by Max Jager
"A ticket. To heaven? If it exists."
"Skeptic 'till the end. Here you are facing death and you still can't fathom the idea of heaven."
"Some things are just too good to be true."
"You might be right. Maybe." The Hyena's eyes wandered for a bit. Melancholy, almost. "No, most people get reborn. Reincarnated. New body, same soul."
"Great, you get another shot at fucking up life. That's just great." The winds eased, his eyes were already red though. Red, throbbing, hurting from sand and dirt. It made him teary-eyed.
"You still didn't tell me what any of this has to do with Astrix. Or why there aren't any people here."
"There are people here. Just few of them, fewer than there ought to be."
"Doesn't matter to me. What's your point with all this? What do I care about the cycle of death and rebirth?"
"Most people would be excited to know salvation awaits them. I thought you were Catholic?"
"Most people are stupid. The same fucking soul, the same fucking person making the same fucking mistakes. It doesn't matter how many tries you get at life. It's all a shot in the dark and you're more likely to put yourself in a worse position being reborn than a better one. How's that for a cosmic gamble? How's that for salvation?" Ajax looked back to the Hyena who sat with its ass on the floor and his head high. "Why would you guess I'm Catholic?"
"I just figured you'd be Catholic. Your friend was at least." The Hyena said.
"What are you-" His mouth opened, his tongue was arid. It had white spots growing on it, near his tonsils. "Who are you talking about?"
"The man in the suit like the one you're wearing. Right? Your friend, Darr. He went to fight the good fight a long time ago. I wonder how he's doing." The animal was smiling, it seemed to revel as it licked itself and chewed on its arm.
Ajax didn't know how to feel. His eyes became spastic. Around him were two giant stretches of stone if you could call them that, they looked like walls. Giant stone mountain walls that stretched miles left and right, with no end in sight. There was a crack though, a small valley where the wind passed. It was behind Ajax.
"Where'd he go?" Ajax reached for the animal;s throat. It kicked dirt at Ajax.
"Don't get so touchy! You haven't even taken me out on my first date." The creature laughed, its body was low to the ground as it beamed its yellow ringed eyes at Ajax. "I'll tell you where he's going. That's the point. He went North.
"And what the fuck is Northward. There's no compass. No time, no anything!"
"I'll give you a tip. And don't forget it, sweetie." His laugh sounded like a howl, it was booming in the small enclosure between the two mountain ranges. "That hole in the sky. You see it, don't you? It rests South in the sky. If you want to go North, just walk away from it. Run away from it, the further you are from that dark pit, the closer you are to Astrix. And through him, your exit. You still have that cup, don't you?"
Ajax's glare focused in on the hound. He must have not been more than two meters wide but held in him all that grief and tension, it made Ajax freeze.
"Who the fuck are you?" He drew his sword, he rested it on his shoulder. His feet dug into the sand.
"We've already been through this line of questioning." His voice sounded warped. Was it the wind, the echo of the narrow valley? "I'm just a Hyena."
"Bullshit, what's your name?"
"What's a name?" The Hyena asked. Ajax swung, out came the cloud of destruction and the small stones that shot out like shrapnel. He lifted his sword, there was nobody, no animal, just a hole and empty space and a few elongated creatures that scattered. The Spotted Hyena was behind him now. It did not growl, did not breath, simply looked on with its beady eyes.
"A name is what tells me whether you're a friend or a foe. That's what it is to me. Now speak up before I chop your ass in half." Ajax felt spittle coming down his chin.
"It's a label then? An identifier? Isn't that a bit too close minded for you? I can be anything you want, honey."
"Call it that nasty human habit, call it a biological tick, call it whatever you want motherfucker. Cataloging the good and the bad is a great way to avoid trouble. And you, you are trouble. So you tell me right now where I put you, which file cabinet do you belong to, fucker? Who are you?"
"I'm an angel, aren't I? Otherwise, your little cat string would have gone off, wouldn't it have?"
Ajax felt the chill down his spine as all revelations usually do, inspire fear. Yes, why hadn't his little string gone off, rattled, shaken with that unhinged excitement? It should have worked, more so down here in Hell and Purgatory than any other place, more so with this creature in front of him. But it didn't. It was mute, dead. Why hadn't it gone off? What was the Hyena?
"I probably have as many names as there are stars in the universe. I don't understand half of them though. They always call me the deceiver, the liar. But to you, Ajax, to you I am a friend." It laughed, innocent and gentile. Or at least tried to appear as such. "Though I guess that's a point of contention isn't it? The lying friend! How about that? Hah."
Ajax walked around the creature, began to calculate his range and his method of attack and his speed and his momentum. The Hyena, however, simply rolled. Rolled in the sand.
