Cross and the Raven followed. The Raven got the sense that the captain was giving them a grand tour of the abhorrent environment in an effort to shock her and Cross into changing their minds about volunteering. Perhaps they should have.
The captain stopped abruptly, leaned in to them and lowered his voice. “I dream of taking an axe to that ladder,” said the captain. “Its fall could save many thousands of souls. It’ll wake the angels.”
“Why not really chop it down then, Captain?” asked the Raven.
“It’s a vanquishable offense. A serious crime against the Divine Laws. And I lack the guts.”
An explosion boomed a few feet from where they were standing. Soldiers yelled and jumped into the trench. The knives that made up the mountain jingled as they slid down and buried those men under shrapnel. Other soldiers raced to dig the men out, lacerating themselves.
Both the Raven and Cross flinched at the destruction, but the captain held fast, as if nothing had happened.
“The burning has begun,” said the captain with a hint of glee in his being. “Right on time.”
A large burst of light exploded close to them, spewing debris in their faces. Cross and the Raven scrambled away and ducked behind a wall of wood and sand bags. Shards of metal whizzed their way.
The captain, once again, remained standing as if the blast were nothing more than a light breeze tickling his cheek. If he lacked anything it wasn’t guts. His eyes glazed over and he stared off into space exactly how she remembered Cross had done before dragging her through Yomi. It was the face of a man who had accepted his own fate.
The captain’s eyes rose back to life. “This is it.” Without any hesitation, he dashed down the cliff and charged into battle like a soul who had given up on everything. There was no caution to his run. He never once ducked or dodged and he disappeared in the thick of the battlefield.
“Looks like whatever guts the captain had left over,” said Cross, “he’s about to lose.”
Cross and the Raven remained inside the safe zone—which wasn’t really all that safe with all the sharp objects surrounding them—and they watched over the pointless battle from their perch high in the cliffs.
The Anarchists filled their trebuchets with molten lava and lobbed it at the Tribulation, who returned fire with their own lava. Barbots took to the air with souls ridding their backs, wearing colossus-haired coats. They shot arrows downward into the field and at other flying soldiers on the opposing side. The two warring factions converged at the ladder, clashing in a serenade of slaughter. White flashes bloomed and dark explosions erupted. The unnerving sounds of excruciating screams mashed together in a terrible ensemble of second death.
The Raven didn’t follow the word of the Magna Mater like Cross, especially now that she had reunited with her father, but she knew this war was not the will of the Great Goddess or God. These were souls taking it upon themselves to reshape their own unmovable fate; fighting over a ladder that neither side owned, when they could all escape the confines of the underworld if they worked together. They were too caught up in their own script to acknowledge another’s. The underworld was bad for sure, but some souls always found ways to make their respective Hells worse. No matter what side the soldiers fought on, all Nothings wore the same color, and that color was cold, and undignified.
“Even in death, men waste their lives,” said the Raven. “This is why I was conning spirits out of their objects. I took the most lethal objects I could find to the Inferno to destroy them. I told myself I was saving the underworld. Saving these souls from themselves.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that anymore,” said Cross. “The Toran is on the other side of the river.”
“Where?”
Cross grinned. “I said the other side and that’s all you need to know. But while the Tribulation is over there we can’t get across.”
“I wonder what would happen if somebody were to cut down that ladder.”
“Then these idiots would go somewhere else to fight.”
An explosion boomed near them. Both of them ducked behind the craggy wall, and at the same time they both spotted a set of explosives. With a nod to each other, they agreed on what they had to do without speaking a single word. It was about time he was on the same page as her.
“Is one of these enough to bring down a ladder that size?” asked Cross.
They both paused and said together, “The hammer.” They shared a smile amongst themselves and connected as peers with equal cleverness.
The Raven removed the hammer from her waist just as two soldiers carried a wounded man into the area.
“Summon the monk, quick! The captain’s wounded. Hurry!”
They placed the captain on the stretcher. He yelled in agony. The Nothing had taken over the lower half of his chest. His legs were completely crusted over and crumbling.
The Raven passed the captain his bottle of devil’s water and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“This one’s for the angels.” She winked.
The captain’s lips quivered in an effort to smile.
CROSS HAD WANTED TO AVOID THE DANGEROUS MOUNTAINS OF KNIVES and somehow found himself inside one of them. How the hell did these things keep happening to him?
The Raven lifted one end of a box of explosives. The other end anchored to the ground as if the entire box was too heavy for her to carry by herself. She nodded toward the end of the box as if asking for his help in carrying it, but he didn’t want to go anywhere near that ladder if he didn’t have to.
“I thought you were going to just use the hammer,” he said.
“That’s a mighty big ladder,” said the Raven. “The buildings back in Lokantarika were already falling apart. That’s why they came down so easily when the hammer’s energy hit them, but this ladder can withstand the fires in the sky and looks to be fortified at the base. The hammer might not be enough.”
Cross grabbed the other end of the box of explosives and found that it was definitely too heavy for one soul to carry alone. They needed to work together. That would be the only way for them to succeed.
