THE DISINCLINED
One more time, he thought, just for good luck.
"Is there anything scheduled for today?"
His aide leafed through a thick sheaf of papers. "Five different businesses submitted in formal writing requests for research and development grants; the Polytechnic University of Lilith is humbly asking your presence to review the thesis applications of several aspiring doctoral candidates, and finally Count Glasya-Labolas requested the honor of midday appetizers with you. Tea and scones, accompanied by red pepper jelly and cream cheese on crackers, and other culinary delights."
He raised an eyebrow.
But the aide expected this all and knew what he wanted. "But of course, Majesty—all of these events have been rescheduled for later this week. The Count begs leave to express his displeasure, though."
"The Count's displeasure is noted." If push came to shove—and he knew it wouldn't, the Count wasn't that stupid—he would ask Falbium to smooth it over, for Falbium was the Count's cousin and had been part of the House of Glasya-Labolas before he assumed the ancient name of Asmodeus. This kind of politicking and ego-pleasing had never come naturally to him, which was why after the Civil War was over the rebels chose Sirzechs over him to hold the name of Lucifer. It was a choice he agreed with; Sirzechs could tear out tufts of his lush and exquisite crimson hair dealing with the Pillars of the Underworld.
He clapped his hands together. "Nageus," he told the aide, "remind me to raise your salary when you come in tomorrow."
"I would not refuse a raise, Majesty," said Nageus the aide, "but I am obligated to remind you that I am already well-compensated… I was able to put my seven sons and five daughters through the middle-class promotion tests. They're all baronets and knights now, with land and castles to call their own."
He idly wondered about how Nageus' wife had not perished from exhaustion. "If every devil had your luck, perhaps there would be no need for the Evil Pieces."
"It was not my luck, Majesty, but my wife's plan and execution." And before things could get more awkward, Nageus the aide gave him a deep bow as befitting his station and ducked out, leaving him alone in the solitude of his office.
It wasn't like he was going to sit there and stew in his own thoughts, though. He had tasked Nageus with clearing his schedule and now that he finally had a blessed day to himself, he would act on it! He rose from the desk he sat behind and walked across the room he was sitting in—one of the four great study rooms that were the private reception suites of the Great Satans of the Underworld—and found himself face-to-face with a bookshelf. He traced his fingers along the spines of the book until he found the one he was looking for… and pulled the book out as if to read.
Except of course, the book wasn't really a book. He heard the click-clack whir of mechanical gears, the solid whump of pistons thrusting and the creak of wood as the bookshelf turned on a hidden axis to reveal a pitch-black entrance. Sirzechs would have chided him for the extravagance, but that was precisely the reason he designed and installed this passage.
He took a step and dropped. Faintly he was aware of the bookshelf swinging back into place, but that was soon very far away because he was hurtling down a pitch-black slide so dark that even his devil eyes could not see around him. And then just when some small irrational part of his mind whispered that he was falling into a death trap of his own making, light flooded the tunnel and he was able to see and land on a soft mattress. He wasn't done, though. As soon as he landed on the mattress he tucked himself into a roll and hurtled off the bed, landing on his feet on the hard linoleum floor. It was a performance he did time and time again with the audience being himself.
Now that was over he used a magic circle to turn on the lights and once they were on he took the chance to look around and admire the chamber he spent a lot of his time in when he was not burdened with the task of ruling. His laboratory: a cavernous concrete-lined room with a high-arched ceiling and bright green flooring. He had quite a few scattered across the Underworld and while this one was not his best-equipped it was also the one he spent the most time in since it was built into one of the many underground warrens beneath the capital city, Lilith.
He walked past a tank connected to oblong double cylinders that were his chemical furnace, designed for cooking chemical solutions. His eyes roved over the great silvery settling tank which was where he poured chemicals in, to be filtered and treated through two rows of three filtration tanks to settle in a finishing tank, where chemicals would settle and cool before being transferred via tubing into trays to cool. He looked at the mixing tank, just as silvery and gleaming as he left it. He glanced at the magnetron sputterer, a complicated-looking machine festooned with circular knobs designed to imbue magnetic patterns into objects. He passed by the more mundane items; the centrifuge machine which spun test tubes around to separate their inner components, a device called a sonicator which vibrated really fast to mix solutions together until they were nigh-inseparable, part of a rotavap which was missing its old bench (he would have to get it fixed), the ultra-high performance liquid chromatography instrument that he used to check the purity of his solutions. Somewhere in this underground warren was a room just full of computers and wires which were hooked up to control and direct a wide array of lasers to do a wide variety of things to a wide variety of materials. There were more machines covering all the disciplines in the scientific fields.
Perhaps he should be a little less prideful of his work and accomplishments… but he was a devil; pride and all the other so-called sins came naturally to them. It was in laboratories like these that the Evil Pieces came into the world, the instrument of the repopulation of the devil race. Good work was done here. That was not to say that he wasn't doing good work as Minister of Research and Development; as Minister he was responsible for allocating funds and grants to all the young scientists of the Underworld who desperately needed money to continue their work. He had been like them once, knew what the rat race and scramble for funding was like, so he approved everything set before him—it was not like they lacked the funding after all. But he missed it; he missed actually being in the trenches and doing the work himself. Here in this laboratory he could be that. He could be the inventor and scientist of days gone by.
