Fawkes felt them sizzle and melt from the heat, his mind reeling. He prayed for unconsciousness, but it would not come. Prayer brought no relief in hell.
As the Devil then reached into his body cavity and threw the rest of the organs into the fire, saving his still-beating heart for last, Fawkes felt with perfect clarity every agony, every pop and rupture as his guts roasted in the flames. The sickly sweet smell of burning offal filled the air.
Satan, the devil, the Prince of Darkness, then slashed a scythe-like claw across Fawkes’ shoulders and upper thighs and dismembered him completely. Another slash across his neck and his head flew from his shoulders, a fountain of bright red blood spewing from his jugular veins and carotid arteries. Fawkes felt the jarring thump as his head hit the ground, and yet could still feel his lifeblood flowing from his dismembered torso on the hot ash-covered ground.
Still, Fawkes did not lose consciousness. Death eluded him.
Satan collected six pieces of steel rebar from the rubble of the Hall of Injustice and planted their ends in the smoldering ground. He picked up pieces of Fawkes’ body, each yet writhing in agony, and impaled them one by one on the steel spikes.
Satan saved the head of Guy Fawkes for last and, as it moaned and screamed in pain, the devil smiled. “Fawkes, you shall suffer for your insolence here, until my Hall of Injustice has been rebuilt. Think upon what you have done, Guy Fawkes, and remember, remember.”
Satan spread his wings and took to the air then. Far below, the body parts that were Guy Fawkes still wriggled; his mouth still screamed from his severed head atop one steel pole.
*
Around the smoking pit where the Hall of Injustice once stood, mourners held a candlelight vigil for the victims of the explosion that destroyed the tallest tower in New Hell. They pined for the missing, the dying, and the dead now resting in bags and pieces in the Undertaker’s Mortuary.
The Undertaker was busier than ever, sorting morsels of the newly dead. Even busier than the time Erra and the Seven wreaked havoc on the Downward Road, wantonly slaying the damned before they could reach the gates of hell.
Through it all, Guy Fawkes remained: wailing, moaning, suffering his fate.
Some souls, come to gawk, spit upon him; some threw rocks; some cursed his name. He wept on his stake, seeing what torment he had wrought upon so many helpless damned.
Every now and again, a lawyer, librarian, scribe or secretary would dig his or her way out of the rubble. Then there would be much rejoicing among those who waited, and hoped, and who found their loved ones again.
Joy is short-lived in hell, however. Six days, six hours, and six minutes after its destruction, a new Hall of Injustice materialized atop the ruins. Red polished stone rose proud again and windows gleamed bright, even in His Satanic Majesty’s penthouse, where no windows had ever remained intact before.
Satan looked upon his tower with pride, and saw that it was beautiful, standing precisely where the old tower had stood, crushing under its majestic weight the dismembered remains of Guy Fawkes and all the mourners holding vigil for the dead and missing damned, promptly sending them all to the Undertaker.
Then the rubble beneath the tower gave way, and the tower settled with a tremor and a bump and a thump. At this, all the penthouse windows shattered in a cacophony of breaking glass.
“Oh, hell,” lamented Satan.
Theo Khthonios
by
Scott Oden
The spear bites low and deep, slipping between bronze and leather to skewer his hip. He stumbles. The enemy surges forward. A wicker shield catches him off balance; a second spear shatters on the brow of his Corinthian helmet. “Zeus Savior and Ares!” he bellows; faces loom over him – cruel Asiatics with curled and blood-blasted beards, lips peeled back in snarls of hate. They had paid dearly for this. Oh, yes. They had paid the butcher’s bill, a hecatomb of blood and flesh for every man among them. He falls to his knees, hears his own men cry out his name: “Leonidas!”
Time slows. A tracery of clouds veil the face of the sun, creating bands of light and shadow across the stony face of Mount Kallidromos. Colors flare and sharpen: the purple of Persian tunics, the gleam of scale and bronze, the warm chestnut of leather … all nearly hidden by a pall of blood. Time’s flow resumes with a scream of rage.
