Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (84 page)

The war was
over. Molekh screamed in hatred.

The demon lord
gathered all of his power, every last scrap of strength from his
āyus
,
and tried to halt the lightning retreat of the immortal plane, but his power
was not that of the demon king. The pristine lands of Heaven sped by as every
demon of Hell was drawn back to the immortal plane that was their home.

Or perhaps not
every demon.

In the distance,
Molekh saw a large force of demons standing firm in the middle of a broad
plane. He used his gathered power to move closer to them, but still he moved at
an oblique angle as the retreating power of Hell pulled him back to the fiery
plane of mortal damnation. As Molekh drew nearer the assembled demons, he
recognized a handful that stood apart from the rest, and he knew there would be
no solace here.

One demon seemed
made of pure Hellfire, another was a massive, multi-headed reptile. A third
demon – a naked humanoid with leathery wings – turned and saw Molekh. Their
eyes locked for a moment.

Azazel smirked
and bowed mockingly to the bull-headed demon lord. No words were exchanged, but
Molekh was painfully aware that whatever choice he’d refused, somehow these
demons were untouched by the vacuum of power that drew Molekh inexorably back
to Hell. He railed and screamed in rage, but only Azazel seemed aware of his
existence.

Ethereal
mountains and lush, green forests raced past Molekh, and he realized they had
crossed back into Lokka temporarily. He once again tried to exert his will, thinking
that perhaps here – away from the influence of Heaven – he might be able to
avoid the drag of Hell, but it was to no avail.

He looked up
once more at Azazel, but the demon prince had turned away. The army of demons
moved away slowly, then they became hazy in Molekh’s eyes. When they
disappeared entirely as the landscape passed by, he knew they had crossed into
the mortal world.

Molekh turned to
face back toward Hell and saw a swirling black whirlpool of nothingness. He
recognized that portal, he’d seen it once before, when Pleroma was sundered and
Hell was cast into a separate plane of existence. All around him, demons were
sucked into the void, and black flames licked the edges hungrily as Molekh drew
steadily nearer to the gaping maw of nether.

“No!” he roared,
and the sound echoed back hauntingly as he was consumed by the flame-ringed
vortex of black nothingness.

- 3 -

When Kaelus set
them down in Heaven, he did not take them to Medina as they’d first expected.
Instead, he took them to the Iridescent Gates. Garnet opened his eyes and saw
rows of neatly lined-up bodies stretched out along the angelstone walls, and
his euphoric grin faded quickly at the sight of so many dead comrades. Kaelus
had apparently collected the bodies of the humans, elves, and denarae who had
died in the harrowing journey through Hell, for Garnet recognized several
bodies of men who’d recently died.

Perklet was in
this group somewhere.

So was Garnet’s
father.

Dead or not,
however, Garet appeared a moment later as an angel dropped him out of the sky.
The massive Red paladin quickly strode over to embrace his son, and for a long
moment, father and son remained silent. Then something crashed into them from
either side, and Garnet realized they were under assault from the twins, who
did their best to encompass both mountainous men in their own arms.

Garnet laughed
and caught his sister up in a big hug while Garet pulled Brad close. His
younger brother had filled out during his training in Heaven, and he was
catching up to their father in bulk. Garnet threw Anolla into the air and
deftly caught her, then set her down laughing on the pristine white, cloudy
ground of Heaven. Garnet hugged his brother, too, but when they parted, he
started looking for another face. Brad cleared his throat and looked pointedly
behind his older brother.

“Garnet!” Gerard
bellowed from somewhere nearby.

Before Garnet
could respond to his former commander, his feet were swept out from under him,
and he crashed back onto the ground with a muffled thud. He looked up into the
radiant but determined face of Kala as she gently placed a leather boot on his
chest.

“I think that
means ‘stay,’” Anolla quipped.

Garnet glared at
his sister, then jerked in surprise as Kala knelt and straddled his chest. The
warrior woman sat on his breastplate and stared at him expectantly.

“Garnet!” Gerard
bellowed.

“Go to Hell,
sir, I’m a little busy,” Garnet yelled back, his voice thick with mirth.

