by Eric Vall
“I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” Cupi sighed. “Let’s go.”
“I’m still shocked you didn’t want Goldilocks coming along on his one, Jakey,” Todd admitted. “Not that I doubt all the people we got here, but she’s, like, the Neo of our group. It feels weird leaving her behind.”
“There’s no way I’m gonna risk taking her on this one,” I explained. “Didn’t you see the way she clammed up and freaked out when I just mentioned Kegg? That’s why I told her she has full control over my castle until I return. She can stay here, recharge, and strategize while we’re out kicking demon ass. Besides, Eligor will be in good company.”
“Uhhh, I’m not too sure about that,” the imp snickered, “Lib will be fine and dandy, but Elvira’s just gonna lock herself away in her room for most of the time, and I don’t even wanna know what kinda twisted, fucked up shit Crazy Eyes is gonna get into while the cat’s away.”
“Well, it’s not like we could take them all with us,” I sighed. “The boat we got from Charron only seats six, and that’s if one of them has the body mass of a chiuaua.”
“I take offense to that, bro,” Todd shot back. “I’m more of a toy poodle, thank you very much. Except when it comes to Todd numero dos. Then, I’m a fucking mastiff, Jakey.”
The six of us finished suiting up and then headed out to the River of Souls. We climbed up into the old dinghy that Charron had given to us, untied ourselves from the pier, and then pushed off toward our next adventure.
The first leg of our journey was the easiest part. We floated down the River of Souls until we finally entered a deep, dark cave filled with deadly rapids that threatened to capsize our vessel.
Of course, we’d transversed these rapids many times over, so they were less of a “threat” and more of a “minor inconvenience.”
As we came up to the swirling waters, Cupi stood up at the front of the boat, summoned blue Hellfire into her hands, and then blasted the whirlpools with her spell. The swirly water froze instantly, and then I tossed down a stream of purple Hellfire to act as our pathway across the newly iced ground.
We passed over without much fanfare, and then our boat plopped down into the swampy water of the Fifth Circle.
“Alrighty, ladies and gent,” Todd announced in an old-timey announcer’s voice, “who’s ready to become as visible as the Toddster’s old schlong?”
All five of us stared at the imp, but he didn’t even acknowledge what he’d just said. Instead, he bowed his head, closed his eyes, and stuck out his hands for us to grab.
We all followed suit, and then the imp began to concentrate.
“Be the ball … ” he muttered to himself. “Na-na-na-na-na-na … ”
Suddenly, a wave of cool air blew against my skin and caused my hair to stand on end. Then all was silent.
Todd opened his eyes, grinned, and did a little bow without breaking our human circle.
“You can thank me later,” he giggled, “preferably with some form of edibles.”
Even though we were invisible, I felt nervous traveling through the Fifth Circle. This was the domain of Baphomet, and we were pretty high up on his shit list.
It wasn’t enough that I was the sworn enemy of his ally, Beelzebub. I’d also killed his beloved pet water demon and released a bunch of his Shades from their prisons, which promptly led to a rebellion.
If there was anyone who could possibly hate me more than the King of the Eighth Circle, it was Baphomet.
My heart dropped all the way down to my knees as I saw a familiar figure soaring across the sky. It was wearing a flowing black toga on its body as it glided through the depressing gray sky of the Fifth Circle, powered by two massive, black, feathered wings. His body was completely human, complete with an exposed torso.
But his head was not. His head bore a similarity to a large goat and had horns that curved out to each side and nearly doubled the width of his noggin.
It was Baphoment.
“Fucking hell,” I whispered. “You think he’s going to see us again? He seemed to see right through your invisibility spell last time.”
“We’ll be good, bro,” Todd shot back. “Last time, I used the ‘Klaatu barada necktie’ spell. Anyone who’s ever seen Army of Darkness knows that’s not how it goes.”
“Then why did you do it?” I hissed.
