By: artist/author
Wayne Barlowe


Barlowe describes his journey as a hauntingly militaristic depiction of Hell. The book's fierce images illustrate how Barlowe made an undisclosed deal in order to be taken on a tour of Hell by Sargatanas, the revealer and one of the rulers.










The Demons Major are Hell's ruling class, and below them serve the Demons Minor. Human souls make up the lowest totem of Hell's hierarchy. Human souls are also Hell's chief resource, being easily twisted and reshaped by their masters into beasts of burden, or building materials. The souls of the damned also fuel their demonic war machines.










Barlowe is introduced to the society that exist in Hell, which is a city that is slowly and continually built on two planes. The one above, hangs upside-down. Each time the city is completed the great molars crash together, and the soul laborer's sisyphean task starts anew.










Another location sprawls millions of miles of blood vessels and a slow beating heart that acts as a war drum, it's implied that Lucifer was reduced to a black substrate when he fell. This lava-like substance forms a layer that runs underneath all of Hell. Allowing him to observes all his cult members, and daughters.











The pilgrimage ends at the edge of Hell, where a black substance called Lucifer's Shroud surfaces. There lurks the current regent of Hell, Beelzebub, who rules from within his abominable palace.