God's Demon: Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

They descended into the darkness, silently. As they dropped down, the only light came from the fires guttering atop the Guards' heads, reflected as tiny pinpricks of flame that gleamed back from the innumerable distant gold columns that ringed the space. It took many minutes to fall to the floor and, once there, many more for them to cross the space to the exit, so great was the chamber's size. In the flickering flame-light they could see only portions of the silver-white sigil—his sigil—that was inlaid into the soot-covered floor. Sorrow once again washed over them as they looked at one another.

The party entered the wide corridors, and here the pierced walls allowed enough light from outside to penetrate, creating an irregular patchwork across the floor. Their muffled footsteps echoed around them as they walked away from the Audience Chamber. They did not bother to light the torches that lined the walls, mostly because to do so would reveal even more of the disarray. The sighing wind from outside, they agreed, would have extinguished them anyway.

They picked their way through the palace, stepping around tipped-over cases, torn tapestries, smashed friezes and tiles, and the rich furnishings that had given their lord his little pleasure. All were covered in mounds of ash, which, when kicked up, suffused the hallways with a dense, choking fog.

Eligor was the first to enter the Library and all could hear his sharp intake of breath upon seeing the devastation. He had spent so much of his time there, most of it with his lord. They wended their way through the giant piles of enormous, heavy books pulled from the shelves and left in moldering tumuli. The wind whistled over them, rustling the pages back and forth, blowing ash and bits of parchment in small whirlwinds around them like swirling motes of memories.

Eventually the party split up. One by one each Flying Guardsdemon broke away to descend deeper, on his own, into the palace, seeking their chambers and, perhaps, their lost purpose. Eligor wondered what they must have thought upon reaching their rooms, each finding his own personal chaos.

After clearing away a mound of debris, Eligor entered his own chambers, high atop the main tower, and found them to be ankle deep in ash. His desk, still firmly growing from the floor, was an island in a sea of cinders. His books and papers were barely visible, scattered on the floor by the winds that came freely in through a new and gaping hole in the wall. Oddly, the obsidian-glassed window was intact, banging open and closed in the same hot wind. He pulled it shut and latched it, feeling odd that this was his first act upon entering his personal world. The hole yawned just next to the window and he stood at its verge, his cloaks and folded wings flapping, looking down at the ground so far below. He would begin the reconstruction of his life immediately, fill the hole, clear the floor, tidy the shelves, and set his desk in order. He had a mission now. He had to reveal everything. He had to tell his lord's story.

What Remains - (unpublished - acrylic on Gessoboard) - As much as Hell is a place of unrelenting horror and savagery it is, too, a place of sadness. What else could a being once of Heaven feel than sadness finding itself in such an environment? And what more poignant, precious reminder of its former existence could it possess after its Fall than one of its own charred feathers?

Executing Hell paintings can be an exercise in pacing. After spending months completing very complex, detailed paintings I tend to gravitate towards simpler, more iconic compositions. This serves both to recharge my batteries and to force me to make more concise statements. To me the most difficult part of this painting's concepting was whether or not to add a question mark after the title.

Chapter One

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno. Some impacted far apart, setting up their realms in relative seclusion and safety, while others, less fortunate, found themselves in close proximity, able to see the rising smoke of their neighbor's arrival. These close arrivals began plotting and campaigning as soon as they could gather about them enough minor demons to form a court. The fratricidal wars that erupted lingered for millennia, occasionally flaring up into major conflagrations. These were the volatile times of Settlement and they were never forgotten by the survivors. Many of Lucifer's original Host were lost, but those that remained, the strong and the cunning, established powerful kingdoms that would grow and prosper.

When Eligor Fell he found himself upon a smoking plain cratered with the barely moving bodies of a thousand fallen demons. They lay, as he did, stunned, twisted by their furious descents, and glowing from myriad tiny embers. Eligor had been a foot soldier in the celestial Host, attached to the seraph Sargatanas' legions, and could remember nothing of his final moments Above. Somehow, as he Fell, he had managed to stay near his general's flaming smoke-plume.

SARGATANAS

Sargatanas - (from Barlowe' Inferno, acrylic on ragboard) - A former seraph and now a Brigadier General and Demon Major of enormous power, Sargatanas was a hero in Lucifer's War with Heaven. Since his Fall, he has established himself as one of the few demons capable of rivaling the Prince for control of Hell. GOD'S DEMON is his story.

There's a lot of improvisation in this piece. I wanted to leave some of the organically flowing elements, especially around his metamorphic head, to chance, to let my paintbrush do the thinking, as it were. And I also wanted to let the paint, itself, flow a little more freely to enhance the sense of dynamism this character has always had in my mind. Some have criticized my decision to go in a more "painterly' direction with the Hell pieces. To me it is not only a natural evolution for a painter to become freer and more expressive, but, in this case, the milieu does afford one the perfect opportunity to be a bit more evocative. It's a case of adapting oneself to the subject matter.

Eligor came upon Sargatanas as he stood upon a wind-whipped bluff, unsteady, the steam of his descent wreathing him. Transformed from luminous seraph to Demon Major, he had lost all of his heavenly trappings and none of his dignity. A corona of embers flitted away from his massive head and Eligor saw it form into a great and complicated sigil for the first time. Sargatanas had been one of the fortunate ones, a demon who had Fallen, uncontested, in an infernal region harsh and inhospitable, albeit rich in minerals and perfect for city-building. Glowing milky white upon a flat plain before them, and bending around a tall central mount, oxbowed a slow-flowing river that would be named Acheron. Here, Eligor somehow knew, a great city would rise.

They stood silently, watching the shower of fiery contrails, the paths of slower descents as they approached their new, unwelcoming home. Eligor glanced over at his lord. He saw Sargatanas looking up, beyond the contrails and beyond the clouds, and saw him close his burning eyes.

A great number of demons gathered about Sargatanas as he set about the founding of his city. The earliest, mostly unknown to him, were those who had descended nearby and, after meeting with him, agreed to join his van. Others traveling from afar, more often than not, had known him from before the Fall and wanted to be by his side, perhaps for comfort, in the new world.