Leonidas struggles. He can’t raise his shield. The twenty-pound aspis hangs like a dead weight on the end of his arm. Instead, he lashes out with the broken haft of his spear. A Mede in a fish-scale corselet crashes into the mud before him. Blood gouts as Leonidas plunges the butt-spike into the fallen man’s throat. He glimpses a hennaed beard, the gleam of gold. An Immortal no more. The Spartan’s gaze holds a moment longer, then he glances up … in time to see the weapon that will write his doom: a Persian akinakes, its blade notched and slick with blood. Greek blood. The blood of his allies, of his kinsmen, of his precious Three Hundred. A gory hand snatches at the neck of his breastplate; iron rasps on bronze as the akinakes pierces the hollow of Leonidas’ throat.
There is one cold moment of searing pain. Leonidas tries to speak, but his voice is silenced by a foaming tide of blood; he tries to spit in the Persian’s eye, but he cannot draw breath. And as he hangs there, his life’s blood pumping from severed arteries, King Leonidas of Sparta recalls words spoken over a meager breakfast, words to bolster Spartan resolve: “Eat hearty,” he told his grim-faced Spartiates, his valiant Three Hundred. “Eat hearty, for tonight we dine in Hades!”
And so they did. That night, the night of their deaths at the hands of the Mede – the night they died defending the narrow pass of Thermopylae – Leonidas and his Spartans met on the banks of the River Styx. Beneath a storm-wracked sky they dined on black broth and loaves of ashen bread. With a smile, Leonidas recalled the broth’s tastelessness; in that moment, he apprehended the nature of this place called Tartaros, with its endless wars and opportunities for glory: it was a Spartan paradise.
The dead king of Sparta stood now at a table topped with sand and rock, gazing over the landscape it represented. His companion, Dienekes, had spent many long hours scouting the surrounding countryside himself and directing the efforts of the Skiritai – the cadre of scouts who were the eyes of the Spartan army. This map was the culmination of Dienekes’ efforts, its creation aided by one of the new helots, a young foreigner clad in gray wool who died at a place called Verdun.
Leonidas studied the lay of the land with a critical eye. He had no frame of reference, no sun or stars to tell him which direction was north; instead, he let the nomenclature of the phalanx guide him: the Stygian Mere guarded their backs, its stinking fens nourished by the hateful waters of the Styx; on his shield side, a few leagues off sprouted a tangled and mist-girt forest, where the savage Blue Men held sway. On his spear side, Leonidas’ spies had discovered a fortified citadel rising at the head of a long valley, held by men who called themselves Turks. And straight ahead, through country gashed by chasms and haunted by all manner of brigands and masterless shades, the dead of Argos made their camp.
A slow smile twisted Leonidas’ thin lips. He stroked his spade-like beard and nodded. As they were in life, so too would they be in death … sparring partners for his restless Spartiates, spear fodder for their newfound helots and perioikoi, the infernal dwellers round about. Perhaps not a glorious campaign, but a necessary one. Even here – especially here – his Spartans needed practice in the art of the spear; they needed the Argives–
The harsh and dissonant blare of a salpinx scattered Leonidas’ thoughts. He stirred from the table, turned to the flap of his tent as Dienekes appeared. Twenty years his junior, Dienekes had been his eromenos as a youth; they were companions, now. Shield-brothers standing shoulder to shoulder in the phalanx.
“What goes?” Leonidas said.
The younger man, stripped to the waist and sweating in the unrelenting heat, indicated the gates of the Spartan camp with a jerk of his head. “A herald has come.”
“Who from?�
��
Dienekes shrugged. “He calls for you.”
With a deepening frown, Leonidas followed his young companion out into the Stygian afternoon. The sky overhead was the color of bronze left too long at the mercy of the elements, and the air around them stank of ash and gall. Sulfuric clouds and the smoke of a thousand fires scudded low over the horizon. The Spartan king heard a distant rumble, like the iron wheels of Hades’ own chariot thundering down the flinty banks of the Acheron.
The Spartan camp stood atop the crest of a low hill. The battle squires who were with them at Thermopylae directed the efforts of a new crop of helots, men from wildly different lands who had wept at the sight of the lambda scrawled on Spartan shields – the inverted ‘V’ of Lakedaemon. “I have searched for you, good king!” one had said, clutching Leonidas’ knees in shameful ecstasy. “For three hundred years I’ve scoured Tartaros for some sign of you!”
