by Cebelius
"Will I see you again, when it's all over?" Terry asked, unable for the moment to look at him. He wiped his eyes and blinked to clear them as he took a deep breath and let it out, regaining his composure.
"That depends on you entirely. I think you know that. I'm glad I got to see you though. I'm glad you stopped by. While I can't help you, there's someone you can help, if you're minded to."
"Who? Where?" Terry got to his feet and shook his head to clear it of the last of the well of unseemly emotion. He couldn't be ashamed, not in front of this man, these gates, but being all choked up wouldn't help him get done what needed doing. If this man asked, he would drop everything he had going. It occurred to him that he would usually be skeptical of this, but he wasn't. He simply knew. This man was exactly who he said he was, full stop. There was no room for doubt, at least not in Terry's mind.
"Here, take this."
As he stood up and dusted himself off, Peter reached out with his other hand, and dropped a small wooden token with the fish symbol carved on it into Terry's palm. He then pointed and said, "Follow that fellow with yellowed ivory tusks and the ratty loincloth. When he enters a tent, hand this token to the barker at the door and go in after him. Inside, you'll know what needs doing. Go on now, best hustle. He's leaving."
20
Amazing Lace
Terry desperately wanted to talk more with the man who, according to legend and his current reality, literally guarded the gates of Heaven. Instead, his sense of responsibility turned him around and sent him jogging through the crowd after some dude who — once spotted — turned out to be an orc very like the ones he had slain in the Monsoon complex.
He'd never seen one since, and blinked in surprise. He'd never thought to ask, but had presumed orcs didn't come to the surface.
His memories of that first dungeon delve were more than a little fragmented, but he was sure that this orc was bigger than most of the others he'd encountered, and he found himself wondering if he was supposed to fight this brute. Terry didn't have any weapons on him, but the orc had a short-handled battle ax slung across his back and a smaller hatchet threaded through a loop at his belt.
Following along, he let the orc lead him through the carnival, and they passed quite a few attractions. Several times the orc stopped to listen to the barkers, but always wound up scowling and turning away to continue his search.
Finally though, he came to a pavilion that was larger than most of the others he'd passed save for the big tops, which were distinctive and truly massive affairs with multiple pinnacles and wide, bright stripes in a rainbow of hues.
This tent was large, but entirely red save for the canvas swung back from the entrance, which was a slightly lighter shade of pink. The impression the entrance left on Terry's mind gave him a strong suspicion he knew what kind of attraction the tent held.
Saint Peter sent me to a cat house? Fuckin' really?!
The thought was ludicrous, but the orc walked confidently up to the barker, tilted his head as though to try and see into the dark interior, then said, "You got girls here?"
"All kinds, friend. One soul token for the ride of your afterlife. Anything you want, stay as long as you want."
The orc grunted, not even thinking it over as he slapped a wooden token into the barker's outstretched palm. The barker — a minotaur wearing a ridiculous-looking half-tux complete with tails and a shiny black hat — bowed with one hand across his chest and the other extended to the entrance, and the orc disappeared inside.
Unsure if he was supposed to keep following the orc once inside or not, Terry walked up immediately and held out his token without a word. He didn't need to ask what was going on inside, and didn't care to speak to the tauren in a top hat pimping the wares.
That worthy blinked at him, then looked at the token a long moment before he accepted it and repeated his bow.
Terry stepped inside.
Sex has a pungency, an unmistakable musk, and it was thick in the air of the pavilion. There was a curtain wall hung just past the entrance, but stepping around this put Terry in an ante-chamber done in tawdry red and gold, lit by smokey lanterns hung from chains or perched on ornately carved end tables. Girls lazed on chaise lounges and plush cushions. They glanced up at Terry as he came into sight, but their eyes were glazed and they showed no real interest. As his gaze swept over them, many of them shifted their clothing or posture to show themselves off to best advantage, but none spoke.
