Hell's Vengeance

by Max Jager

  He pushed his walking stick forward and let it lead him through the villa with a consistent hobbling and a long, dreary tapping as he went through the skeleton of the villa. It was his duty to pull his old body through, to drag it about like a mop in every lifeless and empty creak and cavern of this wretched fortress. For he was a helper (the only), an adviser (the only) and a friend (the only) all at once. He was a butler. Not a servant. Always particular about that part, always making sure the guards and the slaves understood his place about them. No, Herald was no servant. He was the Old man and Astrix the young master and that's how it had been since he had stepped foot on this land the few millenniums ago.

  A hammer dropped from the side of an anvil, Herald put it in its dusty place as he went through the armory. Inside the gardens, he scared away the piling ravens that feasted on his roses. And finally, he came upon the dilapidated conference room, what remained of it at least. There were standing torches, a map of the land that was torn halfway and cushions surrounding a rectangular table. Herald wiped dirt off the steps as he went up and past the room.

  By the time he had come to the tower, looking up to the spiral staircase and the barred windows, he felt tired. He leaned himself against the wall as he climbed. He could hear something, grunting perhaps, a strained closed-mouth, lip-bitten grunt. The kind of strain only war and sex could do. He came to the top of the stairs, knocked on it, then opened. His eyes surveyed the long room. The first thing he saw were moths. Or butterflies, pinned to sheets of bark and laid out on display cases. Some of them were still writhing.

  The next specimen he saw was a set of bones from the many-legged, many-headed bizarre creatures of this island. He saw the four-headed serpentines stare back at him, biting and rolling around inside a glass container. They snapped at Herald. Their breaths stained the glass with steam. He remembered to avoid them, they'd paralyze you with one bite, melt your flesh with the second, kill you with the third and eat you with the fourth. As tiny as they were. He walked past the snakes (Hydralisks as they were called, Astrix had nicknamed them such as more of a mockery than a categorical tool. The small-bodied Hydralisks of the East).

  The snacks rattled, bit, hissed. But none were louder than the grunting.

  There was a veil separating the mausoleum and the bedroom. It was a room truly built for Astrix's pleasure, a pet pen as he called it. And he had many pleasures here with his many pets and toys. All of them, of all species. And there, furthest from the glass cases was the biggest display of all. A bed, with Astrix in it and another man below him, enduring his thrusts. Herald walked up, not too closely, he had lost a finger the last (and only time) he had done that. The man below Astrix had his head in the pillows and his ass pointed up for Astrix's member. And Astrix turned. All of him released from the tight clench, he turned to face Herald.

  "Oh, it's you," Astrix returned his attention to the man. "What do you want?"

  "I'm wondering why you stuck those two together." He breathed deep. "That's reckless."

  "Persuasion. Let him see what he wants every day and I'm sure he'll come around to take it." Astrix said. "He'll be convinced, hatred suffocates reason. With reason gone, temptation takes it place and from there. Well. It'll be easy. Negotiation is just the art of temptation, after all."

  "And guile," Herald said.

  "And guile." Astrix pressed forward. A very steady and fast rhythm.

  "If it was as simple as that, you wouldn't be this nervous."

  "What do you mean?" Astrix stopped mid-thrust. He lifted himself of the soft olive skinned back of the man below. He paused to think and focused on a blemish of flesh in the man's lower back. Then he smiled. Then he went back to thrusting.

  "You know what I mean." Herald stepped forward. "Three thousand years is long enough to know your habits. And you always do this. These...deviant things when you're nervous. What has you feeling raw?"

  Astrix did not bother turning. Sweat fell from his hair.

  "It might be that I won't be able to uphold my end of the deal. Well, if Darr accepts."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean to say the West has them."

  There was silence.

  "Oh," Herald said.

  "Yes. The West, an unruly bunch aren't they? The untamed West, called themselves such even as I crushed their last mutiny."

  "Years ago you did and years is long enough for contempt to breed." Herald scratched his head. "When's the last time you had contact with them."

  "Months maybe. Years, probably." Astrix said. "I killed every single one of them and they still act up. I've assigned them my most trusted captains and still, I worry. Who knows what drives those demons mad? The desert, methinks. It's scrambled their brains."

  "Forget the slaves or the boy, campaign and have those cretins killed."

  "They're not cretins yet. I'll send a messenger to see if the captains and commanders can settle the army down. They still have a chance."

  "Oh," Herald looked down. "But doesn't that mean you're giving them a chance to kill the trespassers? The slaves?"

  Silence. Then the sound of slapping wet flesh.

  "Maybe," Astrix said. "Maybe I lose my bargaining chip, maybe I don't."

  "Do you think the West will listen?"

  "Yes, no. I'm beginning to think it won't matter. I don't think I'll let Darr go any which way."

  "You gave him your word."

