by Tim Hawken
“Aye, Aye Captain,” he said.
Mary led the way across the scorching sands.
“There aren’t any sandworms out here,” she said, once we were out of earshot of Smithy. “There’s nothing out here. There never has been since the dawn of time.”
“I know,” I smiled at her. “I just wanted to keep him on his toes. He likes sleeping too much.”
She shook her head and we continued to march in silence toward the sharp light of the Chinvar Bridge. The air around us hummed with energy as we pressed forward. I kept my eyes on my feet, to stop me from going blind from the brilliance ahead. We almost walked headlong into the monastery. It was made from plain grey brick with a red tile roof. The windows had no glass in them, and were black within. Now that we were right next to the Chinvar Bridge, the surrounding glow seemed to have subsided somewhat. I could now see it was but a finger-width beam, pointing arrow straight into the endless clouds of Hell above. I had no idea how you could use it to climb up into the sky, but right now it was a distant obstacle. For now, we had to enter this monastery, unprepared for the unknown within. We circled around the building walls and found the entry. There was an archway that led to the interior; no door blocked the way. I started to walk inside, but Mary stopped me.
“We need to be cautious,” she said. “Zoroaster is a powerful and intelligent man. We have to be ready for something difficult.”
“She’s right,” John agreed. “Maybe one of us should stay out here, just in case. Three can go in.”
“Mary, Judas and I will go,” I told John. “You sit tight for now. If anything happens, or you’re concerned we’re taking too long, then come and find us.”
I paused and turned back to Mary: “Ladies first,” I said, waving her through the entrance.
She stepped through; Judas followed right behind.
“We’ll see you when we have the keys,” I said to John and walked into the archway.
TWELVE
I WALKED FORWARD IN BLINDING DARKNESS. I tried to ignite some fire elements to shed some light in the room, but they wouldn’t mould together. It was as if the air inside the room was stopping them from bonding. Everything felt slippery. I couldn’t see the others at all, so moved ahead in darkness. I kept walking for what seemed like hours. Surely I would be at the inner circle by now, I thought. I yelled out to Mary and Judas, but there was no answer. Finally I saw a faint glow ahead. It was a blue-grey hue and grew brighter as I moved forward. I realized it was a door. I pushed through it without hesitation, thinking it would lead me to the inner circle. I stepped into a softly lit bedroom. Rose petals were scattered on the floor in front of me, leading to a soft bed. Candles were lit all around the room, and the air smelled of sweet perfume. It was the same perfume Charlotte used to wear.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. Angelic blue eyes met mine. I stood back to behold a grinning Charlotte, dressed in her favorite blue jeans and white singlet.
“Surprise!” she said, laughing.
My heart stopped. It was my love. It was her! She wrapped me in a warm hug. I just stood there astounded.
“I’ve missed you!” she whispered in my ear and then kissed me on the lips. “I knew you’d come though; Zoroaster told me. He sent me to you.”
I pushed her away, bewildered.
“Where are we?” I asked, suspicious that this was a trick.
“We’re in Purgatory, silly,” Charlotte said, tapping me on the nose with her finger. “You crossed the Chinvar Bridge. We’re here, together at last!” She moved in and kissed me again.
She smelled so good. She tasted just like I remembered, her mouth soft with strawberry lip-gloss. I kissed her back, inhaling her scent. She was warm against me. Relief flooded into me. She was OK. She loved me. It was her. We were together! I hugged her tight and started crying with happiness.
“Lotte!” I cried into her neck. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. Oh God, it is you.”
She clung onto my back.
“I know, baby, I know. It’s okay. I’ve been waiting for you. I’d wait for you forever. Now we can stay here, happy!”
I looked her in the eyes again. Happy? Happy didn’t even begin to describe it! Joy, elation, relief and love all surged inside me. Nothing mattered any more. I had what I was searching for. Asmodeus, Hell, Heaven, none of that mattered now I had Charlotte back.
“The others!” I blurted. “Where are the others?” I pulled back from her slightly.
Charlotte clung back onto me and pushed me slowly back toward the bed.
“It’s okay, Michael,” she said, kissing me more intensely. “They came out before you. I’ve asked them to give us some space. We can go and see them once we’ve had a little time together.” She pushed me on the chest and I feel back onto silk pillows. The soft candlelight wrapped around the image of my gloriously beautiful wife as she teasingly peeled off her singlet. I moved to kiss her supple skin, my tongue gliding up to her neck where I showered her in tender kisses.
“I missed you,” I whispered. “I missed you so much, Lotte.”
“I missed you too, my darling Michael. I love you,” she said, wriggling on top of me, pushing my shirt over my head.
Hands started pulling my boots off as I lost myself in the warm press of Charlotte’s body.
Abruptly, the hands grabbed me by the feet and started pulling. I was wrenched off the bed. Charlotte screamed behind me. I twisted around, trying to get away from the set of hands. I started flailing, reaching out to Charlotte to pull me back. She sat on the bed, crying, just out of reach. I turned and kicked wildly at the hands. I was screaming and kicking, delirious with rage. Finally the hands let go. I got to my feet and looked around. I was back in the darkness. I could still make out the faint light of the blue-grey door. I started to run back towards it, but was tackled by a phantom. We rolled on the ground. I started punching up at it.
