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  They descended from the gate into the rough terrain that bordered the city. Much of it was covered with thick veins and arteries that fed the city, burrowing down under the city’s wall and rising up again from beneath the streets to snake upward, crisscrossing the facades of the archiorganic buildings. It brought the yellowish lymph-fluids that kept the bricks of the buildings, as well as the organs that provided other functions, supple in the searing heat.

  As they marched, the veins became less prominent and the countryside subsided into its characteristic gray-olive layered sheets of flesh. Huge, swaying arterial trees would spring up farther out, tough survivors that relieved the barrenness of the horizon but offered little shelter. Prominences and karsts of native stones rose, jagged, tearing up from beneath both the black matrix and the laminate of skin sheets that overlaid it. Eligor saw rookeries of many-headed winged Abyssals dotting the prominences’ upper surfaces and could hear their distant shrieks, even above the wail of the wind, as the caravan passed.

  In contrast to himself, Sargatanas sat swaying upon his steed, relaxed, swathed in his skins, reading some thick tome he had snatched from the Library. Of all the party he was the least affected by the landscape of Hell. And why should he care? thought Eligor a little enviously. There is very little here that can harm him.

  The soul-beasts’ heavy padding footfalls blended together with the rhythmic jingling of the creatures’ harnesses. When Adamantinarx had dwindled to little more than a glow on the dark horizon and then to nothing at all, the caravan picked up a flock of skewers. They dropped in from the dark clouded sky and hovered a hundred feet above, circling and diving. These opportunistic flyers were common travel companions that usually kept their distance, only swooping in on membranous wings when they sensed that someone might be in distress. Eligor, like most demons, knew he would tolerate them until they became either too annoying or too aggressive, whereupon, with simple glyph-darts, they would then become challenging targets to while away the tedium.

  Despite the sometimes difficult terrain, the soul-steeds kept up a steady, quick pace, and Eligor marveled at how those on foot kept up. Occasionally he would twist around in his saddle to watch them as they picked their way between the folds, pocks, and fissures that blemished the ground. He reasoned that apprehension kept their steps quick and constant.

  Three days of travel found them nearly to the Flaming Cut, a massive lava flow that cleft the mountains and signaled a change in the landscape. The air grew thicker and smelled burnt. Through the smoke and heat-haze the Cut looked surreal, like a column of fire that reached into the sky. Around them the fleshy ground had given way to ugly clumps of convoluted, hardened lava, which assumed bizarre and unimaginable forms. Eligor liked this region even less than the oppressive flesh-fields. Why did Sargatanas and Valefar not simply fly to Dis? I could have remained in Adamantinarx and kept an eye on security. And then he remembered that Sargatanas specifically wanted him to go, and speculated that perhaps his lord, like the mentor that he was, felt he needed the perspective, needed to be reminded of the darkness of Dis and Hell’s monarch in contrast to life in Adamantinarx. Eligor did not agree; the simple thought of going to Dis was reminder enough.

  Into the third week of their journey the caravan marched past the famed twin cities known as the Molars of Leviathan, and set up camp on an outcrop. The Demons Major needed neither sleep nor food, but the soul-steeds were fatigued, as were the lesser demons. Eligor, only slightly weary, walked to the edge of the cliff. The cities were situated at the foot of a mountain, built into a vast pocket cut in its side. There one city hung above the other, each mirroring its twin in size and shape. They were both in an advanced state of construction, and the scaffolding from each, barely visible from this distance, nearly touched. Surely, Eligor thought, the workers at the apex of each city’s scaffolds could even pass one another their tools, and yet Valefar said it was forbidden. Since the cities’ founding eons ago they had become terrible rivals and it had been decided that neither city could have any exchange with the other; nothing was to aid either in their progress. As Eligor knew, when both cities reached completion, great destructive bolts of lightning would flicker between them and then the roof of the mountainside pocket would descend to the rise below, grinding the city and its countless inhabitants beneath as if between unthinkably massive jaws. And then, when the ceiling had lifted and the dust had cleared, the construction would begin anew. This event seemed not to be too far off, but Eligor would not be present to witness it. Their trip was too important to linger, and he regretted that he would miss the catastrophe. Perhaps on another trip, he thought with a ripple of misery.

  Algol had just finished its monthly circuit and the party began to describe its long arc to skirt the Plain of Nagrasagriel, home of the numberless and legendary Soul Puppeteers. This was Eligor’s first visit to the Plain, and that may have been why his lord chose the route; prior journeys to Dis had used other passages. It was widely known that Sargatanas enjoyed the exploration of Hell, especially on foot, feeling that every bit that he learned firsthand about the Inferno might prove useful someday. On the other side of this field of creatures, Eligor was told, lay the final marches to the capital, but he remembered that on foot the region’s circumnavigation would take another three weeks. To achieve a variety of goals, his lord had determined how long he wished to be traveling, the urgency of the mission notwithstanding. And this spectacle was something he wanted his pupil to see.

