by Max Jager
Smiling even at the corpses now wiggling and dragging themselves through the dusty floor. Their hands to their necks as they wheezed out.
The nosy guard from before went up to them, stabbed their hearts and looked back as he cleaned his blade.
"All of you, in. I don't want any more trouble."
The doors opened. The air sucked itself inside as if the dome lived in its own vacuum, its own Hell within Hell. And the sensation of the pull made them all sluggish. Trepidation grew hold of the fleet of demons before they heard the scream from behind, the guards who egged them on. And they all walked, all towards Astrix.
The road was dark and there seemed to be no end. Ajax couldn't see much of anything and only followed the sound of footsteps. His legs long since losing their feeling, he walked on numb trunks and showed as much when every other step had him flinching and kneeling.
"Are we almost there? It smells in here." The boy stuck his head out to breath.
"No," Ajax whispered.
"We've been going for a while."
"And we'll go a while lon-" Ajax felt air push down from underneath, a warm breeze. "Almost there."
They came to a stop and no longer felt the brushing shoulders of demons large and small. They ran now, gasping and laughing like jovial children. He didn't notice it, didn't see what had all the others gasping and ruffling through what sounded like grass. He moved to the side, away from the entrance and simply laid there. When there were no more demons (or at at least the sounds of them), the boy crawled out.
"It's alright," Ajax said. "No ones around."
"Mhm." Berok hummed.
His small body came out of the corpse, his clothes sticky with a mucus-like substance. His hair and face, dyed orange. He crawled underneath the hair and was the first to step outside of the two. He gasped. His body was still. He stuck his head inside again and smiled at Ajax. He went out again and began running.
"Hey!" Ajax let go of the corpse. "Don't wander."
The heavy body landed with a thud, almost crushing Ajax as squeezed himself out.
The color of the sky nearly blinded him as he stuck his hands to find the boy. When the blurred image reappeared, he understood the clamor and surprise and awe. All across, in front of him, were the green fields. The patches of flowers, bright and yellow and the roof, a gaudy thing brilliant from gems and riches. They looked like stars, the floor looked like heaven. The green trees were sparse, but their noise was loud and wholesome. The light shaking of full-leafed trees.
And further beyond the garden, further from Eden itself was the little black mark. A smidgen on the horizon. A fantastic blemish that began to drain the feeling of joy like a slit wrist.
Ajax touched the sharp grass, each blade rubbing his fingers. The wind encompassed him, coming through the small cracks on the dome wall. The capillaries made a whistling noise that got quieter as they moved towards the center. Then, then there were just the bells. The loud bells, coming down from their rapid metronome to that lower, more paced beat.
It was no less oppressive, maybe even worse with hard the noise shook the ground and the air.
He was in enemy territory, he felt it now. Ajax's head turned restlessly side to side. His body hunched down, below the grass line. All that showered the small blotches of black where the tops of their heads were.
"We're not dead yet, which is good," Ajax said.
"Mhm." Berok covered his ears as a breaking sound of a ring came towards them. Ajax felt his skin vibrate from the noise.
"It's not as good as you think, is it?" Ajax asked. His ears were ringing. "We're still in Hell, after all."
The boy frowned again.
"Our guide is gone, there goes any plans or answers." He looked up with his hand shielding him from the bright ceiling. "All we can do is walk forward. Amongst the enemy."
Berok looked up towards Ajax.
And I'm scared out of my fucking mind, Ajax thought.
Darr VII
Darr
Aleistar shuffled back and forth in front of Darr's cell.
"You idiot." He said.
"Why are you here?" Darr stood amongst the pile of thrown hay, the rags of his slave life thrown to the side. He was fitting clothes. A suit. "Child killing bastard, don't you have somewhere else to be, somewhere else to be ordered to?"
"This isn't about me anymore," Aleistar said. "This is about you choosing the worst way to handle the situation."
"I'm fighting him. Everyone's wanted it for a while now."
"You're fighting him on his terms. Do you understand what that means?"
"It means nothing," Darr said. "So long that I win, and I will win."
"And how do you know that? The man is a liar, he'll do everything in his power to win. He's already done it once."
"You would know, wouldn't you?" Darr tied his shoes. He lifted them, the shiny black and scraped his heels off a bench.
"I do know what it means to be fooled." Aleistar hit the bars. "And that's why I'm warning you."
Darr laughed.
"You've been awfully helpful, haven't you?" Darr asked. "Do you know? Somewhere deep down inside, I want to kill you. Are you aware of that?"
"Yeah, I am," Aleistar said. "And I hate you too. But I hate Astrix more. Much, much more."
