PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  "You lead us to salvation," she said, puzzled.

  "I can lead no one. He was the shepherd. He thought I was the sheep." Judas lowered his head. "But instead I am the wolf." He rose. "Children, you understand God more than I ever did, more than I ever shall." He lifted the bottle of poison to his own lips.

  Lucifer appeared. "Judas!"

  Judas narrowed his eyes. "Once, long ago, you tempted me! You lead me to betray the one person who loved me! You damned me for all time. Now, I defy you and damn myself! I shall take control of my destiny for the first time in my life!"

  Before he could be stopped by demon or man, he drank the poison down.

  "No!" Lucifer cried, in a rage that filled the sky with thunder and lightning, "Damn it, this is not supposed to happen!"

  Judas dropped the crystal bottle and let it shatter on the hard wooden floor. "Go forth, Children!" he cried out as his stomach clenched. "Go forth and spread the word of the Lord. You are blessed!" He threw out the last of the powers that Lucifer had given him and a golden flame appeared over the heads of his followers, and their tongues were given the ability to speak all languages as had happened once long ago, no longer fractured into insensibility as a punishment for Babel, a new language, universal and eternal, the language of the faithful, given by one who only spoke the tongue of the damned. "Spread the word that the Lord God and His only Son have given you! Their benediction! The world shall know of this miracle!"

  Prima fell on her knees beside Judas as he collapsed. "Father!" she wept.

  "I am the Betrayer, Prima," Judas whispered, for he was now growing cold and his limbs were beginning to still, "I cannot banish the Fallen One. I am too weak. I always was."

  Prima rose and with all the new-found strength she had in her seven-year-old body, she turned towards the dark creature who had brought such great evil, spitting, "In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I command thee, be gone, Daemon!"

  Lucifer stared at her, dumbfounded and amused, "What power do you have over me, little one? I gave your foolish priest there the power to heal you!"

  Her heart filled with childlike faith and pure innocent love for God, Prima smiled. "Evil used for good is no longer evil! The Lord has touched me. I have no fear of you!"

  "Daemon, be gone in the name of Jesus Christ!" cried another voice.

  "Daemon, be gone!" came another. And another! And another!

  Lucifer threw His arms over His head and His wings folded around Him like a shroud. “This is not yet over!” He growled.

  But it was, and this was a battle not to be won, not by Him at any rate.

  There was a smell like sulfur and spice, and then, He was gone.

  Judas's head fell to the ground and he smiled, finally at peace.

  ***

  In another place, far away, a woman scuttled backwards as far as she could. She thrust the baby at the boy and spoke rapidly in her machine-gun native language. He began to cry. He was only about five or so, too little to be faced with the task at hand. "Take the baby and go,

  just go!" She urged. She didn't want him to see her degradation.

  He clung to her around the baby squalling in his arms. "No, Mama, no!"

  Mordred stared at Quentin in shock, at Lucifer's face on the shoulders of his squad mate. "What are you going to do?" he demanded.

  "What the hell do you think I'm going to do?" Quentin smirked.

  Mordred looked at the rest of his squad. Their faces reflected the image of Lucifer back at him. Lust and wickedness filled their eyes. Not one of them saw anything amiss here. They would take their turns with this woman and any other they found. They would dash the children's brains out and they would take whatever they could.

  "This is not war," Mordred whispered. "This is barbarism."

  "What's your problem, Lafayette?" Quentin smirked. "They'll be dead by dawn, all of them and we'll be heroes. They're rebels, they're the enemy! You have a duty."

  "My duty is to protect my country and my fellow soldiers, not to rape women and murderer children." Mordred snapped. "There is no honor in this! There is no chivalry!"

  Quentin laughed. "Chivalry! Who the hell do you think you are? King of England?"

  Mordred pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Quentin's head. "No. I was never King," he said, lips tight and grim.

  Quentin stared in horror at Mordred. "Morgan, what the hell do you think you are doing?"

  "Leave that woman and her kids alone," Mordred snapped. "Or I'll blow your head off." He looked at the woman. "Get out of here, now!" He ordered.

