Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (54 page)

“Silence!”
Malith barked, and his voice echoed with the sound of Mephistopheles’s own
resounding power. The banner of flames behind him flared at his command,
momentarily silhouetting him before their eyes. The demons shrank back and
stared in fearful silence until Malith had glared at each one to impress his
authority over them. He pointed at a portion of the map.

“Here is where
Kaelus can be found,” he said confidently. “Notice where our patrols have been
slain and what areas have been kept clear. Notice the patterns both in motion
and here in stasis. I acknowledge Gerard’s brilliance, but this time he
outsmarted himself.”

Malith’s smile
was predatory as he studied the map.

“Aesthma, you
have begged for another chance to face Uriel and his Archangels,” the Black
paladin said, looking at the insectoid demon. Malith pointed at a separate
space on the map. “I can almost guarantee he will be
here
.”

Aesthma hissed
and his wings twitched and rasped in agitation behind him. He tilted his head
and firelight gleamed on the facets of his marred, jeweled eye.

“I humbly
request permission to lead the force you send there, Lord Malith,” Aesthma
rasped in what passed for a respectful tone. “Give me one more chance, and I
will obliterate the so-called Fist of God and spit him on his own fiery sword.”

“You shall have
that chance, demon lord,” Malith said with a vicious grin. “Cut the heart out
of the Archangels and shatter that jewel of Heaven called Uriel. You will have
only a single strike force of your childris, however, no more than you had at
the cauldrons of Arthryx. Most I keep in reserve, the rest will be a part of
the other task force, which I place in the hands of Azazel and Succubus.”

Azazel’s eyes
gleamed and he grinned, revealing pearly-white, needle-sharp teeth behind
blue-black lips. Succubus licked her own ruby lips and pressed against her
twin, caressing his chest and leaving deep scratches where her nails passed,
from which seeped streaks of crimson blood so bright it looked like trails of
flame coursing down the demon’s chest. Her smoldering eyes glowed as she looked
up at Malith, who found himself suddenly aching to be embraced by this deadly
temptress and lose himself to her unearthly perfect body.

Malith took a
firm grip on such mortal urges and quickly strangled them. When he engaged in
carnal lust with a woman, it was he who did the taking and forced
her
to
submit. He would never succumb to the wiles of the demoness, but even so,
Malith avoided her eyes until he dismissed the demons, and he made certain she
was gone and engaged with her twin before he left in search of his own tent.

- 3 -

Shadow Company
and the Archangels were greeted with cheers of celebration and praise when –
two days after the fall of Arthryx the Bender – they returned to the stronghold
Uriel had recently erected. The armies of Hell had stopped to lick their wounds,
both from the death of Arthryx and from an ambush laid by Mikal’s warriors on
the unprepared flanks of the main demon army. Kaelus had sent word that the
demons would be at least two or three days in catching up to them, so they were
all looking forward to a brief respite from fighting.

Almost all of
them.

Brican’s feet
carried him slowly away from the laughter and huzzahs, his thoughts morose. He
felt the days and weeks ticking away like the countdown on some gnomish
explosive device. How long had they been in Heaven; two months? Three? It was
easy to lose track of the passage of nightless days. How much time had passed
back on the mortal plane of existence? Brican’s twin children were growing
inside of his wife, and if the war of immortals didn’t end soon, his children
might die before they took their first living breaths.

Probably a
little more than a month had passed at home for all the weeks here, and in that
time, what had they really accomplished? Hell still stormed ever onward toward
their goal, and no matter what delaying tactics and guerilla strikes they might
make, no matter how many demons they slew, still the beasts kept coming. So
much time gone already. How much time did his children have left?

Brican said
nothing of his worries to the others. Deep down, they were all worried on his
behalf – his and Danner’s – and voicing his anxieties would do no good.
Instead, he put on his best face and pushed onward with resolute determination.

Heavy footsteps
echoed down the hall behind him, and without turning Brican knew it was Garnet.
Brican stopped and waited, staring blankly down the hall at an irregular
pattern on the wall ahead of him where the corridor turned a corner. The Red
paladin slowed and stopped next to him. Garnet glanced at him once, then stared
down the hallway in the same direction as Brican.

