Mickie might have been expecting the pain, but that did not make it any more pleasant to bear. He was huddled within urchin’s twisting tunnel, fire tearing through his insides. A constricting cord had wound about his throat. He could not breath, could not scream. The skin upon his branded hand bubbled and blistered as a new symbol etched itself upon his flesh.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wave of fire receded, leaving Mickie a shuddering wreck. Bile rose in his throat and the branded man Swallowed hard, tamping it down as he reasserted control over himself. A glowing orb came into focus, held over him by a scaly hand.
‘Well I, I uh… have never seen anything like that before.’
Kalistra’s voice was a quiet mixture of concern and fascination. Her hair, usually a chaotic mess of twisting snakes, was still. Countless sets of eyes reflected the soft glow of the lamp as forked tongues sampled the air near Mickie’s sweat-soaked face. They jumped when he abruptly let loose a rasping cough, responding with a multitude of hisses.
‘Yeah. Any ideas?’
He had warned the gorgon of his impending collapse, and Kalistra had suggested she observe the process. Apparently Transcriber’s worked regularly with the power contained in the soul, shaping it to form runes. His ally had thought she might be able to leverage that experience to uncover more about the effects of his mark.
‘Well, one thing’s for certain. That’s no ordinary brand.’
‘No shit.’
Mickie coughed again, pushing himself upright against a wall.
‘I figured that much out myself.’
‘No, you don’t understand. Your situation is extremely abnormal, I’ve never seen anything like it.’
The gorgon took a seat against the opposite wall, lamp held loosely in one hand.
‘It’s not uncommon for demons to trade power, so your abilities themselves are not strange. What is however, is that both your mark and the powers it grants are not fixed.’
Mickie gave the gorgon a tired stare, doing his best to follow along.
‘Deals are static things, with established terms. They are, by design, not supposed to change.’
‘What about a clause, or a contingency?’
‘A what?’
All this talk of deals and contracts had the mortal dredging up what little he could recall about legal documentation.
‘You know, some kind of sub-rule. A feature of the deal that only comes into effect under certain conditions.’
Kalistra frowned at him for a moment, before releasing a soft chuckle.
‘A deal with a demon is not equivalent to a loan agreement.’
‘You know about loan agreements?’
The idea that this scaled warrior before him knew about financial contracts was almost funny. She didn’t really seem like the homeowning type.
‘Of course, I know of… ah forget it. What I mean, is that demonic deals bind the very souls of each party. It is subjective, only those involved in the contract can decide if it has been breached.’
Mickie gave a slow nod.
‘Right, creates a fair bit of slack for loopholes. Like the whole thing we did with you and Illiath.’
Kalistra raised a hand reflexively to her unmarked forehead.
‘Yes, just like that. Caveats to a deal only introduce further leeway. There have been cases where such clauses were twisted against the very demons who set them. Also, baring the of ascension of the circles, you don’t know any of the terms. So, you shouldn’t know if you have fulfilled or broken them.’
It took Mickie a while to process that. He felt at the new lumpen symbol on his hand as he thought, running a thumb over scarred flesh.
‘Then why do I collapse every time I go up a circle?’
The gorgon shrugged.
‘No idea. From what I can observe your soul is being altered by something; I just don’t know what.’
Altered? That was not something Mickie wanted to hear in relation to his soul.
‘Ah, you’re up. It’s about time.’
A small figure sauntered into the lamplight from further up the tunnel.
‘Where have you been?’
Mickie asked Miz-Mag as the tiny demon clambered onto his knee.
‘You were blacked out for a while kid. I got bored, went to see if there was anything further up. Felt it when you came to though.’
The nonchalance with which his partner discussed Mickie’s bout of excruciated pain irked the mortal. He restrained the urge to flick the fiend off his knee, settling for an angry look.
‘Oh, don’t be that way. You should be happy, new power and all that.’
A new ability. Mickie had forgotten about that in the aftermath of the pain. Now he thought about it though, the mortal knew exactly what he wanted to summon. He settled his attention on his bare feet, considering how he had called forth his armour. A set of heavy combat boots slipped into his mind, and Mickie called them forth as he would to his clothes or weapon. For long seconds he waited, anticipating the feeling of fabric against his feet. Nothing happened.
‘It’s not boots.’
He said to Miz-Mag.
‘What? Of course it isn’t kid. Why would it be boots?’
‘You said it would be! On the way out of the palace!’
Mickie’s fingers itched with the urge to flick the irritating little devil.
‘I didn’t say it was going to be boots. I said it might be.’
Miz-Mag seemed to sense his waning restraint. It leapt from his knee and scampered over to a confused Kalistra.
‘But now you have the power I can sense it, and it ain’t any kind of shoe.’
‘Well? What is it then?’
The fiend gave a squeaky hum.
‘I’d say some kind of reservoir, or maybe a battery?’
Neither of those made any sense to Mickie. Unsure of how he would picture a reservoir in a way that was useful, he settled on the battery.
‘It’s not working. Can’t you get more specific?’
Miz-Mag rubbed its jaw.
