The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 19. Chapter 19

It didn’t take long for Vanus to regret his entirely impulsive, not-at-all-thought-out plan to descend into the pits of hell; a hell. There were so many of them who could possibly keep them all straight? Unfortunately pride, the true downfall of man, would not allow him to make the long, winding journey back up to the surface.

The problem was the steps: They were steep and uneven. Rather than climb down facing forward he had to take one excruciating step at a time with his back up against the wall. Twice he almost slipped and both times he had to stop until his heart slowed down to something resembling a normal, human rhythm. “For gods, you’d think they would build a better stair system,” he muttered to himself before peering cautiously over the stone ledge. It seemed that he’d been climbing for hours and yet he was no closer to reaching the bottom. He could not see the bottom…or Bazzelthorpe matter.

“And you’re supposed to be an all-powerful death magician,” Vanus muttered to himself. He needed to hear someone’s voice if only to feel less alone, less afraid. “What are you going to do if you run face first into a death angel or an archon? Are you going to read them their rights before you slap on the hand cuffs and haul down to the station?”

Up, he reminded himself, not down.

And so it continued, step by step, self-deprecating comment by self-deprecating comment, until at last the death magician finally reached the bottom like the punchline of a joke made in poor taste. He made the mistake of craning his head back to see just how far he’d climbed and gulped. The spiral staircase wound up and up and up further than the eye could see. “Okay, Kaufman,” he muttered with more lightness than he felt. “Give yourself a little credit.”

Now that he’d made it into Inferno without falling to his death, he could go back to the task at hand: finding Bazzelthorpe.

Below the earth the volcanic smell of sulfur and dust made Vanus dizzy. He fought through the tears and began to search the ground for Bazzelthorpe. He should be here. There’s no way anyone could survive a fall like that.

It wasn’t until he spotted the puddle of white on the ground that he realized just how much he dreaded finding the Astorathian’s corpse; cracks spiderwebbed away from the puddle where Bazzelthorpe’s body had landed. Yet there was no Bazzelthorpe. Heart leaping into his throat, he knelt down beside his new discovery, careful not to get the legs of his slacks in the muck. It was Astorathian blood for sure. There wasn’t a lot of it. Cautiously he dipped the tip of his finger into the goo.

It feels warm.

With a push of mana, he lit the end of his staff so that the light lit up the murk. A long single track led away from the point of impact. It pointed straight to the mouth of a narrow tunnel illuminated by lamps that had been grafted into the ancient stone wall. He hesitated, searching the shadows for signs of movement. Just because you don’t see anything doesn’t mean something isn’t there, Vanus reminded himself. A rule of thumb that had kept him alive longer than his life expectancy.

Another few yards, another spot of blood, more tracks. He was deep enough in the tunnel now that when he looked over his shoulder he could no longer see the room he’d left. There was no telling when the tunnel ended or when it would change direction. There were other clues though: For one he was sure that Agent Bazzelthorpe was alive. How he could survive such a fall was beyond Vanus and in the grand scheme of things didn’t matter. What did matter was the second clue. Something had taken Bazzelthorpe, dragged him off into the darkness.

Whatever it was, it was large. Large enough to drag an eight foot tall Astorathian with little to no effort from the looks of things.

“I’m coming, Bazzelthorpe,” he whispered to the darkness. “Wherever you are, don't give up. I’m coming.”

Something moved at the end of the tunnel. Vanus felt his throat go completely dry. Fear left the taste of something metallic and unpleasant in his mouth. The scrape of shuffling footsteps in the dirt made his nerves scream. Vanus pointed his staff straight ahead of him, ready to unleash the fear and the tension that had been building up ever since Bazzelthorpe and he had entered this place at whatever or whoever stepped into the light.

He didn’t know what to expect - a gargantuan monstrosity created by the most depraved minds in all of creation. He did not expect the stumpy dwarf dressed in dust-covered World War 1 getup. The creature muttered something in what sounded like Astorathian. The gas mask it wore muffled its voice, so it was impossible to tell for sure.

Apparently the creature hadn’t been expecting him either judging from the way its head snapped up. It froze when it saw the death magician standing just feet away, wreathed in pale silvery light. The creature made a surprised sound. Then it turned and ran in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” Vanus shouted, switching to Astorathian. “Get back here!”

The dwarf ran as fast as its stubby little legs could carry it. In an unexpected, but much appreciated twist the death magician was the taller of the two. Fingers wiggling, he reached out. He meant to grab the neck of the dwarf’s uniform; instead he grabbed both sides of the dwarf’s mask. The helmet came off with an audible pop. A humid, musty and damp smell wafted into his face, making the death magician gag. The exact second he touched the mask Vanus felt the world fade around him.

Once the legionnaire had a name, a life, a soul. No longer. All of those things, including its body, had been twisted and converted by the razides so many times there was nothing left of its original self. Taken apart and stitched back together and taken apart again like a psychopath’s favorite toy. Over the course of its various transformations, the creature has lost all ability to feel. What it feels now only resembles fear in the most basic insectile of forms. Does a roach not scurry away from the light when its existence is revealed…?

