“I wonder what we’ll see today,” Albrecht babbled, murdering any chance of silence. “Do you think we’ll see some sinners?”
“That…was that actually a question?” Yitz replied, so dumbfounded that he was lulled into eye contact with the buffoon.
“Well, certainly, do you think we’ll see some sinners? Well, not just sinners, but proper sinners that will run the pens dry? Someone truly evil from the war that is ending all war, or maybe a king that has been skewered by his own people? I always enjoy those. Remember when Tellamore jumped out of his seat because he recognized King Stephon’s great grandson? Oh, the wagers that flew in those few minutes—I made a fortune!”
Prior Albrecht had. Once everyone knew that the King of Hungaria’s descendant stood before Minos for his judgment in Hell, the entire betting circle erupted. Dozens of gamblers surged out of their chairs, waving their wagering icons and placing their money. Most claimed he was going to boil in the currents of Phlegethon for murder, and others placed bets on him being a false council, earning him the frigid wastelands of lowest Hell.
As legend had it, Prior Albrecht detected something the others didn’t in the man. Apparently, Prior Albrecht sensed heartbreak and obsession.
“Lust!” the prior screeched, waving his icon above his head, arm outstretched like a child eager to be called upon in catechism. His wager, which was every pebble of wealth he had, was scribbled down by The Peruvian’s men, and sure enough, Minos delivered the very judgment Albrecht had anticipated.
“Yes,” Yitz replied dryly, fidgeting with his yarmulke. “Given that this is Hell, and we’re going to watch sinners being brought in for judgments, I think we will see a few sinners.”
“Big ones? Like country-ruining sinners? Traitors of family? I always like those. They cry the most. Especially those that sexually prey on their nephews and nieces. So remorseful. As if it matters.” Albrecht beamed, Yitz’s sarcasm lost on him.
The man’s desire to constantly talk still baffled Yitz. The prior could afford a better seat, one closer to the judgments, but, for some reason, he stayed put. Yitz wondered if his own seat had been so cheap as a result.
Yitz committed to apologizing to his wife when he got home.
Looking down into the stadium’s center, Yitz examined the giant, closed iris that sealed away the judgment chamber below. Within, currently beyond sight, resided Minos. The creature looked like a long dinosaur, being fashioned out of spiny limbs with a huge coiled tail. With its hundreds of arms, Minos held quills in its claws, their feathered ends squiggling furiously with each recording of sin and transgression.
At regular intervals, two large, monstrous men, equipped with metal meat hooks, dragged a naked body before Minos, fresh from the sea of tears. These wardens acted as ushers, and they adored their task. They were gladiatorial-looking beastly men, twisted with tusked teeth and hulking shoulders like buffalo. Over time, as with all other locals of the afterlife, self-perception gradually alters outward appearance. These men saw themselves as brutish monsters, and they gradually became as much during the course of thousands of years.
After being presented with a fresh soul, Minos would then bend its long, rigid head and sniff the person over. Sometimes, Minos would even give the subject a poke or two with one of its many fingers.
After a person had been thoroughly categorized, Minos reached a final calculation that condemned the sinner to his or her eternity. The beast’s tail would coil several times, indicating to which circle of Hell the subject was condemned. The various scribbling hands, each with an apparent mind of their own, would talc their parchments to dry the ink, and everything would be filed away as the next subject was lugged in.
This happened always and unendingly, but The Peruvian oversaw the actual bidding, and nobody dared place a bid without his consent and oversight. Ever. When he sat in the highest chair at the farthest spot on the rim of the circle, it wasn’t to watch the sinners before judgment, but the gamblers at his feet.
The Peruvian would be arriving soon, and Yitz knew that he had to come away with a decent haul today. New Dis was an expensive place to live in comfort, and he wanted the best for himself and Adina as they waited for their son to finish his time in the pit—assuming he ever would.
