It had been weeks since Ardat Lili had been taken from her. Weeks of confusion and pain and darkness. She had determined to give the Fly nothing willingly. His attempts at what he considered sex, while growing less frequent, were also growing more violent. Lilith feared that it was only a matter of time before she, too, swung high above his throne.
Her shaking subsided and she rose, unsteadily. Her clawed feet trod upon the bits and pieces of her few possessions as she crossed the room to the upended little table she had done her carving on. It was oddly unbroken—a survivor like her. She righted it and then went about searching for the few items she would need to summon her familiar. She had not done that since she had come to Hell and worried that perhaps she might not remember how. But try she would. The time of tears was over. Now was the time of action.
She had to get out, away from Dis. That much was clear. This last en-counter had been too ... invasive. And even as she had that thought, Lilith felt a small stirring and looked down. An errant spark-backed fly, having made its way from within her, was walking down her thigh. For an instant her eyes grew wide, and then, with a blindingly fast motion, she scooped it into her hand and then into a small metal urn that lay on the floor nearby. She narrowed her eyes and smiled. Fortune had given her that fly.
She resumed her search, finding some shards of bone, some torn skin from her bedclothes, the gold threads from a rent robe, and a needle. Carefully wrapping the skin around the bone armature, she stitched together a zoomorphic form, winged and clawed and with huge, empty eye sockets. She was a proficient sculptor, and when she had finished the small maquette she sat back and nodded approvingly.
Without hesitating she took up the needle and stabbed her palm until black blood, thick and hissing, dripped freely down her wrist. She picked up the assembled figure and caressed the blood into its wrinkled surface.
'Draw from me my pain, my little one,' Lilith whispered. 'Draw from me my boundless sorrow and my timeless hatred. And take these things of mine, I adjure you, and lay them before the Lord of Adamantinarx.'
The small figure, its naked white skin smeared black, twitched and stretched. It jumped up and onto feet not unlike her own, gracelessly at first, and as its dangling, shriveled wings began to expand and flap it hopped toward her. A pinched mouth yawned open and then snapped shut. Lilith took up the urn and violently shook the angry fly out into her hand. She plucked its wings and held it in front of the night-creature's beak. The familiar plucked it greedily from her fingers and gulped down its first meal. It cocked its oversized head and stared at her with its empty sockets, as if waiting for more.
'Good, good,' she purred menacingly. 'You liked that. That was the taste of him.'
Lilith gestured a glyph into existence, blew it into the familiar, repeated the act, and then put the creature on her wrist. She walked to the broken door, peered out cautiously, and, seeing no one near, carefully squeezed the familiar through the widest part of the crack. It stood there on the flagstones just beyond, looking in at her inquiringly.
'Go now. Stay in the shadows and find the nearest window. Go to Adamantinarx; tell Sargatanas of my suffering. Give him that fly. And tell him I am coming.'
The familiar turned obediently and took wing and, just as she had ordered, disappeared silently into the gloom of the arched ceiling.
ADAMANTINARX-UPON- THE-ACHERON
The palace gates loomed large and imposing before Hani, their twin braziers creating enough deep shadows upon the surrounding buildings to conceal him. As he had predicted, it had been slow and tedious work gaining the palace entrance, and, now that he had, he could hang back, affording him an opportunity to rest and survey the area. He realized that actually getting through the gate might not be as hard as he had feared; so many workers passed within and so improbable was any threat from a soul that he was relatively sure no demon would question him, let alone look twice at him. He only needed to wait for a group of workers who were walking between soul-beast caravans. He waited for what seemed like hours and, marking that time, the Burden crept relentlessly upward through his torso. His fear was that he would find himself impaired, that the Burden would settle for a time in his head and make it impossible for him to accomplish anything for some while.
The jostling crowds flowed slowly through the gates like oozing lava, breaking sullenly around any obstacles that did not move quickly enough. But the soul's patience was rewarded when he saw the giant bobbing heads of two soul-beasts, the vanguard of a pair of columns of similar creatures heading toward him. And between them was a melange of souls bound for work farther up the mount. Inwardly excited, Hani emerged from the shadows, his aquiline features set in an imitation of the dull, ravaged look worn by most souls. His gait, once again, matched the shambling stride of the workers. It was the best disguise—the only disguise—he could employ.
Passage through the gates went smoothly—no guards even looked at him. Armed warrior demons were everywhere, their officers hissing out commands and glyphs with what Hani thought was more urgency than normal. Between the lumbering bodies he saw guards stationed outside all of the residences and official buildings, ever watchful, he guessed, for spies.
He continued up the steep incline, the warm flagstones under his scuffing feet growing cooler as the winds grew. Looking up, he saw the enormous breastlike swell of the palace dome. At this distance its size took his breath away. Again the poison of self-doubt seeped into his veins.
The caravan threaded its way up toward the palace itself. The huge souls, spurred on by their cudgel-wielding mahouts, were burdened down with Abyssal hides, rolls of soul-vellum, and other luxury products from the remote towns of the Wastes. Palace bound, Hani suspected. He needed to actually enter the palace before separating from them and hoped he was right about their destination.
When they passed through the threshold, plodded to a halt in the great entry hall, and began unstrapping the cargo, Hani felt a mixture of satisfaction, relief, and then apprehension. He was inside Sargatanas' palace! Hani was surprised at the feel of its interior; he had been prepared for something much darker, more oppressive. Instead, its bustling interior, brightly illuminated by fluorescing minerals set in sconces, conveyed a sense only of purposeful power, infernal bureaucracy untainted by true evil. Despite the building's outwardly benign atmosphere, he knew that the hardest part of his journey still lay ahead; his goal to kneel before the feet of Lord Sargatanas might truly be impossible. Hani reached for a huge bundle of dark-scaled hides, and, hefting it up with some difficulty, he began to follow a string of souls who seemed to be heading deep into the building. An Overseer glanced at Hani, his wary, reflective eyes probing deeply but apparently finding nothing unusual. With a flick of the demon's whip and the touch of it still stinging Hani's back, he moved on, walking through a succession of long corridors until, in the distance, he saw a high, curving wall, its tiled surface broken at long, regular intervals by tall, column-framed entrances. Beyond them, he suspected, was the audience hall, but what lay between remained a mystery. Quite soon, he was going to have to break away from the workers and the security of numbers they
