This is the eleventh chapter of Diabolical Ascension, the saga of Zeraga Baal'khal, the Doomfire. Discretion is advised due to graphic content.
The tenth chapter, Fast to Madness, can be found here:
The first chapter, Awakening, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-i-awakening
Image credits (in order of appearance): Petr Joura
Crimson, scarlet, and vermilion. These sanguinary hues were all that Zeraga Baal’khal could see no matter where he looked, tides of red in every hue, rising and falling; ebbing and flowing; turgid and flaccid. They were the pall of his blood-rage wrought large. Was that where he was? Had he somehow managed to enter his blood-rage? He was standing, but he couldn’t feel the firm ground beneath his clawed feet. Zeraga looked down at his hands, his arms, his whole body. It was all red, as red as the surrounding landscape that couldn’t rightfully be called a landscape.
And Hellscythe was absent, but that made sense; Zeraga remembered hurling the weapon away. That had been right before the assassin had stabbed him, and Maalik was undoubtedly still dead. Stoically, Zeraga replayed the memories. It was too late to regret his mistakes now, and the fact that he still had his memories meant that he himself wasn’t dead. Probably. He started walking.
Doomfire, oh Doomfire, what are you doing here all alone? The telepathic voice was distinctly bestial with a sardonic tone.
Who are you? Zeraga barked back as he stopped, his gaze darting all around.
The voice’s laugh sounded like a wolf yipping with glee.
Where am I? Zeraga demanded.
The only response the devil received was the laughter loudening all around. He reached inward, calling upon his hellfire. It wasn’t there; there was something else instead. From head to toe, Zeraga’s body thrummed with his heartbeat, his uppermost right arm more than any other limb. It was darker, too, as dark as wine, and the red eddies around the arm writhed faster, like vipers on the hunt. Finally, the eddies coalesced into a blood-red sword, and the all-encompassing heartbeat stopped as Zeraga’s arm returned to what was now its normal color.
Careful now, Doomfire. The voice said. You know not the power you invoke.
Zeraga tightened his grip on his blood-sword. I know who you are. You are Ahriman.
You would like that, wouldn’t you? A winged, demoniac figure of behemoth proportions formed amidst the red all around. For a moment, it seemed to walk toward Zeraga, and then it unraveled, leaving no sign that it was ever there. But alas, I am not the First Demon, no.
The red directly in front of Zeraga swelled and darkened in an eerie, quickened parallel to pregnancy. Outstretching his uppermost left hand, the Doomfire called upon the weird blood-power that he now possessed. His whole arm writhed and darkened, culminating in a fan of wine red that coruscated across the landscape, soon becoming absorbed in the towering distension ahead. If the display accomplished anything at all, it was not apparent. The distension swelled more and then burst. A clone of Zeraga emerged with a rakish grin on his face.
Insolent cur! Zeraga moved his mouth to form the words, but no sound came out; there was only telepathy. Gripping his blood-sword in two hands, the Doomfire charged.
A sword sprouted in the clone’s grasp, darting up to parry Zeraga’s first strike. The next moments passed in a flurry of crimson slashes against the scarlet backdrop, the red undulating all around in response to the combatants’ movements. Each exchange of blades filled Zeraga with more fury. How was the existence of his current foe possible? The Doomfire parried another strike, and in that moment, the clone conjured a second sword and powered it toward Zeraga’s chest. He whirled out of the way. The wracking agony that followed told him that he had been a moment too slow; tendrils of dark mist flowed from his side, and a savage snarl emanated from his mind. Grimly, he was glad for the wound. It was another sign that he was still alive.
Zeraga willed a second blood-sword into existence. Time slowed down as his body thrummed with his heartbeat, and his uppermost left arm turned dark as wine. The surrounding red writhed in response; the clone’s blades were already in motion. Ponderously, the hilt of the second sword formed in Zeraga’s grasp as he swung his first sword to parry. Red tendrils burst from the weapon as it clashed with the clone’s. Pain bloomed in Zeraga’s thigh a moment later as the clone’s second blade sliced into him. Finally, his second sword manifested. Time snapped forward into its normal pace.
A bloodcurdling howl boomed from the Doomfire’s mind as he became a sanguine storm unleashed upon the false version of him, the surrounding red churning and rippling with every movement. Strike after brutal strike rained down upon the clone; he matched the pace of Zeraga’s wrathful dance. Faster and faster it went until it seemed that the blades were wielding the devils.
Vigor coursed through Zeraga’s fleshless form like a river; rarely had he felt so alive. He beat back the clone’s sword with one of his own, flowing into a thrust with his second blade. A wet, sucking sound followed as the clone’s chest was skewered. The clone puffed out of existence without a sound, and the voice returned, laughing.
Such excellent entertainment! it said. Would you care to go for another round?
Get me out of this place. Zeraga fumed as he started forward. Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that he should not have cast away Hellscythe. That was why he was here, in what he thought had to be Ag’graaza proper.
You are smart enough to know that I cannot do that, Doomfire. the voice replied. In fact, if you hadn’t already figured it out, you will never leave this place. This is the end of the line for you. The voice laughed again.
Zeraga gave no reply; anger built silently within him. He would not allow himself to be trapped here. He would find a way out. After all, hadn’t his previous incarnation learned how to navigate Ag’graaza? Zeraga started sifting through his memories.
They were fragmented, disjointed, and lacking in chronology; the only thing consistent between them was war, eternal and unyielding. A tableau of Zeraga and his Crimson Dragons slaughtering their way through a canyon of endless night yielded to a vision of the Doomfire alone on a vast tract of badlands reminiscent of Addaduros save that there were behemoth maws gnashing within the land itself, the ground groaning as it was wracked with tremor after tremor. Zeraga’s armor had been reduced to husks of mangled metal clinging to his flesh; Hellscythe was absent. Spreading his wings and taking flight so that the tremors wouldn’t jostle him, the Doomfire began to cast a spell.
One that he mimicked word for word in the present time, the present place, the present space. Zeraga finished the spell, releasing the sorcerous power built within him. Nothing happened.
No! the voice shrieked. The traitor is mine!
The red darkened, darkened, darkened, more tenebrous than it had ever been; a sound like ripping flesh followed. From an unseen tear beyond charged Zeraga’s latest foe.
The demon had the lower half of a spider that, by itself, was the same size as Zeraga, armored in a sleek onyx carapace with vibrant, violet whorls. From where a head should have been sprouted a muscular, humanoid body covered in ash gray skin. His head was man-like with distinctly wolfish features, at once bestial and saturnine, framed by a thick white mane that carpeted his shoulders as well. Tendrils of fungus wove vein-like non-patterns about his forearms, terminating in meaty fists which each gripped a weapon. One was a sword with a red blade that was a near-exact replica of the blood-swords Zeraga held, save that they were bigger. The other weapon was Hellscythe.
Hello again. Hellscythe’s voice radiated with diabolical majesty. I am glad to know that you don’t want to abandon me for a second time.
