The War Hound and the World's Pain Read online

  “I would say that it was subtler,” she told me softly. She seemed torn between proving herself and wishing to flee with me. Her expression was challenging and yet fearful as she looked up at me. She seemed even more beautiful. I touched her hair, stroking it. I kissed her upon her warm lips.

  Then I strode forward and pushed the large doors open.

  Sabrina put her hand on my arm and preceded me into the room. She curtseyed.

  “Master, I have brought you Captain von Bek.”

  I followed immediately behind her, my sword ready, my mind prepared for any challenge, yet my resolve left me immediately.

  Seated at the central table and apparently reading a book was the most wonderful being I had ever seen.

  I became light-headed. My body refused any commands. I found myself bowing.

  He was naked and His skin glowed as if with soft, quivering flames. His curling hair was silver and His eyes were molten copper. His body was huge and perfectly formed, and when His lips smiled upon me I felt that I had never loved before; I loved Him. He bore an aura about His person which I had never associated with the Devil: perhaps it was a kind of dignified humility combined with a sense of almost limitless power.

  He spoke in a sweet, mature voice, putting down the book.

  “Welcome, Captain von Bek. I am Lucifer.”

  I was speaking. I believed Him at that moment and I said as much.

  Lucifer acknowledged this, standing to His full height and going to the shelves, where He replaced the book.

  He moved with grace and offered the impression of exquisite sadness in His every gesture. It was possible to see how this being had been God’s favourite and that He was surely the Fallen One, destroyed by Pride and now humbled but unable to achieve His place in Heaven.

  I believe that I told Him I was at His service. I could not check the words, although I recovered myself sufficiently to deny, mentally, the implications of what I said. I was desperately attempting to secure my reason.

  He seemed to know this and was sympathetic. His sympathy, of course, was also disarming and had to be ignored.

  He answered my words as if I had offered them voluntarily:

  “I wish to strike a bargain with you, Captain von Bek.”

  Lucifer smiled, as if in self-mockery:

  “You are intelligent and brave and do not deny the truth of what you have become.”

  “The truth—” I began, with some difficulty, “is not—is not …”

  He appeared not to hear. “That is why I told my servant Sabrina to bring you to me. I need the help of an adult human being. One without prejudice. One with considerable experience. One who is used to translating thought into determined action. One who is not given to habits of fearfulness and hesitation. Such people are scarce, always, in the world.”

  Now my tongue was not thickened. I was allowed to speak. I said: “It seems so to me, also, Prince Lucifer. But you do not describe me. I am but a poor specimen of mankind.”

  “Let us say you are the best available to the likes of me.”

  A little of my wit returned. “I believe you think you flatter me, Your Majesty.”

  “Not so. I see virtue everywhere. I see virtue in you, Captain von Bek.”

  I smiled. “You are supposed to recognize evil and wickedness and appeal to those qualities.”

  Lucifer shook His head. “That is what humankind detects in me: the desire to find examples for their own base instincts. Many believe that if they discover an example it somehow exonerates them from responsibility. I am invested with many terrible traits, captain. But I, too, possess many virtues. It is the secret of my power and, to a degree, your own. Did you know that?”

  “I did not, Your Majesty.”

  “But you understand me?”

  “I believe that I do.”

  “I am asking you to serve me.”

  “You must have far more powerful men and women than I at your command.”

  Lucifer reseated Himself behind the desk. He seemed to give His full attention to every word that I uttered now. And this in itself, of course, was flattering to me.

  “Powerful,” He replied, “certainly. Many of them. In the way in which power is measured upon the Earth. Most of the Holy Church is mine now; but that’s a fact well-known to thinking people. A majority of princes belong to me. Scholars serve me. Poets serve me. The commanders of armies and navies serve me. You would think that I am satisfied, eh? There have rarely been so many in my service. But I have few such as you, von Bek.”

  “That I cannot believe, Your Majesty. Bloody-handed soldiers abound in these times.”