‘Let’s see. The feeling I’m getting is of space, like a reserve where you store stuff for later use. It doesn’t translate well into a physical item like the armour did.’
Beside his noisy partner, Kalistra cleared her throat.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but what is this about?’
Mickie swiftly got the gorgon up to speed on the half of the conversation she had missed. Once he explained Miz-Mag’s description of the new ability, she took a few moments to think it over.
‘Both your abilities draw upon your soul, yes?’
He nodded.
‘Well, thinking in terms of function, and in the context of what you can currently do. I think Miz-Mag might be referring to something to store additional power.’
Thinking it over, that made sense. Mickie ran out of juice pretty quick if he needed to speed up a reload or repair his jacket.
‘That fits. What would something like that look like though? I need to picture it.’
The gorgon let a serpent twist about a clawed finger as she thought.
‘Could be anything. Thinking like a Transcriber though, I would say some form of accessory. Something easy to keep on your person.’
Figuring it was worth giving her suggestion a go, Mickie shut his eyes. The first thing that came to mind was a ring, settled upon a slender hand and embossed with his family crest. When that failed, he was slightly relieved. That was not an image he wanted to picture on a regular basis.
Next up, his brain conjured a necklace, a cheap thing a girlfriend had given him during his quieter years. Mickie wasn’t sure why it came to mind, he had not been big on jewellery and the relationship had not lasted. But the carved wood and leather strap called something forth within him. An itching burn encircled his throat, causing Mickie to swallow.
The tension within him grew taught as a drawn bow, before snapping in a release that had something falling about his neck. Mickie looked down to find an unfamiliar symbol of carved bone dangling from a string of old leather. The image was a confusing mess of twisting lines whose meaning he could not comprehend. Yet, as Mickie took hold of the rough carving in a hand, he felt something. It was a tether, an unseen path linking that strange space within him to the necklace.
‘Soul.’
Kalistra spoke the word softly, but it still made him start.
‘What’s that?’
‘The symbol. It means soul.’
‘Oh, I see.’
He examined the tangle, squinting as if to derive meaning through blurred vision.
‘Is it that rune language you use?’
‘No. That isn’t a rune. Not in the sense that you’re thinking anyway. It’s a character from an old language. One as old as hell itself. Most of the words aren’t even known to us any longer.’
‘Huh, but you know this one?’
‘Yeah, most Transcribers know a few here and there. It’s more of a curiosity than anything else.’
That caused Mickie to think of something he had been meaning to ask the gorgon. He held his brand out to her.
‘You wouldn’t know what these mean then?’
Three symbols now marred the flesh, taking up a third of the space enclosed by the circling predators. Kalistra looked curiously down at the new symbol before shaking her head.
‘No sorry. They’re old for sure, but I don’t have a clue what they mean.’
‘Forget that kid. How’s the new toy work?’
Miz-Mag, now believing that enough time had passed for Mickie’s ire to have settled, returned to his knee. The branded man returned his attention to the necklace. If it were some kind of reservoir, then it should let him expend more power than before.
With little more than a flexing of his hand, Mickie called forth his gun. The barrel rested on the head of a snarling wolf, reloaded after the shot that killed Illiath. He began to charge the weapon, pouring forth energy until the grills on the body radiated a dangerous light.
‘Are you certain that’s a good idea?’
Kalistra was giving the weapon a wary look, no doubt recalling the time he had blown apart the chain on the spire. Mickie did not respond, too focussed upon the internal flows of his power. As energy streamed from its amorphous source into his weapon, it was replaced by a matching torrent from the necklace. The result was his own power reserves remaining untouched, and the fatigue that came with the expenditure diminished.
Satisfied, Mickie dismissed the glowing weapon. This was a good result. He would need to test just how much the bone amulet could hold, but it would hopefully improve his staying power. Mickie opened his mouth to mention his success, when a strange feeling turned his attention inward. It was like he was being stuffed full off food, his insides stretching painfully.
It was his soul, Mickie realised as fire flared through his bones. By dismissing his weapon in his charged state he had overfilled his capacity, pushed the container of power beyond what it was meant to hold. The result was not pleasant. He curled in on himself, a physical reaction to the sensation that did nothing to lessen the pain.
Within his soul the source of his power was writhing, boiling like a superheated geyser. It was going to tear him apart from the inside out. Then, with a gasp of relief, Mickie felt the pressure lessen. A waterfall of ethereal energy streamed away from him and into the amulet, the item reclaiming what it had given.
‘Ooh. That was not wise.’
While Miz-Mag cackled away, Kalistra queried him warily, usure what had just happened. The accursed imp must have guessed what he had done. After explaining himself to the gorgon, even she seemed vaguely amused at his expense. Mickie rubbed is chest, eyes drifting to his uncovered toes. The amulet was useful, but a pair of shows certainly would have been nice. Perhaps on the next circle.
‘Yes, normally it is extraordinarily difficult to overcharge a soul as you just did. There is an inherent resistance, like bending your arm too far the wrong way. The amulet and your weapon worked as a dangerous sidestep.’
‘I can tell.’
Mickie replied, deadpan. His attention left Kalistra to wander up the tunnel.
