Chapter Fourteen

DIS

Lilith rocked on her heels, balled up, like something empty and windblown and discarded, cast into the corner of her bedchamber. It was dark and she wore the darkness like an old, comforting friend. Once, for a short time, she had been very much a creature of the night, and she still could see quite well in the blackness. Her precious carving tools were strewn about on the floor; she could see them and the torn and broken furnishings and the holes she had punched into the bone walls. She could see, too, the broken room partition, evidence of where the Order Knights, angered by her furious struggling, had thrown her. She did not need to see the bruises; they were obvious enough. She crouched in near darkness, the only light filtering in from a crack she had kicked into the door.

It had been weeks since Ardat Lili had been taken from her. Weeks of confusion and pain and darkness. She had determined to give the Fly nothing willingly. His attempts at what he considered sex, while growing less frequent, were also growing more violent. Lilith feared that it was only a matter of time before she, too, swung high above his throne.

Could he actually do that to me?

What would he tell Lucifer?

Her shaking subsided and she rose, unsteadily. Her clawed feet trod upon the bits and pieces of her few possessions as she crossed the room to the upended little table she had done her carving on. It was oddly unbroken—a survivor like her. She righted it and then went about searching for the few items she would need to summon her familiar. She had not done that since she had come to Hell and worried that perhaps she might not remember how. But try she would. The time of tears was over. Now was the time of action.

She had to get out, away from Dis. That much was clear. This last en-counter had been too ... invasive. And even as she had that thought, Lilith felt a small stirring and looked down. An errant spark-backed fly, having made its way from within her, was walking down her thigh. For an instant her eyes grew wide, and then, with a blindingly fast motion, she scooped it into her hand and then into a small metal urn that lay on the floor nearby. She narrowed her eyes and smiled. Fortune had given her that fly.

She resumed her search, finding some shards of bone, some torn skin from her bedclothes, the gold threads from a rent robe, and a needle. Carefully wrapping the skin around the bone armature, she stitched together a zoomorphic form, winged and clawed and with huge, empty eye sockets. She was a proficient sculptor, and when she had finished the small maquette she sat back and nodded approvingly.

Without hesitating she took up the needle and stabbed her palm until black blood, thick and hissing, dripped freely down her wrist. She picked up the assembled figure and caressed the blood into its wrinkled surface.

"Draw from me my pain, my little one," Lilith whispered. "Draw from me my boundless sorrow and my timeless hatred. And take these things of mine, I adjure you, and lay them before the Lord of Adamantinarx."

The small figure, its naked white skin smeared black, twitched and stretched. It jumped up and onto feet not unlike her own, gracelessly at first, and as its dangling, shriveled wings began to expand and flap it hopped toward her. A pinched mouth yawned open and then snapped shut. Lilith took up the urn and violently shook the angry fly out into her hand. She plucked its wings and held it in front of the night-creature's beak. The familiar plucked it greedily from her fingers and gulped down its first meal. It cocked its oversized head and stared at her with its empty sockets, as if waiting for more.

"Good, good," she purred menacingly. "You liked that. That was the taste of him."

Lilith gestured a glyph into existence, blew it into the familiar, repeated the act, and then put the creature on her wrist. She walked to the broken door, peered out cautiously, and, seeing no one near, carefully squeezed the familiar through the widest part of the crack. It stood there on the flagstones just beyond, looking in at her inquiringly.

"Go now. Stay in the shadows and find the nearest window. Go to Adamantinarx; tell Sargatanas of my suffering. Give him that fly. And tell him I am coming."

The familiar turned obediently and took wing and, just as she had ordered, disappeared silently into the gloom of the arched ceiling.

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

The palace gates loomed large and imposing before Hani, their twin braziers creating enough deep shadows upon the surrounding buildings to conceal him. As he had predicted, it had been slow and tedious work gaining the palace entrance, and, now that he had, he could hang back, affording him an opportunity to rest and survey the area. He realized that actually getting through the gate might not be as hard as he had feared; so many workers passed within and so improbable was any threat from a soul that he was relatively sure no demon would question him, let alone look twice at him. He only needed to wait for a group of workers who were walking between soul-beast caravans.