  “And always have. But few with your quality. Few who act with the full knowledge of what they are and what they do.”

  “Is it a virtue to know that you are a butcher, a thief? That you are ruthless and without altruism of any kind?”

  “I believe so. But then I am Lucifer.” Again the self-mockery.

  Sabrina curtseyed again. “My Lord, shall I leave?”

  “Aye,” said Lucifer. “I think so, my dear. I will return the captain to you in due course, I promise.”

  The witch withdrew. I wondered if I had been abandoned forever by Sabrina, now that she had served her purpose. I tried to stare back at the creature who called Himself Lucifer, but to look into those melancholy, terrible eyes was too much for me. I directed my attention to the window. Through it I could see the mass of trees that were the great forest. I attempted to focus on this sight, in order to preserve my reason and remember that in all likelihood I had been drugged by the accomplice of a man who was nothing more than a charlatan sorcerer of a very high order.

  “Now,” said the Prince of Darkness, “will you not accompany me to Hell, captain?”

  “What?” said I. “Am I damned already? And dead?”

  Lucifer smiled. “I give you my word that I shall bring you back to this room. If you are uninterested in my bargain, I will allow you to leave the castle unharmed, to go about whatever business you choose.”

  “Then why must I come with you to Hell? I have been taught to believe that Satan’s word is in no way to be trusted. That He will use any means to win over an honest soul.”

  Lucifer laughed. “And perhaps you are right, captain. Is yours an honest soul?”

  “It is not a clean one.”

  “But it is, by and large, honest. Yes?”

  “You seem to place value on such honesty.”

  “Great value, captain. I admit to you freely that I have need of you. You do not prize yourself as highly as I prize you. Perhaps that is also one of your virtues. I am prepared to offer you good terms.”

  “But you will not tell me your terms.”

  “Not until you have visited Hell. Will you not satisfy your curiosity? Few are able to sample Hell before their time.”

  “And the few I have read of, Your Majesty, are usually tricked to return there soon enough.”

  “I give you my word, as an angel, that I am not about to trick you, Captain von Bek. I will be candid with you: I cannot afford to trick you. If I gained what I need from you by deception, then what I gained would be useless to me.”

  Lucifer offered me His hand.

  “Will you descend, with me, to my domain?”

  Still I hesitated, not entirely convinced that this was not a complicated and sophisticated enchantment wholly of human origin.

  “Can you not bargain with me here?” I said.

  “I could. But when the bargain was struck—if it was struck—and when we had parted, would you remain truly certain that you had negotiated with Lucifer?”

  “I suppose that I would not. Even now I think that I could be in some kind of drugged glamour.”

  “You would not be the first to decide that an encounter with me had been nothing but a dream. As a rule it would be immaterial to me whether you decided you had experienced an illusion or were utterly sure that you had enjoyed a meeting with the Prince of Darkness. But I am anxious to pro
ve myself to you, captain.”

  “Why should Lucifer care?”

  A trembling of old Pride. Almost a glare of anger. Then it was gone. “Be assured, captain,” replied Lucifer in deep, urgent tones, “that on this occasion I do care.”

  “You must be clearer with me, Your Majesty,” It was all that I could do to utter even this simple phrase.

  He exerted patience. “I cannot prove myself to you here. As you doubtless know, I am largely forced to use humankind for my purposes on Earth, being forbidden direct influence over God’s creations, unless they seek me out. I am anxious to do nothing further in defiance of God. I yearn for freedom, von Bek.” His copper eyes showed a more intense version of the pain I had observed in Sabrina’s. “I once thought I could achieve it. And yet I know now that I cannot have it. Therefore, I wish to be restored.”

  “To Heaven, Your Majesty?” I was astonished.

  “To Heaven, Captain von Bek.”

  Lucifer applying for a return to Grace! And suggesting that somehow I could be His agent in effecting this! If this were indeed a spell, a trance, it was a most intriguing one.