Strange, Leonidas thought. By his reckoning they had been under the earth for a little more than a fortnight….
He and Dienekes passed these same helots struggling to erect defensive walls under the tutelage of a cadre of perioikoi from Greater Greece, engineers who hailed from a place called Genoa. They worked with stone grubbed from the hard ground and timbers cut under the watchful eyes of the Blue Men. The wall would follow the natural slope of the hill, the engineers said, to create a glacis that would stymie potential attackers. Not that Leonidas planned to afford his enemies time to mount such an assault – once enough arms were scavenged from nearby battlefields, the omens taken and libations made, he would lead his Spartans out against the Argives, slaughter them, then move on to the Turks.
The salpinx bleated once more, and as Leonidas neared the gates of the encampment – little more than a barricaded ox cart – he heard a man calling his name: “Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, come forth!”
Nimbly, the king of Sparta leapt atop the gate, Dienekes in his wake. Two men waited outside the encampment, a herald and his salpinx-bearing slave.
“I am here,” Leonidas said without preamble. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
The herald was clad in the manner of an Athenian aristocrat; he was a spindly-legged fellow, small and goatish with a dark face and a bristly-black beard. He stared at Leonidas as though taken aback. “Y-you – You are King Leonidas?”
“Did I not just say as much?”
The herald cleared his throat. “I am Simonides of Keos, Lord, and I … I have come to bring you before the ephors!”
“We have ephors?” Dienekes muttered.
“Apparently so. Who are these ephors, Simonides of Keos, and what do they want with me?”
“As above, so below, Lord. The ephors are peers of Sparta, and what they want is your obedience. Will you answer their summons?”
Leonidas’ brow furrowed. In the sunlit world of the living, the Spartan ephors, a council of five Spartiates elected annually to counter the power of the city’s two kings, rarely summoned him – or any citizen of Lakedaemon, for that matter – in order to sing his praises to the heavens. They were quarrelsome, motivated by base politics and personal gain, and they had been a thorn in his living side since the death of his brother, Kleomenes, paved the way for his accession to the throne. As above, so below? Leonidas guessed as much.
“Will you answer their summons, Lord?”
“We will,” Leonidas replied. He turned to Dienekes. “Assemble the Three Hundred. We must pay our respects to our ephors.” Dienekes nodded and turned, bellowing the order to assemble. Instantly, a sense of urgency replaced the relative calm of the camp as the Spartiates donned burnished greaves and cuirasses, drew on their helmets and took up their spears. Though they lacked the signature scarlet cloaks of the Spartan soldier, the lambda scratched on their broad shields left little doubt as to their identity.
Simonides raised a hand, looking nervous, his voice all but lost to the sudden clamor arising behind the barricade. “L-lord? They called for you, alone.”
“Alone? Were you Spartan, Simonides of Keos, then you’d know our laws hold that no king may travel unattended by his hippeis, his guard of honor. These…” Leonidas’ proud gesture encompassed the three hundred warriors massing inside the gate, “…are mine.”
*
In column by twos, Leonidas led his Spartans into the chasm-riddled country between their camp and that of the Argives, following a track that bore ever to the left as it snaked into the blasted highlands; with each step, the Spartan king saw reminders that they marched through a landscape shattered by eternal war. Pallid dust caked the corroded remnants of chariots and war-wagons, providing meager cerements for the bones of hapless soldiers and would-be conquerors alike. How many shades had arisen from the mortal grave to find new and infernal purpose as foot soldiers of Hades? How many nursed the same desire that thundered in Leonidas’ own breast – to build and subjugate and grind the bones of his enemies under heel? And how many had these desires abrogated by a swift blade, a spear thrust, an arrow hissing from the brazen-black sky? Only Hades, lord of the underworld, knew such answers….
The Spartans marched to a lively tune skirling from a reed flute; they marched oblivious to the drifts of unburied bone, ignoring eidolons carved of rock and decorated with the skulls of the defeated. They glanced indifferently at trophy mounds surmounted by altars dedicated to a thousand different gods of war. The Three Hundred marched like jaded spectators who had seen every horror, every atrocity, every conceivable cruelty one man could inflict upon another.
