“And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date Unknown

“Greetings my wayward friend.”

My eyes bolted open at the sound of the voice. I scrambled onto my feet but quickly became disoriented. Confused and unsure of where I was, I tried to move my eyes all around me to take stock of my surroundings.

I failed.

As far as I could tell, I had no surroundings. I didn't seem to be in a physical place. All around me was a dark, wispy fog, and upon looking down, I discovered that even the ground under my feet was non existent.

“Are you searching for something perhaps? You best be careful, men have gone mad looking for answers underneath the black sun.”

I started. There was the voice again. It may have just been an apparition, some delusion brought upon by this cursed dreamspace, but all the same I spun around in all directions looking for its source.

“Who’s there?” I exclaimed somewhat iratedly into the foggy void. “Show yourself!”

Before I’d even finished speaking my challenge, a strangely dressed man, and what looked to be a… a camp... suddenly appeared before me. There was a wagon, a small tent, a strange assortment of wares, almost as if I stumbled onto some kind of charlatan trader at the local county fair.

The man was dressed in something akin to an outfit a merchant would wear, except his garb was far more garishly colored, and far more outdated. I’d only seen costumes like that worn by actors in the theater, but dressed as he was in a doublet of bright pink, blue, yellow and orange, he was certainly a sight for me to behold.

He sat before me on a large, fallen log, and was busy tending to a campfire as he spoke to me.

“Certainly Mister Dupuis, if that is your will. I am ever a humble servant to all guests and vagabonds that come across me and my little fiefdom.”

“Your little fiefdom?” I slowly spun around again. There was still nothing to see besides the man and his accommodations. I turned back to him and crossed my arms over my chest before speaking.

“I take it that your little fiefdom here isn’t real? And more importantly, how’d you come to know my name?” I asked the strange man with a snort of contempt. If he thought simply speaking my name would intimidate me, he was mistaken.

“How I came to know about you is truly of no concern, and as to this place…” The man paused, before continuing. “I would suppose that it’s existence or lack thereof depends on what you mean by real, wouldn’t it?” He replied to me, his gaze still firmly focused upon the campfire before him.

He continued with his speech.

“Truly, what is real? Can you honestly say to me that you are real and that this place is not? Maybe this place has always been the real world, and the world that you know so well is merely the illusion.”

I was unamused. I’d heard this line of thinking many times from my philosophy tutors, and it had never once impressed me, even as a child. I’d always viewed these abstract questions about the nature of reality as quite useless. When someone put a flintlock to your head, you could argue against the existence of the bullet and the man holding it all you wanted, but the bullet was still going to crash through your skull when he pulled the trigger.

“Quite fascinating.” I deadpanned. “Did you invade my dreams and drag me all the way out here just to play word games and debate me in philosophy?”

It was a stab in the dark to see how he’d react, but I’d seen such places as this before. While I’d never had the talent for any kind of magic, much to my family’s shame, my older sister, Pauline, certainly did. She had always had an obsession with manipulation and control, and her magical talents only helped fuel her rancid obsessions. She delighted in using her magic to twist people’s minds and dreams, and dragging out their hidden memories for their own viewing. She had not been above experimenting on her brother to perfect her methods.

“Dreams?” The man replied, finally shifting his gaze away from his fire and up towards me.

I took a step back in shock. There was nothing so obviously wrong with the man’s face, but looking at twisted my stomach all the same. I couldn’t have described the wrongness I felt gazing upon his face, because there was nothing quite wrong with it. It wasn’t deformed or mutilated, nor was his nose even tilted slightly out of place.

The only obvious cause for alarm on my part was the fact that both of his Irises glowed a deep, bright red, the light shining out of them as if they were burning coals. However, as strange as they may have been, his eyes alone were not enough to explain my disquieting feelings. There was something… more. Something deeper.

“Are you so sure this is a dream Mister Dupuis? Don’t you remember?”

I frowned. “Remember? Remember what?”

I tried to remember what I’d been doing before coming here. If this wasn’t a dream, then how the hell had he dragged me out here into what seemed very much like an unformed dreamspace? There must’ve been something…

All at once the memories of my fight with Alexander and the Earthquake came crashing into my skull, and I fell to my knees at the sheer shock it caused within me.

“It can’t be…” I whispered to myself. “Do you mean to tell me that... You mean that I’m dead? Is that why I’m here?”

