Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

Adramalik looked up, past the Prince atop his throne. The dangling skins were in a constant state of agitation, creating a palpable breeze within the Rotunda and stirring the rank smells of its contents. The battle in the city below must have been affecting them.

'All is in readiness for him. We have fielded every last legion, and the Keep Wall is fully alive.'

'I think it will not be enough, Prime Minister. He is a determined heretic.'

Adramalik said nothing; there was little more that could be said or done than what his master had already implemented.

Adramalik never dreamt—that was for souls and beasts. But when he had returned to his chambers and laid down upon his pallet after his impossible exertions supervising the demolition of Dis, he had come close. Perhaps, he thought, what he had seen was more of a vision. Whatever it had been, it was brief and disquieting.

It had begun with him standing upon the wall, watching as countless gangs of souls hastily labored to finish its construction. He watched, too, how methodical their demon Overseers were as they efficiently prodded the shuffling, whimpering souls—most only recently able to move about again—into place while the soul-masons positioned them with precision. And he saw them transformed, course after gray course of them, into the heavy bricks that comprised the great, soaring structure. He looked down in his dream and saw their many thousand black, protruding orbs dotting the wall's flat, curving surface and was amazed and pleased.

When he turned, it was with the expectation of seeing the Black Dome rising skyward just as he knew it, but it was not there and a clenching fear gripped him. In its place, when he peered in astonishment at where the Keep should have been, there was instead a gaping hole, frost edged and impenetrable in its darkness. He knew what the hole was; he had seen it for himself. The unforgettable stench of it filled his nose as he stared once again into the entrance to Abaddon's realm, and now fear gave way to panic. From within that maw he could hear the distant sounds of moving bodies beyond count scuffling and scraping and also, most disconcertingly, their faint echoing cluttering cries. Suddenly an inward rush of air began to suck at the foot of the wall, breaking it apart and dragging chunks toward the Pit, and in seconds a spiraling maelstrom of soul-bricks was disappearing into the darkness. Adramalik took wing but to no avail. His wings could only claw futilely at the cold air as he was dragged down. Just when he was even with the icy lip of the Pit did he jolt awake, jittery and panting.

Only with some effort could he get the image of the Pit from his mind, and when he realized that he was not at its blasted, icy-rimmed edge but, instead, in the Rotunda, inattentive to his Prince, Adramalik swallowed hard.

'... is this not so, Prime Minister?'

'Yes. My Prince,' he said, and had no idea what he was so readily agreeing to.

The buzzing paused.

'And what of the Keep itself and its defenses?'

'Mulciber is locked away and embedded, maintaining the wall just as you instructed, my Prince. The four legions of Keep Janissaries are in position awaiting any potential breach of the gate.'

From the corner of his eye, Adramalik saw Agares shuffling slowly away from the foot of the throne and toward the sphincterlike threshold. Beelzebub seemed to take no notice. Probably on his way to his miserable chambers. And why not? He is of no use anymore.

'The Husk?' the Prince asked.

'He is one level below us with Knight-Brigadier Melphagor and as many of my Knights as I felt I could spare from the battlefield.'

All this to defend our Hell, Prince, the Hell that you kept in line for so long. The Hell that, indeed, Sargatanas and his followers helped build and would now destroy. For what? His delusional aspirations? He is no heretic; that is where you are wrong, my Prince; he is simply a fool!

Adramalik looked up at the Prince and, not for the first time in recent memory, wondered what it might be like to be Regent of Hell. As this rebellion had grown Adramalik had, in the darkness of his chambers, considered the many ramifications of overthrowing his master. He had never gotten far in his speculations; the impossibility of the act caught him up short every time. Beelzebub was far too strange and unpredictable and powerful to attempt anything against, even as distracted as he was. And so Adramalik had never taken the time to seriously consider a period after the Prince's destruction. But now, with Sargatanas banging upon the Keep's gate, anything seemed possible and Adramalik frequently wondered what he and his Knights could do.

'Yen Wang's Behemoths are being destroyed, Adramalik. They are falling, one by one.'

'Yes, my Prince, your design of the wall was flawless,' Adramalik said without conviction. 'It will take more than a few lumbering siege-beasts to take this Keep.'

He saw Beelzebub's finger trace the contour of Rofocale's eye socket. 'Leave me, Adramalik, before your patronizing words make me angry.'

Adramalik bowed as low as he could, and, with eyes wide, he backed away and out of the Rotunda, relieved that he was still afforded the opportunity. His mind raced as he walked quickly back to the parapets. Was he just that close to being destroyed for so inconsequential a reason? Was it time to go down to his Knights and throw caution to the winds? Time to reach for the throne and either win or suffer the consequences?

But a wave of true fear washed through him and, worse, the acrid, recalled smell of the Pit. And he knew with a sinking, bitter sensation of self-recrimination that, whatever his fate, it would not be linked to any attempted assassination of Beelzebub.

* * * * *

A jagged constellation of lights appeared faintly behind the lambent curtain of clouds that hung about the palace high atop the Keep. Eligor looked down as he flew and saw the new wall and the shimmering glow that it cast upon everything but the darkened, mantle-shrouded Keep within its confines. It is ever dark in there—but that will change. We will let in some light. He was finally growing fatigued and saw that the others around him were wavering as well, having difficulty maintaining the once-tight formations.

Sargatanas' command, the briefest of flashing glyphs, came as no surprise as Eligor neared the dome. He immediately angled downward, followed by the hundreds of Flying Guard behind, lances, hooks, and hammers at the ready. Sargatanas did not actually expect any resistance on the Black Dome's exterior but had made Barbatos and Eligor drill his demons in that possibility nonetheless.