by Cate Corvin
It had been so large we’d walked in its shadow for nearly five minutes. I couldn’t fathom what had once lived and died out here, and I’d seen terrible monsters in the Between.
Hours passed. When I dropped, my strength gone, Damuzid dragged me over stones until I got back up and stumbled after him. Once or twice he forced me to drink again after he caught a black look from Satan.
“You’re not taking care of his songbird very well,” I rasped. My lips were chapped and dry, even after the water, and my brief laugh came out rusty.
Damuzid’s face darkened. My pants were shredded around my knees and thighs from being dragged on the stone road, and the visible skin was welted purple and etched with red scrapes.
“You’re not safe,” I told him. All I wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes. “No matter what you think. You’re more expendable to him than I am.”
I looked back, an automatic twitch, searching for Lucifer.
Damuzid snarled and dragged me forward, setting a harsh pace until I was too tired to speak again.
The first star appeared on the horizon when I saw something new in this hellscape.
A black statue, half-buried in the sand. I squinted at the woman’s face, surrounded by a lion’s mane. Clawed forearms gripped the edge of her pedestal as the rest of her was slowly swallowed by the sand. There was something about the darkness of the stone that disturbed me, how familiar it was, yet unlike the obsidian of my home.
An involuntary shiver ran down my aching spine. I’d seen her before, on a wall in the succubi temple.
She’d felt like an omen of doom, representing a land so dark the succubi had just washed the walls with ink instead of drawing it: the most basic symbolism there was.
This was a place where all hope came to die.
“Catch up, songbird,” Damuzid said. He pushed me back on course, following the road between two enormous dunes that blocked out the horizon. “Kur calls us home.”
I stumbled out from between them, my legs close to giving out again. I was willing to be dragged if it meant a rest.
Two dark sphinxes looked down at us. They rose high above the dunes, scowling and vicious, each one raising a clawed hand in warning.
Beyond them were seven arching gates. Even with the remnants of sunset bathing them, the stone didn’t shine.
It finally clicked in my exhausted brain. Kur was a city built of ebonite. Even the sphinxes were matte black, the faintest streaks of red and yellow shining on their high points.
Satan caught up, standing at my side. He looked none the worse for wear despite our long journey, having feasted on the provisions the Irkallans had brought.
He smiled at the long line of arches. “The Gates of the Dead. We’re here.”
29
Melisande
“There’s a tradition here in Kur,” Satan said. He turned and looked at me, his mouth splitting in a wide grin. “Started by the lovely Queen.”
Despite my exhaustion, I itched to slap it off his face. He didn’t deserve a handsome body. He deserved to be a rotting pile of flesh out in the desert, something so noxious even the vultures wouldn’t want him.
“Her sister Inanna once stood where you are, desperate to retrieve her lover.” Satan placed a hand on my shoulder. His skin- Nergal’s skin- was warm, almost sickeningly so. “And, like you, she was a thoughtless, impetuous little bitch. She thought she deserved to walk in exactly as she was.”
Determined to tune him out, I gazed under the Gates of the Dead. Someone was approaching, a black speck on the horizon.
If these were the Gates, where was Kur?
“You’ll suffer the same humiliation she did.” Satan smiled. “A token for every Gate you pass beneath.”
I finally looked at him, hating him with every cell in my body. A token to pass the Gates? A vague memory occurred to me- a woman with long golden hair, passing beneath black arches, shedding jewelry and clothes as she went.
I had no idea where I’d gotten that memory. Everything in my head seemed fuzzy and vague.
They’d already forced me to leave the Spear. They’d taken all my daggers and weapons.
The speck grew larger. A demon galloped towards us, riding a black, red-eyed horse, trailing a small army of lesser demons behind him.
Satan kept his grip on my shoulder as the demon drew close enough to dismount and prostrate himself before the body-stealing cunt.
“King Nergal, you’ve returned.” The demon was wearing a tall hat, and a large gold medallion gleamed on his chest. “I am Minister Neti, here to welcome you.”
It was like they’d all gone mad. They called him by the name of their King, and yet… they knew he wasn’t Nergal.
How much power did Ereshkigal hold that she could just sacrifice her own husband, the King of Kur, and everyone was willing to play along with the insane charade?
Satan shoved me forward. I stumbled and almost fell, and Minister Neti scrambled to his feet to keep from touching me. Four teardrop eyes blinked down at me. “Is… is this yours? Shall she ride?”
Satan laughed. “No. She’ll walk. Treat her the way my wife would treat Inanna.”
Neti’s small mouth fell open, and he shut it with a snap.
I pretended I didn’t see pity in those four alien eyes. I didn’t want pity right now.
Pity would be the straw that finally broke my back.
“Yes, your Majesty.”
Damuzid hauled me upright again, forcing me to stand on wobbling knees. My breath came faster as Neti reached for me, tentative despite Satan’s orders to give me Inanna’s treatment, whatever that meant.
I put all my remaining strength into trying to bite him as his hands drew closer to my face. My teeth snapped shut only inches from his skinny fingers, and Neti squealed and skipped backwards. Damuzid shook me so hard my teeth rattled.
