Divine Torment

by Janine Ashbless

  He chose to climb. He made the choice without hope of success, without anything but the warrior determination to fight on until the last breath. He was not going to wait for death.

  If I slip, he thought, then I fall; but whatever happens I won’t surrender to this place. I’ll learn to fly before I learn to crawl.

  When he had made the decision he rose to his feet and turned his face away from the drop; there was no point in contemplating that abyss any more, it was the rock of Mulhanabin that mattered to him now. He surveyed the scoop taken out by the landslide and decided that that was his only logical goal; the exposed face was less sheer and there was a chance he might be able to climb it. The real problem was getting across to that concavity. The horizontal distance was so short that he would have been able to run it in a few moments – if, that is, he’d possessed the miraculous power to stroll across vertical planes like a fly.

  The only shred of hope he could grasp at was that the earthquake had changed the nature of the hillside. A few days ago the facade would have been impassable, but now even the intact and sheer parts of the mountain face were fissured by cracks. He guessed that the priests hadn’t even noticed them. How stable these splits were he had no idea; they might be full of dust and edged in crumbling sand for all he could tell, or perhaps whole slabs were poised to slide down the hillside at the slightest pressure, but there was really no other option than to trust his weight to that tenuous web.

  He stretched slowly, feeling the muscles bunch and clench across his back and shoulders. He just wished his legs didn’t feel as though they were made of leather.

  He put one palm on the rock of the cave-lip, groping up to the first tiny ledge. ‘Malia,’ he said as if she were some talisman.

  The mountain growled.

  Veraine froze. A warm gust of wind struck him between the naked shoulders. Then a dark spot opened like an eye on the rock surface just by his wrist. Something tapped at his outstretched forearm and he saw a drop of water tangled in the lines of dark hair.

  At last he realised that it wasn’t the earth that had spoken but the air. Thunder crunched overhead once more. Another raindrop hit him stingingly on the cheek. He turned and faced into the wind and, as if it were a signal to the elements, the heavens at that moment opened.

  It was as if an ocean was falling from the sky. Veraine screwed up his eyes and lifted his face to the rain and the rods of water fell on him in blow after blow. It stung across his raw skin and scoured over his scalp, ruthlessly stripping the grime and the sweat and the caked blood. It soaked through his single item of clothing and ran down his legs; it deafened him and it blinded him. He raised his arms wide as if to embrace it all, though the weight of the rain threatened to batter them down. In moments he was sodden in every pore, his trousers were plastered to his legs and his hair was a metallic sheet streaming over his shoulders. No dry patch even as big as a thumbnail remained on the entire surface of his body and his parched tissues gloried in the sensation as if he could soak up the moisture like a wick. His throat hurt with yearning for that rain, so he just opened his mouth and let moisture sting his parched tongue, and when he had tired of that he cupped his hands and watched them fill so that he could slake his thirst with mouthful after mouthful.

  Only when his thirst was quenched did he retreat to the shelter of the overhang and sit himself in a dry spot. The water on the floor ran down the incline and spurted off the edge of his precipice like a miniature cataract. It wasn’t cold, not even after hours of the pounding monsoon when the sun, somewhere behind the clouds, disappeared over the bulk of Mulhanabin and left the cliff face in shadow. Veraine stared out at the rain, as content as any condemned man given a reprieve might be.

  The storm ceased around sunset, but the glowering clouds did not depart. Veraine stretched his legs, inspected what he could see of the rock above and to the side of him, but didn’t start his climb. He didn’t dare risk an ascent in fading light, especially now it was slippery. The sandstone was steaming.

  Bats issued from the city far above and began their wheeling, flickering hunt through the humid air.

