Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (75 page)

Before them stood
a massive tower made of black iron surrounded by a gate and fence of silvery
metal that gleamed mirror-like and reflected the molten clouds overhead. The
bars of the fence were reed-thin, but Danner suspected they were far stronger
than they looked. The tower had three perfectly vertical sides – each easily
fifty feet across – that were as wide at the top as at the base two hundred
feet below. There appeared to be no visible windows.

Every few
seconds, screams of unbearable agony could just barely be heard drifting down
through the air. The tower stabbed upward toward the sky as though in defiance
– or perhaps in proclamation of the suffering that went on within.

“The fence is
made of adamant,”
[37]
Birch said distantly, “crafted in the days of Pleroma when such metal was more
plentiful. Even then it was an ostentatious display, now it’s just a waste. The
tower is solid black-steel, and streams of fire and black ice run beneath and
are pumped into the rooms above.” Danner turned and saw a strained expression
on his uncle’s face. He’d never seen anything like it, and for some reason it
made him back away from Birch nervously.

“What is this
place?” Gerard asked. “I’d almost rather stare at another week of trees than
look at that thing a minute longer.”

“Tartarus. The
Tower of Wrath. It’s where the worst of my torture took place,” Birch said. His
eyes burned fiercely, and he gripped his sword hilt tightly. “This is where
they turn White paladins into Black apostates. Gerard,” he said through
clenched teeth, “send in Halo Company and clear the tower. Some of those
screams may be from our brothers still trapped inside.”

The Red paladin
took one look at Birch’s face and obeyed without question. He personally led
the attack into the black tower. The rest of the expedition arranged themselves
defensively around the entrance to the tower, but nothing happened. New screams
pierced the ebony steel walls, demonic howls of surprise and agony.

Danner watched
his uncle’s face carefully, and from the fierce expression and occasional
spasms of imaginary pain, he deduced that Birch was reliving some of his
torturous experience. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his sheathed
sword, and the flames in his eyes burned steadily brighter as he stared with
enmity at the tower.

It took nearly
two hours for Gerard to clear the tower. When he finally returned, several of
the paladins with him carried men in their arms who still wore the tattered
remains of their armor and the white cloaks of the Prism. The battered paladins
had been healed of the worst of their wounds, but Danner could still see marks
of demonic claws, blistering burns, and half-healed scars over torn flesh. He
nearly gagged at the sight of one man’s shredded abdomen.

Once they were safe,
a pair of Greens knelt over them to complete the healing process. Moments
later, they were all asleep.

Gerard looked up
grimly from two men at his feet.

“Inside, they
said there was one more until just a few days ago,” he told them. “The demons
finally broke him, and these two watched while his cloak turned black as he
swore himself to Mephistopheles.”

“It will never
happen again,” Birch announced, “not here it won’t.”

Without a word
of warning, he strode to the base of the tower and drew his sword.

“Get back!”
Danner shouted. “Everyone get back.”

Birch stared up
the edge of one corner to the distant top, then raised his sword high. Demonic
wings burst into existence on Birch’s back and spread wide as they burned with
a fiery glow. A crimson nimbus of power surrounded Birch’s upraised sword as he
brought it crashing down on one side of the corner. A thunderclap nearly
deafened them all as his sword struck the tower.

“Never!” he
shouted, then struck the other side of the tower. “Again!” He struck once more.

“Never!” Another
clap of thunder. “Again!” Another.

“Never! Again!”

Over and over,
Birch struck the tower with his sword, every word and blow punctuated by a peal
of thunder rolling out from the base of the tower like a shockwave of power. Nearly
everyone had fallen to their knees rather than face the relentless onslaught of
Birch’s fury, and just when Danner was beginning to wonder if Birch’s attack
was having any effect, he heard a crack louder than any thunder and looked up
in time to see the base of the tower split apart where Birch still hammered
against the wall with his sword. The crack ran up the length of the steel wall
as Birch continued.

“Never! Again!”

