Ascent of the Fallen

by Rebecca L. Frencl

Bezaal laughed, that harsh sound, the scraping of tiny claws on bone. “You’ll let me live? I show you the way and Asmoday pulls out my entrails with a hook.” He shrugged. “Either way I die.”

  Rue stalked closer. “We can end you here and now. But you might be able to hide from Asmoday.”

  Speculation twisted the demon’s face as he weighed the options. Certain doom now or a possibility of freedom.

  “Who knows,” Azrael’s voice sounded like a low purr, “what the Dark Lord will do to Asmoday if we succeed and all his plans fail. Look at the opportunity.”

  A slow smile spread across Bezaal’s face, visions of not only freedom but currying favor dancing in his evil little head. “Agreed.”

  Azrael stepped back, the scythe disappearing. He waved Elli forward. She drifted down to take his hand. “Will you complete our bargain now, ghost girl, that we have another guide?”

  She shook her head. “Not until you’re safely in the Labyrinth. No matter what, I don’t trust it.”

  Bezaal laughed. “Safely in the Labyrinth.”

  Azrael nodded. “Very well.”

  Rue shot silver strands of power into the demon, a celestial leash to keep it from scurrying off into the darkness. “Now, bend the halls and lead on.”

  Bezaal bowed and closed his shining eyes. The halls twisted, rose, blurred. The harsh coppery stone hall they’d stood in shifted and changed without them stirring a foot, changing to smooth white veined black marble. The long corridor stretched to an unseen distance, punctuated by dark wooden doors. “This way.”

  With the demon in the lead, they continued deeper into Hell. Rue could feel the press of evil sliding along his bones.

  * * * *

  She heard whimpering. Soft little cries that pulled at her heart. With her pulse pounding in her throat, she tiptoed to the nearest doorway. A grill set high up in the wooden door let her see a body – woman or man, she couldn’t tell – chained to the wall. It was this creature who wept.

  Against her better judgment, knowing that nothing good could possibly be down here, yet unable to turn away from that pitiable crying, she tried the door, and was half-surprised when it opened under her hand.

  The figure- – one of three figures now that she could see clearly – looked up, tears streaking her face. The other two men hung listless in their chains, no expressions on their wan faces. “Who…?” she began.

  The woman shook her head, greasy dishwater blonde hair obscuring her vision. “It doesn’t matter,” she croaked. “We deserve it.”

  One of the men in chains beside her snorted, clanking against the clammy stone. Fina walked forward and shivered, noticing how the temperature dropped as she approached the wall. A table and a chair sat not to far away from the victims, as if set up for a comfortable show. She rested her hand on the back of the chair, not really daring to get any closer. “Can I help?” Her voice sounded breathless in her own ears.

  The woman moaned a little. The man beside her snorted again and the third man said nothing, but stared with hungry eyes. “There is nothing,” the woman rasped, “though…” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “I would kill for some water.”

  The man laughed, chains clinking. “Yeah,” he added, “kill for some water.”

  Their hands were chained above them at a shoulder breaking stretch. Their feet were chained at the ankles with very little slack. “I have water.” She pulled the water bottle out of a hidden pocket in her skirt. All three sets of eyes fastened on the bottle.

  “Water,” the woman whispered, her voice a pained plea.

  Fina nodded, tiptoed up, unscrewing the cap. Her hands shook splashing water over her knuckles. It froze in white patches on the floor. Shivering, she raised the bottle to the woman’s mouth. She sucked greedily at the bottle, eyes rolling, chains rattling. The man at her side moaned. The third man’s eyes seemed to bore holes in her back. With cold seeping through her dress into the flesh beneath, she moved down the line. The sneering man guzzled from the bottle, the dripping water freezing on his skin. She approached the third man with the most apprehension. He’d said nothing, moved not a muscle, but his eyes hadn’t left her since she’d first opened the door and they made her skin crawl and her head pound. With frozen fingers she raised the bottle to his mouth. He finally closed those hideously burning eyes and turned away.

  “No,” he said. She could barely hear his voice. “No, I deserve this.”

  She shook the bottle, making the water splash. “There’s still some left.” Her breath puffed winter white.

  Another head shake. ”No. It is my punishment.”

  With a nod, she backed away, replacing the cap on the bottle. “Then I will hope your punishment is over soon,” she whispered.

