“Corwin,” they whispered, first from one side, then the other. “Corwin . . . Corwin . . . Corwin . . .”
Silhouettes barred the passage ahead and he didn’t have to check his back to know that the view would be equally grim. But Corwin wasn’t defenseless.
I still have that.
Summoning his courage, he stopped and spun.
“Come on, you bastards!” he hollered into the gloom. “No more games!”
A blaze lit the hallway as his hand closed around the golden cross, and in that brief flash, he saw them—dozens of hollow-eyed demons surrounding him on every side. Again the shadows fell, but the sword knew. He sprang and slashed. The direction didn’t matter. Any would do. The blade just wanted to cut. He felt the sweet pressure of it cleaving flesh, heard their cries as he swung and swung again. Then he felt something hard strike the back of his head.
25
The Cistern and the Seal
A searing pain in his side brought consciousness rushing back. Corwin snapped awake, craning his neck and howling into the lightless shaft above. Stripped to the waist, he hung from a pair of long, clinking chains, their manacles cutting into his wrists. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but as lucidity slowly returned, each moment revealed a new source of agony. The back of his skull ached, his sore shoulders felt halfway torn from their sockets, and raw skin throbbed where the burn had jolted him out of his slumber.
“Rise and shine,” croaked Isley. “We wouldn’t want to start the night’s festivities without our guest of honor.”
Corwin leveled his gaze and stared into glassy white eyes. Though he was suspended off the ground, Strega’s height was still a match for his own. The demon leered and raised an iron poker, its tip glowing red-hot.
With a twist of his head, Corwin recoiled the little distance that he could. From what he gathered, this place was a cistern, perhaps part of some medieval sewer system. A pool of water darkly shimmered beneath the grated floor. The chamber was circular and he noted archways belonging to several adjoining passages, along with a hollow where a fire had been lit. Dampness glistened on the grimy brick walls. They sloped to form a dome, but not a complete one. An oculus gave way to a tall shaft through which rainwater dripped and his chains dangled. And his weren’t the only chains.
“Not you too . . .”
Covered in fresh bruises, Ransom’s scarred body hung across from him. He had evidently been enjoying the demons’ hospitality for some time. Three-foot-long needles of iron pierced his arms, legs and torso, skewering him with surgical precision so as to cause intense pain without rupturing any vital organs.
“Listen, Corwin,” he strained to whisper. “There’s a seed of hope sewn deep within you. Whatever happens, don’t let go of–”
A brutal backfist from Strega cut short his words, a spray of blood and sweat sparkling in the air.
“He’s telling you to lie to yourself,” said Isley. “That’s what his kind always preaches. But you were never one for delusions.”
Ransom’s head was tossed to one side and then the other as Strega relentlessly rained blows. For every twitch, the needles punished him, sending pangs of torment pulsing all the way to his fingertips. But Ransom refused to cry out. Grabbing him by the hair, Strega lifted his face.
“I want his eyes,” he growled.
“Not yet, you fool!” snapped Isley. “He’ll need them to watch.”
Strega rounded on the Prosecutor with a snarl, but Isley’s imperious stare didn’t waver. The standoff lasted only an instant. Huffing angrily, Strega backed down and consoled himself by laying another punch into the angel.
Isley calmly returned his gaze to Corwin.
“Humans have toyed with torture, and while we occasionally inspire them, they’ve mostly proven themselves to be bumbling amateurs. You’ll find that my methods are more excruciating by far. That is, if that’s what you desire.”
“Let me guess,” said Corwin. “You’ll set me free if only I renounce god, as if I haven’t already been doing that this whole time?”
“Do you think I care what you believe?” Isley’s tone was colder than ice. “I see you for what you truly are: a fruit rotted from the core. Your skin you’ve painstakingly polished, waxed to a ripe sheen, but peel away the rind . . .” he dragged a clawed finger down Corwin’s chest, “and a feast for maggots festers.”
