A World Darkly (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 3)

by John Triptych

  “Come on,” Valerie said as she kept extending her hand. “You were nearly there, just a bit more effort.”

  The man let out a deep sigh and looked away from her. “I think I’ll just stay here.”

  She wanted to argue with him, but she could tell from his expression that it was ultimately pointless. The puddle of mud around him had already covered up his legs and it looked like it would ultimately sink into its depth completely. Valerie didn’t want to see any more of it so she turned and started to walk away. As she kept on moving, she took one last glance behind her. The man was still sitting there. It was as if her offer of help was more of an annoyance to him than a benefit.

  Valerie shook her head, and kept on going. It had been a pathetic encounter, but it did give her some hope. She had thought that she was the only one on the surface of this strange land, but she sensed that there might be others around after all. All I have to do is to keep moving and sooner or later, I’ll find another, she thought as she rambled on.

  “It is admirable that you try to help them, but they must get out of the mud on their own volition,” a voice to the far side of her said.

  Valerie pivoted sideways as her hand instinctively reached for her Glock pistol.

  Another man stood a dozen feet away from her. His matted hair and grizzled beard were both unkempt. All he was wearing was a black, tattered cloak and she could see his bare, scrawny legs and skeletal feet below it. He looked anywhere between fifty and sixty years old. His bony, emaciated body seemed to barely hold onto his meager existence, even in this world. He gave her a gap toothed smile. “I come in peace,” he said softly.

  Valerie sensed he wasn’t a threat. She relaxed as she let her arms fall to her side. “Who are you?”

  The old man looked at the grey sky above them and squinted his eyes. “Just another wanderer in these wastes. I don’t think my name is important anymore so I won’t ask for yours either.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you my name anyway,” she said. “It’s Valerie. My friend and me were kidnapped by a demon he summoned. This demon is called Dantalion, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here. I think I was buried in the mud of this place but I somehow got out.”

  The wanderer nodded. “Yes, most people arrive in this place from the mud below.”

  Valerie stared at him. “Did you arrive the same way? Through the mud too?”

  The wanderer shook his head. “No, I traveled across the other worlds to get here.”

  Valerie was shocked. “There are other worlds? Worlds like this?”

  “Yes, I suspect there is an infinite array of worlds that one can go to. I have been moving across these places for a long time now.”

  Valerie understood. “If I could ask, are we in Hell?”

  The old man looked up at the sky again as he scratched his beard. “Hell? Oh you mean a place of torment. Well yes, this place could be called that.”

  “I’ve always thought Hell would be a pit of fire with demons and all that,” Valerie said. “Not a depressing cesspool like this.”

  “The planes of damnation are many. I can no longer count as to how many I have traveled to. I’m sure there are more.”

  “Wait, there are many other worlds like this?”

  “At the very least,” the wanderer said. “This particular world has many names, for it is constantly being given new names by its inhabitants, and they all come from different places themselves. One of the most common names for this plane is Desidia, otherwise known as Sloth.”

  Valerie remembered the teachings of the Bible. “Sloth? As in being lazy? As in one of the seven deadly sins?”

  “Ah, you are of that faith then? Yes, this world seems to coincide with that particular transgression. You see, the people trapped here in their own lethargy lack the will to struggle. Hence, they are swallowed up by the muck. Quite a few of them try to get out of it, but most of them fail. It is hard to overcome one’s will of just doing nothing and of abandoning all hope and goals in life. Many of them are content to just stay in the mud,” the wanderer said.

  “So is that why I can sometimes see people’s faces forming in the mud, but then they disappear after awhile?”

  “Yes, that is about right. You cannot really help them. All you can do is to observe and hope that they overcome their own indolence and break free. But alas, very, very few ever do.”

  Valerie placed her hands on her hips and sighed. “This whole thing, it just isn’t fair. What have I done to deserve being sent to this mud pit of a hell?”

