On the other side of the portal, a great iron gate stood surrounded by a solid wall of rock spanning into the heavens and extending to the left and right. A chain and padlock held it closed. Behind him was a void of blackness with no stars. A solid red horizon marked the skyline in the distance. No sun or stars lit up the bright red sky, with no clouds. A path of sorts led the way after the gate. Juxta didn't try and get past the gate. He stepped back through the portal to the real world. Robert pushed a hand through the portal. He howled and pulled his hand back. Juxta tried closing the portal, and it collapsed easily enough.
Juxta went to King William. "May I borrow the crown and great sword for this journey? As well as Simon and Monroe? If they're willing?"
"Aye, take the crown and great sword. Ask Simon and Monroe to join you. If you find those bastards Balron or Rivek down there, kill them again."
"It'll be done, my liege."
Juxta went to find Monroe first.
He looked up from a game of dice. "Hello, Juxta."
"I'm going to open a portal to hell, find Lisa, and free her. Will you accompany me?"
Monroe smiled. "You want me to pass through the very gates of hell?"
Juxta didn't know what to say at first, but Monroe broke the silence. "I joined the rangers because I wanted to go on great adventures… Of course, I'll go with you. Is Simon coming?"
Juxta grabbed Monroe's upper arm and squeezed. "I haven't asked him yet. Let's go talk to him."
They found Simon at Heather's house having a late dinner. Simon agreed to go, before Heather could object. Heather shook her head back and forth. "This is why I shouldn't have gotten involved with a ranger in the first place! Going to hell!"
"When do we leave?" Simon asked.
Juxta said, "Let's meet at my house at dawn."
Simon reached down and petted his nearly fully grown feline companion. "Are you bringing your cat?"
Juxta said, "Hmmm…"
"Mine hates the kennel." Simon rubbed it behind the ears. "I'll give him a chance to show his worth."
Juxta poked his cat in the ribs with his toe. "I'll bring mine too. He hates the kennels as well."
Monroe asked, "Should we bring food and water?"
"Good question," Juxta said. "I've no idea. Let's, just to be on the safe side."
"Horses?" Simon asked.
"I think horses will be too skittish. I don't think it'll be a long march."
Simon said, "OK, let's meet at dawn."
Monroe returned to his barracks. Juxta went to his home. Simon closed the door after them, and Heather let out a low hiss that evolved into a growl.
"Juxta needs me, pumpkin," Simon said.
"Find somebody else!"
Simon shook his head.
"I don't want you going into hell," she said.
"I can't ask another man to take my place…"
"If you don't come back, I won't let your son train as a ranger. I'll see to it that he becomes a priest to The One True God or something instead."
"What!"
"If I have to raise your son alone, he'll end up being a priest or merchant."
Simon glared. "You're lying."
"If you don't return, I will take your son, and take him to an orphanage, and claim I found him wandering the streets."
Simon's fists clenched.
Heather said, "Don't go."
"I'll come back."
She started to cry. Simon wrapped his arms around her and held her until she quieted down. He whispered, "I'll come back."
Heather said, "I don't want to be a widow."
"I'll come back."
At dawn Simon and Monroe arrived at Juxta's house. Juxta used the power of the crown and great sword to open a portal. He stepped through first followed by his cat. Simon and his white cat entered next with Monroe bringing up the rear. They stood in front of a great gate with a chain and padlock holding it closed. Juxta raised the great sword high over his head and brought it down on the chain, shattering it.
"You could've tried to pick it first," Simon said. "So we could leave it locked behind us."
"You're right. I'm sorry. I feel a need for haste."
Monroe surveyed his surroundings, staring off into the blackness behind them. "I agree."
They pushed the gate open and found a path to follow. They started noticing all the different things. It smelled of burning sulfur, and everything showed red, different shades, but still red. Light came from the sky but with no sun. They walked for what seemed like hours, but they didn't grow tired or thirsty or hungry. On some of the mounds, a short red grass grew. They passed a bend in the path and stumbled upon a giant, green, scaly, man-shaped beast with a club almost as long as a man's body. It barked something and raised its club into the air.