With his ear growing hotter from the prior’s yammering, Yitz nodded vacantly while each chair filled. A lot could be learned by examining the spectator’s choice of chair. Some chairs were simple and unassuming, while others were lavish and built to be as thrones. Several people, enamored that they could afford a seat closer to the action, had tall backs to their chairs with the intention of blocking the views of their rival gamblers. It had essentially evolved into an arms race of sorts, each chair its own vain, sovereign nation asserting itself within the pack.
Finally, The Peruvian arrived with his entourage of intimidating manservants. Small and narrow of shoulder, each carried an assortment of bindings and blades designed to subdue or tear down anyone who hesitated to pay their due. Rumors suggested that The Peruvian employed several dozen such men, each wearing the same red, puffy-cheeked cherub mask, and they took shifts back in his villa, skinning those delinquent in their payments. Some whispered that entire rooms were draped in the skins of unfortunate gamblers, and The Peruvian himself kept those subjects chained up, patiently waiting for their skin to grow back, so he could continue to furnish his home in new couches and shoji screens. Apparently, he employed an architect from the ancient Indus civilization to shape the walls of the room like a tall bowl so the victim’s screams could be channeled and piped throughout the palatial home as evening music.
Yitz wasn’t as disturbed by such violent thoughts as most, partly due to his wife. Even The Peruvian could be persuaded by her particular skillset and power, but the thought of Adina rescuing him from a chained dungeon made his guilt swell to the surface again.
He swallowed hard, trying to validate his childish tantrum in the market. The money was for his family— his wife and prodigal son. Not for his love of gambling.
The chairs now filled, the crowd buzzed with anticipation of the day’s wagers. The Peruvian sat high in his throne on the outer rim of the better’s circle, sipped a nameless wine from an Aegean decanter, and pulled the long lever next to his throne. The iris yawned open, its ancient gears screeching, and below stood Minos and its flurry of quills scribbling away as a bloody and whimpering woman received her judgment. The ushers, their hooks still skewered through her ankles, dragged her away to her fate while she wept, all her misery and sin laid bare.
Yitz hated that moment every time. But again, this was the best place in all of New Dis for a fortune to be made, and gambling was the only way to make money without being the direct subject of another. Employment contracts in New Dis were not for the faint of heart.
Next up was the first official bet of the day. Such a disappointment—the man being brought before Minos was so extraordinarily fat and misshapen that he required three ushers.
“Gluttony…no one is going to be placing bets on this one,” Albrecht uttered. Yitz was inclined to agree, fumbling his icon in his hands.
The bulbous man was deposited in the same spot as all the others, a rancid spot wet with tears, blood, and sorrow. Groaning under their jagged steel masks, the ushers straightened themselves to their full towering heights.
As its quills scratched their parchments, Minos bowed low and eyed the fat, seizing man. Something was wrong.
One of the ushers kicked the man’s midsection. The sinner spewed foam from his nose and mouth, his belly moving independently as though he were pregnant with a rambunctious fetus.
Yitz cocked an eyebrow. Albrecht’s face lit up with excitement. And then, proverbially, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 6
Hephaestion, jolted awake by the usher’s ferocious kick, knew he’d been made. Through clenched teeth, he permitted a sputtering mome
nt to curse himself for his plan failing. Guttural grunts and snorts conversed from outside his host—whoever they were, they had gotten curious about the misshapen belly.
A foot poked his back.
The flat of a metal weapon slapped against his left shoulder.
With eyes clenched tightly, Hephaestion steadied his senses as best he could as he held the remaining water in his lungs. It sloshed inside him, but the last thing he needed now was to break into convulsions from coughing.
Someone shuffled about near his head, and the other two made conversation of some kind below his feet on the opposite side. Then the body was rolled over, belly exposed to the air, and Hephaestion found his sense of direction disoriented. Intense light would blind him, so he had to make the most of his first strike.
Hephaestion fumbled with the bladed end of his segmented spear shaft. He shoved the other two segments away and hoped the collapsed shield on his back would provide limited protection, but it would be of no use against a well-armed assailant in front of him.
