Stygia Lost

The hour of witches. Yellow candles burn low.

Standing at the top of the ancient stairs, I begin my descent.

Time to get her back. Maybe I'll write a poem about it later. Storms at sea, and all that.

First step. The deep clamminess of a Transylvanian cellar.

Second step. Frigid cold slicing to my marrow. Breath comes in ghostly puffs.

Third step. I knock away the vampire bat that swoops for my neck. In retaliation, it rakes my face with its claws.

Fourth step. Lacy stands in delicate geometry. Damply they cling to catch. Like the bat, the spinner, a fist-sized, hairy monster, tries to bite me. I step on it.

Breathe slower, lungs.

Fifth step. Mossy, green slime reaches up, snaring my feet -- making me slip. I quickly right myself. To fall would be fatal.

Sixth step. The Gypsy cackles and deals her Tarot cards. The Tower, Death, and the Hanged Man all turn up. I remind her that the Hanged Man is also a symbol for life and move on.

Suffocating--a pillow over my face.

Seventh step. Prince Jack pulls his gleaming scalpel in a lazy fashion as though to carve an East End prostitute or a Thanksgiving turkey. I am neither of those. I leave him with his throat cut, his blood splurting on the stair. Slow guys shouldn't play in this league.

Eighth step. The zombie. Of course. the display begins to irritate me, but there are only three more steps to the landing.

He moves to embrace me in his decaying flesh. I accept his kiss, but suck the dark butterfly of essence from his lips before he does the same to me.

My body is relaxed to numbness.

Ninth step. Post-Atomic holocaust. Despite myself, I watch in fascination as skin falls in radioactive globs from the victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl. Gamma rays bathe me, and my own skin begins to peel. I leave before becoming a living skeleton.

Tenth step. Utter darkness. Squeezed and condensed into a subatomic embryo as time itself slows. Shot through an endless tunnel of infinite nothingness. Emerging, turning, a million stars beneath me, experiencing the sickening vertigo of hanging upside down in the void of space where there is no up or down.

He's outdone himself on this one. Brought the dimensional portal of a black hole here for my benefit. Fighting off nausea, I right myself and step deeper.

Breathing is a worm's crawl.

Eleventh step. Chaos.

World shot gray
Desert sands engulf me in a blue whirlwind.
Sky egg-yellow white--now purple.
Orange bird skims across the street.
Hair is a nimbus of suns,
Comet explodes from my nostrils.
Before me, a green, leafy tree sprouts velvet wings
And flies away silently into the night,
Leaving haunting memories of doomed love in its wake.

Points for creativity, but he's really reaching. If the black hole didn't take me out, surrealism's sure not going to. I slog my way out of the funhouse and continue.

Collapse now, lungs. Gasp for nonexistent oxygen.

Twelfth step. The landing. Thankfully. It's covered with rats--a last gesture. They look like they want to attack, but know better. Ignoring these cousins to Ben, I squish maggots under my feet as I walk to the red boat moored at the landing. Stepping into it, I cast off.

My heart has stopped.

Sailing down the river Styx. Using the Charon stick provided to pole myself through Erebus Cavern. I notice wedges of gold, dead men's skulls, and heaps of pearls strewn on the murky shores. Shakespearean, but so what?

The boat emerges from the cavern and runs aground in what might have been a meadow.

Stepping from the boat--beginning my journey across the landscape. Sky is autumn orange--the trees and grass dead-stick brown. Bats and ravens chase each other through the air, playing ebony-winged tag.

I come to the well, draw up a bucket of virgin blood and drink. Having performed the prerequisite ritual, I etch the pentagram on the ground with my foot, sit, and wait.

A small pop. He's here--cloven hooves, pointed tail, and all. Sulfur drifts on the wind.

"I find the puff of smoke a bit theatrical," I remark.

"Yes, it is," he replies, "but old tricks die hard, and you'd be surprised how many people are still impressed by this one."

"I'll bet."

"Want some advice?" he continues.

"Not particularly," I say. "I'm here to bargain, not to gather unwanted opinions."

"I'll give them to you anyway. Go back to Earth. Enjoy it. You're going to wind up here soon enough."

I take a cigarette from my jacket, light it, inhale.

No smoke comes to my dead lungs.

"Finished?" I ask.

"Yes," he sighs. "I was merely trying to be courteous."

"Don't, it doesn't become you. Now, I have something you want, and you have something I want. Let's deal."

I pull the emerald from my jacket, holding it where he can see it.

"The Green Eye of the God!" he exclaims, exhaling brimstone. "After all these centuries, you've found it!"

"Yes, and if you'll pardon the pun, I went through hell to get it."

"Give it to me!"

"Not so fast," I say. "I want the soul of Anna in exchange."

He reaches for it. I knock his arm away. He can't leave the pentagram, and I know it.

