God's Demon

on flint, they separated from the burning disk and then arrowed straight into Beelzebub’s turned back. With each terrible impact the flies broke apart, some igniting into flames and vanishing, others scattering in clouds of fiery sparks. The Prince’s figure billowed, appearing at turns to disintegrate and re-form in shapeless disarray, and this made Eligor smile fiercely. He could see that every fiber of Sargatanas’ being was focused on the attack and that it was having an effect. Dozens of the sigils penetrated the agitated mass of flies, and each took its toll in numbers. And when it was over and Sargatanas’ sigil was no more than just his own, Beelzebub had turned back to face him and a wavering uncertainty seemed to have entered the Fly’s demeanor. There was no immediate response, and for a moment it seemed to be re-evaluating the demon that faced it. It had suffered considerably; half of its head was missing as well as both wings and its remaining arm. But Eligor sensed that there was enough of the Fly left to be more than dangerous.

To Eligor, at that moment, it seemed a perfect standoff. Neither opponent had seemed capable of destroying the other, but Eligor feared that that balance might have changed, that without the many demons’ sigils that had so helped his lord get to this point, Sargatanas could be vulnerable, even to a very much weaker Beelzebub.

With a gesture that Eligor thought at first was more petulant than effective, the Fly threw a glyph down to the floor that suddenly swept the demons directly around Sargatanas up, tossing them forcefully at the Demon Major. Destroying them with his dashing sword and deflecting them with his free hand, Sargatanas was engulfed in an ashy tornado of crumbling, shouting bodies, his brilliant white form nearly obscured by the sheer mass of them. Eligor saw his troops, legionaries of Dis, and Order Knights alike, indiscriminately uplifted into the air and catapulted toward Sargatanas until the floor hundreds of feet around him was empty. And as he smashed his way clear, Beelzebub cast down seven archaic red glyphs that touched the floor and disappeared, melting into the rubble and blood and flesh and leaving behind pillars of smoke.

Sargatanas freed himself from the diminishing storm of demons and saw the glyphs’ trajectory and swiftly rose up well above the throne. Somehow he had read the glyphs and knew what was coming.

* * * * *

No one, Adramalik mused, could help but marvel at the ferocious beauty of his Prince’s foe, nor could they help but admire the demon’s bravery. Adramalik looked from side to side and saw that his remaining Knights, flaming scimitars flashing, were engaged in furious combat with the Demon Minor Metaphrax and his flying lancers.

Adramalik looked from that fight to the glowing disks of his Knights unfortunate enough to have been caught up in Beelzebub’s petulant rage. Sargatanas’ convictions had made him truly transcendent among demons.

Adramalik remembered his many punishments over the millennia and the pain of each and, setting his jaw, turned away from the Prince. Beelzebub does not deserve my loyalty, he thought with disgust, and in that moment, the path he had always wanted to travel upon opened for him. He raised his hand and shot a command-glyph out to his Knights to sheathe their weapons and form up around him. He would withdraw and leave the Prince and Dis itself, taking his Order with him. Wounded and distracted, Beelzebub would not be able to stop them.

* * * * *

Hannibal felt the sound in his bones before he heard it. Beneath his feet he felt the floor of the Keep vibrate, felt it yield slightly as if it were shifting. At the present, they were climbing steadily upward and Satanachia informed him that they were roughly halfway to the Rotunda. At first he thought the dull sound was diminishing, but suddenly it gathered into a deep rushing sound and then the floor beneath his feet cracked. Braziers tumbled to the ground, spreading pools of flame.

Satanachia turned and looked at him with knit brows, listening.

“What is it?” Hannibal asked.

But realization suddenly cleared Satanachia’s face and, wide-eyed, he shouted “Back, back the way we came!'

As one, the vanguard turned, and the command went back down the unending stairs. The hundreds of confused troops squeezed into the narrow passage tried to maintain some form of order, but were too slow to respond. The rushing sound from below became the din of crashing bone-supports and bricks, and the Keep shuddered like a wounded animal. The floor heaved and buckled and Hannibal saw the long, dim staircase ahead thrown upward, completely broken apart by some titanic force.