  “I asked myself that same question many times when I was stricken with illness and despair back on earth,” the old man said. “You see, I worshipped all the gods, I always paid attention to their rituals and followed their commandments. Yet I was struck down by a horrid illness and I lost my job, and my possessions. I asked myself what had I done to deserve such cruelty. Ultimately, the wrongs done upon me were redressed but the central question remained.”

  “So you didn’t get an answer then?”

  The old man shook his head in disappointment. “No, not really. One of the gods rewarded me for my patience and will, but I still ask myself the question as to why they had done such wrong to me in the first place. That is why I wander across the underworlds after my death. I am seeking that answer.”

  Valerie sensed that the man reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. “I hope that question gets answered too but right now, I got bigger worries. There’s a friend of mine, his name is Paul. He was also taken by that demon and I’m very afraid that he may be stuck in the mud here too. I need to get him away from there.”

  The old man closed his eyes for a moment. “Ah yes, I can sense your feelings. They are quite powerful and emanate from you. This is clearly a sign that you are not of the dead. You have been taken here not as a path in your afterlife, but rather because you have been imprisoned here.”

  “Is this why I’m still wearing the clothes that I wore when that demon was summoned?”

  “Yes, you have been transported with not just your body and soul, but with your possessions as well. That gives you certain advantages over the other denizens of these worlds.”

  Valerie’s heart began to race. “Then there’s still a chance that Paul might still be alive somewhere! Please, can you help me find him? I’ll do anything! I’ll gladly give up my life for his!”

  The old man placed a palm up in the air as a gesture of patience. “As much as I would like to help you, it is not up to me, for I have not known your friend during the time of my life. Only you can find him. For you are the one most familiar to him.”

  Valerie’s lips trembled. She felt like retching due to the foul stench in the air, but she had to stay focused. Her whole world was only inches away from being shattered. She didn’t want to live if she couldn’t get Paul back. She had come through so far now to just give it up. That’s what kept her going. “Please, kind sir. You’ve got to tell me how. How do I find him across seven worlds?”

  “Close your eyes,” the wanderer said. “I shall tell you a tale. I once had a lovely second wife. She was my favorite. I still remember her exquisite brown eyes and her addictive smile. She had this most profound laugh that still echoes in my mind. That is what you have to do. You must remember your love closely. You must recall the slightest scent of his breath. The warmth of his body on a cold, cold night. Every memory you have of him must be brought forth into your thoughts. You must remember what his aura is like. You must imagine him but standing beside you, ready to bask yourself in his protective embrace. You must feel him.”

  Valerie closed her eyes. She used her memories of Paul. Of their last few nights together, she remembered that he would constantly lean over the numerology charts as they pieced it together, in order to successfully summon the demon Dantalion. She remembered the little things, of how he would constantly adjust his glasses in a subconscious manner, whenever they were on a verge of a breakthrough. Of the coffee in his breath when he gave h
er a kiss on the lips, when the group finally got the circumference of the thaumaturgical circle right. Paul’s ever confident smile when he would instruct the team of professional code breakers and mathematicians on how to seemingly solve an insurmountable problem. Most of all, of the time when they were both so exhausted that they slept side by side together on a cot in one of the storerooms of the museum. She could remember his quiet breaths next to her head as she snuggled up to him, his arms wrapped around her body. That was when she knew that she could sense his presence. She could even sense him calling out to her for help. Paul was clearly in distress. There was no doubt that Dantalion was tormenting him. All she needed to do now was to travel to the worlds of the mind and she was sure that she would find him.

  When she finally opened her eyes, she saw that the old man was still standing there, smiling at her. “Did you finally sense him?” he asked.

  Valerie nodded. “Yes. I can feel him calling out for help. He isn’t in this world, though. I think he’s in another. The demon hated him so much and it sensed Paul’s affection for me. Dantalion wanted him to suffer by knowing that I would be worlds away from him and there would be no way for Paul to help me either.”