“Get it out of your system, songbird? Or do you need another bruise on your face?”
My neck ached just from that simple movement. “Do your worst.”
Satan laughed with delight. “We will.”
This time I didn’t lunge for Neti as he crept closer, giving Satan sidelong glances as he did so. I’d used up everything I had.
But he didn’t hurt me.
All he did was unbuckle the harness that had held my Spear and several daggers, and dropped it under the shadow of the first Gate.
“She may pass,” he said, wringing his hands.
Satan smiled at me as the first inklings of what a token meant finally dawned in my sleep-deprived, fear-soaked brain.
They pushed forward, Damuzid keeping a tight grip on me. As though I could run. As though I could fly. Pain saturated every inch of me, so familiar now it was almost like an old friend.
I couldn’t run anywhere. There was no place to hide.
The second Gate of the Dead loomed over us, and they stopped again. This time, two shades climbed out of the ebonite of the Gate itself, falling to the sand and straightening up.
They were dead women from ages past, wearing simple robes, their hair tied in long braids. Handmaidens, bowing low before us all.
“Princess Inanna, you may not pass without tribute.” The first shade’s whisper was so faint it was almost inaudible.
I ground my teeth together. “I’m not Inanna.”
Nobody listened. Minister Neti looked on as the shades unbuckled my golden chainmail and let it fall to the sand under the Gate, a bright spot pooling in the darkness like liquid. Both shades sighed.
“Princess Inanna, you may pass.” They climbed back into the Gate, shoulders slumped like they were exhausted even in death.
Damuzid pushed me.
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.
I repeated the mantra, but it was no comfort at all. Not when I was completely at their mercy.
Sphinx statues watched us from between the Gates, uncaring and cold. At the third Gate, my boots were removed by the weary shades.
At the fourth Gate, they took my sleeves and left my arms exposed.
At the fifth, my leather bodice. I watched the gift from Azazel and Vyra drop to the sand, my eyes dry.
I wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not while Satan was watching, intent on my humiliation.
If he touched me while I was naked, I would die. But he didn’t. I hadn’t cried yet, but he was savoring my distress, his eyes running over me like physical caresses.
I made my face stone again. Give them nothing.
At the sixth Gate, the shades stripped me out of my shredded pants and offered them up as tribute. All I had left was my underwear and bra.
I steeled myself, refusing to lash out, but feeling a deep empathy and kinship for Inanna. They kept calling me by her name, refusing to let me pass until I allowed them to take something from me.
I’d stopped telling them I wasn’t her at the second Gate. The shades of the handmaidens were long dead and they no longer cared; they were just repeating a motion they’d made eons again, going through the ritualistic motions of stripping a goddess down to nothing.
I wasn’t a goddess, but if Inanna had made it through, I would make it through. Neither Satan nor Ereshkigal, or their idiotic games and rituals, would crush me.
“One Gate left,” Satan said.
I closed my eyes and ignored him. Was Lucifer behind us? Had giving him every last drop of my healing fire worked, or had he bled out during the march?
Then I thanked God, dead though he might be, that I was still early. My pregnancy wouldn’t be obvious to them yet.
Depending on how long it took my men to escape the Between, they might never know, and that was the best I could hope for.
If I could just hold out, I’d find a way to break free. Then I’d go get my Spear and make Satan eat it.
I did this for Lucifer. I’m equal to this.
Minister Neti raised his hands at the last Gate, the seventh. I eyed it far overhead, wondering if there was some connection between seven Gates and my own Seventh Circle, but it was getting harder and harder to keep faith with the universe or the Chain.
Why lead me here? Why put me through this?
There was nothing beyond the final Gate at all, just another endless expanse of desert. My chest was starting to tighten from the anxiety of what was coming next.
“Here we pass the last Gate, into the earth itself to the realms of the dead.” Minister Neti held up his hands reverently. “Blessed be the Queen of the Dead, She Who Drinks the Souls, the Eater of the Damned, and her consort.”
Satan just nodded, his impatience showing in the little lines on his face. He shoved Damuzid aside, sending the demon flying backwards, and gripped my ropes. “Take her last tribute.”
I didn’t speak as the shades appeared once more to take the only things I had left.
When they’d discarded the last of my clothes under the Gate’s shadow, I raised my chin, and realized Satan was looking at me with revulsion.
A smile broke through my bruised lips when I realized what had disgusted him. His eyes were focused on one spot.
“You smile now.” He came close to touching the upside-down cross on my chest, his hand hovering there, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to make contact with it. “But you won’t when I carve these out of your skin.”
I laughed. Nobody could break those connections, no matter how deep they dug. They could go right down to my bones and never break those bonds.
His lip curled, and he gestured to Neti. “Open the doors.”
The Minister scrambled back around and clapped his hands together, each strike loud and deliberate. He waited until the echoes faded before doing it again, three times in all.
The sand behind the seventh gate began to shift, swirling around like a whirlpool had opened on the desert floor.