“They fear nothing,” Simonides remarked, glancing over his shoulder. The smaller man started at every shadow, averted his eyes from the most gruesome of the altars.
Leonidas followed his gaze. “What is there left to fear? We are, all of us, dead men in truth.”
“‘We count it death to falter, not to die,’” the smaller man quoted.
The Spartan king was silent for a moment. “Who were you, Simonides of Keos? Your name is familiar, yet you do not bear the aspect of a man of violence.”
“I was a poet.”
“Were you good?”
“Good enough to compose your epitaph, Lord.” Simonides’ face flushed with pride as he put his hand to his breast and spoke with lyrical flourish: “Go tell the Spartans, O stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie!”
Leonidas nodded. “Adequate. I gather our allies eventually drove the Mede from Hellas?”
“At Salamis a month after you fell, then the following year at Plataea,” Simonides said. “Thermopylae was the war-cry of the Greeks.” The poet looked askance at Leonidas. “There is a name you must commit to memory, Lord. That name is Ephialtes of Trachis.”
“Who is he?”
“He is the man who betrayed you. The man who showed Xerxes a path around the Hot Gates. I have no doubt he, too, resides in Tartaros, should you wish to seek him out.”
The Spartan king’s eyes sharpened to points, like whetted knives. “My thanks, Simonides. I will remember the name of Ephialtes, you may count upon it.”
They continued on in silence. Sandaled feet raised a pall of dust as the road ascended alongside a ragged gorge, its bottom given over to shadow. Thorn and black ivy clung to the side of the chasm. Leonidas felt a sense of familiarity, as though he’d seen this place before – even as he felt the unmistakable sensation of scrutiny.
“We’re being watched,” Leonidas said as Dienekes came abreast of him.
“I feel it, too.” Dienekes indicated the gorge with a nod. “From down there.”
“The Ataphoi,” Simonides replied, shivering despite the stifling heat. “The shades of the unburied. Nigh upon animals, they are – and drawn to this place, though none know why. I shouldn’t think they would dare attack a party of this magnitude. Still, it is fortunate we are near our destination.”
“How near?”
“A parasang, perhaps. Maybe less.”
Leonidas nodded. “Dienekes, pass the word. Simonides, have
your slave blow a tune on his horn. Long and loud.”
Simonides gestured to his salpinx-bearer, who filled his lungs and loosed a thunderous blast. Stones rattled down. Echo caught the voice of the salpinx and carried it deep into the gorge where the Ataphoi quailed and clapped hands to ears. And in answer, there came from on high the brazen roar of a trumpet.
Leonidas increased his pace; armor rattled as his Spartans did the same. The path upward became a flight of rough-hewn steps which carried them to the crest of a plateau. It was an acropolis, in a manner of speaking, treeless and wreathed in smoke. A circular temple dominated the plateau, its walls and columns pitted and stained black from countless attempts to burn it to the ground.
“Welcome to Caeadas, Lord,” Simonides said with a breathless flourish.
Caeadas. The eerie hint of familiarity made sense, now. It resembled mortal Caeadas, in the heart of Mount Taygetus – Leonidas had been to that place many times as a living king; he had stood at the lip of the gorge and presided over the execution of criminals. There, too, was where Sparta disposed of the weak, the unfit, the deformed. How many babes had he left on the cold and unyielding rocks? How many had he left to the Fates?
Nor was Leonidas ignorant of the implication: if this site served a similar function, the ephors had summoned him to the place of judgment and of slaughter. His face settled into a grim mask as he shouldered past Simonides and made his way to the temple.
Knots of Greeks milled about the plateau. Some wore antique armor of heavy bronze, blood-streaked and dented, while others were clad in corselets of linen. Leonidas saw a profusion of helmets and crests: boars’ tooth, Corinthian and Chalcidian; some like flat-brimmed kettles and others like Phrygian caps of hammered bronze. Men of other races and nations mingled among the Greeks, as well. The Spartan king glimpsed Persians with their curled beards, though clad in unfamiliar robes; he saw Nubians and Egyptians and pale men with ruddy complexions. And with each group stood a fellow clad after the same fashion as Simonides, in the manner of Athenian aristocracy – some read silently from rolled papyri while others conversed in low voices with the men around them, like advocates preparing their cases.
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