There then followed a long list of these appalling creatures and their attributes, most of which sounded horrible. Realising that the southeast corner of the cavernous enclosure was the one ahead of them and to their left, Michael could count along the massive flagstones to the one that him and the Dead Dead Gang were now standing on, which was the seventh from the end. Moving his finger down the column of demonic dukes and princes until he’d reached the appropriate spot, he then began to read.
The Seventh Spirit is called AMON. He is a Marquis, great in power and most strong. He appeareth like a wolf that hath a serpent’s tail, vomiting out of his mouth flames of fire, yet sometimes he appeareth like a Raven that has dog’s teeth in his head. He telleth all things past and present and to come; procureth love; and reconcileth all controversies twixt friends & foes. He governeth full forty Legions of inferior spirits.
That seemed to be it for dog-toothed, serpent-tailed wolf-raven Amon, as the mostly red and black and grey moving design beneath Michael’s plaid slippers was apparently addressed. Michael gazed down at the depicted creatures’ two visible eyes: one that of the in-profile raven and the other that belonging to the similarly side-on wolf. Now that he knew more of how timeless Mansoul functioned, the ability to “telleth all things past and present and to come” quite frankly didn’t seem much of a trick, though he supposed a talent for acquiring love might be seen as impressive if he were a little older. Mind you, since he felt a great deal older as it was, he thought it sounded quite good even at the moment. Rolling up the leaflet once again and putting it back in his pocket, Michael frowned enquiringly at John.
“What wiz it makes the pictures move?”
John offered him a sympathetic look.
“These what we’re walking on ain’t pictures, titch. These are the gentlemen themselves. You should be grateful they can only move the little that they can.”
Michael looked back down at the slab that they were standing on, with its writhing embellishments. He gave a little squawk and then performed a complicated dance in which he seemed to be attempting to lift both his slipper-clad feet from the tile at once, as if afraid of infernal contamination. In the end he stood on tiptoe, which was evidently the best compromise that he could manage. John was trying not to laugh, capping the sound off in a muffled detonation of amusement somewhere up his nose.
“Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you. When they’re flat like this they’re no more dangerous than Keyhole Kate or someone else out of a comic. Anyway, we’re nearly at the floor’s edge as it wiz. We’ll soon be on the stairs, where there’s no devils.”
Just as John had said, the vast wall rose immediately ahead of them and running up across it in diagonals there was a wooden staircase, its great zigzag length connecting four strata of balcony, the highest almost level with the poorly-drawn seal of the Works on its enormous plaque. The steps themselves were broad and sturdy and looked relatively normal in their ratio of tread to riser, unlike those that Michael had experienced a moment back while clambering up the Jacob Flight out of the ghost-seam. Anxious to be off this squirming carpeting of interlocking horrors, Michael didn’t risk any more dawdling until he and the gang had safely reached the possessed factory floor’s near side.
Seen from close up the stairs were several yards in width, bounded on one side by the sheer and soaring wall and on the other by a masterfully-wrought and polished banister of what was more than likely oak. Each step was cut from some unknown variety of marble, a profound and rich dark blue with mica twinkles seemingly suspended inside the translucent stone at differing depths, rather than simply glinting uniformly from its surface. Every one was like a solid block hewn from the night sky, and amongst the sparking flakes of mica here and there, Michael discovered, there were curdled nebulae and comet smears. It was a fire escape made out of universe, though he supposed they all were really, when you stopped to think.
The Dead Dead Gang began to climb the stairway from the dove-like murmur of the workplace, Phyllis Painter in the lead and striding up ahead of everybody else. As he ascended, somewhere near the group’s rear with big John, Michael looked down across the oaken balustrade towards the tiled floor dwindling beneath them. From this raised perspective he could almost see a unifying pattern to the movement of the builders as they hurried back and forth on their inscrutable trajectories, as if each worker were an iron filing caught up in the loops and whorls that radiated unseen from a magnet.
He could also now see clearly, thanks to his ghost-vision, all six dozen of the giant demon-haunted flagstones that comprised the floor, set out like an array of nightmare playing cards. He thought he could remember the deathmonger, Mrs. Gibbs, saying that out of all the devils that there were, the one who had abducted Michael, sneaky Sam O’Day, was number thirty-two. If that was right then his specific slab should be against the left-side wall, four rows away. He stood there gazing out over the wooden banister, moving his lips and jabbing at the air with one pink index finger as he counted to make sure. The stone in question, once he’d found it, was quite unmistakeable.
For one thing, it was one of only three or four flagstones in the arrangement that all of the builders seemed to manage to avoid as they traversed their busy place of labour. For another, unlike his confederate Amon, Sam O’Day was only shown in one form on the tile, this being the three-headed thing astride a dragon that had raged above them in the Attics of the Breath, what seemed a day or so ago. This complicated semblance was repeated something like a hundred times across the area of the slab, its contours engineered precisely so that all of the identically irregular shapes fitted perfectly together with an intricacy that was genuinely infernal. Empty spaces in between the creature’s many heads, as an example, were placed to accommodate the four legs of the dragon-steed belonging to the duplicate immediately above them in the pattern, while the tapering tail of each such mount was tailored to fit neatly in the open jaws of an identical heraldic dragon waddling behind it. Taking out his guide and scanning down the lengthy roll of hellish eminences until he’d reached number thirty-two, he tried to find out more about the fiend who had both literally and figuratively taken Michael for a ride.
The two and thirtieth Spirit is called Asmoday. He is a great King, strong and powerful. He cometh with three heads, whereof the first is like a bull, the second is like to a man and the third like unto a ram. He hath a serpent’s tail and belches noxious gas. His foot is webbed like to a goose. He sitteth upon an infernal dragon, carrying a Lance and Standard in his hand, whereon his ensign is displayed as so:
He giveth of the ring of Virtues, and teacheth the arts of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and handicraft. He giveth of full and true answers to all questions and can maketh men invisible. He showeth places where is treasure hidden and he governeth a full six dozen Legions of inferior spirits. If requested he may lift the conjuror into a higher place where they may looketh down upon their neighbours’ homes and see their fellows at their business as though it were that the roof had been removed.
Of all the eminences here bound and contained, most special caution is advised in all transactions with this Spirit. Of the devils captured by King Solomon on the symbolic plane, the fiercest and most difficult to subjugate is Asmoday. Indeed, in the rabbinical tradition it is said that Asmoday alone is proof against the magic ring of Mikael that he hath gifted to King Solomon. In their encounter, it is Asmoday who triumphs, hurling the defeated King so far into the sky that when he is returned to Earth he has forgotten quite that he is Solomon. Unchallenged, Asmoday assumes the form of Solomon and goeth on in this impersonation to complete the building of Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem and next take many wives, and to raise other, lesser temples to the foreign gods that these wives worship.