He waited for what seemed like hours and, marking that time, the Burden crept relentlessly upward through his torso. His fear was that he would find himself impaired, that the Burden would settle for a time in his head and make it impossible for him to accomplish anything for some while.

The jostling crowds flowed slowly through the gates like oozing lava, breaking sullenly around any obstacles that did not move quickly enough. But the soul's patience was rewarded when he saw the giant bobbing heads of two soul-beasts, the vanguard of a pair of columns of similar creatures heading toward him. And between them was a melange of souls bound for work farther up the mount. Inwardly excited, Hani emerged from the shadows, his aquiline features set in an imitation of the dull, ravaged look worn by most souls. His gait, once again, matched the shambling stride of the workers. It was the best disguise—the only disguise—he could employ.

Passage through the gates went smoothly—no guards even looked at him. Armed warrior demons were everywhere, their officers hissing out commands and glyphs with what Hani thought was more urgency than normal. Between the lumbering bodies he saw guards stationed outside all of the residences and official buildings, ever watchful, he guessed, for spies.

He continued up the steep incline, the warm flagstones under his scuffing feet growing cooler as the winds grew. Looking up, he saw the enormous breastlike swell of the palace dome. At this distance its size took his breath away. Again the poison of self-doubt seeped into his veins. I can't do this. What was I thinking? Secretly he pulled the little idol out of his side and ran his thumb over it for comfort. Look at what this thing has compelled me to do. I've risked everything on a dream. I don't regret it, though. Fearing he might drop the idol amidst all of the shuffling feet, Hani pushed it back within himself.

The caravan threaded its way up toward the palace itself. The huge souls, spurred on by their cudgel-wielding mahouts, were burdened down with Abyssal hides, rolls of soul-vellum, and other luxury products from the remote towns of the Wastes. Palace bound, Hani suspected. He needed to actually enter the palace before separating from them and hoped he was right about their destination.

When they passed through the threshold, plodded to a halt in the great entry hall, and began unstrapping the cargo, Hani felt a mixture of satisfaction, relief, and then apprehension. He was inside Sargatanas' palace! Hani was surprised at the feel of its interior; he had been prepared for something much darker, more oppressive. Instead, its bustling interior, brightly illuminated by fluorescing minerals set in sconces, conveyed a sense only of purposeful power, infernal bureaucracy untainted by true evil. Despite the building's outwardly benign atmosphere, he knew that the hardest part of his journey still lay ahead; his goal to kneel before the feet of Lord Sargatanas might truly be impossible.

Hani reached for a huge bundle of dark-scaled hides, and, hefting it up with some difficulty, he began to follow a string of souls who seemed to be heading deep into the building. An Overseer glanced at Hani, his wary, reflective eyes probing deeply but apparently finding nothing unusual. With a flick of the demon's whip and the touch of it still stinging Hani's back, he moved on, walking through a succession of long corridors until, in the distance, he saw a high, curving wall, its tiled surface broken at long, regular intervals by tall, column-framed entrances. Beyond them, he suspected, was the audience hall, but what lay between remained a mystery. Quite soon, he was going to have to break away from the workers and the security of numbers they afforded. As careful as he was, he could not help but wonder how far he could get before inevitably being spotted.

DIS

Lilith awoke to a quiet knock upon her broken door. She waited in the darkness, hoping she had only dreamt the sound, but when it came again she slowly went to the door and paused. She was emotionally exhausted; the idea of another encounter with Beelzebub and the resulting struggle was enough to make her numb. But something within told her that the knock had not come from one of the Order Knights; it had not been forceful enough.

"Consort, please open the door," came the voice from the corridor. "It is I, Agares."

"So the Prince is now using his Prime Minister to fetch his plaything? You must be proud of your new position."

"You misunderstand, Consort. Open the door, at least, so that we can talk."

