaring up into major conflagrations. These were the volatile times of Settlement and they were never forgotten by the survivors. Many of Lucifer's original Host were lost, but those that remained, the strong and the cunning, established powerful kingdoms that would grow and prosper.
When Eligor Fell he found himself upon a smoking plain cratered with the barely moving bodies of a thousand fallen demons. They lay, as he did, stunned, twisted by their furious descents, and glowing from myriad tiny embers. Eligor had been a foot soldier in the celestial Host, attached to the seraph Sargatanas' legions, and could remember nothing of his final moments Above. Somehow, as he Fell, he had managed to stay near his general's flaming smoke-plume.
SARGATANAS
Sargatanas - (from Barlowe' Inferno, acrylic on ragboard) - A former seraph and now a Brigadier General and Demon Major of enormous power, Sargatanas was a hero in Lucifer's War with Heaven. Since his Fall, he has established himself as one of the few demons capable of rivaling the Prince for control of Hell. GOD'S DEMON is his story.
Eligor came upon Sargatanas as he stood upon a wind-whipped bluff, unsteady, the steam of his descent wreathing him. Transformed from luminous seraph to Demon Major, he had lost all of his heavenly trappings and none of his dignity. A corona of embers flitted away from his massive head and Eligor saw it form into a great and complicated sigil for the first time. Sargatanas had been one of the fortunate ones, a demon who had Fallen, uncontested, in an infernal region harsh and inhospitable, albeit rich in minerals and perfect for city-building. Glowing milky white upon a flat plain before them, and bending around a tall central mount, oxbowed a slow- flowing river that would be named Acheron. Here, Eligor somehow knew, a great city would rise.
They stood silently, watching the shower of fiery contrails, the paths of slower descents as they approached their new, unwelcoming home. Eligor glanced over at his lord. He saw Sargatanas looking up, beyond the contrails and beyond the clouds, and saw him close his burning eyes.
A great number of demons gathered about Sargatanas as he set about the founding of his city. The earliest, mostly unknown to him, were those who had descended nearby and, after meeting with him, agreed to join his van. Others traveling from afar, more often than not, had known him from before the Fall and wanted to be by his side, perhaps for comfort, in the new world.
Eligor's intuition had proven correct; Sargatanas had seen the same potential in the land near where he had Fallen. The boundaries of Sargatanas' future city were vast, yet the Demon Major had walked them himself, pointing out to Eligor the specific features of the landscape that had provoked his interest in this particular spot. The great river, especially, had won Sargatanas over. As he and Eligor approached its steep banks, they smelled a distinct saltiness carried upon the thick air.
They peered down into the languorously flowing Acheron and both of them could see tiny forms, indistinct and writhing, in the thick water. An unaccountable deep sadness filled them as their lungs filled with the mist-laden air that rose up, and, after a moment, Sargatanas shook his great head and spun away. The gesture surprised Eligor, breaking the odd reverie that had fallen about him.
They left the river and ascended the gradual rise to the projected city's periphery where, standing assembled in a seemingly endless line twenty ranks deep, were countless souls. They were a miserable, deformed crowd, crying and trembling, as yet unaware of what was going to befall them. Sargatanas drew himself up, smoothing his robes as he walked toward them, deaf to the echoing pleas that filled the air. Eligor, too, ignored them, grown accustomed, as he was, to the souls' ways.
[The Examination - (from Barlowe's Inferno - acrylic on ragboard) - While souls are treated as a resource by demons in an unthinkable number of ways in Hell, a true understanding of them as once-living organisms on a physical level is absent. The fact that Lucifer went to war in large part because of them has created a curiosity that many demons find irresistible. The inspiration for this painting is fairly obvious: all of those great Flemish paintings of medical examinations, of doctors gathered around splayed-out corpses. Nearly all of the look of the demons was improvised invention. I had a rough to work from and then, brush in hand, 'grew' the figures on the board with layers of detail. I often do detailed drawings before putting paint on the palette but this was not the case with this painting. I wanted to enjoy the act of creating these inquisitive demons and felt that being too slavish to a sketch might make them less lively.]
They were the first arrivals, souls who had been sent as the vanguard of humanities' effluvia, the damned. A steady stream of them had been arriving since shortly after the demons' Fall, and while he was repulsed by them and their ways, Eligor found himself fascinated nonetheless.
Their appearance was as grotesque as their croaking chorus; they were as varied and individual as the capricious laws of the demons could create. Somewhere in Hell, somewhere Eligor would never visit, a veritable army of lesser demons had their way with the endless flood of souls as they entered the realm. Legless, headless, corkscrewed, folded, torn, and pierced, each soul wore but the thinnest mask of mankind. No two were alike. And pushed, as if into gray clay by a giant's hand, into each soul was a black sphere, heavy and dull. Sargatanas told Eligor that the Demons Major had fashioned these globes, filled with the essence of the souls' transgressions, to serve not only as reminders of their punishment but also as a means for the demons' control. Beyond that he did not say, but Eligor marveled at the simplicity of it. As he and Sargatanas passed them, Eligor looked into their fog-white eyes and wondered what they knew, whether there was any remnant at all of their previous lives to be found in the gray husks.
Sargatanas approached his new Architect General, greeting him warmly. The Demon Major Halphas, thin and flamboyantly spined, was bedecked in layers of clacking, bone-ornamented robes while above his head blazed his new sigil, an elaborate device that now incorporated the sigil of his liege, Sargatanas, as well. Halphas was smiling as his lord approached. Around him were a half-dozen other demons, his assistants, each of whom looked at their lord with anticipatory pleasure.