  I was able to say: “Would that not produce the abolition of Hell, the end of Pain in the world?”

  “You have been taught to believe that.”

  “Is it not true?”

  “Who knows, Captain von Bek? I am only Lucifer. I am not God.”

  His fingers touched mine.

  Unconsciously, I had stretched my hand towards Him.

  His voice was a throb of pleading, of persuasion. “Come, I beg thee. Come.”

  It was as if we swayed together in a dance, like snake and victim.

  I shook my head. My mind was too full of conflict. I felt that I was losing both physical and mental balance at once.

  He touched my hand again. I gasped.

  “Come, von Bek. Come to Hell.”

  His flesh was hot but did not bum me. It was sensuous, that touch, though immensely strong.

  “Your Majesty …” I was pleading, in turn.

  “Will you not have pity, von Bek? Have pity on the Fallen One. Pity Lucifer.”

  The urgency, the pain, the need, the desperation, all conspired to win me, but I fought for a few seconds more. “I have no pity,” I said. “I have scoured pity from my soul. I have scoured mercy. I feel only for myself!”

  “That is not so, von Bek.”

  “It is so! It is!”

  “A truly merciless creature would not even know what it was. You resist mercy in yourself. You resist pity. You are a victim of your reason. It has replaced your humanity. And that is truly what death is, though you walk and breathe. Help me restore myself to Heaven, and I shall help you to come to life again …”

  “Oh, Your Majesty,” said I, “you are as clever as they say you are.” For all that I was, at that moment, His, I still attempted to strike some temporary sort of bargain. “I’ll come, on the understanding that I shall be back in this room before the hour’s over. And that I shall see Sabrina again …”

  “Granted.”

  The flagstones of the library melted away before us. They turned to mercury and then to blue water. We began to float downwards, as if through a cold sky, towards a distant landscape, wide and white and without horizon.

  Chapter III

  MY SKIN NOW seemed to have turned almost as white as that featureless plain. I observed on my hands details of line, contours of vein and bone, which I had never before noticed.

  My nails glittered like glass and appeared extraordinarily fragile.

  I possessed virtually no weight at all. I thought that I might have been a crystal ghost.

  “This is Hell?” said I to Lucifer.

  The Prince of Darkness, too, was pale. Only His eyes, black as weathered iron, were alive.

  “This is Hell,” He said. “One part, I should say, of my domain. A domain which is, of course, infinite.”

  “And has infinite aspects?” I suggested.

  “Of course not. You speak of Heaven. Hell is the Realm of Restraint and Bleak Singularity.” His smile was almost hesitant, His glance sidelong, as if He was concerned that I should not miss His irony.

  Lucifer seemed to exhibit a certain shyness with me. I could believe that He hoped for my good opinion. I was puzzled as to why this should be. He still gave off an aura of tremendous power and genius. I was still, against every effort of will, drawn to Him. I was certainly no match for Him in any conceivable terms. Yet it was my impression that He was nervous of me. What might I possess that He could not demand? Why should He be so desperate to own my soul?

  But I saw no sense in trying to outguess Satan. Surely He could read every thought, anticipate every argument, forestall every action I chose to take.

  It then occurred to me that perhaps He was refusing to do this. Perhaps His apparent delicacy was the result of His own reluctance to use the power that was His. The Prince of Darkness, who could manipulate kings and generals, Popes and cardinals, to whom such manipulation was second nature, was seeking somehow to be direct, was resisting in Himself the habits of an eternal lifetime.

  This impression of mine could in itself have been created by means of careful deception.

  There was plainly no point in attempting to understand Lucifer’s motives or guess His character. Neither should I, I told myself, waste what few mental resources I still had in trying to anticipate either His actions or His needs.

  I should merely trust that he would keep His word. I would let Him show me what He wished to show me of His Realm. And I would believe nothing to be wholly what it might seem to be.

