CHAPTER XXIX
“And the sun became as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a figtree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled away; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”
Long ago, when first she had become an object of diabolic clemency, Dolores had supposed that, come a day, she was to pay a price. When, after all the public pomp and private pose of her regal rites, her new lord escorted her into the throne-room—— Not until he stretched his arm in prideful gesture toward the escutcheon over the dais—— Soul-sick, she realized then the sum and coinage of that price.
To her chamber through the late afternoon Adeline had brought reports of His Highness’ proclamation of the royal alliance. Although he could not quiet the unprecedented storm which had raged since high-noon and his electricians had failed utterly to swing the imitation sun low enough to send a single gleam through the clouds on this his wedding day, preparations had been rushed. To the farthest reaches of the kingdom great annunciators had blared through the shriek of winds the bans. Not a rookie of the Hadean hordes, not a wench of the Wanton’s Well, not the most venomous whisperer of the Cage of In-Laws but knew that the Belial Bachelor was to change his state.
And the news was made gladsome by a decree for cessation of all punishment. For that eve the thought of despair was taboo. The most fearing of shades was to be allowed a breath of hope. Even in this clemency, however, the Rule of Reversals would hold, according to the noble maid, since at daybreak of the morrow all torments were to be resumed in double force.
That Greater Gehenna should celebrate was not enough, however, to satisfy His Majesty’s festive mood. Earth must join in the rejoicing over his signal success in the most intricate of games, even though the mortal participants might not be told the cause back of their debauch. Through free distribution of Devil’s Dew, a negotiable, bottled quintessence of his own most iniquitous spirits, which had become a recent output of distilleries under his direct control, there was to be started that night a series of riots destined to belt the globe, a spree of all nations that must have mortified the ancient Bacchanalians, did wireless reports penetrate to their section of the Realm.
The ceremony had been brief and the guests few. Original Sin, looking particularly hypocritical in his crackling high-church robes, officiated. Although none there was to give away the spirit bride, the lack was dismissed with the groom’s remark that, thanks to his inside knowledge of how to force the affections female, she was her own free gift.
Perhaps never in all marriages of convenience on Earth had sounded so sacrilegious the transposed lines of the service.
Would Dolores take Satan to love, honor and obey, from everlasting to everlasting, until he himself did them part?
She would.