“Stop it!” I heard a familiar voice yell. “Stop it, Michael. It’s me.”
I opened my eyes and saw a bleeding Bishop John sitting on top of me panting.
“It’s me, Michael. It’s John. It was a deception. It wasn’t real.”
I twisted out from underneath him.
“No!” I screamed. “It was real! Let me go back. It was Charlotte!”
“It was a lie,” I heard Mary’s voice say behind me.
I turned to see her and Judas standing in front of an egg-shaped case which was filled with green gel. Floating inside were two dull silver keys.
I dropped to my knees, my head in my hands.
“No,” I said weakly, tears welling inside me. “Lotte. No.”
THIRTEEN
I SAT ON THE GROUND WITH MY HEAD ON MY KNEES, weeping. It was the like wound of having been torn away from Charlotte had been opened again and my soul was bleeding out.
Mary came to my side and started rubbing me on the back, consoling me.
“I know, Michael, I know. We all had to face a deep desire we held within. Zoroaster always said that the most beautiful lies are the ones that cause the most chaos once revealed. But no matter how beautiful, in the end they are just lies, Michael. They are not the true way things are. You will be back with her soon, I promise you that. It must have been even harder for you than us. Judas and I have each other now. Your aching longing for her is stronger than anything we could have experienced in there.”
I felt numb. I was with her. I held her in my arms. It was all that I had wanted with every breath since I met her. Burying my head in my hands, I tried to shake the feeling of hopelessness. It had been so real. Trying to gather my senses I looked up to the others.
“How did you find me?” I managed to ask.
“I heard shouts from outside,” John said softly, kneeling in front of me. “I could hear Judas and Mary calling, but I couldn’t hear you. I knew something was wrong, so I came inside. My most urgent desire at that moment was find you, so I suppose it overshadowed any other visions that may have ap
peared to me. I searched and found a blue light leading into a room. I looked inside and saw you, Michael. I saw the bliss on your face and almost left you, but I knew it couldn’t be real. I’m sorry I had to pull you out, but reality is always more precious than illusion.”
John rested his hand on my knee. I knew he was right. Despite this, it didn’t make me feel any better. I sighed. How could I have been fooled so easily? I had wanted it so badly to be true that it had blinded me to reality.
I stood up slowly. John helped me to my feet. I put my hand on his arm to steady myself. There was still a task to be done.
“I’m glad you pulled me out of there, John. As happy as I was in that moment, you’re right, it was a lie. Better you got me early than if I had been even deeper into the illusion. The true Charlotte is still out there, waiting. It’s her happiness that I truly want more than anything else.”
“This is the essence of true love,” John said to me. “Giving all that you can without asking anything in return.”
I looked into his giving eyes. He had saved me. I owed him.
Mary came to my side and held my hand. It felt good to be comforted by someone who understood the pain of my loss. My heart was still heavy, though.
Judas was circling around the egg-shaped case, which sat in the center of the small temple interior. He was studying it at a short distance, looking to see if he could find any niches or cracks that could open a way within. The case itself was almost as tall as Judas, and appeared to be made entirely of thin glass. The oval case balanced precariously on its curved base on a small, raised circular disc of stone. A clear green fluid filled the egg; tiny bubbles of air floated in place within the gel. Right in the middle were the keys. They didn’t look like much. They were about the size of any normal key and a flat silver color.
“I can’t see any way inside,” Judas said, after completing a full rotation of thorough searching.
I shifted my perception to see if I could discern anything that couldn’t be noticed normally. It looked entirely different when I beheld it as an elemental whole. The case was not made up of glass; it was actually made up of water. It wasn’t frozen into ice, but was held still by a perfectly balanced arrangement of molecules. It was like an intricate house of cards. To upset even the tiniest element in the structure of the case would send it flooding down around us. The liquid inside was an ocean of dark atoms. They actually pulled any movement of light around inside them and changed it into stillness. Within, the keys shone outward brightly. They were made of a pure element I had never thought existed. It was as though I was staring into the molecules of God’s soul.
I caught a small hint of movement out of the corner of my eye.
“No!” I yelled.
I was too late. Judas had reached out and touched the case.
In an instant the water case poured over him. Instinctively I threw up a barricade of earth in a circle between the rest of us and the flood of elements. The gel of the egg washed over Judas and crashed into the floor, but was stopped by the bank I had made.
“Judas!” Mary screamed, and tried to leap over the wall of mud that protected us. John reached up and pulled her back. She tried to break free, but he hugged her tight to his chest.
Judas lay paralyzed on his back, covered in the green plasma. Spread onto the floor it was just a thin layer of fluid. They keys now sat above the puddle, on top of the circular stone disc, which had held up the case.
Mary was crying into John’s chest as he looked over to Judas’ prone body.
“Is he dead?” he mouthed softly.
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I looked closely at him with elemental vision. “His soul is intact, but the gel has washed through him. Every molecule in his body is coated in it. It’s like he’s asleep: no thoughts or emotion can form within him. It seems like he’s in a complete coma.”