  Eligor heard them before he clearly saw them. The din of the Soul Puppeteers, the Sag-hrim, was an exoskeletal symphony of percussions, a sound so jarring that it set Eligor’s nerves on edge. The closer they approached, the more unbearable the sound became.

  Sargatanas sidled up his soul-beast next to Eligor’s.

  “They are amazing,” Sargatanas shouted, reading Eligor’s expression. “They are as old as Hell itself. When Beelzebub discovered them he knew at once what he could use them for. He tinkered with them, adjusted their minds to focus upon humanity, and then set them upon their Task. Do you know what it is that they do, Eligor? What that Task might be?”

  “No, my lord. I have heard rumors that they have something to do with humans, before they arrive here.”

  “That is true. The Sag-hrim have the ability to connect with them and, more important, to influence them. Humans are flawed, weak; they only need that extra push to enable them to choose the path that leads here. The Sag-hrim provide that… incentive.”

  “How?”

  “Trained attendants, Psychemancers, conjure a single human’s psyche and then guide the Sag-hrim according to Beelzebub’s plans. Each individual creature is equipped with manipulators—those long fingers that you can see—that can alter the abstract design that represents that psyche. These designs encompass an entire lifetime. Every human has one, or really two—one that is spiritual and one that is physical. Both are represented and both can be altered.

  When you look closely, the spiritual design is the glowing tracery; the physical is the floating collection of boneshards. All psyches are subtly different from one another, some tougher than others. At first they may seem perfect, but there is almost always a flaw. Once found, that flaw in the design is pulled, twisted, severed, or even added to, and the Sag-hrim achieves its goal. When they have succeeded with a soul they discard the psyche’s physical shards onto the pile they sit upon. And then, eventually, that soul arrives in Hell. But remember, Eligor, the humans are not being forced; they are being tempted. That is much harder. And much more satisfying to us, for they cannot blame anyone but themselves for being here.”

  Sargatanas looked out at the Plain for some moments and then slowly shook his fiery head. “One has to admit that it was brilliant to see the potential in the Sag-hrim, that it was genius to exploit them so well.”

  Eligor looked at Sargatanas, surprised at the admiration in his booming voice, at the expansive credit he was giving Beelzebub. He looked back at the creatures. He had not
noticed the relatively frail Psychemancers before. They seemed roughly his own height but were dwarfed by their charges. Seated, the seemingly headless Sag-hrim appeared to be nearly six times his height, covered in chitinous armor with odd organs bulging from their swaying torsos and massive multifingered arms swinging slowly as they performed their tasks. Hanging in the air before them were the glowing psyches, and Eligor watched carefully as the creatures pulled and adjusted and wove the designs with their wandlike fingers and flickering ribbons of fire. It was fascinating to watch, nearly hypnotic, and even more wondrous when Eligor thought about what they were achieving. These Sag-hrim, so distant from their human subjects, were actually coaxing them, tempting them to sin. From the smallest sins to the largest. Entire patterns of human culture were shifted, wars were begun, atrocities committed, murders, rapes—human evil in all its manifold forms—all because of the machinations of these beings. And all according to the grand strategy of Beelzebub. It was almost more than Eligor could grasp.

  “It almost seems unfair. I mean, with humans as frail as they are. Who among them could withstand these?” Eligor said almost to himself.

  “Not many,” Sargatanas agreed. “Not many at all.” He turned away and Eligor, gaze fixed on the Sag-hrim, only barely heard him walk off.

  Eligor would study them for as long as the caravan halted; he knew it might be some time before he passed this way again. So absorbed was he, so in awe, that he was surprised to turn away eventually and see Sargatanas and Valefar deep in conversation with a winged newcomer.

  Eligor approached them and recognized the messenger. He was a lesser demon of the Flying Guard named Murup-i, a good lance-wing as Eligor remembered. Murup-i knelt before his lord, undoubtedly grateful for the brief rest; his flight from Adamantinarx had to have been long and arduous.

  “Eligor,” Sargatanas shouted over the cacophony of the working Sag-hrim, “your centurion here has been sent on Zoray’s urgings. It seems that, while we have been away, our old friend Astaroth has finally summoned enough courage to mobilize very nearly all of his troops and he has started to send them toward our border. Zoray says that they are establishing huge camps but not actually crossing into our wards yet. Valefar and I have agreed that we three should abandon the caravan and make all speed to Dis.”

  Eligor nodded and stole a glance at the others in the party. Without the Demons Major their survival was suddenly in question, but this was his lord’s order and Eligor supposed the travelers would have to take their chances. As he watched them, they got to their feet, sensing, perhaps, that something had changed.

  “It looks like the old fellow has finally run out of bricks,” said Valefar, smiling.

  “And options. So now he looks to us for more. Not very grateful, is he?” said Sargatanas.

  “We should never have bothered to help him,” ventured Eligor.

  “We do what we are told,” said Valefar. “That is why we are heading to Dis.”