"Right." Darr looked down. He flexed himself in his clothes and let them wrap tightly around him. His coat covered him snug and for a moment, he felt relief. There was silence as Aleistar watched the Veron. The man who had hunted him down, and for a moment, it seemed like he admired him. There was an intensity to Darr, a hunger for the fight. He could see it in the edges of his half-smiling mouth, in his tall pose. It was venerable, that kind of hunger. Not as degenerate as Astrix's was. A naive, honorable, fighting spirit.
"What do you think he'll do?" Darr wiped his sleeves.
"He has a legion of demons waiting for you. My guess is you won't even fight fairly. They'll all group up on you and kill you, whether you win or lose. They love their king, after all. Zealots, all of were. Are. I don't know." Aleistar looked down at his naked feet.
"Do you still love him?" Darr asked.
"No. Maybe I never did, maybe I just confused being afraid with being in love."
"Stockholm syndrome," Darr said. "That's what my partner would say."
"Maybe." Aleistar tapped the bars with his toes. "I'm telling you, this is a trap."
"Someone like you would never understand him," Darr said. "Astrix is many things, but he's no coward. He'll fight me."
"How can you be sure?"
"It's just a feeling, from one warrior to another," Darr said. "You can't see how we see the world. You, who have lived your whole life running and chasing and taking and stealing. You, who have betrayed your own family."
"I just thought." Aleistar's voice fizzled, he mumbled something incoherent.
"Stop projecting," Darr said. "You're supposed to be the psychologist, aren't you?"
Footsteps approached them, loud bodies and deep voices.
"Fine then," Aleistar hissed. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
Be backed away, down towards the end of the hall as two brutes opened the cell. They did not touch Darr, did not so much as even look at him. They looked past them, with their shields to their sides and their spears pointing towards the hall, and the direction of the king.
"I'll see you later," Darr said. "And then we'll settle everything. Retribution is coming for you too, buddy."
He made his tie around his neck like a noose and walked down the hall, up the building, through the small halls until he was outside. There were guards still, though fewer in numbers, leading him out the villa and towards a bustling roar of voices.
They came to a stop in front of the loud source of noise, in front of a cathedral and in front of that, a pillar. A guardian, atop the roman pillar, eyed him. Darr said nothing, rather shared a solemn respect before making his way through the fields of grass and into a different kind of field. This new, stranger
field, had swords laid all about, stabbed through the floor with the grime collecting on their handles. They surrounded the cathedral and made an awful tune as the wind blew past them.
He didn't touch one, didn't even think about grabbing any of them.
He walked past the grave sites and the swords and towards the giant cathedral whose dark walls and shadows hid the myriad yellow and white eyes, whose eyes themselves hid the myriad intentions of the demons. The loud, frightened and angry and sad and excited demons. The guests, the crowd, gawked at him and howled as they opened a line for him to enter. He felt spit hit his face, insults thrown at his ears, mockery after mockery as he came up the steps. The animals, the monstrosities, all cajoled into bedlam.
At the top of the steps waited Herald. His glare was worst of all as he pointed something towards Darr. He had in his hands a bag. Darr felt inside of it, something comfortable touched his fingers. He found his two pistols and nearly sighed relief, amongst the rowdy crowd booing at him.
"I'm surprised you managed to get them out of my coat," Darr said.
"Amateur arcana," Herald mumbled. Darr grimaced, he stuck his hands into the bag again and took bullet after bullet, by the handful, back into his coat. He saved twelve bullets, six for each of his pistols (he didn't need the safety of an empty chamber, he wasn't planning on having any kind of trigger discipline).
He opened the unholy doors. The whole building felt more of a mockery than a blessed house and it made him shiver. The very air seemed to make his lungs hollow and his body empty. It was a terrible place to be in, as a Catholic as he was.
Near him, a dry font. Around him, the broken statues and painted glass of some of his favorite holy figures. All defiled. All aborted.
He scanned the room, the crowd held their breath for him. His steps left no echo, there were too many people. The monsters piled up on the sides of the walls, some of them hung from the roof with claws and with other appendages. The demons, the men who acted like demons, all hand in hand. Soldier and monster, all vying for the title of most wicked and most loud.
But someone had won it, long ago, through many fights and many years. And he waited for Darr now, at the very front of the large Cathedral. He approached him. Darr only now figured the large scale of the building. The columns were plentiful, he counted twenty between four sides, making a square, with a little gap for the preacher podium on the upper center. There, Astrix waited, on the seat of God; a simple wooden chair. The light came off his rusted armor. It must have been silver and brilliant once. It must have been forged by a sensible hand with a sensible heart. Maybe once.
Now it's wear and its wearer, both, laid rusting. Astrix stood. His gauntlets, his knee paddings, his leather skirt and his rusted-silver breast-plate. His helmet, plumed and imposing, the gap for his eyes and mouth, sharp to contour shadows around his face.
Two braided tails of white hair fell down his right face. It seemed like an inherited fashion. Was he dressing up as his uncle, as his father?