"It's not like you've been honest, Ajax. Or should I call you by your real name? Well, as real as any name could be. Your first name, I believe. The one your degenerate crack whore of a mother gave you. Oh, what was it again? Hmm? August? Agustín? Yes! Agustín Octavio del Rio Jr. Did I pronounce that right? My, my that's a Mexican mouthful if-"
Ajax swung again. Faster, much more malicious. His nose was flared, his eyes were crimson and shown through the cloak of gold dust. He was pointing that blade, pointing it to the sound of the voice, for he had struck nothing and in missing, seemed to feed his anger more.
"I thought you were the cool one? Even Darr seemed more together."
Once again he swung. The earth cracked and broke.
"Who are you?" Ajax screamed.
"I am the Virgil to your Dante." Ajax swung at the voice.
"The Obi-Wan to your Luke." Again, this time with more gusto.
"The Alfred to your Bruce Wayne." Ajax turned. He felt his ankle twist and he fell face first into the desert. His sword spun a bit in the air before it injected itself some meters off from him. It looked like a nameless tombstone.
"Well, that's fantastic! I was running out of examples." The Hyena seemed to materialize out of that cloud of smoke.
"What do you want?" Ajax asked, mouth full. His voice was shaken.
"I want what's best for my son. Though I must say, I am rather disappointed. I thought I reared you better, but it seems like you still have some ways to go before you're ready to kill that man." He walked towards the blade and bit the handle. He dragged it along the sand, it made a whistling sound as the wind passed. The Hyena dropped it a few inches away from Ajax, though Ajax had no urge to grab it. "There are some things about yourself you still need to confront. That's kind of obvious though, don't you think? And I'm not talking about your useless father or your useless mother. They're dead to you. I know that. No, I'm talking about your surrogate and more importantly, your friend."
"How do you know-" He didn't bother finishing. He wasn't even sure if the Hyena was real, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was. The id manifest? Just an Illusion? His self-contempt materialized, finally, in this hellish plane. He thought that for a moment, tried to persuade himself at least that the Hyena was just an anomaly of the mind. But he felt a knock on his forehead, a paw that bopped him softly on the face.
"Your friend had much more courage than you. It's a shame you didn't see him off, you could have learned something from him. You could have copied that big heart of his." He howled. "And only his heart! He doesn't have much of a brain, from what I could tell."
Ajax laid flat on the earth, eyes open and staring into that hole in the sky. It seemed like something desperate, something sad and small was trying to escape from his
pouty, black eyes.
"You're an important investment to me, Ajax. And it'd be great if you could show that same enthusiasm."
"That's a lot to demand from a stranger." Ajax coughed. His throat felt clogged.
"You're no stranger to me, you're my child. And one who's needed a bit of discipline for a long while now." The Hyena began to walk away. "This is all a loving warning, you see. So why don't you let me help? Heed my words. Tattoo them into your skull if you have to. You'll travel past this little valley. You'll survive too, it won't be easy though. Northeast you'll find a barrack, find your survivors. If there are any, if not, make your peace and move on. Keep going north until you hit the dome. Then you can see for yourself that fragile kingdom Astrix has built, one of sand of one of hubris. I'm sure by then, he'd have found you. Go to him. Kill him. And listen well, don't you listen to him. No matter how much of yourself you see in him, remember this, he must die."
"So that's what you want. An assassin." Ajax stood with both of his hands.
"No. I wan a messenger. I want a flag bearer. I want you to become a better man."
"Why? What do you have invested in me?"
"What does the father want, of all things small and large?" The Hyena asked. Ajax stayed silent. "He wants to be killed by the son, he knows that to be his end."
"Well, if you just stood still, I could have done that for you right away."
"A symbolic murder. You know that. I want you to become a better person than I was."
"And I want you to never talk to me again."
"Wanting and willing are very different, Ajax. You need my help."
"I don't give a fuck about your help. Stop being so esoteric, give it to me straight. What's our relationship?" The sand was coming off his clothes. Ajax stood hunched.
"I'll tell you if you survive. Sure." The Hyena unhinged its mouth. Its teeth were pronounced, sharp and stained yellow.
Ajax looked at him, he could feel his legs turning, begging him to move. His eyes wouldn't turn away though. It took some effort, a push by the wind, a distant cry, to finally make Ajax move towards the valley. The Valley where the tarps flowed gently on metal lines and where the little-broken huts of villages past sat aging in the sand.
The Hyena looked on. His tail was wagging. He sniffed the air and began to dig a small foxhole. When he was ready, when Ajax was far and away and entering the shadowy valley, he sat on his bed. A grin on his face.
Ajax III
Ajax
He traveled long inside of that small crack, in between two monoliths of stone that went endlessly both sides. It was the only crack, the only opening, the Hyena had said. So this was the way, the only way, through this narrow and flat stretch. He had walked for hours or thought so, it might have been days. Time felt odd here, in this place. It might have been weeks, he didn't know for he felt neither hunger nor thirst, only a growing tiredness that gnawed on him. However long it was (and it was long), he was thankful when he finally found the sediments of life. Buildings and huts, small caves along ridges of both high walls that had clothes and tarps flowing from their openings. He smiled for a bit, then it fell again.