“Do you want to
talk about it?” Garnet asked.

“No.”

“Okay then.”

By silent
consent, they both stepped forward at the same time and walked in-step down the
hall. They turned the corner and walked another minute in silence before they
heard the voices. At first, they were too vague to make out, but as they neared
a half-open door, Brican finally recognized the voices of Trames and Perklet.

“…always been
able to heal people,” Perklet was saying. “Sometimes I think I was even healing
before I became a paladin, but I think it was just the medicines and tender
care at work.”

“Don’t be so
sure,” Trames replied in his bright, ever-cheerful voice. “There have always
been men who healed, even back to the ancient shamans and medicine men who
lived among primitive men. I’ve read accounts, already old before the Merging
War, of pagan tribes whose ceremonies centered around men who were reported to
have fantastic healing magic.”

“But…” Perklet
fell silent at some unseen prompt from Trames.

“What is
healing?” Trames asked. “From a paladin’s teachings and perspective, I mean.”

“It’s a
manifestation of the virtue of love,” Perklet said. “You’re giving something of
yourself and taking some of the pain and injury from the individual, one of the
greatest expressions of love you could give. It taps into the holy power of God
and shares His love, which heals the individual. That’s what I remember from my
teachings anyway, which seem like a lifetime ago.”

Brican looked at
Garnet, who had a strange look of anguish on his face. A quick glance in his
friend’s thoughts revealed the source, and Brican was forced to withhold a
grin.

He kythed to
Garnet, “
I didn’t even know Trames and Kala were here.”

“Birch told
me when I was in the main hall,”
Garnet replied, then flushed slightly.

Trames,
meanwhile, had started speaking again.

“So what’s to
say that ancient shamans weren’t just drawing on their own love and using it to
heal?” the old man asked. “A virtue is a virtue even if they didn’t know what
to call it yet. It’s universal, yes?”

“Is it me, or
is Trames actually making sense?”
Brican kythed. In response, Garnet held a
finger to his lips. Brican quirked his lips to show Garnet he was being
ridiculous and tapped his head, but Garnet turned away without comment.

“You know, I’ve
always wondered about some myths that I read in some of the histories about the
Great Schism,” Trames said suddenly when Perklet didn’t answer immediately.
Brican glanced questioningly at Garnet, who shrugged.

“Myths? In the
history books?” Perklet asked in surprise. “How can there be, it’s all given
directly from the words of the immortal angels.”

“So it says, but
one in particular I can’t help but question. There are accounts that the Seraph
Raphael, known as the greatest healer in Heaven, actually healed the wounds of
demons. Seems to me that the holy and unholy have never been able to mix. Just
look at Kaelus and one of the angels whenever they touch. Healing a demon
shouldn’t have been possible, which is why I wonder if it was a bit
exaggerated. You know, she was
such
a great angel, she could drink an
entire ocean and spit you out a meal of succulently cooked fish, and oh yeah,
she could even heal demons.”

Perklet laughed.

“Believe it or
not, I remember the exact passage you’re referring to,” Perklet said in his
gentle voice, “and I remember having troubles with it as well.” He paused. “I
suppose it might have been an exaggeration at that, or perhaps the observer
mistook what he saw. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”

They were
silent, and Brican was about to move on when he heard Trames speak again. The
strange old man’s words were so silent, Brican had to strain to overhear his
aged voice.

“If it is true,
then where does healing come from, if not from God’s power of good?” Trames
asked quietly. “I wonder if there’s something beyond that.”

Perklet’s shock
was evident in his voice. “Beyond God’s power? You mean, greater than?”

“If not greater,
perhaps just other than,” Trames mused, sounding distracted. Then he barked a
short, self-depreciating laugh.

“Ignore me,
Perklet,” he said, and Brican could hear the deranged smile in his voice. “Just
the ramblings of an old man. It’s a well-known fact that I’m crazy, that’s why
Kala has to look after me. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

A sleepy yawn
crept out through the door, and Garnet shifted nervously.

