It's astounding, really.
It's a fact - an incontrovertible fact - that one of
every ten damned souls that arrive in Hell is
immediately claimed by silent servants of Lucifer and
whisked away to the Lower Hells. It's a fact - an
indisputable fact - that none of these souls are never
seen again. It's a fact - an irrefutable fact - that
no demon ever voluntarily visits the Lower Hells, and
certainly none ever voluntarily talks about that
place. Even Demon Princes are reticent about their
visits there. The conclusion is clear: what goes on
down there must be foul beyond compare, even for Hell.
But that's not the astounding bit.
The astounding bit is that nobody ever seems to think
about the implications.
After all, just why would the Lower Hells and its
presumptive citizenry be such a mystery? What does
Lucifer gain from such a situation? As it is, the
entire Infernal realm lives in abject fear of him
anyway, from the lowest soul-grub to the highest
Prince - and they have done so from the founding of
Hell. As for 'foul beyond compare' - well, in theory
having the ultimate punishment be hidden is a good
idea, but it falls down in practice. Most souls in
Hell have neither the inclination nor the time to be
introspective (if they had either, they might have
avoided being damned): this is one place where things
are usually sufficiently bad that the concept of
'worse' simply does not have the same impact.
Besides, what could be 'worse' than being slowly
tortured into oblivion, in order to fuel the War to
destroy everything that is good and right with the
universe?
And as for demons and the Lower Hells - sorry, it
doesn't make sense from that angle either. There's
nothing that Lucifer could be doing Down There that
isn't already being done by one or more of the Princes
in the Higher Hells. The vivisection and torture of
humans? Just about all of the Princes do that
routinely. Dangerous and probably unwise
experimentation? That's how Vapula starts the day.
Slaking of dark Needs? Frankly, that would probably
improve Hell's collective morale. In other words,
anything so vile as to be beyond any mere demon's
experience in sin and depravity is probably too arcane
for them to even recognize - so, what's going on Down
There, and why doesn't anyone think about it more?
Well... to get an answer, you'd have to do a few
trivial things. The first would be to get out of Hell
(as I said, trivial, right?); next, you'd have to make
it into Heaven and be Redeemed (another trivial
exercise). Once Redeemed, your next step would be to
go into Destiny's service (not the most difficult
thing, but then not the easiest, either). Once
serving Destiny, it would be time to rise in the ranks
by proving your worthiness and newfound willingness to
serve, until you had free reign of the Library. It
would be then that you would actually be told about
the Special Collection. Once you had crossed those
bridges, surely the task of convincing Yves himself
that you could handle going in there would be a piece
of cake, right?
Once those simple obstacles were hurdled, the next
step becomes harder: you have to ignore just about
everything in there. Skip past the Testament of
Lucifer. Ignore the Book of Fate. Spurn the
Prophecies of Uriel and cast aside the Temptations of
Yahweh. Go all the way into the back, to where a
simple cardboard box lies between stone tablets
written in a script that predates this universe and a
jeweled crystal with letters inscribed on it in fire.
Pull out the box. In it, you'll find ... well,
snapshots. Lots of them, in no particular order: they
each show a different person, engaged in various
activities. Each person is wearing a simple brown
robe with what appears to be a golden circle pinned to
one shoulder. Some of the people are eating, some are
writing, not a few are praying: in short, people doing
people-like things. None of them seem particularly
happy or sad: if there's a particular emotion
prevalent among them, it's ... resolution, or maybe
determination. No matter how many snapshots you take
out, the box remains full.
But, if you look long enough, you'll realize two
things. One is the background: as you look at more
and more snapshots, you'll realize that none of these
photos were ever taken on the corporeal plane - and
that the place that these humans are apparently living
is too stable to be in the Marches. And they
certainly aren't in Heaven: even a former demon can
tell when someone is joyful, and these people
certainly aren't. Not in pain or torment, mind: just
not... joyful. The second thing you'll notice is that
all of the individuals praying are doing so under
identical tapestries. What with all the different
angles of the snapshots, it takes a while to make out
what the tapestry represents. But, with a little
effort and a lot of table space, you can arrange out a
fairly decent gestalt. That's when you shudder.
These people are apparently praying to a golden scaled
dragon, descending from the sun on wings of pure Light...
Back to the INC Mainpage.
Back to the Settings page.
Send mail to the Curator