Wayne Barlowe: God's Demon

“Did you use an Art Martial to kill it?” asked Eligor, who found this mysterious figure more fascinating by the moment.

“That would not have been acceptable,” said Faraii. “The tribes are neither demon nor soul but, as you know, were here before us. They live an austere life out there, and rely on nothing but their cunning and traditional skills to combat the elements. As a sign of respect to their culture, I killed it with their simplest weapon—a heavy sling.”

Valefar hefted the weapon for a moment, then handed it back to Faraii.

“If you like, Captain Eligor, at some future time I will show you some of the traditional fighting forms that the tribespeople taught me,” Faraii said, shoving the sword back into his bundle.

“I would very much like that, Baron.”

They walked through one of the axial arcades that led out of the palace complex and exited out onto the center mount’s parade ground. The ragged clouds had parted and a high-altitude firestorm burnished the city’s tiny buildings below a coppery orange. They continued around to the court residences. These massive plain-facaded buildings were set into the mountainside, their large quartz-glazed windows commanding an unobstructed view of Adamantinarx.

Unlike the palace, the residences were constructed of massive soul-blocks, each one comprised of at least fifty compacted souls. They had been intentionally finished and laid down so that their many eyes were exposed, blinking constantly in the ashy wind.

Eligor and Valefar left Faraii at the entrance to his suite of rooms. He bowed slightly but did not say any words of thanks as they turned away. It was, Eligor was sure, simply his way.

She lay naked, facedown on her bed upon a pile of bleached skin covers, their tangy odor filling her nostrils. She was as white as the clouds Above, and the soft curves of her undulating body, the smooth angles of her shoulders as they swept into her back and on to the rounded rise of her buttocks, were a landscape of undiluted sensuality. She glistened in the half-light, tiny stars of perspiration forming on her pale skin from the slow, half-conscious gathering movements of her hips.

Eyes closed, she clutched the skins with strong, trembling hands and ground herself into the bed, filling the room with her soft gasps. Her nails tore through the blankets, scraping on the pallet beneath as her movements became more urgent, her gasps became cries. And when she had finished she rolled slowly over, cloud-white breasts rising and falling, as she tried to focus on the barely discernible patterns on the ceiling of her world.

She had once been given a true world of her own, but that had ended badly and this, this was anything but what she had had in mind. Six rooms sheathed in flattened and polished bone with only one door and no windows. It was her world, which was situated in the center of his, its, world. Which was all of Hell.

She had had many names to many peoples, but with the passage of eons she had come to think of herself as Lilith. Especially because her lord had difficulty enunciating it. A tiny victory, perhaps, but even the smallest gesture helped her swallow her unending disgust with finding herself bound for eternity to the Fly. She shuddered and shook her head violently, trying futilely to clear it of unpleasant memories. It was her special punishment, no matter where she existed, to belong to another. She accepted it because she had no other choice, but her soul rebelled at the reality of it.

Lilith heard a rustling in the next room. It was, she knew, Ardat Lili, her devoted handmaiden, removing her traveling Abyssal-skins after her long journey back from Adamantinarx. She had been away for some time, but it had been an opportunity not to be missed. Lilith swung her body upright and dropped one of her feet to the floor. The four thick claws, stained reddish-brown from blood, scraped on the tiles.

Will I ever get used to seeing them? Despite the changes to her feet, she had, she knew, been more than lucky when she Fell. Her body had been unscathed; even her heart—the only one in Hell—was left within her. She sometimes felt, though, that that might have been her worst punishment. No one should have to have a heart in Hell. Perhaps Lucifer had done it somehow, to preserve her when he had thought she would be by his side. She did not know.

“Ardat Lili?” said Lilith, standing. Her nude white body, voluptuous in its curves, almost disappeared against the whiteness of the room.

“Yes, my lady,” came the reply from behind the closed door.

“Come in and tell me how you fared. Did we manage to put a few of them into good hands?”

The handmaiden entered, still removing her outer garments. Ash fell from the folds onto the white floor, and she looked down in dismay.

“Yes, my lady. That city is so different from ours… so much easier to walk about in. All of them are gone. Each and every little statue,” Ardat Lili said enthusiastically. She knelt and began to neatly pile the ash. “One soul looked at his and even said that he thought it was you. He said that he’d seen you; can you imagine that?”

“Yes, I can,” Lilith said, softly drawing on a robe. She walked over to a small bone table. Upon it were some carving tools and a half-finished bone statuette. The resemblance to its maker was uncanny; even the clawed feet were perfect in their detail.

Ardat Lili had mounded up a handful of the black ash and was sweeping it into the hem of her skin skirt.

Lilith picked up a small chisel, blowing bone dust off its tip. “That would be a hundred or so that we have sent out into the population, true?” she said, rolling the tool absently between her long fingers.

“Yes, Mistress, one hundred and fifteen tiny missionaries.”

“And neither Lord Agaliarept nor Chancellor Adramalik knows anything about them, right?”

Ardat Lili looked up, nearly spilling the ash. “I have been so careful. You know how much I love you, my lady, how long I have been by your side. I would be destroyed before they would find out!”

“I do know. And I love you as well. You know that. I am just nervous every time you go out. The slightest things make those two suspicious. And one never wants to be the object of their suspicion,” Lilith said with conviction. She turned to the polished bone wall—the source of her raw materials—and looked for a moment at it. There were small pits scattered upon its surface. She ran her hand across it, and then she tapped on a particular subtle twist of bone and said to herself, “This bit would make a fine figure. Larger than most. I must remember this.” And with the tip of the tool she etched a small glyph upon the surface.

She turned back to Ardat Lili. The slim handmaiden had done her best to clean the ash. Lilith smiled as she watched her leave the room.

Lilith sat down and began carving the half-finished piece. With clever fingers wielding a variety of tools, she peeled away the harder striations of bone, refining the likeness, smoothing and then polishing the gleaming surface. When the little idol was done she put the tools aside and sat back for a moment turning it in her hand. She never varied the poses from one piece to the next but kept them iconic, like altarpieces. She put it down and closed her eyes, and as she did a tiny fiery sigil appeared—the secret sigil that she had devised for herself, for, not being a demon, she had not received one when she Fell. It lingered for a moment and then she willed it onto the sculpture’s surface, where it sank slowly within. It was her signature, but more than that, it was her message.

Lilith opened her red eyes, satisfied, as she looked at the piece. “My message,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “Will you ever find the right soul?”