Mary pulled her face away and turned to Judas, tears in her eyes.
“Can we help him?” she asked tearfully. “What can we do?”
“Let me try,” I said.
I formed a cushion of air beneath him and lifted him up, out of the fluid. Creating a flat table in front of me, I floated him over to us and placed him gently upon it. Mary rushed to his side.
“Don’t touch!” I warned her, taking her hand gently in mine. “I’ll see if I can get the gel off him first.”
Lightly, I washed elements of water over him, cleaning his exterior of the fluid. I tried to push more water inside him, to clean him internally. The gel repelled my attempts. I tried air. I even tried a light amount of fire. Nothing would move it. I peered inside him and studied the gel even more closely. It was fizzing ever so slightly all about him. It appeared to be slowly dissolving. I watched in silence, trying to gauge the rate at which it evaporated. It was impossible to come up with any guess of how long it would take. I explained to the others what I saw. Mary looked numb as she stared at him.
“A thousand years,” she said.
“Sorry?” I asked, unsure what she meant.
“It will take a thousand years,” she repeated. “Zoroaster said if you touch it, you will touch nothing else for a thousand years. That’s what he meant.”
We all stood in silence, looking at the still body of Judas. I reached out and pulled Mary close to me.
“At least he is at peace,” I said. “We will welcome him back dearly when he wakes.”
She buried her head into my chest and cried.
“I’m sorry.” I could find no other words. It was a harsh thing to have lost her brother again so soon.
John came to stand close to us.
“Let his sacrifice, not be in vain,” he said. “Let us embrace what he has given us: a chance at freedom. We now have the keys.” He pointed to them in the center of the room.
I nodded. Closing a fist of air around them I brought them to me. They were cool to touch. I handed them to Mary.
Taking a knife out of her pocket, she cut a lock of Judas’ long red hair. Threading the hair through the loop at the tip of the keys, she tied them around her neck.
“I’ll keep them safe for now,” Mary said.
“Can you help her outside?” I asked John. “I will carry Judas with us.”
“No!” Mary said, fire blazing in her eyes. “I will carry him.”
Before I could say a word, she had picked him up in her arms, and begun trudging into the outer ring.
FOURTEEN
MARY CARRIED JUDAS all the way to the helicopter. Each time we offered to help, she refused, saying “I will never leave him again.”
Smithy ran up to greet us.
“Oh thank God,” he puffed. “I was beginning to get worried you might never come back.”
“Don’t thank God, thank Judas.” I said sadly.
“Oh, no,” the pilot whispered, seeing Mary trailing behind with his body. “What happened?”
“He’s asleep,” I said. “For a thousand years.”
“How?”
“The keys were inside something Zoroaster had created that would make anyone who touched it fall into a coma. Judas was the first one to try to get them out, and this happened. He has sacrificed himself so that we can move forward.”
“Did you get the keys?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “They are hanging from Mary’s neck.”
He looked over to her.
“Is that it?” he said, furrowing his brow. “I was expecting something a bit more impressive. They look like the keys to my hangar.”
I patted Smithy on the shoulder and walked past. I was still upset at the loss of my new friend. Judas was the last person who deserved to forfeit what he had just gained. It was a small consolation that at least he would survive in the end.
Smithy fired up the helicopter and we rose into the air. I sat staring in silence as the desert flew past beneath us.
Soon, Hell city came into view and I snapped out of my desolation. I turned to look at John.
“You have proven
a trustworthy ally,” I told him “How can I repay you after we’ve exorcised the other keys from within Mary?”
“You can repay me with this,” he replied, pulling a small glass vial from inside his jacket. It was filled with the light green gel from the temple.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, suddenly angry.
“I took a sample from the floor before we left. Everything in that temple was a gift to us from a greater being. This is the answer to my prayers. I could not leave it behind.”
“But it’s dangerous! It should be destroyed! We can’t play with something we don’t understand.”
“No,” John said softly. “I do understand it. You said yourself, if you tear a soul apart so that it can embrace nothingness, it is irreversible. This is the solution to all of the souls who want to sleep. If you help me create more of this, then I can dispense it to the souls who would seek oblivion. We can make a waterfall to wash away consciousness. When they wake, they can make the choice to rejoin the living they have left behind, or chose to drink the waters of mercy once more.”
I looked at him. He seemed resolute.
“You have been thinking about this the entire way back,” I said.
“I have been thinking about this since I’ve been in Hell,” he replied. “This is a perfect solution. You cannot deny it.”
“What about our deal?” I asked. “We were going to let the souls witness the bringing down of the walls and lead them to war.”
“Some may still choose that path,” he said, “but many will fear the horrors of conflict that may await. Would you deny them the freedom to make the decision on their own?”
“I won’t hand the people in Hell a weapon to destroy themselves with. What if the wrong person gets their hands on it and attacks others?”
“You could set people to guard it,” John pressed. “You have the resources. There are fortresses that could easily keep others away. You could also use it as a weapon when you move against Heaven. It is a solution for everyone.”
“It’s too powerful!”
