foot of the palace stairs, where each ambassador dismounted, each having finally received some form of invitation. Escorted by Zoray's handpicked guards and accompanied by flabella-bearers and stooped lower demons bearing gifts, they climbed the many stairs and entered the palace, where they were met by Sargatanas' trusted aides, his corps of junior ministers. Passing him with nods, Eligor noted that many were frequently seen faces and these were greeted with solemn familiarity while others, the newcomers, were met with all the official ceremony of court.
After a while, he grew restless and left his own Honor Guard at the door and headed in among the ambassadors. They were as dissimilar a collection of demons as he had ever seen. Most were Demons Minor with enough of the fallen angel about them as to be unremarkable. But others had adopted the conventions of their lands or their lords, bearing bizarre forms and countenances that he sometimes felt were borne solely for effect. Great coronets of horn or torso spines corkscrewed into baroque patterns, or eye-dotted flesh, trimmed and draped like layered scales, adorned them, as did prideful and intricate reticulations of embers that sizzled as he passed. He saw some from the Lowlands who, used to the colder temperatures, were wrapped in thick layers of soul-skins and others from the craggy Uplands who favored multiple winglets and featherlight membranes. Those demons whose wards incorporated the Wastes saw fit to integrate some of the fierce, visual decorations of the Salamandrine Men, combining spiky webs of incomprehensible, glowing marks with piercings of bones from Abyssals and sigils that hovered, slithering like worms, inches from their bodies. Eligor heard their many dialects and understood most; his talent for tongues was something for which Sargatanas valued him, he knew, but now it simply made his head hurt.
Feeling crowded in by the noisy, milling mass of demons, he made his way to Valefar's side. The Prime Minister was deep in quiet conversation with Lord Furcas, one of the few regents who had journeyed, himself, to Adamantinarx. He was a stocky Demon Major, very plain in his appearance, with only a few modest hornlets and a round face bearing seven cobalt eyes of differing sizes. He made animated gestures with his hands as he spoke, gestures that reminded Eligor of the arcing flight of the Waste dart. It seemed, to Eligor, who could not hear what was being said, an almost ridiculous pantomime, but Valefar watched intently as Furcas finished his conversation. Eligor bowed to them and turned away to speak with his entourage. Distant trumpets sounded a signal causing heads to turn, and both demons fell into the current of the crowd as it began to move toward the arcades and the Audience Chamber beyond. Respecting Valefar's silence, Eligor did not speak; the Prime Minister was clearly deep in thought.
And he remained so as the demons assembled in the immense chamber. Eligor took his position at the base of the giant pyramidal dais and looked out at the fervent expressions of the hundreds of ambassadors who had journeyed across Hell to proffer allegiance to his lord. Most had never been to Adamantinarx and seen for themselves the fabled domed palace; they would surely bring impressive tales back to their lords. High above the ambassadors' heads, above their own multicolored sigils, floated Sargatanas' Great Seal, larger than Eligor had ever seen it and casting a livid light upon them.
Eligor glanced around and up at Sargatanas, whose form, now alight with fire, flickered with intensity. He had not seen Sargatanas in a week and smiled inwardly; his lord was a fiery creature of destiny now, a force that could not be stopped by anything short of his complete destruction. He stepped to the edge of the dais and spoke in the old language, the forbidden language. Its mellifluous tones echoed throughout the chamber, causing a stir among the gathered demons.
'What is it that keeps us here? Is it our love of this place and its hospitable clime? Is it because our cities are luminous and golden and the air within them fragrant and cool? Or is it our love of its benign and forgiving ruler and its fair and just governance? Are we here because we are all truly evil or were some of us misled and misdirected, carried away on the scalding winds of rhetoric? Are we not still creatures beholden to the Throne, no matter how far we have strayed from it?' Sargatanas paused. 'Or is it, perhaps, our damaged pride that keeps us filled with shame and bound to this place? Are we truly condemned to stay here, resigned to our fate, never to see the Above again? Should we never attempt to go back?
'So many questions. But Lords, Ambassadors, you would not be standing here before me if the answers were not clear. You would never have made the difficult journey to Adamantinarx had you not seen the truth. It is time for sorrow to become hope and hope to become action. It is time for you to reach up out of the charred flesh and the smoldering cinders to join me.'
Eligor saw the nearly immediate effect the words had on those assembled. He heard the growing murmur of assent and saw the rippling, outward-spreading wave of demons as they began to kneel. Above their heads their many glittering sigils began to disarticulate, sending attenuated tendrils of glyphs up toward Sargatanas' Great Seal. There they embraced, intertwining like luminous tentacles until they rearranged themselves into a cohesive whole. The enormous, flat seal was now surrounded by an incomplete globe of delicate symbols, and Eligor realized that his master, ever looking to the future, was waiting to fill in the spaces with more allies' sigils. Eligor looked back at the crowd, from bowed head to bowed head, and wondered if each of them bore the same thought:
The greeting of each ambassador or rare lord took many long hours, with Sargatanas, seated upon his throne, patiently according each his due respect. Andromalius and Bifrons, already staunch allies, joined Eligor and a contingent of his Guard behind the throne while Valefar stood at his lord's side, amiably making introductions, identifying each demon's native land and highlighting the outstanding qualities of each. Eligor was, to start, watchful and interested but found his concentration flagging after the first hundred or so demons had passed; then only the most important of the new clients received his full attention.
'Lord Malpas has, for these long eons, studied the art of siegecraft, my lord,' Valefar said, intruding on Eligor's thoughts. 'He was instrumental in aiding Architect General Mulciber when many of the palaces were first built— including Prince Beelzebub and Lucifer's empty fortress. He knows their strongpoints and their fundamental weaknesses. Of course much has been added to them since then ... but still.'
'Malpas, thanks to you for joining me,' Sargatanas said. 'Your knowledge and your forty legions will, I am sure, prove invaluable.'
Malpas bowed so low that his long, thick beak scraped the floor audibly.
An hour later Eligor saw an especially ornate Demon Major stand before them, his floor-length robes alive with dozens of souls flattened and picked for their unflawed pelts, each dyed, delicately stitched together, and highlighted with golden thread and embellished with rolling, precious stone eyes. In all, Eligor thought, a masterpiece of foreign craftsmanship.
Valefar, too, seemed taken with the figure, smiling and nodding openly.
'This, my lord, is the honored Lord Yen Wang of the distant Eastern Wards, who brings with him the swift and powerful Legions of Behemoths. Even as we speak, the terrible creatures are being stabled in some of the abandoned storehouses along the far shore of the Acheron. Well, I might add, away from the city.'
