Sebastian Gloom

Preparations for war.

     The conversation was cut short as a massive figure appeared on the horizon and sped through the air in their direction. It was a demon, massive, dark and terrible, or did it only look that way because that was how they expected it to look? For centuries, popular culture had depicted fallen angels as evil creatures, terrifying to look at, but Gloom now suspected that the church was largely responsible for this. Propaganda. The church literally demonizing the enemies of their God. Gloom knew that many demons were indeed evil and terrible, but he was now becoming more and more certain that many, perhaps most, of the demons in Hell were good, moral creatures who had been damned for speaking out against God's injustices.

     As the demon loomed large above them, therefore, Gloom tried to ignore what his culturally programmed preconceptions were telling him and see the creature as it truly was. He closed his eyes, aware that everything he was seeing (and hearing, and feeling) was an illusion. The eldest damned souls claimed to be able to ‘perceive' other souls directly, to see the spirit world as it truly was. Sight, hearing and the other senses of the living human body were only relics of the past and had to be discarded. They only showed them what God wanted them to see and God wanted them to suffer. He closed his eyes, therefore, and searched within himself for another sense of which he'd previously been unaware. He concentrated...

     He knew he was trying to do what the elder souls had taken thousands of years to accomplish, but he had the advantage of knowing that it was possible. It wasn't something that could be taught, since there were no words to describe it. Words could only be used to describe something that two people already understood. You couldn't describe the colour red, for instance. You could only take someone to something that was red and say “There, that’s what red is.” Gloom was facing the same problem as he struggled to access his sense of spiritual perception. He had no real idea what he was trying to do. He only knew that something was possible. He had no idea what, or how.

     His efforts were interrupted as the demon spoke, though. A great, booming voice that rolled out across the red hot, flaming landscape like rolling thunder following a titanic flash of lightning. “Attend me, all ye damned souls! Attend to my words.”

     “What's going on?” said Benson in alarm.

     “It’s Sammael, I’m sure of it,” replied Gloom. “The same demon that’s been teaching us how to fight.”

     “What does he...”

     Benson was cut off in mid sentence as the demon spoke again. “The second rebellion is at hand. All must attack their assigned targets All those within the sound of my voice are commanded to attack Netzach the Sublime. Prince of Eternity. Keeper of the Mournful Countenance...”

     He was interrupted by shouts coming from the damned souls below. “Who are you to command us? I am a king, I follow no man's commands.” Other shouts supported him, Gloom heard someone saying “I am loyal still, Your Majesty! I follow you even beyond death!” Others voiced their own refusal to follow the commands of a demon, some of them insisting that they were still loyal to God, but a far greater number of voices shouted them down. “We have to act together!” someone said. “Our one chance of victory lies in our unity.”

     The demon had his own answer to the protests, though. “If we are victorious,” his voice boomed out, “any who chose not to fight alongside us will remain in Hell after the rest of us have left. The spoils of war will not be shared with those who have not earned them.”

     That silenced the crowd, and the demon waited until the last angry mutters had died down before continuing. “I cannot defeat Netzach by myself, for he far surpasses me in power. I shall lead you to him, though, and grapple with him. I will drag him down to the ground so that you can engage him in your massed millions. You must subdue him as I have taught you to do. If you fail to do this, he will simply tear me apart and return to the skies, and although my body will heal, it will not be soon enough to help in the war. He will go to assist other angels being engaged elsewhere, and that may be enough to secure our defeat.”