Reforming Hell. Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen

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СКАЧАТЬ are other classes besides servants,” he answered with a half-smile. “We have industry, arts and sciences in this first level. Its citizens live here willingly. You could liken them to the freeborn citizens of ancient Rome. They, too, had emperors, some mad, some sane, but none like Lucifer, ruler of our Netherworld.”

      “You don’t rule?”

      He stared at her, as if deciphering the intent of her question, then returned his gaze to the panorama beyond the palace. “My brothers and I are royal princes, and we each share both responsibilities and power. Our word is considered law in most instances.”

      “Except for what?”

      Now his stare became probing.

      “Why do you stare at me like that?”

      “I’m trying to guess your reasons for asking these questions.”

      “Why don’t you just ask me?”

      His smile widened, flashing even teeth. He looked good, dressed all in black: pants, boots, long-sleeved shirt and wide cummerbund. Looking like some dashing pirate, his thick black hair framed his face, resting temptingly on his neck. He had removed the elegant black dinner jacket he wore, casually handing the jewel-encrusted garment to a hall guard before guiding Leianna out into the warm night and the tower balcony to show her Tandour. “Perhaps I enjoy your mysterious womanly ways.”

      “I want no mysteries between us.”

      “No secrets?”

      “This is no game, Bael. I need to know what goes on around here, and how I’ll fit in.” Despite distant starlight in the night sky, Hell was a world endlessly gray and dark, not even a moon to cast silver light upon this dimension, never a sun to rise into its sky and shed rays of golden warmth. But Lucifer had tamed Hell and used its resources, and today, electric lights chased away its darkness.

      Hell had a day, too, Bael told her, but its sky shone a dull, thick silver-gray, as if an encroaching storm was forever approaching. And Bael had joked there was sulfur with its repellent stench, just as the legends said, but only in the lower circles of Hell. No brimstone assaulted her nose here. “I wonder if I could ever fit in here.”

      “You’d be a royal princess.” He paused. “I hear both fear and determination in your words. You’ll be an unusual addition to my family, but you mustn’t fear them.”

      She turned away from the balustrade and from Bael. “Not even Lucifer?”

      “Especially not him.”

      “Why? Does he secretly admire me and want us to marry?”

      He hesitated until Leianna turned back to him, glancing sharply up at him, and then he reached over and ran his fingers through her hair, lifting and separating one auburn strand. He stroked it between his fingers. “See how the light catches your hair, giving it a golden sheen. Fire and ice, and one does not douse or melt the other.” He lowered his hand. “No, Lucifer doesn’t want you back in my life. He’s never forgiven you for siding with the Creator. He’s hoping that you’ll screw up, that the millennia we’ve been apart have changed us.”

      She pursed her lips, troubled. “I think that they have. Don’t you?”

      “Yes, intensely so. But it seems some things don’t change.”

      “My Lord,” the guard holding Bael’s dinner jacket interrupted them. “Your father requests that you and the Lady Leianna join him and the other dinner guests. They are about to sit down.” The man nodded to another guard, who walked briskly off, having delivered his message. Both were dressed in a perfect imitation of a Praetorian guard of old Rome. Perhaps there was some significance to Bael’s remark about Roman citizens, some parallel history. The guard now held out the jacket like a butler, helping Bael into it, then stood once again at attention at his post within the archway.

      Leianna noticed that he held a spear, and a short sword was sheathed in a scabbard hung on a belt around his waist, but she saw no guns. Considering that Bael had said that sulfur and phosphorus were plentiful, she wondered if the guards were ever really called upon to protect their masters, or if the spear and sword were merely ornamental.

      Bael held out his hand. “Come. Duty calls, Leianna.”

      She grasped his hand and walked beside him through the cavernous hall that connected the tower with lower palace floors. The silken folds of her lilac gown brushed the stone corridor, its petticoat undergarment rustling softly. Soft sconces positioned along their way lent a golden cast to the gown’s delicate, white lace collar. The collar draped its scoop-necked bodice and covered her upper arms demurely. They moved downward to the ballroom and banquet room.

      “So tell me why?” Bael said.

      “Why what?”

      “Why were you questioning my status here, my power? Why do you ask about servants?”

      They turned a corner and now various aromas filled the air, both of baking and of roasting, rich and beckoning. Leianna wondered what they could possibly eat in Hell; it smelled inviting and she hoped the aromas genuinely matched the food to be served. “First, I want to make sure that you can protect me here. Secondly, I want to know if your servants are condemned souls, forced to serve you as slaves.”

      He slowed his pace, squeezing her hand. “I can protect you if I am beside you, my love. That is why I forbid you to come here without me, or to go wandering off without me or my having designated a trustworthy guard for you. I have already made it very clear to my people, as did Ashtoreth, that if any who owe allegiance to Hell should in any way harm you, be it done in Hell, on the astral planes or on Earth, they will be punished beyond severity. Aside from that, trust in the protection that Quatama, the Seraphim and the Creator have given you.”

      “And the servants?”

      “They are all willing and loyal, whether they are condemned to Hell because of Earthly misdeeds or they have chosen to descend to our realm of their own volition.”

      “In mortal slave cultures, a job in the house of the master was a cushy job.”

      “And so it is here, but if a soul is not being punished for a serious sin, he or she is treated decently.” Down at the end of the corridor large double doors opened for them. Inside, four male waiters stood stiffly in dark suits near the long dinner table set with linen, china plates, silver cutlery and crystal goblets. In the eight chairs ranged about the table, six people sat, waiting for them.

      Leianna saw Quatama nod to the two empty seats to his left. Ashtoreth, his golden hair neatly brushed and wearing a Roman toga, his favorite mode of dress here, sat at Qua­tama’s right side. Across from Ashtoreth, sat a woman Leianna hadn’t seen for 35,000 years: Affaeteres, Lucifer’s wife, mother of his sons. She had some minor facial lines, the only hint of those years having passed, her long blonde hair coiffed in an intricate upsweep. To her right and across from Quatama sat Lucifer himself, his own hair as thick, golden and wavy as Ash’s, for Lucifer’s first son resembled him strongly, although Ash’s sea green eyes matched his mother’s. He had not inherited Lucifer’s piercing, blue eyes.

      Leianna was also seeing Lucifer for the first time since he fell from grace. To Lucifer’s right sat a beautiful slender woman with blonde hair a shade or two lighter than Affaeteres’s and a face that could easily have been her daughter’s. СКАЧАТЬ