Akanor: Tales From Necro Box Set Page 3

  The probe slowly retracted, dissolving into a haze that floated, rocked, and ebbed like a sea in paralyzed movement.

  Deathenor could finally breathe, impressed by such a phenomena. Hell smelled of dry hopelessness, mixed with dusting echoes and the stench of sulfuric acid burning through stone.

  The King inched closer with fear, ever watchful for trickery. He was meddling with the Devil’s lair and anything was possible. Uttermost vigilance was needed to avoid needless danger.

  The stone was still hot. The edges where the incantation had created the portal were charred and full of blebs, as if the heat had blistered the stone itself. It was cool enough to touch.

  He probed the portal, placing one hand on the wall of his fortress and the other one inside the portal. The barrier that separated his world from Hell was but a foot thick. The hand within Hell found the wall cold and surprisingly dry. His fingers sensed dread, as if the walls of Hell stored the echoes of lamenting souls.

  Deathenor retrieved his hand, overwhelmed by the horrendous yet simple feeling of sensing another soul’s laments on the buds of his fingers. He searched his hands to find they were tainted with a white substance that smelled like acid.

  He analyzed the cave. Limited visibility by the mist inspired angst as it ebbed and flowed, a wall of hazy white impeding his passage. He studied the movement of the viscous cloud—it seemed to have no pattern, no purpose. His eyes slowly focused, and what had seemed to be a deep, dim cavern proved to give off a light of its own.

  After several long, intense minutes of studying the insides of Hell, he noticed light was indeed everywhere, a soft glow the color of a grayish, dead afternoon. This light was not the kind derived from natural sources like fire or lighting, but one that brims from a solid, opaque surface. The grayish glow vaguely illuminated the cavern just enough to walk across it without tripping over stalagmites or stones.

  The mist slowly thinned. Like a ghost, it wished to let the intruder see through it, just enough to spark curiosity.

  He saw deep into the cavern. There appeared to be a remote edge, a limit to the extension of an unclear trail.

  Had he opened a portal to a common landing site in Hell? Would all the spell casters be transported to this very place? The edge was not far away and could be conquered with a strong will. The mist gradually became thick again, limiting his visibility just enough to make out the gross details of the cavern.

  This was it. He inhaled deeply, sensing the air would eventually burn through his lungs. There was no turning back once he stepped in. The portal was open, and he had to follow through. Perhaps he would find death among the dead and find peace, or perhaps he would find redemption after all and be free of his eternal damnation.

  He stepped into the cavern and waited, half expecting a wicked trick to seal the portal shut behind him. The portal never closed. It only moved ever so gently, like an eye’s pupil would when exposed to flickering light. He breathed again as time passed by. Nothing happened.

  He stepped back into the fortress and waited another period of time to see if the portal would fade. It maintained, and he finally felt comfortable enough to travel further into the cavern in search of a path. He made a mental note as he delved into the bowels of Hell—he needed to think of a way to close the portal behind him as he ran away with his wife. If this proved to be an epic failure, he had to be able to close the portal with haste.

  A defiant smirk spread across his face as he savored the moment when he would outdo the Devil.

  The viscous cloud engulfed him with rich tentacles of acid. He noticed it was not a cloud of mist, but somewhat of a ring. Within it the gas was so thin it would resemble to be merely vapor rising. As he moved forward and glanced back, he saw that while the portal was still open, heavy mist blanketed its entrance.

  Not long after he entered the cavern, he found a canoe floating over what proved to be a river. The flow of it must have been delicate. No sound came from the moving fluid.

  To one side of the canoe, a torch’s flame convulsed vigorously, flashing and casting shadows against the cavern’s walls. Demons seemed to flee from the flicker of the flame as light and shadows danced, struggled in dynamism as if mocking the intruder’s fate.

  As he approached the boat, he saw that it was not vacant, but occupied by what seemed to be a man, hooded and covered by a black mantle. He spotted a scythe in the being’s hand, all bones and nothing more. Flesh had been eaten by the ages, and now only its memory lingered.