There was a buzz, like static in the air. He ignored it. For the hamlet was dead. It was killed long ago and left to rot upon the salted dirt. He could see the litter of white, the small specks upon the yellow sand. Maybe it was ash, the cremated corpses of the villagers. He looked around, the two walls of stone were winding and the city too, winding. Was it a village? Or a city? Whatever remained was too little to tell as to the history of this land.
He climbed to one of the ridges where a blue tarp flowed out like laundry. It was the entrance to a small enclave, a home once. He saw the remnants of one at least, a black stain from a firepit at the center of the cave, some furniture broken into wood pieces, furs of animals that looked strange and foreign to him.
Ajax lifted the tarp and walked further into the cave, there were more stains. Human-sized stains clinging to the edges of the cave. He turned around and walked back and stepped on something. He looked beneath his foot. It was a doll. A doll made from husk and hair.
It brought upon that eerie chill, like a cold wind to his nape.
He passed by the tarps and the caves, the small houses growing more dessicate as he went on along the path until finally, he came to the hub. A large expanse, a fat little circle in this small little narrow way.
He looked past it. There was an exit, he was beginning to see the rest of the desert again.
"What a strange feeling. I'm glad to see sand." He looked back, there was no Hyena though. No friend, no one and stepped through.
The houses were a mishmash of brick and dirt and the makeshift lid of thatch twigs covered them. Odd little huts that he inspected more closely, most of them were caved in. Stranger, they showed no wear of war or fire. The walls and beams were covered instead with penny-sized holes. It was as if they were nibbled, devoured. He left to the furthest building, the one least destroyed. He entered the low door frame, there was nothing covering it and he could hear a brick collapsing behind him, the loud thump and shatter. Ajax sighed. He was glad he wasn't superstitious.
His eyes scanned the room, studied the wooden beams that snapped at the touch. The dirt felt loose. There were jars around him, giant orange urns with painted histories along the sides. Though they were eroded. Ajax rubbed his chin.
"Red-figure pottery."
A vase moved. The sound of a shimmy. It was called to his voice.
"Hello?"
Another rattle. He heard its direction must clearer, walked towards hit. Ajax's hand was inside his coat, he could feel the handle of his blade. He came to the urn that shook, that vibrated and waited. Like a practical joke, a prank, he waited for the load and spring of the clown.
"Who are you?" Ajax said to the urn. There was a wobble, a turn and rumble that indicated the weight of something heavy from within. He walked closer, his footsteps vibrating and sending a silent signal to the urn to shake again.
"I'll say it one last time." Ajax began. He made that sinister whistle of the blade as he drew it above of his head. A voice responded, muffled. It was enough to make Ajax bring his blade down with a wide arc, collapsing the floor beneath him. The thing inside the urn now shook violently as it fell lopsided, into the hole Ajax had just made.
Ajax knelt down, grabbed the top and inspected the shaking vase. It was not made of clay, nor of porcelain, rather some kind of hard black metal. The orange drawings were faded, they looked like strips of broken film. He could vaguely make out a man in the painting, a man holding a spear and commanding another man to kneel.
Ajax narrowed his eyes. He brought his hand to the top of the voice at what seemed like a plunger. He swore he could hear buzzing, he swore the wind was bringing in the sound. He ignored it, instead, went back to the urn and to what was making the noise. He shoved his fingers inside of the top of the voice. A layer of wood above a layer of metal, he penetrated both until his fingers touched whatever was inside. It was wet, shaking, warm.
In one move, Ajax flexed and draw his arm back and watched the lid fly in the air like a disk, watched it float like those old inspired UFOs and saw it stab through the thatch top ceiling of the house. Or what was left of the ceiling. It was stuck in there, the half disk. And Ajax stood again and walked away from the urn. He picked his sword on the way out, he could feel the steel crack and snap off like the molting of a serpent.
Then Ajax waited. He was patient on his side of the house, where the roof came down like a small lip and where the hay poked at his hair. There in the darkness, with his crimson eyes, he waited for whatever was inside of that vessel to come out.
He heard it at last. That scream, that moan of a crazed man. He saw a hand come out, pale and loose-skinned. The flesh looked waterlogged, the smell was terrible. A fermented smell of fish, then of something sour, like long due cheese curds. It looked toxic, this crustacean of a man as he came out of his shell. He looked oily. His
eyes lashes were white and he looked away from the light in the sky and ran to the other end of the house where the shadows were.
"Πίσω τέρας!" The man screamed.
"What is that? I don't understand."
"Πίσω, είπα, Πίσω!"
"Can you understand me?" There was nothing but more shouting, more screeching. Ajax spat. He nodded his head and walked towards the urn man.
Ajax extended his hands and thought to grab the man's hairs before he realized he didn't have many if anything. They were more like threads, loose hanging black threads. He grabbed the back of the man's head instead and felt his drooping flesh. To Ajax, it felt like wet pigskin.
"Sorry. I can't be fucked." Ajax said. "I don't mean to trespass, but I need to get something straight and I hope you don't mind my detective work."