The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (63 page)

He hung in a void of
indecision, fear battling with a spark of hope that he might escape and win
free of his torment. In the end, it was an image that was burned into his mind
in perfect detail that made the decision for him.

“Moreen,” he murmured
softly.

“Say again?” the Voice
asked. “Do we have a deal?”

“Yes,” he replied, his
voice regaining strength from some hidden reserve. “I will take with me the one
you ask and escape. Where is he?”

“One thing at a time,
mortal,” the Voice replied in a satisfied purr, “and don’t worry about him.
He’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Before he could speak,
fire erupted in his head, and it felt as though a raging inferno was being
forcibly sent down his throat. He screamed, the agony too much for his body;
the body that had grown so used to rending torture that the lack of it brought
pain. And then it was over, and he breathed the sweet relief of cool air.

“Open your eyes,
paladin,” the Voice said softly.

Only then did he
realize his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly and found his face buried
in his hands, his fingers clutching his cheeks. He looked up and saw for the
first time his savior.

Dressed in a black
robe and cowl, there was nothing to give identity to the figure that stood
before him. Whatever hands or claws the apparition possessed were folded
carefully in the sleeves of the robe. A black mist seemed to emanate from the
hood of the cloak, obscuring the face within.

Without thinking, he
reached a hand forward to push back the cowl. As his fingers brushed the black
cloth, the Voice within whispered, “Now forget, paladin. Forget.

“Forget.”

His eyes drooped, but
still he stretched forward and lifted the hood, and finally he saw the face
within.

“My God,” he
whispered, and then darkness overtook him.

 “Yes…”

Show me a righteous man and I will make him a self-righteous one. Show
me a loving man and I will make him covetous and obsessive. Show me a pious man
and I will make him a zealot. I make the brave brazen, the wise uncaring
elitists, and the temperate
anhedonic
and impotent.
Of what concern is a sinner to me or a righteous man to God? If already an
avowed sinner, my work is done. I reward the righteous to tempt and corrupt,
while God punishes the wicked to instruct and redeem. The men in between endure
the whims of us both.

- Satan,

“Dialogues with Satan” (1013 AM)

(from the secret memoirs of Birch de’Valderat)

- 1 -

As the horrifying memory faded from Birch’s mind, he felt
the dual presence of Kaelus slipping quickly from him. He fought to hang on,
but he didn’t know what was happening or how to stop it, and within moments the
demon had withdrawn his awareness and was once more buried dormant within
Birch.

“If Satan helped you escape, and apparently Kaelus as well,
he must have given you some information, something that can help us,” Garnet
mused. “Can you tell us anything about Hell’s plans for this war?”

Birch shook his head.

“He’s gone,” he said. “I can’t remember anything that was in
his head.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Danner asked. “He’s not inside
you anymore?”

“No, he’s still there,” Birch said, holding up a hand so he
could see the glow from his eyes shining on his own skin. “I don’t think he had
any more control over it than I did. I get the feeling he wasn’t even supposed
to have shown himself yet.”

“How is he even inside you in the first place?” Garnet
asked. “The Council just admitted they performed an exorcism on you.”

“Exorcisms only expel demons that were not willingly
accepted,” Marc offered up. “If Birch willingly accepted Kaelus within him as a
condition of his release, it wouldn’t have worked as long as his presence was
consensual.”

“And my memory of that acceptance was suppressed,” Birch
realized aloud, “probably to prevent me from inadvertently revealing his
presence. The Council intimated that was part of their goal in interviewing me,
was to ensure I had not willingly become corrupted. With no memory of the
bargain, I couldn’t betray it to them. A neat trick to ensure he stayed free
and undetected.”

“Why was he even released?” Nuse asked. “What makes Kaelus
so important? I would think Satan would prefer having a traitorous demon
imprisoned rather than letting him go to possibly return to Heaven.”

“Are we sure Kaelus’s motives are pure?” Flasch asked. “I
mean, it was more or less him talking just then, and can we really trust the
word of a demon?”

