God's Demon

There were many more soldiers now in Adamantinarx than when the three demons had left. In his mind’s eye, Eligor could easily picture the raising of additional legions in the fertile lava-fields not so far south of the Acheron. Dispatched from the palace, dozens of decurions bearing Sargatanas’ conjuring glyphs, Eligor imagined, were coursing over the lava incunabula, carefully choosing the best sites. A fertile lava pit could easily yield a thousand legionaries, but finding one was a challenge; successful decurions were often rewarded with citations and sometimes promotion.

THE LEGIONS OF HELL

Long ago, Eligor, curious as always, had accompanied one such decorated decurion, had seen him expertly select just the right spot, where he cast the fiery glyph high into the ashy air and watched it plunge into the bubbling lava. Almost immediately, Eligor had marveled, the tips of halberds, the spikes of helmets, and the fingers of reaching hands broke the surface, parting the slowly swirling, incandescent flow of the lava. He had never forgotten the thrill of watching a battle-ready legion pull themselves from the very stuff of Hell, opening their eyes for the first time and lining up by the hundreds before him, steaming and tempering as they cooled. All this, Sargatanas had told him, was happening even as they entered the city.

The soul-beasts’ lumbering progress was steady through the congested streets. Carrying Sargatanas’ sigil- topped vertical banners before them, the Foot Guard and Scourges pushed through the milling souls, Overseers, municipal street-worm hunters, legionaries, and officials, widening a broad path for the three mounted demons.

Halfway to the center mount, Sargatanas had the other beasts draw up next to him and stop.

“Before we rest, I would visit the site of the ridiculous statue Beelzebub insisted be built. From here I can see that it is very nearly finished.”

And, indeed, when Eligor peered into the cloudy distance he, too, could see the dark head of a colossal statue. The three demons turned their beasts, following the redirected troops down a long, gradually descending street toward the work site.

DIS

Adramalik followed Prime Minister Agares along a narrow dim corridor, like the fleshy, dank inside of a worm, that sank sharply beneath the Prince’s Rotunda. They were nearly as powerful as each other in their own spheres, nearly as influential, and their mutual suspicions kept them silent as they walked, a not uncommon occurrence when the two were together. Adramalik distrusted the Prime Minister, and in the paranoid world of the Keep distrust kept demons alive.

The corridor terminated into the entrance to Lord Agaliarept’s Conjuring Chamber. Beelzebub had ordered them to attend him here, and, having no other choice, they dutifully agreed. If anything bound the two demons together, it was their sense of incomprehension and distaste for the Prince’s Conjuror General. Sequestered deep beneath his master’s Rotunda, he never left his circular chamber, never interacted with other demons until they visited him, and never spoke unless it was in the course of a conjuring. His was an obsessive world of ancient spells, muttered incantations, and bricks. In many ways, bricks were Agaliarept’s primary focus, for it was through the combined and varying energies of specially selected bricks—souls of particular darkness— and through their kinship with other bricks throughout Hell that his powers played out. Endless deliveries of bricks, sought and found across Hell, made their way to his chamber and found themselves stacked everywhere.

Agares and Adramalik entered the wide kettledrum-shaped chamber and were immediately confronted with the sight of a thousand soul-bricks floating through a shredded mist at various heights. They moved in ceaseless concentric rings, hovering over the concave floor, out from which Adramalik could see complex branching patterns of brickwork radiating. At the Conjuring Chamber’s center, barely visible for all of the circling bricks, was Lord Agaliarept, illuminated only by the chains of glyphs that hung in the air before him.

The bricks, some of which narrowed their eyes as Agares and Adramalik passed, parted like a school of the Abyssal flyers they had seen many times in the Wastes. Agares pushed those that did not move quickly enough aside, and Adramalik heard them sigh or sputter or swear. As the pair moved downward they were careful to avoid the occasional gaps in the brick floor. Adramalik knew that the floor acted as a kind of abstract map of Hell itself and that the gaps, or the simple placement of brick into them, affected those that Beelzebub chose to influence.

As Adramalik and Agares drew near him, the Conjuror General swung toward them. In his spindly arms Adramalik saw a single brick, a mouth visible upon its folded surface.

He is so different from us, thought Adramalik, jarred as he always was when confronted with the Prince’s chief sorcerer. Agaliarept stood, an ill-defined, robed figure, countless arms jutting from his torso like the spines on an Ash-burrower. These wandlike arms were constantly moving, seemingly tasting the air or feeling the ever-drifting currents of events. What little head protruded was cowled deep within a collar of skin-enfolded eyes, each tiny orb a different color. Disconcertingly, Adramalik never knew if he was being watched or, more irritatingly, perhaps, whether he always was. He regarded Agaliarept as a dark tool of his master’s and little more; the distance both Beelzebub and the strange being had created to keep him obscure also served to keep him relatively unapproachable.

Agares and the Chancellor General took up a position yards away from Agaliarept but close enough to discern the ember-lit flies that circled him. Without a word, the Conjuror raised a dozen of his thin arms and began weaving ghostly glyphs from tissues of misty air, drawing toward him selected bricks from the vast floating catalog and gesturing them into specific holes in the floor. The single brick that he held began to whine piteously and glow from within, and when the dozen or so summoned bricks were firmly in place Agaliarept laid it gingerly into a space at his feet.

The mouth on the brick snapped open. A flattened black tongue poked out for a moment, failing to moisten its cracked lips.

A susurration gradually filled the demons’ ears as the chamber came alive, the faintest of whispers growing as the myriad dry mouths of countless bricks gave voice.

The two demons unconsciously stepped back as the brick at the Conjuror’s feet coughed. For a moment it was silent, working its lips as if to speak. And then it retched up a fine mist of blackish blood that reached eight or ten feet into the air, spattering Agaliarept. Burst after burst of the mist hung before them until they saw a shape appear within it, the motionless, congealing form of a Demon Major.

A low buzz, Adramalik imagined of approval, emanated from the flies around the Conjuror.

The blood-formed demon, an avatar only, raised his head and looked at the demons present. Adramalik recognized the Grand Duke Astaroth, his sigils palely lit against his dripping chest, his sagging shoulders creating an impression of age and weariness.

The buzz of the circling flies became a Voice.

“Your spies have not returned, Astaroth. They were intercepted through the efforts of a Baron Faraii, I believe. Sargatanas’ Guard are very well trained.”

The conjured demon hesitated. Two tiny glyphs of sight blazed in his blood-filled eye sockets.

“Indeed. I taught him their drills.” Astaroth’s voice was distorted, gurgling.

“Their leadership is quite good as well. Of this,” the buzzing Voice said, “I am sure you are also aware.

“My six legions,” it continued, “are marching into your wretched wards as we speak. They will be held back until they are needed. They will reinforce yours, if yours falter. There must not be the perception in Adamantinarx that we are leading the attack on his wards.”

Astaroth’s chin sank. “It will be as you say, my Prince.”

Adramalik knew that the old demon had hoped for more, that he wanted Beelzebub’s alliance to be known to all in Hell.

“Are your troops in readiness?”

“No, my Prince, but we are close.”

“While you may have superior numbers on your side, Astaroth, do not be fooled. Sargatanas has managed his wards brilliantly… far better than you… and he is cunning. This is a second chance. Be clever and what is his will be yours. And mine.”

Astaroth’s chin rose and he nodded.

“Victory to you, Astaroth!”

The distant Demon Major bowed and was gone in a shower of descending blood. Agaliarept, spattered from