Armageddon?? (52 page)

To
Belial, it was obvious. The foundation of his painstakingly rebuilt power base
was the superior weapons his forges produced. The difference between a typical
bronze trident and a Tartaruan one was relatively slight. The painstakingly
crafted copper laminations increased its power by around one and a half-fold,
almost two-fold in the jeweled silver versions he made for the nobility. The
secret tempering process produced prongs that bit deeper and snapped off with
noticeably lower frequency than a common cast trident. The difference was not
overwhelming, but it significantly tilted the odds in the small skirmishes that
had been typical of Celestial warfare since the end of the Great War.

Even
still the difference between an armed demon and an unarmed demon was not great.
The tridents permitted the lesser demons to fling lightning, but it took many
blasts to fell one demon and against celestials served only to thin out a
charge before contact. The real fighting was done in close quarters. While
tridents and swords had useful reach they often broke and did no more damage
than tooth and claw. Belial saw that because the humans were so weak, they had
been forced to invest tremendous effort into creating powerful weapons, weapons
that could multiply their strength until it was sufficient to challenge a
demon. In a flash, Belial saw the humans' scheme. When they had first seen the
demons five millennia ago, they must have realized that weapons of
unprecedented enchantment were the only thing that could offer them a hope of
resisting the armies of hell. They had probably been refining their lore and
stockpiling them in secret all this time, revealing their new magics only when
threatened with outright extinction. Belial had not thought the short-lived
humans capable of such patience and planning. Regardless, now that he
understood where their strength came from, he could destroy it.

Belial
felt the wyvern's weight shift beneath him and the pounding of its wing beats
slowed slightly. Immediately he connected with its mind, ready to punish the
creature for its laziness. Instead he was relieved to find that the beast had
sighted its roost and had begun a slow descent towards the palace. Belial
raised his head into the slipstream, opening his eyes and blinking back the
grains of pumice that battered against his face. The dusty red foothills of the
Tartaruan range were dimly visible beneath them, dotted with flickering fires
and columns of smoke rising from the forges. His capital sat in a deep
depression between the upper foothills, now almost perpetually shrouded by
smog. The palace itself had originally been a prison, carved laboriously from
adamantine to house the most dangerous angelic prisoners of war. Many millennia
ago Satan had found it most amusing to exile him to an abandoned ruin in a
worthless backwater, but Belial had gradually transformed it into a great
arsenal and an almost impregnable fortress.

The
wyvern dropped into a glide, shedding speed fast as it circled over the
dwellings of Belial's subjects. The great guardian-beast at the main gates
spotted its master returning and loosed an ear-splitting discordant screech
from its thirteen throats. The scurrying figures below had long since stopped
being startled by the noise, but they did pause and look up, before falling to
their knees in deference to their master. His steed began its final swoop down
onto the basalt flagstones of the outer courtyard. Belial saw that Euryale was
already waiting for him on the terrace, accompanied by assorted servants. As he
drew up she was stared disapprovingly at his mount, clearly angry that he had
pushed one of her prized specimens so hard.

"My
Lord." Euryale's snake-like 'hair' writhed and glared at him, but her tone
was flatly deferential.

She
gestured to a pair of servants. "You two, take this beast to the roosts
immediately. Feed him chopped flesh, not live and not too quick. Don't let him
bloat himself. If he sickens I will hold you responsible."

The
self-proclaimed gorgon queen turned back to Belial, who had begun striding up
the steps towards the palace. She hurried to keep up. "So what news from
Mekratrig's court? What great deeds have you accomplished while I mind your
palace for you." Her tone carried bitterness rather than resentment;
gorgons in general and Euryale in particular were not welcome in Dis. She too
had been an outcast and she had even further to go before returning to favor.

"Not
here." Belial paused to address the servants. "I want every baron,
every captain and every senior overseer in my throne room in four hours time.
Send the fastest fliers. Stop groveling and move!" The lesser demons took
off, some literally while the flightless ran for the barracks, leaving count
and consort to enter the palace and make their way to Belial's study.

No
sooner had the bronze doors clanged shut than Euryale spat "So let me
guess, Satan exiled you again and now we must prepared to be invaded by half
the neighboring dukes."

"Silence
wench!". Belial had seemed distracted, but now he fixed her with a gaze so
terrible she immediately regretted her taunt. For a moment she thought he was
going to strike her, but when he spoke again it was not with a roar but with
pride tinged by glee. "Abigor has been proven a fool and a traitor. He allowed
most of his forces to be slaughtered by the humans and then joined their
side." The news had stunned every demon to hear of it and Euryale was no
exception.

"Our
lord Satan has chosen me to strike the next blow against the humans. My plan
will deliver a decisive blow and stand in sharp contrast to Abigor's failure.
They must have places like Tartarus, hidden places where they produce and
stockpile their enchanted weapons. We will find these places and we will
destroy them they way we destroyed the last two human cities. With most of
their weapons gone and no way to make more, the human armies will falter and be
swept away."

Belial's
plan seemed mad to Euryale at first, but within seconds she began to see the
logic. It was not the way wars had been fought; destroying crops and food
stores was standard practice, but disarming the enemy had never been considered
a viable or useful tactic. Yet the human magics were unprecedented and the
humans were so very reliant on them. The more she thought about it, the more it
made sense.

Headquarters,
Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“May
I speak with you, Excellency?”

James
Randi looked up at the figure that had just entered his office. He felt the
start of a surge of affection and crushed it down ruthlessly. Damn, these
succubi are dangerous ran through his mind. Even aware of their ability to
induce empathy with anybody within smelling distance, the pheromones worked.
“I’m not an Excellency or even a Sire. And calling me that doesn’t get you any
favorable consideration, quite the reverse in fact. But if you want to call me
James, or The Amazing Randi, then we can talk.”

