Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

a secret only he, now, knew of, and he saw no reason to mention it; it was, after all, only an empty space.

Closing the door to the brazier-lit inner room, he went back to the cabinet and began to pull the scrolled vellums down, careful not to crush any. He removed the shelves and then spent some time feeling around for the hidden latch that Valefar had so easily found. Eligor felt a slight thud beneath his hand from somewhere behind the wall, and the panel opened and again the dust of time sifted upward.

Eligor knelt and peered into the dark, rectangular space, not really sure what, if anything, he expected to find. It looked just as he had remembered it, featureless and simple. But when he ran his hand against the rough back wall he discovered a ledge and upon it something that moved slightly when he made contact. Reaching farther in, he found a small, footed casket, which he carefully pulled out. It was carved of bone, dyed, and inlaid with precisely cut chips of obsidian of differing colors.

Eligor found a low bench to sit on and, unfastening its simple latch, opened the box. Within it were two objects carefully wrapped in thin, finely dressed soul-skin, one larger than the other. He picked up the two bundles and weighed them in his hands, debating whether opening them represented an act of posthumous betrayal, an uncontestable intrusion into the Prime Minister's privacy. Ultimately, Eligor remembered Sargatanas' offer—that he could take anything he wanted—and this provided enough justification that he began to slowly unwrap the larger object. In seconds a small bone statue, exquisite in its every detail, rested upon the skin spread upon his lap. It was Lilith, carved, he now knew, by her own hand. Bits of what Eligor guessed were the charred remains of Valefar's own feathers, presumably gathered like sad reliquaries from the Fall, lay in dark flakes around it. How could he have gotten this statue? They were given only to souls by Lilith. Valefar had been present when his lord had taken the female soul's statue that fateful day so long ago. Perhaps he had acquired this one in a similar way. But if so, would he not have mentioned it? Or ... or did she give it to him?

Scooping up the statue and the precious bits of feather, Eligor placed them on a small table. Taking up the second small burden, he noted how heavy it was comparatively. If he was surprised by the first object, he was positively astonished by the second. Lying upon its dark wrappings, simple in its design but ominous by its very significance, was an Order of the Fly medallion. Valefar ... an Order Knight? Impossible! Beneath the dully gleaming Fly, Eligor saw the corner of a folded piece of vellum, and smoothing it open, he began to read the crabbed script of Dis:

Valefar,

I have taken the liberty of secreting this among your personal effects. This commission was well earned; the services you performed as Primus of the Order to our Prince, if performed unhappily, were exemplary. It was your sad misfortune to have Fallen in the immediate proximity of this city and thus to have to serve it and its master; I know you will be more at ease wherever else you choose to settle. And I know that, in departing, you will leave behind the one for whom you care most. She will be safer for your decision. I will see to it.

For now and always remember me as your friend in Dis.

Agares

Was this possible? thought Eligor, his mind racing. The conclusions he was inferring went beyond anything he could have guessed. The statue and the medallion, together in a casket hidden away, both precious, painful reminders of a time past in Dis. Did they signify a relationship between Valefar and Lilith? The more Eligor pondered it, the more certain he grew. But did Sargatanas know of it? Eligor sat stunned, the medal growing heavy in his enervated hand.

Frowning, Eligor regarded the opening in the wall, considering his choices. He would not take these things as reminders of his friend, would not run the risk of their ever being found. Instead Eligor carefully separated the feathers from the skin around the statue and put them on a table. He then rewrapped the statue and the medallion and placed them back inside the casket, latching it shut. He put it back into the wall compartment, sealed the opening, and reorganized the bookcase, leaving it exactly as he had found it. Returning to the small pile of feathers, he carefully scooped them into a clean blood-ink vial, a fitting symbol, he felt, for the demon who had been Prime Minister of Adamantinarx for so long.

Eligor cast a final look around the innermost room and then closed the door behind him, sealing it with a glyph. Its secret was safe. He navigated through the rooms, passing Fyrmiax as he quietly went about collecting scrolls and vellums. Eligor's eyes fell upon a volume from the Library, something that Valefar had apparently been in the midst of reading—a collection of reminiscences of the Above. He picked it up wondering whether the Prime Minister had been reminiscing himself or had been questioning his lord's decision. Eligor would never know. He put the book aside unsure whether he would read it himself or simply return it to the Library.

As the two demons filled the small carts, the rooms' clutter melted away, revealing, one by one, the bare surfaces of their many desktops. Eligor could not help but think the rooms looked, if possible, even sadder relieved of their friendly clutter. It was as if the demons were erasing the hand of Valefar.

After nearly a day of sorting and stacking, the carts were filled to overflow and Eligor and Fyrmiax, leaning against the corridor wall exhausted, watched as six demons trundled them off. Tired and dispirited but glad that the job was done, Eligor wordlessly clapped Fyrmiax on the shoulder, and the other Demon Minor nodded and began down the corridor.

There was only one act left, and that was to seal the chambers. Eligor took a final look at the familiar, once- inviting rooms, picked up the large volume, and closed the door behind him. He produced the red seal that Sargatanas had given him and, with a wave of his hand, floated it directly over the door's lintel. When the seal was in place he uttered a command and watched the complex glyph replicate itself dozens of times until a hundred identical copies had slowly outlined the door frame. He then extended his hand to touch the door and a hundred swift glyph-arrows converged to prevent him from making contact; had he persisted he would have been destroyed. He pulled his stinging hand back. It was done.

The tome tucked under his arm, Eligor took a deep breath and headed back to his chambers. He would try to forget this day but knew that, like so many other dark days, he probably never would.

DIS

'Will you be able to do this, Chancellor General?'

Nergar's voice, which seemed to come from somewhere far off, sounded concerned, but Adramalik knew better than that. The Chief of Security was sure to be enjoying Adramalik's profound misery.

'Of course, Lord Nergar,' he said with little conviction. Adramalik felt as if he were not really there in the Keep's Basilica of Security, not really sitting in the small, featureless, brick-walled room with the despicable Nergar awaiting the arrival of Prime Minister Agares.

Adramalik closed his eyes again and, this time, thought of the pain as some kind of a parasite, something recently acquired that now lived within him, feeding off his body with a blind hunger. He had seen such creatures far out in the Wastes, attached by the dozens to Abyssals that could barely move for the collective weight of them. Then he could hardly imagine the host's pain. But now he could.

The ragtag survivors of the Battle of the Flaming Cut had filtered back to Dis, exhausted and miserable, and most had been greeted with summary destruction. Beelzebub's manifold anger had spared no one, and to his