God's Demon

Chapter 1 There was the Fall. And no one was permitted to speak of it, or of the time before or of the Above. But it was the Fall that established many things in Hell, not the least of which was the distribution of territory. The future wards of Hell were randomly determined as each Demon Major, on his own sizzling trajectory from the Above, plunged headlong, meteoric, into the unknown wilds of the Inferno. Some impacted far apart, setting up their realms in relative seclusion and safety, while others, less fortunate, found themselves in close proximity, able to see the rising smoke of their neighbor's arrival. These close arrivals began plotting and campaigning as soon as they could gather about them enough minor demons to form a court. The fratricidal wars that erupted lingered for millennia, occasionally flaring up into major conflagrations. These were the volatile times of Settlement and they were never forgotten by the survivors. Many of Lucifer's original Host were lost, but those that remained, the strong and the cunning, established powerful kingdoms that would grow and prosper. When Eligor Fell he found himself upon a smoking plain cratered with the barely moving bodies of a thousand fallen demons. They lay, as he did, stunned, twisted by their furious descents, and glowing from myriad tiny embers. Eligor had been a foot soldier in the celestial Host, attached to the seraph Sargatanas' legions, and could remember nothing of his final moments Above. Somehow, as he Fell, he had managed to stay near his general's flaming smoke-plume. Eligor came upon Sargatanas as he stood upon a wind-whipped bluff, unsteady, the steam of his descent wreathing him. Transformed from luminous seraph to Demon Major, he had lost all of his heavenly trappings and none of his dignity. A corona of embers flitted away from his massive head and Eligor saw it form into a great and complicated sigil for the first time. Sargatanas had been one of the fortunate ones, a demon who had Fallen, uncontested, in an infernal region harsh and inhospitable, albeit rich in minerals and perfect for city-building. Glowing milky white upon a flat plain before them, and bending around a tall central mount, oxbowed a slow-flowing river that would be named Acheron. Here, Eligor somehow knew, a great city would rise. They stood silently, watching the shower of fiery contrails, the paths of slower descents as they approached their new, unwelcoming home. Eligor glanced over at his lord. He saw Sargatanas looking up, beyond the contrails and beyond the clouds, and saw him close his burning eyes. A great number of demons gathered about Sargatanas as he set about the founding of his city. The earliest, mostly unknown to him, were those who had descended nearby and, after meeting with him, agreed to join his van. Others traveling from afar, more often than not, had known him from before the Fall and wanted to be by his side, perhaps for comfort, in the new world. Eligor's intuition had proven correct; Sargatanas had seen the same potential in the land near where he had Fallen. The boundaries of Sargatanas' future city were vast, yet the Demon Major had walked them himself, pointing out to Eligor the specific features of the landscape that had provoked his interest in this particular spot. The great river, especially, had won Sargatanas over. As he and Eligor approached its steep banks, they smelled a distinct saltiness carried upon the thick air. They peered down into the languorously flowing Acheron and both of them could see tiny forms, indistinct and writhing, in the thick water. An unaccountable deep sadness filled them as their lungs filled with the mist-laden air that rose up, and, after a moment, Sargatanas shook his great head and spun away. The gestureBarlowe, Wayne D. is the author of 'God's Demon' with ISBN 9780765348654 and ISBN 0765348659.