She knew that if he was not alone the door would not keep them from her. With a shrug she opened the door, expecting it to burst inward with the weight of Agares' accomplices.

The Prime Minister, Lilith saw, was alone. He entered, bowed, and, closing the door behind him, stood back. In his arms was a bundle of clothes.

"I have come to get you out of here," he said with quiet urgency.

"Why?"

"Because the Prince grows tired of you. And I will not be able to serve him with you up there ... up above the throne."

Lilith looked at him with some disdain. "So this is about you, then? You would not be happy with me dangling above you for eternity, looking down upon you, as I most assuredly would."

"I am sorry, Consort; that was not quite how I meant it. Yes, I would be disturbed. But to survive I must be able to serve him without any ... ah, impediment. And while I have no love for the Prince or his ways, I do recognize him as our regent pro tem. Until, that is, Lucifer should ever return."

Lilith turned from him. "The hope still burns, eh?"

"Yes, Consort, it does."

"And, perhaps, if he does return ... and I do survive, why then, whoever was instrumental in my survival ... ," she said. She nodded, smiling faintly. "I think I understand."

Agares held out the traveling skins.

"I will tell the Prince, when he next summons you, that you are ill, that you have asked not to be disturbed. Given his feelings toward you, at the moment, I think he will welcome that. For a while, at least. I have arranged for a caravan to escort you—

incognito of course—to virtually anywhere in Hell that you choose. Your destination is your own affair and how you dispose of the demons of the caravan, too, is your own business; I do not want to know. That is my parting gift to you; if I should be found out to have helped you escape ... well, I will not be able to betray you at my ... last moments."

"Very noble. I will try to remember that, if Lucifer should ever return."

"Thank you."

Lilith took the heavy, hooded garments that smelled faintly of smoke. Agares turned to leave.

"Just one thing, Prime Minister," she said. "How did you know that I would not tell the Prince of your betrayal?"

"By chance, I saw your familiar fly away into the night. It really was nothing more than a coincidence that I happened to be on a balcony. I heard something and looked up. I knew the moment I saw it what it was and what it represented. A plea for help."

"Answered by you," she said with a tinge of irony. But she reconsidered and said, "Thank you, Prime Minister."

He bowed slightly and left.

Lilith put the skins down and began to assemble some of her possessions from the scattered debris of her life in Dis.

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

The game of subterfuge was over. Hani zigzagged as quickly as he dared between the myriad pillars of the arcade, always heading, he hoped, toward the dome's central chamber. The arcade, one of dozens radially arranged, was like an artificial gorge, narrow, with a fan-vaulted ceiling three hundred feet above and steep walls only occasionally interrupted by floor-level doorways. Fifty-foot columns, each bearing a lit sconce that faced the main passage, supported overhanging offices, and while the effect was airy, the fans of shadow they provided were welcome to Hani. He knew, though, that his discovery was only a matter of time.

Streams of legionaries filed through the stone forest of tall columns, pole arms upon their shoulders, the heavy scuffing of their bone-shod feet filling the space. They, too, were heading toward the great chamber, a fact that did nothing to comfort the soul but did convince him of his insanity. While they marched, without combat orders, they were not the real threat to his detection; their metallic eyes never seemed to stray from the soldier ahead of them. Hani knew that their heads were scooped, empty, and that they were nearly unable to think for themselves. But the centurions Hani watched carefully. Nearly ten feet tall, armored and wielding two sword hands, each proudly bore two upward-curving pectoral bars of flattened bone—prized signs of their rank. With experienced eyes ever gauging their surroundings, the centurions' vigilance sharply contrasted with their soldiers' indifference. Their battle-scarred faces bore the same two mouths—one for speaking, the other for feeding— that typified all lower demons, but, due to their rank, there was a slightly more refined quality to them. They were, the soul knew, imbued with a greater intelligence and, complimenting it, a greater sense of awareness. And they could, with a simple command-glyph, turn the mindless marching infantry into the irresistible tool of Hani's destruction. He could not help but compare them to the Overseers that he was so used to obeying and knew that the military demons' ferocity far outstripped them.

