God's Demon Wayne Douglas Barlowe

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Eligor saw the shock written upon their faces. They sat transfixed by their lord, looking at
him with mouths partially agape.
Andromalius regained himself and said, "Lord, you do not really think that engaging in a
war such as you envision can "
"I do," Sargatanas said, his voice resonant. "It is naive to think that what transpires here is
not being watched from Above. Would we miss an opportunity to watch Them if we
could? What have we shown Them after these countless eons here in Hell? We have
fulfilled every one of Their claims against us, proven ourselves to be anything but the
angels we once were, and denied ourselves any consideration for return. We must show
that after all of these grim millennia, after all the pain and punishment, we are capable of
change. I am convinced that if our intentions and actions are clear that our opposition to
Beelzebub and his government is in earnest They will take notice. And that is the first
step to regaining our lost grace."
Bifrons stood. He looked agitated. Eligor almost felt sorry for them. They had no choice
but to go along with their patron, but they did not have to accept his precepts.
"You are talking about total war," Bifrons said, shaking his spined head in disbelief, "a
war that would engulf all of Hell. No demon would be able to remain neutral. And to
what end?"
"No demon should remain neutral," said Sargatanas acidly. "As to what end ... the end of
all this. And a beginning the beginning of our Ascent."
"You do not really think "
"I do think and I do dream, but I do not really know, Bifrons. What I do know is that I
cannot shake my memories. Nor, I suspect, can anyone else present."
Without waiting for an answer, Sargatanas turned and put a steaming hand upon the door
latch. "Yours has been a long and tiring journey and I will send you on to your chambers
shortly. But first it is important for you to understand what lies beneath my decision."
He opened the door and Eligor could only see darkness beyond.
"We are directly below the throne in the Audience Chamber," said Sargatanas. "I had
construction begin on this ... shrine when I decided my course."
The others followed him, a dark silhouette outlined in a scalloped tracery of steaming
embers, into the narrow vestibule, and the only faint illumination was from their
flickering heads. Eligor could see, between the shadows of their passing and then only
dimly, pale walls covered with neat lines of incised angelic inscriptions. He found that
provocative, curious. It was a small heresy to write in the old style; it was a much larger
one to commit that writing to scone.
The walls fell away on either side as they entered a larger, circular room. The hollowness
of their footsteps echoed through the unseen reaches, making the group sound larger than
it was. Sargatanas uttered a word and suddenly the room was suffused in pale light. The
dark, cloaked figures of the five demons contrasted starkly with the luminosity of the
space. Eligor's jaw dropped and
Valefar audibly released his breath, while the two visiting earls looked as if they might
turn and run at any moment. All this Sargatanas measured as he stood back and watched
the demons.
Eligor squinted, his eyes adjusting to the brightness. He took in the lambent room and
realized that for all this to have been completed in such a short time a matter of
weeks his lord must have driven Halphas and his laborers very hard. And then Eligor
remembered the sounds of masons ringing through the long nights.
The joinery of the stones, their perfect dressing, and the care with which they were
chosen all bespoke a level of craft that Eligor thought must have been augmented by an
Art. Only the fairest, palest stones, laced with delicate veins of gold and silver, had been
employed. The walls were punctuated at regular intervals with columned niches, each
home, Eligor could discern, to a miraculous lifelike statue of a many-winged figure. The
low-domed ceiling, hewn from an unimaginably huge pale-blue opal, flickered with
flecks of inner fire, a perfect evocation, Eligor remembered, of the coruscating sky of the
Above. Such a room, he knew, was not meant to exist in Hell.
But it was not the walls, nor the beautiful ceiling, nor even the heretical statuary that
stirred the demons most. It was the running mosaics with tiles so small that Eligor could
barely see them and the nearly floor-to-ceiling friezes and their incredible imagery that
took the demons and wrenched them and pulled them in. And reminded them.
Each of the demons approached these shimmering murals and each walked slowly,
silently, transfixed. Eligor found himself not looking at the friezes but into them, so rich
was their execution, so vivid their portrayals. They began, at both sides of the room, with
simple renderings of the Above, of the clear and glowing air, of the lambent clouds and
the jeweled ground and the vast sparkling sea. And farther on, the great gold and crimson
Tree of Life, heavy with its ripe, swollen fruit set amidst broad and sheltering leaves.
Eligor saw, looking closely, the fabulous serpentine chalkadri flying through its boughs,
their twelve wings picked out in rainbow jewels. He remembered their mellifluous calls
and the Tree's sweet fragrance and could not imagine how he might have forgotten them.
Eligor paused to look at his fellow demons. Thin wisps of steam, barely visible in the
light, streamed from their eyes. The two earls had given them-selves over to the images
and were breathlessly sidling along the walls, murmuring to themselves and each other.
Valefar walked a few paces unsteadily, occasionally putting a tentative hand out upon the
wall for support. And at the room's center, standing by a raised altar and watching them
all with his intent, silvered eyes, was the fallen seraph, a dark figure as immobile as the
angelic statues that surrounded him.
Eligor turned back to the wall and saw the twelve radiant gates of the sun and the twelve
pearlescent gates of the moon and the treasuries that housed the clouds and dew, the snow
and the ice. There he saw the first depicted angels who guarded those storehouses, and it
was a shock to see them, for he had tried very hard to forget their gracefulness.
Valefar, who was ahead of the other three demons, reached the farthest tableau, and
something there that Eligor could not yet see caused him to cry out. He reeled backward,
as if struck, nearly colliding with his lord. Sargatanas put out a hand and steadied his
friend.
As if he were clinging to the side of a cliff with his hands, Eligor guided himself
tentatively along the curving wall, examining its images, pausing to remember. The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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