Lucifer's Lottery Read Online Free PDF

sudden, encroaching sound: footsteps and the clatter of plate-mail. He held his legionnaire sword in the present-arms position.
Grand Sergeant Buyoux
, he realized.
    “Stand at ease, friend Favius,” came his superior’s voice. The Grand Sergeant wore a full smock of plate-mail armor, from knees to the top of his head. Only his poxed face showed through an oval in the hood. He carried a flintlock sulphur pistol, and emblazoned on his chest was the seal of Grand Duke Cyamal—a trine of sixes fashioned via intricately engraved skulls.
    “State the status of your post, Conscript.”
    “All clear, Grand Sergeant!” Favius barked.
    “As always, a good thing.” The corrupt face in the oval smiled thinly. “And now? State the status of your disposition.”
    “My heart sings in the unblessed opportunity afforded me, the opportunity to serve our abyssal Lord! I
exist
, Grand Sergeant, for no other purpose than to be of use to Lucifer!”
    “Yes, you do, don’t you?” Buyoux’s voice receded as he looked distractedly back and forth over endless causewalks and the great black gulf of the empty Reservoir. “Loyalty is so rare these days. I heard that a full dozen of the Somosan Guard defected to the Contumacy recently,
after
destroying several Hell-Flux Generators and Agonicity Stations in the Industrial Zone.”
    “Blasphemy, Grand Sergeant!”
    “Um-hmm.” Then suddenly the Grand Sergeant seemed to stare off, not into the as-yet-unfilled Reservoir, but more into his own reflections. Favius
wished
he might read the Grand Sergeant’s mind.
    “Have you ever wondered, Conscript?”
    “I do not wonder, sir!” Favius snapped. “For to wonder is treason without proper license!”
    “Yes, and you may consider
this
your license then, but have you ever wondered when our responsibilities at this ghastly reservation might be at an end?”
    Favius shivered. He did not answer.
    Buyoux’s voice, now, could barely be heard. “We’d all be mad not to wonder about that, yes? In an eternity where time cannot be calculated? Where day and night do not exist and where the sky is always the same color of ox blood and where the moon never changes phase? Lucifer Almighty.” But then the Grand Sergeant nodded. “No doubt, at least, you’ve heard rumors . . .”
    “I’ve heard nothing, Grand Sergeant. I do
nothing
but stand my post and command my rampart, by your nefarious grace.”
    Buyoux paced back and forth, his Dark Ages armor rasping. “Things are going well, I can tell you that, and soon? I’ll be able to tell you exactly
why
the Unholy Ministry of Engineering ordered the very construction of this Reservoir in the first place . . .”
    Favius stood still as one of the Golems, his ears itching to know.
    “Soon, just not now.” Buyoux eyed the muscled Conscript. “For the love of every Anti-Pope, I’ve always wondered why they would build
this
in such a pestilent perimeter of wasteland.”
    “The more removed the Reservoir is from the City,the safer it shall stand against infiltrators,” Favius dared speculate.
    Again, Buyoux nodded. His keen discolored eyes suddenly went flat. “And safe it had best remain . . . or we’ll all be fed alive into a Pulping Station, of that you can rest assured.”
    Why, though?
Favius did indeed wonder.
Why
had they built this strange place?
    “And friend Favius, would your heart sing as well were I to tell you that after what must be centuries, we may be privileged enough to leave soon? To return to the Mephistopolis?”
    Favius began to shake, his heart racing. But he did not reply.
    “I can tell you this. The last of the Emaciation Squads have finished their toil.”
    Favius wanted to shout aloud but, of course, could not. Instead, his exuberance seemed to build up from within, threatening to blow him apart.
    Next Buyoux pointed over the rampart, to the termination of the great endless Pipeway connected to the Main Sub-Inlet. “And did you know that the Pipeway is now