It didn't matter.
He pulled at something at the top of his helmet. A silver mask came over him.
Darr felt his left leg shake. There were markings on this mask and helmet. Smiles and scars chiseled into the flesh of steel, streaks of painted red leading down from his eyes to give the appearance of streaked tears. This smiling, crying devil. He came forth, grey, like a diseased dove who had long since lost his wings.
His muscles were pronounced, Darr could tell they could barely fit under all the gear.
"I thought this would be appropriate," His hands were wide and his chest exposed. A spear on one hand, a large leather-bound shield on the other. "To die upon your God, to bleed for him on these holy steps. This will be your greatest honor, a proper libation to your lord and savior Jesus Christ."
I'll kill him, Darr thought. I won't give him a chance, I'll kill him.
His leg shook worse.
"You wanted this." Astrix circled and spoke to the audience now.
"Didn't he?" He shouted.
The crowd rioted.
"Trying to kill the king," Astrix said. "A travesty worthy of a hard death."
The crowd clapped and screamed.
"A heart-eater, a demon hunter. What better man to rip apart and share amongst these love patrons!"
The clamor shook the building. The walls seemed to breathe from the ecstasy and joy of the crowd. Darr felt sick in the stomach. His leg could not stop tapping on the floor. Rapid still, harsher, louder. Fear and impatience ticking away.
"Hurry it up," Darr screamed back. The crowd silenced. "I don't need your theatrics, I need your head."
There were sneers coming out from the demons now, low laughter and hushing blurbs and laughter again. Astrix shouted back.
"Silence!" Astrix screamed. His voice was dry and hoarse.
"Are you a thespian or a soldier?" Darr put his left leg forward, fingers now on the trigger. "Let them cry or clap, they won't decide a thing. That right belongs to God. God, and no other."
Astrix blew out wind from the small gap in the mouth of his mask. He sounded like a machine, breathing out and in, fueling the engine of rage in him. The crowd stayed silent.
"Then let it be so," The mask screeched. "Here lived and died Darr, in the house of God."
And he disappeared under that shield. Only a streak of red and the sandals of his feet showed as he inched closer to Darr, spear overhead.
Darr reached into his coat. He put his mask on, his head slanted down from the weight. He looked down to his guns and wondered, did they always feel this light? Was I always this excited?
Ajax XII
Ajax
They stalked the lands and watched as the crowd thinned out. There were a few stray demons, wandering the fields in mindless bliss, grazing almost, on the heavenly nature of it all. Small critters. So stupefied by the opiate of the view were they, that none noticed or cared about Ajax or the boy traveling. They played and Ajax pulled the boy from the image of the husks, the monsters, in ecstatic pleasure at something as simple as a bit of grass and flower.
They came to the center of the dome, where the crowd who either wandered into or wandered away from and looked about the aqueducts lining the city.
"Water slides." The boy commented.
"Not exactly."
There was a spillage of which they both traveled underneath. The water hit the tops of their heads, it felt cold and oily like something had lived in this water and subsequently died. Berok tried sticking his tongue out, but Ajax tapped his head. He shut it.
"Don't trust anything here," Ajax said. "It's all an act."
There were small houses near the aqueducts in what seemed to be the outer layer of the place. Circular rings separated every class of building (and citizen). As they approached the center the huts grew into larger, crumpled buildings whose two-story floors now laid collapsed on and about the fields. These were atriums. Buildings of aristocrats, buildings with large broken marbled pools, spilling wild grass from their cracks. Large trees lined the lost gardens of the atriums, the trees overgrown and warping the land with its roots. The further up they went, the worse the land seemed to get and the dirtier it got, which was strange. You'd expect this of the poor.
Ajax looked up, a giant hole was in the ceiling the dome. Dust came in and out, as did light from there. Maybe the ceiling had fallen? Sounded ridiculous, looked ridiculous. But maybe it was true.
"Don't you give up on me now," Ajax said. The boy nodded and picked himself up from a high step onto the flat land.
The giant villa of Astrix was in front of him with all the frivolity of the architecture. The chaotic mess of culture and history that made it seem more theme park than home. Within the walls, the rooms, there were loud noises like a small crowd. Then, shuffling of steps.
"Shh." He told the boy. Ajax wandered into the building from a side door. There was a moment of silence, then the shaking of metal armor, a yelp. Then two heavy sounds, the sounds of armor fallin
g to the floor. Silence now.
Ajax came out with blood on his face.
"Let's hurry up," Ajax said. Berok shook, then straightened out.
"Alright." He said in a voice low and uneasy.
Alright.
They traveled quickly through the villa, stopping every now and then to assassinate guards who wandered. And it was a strange sense for Berok, to feel revenge and regret both at once as each guard fell. To want to get away and to want to see it through at the same time.