The weapon was already coming down upon Zeraga. The Doomfire’s blood-swords darted up to parry as he sidestepped the demon’s sword. Coming back around, Zeraga slashed at his foe. The demon’s sword whipped in the other direction and slammed Zeraga’s weapon away, sending it wildly off course. A swing of Hellscythe followed; the weapon’s tip glowed brighter, unleashing a torrent of hellfire upon Zeraga. The devil cried out as the flames savaged him, and Hellscythe’s blade was now but a moment away from opening his belly. The Doomfire parried with one blood-sword as he retaliated with the other, the blade slicing across the demon’s chest, blood jetting from the wound. The demon surrendered only a grunt of pain as he swept his weapons at Zeraga, one after the other. The wound that Zeraga had inflicted was already healing.
Why are you helping him? Zeraga snarled at Hellscythe as he parried the demon’s next strikes, willing a third blood-sword to manifest in his grasp.
I have no other choice. Hellscythe replied. His master’s will amplifies his own.
Zeraga’s only reply was a raging howl as he threw himself at the demon, each of his blades a blur of red. Two slashed the demon’s chest, forming a gory X; the third cut across the demon’s stomach, more vital fluids spilling from him as dark entrails were revealed. The demon barked in pain as he cannoned his front legs into Zeraga, throwing him back. He scrambled in an attempt to remain standing but still fell. The red churned frenziedly around him, manifesting a dark, translucent cage as the demon skittered back, his wounds already closing.
Nine more demons stepped forward seemingly from out of nowhere. Each one was a hulking, red-skinned brute of about Zeraga’s size with four arms, curled horns, and faces that were masks of unfettered hatred. Their weapons were polearms and shields of the same make as Zeraga’s blood-swords.
The demon who wielded Hellscythe came forward, his skittering a sinister pavane, his weapons poised to swing. “Doomfire, oh Doomfire…” Now that he was speaking physically, his voice took on a new, rich, stygian quality. “You cannot know how much I want to kill you.”
Zeraga matched the demon’s glare with his own. “You are nothing compared to me. I have slaughtered thousands of your kind.”
“My kind?” the demon laughed, “There is only me, and as for you, those are bold words given that I wield your weapon and your life depends entirely on my mercy.”
Zeraga replied by swinging one of his blood-swords. As the blade met the prison wall, it thickened, and the resulting sound was a loud slurp. The spider-demon’s laughter dripped with derision.
Finesse. Hellscythe whispered. That is what this situation requires.
Enlighten me. Zeraga replied indignantly.
Hellscythe’s ruby tip lit up, effulgently sanguine, and the spider-demon stopped laughing. A moment of silence followed.
“Get out of my mind, traitor!” the spider-demon roared.
Zeraga did not hear Hellscythe’s reply, but he saw the weapon’s ruby tip glow brighter, and tendrils of red mist trailed up from his prison as though it were melting. Zeraga assumed a fighting stance. After a few more moments, the prison disappeared. The spider-demon’s hands were on his head, still gripping his weapons, and he writhed and contorted as though controlled by an amateur puppeteer. The nine summoned demons charged.
The Doomfire hurtled toward his foes, becoming a vicious red whirlwind as he hacked them down, one, then another, stopping only to parry a barrage of strikes with his blood-swords. He then devoured more ground as he skewered another demon, his other blades already in motion. A head went flying; the other summoned demons were butchered; the spider-demon remained locked in his weird dance.
A savage grin formed on Zeraga’s face. The spider-demon was such an easy kill now. The Doomfire stalked forward to claim it.
An ear-splitting scream came from the spider-demon’s mouth as his gaze dropped on Zeraga, focus and fury swirling in his eyes. “Enough of this!” He pointed Hellscythe at Zeraga; a torrent of hellfire screamed forth.
Wave after lashing wave of agony surged through Zeraga, soon metamorphosing into an eerie sensation of losing substance. Had he had flesh, it would have felt as though he were melting away. His heartbeat picked up as he spread his wings and leaped at the spider-demon.
A baleful clash consumed the next moments as the Doomfire and his demonic foe brought blades to bear against one another, more hellfire screaming forth. It ended when the spider-demon threw Zeraga to the ground with a sweep of one of his front legs, raising his weapons to strike the mortal blows. As the blades came down, the Doomfire was already rising. He cannoned one of his swords into the spider-demon’s chest, the sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone heralding a fountain of gore. The gore became crimson mist that flowed into Hellscythe, and the weapon continued to feed on its former wielder, leaving an etiolated husk.
Zeraga walked over to Hellscythe and picked it up. What do we do now?
First, we put some flesh over that bare soul of yours. the weapon replied.
Zeraga suddenly felt himself solidifying, like lava cooling into rock. His heart formed, and then his lungs. He was breathing again. The rest of his internal organs followed, at which point a skeleton emerged to cradle them. Muscle, thick and rippling, layered itself atop the bone until it was finally covered in fair, red-tinged skin. The ridges of red scales upon Zeraga’s clawed feet were the final touch.
He grinned. He was alive, truly alive. Walking over to the spider-demon’s now colorless corpse, the Doomfire used one of his blood-swords to carve a loincloth from what skin remained, tying the macabre garment around his waist.
I presume that we are in Ag’graaza. Zeraga said as he rose to his full height once more.
Where else did you think we would be? Hellscythe replied condescendingly.
Take us back to Addaduros.
I’m afraid that it is not that simple. You see, we are not just in Ag’graaza, we are in a prison within a specific realm of Ag’graaza.
How do we get out?
We start by going through that tear. Hellscythe indicated the dark patch of red that had once been the false womb.
Zeraga nodded and obeyed.
*
Baal-Kephor stood atop the corpse of a large demon that was a weird hybrid of humanoid and spider, and he had now claimed his foe’s weapon for himself. It was a large iron glaive stylized with screaming skulls. Maraduamnaa was close by, her face clenched with confusion. Neither she nor Baal-Kephor were truly themselves. Their weapons and armor were nowhere to be found, and their bodies were red and translucent, as though made of bloody mist. They stood at the center of a large cave with thick strands of webbing festooning the ceiling; more webbing formed the cocoons that lined the cave’s walls.
One of the cocoons burst. Zeraga Baal’khal walked through. He wore only a white loincloth, and weapons occupied four of his six hands: the ubiquitous Hellscythe and three swords that were the color of dried gore. The devil moved with a predatory gait; an equally predatory grin coated his face.
“I never imagined that I would find you here,” the Doomfire said, “but I daresay that it is an unexpected boon.” He flexed his grip on Hellscythe; the weapon’s ruby tip glowed malevolently.
This is it. Maraduamnaa said to Baal-Kephor. Now is our chance to kill him.
Agreed. The need for vengeance burned like a bonfire within Baal-Kephor. He spread his wings and took flight, soon charging down upon Zeraga.
*
And the Doomfire charged up to meet his foe, at once calling upon his hellfire and the blood-rage. His blood-swords transmuted into blazing instruments of death as the crimson pall enrobed his mind, greeting him like an old friend. “Slaughter!”
Slaughter! Hellscythe screamed back.
Baal-Kephor swept his glaive toward Zeraga, who parried with a hellfire sword; a vicious melee ensued as the Doomfire traded blows with his hated foe.
Unexpectedly, searing pain bloomed in Zeraga’s back. He glanced down and saw the glayruk chanting, chaos-flame coruscating across her outstretched hand. The Doomfire let out a scream from the bleakest of mortal nightmares as he whirled around and sent himself hurtling toward the glayruk. “I will glut my scythe on your soul!”