  He settled down for the night as patiently as he could, though he slept only in fits and starts. When hunger and tension woke him, which they did repeatedly, he distracted himself from the discomfort by remembering in loving detail his hours of pleasure with the Malia Shai. He grew warm with the recounting, the embers of life still burning bright in his flesh, until he was impelled to loose his hardening member from the damp cloth that imprisoned it and nurse his erection. He stroked himself slowly, drawing out the act of masturbation, lost in a reverie of soft breasts and responsive little nipples, of yielding lips and slender hips that tilted towards him needfully, of stifled cries like bird calls and a tight, slippery cleft that opened to fingers and tongue and probing cock. Above all, he cherished the memory of her body, warm and alive and indescribably tempting, shuddering beneath his own.

  Although his body responded urgently to all of these and clamoured for an immediate resolution he refused to give in to his own demands, instead taking measured strokes that would neither let him rest in his tumescence nor whip him towards a climax. He managed to prolong the ecstatic torture for an hour at least, until he simply dissolved into orgasm and unconsciousness, his semen spilling through his sleeping fingers onto the wet rock.

  * * *

  In the first light of dawn he woke and caught one of the smooth lizards that clambered over the walls of his cell. He ate as much of it as he could, knowing that he needed the strength despite his distaste for the task. This was likely to be the only chance he had to escape. The clotted sky threatened more rain, though the rising sun was still peering under that canopy; soon the preliminary storms that heralded the change of season would give way to the true Rains, which could descend for days at a time without respite. He couldn’t climb in a downpour any more than in darkness; and every passing day was weakening his physical strength. He had to get going now.

  It was not easy to trust his body to the rock face, but he took hold of the sandstone without hesitation and without looking down into the desert below, stretching up to grip the first meagre cracks, then pulling his torso up so that he could plant the balls of his feet against the rough sandstone. For the first few moves he could find no foothold at all, so it was the strength of his arms almost unaided that pulled him away from the false refuge of the cell and up onto the wall. After that he found a toe-grip on a tiny protrusion, and that gave him the breathing space he needed to be able to survey his next few moves.

  And so it went on. The climb was agony, both physically and mentally. He was a strong man and as fit as any soldier in the prime of life, and he had the advantage of long limbs and callused fingers that allowed him to reach far and grip in places where another might have slipped. But nothing could make that journey easy; most of his mass hanging most of the time from arms and shoulders, his neck throbbing with the ache of trying to crane for a better view of the hillside to his right and above him. Breathing was difficult in that position, his inhalations shallow. His toes bit into sandstone where there was no other purchase and he simply ignored the pain. Sometimes it seemed that only the friction of the stone against his body was holding him up.

  But if the physical effort was terrible, the mental one was all but insupportable. To be able to concentrate every effort on each individual move, over and over again, and yet to keep in mind the route as a whole; not to let the sharp pain of his grazed skin or the deeper protest of his muscles distract him; not to despair, not to let his mind wander, not to allow the pain to become anger and then rebellion against the task – those were far more difficult. The agony in his cramped fingers would build to a crescendo and he could force his hands still to cling to their purchase, but a moment’s carelessness and those tendons would automatically slacken. His hands and wrists and ankles knew nothing of the void, they could not imagine the appalling drop below him nor the long and sickening plunge to a wet death;
his body knew only the distinction between pain and rest. It took the discipline and concentration of a general to keep those limbs obedient, still functioning as a team.

  Then came the moment when he realised he had failed. Somehow, he had worked himself into a position where he was spreadeagled at full stretch and he couldn’t move up or down or sideways. Loosing any single limb would mean losing his grip. His head was resting against the rock face, the stone coarse on his cheek, sweat stinging in his eyes. He could feel the heat of the morning sun between his shoulder blades. His ribs were too taut to rise and fall, so he was breathing from his diaphragm, his belly fluttering against the curve of the rock. The rest of him was flattened against that gritty surface as tightly as a lover. And he knew that he didn’t have the strength or the reach to make any further move. It was like the moment before orgasm, when the abyss yawns before you, and you know all other options are lost and you are about to fall.