  Eligor stretched his wings; they were stiff from inactivity and he flexed them to work the muscles. He slung his packs and watched as the two Demons Major, whose wings were only just beginning to appear, readied themselves, donning flight skins. Theirs was a complete transformation; unlike Eligor, they no longer possessed functional wings after the Fall and had to manufacture them from tissue and bone. It was a drastic process, and after their bodies had attenuated and flattened and enormous scarlet wings and spines had fanned out they bore little resemblance to their former selves. Only their faces, which peered out from within hoods of flesh, remained untouched. Another miracle associated with Demons Major, thought Eligor. How amazing it must be to have that kind of power.

  They arose into the air in unison and Eligor watched the caravan shrink beneath him. The Guard would undoubtedly see them through to Dis; of that he was reasonably sure. As the demons gained altitude, he looked down over the Plain at the dark mosaic of the Sag-hrim, their flickering adjustments to the fate of mankind twinkling now like the stars of the Above and yet as unlike them as they could be.

  Eligor looked ahead of Sargatanas and, through the ragged clouds, could just see an orange glow upon the horizon that he knew was the fires of Dis.

  Chapter Eight

  DIS

  Adramalik watched the white figure pick its way across the Rotunda floor toward the empty throne. She was still some distance off, and, as she approached, she faded from view behind the irregular clumped piles of flesh and bones that dotted the floor. Her pure white body, undraped the way Beelzebub insisted, contrasted starkly with the deep reds of the surroundings. She stepped so lightly upon her bloodstained bird-feet that she avoided touching any of the disarticulated bones that littered the floor.

  He wanted her just as did nearly all the demons of the court. As a sexual plaything, as a possession. She was, he thought, at turns beautiful and terrifying, sensuous and cold, fragile and strong, and, perhaps, because of these intimidating, unfathomable contradictions, almost irresistible. But, like all the demons, Adramalik knew what the penalty would be if Beelzebub even thought there was any competition. His paranoia was matched only by his wrath.

  The buzzing started as she drew nearer.

  Adramalik did not bother to look for the origin of the sound. He knew from past experience that this was futile; even if he could pierce the gloom, the sound’s pervasiveness told him that there was no single point of its origin. His master was up there, he knew. Up there amidst the densely packed hanging skins and floating chunks of meat, watching Adramalik and Lilith as she crossed the Rotunda. Navigating the moist columns and islands of rotten flesh was slow work.

  The buzzing grew more intense, more localized. Now, if he concentrated, Adramalik was sure he could see movement, see them take wing, the first of the tens of thousands of flies that he knew were coming. He had long ago grown used to Beelzebub’s entrances. But in that Adramalik was somewhat unique.

  Lilith was close; he could see the red sclera of her eyes, the tiny nostrils, the thick, tight curls of her snowy mane. And, brought on perhaps by the stagnant, hot air, the thin sheen of perspiration that glazed her perfectly sculpted body.

  Above them a wavering dark cloud of flies was growing and coalescing, rotating like a slow tornado in the debris-laden air. The buzzing rose and fell arrhythmically, an insectile threnody that almost sounded like words. Beelzebub’s Voice never failed to bring a crooked smile to Adramalik’s hard features.

  He thought of it as a miracle, a miracle that only Lucifer could explain, for solid rumor had it that it had been he who had created Beelzebub. Adramalik had heard that Lucifer, just before the War, had wanted a fearless and unquestioning lieutenant, a being so different from his angels as to answer to none but himself. Secretly, and against the will of the Throne, he had created such a being, had dipped into the stuff of the Above and imbued the motes he found there with a loyal soul. It was not called Beelzebub then; no one but Lucifer knew its original name, and that was now lost.

  After the Fall and after Lucifer’s disappearance, Beelzebub, in a hate-filled rage, had crushed those original motes that were himself into rapacious flies. Upon them he impressed grotesque caricatures of the faces of those seraphim still in the Above. His transformation was a grand gesture of self-mutilation, an event so incomprehensible that Demons Major still spoke of it with whispered awe.

  This was all nearly forgotten history to Adramalik. His thoughts were almost always of the here and now and rarely of those chaotic days immediately after the Fall.

  Above the persistent buzzing he heard the faint delicate splash of Lilith’s footsteps as she crossed the final few puddles of blood. She stopped at the base of the throne, head down.

  Above her the flies swarmed, winged atoms of her master’s body. From what court-spies had related, he was sure that she wished she could tread upon each one, crushing them until he no longer existed. He was also sure that she would willingly sacrifice nearly everything just to accomplish this.

  When he sp
oke it was in the Voice of the flies, a layered and droning Voice that emanated from a thousand tiny throats.

  “Fleurety tells me of a growing cult among the souls. A cult of… you?” The ambient Voice paused, but a buzzing wheeze continued for a moment. “What do you know of this, dear Lilith?”

  Adramalik thought, from where he stood, that he saw Lilith wince when her name was pronounced.

  “I have heard rumors, but nothing more, my Prince,” she said, still looking down. Her voice was strong, husky. And not particularly contrite.

  “You are mine, Consort. Not Hell’s at large. I would find it most distressing if Fleurety’s tales about you proved true. He is convinced that you are, in some way, fostering these cults. Just as you once did with the living humans.”