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He wondered, as he had several times since his interview with the Lord, why it had chosen him for this task. He wasn’t even a high-ranking demon master, one with sufficient pull to get work done against opposition. But maybe that was the point; he was low-ranking enough to be able to work silently and quietly. It didn’t matter either way. Whatever the Lord’s motives, if he failed, the repercussions for him would be the same.

He spent the rest of the Hellish day passing orders to the lesser demon masters, assistants and overseers. Of course, it was impossible to pull the work gangs entirely off the palaces and buildings, and set them all to work on the walls. That would have invited immediate reprisals from rival Lords and demon masters. However, with a little discreet juggling, he might be able to keep a pretence of work going on elsewhere while the real effort was shifted to the city defences. He had no illusions that it would last long enough to make a real difference, but it might get him off the hook, and beyond that he could do no more.

He decided to slip out of the city that night. At night, the gates were shut, the sentries withdrew from their posts, and the chances of his being detected were the least. At night, he might be able to move fast and far, and lie in hiding by day; and with luck he would see whatever there was to be seen, and return by the next night, or the night after that. He didn’t attempt to consider the consequences if he did not succeed.

Night fell over Dis like a shroud; the sinking of the red sun meant utter and instant darkness, relieved only by the glimmer of the flames building on the horizon, arching overhead to meet in flickers of light. But it would take a long time for the flames to grow to their brightest, and long before they did, Kratak would be away on the broken plain.

There were secret ways out of Dis, known only to a few, and long ago, Kratas had made it his business to be aware of some of them. One was a tunnel that began almost at the base of the Triumphal Arch, under the brooding gaze of the sculptures of the Hell-Beasts and their screaming victims, and Kratak decided this was the safest. Here, in the very centre of the city, the symbolic heart of Dis, no one would suspect him.

In the light of soul-torches set in the walls, the immense Arch with its carvings was a sight to send fear shivering through all beholders, and had been specifically constructed to that end. Nobody went close to the Arch at night without good reason, and Kratak slipped through the shadows quite easily, without being detected. 

The tunnel was accessed by a sliding stone set at the foot of one of the winged demon-sculptures guarding the Triumphal Arch, and Kratak descended into darkness only a little less profound than that in the chamber of the Lord. But this was a dry and clean darkness, and Kratak hurried along the narrow tunnel without the feeling of being observed at every step by malignant things in the shadows.

 The other end of the tunnel was a block of primordial stone set in the base of one of the highest walls of Dis. There would be watchers on the battlements – there should be, at least – but Kratak knew he was quite safe from observation as long as he stayed close to the wall. He followed it, glancing occasionally skywards where the red and yellow flames flickered and danced. The lower watch-demons feared the flames in the sky, and often spent the night cowering in superstitious dread in whatever shelter they might find. Kratak hoped and expected that would be the case this night. If he was seen, of course, he only had to hold up his staff and he would be allowed to proceed; but he had no desire to let word of his excursion get back to a rival demon-master, or another of the city’s Lords.

He was lucky. The black stone plain of the desert soon stretched between him and the walls of Dis, and he was certain he hadn’t been observed. Despite his size, he could ooze from shadow to shadow like a drifting mist, and the flickering lights overhead helped, making it even more difficult for any observer to see him.

To his right the highway out of Dis stretched like a raised black line out in the desert. At one time, when the cities of Hell were at peace, caravans would have been passing along the roads, trying to make the best of the cooler temperatures of the night. Now the caravans were few, heavily armed, and moved by day, because to rest during the daylight hours was to invite the attentions of the Salamander men, and the highway lay empty and bare.

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