Inferno: Chapter 16 (553 hits)
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Submitted by SoxSexSax (View user info) at 2005-06-18 21:47:02 EDT
Chapter 16
Chapter 15: http://www.ubersite.com/m/66508
Chapter 14: http://www.ubersite.com/m/65131
Chapter 13: http://www.ubersite.com/m/35192
Chapter 12: http://www.ubersite.com/m/34063
Chapter 11: http://www.ubersite.com/m/18528
Chapter 10: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=10676141967013473
Chapter 9: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1066487978166723780
Chapter 8: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=106595175399835122
Chapter 7: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=106549765998947541
Chapter 6: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1064957367793418459
Chapter 5: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1064708642207119853
Chapter 4: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=106445883547967169
Chapter 3: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1064345511408928163
Chapter 2: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=1064195167876012309
Chapter 1: http://www.ubersite.com/cgi-bin/message_get.cgi?message=10639441118252674
Things are heating up in Inferno land...the final confrontation looms ever closer.
Chapter 16
When their surroundings became visible to them, John and Midnight found themselves standing in a large and almost perfectly square cavern. There appeared to be no "natural" door leading into or out of it. The rock that formed the walls and ceiling was dark red. Suspended using what looked like giant spiders' webs from a number of stalactites was a glass box containing the bright glowing orbs of human souls, the same lighting technique they had encountered when they'd met the warlock at his bridge. The box hung directly over the centre of the chamber, leaving the outer edge of the cavern shrouded in darkness. On the ground beneath the box of souls was a shallow pond, about ten feet square, that was lined with white marble blocks. Midnight surmised (correctly) that this was the vortex.
The magnitude of what he and John were about to do suddenly hit him like a train. They intended to face the most evil and powerful creature in the history of everything armed with no weapon or any idea how to actually harm their opponent. Unless they had been lied to repeatedly, the ring that sat on his finger would do nothing to Inferno. Other than that, they didn't even have a pea-shooter with which to do battle.
So, we're still convinced this is a good plan then, asked the little voice in Midnight's head. We could always use the vortex to go somewhere else. Barbados springs to mind. What's the point of fighting Inferno when we're just going to lose?
Simple, he thought using the other side of his brain. He killed my mother. I want to face him and have my revenge.
Right...you're going to get revenge by letting him kill you. I'm sure he's really scared, the little voice retorted.
The whole world is doomed if we don't, his more rational mind countered. Barbados will be no safer than anywhere else. Maybe God has some kind of trick up his sleeve to help us. There isn't any other alternative. If there is, please enlighten us, oh little voice who knows so much!
No reply came. Finding alternative plans that were actually feasible was not its strongest suit. He was tired, thirsty, hungry and well below his normal strength, and yet facing Inferno was still the only option he and his companion had available to them. Nevertheless, despite the brave sounding words resounding in his head, Midnight would have agreed happily to give up right there and then had John been the one to suggest it. He was scared to the point of nausea by the thought of what they were about to do and was not holding out much hope that they would survive...well, not for any longer than Inferno wished for them to survive, anyway. If his companion had voiced even the slightest thought of giving up, Midnight would have cracked.
But John did not crack, because John had as much, perhaps more, reason to want to face their seemingly invincible foe. Inferno had threatened to kill John's wife, and despite not being married himself, Midnight believed that the love of a man for one he has chosen is more intense and desperate than the love he has for those he has been born amongst. John had done well at putting a brave face on, but Midnight knew he was terribly fearful that he was going to find his wife dead if he survived his great mission. Midnight had already asked God silently in his head about thirty times to protect her, but was not at all confident that he had heard or acted.
They stood silently taking in their surroundings for almost twenty seconds, lost in their own thoughts. Eventually John broke the silence. "I'd have thought even Inferno would have put a bit of effort into making a place with a cool name like 'The Vortex' look a little more futuristic, wouldn't you mate?" he asked.
Midnight chuckled and just for a brief second his fear dissipated. "Your mind works in mysterious ways my friend. I'm willing to bet my house that nobody else in the entire history of the world would have said that in our situation. In fact, I'll bet my left leg on it!"
"Well, some innovate, others imitate, I just like to irritate," John replied with a quick grin. Midnight returned it, but already the fear was back, gnawing away at his stomach like an intense hunger pang. This was probably heightened all the more by the very genuine hunger pangs he was already experiencing.
He took a deep breath. "Are we going to do this?" he asked. "Because if we don't do it now I'll lose my nerve."
John looked as Midnight felt, but he nodded curtly anyway. "We're going to do it. I don't know what we're going to do, but as long as I look him in the eyes, I won't have let myself down. I will be scared. I will probably die. It'll probably be agonising. But the fact that I fear Inferno won't stop me from doing what God has asked of me. I will face him no matter what."
Midnight listened to John's statement in silence, agreeing with every word his companion spoke. It was exactly how he felt, and exactly what he had wanted to say. "Whatever happens, we won't have let ourselves down if we face him. The rest is pretty much up to God. We better hope he's listening."