He was changing out of his robes of state and into the comfort of some white laboratory scrubs when—
"I had not looked to find you here—but here you are."
The intruder was a man, his face so exceedingly common that if he was set among a crowd Ajuka, even with his intellect, would not be able to pick him apart from the fray. Despite the commonness of his face there were other ways Ajuka could tell that he was not some low-class devil. He was lean, perhaps too lean. Every bit of him effaced chilling confidence; he seemed young and old all at once. He wore a stylishly dark coat over a black three-piece, all uniformly black like night. It seemed as if the black of his clothing drank the laboratory light with barely-bated breath.
He always believed that having a mysterious atmosphere was proper, devilish behavior. But the intruder was not merely devilish; the intruder was a devil, in all the old sense of the word. When fire and sulfur choked the air and the sky was a gloomy dim purple that shrouded the entire Underworld in murky darkness.
"Ancestor," he acknowledged at last.
"Ajuka," said Astaroth with the exact same flat tone.
For a moment Ajuka had the absurd urge to kneel at Astaroth's feet: the culmination of sixty years' practice of bowing and scraping whenever the old man deigned to stop by… back when Ajuka still lived at Greenview, back when he was merely the younger son of the younger line of the House of Astaroth. One time Astaroth dropped in unannounced on Greenview and Ajuka's father hurried to put together a reception for their esteemed ancestor. Ajuka had been in the library and when he received the summons he rushed down the staircase as fast as he could with his arms full of books which seemed a grand plan in that moment… until he caught his foot in his robes, fell down the steps and cracked his head against the hard stone floor. For long years afterwards his brother Ajridda kept making fun of him for having the temerity to greet their lordly ancestor with a big swelling bump on his head.
And yet it was Astaroth that was bowing now… except he really didn't bow; it was a nigh-imperceptible tip of his head. And then the old man reared back up to his full height and they were once again seeing eye to eye, literally. That was probably the only time they did see eye to eye on anything.
"What are you doing here?" Ajuka said.
Astaroth spread his arms wide. "Am I not allowed to visit my descendants from time to time? Especially the greatest of my progeny. Ajuka Beelzebub, Lord of the Underworld. Corruptor of Priests, Harbinger of Jealousy and Temptations. Ruler of High Places. King of the Flies. The Evenstar, second only to the Morningstar among all the assembled armies of the Underworld."
He had to take control of this before his ancestor out-talked him. "Ancestor, I meant… what are you doing here? In this laboratory? Not just what, but how? I took great lengths to conceal my laboratory… wove spells of discretion and illusion into its walls and hid it deep beneath the palace… but here you are."
"A devil reveals his secrets," Astaroth said. He ran a hand along one of the mixing tanks, ancient flesh meeting the gleam of steel. "You are young and you have power transcending every devil that has ever lived… but I am old, and I have walked the ground and breathed the air of the Underworld when this world was young. I have knowledge of the slip-ways, the in-betweens and the secret passages that many have forgotten about or never discovered. I have seen the nameless things eating away at the roots of the Underworld, older than devils. I have walked there, but I will not say more to darken the light of the artificial sun you have set into the sky."
"That's an interesting way to describe Hades and the Fallen."
"Ha!"
But there was no laughter in Astaroth's golden eyes. In the harsh electric light Ajuka almost thought he saw flecks of green drifting about in them. There are things that even you have not kept your awareness of. Strife and struggle comes to Greenview right under your very nose."
Truthfully? Ajuka never cared that much about Greenview. It was the place he was born, grew up, and left when he could. No one had given him any reason to despise Greenview—he was cared for and his needs were seen to and no one ever abused him. But at the same time there was a certain neglect. His father was always in the field surveying, developing and managing the family territories; his mother was busy with the household affairs and his brother Ajridda spent more time in the saddle riding around Greenview and flirting with village girls. Once when Ajuka was a boy he overheard his father and Lord Astaroth (who was actually Ajuka's second cousin despite being two centuries older) discussing plans for Lord Astaroth to adopt Ajuka as his heir since Lord Astaroth had been at the time, childless. But nothing ever came out of it, and Ajuka was consigned to just exist like a rock on the waypath. This benign neglect was not totally horrid, Ajuka supposed, because it allowed him freedom enough to make acquaintance with none other than Sirzechs, and together they changed the Underworld.
There was Latia, though. Ajuka was surprised at how Ajridda had fathered a girl like her. In all Ajuka's meetings with his lady niece she was courteous and deferent, though there was a certain ambition that he sensed from her when they spoke. He was not as fond of her as Sirzechs was of his sister, but perhaps that was natural because they were siblings and closer, while he was the uncle to Latia's niece. Still, he did care about her… enough that he might actually give some thought to Greenview.
"I don't imagine Latia would like that. Or Ajridda." Ajuka finally said cautiously.