The crack
widened, and with one final blow, the Tower of Wrath split into a thousand
pieces and fell away from Birch. The black spire crashed to the ground and
collapsed in on itself as a massive cloud of dust rushed into the air.

When the air
cleared, there was little that could be recognized as having been the tower
called Tartarus. Only the adamant fence remained standing, unmarred by the
destruction wrought within it. Without saying a word, Birch walked back to
their group and was given a wide path of awed respect. He mounted Selti in his
runner form and looked back with his burning eyes at the toppled tower.

“There’s one of
my demons laid to rest,” he told Gerard, his voice bleak. “Let’s go find the
other one and put him down.”

- 3 -

Iblis woke to
the feeling of agony. He screamed in pain as he felt the icy waters of the
Philion crushing around him, attacking his
āyus
, the very essence
of his existence.

I will not
perish! I burn! I hunger! I will consume! I… must… not… perish!

Still he raged
in his mind and thrashed about wildly until he finally realized he was not, in
fact, being destroyed. The pain was in the memory of his limbs, and he opened
his eyes to behold the stormy sky that covered the conquered lands of Heaven.

He lay on his
back on an empty plain, and he glanced at his arms and legs to reassure himself
he was whole. He willed four wings of dripping flame to sprout from his back,
confirming that he was still master of himself. If he’d had the wings before,
he might have escaped Mikal’s desperate ploy, and the demon prince vowed to
never suffer such a lack of foresight.

“I underestimated
the Seraph,” he growled, “but when next we meet, I will incinerate him and
scatter his ashes in the Dena-Fol.”

“That can wait,
Iblis,” an amused voice said from behind him.

The fire demon
whirled and found Azazel lounging on a raised bed of tainted earth. The demon
was, of course, completely unclothed and looked none the worse for his supposed
brush with oblivion.

“Azazel,” Iblis
grumbled. “Why are you here? Was it you who saved me?”

“If only I had
that power,” the demon prince demurred. “Unfortunately for me, but quite
fortunate for you, I am but a messenger of a higher power who seems to think
you’re important, O Lord of Fire. It was He who saved you, and He whom you will
now serve just as I do.”

“I serve no one
who has not first proven themselves by force of will,” Iblis declared. “Let
this higher power of yours show himself and face me with
shaishisii
,
then we’ll see.”

Azazel stood and
walked closer to Iblis, who took a step back in uncertainty. The unclad demon
stared at him with cold eyes and smiled.

“You will serve,
Iblis,” Azazel said, his voice charged with a power not his own, “or I will
consign you to the nether
[38]
of oblivion. You will carry out our master’s will.”

Iblis gaped in
terror at the visions carried across through the other demon’s words, visions
only another immortal could see or truly grasp. He trembled at the power
conveyed in those words, and it was all he could do not to drop to one knee and
bow his head in supplication and worship. He felt a presence unlike anything
he’d ever experienced suffusing the area around him, like a shadow of power
emanating from the other demon.

“I see we have
an understanding,” Azazel said, his voice slowly returning to normal.

Iblis was
incapable of speech, and he could only nod dumbly until the sense of the
other’s presence had faded. Memories began to awaken deep within him, memories
of the time when he first awoke at the dawn of creation. Memories of his god.
Shaitan.

“I trust that’s
all been cleared up,” Azazel said smugly. “Now then, we have a lot of work
ahead of us, and we must gather others to our cause. We’ve lost weeks waiting
for you to recover and wake up from your little swim. When the time comes, we
must be ready.”

Iblis nodded,
then for some reason found himself grinning in malicious glee.

- 4 -

Another four
days journey brought them to the outskirts of Dis, the only city in all the
boundless reaches of Hell. When it first appeared on the horizon, they all
thought it was another mountain range that spanned the entire horizon. It was
only as they drew nearer that they were able to discern individual buildings
and they realized it was the city itself.

“Nothing could
possibly be that huge,” Trebor said in awe as he stood in the passenger’s seat
of the buggy and gaped at the city.