  She didn't wait for him to change his mind. She grabbed her child's hand and ran.

  Mordred closed his eyes. "First and foremost, I am a knight, and a knight does not harm the innocent, no matter what his orders."

  Someone, he couldn't see who, knocked his arm and sent the pistol flying. His blue eyes flew open in time to see Quentin's form become that of Lucifer.

  "You stupid little fool!" the Fallen One snarled.

  Mordred looked at the others and saw that they did not see the change. They saw Quentin standing there in his fury. Their own eyes flashed with rage. He would have no help there.

  "I shall have your heart fed to my hounds," Lucifer snarled.

  "I care not!" Mordred spat, back. His voice had regained the accent that it had once had, his disguised glamor fading as the devil withdrew His protection. "Thou hast dictated my whole life, made me into a failure, a traitor to everything I believed in. Once I was a knight. Once I

  was a prince. Once I could have been a king. But thou twisted a dagger in my heart and perverted everything I tried to do. For once, Mordred La Fey shall be a Pendragon in nobility!"

  He launched himself at Lucifer, though to the astonished soldiers surrounding him, it seemed that it was Corporal Quentin that fell roughly to the ground.

  Lucifer, beneath Mordred's raging form, laughed viciously, and said, "You are a fool, Mordred. You shall know the true meaning of agony!"

  Mordred found that he held his knife in his hand, and in the fierce anger that had driven him mad a thousand years ago, he brought it down, cleaving his enemy's heart in two.

  Lucifer cried out and vanished.

  Corporal Adam Marcus Quentin lay dead beneath Mordred, never even knowing what had happened.

  12—Loki Afterward

  Loki lowered his wings, drew them back into himself, and faced the crowd. He opened his mouth to speak but a new perplexity in the air caught the breath in his throat. "Odin," he said, quietly. “You;re here, I can feel you.”

  "Loki," Odin greeted, not yet visible, but his voice was warm, and came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Loki, you go against your nature by defying the evil that you were sent to do. What mischief is this, Trickster?”

  Loki spread his hands, in feigned helplessness. "I like this world too much to bring about its end, All-Father." He smiled, cockily. "That's all it is."

  "Is it, Loki?" Odin asked. "Is it?"

  Loki shrugged, "What else could it be?"

  There was a swirl in the air, that became the image of a smiling Odin, who came to his foster-brother's side. The crowd parted for him as one would for a king. They did not know him, but no one dared touch him. "Loki Shape-Shifter, this is the man I fell in love with and brought into my home. This is the man whom I made a blood pledge to. I know you, Loki, and I know what you will not admit. Live your life in this world. Let the fire in your blood extinguish itself in love and joy. When, at last, you tire of mortality, you will have a place amongst the Gods. Asgard awaits you, Brother and all is forgiven. Ragnarok is come and gone, Loki. Our world is over. Don't waste this second chance you have been given." He took Loki's chin in his calloused palm, and pressed their foreheads together in a brotherly bond, “You have been missed, but humankind is short lived. I can wait so small a time to have laughter again.”

  Then, Odin was gone.

  Loki turned and looked at the people who stared at him, in awe. He spread his hands and h
is infectious grin crossed his face. "I don't know how to explain all this," he began.

  But, he found there was no need, for the assemblage burst into spontaneous applause. Loki threw back his head and laughed. He had no idea what was going on, but it seemed that his indomitable luck had triumphed again.

  How wonderful.

  ***

  From the Los Angeles Daily Review —Sigrid Weller

  "Louis Keye's Special Effects Extravaganza Wows Unsuspecting Guests"

  Hollywood's unconventional bad boy, Louis Keye astonished guests to his Pacific Palisades mansion last night, with a press conference that was more than anyone expected. With a flash of light, what started out as an inciting self-abasement became a climactic battle between good and evil one man's inherently wicked nature against the purity and power of belief. In what is sure to become the greatest tribute to those who give their hearts and souls to the mysterious men and women who "tread the boards," the might of the public's faith in entertainers and their art was shown to give strength to mythology as the Devil Himself was defeated in a seamless mix of legends and religion.