"I don't think your brother does, or your niece. I use the present tense, for it is happening as we speak; Amyndora has levied charges of treason against the both of them, accusing them of plotting to usurp his seat. They are only guilty of trying to follow my orders The very seat that I, by the way, revoked from him on account of his gross incompetence. You do recall that incident with his son, yes?"
Ajuka did; he had apologized to the Red Dragon Emperor over it. They shared the same blood but personally Ajuka had never felt much about it—Diodora had made himself a traitor besides.
"If you can revoke the duchy from Amyndora, just like that," Ajuka inquired, "why don't you just personally order him to stand down? It would save everybody trouble."
"Because," Astaroth said, and now the old devil was staring at the master control panel with all its multi-colored and lighted switches and knobs that controlled power and functions of every single thing in the laboratory, "I am retired. And I do not wish to attend to decision-making of every little aspect of my House. I believe that is called 'micromanaging' in this age?"
It was.
"I do not wish to emulate Zekram Bael. You know as well as I do that it is he who still rules his House, even though he officially abdicated ages ago. I believe that my descendants must have independence if they are going to become better lords, ladies… rulers."
Ajuka stared at his ancestor, agape. "First of all, don't touch that," the Satan said, pointing at the master control panel. "Second… you're just going to let Amyndora do this to Ajridda and Latia without doing anything?"
"There is a difference between benign neglect to foster independence, and throwing your charges into the fire. I am old and I am weak—"
Somehow, Ajuka thought with heavy irony, I doubt that.
"—and besides I hold no titles, no positions, no lordships; not anymore, anyways. There is one more suited to the task. He stands before me."
"You could have just said that from the beginning," Ajuka said. This was why Ajuka hated the ancients. Zekram Bael, Astaroth… they all played these games with words, speaking aloud empty courtesies that hid barbs and witticisms like booby-trapped puzzles. Politicking and ego-pleasing, how he hated it all! Ajuka shuddered.
"Very well. I'll go to the Astaroth territory, portal right into the ducal palace. Pay Amyndora a visit and give him a strong warning to leave my brother and my niece alone."
But Astaroth did not look convinced. "You must not do that," he warned.
"Why? Amyndora owes me his fealty as vassal and subject. He has to obey my commands."
"The heirs of the Old Satans thought the same," Astaroth mused. "They believed that their blood-right gave them utmost authority and power over all of the Underworld… but they overlooked the feudal contract between the master and the servant, the courtesies and obligations that both parties owe each other. In doing so they brought upon themselves their own destruction. I know that you and Sirzechs have grappled with the Great King's faction for five centuries, and still you do not exercise your power to simply obliterate Zekram and his supporters from the face of the Underworld. Why don't you?"
"Because," Ajuka said through gritted teeth, "if the Old Satans had our power, they would have done so without a second thought. Sirzechs and I, we are not the Old Satans."
"Then you must treat Amyndora the same way."
Ajuka sighed. The rest of his free day was rapidly slipping away, and the weight of the threat against his brother and his niece—the threat of politics!—was fast sapping any will he had left to do what he really wanted: his laboratory experiments.
"Fine," Ajuka said, throwing his hands up. "I'll move against Amyndora as you asked. I won't do it myself though. I'll ask Sirzechs to look into it—it's his portfolio, domestic affairs. Also, it'll look fairer if he does it, because he wasn't formerly an Astaroth."
Astaroth's nostrils flared. "You are wiser than you give yourself credit for, Ajuka."
Ajuka turned around and fixed Astaroth in a stare. "Ancestor," Ajuka said. "I have ruled as one of the Lords of the Underworld for five centuries. I am wiser than you think I am."
"Good," said Astaroth. "Because your niece and your brother will need all the help they can get."
Ajuka turned his cloak, heading towards the exit. He didn't care if it was disrespectful or not to turn his back on his ancestor without saying anything. But there was a single line of thought on his mind coursing through him all the same, and it was:
What is the old man thinking?
Family Tree
THE HOUSE OF ASTAROTH
ASTAROTH, founder and ex-Duke
—His oldest surviving son ̶I̶m̶r̶a̶d̶o̶r̶a̶, killed in the Great War
—His grandson Sezindora, ex-Duke
—His great-grandson Amyndora, Duke
—His great-great-grandson D̶i̶o̶d̶o̶r̶a̶, killed by Shalba Beelzebub
—His younger surviving son Ajoren, ex-Baron
—His grandson Ajimar, ex-Baron
—His great-grandson Ajridda Astaroth, Baron
—His great-great-granddaughter, Latia Astaroth
OTHER MEMBERS:
—Lady Astaroth formerly of the Vassago clan, married to Amyndora Astaroth
—Vanirne Astaroth formerly of the Agares clan, married to Ajridda Astaroth
—Ajuka Beelzebub younger brother of Ajridda, left the clan
THEIR SERVANTS:
—Theresa, formerly Diodora Astaroth's Queen
—Eunice, formerly Diodora Astaroth's Bishop
—Benedict, formerly Diodora Astaroth's Bishop
—Agnes, Bridget, Gwendolyn, Josephine, Mildred, Prisca, Rachel and Zita, formerly Diodora Astaroth's Pawns