“Because I couldn’t remember the last part of the spell either, bro!” the imp argued in a hushed voice. “This time, I got it right, though. Also, I’m like a mother fucking demon lord now. Know what I’m sayin’? Goat For Brains isn’t gonna see us.”
“I really fucking hope you’re right,” I noted as my eyes wandered back over to the incoming Demon King.
Baphomet passed over us nonchalantly, and I felt a massive weight lift off my chest. However, it wasn’t completely gone.
The last time we’d encountered Baphomet in the Fifth Circle, he flew over our invisible bodies just as he was doing right now. Then, when we had let our guard down, he reappeared and told us he’d already known we were in his domain.
Was he doing the same shit again? Or was Todd right, and this time the spell was working as needed?
Thankfully, Todd was right on the money.
The Demon King passed by our position two more times during the trip, but he didn’t indicate whatsoever that he knew we were there.
Finally, we arrived at the waterfall of Hellfire that separated the Fifth and Sixth Circles. I could feel its heat radiating from all the way over here, and it was sending up a literal smokescreen of steam into the sky where it touched the water.
“Perhaps we should have brought Eligor along?” Superbia suggested. “She was the one who helped us get through last time.”
“Please,” Cupi mused. “We’re more than capable of getting through. It’s nothing more than a giant wall of flames.”
The fit, blonde succubus stuck out her hand, summoned forth blue Hellfire, and then lit up the waterfall with a brilliant sapphire glow.
The red Hellfire froze in place when the freezing spell touched it, but it didn’t hold for long. Within a matter of seconds, the icy grip was obliterated into a blast of steam, and the deadly flames continued to descend.
“Fucking hell,” Cupi groaned. “I thought my new power levels would have been enough to handle that.”
“Don’t feel bad, my bodacious blonde,” Todd reassured the succubus, “lots of people get performance issues. Not me, but I’ve totally heard it’s a thing that happens.”
“Could you just use your purple Hellfire?” Sia suggested. “And then Cupi can freeze it as it comes down?”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said and then looked over at Cupi. “Ready?”
The succubus nodded in agreement and prepared to attack.
I threw up a wall of purple Hellfire directly under the cascade of fire, and the force of the impact knocked me slightly off balance. However, I didn’t fall like last time.
At least there was a slight improvement.
Cupi blasted the fire above my wall, and it instantly turned to steam at the touch of her icy spell.
More importantly, we could now see the massive green portal on the other side.
With my one free hand, I commanded the boat to push through the opening and then nearly fell over when it lurched forward. Within seconds, the deadly waterfall was behind us.
We passed through the interdimensional portal, and the world went black for a second or two. Finally, when our bodies had stopped traveling through time and space, we found ourselves staring at the desolation of the Sixth Circle.
To say this was an awful place to be in was the understatement of the century.
The entire landscape was made up of nothing but sand and dirt, with the occasional dying bush or shrub sticking out of the gritty ground. The sky was blood red, which gave everything the light touched an ominous bloody glow.
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
What the Sixth Circle lacked in natural
formations it made up for with demon-made ones. All across the horizon, as far as the eye could see, stood large sarcophaguses made out of dark black brimstone. They littered the ground of the Circle, each one sealed from the outside and containing a Shade who was damned to an eternity of suffering.
And suffer they did. The inside of the tombs contained searing-hot Hellfire that exceeded the temperature of a fucking supernova.
If you fucked up and committed an act of heresy, it was into the flaming prison after you died. Forever and ever.
“I seriously fucking hate this place,” I shuddered as I took it all in. “It reminds me of a darker, more fucked-up version of the deserts near our home.”
“Your old home,” Cupi reminded me. “This is our home now.”
Our old home. I sighed as the images of our mansion back in Phoenix ran through my head. Sure, it wasn’t as badass as ruling over an entire Circle of Hell, but it had been ours. There were a lot of great memories made in that house, and I was suddenly hit with a wave of nostalgia.
At least I knew that, between Jane, Oliver, and Raphael, it was in good hands.
