God's Demon

of his personal possessions. Swinging upon his back was a large Abyssal-hide pack, filled with everything he would need for a prolonged stay.

His souls had suffered great losses but had, too, attained a stature among the demons that they could have never hoped for before the rebellion. With Beelzebub gone, the souls were in a good position to reach for freedoms unheard of since Hell had been founded. And Hannibal was in a position to ask for power he could never have dreamt of. He would ask for, and take, it all.

His feet led him steadily upward along a path he had never before traveled but which seemed impossibly, disturbingly familiar. The stairs were proportioned for the stride of demons, and he stopped more frequently than he would have desired. Occasionally, as he wended his way up through the Keep, he saw open areas still supported only by beams of splintered bone, empty spaces that were evidence of the Watcher’s explosive passage up through the massive structure. There was no point repairing the damage and so it would stay as it was for hundreds of years, until, bit by bit, the entire structure was torn down.

After hours of ascent, Hannibal found himself at the base of the unadorned tower. It was a foreboding sight. The windowless, tubelike interior shot up into an oppressive darkness lit by very few braziers, the staircase barely seen winding its way toward the top. He sat down on the tall first step and caught his breath, wondering what he would find when he made it to the chamber high above. And for the thousandth time wondering what drove him to this spot. Part of him was grateful for the time alone; many of the souls he had encountered since the battle still eyed him suspiciously for his broken promise, for his acts upon the ramp. He had hoped that with victory would come an understanding among them of his motives. But how could they understand something of which he, himself, was uncertain?

He tightened his pack’s straps, straightened his cloak, and continued the climb. Periodically, the steps disappeared into the shadows and he had to feel his way up the curving stairs, cautious not to come too close to the edge and risk slipping and plunging hundreds of feet to his destruction. After a few hours, sweating and breathing hard, he reached the top landing. A huge door, dimly lit by a single small brazier, stood before him, its surface laced with bone designs. He worriedly looked for a keyhole, fearing that he might have made the arduous journey for naught had the door been locked, but fortune or destiny was on his side. When he twisted the oversized latch, the door reluctantly gave way. He gave it an extra shove with his newly grown arm and it moved easily inward. Foolish to think one would need a lock here. No demon would have made this climb without having been Summoned.

When he entered the wide, round room a hot, sulphurous wind whipped at him, drying the sweat upon his skin and ruffling his cloak. Three wide windows opened out onto a vast panorama of the region surrounding the Keep; it would have been an amazing view of Dis in the days when the capital still stood.

The room’s interior was proportioned for a demon; the spare furnishings—ledges mostly—were too high for Hannibal to sit upon. He placed his pack down and removed his cape, rubbing his shoulders from the strap’s chafing. His new arm—now nearly the proper length—ached less and less and felt very different from his original limb. Its muscles were heavier, denser, and he put this down to its newness and his improved health. Whatever the reason, it seemed almost like a reward for his loss and it pleased him.

Strangely restless, he spotted a pair of rectangular stone structures that rose up, side by side, in the center of the circular room. He moved toward them and noticed the twin runnels that, incised into the darkly stained floor, ran from one side of the chamber and disappeared beneath their bases, clearly some ingenious mechanism for bringing liquid into the troughs. Cages seemed to be visible in the deep shadows. What were they for? he wondered. And whose chambers had these been? He would have to ask some of the imprisoned demons.

He searched the room for clues and found some closed doors. Something kept him from opening them and he moved on, continuing his superficial investigation. There would be time for a more detailed examination, for he had already decided that these would be his quarters while he stayed in the Keep and searched for Imilce. With the Keep coming down his chances of finding her were, at best, fair. But he would try, if for no other reason than to tell her what he had done here in Hell. Between the unparalleled view and the welcome isolation he would endure the climb to occupy them. And anyone who had important news could make the climb themselves to convey it.

