Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

Turning away, the demon lord looked up at the curling zephyrs of ash that rose high into the olive sky. Eligor could almost feel the enormous grief that was taking hold of him.

"Perhaps, the winds have taken it."

Chapter Twenty-Four

ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON

Valefar's empty chambers seemed like another world altogether to Eligor as he sat glumly at the Prime Minister's enormous bone desk. The absolute silence, the transparent wisps of smoke that drifted in the slowest of curling eddies from the tiny crack in one of the windows, the dull sound of the heart-clock, all contributed to the overwhelming sense of absence.

It had been weeks since Eligor's return to Adamantinarx, and the sense of loss at the passing of Valefar was keener than ever. Before he had locked himself away in his chambers, Sargatanas had told Eligor to go and sort through the Prime Minister's belongings and papers, to gather the important documents of state and anything Eligor might want as a keepsake. Sargatanas had asked for nothing himself; the chambers were to be sealed, and their contents were to be left as they were. With that imparted he had turned and headed to his chambers, a dark and somber figure in a now-emptier realm.

Eligor shifted a heavy stack of vellum documents to one side of the desktop. He had chosen one of Valefar's aides, a Demon Minor named Fyrmiax, to assist him in what he knew would be a difficult task, and he could hear the demon in one of the far rooms rummaging about. Sargatanas had yet to appoint a new prime minister, and Eligor knew that it would not be this demon. The position had been equal parts administrative and honorary; Eligor suspected that it might be some time before the position would be filled.

He pushed himself up from the desk and, with a sigh, began to make piles of the documents, stacking them by the door so that Fyrmiax could load them onto the small bone pull-carts that waited in the corridor. As Eligor went from one chamber to another, he saw innumerable poignant signs of Valefar's presence, objects or arrangements of objects that gave the impression of just having been used. The case his sword had been kept in lay open upon his pallet, the imprint of its light form still visible upon its cushioned interior.

Moving farther into Valefar's private world, Eligor caught sight of the cabinet behind which he knew the hidden compartment lay. Inexplicably, he felt a compulsion to open it and look within it for one last time. Its existence was a secret only he, now, knew of, and he saw no reason to mention it; it was, after all, only an empty space.

Closing the door to the brazier-lit inner room, he went back to the cabinet and began to pull the scrolled vellums down, careful not to crush any. He removed the shelves and then spent some time feeling around for the hidden latch that Valefar had so easily found. Eligor felt a slight thud beneath his hand from somewhere behind the wall, and the panel opened and again the dust of time sifted upward.

Eligor knelt and peered into the dark, rectangular space, not really sure what, if anything, he expected to find. It looked just as he had remembered it, featureless and simple. But when he ran his hand against the rough back wall he discovered a ledge and upon it something that moved slightly when he made contact. Reaching farther in, he found a small, footed casket, which he carefully pulled out. It was carved of bone, dyed, and inlaid with precisely cut chips of obsidian of differing colors.