  “You are a pragmatist, captain,” said Lucifer casually, “in your very bones. To your very soul, one might say.”

  My voice seemed fainter than was normal. There was a slight echo to it, I thought. “Do you see my soul, Your Majesty?”

  He linked His arm in mine and we began to walk across the plain.

  “I am familiar with it, captain.”

  I knew no fear at this statement, whereas on Earth I should have shuddered at least a little. Although aware of Lucifer’s presence, my body was now neither corporeal nor ethereal, but somewhere between the two. Emotions which should have been strong in me were presently only hinted at; my brain seemed clearer, but that in itself could have been an illusion; my movements were slow and deliberate, yet they followed my thoughts well enough.

  This state of being was not uncongenial, and I wondered if it might be the usual condition of angels and the more powerful orders of supernatural entities.

  It did not strike me as strange, as I strolled through Hell, side by side with Lucifer, that I had begun to think in terms of spiritual creatures, of realms beyond my earthly world, when, for many years, I had refused to believe in anything but the most substantial and material of phenomena.

  Flesh and blood—predominantly the preservation of my own—had been my only reality since my early days of soldiering. My mind and my senses had become blunted, almost certainly, but blunted sensibilities were the only kind one could safely have in the life I led. And the life I led was the only sane one in the world in which I had found myself.

  Now, of a sudden, I was not only discovering a return of all my subtlest sensibilities, but exploring sensations—illusory or not—normally denied the bulk of humanity.

  It was no wonder that my judgment was confused. Even though I allowed for this, I could not help but be affected. I fought to remember that I must make no pact with Lucifer, that I must agree to nothing, that no matter how tempting any offer He made I must play for time. For not only my life could be at stake, my fate for all Eternity could be the issue.

  Lucifer seemed to be trying to console me. “I have given my word to you,” He reminded me, “and I shall keep it.”

  An archway of silvery flames appeared immediately before us. Lucifer drew me towards it.

  This time I did not hesitate, but entered the archway and found myself in a city.

  The city was
of black obsidian stone. Every surface, every wall, every canopy and every flag were black and gleamed. The folk of the city wore clothes of rich, dark colours—of scarlet and deep blue, of bloody orange and moss green—and their skins were the colour of old, polished oak.

  “This city exists in Hell?” I asked.

  “It is one of the chief cities of Hell,” replied Lucifer.

  As we passed, the people knelt immediately to the ground and made obeisance to their Lord.

  “They recognize you,” I said.

  “Oh, indeed.”

  The city seemed rich and the people seemed healthy.

  “Hell is a punishment, surely?” I said. “Yet these people are not evidently suffering.”

  “They are suffering,” said Lucifer. “It is their specific fate. You saw how swiftly they knelt to me.”

  “Aye.”

  “They are all my slaves. They are none of them free.”

  “Doubtless they were not free on Earth.”

  “True. But they know that they would be free in Heaven. Their chief misery is simply that they know they are in Hell for all Eternity. It is that knowledge, in itself, which is their punishment.”

  “What is freedom in Heaven?” I asked.

  “In Hell you become what you fear yourself to be. In Heaven you may become what you hope yourself to be,” said Lucifer.

  I had expected a more profound reply, or at least a more complicated one.

  “A mild enough punishment, compared to what Luther threatened,” I observed.

  “Apparently. And far less interesting than Luther’s torments, as he would tell you himself. There is nothing very interesting in Hell.”

  I found that I was amused. “Would that be an epigram to sum Hell up?” I asked.

  “I doubt if such an epigram exists. Perhaps Luther would believe that it was. Do you wish to ask him?”

  “He is here?”

  “In this very city. It is called the City of Humbled Princes. It might have been built for him.”

  I had no wish to encounter Martin Luther, either in Hell, in Heaven or on Earth. I must admit to a certain satisfaction at the knowledge that he had not gained his expected reward but doubtless shared territory in Hell with those churchmen he had most roundly condemned.