"Point of order, Honorable Chaircreature?" The Cyclopean Goat Head, being a cyclopean goat head, didn't have a hand—or even a hoof—to wave as protocol dictated a committee member should when rising to a point of order. But the guttering nimbus of blood-red fire surrounding the demon [i]did[/i] bunch up and wobble between its crooked horns.

Which was close enough, Beselatenth decided. From the podium of charred bison bones around which he'd coiled himself, he crooked an ebon claw at his colleague.

The Cyclopean Goat Head couldn't bow, either, but it did dip itself toward the podium in a respectable-enough fashion. "My colleague, the Right Honorable Prince of Lies, once again seems to be laboring under the false impression that the method of Earth's Armageddon has already been announced as approved."

The Prince of Lies stomped one lizard-skin boot against the speaker's platform. "Well of [i]course[/i] I'm laboring under a false impression!" He waved a meticulously manicured hand. "I'm the Prince of Lies, remember?"

With a roll of its solid black eyes, the Cyclopean Goat Head heaved a carrion-scented sigh. "And I'm a ravening, unreasonable despot who craves nothing but the fear of my followers and the ghasty stench of burning human flesh." It fixed its dark gaze upon the Prince of Lies. "Yet I still know how to follow proper procedure!"

"Ha!" The Prince of Lies stomped again. "A beast such as you couldn't possibly understand what it means to—"

Beselatenth let loose the cavern-shaking roar that he'd always felt made him such an effective Chaircreature. He waited till the fine cascade of gravel tumbling down from the shadowy walls and ceiling over the assembled monstrosities had largely subsided, then he rasped, "The point is well-taken." This time when he aimed his claw, he wished he could let it rocket forth to shatter the flimsy external shell of his damnable colleague. "This will be the speaker's final warning against such behavior."

"Fine!" When the Prince of Lies heaved a sigh, it smelled of lavender and magnolia blossoms. "But this committee cannot pretend that the facts don't speak for themselves! Earth is doomed, and all beings who dwell upon it will be engulfed in blood and madness!"

"Point of order, Honorable Chaircreature?" The Cyclopean Goat Head sounded almost bored this time.

"Well-taken." Beselatenth blasted a claw at the speaker, and the Prince of Lies' false body burst in a showering spray of blood and meat. "The speaker is no longer recognized."

Wafting back into the well of the parliament, the flickering darkness that made up the Prince's actual presence managed to look peeved.

Beselatenth let out a sulfur-tinged sigh of his own. "The chair would also like to take this opportunity to remind the younger members of our assembly that the Earth has been teetering on the brink of annihilation in one way or another since before creatures such as myself and my honorable colleague"—he pointed a less-explosive claw at the Cyclopean Goat Head—"first squirmed from the nascent intelligence of the planet's inhabitants. Asteroid collisions, excessive solar activity, earthquakes, volcanoes, famine, and disease continue to be possibilities even as the inhabitants have grown more and more able to cause global catastrophe on their own."

Spreading his reforming arms, the Prince of Lies seemed about to speak, so Beselatenth focused a fraction of a glare upon him. "But never," he went on, raising his voice till he could see the force of it blowing holes in several of his less-substantial colleagues, "[i]never[/i] can this assembly assume destruction is imminent! Our mandate remains to prepare for a possible Doomsday whether it be announced to begin in fifteen minutes or if no such announcement ever comes!"

"Point of order, Honorable Chaircreature!" the Prince of Lies called, his words scarcely more audible than dew settling upon grass. "Why should we even bother?"

Which technically wasn't a point of order, but Beselatenth decided to let it slide. "Because it's our duty," he said, slithering himself into a more upright grip on the podium. "Without the darkness, Earth's inhabitants cannot understand their options. And so we lurk and we whisper and we buy their souls for trinkets, ready to leap in if—and again I emphasize the 'if'—they decide they need us."

He waited till the echoes of his speech died down, then he looked back at the agenda. "So, with old business out of the way, the chair now recognizes the representative from the radioactive waste committee."