They paced down the path leading out of the safe area, down the mountain of knives, while involuntarily swinging the box of explosives between them.
“Stop swinging it,” said Cross. “It’ll explode.”
“You stop swinging it,” said the Raven.
Two squals scuttled past them carrying a completely burned soul on a stretcher, pointlessly. Cross and the Raven shared a glance and followed the medics into the infirmary. Carefully, they sat the box of explosives down and sneaked up behind the squals.
Cross flipped the stretcher over, dumping the ashy soldier on the ground. The Nothing crumbled in a poof of black dust. The squals hissed in surprise and protest. The Raven punched them both, and knocked them unconscious.
She and Cross carefully sat the explosives on the stretcher. With the wooden plank connecting them to each other, they trotted as if they were a single beast, down the slope leading out of the safety of the cliffs and entered the dangerous battlefield, which began immediately at the foot of the hill.
They sprinted through the sea of battling soldiers and scurried over souls dissolving to Nothing. Fire boomed and flashes of light bloomed around them. They broke through the hollow walls of gray smoke the explosions had left behind. Their box of explosives bounced up and down on the stretcher the entire way.
Cross leapt over a Nothing and bullets whipped past his ears. “You know, Raven, we might be risking our afterlives here.”
Arrows soared through the air and staked into the ground at the Raven’s feet. “Yeah, if I get burned you’ll never get out of here.” She stomped over a few Nothings and ducked a bunch of stones whizzing by her head. “Sure would be a pity,” she added.
Lava splattered to the left of Cross. He skipped sideways to avoid it. The box of explosives bounced up, and they caught it safely on the stretcher. They both paused.
“Why don’t we tell ea
ch other our half of the secret?” said Cross.
“Why don’t we?” she said.
Nothings grabbed at the Raven’s ankles. She kicked at them. With one hand holding onto the stretcher, Cross whipped out his pink parasol and struck the Nothings with lightning, freeing her from their grasp.
“You go first,” he said.
A Nothing grabbed his arm and pulled on his umbrella. Ropey zipped off the Raven’s waist, wrapped around the Nothing and squeezed until it exploded in a drizzle of ash and black liquid.
“No, I think it’s better if you start,” she said to Cross.
She wasn’t a talker. She would only open up to him if he went first.
More Nothings crawled toward them. The Nothing had told Sinuhe that reaching the Toran was his destiny, so it confused Cross as to why they were trying to stop him. They must’ve changed their mind about him since he refused obey them back in Yomi.
He and the Raven continued their mad dash toward the ladder, trampling over Nothings until they finally sloshed into the waist deep, black water under the ladder. They paused only to catch their breath.
Cross gazed into her eyes preparing to confide in her. It was too much work building up an emotional A’raf that kept everyone out of his personal paradise. His loneliness was exhausting, and he desperately wanted to trust somebody. Not just anybody, the right someone. Maybe the Raven could be that someone. If he couldn’t trust the Raven by now, after all the times she saved his neck, then nothing he had ever done was worth it. His existence meant nothing to anyone else.
“The name of the valley is…” He hesitated. “Skull Hill. Now it’s your turn.”
“The name of the skull is…” She hesitated as if she were fighting the same internal battle he had just fought. “Sebelius.”
“Sebelius?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
Sometimes he couldn’t tell when she was telling the truth or not, but he trusted her in hopes that she trusted him.
They went to work tying the explosives to ladder, which was actually a road that twisted around like a spiral staircase. Metallic carriages, like those in Kurnugia, littered the roadway, rusted and abandoned. Not only did the ladder breach the flaming sky, but it also burrowed deep into the underworld, creating a great whirlpool in the black river.
Beneath the ladder, in the center of the coiled road, the water roared as it swirled and drained down into a frozen pit of darkness. Cross and the Raven had to stand on the concrete bases to keep themselves from getting sucked down in the maelstrom.
“You think this could be a road out of here, Raven?” asked Cross yelling over the howl of the vortex.
“I think that’s a way to and from another place just like this,” she said raising her voice. “Or worse.”
“But if it’s true that this ladder belongs to the Great Goddess, it could lead to a better place than this. Maybe even better than paradise.”
“I doubt that.”
“What do you know anyway?”
“I know it ain’t no exit. That’s for sure.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I can hear the tortured souls screaming. Look out!”
Hands reached out of the ladder’s beams and untied Cross’s rope. He smacked two wrists away. A hand grabbed his shirt from behind and yanked him backwards. He turned around and bit the hand. It was hard as iron and tasted like it. He slid a finger across his teeth to make sure none were missing. All there.
Ropey severed the three arms from the beam. A metal fist reached out of a beam and punched the Raven in the face. Cross zapped it with the parasol. It sparked and the fingers welded together. More hands grew out of the metal structure.
“We’ll have to work around them,” said the Raven.
They skipped across the platforms taking turns tying the explosives; one of them tied their end of the line while the other fought the arms, until they had destroyed most of the arms and successfully finished tying the explosives to the ladder.