  "But will he keep his?" Astrix licked the sweat from his mouth. "I figure if he kills Aleistar then I have every right to do whatever I want to him. Hah. What would you call that, a safety net?"

  "And do you think he'll listen easily, follow your rule easily?"

  "If he doesn't then we'll fight. Won't that just be great?" There was spasm. A shaking of his legs as Astrix came and removed himself from the man.

  "That's what I'm worried about. The fight." Herald said. "I've never lied, I will never lie. And I can't hold my tongue when I say that boy is a threat."

  "I don't fear the second death."

  "You should. There is no coming back from oblivion or whatever which God has prepared for you."

  "Three thousand years, Herald. Three thousand years of solitude and you still cling to this worthless life?" Astrix put on his robe. There was a sheen to his skin. "I've a found a thrill and you've found a fear. We should be thankful that our old hearts still beat with the life pulse. What is there besides that? Why exist for the sake of existing? That seems worse than death to me, to live without passions."

  "And passions bring fears. And fear, suffering."

  "What false reason is that? I'm already suffering."

  "I've said this before." Herald walked closer. "But redemption is still your reach. Please, give up your vanity of vanities. That senseless warrior spirit of yours. You stand to gain nothing, yet you gamble everything."

  "Gain nothing?" Astrix bent over and let the air escape him with long-winded scoffs. "There is nothing worth gaining but the taking of one man's life by your own. Every other pleasure is second to that."

  "This is enough, don't you think? I've seen you through many years. And this, this I must say is enough."

  "I've foreseen it already, dear Herald. My victory. It's already being sung by the muses."

  "You don't know that. Not with absolute certainty." Herald walked over to Astrix who towered over him, soft and fair.

  Oh, Herald." He put his arm down on the small old man's shoulder. "But I do know. It came to me in a dream. A vision through God."

  "A dream? You put your faith in a mad dream?"

  "Everyone does. And I dreamt of death. I've seen it, last night. A red glowing heart removed and raised to my face and a wide mouth that mauls it whole. Yes, I've seen it. Both of us, putting our lives on the scale, so evenly matched at each side that only the featherweight of tenacity can decide winner from which. Loser from winner, dead from alive. Oh, yes, I live and put my faith in that featherweight and that dream. And what a glorious day it will be when the angels of
heaven shine down at me, their cluster of wings surrounding me."

  "Madness." Herald tugged at his legs. "Please, stop this madness."

  "Three thousand years I've heard this from you and now, you didn't change my mind the first time and you won't change it now."

  And Herald stood quietly for he had nothing to say to that blinding confidence. Astrix looked down at the old man, his smile dropped as he knelt down to Herald. He rested both hands on his shoulders, then rubbed the old wrinkles of his forehead.

  "I'm glad you've stuck around to see my passions through. I hope you'll continue too." Astrix said. "You're the only one I give that privilege of choice too. Remember that."

  Astrix kissed his cheeks and it eased Herald. He was still soft, somewhere inside, he thought. Astrix left the room.

  "Passions…" Herald repeated as he looked back to the bed. He rubbed his eyes, they were wet. "Passions kills."

  The man still laid there, the color of his skin receding to a pale white. He laid with this butt up and high, his body cold and lifeless, for his throat had been slit long ago.

  Jeronus IV - Episode 6

  Jeronus

  "I want her."

  "No. She belongs to me."

  Two caricatures of men slapped and tripped and pushed each around and through every table in the room. The instruments, the devices of torture, all broken and scattered about, scratching and dragging across the floor as the two found themselves wrestling. Each eager to gain on the other, each attacking and scratching relentlessly. Of the six standing above in the room, five cheered and one settled into a grimace as he watched his underlings fight.

  One of them had found his balance. He pressed. His ponytail spinning wildly as he punched down on the face of his victim on the floor below.

  "That's enough." The Captain said behind his tight helmet.

  The underling did not listen. Instead, he found a small hammer sitting by his side.

  "That's enough!" The Captain said again. He tried to move forward but felt two hands grappling his chest. They pushed him away. He fell, just as the hammer fell. Having come down on one of the skulls of the demons. Four blows is all it took to stop the lesser warrior from breathing. Two blows is all it took to crush his skull. There was cheering, a delight in the viscera that flew in all directions and the growing pool of blood underneath their sandals and heels and boots.

  "Half-face." One of the demons said. "Half-face killed him."

  He was smiling, running outside and spreading the gossip amongst the others.

  "Always half-face." Another said. Almost all smirked, save for the Captain who had to look down at his dead underling. He stared at the open wound, then to the heavy rising of white smoke that came from the corpse of the newly dead. A dreadful, gaping mouth that he swore he saw within the mist.

  What was the conflict about? A dib. A dib for one of the women in the cage. To do what with? Best not say.

  It was already too much for the voyeurs who stared from their large cage. They backed away from the walls. They were shaking, most of them. Others were already in emotional stasis, doing nothing much but breathing.