  He nodded, eyes still closed.

  “I hope you will all be free soon.” She tucked the water bottle away. “I wish I could free you.”

  The third man lifted his head, a tiny smile curving his lips. “You’ve already begun to free us.”

  Confused, Fina nodded and turned to go.

  “Turn left,” the woman called after her. “Turn left at the next corridor and you should be out of this hall.”

  She nodded, deciding then and there that she had to take the help on faith, that one good turn deserved another. “Thank you.”

  As the door closed behind her, she thought she heard one them reply, “No – thank you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Shit.” Asmoday ran his hand over the white veined black stone. The white vein was growing larger. Sure sign something was changing the halls. They’d been an unrelieved black a few days before. Serafina’s very presence had altered the geography. He’d hoped to keep her influence to this out-of-the-way hall, but now she was wandering around, running amuck and getting into who knew how much trouble.

  He sniffed. A faint trace of decaying humanity—like rot and roses—trailed down from her cell to a holding pit. Overflow prisoners who’d just arrived had been chained in this room. He edged the door open. Against the wall of ice still, the prisoners hung, heads bowed, chains slack, but... he breathed deeply and swore again. Instead of the rank, sour scent of despair and anger, the copper smell of terror, he breathed in the fresh water scent of hope. Another inhalation of air and Asmoday gagged, nearly vomiting onto the stones. Underlying the fresh water of hope another fragrance, once so rarely inhaled here in these halls that it turned his stomach. A scent like a blend of cinnamon and honey, warm sunshine and freshly mown grass—all those scents that spoke of home and homecoming to humanity—the scent of forgiveness.

  He wished he had enough time to whip some more fear back into these prisoners, but he needed to find Serafina and drag her back to her cell. And find someone competent to watch her. He slammed the door shut behind him barking out an order to the demonkin who followed to get someone in there to cleanse the stench of forgiveness. Then his gaze trained on the ever widening trail of white threading through the black stone. He got back on the hunt. The boss wouldn’t notice a few bruises, would he? Particularly if he were careful on where they were applied?

  * * * *

  “There it is. Now, fulfill your promise and release me.” Bezaal waved one clawed hand in the direction of the huge statues guarding the entry to the Labyrinth.

  “Based on the Greek mythos, I believe,” Azrael nodded to the twenty foot tall stone minotaurs that guarded the entrance.

  “Being a god was a power trip,” Bezaal agreed. “We kept a lot of stuff from the old days. This one works good. Now, let me go.”

  Rue tightened the celestial leash one last time before snapping it, freeing the demon. “We keep our promises.”

  Bezaal snarled.

  “Is that Asmoday?” Elli bounced up, waving. Bezaal froze mid-snarl and disappeared in a flash of flame and putrid stench. The ghost girl settled back to the ground. “Oh, I must have been mistaken.”

  Azrael laughed and summoned his scythe into existence. “Come, ghost girl, you said there w
as no true way through the labyrinth. I would not have you separated from us. Touch my blade and you will be bound to my purpose.” His eyes glowed gold with the command.

  She swallowed and floated forward to press one fingertip to the shining silver weapon. A flash of light, a thin scream and it was done. Elli didn’t look any different. She ran her hands over her head and down her legs as if making sure she was all there.

  “All right, that’s done.” He snapped the blade back into the ether and slanted a look over his shoulder at Rue. “Any idea on where to go?”

  Remembering Elli’s words, he closed his eyes and concentrated, bringing Serafina’s face into focus. He wrapped one hand around the vial of miracle and prayed for one. Guidance? Help? “Something tells me we’re on our own down here, Az. Heaven’s princes probably aren’t really happy with us right about now, so I think we’re being left to our own devices.”

  Azrael shrugged and pointed onward. “Well, then, when in doubt go left.”

  “Go left? Why left?”

  He shrugged as they passed beneath the gaze of the stone minotaurs. “Why not?”

  “You two don’t have the first idea on where you’re going, do you?”

  “We’re open to suggestions, ghost girl.”

  “Never mind.” She flitted ahead a few feet. “Left it is.”

  The broad avenue past the minotaur statues took a sharp left as if in accordance with their wishes, just ten feet into the labyrinth. The walls changed from red and brown sandstone to irregularly hewn gray building blocks. A fetid breeze blew down the hall bringing with it the scent of rust and water. Rue looked up. The ceiling of the cavern they’d been in had looked just like that—a cavern. Now, though the open sky loomed above dark clouds scudding across a slate gray sky.