  He squeezed his eyes shut against the bite of salt and felt the world spin around him. Gravity seemed to fade. His body was no longer locked against the sheer cliff face but lying upon it, the earth solid beneath him and thrusting back against his weight. He felt the body of the rock like a lover pressing on his own, the pain of the scrapes on his chest like the stinging of nails drawn in passion over his ribs and nipples. He could feel the earth’s heartbeat thudding in his cheekbone and in the tips of his fingers. He could feel her warmth oozing up into his stomach and his pelvis. His cock, crushed between his bones and hers, was swelling and hardening, searching with the blind instinct of a beast for the yielding concavity that would allow it in.

  And it found it. Not the deep wet cleft that it wanted, but a gap, a cup in the surface where some ancient rock trapped in the sandstone had fallen out. Enough to allow the thickening bulge under his trousers to expand into it. The ghostly precursor of an orgasm tingled through his veins, and at that Veraine’s eyes flew open. He was clinging to a cliff face hundreds of feet above the desert floor, but at his groin, unseen but unmistakable, there was a hole in the rock big enough to provide a foothold.

  He didn’t have time to explore this new possibility or even to think. He released one hand and, as he started to slip downwards, rolled his body to the side so that he could hook his left leg up and into the gap. He shoved up and leaped the wall half a body length, throwing his arms high and right to find new purchase. His right hand found a jagged edge of rock and as he fell against the hillside once more, he realised that he had reached the gash left by the landslide.

  That break in the cliff face was his road to freedom. The moment he was inside it he knew he was going to live, because after the vertical face of the cliff this slope, steep though it was, presented little threat. He could use his legs far more than his arms now, and that was enough. Instead of inching his way across the rock he could climb it properly, and though the breath was heaving in his lungs and the blood pounding in his head, he made it step by step up the incline to the lip of the cliff-top, and pulled himself arm over arm through the shattered wall onto the horizontal surface beyond.

  He kneeled there, palms on that wonderful, flat ground, until he had got his breath back. He felt like kissing the cobbles. When, finally, he raised his head, he looked about him like a man reborn into a new world. A tired grin pulled at his mouth. He had scaled the hillside to come out into the garden courtyard between the Inner and Outer Temples. Although the enclosure had lost its eastern wall, in front of him there were green bushes and the low tank of rainwater, still intact.

  There was no human being in sight.

  Veraine got to his feet, trying not to stagger, and made it to the pool. Gutters were still dribbling fresh rainwater into its depths. He plunged his hands in, scooping the water over his face, gulping enough to cool his swollen tongue, to wash the bitter taste of fear from his mouth. As he raised his head he caught a brief glimpse of his reflection in the pool, his hair ragged and wild, his eyes surrounded by black hollows. I look like some wild barbarian, he thought, glancing down at a torso that was stippled with sand and webbed with uncountable scratches – not to mention the bloody and obvious imprint of teeth around his right nipple.

  Then he laughed, and raised his fists to the sky. He was alive, and he had escaped the prison, and now he was going to get out of Mulhanabin even if he had to take down every inhabitant on the way.

  First he needed a weapon, and he knew where to get one. Moving cautiously he entered the corridors of the Outer Temple, flitting between the shadows as best he could. He knew he was not exactly inconspicuous, and his best chance lay in keeping out of sight for as long as possible. He headed for a niche he had seen where two corridors met, in which there was a statue of Malia in one of her more martial aspects.

  The passages were quiet and Veraine saw no one, reaching the statue without any problem. The idol itself, vermilion-skinned and six-armed, was made of plaster but the weapons she held in each hand were real enough. He toppled the whole structure onto the floor and picked up a sword from the wreckage, glancing quickly about him in case the noise had alerted someone. The sword was made of bronze and was longer than the iron one he was used to, but Veraine was not fussy. He grinned unpleasantly as he tested its balance, spinning it in his wrist. It was good to be armed again; he was no longer a victim and if he met Rasa Belit, he swore to himself, the priest would not escape with his life.

