Garden of Salt and Stone

by A. L. Burgess Jr.

  “My Queen,” Sitri responded, measuring his words carefully, “the threat exists nonetheless.”

  “You doubt my judgment?”

  “Never.”

  “Rest easy, Sitri,” Lilith said. “Hannibal and his miscreants are in no position to unravel the book’s mysteries—that zealot monk did his job all too well.”

  The demon’s tension eased and he backed away from the queen. “As you wish,” he said, turning to fly away.

  “Be vigilant, they have few options.”

  Sitri acknowledged the orders and took to the air, beating his blackened wings as he thrust himself into the twilight sky.

  Below, Asmodeus waded through the mass of humanity in the amphitheater. He cut a sizable swath through astonished workers and guards alike. Having a reputation for random violent outbursts, the souls averted their eyes and gave him a wide berth. Asmodeus relished in his ill repute and stared down all newcomers hoping for a chance to punish any wayward gaze. Several times, he changed paths deliberately, forcing some to abandon their tasks in an effort to avoid contact with the demon. He found amusement in the laborers’ fear and laughed heartily.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Lilith asked, watching her lieutenant approach.

  Being imperious to the point of showing disrespect, Asmodeus answered, “Greatly, my Queen.”

  Asmodeus’s arrogant and disingenuous tone irked Lilith, but she let it pass. She was not in the mood to discipline her subordinate, and granting him leeway kept him in line for bigger tasks. “Do you have something to report?”

  Asmodeus stopped one step short of Lilith’s perch. “Our interrogations have not borne fruit. We search for the more ancient of the animas now.”

  Lilith struggled to contain her displeasure. “I gave you a job!”

  Asmodeus checked his attitude. “As you know, the animas are beyond number. As yet, none have presented a state of mind capable of admission, let alone collusion.”

  Lilith wanted to scream but knew the information that Asmodeus relayed was true. The animas were elusive and random creatures. They seldom presented themselves to outsiders and when they did, their nature was not one conducive to reasoning.

  A thought piqued Lilith’s interest. Throughout the centuries, one anima stood out above the rest as it had tried to thwart Lilith at every turn, and when the opportunity arose, it recruited other anima to stymie any progress the demon queen made in finding the guilty party. The guile, wherewithal, and total lack of fear made Lilith think of only one person. “I smell the stench of Isla Dora in all this. She and her followers have been a thorn in our sides long enough. Use all the resources you need to find her.”

  Asmodeus’s mood noticeably improved at the order. “Absolutely, my Queen.”

  “Before you go, I want you to see something.”

  Curious, Asmodeus nodded his acknowledgement and stood by.

  Lilith called out to the nearest overseer and ordered they round up a large portion of the menial laborers.

  The female guard ran down to the lower levels of the amphitheater and relieved the other crew bosses of their charges. Some, angry that they had been stripped of their workers, protested, but they soon obeyed without question when the female guard pointed back to the queen. Slowly, the female guard began the lengthy task of herding a large number of souls to the upper portions of the amphitheater.

  Lilith greeted the hundred or so slave workers with a curt smile. She spoke overly loudly to the group, ensuring all within the bounds of the construction project would hear her words. “Do not be afraid!” Lilith assured. “Rejoice with me as your days of toil and tedium have ended!”

  Smiles and faint words of encouragement broke out among the assemblage. Their slumping and beaten postures straightened, affirming their impression of hope.

  “You have been chosen for a very special endeavor indeed,” Lilith continued in a familiar and warm tone. “Please step forward,” she commanded, gesturing to the group to come closer to her position along the upper edge of the amphitheater.

  The group clambered higher. Weakened by their earlier labors, some sought help from others to climb over the hewn rocks. They stood on the precipice of the structure and marveled at the seldom seen landscape beyond the walled city.

  Lilith gently glided through the group of souls, stopping at the exact center of the upper course of stones along the rearmost portion of the amphitheater. There, for no obvious reason, was a large hole in the finished row of blocks. The opening was several yards in diameter and its interior edges were finished in voussoir-type masonry. The hole was deep, continuing down through the entire depth of the theater’s supporting infrastructure.

  One by one, the workers drew closer to the hole and peered into its gaping maw. The high spirits that once permeated the group gave way to gasps of apprehension.

  “Behold!” Lilith proclaimed. “Henceforth and forevermore shall you shine as a beacon extolling the virtue of this great city!”

  Frightened, the slaves backed away from the queen and instinctively formed small groups. A few souls at the edges of the assemblage ran, attempting to navigate the steep staircases on either side of the amphitheater’s centerline. Others standing near the upper boundary of the amphitheater threw themselves off the precipice in an effort to escape.

  Lilith’s response was swift. A wave of lavender energy poured from her body. It surrounded the group and stopped the fleeing souls in their tracks. Power clutched the running individuals and forced them back to the gathered throng of slaves. Thick loops of opaque electricity caught the persons in freefall, stopping their momentum and lifting them back to the top of the amphitheater.