  “It must twist through multiple times and places,” he murmured, the enormity of what he was attempting dawning on him.

  “And all at the Lord of Hell’s will,” Elli added. She trailed one ghostly hand across the rough stones.

  “Yippee.” Azrael shook his head. “Lead on, MacDuff.” He gave Rue a shove.

  “Yippee?” Elli asked. “Yippee? Isn’t that a little flip for the Angel of Death?”

  He shrugged. “I spend a lot of time with humans. Some of it rubs off. I particularly like their humor.”

  She snorted a laugh. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

  “Provided we live.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “There’s that. Good thing I’m already dead.”

  Rue tuned them out, bent all his concentration on his need to find Serafina and return her to where she belonged. Nothing mattered to him anymore beyond this. She didn’t deserve to be in Hell. She didn’t deserve to be a pawn in a game meant to trap him. He’d beg Lord Lucivar to release her. He’d give the fallen lord anything he wanted in return.

  The corridor narrowed, pressing in so tightly they needed to walk sideways, their wings scraping the walls. Three hallways shot out, branching in three directions. Which one? He pressed a hand to the vial making sure it was still safe as he peered down one dark hall. The vial cooled against his fingers. Concerned, he tightened his grasp and turned to the second hall. The vial flashed hot in his hand. With hope blooming inside him, he turned to the final corridor. The flask of miracles cooled perceptively. It only burned hot at the central corridor. He’d found a beacon to follow.

  “This way.” He plunged into the darkness ahead. The floor tipped beneath his feet, sending him sliding. Elli screamed behind him and he knew then that the ghost girl too had been caught up in a trap for both corporeal and incorporeal beings. He flung out his hands to stop the slide. Pain sheared across his palms. He skidded to a stop, teetering at the edge of a gaping chasm. Elli and Azrael slammed into him from behind. He lost his grip and they tumbled headlong into the pit before them. He snagged Elli as she plummeted past him, noticed Azrael beating his own coal black wings frantically. They landed on the far side of the pit. He cast a light into the darkness, only to have it swallowed.

  “We’ll have to go in blind as mortals.”

  Rue nodded. “Take hold of my belt,” he ordered Elli. “Az, take her hand. I’ll lead, but I need my hands free.” His companions nodded. They pushed on. He trailed one hand out in front of him to trace along the cold wall. The other he kept fisted around the vial waiting for it to signal which way to go.

  Heavy breathing assaulted his ears. The click of claws on stone. He smelled rotten meat as they turned another corner, led on in the darkness by the miraculous vial. Faint ruddy light gleamed at the base of the walls, a faint flickering glow like firelight. Sweat trailed between his wings. Details of the room became visible as the light slowly rose. They came to a huge metal chamber, the ceiling hung with chains, the floor slimy gray stone. A huge red creature slumbered and just beyond it they could see the dark eye of a portal.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” Elli whispered.

  He summoned his blade without a sound and nodded.

  The creature shifted in its sleep, turning its head toward them. “A dragon,” Azrael murmured.

  “Sure looks that way.” Elli’s voice trembled in a breathy whisper. “We’re not going to play sacrifice the damsel to the dragon, are we?”

  Az snorted. “My dear girl, we’re the good guys, remember.”

  “Sorry, old habits.”

  “Would you two zip it?” Rue snarled in an undertone. “We need to get past the beast and I really don’t want to have to kill it.”

  “It really is a remarkable creature.” Azrael nodded. “I haven’t seen anything like it since they went extinct on earth more years ago than I care to remember.”

  “You can ooh and ah over it all you like when we’re on the other side.” Rue slid a foot into the room. “Now, hush.”

  Elli bit her lips as if to keep herself from saying anything as they eased across the slimy chamber, setting their feet with extreme care amid the detritus of the dragon’s former meals. Rue wondered idly if it really were a dragon or merely a facsimile, alive only here at the dark lord’s behest. It grew larger as they got closer. Its head was easily the size of a man. Its eyes, when open, must be as large as dinner plates and the teeth poking out of the mouth were the length of his forearm. Its huge gold-rimmed nostrils flared as they tiptoed past and it stirred as though it dreamed of angel flesh.

