The Endless War That Never Ends

by Christopher Brimmage

  The answer to Art’s question was no. In turn, the harpy named Randolph shook his bald head and dropped his cards in the discard pile, and then the calico centaur named Brownie reared up on her hind legs in annoyance and slid her cards away face down.

  Normal-Art frowned. He knew he should have played the slow game and baited them into a bigger win, but he was never the most patient of men. “Damn,” he muttered, collecting the winnings.

  Mava the Horribly Wicked pointed behind Art. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m not falling for that one again,” replied Normal-Art. He recalled the last time the demons had tricked him into looking the wrong way. They had filched his chips. Granted, they had been good-natured about it and laughed and joked and explained that it is a deeply ingrained part of demon culture that shows they value you as one of their own. But they had never returned his chips, so Normal-Art refused to fall for it again.

  “No, seriously,” bellowed Gertrude, who—like all the other non-water-based demons that Normal-Art had met during the course of this weekly poker game—was somehow able to talk normally and did not drown below the surface of the Styx. Normal-Art did not know whether this was because of a particular magical charm that the demons engaged specifically for the weekly game or if this was simply the nature of demonic genetics. But either way, he never asked because he cared too little to find out, especially when they were trying to trick him out of his gigantic stack of winnings.

  “What’s that?” screamed the minotaur.

  Before Normal-Art had time to tell them to stop this stupid round of mischief because it obviously was not working, a sharp pain shot through his torso. The pointed tip of a giant wooden fishhook emerged from his chest. “What the hell?” he had time to mouth before he found himself jerked suddenly upward toward the surface of the Styx.

  He flew past Glub Glub’s gaping lips. The fish-demon’s naturally wide eyes opened even wider in surprise when Normal-Art was pulled upward in front of him. Those gigantic eyes then narrowed, and the fish-demon darted after Normal-Art like he was bait at the end of a human-sized fishing line.

  Before Normal-Art could comprehend what was happening, he found himself pulled up past the surface of the river and dumped unceremoniously onto the deck of a wooden raft. Over him stood the person he had hoped to never see again: God-Art. Normal-Art moaned.

  The god looked down at him contemptuously, an annoyed snarl on his face. He kicked the end of the wooden hook and it melted into a thousand butterflies that fluttered away, bringing a beautiful touch of color to the grimy faces of the wrathful upon whom they landed.

  Normal-Art rolled onto his stomach and lay there as water churned out of his every crevice. He could not speak and could not move, so overcome was he by his soul removing the water from itself. Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a trio of familiar wheels that he thought he would never see again. He grew overjoyed and wished he could say hello to the robot, but he could not move. His bloated, saturated soul merely continued expunging water.

  Suddenly, Normal-Art found himself tumbling back underwater. From his vantage, he could see Glub Glub, who must have upended the raft from underneath in his chase to prevent Normal-Art from being snagged away. The fish’s lips darted about back and forth beneath the water, first consuming God-Art, then Drillbot, and then Normal-Art himself.

  *

  Normal-Art resumed his seat on Glub Glub’s molar and gagged and thrashed as he drowned all over again. His corporeal soul had long ago grown used to living underwater, and the seconds on the surface in which he had begun to leak seemed to negate all the time and pain he had suffered to get to the point where the Styx no longer troubled him.

  Meanwhile, the poker-playing demons stood glaring at God-Art and Drillbot, who were sprawled on Glub Glub’s tongue at the back of his mouth, near the esophagus. One quick swallow would send the pair tumbling down to the fish’s stomach. Mava the Horribly Wicked held his trident at the ready, Gertrude her steel mace, Brownie her bow and arrow, and Red Red his Luger, which he had confiscated from a particularly ferocious German passing over the Acheron decades ago.

  God-Art shrugged, stood, and promptly grew gills on the sides of his neck. He yanked on a leash of fire—like his hair, somehow still aflame underwater—and hauled Drillbot upright. “Greetings,” said God-Art, “I am Artheoskatergariabetrugereiinganno, but you may call me Art. I am the mischief deity of Earth 49,652, and I have come to withdraw that slovenly soul from this Hell.”