  And from the crowd, Jeronus stared. He was forward, one hand gripping a bar and the other above Berok's eyes. His had was cupped, blinding him from the murder.

  "This is insane." Someone in the crowd said. "They don't value anything."

  His attention switched back to the Captain who walked up to the murderer, his poise a little ruined, his pride a little muddied. He was pointing his finger at the murderer. Jeronus saw this. Saw how the rest of the group spat on the floor and passed shifty eyes, too. Wry smiles formed at the edges of their lips.

  "You don't think I'll ignore this, do you?" The Captain said. "You'll be reprimanded. I'll be telling Astrix myself." There were small chuckles across all the soldiers in the lot. They had returned back to their clique, sneering. The Captain, annoyed, kept wagging his index finger.

  "One of you, carry the body." No one did so. He looked around, nothing but cold stares. His face flustered, color came back to its sickly pale complexion and he went to the cage to pick from the group. Two young men, a young woman and Ishmael.

  "You four. Carry them, don't think of running either." They didn't. They complied and when they returned some hours later, they were bloodied across their chest. A bit restless too, rubbing the dark rings around their eyes.

  And those primal five? The deviants, the defiant gang? They played marbles with small gems and cracked jokes.

  That was the first day Jeronus noticed the disobedience.

  The second discord would come tomorrow and it took the shape of a messenger, a crow with a letter tied to its small pitchfork feet who landed by an open window in the dungeon. There was still a mess, though most of it dried.

  The crow rested itself above a torture device, a stretcher where four ropes dangled innocently. The crow began to peck at the braided rope, picking apart the threads before it was gripped. The message removed and the bird thrown out the window where the violent wind carried its shout. One of the guards looked at the message, he sat on a table and tried reading with beady eyes. He could not transcribe the scratchings. Jeronus barely could too. The writing was sloppy, italic and bold. It was a foreign tongue or maybe a collection of foreign tongues, just a mess of letters and scribblings. The ink was rubbed and left streaks and it frustrated the demon who looked dumb-faced with squinting eyes.

  "What are you looking at?" He shouted at Jeronus. Jeronus lowered his face. The guard kicked his chair out and went out the building.

  He walked through the door frame (the only door frame in this room) took the steps left and right and up and down and opening a door outside, rang a bronze bell. They couldn't tell what it looked like, what the bell hung on or if even was a bell. But them, just as the Captain, heard the sound. It was obnoxious, constant and left a dissonant lingering tone.

  The Captain came immediately, shouting, "What is it? What do you want?". Thinking, how have I failed today?

  He read it, the reading sounded like mumblings from their distance. But they knew he had read, knew because of that creeping silence that came about them as if part of the atmosphere itself. One of many ingredients, the others being dread, and violence, and fear.

  The prisoners felt their postures straighten out.

  There was a gasp. A screaming. A punching of adobe and wood. More demons gathered (their steps were loud, even from outside), the prisoners could hear their clanking of metal like a warmachine. There must have been a dozen, all there to listen to the contents of the letter.

  There was a voice. A loud, nasal one.

  "Oh? He's finally decided to pay attention to us. Our precious king…"

  "It must be hard to leave that little bowl of his." Of course, they spoke about the dome walls of New Troy. It was not, by any definition, small.

  "Oh, piss off. Who summons us? Astrix? King of New Troy?" Another scoffed. "Hermit of Old Troy. The desperate infant.

  The Captain took the note. His feet were swift. His gladius scratched the walls of the lot with his uncomposed stride. He walked immediately to the cage, his teeth clenched. His rotten, diseased face looking at them, his mellowed yellow eyes scanning left to right.

  "He wants you all." The Captain said. "I don't know what for, but he wants you even though we went through the trouble."

  No one spoke. No one knew a thing. Who wanted us? The king, king of what? This land, if you could call it land. Jeronus thought.

  "They won't like this. I promised them some slaves, but he demands all of you." The Captain shook his head. "They won't like this one bit."

  He was wobbling, crushing the bars of metal in front of the prisoners.

  Half-face hung by the door frame.

  "Won't like what?" Half-face said.

  The Captain turned to him. His eye was twitching.

  "We are to bring all slaves, all troops to our king, Astrix. No exceptions, no compromises."

  Half-face
pushed himself off the wall. He walked up to the Captain.

  "I was promised some of the women. I won them yesterday." He said in a low growl.

  "You won nothing and you get nothing. Deals between scum aren't worth anything." The Captain's voice was shaken, his loose grip on the chain of command slipping away. "All of them are going to the king, not a man or woman will be spared."

  Half-face loomed forward. Jeronus did so as well from his cell. His arms hung from their cage, his shoulders rested against the bars. They're apes, he thought. Violent apes.

  "Half-face won her!" Half-face said. "And I take what I win."