‘Well, now I’m no longer writhing on the floor, I suppose we had better keep moving.’
Miz-Mag rubbed its hands together in anticipation.
‘Dead on, kid. I want to slip through the seventh before Belphegor can get a whiff of our trail.’
The group resumed their arduous crawl up the tunnel. Until this point the ascension had been one draped in tense silence. Smothered by the knowledge that even now the enforcers were scouring the dark beyond the city for them. However, something had shifted following Mickie’s collapse. For all that his brand’s change was a painful experience, it also signified they had reached the next circle. Even though they were crawling through a dark, cramped passage, Mickie felt a gentle buoyancy to his spirit.
‘Hey Kalistra, I never got the chance to ask while we with the urchins, but you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the seventh circle?’
The gorgon paused in her crawl to cast him a look over one shoulder.
‘I’m passingly familiar with the sands. Not sure if I could give you anything useful though.’
‘Well, I’m sure you know more than Mag and I, seeing as we know absolutely nothing about what’s waiting up there.’
Kalistra paused for a moment.
‘You really don’t know what’s coming?’
The disbelief in her tone sparked a jolt of irritation through him.
‘No. Sadly I didn’t get the chance to swing by the public library between arena bouts. Something to do with me being chained in a cage.’
‘All right, all right, relax. I forget at times that you a new to hell. Your disposition is just so well suited to this realm.’
Mickie squinted, unsure if he should be taking offence to that. Kalistra did not give him the chance to, starting her explanation of what was to come.
‘The seventh circle is a massive desert, hence the nickname of the sands. I’ve only ever been there on my way down to the city.’
While she sounded slightly bitter at that last part, it was good news for Mickie.
‘So, you know the way up?’
‘I do, it’s hard to miss honestly. Back when the Soul Lord was around the Sovereign had a central tunnel carved upwards. It leads right from the seventh through to the fourth circle.’
That sounded too good to be true.
‘What’s the catch?’
‘Well, it is the main highway through the circle, so there will be plenty of demons about.’
‘So it’s a no go then. We’d be noticed the moment we showed our faces.’
‘Don’t write it off so quickly.’
Mickie frowned.
‘You think we could bust through somehow?’
‘Maybe. You know of the Sovereign’s plans, do you not? To invade the world above?’
Kalistra spoke of the impending invasion casually, like it was an interesting article in a newspaper.
‘Uh, sure, I’ve heard of it.’
‘Well, the highway has always been manned by the Sovereign’s own forces. The same ones that are now being shifted to the first circle for its invasion.’
Mickie thought it over.
‘You think the path up won’t be guarded?’
‘No, it will still be guarded. I just think we can take out whatever paltry force holds it and break through.’
Well, it was a better plan than anything he had. If there was a chance Mickie could jump up a few circles in a single burst, he thought it worth a little risk.
‘We’ll have to scope it out, but if that’s the only way up then I guess that’s what we’ll be doing.’
Having set a plan into motion, the group fell into a comfortable silence as they dragged themselves ever upwards. Without a conversation to hold its interest, Miz-Mag left its usual post to scout ahead. It was because of this, that the little demon was the first to notice they had reached their destination. The patter of little feet preceded an excited squeak as a red blur shot into the lamplight.
‘Kid! Up ahead! I’m picking up light!’
Finally. Mickie relayed the information to Kalistra and soon the two of them were crawling as fast as their four limbs were able. For all that the tunnel had provided some relief for Mickie, the ever-present stone above his head was beginning to take its toll. He ached to be in the open air again, to shake off the last vestiges of clammy darkness.
Ahead the passage began to get noticeably brighter, the walls shifting from grey rock to tan sandstone. They finally escaped the tunnel, emerging into a dimly lit cave. The space was tall enough that Mickie could straighten, and the mortal did so gratefully, stretching his arms up to touch the ceiling.
While they were not yet out in the open, it was not much further. The cave was shallow, and light filtered about a bend in the stone, calling the group forward. With Miz-Mag back upon his shoulder, Mickie clambered the remaining distance to the exit. He began to feel sand underfoot, seeping pleasantly between his toes.
Finally steeping out into the open air, Mickie was blinded by the brightness of the seventh circle. A gust of hot air whisked by as his eyes adjusted, heavy with the scent of iron. A sea of gigantic sandy dunes came into focus, cresting like monstrous waves in a storm. They filled the horizon, eventually obscuring his view entirely.
Stolen story; please report.
Kalistra was just ahead, face tilted up towards the distant ceiling. Mickie followed her eyes to the brightly illuminated rock, lit by crystals just like the wastes in the ninth circle. Unlike the icy blue light at the bottom of hell, these stones glowed a burning yellow. The heat they radiated was extreme, enough to push Mickie’s demonic resistance into a realm of discomfort. The mortal did not mind though, not with the pleasure he had obtained from finally stepping out into the open.
‘Ah, that’s much better, ain’t it kid?’
Miz-Mag had leapt from its usual spot and onto a nearby rockface. The demon perched above the cave mouth like tourist on the beach, splayed out to soak in the rays. Mickie followed the sandstone up to where it connected with the top of the circle. A huge cylinder of stone that linked the sandy floor to the glowing ceiling. Turning back to the expanse, Mickie saw many more pillars, reaching above the dry ocean like the arms of a drowning man.