  God-Art pointed to Normal-Art, who had now fallen from the molar and was writhing on Glub Glub’s tongue. Mava the Horribly Wicked glanced over to Normal-Art and then back up to God-Art. “No, that is not something we are at liberty to let you do,” the merman replied.

  God-Art’s smile turned wolfish. “Oh, you think you have a choice? You are young demons, and I have not been to this Hell in centuries. I will forgive you for not knowing me.”

  God-Art reached into his leather pouch and produced a golden pass that read, Official Guest of Hell. Access to all levels and souls. The signature below was written in glowing crimson blood that spelled Beelzebub.

  “Here are my credentials,” said God-Art, holding up the pass in display. “You may apologize and hand over my quarry, or I will murder you most painfully.”

  Mava the Horribly Wicked snatched the pass from God-Art’s hand. He studied it. He held it up to Brownie. “Brownie, you got yerself a flawless, frieze-ographic memory. Something look off to you?”

  Brownie frowned. “Beelzebub doesn’t put that little squiggly thing on his ‘z.’”

  Mava the Horribly Wicked looked back over at God-Art. “Well, looks like you got yerself a forgery. You’ll be coming with us back to the station to answer a few questions.”

  God-Art stared at Mava the Horribly Wicked with a malicious glare. “Just to be clear, I gave you the option to do this peacefully. That was out of respect to your masters. You are choosing murder?”

  Gertrude stomped a foot and snorted. “You dare to threaten us within our own dominion? Do you not know how Hell’s power works?”

  God-Art grinned. “Oh, I can assure you that I do. I am an old acquaintance of its founder, while you are but the result of a bull’s wayward night of passion with a mortal. Do you even know your father’s name? I bet it was Blue Bell. You look like a Blue Bell I once knew. He was delicious.”

  Gertrude raised her mace above her head and charged. God-Art stood in place, completely calm. When the minotaur was a mere few feet away, he drew his green-catspaw-hilted dagger from his belt, stepped sideways, and chopped Gertrude’s head from her body. The minotaur’s corpse crashed against Glub Glub’s uvula, and the fish swallowed.

  The uvula wiggled, and the floor of the mouth shook. Red Red looked frantic and exclaimed to his fellow demons, “Glub Glub says that was an accident! He would never intentionally swallow Gertrude! She hit the back of his throat and it was instinct!”

  God-Art leapt forward. He dodged Mava the Horribly Wicked’s trident as it swiped at him. One stroke of his serrated blade opened the merman from chin to navel. God-Art immediately spun and whipped Drillbot into Brownie. Drillbot crashed into the centaur, and the flames from the leash spread to the creature. As the beast burned to cinders, she ran screaming and crashed into Randolph, who also burst into flames and burned to cinders.

  God-Art reared up over Red Red, the god brandishing his dagger while the crawfish-demon brandished his luger. “You know those things don’t work under water, right?” asked God-Art.

  The crawfish-demon squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened. He gulped. “No, I did not. Care to negotiate?”

  Chapter 17

  RESURRECTIONS. AND RESURRECTIONS. AND RESURRECTIONS. AND RESURRECTIONS…

  DRILLBOT SIGHED AS he rolled through the muck and the dust and the dirt. The giant fish had spit him and God-Art and Normal-Art out onto the shore on the far side of the Fifth Circle of Hell, and the trio tumbled across the barren la
ndscape. They crashed to a halt about a hundred feet from the signal tower that had seemed so far in the distance when they had first entered this Circle of Hell. The wooden gate set in the stone city wall was visible behind the tower.

  Drillbot popped upright and waited for his companions to gain their feet. Normal-Art was a pale, bloated corpse, but the longer he lay on dry land, the more water leaked from his many chest wounds and other orifices. When enough water had finally emptied out, he sat up and stared at Drillbot with eyes underlined by deep black bags.

  Normal-Art tried to speak, but the water in his lungs caused him to only make soft gurgling sounds. He shrugged and did a handstand. Water gushed from his mouth.

  Meanwhile, God-Art lay sprawled with multiple broken bones, which he set to mending. He whistled, and magical musical notes escaped his lips as divebombing effervescent staccato notes that crashed into the shattered bones, healing them.

