Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

So tall that it was nearly a tenth the height of the Black Dome, the Watcher floated on six slowly beating wings that, fully extended, seemed as if they might span the Rotunda. It had fared poorly in its captivity, Eligor saw. Blind and with its nose eaten away by worms, its face was a tortured landscape of pits and wrinkles, the chiseled contours of its skull prominent. Its skin, once golden and miraculous for its magical markings, was a sickly pale gray and was dotted with holes and covered in sores. Visible, too, was the ancient, Throne-mandated punishment, the great scarred wound where its genitals had been ritually, wrathfully, excised for its sins. Upon its wrists and ankles were the burned-in scars of the elaborate glyphs that Those from the Above had used to cast it down and shackle it—glyphs that somehow Beelzebub had managed to neutralize.

Eligor saw it turn its huge horned and winged head to and fro, trying blindly to sense its surroundings. Beneath it, the remains of the floor cracked and began to slowly slide down, sinking of its own broken weight, lower and lower until it separated and dropped, taking with it those screaming demons that had been clinging to the bricks. When the dust had cleared, Eligor could see well down into the burning heart of the Keep. When he looked up he saw the hundreds of his flying demons who had retreated; there were fewer of them left than he had expected.

Once the sounds of the floor's sinking had subsided, a strange quiet settled throughout the Rotunda. Only the cavernous sound of Semjaza's breathing could be heard, as well as the slow flapping of its wings.

And then a soft buzzing arose and a green command-glyph sprang to life from the deformed figure that was Beelzebub. It sped up toward Semjaza and, without pause, sank into its head. The milky eyes closed and the six wings beat faster as the message was revealed. Eligor was sure that the Fly's weapon was gathering itself.

From the heights of the dome a white form descended and hovered before the withered face of the Watcher. Sargatanas, head ablaze and blue ialpor napta held before him, hung on gently beating wings so close to the titan that he might have reached out and touched it with the sword point.

Fearing for his lord, Eligor felt his breath catch in his throat. He could not see whether Sargatanas was speaking to Semjaza or simply showing himself, allowing the sightless Watcher to become aware of him. Whatever the case, the effect was immediate and startling. Semjaza reared backward as if it had been struck, fear unmistakable upon its face. The Watcher remembers its old captors! It hears the language of the Above and the sizzle of the flaming sword and is afraid!

A roar of outraged buzzing rent the air and Beelzebub ascended, spreading and engulfing Sargatanas within himself. In the briefest instant Eligor saw his lord transformed from a thing of potent beauty to a figure ablaze in the center of a fiery maelstrom of flies. Eligor saw, too, the layer of glyph-mail eaten away and the flies beginning to penetrate the white armor. Without thinking, Eligor found himself in a steep dive heading directly toward Sargatanas. But as Eligor drew near and the flaming green flies pulled away, their lethal work done, he saw that there was nothing that could undo the damage that had been inflicted upon the demon. Barely able to stay aloft, Sargatanas began a long, slow descent and would have plunged into the smoke-filled darkness of the open floor below had Eligor not caught him.

As he dragged his lord away from the great hole, Eligor looked up and saw Semjaza, guided by the buzzing, moving purposefully toward the coalescing figure of the Fly. The Watcher said something in its own tongue, a language Eligor was unfamiliar with, and, opening its mouth, began to inhale deeply. The Fly tried to pull away, but it was in vain. An uncontrollable, continuous stream of blazing flies was pulled from the shifting form of the Prince and began to flow into the Watcher's mouth, sucked into its glowing throat. The being that was Beelzebub began to waver and fade and Eligor heard a terrible scream emanate from the shredding cloud of flies. It lingered and echoed in his ears even after the Watcher had finished devouring the last of the Prince of Hell. And Eligor would never be sure, but it sounded to him as if that final, anguished cry was the name "Lilith."

Seeing their master gone, the remainder of the Fly's troops broke and ran, making their way as best they could over the shattered floor. Most met their destruction at the end of a lance.