“No!” Baal-Kephor was in front of Zeraga a moment later, his glaive whistling toward the Doomfire’s throat. The eye sockets of the glaive’s most prominent skull flared up with actinic green light, disgorging jagged energy bolts that slammed into Zeraga and threw him back. More chaos-flame bolts struck his torso.
The Doomfire barely felt the pain, numbed by rage. He recovered with a beat of his wings, at which point one of his arms snapped forward to send one of his hellfire swords streaking toward the bitch-creature below. Baal-Kephor immediately disengaged to intercept the sword; another howled to life in Zeraga’s grasp.
“Pathetic,” the Doomfire snarled as he outstretched one of his hands and unleashed a wave of hellfire.
Baal-Kephor cried out in pain as the flames washed over him, cocooning him in torment. Zeraga raised his hellfire sword to finish the job.
He was frozen in place before he could throw it. “Enough of this!” called a voice that sounded like a cross between a shrieking hiss and a swarm of wasps surging forth. In the air above Zeraga and Baal-Kephor appeared a towering, humanoid creature composed of writhing larva that were the same bleached, pallid shade as Zeraga’s loincloth, and he was kept airborne by four gossamer wings with webs of purple veins running through them, completely silent as they fluttered frenetically. Eight arms sprouted from the creature’s shoulders and torso; four ended in scorpion-like pincers, and the other four ended in clawed hands. The creature’s face was an ugly, horned visage fixed into a scowl.
He pointed one of his pincers at Zeraga. “Be gone!”
There was nothing the Doomfire could do. He disappeared from the cave and met only unrelenting darkness.
*
Zeraga stood within a large chamber with bronze walls, floor, and ceiling adorned with ostentatious trim molded into the shape of flying dragons, rubies serving as their eyes. From the walls hung many banners, each a receptacle for the rich, tenebrous heraldry and history of the Crimson Dragons; scrolls of yellowed parchment covered in flowing red script affixed to the banners told tales of battles fought by the Doomfire and his children. At the center stood an immaculate marble table, monolithic and with trim matching the rest of the room. Against the back wall stood a golden throne sculpted in the form of a pair of dragons sitting back-to-back, their wings elegantly contorted to form the chair and part of the base. Upon the throne lounged a naked woman.
Her curves flowed atop and into each other like leisurely meandering rivers, and her soft, flawless skin was a shade darker, a shade redder, than the marble table. Lush blonde hair poured from her head, framing smoldering, scarlet eyes; full, dimpled cheeks; and plump, heart-shaped lips that were as red as the surrounding rubies and somehow more brilliant. Her large breasts had rose-pink nipples. A pair of folded, red-scaled wings sprouted from her back, framing her rounded body as her hair framed her rounded face, and more red scales covered her hands and feet. Her fingers and toes ended in stubby black claws.
Zeraga’s heart skipped a beat. “Sha?” The name was short for Sha’eryzhura, a Fire-Bride of Pandemonium and Zeraga’s most cherished consort. Devils didn’t typically marry, but she was the one who came closest to being Zeraga’s wife. Despite his joy at the sight of her, unanswered questions formed a maelstrom in his mind. How was she still alive? The Crimson Dragons had been exterminated during the final crusade to Ag’graaza. More so, how did he, Zeraga, get to a place that no longer existed? Desperately, he wanted his misgivings to be false.
Sha’eryzhura beamed, revealing pointed fangs. “Yes, my love, I am here.” Languidly, she beckoned to Zeraga.
He walked toward her as though enchanted; she grew more beautiful with every stride. They joined hands, and Sha’eryzhura pulled Zeraga in for a passionate kiss. As their lips pressed against each other, leaving no part untouched, one of Sha’eryzhura’s hands glided down to Zeraga’s waist, and the other took one of Zeraga’s hands and cupped it on her breast. She moaned as Zeraga massaged her nipple with his thumb.
Zeraga kissed her again hungrily, his tongue emerging to lick Sha’eryzhura’s lips, exhilaration running down his spine. He didn’t remember the last time he had had her; all he knew was that he needed her now. Sha’eryzhura spread her legs, and Zeraga plunged himself inside her, groaning. She was so tight, so warm, so wet.
“My dragon queen…” Zeraga whispered before gnawing on her ear, four of his hands massaging her breasts. He set a steady, almost lazy, rhythm with his thrusts.
“My Doomfire,” Sha’eryzhura crooned as she relaxed, becoming like clay in Zeraga’s embrace.
Pleasure surged though the devil; he started pounding his lover as he kissed, licked, and gnawed on her breasts, spending long moments sucking on her nipples. One of his hands descended to her clitoris and started rubbing. Sha’eryzhura moaned and shuddered, her toes curling as she came. “Zeraga, my love!”
Their love-play continued, a moment that lasted for an eternity and an eternity that lasted for a moment, both of them hoping that it would never end.
*
“Did you enjoy that?” Sha’eryzhura ran her finger down Zeraga’s chest. Her legs were still shaking.
“As much as I hope you did.” Zeraga tenderly kissed her forehead. Pleasurable aftershocks tremored through his body.
“You already know that I did.” Sha’eryzhura nuzzled Zeraga’s chest. “You’re the best. I’m so glad you survived the siege.”
“What siege?” Zeraga raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t recall anything from before being in this room, his personal chamber in Zehtlkha’an, the bastion of the Crimson Dragons, and he had no memory of having entered.
Sha’eryzhura giggled and kissed Zeraga’s cheek. “I don’t blame you for trying to forget about it, my love. You led a battalion of your children in assaulting one of Mephistopheles’s fortresses on the Forsaken Slaughterfields of Tartarus.”
Zeraga nodded; what Sha was saying certainly sounded familiar. “And?” he prompted.
His lover frowned. “The attack was successful, but a whole squad of Crimsonblessed was lost.”
Zeraga mirrored Sha’s frown. The Crimsonblessed were the most elite of the Crimson Dragons, closer to their father than all others. That so many had perished…
Zeraga pushed the thought from his mind as he focused again on Sha’s face. Her eyes were closed, now, and she smiled as she wrapped her arms around Zeraga and held him close. Her wings flexed slowly, contentedly. Zeraga couldn’t help but smile back. In a life filled with near-constant warfare, peace was a luxury that he would not give up so easily, and nothing would hurt him here. He blissfully cocooned Sha’eryzhura in his arms.
*
A hypnopompic haze lurked about Zeraga’s mind. He hated it. All the trappings of his tryst with Sha’eryzhura had evanesced, giving way to a small cave where he was bound by thick ropes of sticky webbing. A needling sensation permeated his shoulders and feet, and he could vaguely see thorny vines curling out from between slight gaps in his bindings.
Directly in front of Zeraga stood a pair of demons. They were gangly and etiolated, as tall as the Doomfire but having a near-complete lack of muscle mass. Their skin was a mottled morass of hypothermic blues, and their yellowed claws extended the lengths of their arms by half again. Their faces were withered and pathetic, oval-like in shape with creases piling atop each other. Where there should have been eyes and a mouth, there were only miniature replicas of that inhuman, tormented, senescent face. Upon the eyes and mouths of those smaller faces were more of the same, continuing infinitesimally.
“Look,” one of them hissed, his voice wracked with shivers. “The Doomfire awakens.”