Monroe asked, "Did you understand him, Juxta?"
"No, I'll try Druidic."
Juxta shouted in Druidic, "We wish to pass by here!"
The creature started beating the path with his massive club. It went thump, thump, thump. Juxta looked around, and shapes formed out of the very hills to surround them, all twice the size of a man.
Juxta said, "They want to fight us."
Simon let loose a bane arrow at the one directly in their path. The arrow ignited on leaving the bow etching a trail of red flames across the sky. It sunk into the beast's left chest, and the monster howled in pain. Monroe fired an arrow at it, but his simply bounced off the creature's scales. Juxta targeted the lead creature's club with lightning, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Monroe shouted, "Let's try running!"
And so they ran. Some of the beasts gave chase. Simon shot bane arrows at them, and Juxta dropped a few with lightning. The beasts routed, leaving their wounded in the field.
Once they stopped to catch their breath, Monroe said, "How many of those arrows do you have? Can I have some?"
"I have about thirty of them," Simon said. "My bow is magical too, so the arrows may not light if fired from your bow."
Monroe smiled. "Where do you get this stuff?"
"You know where." Simon reached behind him to his quiver and grabbed a handful of the arrows passing them to Monroe.
Juxta said, "Let's get moving."
The path ended at the same time the hills and mounds ended. The ground started a steep downward slope. They noticed the weirdest thing to the right. It looked like an endless row of half-buried people buried up to their waist all up and down the slope. They approached the bodies slowly, and as they got closer, they could see some moved. Monroe said, "I think we shouldn't get any closer to them. Let's keep going."
They continued down the slope. The terrain to their right changed, becoming an endless row of fruit trees just out of reach of the half buried souls. The fruit looked succulent and ripe. Downslope from the trees they saw more bodies buried up to their waists but with no arms. Fruit would fall off the trees and roll to the cursed dead who didn't have arms to pick up the fruit. Most of the bodies seemed to be in serious states of decay. Simon said, "Are we going in the right direction? Let's keep moving. There isn't anything we can do for the damned."
Juxta got out the pearl orb and scryed on Lisa. They still had her in agony and still being tortured. The orb showed them the shortest path to follow to find her. The slope leveled, and they continued to trek across a red, featureless plain following a barely visible trail.
In the distance, a small army was encamped directly in their path. They flew a banner of a lion with great wings.
Monroe asked, "Do we go around?"
"We've probably already been seen…" Simon said.
Juxta mentally counted how many men were in the army. "Let's approach them directly since going around without being seen will add greatly to our journey."
They walked onward toward the encampment. Nearly a thousand men waited with a great tent in the center of the camp. Once within shouting distance, the whole of the army rose to its feet putting their hands on sword hilts. One soldier called out, "Are you mor
tals?"
Simon shouted, "Yes, on a journey."
A great murmuring rose up within the army, and another soldier demanded, "Come forward! You must see our general."
Monroe whispered, "Do we have time for this?"
Simon started walking forward. "Are they giving us much choice?"
Juxta hurried to keep up. "If they die like men in the mortal realm… Let's meet this general first."
They walked directly up to the army, and a pathway through the men opened leading directly to the tent in the center. Juxta, Simon, Monroe, and the two cats walked to the tent keeping their eyes on the chain mail clad men around them. Juxta stepped inside. A man wearing thick looped armor and a large sword stood within the tent, about twenty-five years of age. "My name's Ruskin. Are you truly mortal? How did you get into hell?"
"We're mortals. I created a gate to this realm," Juxta said. "These are my friends and comrades, Simon and Monroe."
"A portal you say? Can you step back through it?" Ruskin asked.
Juxta scratched his ear. "We can, aye."
Ruskin grinned. "Will you take us to this portal?"
"We're on a grave mission already," Simon said.