The noises grew louder, and metal thwacked against the head of his host. He could wait no longer.
Exploding upward, Hephaestion jettisoned himself to his full height, spear point first as he pierced his way out of his host’s belly. Stabbing wildly, eyes clenched shut from the torchlight, he swung and twisted his spearhead about and felt the tip snag and bite into someone. Shouts of alarm went up, not only among the three enemies around him, but sounding like an entire crowd suddenly roared.
Hephaestion rolled out of the slick gore that had encased him. Bloody and awkward like a newborn calf, he tumbled to his knees, head down, with his ears open and hands shaking. His chest could take no more. The sea water erupted, bending him in half over the cold railing.
He heard a foot land near him—a footfall right before a downward strike. Perhaps these weren’t trained fighters, then? He scrambled up, lunging with his truncated spear, the weapon lodging into something soft. Standing up halfway, he drove his spear up into a rib cage, through the gurgling of a heaving sternum, and, with a twist, he cracked open the chest. As the body slumped against him, he discovered their inhuman bulk. These people were huge.
The other two moved at the same time, fanning out behind him, and he returned to a crouching position, still coughing, his legs weak.
Hephaestion hazarded opening one eye, peering about to give his brain a moment’s picture. Two hulks lumbered toward him—armored “men,” if the word could be applied liberally.
But something else caught his attention—something long and primal and possibly a creature of ancient myth. Hephaestion’s atrophied eye could only capture a glimpse, but it looked like a giant winged beast or sea monster that Ulfric would occasionally sing drunken songs about. Hephaestion realized he might have been exposed in the absolute worst place possible.
The two men flanked him and charged rapidly. Picking the less massive of the two, Hephaestion sprung the moment he was within range. He collided into the man like a meteor, driving his spear into the man’s throat. Scrambling up onto his target, heels driving down and into the beastly man’s hips, Hephaestion dug in his blade.
Hephaestion gasped as a jagged knife drove into his lower back. Vise-like fingers closed around his shoulder, but the remains of his host’s gore made him slippery. As the giant pawed at him, Hephaestion shoved himself under his groping enemy. With both hands gripping the dory, teeth grinding, Hephaestion stabbed repeatedly upward into the giant’s torso. The usher groaned and buckled under its own weight, nearly pinning Hephaestion as he bolted away.
Four bodies splayed about the floor. Hephaestion stood naked, bloody, and covered in grime, and his shoulders slumped as he finally opened his lungs for full breaths. Minos, ancient and primal, loomed over him, the entire scene reflected in its tiny dead-white eyes.
Minos leaned in, teeth peeking from its closed jaws, examining him with its nostrils wide. A thousand quills remained still in its army of hands. Hephaestion had hoped to avoid Minos’s gaze and get beyond into the pit, but plans go awry in Hell as they do on Earth.
The shouting noise of the crowd didn’t seem as distant anymore, and Hephaestion glanced upward. Men of all time periods and nations were on their feet, waving small paddles with icons on them: one a star, another a castle, a sword, a rabbit, a crescent moon…
The gamblers stood before their chairs or on their cushions, shouting their wagers to The Peruvian’s men.
“He’s a Satan worshiper, trying to sneak into Hell! Minos will send him to the Malebolge!” one yelled. “I pledge an eighth!”
It was the highest bet placed in years. An eighth of a talent was a huge sum.
“One fourth! I place a fourth on him being a betrayer! He’s avoiding the lake! One fourth!” came the rebuttal.
“I know him! A war criminal named Hephaestion! I match your fourth!”
The bids escalated as the men wagered that Hephaestion was either a slayer of men gone completely mad or a human so vile that he was trying to cheat the fires of Hell itself, even in the afterlife. One man even wagered that Hephaestion would attack Minos directly.
Yitz and Albrecht were the only two who remained calm in the snarling din. Turning to Albrecht, Yitz found that the prior was thinking the same thing. Albrecht nodded, for once not using an avalanche of words to express his thoughts.