“Indeed.” The other demon’s voice was distinctly female but still sounded as sickly as she looked. “It’s a shame that that dream didn’t keep him longer; that was one of our better inventions. However, we can still concoct another. What say you, brother?”
“I think you are quite right, sister, quite right indeed.” All of the male demon’s faces smiled, revealing rotting teeth that were specks of black. “The Doomfire’s previous life is such a fertile plot of inspiration, too.”
“No,” Zeraga growled. He was so bound that he couldn’t even ball his hands into fists. “You will free me if you value your lives.”
Both demons laughed. “Look, sister, the Doomfire is threatening us! Whatever shall we do?”
“I’m not sure, brother.” The female demon made a show of cowering. “What will we do?”
Zeraga called upon his hellfire. For a moment, hot knives coursed through his veins, culminating in an explosion that sent chunks of webbing flying everywhere. No hellfire sword manifested, and the webbing was already mending itself, new tendrils sprouting and thickening. The thorny vines writhed, too; the needling sensation in Zeraga’s shoulders and feet intensified. Lightheadedness followed, pulling the devil into somnolence. He fought against it, trying futilely to move amidst the webbing, and he called upon his hellfire again. The second explosion was smaller than the first, yielding but a few thin, pathetic tendrils of smoke. The hypnagogic pall about his mind thickened, dragging him from reality.
“No…” he growled, the word slurred into a drawl. “No…”
“Oh yes,” the male demon said, “Hopefully, you like this dream more than the last one…”
Agony coursed through Zeraga as the thorny vines dug deeper into his flesh, but the pain was blunted by his current state, akin to the fleshlessness of the red. Zeraga gritted his teeth as he erected a wall within his mind. Desperately, he anchored himself upon the memory of having used the Eternal Darkness against Baal-Kephor and willed it to answer him.
The demons stepped closer, their panoplies of faces bearing scowls forced into grins. “He’s being quite obstinate, brother.” The female demon’s tone was saccharine and dripping with malice.
“Oh yes,” the male demon replied, “but we have yet to reveal all of our instruments of persuasion to him.” He raised his left hand; a viscous, purple muck now coated the middle claw. “It’s quite a shame, Doomfire. Really, it is. You could have spent all eternity with your lover and left your enslavement to Asmodeus behind. Your existence could have been one of pleasure without end or equal. Instead, you choose to fight. No wonder you are on your four hundred and twenty-eighth incarnation.”
“I will always fight.” Zeraga’s voice was hoarse. With every fiber of his spiteful heart, he demanded that Ur-Dûr-Valatî answer him.
The male demon crept closer and extended his purpled claw toward Zeraga’s face, strings of the muck hanging off it. The Doomfire’s heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t allow the sinister drug to touch him; he wouldn’t succumb to evanescence again. His arm turned gelid as the Eternal Darkness flowed through him, ice that was the consistency of lava. A black lightning bolt shot from Zeraga’s clenched fist, perforating the webbing and slamming into the male demon. He screamed in agony as he threw his claws to the ground, stone screeching against stone as he barely kept himself upright.
“You will pay for this!” the female demon raised her claws and charged.
Zeraga unleashed another bolt of radiant unlight that struck the female demon, throwing her to the ground as she writhed in excruciation, resembling a worm burrowing through the earth. Zeraga brought forth more stygian might; a black sword cut through the webbing with its manifestation. Another flick of his wrist had his arm free. The demons rose to their feet and stalked forward, their faces masks of rage. With a few more strokes of his black sword, Zeraga was free; the veins of the arm that wielded the tenebrous weapon bulged and throbbed with the same unlight.
The Doomfire walked forward to meet his foes; the demons’ claws now carved through the air toward him. He wove a web of scintillating blackness as his sword darted to and fro, severed claws clattering to the ground as he parried.
Another flash of Zeraga’s sword removed the demons’ heads, black gore fountaining from the stumps of their necks as they fell. The Doomfire then plunged his sword through the demons’ chests, grinning at the corpses’ last spasms. Certain that his foes were dead, Zeraga pulled his sword free.
His grin faded. A sigh slid out from behind his lips. His time with Sha’eryzhura had felt so real, so perfect. Was she still alive despite the illusion? Zeraga Baal’khal bowed to no gods, but he prayed that the answer was yes. What he would give to see her smiling face again.
The devil surrendered the thought and turned his attention back on his surroundings. There were no tunnels connecting to the cavern; he would have to make his own way out. Zeraga walked to the back wall, plunged his black sword into the rock, and started carving. He met only more rock. After a few minutes, Zeraga pulled his sword free, growling at the fruitlessness of his efforts. He should have kept one of the demons alive.
A thought sparked in his mind. If he could be brought back to life, surely there had to be a way to do the same for the demons; Churvômbhel had been teaching him a spell of necromantic rejuvenation just before the assassin had struck, one that he had used in his past life as Legion Master of the Crimson Dragons. Perhaps there was a more powerful spell that could bring back the dead… Zeraga delved into his memories to find something, anything, that could help him. A new memory bubbled up from the psychic abyss; he eagerly embraced it.
*
A serpentine behemoth bore down upon Zeraga; it easily could have been kin to the archdevil of Nyrrakhâ’s Seventh Hell, the ever-raging ocean known as Cania. Charcoal gray scales layered themselves in obdurate sheets upon the serpent’s body, furling and unfurling in time to the great beast’s coiling. The shining crest upon the serpent’s head was of a rich, purple shade, and its face had three eyes, one on either side with a third ensconced upon its forehead, all unrelentingly sanguine. Within its maw lurked a phalanx of sharp, serrated teeth. The serpent’s most obvious deviation from Leviathan came in the form of its wings, great sheets of leathery purple sprouting from its shoulders and crowned by talons that were larger and thicker than its teeth.
The Doomfire and the serpent dueled in the lightless skies of the Forsaken Slaughterfields of Tartarus, a morbid rain of red and purple falling from their wounds. Below sprawled a landscape of pure iron that undulated with fortresses, siegeworks, and trenches upon which the Crimson Dragons, led by the Crimsonblessed, offered battle to the legions of Mephistopheles.
The next verse of the aerial melee began with the three-eyed serpent lunging, ropes of saliva falling from its open maw as it descended upon Zeraga. He whirled out of the way and started ascending, his wings beating frantically, powerfully, to outpace the serpent’s now-rising head.
Hellscythe’s ruby tip glowed with anticipation. Let us immolate the beast’s wings and see how it likes the fall. Hellfire roared into existence about the weapon’s blade.
I have a better idea. Zeraga replied.
Now above the serpent, between wings that rose and fell like turgid ocean waves, the Doomfire descended, a hellfire sword manifesting in his grasp as he sped ever closer. The serpent was twisting to face Zeraga; its tail was rearing up in resemblance to a scorpion’s. Zeraga closed the distance, his clawed feet digging into the serpent’s scales as he landed upon its head. His hellfire sword flashed; deep purple mist erupted from the serpent’s flesh as its brain was skewered. The winged behemoth went rigid and started to fall.
And Zeraga started chanting. Sorcerous power flowed through the Doomfire with every esoteric word, the rushing wind all around doing nothing to distract him. As he finished the spell, great ropes of purple-black, necromantic energy burst from a pair of his raised hands, burrowing into the slain serpent.