They walked over to the vortex. The water that filled it was only about two feet deep and looked as clear and fresh as one would expect to find in a mountain lake. Midnight could hear a faint hum coming from the glass box filled with souls and found it a distinctly eerie noise. John, clad in cycling shorts and an old T-shirt, jumped into the water without a moment's hesitation. Midnight, whose jeans were still somewhat damp from the pool of water they'd fallen into after jumping down the well, was a little less enthusiastic.
"I can't believe I'm going to have to get soaked again," he moaned. John rolled his eyes.
"Is there anything you don't complain about, mate?" he asked, with a smile.
"No, there isn't," Midnight replied, gingerly sliding himself into the vortex. "It's how I get through the day. Especially THIS day!"
It was true, Midnight was happy to admit, that he was a moaner. However, given the circumstances, he thought it was currently justified. By his standards, he'd been quite pleasant, he thought.
"I take it you've still got the key?" John asked after his companion had finally gotten into the vortex at the opposite end to him. Midnight, who had been clasping it tightly in his right hand, held it up for John to see.
"I'd have been a fool indeed if I'd managed to lose it during the five minutes it has been in my possession," he replied, sarcastically.
Actually, that's not beyond the realms of possibility, began the little voice in his head, but Midnight shut it up. Now wasn't the time or place for another amusing yet heated argument with himself over his clumsiness.
John looked up to the cavern's roof. "To the White House," he shouted loudly.
Almost instantly after he had spoken, the water in the vortex began to bubble and ripple. At astonishing speed, a door, precisely like every other door that had fallen conveniently for them on their journey, slid up through the bottom of the vortex between John and Midnight. There was a loud thud as it reached its final position and, as it did so, the water stilled immediately as if the door had been there forever.
Midnight looked at the handle on his side of the door. "There's no keyhole this side," he called over to John.
"There is round here, mate," John called back. The door was only three feet wide so Midnight had no problems walking around it to get to John's end of the vortex pool. Sure enough, a small keyhole sat just below the handle on this side of the door.
"I almost said how weird it was that one side has a keyhole while the other doesn't, but then I remembered where I was," said John.
"By today's standards, it doesn't even get a three on the weird-o-meter," Midnight agreed. "Yesterday morning, it would have been a perfect ten though."
John looked at him. "Well, this is it mate. If I don't get another chance to speak to you, and let's face it, that's a distinct possibility, it was, overall, a pleasure meeting you and travelling though Hell with you. Good luck, Midnight."
Midnight actually felt tears welling up in his eyes. He hadn't cried for five years, not since the day after his father's funeral. It wasn't that he was ashamed to cry, or that he thought it was inappropriate for men to cry in general, it was simply that nothing had moved him all the way to tears since that day. The only reason he fought back the tears now was that he didn't know if he would be able to hold himself together enough to go through the door if he didn't. "Good luck John, it was good to meet you too," he managed, in an uneven tone.
John's put on a very tight lipped smile, convincing Midnight that he was struggling as hard not to start crying as he was. Midnight took a deep breath and went to put the key into the lock.
It didn't take him long at all to realise that this was not the right key for the door. The rightful key would need to be much smaller than the large bronze one he held in his hand.
"Uh...this key doesn't fit the lock," he said to John.
"What? Are you joking?"
"Of course I'm not joking. It's too big. Far too big. I think the Channel Master lied to us."
"Give it here mate, let me try," John said. Midnight rolled his eyes.
"John, I'm not an idiot. I'm telling you, there is no way that key is unlocking that door. Look." And he tried to insert it again, to no avail once more.
John shook his head. "I don't believe this. Well, we're going to have to go back to the Channel Master, aren't we mate? And teach him a thing or two about telling the damn truth."
Midnight shook his head in exasperation. The anticlimactic feeling that had already washed over him was frustrating and relieving in equal measures, but their situation was no better now than when they thought they were about to face Inferno. Without water, they wouldn't be able to go on much longer, and they had no way out...or at least, no safe way out. "I don't see what else we can do but go back to the Channel Master and let our rings decide the outcome," he replied. "We only know of two ways to leave hell, and the vortex is locked to us. We'll have to use that channel thingy."
They clambered out of the vortex, Midnight muttering once more under his breath about the perils of getting denim wet. Once they'd moved far enough away from the vortex to ensure any resulting door wouldn't fall into it, John raised his eyes upwards.
"To the Channel Master," he shouted out loudly.
They waited for twenty seconds, getting more worried as each passed. No door came.
Midnight tried again. "To the Channel Master's chamber."
Again, nothing.
An uneasy, sick feeling crept into the pit of Midnight's stomach and set up camp. "Uh, why are no doors coming?" he asked nobody in particular.
"Greetings Midnight. Greetings John. I've been waiting for you," boomed suddenly out around the chamber as if in reply, spoken in a deep, powerful voice that was evil and rasping but fully understandable.
Before either John or Midnight could react, a shape moved out of the shadows to their right. Both span instantly on the spot to see what stood before them. Both paled to a shade of deathly white at the sight that greeted them.