Terry recognized a siren, several minotresses and a few other representatives of species he had no names for. The orc, despite the fact that he'd stepped in less than ten seconds ahead of Terry, was nowhere in sight.
As his eyes panned back and forth over an ocean of fleshly invitation, Terry realized that he never saw the same girl twice. The space he was in was no more than thirty by thirty, if that, but at the same time it seemed to house an impossible number and variety of folk. Not all of them were female either, and the males of various species were just as languidly receptive to his looks.
This is fucking ridiculous. What am I supposed to actually DO here?
Thinking that perhaps he should have stayed closer to the orc, Terry strode the length of the room and thrust an arm through the beaded curtain that separated it from the rest of the space. No one protested, and no one followed him.
Beyond the beads Terry was confronted by a hallway of ivory pillars supporting dark-red velvet curtains, most of which were drawn closed. Sounds of coupling ranging from the sweet to the obscene drifted past the curtains, and with no better idea of what he was supposed to do than before and with no orc in sight, Terry kept going.
Finally, he heard something that told him exactly what he'd been sent here to do, and if he was wrong ... fuck it. He was doing it anyway.
The sound was a high-pitched shriek of exquisite agony. The pain of that scream was so raw that it clawed at his soul.
'Anything you want, stay as long as you want ...'
Snarling, Terry ran down the hall of ivory and velvet, and as the shrill scream devolved into broken sobs, he found the right alcove and shoved his way through the curtain.
What he saw stopped him cold, and tightened the skin at the back of his neck as horror flooded through him.
The girl was bound on a crux decussata — her arms and legs secured by iron manacles to the points of the x-shaped wooden frame — and most of the skin had been peeled off her left leg and right arm. A section of skin under her breasts had been sliced on all four sides, clearly with the intention of removal by peeling. Her face had been slashed and cut up so badly that there was almost nothing recognizable there save for the horrified eyes that begged him for salvation.
The torturer whirled as Terry stepped into the room, and he was horrifying in an entirely different way. The man had no head, nor any neck. An eye blinked at Terry from the front of each shoulder, and a wide mouth crossed his abdomen below a massive nose that rode his sternum and was framed by heavy slabs of muscle. He was otherwise proportioned as any man, with pale skin, though he was thick with muscle.
He was also completely naked, and exceedingly erect.
"What are you doing here!?" the thing roared, its voice deep and resonant. In one hand he held a wicked-looking hookblade, its forward curved edge dripping gore. In the other he held a patch of bloody flesh.
"I paid my soul token just like everyone else! Get out!" the torturer bellowed, brandishing the knife. "Before I use this on you!"
Terry did not speak. In such moments, words often failed him. He stepped forward and smashed a fist into the eye on the thing's right shoulder. It howled in pain and slashed at him with the bloody knife.
Expecting the move, Terry caught the wrist as he twisted into the monster, slamming his shoulder into the grotesquely protruding chest nose and hauling the arm down and across.
The creature's feet left the ground and it flew over Terry's shoulder to slam into the soft, plush rug that covered the space.
It was not th
e sort of impact Terry had hoped for, and the creature proved surprisingly adroit as its other hand slapped down to defuse the force of the landing and it spun around to put its feet toward Terry, kicking with vicious force before the man could let him go and leap away.
The savage kick caught Terry in the midsection and doubled him up as his wind left him in a rush, and he only barely managed to jerk his head up in time to avoid a slash from the knife that would have cut his throat to the bone.
As it was, a hot line of pain opened just below his collarbone, and he hissed his annoyance at the cut as the torturer kipped to his feet and threw the bloody flesh in his off-hand before charging in, knife swinging to disembowel.
Terry got a hand up in time to ward off the macabre slab of skin headed for his face. He slapped the knife past him and slammed his fist in toward the nose, but it was not only ten times larger than any normal nose, it was far more durable, and Terry felt one of his fingers break as it cracked against hard bone.