All of Corwin’s arguments, all his clever words, they meant nothing, he realized. This creature that wore a man’s face, it despised him with a hatred that surpassed logic or reason. Corwin thought he knew what it was to be hated. His antireligious tirades had earned him the vitriol of many a staunch believer. Insults, cold shoulders, even violent threats were nothing new. But never in his mortal life had he felt hatred like this. The humans that lashed out against him had done so because of their own insecurities. They feared what he had to say. Isley didn’t. His malice was pure, his black gaze more terrifying than any firing squad.
“However, I am not without mercy,” resumed the Prosecutor. “You have a choice, unlike your attorney. That one has been the cause of much misfortune for my associates, and for you as well. Were it not for him, you wouldn’t have to endure this unpleasantness.”
He raised a hand, indicating a weapons rack on the chamber wall. Serrated blades, spiked flails, hammers, pliers and other more eccentric tools of torture decorated its rusty hooks, bloodstains crusting their metallic edges.
“Take these instruments, carve your vengeance into him, and I will ease your suffering.”
Corwin looked at the cruel collection of weapons, then at Ransom. The angel’s face was downcast, disheveled hair concealing his eyes. He said nothing.
“I think,” whispered Corwin, his voice barely audible.
“Yes?”
Isley tilted his head. He leaned closer, and as he did so Corwin brazenly spat in the demon’s face.
“That’s what I think of your offer!”
Hissing to a boil, the saliva steamed off Isley’s wrinkled skin.
“Unwise.”
He reached out and a hot poker flew from the flames into his grasp. Corwin gritted his teeth as Isley pressed the iron to his side, a few inches above the first burn. Molten fire lanced through his veins. Arching his spine, he hollered, his chains rattling against the brick shaft.
“I had thought you to be more pragmatic than this,” remarked Isley as he withdrew the scalding rod. “Don’t you want to see your beloved Mary again?”
“What?” asked Corwin between heaving breaths.
While the poker’s touch had ceased, pain still radiated from the spot. Cool drops of rainwater tapped his sweat-slicked shoulders, each one a tiny blessing, but it wasn’t enough to dowse the blaze that ignited in his chest upon hearing Mary’s name on the demon’s lips.
“Perhaps the angel hasn’t told you?” Isley intoned. “She’s one of us now.”
“You’re lying!”
“Don’t listen to him!” shouted Ransom, who promptly received another pummeling in response.
Isley sighed and hung his head remorsefully.
“After your death, the poor girl was very depressed. She took her own life, Corwin.”
“Mary wouldn’t do that!”
“Is it so hard to accept? You nearly did the same once, and the two of you are more alike than you think; soul mates, one might say, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
“No!” Corwin insisted. “That time—it was because of my weakness, but Mary is stronger than me. She was always stronger than me!”
“Such faith!” exclaimed Isley. “But as you say, you are prone to weakness. Your flesh is weak. Your will is weak. Do you really think that you’re a hero, or even a good person?”
Corwin tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Isley’s stare penetrated his soul, laid bare every dark secret, every sin he’d buried beneath life’s numbing distractions. He didn’t need a demon to tell him that he was no saint. A hero? Would he have valiantly j
umped onto those tracks if he had known the true cost? Not likely.
“Oh, but you’ve been hurt! You’re a victim, aren’t you? Your father was taken away at such a tender age. And your mother! Where was she when you needed her? Drowning her sorrows at the bottom of a bottle, no doubt. Yes, you always cursed her for that. Why should little Corwin have to grow up, act like a man and comfort his mother? Didn’t she know that she was supposed to be the one comforting you? You vowed to shut her out of your life, and you kept that vow.
“So what if she felt like she had no one? So what if your father loved her? Why should that matter to you? Even years later when she finally got her life together, did you make even the slightest effort to mend what was broken? All those times when she called, did you ever once call back? All she wanted was to hear your voice, to see you, to tell you that she was sorry.”
Isley’s voice sharpened to a scathing whisper.
“You wouldn’t even give her that. You died without ever saying I forgive you, without ever telling her I love you.”