“I’ve already
been there,” Gerard yelled back, closer now. “I’m thinking of having medals
made.”

“Put me down for
two,” Garnet managed to get out before Kala put her palm firmly over his lips.
He looked up at her in surprise, but her palm was quickly replaced by her lips,
and Garnet forgot to care about anything else.

Somewhere in the
world above them, Garnet was vaguely aware of his father talking.

“Ah, Flasch,”
Garet said. “Glad to see you came through safely. I hope you… hey now, see
here!”

Garnet looked
past Kala’s head long enough to see that Flasch had ignored Garet and gone
straight to Anolla, placed his hands on either side of her head, and was now
kissing her very seriously. From the looks of things, Anolla was thrilled with
the situation, despite her father’s sputtered protests. Then Kala demanded
Garnet’s attention once more, and he lost track of the scene playing out
overhead.

Nearby, the
other officers from Shadow Company – including Trebor – watched, bemused at
their friends’ amorous good fortune.

“There is an
awful
lot of kissing going on here, isn’t there?” Marc remarked.

Danner nodded.
“I’m suddenly missing Alicia very much right now.”

“Must be nice,”
Trebor said. “I’m still looking for someone.”

“You’re dead,
Trebor,” Danner said in exasperation. “What could you possibly do with a
girlfriend?”

“It’s the
principle of the thing,” he said defensively. “Everyone else seems to have
someone to hug and kiss.”

Michael sighed.
Brican glanced at the Yellow paladin.

Without even
turning to face the denarae, Michael said, “You even think about it, Brican,
and I’ll tell your wife.”

“We’re not
that
hard up, cousin,” Trebor said, trying to keep a straight face.

“I
was
going to suggest that there are some rather attractive female angels and
blessed souls wandering around here right now,” Brican said blandly, “and that
with everyone feeling so generous and happy, even you two might score yourself
some snuggles. But,” he shrugged, “just forget I said anything.”

Michael and
Trebor immediately found something important that required their attention in
the direction of a large contingent of female angels. Danner poked Marc in the
side, leaned closer and murmured, “Is it me, or are we all starting to act a
lot like Flasch?”

“It’s the
euphoria,” Marc replied. “Makes everyone act sort of like an idiot, I guess.”

“Ah, hence the
resemblance.”

- 4 -

Birch stood
alone in a sea of milling angels and mortals, absorbed in his own thoughts. All
around him, humans, denarae, elves, and a few halflings rejoiced in collective
relief at having survived the impossible war. Angels of every Choir joined in
the revelry, and it was a scene of lively celebration – of Life!

Still, the Gray
paladin stood silently. The men he might have spoken with were busy elsewhere,
and all the angels with whom he normally associated – and Kaelus as well – had
vanished on some mysterious mission. He thought he knew their goal, and he did
not envy them the task ahead.

No more did he
envy himself the decision he knew he would soon have to face. As always, the
two pillars in his life strained to draw him closer, but moving toward one
seemed to inevitably draw him away from the other. Finally, the path he had
fought for, bled for, and even died for, did indeed lay ahead of him.

At his feet,
however, another path diverged from the one that carried all his hopes and
dreams. On this road lay only duty, devotion, and anguish.

Birch slowly
wandered away from the reveling throng, passed beyond the Iridescent Gates, and
stopped at a secluded expanse of the angelstone wall. Trembling, he fell to his
knees and stared at the benignly glowing sky overhead.

“You cannot ask
this of me,” Birch whispered. “After all I have done in your name, after all I
have faced and endured, how can you ask this of me, Lord?”

Only silence
answered his desperate plea.

Birch heard soft
steps behind him – two pairs of footsteps – but he didn’t turn. One he
recognized from years of association, the other he guessed by the weight of the
tread.

“Birch,” Garet
said softly.

Without turning,
Birch murmured, “I’m praying, brother.”

The footsteps
stopped.

“You feel it,
too, don’t you?” Gerard said with uncharacteristic gentleness. “You know what
we’re being asked to do.”

Silently, Birch
nodded. Gerard knew better than most what was being asked of them all, of Birch
especially.