  They almost made it. Three more steps would have seen them through the portal and out the door when Elli caught sight of the chain. A huge metal manacle that would fit easily around Rue’s waist was clamped around its back leg and attached to a chain thicker than his wrist. It was locked to a heavy iron hoop high above their heads.

  “It’s a prisoner,” she moaned.

  A shudder and a snort, and one acid green dinner plate eye opened. The lips peeled back into a snarl that rumbled through the chamber. “You poor thing!” Elli rushed forward. Azrael snagged her, yanking her behind him, his scythe held low.

  “Are you mad?” he snarled.

  “It’s trapped!” She strained against his hold. He shook her hard. “No!” She tore herself away. “No! I’ve been trapped before and I won’t let anyone else be.” Azrael froze, letting her go.

  She ran to the dragon, crooning low in her throat. Rue waited for that snarling mouth to snap up the ghost girl, but the creature froze as if as stunned by her actions as the angels. She collapsed against the creature’s head, stroking the long nose. “Poor baby,” she murmured and worked her way behind the creature to the manacle. Her fingers ran over the pitted iron searching for some way to release it. “Help me,” she commanded.

  They glided forward, the dragon’s eyes shifting to keep them in sight. “I don’t think... ”

  She whirled on them. “Look, I know it sounds stupid to you, but let me tell you: I was just like him for a while. When I first got down here, I was chained to this ice cold wall and starved. They let the imps beat me and I couldn’t put my arms down.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, slipped over h
er cheeks. “They wouldn’t let me sleep. All I could see for days on end, if it even was days, it could have been years for all I know, was everything I’d ever done wrong in my life and everyone that I’d ever disappointed.” She tugged futilely at the huge manacle. “I swore when I got out of there and got away that I wasn’t ever going to let anyone suffer like that again.” She swiped a hand under her running nose. “I know that’s just how they start on us now.” She gestured beyond the Labyrinth to the whole of Hell itself. “I know that’s just standard procedure now. Just like I know I need you guys to pop these locks.” She sat back on her heels, the dragon’s breath a warm, coppery whuffing over her shoulder. She patted him on the nose, pushing his head out of the light.

  “What do you need?” Rue knelt the dragon’s side. The manacle had no visible lock. No seam. No weld. It looked as if it had grown around the creature’s leg.

  “I can’t get it open,” Elli said. “Before the labyrinth, when I could go misty, I could slip my hand through the cuffs, but I still couldn’t open them. I think one of you might be able to find the weak point.”

  “Hmmm....” Azrael dropped to the floor, hands running over the metal. “I have an idea, Rue. I’ll freeze the metal. You strike it. Both of us might be able to shatter the bond.”

  Rue stood, turned to Elli who stood at the beast’s head scrubbing her hands over its floppy ears and crooning to it. “You’re sure you want to free it? It might be serving a sentence here too.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “If it was, then shouldn’t that sentence be done by now? Didn’t Azrael say it’s been centuries since he’d seen one of these guys?”

  The angels exchanged a look. The ghost and beast stared at them, their eyes pleading. “Very well,” Rue nodded to Azrael and stepped back, readying his blade. The Angel of Death grasped the chain. Frost immediately began to rime the iron.

  “I think we should aim for one of the smaller links instead of the manacle itself.”

  Rue nodded and began to concentrate. He didn’t judge the souls of beasts. He’d never seen one of them in either Heaven or Hell; knew of no judge who weighed the souls of creatures. In fact, he couldn’t read the beast’s sins, something he’d been able to do with every mortal he’d ever encountered. No matter. A soul trapped in Hell for so many centuries deserved freedom, deserved the right to redeem itself. He focused those righteous thoughts as Azrael’s power ate at the iron chain. The Angel of Death stepped back, nodded, and still wrapped in his righteous anger, Rue struck. The sword hit with the ring of a bell that ricocheted around the massive chamber. A single crack snaked across the link. With the sound like a shotgun blast, the metal split, falling in two pieces. The dragon opened its dinner plate eyes wide. It settled on its haunches, lifted its face to the chain shrouded ceiling and gave voice to an ear shattering shriek. Chains rained from the roof with chunks of masonry and brick. The angels and Elli dove for the safety of the doorway behind the beast.