  Deathenor approached the being carefully. Suddenly the bones screeched and joints cracked as the skeleton moved to challenge the necromancer’s gaze. It was an eroding skeleton—it was not dead.

  It pointed the rusty scythe at the intruder with its bony hand tightly gripped around its shaft, the blade’s menacing, sharp edges ready to strike him down. It’s jaw did not move as it spoke, and yet its voice was a piercing hiss. Deathenor inched close enough to find a serpent hiding inside the cranial vault. Where once a brain thought, now vermin hissed, “Whoever rides the canoe toward Hell must hold an audience with the Devil himself. There is no return from the Chasm unless a return is granted by the master of this Domain. May he, the brave traveler or the valiant fool, decide his fate.”

  Deathenor had no intentions of failing his loved one again; he had to save her, he had to make things right.

  Without another thought he boarded the small boat, swaying from side to side as he steadied his weight. The skeleton stuck the scythe’s shaft into the shores and pushed the canoe into the mainstream of the river. If it contained water of some other fluid, the King could not tell; yet it exuded the smell of burning fumes which lead him to conclude it must have been another fluid other than water.

  The necromancer peered over one side of the canoe and gazed into the depths of the river. He stared in awe at the many souls being devoured as they glided toward the pitch-black tunnel that lay ahead. The souls were bluish and gleamed vaguely. They had no faces, no identity—they seemed to be merely units of energy that once powered a living organism. He wondered if any of those would be the innocent he had willingly killed and then brought back from the dead, and used viciously to murder the dead’s allies.

  Gulping heavily, Deathenor was overcome by the very same doubt he once felt when exchanging his loved one for power. He experienced the exact dreadful nervousness he had felt those many centuries ago—why did he feel the same paralysis now?

  Darkness prevailed as he was slowly consumed by the dark tunnel, leaving the portal far behind.

  Blinded by utter blackness, he floated toward the shores of Hell. The skeleton rowed and rowed through darkness, following an invisible path that would be imposible to trace back.

  Deathenor could feel the breath of demons and the sweat of sins filling the air, echoing against the walls of the tunnel. He heard the sounds of a man being tortured in some deep cove. From another place, far away perhaps, an echo of a lost soul asking for God’s forgiveness reverberated. Deathenor swallowed heavily, the cries of suffering souls daunting him. He commiserated with such laments, which made him feel hopelessly guilty.

  The belly of the canoe scraped a shore. The landing site was nothing more than an aggressive peak full of seams and sharp spikes made of volcanic stone. The shore was the only site illuminated. Nothing else was visible. The origin of the light was unknown.

  The shore, he saw, was elevated a few feet above the water line and felt warm, as if a recent eruption had just created it. Above him, shadows crept and demons flew, not daring touch the man who possessed the power to trespass into the Devil’s Lair.

  Not a minute passed by after he stepped on the shores of Hell when a monstrous, hideous face appeared in the darkness, as if somehow the Devil were projecting itself into a gigantic image. His voice was louder than thunder and his tone colder than imprisoning chains.

  Deathenor slouched and protected his head between his arms. The Devil’s face morphed, slowly changing to portray the intruder’s dee
pest fear. At first, the King thought he saw his father’s dead face, but then it transformed into an eyeless skull with worms emerging from its sockets. Seconds later, the image fluctuated and then stilled, portraying a three-headed human—each head was a version of Deathenor in a different period of his life. The first face was his young self, when he still went by the name of Léssemnos. The face in the middle was of him as a betraying husband, his eyes watching his wife being carried into the Devil’s vortex. The last face was of him defeated, crumbled, agonized after being consumed by eternal regret. The figure continued to fluctuate, tapping into the intruder’s darkest fears.

  “Who dares summon me?!”

  The Devil's eyes glared with pure, untamed hatred as the three heads spoke in unison with Deathenor’s voice, though higher in pitch and absolutely condescending.

