succeed and plunged headlong to their destruction upon the cloud-shrouded pavement far below.
He watched the remainder of the exercise with a decidedly disagreeable attitude. The planning and subsequent training for the assault on the Fly’s palace was proving to be about as difficult as Eligor had envisioned; he had known all along that the whims of Hell’s weather would play havoc with any aerial assaults. Finally the thousand-odd demons were in their stations, some bearing hammers and focused on breaking through the stone, some ringing about where the hole would be smashed, and the remainder, lances in hand, hovering as best as they could in formation above and awaiting a command to drop through into the palace beneath. A dense cloud passed in front of him and, for a few moments, he could only see the tiny lights of their unit-glyphs through the patchy haze. He held them there for some time; it would be good for them to wait, to lock into their minds their respective roles. Then, satisfied only that they had finally reached the exercise’s end, he raised his free hand and issued the command to withdraw and return to their camps. He saw his glyph circle the dome once and vanish and then watched the blood-wet demons break away and drop into the clouds.
Eligor sent a signal to Barbatos at the opposite side of the dome and wondered if his demons had fared any better. He unhooked himself from the dome and spread his wings, descending in a slow, controlled drop through the reddish curtain of clouds. When his feet scraped the flagstones of the plaza it was just in time to see the last of his Flying Guard entering their barracks. And he also saw the crumpled forms of three of his demons lying in twisted piles, their broken wings reaching up like slender fingers. Already he could hear the creaking wheels of an approaching bone-cart sent to remove them.
SARGATANAS DESCENDING{14}Limbs stiff and trembling from the exercise, Eligor made his way up the palace stairs and entered the empty entrance hall. Usually, after newcomers entered the palace from a downpour, there would have been attendants ready and waiting to towel them down, but now there was no such courtesy. Instead the metallic tang of the blood and the uncomfortable feeling of it drying upon him only heightened his growing sense that all was not well. When he was back in his chambers he would have to spend much time cleaning himself. Only the distilled and still- irritating saline waters of the Acheron would remove the stain, a ritual that, considering his exhaustion, he did not look forward to.
For some reason only a relative few of the palace’s many braziers were lit, and the shadowed areas that Eligor passed through seemed to him like ominous lakes of darkness. Trudging through the halls, past the infrequent distracted functionary or brick-laden worker, Eligor noted again with now-familiar sadness that the entire geography of the immense building had been altered. The mandated removal of any and all soul-bricks, a process that was still under way, had caused the complete rearrangement and, in some cases, structural weakening of the interior, leaving great holes, collapsed ceilings, or crudely supported walls. The dust of deconstruction was everywhere. And more than once he saw it kicked up by winds that, in the past, would never have been possible in the building when its integrity had been sound.
But even with conditions as they were, the palace retained some echoes of its grandeur, and the closer to its Audience Chamber he walked the more the great building resembled its former self. On his way to the stairs leading to his chambers, he peered through the columns of the arcade into the great space beyond and looked to the top of the pyramidal dais half-expecting to see Sargatanas seated on his throne. But only the shadows and emptiness greeted him. Algol’s beam, almost always visible, was absent, occluded by the heavy weather above—something that he tried hard not to view as an omen. He imagined that Sargatanas was in his Shrine or his chambers, perhaps with Lilith. It was a thought that only served to deepen Eligor’s melancholia; their time together, whether his lord got his wish or was destroyed trying, was drawing to a close.
And then the realization hit him like a hammer-blow. He understood, for the first time, just how much he would miss Sargatanas. Since the rebellion had begun every act, every word, had been about Beelzebub, his defenses, his armies, his cities, his tactics. Eligor had been so preoccupied with his office that he had not really had a moment to envision his world without his lord. Sargatanas had been a mentor and a paragon, a focal point and a guide, and now that Eligor saw a glimpse of what it might be like, of the emptiness he would feel, he did not like it.
He continued to his chambers, up the long, curving staircase and down the wide hall, past Valefar’s sealed chambers and then to his own. As he entered and lit his braziers with a cast flurry of glyphs, he questioned if Sargatanas’ vision was worth all of the incredible changes that had been wrought upon Hell. If the rebellion did not succeed would it have been the greatest act of selfishness imaginable to have plunged them all into this war? The question hung in his mind as he dipped a soft capillary-knot from the Wastes in the water and began to sponge himself as best as he could. The dull burn of the Acheron upon his exposed flesh and bone almost felt like welcome penance for the guilt he felt in doubting Sargatanas.
They left the Shrine together for the last time, and as they exited, Lilith could not help but wonder if Sargatanas had not brought her there as a last effort to get her to change her mind. He pulled the thick door shut and then turned to her and her suspicions were confirmed.
“You can change your mind, Lilith. If I do go back, it will mean that the way is clear for others. You could —”
She reached up and put a finger to his mouth.
“My love, this is the way it must be. As much as it will pain both of us.”
He nodded and, as she watched, the beginnings of his armor blossomed forth in the manner of demons and angels alike, coming up from his skin like rising white magma, smoothing and shaping itself to conform to his body.
He shook his head and took her hands.
“Why,
“Because the Heaven you reach for will give you that which you desire… a world of sublime tranquility. Beatitude. That I cannot offer you.”
Lilith paused to see his reaction. The pale armor continued to exude from within him, encasing his head and shoulders. He did not say a word but looked at her, the inner turmoil obvious. She almost felt that a single word from her could dissuade him from his path, halt the assault on Dis, and keep him in his city, in Hell. But she did not utter it.
“You are a seraph, Sargatanas. The highest of angels. You can never be anything else, no matter what shape you take. No matter where you are. You’ll never be content unless you are back where you belong.”
He let her hands slip out of his and she knew, then, that there was no turning back for him.
His new armor was nearly fully formed, its congealing surface swirling and blending and smoothing. When Lilith stepped back to look at him she saw a mountainous figure of power and intensity, unquestionably heroic yet almost physically unrecognizable to her save for his unchanged face. His sigils suddenly flared to life upon his breast, flanking the dark hole where his heart should have been, piercing the shimmering steam that wafted in curling sheets that were denser than normal from the armor’s formation.
“We must go,” he said. “Zoray awaits his Elevation. And then…” The demon’s voice traded off and Lilith tried not to think about the future.
“Yes, and then.”
As they walked the darkened palace corridors toward the Hall of Rituals, Lilith realized that, even with her sadness at Sargatanas’ imminent departure, she was actually eager to see the ceremony in which he raised the Demon Minor to the status of a Demon Major. An Infernal mirror of angelic Risings, it was not a commonplace event, and while she had heard about the ancient rite, she had never witnessed it in either Dis or Adamantinarx. The city was to be left in his hands and Sargatanas wanted his former Foot Guard commander as well equipped for the job as possible. She was relieved that Sargatanas had not chosen her; while she felt capable of governing Adamantinarx, it was a task best left to someone who had been in the city since its founding. He and Andromalius, the new provisional General-in-Chief of Adamantinarx, would be able officers of their posts.
Lord Zoray was, as Sargatanas had predicted, awaiting their arrival clad in the ornate symbolic six-winged trappings of the occasion and surrounded by his staff. Some of them would, as a result of his Elevation, be carried upward in station as well, and they fidgeted and shifted in anticipation. Zoray’s eagerness, too, was undeniable, and when Sargatanas strode ahead of her Lilith watched the soon-to-be governor kneel and prostrate himself. This was