“If you see it
now,” Siran said suddenly from right beside him, “then it must be possible.”

Trebor jerked in
surprise. He hadn’t known the elf was anywhere near him.

“It is neither large
nor small, denarae,” Siran said just loud enough to be heard over the rumble of
Danner’s engine, “it is the size that it is. Don’t think of it as large, think
of it as simply
there
. It is Dis.”

Trebor looked
askance at the elven commander. “Now why do you suddenly sound like that batty
old man Trames?” he asked.

Siran smiled
humorlessly at him. “There is wisdom in such simplicity,” the elf answered
cryptically, then glided off.

Trebor sat down
and looked at Danner.

“We have
got
to start spending time with normal people,” Trebor told him.

“This coming
from a dead man riding next to a half-angel,” Danner said glibly.

“Still.”

“There’s no such
thing,” Danner said. “I think it’s normal to be screwed up.”

“God help us all
then,” Trebor said in mock despair and threw up his hands.

The city grew
quickly before their eyes as Birch sped their way toward the outer
fortifications.

The wall
surrounding the city was over a hundred feet high, looked at least thirty feet
thick, and was made of uniform gray stones fit perfectly together without any
visible mortar to hold them in place. There was no gate in sight.

“Do I want to
know how long it’s going to take us to find a gate?” Flasch asked plaintively.

“Eternity,” Marc
said absently as he gazed at the wall.

“There are
none,” Birch said before anyone else could speak.

They turned to
him in surprise.

“Those who come
into Dis are either demons or their
guests
,” Birch said grimly, “and
there’s no way for anyone to cross through unaccompanied by a demon. No gates
to sneak through, no guard houses to overthrow. Nothing even to guard. I passed
through Dis several times going between Tartarus and Abaddon, whenever
Mephistopheles had personally requested my presence for his amusement.” He
paused, then smiled. “I take a certain amount of satisfaction in returning
under my own power.”

With that, Birch
placed his hand on the wall and motioned for Danner to drive his buggy forward.
The Blue paladin inched the machine up slowly until he was sure he would touch
stone, but gasped when the front of the buggy passed effortlessly through the
gray wall. His toes reached the wall first – they were extended forward to
reach the pedals – and Danner expected to feel something abnormal as his feet
slid into the wall.

Instead, there
was nothing. He could have been driving through empty air for all the
difference he could feel. Still, he accelerated slightly to put the experience
behind him, and after a moment of complete darkness he found himself on a wide,
deserted city street.

Trebor expelled
an unnecessary breath – he was dead after all – and Danner found his own chest
a bit tight.

“A strange
sensation.”

Trebor nearly
leapt out of his seat at the sound of Siran’s voice a few feet away.

“You have
got
to stop doing that,” the denarae said irritably.

“Listen better,”
Siran replied without looking at him.

Listen better
,
Trebor mouthed, pantomiming the elf’s severe face. Danner nearly choked trying
not to laugh.

Oblivious to
Trebor’s antics, the elven captain set off into the city, and members of the Elan’Vital
streamed through the wall and followed him into the shadows. In seconds, there
wasn’t an elf in sight.

Next came half
the paladins from Halo Company, and Danner quickly drove his buggy out of the
way so they could come through unobstructed. Shadow Company crossed next, then
the rest of the paladins from Halo. Last of all came Selti and Birch.

“That’s a neat
trick, Birch,” Gerard remarked dryly. “Remind me to invite you to my next
party.”

“Lucky we brought
him along,” Flasch remarked, and Danner stared thoughtfully at his friend. Was
it fortune, or fate? What were the odds that the lone paladin to escape from
Hell would be infused with a demonic
āyus
, allowing him to lead an
assault on the center of power in Hell? What would they have done without that,
scaled the walls? Ferried everyone across on Selti?

San, we never
would have even made it this far without Birch speeding and guiding our travel
,
Danner thought to himself.
If that’s pure chance, I need to start betting
more.