Away from the Revolution and Strife of Northern Mexico, Dorotea is back with her companions. The Deadman, now reborn as his true form of Golden Angel Hermes, he soars above Persephone, Artemis and Ophelia the Rabbit. Dorotea comes to her senses on the cart pulled by Ophelia. She sits up, confused at the new environment. She sees they are in a wasteland, an arid desert with low stone huts that are abandoned.
Obscuring the nightsky above, a swirling mass of shriveled monstrosities. Charnel howls from carion feeders, Ravens and Vultures. They pass corpses black with bloated faces, red eyes budge out of blue sockets, yellow teeth exposed, tongues swollen. Artemis says, “Cover your mouth, this is the plague.” As they progress farther into the land of Zion they see great cities on mountain tops burning. Processions of fleeing populace pour out in all directions.
Dorotea thinks of Bible stories of the Holy Land. This place seems the same on the surface, but more sad and desperate, chewed up by war and famine. She thinks of the Book of Revelation, where a great Beast unfurls disease upon the World, Angels with Trumpets pour Wrath Upon the World. In the Distance, she thinks she can see Angels with Trumpets watching from a cliff in the Eastern Sky. They come to the Western shore of sea of Galilee, Fishermen tumult on great waves.
Dorotea asks Persephone, “What happened to this world, why is everything inverted and out of harmony?” Persephone says, “A wrong was committed and soon will be righted again.”
Dorotea thinks of etchings she saw of the New Testament by Gustave Doré. This grey landscape fits with those illustrations, especially when rays of solitary light shine down amongst angry clouds. A little spot of hope among rain and thunder. It can’t be all dismay and belligerence, there must be some virtue and wisdom out there somewhere.
They come to the foot of the hill they view the 7 hills of Jerusalem, chief among them of the Temple Mount of Zion. It has an ominous aura. The black walls from years of sacrificial blood thrown over them reek of rot, dotted with hundreds of heads of False Prophets and many Ancient Ones who first ruled this city, gained the Ire of the Temple Priest ’Sanhedrin’, who wage a reign of terror on any interpretation that conflicts theirs.
Many ruins litter the foothills, punctuated by Castrated Kings and Royal families nailed upside-down giant X shaped cruciforms, many charred corpses tied with wire to burning palm trees give off an acrid stench. Women who tore open their own wombs wander outside the city screaming for God to strike them down. These are casualties of dozens of wars over the centuries, who return to life and spread eternity wailing at the sky for injustices going back to the dawn of time.
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Hermes remembers his time as The Deadman, despite the discomfort of living death, he also felt a lightness of being. Untarnished by the knowledge of an eternity of mistakes. He wonders if this is really all there is in the after light, or if this is just a stage he has been damned to repeat forever for his own mistakes. Or if his existence is supposed to give hope to the damned and his cross to carry is trying to seem pleasant when he feels his bones rubbing together and torment in his own spirit.
Entering the city of Jerusalem they find more torment within. School girls gather in the square of the Temple courtyard to mutilate their breasts, carving off everything that makes them women. Radical Zionists take running starts to dash their own brains against the wailing wall after stomping offerings of infants at the foot of the wall, each with a papyrus prayer in their teeth.
Hawkish soldiers walk around blinded by their own hands, seizing random passers by to be scourged or hacked apart by swords. The Sadducees and Pharisees watch from leaning towers, occasionally throwing half eaten food to starving toddlers and wild dogs in the dry springs that once ran under the city.
The inhabitants suffer torments of disease, a living death with rampant Leprosy, Syphilis and Gangrene from Fungus that grows up from under the streets onto trees and walls, turning every surface yellowed green, blue and black, out of gutters where skinless sheep and discarded children rot in open sewers. This is a city of madness and cruelty with no meaning, just perversity for perversities sake.
They come to a blinded Wiseman, who is impaled on a stake. He says, “Water! Please give me water!” The head of the procession Dorotea says sadly, “We have no water. I am sorry. How did you come to have a stake run in your loins and out your Skull?” Wind blows his threadbare rags, his hands and feet blue from lack of circulation and infection around nails that support all his weight.
The Wiseman looks to the heavens and shrieks, “I came to deliver the sleepless and tired to rest. I brought food and sweet water to the needy, they took them and laughed at me. Soldiers arrested me and accused me of being a Philistine. The butchers of Zion left me half alive in their incompetence. If you would, I ask that you free me from this life, take your sword and put me out of this misery.”
Dorotea remembers the sword, the scarlet cloak and the horned helmet she was gifted her first day in this world. With assuring looks of her companions, she takes the Impaled man by the hand. Kissing it and with a mighty scream delivers a killing blow to the mans heart. The Impaled man falls limp, now at rest. Now they climb to the highest precinct of the city to hold court with The Fisher King.