  Water stopped pouring from Normal-Art’s mouth, so he crashed back down onto the gravelly sand. He was overcome with racking coughs. He went through a process of attempting to speak and falling into fits of coughing four more times, and finally on the fifth try, he was able to finish a sentence.

  Normal-Art rolled toward Drillbot and said, “Drillbot! I missed you!”

  Drillbot smiled his version of a smile. “[whir] Drillbot missed Master Art. Wait – CLACK – Wait! No!”

  Before Drillbot could stop Normal-Art, the overly excited human leapt toward him and embraced him in a hug. Normal-Art immediately began screaming as the fire-leash touched his skin. He caught fire and burned to ash in seconds.

  “That fool,” muttered God-Art. “He shall not escape my wrath that easily.”

  The god changed the tone and frequency of the notes he was whistling and got to work resurrecting Normal-Art.

  *

  Normal-Art sat up. He looked from God-Art to Drillbot and back to God-Art. “Where am I? Who am I?”

  God-Art smirked and glanced over at Drillbot. “Hmph. Give me just a moment. A memory wipe sometimes happens when I resurrect mortals from death by conflagration.”

  God-Art took the index finger from each of his hands and shoved them into Normal-Art’s ears. Normal-Art screamed. Drillbot could hear the squelch as the god’s fingers dug into Normal-Art’s brain and twirled in tiny little circles.

  God-Art removed his fingers from Normal-Art’s ears. Normal-Art flopped onto his back and began convulsing.

  “[whir] What did you do – CLACK – do to him?” asked Drillbot.

  Before God-Art had the chance to answer, Normal-Art stopped convulsing and jerked upright. He rubbed his head at the temples. “Feels like my memories are literally bouncing around inside my skull. Kinda hurts,” he said. He looked down at himself and commented in typical inane Normal-Art fashion, “I’m wearing clothes. I wasn’t before I burned up. I had lost mine along the way.”

  He wore his cargo shorts, a purple T-Shirt that he had purchased from a truck stop a long, long time ago—so small it fit as a midriff—featuring two racoon cubs joyfully riding a see-saw, and neon blue sneakers with socks that stretched up to his mid-calf.

  “Well, I didn’t want to have to stare at your pitifully small manhood for the rest of this escape, so I dug through your memory for your favorite set of clothing.”

  Normal-Art furrowed his brow. “That sounds way too nice for something you would do. What’s the catch?”

  God-Art sighed. “Is there never any trust between us?”

  Normal-Art stared at him with one eyebrow raised. The god gave in and said, “Fine. Toward the end of your natural lifespan, you will almost certainly lose your memory and your motor functions, since I had to magically borrow against your future life-force to put things back into their proper place. You’ll know when it happens, because your brain will become inflamed and press against your skull so hard the bone cracks like an eggshell. As a lovely side-effect of the incantation, you will call out my name without knowing why, and I will be able to hear it no matter how much distance lies between us. It will make me smile.”

  “There it is,” said Normal-Art with a nod and a smirk. “Now that I know the terrible future you’ve arranged for me, why don’t you go ahead and catch me up on your plan for the present? You’ve got one, right?”

  God-Art began speaking and gesticulating toward the nearby signal tower and gate. Drillbot watched Normal-Art with pride as he realized his former master was not listening to the god’s plan at all, but was instead merely distracting him. Rather than listening, Normal-Art was bent down on the ground collecting dozens and dozens of small objects that had tumbled from the fish’s mouth with the trio when they had been spit out—playing cards that glowed gold and betting chips that shone with blues and purples and greens. Normal-Art stacked the cards and shoved them into one cargo pocket, which he then buttoned closed. The chips he placed in the other cargo pocket, which he also buttoned closed.

  God-Art eventually finished speaking, to which Normal-Art replied, “No, thanks. I rather love it down here. I’m going to stay. As a matter of fact, I was in the middle of winning a pretty big poker game—so thanks for thinking of me, but I’m gonna go ahead and get back to it.”

  Normal-Art turned back toward the water and began walking toward it. God-Art’s eyes went wide. “What? No!” exclaimed the god.