The corpse jolted with new life, and a telepathic bond formed between it and Zeraga. The Doomfire pointed at the legions of Mephistopheles and transmitted but three words:
Kill them all.
*
A renewed sense of purpose blossomed within Zeraga as he returned to the present time. He collected one of the slain demons’ heads and pressed it to one of the decapitated corpses; he could not tell which head belonged to which body. Zeraga then began to recite the incantation, ropes of necromancy plunging into the slain demon as he finished. The demon’s neck knit itself back together, and the corpse began to stir. Its too-many eyes fluttered open.
“Where… Where am I?” The demon’s voice was shrill, that of the sister.
“You are here,” Zeraga replied smugly, his black sword hovering above the demon’s throat. “You never left.”
Her eyes widened with fear. “You!”
“Yes.” Zeraga grinned. “Me, the one you are going to help.”
“I would rather die again.” The demon spat on Zeraga’s face; the wad of saliva was gelid and slimy.
“Is that so?” With a caress of his black sword, Zeraga shaved a short length of skin from the demon’s arm, revealing dark pink flesh from which black blood oozed.
For a long moment, the demon screamed. When she finally fell silent, Zeraga asked, “Are you still so eager for a second death?”
“What do you want?” The demon’s voice shook.
Zeraga’s grin widened as he drank in his prisoner’s capitulation. “Tell me where Hellscythe is.”
“I don’t know.” The demon’s gazes darted between Zeraga’s face, a mask of unfettered sadism, and his black sword. “You came to my brother and I like this.”
Zeraga twirled his sword; the weapon hummed and crackled. “You lie.”
“No, I promise! What I have told you is true.”
Zeraga gave a low, sardonic laugh. “Not the whole truth, though. I ask again: where is Hellscythe? You already know that lying will be quite painful for you.”
“What reason have I to lie to you, Doomfire?” The demon’s eyes became a tableau of glares. “You have me at your mercy. I tell you truly that I know not where the traitor is, but if I had to guess, Lord Razzatha’ar has likely taken the traitor.”
“The one who looks like a mass of maggots and has eight arms?”
“Yes.”
“See? Wasn’t that easy?” Zeraga was tempted to cast the spell to summon Hellscythe; it would likely bring Razzatha’ar directly to him. But, it could also bring something entirely worse. “You are the second demon to have referred to Hellscythe as a traitor. Why is that?”
“Because that is what Hellscythe is: a traitor.”
“Do I need to remove another strip of skin?” Zeraga glanced at the demon’s wound. It was still bleeding.
The demon snarled. “Hellscythe was once one of us, a demon. His name was Apollyon, and he was one of Ahriman’s greatest warriors and generals from the time before the creation of the Thirteen Hells. When Satan and his bastard-kin rebelled against Xa, the Overdeity, Apollyon thought to do the same to Ahriman. He contacted the fallen angels, and all of them refused him except for Asmodeus, with whom he made a pact.
“Apollyon aided the rise of the Thirteen Hells, including fighting against the rebellious archdevil Lucifer.” The demon allowed herself a chuckle. “And then, when the time came for Asmodeus to reciprocate and aid Apollyon in slaying Ahriman, the Lord of Golgotha instead turned Apollyon into Hellscythe, and he gave Hellscythe to you. Ahriman has wanted Hellscythe back ever since; it is for that reason that all demons are created with knowledge of this tale.”
“I see.” Zeraga molded his voice into sibilance to mask his satisfied curiosity. In an ironic way, he was flattered; a whole race had been set to hunting him. That certainly explained the assassination attempt. “Take me to Lord Razzatha’ar.”
The demon shuddered. “Is that truly what you wish?”
“I do not recall stuttering.”
“Very well.”
Zeraga stepped away from the demon. She rose and walked to the back wall where Zeraga had carved with his black sword. The wall started churning and bubbling like hot tar, yielding a tunnel that Zeraga and his prisoner entered.
*
The cavern that held Razzatha’ar’s throne was the largest in the demon lord’s domain, a bastion of rejuvenating decay. In an age so far gone that mortal myth had forgotten about it, the cavern had been a chapel dedicated to Zaphkiel, one of Xa’s archangels. Even now, ornate, but crumbling, stone buttresses and rafters could still be seen through the thickly woven moss and fungus all about, bearing the once all-encompassing angelic motif. The throne upon which Razzatha’ar sat had once been the altar, now beautified with fungus the colors of gangrene; thorny flowers with blue, purple, and pale orange petals; and corpses, some still draped in pallid flesh, others skeletal.
And in his claw, Razzatha’ar held the greatest prize he had ever claimed in his eons of existence: Hellscythe. Apollyon. The traitor.
It has been a while since we last met. Razzatha’ar idly twirled the golden scythe.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Hellscythe spat. Zeraga will come for me, and you will die.
Is that so? Razzatha’ar chuckled. I do not need to tell you how many have told me that and failed to deliver; my domain is called the Web of Oubliettes for good reason. Right now, your Doomfire is safely corralled in his most yearned for fantasies and oblivious to you. Now, Apollyon, I want you to tell me something: was turning against Ahriman worth it?
You are a hypocrite in asking that question. You, too, would turn against the First Demon given the chance.
I already have the chance. A dry smile emerged from Razzatha’ar’s ugly, horned visage. I am one of the most powerful demon lords in Ag’graaza. But, I also know that many others would rally to Ahriman’s defense. Oh yes, they would claim loyalty to the father and other platitudes that would be more expected from mortal filth, and Ahriman would pretend to believe them. That does not change the fact that their only desire would be to slay me and divide my power and domain like a pride of lions after a successful hunt. They, too, have been given the chance to betray Ahriman and would make the attempt if they felt the circumstances were in their favor. Therefore, the only real difference between us is that you have tried and I have not. I have found a measure of contentment in my position, and you have not. That is why I asked, but I daresay my question has answered itself.
Hellscythe gave the telepathic equivalent of a glare. I will be free, and Ahriman will fall.
And who will take his place, oh great Apollyon, whose erudition knows no bounds?
Certainly not you.
Razzatha’ar laughed. How glad I am that I did not take you for your abilities as a conversationalist. I daresay that it is time for me to attend to my other important prisoners. I know that you know at least one of them. Come, Apollyon.
*
Gore coated every inch of Zeraga and his prisoner. Demons had blocked their way at every turn. They were dead now. Zeraga and his prisoner now stood before a portcullis of fungus.
“This is it,” the female demon said, “Beyond lies the throne of Lord Razzatha’ar.”
“Good.” Zeraga appraised the portal. A few strokes of his black sword should fell it easily enough.
“Am I free now?” the demon asked.
“Yes.” The Doomfire turned and clamped two hands on his prisoner’s shoulders and rammed his sword through her stomach. Gore and entrails flooded out of her as she let out her last scream. “You have earned your freedom.” Zeraga pulled his sword free and let the corpse drop to the ground.
Thorny vines as thick as Zeraga’s arm capped by slavering, rose red flytrap mouths burst from the now-writhing portcullis. The Doomfire cut them down as he outstretched one of his hands and unleashed a torrent of hellfire. The portcullis crackled and popped before the rapacious flames, crumbling to ashes. Zeraga entered the tunnel beyond.