For all his care, he never saw the officer that raised the alarm, or the glyph that he knew, as he started to run, must have followed it. He only heard the echoing bark of command and the clatter of dozens of troops in the distance wheeling to pursue him.

The legionaries ran heavily in their tempered stone armor, and while they may have been comparatively fast upon the battlefield, they were gaining only slowly on Hani. For the first time in Hell, he ran, stretching his legs, stumbling a bit at first, but gaining in confidence as he raced between the columns. I might be able to elude this detachment, but if they send flying troops after me I'm finished. So far he had not seen any command-glyphs flash ahead of him. Probably the centurion felt he could handle one renegade soul.

Maybe, Hani thought, just maybe, he was wrong.

* * * * *

Ten thousand lava-gray troops gathered in Sargatanas' Audience Chamber and stood at attention before the central pyramidal dais. The air was hazy with the steam that arose from the gathered army. Each Demon Minor, accompanied by his senior officers, stood beside his gaudy standard-bearer. The effect of all of the massed vertical banners, topped as they were with their incandescent regimental glyphs, was like a shifting sea of lava, hardened gray and spangled with myriad specks of magma. The sound of kettledrums, arrayed around the chamber's periphery, was muffled and distant, providing a marching cadence familiar to the entering legions.

Eligor, standing near his lord, looked on from his higher vantage upon the dais, taking in the spectacle of the massed troops. Great wedges of soldiers, each separated by broad aisles, faced him, the sea of officers and their newly risen troops motionless and attentive.

Before him, Sargatanas waited, head lowered and aflame in a blazing coronet of leaping fire. The top of his head had broadened out to accommodate six lidless and staring eyes.

He carried, unsheathed, the new sword, which, Eligor had found out, had been forged of some of the most powerful souls, folded countless times, beaten into shape and tempered, and then sharpened. A strong shaft of Algol's light played down upon the dark blade, its shimmering red reflection briefly flashing upon Valefar and Eligor and Faraii, Bifrons, and Andromalius as they watched the last of the soldiers filter in. Finally the enormous room was filled.

Sargatanas, the focal point of thousands of eyes, raised his sword overhead and the drums grew silent. Glancing from side to side, he stepped forward until he stood at the top of the stairs, a dark, fiery figure, eyes intense with an inner fervor, flexing wing-stumps describing a vee. His sigil blossomed above his head, a full span across, a circular signet of fire.

"Demons Minor!" Sargatanas' voice boomed out through the chamber. "Brothers in exile!

You know what we lost so long ago and why you have been mobilized. For too long you and I have accepted our Fall, the terrible result of Lucifer's flawed dreams and leadership.

We have accepted, too, the laws that have been imposed upon us regarding how we are to govern in Hell. We have adapted to the worst imaginable conditions, and somehow ...

somehow we have thrived. But we have also paid a steep price for that adaptation ... a price paid in the currency of our consciences. I need not tell you how staying true to our inner selves while doing our mandated duty has taxed us. I will not say that we were cast down here unjustly. But I will say that we have served here long enough ... that we have paid for our transgression. Now I say ... enough!"

Eligor saw him pause and saw, too, the effect his words were having on the assembled demons.

"What we are about to attempt is something that no one in Hell's long history has ever dared. We are about to embark upon a journey of redemption and reawakening ... a journey Heavenward ... a journey Home!"

The gathered demons' murmuring grew in volume.

"Brother demons, this will be a war of remembrance. A war wherein we Fallen try to re-attain the grace that we once shared. Our enemy, content to wallow in the corruption of Hell, is mighty and outnumbers us many to one. But if we fight like the warrior-angels we once were, with that same, almost-forgotten, inner fire of purity, we will prevail.

Yesterday you were an army of Hell. Today you are my Army of Ascension! Tomorrow, Heaven!"

With that, Eligor saw his lord's giant sigil break apart into a thousand glowing comets that darted outward, each alighting above the regimental glyph of a different banner, each transforming into Sargatanas' iconic battle emblem.