  Once collected, Lilith raised her arms and turned each human into a fiery, screaming mass. She swept her hands through the air, deftly combining the individuals into a fountain of fire. She held the writhing conglomeration of burning souls aloft for all to witness, scanning the area menacingly, daring the remaining slave laborers and their overseers to gaze upon her. Her point made, Lilith deposited the column of fire into the hole atop the amphitheater.

  The fountain of fire raged high into the twilight sky. Near the geyser’s apex, the flames cooled slightly, allowing the souls contained within a scant moment to coalesce into their former beings. Unearthly screams escaped from them as they descended back into the fire’s turbulent, roiling center to begin their journey anew.

  Impressed with the powerful and highly technical display, Asmodeus bowed reverently. “My Queen.”

  Chapter 14

  The first thing that stood out to Peter was the change in terrain. Marching through the landscape slowly became much easier than the previous day’s journey. The demanding trek between the hills and dales of the Garden gave way to the welcome comfort of level ground. As the company progressed, hills spread out on both sides of the company and ridges rose to create a narrow valley. The glen snaked ahead, making it impossible for any in the group to see the other end.

  Once again, Peter found himself bringing up the rear of the column and struggling to maintain the taxing pace set by Hannibal. He felt guilty asking for another respite as previous requests drew extreme irritation from the members of the company as a whole. Peter kept his mind off his exhaustion by learning as much as he could from Thomas. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know—I’ve never been out here before,” Thomas called back to Peter from some thirty yards or so in front of the professor.

  Burnt rocks and charred foliage littered the valley floor just as it did throughout the rest of the Garden, but something ahead made Hannibal and the rest of the group take pause. Each member of the group halted their progress to study an object that lay in their path and in turn, each shook their head before moving on. Peter maneuvered to see what had garnered their attention, but he trailed too far behind to get a clear view.

  Peter watched closely as Thomas reached the mysterious spot in the path and stopped. He knelt to a squatting position and extended his hand to t
ouch the object. Despite his fatigue, Peter stepped up his pace and covered the remaining distance as quickly as he was able. There, to his disappointment, was a semi-translucent, yellowing slab of an unknown substance lying on the ground. It was about one foot wide and six feet long. Peter could not tell how thick the slab was as the ashen floor of the valley swallowed it in depth, but it appeared to be no more than six inches through at its midpoint. The irregularly-shaped slab was roughly square at its base, with the upper end jagged and split. It looked like nothing more than a broken piece of yellowish marble. Confused, Peter could not fathom the reason for all the interest. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas replied, “but this shouldn’t be out here.”

  “It’s just some piece of quartz or something.”

  Thomas gestured to the landscape around them. “Have you seen one like it anyplace else?”

  Peter thought back to the many miles of hiking the group had accomplished. This slab was the first object he had seen not showing signs of the great conflagration that consumed the Garden of Eden so long ago. Everything green and alive at the time of the fire was now ash while the more stubborn geology, such as the rocks, had been superheated to the melting point. This slab was bright in color and there was no reason for it to be so pristine. “Not around here,” Peter answered.

  “Not anywhere,” Thomas corrected. He ran two fingers across the back of the slab and noticed a buildup of residue under his nails. The substance was granular in nature and stuck to his fingers like wet sand. Thomas sniffed the yellowish compound several times and grimaced at the foul smell. He stuck out his tongue and cautiously tasted the material. Immediately, Thomas’s face soured and he spit out the substance. “Salty.”

  Peter guffawed at the foolish stunt, but quickly sobered up at the mention of the chemical compound. “What?”

  “Really salty.”

  Peter bent down and swiped a lone finger across the slab. He cautiously tasted the substance. “You’re right,” he said, rubbing the residue between his fingers. “That’s what it is, a slab of salt—as if I wasn’t thirsty enough already.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Peter sniffed his fingers and wiped them off on his pants. “I don’t know.”

  A distant call to reassemble echoed dully off the valley’s walls. Ahead, the trail veered sharply to the right and the company was out of sight.

  Peter checked his belongings and adjusted his glasses. “I guess we should go.”

  Thomas nodded his agreement and together, the two set off after Hannibal and the others.

  Peter counted no less than nine slabs of salt lying prone in the ash by the time the two of them had caught up to Hannibal and the mercenaries. The proportions of each slab were different. Some were thin and long, while others were fat and stout, with one being oddly shaped and disproportionate in every regard. Peter could not make rhyme or reason of the anomalous chunks of salt.

  While Hannibal and the others waited for the two stragglers to arrive, they formed a circle around a standing blackish-blue stone stele. They discussed the various features of the rock, pointing and running their hands across it. Mostly, the group placed wagers as to how long it would take the precariously-leaning stele to finally topple over.

  Peter entered the circle of mercenaries and studied the standing slab. He rubbed a finger across its surface and tasted the residue. “Covered in ash,” he said, spitting and wiping his mouth at the unpleasant taste. The group broke into laughter and Peter humored them by smiling at his own misfortune. The top of the stone was elongated and shaped like an oval. Horizontal edges ran from both sides of the oval where it joined the main body of the stele. Peter scrutinized the circular top of the stone slab. He scanned the surface for an inscription, as the stele closely resembled that of a gravestone, but he found no indication the rock had ever been engraved.

