Wayne Barlowe - God's Demon

At its center, dominating the Plain of Dis, was Beelzebub’s Keep, a structure nearly two miles high that looked all the more lofty for the flatness of the surrounding terrain. Mulciber’s Miracle, some called it. Eligor thought it the perfect symbol of its owner—overblown beyond any reality. It rose improbably toward the cloudy sky, an archiorganic mountain, polyhedral in plan with each side slanting, flat, and smooth save for the gigantic sustaining organs that broke the surfaces. The thick, heavy mantle of flesh on its upper surface was cleft by numerous black spires and domes, one of which, far to the right of the famed Rotunda dome—the Black Dome—was alight. Piercing its narrowest section was an immense arch through which flowed a lava stream—part of the glowing moat that encircled the entire artificial mount. At the base of that arch was the great portal that led into the Keep from a single gargantuan bridge. Eligor knew from the past that this was their immediate destination. Once there they were to be met by one of Prime Minister Agares’ secretaries, who would guide them through the vertical labyrinth that was the Keep’s interior.

Eligor trod heavily through the streets. He wondered, hopefully, when Sargatanas would tire of the endless rows of sullen buildings, when they would again take wing and truncate the unpleasant journey to the base of the citadel. Both of his companions were silent, each bearing an expression of distaste, Eligor suspected, for their surroundings.

Valefar guessed his line of thought. “When I left here,” he offered, “I wished I would never return. And now I am back, wishing precisely the same thing. Perhaps, in the future, I should wish for the opposite and see what happens.” He laughed, but Eligor felt the strain. He knew, from experience, not to ask the Prime Minister under what circumstances he had left Dis. No one, with the possible exception of his lord, knew that story.

Eligor nodded. He, too, had made a similar wish. “Will the Prince recognize you?”

“I was never important enough for him to know of when I was here. I doubt that he would.”

“Just as well,” Eligor said with conviction.

The buildings on the city’s edge were low, leaning, and dried-blood red. Created eons ago from slabbed and chunked souls, topped by ruffling tufts of hair, they looked hollow eyed with their gaping windows. Half-attached souls protruding from walls or roofs flailed their arms spastically as the demons passed, uttering garbled sounds from afflicted throats. While Adamantinarx’s single-soul buildings were used for the same purposes, as solitary places of punishment, their equivalents in Dis were almost primitive in their crudity; they were considerably older and built in a time when the process was not yet perfected. Eligor recognized the various forms of the dwellings, noting that they reflected the earliest types of buildings that humanity had constructed.

He looked into a few open windows as they passed. The buildings’ inhabitants, melded to wall or floor in their personal punishments, were not too dissimilar from their counterparts in his own city. These were the unusually corrupt and depraved, those who deserved special attention. Seated, standing, or hanging, they rolled their eyes frantically, silently, the racking pain obvious in their minimal movements. That much, he thought, was familiar. But that familiarity brought him little comfort.

As the party descended toward the distant Keep, the avenue grew more populous. Souls kept mostly to the sides, huddled against the buildings. Small contingents of Beelzebub’s troops passed them, and even though Sargatanas was an obvious, imposing presence, the soldiers never once acknowledged him. Instead they respectfully gave him wide berth, eyes averted. This was the way of the capital, a city so much under the heel of the Prince of Hell that obeisance to any other Demon Major might be construed as disloyalty.

Only a squadron of Order Knights, swathed in scarlet-dyed skin, looked directly at the trio, and Eligor could feel something—was it arrogance?—pouring from their hidden eyes.

Suddenly a piercing wail rent the sky, an ululating scream so anguished that Eligor stiffened when he heard it.

Valefar turned back and wordlessly grinned at him even while the prolonged sound continued. It was a reassuring gesture, but Eligor remained wide-eyed. He had been to Dis many times but had never gotten used to the unpredictable Cry of Semjaza. According to common knowledge, this giant Watcher, whom few had ever seen, was one of only a very few survivors of a Fall that predated the War. Like its brethren it was flung down into Hell and shackled so as never to rise again. The anguish of Semjaza, imprisoned deep beneath the Keep, was extreme, its torment unending. Days, weeks, or years might pass without a sound emanating from its hidden chamber, but when Semjaza did give voice all of Dis reverberated.

Sargatanas strode on, outwardly oblivious to all around him. But the small bone plates of his face were ceaselessly shifting, agitated and angry.

“By now, my friends, you must be wondering why we walk these streets rather than take wing.” He paused. “It serves to remind me. Hell is punishment. Punishment is why we are here. Ours and theirs,” he said, nodding toward some souls. “But I see no reason to surround myself with filth and decay in Adamantinarx. We are on foot because we three must remember the differences between our own city and nearly every other city in Hell. Especially this city. Too many centuries have passed since we were last here. I, for one, had lost touch with the place, with its character. That character is a reflection of the demons in charge. It says as much about them as it does about us.”

Valefar suddenly looked puzzled. “Does it, my lord? I ask because I do think, after all these centuries, Eligor is warming to this place. Just last month he told me that he missed his trips here. He said that he really could not wait to come back.”

Eligor’s mouth opened.

“Perhaps we should make this an annual pilgrimage then, eh, Eligor?” Sargatanas said earnestly.

Eligor was so surprised that the most he could do was vehemently shake his head. Sargatanas and Valefar looked at each other and smiled.

The streets around them broadened, though the conditions in them hardly-improved. Monumental statues commemorating the fallen heroes of the War rose from ornate pedestals too thickly, Eligor thought, to connote anything more than insecurity and forced patriotism. They entered a district of larger, more imposing buildings. These were part of the mayoral complex of this ward, and hanging high above them was the unfamiliar aerial sigil, Valefar told them, of the general Moloch.

“He is never in residence at these palaces; he favors the Keep,” Valefar said, and added, “so that he can be at his master’s feet at all times.”

“Bitter, Valefar?” asked Sargatanas.

“No, my lord, simply aware.”

“I think it is time for us to take flight and meet the Prime Minister. I am feeling well enough grounded in this place.”

They opened their wings and in moments were flying over the city. Eligor was grateful to be up and out of the streets. The hot air was refreshing compared to the clammy, close air of the city.

Hours later, as they drew close to the Keep, Eligor could see activity; the sky was filled with demons swarming around the towers and spires, while in the flat courtyards other administrative clerks and court functionaries bustled to and fro.

The three demons dipped down, sweeping low over the wide, incandescent lava moat known as Lucifer’s Belt. It was an artificial defense, and Eligor saw the open mouths of the conduits lining the far embankment that carried the magma up from the depths and poured it into the surrounding channel. Mulciber’s genius again. Eligor could feel the shimmering heat when they landed at the foot of the Keep, and it barely diminished as they climbed the long steps to the gate itself.