A great cheer rang up and Eligor tingled with the auspiciousness of it all. He knew what this ceremony, this charging of the banners, meant. They were at war.

Amidst the clamor, Sargatanas descended the great flight of stairs followed by Eligor and the others. He would review his new army and make what last-minute suggestions to Faraii and Valefar might be appropriate.

At the base of the stairs stood five of Sargatanas' most trusted generals. Backs straight, heads held high, they looked upon their lord with a near-religious zeal.

"Generals," Sargatanas said so that only they could hear. "What I am ordering is nothing short of open rebellion. To free ourselves we will, if need be, storm the gate of Beelzebub's Keep itself! I tell you now: this rebellion will either break us or free us forever. Either way, we will be done with Hell.

"Through the course of this campaign we will be facing a superior force composed of those Demons Major and Minor who have willingly taken up with Beelzebub. Astaroth—

the first—is little more than a puppet; his destruction will be a prelude only. Our legions are the best conjured in Hell, led by the best officers in Hell. They are obedient, disciplined, and, at your hands, brilliantly trained. Use them recklessly and we will be at an end before we start. Use them wisely and we will achieve something unimaginable for all these long eons. This campaign will be your last, the final demonstration of all you have learned. Be bold; be creative; be ruthless upon the field of battle. I, and my Guard, will be with you every step of the way. We will prevail because we share a single vision

... the vision of the Light that we once cherished.

"Generals, Heaven awaits!"

The generals knelt as one, and with a vast clattering the entire gathered army followed them to their knees. The generals were smiling and Eligor saw the fervor flooding through them. He watched Sargatanas reach down and clasp each by the arm and as he did they, too, received a small token from his sigil.

The small party moved on past the general staff, on to Faraii's Shock Troopers, big, brutish, and very heavily armored. Each of their arms ended in a variety of crudely conjured cleaverlike blades, thick enough to easily split a legionary's torso agape. Their oversized, scarred heads were squat, and their feeding mouths were lined with thick, pointed teeth. When Sargatanas approached them, they turned to Faraii, almost as if looking to him for guidance as to how to behave before their lord. Unseen by all but Eligor, he quickly bowed his head—a signal meant to be imitated—and the troopers followed his cue. It was an odd moment, Eligor thought, odd that they would not immediately have saluted their lord, odd that they would look to the Waste wanderer for guidance. Eligor put it down to their obvious mental deficiencies; they were, after all, dim but effective fighting creatures, not reasoning demons.

Without warning a glyph soared from the arcades overhead. Eligor's keen eyes spotted the tiny running figure just as it burst from one of the arcades and was hooked by the closely pursuing squad of his Guard that flew above it. At that distance he could not see the web of chains that dragged what appeared to be a soul into the air, but as they approached, he did see the flailing soul tugging futilely at them. Eligor turned to see Sargatanas staring intently at the scene but, with some anxiety, could not imagine what the Demon Major was thinking or what the consequences would be of such a flagrant security breach.

* * * * *

Pain and terror and a sudden sinking feeling of disappointment filled Hani as he felt himself jerked into the air. He was used to pain and almost welcomed it. Its infliction meant, at least, that all of the questions—how his quest would end—were answered. It had been an amazing journey, the journey, as it turned out, toward the end of his conventional existence. For surely his punishment would be unthinkable. But still, he had gotten as far as he had hoped. Farther than he dreamt. Even now, twisting in numbing pain at the end of a dozen hooked chains, he was sure that he saw in the distance his true goal, the large form of Sargatanas as he walked amidst his troops.

Above Hani, the six flying demons were dipping and rising, expertly keeping their chains taut. The barbed hooks were deeply embedded all over his body and he finally gave up struggling. What really was the point? If he fell, it would only be atop a waiting legionary's halberd.

He saw the ranks of legionaries looking up at him, expressionless; they were weapons to be wielded, mindless and dangerous. He saw them in an agonized blur, each nearly identical to its brother, focusing only upon a face, or a scooped-out cranium, or a thick carapace with its distinctive chest-horns. They were all alike, all cruel and efficient.

