by Lazlo Ferran
Again Lilith grasped me to her vast bosom and I wanted to cry for I felt so weary.
“Don’t worry darling!” she uttered. “You have me. I will hold you forever!”
However, this time I had been so angered and frightened by the mistake I had made with the first serpent that I did not fall for her lies. I closed my eyes and focused on an image of the circular chamber in my mind. This eased the force of her lust but still my loins ached, as if my sap were being drawn out against my will. It became a pleasure and pain beyond all endurance. I had to begin reciting the incantation once again. Before I had finished, she let me go and I found myself upon the desert floor at the bottom of a great cliff.
No doubt she had left me at the bottom of the cliff, upon which I had stood earlier, in her bitterness, for I knew I could not climb the great buttress. I looked around me and saw that the cliff stood at the fork of two long valleys. Choosing the right hand, I set off.
Days I wandered in the dry heat of that valley. The sun boiled my brains until I could no longer think, either of life or death, but only of walking. Placing one foot in front of the other became my only task and every effort of will I expended in doing so.
At last I came to a grassy knoll and beyond it, I saw a fig tree. I ate all its fruit hungrily and later drank at a pool. Before long I had the strength to look around me and saw that the valley had climbed, so that now I stood but a short distance below the plateau, upon which I guessed the orchard lay. I made my way in that direction and sure enough, upon the next noon, I found a door and thus the circular chamber once again.
***
Wearily, I lay against the plinth for what seemed hours but I knew I should not wait too long. Outside, the Full Moon would be passing. Picking up the halberd, essentially a long-handled axe with an extended spike on the shaft and a hook at the rear of the blade, a weapon of which I had no experience, I made my way to the door marked with the stag.
I had guessed, of course, long ago that each door represented a sense or faculty of the body, and that I would have to deal with each in order of increasing difficulty. I did not relish dealing with the later beasts. I had also begun to notice that my own relevant sense had felt increased in each kingdom of the Underworld that I visited. If this one were no different, I would find that my hearing would be intensified.
After stepping through the door, I found myself in a forest of giant trees. I have heard tales of such trees in the New World so perhaps this part of Hades represented that. I set off in search of a stag.
I had not gone far when I heard a distinctive bellow. It echoed among the trees in a slightly higher pitch than the English variety but I knew it to be the call of a stag. I quickened my pace under another black sky, darker than the last.
I had to push through a thick stand of firs and scramble up an escarpment to reach a narrow grassy ridge. My quarry stepped out from behind a tree and we faced each other.
She looked like a woman but had the headdress of stag horns upon her head and pelt around her shoulders. She looked wild and quite intimidating.
Now, I am not an expert in the history of New World Tribes but this woman, for woman she most certainly had to be from her shapely thighs and gait, looked more like a shaman than a native maiden. I approached her with caution.
Before I even saw it, I heard that she had contrived to get behind me somehow. I swung round and saw her smiling at me from a distance of perhaps ten feet. Yet again, I blinked and l heard her steps behind me. When I swung round, I saw her dart behind the tree again, perhaps seventy feet away.
How could I possibly hear such distant steps?
I recalled that each of my senses seemed heightened in my encounters and assessed that it must be so for my hearing. Nevertheless my weapon seemed singularly useless against such a quick foe, its weight and length making it slow to turn. A sword or dagger would have been more useful!
“Can you fly? Are you a great magician?” I yelled in frustration.
“Ha! Ha! Your weapon is useless here. I don’t know who made the selection for you but they made a mistake. I feel I might not even waste time seducing you.”
I blinked and opened my eyes on a sight which cast down my hopes. Before me stood a stag of enormous proportions. Perhaps ten feet high at the top of its flat head, its horns spread just as wide and as far forward. I would never reach any vital organ with the halberd. I wished that I had a spear or even a sword or axe that I might throw. The halberd is wayward in flight!
Nevertheless I wielded the weapon fiercely while the stag trotted toward me.
Before it reached me, it lowered its great head and tangled my blade in its prongs. Raising its head again, I felt myself lifted from the ground and had to let go the weapon. I dropped to the ground on my derriere and braced myself for death. I had just enough time to curse Henry for his folly before I felt myself tossed in the air by those great horns.
I came down with a sickening crunch, but not on the ground. Somehow, links of my mail shirt had become caught upon an antler prong and I landed squarely on its shoulder.
For a long time the beast bucked and writhed, sometimes rolling over on stones in an effort to shake me off but I held on with my arms around its neck for my very life.
“I will not let go until Hell freezes!” I told myself.
The stag threw me against trees several times but each time either its own horns protected me or else I managed to sustain the blow. Nevertheless I wearied until I felt I would lose my grip.
“This can do neither of us any good!” I yelled over the commotion. “Why don’t you let me see you as you are and we can talk? You must be lonely!”
“No! I do not need your lies!”
This seemed new; a female demon who detected my subterfuge. I felt at a loss. In desperation, I kissed the rough fur of the beast’s neck. I felt her shiver so I continued.
“No!” she bellowed. “You will not trick me! I have been longing for the Great Mistress’s favour and this will bring it. I will have your death!”
