Carson sat across from her. “Rowings sent you.”
She smiled, spooned more soup and ate.
“Tell Rowings I don’t have any new information,” said Carson. “I just want to continue this miserable existence in whatever peace I can grab. Tell him he should do the same. He’s tormenting us both. To go on searching is futile. The last Toran is lost. We’ll never find it again.”
She held the spoon before her lips and lifted her head in attention at the mention of the Toran. Rowings never mentioned anything about a Toran.
“When we found the burial site,” said Carson, “we couldn’t uncover any more without witnesses. So we reburied it. We came back, it was gone. It disappeared. I can’t tell Rowings what happened to the gate. We had our chance. Now it’s moved on to some other soul. We’ve missed our window. Go back and tell him that.”
Diamond Tooth carved a piece of bread using the tiger claws protruding from the bagh nakhs at her knuckles. It would have felt nice to elicit a sense of dread within Carson, but the idiot remained resolute in her continuous silence. She would have to resort to another tactic.
“Rowings knows you’ve met with Tivoli.” She slurped a spoonfull of soup. “He might also be interested in this Toran business, but I’m only here to get one name: Tivoli’s pseudonym.”
“Why do you think Tivoli’s using a fictitious name?”
She lifted her eyes to Carson. Everyone’s true name had a unique scent. No two names smelled alike in all the underworld. But she couldn’t track a name that wasn’t in use. Unused names existed less than false ones which all smelled exactly the same: artificial and bland. If Tivoli had been using his true name she would have found him already.
She spotted a child’s drawing on the wall. It depicted Carson, his wife and two oblong headed children; one a girl, the other a boy. The drawing of the boy stood out, not only because his arms looked as if they were made of barbed wire, but because he was colored darker than the rest of the family as though he were special.
“I’ve never seen a soul stitch together a whole family,” she said. “Beautiful work. Must’ve been tough fitting all those pieces together.” Diamond Tooth dropped her spoon in the bowl.
Carson’s glass helmet fogged up and sweet anxiety spilled from his pores. She had found her angle. Sometimes the obvious method isn’t always obvious at first.
Carson cleared the steam from the glass with a rag. “Balfour. Clem Balfour. That’s his new alias.” He rose from the table and reached into a cabinet. Diamond Tooth aimed her bagh nakhs from under the table and prepared to shoot.
“I’ll do you better than the three objects Rowings is paying you to burn me.” Carson returned holding an object by its cord: a brass disk with thin brass plates inside it. Engravings marked a ring around the outside of the disk. Another brass piece sat fixed on top and cutaway into an ecliptic circle.
“This is the key to the gate,” said Carson. “Only the wearer of this astrolabe can pass through the Toran.”
He sat it on the table. The clock-like hand on the object swiveled, the ecliptic circle shifted and the plates spun all on their own accord.
“That’s a useful object,” she said. “But if it does what you say, why don’t you use it?”
Carson dropped his gaze to his glass incased body. “I’ve made peace with my death. There’s nothing out there for me. Now go! Leave me be.”
“I would. But the thing is, I need something from you. And the only way for me to get it is to burn you.”
Carson excreted a pheromone of panic, not over his own miserable life, but for his family. She’d smelled that salty scent many times to know it.
His eyes widened and his chest expanded. He drew for a weapon inside the glass box at his waist. Diamond Tooth was way ahead of him. She had only waited that long to soak up all his fright.
From her seated position, she shot four of her tiger claws out like darts. sish. The claws leapt off her gloves all at once, sliced through the table, shattered the glass around the Carson’s waist and penetrated the flesh of his exposed torso. Another set of tiger claws grew into her bagh nakhs, replacing the ones that had fired.
Carson desperately tried to hold himself up and remain standing, but it was futile. His spirit burned and shriveled to Nothing. His entire afterlife sucked out of him, frozen stiff in place. What was left of him tipped backward and fell upward, collapsing to the ceiling as though it were the floor. In a splintering crash, the shell of his hollow spirit broke a part on the ceiling, spilling the moist dark insides and painting that section of the ceiling the blackest of blacks. The saluting brooms leapt up to the ceiling and swept the ash into a pile.
Diamond Tooth grabbed the astrolabe off the table and hung it around her neck. Footsteps rushed toward her. She turned and discharged tiger claws into the oblong head of the Carson’s golden-haired daughter.
The little girl withered to nothing like her father and collapsed from the ceiling to the floor. Her ash spread along the chessboard-colored tiles. Diamond Tooth stepped over the Nothing and walked out.
After she straddled her hellhound, she waited and listened for the pleasuring screams of a newly widowed woman and bastard son. That’s why she burned Carson.
She closed her eyes and submerged herself in the shattered family’s pain and suffering. Soothing bells jingled in her head. Beautiful rainbows flooded her vision. The flaring underworld sky forced its way back into her consciousness abruptly.
It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. She snapped the reins on the hellhound and trotted off to Amenthes to meet a rouge squal.
After her pit stop in Amenthes, Diamond Tooth headed to paradise, the only place she dreaded in the entire underworld. She yanked on her hellhound’s reins a few yards away from the A’raf that sectioned paradise off from the rest of the underworld.