"Can you show me on our map where this portal is?" Ruskin fumbled for the right map for a minute. It showed the plains, a river of fire in the direction they headed, and the mounds of the trolls.
Simon pointed at a spot on the map. "The portal is on the other side of where you have marked, ‘Hills of the Trolls'."
Ruskin's eyebrows moved down on his face until they crushed his eyes. "How'd you get past the trolls?"
Simon said, "Magic."
"There's a river of fire ahead of you. How do you plan to get across it?"
"We don't know yet," Monroe said. "There has to be a place to ford it."
Ruskin shook his head. "None that we could find…"
"Perhaps if we move rocks into the river creating stepping stones," Simon said. "We'll make a ford."
"The river is too deep in the center. You can't move a big enough rock into the center to make a ford. Give up on your quest and lead us back to the portal."
"A simple river won't stand in my way!" Juxta shouted. "I'll dam the bloody thing if that's what it takes!"
Simon smiled. "He will, too."
"You're my kind of leader," Ruskin said with a bow. "My army would be useful to you, Juxta. We'll swear fealty to you if you lead us out of this plane when you're done on your journey. What are you questing for? I'm sorry. In my haste, I forgot to ask."
"A high priestess of the church of The One True God is trapped here," Monroe said. "She's also Juxta's lover."
Ruskin nodded. "A damsel in distress, how noble."
Juxta rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "Ruskin, you and your army are damned. Why? What did you do?"
"It's no secret. Our kingdom was being attacked by a much larger kingdom purely out of greed and imperialism. Our army was outnumbered four to one, and they had mages. My king ordered me to take our elite force and go around the enemy's army behind their lines. My king wanted the villages sacked. We burned down every building. We killed everyone. We followed our orders and sacked village after village evading their main force the whole while. We left a wake of carnage and destruction behind us. It took over a year for them to catch us. Their mages on horseback that is." Ruskin paused. "It never crossed into our minds to not follow orders. We assumed we'd be rewarded in the afterlife by the God of War."
Juxta thought for a long time while no-one spoke. He had to ask himself if he wanted such an army to command. Juxta sighed. "If you help me free my Lisa, I'll take you to the portal out of hell."
"We long to serve, my king!"
They left the general's tent. Ruskin turned to his men. "We have a new king!"
The whole troop drew weapons and raised them skyward cheering and howling. "After we prove our mettle," Ruskin yelled, "he's going to take us to the portal back to the world of the living!"
The cheering and howling got even louder. Juxta thought of another question he should ask the general. "What'll you do if you're restored to life?"
The general motioned for his troop to quiet down, and he repeated the question to his army. They answered as if they had memorized the response. "Do things over again, right. Join or start a kingdom based on peace and justice. Become farmers and craftsmen. Live in peace with our neighbors."
"Fair enough," Juxta said. "Are you ready to march?"
They scrambled to take down the general's tent, and the general shouted, "Are we ready to march?"
The troop shouted back in unison, "Aye!"
Ruskin looked to Juxta. "Point the way, my liege."
Juxta consulted his orb and pointed to follow the trail they had been on before meeting the army. They traveled quickly with Ruskin, Juxta, Simon, and Monroe leading the vanguard. The army traveled behind them in a weird formation, square in shape but turned at an angle to the road, making a triangle at the front and back. After what seemed like hours, the general called a halt to rest, yet the mortals knew no fatigue. They debated discarding their packs of rations and water but decided against it. They started marching again. The glow of the river could be seen before reaching its shore.
Juxta surveyed the flowing lava. "Start looking for stones large enough to serve as stepping stones."
They found enough stones to reach the center of the river, and then stones just sank under the molten lava. Juxta said, "Find a great boulder and roll it here."
Ruskin asked, "How will we get it to the center?"
"Leave that to me," Juxta said.