But my kisses seemed to have a power beyond her expectation for the bucking and prancing reduced in fervour until she stood still.
Slowly she returned to the shape of the bearskin woman again and we collapsed together, both too exhausted to move. I fell into a deep sleep and I am sure she did too. How long we lay like that I do not know.
My dreams were full of baying wolves, bellowing stags and a red moon that laughed at me. I cursed it many times and my bad luck for my fortune. I swore that if I reached the round chamber again, I would give up the adventure.
So at last I became aware of a great struggle within myself, a struggle to awake. I felt that something terrible was happening to me and that I must awake.
With a tremendous effort, I forced my eyes open. The women lay asleep beside me still but she had begun to stir.
I probably have a few seconds at most!
I scrambled to my feet and sought a weapon of any kind. Her headdress seemed best but if I removed it, I knew I would wake her. I spied the remains of my weapon near a tree and grabbed it. The spike and blade remained but little else. Running back to the woman, I braced myself. I had never killed a woman before and never killed another person in cold blood. It took all my resolve to press the blade upon her throat until the blood spurted forth and she gurgled her last.
I shall never forget the look in her eye; as one whose greatest love has betrayed her!
***
Against Lilith, I knew the broken weapon would not avail me. What could I do?
I thought for a while and knew that I had to make my own weapon; a spear. I had no cord and twine with which to bind my own blade to a shaft so a simple spear seemed the only option. I sought a straight branch at least fifteen feet long and after much time, I found one. I cut a sharp blade into its tip with my halberd.
Balancing the spear by whittling as I walked, I headed away from the tip of the ridge, reasoning that this way would lead to Lilith. When I had balanced
my home-made weapon, I lodged the broken halberd in my belt and probed through the thickening trees. I deem that Lilith felt impatient that night for she stepped into my path.
“So you survived, even with a useless weapon! I see you are resourceful!” she cooed, before transforming into a stag, which dwarfed my previous assailant. Her neck might still be within the reach of my blade however so I felt not so hopeless. I saw too a pot of gold beside a tree.
I glanced at the pot and told her:
“I see that your cave must be near and that this time perhaps you fear my success!”
“Brave words!”
With that, she reared on her hind legs, as if to dare me to strike. I must admit, I felt too overwhelmed to move but just stared at the fur of her underbelly. I felt too the allure of this demon of Hades; she could bewitch even me and force my will from me.
She lowered her head for a toss but I anticipated her and leaped to the right. Frustrated, she swung to face me and in that moment, I lunged for her heart with my spear. As the wooden tip penetrated her flesh, I felt something smash into my ear. The impact knocked me to the ground and I felt the cold rush of blood from my ear. But when I felt for it, there seemed really very little left of the organ. Not only could I not hear anything from that side of my head but from the other I heard only a loud ringing. I rolled over to look at the stag and saw the spear hanging from her breast. But clearly it had not reached her heart for she stood, legs apart, preparing for another charge.
The tail of the spear swung wildly as she approached and I stared resolutely into her eyes, not wishing to give away my intentions.
Will the spear come within my grasp?
I feared the worst when the blade swung out of reach a moment before her foremost prong reached me. But with her stride, the weapon swung back toward my hand and I gripped it. Driving it into the ground beside me, I let her force the blade through her own heart.
It had no effect other than to make her laugh!
Of course!
I had forgotten the purpose of my challenge; to remove her ears!
The blade had stopped her. However, she had come close enough that a second line of attack suggested itself. Before she could back off, I stepped deftly onto one of her antler prongs and using the rest like a ladder, mounted to her head.
She shook herself this way and that to remove me but this time my resolve was total. While I clung on with my legs around her antler shaft, I released my halberd tip and removed one of her ears. Her bucking increased so I buried the blade in her neck and lashed myself to the antler with my belt.
Though she must have known it to be hopeless, she continued to leap and twist while I advanced the blade toward her furthest ear. In a moment of her exhaustion, I sliced off her appendage and fell to the ground.
Before me, once again, stood Lilith.
“It was closer this time!” she said. “Next time you might lose. Why don’t you take the gold and go, for I weary of this game! Satan has other duties for me and he is not to be thwarted!”
“No, I guess not. Why don’t you let me pass?” I entreated.
“Not until you have defeated me twelve times and taken away all my powers. That is my right!”
“Who decrees it?”
“Satan!”
“Are you sure his Will is absolute?”
This seemed to anger her for she clutched me to her giant, feminine godhead and I felt myself sinking into an endless abyss of desire. Never before had I felt such a loss of will. A desperation grew in me that almost froze my thoughts. But then, creeping in, came the memory of the warding incantation and I repeated it. At first only in my mind, but as my resolve grew, out loud, I repeated it until Lilith let me go.
Now I stood alone again in the forest. My ear bled terribly and I feared my leg wound from the Serpent had become infected. I knew I must cut out the infection.
Before I could change my mind, I took the halberd blade and sliced off own flesh from my calf until the wound looked clean. I must have screamed terribly, for the forest became silent after. Panting and sweating in blinding pain, I staggered back to where I hoped the door would be. I found it and entered again the round chamber.