Cross tied the hammer along a clothesline, similar to how the knives hung in the blade house back at Xibalbá, so that when the rope snapped the hammer would swing down and release its force upon the base of the ladder. The Raven wrapped the compass inside the palm of one of the metal fists.
“What’s that for?” asked Cross.
Metal projectiles flew their way and clanked to the ladder. Beams and girders in the ladder buckled and bent. The metal screamed and threatened to collapse.
“It’s for that,” she said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
As they waded through the Atman River, Cross stretched the fuse out to its full length. The Raven then flicked the cigar lighter and the fiery salamanders crawled out. She ordered them to the fuse, and they sparked it. Cross and the Raven raced back through the war zone and dove into a foxhole for safety.
Soldiers fought above them as they waited for their bomb to blow up that ladder.
“In my old life,” said Cross, leaning against the rugged dirt wall of the foxhole, staring upward at the dust clouds rustled up from the battling soldiers, “there was a war just like this one. Almost exactly like it. And during that time I met a girl. She read me story books and poems. I couldn’t read at the time so I memorized them all. I still remember each and every one of ‘em. But there’s one poem that reminds me of you, Raven. A poem by a man name Poe. Every time I look at you, I’m reminded of that poem. And every time I’m reminded of that poem I’m reminded of what I’ve lost, but also what I’ve gained.”
“Why did you ever want to give up your memories anyway?” asked the Raven.
“I used to think I was lucky to keep my memories,” he said. “Not all of them were bad. Some really good things happened to me along with the bad. But I’ve come to realize that there’s a reason why life and death are separate. When you die, you’re gone. That’s it. You don’t get a second chance at your old life. What you do get is a clean slate and the opportunity to grow. That’s what the spiritual journey is all about. I learned a lot from all my past mistakes, but what happened, happened. Dwelling on the past just holds you back. There’s no use in worrying about what you can’t control. I’m moving forward.”
“Since you didn’t drink from the River Lethe,” said the Raven, “I’m wondering if you still believe all that.”
Before he could respond, an explosion thundered. It was almost as loud as the Inferno’s eruption. Everything shook.
Cross tucked his head between his knees and listened as the muffled sounds of war took on a much nastier demeanor.
Debris thumped near him and pelted him. Metal shrieks joined in on the ruckus of screams and yells. The hiss of so many spirits shriveling to Nothing at one time was unsettling. It was like the fizz of a shaken bottle of devil’s water but multiplied by hundreds. The deluge of noise kept going longer than it should have and didn’t seem to want to end.
He kept his eyes closed and his head covered for hours…
Cross didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep until a kick woke him up. The Raven had shoved her boot into his side. He opened his eyes to a vacant battlefield draped in a deafening silence. Everything was gone as if a great broom had swept the underworld clean of all its filth.
“Why’d you let me sleep?” said Cross.
“Because it was nice and quiet for once. Now get up. It’s getting stronger. We have to go.”
“What’s getting stronger?”
“That.” She pointed to where Jnana Yoga Ladder used to be.
In its place now hovered a black orb about the size of a melon. It resembled the dead sun, and the black orbs that hovered above Viņsaule, but more terrifying in wrath. A force surrounding it bent the world around its edge like an eye glass. A long slither of fire stretched down from the sky and fed into the orb while a snaky stream of water reached out of the river and into the orb. Silently, it ate the underworld without ever moving from its spot in midair. Debris swirled around th
e orb and fell into its bottomless void. The fire and water met in an evil clash of roaring steam.
Cross and the Raven climbed out of the foxhole and down into the drained river bed. They traveled as far away from the orb as possible, but its tug grew stronger than even the Rudimen’s soul sucking pull.
The ground cracked beneath their feet. Chunks of it rolled toward the orb. A Nothing was crawling away from the black disc and got sucked into it like a noodle.
“Blowing up the ladder might’ve been worse,” said Cross over the roar of the battling fire, water, and earth.
“But what’s done is done,” yelled the Raven. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Loose feathers leapt away from her wings. Her top hat sailed off her head, and the orb swallowed it.
They latched onto each other’s arms and kept each other stable as the pull of the orb tugged on them. They were forced into a crawl before they had finally climbed out of the river bed. Once they were far enough from the pull of the orb, they released each other and set off across the devastated land of Naraka toward Skull Hill.
The blue sky beat down on them, soaking them both in sweat. They stopped for shade and rest in a half burned-down temple. Cross explored the temple for supplies and found child-sized legs extending out from under blocks of stone. If he was wearing a hat he would have taken it off and placed it at his chest. He crossed himself.
“May the great goddess have—”
A muffled moaned slipped from under the rubble. The poor child hadn’t burned. With all his might, Cross lifted the blocks of stone from off the child and discovered someone he had never expected to see ever again. He staggered away from the limp little body of his precious Cottontail.
“This is a trick,” he said. “A dirty rotten trick!”
“My true name is Nissa Miryem-Khaye Siskin,” said Cottontail. “You said I could tell you that when we saw each other again.”
BURN IN HADES Page 32