“I think so,” Birch said, then shook his head. “I can’t
explain it, but I know he was telling the truth. He really is on the side of
God, and he seemed to believe there was a good reason Satan was releasing him.
I suppose the question to ask is instead whether Satan’s motives are beneficial
to us, and I’m much more likely to doubt that. Satan could easily have lied to
Kaelus about why he was being released, whatever that reason is, and Kaelus was
so desperate for escape that he believed Satan.”

They sat in silence a moment, mulling over the question of
what they should believe and trying to decipher the true source of everything
they’d just heard. Not surprisingly, it was Marc who raised the next question.

“Birch, maybe I missed something, but how is it that
Mephistopheles reigns in Hell, yet Satan acts covertly to undermine him?” the
Orange paladin asked. “I mean, one of the books Danner translated for me
indicates a mostly hands-off approach of both God and Satan, but surely if the
supreme being of evil in the world wanted Kaelus free, he’d be free. Why the
subterfuge?”

The answer came to Birch unbidden, either as a direct
response from Kaelus or as part of some hidden memory, he couldn’t be sure.
Whatever the source, it felt true.

“During the Great Schism, Mephistopheles utterly dominated
his forces and controlled the actions of nearly every demon to some degree,”
Birch replied. “Only the demon princes and lords maintained some degree of
autonomy, but they still felt his influence. Following their defeat, the demon
king released his will – he realized it was a liability and part of the reason
for his failure.

“But one thing he maintained, a conditioning so subtle that
few if any are aware he still exerts his influence. Mephistopheles has
suppressed all knowledge of Satan from the demons. To their mind, he is the
king and complete ruler in Hell, and for all we know, he’s made himself
synonymous with their ultimate master. They don’t interact with the angels or
even we mortals, save those already in Hell and under his influence, so there’s
no check to reveal his grand lie.”

“To what purpose?” Garet asked.

“Power,” James supplied. “If they’re not even aware a higher
authority exists, no one can look beyond him. He stands at the peak of the
mountain, and when they look up, all they see is him, ruling from on high.
Ancient history shows the same thinking behind a series of so-called god-kings
who reigned during the Dark Ages.”

“Precisely,” Birch said.

“Are we sure that’s the way it is?” Garnet asked. “I mean,
it’s not that I don’t trust you or the demon within you, Birch, but how can we
know for sure? Perhaps Mephistopheles really does rule Hell in actuality, or
supplanted Satan and this is payback. For the most part, our knowledge of
divine society comes from texts centuries old and only from one side of the
immortal family, as it were.”

Flasch snapped his fingers.

“Of course,” he said enthusiastically and jumped to his
feet. “It’s been in front of us all along, so commonplace and
everyday
, I bet no one’s ever bothered to think much of
it.”

They looked at him quizzically.

“The cards,” Flasch said, as if that should explain
everything.

“What in San’s name are you talking about?” Garet asked.

“Ignore him, dad,” Garnet replied, “his mind’s probably
overworked from actually being used for once.”

Flasch glared at Garnet.

“Damn it, I’m serious,” he said. “Think about it. In the
Hell suit, Mephistopheles is the King of Hell. Not only as a political
position, as we’ve surmised from the texts in the library, but also by his
place as the highest-ranking card in the suit. But what is Satan? He’s a wild
card, completely independent of the rest of the suit. They’re two different
cards, with Satan the more powerful and useful. I mean, we’ve already noticed
some abnormalities with regards to the Kaelus and Satan cards. Maybe there’s
more to it.”

Flasch didn’t mention a more disturbing realization he’d
just had, namely that the Satan card was equal in power and game strength to
the other wild card: God. The Almighty. As a paladin of piety – the virtue of proper
devotion to God – the thought went too far for him to willingly follow without
extensive prayer and introspection. If there was anything to his first thought…

 “That actually makes sense,” Danner murmured to
Michael.

“I know,” the Yellow paladin replied.

“But it came from Flasch,” Danner pointed out in disbelief.

“I know,” Michael said, equally bewildered.

“Overworked mind or not, I think he’s right,” James said. “I
wish Vander was here right now. He’d have a field day examining the
implications of what this means to the way we’ve always viewed Hell and the
relationships of the demons. How this was all overlooked, maybe conditioned out
of us somehow.”