‘It is good to be out in the open air again.’
Just as he finished speaking a heavy gust of air rolled by, carry a clawing humidity. The smell of iron washed over him in a clammy wave, filling his mouth with a vaguely familiar, coppery tang. Mickie worked his tongue, resisting the urge to spit.
‘Is that blood?’
‘It is.’
Kalistra cast an amused glance at his look of distaste.
‘The seventh has lakes of boiling blood, if you think the air is bad here you should try going near one.’
‘That sounds nice.’
Miz-Mag chuckled from up on its stone.
‘I thought you wanted more of this thing kid. You know, fire, brimstone and all that.’
It was true that the sands were a closer representation of what he expected hell to be. That did not mean he was eager to experience it. Kalistra had turned back to the sandy horizon, scanning it for something.
‘If you think the lakes sound bad, then hope you never see a blood storm.’
‘I’m sorry, a what?’
‘Blood storm. Because the lakes are always boiling, the air is constantly getting thicker with blood. After a while all that liquid comes back down in a storm. They say you can drown in one standing up, all while the flesh cooks on your bones.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me about this back in the tunnel?’
‘Well, they aren’t very common, and you can tell when one is coming. The odds of us getting caught out while we pass through are slim.’
Mickie winced. That was not the kind of thing you said out loud. Kalistra did not seem to realise she had just tempted fate, continuing her scan of the dunes ahead.
‘Could Miz-Mag perhaps attain some height to find the exit? I cannot spot it from here, and either of us would be easily spotted up a cliff.’
‘Yeah, it can manage that. Mag?’
His partner gave an exaggerated groan as it got to its feet.
‘If I must. What’s the snake want me to look for?
Mickie relayed the question and Kalistra answered loud enough for the demon to hear.
‘We need to locate the exit pillar. It is surrounded by a walled city so look for that, there is not very much out here so it should not be difficult to locate.’
Miz-Mag scampered further up the rockface, climbing well above the towering dunes. It took the demon a short while to find the city surrounding the pillar, but it eventually provided them with a heading. The group set off across the sands, keeping low amongst the towering dunes and only cresting when the path required. Sticky heat glommed onto Mickie as he laboured to keep steady footing on the steep sand. Sweat begin to bead his brow, an uncommon occurrence ever since he had received his brand. The mortal wiped away the sticky droplets, only to find his hand coming back crimson. It was not sweat on his forehead, but blood, condensing onto his skin from the humid air. The sight made his stomach turn, and Mickie reached for something with which he could distract himself.
‘Hey Kalistra, any chance you could educate a lowly mortal?’
‘Oh?’
The serpentine warrior started and threw him a look over one shoulder. Mickie could see little rivulets of blood running down her face.
‘Sure, ask away.’
‘Well, seeing as you seem to know a bit about this circle, I was wondering if you could give me run-down of the rest. Just so I know what I’m getting into.’
‘Yeah, I can do that. Be warned though, I am not expert on the structure of hell, especially the first three circles.’
‘Well, whatever you know, it’s more than me.’
So, as the trio wound there way towards the distant exit, wiping blood from their eyes, Kalistra broke down the nine circles of hell. The lower two he already knew just as well, if not better, than she did. Above their current cavern was a circle commonly referred to as the Labyrinth. Instead of a single open cavern, the sixth was an interconnected mess of smaller tunnels. It sounded like an absolute nightmare to navigate, and Mickie was glad they would be able to skip by it entirely.
After the Labyrinth came the river. Kalistra seemed unreasonably enthusiastic about this particular circle. She described an endlessly flowing river and swathes of green marshland. Honestly, Mickie had to agree that it didn’t seem that bad, at least by the standards of hell.
The seventh was apparently a city made entirely of gold. That peeked both his and Miz-Mags interest more than any river or maze could. However, the specifics of the circle where outside of Kalistra’s expertise. She said, just as with the Labarynth, denizens tended to steer clear of the fourth. The city there had been abandoned long ago.
Her knowledge was even shakier still when it came to the second and third circles. Apparently, these were both contained within a single, massive cavern. A huge storm and the resulting deluge that it generated.
Last up was limbo, an expansive plain at the top of hell. There were no outstanding features, just endless fields and rocky spires. Kalistra described it as a lawless place, even within the established cities that demons controlled. Mickie thought it did not sound all that bad, he could deal with a bit of pandemonium. The only thing that dissuaded him from the notion was the tone with which the gorgon described the first. It was a mixture of disgust and fear, a combination he had not heard from her even when they discussed the fighting pits.
‘So, that’s it. The full nine circles.’
Having finally completed her explanation, Kalistra took a slow breath of the tangy air. They had covered quite a bit of ground but were still far from reaching the exit.
‘Yeah, thanks. At least now I won’t be running blind every time I ascend a circle.’
‘Sure, not completely blind but close to it. My knowledge of the actual paths between circles is limited to the towers in the city and the passage between here and third.’
The way she said that caused Mickie frown.
