The Children of Zegandaria - Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (world best books to read txt) 📗

There was no room for improvisation. Strong and capable demons would now come to the fore, eager for victory. Such were, for example, Buer[26], Astaroth[27] and Abigor, who would show the power of the infernal hosts created only to destroy everything in their path.

Hell would have been shaken to its foundations as many things would never be the same again. It even meant the downfall of Valak's plans. He had to tread carefully. Otherwise, anything could happen.

Few were clearly aware that one death was not the end of everything, and that in Hell many things would be very different from now on. The psychology of a demon was too strange for an ordinary mortal.

Many believed in reincarnations and the energy of the soul that persisted after death. Some were simply born tourists in life and were still forced to stand by the fеnce, contemplating how others lived.

Agares returned to Valak to report, but the demon was not there. In fact, even his throne was half destroyed.

- "What else had happened," the demon wondered.

He saw that the Emporium was torn asunder, and evidently the end was soon to come.

- "It can't be," the demon gasped, "this boy is almost stronger than Hell itself, something's not right, I need to find him, but when he turned around Hell already looked different and nothing like what he had seen a moment ago."

He decided to try again. He turned around again, but this time there was no change. He continued to try. And again, and again, and again. No change.

Agares couldn't believe what was happening. Everything had clearly gone to hell. But where were the other demons! Where were Pruflax, Oriax, or Nergal. He had searched the communal infernal villages far and wide - there was no sign of anyone!

Something suddenly occurred to him that made even the mechanical crocodile recoil - what if Emborian's power was to accurately read their minds regardless of the Emphusor or other infernal savagery.

Apparently the boy was a fast learner. Agares didn't remember talking to him about the Emphusor.

- "Ah, the little rascal," he quipped. - "Sneaky..."

Suddenly his head ordered the puzzle. The idea was so elementary, yet ingenious at the same time.

Emborian had feigned innocеnce as he'd imparted some of his knowledge of Hell to him, then deliberately let Kibera escape with the medallion, knowing that Agares would be too insistent and might trick him or the infernal forces themselves would press him and take it away, because he knew too much about their insidious plan. That was how he had bought time - enough time to get away. The question was, how had he gotten into Hell?

- "Emborian, my dear pupil, let us see if the student has surpassed his teacher!," quipped Agares. "I may be a demon of friendships, but you have allowed yourself too much!"

Behind him, a demon showed itself. He couldn't make out its outline. It was Ronwe[28], who was keeping order in Hell. He looked exhausted and too desperate.

- "What happened?," Agares asked him. "Who caused all this chaos?"

- "Well, I don't know," the demon admitted honestly.

Agares was really confused. Something was going on, but what?

- "Where are the rest of us? Have all the other hell realities been destroyed?," he dared to ask.

- "I don't know, Your Highness," Ronwe spoke a little stiffly when he was in front of such a superior demon. "But there is no one here in Hell!"

- "And what are you doing?," dared Agares to ask.

- "Well, frankly, I do," Ronwe muttered.

- "Well," Agares began to imitate him mockingly. "I ask you what happened! Speak at once!," anger began to seethe from under the old man's good-natured eyebrows.

Ronwe scratched his big nose and gripped the stick tightly in his hands. With it, he was imposing upon the demons and djinn who disobeyed the appropriate injunctions of infernal morality.

- "You know, some demons have been living on earth for a long time, posing as humans," Ronwe began cautiously.

- "So," Agares turned to him somewhat warningly, "onwards. Go on more lively, I haven’t got all day her!"

- "The thing is, Kibera," the demon whined.

- "What?," roared Agares, who had been with her until a moment ago.

- "She was here, but not of her own volition, Apparently someone was controlling her mind," the demon guard muttered.

- "Emborian," Agares uttered under his breath and made to leave.

A strange sound was heard somewhere in the distance. A sound similar to a growl or a metallic scraping. It was becoming more and more audible and closer. Agares started to turn around, but Ronwe gestured with his finger for him to be quiet.

SALVATION IN DARKNESS

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: SALVATION IN DARKNESS

 

It was Valak, and he had been mortally wounded by someone or something. There was a huge and cruel wound yawning on his flank, but he tried to keep his face from betraying pain. There was a peculiar sadness written on his childish face - not that Hell wasn't a sad place, but after all, an Archdemon would want to feel master, at least in his own domain.

