Wayne Barlowe: God's Demon

The Overseers, arms outstretched, repeatedly created their conversion-glyphs with such rapidity that the overall impression of the growing wall was one of a luminous ribbon of twinkling fire, a radiant necklace set upon the dark bosom of Hell.

The Overseers were, under Halphas’ able tutelage, extremely skilled; it took enormous concentration to create, size, and shape the bricks and set them in place quickly, and some of the demons openly competed with their neighbors, racing to complete their sections.

The broad trench filled smoothly and efficiently. Huge gaps were left for the seven massive gates that would be built. Halphas’ calculations were perfection; Sargatanas had said many times that he thought him the best architect in Hell. As a raw material the souls were malleable and—best of all—plentiful. A hundred souls every foot created the beginnings of a wall twenty feet thick and ten feet high—nothing compared to what the finished wall would be, but a start nonetheless.

Eventually, as the numbers of standing souls diminished, the wailing tapered off to be replaced by the low moan of the hot winds. Algol was setting; the long day’s work was done. More souls would be collected, more wall would be created, and eventually this moment would become nothing but a distant memory for demon and brick alike.

When all was done for the day, Sargatanas walked along the fresh foundation for some distance, hands behind his back, inspecting the site. He was smiling broadly. His city would be built, and this ceremony was its harbinger. His elation was unmistakable, and Eligor and the others could not help but be swept up in it.

Eligor watched with growing wonder and enthusiasm as Adamantinarx-upon-the-Acheron rose, layer by layer, like a dark, growing crystal from the fleshy ground. As a moon is to a sun, so was Adamantinarx to the cities of Heaven. Under the guiding hand of Sargatanas, the city’s planners did their best with the materials at hand to emulate the splendor of the Above. Eligor suspected that those similarities in architecture were born merely out of the desire of the demon planners to live as they had and not meant to be a cynical parody of a lost world. At times, as he walked the growing streets, Eligor felt at ease, even at home. But at other moments, moments when the memories of his former life came to him, the dark evocation made him sad.

The great hunts that Sargatanas organized to rid the nearby Wastes of the Abyssal fauna and the Primordial natives would help cheer Eligor at these times. It was impossible for him to not share the wild exhilaration that everyone felt, charging through the chaotic landscape after the fearless wildlife, and he would soon forget his sadness. The indigenous creatures of Hell posed a continuing threat to the construction of Adamantinarx, and it was challenging, even for former angels, to run them down and destroy them.

The city grew quickly and was populated just as quickly. There was no shortage of ready inhabitants. Hell, Eligor thought often, would never have a problem filling its cities. Soon not only demon workers but demons of all description as well as gray, twisted souls by the hundreds of thousands strode the broad avenues dwarfed by the enormous buildings; the only requirement to existing within the city’s boundaries was fealty to Sargatanas’ bidding.

And when Adamantinarx had grown for ten thousand years, the two demons had found themselves together, surveying the great city from one of its lofty towers. Eligor, in a moment of sincere enthusiasm, had turned to Sargatanas and said, “This exile, my lord, has not been nearly as grievous as we had, at first, thought. So much has been achieved!”

Sargatanas looked at him and said, “But Eligor, this is only the beginning of the beginning.”

Sargatanas’ voice, all harmonics and rumbles like the woody intake of some giant pipe organ, had sounded sardonic. Eligor had no reply for his lord. They had spent so much time in Hell already. Eligor would always look back at that small conversation as the moment when the enormity of their banishment—of their shared eternity—crystallized.

Perhaps, Eligor had thought during this early period, this is why there is such frenetic building. Like beasts who groom themselves when confronted with the insoluble, the demons, confronted with the eternity of their damnation, built. What else could they do but attempt to make this place their own? If they had to live in this place forever, they would try to tame it first, make it their own. But he knew that Hell could not be brought to heel. It was a living place, a place with its own will.

Sargatanas went about his tasks with a preternatural intensity that bordered on the obsessive. He never tired of directing the large and small matters of state. It was, Eligor guessed, his way of not thinking about the reality of their situation. He seemed, too, to be preoccupied with the affairs of his neighboring fiefdoms. The lands of his mentor from before the Fall, Lord Astaroth, bordered his largest ward, and this pleased him. Astaroth was old, genial, perhaps a little inept in his governing, and Sargatanas looked with some dismay at his old teacher’s failures. But, in those early days, he posed no threat to Sargatanas or his realm and peace reigned.

Adamantinarx was not dissimilar, in its composition, from many of the cities of Hell; its flagstoned streets ran red with the blood of its souls, its soul-bricks sighed and blinked as one passed them, and its countless low buildings groaned and shuddered like any others in any other infernal city. But it was also the least tortured of Hell’s cities, and its underlying openness was due solely to Sargatanas’ will. Just as Hell’s capital, Dis, was a horrific reflection of its creator, Beelzebub, Adamantinarx seemed, to its demonic inhabitants, as tolerant as its lord. There was a difference, a nobility, to this demon. Eligor could see it, as could any who entered Sargatanas’ court. When he laid the foundations, high atop the center mount, for his many-bastioned palace, he consulted not only with Halphas but also with each of his chief underlings. Eligor saw how this openhandedness affected the court, how it served not only to bring together each demon but also to make them loyal to Sargatanas.

During one such consultation, high atop the windswept crag, Sargatanas had convened a general meeting to discuss the number of tiers the palace would have. The hot, ember-laden wind whipped Halphas’ plans about, making it hard for all to see, and Sargatanas bent down to gather a few rocks to anchor them. When he had arisen, a newcomer had joined the party, having climbed the steep ascent unseen by all. Eligor’s hand went to his sword, as did a half-dozen other demons’.

“Do you not know me?” the shrouded figure asked, putting down a long, narrow box and looking directly at Sargatanas. A long, bony needle pierced the flesh of the newcomer’s hood, holding the heavy folds closed save for a gathered hole left for speech.

Sargatanas was a full head and a half taller than all assembled. It was a habit of his, when confronted or challenged, to fold his arms and straighten up to his imposing full height. The bony plates of his face began to shift subtly while the flame that crowned him grew more brilliant. The gathered demons knew the signs when he grew impatient and each looked at one another with anticipatory relish.

“How can I possibly know you, cloaked as you are? Your sigil is not lit.”

“Surely you must remember me… from before the Fall. My voice, at least, must be familiar.”

And of course, Eligor thought, that was the most absurd thing he had heard in a very long time. No one’s voice had remained the same. The bells of the Above had left their throats long ago, burned away by the fire and the screams. The newcomer was playing a foolish, dangerous game.