There was a knot in Corwin’s throat that he couldn’t swallow. It was all horribly true. His perfect memory recounted every harsh word; all the times when he could have softened his heart, but didn’t. And now it was too late.
“And you think that you deserve paradise?” mocked Isley. “You’re no tragic hero, just another selfish, sniveling coward who thinks himself entitled to the mercy that he never gave.”
Corwin’s mutinous mind echoed the demon’s words, the memories tearing at him, dragging him down to the blackest depths of the sea of oblivion. Wasn’t that where he belonged?
I just want to forget.
He glanced at the iron poker.
I don’t want to think about anything anymore.
Soon its scorching gift would save him, wash over him like an acid tide. Then he wouldn’t have to remember. He wouldn’t be able to. A thousand suns would explode beneath his skin, drowning out every other thought in a vague, white roar of pain.
And when finally you beg for the torture, then your soul will be theirs.
Hadn’t Ransom said that once? The words anchored him—a luminous beacon slicing through the fog—and in that moment he saw himself clearly. Isley had spoken true. He didn’t deserve Heaven. But there was something else Ransom had told him. That’s right, no one deserves Heaven. It was a prize too great to be earned, one that was bestowed mercifully upon weak, unworthy sinners.
Sinners like me.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Corwin. “Maybe I am just another asshole who ought to be cast into Hell, but you’re not the one I have to answer to!”
A sneer disturbed Isley’s calm mask of hatred.
“Strega,” he called. “Teach this human his place.”
Grabbing a bullwhip off the rack, the brutish demon smiled with a mouth full of misshapen teeth. He stepped behind Corwin and the whip’s braided leather tail uncoiled.
“Leave him be!” Ransom yelled. “Or I swear that scar will look like a beauty mark compared to the one I’ll give you when I get out of here!”
But this time the angel’s shout went unheeded. Strega swung back his arm. The whip cracked and Corwin felt the livid sting of his skin bursting. He locked his jaw, holding back the screams as the lashes fell.
Ransom’s chains snapped taut. Furiously, he struggled against them. An ethereal shadow darkened his figure, but again the brand blazed. Caging his power, the divine seal burned bright on the back of his hand.
With a shudder, he fell limp, and Isley cackled.
“It’s useless to struggle. The chains that bind you were forged in the First Age. Wrought of smoke and shadow, even I would have a difficult time breaking them.”
Not for the first time, Ransom’s gaze fastened on a spot beside the fire, where an unsheathed katana leaned against the wall.
“You desire this?” asked Isley.
Approaching the soulrender, he casually lifted it, unconcerned by the flames that immediately enveloped his hand.
“Your sword doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
“It’s a smart sword,” replied Ransom.
“I can feel its thirst for blood.” Isley rested the blade near Ransom’s throat. “Perhaps I should let it drink?”
“Go ahead.”
“No,” the demon decided, “for that would be to release you, and your punishment has only just begun.”
Corwin reeled as another stripe was added to his blood-streaked back. Noise filled his mind, but from Isley and Ransom’s short exchange, one word stood out.
“Hey, you good-for-nothing angel!” he shouted. “Speaking of punishments, there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. The penalty that god slapped you with, it doesn’t make any sense!”
“This really isn’t the time,” groaned Ransom.
Isley erupted into laughter.
“Even now he persists in your insipid debate!”
“So you killed a band of murderous thugs,” continued Corwin. “So what? I’m sorry, but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”
“To take human lives is forbidden. I broke a sacred trust!”
Breathing through clenched teeth, Corwin endured a lash low across his legs. He molded the pain into fury and the fury into speech.
“I thought Christians were supposed to love their enemies!”
“Have you gone delirious? What are you talking about now?”
“I’m talking about what was in your heart! You think that your crime was spilling blood? That what you really did wrong was break a rule? That’s bullshit! The truth is that you didn’t want those men to repent!”
Ransom’s eyes widened with understanding.
“No, I didn’t . . .”
“You wanted them to burn!”
