or millennia there had writhed a rumor in our infernal halls of a chimera older than we, older than our lowest leaders, older even than Him. Its words—sung in song, sighed upon the breath of every hopeless slave, chanted in the fool heart of every doting eremite in his blind devotions, yelled lustily and fruitlessly by countless devout shepherds tending their scraggly herds on the barren desert hills—had been little cause for concern for we Immortals, at least for the first several million years. It hardly registered now, except as a modulating noise, throbbing, thudding, every so often breaking into a faint but irritating hum. The sound played in the background, reaching as far as the immortal realm, our eternal companion, at times foreboding as a thunderclap, then merely as irritating as the whine of a gnat. The noise was by turns irksome or unsettling, but always malignant, ever noxious to we below, who in our turn hated or feared it, or were merely annoyed.

There were those among His legions who recalled a time when the song had words, the Eldest who had been with Him before He led us in the Great Defection. Inconceivable as it seemed now, they had stood with him when He was Lucifer, more resplendent than any of us in our former glories, brighter still than many of the seraphs who chose to stay. The song seemed to us then the most beautiful thing we had perceived, in our unnumbered millennia of perceiving.

That was many thousands of aeons ago. Most of us now remembered little of that time, still less of the Sound itself, hearing only a vague and threatening rumble. Eternity has an implacable, almost imperceptible way of dulling the senses, even of the eternal and the eternally damned. Most of us thought the matter ancient history, almost legend. We thought the matter, if you will pardon the expression, beneath us.

That particular morning, however, there had been more than the usual cacophony from the Upper Realm. I, being merely a foot-soldier in His Mendacity’s unholy forces, had not been apprised of the situation. I was at the time involved in some lesser affair in the Far East. Some despot’s softening heart that needed callusing, I believe. Whatever it was, the interruption seemed an especial annoyance. I had warmed to my work with the despot, and the enthusiasm and cruelty with which he had attended his work was quite endearing. Unfortunately he had somewhere contracted a case of conscience. Nothing quite so foolish as redemption, of course. His ancient halls still reeked with the smoke of pagan sacrifices, their ashy vapours imbuing the icons of his old gods with a mocking semblance of life. But he had begun to wonder if all the flaying and the impaling and the burning at stake were quite necessary.

There were more pressing matters at hand.

We had, as I mentioned, almost been accustomed to the sound, at its previous tenor. That morning, it had grown in pitch and strength, in sickening dissonance. The noise compounded my annoyance at being distracted from the despot, giving me a dreadful stomach ache.

ed by a Senior Fiend, I made my trembling way to the centermost hall, at whose end towered a colossal tube of black iron, arching far above a high stone dais. He sat upon a carven throne in the dead center of the dais which was wrought, like the throne itself, with the things and scenes which pleased Him most: lechery, wanton bloodshed, the many floutings of right and true order by forces smaller and more cunning.

None of these details occupied my mind more than a minute, for presently He spoke. I will not record His words, for they were many, and filled with rage, and more still, a fear which would do Him dishonor to describe. My guide, who I deduced to be one of His senior generals, spoke words of consolation to Him, recalling our cohorts’ late success in the region: Baal, Moloch, Ashtoreth, Dagon, all campaigning strenuously, beyond anything I myself had yet seen.

He was not consoled. If anything, these accounts drove Him further into paroxysms of hatred and despair. My guide, in desperation, actually took hold of His arm, which proved to be his undoing. Sweeping back his sleeve, the Sire of Lies struck a blow that sent the erstwhile confidant tumbling from the dais to land with a thud on the stone floor below. From a door in the hall, six or so servants bore my late guide from the room. Beset by terror, I hardly dared face Him. But His back was turned, and his ebony cloak was drawn about His face. In this attitude He sat again on his throne, and neither spoke nor moved for a long time after.

Having been neither addressed nor dismissed for a great while after, I stood afraid and bewildered, but screwed up my courage and approached the tube behind the throne. I had not seen before what it was, as the throne itself obscured the apparatus, but coming upon the massive structure, I discovered it to be a kind of telescope. I also surmised it to be the source of that damnable sound, for as I bent down to look, the crescendo of the cacophony that so irked me rose to such a clamor that I wailed in pain, clutching my head and retching violently.

Steeling myself, I bent once more to the glass. I got an unsatisfactory glimpse of the telescope’s scene before the same crew who had disposed of my master burst into the hall and scurried me away.

n my cell that night, I reviewed what I had seen, the image frozen on my looking-portal (which every fallen spirit had in their quarters). I, personally, couldn’t see what the commotion was about. Just a mewling, slimy infant, bedewed in his mother’s blood and vernix. But a closer look revealed something sinister… something clean and new, and yet old, somehow. And anyway, I knew better than to question Our Master, or less yet, underestimate Our Enemy. I hadn’t thought that pomegranate in the Garden worth all that fuss either, and we know how that turned out.

Far away on the hills of Bethlehem, the angels shrieked, the curséd chorus echoing the ancient song: “Gloria in excelsis deo, alleluia, alleluia.”