John Connolly - The Infernals aka Hell's Bells

“Which was?”

“Someone emerged from the shadows, and it was Duke Abigor. He congratulated Chancellor Ozymuth on how well he was doing in keeping you away from the Great Malevolence, and on telling our master what a bad sort you are. Completely unjustified, I hasten to add. I mean, you are a bad sort, but in the best possible way. Then Duke Abigor slipped away, and having nothing better to do than a bit more oozing, I followed him deep underground, until we came to a meeting room, and they were all there waiting for him.”

“Who was waiting?”

“Most of the Grand Dukes of Hell. They were sitting at a big table, and Duke Abigor joined them at the head of it. They started talking about you. Funny thing is, ma’am, they’re back there again now. Just thought you might like to know. I was hopeful about it, you might say…”

Duke Abigor looked very unimpressed, a not inconsiderable achievement given that his standard expression veered toward the unimpressed, even when he was impressed, which wasn’t very often.

“Tell me again,” he said as Duke Duscias quivered before him.

“She has found a way to reach out to the world of men,” said Duscias. “She pulled something from their world into ours, and now she seeks it.”

Duke Abigor was no fool. You didn’t end up with sixty legions of demons at your command by being a dolt. Duscias, on the other hand, was a fool, but he was Abigor’s fool, and so Duscias’s twenty-nine legions were, to all intents and purposes, also under Abigor’s command.

“It’s the boy,” said Abigor. “That is the only reason why she would risk opening up a portal without the knowledge of our master. If she has the boy, she can present him to the Great Malevolence for his amusement, and she will be back at his left hand. Our chance to rule will vanish, and she will move against us.”

“But how?” said Duscias. “She cannot know of our plot. We have kept ourselves well hidden.”

“Because, you idiot, someone will tell her. If she finds a way to worm herself back into our master’s trust, then demons will be falling over themselves to betray us if it increases their chances of a promotion.”

Other figures began to file into the meeting room, their heads hidden by great black hoods that they let fall to reveal their faces: Duke Guares, commander of thirty legions; Duke Docer, commander of thirty-six legions; Duke Peros, also commander of thirty-six legions; and Duke Borym, commander of twenty-six legions. These were the ringleaders, the ones who had staked their reputations, and a potential eternity of pain if they failed, on Duke Abigor’s ability to convince the Great Malevolence that he should take over from Mrs. Abernathy as the Commander of the Infernal Armies. The problem for all concerned was that Mrs. Abernathy had not technically been relieved of her post, since the Great Malevolence had simply refused to see her and was still lost in the madness of his grief. Therefore the dukes were engaged in an act of treason against not only their own general, but against the Great Malevolence himself.

“We should have arrested her long before now,” said Duke Docer, once the situation had been explained to him. “We left her in peace, and the result is that she has outmaneuvered us.”

“We couldn’t have arrested her,” said Duke Abigor with as much patience as he could muster. Duke Docer was a soldier, and without cunning. He had won every battle in which he had fought by charging forward and overwhelming his foes by sheer might, and now he spent most of his time looking for new foes so that he wouldn’t get bored, even if it meant alienating allies to do so. 28He wouldn’t have known a strategy if it bit him. “There are too many that we have not yet brought over to our side.”

“But the hordes of Hell have no love for her either,” said Duke Peros. “Most would be glad if she were gone.”

“They may not care for her, but they care as little for me,” said Duke Abigor. “They may fear her, and hate her, but she is a force that they know and understand. I am an unknown quantity, as are we all.”

“We are more than two hundred legions strong,” said Duke Docer. “That is all they need to know and understand.”

“It is not enough!” said Duke Abigor. “We will not go to war unless we are certain of victory, and we do not know which side the Great Malevolence will support once he emerges from his mourning. If we misstep, then we are in danger of being perceived as traitors, and I do not need to remind you what the punishment is for such a betrayal.”

At this the dukes were silent. They had all seen Cocytus, the great lake of ice far to the north in which traitors were kept frozen for eternity. If they were lucky, their heads might be permitted to protrude from the ice, but as traitors not only to the kingdom but also to their master, the Great Malevolence, it was more likely that they would be entirely immersed in the cold and darkness, not a fate any of them desired.

“But the Great Malevolence is…” Duke Guares searched for the right words, and settled on, “not well. He may never cease his mourning. What then? Do we let this kingdom that we have hewn from rock and fire fall into decay and strife?”

Duke Abigor eyed Duke Guares warily. Guares was almost as clever as Abigor, and Abigor sometimes wondered if Guares had already guessed Abigor’s larger plan. It was true that the Great Malevolence seemed lost to them, but Guares and the others hoped each day that he might recover what passed for his sanity and resume his rule over Hell. Only Abigor wanted the Great Malevolence to remain immersed in his sorrow and his anger. Moreover Abigor wanted that sorrow and anger to grow so much deeper that the Great Malevolence would descend into a fateful madness from which he would never emerge. This was why Abigor had enlisted Chancellor Ozymuth to their cause, for Ozymuth ensured that the Great Malevolence was cut off from all contact with other demons, and Ozymuth whispered in the Great Malevolence’s ear that all was lost, lost forever, and it was Mrs. Abernathy’s fault that this was so.

“We will track down the boy, Samuel Johnson, before she does,” said Duke Abigor. “We will find him, and we will lock him away where no one will ever discover him, and deny all knowledge of his whereabouts. Her last hope of earning back her place at our master’s left hand will be gone, and we will be able to claim that she is no longer suited to command the Infernal Armies, and a temporary replacement should be appointed as a matter of urgency until our master has found his wits again. You will all put my name forward as the most suitable candidate, and our opponents will have no time to muster a response. If they try to do so, we will wipe them out.”

“And Mrs. Abernathy?” said Duke Guares.

Duke Abigor smiled, but such an unpleasant smile that he still looked like an unimpressed demon, albeit one who has just been presented with a head on a plate, and who really likes heads.

“Is she not a traitor? A traitor for failing to achieve the victory we sought in the world of men, a traitor for bringing the boy who caused our defeat to this realm, our realm, and then losing him? She will be tried, and found guilty. We will take her to Cocytus, and we will chain a rock around her neck, and we will throw her through the ice. Let her be frozen forever as a warning to those who would promise us new worlds, and then disappoint.”

Duke Abigor looked to his co-conspirators, and each of them in turn nodded his agreement. Then one by one they filed from the meeting room, Duke Abigor the last to leave, until all was quiet again.

The silence was disturbed by a soft glop.

“Beg pardon,” said Crudford. “I oozed.”

“Clean yourself up,” said Mrs. Abernathy. She had seen and heard everything, crouched behind a crack in the rock wall. The expression on her face was unreadable, but Crudford, who was sensitive to emotions, detected fear, and surprise, and disappointment.