“I, you’re right!” The angel’s voice quavered. “All this time, have I been atoning for the wrong sin? Have I truly been so blind?”
He raised his head and the centuries-old weight that he’d carried with him began to crumble. Hands of mercy held him, taking him and the burden of his sin—taking it all and lifting it as though it were nothing. The darkness that had felt so heavy . . . Why had he worried? There was no sin too heavy for those hands to lift. He had only to ask.
“Father, forgive me!”
A stillness descended, a silence so complete that Corwin couldn’t even hear himself breathe, and then, howling forth from nowhere, a mighty wind swept through the chamber. The fire flailed and the demons fought to stay on their feet. Ransom’s seal seared, ringed in white flames, but the flames weren’t long for his hand. Peeling free like flakes of ash, the seal’s markings drifted, spiraling into the cistern shaft. As the last blot left him, the raging wind calmed.
“Thank you, Corwin.” Ransom smiled with eyes ablaze, glowing tears running down his face. “Now let’s shine a light in this unholy abyss.”
A tremor ran through the needles piercing him, and all at once they were cast from his body, fired across the room with lethal force. Missing Corwin, a pair of darts buried themselves in the burly demon behind him. Isley batted one away, but lost his grip on the soulrender. It spun through the air and into Ransom’s hand, severing one of the chains as it flew. A wave of the sword burst the cuffs from his other wrist and ankles.
“Restrain him!” Isley bellowed.
Scores of black-suited fiends poured into the cistern as Ransom freed Corwin from his fetters.
“Just wait here,” he said.
Corwin scarcely had the strength to stand, not that he was planning to. Now would be a good time to stay low. If his instincts were correct, this place was about to turn into a battleground straight out of the Book of Revelation.
“Ransom!” roared Strega.
Ignoring the needles in his chest and thigh, the arch demon grabbed a battleaxe and charged. The grating rattled beneath his pounding boots. He raised the axe high with speed that defied his massive size—speed that meant nothing to Ransom. Like a razor wind, the so
ulrender sliced invisibly. Strega never got the chance to bring down his axe. His two halves slid gruesomely apart, his soul banished before he hit the ground.
The lesser demons hesitated, paralyzed by fear, and Ransom took a determined step towards Isley.
“The human!” Isley cried. “Slay the human!”
Hell was no escape from their master’s wrath, and so his underlings abandoned all thought of self-preservation and hurled themselves at Corwin. Dozens of ebony swords darted towards him, but first they had to get past Ransom. The angel was death incarnate, a flickering shadow and a flashing blade. Corwin knelt in the eye of the storm as his attorney painted the walls black with demon blood.
There seemed no end to them. Torn limbs and corpses littered the cistern, and still another wave rushed on. But the Prosecutor made no move to join the fight. Amidst the commotion, he backed slowly away until only the pale disks of his inverted eyes were visible beneath the rear archway.
“Wherever you go, I’ll find you,” spoke Isley as the world dimmed, his eyes the lone source of luster. “You can’t exist without me. I’ll always be with you.” To Corwin’s horror, the voice twisted and blurred, and then it wasn’t Isley’s voice at all, but Mary’s. “I’ll always be with you, Corwin.”
The demon’s gaze vanished and so did the cistern. Corwin was alone, adrift in endless darkness. He couldn’t see his body, wasn’t sure that he even had one anymore. A crack of light split the gloom. He opened his eyes.
Corwin was lying on his back, the stiff cot of a hospital bed beneath him. A nurse was checking his IV fluids and Mary was clasping his hand.
“Call a doctor!” she shouted. “Corwin’s awake!”
26
Recovering from Reality
This was his world—the real world—and yet it seemed more surreal than the one he’d left behind. Of course, he reasoned with himself, that probably has something to do with the fact that I’m pumped full of enough morphine to tranquilize a horse. Corwin’s left arm was encased in a big white sausage of a cast and Mary clutched his right. His body felt cumbersome and wrong, like an old suit that didn’t fit quite so well as it used to. And he couldn’t feel his right leg at all.
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