Achieving Heaven Through Hell Part 3: Only the Results

Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Totality

Sallos stood in the middle of his ready-room, surrounded by attendants. The hooded demons chanted defiled hymns and psalms praising Lucifer. It was like poison in his ears, each word of praise a stinging blast of sand against his soul. He spread his arms as his mighty frame was clothed in a thick gambeson made from the hardiest of Hellish materials: fire and razor-flax from Wrath's Obsidian Plains, silk from Envy's bus-sized silkwyrms, and leather and carapace from the most vicious, dangerous creatures prowling the Nine Rings. Atop this arming jacket was placed glittering, beautifully decorated metal, a full set of Seraphic steel plate armor, bearing the tarnished deeds of the ancient, Fallen Seraphim. Sallos glared directly ahead, arms extended to the sides as his priests affixed his Seraphim steel gauntlets to his hands, blessing them with abhorrent incense and flicks of demonic blood, which evaporated upon touching the holy metal.

His armor donned, he was presented with his ceremonial helmet bearing a striking resemblance to an ornately stylized crocodile with huge caprine horns sprouting from the sides. He picked it up and, reacting to his presence, the great jaws of the crocodile split open and receded back onto the helmet, allowing him to put it on. The jaws snapped shut once more, the eyes of the crocodile helm flaring open, becoming flaming, burning pits of hellfire. A large, single-headed axe was offered before him by a pair of acolytes, the purity of the Seraphim steel making up the weapon causing the attending demons' lesser flesh to bubble and slough away from their fingers. The Duke allowed the priests to suffer in silent agony for a moment, sneering as their shoulders and arms began to tremble, their hooded heads bowing as they barely withstood the terrible, purifying pain.

'There's a teenage girl in the other room whose head I must collect,' Sallos thought, bitterly. 'She has more courage and honor in a single feather than your order has in its entirety. Endure the pain, filth.'

He reached out and grabbed the haft of the executioner's axe and wrenched it out of their decaying hands, taking with it several fingers and long strips of flesh. He regarded the axe as the demonic matter clinging to it sizzled and liquified, whole fingers sliding off its pristine surface to splatter on the ground, bones and all. Duke Sallos shoved past the Hell priests and into the adjoining room, where a small squad of ducal soldiers stood in attendance, separating their prisoner from the small army of representatives, pet Overlords all of them. Six-dozen in all, one stand-in for each of the Goetia. A rolling wave of murmurs arose from the crowd.

"All stand for His Excellency Grand Duke Sallos!" Announced a sergeant in his most resplendent ceremonial armor. "Prime Peacekeeper of the Inner Circle, Defender of Decorum, Lord of–"

Sallos silenced the room and his soldier by smashing the pommel of his axe into the floor with a cannon-like report. The ducal soldiers parted around him, revealing his niece. She had been cleaned and dressed as tradition demanded, her face made up in full regal style. His heart broke anew as he imagined how she would have worn her mother's ancestral garments, how the calm and airy dignity she exuded this very moment would have lent all the better to her future duties. Even in attitude and composure she was every bit a princess. This was a ceremony to execute a royal, a fellow Goetia. She had to look the part, but Octavia was more of a royal than any of the cowards the rabble represented.

"Octavia Goetia, heir to the titles and rites of Stolas and Stella Goetia, princess of Hell and loyal subject of Lucifer," Sallos said as he loomed over the much smaller girl, his voice amplified to a Hellish bellow by his armor. "By Royal Decree of Our King Lucifer Mange, the Morningstar, He With Might Above All Under God, you have been sentenced to death for the indiscretions of your father, Prince Stolas Goetia. If you have any final requests, I shall do all within my power to fulfill them. If you have any final words, you may divulge them now for posterity."