“I don’t
understand, Birch,” Garet said. “I feel… I don’t know. There’s something
looming ahead.”

“It’s a choice,
Garet,” Birch replied. He still hadn’t turned to face the two dead, Red
paladins. Knowing what he now did about the White paladins and their fates in
Hell, it was impossible to keep bitterness from creeping into his voice. “It’s
a choice we never should have had to make.”

- 5 -

In a remote
corner of Medina, in an empyrean virtually untouched by the ravages of the
vanished demon horde, Mikal led a small group into a large room occupied by a
lone Seraph. The waters of Heaven had never touched this room during the
flooding of the city, and no demon had come within a mile of the building it
lay within.

Uriel entered
behind Mikal, followed by Kaelus and one of the Dem incarnations. The three
angels and the demon faced the lone Seraph, an unclothed female with pink wings
and an unfaltering aura of righteousness and superiority that she wore like
armor. A small throne stood atop a dais identical in all but scale to the
layout in the Hall of the Throne, and she stood before the seat in self-assured
defiance.

 “Maya,”
Mikal said somberly and without preamble, “we have come to pass judgment on
you.”

“Judgment?” the
Seraph laughed. “On the Metatron? This from the one who still consorts with a
demon.”

“We have come to
pass judgment on you,” Uriel said stoically, as if the other Seraph had not
spoken at all.

“I stand as
witness,” Dem said, “that the judgment be fair, fitting, and just.”

“I stand as
witness,” Kaelus repeated, “that…”

Maya spat at Kaelus’s
feet with an expression of loathing.

“…that the
judgment be fair, fitting, and just,” the demon finished grimly.

“You cannot pass
judgment on me,” Maya said forcefully, trying to project her will on them. Of
them all, only Dem might have been susceptible to her influence, but shielded
by the others and with his other two incarnations safely elsewhere and beyond
her reach, the Dominion just stared at the naked Seraph, untouched by her
power.

Uriel slowly
drew his sword from the sheath at his waist and held it to one side, blade
pointing toward the vaulted ceiling. The Sword of Light glimmered as flames
raced up the edges to engulf the crystalline blade, and the room glowed with
the light from the powerful weapon.

“Maya,” Mikal
said, drawing her attention from the flaming sword, “your actions nearly
resulted in the destruction of Heaven itself and the extinction of every living
thing in existence.”

“There is no…”
she began, but Mikal continued relentlessly.

“You corrupted
the Power Camael and betrayed everything we hold dear in your petty bid to
reclaim power by causing the capture and near destruction of the demon Kaelus,
then commander of all the Heavenly Hosts.”

“It is not I who
am corrupted…”

“You tried to
dominate the minds and wills of both angels and mortal souls entrusted to our
care, subduing their free will in your misguided ploy to inflict a paradise of
only your own making on the rest of Heaven,” Mikal said. “Furthermore, you
presumed to sit upon the Throne of God and used its powers to advance your own
twisted plans. Your ineptitude can be forgiven, but your willful treachery and
sin leave no doubt in our minds as to the nature of your punishment.”

Maya stayed
silent and stared at Uriel’s sword in growing apprehension.

“I gave Camael a
choice,” Uriel said quietly, “and he took what was arguably the most difficult
path of those offered. Still, his fate will pale in comparison with yours,
Maya. I promised him you would face justice, and I’m here to carry through that
vow.”

“Have you come
to kill me, Uriel?” Maya said disdainfully, unknowingly echoing in arrogance
the question Camael had put to him in contrition. Her sneering expression was
marred by the fear evident in her body and face. “Will you strike me down as
the Angel of Death as you once did Alanna, the sinful Archangel?”

Uriel shook his
head.

“Your actions do
not deserve death,” he declared solemnly. “When we enact the wrath of God’s
punishment, it must ever fit the nature of the crime, lest we stray into the
realm of sin and vice, destroying the very justice we seek.”

Maya bared her
teeth in triumph, but the expression quickly faded as she stared at their grim
faces. She drew back from them and sat in her small throne with as much dignity
and assurance as she could muster.

“What is to be my
fate?” she asked, unable to mask a tremor in her voice.