Agares was quick not to ask him what had happened, not out of fear for his own skin, but because he did not want him to hide from him an important piece of the puzzle he had sworn to set right.

Ronwe felt awkward around such greats.

- "And where is Hans?," turned Agares to Ronwe.

- "We have quite a few here in Hell with that name. Which of all of them?," replied Ronwe hurriedly.

- "Well, his surname was Auslander, I think," Agares dragged out the strange word for him.

- "And he's one of my favourites, he's very capable, but frankly sinners should suffer more. Especially in certain parts of Hell. Even I loathe some of them. What scum," Ronwe hissed, clearly feeling both a sense of pride in the backgrounds of his charges and disgust at their deeds.

- "So this is Hell!," Agares scolded him. "What do you expect?"

- "Bring Hans, if you can, and quickly," the elder demon stroked his beard thoughtfully, "he will know the answer to the riddle."

- "How, a mere mortal," Ronwe protested, clearly disappointed that his merits would take a back seat. "Well, okay, but you'll have to wait a bit, because it's too far, all the way in the ninth circle. Come to think of it, it'll take me a few days to get all the way there."

- "We don't have that long," Agares said angrily.

- "Okay I'll try to hurry," Ronwe panted. "After all Hans isn't the easiest of Hell's denizens to find and he's heavily guarded."

- "Act," Agares ordered him, sick of listening to the ramblings and explanations.

The demon guard disappeared as if on command. He wasn't sure exactly which part of Hell Hans was in, however, but he was sure that the most logical place to be was in one of the lower circles.

He lingered and wandered for a long time, questioning a sum sum demon until he finally, reached some of the lower circles. They didn't want to let him any lower than seventh without special permission. It took almost two days. The bureaucracy of hell was murderous. You could almost guess.

But he finally, found it in the third section of the ninth circle, frozen knee-deep in the Cocytus River.[29] That's where the traitors of close friends were placed. To be honest, Hans was a tough case and they wondered which section to put him in, but in the end they decided it was best to put him in this one. That way he would be closest to Satan himself.

Hans had ended up in Hell itself after the spaceship had fallen into a black hole. At first the demons thought him to be an ordinary human, but it wasn't long before they realized that there was something special about him and even began to 'care' for him. Well, nurture wasn't the right word, but he was far from the status of an ordinary denizen of Hell.

Soon he made friends with some of Hell's major players as well. He had contacts with Eyperos and Allocer, and even with the Guardian of Hell, Haures himself. His name got around, but he had to suffer his sins in the Ninth Circle, where the lower traitors rotted.

In Hell, of course, being a traitor was almost like some kind of distinction, but here too at least some form of morality had to be observed, or the whole hierarchy would fall apart very quickly.

Hans was shrewd and straightforward and knew how to look after his interest perfectly. He had no problems with others, but they could very easily have problems with him. There were several reasons for this. First, the secret knowledge he had access to was of interest to the demons, who had deep wizarding knowledge, but had some concerns that humans could break through the walls of Hell and get in to them. The line between the two worlds was not to be blurred by any moral scruples, but by sheer pragmatism. Many demons could perish if their respective realities were lost. That was why they worshipped him - he was Hell's prized cadre.

Hans was very wrong about only one thing. Namely, he didn't suffer from vanity, but pure pragmatism. He wanted to learn some secrets that weren’t for him. Sure, the demons agreed to willingly reveal some of them to him, but at the cost of some of his soul. The deal was done and sealed with the seal of the Demon King Apollyon.

However, Hans had never made a deal with demons before, especially in their dimension. There was a difference - the walls helped here, too.

He explained to them that he could open a portal to the Upper Land, as they called Zegandaria.

Of course, this displeased some powers like Malphas and Melphom, two rather powerful demons too high up in the Hellmouth hierarchy. They had long been monitoring the growing popularity of this denizen of Hell and plotting how to use his knowledge to enhance their own power.

Hans was no fool and realized that he couldn't work with all demons for the simple reason that their interests conflicted. He had to be careful or he might get hurt.

Hell relied on the thoughts of its victims and molded reality to their worst nightmares, but in Hans' case it wasn't so easy to pinpoint his worst one. Deep down, Hans hadn't revealed it, and even if someone was peeking into his thoughts, they were inevitably hitting stone.

The infernal forces had to come to terms with this great failure of theirs for now.

THE PENDANT OF MARBAS