  The wanderer clasped his hands together. “Well done, mortal. You have taken your first steps in learning about these myriad worlds and of the paths you must take. That is exactly how I was able to track down my second wife in these wastes. I merely kept going until the force of her aura became stronger. The moment I could sense getting closer to her presence, I knew I was on the right track.”

  Valerie walked up to him and put her hand on his bony shoulder. “Will you help me? I am not familiar with these places and I could use a guide.”

  The old man laughed. “You are the first interesting person I have met in these dismal planes in a long, long time. I find your story to be most intriguing. Since I have nothing better to do I shall say yes to your offer for help. I have some knowledge of these worlds and that may prove useful to your quest. Yes, it is most interesting.”

  Valerie was so happy, she nearly hugged him. Tears of joy began to form on her eyelids. “I can’t help but thank you enough—”

  At that moment, she heard a large bellow in the distance. As she turned around, she saw the most grotesque thing she had ever witnessed. Towering above them, no more than a few hundred yards away, was some sort of gigantic being. It looked vaguely like a man since it had a head shaped like one. The creature must have been several hundred feet tall. It was walking on bird like legs that resembled gigantic tree stumps. The giant’s body was shaped like a smooth egg and its human like head was perched above it. It had no arms to speak of and it looked like the stuff of nightmares. The monster twisted its face in their direction and stared at them with eyes the size of satellite dishes. The creature then turned until the rear of its oval torso was in front of them. At that instant, the egg-shaped rear that was the size of a small building developed a crack along its spine. The lower crack crumbled away like a torn shell and a gigantic hole was visible in the creature’s rear end. Within seconds, a stream of nauseous, grey colored excrement began to pour out of the monster’s anal cavity, and the pile of sludge moistened the low lying mounds nearby.

  The wanderer merely thrust his lower lip forward in a gesture of bored resignation as the stench of the miasma cascaded all around them. “That is Peor. He is a creature who regularly replenishes the mud of this place from his own buttocks. He was apparently worshipped as a god once.”

  Valerie couldn’t stand it any longer. She bent down and began to throw up, her own orange bile mixing in with the endless, grayish mud of the land.

  7. Hearts of Darkness

  Louisiana

  It was just after lunch when Tyrone Gatlin would finally get the chance to board the riverboat. The rains had been falling hard over the dark skies since early morning. The mist shrouded visibility was not good enough to cast off today. Everyone on the boat except for the captain was apparently holed up in the inside of the main deck, so the coast was clear.

  He had tried to get a chance to speak with the captain for the past few days, but the ship’s first officer, a surly looking man named JJ Glanton, told him they weren’t taking any new crew or passengers. Glanton then told him to shove off. Tyrone then tried to just walk across the plank from the pier to the side of the main deck just yesterday, but he was stopped by two men armed with AR-15 rifles. They “politely” told him if he took one step onto the deck, they would riddle him full of holes, so he turned around and walked back.

  Tyrone had spent a few more days with Monique and her daughters. He later learned that her husband had left them years ago and she was working as a waitress to support Moesha and Shani before the Glooming happened. Monique soon experienced what she called a possession, when one of the loas entered her body and spoke to her soul. It was at that point when she became one of the voodoo queens in the community of survivors of the sunken city of Shreveport. The two girls took a liking to Tyrone, they soon confided their personal stories and invited him on their fishing trips to get food for the community. At the last dinner they had, Shani even asked her mother up front if he could stay with them for good. Tyrone smiled and thanked them for the offer, but his god had other plans for him. He could see that there was a glint in Monique’s eyes, as if she was silently pleading with him to stay and live a somewhat safe life with them. But in the end, his restless dreams kept telling him to get on the boat. So by the third day, he was finally determined enough to either be accepted as part of the crew, or die trying.