“What about Heaven and the angels?” Perky asked quietly.
They all turned to stare at him in puzzlement.

“I mean,” he said, uncomfortable with all their attention
suddenly focused on him, “it seems that Mephistopheles is the acting ruler in
Hell, hence his position as King, which we know for certain from the texts the
immortals left us. If so, then Satan must be removed from the whole thing, like
the wild card in
Dividha
, which seems kind of fitting, now that I think
about it.”

“And so is God,” Birch said, and he nodded as he saw where
Perky had gone with his thoughts.

“There’s that text Danner helped us translate,” Marc
reminded them absently, absorbed in his own thoughts. “Vander and I talked
about it once, and he even wrote a piece about it. He was dead-on about the
hands-off approach God and Satan seem to have taken. I wish he was here,” Marc
added, echoing James’s earlier statement.

Birch stared at Marc speculatively, then went on. “That fits
with what we’re proposing. Mephistopheles may rule in Hell, but following a
parallel structure, it is Satan who truly holds the power, were He to act on
it. After all, Maya holds the place in
Dividha
as the King of Heaven,
not God.”

“That’s always made me wonder,” Nuse said. “I mean, she’s a
woman, but she’s the ‘King.’ I guess gender doesn’t mean much up there. Who are
the Queens of each suit, I forget.”

“Daella is the Queen of Hell, but that’s a convention of the
game more than an actual title,” Birch said. “I remember that much at least.
It’s not as though she and Mephistopheles were married rulers, she’s just the
second-most powerful demon in Hell, not counting Kaelus, and holds only
Mephistopheles himself above her. As for Heaven, it’s Uriel, another one of the
Seraphim.”

James shuffled through the deck and held up the two cards in
question. Daella was a stunningly beautiful woman with a malicious cast to her features
that made her appearance as terrible as it was striking. She looked human,
except for a pair of inch-high horns protruding from just above the hairline on
her forehead and two small, apparently useless bat wings just visible behind
her shoulders. She was clad in skin-tight, black hide armor with an array of
weapons visibly arranged about her body.

Uriel stood as a six-winged angel clad in gleaming armor, a
sword wreathed in blue flame held in both hands as though ready to attack an
unseen foe. His violet wings had the same glowing appearance Danner’s had when
asolved, and the vivid image seemed to almost pulsate with the power of the
Seraph. The face was beautiful and stern, and it put Danner in mind of a judge
he’d once seen years ago rendering a harsh verdict on a fellow thief.

 “Aren’t we reading a bit too much into this?” Hoil
asked. “As spectacular a deck as that is, it’s still just a deck of cards, and
it’s just a game. I don’t know that we need to go revising centuries of
doctrine just because we noticed something new about the cards in
Dividha
.”

Birch shook his head.

“You’re not seeing it, brother,” Birch said. “I can feel the
truth of this, but even without that, I’d believe we’re on the right track. The
fact that the Kaelus card, the Devil’s Deuce, is a more powerful card when used
in the Heaven suit, and that it’s the only Hell card that
can
be used
with a Heaven card is too striking a coincidence to be ignored. Even his name,
the
Devil
’s Deuce, aligns with his mysterious but special role in the
eyes of Satan, who is named in some older texts under the moniker of
The
Devil. There’s simply too much there to ignore or take too lightly.”

“Alright, I’m just saying we shouldn’t just chuck the honest
wares overboard with the contraband just because of a new theory that still
hasn’t been
proven
,” Hoil said. “You say Mephistopheles has repressed
knowledge in every demon in existence, and it just seems a bit much to me
without real proof. Just keep it in mind.”

“Wise words,” James said. “While I, too, believe we’re on
the correct track, Hoil’s right that we shouldn’t lightly take Birch’s
recollection as complete truth, especially if it turns centuries of doctrine on
its ear. There is still value in what we’ve always believed, even if at times
it may only lie in answering the question ‘Why’ have we always believed it?
Everything we’ve thought to be true had a source, and I’m anticipating a
collective apoplexy in the whole of the Orange Facet when we eventually place
this before them as they suddenly have to reexamine every document we have
trying to prove it one way or another.”