Lugasharmanaska
noted the abruptness and guessed it was the man over-compensating for the
effects of her miasma. It was a pity the humans had found out about that.
“James, I know we have the ability to talk to demons in hell now. Using your
machines.”

“We
can. One on one. Julie’s making Domiklespharatu a whimpering nervous wreck. It
doesn’t get us very far but it’s giving her a bit of revenge for the torment he
put her through. So?”

“My
Liege-Lady is Deumos, the Princess of all the Incubi and Succubi in Hell. There
are thousands of us you know. I would like to speak to her using your
machines.”

The
reply was so blunt it had to be honest. No wheedling or trickery, just a blunt
request. Randi was amazed and suspicious. “And just why should we do that.”

“My
mission was to seduce one or more leading politicians, bend them to my will and
then learn from them as much about you humans as I could. I failed, the
politicians who were leading in Bangkok resisted me. That failure could earn me
my death. But I need to report to Deumos my findings.”

“Why,
if you’ll be killed.” Randi thought for a moment. “Could she kill you here, by
remote control so to speak?”

“No,
but that does not matter now.” Lugasharmanaska gave what was her equivalent of
a smile. “Anyway I have not failed any more have I? I am here with you now and
this building is indeed a palace of power. I did not get here the way intended
but I am here. And I ought to report my findings to Deumos.”

“And
what findings might those be?” Randi was interested in how this conversation
was going. He had the impression Lugasharmanaska was being honest for the first
time since she had arrived here.

“I
will tell her that you humans are going to win this war. That short of some
incredible stupidity on your part, and you are not a stupid people, you can
hardly help but win. Already she must know about the raid yesterday, it will do
no harm to tell her it will be the first of many, each more destructive than
the last. I will persuade her that her only chance of survival will be to join
the human side, to stand with humans against Satan. She may stand with him and
die for a certainty, or stand with humans and have a chance of survival. And
she will believe me for I will be telling her the truth.”

“That
never got anybody believed. I was telling people the truth about cheap
tricksters like that Israeli idiot and malicious frauds who pretended to be
mediums for decades and nobody believed me. Lugasharmanaska, let me take this
to the powers that be. We’ll see what they say.”

It
hadn’t actually taken much persuading. The chance of turning a demon lord was
too good to pass up. Anyway, measuring the signals generated as Lugasharmanaska
talked to Deumos would provide a whole world of valuable data. So, four hours
later, the succubus was relaxing on a couch while the technicians worked on the
wiring connecting her to the signals amplification system. A group of four
Marines were in the room as well, their orders simple, if the Succubus tried
anything, kill her. However, there was something else as well. Randi had given
their leader a letter Lugasharmanaska had written, one that had made his
eyebrows rise.

“OK,
Luga. Off you go, try and get through.”

Lugasharmanaska
screwed up her eyes and concentrated her very hardest. As the signal started to
be generated, the electrical sensors around her head picked it up and started
boosting it, driving it against the indefinable, unknown barrier that separated
the dimensions. She grimaced slightly, she guessed the humans weren’t trying to
hurt her but the boosted signal was having the same effect on her mind as
over-loud music had on human ears. Then, there was a snapping sensation. She
was through.

“Your
Royal Highness. It is Lugasharmanaska. I have much to report.”

“You
have been gone for a long time kidling. We thought you were dead.”

“I
was recognized and captured. I failed in my mission.”

“Then
it would have been better for you if you had been dead.” The mock-affection had
gone from Deumos’s mind voice.

“Highness.
I failed in my mission, but I have also succeeded. I am in the human’s power
palace now, speaking to you from there. I have become part of that power
structure, a lowly part but still high enough to learn things you must know.
Please, I beg of you, hear me.”

“Speak
then kidling. Perhaps your words may earn forgiveness.”

“Highness.
I have learned this and it is truth. The humans will not lose this war. They
will win and Satan’s empire will come crashing down upon him. They have killing
arts beyond our imagination and the ability to use them. They have not shown us
a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of what they can do. Did you hear of the attack
yesterday when the humans sent their tanks and mickvees into Hell itself? When
they destroyed whatever they could find, killed all and destroyed all.”

“I
had heard this. None here could understand it. They did not kill quite all,
some wounded were pulled from the ruins. Why did they not hold what they took
for ransom?”

“Highness.
Humans called this a Thunder Run. It is to demonstrate they can go where they
wish, when they wish and you can do nothing to stop them. They do not wish for
plunder, just to kill. We have nothing that they want except for our utter
destruction. They see us as their, I think the phrase is, mortal enemies. The
raid yesterday was the first of many, each more destructive and devastating
that the last. Nothing Hell has can stand against them, Heaven itself cannot
stand against them. You have two choices Highness. You may stand with Satan and
be destroyed with him for a certainty or you may stand with us and have a chance
of survival.” Lugasharmanaska’s mind voice was desperate, she had to convince
Deumos of the catastrophe that faced her.

“Us,
kidling?”

Lugasharmanaska
took a brief gasp of air and then concentrated again. “Yes, Highness. Us. I
have joined the humans and cast my lot with them. I may not survive to see
their victory but it is better to have a chance of living to see victory that a
certainty of seeing defeat. Highness, by every standard of loyalty I owe you, I
beg you to do the same.”

“And
why should I believe you?” Deumos’s mind voice was cold.

“For
this reason.” Lugasharmanaska waved her hand and the technician started upping
the power in the transmission. The pain in her head was dreadful, it seemed to
fill her whole body. She had thought kitten had been weak and foolish when she
had writhed in pain during this transmission but now, for the first time, she
understood what the young Goth girl had suffered every time she made a bridge.