Now keeping to himself, alternately pacing and sitting at his desk in his chambers, he felt no sense of comfort, even surrounded as he was by his loyal Knights. They, too, knew that venturing forth might provoke the dark figure who sat so nearby upon his charnel throne, wrapped in black hatred and paranoia. It was a time to measure one's appearances, a time to be careful.
ADAMANTINARX-UPON-THE-ACHERON
Lilith entered the arcade and passed a dozen ambassadors as they exited the main chamber. She was becoming a regular visitor, and none of the guards she stepped past challenged or even questioned her. Her freedom, a balm to her, was that complete.
Counter to her fears, her sense of awakening had not, in any way, diminished as she shared more and more time with Sargatanas. When he wasn't holding councils with Valefar and Eligor and the others he would walk the streets of Adamantinarx with her, and gradually she came to realize that they were both enjoying and looking forward to their meetings. Frequently their conversations centered upon the souls, and her philosophies of tolerance toward them, and Sargatanas, to her delight, seemed receptive. She saw him for short periods only, as he was consumed with the affairs of his great city, but the encounters were growing pleasantly, uncharacteristically, relaxed. The huge demon's tone was less tense, less filled with the edge of pain that she remembered from so long ago, which was even more exceptional given the imminence of conflict that loomed over the city. She had to attribute it to her presence, a fact that made her smile when she was back in her chambers.
Lilith entered the Audience Chamber and saw that it was suffused with a light miasma of smoke that hung like a gently shifting veil softening the finger of ruddy light that dropped from above. A flock of silver-black Abyssals circled the inner dome on distance-muffled wings, disappearing in its shadows, briefly glittering in the light like coins thrown into the air. Looking toward the throne, she saw Sargatanas seated and flanked by Valefar and some ambassadors, and she felt more protected than she would have ever imagined before. She had to admit that, despite her independent inner self, she liked the feeling.
Arriving at the pyramid's foot, she waited as Sargatanas disengaged himself and descended the long stairs and she wondered, not for the first time, where today's special destination, only hinted at by his messenger, would be. Just in case, she carried her traveling skins. The city's sights had been amazing: the mammoth, incandescent Forges, the vast artisans district, the seemingly endless Armory, the organized and efficient Abyssal husbandry pens. But while these had all been impressive locations, it was the enormous Library within the palace itself that sparked her imagination. She could not yet read the ornate script, but Sargatanas himself had promised to teach her and, most intriguingly, he had told her that there were a few rich texts that recounted life so long ago in the Above. These, she knew, would prey upon her imagination only until they yielded their contents. On a deeper level, she looked forward to her lessons not only for the knowledge gained but for the shared intimacy as well.
"You can leave those behind," Sargatanas said, indicating the draped skins that Lilith carried. "Eligor will have them brought back to your chambers."
"Are we staying in the palace, then?" she said, hoping for the first of her lessons.
"Actually, Lilith, we're going to be very close to where we stand at the moment."
"I am intrigued, my lord," she said, laying the garments down carefully, patting them unconsciously. It worried her only a little to leave them behind.
She and Sargatanas crossed the broad floor, wended their way through the forest of the arcade's pillars at its periphery, and exited into the great entry hall. Sargatanas led her through the crowd of functionaries that had stopped and knelt in place before their lord. He took her through a tall doorway, passing through a floating guard-glyph, and gradually Lilith became aware that they were slowly descending, corridor by corridor beneath the main floor. At each important juncture they passed through another glyph. Sargatanas led her in silence and as the many branching corridors grew darker and lessened to one, only the sounds of her clawed feet, his deep breathing, and the fires of his head broke the stillness.
Lilith did not care how long the walk through the labyrinthine halls took; it was another adventure with Sargatanas, whose proximity was becoming both reassuring and disturbingly necessary. The novelties of both feelings, the sheer improbability of them, were things she went over frequently and accepted willingly. She had been spiritually in exile for too long.
The corridor's ceiling rose, and before her she saw a doorway and a bench. Above the lintel was Sargatanas' seal wrought in flowing silver, inset into the purest white stone, and with a stab of realization Lilith knew that something secret and special lay behind the imposing door.
Sargatanas stopped just as he put his dark hand upon the door's latch. Lilith watched him pause and counted her heartbeats while he looked down at the flagstones. Some inner conflict was at work upon him, and she thought to reassure him that he did not have to show her what lay beyond. But she said nothing.
The dull thunk of the latch was loud in the otherwise tomblike silence.
A vestibule just behind the door opening led into a much brighter room beyond, and Sargatanas looked up at her, his glittering eyes intense as he carefully watched her expression. He said nothing, but somehow she knew that he wanted her to enter first, and, moving slowly, she stepped past him and over the threshold.
Into Heaven.
As she walked forward Lilith brushed her fingers unconsciously along the wall's lines of incised script, her wide eyes fixed on the lambent room so unlike anyplace else in all of Hell.
She moved from statue to frieze to mosaic as if she were dreaming, slowly, and with the feeling that she was not within herself. Occasionally, like someone who had been blind for all her existence, she would reach out and, with a delicate finger that rivaled the paleness of the stones around her, lightly trace it across the carved, perfect face of some seraph or up the smooth side of a golden spire or over the jeweled streams that flowed throughout the cities and fields.
As she made her way around the room she grew more and more exhilarated, reaching a point of near breathlessness in her eagerness to drink it all in. Sargatanas quietly whispered a running commentary and Lilith attentively listened to every word. She could not understand all of their meanings, but most served to heighten her sense of wonderment. The hosts gathered before her and she could nearly hear their silver voices raised in praise of their Throne's manifold glories. Strange tears of joy, of unfamiliar exultation, rolled down her cheeks and she felt weak and light-headed. Once, she stumbled and nearly fell, but a strong, dark hand caught her.