  While Keye refuses to disclose the inspiration behind this magnificent spectacle, or the names of the other actors who so flawlessly portrayed Lucifer the Fallen One and Odin All-Father of Norse Mythology, he promises to continue wowing audiences in his new feature-length film, "Sons of Asgard."

  We look forward to many long years of surprises with this merry trickster.

  13—Judas Afterward

  He was alone, now. The compound and those he had failed were gone. Grass had replaced the wood he lay upon and bright sunlight had replaced the darkness of midnight. Judas Iscariot opened his eyes and found himself in a garden. "Where am I?" he murmured.

  "You are with me," came that soft voice that he had never forgotten.

  Judas scrambled to his knees, his eyes on the ground where they should be. He had no right to look into that heavenly face. "My Lord."

  Jesus smiled and offered his hand. "Do not bow to me, Judas, never to me. You were the one of my twelve who never felt the need."

  Judas didn't move. "I am unworthy to look upon you now, Lord."

  Seeing that Judas would not rise, Jesus instead took a seat in the grass beside him. "On the contrary, my friend, you were the only one who was worthy."

  This gave Judas pause. He looked up and whispered, "But I . . . "

  "You helped me to fulfill my destiny," Jesus smiled. "Why do you think I chose you to follow me?"

  "Because I was weak?" Judas sighed.

  Jesus shook his head and his eyes crinkled up in a look of love that Judas thought he might never see again. "Weak is never the word I would use to describe you. You, Iscariot, were the strongest of those who walked with me. Only you dared to go against me when it was what was necessary. It was time for me to make my sacrifice. None of the others would ever have done it. Only you saw the fear in my heart and forced me to act like the martyr I was meant to be. I was Messiah, Judas, not by any choice of my own. Alone, I would never have left my father's carpentry shop. Alone, I would never have had the courage to die."

  "Then, I am not damned?" Judas asked, raising his eyes, trying not to give in to the tears that were beginning to fill them.

  "You never were, my dear dear friend . You have always had a seat at my side awaiting you here," Jesus said, gently.

  "Then why did I languish in Hell for the past two thousand years?"

  "That was of your doing," revealed this beatific image of God born man, "You were offered

  two doors when you died, Judas, though you never saw them, and you took the one to damnation. Your only weakness, friend, is that you never believed in your place in history. We all fight tooth and nail when confronted with fate. It is not cowardice to regret your place, only to deny it." He rose, then. "Come, Judas Betrayer," he teased. "Let us walk, like we used to, and talk of old, old times. Simply Yeshua Bar-Yusef and his long lost friend from Karioth. I have missed you dearly and we have two thousand years to catch up with."

  He offered his hand again, and this time, Judas took it.

  ***

  Prima looked out at the people who had come to this spot. She smiled at her husband and said, "More have come today."

  "How many is that, now?" he asked, quietly. When her face glowed with that holy light, he sometimes felt unworthy of this beautiful woman that the Lord had brought to him.

  "Almost a million," she said. "I still can't believe it has been eleven years already. I feel as though it was just yesterday. I wonder if he knows the good this shrine has done."

  Her husband took her in his arms and looked out over the gravesite. "I wish I had met this Father Jude."

  "He was a good man," Prima said, softly. "I hope he realizes it, now."

  "I'm sure he does," her husband said. "He's with the Lord, and he has brought a million more into the fold. How can he help but know?"

  14—Mordred Afterward

  Mordred awaited in the glorified prison cell they had put him in. His dress uniform was tight around the throat but he did not give them the satisfaction of loosening it. When he came before the judge, he would be the soldier that he believed himself to be, not the one that everyone assumed he was. He was a failure at everything that he had ever attempted. But, he would not be able to live with himself if he did not do what he believed.

  Of course, he might not be alive much longer. Court martialled, probably to be convicted of murder of a senior officer.