“I’m sorry,
ma’am,” Perklet said softly, “we didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s no
matter,” Kala said sleepily. “Have the Archangels returned yet?”

“Yes,” Trames
replied, “Shadow Company is back.”

Garnet motioned
with his head for Brican to leave, and he looked as though he had every
intention of leaving with him.

“What?”
Brican asked.

“Let’s go,”
Garnet thought to him.

“Garnet, why
did you come here?”
the denarae asked him.

Garnet’s flush
told him the answer.

Instead of
leaving, Brican knocked on the door and quickly opened it before Garnet could
duck out of sight.

“Ah, Perklet
there you are,” Brican said brightly, “and Trames, too. Perfect. I was
half-afraid I’d have to search the whole citadel to find you both.”

“Can we help
you, Brican?” Perklet asked politely.

Brican glanced
at Kala, whose eyes were only for Garnet.

“Yes, I, uh,
Birch sent me to look for you, something about that dakkan of his acting
strange,” Brican improvised. “Said he wanted you to take a look for anything
wrong with it.”

“Of course, of
course,” Perklet said. He made a brief bow to Kala and directed a troubled
glance at Trames, then he left quickly in search of Birch.

“And me,
Brican?” Trames asked. There was a mischievous gleam in his eye, and Brican
knew here was a fellow conspirator.

“Flasch and I
were talking earlier, and we missed having you around, hearing your stories and
those little ditties of yours,” Brican said with a sincere smile. That at least
was true. “Mind coming to sit with a couple tired soldiers?”

He turned to
Kala. “You don’t mind, do you, Kala? We’ll keep him out of trouble, I promise.”

Kala hesitated,
which Trames apparently took for acquiescence, because he leapt to his feet
with a grin and grabbed an empty jar and a piece of parchment, then hurried to
the door. He turned to Brican and said, “Coming?”

Brican bowed to
Kala and winked at Garnet as he turned away toward the door. As a finishing
touch, Trames turned to Garnet.

“Would you mind
keeping my ganashir company, good sir?” he asked the big man. “I don’t want her
getting lonely.”

And with that,
Brican and Trames disappeared quickly before Garnet could gather his wits. He
walked quickly so he could try and catch up with Perklet before the Green
paladin could get far in his misbegotten search.

“What the
Hell do you think you’re doing?”
Brican picked up the question from
Garnet’s thoughts, and this time he did laugh.

“Go enjoy
yourself, Garnet,”
Brican kythed in as serious a mental voice as he could
manage.
“That’s an order.”

Trames looked
questioningly at Brican as he suddenly howled in laughter.

“I’ve been
waiting for months to do that to him!” Brican half-shouted in glee, then
dissolved into gales of laughter yet again.

Philosophy is what happens in life, not just in marble
towers.

       
- Violet
Paladin Gadjin Tealor,

“The Rising Star” (5 AM)

- 1 -

The Voice
again. Always it came when he was blind and alone, and whenever he resolved to
ask his captors about the Voice, somehow he never did.

“I have often
longed for a mortal’s perspective on this question,” the Voice said without any
warning as to its presence.

He laughed.
“Ask away, dream.”

“Dream?”

“I cannot see
you nor touch you, bound and blind as I am. Perhaps then you are only a figment
of my imagination, a voice of delusion speaking to me from the edge of
insanity.”

“Fool the
senses and the mind will sense the fool,” the Voice said, “but fool the mind
and mind the senseless fool.” The Voice laughed. “I like you, mortal, and that
is a good thing. Think of me as you will, whether dream or reality, but dismiss
me at your own peril.”

 “Ask
your question then, and I’ll attend.”

“Poetic. Very
well, mortal, answer me this. Is something good because it comes from God, or
is He God because He is wholly good?”

“All of God’s
acts are good, and we are taught that goodness comes from God, so logic and
training would compel me to say the former.”

“Logic, is
it? Well then, what say you if God were to decree that every firstborn child of
every household must be sacrificed to Him? Or that it was permissible to seduce
a man’s wife so long as you didn’t get a child on her? Or that rape is
acceptable if a man can prove he was provoked by the woman? Or any number of
other depravities. Would you call these things good if God were to sanction
them?”