  The scream forced the King to take a step back. He lost his balance and sharp stones punctured the skin of his hands as he struggled to steady his footing. He got up almost immediately, but his courage fled him and emptiness crowded his soul, leaving him as vulnerable as an unholy shrine.

  The Devil morphed once again into Deathenor’s innermost fears, exposing the face of Léssemna, his now-dead wife, her face vivid with malice and viscous vengeance. The King faltered upon seeing her face staring down at him. His knees trembled and a trickle of urine escaped his control.

  “It is I, Léssemnos, now called Deathenor; the man who offered you his wife in exchange for power…” His voice was weak and his tone crumbled as he spoke. He was mortified by the Devil's aura—never had he felt malice in such a pure, unfiltered state. He felt naked and powerless before the master of the Chasm; even though he was fully dressed, he was covering himself like a naked man would. He wished to disappear and flee. But it was too late—he had to follow through.

  The Devil laughed cruelly at seeing his subject cowering down and covering his genitals like a scared dog. The Devil’s appearance morphed into the image of a chimera—he had the head of an evil, smiling goat, the body of a human baby, and the tail of a scorpion.

  The image caused Deathenor to vomit inside his mouth, which he managed to swallow back, burning his throat with acid. The laughter’s metallic tone incrusted itself within the King’s bones, threatening to shatter them. It was a terror-provoking laugh; it made the intruder think of death and torture, of disease and suffering, of pests and nightmares, of flesh-eating death-walkers and disemboweled corpses. He pitied the many souls who had to endure to this foul laughter after being sentenced to an eternity in Hell.

  Before the echoes of laughter subsided, the Devil screamed, “Express your will!” His voice was a sonic boom that seized the King’s muscles and shook his rib cage.

  Deathenor peered through his arms with one eye, and slowly his face emerged from its hiding place between like a worm peaking out from a rotten apple.

  “I…I come to make a deal with you!” he screamed, his voice echoing hopelessly off invisible walls. “I…I come to give you back your power in exchange for my wife!” Deathenor’s voice grew in confidence as he spoke, and he stood up to his full height.

  The Devil laughed once again, causing the necromancer to resume the protective position, and said, “A deal? You insolent infidel! We made an equivalent transaction and sealed it in blood and treason! How dare you ask about your ex-wife when millennia have passed and you have used my gifts for your own gains! Your request is denied!”

  Deathenor backed away, slapped by the scalding words of the Devil, but he was resolved to fight for her; he had to, for this was his only chance of making up for a lifetime of rejecting his wife’s love.

  He managed to climb the wall of fear, empowered both by dreams of god-like magnificence and by his guilt—the chance to redeem his rotten soul and his old lifestyle. At that instant, the Devil's image changed, assuming the tall posture of Deathenor’s former master. His face was shielded by two serpents emerging from the eye sockets. His voice was a blistering hiss.

  “You!” spoke the Devil, “you tempted me for years, desiring death while love and happiness were being offered to you. You fell in love with each other during your youth. Ever since and until her death she offered herself to you completely. What did you offer her but progressive decay? You swore to God to love her at all costs, remember? Till death do us part!

  “You dismissed a lifetime of love and happiness and searched instead for the dark paths of power, rejecting your wife’s love day after day. When a man wrongs himself, he sins in one of the worst possible manners; but when a man wrongs himself and damages others—deliberately—and cares not to amend the damage inflicted, you find the worst of all beings: your kind, a self-mutilating man who expects others to pay for his own mistakes.

  “You thought she lived for you—she was expendable, and you easily gave her up. On the contrary, it took you millennia to give up your power. You have a self-centered mode of casting choices: quick to damage others and slow to repent and ask for forgiveness. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: no action may go unchallenged by self-accountability!

  “You think you are special? The only reason why you’re different is because you bargained not only with something pure, but also with something that did not belong to you. I will not grant you what you want. I have taken this immaculate soul—the only one I possess—and I nurture it. I take care of her; you see, she is the purest thing I have.”