They flew on toward the central flat-topped mountain of stone. He saw a great throne atop it. At its foot he saw the nearing dark figure of the Lord of Adamantinarx staring up at him, unmoving, waiting, and fear added itself to the pain that bled through his limp body.

Through tear-veiled eyes he saw the figure grow larger as the flying demons dropped down. He saw the coronal eyes encircled by flame and then, beneath them, the intense, metallic eyes that reached up toward him with a penetrating intensity. A few moments later he was hanging mere feet from Sargatanas, dangled like a lifeless puppet by the hovering demons.

Hani hung there, transfixed by the eight eyes of the demon, convinced, in his delirium of pain, that they were what held him aloft rather than the chains. The gigantic chamber dimmed and swirled and blazed before him as he drifted in and out of consciousness, but each time he opened his eyes the demon's were always, unblinkingly, upon him. Was it for seconds or minutes? Time, as he perceived it, could only be marked by the uneven rhythm of pain, the artificial night and day of his tenuous awareness.

"Why are you here, larva?" Hani heard, and his eyelids fluttered open.

"I sinned," he said foggily.

"Why are you here before me?" the rumbling accented voice said.

"I had to come," he said, his voice cinder dry. "I have something ... you would value."

He saw a demon step forward and, because the memory was still so sharp, remembered that he was named Valefar.

"Lord, there is nothing this larva can offer us. Shall I have it dispo—"

"No, Valefar. You do not find it remarkable that this soul is here ... now? I cannot remember this ever happening before. And that, alone, interests me."

Hani saw Sargatanas turn back to him.

"What do you want from us ... from me?"

And even through his haze of agony Hani realized that this was his opportunity, the opportunity.

"I want only to know who I was. And what I did to get here."

Sargatanas stared at him, cocking his head slightly to one side. Hani saw the demon close his many eyes, saw the flames about his head gutter, and saw, too, the very slight trembling of one clawed finger.

And then Hani felt it. It began as a sharp, hot breeze upon his mind, strong and persistent, and gathered quickly into a rushing, searing gale that surpassed the hottest winds he could remember, the roaring Tophet blasts from the child-sacrifices in his home city.

He shut his eyes and the memories of his Life began to cascade back into him like the most precious, sweetest wine being poured into an amphora. He knew then that the bits of memory that he had experienced in Hell had been like some barely fragrant residue clinging to the inside of his mind, the stubborn dregs that been left in a vessel when it was emptied.

The fleeting images of a wide, sun-kissed sea had been the Central Sea, the huge wall-encircled city his beloved Qart Hadasht—the New City—and he knew now that the soul-beasts had evoked nothing less than his prized war elephants. Had he not made this fateful journey he could have wrestled with those images' meaning for all eternity.

Hani opened his eyes, but he was Hani no longer. And he was no longer hanging by the hooks. Instead he was lying upon the warm flagstones, the six flying demons behind with their lances tipped toward him. Sargatanas was watching him carefully, as were the five attending demons.

"Your name was Hannibal, son of Hamilcar of the House of Barca. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Yes ... everything."

"You were, among your kind, quite remarkable; your hatred ran deeper than most," the demon said.

"I had much to hate."

Sargatanas appeared not to have heard him. "What is it that you bring to me?"

And in that moment, with the awareness of his past achieved, the plan that had begun with the small statue became something else.

"I know that a great war is imminent," said, rubbing the puncture-wounds on his shoulders. The pain was still enormous. "I can give you an army. An army of souls."

Valefar snorted and threw up his hands.

"Look around you," Sargatanas said with a sweep of his hand. "Does it look to you as if I need another army?"

Hannibal knelt, head bowed. Just as he had feared, the Burden was approaching his head, sliding through him inexorably. Wincing from his wounds, and with some effort, he shook his head. "Your legions are beyond impressive, Lord. Their capability is so far beyond any army I ever led that I cannot imagine withstanding them.