Upon the wall, I knew there to be four torches so I removed one. Wrapping the bloody rag of my breech around the halberd blade, I thrust it into the flame. Then I seared my wound until smoke rose from my flesh. I must have passed out for I woke on the floor and had to repeat the procedure on my torn ear.
After some minutes to recover, and wearily, I took up the pitch-fork and headed for the correct door.
Thick tropical jungle met me on the other side. I feared the tiger more than any other beast on Earth and so I did also in the Underworld. Tigers are the quickest and most powerful of adversaries and only to be faced with the musket. I had none however.
I thrust the fork before me and stepped warily through the undergrowth. I saw every aspect of the jungle with preternatural clarity and it did not surprise me when I discerned the movement of a familiar beast; a tiger.
“Ah, there you are!” I said jauntily. My voice probably didn’t carry but the tiger had seen me. It came toward me and behind it stepped a dainty maiden.
I saw then that the tiger wore a collar and the maiden wore only a loin-cloth. She had dark skin but not so dark as a Negress and her hair shone like obsidian under a blue light. I ached for her already but only when she released the tiger and, after a wary glance at me it loped off, did I relax and lower my weapon.
“So you are the tigress sent to seduce me this time?” I suggested.
“If it pleases you. I am sure Lilith would rather not waste her time!”
I appreciated her omission of the words ‘with you’ from the end of her declaration; it showed a degree of courtesy on her part.
“Thank you. We each have our purposes,” I replied
“Yes but won’t you tarry awhile?”
She lowered herself to a grassy knoll and bade me sit beside her. A clear pool, into which a rivulet trickled, lay beside her so she scooped a handful of water and held it below my lips. I drank the water and felt relieved of a great thirst. But then I glanced at a second scoop and spied all kinds of creatures swimming within it.
“Excellent eyesight has its drawbacks!” I declared.
“Yes. A woman fears it in men.”
“Why so?”
“No woman feels her beauty without defect. That is how I ended up here!”
“Please explain.”
“I had a love so great that I feared every rival. They said I possessed the greatest beauty in all Genoa but I feared my lover discerned my defect.”
“Which was?”
“My legs are too short!”
“Stand up! Turn around!”
She complied.
“Your legs are not an inch too long or short,” I told her “I would say their beauty equals that of all your other parts.”
“Ah! Now, I know you are right but a young girl is prone to such fears. Then I believe it so. A woman moved into our neighbourhood with the longest, smoothest legs I had ever seen and I saw my love speaking to her. I resolved to remove her by fair means or foul. Fair did not prove possible so I persuaded somebody to put her in the ground. For that I have been damned here until Judgement Day.”
For the first time in Hades, I felt sympathy for somebody. I reached out and put my arm around her sweet shoulders while she sobbed.
“There! There! One day, you may escape!” I told her.
“But until then I cannot experience love.”
Her sweet form and direst need moved me and I planted a fulsome kiss on her dark pink lips. The buds of her breasts rose in hope so I kissed them too. Before long, I had placed my weapon on the ground while we both grappled with the problem of penitence and absolution. It was not mine to bestow, but if I could, I would have forgiven her. Instead, I gave her the fruit of my loins and something like love.
“I know you do not love me,” she whispered, “Bu
t you are kind.”
“Tell me then the way to Lilith so that I may leave you in peace. For I had to kill the last demon maiden.”
“I know. She was my sister. She is here because I persuaded her to kill my rival.”
“Oh God, let it not be so!” I wailed. I felt guilty beyond measure. “I fear I deserve to serve in Hades more than you!”
“If you could only put in a good word for me in your prayers, I would refrain from eating your eyes,” she whispered, so quietly that I doubted I had heard correctly.
We made love again, and while I lay thinking about her plight after, I fell asleep.
***
Sure enough when I woke, my eyes were still in their sockets. I heard the strangest breathing behind me so I turned, only to see a large tigress, soundly asleep.
She could have easily killed me in my sleep!
I debated for some time what to do. If I didn’t take out her eyes with my fork, she would follow me and be duty-bound to stop my progress. I would have to take her eyes out anyway but it would amount to a battle. It would be easier for me if I did the foul deed now.
I resolved that if I did it, I would indeed repent of my sins after the challenge had been completed and say a prayer for her every day of the rest of my life.
With tears in my eyes, I knelt beside her, lifted the fork and brought it down upon the tiger’s eyes. At the last moment, it opened those fearful orbs but they held no fear for me, only a willingness, and I am sure the tiger smiled.
I completed the crime and left the scene sorrowfully. Not once had the tiger stirred beyond the smile.
I did not know which way to go and tears blurred my sight so that I stumbled for a long time from tree to tree. I fear I would never have found Lilith if she hadn’t found me.
“Take me for I am sad beyond measure!” I told the great tiger before me. It seemed only the size of the sleeping, eyeless one and I felt at loss as to its lack of size.
“I only want your eyes so those I will take!” she declared.
This seems the one thing that could have stirred me to action for I love the sight of women more than life itself. To be blind and living would send me to the very darkest dungeon of Hell, a place I had never conceived.