It led into a large cavern dominated by more fungus. At the center was a throne, and upon it sat the demon of writhing larva with eight arms, four ending in claws and four ending in pincers. One of the claws gripped Hellscythe.
“You have something that belongs to me,” Zeraga declared, hefting his black sword.
Razzatha’ar rose from his throne, spinning Hellscythe in his grasp. “Do I now?”
“Give it back.” Zeraga conjured a hellfire sword. Thoughts of how he could resurrect the demon lord under his command swirled in his mind.
“Or what?”
Zeraga spread his wings and leaped at Razzatha’ar, hurling his hellfire sword as he ascended. The flames unraveled with a clack of one of the demon’s pincers. Vines then raced from the ceiling, reaching for Zeraga. A snap of his wings shunted him out of the way. More vines reared up from the floor; a great morass of them now sped toward the Doomfire. With a scream, he called upon his hellfire. Infernal heat coursed through him, manifesting as waves that exploded from his outstretched hands. A rain of ashes fell where the vines had once been. Zeraga charged his demonic foe.
Razzatha’ar pointed one of his pincers at Zeraga and opened it; a volley of thin, bony spines shot forth. Agony lanced through Zeraga as the spines pierced his torso time and again, blood streaming from his opened flesh. Still, he pressed forward, his black sword carving through the air as he closed the distance and landed. The next moments were a flurry of blades that ended with Hellscythe and the black sword quivering in midair from being locked together.
“You are quite powerful to have made it this far, Doomfire,” Razzatha’ar said.
“I will hear none of your venomous words.” Zeraga conjured a hellfire axe and cleaved at his foe.
Razzatha’ar became a blur as he disengaged with preternatural agility. Zeraga brought forth a hellfire spear and hurled it, his heart pounding with intensifying rage. Razzatha’ar fired a hellfire ray from Hellscythe; the ray collided with Zeraga’s spear in mutual annihilation. Three volleys of spines then streaked from the demon’s pincers, whistling though the air. Zeraga threw up a hellfire wall; the bone spines evaporated before the intense heat.
Suddenly, something constricted Zeraga’s feet and started crawling up his legs. He looked down and found more vines. A hellfire dagger fulminated into existence in his grasp, and he started cutting, sawing, and hacking. By the time was free, Razzatha’ar was behind him. Whistling heralded a fresh bout of excruciation. Zeraga groaned and growled as he fell to his knees; fatigue from too many bleeding wounds turned his limbs heavy.
Fight, damn it! Hellscythe snarled. Fight! Slaughter!
Help… me… Zeraga replied.
Razzatha’ar laughed. “There will be none of that. Hellscythe is mine now.”
“No.” Zeraga’s muscles burned and strained as he forced himself to rise and face his foe. He then began to cast a spell. Each word was hoarse and ragged as his mouth struggled to form them.
Razzatha’ar’s laughter grew. “You think to challenge me with a spell?” he scoffed, “Let Razzatha’ar show you the true meaning of pain and suffering!” The explosion of a hellfire wave bursting from Hellscythe drowned out the whistling of four volleys of bone spines.
The onslaught savaged Zeraga like a pack of hell hounds falling upon a freshly slaughtered carcass. Blood flowed out of him like water from a courtyard fountain as swathes of his flesh turned blackened and charred, red mist billowing from him. Still, the Doomfire chanted. Razzatha’ar stalked forward, Hellscythe raised to strike the mortal blow, more spines flying from his pincers.
The blackness of death clawed at the edges of Zeraga’s vision; it would be a blessed reprieve from his torment. He refused it. The last words of the spell left his mouth. Hellscythe appeared in his grasp. In an instant, vigor flooded into the Doomfire as the crimson pall embraced his mind with the same enthusiasm with which he had embraced Sha’eryzhura. Bone spines fell from his flesh as his healing wounds forced them out.
Zeraga rose. His muscles throbbed and writhed as he grew taller and stronger, more red scales appearing upon his flesh. His fangs lengthened and became serrated. His face was a mask of elemental hatred.
Slaughter. Hellscythe growled.
“Slaughter!” Zeraga hurtled toward his foe.
And then he was gone.
Where once had been Razzatha’ar and his throne-cavern was now an endless expanse of colors mixing and separating without end, the Primordial Chaos-Void of Ag’graaza in its purest form. Zeraga screamed in rage.
Take us back. he demanded of Hellscythe.
No. the weapon replied, releasing Zeraga from the blood-rage.
As lucidity dawned upon the Doomfire, the augmentations to his flesh were undone.
You called upon the Eternal Darkness. Hellscythe said flatly, almost accusingly.
Zeraga took a moment to reorient himself. Then, he said, It was the only way to free myself. He glanced down at his black sword; the veins of the arm that held it were still radiantly stygian, but now the surrounding skin had started to turn gray. What is happening?
The consequences of your actions. You called upon the Eternal Darkness without properly attuning yourself, and now it will eat you until there is nothing left.
But you can help me, can’t you? My past incarnations have wielded that power. Surely, you can grant me a memory of me having attuned myself.
I cannot. Asmodeus’s bindings upon me prevent such things.
Then we must go to Ur-Dûr-Valatî.
And abandon both Zamyyr and the vow you made to the city of Arkynathos?
Zeraga paused before letting out a sigh of resignation. Zamyyr could help him; he was the one who had warned against the use of the Eternal Darkness in the first place. Fine. We will go back to Addaduros. We will finish what we started. But first, I have more questions.
If it is in my power to answer them, then I shall. Hellscythe replied reluctantly.
Why did I awake in Razzatha’ar’s realm rather than my tomb in Golgotha? I felt the dagger enter my neck; I should have died.
It is simple: one of Razzatha’ar’s demons was watching and claimed your soul before it could return to Golgotha.
Then why was the spider-demon wielding you?
You mean Kukulza? He was wielding me because I followed you into Ag’graaza. I tried to fight him off, but he summoned more demons to his aid and overpowered me.
You followed me? Zeraga raised an eyebrow. I thought you hated being wielded by me.
How many times must I say it? Hellscythe chuckled sardonically. I am bound to help you in all lives and all times.
There is more to it than that. I know why the demons call you “traitor.” Having me to aid you keeps them from claiming you as Kukulza and Razzatha’ar did. You need me to escape punishment for your betrayal.
Do I? There is always Asmodeus. Hellscythe concealed the surprise in its voice with a snarl.
You are a poor liar, Hellscythe, or should I say, Apollyon? Why would you depend on Asmodeus when he is the one who forced you into my service? Zeraga grinned. That aside, you told me that you knew what we were seeking on Addaduros to stop the demonic assaults on Arkynathos, but you never told me what. I demand to know now.
Hellscythe laughed malevolently, defeatedly. It is Ôx’xâ, the Horned Helmet of Desolation.
Zeraga immediately knew the name, and he also knew that that was the helmet that Zamyyr had been begging him not take on the final crusade to Ag’graaza. The familiarity thickened, sweeping the Doomfire’s mind away on the tides of a memory.
