Armageddon?? (49 page)

The
picture of the rebellion suppression campaign started to form in his mind. He
would start with a single main operational base on the edge of the 5th circle
segment where the rebellion was concentrated. Then, he would start to spread
across the segment, establishing each outpost within sight of another. If one
was attacked, support would be immediate because other outposts would see what
was happening. And, even better, they could relay mind-masked messages from one
to the next, allowing the great rear base to be informed quickly.

Asmodeus
mulled the concept over, It seemed to work but he could see one flaw. If he
pushed out from one point, he would force the rebels back. That’s where Hell’s
strange topography cut in. It was an odd fact about Hell that if one set out in
a straight line, in any direction, one ended up in the same place one had
started. Left, right, forward, backwards, up, down, it made no difference. Keep
going long enough and one ended up where one had started. Heaven was the same.
Unless one created a portal, there was no way out because there was nowhere to
go out to. Thinking about that made Asmodeus’s head hurt. Still, there was a
solution, start from two bases, one at each end of the segment of the 5th
circle and close in on the middle. That way the rebels would be trapped between
them and eventually, they’d have to fight in the open.

Throne
Room, Palace of Satan, Dis, Hell

Count
Belial watched Satan rage at Hell’s inability to immediately destroy the
impertinent humans, his own mind boiling with thoughts of how he could exploit
this unprecedented situation. It had been a scant five millennia since he had
clawed his way back to a place at Satan's court, a singular feat among dukes
who had fallen so far from their lord's favor. His presence here was still
something of a joke; as yet he commanded but a single legion and his domain
could muster only a meager tribute of human essence. Most of Hell's nobility
thought of him as little more than the court jester, but a few understood the
influence that the great mines and furnaces of Tartarus gave him.

Those
were the dangerous ones. He had to go from beneath notice to beyond challenge
in a single stroke, or he would inevitably lose his domain to one of the dukes.
This could be the perfect opportunity, but the timing had to be exquisite. As
Belial watched, Satan scooped up another unlucky minor demon and crushed it
into paste, squeezing the creature's remains out of his clenched fist before
whirling to seek another target. Too early and he would only draw Satan's wrath
as the unfortunate ogre had. Too late and his proposal would be seen as a
challenge to Satan's preferred course of action - dangerous even for once as
favored as Abigor had been, probably fatal for one as lowly as him. Belial
waited for the instant that Satan's terrible eyes turned from rage to cold
calculation, then spoke.

"Your
Eminence..."

Every
eye was on him. Satan's gaze bored into him and he dropped groveling to his
knees in the expected manner.

"Your
Eminence, my demons can strike back at the humans immediately. At your command
I will reward their insolence with fiery annihilation. Of course my lord
recalls the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah."

There
was a murmur of suppressed laughter around the room. Sodom and Gomorrah had
been essentially party tricks. They had occurred at a time when Satan and
Yahweh were engaged in an informal competition to visit the most creative
'punishments' on the lower planes. The humans had become so pathetic, so
despairing at the demons presence that there was little scope for honorable
warfare against them; they simply ran screaming or lined up and waited to be
hewn down like crops. The demons were always ready to appreciate new forms of
suffering and Belial's creative use of magic had been quite spectacular, not to
mention entertaining enough to gain his return to the palace. However his
suggestion that such tricks be considered a legitimate means of waging war was
ridiculous. Surely their lord could not be seriously considering it?

In
fact Satan was doing just that. It would take weeks, perhaps months, to prepare
another attack on the scale of Abigor's, and much as he wanted to believe that
this was simply due to the incompetence and treachery of his former favorite,
he knew this was not the case. He had Asmodeus away dealing with the rebellion
down in the fifth circle and Yahweh was in the wings. There was another
possibility that was on his mind as well, if one attack had failed he had to
consider the possibility that a second would also fail. The humans had
undoubtedly taken horrible losses, but Abigor was doubtless proclaiming that he
would lead them to victory and instructing them how best to resist demonic
powers. Combined with their strange and seemingly powerful magic, Satan had to
agree with Abigor about one thing; he had to know what forces the humans could
muster, what it would really take to crush them. That would take time, as would
dealing with the chaos resulting from Abigor's fall.

Already
Satan's informants reporting skirmishes between the forces of dukes trying to
add chunks of Abigor's domain to their own. That situation was confused,
sometimes it was hard to tell whether the demons who had been found brutally
murdered or had just disappeared without a trace were the victims of that
internecine skirmishing or had been the victims of the human rebellion. Satan
was sure that the assassinations had been carried out on the direct orders of
his dukes, testing each other's defenses, each preparing to take advantage of
any opportunities the way Belial was. An interesting question, was the human
rebellion actually the work of a Duke who had seen human magery as a new way of
fighting a war? It didn’t really matter, with Asmodeus and his Army moving to
crush the rebellion, the status quo would return soon enough, but in the mean
time Satan had to be seen to take decisive action. Belial's suggestion was
perfect; it was fast, if it worked it would kill enough humans to claim a major
victory, and if it didn't Belial was completely expendable.

"You
want to act like a human, cowering in your own realm, killing with magic
instead of rending your enemies?" Satan spat contemptuously.

He's
playing with me, Belial thought with some relief even as he continued to abase
himself. Those words stated flatly would have spelled his doom. Phrased as a
question, Satan was just forcing him to justify himself.

"Your
Eminence, of course your glorious armies will grind the humans into dust,
Abigor's failure will be of no consequence in the long run. But it will take
time to muster fresh legions, the humans may falsely believe that their
resistance has won them a respite. Please sire, let me erase that hope, command
me to make them burn and suffer even as they await their final
extinction."