As he fell, through the dust and broken bricks and tiles that flew toward him, he had a brief impression of something enormous, something vaguely human in form, rising irresistibly up through the ruptured floor on powerful wings. And as it passed, it gave voice, a deafening cry of release, pained and hoarse but also unmistakably triumphant. Hannibal recognized it as the voice of Semjaza.

* * * * *

The Rotunda floor buckled from the lack of support beneath it and formed a fractured and deepening bowl into which slid hundreds of Beelzebub’s legionaries. The ugly mass of flesh that was the Fly’s throne sank into a soup of ashy blood, rubble, and flailing demons and then suddenly erupted as the entire floor split open.

Eligor’s mouth opened in silent shock.

For eons, the few scattered Watchers, buried and nearly forgotten, had been thought of almost as forces of Infernal nature. They had been in Hell before the demons arrived and, it was speculated, would be there after time ended. No demon had ever dreamt of actually seeing one.

Once Semjaza the Watcher had been beautiful, but that was very long ago. Incarcerated, it had grown immense and mad feeding upon the blackness that lay beneath all of Hell. A rank odor of age and decay filled Eligor’s nostrils.

So tall that it was nearly a tenth the height of the Black Dome, the Watcher floated on six slowly beating wings that, fully extended, seemed as if they might span the Rotunda. It had fared poorly in its captivity, Eligor saw. Blind and with its nose eaten away by worms, its face was a tortured landscape of pits and wrinkles, the chiseled contours of its skull prominent. Its skin, once golden and miraculous for its magical markings, was a sickly pale gray and was dotted with holes and covered in sores. Visible, too, was the ancient, Throne-mandated punishment, the great scarred wound where its genitals had been ritually, wrathfully, excised for its sins. Upon its wrists and ankles were the burned-in scars of the elaborate glyphs that Those from the Above had used to cast it down and shackle it—glyphs that somehow Beelzebub had managed to neutralize.

Eligor saw it turn its huge horned and winged head to and fro, trying blindly to sense its surroundings. Beneath it, the remains of the floor cracked and began to slowly slide down, sinking of its own broken weight, lower and lower until it separated and dropped, taking with it those screaming demons that had been clinging to the bricks. When the dust had cleared, Eligor could see well down into the burning heart of the Keep. When he looked up he saw the hundreds of his flying demons who had retreated; there were fewer of them left than he had expected.

Once the sounds of the floor’s sinking had subsided, a strange quiet settled throughout the Rotunda. Only the cavernous sound of Semjaza’s breathing could be heard, as well as the slow flapping of its wings.

And then a soft buzzing arose and a green command-glyph sprang to life from the deformed figure that was Beelzebub. It sped up toward Semjaza and, without pause, sank into its head. The milky eyes closed and the six wings beat faster as the message was revealed. Eligor was sure that the Fly’s weapon was gathering itself.

From the heights of the dome a white form descended and hovered before the withered face of the Watcher. Sargatanas, head ablaze and blue ialpor napta held before him, hung on gently beating wings so close to the titan that he might have reached out and touched it with the sword point.

Fearing for his lord, Eligor felt his breath catch in his throat. He could not see whether Sargatanas was speaking to Semjaza or simply showing himself, allowing the sightless Watcher to become aware of him. Whatever the case, the effect was immediate and startling. Semjaza reared backward as if it had been struck, fear unmistakable upon its face. The Watcher remembers its old captors! It hears the language of the Above and the sizzle of the flaming sword and is afraid!

A roar of outraged buzzing rent the air and Beelzebub ascended, spreading and engulfing Sargatanas within himself. In the briefest instant Eligor saw his lord transformed from a thing of potent beauty to a figure ablaze in the center of a fiery maelstrom of flies. Eligor saw, too, the layer of glyph-mail eaten away and the flies beginning to penetrate the white armor. Without thinking, Eligor found himself in a steep dive heading directly toward Sargatanas. But as Eligor drew near and the flaming green flies pulled away, their lethal work done, he saw that there was nothing that could undo the damage that had been inflicted upon the demon. Barely able to stay aloft,