by Max Jager
He heard noise. More groaning, the gritting of teeth. He faced the waters and looked upon the dead that fought amongst each other. They gnawed, punched, bashed each other's head with an irresistible desire. He saw them dead and mutilated, saw them turn into smoke and rise high. Then he saw the smoke materialize, again, into more anguished souls. They dropped down, like rain. And the river, flowing down to that red ring as its natural ebb. This was the ecosystem of this unholy dominion.
He was in purgatory. The truth didn't make him comfortable, it only served to drive the cold knife through his bones, into the marrow. He shivered. He looked away and was about to turn onto that flat dirt and to the great expanse in front of him. But he heard the sound, again. From the river, again.
A creaking of wood. A breaking of water. A boat. The size and strength of which shook the river into waves that slammed against the shore. Ajax put his hand in front of his face, he could feel the wet drizzle wash over him. He saw the dead too, latching onto stone only to immediately be dragged back. His eyes steadied. They narrowed in, back into the mist and back to the lanterns lit upon the sides of the boat. It was massive, yes. He could tell, even though it was only a shadow in the far distance. He could tell by the giant post and sail that cast a shadow over him and across water.
What was that sound? He leaned in. He could hear it deep and steady, like a long stretching foghorn.
And it came out. The onyx colored wood, the wide curved body, the pounding souls that colored the bottom red with beatings and slamming.
It was Charon. Archiver of the dead. Charon, who sat fused to the ship, the living figurehead. His upper torso was out, erect upon the front of the ship. It looked heavy, he looked heavy. Muscular, disgustingly so, white-eyed as if he had two searchlights transplanted into his sockets.
Charon was all at once, captain, crew, and ship. And he reached around with his wide body and picked a soul amongst the passengers who all screamed and shouted. They were normal people, dead people, Ajax thought.
He picked a man, young, twenty perhaps. He dropped him into the waters rather carelessly. Ajax watched the body fall and watched the souls rip him apart, eat him, like sharks at fresh carrion. He brought his eyes back. Froze. Charon was glaring at him, twirling his long beard, twitching his pointed ears. He rose an oar from his side and pointed it to Ajax. He looked as if to throw it at him, but no. He pointed down and twisted his neck into a crane as he looked over the river. Then he fell into it.
Charon brought his oar up, high above him, and down, to beat and break the violent dead. This was his job as watcher and caretaker of the souls in purgatory.
Charon disappeared as quickly as he appeared. The shadow cast above Ajax spread out, then went away. Ajax brought his hands to his head and stared out into the wide waters, he couldn't anything, only noticed a few red and orange spots, but nothing. It seemed endless.
"You missed your chance." Ajax's neck hairs rose. His fist tightened and he moved his hands into his vest and in, to his sword handle. "Charon could have taken you back."
A Striped Hyena stood behind him. White-furred with a long black streak across its uneven spine.
"Who are you?" Ajax asked.
"Me? Isn't it obvious? I'm just a Hyena." It pushed its head up to laugh, it's mouth resembled a megaphone. "What else could I be, silly?"
"I'm not asking about your form, I'm asking about your nature." He drew his sword. "Now, either you tell me who you are or I won't even think twice about cutting you in half."
"It looks a bit smaller than it should." The Hyena laid down, breathing and calm. It grinned. "Your sword, I mean."
"It looks bigger up close, believe me."
"Right, I'm sure." It giggled, rolled a bit and covered itself in dirt. "What an awful question? My nature? My nature. Well, my nature is your nature, since we're both dogs of circumstance. Children of the earth and of God. And I figure that makes us brothers? Or father and son? Lovers, maybe?"
"That's not an answer."
"Not the one you want, but the one that is."
Ajax grit his teeth. He looked at the small animal and how it rolled on its side, exposed its stomach and its black-spotted abdomen. It licked itself, scratched its flesh and unhinged its maw into a smile.
"I don't have time to fuck around with you." Ajax spat and began walking towards that sandy expanse, where the dunes had collected into sharp curved lines and where the small bushes had curled and dried up into barbed balls.
"Which road will you be taking?" The Hyena asked.
Ajax stopped and looked back, confused.
"Ah, it probably doesn't matter. All roads lead to Astrix." It laughed again, it sounded worse from a distance, morphed and nasally. He wanted to get a word in, to ease a sense of distress growing in him, but didn't. His eyes were burning. The sand-carrying winds blew. Ajax could feel his lips dry, could feel that grating feeling upon his flesh from the small particles that hit him. He nodded his head - Just stay silent - and walked, as far from the river and as far from the Hyena that his feet could take him.
"Or was it all roads lead to Troy? Rome? Which was it?" The Hyena said. His head shook to whimsical rhythm. The winds were not as harsh to the animal, or perhaps the animal was too harsh for the winds. Whatever, it didn't matter, Ajax thought.