But something was rising out of it. A dull stone face, as pitch black as ebonite, carved to look like a beautiful woman.
Her mouth slid open, wide enough to swallow us all whole, revealing a set of stairs descending into the earth.
“Into the mouth of the abyss,” Minister Neti intoned. “Where the Queen of the Dead holds dominion over all.”
I walked forward, not wanting to be pushed to the ground while naked. They thought they could humiliate me with this, but I’d go in with my head high.
Every bit of me was on display, but all I could really think about was how much every step hurt, the dank smell rising from the door’s mouth, and how badly I needed Lucifer to be behind me. To still be alive.
Kur enveloped us. The mouth overhead slid shut and the stairs shuddered under my feet as it sank back into the desert.
But the shuddering didn’t quite stop. I realized it was a feeling deep in my bones, almost a drumbeat: a call of power that belonged to something else.
The demons Neti commanded moved ahead of us, lighting oil lanterns to guide the way. We descended a long spiral, needles running up my blistered feet with every step, a cold wind raising goosebumps on my bare skin.
But it grew colder and colder. No one else seemed to notice the frost in the air, or that my breath erupted in steam while no one else’s did.
The staircase finally ended after a terrible eternity, and we were in Kur.
It was an entire underground city, shaped like an inverted pyramid. I was reminded of the upper markets of Dis, demons everywhere, making their homes on any available surface, banners covering the ebonite with an explosion of color, but far below us…
I looked over the bridge we stood on and saw a river, but it wasn’t water. Thousands of souls floated past, eyes closed, peaceful in death.
A pair of demons with a net stood on a ledge just above the river. They threw the net in, and fished out several souls, placing them in an enormous iron stockpot.
Satan strode ahead of me as Minister Neti blew a horn, catching the attention of every demon near us.
“King Nergal has returned!” he cried.
I blocked out the explosion of sound. I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel the demons’ gazes on me, but it was impossible not to hunch forward from how cold I was, my body trying to curl in on itself.
Something prodded my back and I walked forward obediently.
“To the Great Temple,” Neti said exuberantly near my ear. “We must bring our gifts to the Queen!”
My heart pounded against my ribs, a sick, coppery taste rising in the back of my throat. It was mixed with the drumbeat of power emanating from the center of Kur, warning me that a being of great power lived here.
I thought I’d seen the worst in Dis, but here in Kur… this had to be one of the old gods.
Demons hollered as we walked by, eyeing me lasciviously despite my bruises and scrapes and the layer of ashy sand covering me from head to toe.
At one point we passed an enormous mirror. Satan was reflected in, triumphant, practically glowing with the exultation of having stolen the body of a king.
And I was a ghost. My hair was coated white, my skin plastered with dust, lips blue with cold. A walking ghost, down to the hollow look in my eyes, shivering with every step.
I looked away, unwilling to see myself this degraded. I had to be able to keep my head high.
The drumbeat grew stronger, making me nauseous from the ever-present pounding in my bones and lungs. Ereshkigal was close.
We descended into the city, and Minister Neti led us through a large walkway lined with guards. They were heavily armored compared to the Irkallan escort that had come for Satan, shining with emerald green armor from head to toe, each carrying a spear with a deadly curved blade.
I felt their eyes on me as we passed.
Please let Lucifer be alive. Please, please, please.
Please let this all have been for something.
The walkway led to a temple. Handmaidens drew back sheer curtains, bowing as Satan passed, and I couldn’t miss the looks they gave him.
They were practically salivating. I shuddered at the thought.
We passed a courtyard of fountains where souls drifted beneath the water. Altars wreathed with thick incense. Skeletally thin priestesses prostrating themselves before ebonite statues.
And then there was the throne room.
My breath came unevenly as the power crashed over me in a wave. It felt like death, sickening, dark, plucking at me with bony fingers.
I let it happen. As long as the shield around Sarai was intact, I didn’t give a damn what else they did to me.
The throne room was lined with tall columns, ending in a large balcony overlooking Kur. The throne at the very end was made of bones, and there were things hanging on the wall, desiccated bodies and cages with shriveled corpses inside them. Some of the cages hung from the ceiling above us. A skeletal hand draped down like it was calling for help.
Eyeless skulls stared back at us as I was pushed down the stairs and led before the throne.
The dark form seated upon it shifted. Clawed feet descended into the light: scaly bird’s feet, with long ebony claws.
Her power was impossible to resist, as cold as the grave. It was her iciness that wrapped around me, making me shake until my teeth chattered to together. I ground them tightly shut, resolved to stay silent.
She leaned forward, exposing her face to the light.
Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead.
The Eater of the Damned.
30
Melisande
I refused to cower.
Ereshkigal rose from her throne, descending the steps on her clawed feet. The nails screeched against the ebonite.
I’d never seen anything like her before.
Her first step into the light revealed a beautiful woman, with a cold, proud face, her eyes as black as midnight against death-pale skin. A silver moon gleamed on her forehead.
She took another step, and suddenly her body was shifting. She became thin, her skin sagging, until a skeleton stood at the bottom of the steps.
