Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

In contrast to himself, Sargatanas sat swaying upon his steed, relaxed, swathed in his skins, reading some thick tome he had snatched from the Library. Of all the party he was the least affected by the landscape of Hell. And why should he care? thought Eligor a little enviously. There is very little here that can harm him.

The soul-beasts' heavy padding footfalls blended together with the rhythmic jingling of the creatures' harnesses. When Adamantinarx had dwindled to little more than a glow on the dark horizon and then to nothing at all, the caravan picked up a flock of skewers. They dropped in from the dark clouded sky and hovered a hundred feet above, circling and diving. These opportunistic flyers were common travel companions that usually kept their distance, only swooping in on membranous wings when they sensed that someone might be in distress. Eligor, like most demons, knew he would tolerate them until they became either too annoying or too aggressive, whereupon, with simple glyph-darts, they would then become challenging targets to while away the tedium.

Despite the sometimes difficult terrain, the soul-steeds kept up a steady, quick pace, and Eligor marveled at how those on foot kept up. Occasionally he would twist around in his saddle to watch them as they picked their way between the folds, pocks, and fissures that blemished the ground. He reasoned that apprehension kept their steps quick and constant.

Three days of travel found them nearly to the Flaming Cut, a massive lava flow that cleft the mountains and signaled a change in the landscape. The air grew thicker and smelled burnt. Through the smoke and heat-haze the Cut looked surreal, like a column of fire that reached into the sky. Around them the fleshy ground had given way to ugly clumps of convoluted, hardened lava, which assumed bizarre and unimaginable forms. Eligor liked this region even less than the oppressive flesh-fields. Why did Sargatanas and Valefar not simply fly to Dis? I could have remained in Adamantinarx and kept an eye on security. And then he remembered that Sargatanas specifically wanted him to go, and speculated that perhaps his lord, like the mentor that he was, felt he needed the perspective, needed to be reminded of the darkness of Dis and Hell's monarch in contrast to life in Adamantinarx. Eligor did not agree; the simple thought of going to Dis was reminder enough.

Into the third week of their journey the caravan marched past the famed twin cities known as the Molars of Leviathan, and set up camp on an outcrop. The Demons Major needed neither sleep nor food, but the soul-steeds were fatigued, as were the lesser demons. Eligor, only slightly weary, walked to the edge of the cliff. The cities were situated at the foot of a mountain, built into a vast pocket cut in its side. There one city hung above the other, each mirroring its twin in size and shape. They were both in an advanced state of construction, and the scaffolding from each, barely visible from this distance, nearly touched. Surely, Eligor thought, the workers at the apex of each city's scaffolds could even pass one another their tools, and yet Valefar said it was forbidden. Since the cities' founding eons ago they had become terrible rivals and it had been decided that neither city could have any exchange with the other; nothing was to aid either in their progress. As Eligor knew, when both cities reached completion, great destructive bolts of lightning would flicker between them and then the roof of the mountainside pocket would descend to the rise below, grinding the city and its countless inhabitants beneath as if between unthinkably massive jaws. And then, when the ceiling had lifted and the dust had cleared, the construction would begin anew. This event seemed not to be too far off, but Eligor would not be present to witness it. Their trip was too important to linger, and he regretted that he would miss the catastrophe. Perhaps on another trip, he thought with a ripple of misery.