“So, how the fuck do we find this place?” I questioned aloud.
“Eligor’s cryptic clue,” Superbia explained. “She said that, long ago, Lilith had given her a map to the Castle of the Heretic, the place where Kegg has taken up residence.”
“Sounds like a lovely place,” I joked. “What was the clue?”
“‘To find the Castle of the Heretic will require a torturous feat,’” the madame recited “‘Look to where the sundial meets the horizon, and the way of the worm will guide you.’ At least, that’s the rough translation.”
“Well, the second part’s easy,” Tris spoke up. “It’s saying we need to head east at the Dial of Despair.”
My mouth fell agape, and I shot the succubus an exasperated look.
“How did you--” I began, but Tris just shrugged.
“The ‘way of the worm’ is obviously referring to Vermis,” the brunette explained. “Remember that dude? Well, he was the protector of the Third Circle. And the only point where a sundial would touch the horizon was when it was horizontal, so either in the ‘nine o’clock’ or ‘three o’clock’ position. Which, if you look at a clock, the ‘three’ points east.”
“Holy shit, Slothy!” Todd whistled as our boat landed on the shore.
“Seriously,” Gula added, “that’s impressive. I’m proud of you, Sister.”
“What can I say?” Tris answered with a smirk. “I want to go back home. I’m gonna miss watching the dude in the First Circle on the magic mirror. He buys the same thing from the ice cream truck at the same time, every single day. A triple-scoop mint chocolate chip cone. But, no matter how many times he does it, something always goes wrong. It’s comedy gold, my friends.”
“Hey,” I chuckled, “if it gets us to Kegg quicker, I’m all for it. Where is this Dial of Despair you’re referring to?”
“It’s at the very center of the Sixth Circle,” Cupi explained as she pointed off to the horizon. “A few miles that way.”
“Then let’s get going,” I announced, and then we all stepped out of the dinghy.
Cupi, Gula, and Tris all sprouted their wings, and Todd floated into the air on his black Hellfire magic. Then Cupi and Gula swooped around behind Sia and me and lifted us into the air.
I could feel Gula’s giant breasts smooshed against my back as she lifted me, and her hard nipples were poking into my shoulder blades like blunt thumbtacks.
Obviously, I didn’t mind.
Once we were airborne, it only took us a few minutes to fly to our destination. We passed over the sandy, lifeless landscape of the Sixth Circle, only seeing an occasional bush, shrub, or rock along the way.
The only thing this place wasn’t short on were tombs.
Scattered across the sand below us sat hundreds of thousands of sealed tombs made out of brimstone. Inside were the souls of damned Shades and demons who were sentenced to spend eternity in these structures, their flesh forever burned by the white-hot Hellfire inside.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, however, if it weren’t for the screams.
As we flew through the sky, the sounds of muffled shrieks, wails, moans, and howls accompanied us from below.
I didn’t even want to think about what was causing such sounds of agony.
Finally, the six of us saw a large, round structure in the distance.
“There it is!” Gula exclaimed. “The Dial of the Damned.”
“Why do they call it--” I began to ask, but then my own eyes saw the answer.
The brimstone circle was embedded into the ground, and it had to have been at least a hundred feet in diameter. What really set it apart, however, were its components.
The dial of the structure was made up of skewered Shades piled on top of each other. They were still alive, and their groans made my stomach churn. Then there were the clock’s numbers, which were made out of Shades who had been put on “the rack” and stretched out to form the correct Roman numerals.
“Jesus … ” I gasped as I looked over the ghastly scene. “You know, I thought I’d seen it all.”
“It’s Hell, Jacob,” Sia noted. “It only gets worse the deeper you go.”
“That’s hard to believe,.” I shuddered at the thought of what could possibly await in the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circles.
As soon as the group hit the Dial of the Damned, we took a hard right and headed east. We traveled through the Sixth Circle for another thirty minutes, until we came to an area that was more barren than most. The succubi slowed their flight, descended, and then set us down on the ground.