  Hannibal mustered the troupe and led them onward. Along the switchback path through the floor of the valley, stele of salt and stone alike made their appearance. The first upright salt stele drew limited curiosity from the group, but faded soon after as the company found several of each variety in differing postures throughout the glen.

  Peter was keenly interested in the rock and salt formations, but his overtaxed physical state dampened his enthusiasm considerably. His joints screamed in pain and his thirst was all-consuming. At each turn in the path, Peter desperately searched for any source of water and was distressed to find the same dry environment ubiquitous within the Garden as a whole. It was not until Thomas poked him that he regained his senses.

  “Look,” Thomas said, pointing ahead.

  Peter gazed in the indicated direction and saw that the valley angled right and widened considerably, but that was not what drew his attention. There were thousands of upright steles located within the vale. The slabs were spaced at regular intervals throughout the basin and were made of both salt and stone. Some individual steles faced off against each other, salt versus stone, while others were in formations matching against opposing columns of roughly the same number. It was as if time had stopped with the slabs locked in mortal combat.

  As they neared the outer edge of the arrangement, the company broke apart into small groups and waded into the phenomenon. Each member studied the slabs, trying to decipher their meaning.

  Thomas approached a pair of salt and stone stele. They stood within a few feet of each other and lined up evenly from front to rear. He knocked on the stone slab to test it for soundness and studied its array of cracks and crevices. Once Thomas was certain of the composition, he turned to the salt stele and ran his fingers along it. He sampled the results to ensure it was the same substance as they had previously found. He stepped back from the salt slab and cocked his head. A pattern began to emerge along the upper end of the salt. Thomas’s eyes grew wide and he drew his hands back, close to his body. His features contorted and he fought the urge to vomit. He spat several times and rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. “Not cool.”

  Peter examined the salt stele more closely. Carved in relief at eye level was a human face. Some unknown process in the Garden caused a heavy amount of erosion, but there was no denying the face’s existence. He spun around to study the opposing stone slab. It contained no discernible facial features, but a careful inspection around the perimeter of the stele showed the remnants of arms and legs still visible as independent protrusions from the otherwise smooth stone surface. Peter followed the outgrowths to their jagged ends. What he once thought was simply the splintered stone ends of crumbling rock he now knew were the digits of long-encased hands and feet.

  Peter made his way through the forest of monoliths. He moved past Hannibal and the others while scanning each stele, looking for any identifiable characteristics. After several examples confirmed his findings, he turned back to the group and said, “They’re people.”

  The company looked to Hannibal for confirmation and, as if in response to a ridiculous question, he laughed. “Of course—what would you expect in a place such as this?”

  Numb at the revelation, Peter stood staring into the sea of steles. “What happened?”

  “The death of hope,” Hannibal answered, looking solemnly at the ancient battlefield. “This place is known as Uriel’s Vale.”

  “Uriel,” Peter said, thinking of the previous day’s story. “He was the angel sent to fight the demons?”

  Hannibal pointed deeper into the valley. “He is there.”

  Not far off, erected among an army of salt and stone pillars, was a marble statue of the angel Uriel. It dominated the landscape, standing over everything around it. His pose was one of defiance. His wings stretched from his body in different directions. The left wing was forward of the angel and positioned to shield Uriel from incoming danger, while the right wrapped behind him. Uriel’s left arm and hand pointed forward as if signaling his army, while his right held a long sword in a guarding position. The angel was clad in breastplate armor.
He sported shoulder spaulders with a knee-high filigreed tunic and caligae-style footwear.

  “Incredible,” Peter muttered, attempting to grasp the significance of everything he was witnessing.

  Hannibal led the company closer. The valley floor containing the steles was oblong in shape. It was about fifty yards from edge to edge at its widest point and several hundred yards in overall length. Uriel’s statue was in the leftmost end of the valley from the group’s approaching vantage. The upright steles showed more organization the closer they were to the statue. Stone slabs radiated out to some distance away from Uriel and then suddenly, as if an imaginary line had been crossed, they changed to their salt counterparts.

  In the midst of the forest of salt were three large, vacant areas. The roughly circular areas were at the far end of the glen opposite the Uriel statue. As with the area surrounding Uriel, the number of salt steles increased in density the nearer they came to the vacant areas.

  Thomas stopped at a mound of yellowish salt and called on Peter to join him. “Put your eyeballs on this.”

  Peter studied the heap of salt. At first glance, the pile looked fairly innocuous and nothing more than a large gathering of salt steles smashed into a six-foot tall mound, but upon closer inspection, Peter recognized the eroded lines of human extremities.

  Thomas pointed to a set of parallel lines on top of the pile that resembled legs. The legs were complete and joined to a hip and then to a torso wearing a semblance of ancient leather armor. Where the head should have been was nothing more than a mass of indistinguishable salt with a set of legs protruding from it.

  Peter followed the chain of human parts, never able to find an end or a beginning to the extremely eroded remains. “They’re stuck together.”

  Thomas nodded. “That’s off the wall.”

  “Uriel was charged with protecting the Garden.” Hannibal projected the words through the still air and gestured to the statue. “He now stands as a testament to his failure.”