Barlowe, Wayne - God's Demon

Algol had just finished its monthly circuit and the party began to describe its long arc to skirt the Plain of Nagrasagriel, home of the numberless and legendary Soul Puppeteers. This was Eligor's first visit to the Plain, and that may have been why his lord chose the route; prior journeys to Dis had used other passages. It was widely known that Sargatanas enjoyed the exploration of Hell, especially on foot, feeling that every bit that he learned firsthand about the Inferno might prove useful someday. On the other side of this field of creatures, Eligor was told, lay the final marches to the capital, but he remembered that on foot the region's circumnavigation would take another three weeks. To achieve a variety of goals, his lord had determined how long he wished to be traveling, the urgency of the mission notwithstanding. And this spectacle was something he wanted his pupil to see.

Eligor heard them before he clearly saw them. The din of the Soul Puppeteers, the Sag-hrim, was an exoskeletal symphony of percussions, a sound so jarring that it set Eligor's nerves on edge. The closer they approached, the more unbearable the sound became.

Sargatanas sidled up his soul-beast next to Eligor's.

"They are amazing," Sargatanas shouted, reading Eligor's expression. "They are as old as Hell itself. When Beelzebub discovered them he knew at once what he could use them for. He tinkered with them, adjusted their minds to focus upon humanity, and then set them upon their Task. Do you know what it is that they do, Eligor? What that Task might be?"

"No, my lord. I have heard rumors that they have something to do with humans, before they arrive here."

"That is true. The Sag-hrim have the ability to connect with them and, more important, to influence them. Humans are flawed, weak; they only need that extra push to enable them to choose the path that leads here. The Sag-hrim provide that ... incentive."

"How?"

"Trained attendants, Psychemancers, conjure a single human's psyche and then guide the Sag-hrim according to Beelzebub's plans. Each individual creature is equipped with manipulators—those long fingers that you can see—that can alter the abstract design that represents that psyche. These designs encompass an entire lifetime. Every human has one, or really two—one that is spiritual and one that is physical. Both are represented and both can be altered.

When you look closely, the spiritual design is the glowing tracery; the physical is the floating collection of boneshards. All psyches are subtly different from one another, some tougher than others. At first they may seem perfect, but there is almost always a flaw. Once found, that flaw in the design is pulled, twisted, severed, or even added to, and the Sag-hrim achieves its goal. When they have succeeded with a soul they discard the psyche's physical shards onto the pile they sit upon. And then, eventually, that soul arrives in Hell. But remember, Eligor, the humans are not being forced; they are being tempted. That is much harder. And much more satisfying to us, for they cannot blame anyone but themselves for being here."

Sargatanas looked out at the Plain for some moments and then slowly shook his fiery head. "One has to admit that it was brilliant to see the potential in the Sag-hrim, that it was genius to exploit them so well."

Eligor looked at Sargatanas, surprised at the admiration in his booming voice, at the expansive credit he was giving Beelzebub. He looked back at the creatures. He had not noticed the relatively frail Psychemancers before. They seemed roughly his own height but were dwarfed by their charges. Seated, the seemingly headless Sag-hrim appeared to be nearly six times his height, covered in chitinous armor with odd organs bulging from their swaying torsos and massive multifingered arms swinging slowly as they performed their tasks. Hanging in the air before them were the glowing psyches, and Eligor watched carefully as the creatures pulled and adjusted and wove the designs with their wandlike fingers and flickering ribbons of fire. It was fascinating to watch, nearly hypnotic, and even more wondrous when Eligor thought about what they were achieving. These Sag-hrim, so distant from their human subjects, were actually coaxing them, tempting them to sin. From the smallest sins to the largest. Entire patterns of human culture were shifted, wars were begun, atrocities committed, murders, rapes—human evil in all its manifold forms— all because of the machinations of these beings. And all according to the grand strategy of Beelzebub. It was almost more than Eligor could grasp.

"It almost seems unfair. I mean, with humans as frail as they are. Who among them could withstand these?" Eligor said almost to himself.

"Not many," Sargatanas agreed. "Not many at all." He turned away and Eligor, gaze fixed on the Sag-hrim, only barely heard him walk off.