  At this moment of introspection, the Devil's face grew pensive. A fatherly smile crept up his face. After a moment of awkwardness, the Devil regained his composure and changed his appearance, morphing into a child holding his mother’s decapitated head. It was the King as a young boy. Deathenor had a sudden influx of memories seeing his mother die, burned at the stake, after being accused of being a witch.

  “I cut you a deal, vermin! I gave you the power you so much yearned for! And now, you dare trespass my Chasm and demand to revoke the pact you signed with blood, when you have already abused and gained from what I gave you? Go back to your eternal demise, which you created, mind you, or suffer the consequences of crossing me!”

  Deathenor felt his entire world collapsing—a living death indeed. He had to convince him! He had to revoke the deal at any cost! “My lord…I would never dare cross you! Please, my lord, please!” he screamed, his voice fearful and morbidly desperate.

  “Oh, but you have crossed me!” retorted the Devil. “You defeated foes and crushed empires with the power I granted you! And after all this has been done, after you have taken the best of what I gave you, you come back to me and wish to undo our little bargain?

  “If you had found me immediately, realizing your wrongdoing, then perhaps I would have heard your pleas. But now, you only confess your now-realized sins after seeing how little true value your life has. Go back to your world of power and domination. I warn you, do not cross me again, for you will find nothing but eternal regret!”

  “My lord, please—listen to me, I beg you! I admit that I have done wrong! I hate my life and what I have become. Power means nothing to me! I want her back! I want my old self back!”

  “Your lament disgusts me,” the Devil sneered. “Have some honor and leave with dignity. Be gone—now! Or suffer the consequences…I am warning you.”

  The King dropped to his knees, clasping his hands together. “I repent for my sins! I have done so much wrong; it is entirely my fault! Please forgive me! I love her. I can prove it to you! I will love her for the rest of my eternal life!” Deathenor collapsed in utter submission.

  Silence stilled and darkness grew. The King could see the Devil's face kneading thoughts. Minutes passed, or perhaps hours, and then the Devil smirked. He slowly changed his image into that of a dead warrior, a captain, with a broken spear perforating his chest.

  “You repent, you say, but of what? You had the perfect relationship, the love any man could ever desire, and you exchanged it for ultimate power. It was the perfect bargain. How do you feel you erred? Help me see it your way.�
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  “Thank you, my lord, for the opportunity to speak my peace.” Deathenor struggled to regain his composure, his mind’s control. He took a deep breath and bowed his head, trying to refresh his memory. His palms grew clammy and his throat clenched as he spoke.

  “I remember the moment I first saw her—we were in our youth. Our relationship was so pure…an instant recognition…we connected and love bloomed since the beginning. But alas, my lord, I deviated. I had it all and wasted it; I always felt there was more to the word ‘happiness,’ that I could find more of it elsewhere. But no, it was her all along: she was my source of happiness, the only source. I liked the man I was with her, and I want him back too. My lord…I wished to matter, I wished to feel wanted and respected by others…I am such a tragedy. Please forgive me.”

  The Devil remained silent for a moment, weighing the words spoken by the intruder.

  “What is the one thing you regret not having done?” the Devil asked curiously.

  “I…don’t know.”

  “You must know. You spoiled it—you are the sole creator of your demise.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “If you do not answer me, then you must leave. I have nothing more for you here.”

  “But my lord, I don’t…I am empty of explanations!”

  “Are you rejecting the small chance I have granted you? There has to be something you regret; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I can’t say it!”

  “Say it! If you do not cooperate, I will have no other choice but to send you back to your miserable life. I am granting you a chance, an audience; if you do not comply, I will terminate it.”

  The shape of the Devil suddenly shifted, revealing a gigantic mirror, its borders were the lips demon with a gigantic maw, its eyes menacing and sharp teeth threatening to shatter the image within the reflective surface. The King saw a reflection, bewildered at first at seeing a man so utterly defeated, and then disgraced upon recognizing his own self. He was slouching like a servant, fearful, awaiting punishment.