‘But there are other ways up? Stuff like the urchin’s tunnel?’
‘Certainly, I just don’t know them. Hell is ancient, I’m sure plenty of passages between the circles have come and gone.’
It was good to know that if their plans fell through, he could always go looking for some other path onwards. The group rounded a towering sandstone pillar and finally came into sight of something other than sand. In the distance, squatting low amongst the dunes, was some form of outpost. A tower jutted above a protective wall of dark metal, as if reaching feebly for the distant ceiling. Mickie though the construction looked familiar, and his suspicions were confirmed as Kalistra ducked low beside him.
‘One of the towers from the city. We can’t see it from here but there will be a raised path on the other side of that wall. One that leads to the pillar city.’
Mickie gave her a nod and swung back behind cover to think. They could not take the path. To walk in the open like that would guarantee that they were spotted.
‘We’ll circle around, stay out of sight but follow the road.’
The serpentine warrior agreed, and they trekked into the dunes, keeping to the furrows between sandy waves. Now they were upon the occupied region of the circle, tension returned to the small group, smothering any idle chatter. They worked their way around the small fort in silence, one eye open for glimpses of the tower.
It was Miz-Mag who first spotted the road, squeaking with excitement from atop Mickie’s head. The path was just as Kalistra had described, a raised stone construct that cut through the dunes, reminiscent of a bridge above water. As he watched, a series of shapes came into view, moving slowly along the stone towards the fort. A group of demons maybe? It was hard to tell from this distance and Mickie did not want to risk being spotted. It was lucky then that he had a portable spy that could take a look for him.
‘Hey Mag, someone’s moving along the road, can you make out who they are?’
‘Not hiding behind this dune, I can’t.’
‘Well then you’d better get some height to take a look.’
The little fiend grumbled with annoyance but complied, leaping from its perch to the sand and clambering upwards.
‘Hmm, bit hard to see, even for me kid. Definitely a group of demons. They kinda look like the enforcers from back in the city. Looks like they might be dragging something with them too, can’t tell what it is though.’
Belphegor’s forces were already on the sands. The discovery was disheartening, but not entirely unexpected to Mickie. While he and Kalistra had needed to take the long way up, the old Lord had the towers at its disposal. Miz-Mag came sliding back down the sand dune in a graceful pose. The little fiend’s dignity was suddenly disrupted when a claw caught in the lose footing, flipping it headfirst down the slope. Mickie’s partner cartwheeled towards him, end to end like a slinky down a staircase. The branded man caught Miz-Mag before it could spin by, chuckling as he lifted the spluttering demon upward.
‘I already knew you were graceful Mag, no need to put on a show.’
‘By the blood! Accursed sand. You shut your trap kid, or I’ll pluck your nose hairs while you sleep.’
The fiend stood up in his palm, spitting sand and curses as it brushed itself off.
‘That’s rather strange.’
Kalistra commented from further down the slope. Mickie responded with an enquiring noise as he returned the livid little demon to his shoulder.
‘I can see the path Miz-Mag made through the sand, even though I can’t see the demon itself. Looks like the little guy took quite the tumble.’
Mickie grinned at her while his partner made a rude gesture with the hand not gripped tightly to the mortal’s ear.
‘Just an overenthusiastic fondness for acrobatics, I’d say.’
He received a sharp pinch to his ear lobe for that, but Mickie disregarded it as he continued to explain what Miz-Mag had seen.
‘It is disappointing that they are already here, though I do not believe this impacts our plan.’
Mickie sighed.
‘I suppose not. We were going to stay out of sight either way. Hopefully they don’t have teams patrolling the sand.’
‘Even if they did, the odds of them stumbling upon us are low. There is simply too much desert to cover.’
The branded man was not so sure. If Belphegor got some flying devices up here, then they would be in serious trouble. However, the group needed to continue moving, and arguing the point would do nothing to change the outcome. Mickie closed out the conversation with thoughtful grunt and the trio began following the road.
In the occasional glimpses he caught of raised thoroughfare, Mickie had yet to see any other demons. They had been travelling for some time, long enough that he was beginning to reconsider the purpose of the enforcers. Surely if they were being actively hunted there would be further patrols. Even if Belphegor’s forces never left the road, it provided an elevated platform from which they could search. And yet, there was nothing. The circle was quiet and empty but for the whisper of hot air and dance of shifting sand.
‘Mickie, you see that?’
‘Hmm?’
Kalistra drew him from his idle reverie, pulling Mickie’s attention back to their twisting path between dunes.
‘Hoh boy. There’s always something, huh kid?’
Miz-Mag was the first to notice what Kalistra was indicating, its superior eyes picking out subtle irregularities in the sand ahead. It took Mickie a little longer, but as they neared, he managed to make out marks in running through the dunes. Parallel lines with regular divots to either side.
‘There’s always something.’
He agreed soberly, coming to a stop beside the gorgon.
‘Kalistra, any chance you know what left those marks.’
The serpentine warriors narrowed slitted eyes behind her aviators, myriad tongues tasting the air as her hair shifted about restlessly.
‘I don’t know what kinds of monsters the sands hold. Though if I had to guess, it was not anything native to the seventh.’