“This can’t be right,” Cupi observed as we landed.
“What’s going on?” I questioned. “Why did we stop?”
“We’ve reached the Fields of Ember,” the succubus explained. “This is as far east as the Sixth Circle goes. There’s nothing from here on out than, well, embers.”
Cupi pointed down to the ground, and I could see it was now made up of ashy wood and stone that glowed a deep, brilliant red.
“I know I got the puzzle right … ” Tris muttered. “There’s no way my brain would fuck that up when it knew rest and relaxation was the reward.”
“Maybe it’s a trick question?” Todd asked. “You know, like when your girlfriend asks if you think another girl is pretty. There ain’t no right answer for that one, is there, Jakey?”
I rolled my eyes as I remembered the millions of times my ex had asked me that question. The imp was right, any answer I gave seemed to get me in trouble.
“There’s no way it’s a fake-out,” I explained. “Didn’t it come from Lilith?”
“Maybe it was a bad interpretation?” Sia suggested. “I trust Eligor’s ability to read inferoglyphs, but perhaps the person who wrote it down was given false information?”
Damn it. We’d come all this way, yet it felt like we were back at square one.
I turned around, hauled back, and kicked the nearby embers. They sparked as they flew across the landscape and landed in a heap on top of the rest of the pile.
Suddenly, there was a searing-hot pain in my foot. I clenched my teeth tightly as I looked down and saw that my metal boot was now glowing red, superheated by the enchanted embers.
I quickly ripped it off my leg and tossed it to the side, where it sizzled into the sand with a sharp hiss.
Wait a fucking minute.
“Guys,” I announced as it dawned on me, “I don’t think it’s a translation issue or false information or anything like that. I think we may have just misinterpreted it.”
“How so?” Sia asked. “Eligor’s translation was very clear.”
“You said it requires a ‘tortuous feat’ to find this place, right?” I questioned.
“Correct,” the redhead responded. “Do you think this might have something to do with the Field of Embers?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I confirmed.
“I’d bet money that Eligor translated it right, but she spelled one word wrong.”
“‘Feat.’” Superbia nodded as realization spread across her face.
“Torturous feet,” I corrected as I pointed over to my glowing red boot. “Crossing the Field of Embers causes torture for the feet.”
“But we can’t ‘cross’ the field,” Gula explained. “There is literally nothing beyond its borders.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, “which means the Castle of Heretic is somewhere in the Field of Embers.”
Gula and Tris both surveyed their surroundings for a moment. When they saw nothing, they turned back to me and raised a questioning eyebrow.
“What are you talking about, dude?” Tris aked. “There’s nothing as far as the eye can see.”
“Tell me, Tris,” I began coyly, “if you were trying to hide a super-secret castle that housed one of your most coveted Demon Lords, would you put it right out in the open?”
“Of course not!” the brunette chuckled. “I’m lazy, Jacob, not completely brain dead.”
“I think I see where he’s going with this … ” Cupi added as she wagged her finger. “You think it’s like, ‘in’ as in ‘inside’ the Fields of Ember.”
“Precisely,” I confirmed. “I think if we start digging, we’re gonna find exactly what we’re looking for.”
“That’s some sixties Batman level conclusion-jumping, bro,” Todd whistled. “I fucking love it.”
“Then that just leaves the question of how the fuck we’re going to get across this field without burning ourselves,” the Sister of Greed pondered.
“We could start moving the pieces of ember out with green flames,” Gula suggested.
“Negative,” Superbia interjected. “If it’s truly a hidden castle, there’s surely a hex that prevents us from simply teleporting or moving things with our mind.”
“Yeah, Firecracker,” Todd added with a giggle, “that’s like, Demon hide-and-seek one-oh-one. Did you miss that day of class?”
“I could give us all enchanted armor, and then we could just pick up the pieces by hand,” I suggested, which elicited a loud groan from Tristitia.