He felt the break, but only distantly. He ignored the pain, his lips peeled back in a rictus of rage as he squared off against the headless freak.
The thing knew what it was doing. It was strong, fast, and Terry found himself in a genuine fight for his life as he side-stepped and dodged, fists flashing out to land glancing blows on the man's sides. With no head and a gaping mouth for a belly, the only obvious weak spots in easy reach of Terry's fists were the eyes in the shoulders, but these were well protected and he never managed another square hit on one.
The right eye was discolored and flooded with blood, but still open and focused. Both eyes were narrowed in rage, and as the seconds passed, Terry earned another cut high on his right shoulder and a wicked gash down the back of his left as he blocked a high slice and the creature expertly slid the knife down and across the length of his forearm.
Blood sprayed and Terry howled but didn't let up, slamming another wicked right just to the side of the gaping maw. The headless man-thing didn't even seem to feel it, and as Terry backed up it started to howl with laughter, sensing weakness.
It flipped the knife from the right hand to the left and back again as it opened its mouth to speak.
Whatever it might have said didn't make it out. Terry had a bad habit of fighting clean, but at times like this he wasn't inclined to hold anything back. Terry feinted toward the right eye again then jerked his hand back as the knife flashed up to cut him. Instead he snap-kicked, and caught the creature squarely in the nuts.
Terry had broken glass bottles hung from string with that kick during skill exhibitions, barefoot. Now he wore hard-toed boots, and that sort of force didn't just bruise testicles.
It destroyed them.
The shoulder eyes widened and teared up as the already open mouth howled with agony. The monster's knees folded up, and the thing dropped his knife and cupped himself as blood flooded between his fingers. His belly mouth opened until the whole of his upper body was back-bowed and his shoulders touched the carpet. The sounds he made were filled with the sort of agony few people are ever cursed to endure.
Terry took a step back and, for a moment, he watched.
He watched with an empty mind, receiving the thing's pain and accepting it, allowing it. Then he left the creature to bleed out in unspeakable agony as he stepped quickly to the back of the crux. The metal manacles weren't actually locked with a key. Only pins, and he pulled the two up top and wrapped an arm around the girl's waist to keep her from falling as he leaned to get her legs free.
Stepping around the cross brace, he swept the sobbing woman into his arms and murmured, "It's all right. I'm gonna get you out of here."
It was unlikely she heard him over the horrible wailing of her erstwhile torturer, but she wrapped her arms around him and buried her muzzle into his neck as she sobbed.
He stepped past the velvet, expecting to have to navigate the corridor, and instead found himself blinking in daylight, the tent entrance behind him.
He half-turned, but the minotaur in the top hat just looked at him curiously, then at the girl. He shrugged, then turned to bark at a passerby, once more offering flesh for soul.
Terry began to work his way through the crowd, heading back toward Peter. He felt the girl's arms shivering around his neck, and noticed for the first time the blonde fringe that hung from her forearms.
He felt again the press of her muzzle to his neck, and realized that there were no wounds on her. Whatever torture she had endured had apparently been left behind. At least, the physical torture had been. She was still crying.
That thought made him twist his wounded arm to look, but his own injuries were also gone. Apparently, what happened in the sex/torture tent stayed in the sex/torture tent. At this point, freed of both the pain of his injuries and the nagging worry about how those wounds would impact his mission, he wasn't about to question it.
Terry lifted his head and tried to get a better look at the girl, but she curled her arms tightly around his neck and pressed her face to his throat. He could feel her tears but she was no longer sobbing aloud, only crying.
"It's okay. It's over. I'm taking you somewhere safe," he murmured to her as he threaded through the crowds.
She nodded, gasped for breath, and clutched at him as though afraid he would let her go.
He was in a haze as he walked, and as the adrenaline faded from his system he sought with all his mind and soul to block out the images now burned into them. He knew that he would never be able to forget what he had seen. That nightmare vision would never leave him.