"However, like pieces set upon a board, they are predictable once seen. The army I offer you can be that board, unseen until you need them, and therefore unpredictable. No one knows better than you, I am sure, the advantage gained by the careful manipulation of the battlefield, the very buildings and streets under your enemies' feet. Of course you could do it on your own or delegate it to one of your generals, but even that would take your attention away from your pieces ... your demon legions. Nor do I think you could find a demon happy with the task of leading ... us.

"Given the ... authority, I could lead them as I've led others ... before."

"What makes you so sure that they will follow you?"

Hannibal hesitated and then reached into the cavity in his side. His fingers closed upon the small statue, feeling its familiar, comforting shape. He pulled it out and held it up before the demon lord.

"She has led me this far. I must believe that she will help me lead my kind."

Sargatanas' eyes widened. To the amazement of Valefar and the other demons, he reached under his fleshy robe and brought forth a statue nearly identical to the one in the soul's hand. Only Hannibal seemed unsurprised, having witnessed the moment of its discovery.

"I have seen her visions. They are glimpses of the Light ... of Heaven regained."

"Mine are visions of freedom," Hannibal said. "If freedom begets redemption, then I can't complain. If not, we'll take it anyway. And stay right here."

"You are quite the opportunist," said Sargatanas. He regarded the statue in his bone-covered hand, weighing it. "I have been told that others like these are out there, but only you have understood its implications, have shown yourself able to do the exceptional by bringing it to me. Perhaps you can be exceptional, as well, upon my fields of battle and under my banners. I will give you your army, Hannibal Barca. And, with it, someone to accompany you, to watch over you, to mold the souls you need however you see fit. Go and gather your host. When you are ready you may join my legions."

"Thank you, my lord." Hannibal bowed with some difficulty, top-heavy as he was with the weight of the Burden.

"You will truly thank me in a moment," the Demon Major said, raising a hand. It glowed with a small but intricate glyph that shot out and touched Hannibal upon the Burden. For an instant, more pain seared through his already-weakened body, but it subsided quickly, replaced by a growing feeling of lightness, and when he looked down, shaking, he saw that his chest was covered with a thick, black liquid that flowed more profusely as the orb began to dissolve. Moments later a large deforming cavity was the only evidence of the cumbersome Burden he had carried. His collapsed head tilted unnaturally until the flesh and bone began to fill in, and when he was completely mended Hannibal, mouth agape, eyes round, knelt before the demon lord almost as one reborn. At Hannibal's feet a large puddle of malignant blackness had pooled and begun to congeal.

Valefar stepped forward, turned to one of the attending winged demons, and indicated the pool that had once been Hani's Burden. Light-headed, Hannibal heard him say, "Have that jarred and returned to the Wastes with the proper ceremony."

Sargatanas lowered his hand and silently looked the trembling soul up and down.

Satisfied, he turned quickly to resume his review, his burning robes trailing a thin, rising vortex of steam. A messenger approached him, and Hannibal could not help but hear their conversation.

"Lord," the trooper said breathlessly, "I have just now come from the border. Lord Astaroth has launched a massive attack on our western margin."

"Is there any evidence of support from the Prince?"

"No, Lord."

"Our losses, so far?"

"Demolishers are eating away at the buildings on the edge of Zoray's Thirty-fourth Ward.

Lord Astaroth's reconnaissance was good; with no true resistance there he has made substantial gains."

Sargatanas waved the trooper away and then turned to the massed soldiers.

"Legions," he shouted, his voice like a pure trumpet, "the first move in our campaign has been made for us! We are at war!"

And Hannibal heard a martial cheer spring from thousands of inhuman throats and rise to the heavens, a cheer as he had never heard before.

After conferring for a moment, Valefar turned away from his lord and looked back at the soul. The Prime Minister was shaking his head, an expression upon his bone-plated face that seemed amazed.

"The fruits of your boldness come sooner than you could have imagined, soul!" he shouted through the cheers. "Hannibal Barca, you are now a general in the active service of his lord Sargatanas, Brigadier-Major of the Armies of Hell, Lord of Adamantinarx!"