Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

"From what I have heard," he rumbled, "they spit after they utter that. And not just because they say the word 'Heaven.' Everyone may know of Adamantinarx, but not everyone wants it to exist."

"True, but I do. And I would call it home. I can never see Heaven; this is as close as I can come."

"And just how did you make your journey? Valefar never told me."

"Anonymously, alone, and upon the back of a beast. Prime Minister Agares had a hand in it. He is a strange one, my lord. On the surface dutiful, but beneath he is in great turmoil, I think. Were I the Fly I would not put too much trust in his allegiances."

"Interesting. I cannot imagine being in proximity to the Fly each and every day and not being a willing vassal. It would destroy a lesser demon. Well, Lilith," Sargatanas said, extending his hand, "you are welcome in the City That Fell from Heaven and as long as you stay here I will protect you with my last phalangite if need be."

Lilith put her hand—so white and small compared to his—upon his upturned palm, feeling the heat of it spreading. She shuddered as an unfamiliar sensation spread throughout her, a clawing away of the fear and misery that was such a large part of her being. Trapped beneath the millennia-deep sediment of her torment and resentment lay a pearlescent sealed casket and, within it, that imagined, barely fluttering self that Lilith knew had been deeply buried since she had arrived.

She looked down, shaking her head slightly.

"What is it?" Sargatanas asked softly.

"I ... I feel as if I am either dreaming or awakening."

The demon lord rose and, still cupping her hand in his, drew her up.

"It cannot be a dream, Lilith. My dreams are never this ... engaging."

Lilith smiled, closed her eyes for a moment, and felt as if her soul, like a dock of winged night-silvers, had risen, released at last, from within that now-open box.

Chapter Nineteen

DIS

The Keep was more silent than Adramalik had ever remembered it. What few functionaries he saw in its corridors and rooms bore the unmistakable mark of terror upon their faces. Tales were beginning to filter up from its base, tales of what had happened out in the city's Sixtieth Ward after the Prince had finally resigned himself to the fact that his Consort was no longer in Dis. What Adramalik heard made even him shudder.

He had been present when the Prince had finally come to the dark conclusion that Lilith was gone. Adramalik and Agares and a few other principals had, at first, stood rooted to the floor with mouths agape when Beelzebub's howling rage had manifested itself. Tiny flies, growing in size, had peeled away from his body in a seemingly unending, rising spiral, horrific to behold. And their faces, faces that he knew to have once belonged to angels, were pocked and distorted, torn and twisted, sublime in their madness. Each bloated fly was different from its brother, but each bore many limbs that ended in black blades that snapped and cut the air as the creatures, enlarging as they flew, jostled toward the Rotunda's openings and flooded forth into the dark skies of Dis. Relief spread through Adramalik's shaking body as he watched them depart; for a moment he had actually wondered if Beelzebub's rage might spill over onto him and Agares and indeed everyone in the Keep. But in a few short minutes the small gathering was standing alone in the quiet Rotunda, left wide-eyed and trembling, watching the frantic swaying of the skins above. Adramalik could not remember when his master had left the Keep last.

Even now he could hear, in the fearful silence that smothered the Keep, the echo of the whir of their wings and the sound their clattering bodies made, and a part of him held his breath in awe.

A day later, after the Prince had resumed his throne, someone had ventured into the Sixtieth Ward and come back to the Keep with a tale of what he had seen there. It was a large precinct, but, even so, nothing had been spared.