But that was no nightmare. That was REAL.
Finally, Peter's booth came into sight, and he rounded his counter and spread his arms wide as Terry brought the girl to him.
The balding old man bent slightly and kissed the girl's brow as he slid arms around her and took her weight, murmuring, "It's all right, dear child. You are safe. You are saved."
But the girl didn't relinquish her hold on Terry and for the first time she spoke. Her voice was tearful and desperate as she said, "No ... please, Boss. Don't leave me!"
Boss?
After another moment, she disentangled herself from him and as Peter lifted her away she looked at Terry and here, in the bright light of day and with the blood of her torture gone, he recognized her.
"Shu."
He barely breathed the name, unbelieving.
Shu burst into tears and Peter let her go as she found her feet and threw herself at him, sobbing as she wrapped him up and pressed her body into his.
"Boss ... Boss ... you came. You came back for me!"
"Poor girl," Peter said, his hands folded as he looked on with understanding sympathy. "She played a game of chance to learn about you, and lost. The Carnival of the Soul is a dangerous place for mortal dead. Those who do not know where to go are often trapped here in bondage. This place becomes their purgatory."
Terry didn't know what to say. He wrapped his arms gently around the sobbing woman and held her as he looked at Peter. The man was blurry in his eyes, and he swallowed once before he managed, "I can't take her ... can I?"
"No, son. You can't. Her time on Celestine is done."
Peter sighed and glanced up, then back down with a gentle smile as he said, "There is an alternative though. Turns out someone prayed for her to have a place, and we take those kinds of prayers seriously. She may not have a soul token to give me, may never have heard the good Word, but if she wants ..."
Peter reached out and set a gentle hand on Shu's shoulder. "She can come with me."
Shu glanced back at Peter, then up at Terry, her eyes shining. He reached up and cupped her face, thumbs gently wiping away her tears as he tried to keep his own in check, and his voice from trembling.
He almost managed it.
"Shu ... listen to me. I am so sorry. I am so sorry! I should never have left you. Can you forgive me? Please?"
She blinked, and fresh tears squeezed out, but she nodded. "I forgive you. You came back for me. Came all
the way here and found me. You saved me! Thank you so much!"
She sobbed once, and then buried her face in his chest again as she cried, "But I can't repay you! I have nothing!"
Terry stroked her beautiful blonde hair gently and kissed the top of her head as he murmured, "Shh, yes you can. There's something you can do for me, something that would make me very, very happy."
She looked up at him, eyes desperate.
"What can I do? I'll do anything, anything at all!"
Struggling to smile for her, Terry nodded to the waiting Peter and said, "Go with him. He'll take you to a safe place, a good place."
He hesitated, swallowed, then added, "A place I hope to see for myself someday."
"Can I wait for you there?" she asked, her voice tremulous, but hopeful.
He smiled and cupped her cheek, then kissed her gently and said, "If you want, but only then. I think you'll be happy there no matter what."
She was already nodding, and she leaned up and kissed him back, then again, then threw her arms back around him as she babbled, "I will! I'll go, and I'll wait for you! Please don't forget about me!"
"Shu, I will never, ever forget about you ... and thank you, again."
Gently putting her at arm's length, he glanced down. She followed his look, then gasped and covered her mouth with both hands at what she saw as he said, "You gave me good boots."
She made a sound that was half crying, half laughter, and when she looked up into his eyes again, Terry was sure he'd never seen anyone so happy.
21
Tiger by the Tail
Asturial's heavy feet crushed twigs and bracken as she trotted after the Nightmare, Isthil. The two had been running for most of a day at least, and still they had yet to catch any sight of Yuri.
She didn't have to ask her companion if this was the right way though. Trees had been torn apart, and the vaguely spicy smell of Yuri Kolenko was unmistakable to her. She followed it with the unerring step of someone walking through a hallway. Yuri was enraged. He had torn his way through the forest, and his scent was still strong in the air.