“Well, Mister Dupuis, I would suppose that it depends on what you mean by dead, wouldn’t it?” The man replied, with a sinister smile.

I was too shocked to immediately respond to his quip, and could only manage to keep staring ahead at the nothingness before me.

I spent an unknown amount of time just kneeling there. I couldn’t have possibly said how long I knelt there, it may have been moments, it may have been years. I thought of all my lost hopes and dreams, all the things I would never get to see again, and I honestly felt… defeated. Even when I'd struggled with all my will to choose life over death, it hadn't been enough. Eventually however, despite the deep emptiness that had formed inside of me, I summoned what remained of my willpower, and then rose to address this man, this being, once more. I turned my head and met his burning eyes anew.

“Who are you? In fact what are you? Are you the Angel of Death, here to Judge my sins?”

The man gave out a throaty laugh upon hearing my question, and it took him some time before he was finally able to respond.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“I’m afraid not Mister Dupuis. I am a simple traveler by trade, a wayward merchant, so to speak. I travel where I will, and I sell my wares for my own gain. I am not here to judge your sins, nor is this even the realm of the dead. You are in a quite different place entirely, one far stranger than you will ever know.”

I decided to do my best to ignore his cryptic language, and carried on with the conversation.

“If I’m dead, but this is not the realm of the dead, then how am I here?”

The man gave me a wide grin, then responded.

“Oh you are not quite dead Mister Dupuis, but the answer is simple. You are here because I brought you here.”

His grin was gone as quickly as it had come, and he now looked at me now with an intense gaze.

“You see, I have an offer to make… I know about your troubles Mister Dupuis. I know about them well. Tell me honestly, have you ever wished to have power, real power, to set the world right? To remake it according to your will, to remake it in your image?”

He leaned towards me now, and his voice rose into a veritable crescendo as he spoke.

“How would you like to bring justice to those who have had you whipped and kneeling in the mud on all fours like a dog!?”

At first I was startled by the furor in his voice, but gradually I felt the empty dread that had sufused my body start to flee as I began to fully understand his proposal. If true, this was one of the most tempting offers I’d ever heard.

Which meant it probably wasn’t true.

“I have no wish to anger a powerful being such as you, whoever you are, but do not take me as a fool. Offers such as these do not come tumbling from the sky. Tell me, honestly, what is it that you want of me in return?” I inquired onto him.

He smiled, and tapped his forehead with his index finger as he spoke.

“I knew as soon as I looked upon you, that you would have a sharp mind, Mister Dupuis. A very sharp mind.”

He put down his arm and then paused, before continuing.

“You may think me a servant of the gods of your world, the divine, but I am anything but. Like I said before, I am a simple traveler, a vagabond, a merchant of obscure wears; nothing more. And as such, from time to time during my travels, I need certain…”

He paused as if searching for the right word.

“...Traveling papers. That is why I need you Mister Dupuis. You are my ticket into this world I’ve so long sought entrance into.”

He violently jerked himself towards me, and looked almost as if he was going to fall off of his log. When he next spoke, his voice took on a disturbing and unnatural quality.

“SO. VERY. LONG.”

He now closed his eyes and leaned his head backwards, looking not dissimilar from a man trying to hold back his bile. Seeing that he was finished talking, I finally responded.

“Your intentions seem all well and good, Monsieur, but words are only words, and you still haven’t told me what you want.”

His eyes snapped open, and he moved his head at a blur as he turned it to look towards me. His eyes had grown in intensity, and now shown like burning suns.

“I want your soul, Mister Dupuis, your soul. Your very own, everlasting, eternal life.”

“My soul?” I stuttered, both amazed and fearful. No kind of benevolent entity would ever ask for such a thing. While I had no idea what this man was, it couldn’t be good. “You want me to accept an offer of eternal slavery… in return for… For what exactly?!?”

“Oh no Mister Dupuis, you have it all wrong, I won’t be enslaving your soul. I’ll be destroying it, devouring it completely. In order for me to enter your realm, I will need the divine essence that saturates it. The kind that I see saturating you as you stand here before me. But I am not unkind, nor I am a thief, for whatever I take, I also give. I can make you a new soul, a greater soul, a better soul.”

I wearily considered his offer. If my body was dead, didn’t that mean I was existing as a soul at this very moment? What would his offer even mean for me?

“Why me? Why’d you pick me for this deal?” I asked.