  It had already been a few hours since he stood behind one of the shacks beside the boat. Tyrone had wedged himself at the side of the wall, behind a few crates. It was an ideal spot to observe the actions of the ship’s crew without being noticed. He could vaguely see the riverboat’s name painted in black bold letters near the bow of the hull. The ship was called the Nimrod. Streams of rainwater continuously poured down from the corrugated steel overhang of the shack, as Tyrone looked out at where the boat was. He could see that the guard posted at the upper deck looked miserable. The man kept pulling at his raincoat to tug it away from his shivering body as he stood exposed to the elements. Tyrone pitied the guy for having to stand watch out in the pouring rain. The man’s floppy hat was drooping down to the point where it covered his eyes, it clearly had been soaked all the way through. After fifteen minutes of just standing there, the guard shouted out a curse as he turned around and started to walk towards the cabin just underneath the wheelhouse.

  That was it. Tyrone immediately made his way to the edge of the pier. After making one last check to make sure that the coast was clear, he rapidly moved towards the gangplank and started to stride across of it. The wooden ramp was slippery and he nearly fell into the water, but he flung his arms out in the air in order to right himself and barely succeeded. Just as he got on board, Tyrone then ran sideways along the rain soaked main deck until he got to where the white painted ladder was. He quickly made his way up before crouching down beside the railings. The upper deck looked clear so he sneaked around until he made it to the rearward side of the cabin. It was there that he saw another set of wooden ladders that led up to the topmost compartment of the riverboat, the wheelhouse.

  Tyrone used his hands to climb up the second ladder. Just as he made it to the back of the wheelhouse, he realized there was a man sitting beside the rear door that led into it. It was Glanton. The first officer had been sitting on a stool just underneath the overhanging roof, so Tyrone was unable to notice him until he got up to the third level of the boat.

  Glanton stood up. The front part of his poncho was wet but the rest of his clothes were more or less dry. He was a gaunt, sullen looking man and the first thing one would notice was his sunken cheeks and piercing blue eyes. Glanton’s light brown, shoulder length hair was tied down in a pony tail at the back of his head. In his right hand was a .45 Kimber 1911 pistol, and he was aiming squarely at Tyrone’s direction.

&
nbsp; Tyrone let out a big sigh as he raised his hands in the air. The howling wind and rain had soaked his clothes to the point where he didn’t even notice that he had started to piss down his pants. It looked like he was about to fail his god.

  Glanton spat out a wad of chewing tobacco which almost hit Tyrone, but the falling raindrops intercepted it and the spit became a brownish puddle on the roof of the upper deck. “I told you, boy. I told you nevah to come on this boat. Are you deaf or somethin’? The men on this boat told you that if you ever step foot on it, you’d die. Looks like we get to make good on that promise, you dumb coon!”

  “Glanton! Bring him in here,” a husky voice from the inside of the wheelhouse called out.

  Glanton turned and hissed, but he kept his gun aimed at Tyrone. “What do you wanna meet him for?”

  The voice from the wheelhouse became louder in tone. “That’s an order, goddamn it! Do as I say and put your gun away!”

  Glanton grimaced as he stepped sideways, turned, and then opened the door to the wheelhouse. “Get in there, you stupid monkey,” he said to Tyrone as he put the pistol back beneath his poncho.

  Tyrone put his hands back down as he walked into the wheelhouse. The first thing he noticed was the ornate wooden ship’s wheel. It was made of black lacquered wood and had beautiful carvings on its ten spokes. The wheelhouse was the second tallest structure of the riverboat, just below the smoke stacks. It was also the smallest building and looked like nothing more than a wooden booth. Tyrone stood at the foot of the door for a few seconds before he was rudely shoved further inside, so that Glanton could stand right behind him. Tyrone knew for a fact Glanton still had his gun ready in case of any trouble, so he didn’t protest.

  There was a man sitting on a high chair at the side of the cabin who had been looking at some maps on a small wooden table. The man swiveled the chair sideways so that he faced both Tyrone and Glanton. The captain was a bear of a man, Tyrone estimated him to be over six feet five inches tall if he stood fully upright. The man was barrel chested and wore a biker t-shirt. While his large arms had once been muscular, the advancement of age made them flabby. Tyrone could still sense that he had tremendous reserves of strength in those limbs, and he sure didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any trouble that would arise.