The demon before them was colossal in all respects. It towered menacingly above them at something like twelve feet and its body was in proportion to its great height. Its torso was entirely white while its two bowed legs were brown and hairy like Inferno's. Like many demons its face was somewhat human, but narrow with black eyes and extremely pale skin. It wore a belt around its waist, attached to which was an extremely large scabbard that was home to a large, silver-bladed cutlass. And it glowered down imposingly at Midnight and John.
"I have been sent by my master, the great Inferno, to welcome you into your new life as objects to be tortured at his pleasure. Although the number of years your feeble bodies can survive are limited, Inferno assures you that when the sound of your pitiful screams no longer bring rapturous joy to his ears, the devouring of your eternal soul will be a more than satisfactory long-term outcome."
Fear threatened to grip Midnight too tightly to fashion a reply. He fought with it, reminding himself forcefully that he was serving God and he'd already failed if he let himself be too afraid to answer. Finally he managed to speak in an unsteady voice. "Who are you?"
"I have no name, but others call me the harbinger. I am Inferno's most loyal and obedient follower and will serve him and no other forever," it replied instantly, in as flat and monotonous a tone as could be expected from a demon.
The word harbinger stuck in Midnight's head. He was sure he'd heard that word used recently, but he couldn't remember when or who'd said it. He hoped that maybe the little voice might have remembered (or at least stimulate a mental conversation that would help him to grasp it) but it had apparently gone into hiding since the emergence of the demon. Midnight couldn't blame it.
John looked at Midnight with panic in his eyes. "The ring," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Use the ring."
There didn't seem to be any other option. The demon wasn't going to let them go and he seriously doubted their chances of escaping it if they tried to flee. He raised his left hand aloft to the demon. "This is a demon ring," he said shakily. "If you attempt to kill or capture us, I will use it on you."
The harbinger laughed, and it was almost as horrifying a sound as Inferno's own expression of amusement. Midnight had to physically fight the impulse to cover his ears with his hands as the malicious, deep representation of the demon's mirth echoed around the chamber. "You threaten me with a ring of my own creation, mortal? You dare stand before me and declare that you will use one of the seven demon rings I lovingly created for my master against me? Is there no depth to the ignorance of mortals?"
The demon chuckled malevolently again. "Forgive me. It is just that Inferno himself told me to pass on the following message if you attempted to use the demon ring against me. He says that it is disappointing that, even after he sent a demon to provide you with all the information you needed to successfully navigate through his glorious domain, you still manage to fail so spectacularly."
Midnight listened to the demon's words but had no choice anyway. He held out the ring and shouted "Defend", as he had done without trying when he faced the minotaur.
Nothing happened.
The smile faded slowly from the harbinger's lips. It looked up to the ceiling. "To the dungeon" it said loudly. Immediately a door miraculously slid through the cavern's ceiling and crashed down in front of the demon.
"You two are coming with me," it snarled, deliberately emphasising the final word. "And personally, I'm hoping that you put up a struggle."
It began walking quickly towards them. John and Midnight simultaneously turned to run away, John actually letting out a shriek of fear as he rotated. Midnight managed to take two steps before he felt a mighty hand grab hold of his flailing left arm and nearly yank it right out of its socket. The harbinger had made up the ground between them in the blink of an eye. He felt himself hoisted upwards, held aloft by the mighty demon, who then took another two lightning quick steps forward before reaching out and securing the wailing John in precisely the same fashion.
"So easy," it snarled at them. "Why does our enemy never send anybody worthy of the task?"
Both Midnight and John were far too terrified to even contemplate replying. The demon immediately turned its attention to the Australian.
"Inasi Noctarni," it said, in a quieter tone of voice. John's eyes immediately snapped shut and his head lolled to one side. Midnight looked on in horror, and managed to finally force his voice box to ignore the fear and work once more.
"NO!" he cried. "John! JOHN!"
"Shut your whining you stupid, stupid mortal," the harbinger bellowed at him. "He is not dead, merely asleep. How many times must you be told how you will perish before your pathetic little mind finally accepts that it is the truth?"
"Why him and not me?" asked Midnight in a trembling voice, feeling tears welling up in his eyes again. "What are you going to do to me?"
"You will join him shortly. But before you do, I have something I wish to tell you Midnight. I have been inside your mind. I have possessed your body. And I know everything about you. Your desires. Your fears. The most chilling of all your worst nightmares. I know that the mere sight of a wasp makes your intestines knot themselves in fear. I know that the smell of crab meat makes you vomit until your stomach bleeds. I know that just thinking about visiting the dentist makes you break out in a cold sweat. And I just want you to know that I will be personally reporting all of this information and more to my master, to assist him in making the rest of your very limited time alive as mind-bogglingly agonising as is demonly possibly."
It smiled evilly at him. "I just thought you should know that. Now...Inasi Noctarni!"
User Reviews
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-06-20 12:30:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome.
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-06-19 14:23:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy shit. Gonna read it later. can't read it now...
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2005-06-19 03:23:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not gonna read this, but you are continuing a series you started on 2003-09-19. A year and 9 months ago man. How do you expect people to still be following this?
Submitted by YELLOW-MAN (user info) at 2005-06-19 02:42:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sideburns (user info) at 2005-06-19 00:20:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Rate this, fags.