He cast an enquiring look her way.
‘Look at where they come from.’
A scaled finger followed the line up a dune, pointing towards the distant road.
‘You think this is a traveller of some kind?’
The gorgon nodded.
‘Yes, the signs of their passage aren’t exactly subtle. Anything adapted to the sands would not leave marks so obvious.’
Mickie glanced back at their own tracks, mounds of displaced sand spaced at regular intervales in the trough of the dunes. Already they were fading, the constant wind coaxing the sand smooth. It would not be long before the small traces of their passage were washed away. He turned back to the parallel furrows.
‘If whatever left those came from the road, then it wasn’t that long ago.’
Kalistra nodded her agreement.
‘Now if only we knew what drove them from the path.’
The branded man had been contemplating that very question.
‘If I had to guess then I would say the enforcers. If they were heading back to the fort from out here, then the times frames would align.’
Kalistra hummed thoughtfully, drumming sharp nails against a thigh.
‘Yes… that is entirely possible. But that would suggest…’
‘That they were out here for something other than us.’
Mickie concluded. The two taller members of the group shared a contemplative look.
‘Well, dear boy, I’d say this is good news.’
Miz-Mag gave him a gentle slap on the side of the head.
‘If Belphegor’s lot aren’t here for us, it’ll be easier to fly under the radar. Let’s get stomping before they come back or something.’
Neither Mickie nor Kalistra started moving. They remained fixated upon the tracks, their thoughts turning in a different direction.
‘I believe.’
The gorgon said, her hand still drumming her leg.
‘That if the enforcers were out here for something other than us, it might be worth finding out what.’
‘Just what I was thinking.’
Mickie agreed. On his shoulder Miz-Mag stiffened, before slumping with a dramatic sigh.
‘We can never just follow a plan, can we?’
----------------------------------------
The trio did not have to follow the tracks for long before they came into sight of something strange. Upon cresting a smaller dune, they were presented with what appeared to be a dead forest. Spindly tresses of pale wood huddled across the horizon, reminding Mickie of the prison spines he had seen back in the ninth circle.
‘A bone wood.’
Kalistra murmured beside him, her voice almost lost in the flow of hot air. Mickie narrowed his eyes at the expanse of dead forest, a sense of unease tickling his stomach.
‘Does that mean what I think it does?’
‘Yes. Growths of bone in the shape of trees. You see how the ground is packed hard about them? It is said they feed of the blood from the storms, drain the even the sand itself dry.’
‘Lovely.’
Miz-Mag commented dryly.
‘Can we turn back now?’
Mickie traced the path of the parallel furrows that they had been following. It followed the dunes as they faded lake waves onto a beach, giving way to cracked earth. Whatever had come this way went straight into the bone wood.
‘Is it dangerous in there?
He asked Kalistra.
‘No, at least not that I know of.’
Her words were reassuring, but her tone was tinged with unease. The branded man glanced behind them at the raised highway, clearly visible atop the dune’s crest.
‘Well, we can duck in and find whatever left the tracks. The woods might even make for good cover moving forward.’
Kalistra agreed yet appeared hesitant as they descended towards the bone wood.
‘Everything all right? You don’t see, too sure about this?’
‘It’s just. Well, I’ve heard some odd stories about the bone woods. Strange things, even for hell. They say you can hear the dead whispering through the trees, that if you die amongst them, your voice joins the rest.’
‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’
Mickie chuckled in response. It felt like nothing could surprise him at this stage.
‘Hopefully they stay nice and quiet for us.’
Closer to the trees it was easier to discern the differences from normal dead wood. Mickie stopped before the first jagged and spiked trunk, eyes tracing up from base to tip. The bone was bleached white, branches jutting from the thick body in misshapen spurs. Near to his head a leafless bow terminated with countless sharp points.
Mickie reached up and snapped a piece of bone free, finding it as brittle as the dead wood it mimicked. The twig was about the width of his finger, and almost immediately it began to drip a viscous red sap onto his hand. It was like congealed blood, rancid and oozing. A burning sensation came from where the sap met the skin. With a grunt of discussed the branded man tossed the branch to the cracked earth an wiped his hand clean on his jeans. The cleaned skin was red and raw, as if he had rubbed it against poison ivy.
‘Nice one kid.’
Miz-Mag snickered from its usual spot.
‘Watch it, or I’ll use you as a hand towel.’
The tiny fiend only laughed a little harder, petting him in a manner that was distinctly condescending. Kalistra came up beside him, giving the discarded branch a disgusted look before turning her attention to the dry earth.
‘The trail is a bit harder to follow, but I have located it.’
Mickie glanced at her, then at their surroundings. It all looked like the same to him.
‘Really? Good eye.’
She shrugged.
‘I’ve trained for this kind of thing.’
The gorgon took the lead, occasionally pointing out signs of their quarry’s passage. They were small things, sand crumbling about a small crack, discolouration in a tree created by rough contact.
‘Where did you learn to track like that?’
It felt like a harmless question, but Kalistra stiffened slightly. There was a long pause in during he thought the gorgon might not respond.
‘My mother.’