He walked. Faster, more frenzied.
"Too many empires, too many names. Two to pair, two to meet. The third will come across the reach. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Three for one. One for all. One to die, one to eat."
So it went, on and on through those desert sands.
Jeronus
Jeronus
Sand. Sand in his mouth. Sand in his eyes. Sand in his pants. It came out of him as he stood, it came into him with each sweeping foot step that shook up dust. He was with the boy, Berok. And they were somewhere. Somewhere they never had the benefit of thinking. For if they thought, even for just a moment, they would have realized they were doomed and that this effort (the large jog they broke into it in this very large desert) was for nothing.
There were small pockets of dirt and green like cut up pieces of paradise. But nothing more, just desert and as Jeronus fell to his knees, he realized, ash. The soot was in his mouth like two used briquettes had been stuffed into his cheeks.
"Now, if you're going to die the least you could do is die somewhere away from me." A voice said behind the two. He was coming up from a dune, his black tie was wrapped around his forehead, his blazer wrapped around his hips.
"I'm only saying so because they're coming. I know it, you know it. So it's best you start running." This character was breathing loud, his voice sounded strained and broken.
"Ishmael." He took a breath for each beat in the word.
"I told you," Ishmael coughed "Call me Sam."
"Sam. Maybe we should slow down for the kid."
"For the kid? Fuck the kid." He walked over to Berok who was on his side, sinking into the sloping sand. "Stand up. You hear me? Stand up or you're dead."
"He's not lazy." Jeronus pushed his hands down on the floor and lifted himself. "He's not stupid either. He's tired. We've been running for hours."
"And I'll run for hours more so long as it gets me away from th-"
Sam put his finger up, in that school teacher disciplinary manner. He wanted to say something, to get at least a letter in. But stopped. His large brow pointed up, then behind him. They could hear the footsteps. He moved again. He heard them, from another direction. All around them, they all heard them, even the sand that shook and spilled downwards to them.
They were quivering now. All of them. The child, the youth and the old man. It looked like a current of voltage had run through them. They might have been, considering how charged and edged they looked, how red their eyes were and how quickly their faces turned red with life as they ran. South, that's where they bolted.
Jeronus wanted to reflect, even in that intense jog of his. He wanted to think back to how it began, those purple hands, that otherworldly
grasp, the boy and the two men that landed on that shore. How they hid in caves and now, how they ran for dear life. Ran from the things that sounded like banshees and that stormed the lands with spears in their hands and the high shout of war. Those things, those things they ran from. As fast as he could.
Berok fell. He landed on his side. Sam ran past him, Jeronus stopped, picked him up and put him, horizontal, on his shoulders like a log, stiff, lifeless. He could feel the faint breaths of the boy down his neck. They felt like whip lashes, and him, Jeronus, the horse that burdened on with feet that sunk deeper and deeper.
"Where are we running to?" Jeronus asked in that strained desperate voice.
"Doesn't matter. Just run." Sam slowed to gasp.
He was right though. It didn't matter.
They were already caught and only making it harder.
Jeronus stepped over a small creature. A bug or a plant? He couldn't tell, only knew it was hard shelled and made a gushing sound as it flattened underneath his feet. It looked like a scorpion or a small spider perhaps, and it made him trip. Both the boy and Jeronus, who fell and rolled downhill. It must have been fifteen meters of a tumble before they stopped. And when he awoke, with sleepy eyes and a dreadful hot flash across his face, he looked for Berok. He was next to him, on his stomach, vomiting a bit. And Sam was ahead. Running for a bit before coming to the top of another dune. Then stopping all of a sudden, then collapsing on his knees and looking back at Jeronus with wide eyes.
Sam's whole body fell, that scrawny bony body of his with the long neck that looked a bit crooked to the left. It all fell and crumpled. He looked like a brooding vulture. Starved, a bit desperate.
Jeronus crawled up to meet him. He came to the sight that made Sam fall. It made his jaw drop for a bit, made him drool too. There was a group of five men - No, not men. At least not anymore - Demons, perhaps that was the accurate word to call those looming figures. Eight feet tall, bulked, as if five large trees with armor had uprooted themselves.
The group of five demons looked to the trio, from below the dune. They smiled, their teeth were jagged like a serrated knife. Their feet were webbed and their tails were forked and their tongues were long and frantic as they fell and dressed their lips wet. They had no horns like Jeronus had imagined in his childhood, no, they had spots of rotten flesh and giant black rings around their eyes and hair either that grew wildly in patches around their scalps. Their skins were sickly looking and they all looked spotted. Pasty white, diseased green. One of them was missing a jaw. The wound was still there, it had puss coming out off it that gave him the appearance of salivating. This jawless fiend pointed to the group. The other four moved on towards Jeronus and company, their faded red skirts moved gently, their armor, not so much.