His eyes fell upon his pack and he went to it and, kneeling, emptied it out upon the floor. A large object, heavily wrapped, tumbled out with a dull thud and he began to tug at its wrappings until it came free. He started to reach for it with his old hand but changed his mind in midstream. It was too heavy to pick up with that weaker limb and he corrected himself, grasping it with his new hand by its thick handle and lifting it easily to eye level. The Hook looked right in this place, its ten diamond-edged points gleaming menacingly in the low light. Catching a glimpse of the troughs, Hannibal nodded to himself and carried the weapon to them. With some difficulty, he placed it into one of the deep troughs and stood back. It fit perfectly, but something was wrong. He looked at the runnels and frowned; that was a mystery he would have to work out.

Exhaustion finally overtook him and he reclined upon a ledge. As he closed his eyes he thought about Div and La and the other souls he had once known in his existence as a slave and reflected on his amazing rise. It had all been his doing; no one else had been ambitious enough to attempt what he had done; he owed no one. But best of all, in his new chambers, he knew he was where he should be. And he was, for the time being, content.

* * * * *

The little tools were much too delicate and easily lost to be brought in her packs; they would have to be left behind for when she returned. When I return. That is a very odd thought. How many millennia will I be away? I have no idea, nor do I have any true notion of where I’m going. She put the tiny chisel down on the table, alongside its fellow tools. Lilith wondered, as she had for weeks, whether her departure from Adamantinarx was madness, whether her goals were as unclear as they seemed. She only knew that, with Sargatanas gone, she had no real reason to remain in a half-destroyed city. As the region’s new governor, Satanachia, was more than capable of administering to the rebuilding process. Someday, when she returned, she would find a beautiful city where souls and demons lived together in some form of equality. That was the dream. Her dream.

She would head out toward the Margins, bringing her tenets of hope to those souls in the smaller, remote cities who knew nothing of the rebellion. She knew that it was a dangerous mission, but she thought that, for the time being, it would take her mind off recent events. She was not bitter, simply tired, and the traveling might rehabilitate her. Hell was an unpredictable place, and as resourceful as she was, she would face its many hazards as a challenge. But she would not be completely unprepared.

She slid the long lid from a plain silver case that Eligor had brought to her and saw, lying upon the finest, iridescent Abyssal skin, Sargatanas’ sword, Lukiftias-pe-Ripesol. The tempering that had brought its souls together was impossible to break, and so a sword it would stay. In Sargatanas’ hand it had been light and deadly, but in hers it would be a two-handed weapon. While she was not so proficient in the Art Martial —what little she knew she had learned had been with Sargatanas—Lilith was comforted just knowing that it was coming with her. And she suspected there would be more than ample opportunity to work on the craft in the Wastes. She kept the sword wrapped in its skins and tied it to the outside of her pack, easily accessible but not obvious.

A rustling in the next room brought a smile to her face. The miracle of Sargatanas’ Passage had brought Ardat back to Lilith, and there was nothing short of destruction that would separate them ever again. Ardat appeared in the doorway wearing the skins Lilith had once worn, and her heart was filled with warmth for the handmaiden. It seemed Lilith’s world never stopped changing around her.

“Mistress, I have prepared your skins. Are you finished here?”

Lilith looked around her chambers, making sure everything was in order; she did not want to unseal them when she returned and find them in disarray. Her eyes fell back upon her small worktable and the two figures that stood upon it. One was the small bone figurine of herself, taken from the dome by Eligor. It was relatively crude—an example of her earliest work, executed before she had found her voice as a sculptor. Next to it was a piece she had only just finished, a representation of Sargatanas fashioned of many pieces of the purest white Abyssal bone that she had begun back in Dis. It was intricate and yet strong, a work of subtlety, grace, and power reflecting, she thought, all of his attributes, and she regarded it as her very best sculpture. Originally, she had planned to keep them together, but on impulse she picked them up, carefully wound a scrap of skin around them, and placed them in an outside pocket of her pack. She hoped Eligor would like them.

“Yes, Ardat, I am.”