Within a short while six men rolled a sizable boulder towards the river. Juxta started to pull power in from around him and from the crown and great sword. He lassoed lines of force around the boulder, lifting it slowly. It took all of Juxta's strength to move it, but it did move. He pushed it over the river to the center and then let it sink to the bottom. They carried more stones to complete the ford. The army of the damned and the mortals crossed the ford one by one. On the other side of the river, they faced another great plain of red dirt with a path through the center. They got back in formation and marched down the ancient road.
Clouds formed above them and started to rain ash and pebbles. The general said, "We must go around this storm. It'll freeze us in our tracks."
Juxta scowled. "It's just a little ash and pebbles."
"For you maybe, my liege, for us it is snow and ice, bitter cold."
Juxta looked back at his army. They did indeed freeze. Wet from the snow and being pelted with hail. Juxta thought for a minute then threw up his camp ward to shield them from the downpour. He shouted, "How's that? Better?"
Ruskin said, "Aye!"
The storm continued about them, and they marched right through it with Juxta casting wards as needed. After some time they made it out of the storms, and the path ended directly into a cave with trees growing on the far side. The vegatation looked like dwarf redwoods similar to the redwoods in the Forest of Weslan.
"How deep does the cave go?" Ruskin asked. "We'll need light."
"Let's look for deadwood among the trees," Simon said.
Juxta nodded and peered through his orb to see if it was the right cave. The orb showed the cave, but they found no deadwood. Juxta said, "I'd rather ask the trees for lumber than chop them down."
He started the chant to wake the trees.
Break the Peace, Awake
Wake the Ancient, Take
Usually a pleasant experience, but not this time. The trees howled and screamed in pain. They didn't even ask who awakened them. Juxta started the second chant to ask for limbs.
Give the Rift, Gift
A Branch, a Branch
They cried out in unison, Feed us! Juxta shouted back at them, "I will, after you give up the branches for us!" No. Feed us first. Juxta had never won an argument with trees before, so he started feeding them with the third chant.
Green of Spring, to be Seen
/> New Life, from Strife
It sapped him dry of power, and the trees visibly grew. Juxta went back to the second chant, to ask for limbs.
Give the Rift, Gift
A Branch, a Branch
A few of the trees complied, but not enough. Juxta poured more power into the chant. "I fed you. Give us the limbs, or we'll take them!"
You don't have steel that can hurt us!
Juxta stopped chanting and turned to Simon and Monroe who carried the blades forged to defeat undead.
Simon drew first and took a swing at the trunk of one of the front-most trees. It made a good sized gash. The tree howled in pain in Juxta's mind. The other trees heard it too and started dropping branches left and right. Soon they had enough for torches. Simon and Monroe worked at cutting them into torch-sized pieces of wood.
"Juxta, we should camp for the night," Ruskin said. "The men are weary and need rest."
"We'll let them rest and keep watch ourselves."
While the army slept, the mortals made a small fire as they commonly did. They talked quietly. Monroe said, "This isn't the journey I expected. Where are the ghosts and demons? There should be more lost souls."
"Perhaps we're still on the outskirts of hell," Simon said. "Plus, we've stayed on a path. Maybe if we wandered off it, there would be more demons and lost souls."
Juxta pointed at the cave entrance. "From what the orb has shown me, we'll face more of that kind of thing on the other side of this cave."
The fire started to die down, and they threw more wood on it. They hoped that the fire would be a good way to measure the passage of time while the army slept.
Before the fire died down the third time, the army started to wake. They built the fire up again to light torches. With a hundred brands of wood, every tenth man would carry a torch. Juxta lit a magical light of his own and led the way into the cave. It branched off many times into darkness. Each time Juxta checked the orb, trusting it to show the right path.
The cave opened into a new world. Still with hues of red, but now a bright circle in the sky shined with light, a sun. The army flowed out of the cave after Juxta, pleased to see that there was a sun. They had seen millennia without one. It was almost mountainous with no real path to speak of. They started marching in a mostly downward direction. Ruskin called a halt after a few hours. The red sun didn't seem to move in the sky.
Juxta, Magi Page 24