  But it wasn’t Rasa Belit he needed to find, nor was it a way out, not just yet. South lay the gate to Mulhanabin, and perhaps a horse to ride out of the city. Veraine went north, back through the courtyard and into the Inner Temple, sword in his hand, heart in his mouth. Thunder growled as he mounted the steps.

  He ignored the great doors to the Garbhagria and went down the corridor, stepping cautiously, sword ready. He expected to meet priests or even guards, but there was no one and the passage was unlit, forcing him to feel his way in almost pitch darkness. Light spilled through a single doorway as he rounded the curve; and he saw that the doorway was that to the Malia Shad’s chamber.

  Puzzlement laced his trepidation. The corridor outside her room was strewn with mud bricks and patches of crumbled mortar. The mortar smelled fresh. But the doorway stood open and the chamber within was silent. He stepped cautiously inside, whirling to face anyone lurking by the door, but his caution was wasted. There was nobody in the room. Outside, rain was hammering from a leaden sky. On the floor were a mattress, a copper bowl and a wooden platter. There was still food on the plate; half a loaf of bread and some dried dates. And next to that, a small wineskin.

  Veraine’s guts contracted at the sight of the food. He could not confidently interpret the signs, other than to assume that she had been here and wasn’t any longer. His guts growled. He ripped the bread between his teeth and devoured every last morsel of the food. He washed it down with the wine, wondering. He wasn’t aware that she had been in the habit of drinking wine.

  He made his way back to the Garbhagria, but stopped in the doorway. The chamber was all but empty, and the only inhabitant lay on the floor at his feet in a swathe of stained yellow cloth and a stinking black pool. Flies rippled all over the prone figure, rising in a cloud as he entered but settling back at once, torpid with the excess humidity and food.

  Veraine stepped back from the corpse, lips tight. He had a good idea what the Eighth Host had been fleeing from, now.

  ‘Malia Shai?’ he asked the great hall. His voice echoed in the emptiness.

  He was glad to get back out into the rain, feeling it on his skin like a cleansing spirit. But agitation made him impatient and careless; when he re-entered the Outer Temple he walked straight into a priestess.

  She took one look at him, squealed and tried to flee, but he grabbed her and threw her against the wall, pinning her with the edge of the sword at her throat.

  ‘Where’s the Malia Shai?’ he demanded.

  The priestess gaped at him. With her shaven head and big Yamani eyes she looked terribly young.

&nb
sp; ‘Where is she?’ he repeated. ‘Is she alive?’

  ‘In the Throne Room,’ she whimpered. ‘Don’t kill me.’

  ‘And what about Rasa Belit?’ he growled.

  ‘Please, don’t. He’s dead.’

  ‘How? The plague?’

  ‘Uh-huh. The Kiss of Malia.’

  He let her go, and she stumbled away.

  He knew where the Throne Room was; here in the Outer Temple. Whereas the Garbhagria was used for the most sacred of ceremonies and normally only accessible to the priests of Mulhanabin, the Throne Room with its great gilded statue of the goddess was open to the populace day and night. It was the focal point of public worship. Veraine and his men had consciously avoided going near it during the occupation.

  This time he walked in without hesitation, marching past the guardian statues at the door as if no one had a more natural right to be there than a half-naked Irolian with a bared sword.

  The hall was full. This was where all the people were. Clusters of priests lurked by the arched colonnades on either side, tolling gongs and chanting. But nobody took any notice of him, for they were all too wrapped in their own misery. The hall stank. Even the thick pall of incense did not disguise the reek of sickness, and the murmur of prayers did not drown the muffled weeping. Most of the worshippers were in groups, many huddled around prone figures. Fathers held children and wives held husbands, all begging the goddess, he realised with dull shock, not for any mercy, not for a cessation of the plague, but for a blessing upon their dying kin as they passed into their next lives. He was appalled at the numbers. The sickness must have flared up like fire in dry straw, all in the last few days.