Time was running out as Minos’s quills erupted in activity as it recorded all sins. Yitz and Albrecht raised their icons together. Hephaestion was too calm and controlled to have come here with careless intentions. Yitz quickly deduced that to sneak into the body of another, armed with a blade and a collapsed shield of some kind, took not only extraordinary will but also logistics and vision.
This was no casual sinner. This man had purpose and intentions. He had a mission.
“Hey!” Albrecht shouted to a nearby manservant. The Peruvian cocked an eyebrow. “He’s not the damned! He isn’t condemned! Yitz and I wager! Two talents.”
Jaws dropped, and everyone turned their way.
Yitz’s mouth went dry. The prior, the insecure and rambling prior, was suddenly in his element and confident. Yitz inched closer to him, hoping that his presence would shield him from The Peruvian’s gaze.
The only sound was the scratch of old quill tips. Everyone turned their eyes downward once more. Minos’s hands darted in a flurry, papers crinkling and talc sifting. Hephaestion stood with shoulders low, head forward, as if making the decision to strike or run, his breathing labored and intense.
But Hephaestion had to do neither. The papers filed, the pens dipped for the next person, but the tail did not coil. With no ushers up to drag him away, Hephaestion staggered on wobbly knees as he gathered up his leather-bound satchel and spear fragments from his host’s innards, and found his way out through a steel riveted side-door. Hephaestion didn’t register as being Hellbound at all.
Minos tapped a hundred fingers for more beastly ushers to arrive with another subject.
No cheer erupted—not a peep. Yitz didn’t dare turn around and look his fellow gamblers in the eye. His fingers tugged at the prior’s robes like a frightened child.
“Albrecht,” he pleaded out of the side of his mouth. “We might have been better off if we had lost.”
Oblivious of the danger, Prior Albrecht spun about with an enormous grin on his face. With a holler of triumph, he raised his hands toward The Peruvian with glee, his round chin jiggling with joy.
The eyebrow was no longer cocked.
“We thank you all! What an amazing day! We’ll retire for now, but see you next time! Be well, and go with God!” Albrecht proclaimed. Like a baby elephant clinging to its mother’s tail, Yitz gripped the prior’s robe as they both bobbed and weaved between each chair and dumbfounded individual to the door.
Chapter 7
“We’re going to die—A LOT!” Yitz exclaimed as he a
nd Albrecht cleared the exit door into a cobblestone alley. It was the path that all of the spectators took, its center worn down into a smooth and gradual depression from hundreds of years of shuffling boots and sandals. Lit by bright, dripping torches, the shadows of the two men danced wildly about in excitement.
“Relax,” Albrecht said, his hand on Yitz’s shoulder. “You’ve just made a fortune equivalent to The Peruvian himself. Nations don’t have that kind of wealth back on Earth. Your only concern now should really be how to manage and store several tons of gold.”
“I would feel much better if we just got out of here and headed toward the market before The Peruvian decides to skin us for eternity and keep the money for himself.”
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine after this.” Albrecht casually strolled forward, song in his voice. “When people all over New Dis hear that the largest wager in human history just occurred under his establishment, he’ll never be for want again. He can charge anything for those seats now.”
“And what about our cohorts? Our contemporaries? They will want their money back from us after it filters through The Peruvian, hm? What, you don’t think we aren’t in danger of getting our hearts minced and ground into meal? I have a wife—a son! I have never met my great-great-grandchildren!”
Yitz bordered on hysterics. He huffed, his eyes pained, and his hands fumbled about Albrecht’s collar.
Albrecht smiled as though about to offer comfort, but the door behind them slid open. Into the torchlight came Hephaestion, slouched, leaning a shoulder against the wall. Feebly, he motioned for them to step aside, and both men did so in awe of the wounded warrior. Up close, his skin pulled taut against his skull, and his eyes sunk in deep bruises from what might have been years adrift inside the body of that bulbous glutton. This man was barely hanging on, and his satchel hung loosely in his hands.
Trampling in the Land of Woe Page 3