*
Zeraga simultaneously despised and drank in the fear that oppressed the air. The Doomfire was clad in his full panoply of war: his copper armor with metallic green trim; his crimson cloak and half tabard; and the black horned barbute known as Ôx’xâ. The star of chaos etched upon the adamantine helmet glowed like forged-heated metal; it was just above the T-shaped opening that revealed Zeraga’s murderous, sanguine eyes and precious little else of his face. The nine demons bound within Ôx’xâ were more insistent than ever, ticking, clawing, and gnawing as they demanded that Zeraga throw himself into the crowd of mortals before him and start slaughtering. The voracity rivaled Hellscythe’s.
Zeraga held the urges back with his obdurate willpower. Though he cared not for the mortals’ lives, they could not learn the lesson he had been sent to teach if they were dead.
The Doomfire presently stood upon a stone platform at the center of a bazaar. The high noon sun shed unrelenting light on everything, especially illuminating the unease and timidity plastered upon the face of every mortal: men, women, and children alike.
Behind Zeraga was a glayruk chained to a thick pole of the putrid orange metal known as feyrferreus. The chains jangled and clanked as the glayruk struggled; his arms, his legs, and the spider legs that sprouted from his back and shoulders all undulated from his efforts. He seethed and snarled despite the chain gagging his mouth. Physically, he was at least a head taller than average for any mortal, and corded muscles rippled under dark skin that was carpeted with esoteric tattoos. His red eyes swirled with passionate hate; his fangs were nigh vampiric; his thick, black hair was a mane. He came from the time before the glayruks’ exodus from the Thirteen Hells, before nigh uncounted millennia of war and incest decimated their bloodlines.
Not far from Zeraga and the glayruk stood Zamyyr. The other devil was nearly a spitting image of his Legion Master save that he only had two arms, each one of which held one of his Axxcrudyr. They were monolithic weapons with jagged blades of feyrferreus and handles of leather-wrapped dragon bone. The Nyrrakhân runes upon them glowed a malevolent crimson shade similar to their wielder’s eyes.
About the base of the stone platform were spaced nine more Crimson Dragons, all brandishing their weapons, watching the mortal crowd with beyond-mortal vigilance.
“People of Xûphaaz,” Zeraga declared, “I am Zeraga Baal’khal, the Doomfire, Everchosen of Asmodeus, and Legion Master of the Crimson Dragons. This cycle, I come before you as the arbiter of justice sent by Asmodeus, Lord of Golgotha, to whom your world owes fealty. Some of you seem to have forgotten that.” He paused, grinning beneath his barbute as he scented fresh excrement. Everyone on this arid world had heard the legends about him; no one presently alive had ever seen him in the flesh. Truthfully, however, Zeraga wished that he had been sent to destroy Xûphaaz and leave only bedrock behind. These mortals did not deserve the mercy that he was giving them now. Aside from Asmodeus’s orders, what kept Zeraga from acting on his desires was the knowledge that their lives would produce more damned souls to fuel Golgotha, potentially even becoming some of the next Crimson Dragons. “Your ruler is dead,” Zeraga continued, “and Lord Asmodeus will appoint a new one he finds fitting. Now chained before you is the one who seduced so many of you with sedition. Lord Asmodeus has sentenced him to the death.” The smell of excrement thickened as the Doomfire turned to face the chained prisoner.
Let me deal with him. rumbled a voice from within Ôx’xâ that sounded much like a volcanic eruption. It was that of Charaezohar’en, the mightiest of the nine demons bound within the Horned Helmet. I will make his death slow and torturous, just as Asmodeus desires. The star of chaos upon Ôx’xâ glowed brighter.
No. Zeraga raised Hellscythe to strike. Hellfire exploded into existence about the weapon’s blade.
A commotion swept across the crowd; whistling swords, tearing flesh, and the crackles of dark magic joined the cries of alarm. Zeraga whipped around to the sight of eight more glayruks like the chained one stalking into the bazaar. Their luridly green, skull-adorned swords glowed as they swept to and fro across the mortals, cutting them down amid sprays of blood. The glayruks’ black armor made them imperious to what little, feeble resistance the mortals could muster; they were like a pickaxe carving through eroded stone.
The screams of the Crimson Dragons’ inferno rifles slashed though the din, and hellfire and crimson lightning howled into existence about Zamyyr’s Axxcrudyr.
Guard the prisoner. Zeraga said to his equerry.
As you command, Lord Zeraga. Zamyyr replied.
The Doomfire spread his wings and hurled himself into the air, drawing vigor from Hellscythe. The weapon answered; Zeraga’s muscles writhed and expanded as the crimson pall enrobed his mind, and his armor magically expanded to accommodate his larger size as patches of crimson scales formed, and then thickened, upon his flesh. His fangs became serrated as they lengthened into daggers.
Now do you desire my aid? asked Charaezohar’en.
Yes. Let us start with that one. Zeraga pointed at the frontmost glayruk.
A bright, purple lightning bolt screamed from Ôx’xâ, falling upon Zeraga’s chosen foe like the wrath of the gods. Zeraga himself was not far behind, screaming, “Slaughter!” as the eight other demons within Ôx’xâ reared up as one and lent him their might, hate, and wrath. In that moment, Zeraga Baal’khal, the Doomfire, knew in the very marrow of his bones that not even an archdevil would have been able to stand before him.
*
And now you know. Hellscythe said as Zeraga’s mind returned to reality.
Why didn’t you tell me all of this sooner? Zeraga asked. His muscles still twitched with the echoes of Ôx’xâ’s power coursing through his body. With the Horned Helmet upon his head, he would be a slave to no one.
You were so fixated on the idea of me trying to enslave you that I thought it best not to say anything until the helmet was in your presence. Hellscythe kept itself from sounding satisfied; it could feel Zeraga’s eagerness to claim Ôx’xâ. That would make the execution of the plan that much easier. The Doomfire only thought that the helmet would grant him freedom. He would not learn the truth until it was too late, much too late.
You have tried to enslave me. Repeatedly. Do not think that I have forgotten our first meeting, either. Zeraga’s face hardened.
I would not have expected you to, but also do not forget that I did not interfere in your pact with Skûn despite the futility of helping mortals. Besides, now you have experienced Ôx’xâ and what it can do; with how powerful the helmet is, what selfish reason could there be for me to want you to wear it?
Your might joined with the nine demons of the helmet makes ten demons arrayed against me.
Hellscythe laughed. And why would the nine within Ôx’xâ ally with me? I am branded a traitor by demonkind; many are created with the instinct to hate us unquestioningly and hunt us unrelentingly. Those within Ôx’xâ will be fighting to break free at every turn, and you will need my help in preventing that.
And you truly will help me?
I have certainly indicated as much. Did I stand in your way when you took up the axe and truncheon of Nekros Gorethirster?
Zeraga paused. No, but why is that you are aligned against the demons?
Just like every other demon, I wanted to overthrow Ahriman. And now, I want to overthrow Asmodeus. Every new source of power we obtain increases our chances of besting him and being free of him for all time so that he can never again carelessly throw your life away. Is that not why we started all of this?
Zeraga paused again, uncertain of what to make of it all. Hellscythe, Apollyon, made sense. Too much sense. Reluctantly, Zeraga said, Yes.
And that is why we must win Ôx’xâ. Hellscythe continued, satisfied. Come, Zeraga. Let us return to Addaduros and, as you said, finish what we started.
Zeraga could only nod as Hellscythe’s ruby tip glowed along with its blade, a bright scarlet beacon, and then the Primordial Chaos-Void of Ag’graaza fell away.