Vanus shook the images from his head with a defiant scream. He came to in a crouched position. He bled from where his fingers had tried to claw their way inside his skull to yank the images out. Slowly the thunder in his head receded. Mere feet away the legionnaire howled, clawing at the air with its fat gauntleted fingers. Milky eyes bulged from the sockets of a head that was too large for its neck; in fact it was impossible to tell how its head connected with its shoulders. Its bullet-hole nostrils flared. Its jaw clacked open and shut to reveal a single row of razor sharp teeth. Its scrunched face, blind, bulbous eyes, and slippery scaly skin reminded the death magician of a piranha.

Vanus didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He watched the creature reach desperately for its mask, too worked up or too stupid to realize the damned thing was within arms reach. The brief flicker of pity he felt for the legionnaire urged him to put the helmet back on the creature’s head. An urge that was immediately engulfed by an impenetrable wave of despair and defeat.

It was not the tunnels of Inferno he found himself in but the dirt cellar of a house. As far as the death magician was concerned there was no difference between the two places. Both were tucked away as far from the light as you could get. It was not the legionnaire he saw struggling for breath on the floor of the tunnel but Hellen. Somehow the snapshot he kept tucked behind his badge had appeared in his hand. The edges were wrinkled, the resolution starting to fade. This was the first time he’d allowed himself to look at it in months.

You’re a disappointment, a voice said from the shadows.

The death magician shook his head in denial. “You don’t understand. I tried. I really tried. I did everything I could to find her.”

…all I see is a sniveling coward who couldn’t do his job right. Another cop who let another girl die. Did you try to find her or were you too busy batting your eyelashes at the TV screen?

Vanus managed to hide the sob in his throat with a bitter laugh. “If you knew me at all you’d know I have terrible stage fright. I hate it when I have to perform in front of an audience. If it wasn’t for Gwen coaching me I probably would have pissed myself right on national television.”

I tried calling you at the hospital, you know. Tried visiting too…They said you refused to see me.

“What can I say?” The death magician shrugged at the shadows. “I thought we were written in the stars. I guess not. I should have known better, because in truth you never my job or me. You never will. So why don’t all of you fuck off?”

He felt something touch his hand. Something small. Something soft. Something soothing. Vanus clenched his eyes shut, his breath ramping up into wheezes. He knew if he opened his eyes he would see Hellen kneeling before him. He could feel her leaning in to whisper in his ear.

“You didn’t give up on me,” she said, “so don’t give up on him.”

With her words echoing in his head Vanus felt the despair slip from him like blackened scales. With renewed strength and courage not his own he rose to his feet.When he opened his eyes he was alone in the hallway. No spirits or legionnaires. At some point during his panic attack the creature had recovered enough sensibilities to grab its helmet and make haste.

Not without leaving him tracks in the dust to follow.

…

Bazzel's first thought upon surfacing was that he shouldn't be alive. The last thing he remembered was dropping into endless darkness, the death magician's pale face shrinking above him; he didn't remember hitting the bottom.

Numerous smells came to him, both familiar and unrelenting in their assault: The smell of sulfur was a constant but there were other things. The black stench of fear, the particularly strong reek of Astorathian piss…made sharper by the fear; a stench so strong it would make most mortals faint.

It wasn't until he heard the murmur of voices in the Astorathian tongue that he realized he'd yet to open his eyes. In fact he remained curled up on a stone surface, his knees drawn up to his chest. The same way Giel and he had done before they'd escaped the slave pins; it was a way to make themselves look smaller when the razides came for them to deliver a fate worse than death.

This isn't happening.

A fist of dread took up space in his stomach. This couldn't be happening…could it? I promised myself that I would die before I ever returned to the slave pens, I would kill myself. But now that he was here, he couldn't move, could barely breathe. Fear had robbed him of all the self-agency and power he'd acquired in the time that he'd lived on the surface.

Now who's the disappointment? the death magician's voice whispered tauntingly above his head. Of course it wasn't truly him. He was somewhere on the surface. What had happened to him? They had almost made it out of the Wishwood ruins, so close Bazzel could smell rain in the air. Van's face filled his mind like smoke.

At least he's safe, the Astorathian thought. At least he made it out.

He sensed someone closer to him. He snarled, jumping to his haunches. A smaller Astorathian female raised her hands non threateningly, winding the length of her tail anxiously around her calf. "It is okay," she said in the native tongue; her accent was very thick. "I mean you no harm. My name is Kahlah. This is Martice and Lexis." She lifted a hand in the direction of the two Astorathians cowering in the corner of the pen like beaten dogs. The way Giel and he had done in the old days.

"How long have you been here?"

Kahlah shook her head with a heavy frown. "There were two others when I first came here and now they're both gone. And then they brought you." Then her head snapped forward, nostrils flaring.

Bazzel shoved the female Astorathian hard enough to knock her to the ground. "Do not touch me!" he roared. Still in their own little corner, Martice and Lexis shrunk together to make themselves smaller. He felt no pity for them. Any of them.

Grunting, Kallah rose to her feet. She gave him an apologetic look. "The clothes you wear are different. You smell…different. Not like other Astorathians. Is…is the surface beautiful?"

The question made Bazzel pause in thought. A week ago had Kallah asked them this question, he knew what his answer would be: The surface is just as ugly as anywhere else. But now…? Why was it so hard to think of an answer? Once more the death magician entered his mind. He decided to use a human phrase, one that summed up earth well enough. “It has its moments.”

A black fist of grief squeezed his heart. I’ll never be able to say goodbye.

Somewhere out of sight a door opened.

Martice and Lexis whimpered in fear.

Kallah raised her head to sniff the air. She hissed out a single word: “Razides.”