The words were soft, spoken with a reluctance that warned him against prying further. It was a shame, because that single statement brought with it an onset of further questions. From Mickie’s scattered understanding, there were no parents in hell, at least not in the traditional sense. Demons were spawned, whatever that meant. They could belong to a particular lineage, like Illiath and Lillith, but seemed not to have actual parents.
‘I see.’
Mickie replied at length, making it clear from his tone that he did, in fact, not see. It was a long time before Kalistra spoke again, her attention fixed upon the trail ahead.
‘My mother was a hunter in our clan. Even though I was training to be a Transcriber, she taught me. Said it was important I have the skills.’
‘Is that where you learnt to fight?’
Kalistra gave a soft nod.
‘I have to get back.’
The gorgon paused in her hunt to cast a look back at him.
‘Do you remember the terms of the deal we made?’
The question caught him off guard, and Mickie took a moment to respond.
‘Yeah, to escape the eighth circle. I suppose the deal’s done then. Are you…’
Mickie intended to ask if she was going to head off on her own, but found himself struggling to voice the words.
‘I owe you. For Illiath.’
Kalistra seemed not to notice his reticence, talking as if she had only half heard him.
‘But I need to return to my clan. I need to get to the fifth circle.’
‘Is that where they are?’
‘Yes, we live upon the river, and I need to get back home.’
The was a twist of urgency to the gorgon’s response now. She took a moment, breathing deep and looking him in the eye.
‘I want to offer you another deal. We both need to get further up. I cannot go past the fifth circle, but I can help you get that far. As repayment for Illiath.’
Mickie met her gaze evenly, wondering why she was so serious about this. He had only really made that first deal to secure help, a way to convince the gorgon he meant what he said. Honestly, he had been avoiding the topic ever since they crawled into the tunnel outside the city. Mickie assumed that Kalistra would probably want to climb, and if so, it would be smarter to stick together.
‘All right. We’ll get to the passage up, and part ways at the fifth circle.’
Kalistra stared him down intensely for a few moments, then nodded. She turned back to the hunt, and stepping past a series of furrows in the earth, as if something had worked its fingers into the ground. Mickie followed, finding the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
‘Well look at you kid. Cutting deals like a fiend.’
Miz-Mag remarked dryly from the bleached white branch of a nearby bone tree. Mickie glanced at his companion, unsure when the demon had slipped off his shoulder.
‘We could use the help.’
‘I’m not complaining, as long we keep climbing its fine by me.’
The tiny fiend waved away the subject like a stray thought.
‘Anyway, call the gorgon over, I’ve found our guy. Looks like they might have doubled back.’
Surprised, Mickie turned to call Kalistra over, finding her examining the ground some distance away.
‘Hey. Mag says it’s found something.’
The gorgon looked up in surprise.
‘Really? That’s lucky, the trail was getting cold over here. I was worried we would have to look somewhere else.’
‘Mag was saying they might have doubled back.’
‘Yep, while the two of you were chin wagging, I was getting things done. Come on, I’ll lead you.’
The self-satisfied little demon set off amongst the bone trees, leaping branch to branch like a red marmoset. Mickie followed as best he could, ducking beneath brittle spines and stepping carefully over the cracked earth. Soon a strange shape became visible through the shifting wall of trees, something dull, hunched low against a trunk.
‘Here it is, one of those bugs from the city.’
Miz-Mag was right, as the figure resolved it became apparent that this was no run of the mill mortal. An insectile demon was sitting with its back to one of the bone trees, appearing almost sunken into the bark. Even from a distance Mickie could tell its legs were badly damaged, chitin cracked and oozing. They must have been useless, and were no doubt the cause of the parallel divots in the sand. This demon had dragged itself here by hand, all the way from the road.
Mickie approached it cautiously, examining the splayed arms and lowered head. Either the fiend was very sleepy, or it had died after managing to escape. Cautiously, he reached out one foot and prodded the unmoving insect in its injured leg. There was no response. Dead then.
‘It’s definitely one of the hive insects. I thought they all died in Belphegor’s purge.’
Kalistra came to a stop beside the body and bent over to examine it. She tilted its head back, revealing multifaceted bug eyes that were a little duller than Mickie remembered.
‘I’m not surprised that some got away, we did disrupt the extermination with our escape from the spire.’
So, not only had this insect escaped, but it had elected to flee all the way into the seventh circle rather than run elsewhere in the city. Something about that did not sit right with Mickie.
‘The enforcers!’
Miz-Mag exclaimed from a nearby branch.
‘The ones we saw on the road. They must have been hunting down this insect, and it probably wasn’t the only one either. Those demons were dragging something back with them.’
Mickie relayed his partner’s discovery to Kalistra, and the gorgon straitened, pulling back from the dead insect.
‘That makes sense to me. I have no doubt Belphegor would want to snuff out any remaining evidence of its actions. It is also means that the enforcers were not there to hunt us. At least, not yet.’
That was good news, it improved their odds of slipping out off the circle greatly. Why then, was there a sense of unease sitting in Mickie gut. He tried to parse it, jostling the feeling until a question rolled out.