*
Razzatha’ar sat upon his throne, brooding. He should have worked harder to keep Zeraga imprisoned. He should have worked harder to keep Hellscythe from the Doomfire’s grasp. But, neither of those had been worth dying for, and sending Zeraga to another part of the Web of Oubliettes would only have delayed the inevitable and caused more destruction in the process. Razzatha’ar remembered well how the Doomfire had challenged Ahriman during his previous incarnation. Most demons neglected to remember that Zeraga, along with the traitor Apollyon, had nearly won. Razzatha’ar didn’t.
He rose from his throne. With a thought, the demon lord teleported to a much smaller cavern. Thorny vines with rose red flytrap mouths festooned the ceiling, and Baal-Kephor and Maraduamnaa were bound to the wall by strand after strand of thick, sticky webbing. Only their faces, translucently red from fleshlessness, were visible.
“I think it is time for both of you to come with me,” Razzatha’ar said.
The webbing undulated ever so slightly as the devil and the glayruk struggled, their faces masks of anguish, desperation, and defiance. Razzatha’ar smiled. For a moment, he was released from the bitterness of Zeraga’s escape. But, the futile display soon grew boring, and he had already extracted all of their memories. Razzatha’ar laid his claws upon the cocoons and, with a thought, sent them to their inevitable doom, cementing his alliance with Ik’kthatch.
Razzatha’ar smiled again. When next he and the Doomfire met, the devil would not be nearly as fortunate.
No, not at all.
*
Asmodeus hadn’t left Addaduros; he knew better. Presently, the archdevil sat upon a stone throne at the center of the fortress that he and his Doombringers had sorcerously shaped within one of the Fifth Hell’s mountains. Azazel knew nothing of the fortress, and no one else knew of it either, save for the ten devils within who had come from Golgotha. Around Asmodeus were nine mirrors of perfectly clear crystal, oval in shape with an edge of cerulean metal called arcco, specifically meant for channeling sorcery. The mirrors were the only ornamentation within the circular room, the only items Asmodeus had conjured from the Twelfth Hell. The mirrors had not originally come from Golgotha, however. Once, they had belonged to Mephistopheles and had been in one of his fortresses in the Forsaken Slaughterfields of Tartarus, a fortress that Asmodeus had sent Zeraga to destroy thousands of years ago. The mirrors had served the Lord of Golgotha well since then; they were serving him well now.
The mirror directly in front of Asmodeus showed a multi-mile long dragon skeleton around which were tents, banners, and earthworks; collectively, it was the encampment of the Fangs of Azazel. The dragon skeleton had once been the wyrm Urthraxiar; he had been created by Ahriman to lay waste to the Thirteen Hells in a last ditch attempt at victory during the final days of the Luciferian Apostasy. However, Azazel, riding the Fire-Bride Grazharaashi, had defeated Urthraxiar. Asmodeus remembered the eve of the duel as though only a cycle had passed; Urthraxiar’s coming has been known. On that eve, Asmodeus had gone to Azaba’ar to wish his brother and friend well, and they had feasted and whored together.
And now, Asmodeus was vigilantly observing the Fangs of Azazel for signs of the treachery he suspected in their master. It was a sad thing. Part of Asmodeus wished that he had never known Azazel at all. But, the past was the past.
In the last ten cycles, several stygian portals had opened around the Fangs’ encampment from which had come groups of deathly figures bearing the trappings of bats and skeletons. Asmodeus recognized those other devils as having come from Chelgorgos, the Tenth Hell, and that set him further on edge. Bhaaz, the bat-like archdevil who ruled that lightless ossuary of a hell, had been part of the Mephistophelian League formed against Asmodeus as he had been creating the Crimson Dragons and the four hundred and twenty-seventh incarnation of Zeraga. The hope in those endeavors had been to launch an assault on Giredaanas, the collection of law-aligned planes ruled by the Overdeity Xa. Instead, Asmodeus had found himself fending off attacks from Mephistopheles, Belial, and Bhaaz targeting his bastions on other planes. Was Bhaaz now planning a similar alliance with Azazel? Asmodeus was loathe to admit that now would be a good time with the Crimson Dragons gone and Zeraga’s location unknown.
The last scryings upon the Doomfire had failed, and Asmodeus’s sorcerous connection to Hellscythe had revealed that the weapon was not on Addaduros, but rather in Ag’graaza. Had Poisonteeth been right all along about the bindings upon Hellscythe weakening? Asmodeus’s hardened face yielded a wry smirk. Out of all the billions of beings in the Thirteen Hells, it was Poisonteeth, Asmodeus’s sentient, serpentine tail, who was the most trustworthy.
“Perhaps it would behoove us to send more spies into Bhaaz’s court?” Poisonteeth asked. It, too, gazed into the mirror that displayed the Fangs’ camp.
“The ones already there have not reported any new developments,” Asmodeus replied, “and the same can be said of those in the courts of Mephistopheles and Belial. However…” The archdevil cast a short spell.
Hellfire exploded in front of Asmodeus, bathing the room in orange effulgence for a moment. When the smoke cleared, a humanoid raven with red eyes and arms and legs covered in crimson scales remained, hovering in front of the archdevil.
“Lord?” the kuryaazos asked, its voice rasping and shrill.
“Go to the Fangs of Azazel—” Asmodeus pointed at the scrying mirror. “—and tell me what they are up to.” The archdevil paused to let the kuryaazos wrap its minuscule mind around the words. “Specifically, I wish to know why there are devils from Chelgorgos present.” Asmodeus paused again. “That is all.”
“As you command, lord.” With another flash of hellfire, the kuryaazos was gone.
The smoke hadn’t yet cleared when Asmodeus felt a tug from his bond with Hellscythe. It was strengthening; the weapon had returned to Addaduros. Asmodeus’s gaze snapped to the mirror left of the one displaying the Fangs’ camp. A spell followed. With the last word, the mirror’s surface started to shimmer. Zeraga came into view.
The Doomfire was inside a large cavern beneath the surface of Addaduros. He wore only a loincloth of blanched, white skin, and he gripped Hellscythe in one of his hands. In stark contrast to the fair, red-tinged encasing most of his muscular form, one of his arms was ash gray with radiantly black veins; the hand of that arm bore a sword of pure unlight.
Zeraga approached two kuurzanaals. The horses of shadow and flame guarded two corpses. One looked like Zeraga and wore his armor except for the breastplate, and two weapons of iron and gem lay nearby. The other corpse was that of a large, muscular glayruk clad in hides that blended in with his dark skin, and his hand still held a large battle-blade of bright orange metal that smoldered like fire itself. The spider legs extending from the glayruk’s back and shoulders occasionally twitched.
The kuurzanaals greeted Zeraga eagerly, and, soon after, the Doomfire began donning his armor.
Asmodeus smiled; the gesture was an eclectic mix of fatherly warmth and impending wrath. He telepathically reached out to one of his Doombringers.
What is your bidding, lord? the soldier devil asked.
Come to me. Asmodeus replied. I have found Zeraga, and he has discovered the power of the Eternal Darkness.
The archdevil severed the telepathic link and reached out to two more of his Doombringers, giving them the same news and instructions.
The End
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Next Chapter: Freedom Flight
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