“I can’t use the soul of just any lay person, their essence will be too weak to shield me. What I need is something more powerful, the soul of a mage. And not only that, the soul of the mage must be given willing. I will not lie Mister Dupuis, you are not the first mage I've approached, but so far all have refused me, due to one delusion or another. However, I believe that you are the oppurtunity I'd been waiting for. You possess the soul that I so fervently desire.” He said.

“I am no mage.” I quickly responded.

“Ohhh but you are Mister Dupuis, you are indeed. Buried deep within you, the spark is still there. That spark is all I will need.” He happily retorted.

I paused a moment, slightly disturbed at his almost giddy attidtude, before continuing.

“What powers do you envision this new soul will give me? The ones you fervently promised?” I replied

“My methods are not for you to know, or to even concern yourself with, but the powers are something you should already know well. Even sitting here now I can see the memories of your mind laid out before me as you would see pages within a book. You were taught by Monsieur Layfette, were you not? What a queer little man he seems to be, but as far as I can tell, a fine historian. Do you remember the stories he taught you?”

I was annoyed but also, in a strange sense, relieved to hear this admission from him. This place, whatever it was, was behaving like a normal dreamspace. He didn’t seem to be able to read my current thoughts, but my memories were open for him to see. This was really no different that many a night during my childhood.

“Monsieur Layefette taught me many stories, I cannot know what you possibly mean when you remain adamantly obsessed with being so cryptic.” I countered back to him.

He shifted his eyes away from me and turned his gaze back towards his camp fire.

“The blessing of the divine Mister Dupuis. Those stories, and the people therein.” The man finally revealed.

I blinked. Was it possible? His offer still seemed too good to be true, even though I’d heard his price. If the old legends of Alexeon the Great and Herculus were even half true, the power I’d be able to command…

“The blessing of the divine? You have that power?” I asked.

“Me? No, I do not. The capabilities of that great work were built by the divine, it is a monumental creation of genius and complexity that I, truly, do not understand. But, I know how to access it. A soul of my creation will have all the markers you’d need to access this system, that great monolith of incorporeal engineering, and from there, draw upon its power.”

I hesitated, and despite the likely drawbacks that would come from this deal, more and more his offer was appealing to me.

“What will happen to me if I accept? Since I’m dead, aren’t I simply my soul right now? Is this a trick? Will agreeing to your deal destroy me?”

His jester’s smile returned. “Mister Dupuis, whenever did I say you were dead? This is no trick, my word is my bond. To break it would be my ruin. I do not lie or exaggerate when conducting my business.”

I frowned a bit at his comments. It appeared that my earlier guess about this being some kind of dream space had actually been correct. I’d just assumed this state of afterlife had shared some fundamental laws as that of a dreamspace, but I was wrong. The laws here were similar to that of a dreamspace because this WAS a dreamspace.

“And what if the divine found out about this deal?” I challenged, my internal objections wavering.

“The divine are distracted elsewhere, and have been for eons. They are of little concern. They dare not abandon their posts to return their attention to this world of yours. At least, they’ll dare not for a little while longer.” He said. The man then laughed to himself, apparently enjoying whatever little joke he’d just made. He cut himself off abruptly, and talked to me with a note of finality.

“I need an answer Mister Dupuis. Do you accept? Or not?” He asked.

I stopped for a long moment, trying to fully understand what it would mean for me. There were so many things I didn’t know, so many ways for this deal to go wrong, but I honestly couldn’t see any way I could say no. To say no would truly mean my death, the wounds I suffered from my fall down the mine were certainly mortal. I was faced with the choice of death on one hand, and the choice of potentially ruinous powers on the other.

In the end, I decided that I didn’t really care about the cost, the power to take revenge on those who so deserved it was worth any price, even if it did eventually destroy me. They had no right to live, while I did not. If this man was being dishonest or going to resort to underhand treachery, as was likely in some way, it didn’t matter. If the gods were absent, as this stranger said, then there truly was no justice in this world.

I would have to change that.

“I do.” I responded, my voice barely above a whisper. “I accept your deal Monsieur, but with one condition. You have yet to tell me your name. Give me your name, Monsieur, and then we may shake hands upon the deal without misgivings, and without regret.”

“Certainly. Ordog is the name many know me by, both friend and enemy alike. Mister Dupuis, It was truly a pleasure doing business with you. I now bid you... ADIEU.”

He extended his arm, grasped my hand, and pure agony overtook me.