Hadjar found himself in front of large double doors. They stretched so high up that he had to take a few steps back in order to see the edge where they touched the ceiling.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Helmer asked, in a quieter tone than usual. It was clear from his voice that he was also nervous, but hardly for the same reasons as his unwilling companion.

Hadjar felt like if he went through these doors right now, his body would be reduced to atoms or even less than that, and so would his soul, past, present, and future. The creature that waited on the other side of these heavy stone doors adorned with the image of skeletons dancing in wild flames possessed some truly incredible power.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Helmer suddenly exclaimed. He bent down and held out his hand. One of the nightmares jumped up onto his gray palm. The demon moved it onto Hadjar’s shoulder. The feeling of imminent death instantly disappeared. “As long as this is with you, part of my power will protect you from the local forces.”

“Local forces? Isn’t that the aura of the Demon Prince?”

Helmer smiled a little crookedly.

“Look around you, Hadji,” the demon waved his hands around the corridor in which they were standing. It was made out of gray stone and currently empty. Not a single sound could be heard. The wide aisles were guarded by silent, creepy statues of harpies and chimeras. The hot, yellow light of the burning sky poured through the stained-glass windows. “Do you see anyone else here?”

Well, that was true. Apart from them, there was no one else present in front of the Demon Prince’s throne room. And Hadjar doubted that there was anyone else besides them in the Palace itself as well.

“The Demon Prince isn’t a being in the literal sense of the word,” Helmer pulled his hat slightly over his eyes. “He’s the very personification of this region and all its past, present, and future inhabitants. He’s like a primordial force that appeared in opposition to the one that sat his ass down on the Jasper Throne.”

Hadjar took another look at the mighty doors. They had such an exorbitant mass that he doubted that he would have the strength to move them by even an inch. They seemed to be…

“A cage, Hadjar,” Helmer nodded at his mortal companion’s unvoiced thoughts. “For in the whole Demon Lands, besides me, there are no more than thirteen demons that can withstand the presence of our ruler. The rest-”

“-would turn to dust,” a voice sounded from behind the doors. “You shouldn’t keep my guest waiting, slave.”

Helmer clenched his fists. His red eye flashed dangerously. Hadjar had seen the Lord of Nightmares fight once before, in the Wastelands. He’d destroyed an army of demons. He’d absorbed and devoured their essence with just one of his desires. He hadn’t expressed any emotions back then. For him, it had been a mundane chore, like a peasant clearing out weeds from their garden. And now, Hadjar finally saw Helmer’s rage for the first time, which made goosebumps march up and down his back, and the small lump on his shoulder trembled with fear. Even someone’s night terror was afraid of the Emissary’s rage.

“Yes, my lord,” Helmer answered heavily.

Taking a step forward, without turning to Hadjar, he approached the doors and touched their surface. The skeletons, frozen in an eternal, fiery dance, suddenly came to life. They turned to the demon and assessed him carefully. Only then did the monumental stone doors move. With a wild roar, as if mountains were falling, they slowly opened up into the throne room. Each of the doors, as Hadjar had assumed, was at least twenty-one feet thick. They clearly weren’t carved out of simple stone, although he couldn’t sense their magic properly. Even so, what little was revealed to his gaze was something that no ordinary stone could possibly hold within it.

Hadjar had seen many throne rooms, ranging from the castles of minor Barons in the Northern Lands, created for the sake of their ego, all the way to the Ruby Palace of the dragons, created by the best dwarven craftsmen. This one was simply impossible to call a mere throne room. Hadjar almost stumbled, but a clawed hand caught him in time.

Don’t show any weakness, a voice sounded in his head. At first, Hadjar didn’t understand how Helmer did it, but then he remembered the nightmare sitting on his shoulder. Otherwise, this beast will devour you just for his own amusement.

Hadjar looked down at the narrow bridge upon which he and Helmer were now standing. It led from the corridor to a wide platform with a throne. The hall itself, larger than a city square, was actually the huge, hungry mouth of a volcano. Lava was boiling down there, underneath the bridge. It wasn’t ordinary lava, either. Hadjar looked at it and saw flashes of something alive, something hungry, something that was ready to destroy and create with its destruction. Jets of fire rose up in golden arcs to the very bridge and broke on the stone, which was the only thing that connected the ruler of demons with his lands. The energy of this lava was so powerful that even despite Helmer’s and his own protection, Hadjar still felt its pressure weigh his soul down.

“So that’s what you look like, you bag of flesh and bones named Hadjar Darkhan.” The ruler’s voice was like the lava itself, eliciting the sense of molten gold and liquid fire. “Surprisingly, I don’t know any other mortal’s name. You should be honored.”

“My lord,” Helmer dropped to his right knee.

Hadjar remained upright. According to the laws of hospitality, which sometimes bound the living even more strongly than the laws of the Heavens and the Earth, he was a guest, and therefore could afford to take several liberties.

A firestorm raged behind them. Flashes of heat rose high until they touched the sky itself, igniting it with a red glow. This volcano was the center of this country, the greatest concentration of all the chaos that reigned here. And the quintessence of this chaos, its personification, was the Prince. He sat on a throne made of stone fangs and claws. Skulls and other bones served as its back. His crown was two huge horns, between which a crimson flame burned.

More than ten feet tall, he looked at Hadjar with white eyes that had no pupils. His mighty torso breathed fire and looked like it had been cast from molten bronze. He wasn’t wearing any armor, only massive shoulder pads, to which a ragged cloak sewn from scraps of leather was attached. A belt and steel boots with greaves, which he’d tucked pants made of the same material into, was all the attire that the Demon Prince wore.

On his left arm sat a creature that looked like a miniature dragon. In his right hand, he clutched the hilt of a huge, eight-foot-long sword forged from thousands of bloody lightning bolts. Stuck into the stone, it tirelessly kept splitting it apart, and it, as if by magic, was restored back to its original state every time. Red flashes of lightning surged out of this endless battle and flew away somewhere far up into the air. The ruler’s white hair barely covered his pointed ears. The Prince smiled, revealing rows of sharp fangs.

“I imagined you to be more... courageous, Mad General.”

Hadjar smiled inwardly. That wasn’t an insult that could provoke him easily.

“Prince,” he bowed slightly, “May I know why you’ve invited me here?”