Chapter Seven

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

The small party left the palace and headed down the center mount to one of the many stables. On their way they followed the edge of the Acheron, descending the newly finished causeway, passing the endless work-parties that stopped their labors to turn and kneel as they passed.

Eligor led them into the sprawling square walled-in stables that covered acres. There, like the many similar paddocks that dotted his wards, were a hundred long, low buildings that housed a full regiment of Sargatanas' mounted troops. Eligor liked the stables, liked the bustle of activity and the look of the soul-beasts that hunkered in their individual cells.

They were souls that had been manipulated into steeds, giant, solid chargers that could bear heavily armored cavalry quickly over the infernal battlefield. This was a Household regiment, which meant that they were bulkier, better trained, and that their trappings were more ornate. Their mahouts, usually former Waste dwellers, silently went about their rigorous training programs leaching the last of all the enlarged souls' reticence from them until they responded with complete obedience.

Eligor entered one of the stables and before long had arranged for a small caravan of soul-steeds as well as a contingent of his Foot Guards.

They all watched as the huge embroidered carpetlike blankets were tossed over the rough-skinned backs of the steeds, which shifted from hand to hand, rolled their fogged eyes, and made deep sounds in their throats. Intricately worked, solid copper saddles were cinched in place, and reins were first passed through the huge single nail that penetrated each of the steeds' broad foreheads and then fastened to the light bridle-rings that pierced the souls' lips. Eligor shook his head with disgust as long streamers of gelatinous foam drooled from their slack mouths as they each took their bridles. Careful not to step in the puddles, each of the demons donned traveling skins, mounted their souls, and gathered in the stable courtyard.

Waiting for them were twenty of Eligor's summoned Foot Guard, tall warriors dressed for the Wastes in long silvery-black Abyssal skins, scaled and dotted with tiny glowing lights. About a dozen more travelers bound for Dis waited to join the trek on foot. All lesser demons, they had come from many parts of Adamantinarx and waited to travel, hoping for the much-needed protection of the Demons Major and Minor and their Guard to survive the treacherous Wastes. They stood about, a group varied in rank and occupation, all pulling on their hooded skins and adjusting the straps of their heavy satchels and pole-mounted sacks. For them, the weeks-long trip to Dis would be an arduous journey that tested their endurance. Truly, Eligor thought, they do not make this trip to Dis lightly. And, as far as he was concerned, the destination was worse than any of the potential hardships of getting there.

Half of the Guard preceded the ranking mounted demons and led them out of the courtyard. The demons on foot were followed by the remaining Guard, who balanced their pole-axes on their spiny-armored shoulders. The caravan proceeded down the Avenue of Sorrow, easily cleaving through the crowds, passed beneath a huge arch commemorating the War, and headed for the river. As they crossed one of the Acheron's many bridges, Eligor stole a wistful glance back toward the city and clenched his jaw.

Adamantinarx's massive fifty-storied Eastern Gate rose before them, giant banners flapping in the wind. Sargatanas' sigil floated above it, throwing its upper parapets into stark silhouette. Eligor stared up, trying hard to find the tiny figures that he knew looked out past the city's walls. They were soldiers of the gate-garrison, Zoray's archers, each of whom bore a long bow that Eligor knew was composed of a single stretched, shaped, and bent soul. His friend Zoray, who was a marvelous archer himself, had told Eligor that the final step in becoming one of these prestigious archers—each risen from the Foot Guard—was the fashioning of these bows, a task that each candidate performed in a solitary ritual somewhere out in the Wastes. The bow-souls were picked carefully, the demons' Art being in the ability to find a soul upon the streets to match the specialized task. Only then could the marksmanship training begin. Many demons never found their weapon and walked the streets, seeking the right candidate, for years, finally giving up only to fade back into the Foot Guard or, discouraged, re-enlist in a less demanding, less elite part of Sargatanas' army. Eligor could barely see them high atop the gate and resolved to actually visit them when he came back. It was a mind-trick, he knew, to focus on the return; it helped get him past the feeling of dread that always accompanied a trip to Dis.

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.