They were legionnaires. Or at least they wore the decore, wore the pride too, as they stepped up with armored high chests. Their movements were slow, trained, careful. It made the three timid, it made them feel small.
Jeronus could hear the metal clank. It sounded like war. Like the bashing of steel, the crushing of bone.
He turned. The others that had chased them had arrived, one of them plucked Berok from the neck of his shirt and dragged him, ripping the blue cotton a bit as they yanked him about and put him (Berok) under their armpits. Jeronus stood, he wanted to kick, to punch, to do anything. He was slapped down. He didn't even feel it, it didn't register as pain. That fist that brought down on his head, that broke his nose into two, that left him ringing on his left ear, it didn't feel like anything but a strong pull. As if gravity had forced him down. It took a while for him to feel the blood of a bruised forehead, even longer for him to scream. A toothless scream that sounded more like a whistle. He saw his molars fall, he tried grabbing them but was pulled up.
"Three more." One of the demons said. A large tumor-like growth was on his neck, like an oversized Adam's apple. He had a raspy voice.
"I wonder how long they'll live." Another said. This one had a helmet on and long red plumes that swayed left and right. That one had a soft voice and it made it easier for Jeronus to sleep, at last, a dreamless sleep.
Sam watched them all. The unconscious bodies carried about, the pain and blood coming off of Jeronus's face. It made him weak in the knees, it made him docile and he sat in the sand. He got the best treatment of all of them; a slap across the face, a nosebleed and a long bronze chain strapped around his waist.
Sam looked down at his hands. There were no cuffs. He began to process the scenario, opportunity, the idea to run again. Run far away. His forehead began to sweat and he thought, on the third rattling of the chain to risk it all. He bit his lips, it was coming, that third rattle. He brought his face up.
His blood froze.
For Sam gazed up to a sharp, devious smile and the hot breath and drool that caressed his face. He knew it then. Ah, it came to him! In that private fear, in those dark corners of his mind. It was all a statement. The chase, the beating, the imprisonment. It was all a mockery as if to say to him and to anyone else who dared, what chance do you really have?
He looked back down, for whatever idea Ishmael "Sam" Johnson had that moment, died.
Ajax II
Ajax
"How long are you going to keep following me for?" Ajax looked back to the Hyena who made circles in the sand with his tail and his ass, who kicked away giant clouds of golden dirt. He was like a child at the beach, destructive, maliciously kicking down the sand castles.
"I won't stop until you meet him."
"Astrix? I don't care about him. My concern isn't with him, it's with the people he's taken hostage." Ajax returned to walking. The land was flat and he could see from the distance the small plateaus that sat on the horizon. They looked like stone tables.
"And do you think you'll be able to avoid him?" The Hyena scratched his abdomen with his hind legs. "I'd be surprised if you could. Nothing lives without his knowledge that lives without his consent."
"Is that so? Real Napolean type, that guy. Maybe he should find a hobby."
"This is his hobby. One he takes very seriously, haven't you noticed? The lack of people on this island?"
Ajax stopped to look. He felt stupid, of course there was nothing, nothing but desert. He shook his head and walked forward, a mountain was coming upon his view and he put his hand against the orange stone and worked around the volatile terrain, the boulders lodged on the side and on the floor. The Hyena was jumping around, he looked experienced.
"You consider this an island?"
"A small one, too. There are bigger lands, as you'd imagine. Purgatory has to be a giant place to accommodate all the dead. You should see how dense it can get after a war." It laughed. Ajax frowned.
"Am I to assume that Astrix is responsible for the population? Does he kill them, any unlucky soul stuck here?"
The Hyena laughed. A wind blew past Ajax, he felt sand in his mouth.
"Kill? Don't be silly. They're already dead." The Hyena dropped and began to lead Ajax through a small underpass beneath the mountain. There were arches and encrusted inside were Topaz gems, stalagmites that pointed down. There was no shining light reflected though, everything was overcast.
"But you're different, aren't you? You're still alive, not like these marked men."
"Marked?"
"Those that come here by destiny's call are marked. Those who come unnaturally, like you, aren't. It's simple, dummy. You're trespassing. And that means you don't get the same treatment as the dead. So if you were to be killed here, well…" His snout came down, his mouth was wide and his tongue slipped out, red and swollen. "Well, even I don't know what would happen to you. Maybe you'd be sent to that atheist oblivion? Maybe you'd be trapped? Saved? Reborn? Who knows. Do you want to find out?"
"No." Ajax walked past him. His stare was strict and disciplined as he spotted a small bundle of tarps in the distance. "I get the point. I die, I'm done. What happens if you're marked though? If you suffered that so-called, natural death twi
ce?"
"Supposing you never got sent lower into the deeper circles, suppose you didn't get placed in the river Styx. Well, you'd just be reborn and dragged out of the waters. That's the cycle here, a death and rebirth. And forgetting. And repenting. And with time and hope..."