‘Why the seventh though? I mean, there were plenty of other demon houses back in the city. The hive could have run to them with the truth of the attack. Surely, they would have taken some action against Belphegor?’
If the insects had fled all the way to the seventh there had to be a reason. Before anyone could voice a response to his question however, something drew their collective focus back to the body. For a small moment, it was as if one of the limp hands had twitched.
‘Was that my imagination, or did that dead body just move?’
‘Not just you kid. I definitely saw something.’
‘Perhaps something shifted due to the wind?’
Mickie shared a look with Miz-Mag, and the small demon returned to his shoulder. He turned back to the dead insect, and found it staring back up at him. The branded man called forth his weapon, almost by reflex.
‘When did it look up?’
‘Just then. It raised its head.’
Kalistra’s voice was as shaky as his own. She had no better a handle on what was currently happening then he did. Mickie pointed his gun at the slumped corpse.
‘Not as dead as we thought then.’
‘Don’t shoot!’
Miz-Mag hissed in his ear.
‘You want to call Belphegor right to us?’
Begrudgingly, the mortal pulled his finger off the trigger, but did not lower the weapon. He did not care about the risk it posed, if the creature tried to attack them, he would put it down. There was a short silence in which nothing happened, anticipation dripping into the three of them. Then the insect’s hand began to twitch.
Clawed fingers shifted and stated scratching at the dry earth. Its mandible began to work, opening and closing as if to pull air into the dead body. The useless legs began to twitch and jerk, then started leaking blood through the cracks in the chitin. Mickie was seriously beginning to reconsider his decision not to shoot the demon, when it spoke.
‘Mother. Mother. Must…’
The voice was like a poorly tuned radio, volume warping with eerie static.
‘The hive. All gone. I need...’
Twitching abruptly became thrashing. The insect began to scratch and claw at itself, like it had something painful buried in its chest. Viscous blood pooled onto the parched sand, turning the earth red.
‘Mother is dead, I saw. Saw her fall. Saw. I…’
The corpse’s voice stuttered, faltered back on itself like a warped record before changing completely. Like a radio hitting the right frequency the tone became clear. A dead, dry rasp.
‘It waits beneath the red. The door above. The lock below. Both await the key. Open the way, awaken the…’
All three observes took a step back as the talking corpse began to buck, leaking blood from its eyes and mouth. It thrashed like a beast as its voice warbled back to the static stutter.
‘Mother, please. It has me. Help me mother, I don’t want to go. I need to tell them. For the…’
The dead demon twisted sideways so hard it fell over. There was a wet, slimy slurp as it did and Mickie was greeted by the sight of its back, or lack thereof. Where there might once have been a hardened layer of shell plating lay an open mass of blood and organs. It was as if the chitin had been dissolved right off the corpse.
Strings of sticky viscera were attached to the exposed body, leading back to the bone tree it had been laying against. When Mick had first seen the demon he had thought it looks sunken into the trunk of the tree. Now he realised that was because it was. Like parted curtains, the bone was split down the centre, exposing a disturbing, gory interior.
‘By the blood, the tree was eating him!’
Miz-Mag huddled against the side of Mickie’s head, suddenly very cautious of the trees it had been climbing. The branded man took an unsteady step back from the scene, more disturbed that a half-dissolved body had just spoken to them than of the viscera itself.
‘What was that?’
He asked of Kalistra. The gorgon tore her eyes from the dead demon. They were wide behind her aviators, reflecting the same shock that he felt.
‘The voices of the dead.’
She said hesitantly, reluctant to air the thought out. Mickie swallowed dryly, glancing back at the body. It was still but for the slow dribble of fluid onto the ground. Suddenly, he wanted to be anywhere else than beside that body. The talk at the beginning and end, that had seemed like the insect rambling. It had mentioned the hive and its mother. That part in the middle though. Mickie felt ice slide down his spine, heard the dead voice again in his head.
The door above. The lock below. Both await the key.
Something about that left him with a deep sense of foreboding. As if it was meant for him.
‘I think we’re done here.’
Mickie’s voice was far from steady, though his two demonic companions seemed not to notice how unsettled he was. They left the dead insect behind with an enthusiasm bordering on manic, stomping blindly back the way they had come.
It was not until the dunes were in sight between the white trunks that Kalistra called for him to stop. The gorgon took a moment to gather herself before speaking. She slid her glasses aside and rubbed at her eyes. A serpentine strand of hair nipped at her hand and was swatted away.
‘You heard what that, thing, said.’
Mickie felt his shoulders stiffen, wary she might also think it had been talking to him.
‘It talked about coming here with a purpose. Spoke about the hive.’
He let out a breath. She was referring to the start and end of its little speech. The branded man realised he still had his gun clasped tightly in a hand and dismissed it, flexing his fingers to stretch them.
‘Yeah, I heard it. I suppose if nothing else, it confirms that they chose to come up here.’
Kalistra made to lean against a tree then thought better of it, turning on a heel to stand straight.
‘If only it had said why.’
Mickie glanced out towards the dunes; the unease delivered to him by the dead demon’s words settling into his gut for the long haul.
‘Something tells me that we’re going to find out.’