  "I will probably be executed at dawn," he muttered. His accent had remained, oddly enough and, since he was brought here, he'd already been seen by several military psychiatrists. Delusions of grandeur, an old English Prince indeed. Maybe he'd get off on a Section Eight. He sat down on the hard-backed chair the MPs had so thoughtfully given him and sighed. "Foolish Mordred,didst thou not learn that thou canst not fight thy fate?"

  "But what was thy fate?"

  Mordred leaped to his feet and faced the image of a man that appeared before him, a man dressed in kingly robes. The boy dropped to his knee. "Arthur," he gasped.

  "Rise, Mordred. I am king no longer," Arthur said.

  Mordred rose and sighed. "Hast thou come to gloat over my further failure, Arthur?"

  "No," said the once and future king. "I have come to take thee home."

  "Take me home?" Mordred frowned. "I understand thee not."

  Arthur came to the boy and though he had been dead so very long, there was youth back in his face, and in his eyes was something that Mordred had never seen before. Could it have been pride? "Thou hast come far, Mordred, from the rash boy who came to contest my balance of power."

  Mordred shook his fair head. "Perhaps, Arthur, thou realizeth not that I have failed yet again. I was given life to destroy a band of rebels, and, yet, I could not do it. I am a warrior who lets his enemies live."

  "Perhaps thou shouldst ask who thy enemies were," Arthur said. "The woman whose life that thou didst refuse to take was not a common village peasant. She was the wife of the rebellion leader and the boy she had with her will grow to lead his people to peace."

  A quick lad, Mordred realized what Lucifer had intended and he laughed, bitterly. "If I had but killed him, the war should send many more to My Lord Lucifer's place of judgment I understand now. If only they knew."

  "And, so I am proud of thee, My Son. Thou hast learned that a king is more than a warrior. He must have mercy as well." Arthur said, his eyes locked on the disgraced warrior's.

  "What didst thou call me?" Mordred frowned, certain that he had heard wrong.

  "I called thee son." Arthur said, with a tender smile. "For now thou art truly a Pendragon."

  Mordred looked away. "It is all I ever wanted, Father. I never meant to hurt thee, to destroy thee. I did only what I thought a good son should do and yet, thou didst deny me."

  "I told you I was a good king," Arthur said, quietly. "Never did I say I was a good man. Thou wirt conceived in sin, and I feared that my
transgression would affect thee. I tried to keep thee away, because I thought that thou wouldst be safe. I never meant to hurt thee."

  Mordred looked at him, closely. "I know not what thou dost expect of me now."

  "I expect thee to embrace thy father, Boy, and forgive a foolish man who did not know how harmful his actions were," Arthur said.

  Mordred fell into his father's arms for the first time in this life or any other. "All I ever wanted was thy love, Father."

  "All I ever wanted was the freedom to give it to thee," Arthur said. "Come, we shall quit this place and thou shalt sit by my side at my table."

  When the MPs came to take Morgan Lafayette away, there was no sign of him. Surely he could not have escaped a locked room.

  But Mordred Pendragon was well and truly gone.

  ***

  Far away, in a war-torn country, a rebel prince slept in safety, the memory of one man's mercy in his little head. He did not yet understand what he was born to do, but he knew that he had a duty.

  He would do his duty, when the time came.

  He would bring peace.

  Epilogue—Hell

  Lucifer fumed. Defeated! Again! By three He had placed His trust in. But, no matter. His home was full of Betrayers who would do His bidding without question

  That was the good thing about Hell. The evil ones were always ready to do his bidding.

  A man sat in a place that might've been Hell though it had been here longer than that name was known. There was no ceiling to this round room, or if there was it was so high that it could not be seen. The walls were pocked with blackened windows that filled with daemons now and then that watched the man and laughed or mocked him.

  Screams echoed through the room, sometimes. The tormented souls outside suffer more than the man who waited in here. He was a Betrayer, afforded a special place in the Eternal Confinement, for was his Jailer not a Betrayer, Himself?

  There was a bonfire in the middle of the room and the man reclined around it on a hard marble bench stained black with the soot that did not touch the damned soul beside it. He barely looked up as Lucifer appeared in the room.