The great wall ran from the northernmost tip of the underworld to the southernmost tip, as far as the eye could see and as far as any known spirit had ever ventured. There was no going around it, under it or over it.
The ancients had fooled the righteous souls on the other side into thinking that the wall kept evil at bay. The security was certainly deadly when needed—the good guys of paradise had likely burned more souls than she had. She personally witnessed them annihilate foolish spirits who’d tried to break into paradise. Even those souls with wings would be shot down before they could fly halfway up the wall, and beyond that, only a barbot could get close enough to the scorching sky to completely scale the wall, but if she could get in, anyone could get in.
Their great wall was less a security measure than a means to obscure their awareness of the real world—the underworld. No matter how many positive mind tricks or denial acrobatics they performed, they were in the underworld just like everyone else. She’d be delighted to reveal the harsh reality to them and watch the shock grace their eyes. She’d devour their dismay.
From her perspective, the A’raf was a shiny prison gate. They could polish it up however they wished, but a cage is a cage. They had signed up for voluntary incarceration. It was as if the deities built the A’raf so many years ago simply to boost morale and force the righteous to feel grateful for what puny afterlives they all had. That way none of them would begin to think of their deficiencies, because they didn’t really have anything to begin with. Paradise was just a small area of the underworld, and the righteous were locked in and protecting nothing special.
Diamond Tooth guided the hellhound up to the A’raf.
“Turn away or burn, demon,” a voice boomed from within the great wall before she got too close. The guards hid behind an impenetrable veil and sounded as if they spoke through a speaking-trumpet.
“I have a divine sanction,” she said and waved her lumenite back and forth blindly. The glow of the rare stone pulsated with every color in the visible spectrum and hummed like a soul detached from its spirit.
“You stole it,” said the guard.
“No sir, it was given t
o me.”
“Sanction or no sanction, no demons allowed in paradise.”
“According to the Divine Laws, the righteous are permitted to issue a single lumenite to an underworlder that they deem fit for ascension. The guards of the A’raf are obligated to acknowledge this sanction, and never are they to deny passage to any lumenite possessor or they too shall be denied paradise by the Lord.”
Several seconds of silence passed before the guard spoke again. “Approach the A’raf slowly.”
She trotted the hellhound the rest of the way and met the wall.
“Pass your lumenite through the A’raf for authentication.”
She reached her entire hand into the wall up to her arm. The wall rippled like water but felt solid around her wrist. A hand snatched the pass from her from inside.
“May the Great Goddess have mercy on the soul that gave you this,” said the guard.
“Oh, I’m sure she won’t mind,” said Diamond Tooth. “That’s how you got your cushy job isn’t it? Don’t pretend like you’re so different from me. We’re exactly the same, except I’m out here and you’re in there.”
“Hellhounds are forbidden beyond A’raf.”
“But they’re so cute and cuddly.” She scratched the hound behind its ear. Her finger tangled in its matted hair. She left the saddle on its back. She’d steal another one if she needed it. She jabbed her tiger claws into the hellhound’s hind parts. The mangy mutt howled and trotted off into the underworld.
“You may proceed,” said the guard. “Step through.”
She stepped through the wall as if it weren’t there at all and appeared on the other side instantly, as though walking through a doorway to the next room. It was like going from a nice dark room into a room that was much too bright.
Light hit her at all angles. It illuminated from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, touching everything on its side of the A’raf with rays of pure, despicable love.
She almost turned back to leave. She shielded her eyes with her hand from the shimmering grass and forest before her, and paced through the roads and trails, squinting. Her drying eyes felt like they would soon split open from all her blinking. She splashed gross fresh water in her eyes. They sizzled with steam and began to itch. The more she scratched them, the more her vision blurred. She kept her staggering pace and in less than thirty minutes, she made it to the beach almost by shear memory.
The edge of the world met the beginning of the white void. The northern islands of paradise, Mag Mell, hovered in white space, while the southern islands of Jannah rested in sparkling waters. The islands of Aaru divided void from ocean. Half of the main island of Aaru floated above the white void while the other half sat on the crest of Anima Falls, an endless waterfall where the entire Oceanus emptied into the white void.
Pure light emitted from deep within the void and was too bright for her to stare at directly or even indirectly. It was not meant for her, and she was jealous. She forced herself to look into it, and the light seared her eyes and bruised her lids.
Black robes waving in the breeze caught her attention. An Ankou waited down the road in front of its ferry. The pale horses that drew the boat across the white void to the various islands neighed.
She approached the Ankou. The top of its pointy hood rose way over her head. Its robes fully covered its gaunt skeletal frame, shielding all the dead from the sight or touch of the being.
She would have stolen its cloak for her own protection from the piercing light, if Ankou’s weren’t so powerful. They worked for Death itself, one of the few deities that could keep the master at bay.
She paid the Ankou an object of the dead to ferry her over to the floating islands of Mag Mell. She tucked herself into the dark corner of the cabin area of the boat and shut her eyes until she arrived at her destination.
