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Chapter 25
Big, Huge, Universe Destroying Problems
“We’ve got problems,” announced Lillith.“Big, huge, universe destroying problems,” said Buffy.
The work on the door to the Sanctuary halted while everyone in the Cathedral Fortress stopped in their tracks.
“And this would differ from our usual big, huge, universe destroying problems how?” asked Xander.
“The Elemental Abstract’s back,” said the Slayer bluntly.
“Oh,” said Xander. “So, we’re definitely at the high end on the universe destroying scale here.”
“Actually, we’re off the meter entirely,” said Lillith. “This time, just about every universe in existence is threatened.”
“Sorry, but I’m not exactly caught up on this Reality’s storyline,” said Spike. “Someone mind explaining what an Elemental Abstract is?”
“It goes by a lot of names,” said Lillith. “You might know it as the First, or Sin, or The Nameless One, or …”
“Got it,” said Spike. “Figures that the first time I decide to fight against evil I’d get the World Heavyweight title bout. Couldn’t start with something small, like a Master Vampire or a liche lord, could I? No, I have to get bloody Ultimate Evil. Well, I better get some good karma out of this, that’s all I have to say about it.”
“Do you have a plan, Lillith?” asked Angel.
“Oh, now everyone runs to Lillith, huh?” asked the Elder Power. “When the good times roll, nobody wants me around, but the going gets a little tough and suddenly everyone’s whistling a different tune.”
“Do you have a plan or not?” snapped Angel.
Lillith frowned. “Well, no, not actually. But I’m working on one. The Abstract hasn’t come into phase with this plane yet, which means it may be vulnerable to high-energy disjunctions. There may be some weapons here in Dys that we can use. In the meantime, we need to get into the Sanctuary — the Chaos Storm will be here within the hour, it looks like. How are you coming along with the door?”
“Another ten minutes, I think,” said Angel.
Buffy took the sledge from Xander and said, “Wrong.”
With the enhanced strength of a Slayer, she swung the hammer in a mighty arc toward the already damaged slab. The enchanted iron head caught the door at its most damaged point, and the metal struck sparks with the force of the blow. Faster than anyone could see, a fracture in the rock widened and deepened, propagating catastrophically through the whole of the stone.
The rock split in two almost down the middle, the halves falling forward in a cloud of rock dust. Buffy danced aside as it fell, just narrowly avoiding get caught under one of the heavy stones.
“That was certainly impressive, albeit in a rather emasculating way,” said Xander.
“You want to take over in the Slaying department, I’ll be glad to sign over the superpowers,” said Buffy.
Lillith moved over to the dark maw of the doorway and shone a flashlight into the gloom. The beam revealed a broad stone corridor curving downward in a wide spiral around the perimeter of the amphitheater, as if the chamber itself were only the uppermost part of a cylindrical shaft sunk into the ground.
“This is the part in the horror movie where the audience always screams at the actors not to go down there because it would be such a remarkably stupid thing to do, right?” asked Xander.
“Right,” said Lillith. “So of course, we are bound by the law of cliché to rush headlong into danger. Come along, everyone.”
The descent through the nearly featureless stone spiral seemed to take a very long time, and even Buffy began to feel a little bit claustrophobic after awhile. Except for the small islands of light cast by their flashlights, the passageway was pitch black, the darkness closing in behind them as if it had physical weight and presence. The silence, too, seemed vast and heavy, but occasionally she could just hear something at the limits of her hearing, a sort of low-pitched moaning that might have been wind or an acoustical trick or something far worse. She asked Lillith about it.
“I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to find out,” said Lillith. “Whatever it is, it’s a long way down, a lot farther down than we’re going. The surface of Hell is just the tip of the iceberg, Buffy. Ninety-nine point nine percent of Hell is a maze of subterranean passages, caverns, lava tubes, underground rivers, even entire cities. Lot of bad stuff down there. That’s where the First Ones were bound. I don’t think anyone, not even the archdemons or the oldest of the Elder Powers, has seen even a small fraction of the things that exist down deep here.”
“That was very encouraging Lillith, thank you very much,” said Angel. “I think you might want to stay away from ‘motivational speaker’ as a career choice.”
“Oh, so tall, dark and handsome has been trying to develop a sense of humor since our first meeting. Bully for you. Who knows, keep practicing and you may even get it someday,” Lillith remarked.
At long last, they came to a massive pair of black, metal doors set into the inner wall of the spiraling corridor. Although the hallway continued downward, Lillith stopped.
“Sledge time again?” asked Xander.
“We wouldn’t want to pass up another chance at thankless toil,” Spike chimed in.
Lillith shot him a sidelong glance and placed one palm against one of the doors. Instantly, a complex glyph blazed into being across the metal surface, burning red at first, then brightening to orange and on to white until it was painful to look at.
“No brute force required on this one,” said Lillith. “Just a little magical lock picking. Quiet now, genius at work.”
She closed her eyes and ran her hand along the surface of the door.
“Ooh, tricky. Nothing but the best for the big boys,” she said. “Let’s see … polymorphic lattice ward, several dummy enchantments woven into the main one to trip me up, and wow, four separate booby traps. Nasty ones, too. I would hate to have my soul trapped in a Kryton’s Void for the rest of eternity, wouldn’t you? And let’s not even talk about this Mind Scythe …”
The sound of metal bolts retracting was loud, and it startled everyone except Lillith and Buffy. Lillith pushed on the door and it swung inward silently. She bowed theatrically to the others.
“Ta da. I present to you the Sanctuary,” she said.
“Show off,” said Buffy, brushing past the Elder Power to enter the chamber beyond the door.
Buffy gasped at what she saw.
The Sanctuary was circular and several hundred feet high, with a continuous gallery along the walls winding in a spiral upwards to the roof and downward to the floor. They had emerged onto the gallery several stories up, looking out onto the thing that already occupied the Sanctuary. In the chamber’s center, rising several hundred feet from its base, was a gigantic crystalline double helix rotating slowly around a central axis. It was difficult to look at, as if it wasn’t inclined to play by the same set of physical rules as the rest of the universe. Like an Escher print, it looked perfectly rational at first glance, but became more of a conundrum and internal contradiction the longer one studied it.
A strange sort of rumble echoed through Buffy’s mind as she and the others stood along the gallery railing.
Arrogance
The word slid across her consciousness, deep and resonant, and abruptly Buffy realized that it was coming from the helix.
Lillith Prophet, thought the helix. You’ve changed.
“You haven’t,” said Lillith. “Except that I’m not used to seeing you hiding. This is certainly an unexpected displeasure.”
“What is it?” asked Buffy.
Lillith took a deep breath. “Buffy, everyone, I’d like you to meet Lucifer, Lord of Hell.”