  He reached out a hand and grabbed Normal-Art by the back of the neck, yanking him away from the river and slamming him onto the ground. The god’s eyes grew cold and his mouth twisted into a snarl. “I did not resurrect myself and deign to set my feet once more in this terribly stupid Hell for you to defy me! Now get on your feet and follow me.”

  “Maybe you should have asked first. I would have told you not to bother coming. I’ll get on my feet, but there’s no way in hell I’m following you.”

  God-Art growled in frustration. “You say that like you have a choice. I need your presence for my plan to work, so at my side you shall be. And until I am triumphant, I will make your life more miserable than you could possibly imagine.”

  “Fool, my life was so miserable before I died that Hell is a vacation for me. Do your worst.”

  And Drillbot watched helplessly in his fire restraints as God-Art did just that. The god’s eyes gleamed with rage as he pulled a stone hammer from his belt. Normal-Art’s bravery seemed to melt away as quickly as it had appeared. The human wilted into a fetal position on the ground as the god beat him mercilessly with the hammer. Drillbot sighed as the newly resurrected Art died from blunt force trauma, was resurrected by God-Art, died from the same cause, and was resurrected again.

  On about the twenty-eighth time through this cycle of murder and resurrection, Normal-Art finally yelled during one of his brief moments of life, “OK, you win. I’ll go. Just stop!”

  Instead of stopping, God-Art repeated the process fourteen more times for good measure. Then he jerked Normal-Art up onto his resurrected feet.

  Normal-Art stared at God-Art with scorn. Then he grinned as realization hit him. “Well, if you’re willing to spend that much energy killing me and resurrecting me, at least now I know how badly you need me. Leverage, thy name is Art.”

  God-Art smirked. “I make no qualms about needing you. You are essential to my plans, because you are a beacon for those damned cosmic bears. But if you think all that murder and resurrection was a hassle for me, go ahead and test me again. I owe you at least a thousand more because of how we left things when we last parted.”

  God-Art shoved Normal-Art in the back, and Normal-Art stumbled forward toward the signal tower. God-Art walked behind him and pulled Drillbot along.

  Normal-Art glanced over his shoulder at Drillbot. “Drillbot, buddy, I didn’t get the chance to ask you how you’re doing. How’re you doing?”

  Drillbot smiled his version of a smile. “[whir] Drillbot’s life has been a series of – CLACK – a series of zeroes for years. Drillbot is glad to have Master Art back. It is nice to experience a – CLACK – exper
ience a one in the ledger. Drillbot missed – CLACK – missed Master Art and is – CLACK – is sorry for what Drillbot did.”

  Chapter 18

  FARTHER INTO THE PIT

  Normal-Art dragged his feet. He felt God-Art shove him in the back, so he picked up the pace. Though the group was still a dozen yards from the wooden gate that marked passage through the massive stone city wall, they were now directly beneath the signal tower. From high up in the signal tower, Normal-Art heard the hissing of dozens of snakes. He began to look up toward the sound, but God-Art grabbed his hair and yanked his head down so that he stared at the crumbling stone corner at the base of the tower.

  “Hey! That hurts!” Normal-Art squealed.

  “Keep your eyes down,” whispered the god. “There’s a gorgon on duty up there. You make eye contact, you turn to stone. And resurrecting you if you get turned to stone would take much more of my magic than resurrecting you from mere blunt force trauma.”

  God-Art lifted his head toward one of the arrow slits in the signal tower. “Medusa, babe, give the signal to open the city gate.”

  A woman’s voice replied, thick with a lisp, “You knowth you mutht uthe the pathword.”

  “Have you changed it, beautiful?”

  “You are thuch a flatterer,” replied Medusa, her voice high-pitched and full of honey. “It hathn’t changed thinth the lasth time you were here.”

  God-Art shrugged and walked over to the stone signal tower. He found the end of a wooden beam sticking out of the stone about six-feet off the ground. He smacked his palm upon it in a pattern that sounded to Normal-Art just like “A Shave and A Haircut, Two Bits.” Each time his hand whacked against the wood, it echoed out across the Fifth Circle of Hell like someone beating upon a bass drum with all his might.