The ferry docked on the main island of Mag Mell. She tumbled out of the boat in a rush and proceeded to trample over endless vegetation, kaleidoscopic gardens, and virginal forests. Paradise was the real Hell. The fresh air scalded her lungs. It felt like hot coals swam in her chest with every breath. The water was too poisonous for her to drink. Holy water burned demons to Nothing.
The righteous paraded around in the nude with the attitude that covering up was a sin. It was sickening. Not that they were naked. She was no prude. Outside of paradise, it was she who was young and beautiful among mangled beasts, pitiful souls, and deformed demons, but every soul in paradise was younger, more beautiful and more vibrant than she. Not one gray hair or wrinkle existed on any of them. Not an ounce of fat on their bones. Muscular chests chiseled on the men. Succulent breasts flaunted on the women. Compared to them, she was an old crone.
Their constant music playing and partying drilled through her head like an iron spike. Her temples throbbed, and her forehead pulsed. Even the white rabbits hopped to the beating drums, the tooting flutes and, worst of all, the plucking harps. She imagined snapping those strings and strangling the harp player. No one would even notice.
They were all so busy frolicking and serving themselves that they weren’t even cognizant of the fact that a demon walked in their midst. The same way the light blurred her vision, their joy blinded them to the corruption walking right past them. That annoyed her more than her suffering. Pain she could handle, but no one ever ignored her.
But it may have been more than just blindness to evil. She was that unaccepted in their world. They ostracized her with such intensity that they physically could not see her. Their glances slipped past her, around her and through her as if she were invisible. For a second she wished one of them—any of them—would acknowledge her existence.
She climbed up to her employer’s tree house and dry heaved before she walked in.
Rowings lay in his bed fast asleep. He was bald on the top of his head with hair on the sides that connected to his scraggly beard. His Tribulation uniform tunic was draped over the chair at his bedside and his hat sat on top. She waited beside him for a few seconds, watching him breathe and cough violently in his sleep.
He was another casualty of war, and she gathered great pleasure from his misery and his helplessness. The irony of him living in the land of no-sickness or disease and being bed ridden gave her an extra boost of satisfaction. She regained some of her sight, and saliva lubricated her throat.
Rowings coughed himself awake and upon the sight of her looming over him, he pushed back in his bed.
“Ah! Diamond Tooth,” he said, relaxing on his pillow. “So good to see you, although you don’t look very well.”
“You should take a look in the mirror,” she said.
“Did you shut the door?” He pulled the blankets up to his neck. “They cannot see me like this. Not yet.”
“Yeah, I shut it.”
“Good,” he said, and released his grip on the blankets with a wide smile. “So, I assume your presence means you have the information?”
She loosened her collar, but was still strangling her. She took a breath and dragged her tongue around in her mouth. It went dry again. “Tivoli is using the name Clem Balfour.”
“You did a very good thing.” Rowings leaned over the side of his bed and pulled out a burlap sack from his bedside. “Worth three objects.”
She reached for the sack and spotted the ring on his finger. The Sigil of Ameth flickered in its own heavenly light nearly scorching her eyes.
He hid his hand and snatched the sack of objects away before she could grab it. His smile turned to a shaky grin. “Did he say anything else?”
She massaged the back of her stiff neck. “He made mention of a gate.”
“Yes, yes. The Toran. Did he say where it was?”
“He didn’t know.”
Rowings slapped his fluffy mattress. “I told you he would lie. He wants it for himself. You should’ve done what you demons do. That’s why I sent you.”
“Don’t worry about that. He’ll never say nothing to anybody again.”
Rowings grim
aced and rose off his pillow. “What did you do?”
“Oh, you only meant for me to rough him up a little. Sometimes I take things a little too far. Sorry about that. But you get what you pay for.”
Rowings wrenched his comforter and glanced downward at the foot of the bed.
“If it’s any consolation,” she said. “He was telling the truth. I know when someone’s lying to me. He sort of implied though, that Tivoli knows where to look for your Toran. He gave me this key.”
“Give it to me!” A sharp tinge of obsession and frenzied-persistence flared in his voice. For a man as cheerful as Rowings portrayed himself to be, it was a wonder why he wanted to leave paradise so badly. He must’ve known what she knew about its illusion.
She removed the astrolabe from around her neck and handed it to Rowings.
“Ah, the astrolabe!” His pupils dilated and he reached for it slowly with both his hands as if reuniting with a long lost love. He caressed the object in his shaking palms. The ring on his finger blinked in the light. “Why would he give this to you?”
“Maybe he thought I’d burn you, find Tivoli and then leave the underworld forever.”
Rowings laughed like a man drunk on life. She laughed with him. They laughed together, but for different reasons.
“Funny thing is,” she said, “He was right.”
Rowings cut his laugh abruptly.
“You already know what I need from you,” she said. “And there’s only one way for me to get it.”
Rowings backed away in his bed. She shoved a pillow over his face, aimed her bank nakhs and sent tiger claws into his head, chest and neck. sish. When she removed the pillow Rowings gasped. A wheezing whistle escaped his lungs and his mouth quivered.
BURN IN HADES Page 8