Belial
Kornakat raised his head and a silent understanding passed between him and
Satan Mekratrig. He would get a chance. Success would mean elevation sufficient
to ensure his survival in the court. Failure would result in a fate even worse
than Abigor's.

"Very
well. I see no reason to allow the apes the luxury of hope. You will choose two
of their largest cities and destroy them utterly as you destroyed Sodom, as you
destroyed Gomorrah."

Belial
thrashed his tail and licked at Satan's talons, resembling for a moment a
gigantic, monstrously disfigured dog. All for show of course; mentally he was
weighing the risk of asking for more resources and looking weak against the
risk of the attacks failing. He had heard that the humans had multiplied
greatly since the time of Sodom, and this had to be a most spectacular defeat.

"Thank
you your Eminence, we will begin at once, the suffering will be glorious... but
sire... the bigger the coven, the more humans we can burn. If I could have more
naga for the effort, our blow will be that much more crushing for the
humans."

A
fresh murmur passed around the throne room. Satan merely snorted. Belial's
admission of weakness was pathetic. There was truth in his words though. With
the grand portal to Earth already open, the naga would not be needed for the
counter-strike, so the other dukes might complain but could definitely spare
them. If his plan was successful, such reliance on others would prevent him
gaining too much glory.

"Attend
me. Each grand duke will send a party of portal-mages to Tartarus such that he
deems fit to compensate for Belial's inadequacy."

Satan's
gaze returned to Belial, who was writhing in fresh paroxysms of abasement.
"You are right to bask in my generosity, Belial. I will allow you twelve
days to destroy two great human cities. Fail me and I will have you baked alive
in one of your own furnaces. Now leave us."

"Of
course your Eminence! I will begin the preparations immediately!" Belial
scrabbled to his feet and fairly sprinted from the throne room; meeting Satan's
schedule would take a minor miracle.

DIMO(N)
Headquarters, Crystal City, VA

Lugasharmanaska
looked up at the moon and stars overhead, marveling at their beauty. She was
relaxing on a long bed-like something that, like the roof garden she was in,
was a left-over from the time this building had been a luxury hotel. The bar in
one corner was closed but the furniture was still here. Not wood or stone but
the curious dead material the humans called plastic. They used the plastic for
almost everything it seemed. And there was an awful lot of everything, that was
why Lugasharmanaska was thinking so hard.

The
problem was quite simple, her original defection had placed her in a position
where she could benefit no matter which side won the war. The more she had
learned, the more she had seen, the more she had become convinced that the
humans were not going to lose. They were wealthy beyond any demonic dream of
avarice, they had machines to do their work for them and they had an unlimited
number of those machines. And that was the problem because they used those same
machines to do their killing. Lugasharmanaska shuddered slightly to herself.
Humans were so good at killing, when they couldn’t find demons to kill, they
practiced on each other.

It
wasn’t just that they were good at killing, they were good at understanding as
well. If they met something they didn’t understand, they didn’t write it off as
“magic” or “magery”, they didn’t consider it to be “the will of something or
other”. They set people to work studying it and those people would nibble away
at the mystery until they had worked out what it was all about. Then they would
hammer away at what they had learned some more until they not only understood
the mystery but had worked out practical applications for it. Applications that
were far more useful than the mystery itself.

In
a flash of insight, Lugasharmanaska suddenly understood why Yahweh had
abandoned this world. For millennia, humans hadn’t thought that way, they’d
accepted what they had been told, treated “divine revelation” as something
sacrosanct that it was death to dispute. Suddenly, that had changed, humans had
stopped accepting what they were told and started asking questions. And, when
they didn’t like the answers, they’d started arguing. They’d found their own
answers and realized there was no place for “magic” and “magery” in the world
they were learning about. There were only things they understood and things
they didn’t understand – yet. Their plastic, their machines, their terrible
efficiency at killing, all came from that same desire to understand what they didn’t
understand – yet.

And
that was why Hell and all its demons were going to lose this war. They accepted
things the way they were, they didn’t ask questions about why. Things were what
they were and that was it. Humans didn’t agree with that, things were there to
be understood and used. They even had names for these arts. Understanding
things was called “cyunse” and using things was called “enjunyrin”.
Lugasharmanaska almost fell into the trap of believing they were new religions
but she’d been saved from that error by a fluke.

She’d
been in one of the buildings devoted to trying to understand Hell when she’d
seen two men arguing in front of an audience. An old man, obviously of great
importance and a younger man, probably his follower. They’d been arguing
furiously, shouting at each other, waving their arms around and making marks on
a great black board. Lugasharmanaska had expected to see the young man struck
dead for his impudence, what Satan or Yahweh would do to a follower who argued
with them in public defied even Lugasharmanaska’s devilish imagination. But the
young man had made some triumphant marks on the board and the old man had
looked at them for a minute or so then said, simply ‘he’s right you know”. And
the room had burst out into applause and the old man had clapped the younger
one on the back and shaken his hand. That was when she had understood, when
cyunse said something was so, that was only the case until somebody proved
otherwise. Then the old truth was dropped and a new one put in its place until
that too was disproved.

That
was why humans would win this war. Whatever Satan and his armies did, humans
would understand it, improve it and then use the improved thing against their
enemy.

The
question was, what should Lugasharmanaska do now? She’d already modified her
original plan quite drastically, her intent had been to tell the humans as
little as possible and distort what she did say to them in ways that would
benefit her. She’d nearly been caught, had only escaped by pure luck. Humans
had taken what she had told them and used their cyunse on it. They’d proved
that some of the things she’d told them contradicted others. She’d pretended
ignorance, said that was the way she’d understood it and acted bewildered. And
she’d made a vow to be much more careful for she knew her survival depended on
being useful.