"I could just smash this under my heel and leave," I say.

"You wouldn't," he drawls, trying to hold me with his glittering eyes.

"I wouldn't," I agree, "unless you decide not to deliver Anna to me."

"You think I'm simply going to hand over one of the souls of the damned to you?"

"I think you'd better, before things get ugly. As long as you're stuck in the star, I command you."

He smiles. It isn't pretty.

"You pathetic child. Do you really expect to command me in my own realm?"

Fires burst about me, burning my clothes, charring my flesh. If I were alive, I'd probably be in pain. My adversary is 100 feet tall and I am an ant to be crushed under his feet. My mind begins to waver, then to crack. I've always enjoyed cracks. I draw power from the emerald and order the fires to subside. The devil begins to shrink. I let him shrink some more. The inferno becomes a spark. I light another cigarette from it, the first one having burnt to ash. As an afterthought, I restore my clothes and skin.

"Finished with parlor tricks?" I ask.

"Can't blame me for trying."

"I could, but that's not what I'm here for." I toss the emerald to my other hand.

"I want Anna and you want this bauble. Pony up, or I walk."

"It's not that simple," he replies. "Once a soul is condemned to my realm, they're here for eternity. And a greater will than mine keeps them here. If it were up to me, they'd all go free."

"Sure they would. You've never held anyone against their will."

"Of course not. as I said, I'm not the one keeping them. but I find most of my charges are content. I do have ways of making things pleasant."

"That being the case I think I'll stay awhile," I reply. "Of course there are a few changes I'll want to make. And it occurs to me this gem gives me the power to do so. Do you like music?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I believe I'll put in a Baptist choir over there," I gesture at the brown landscape. They can sing 'Everything is Beautiful' until you start to think everything is."

"Even you wouldn't be that tasteless."

"Would you like the pop, rock, or jazz version?"

"Perhaps we can reach an accommodation."

"I thought so."

"But these things take time. There are several intricate details that have to be..."

"Or I could," I say, cutting him off, "simply use the power of the gem to march through Hell and find Anna myself. As for anyone who gets in my way..."

"No!! You'd upset balances that must not be upset. The order of things must not change!!

"Your choice." I stand up and dust off my pants. "I start in ten seconds."

"All right, she's yours. Give me the Eye!"

"Swear by the Styx you'll keep your bargain," I say.

"I swear by the River Styx, by all the gods below the earth and by the throne of Hell itself, that I shall not break my word," he growls. "Now, try my patience no further!"

This is as good as I'll get. I toss him the stone. He catches it in his scaly hand.

"Do you realize the power you've just traded for the soul of a mortal?"

I shrug.

"It's meaningless to me. I want Anna."

"What makes you think she'll be happier with you than in my dankest pit?" he asks. "After all, isn't life on Earth a kind of hell"

"It can be," I reply, "but I believe anyone would be glad to get away from you."

"Not really. I was going to break this to you gently, but Anna doesn't love you anymore." He smiles, sweetly this time. "She loves me now." His sweet smile isn't any prettier than his ugly one.

I smile back.

"I'm sure she'll get over it. You're good, but you're not memorable."

"Would you like her to profess that love before you?" he says.

"No."

"Afraid of what you'll hear?"

"I already know what I'll hear. I'm just not in the mood to listen. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to be going."

"Why struggle so hard to escape?" he persists. "You're better off dead. You could be my king, and Anna your queen, in a place I'd be happy to prepare for you. Right now, I even have some exquisite beach front locations available. Interested?"

"Sorry," I answer. "Living, we're free to make our own hell. Here, we'd be eternally condemned to just your version of it."

His eyes flash--cold serpent eyes that could sear me into oblivion. Then his gaze softens. If only for a moment he could stop thinking up some new deviltry, some snare to trap people, he'd be one of the deadliest beings in the universe. Fortunately, he can't.

"Loss of creative control is one of the things that makes this Hell," he purrs. "And my version of the abyss is such an imaginative one. Why fight it?"

"Read your Milton. I prefer ruling on Earth to serving in Avernus."

I toss the cigarette over my shoulder. It starts its own small inferno in the grass.

"Time to keep your bargain. Where's Anna?"

"Turn around," he instructs me. "She's behind you now."

"Ah, the old Orphian ply. I should have known you couldn't resist being devious."

"I'm the Devil, what do you expect. Even when I keep my word, its got to be a crooked one. And remember the rules. Mustn't look back, or she's history."

"I don't intend to make the Lyrist's mistake."

"It doesn't matter," he says. "You'll both be back."

"That's what you think," I reply.

"Sure of yourself, aren't you?" he laughs , as I start to walk away.

I turn in a slow circle, so that Anna, who must follow, is still behind me.

"Yes, I am. Who died and made you Satan, anyway?"

"I have no answer for that. I am Satan because I am Satan. But do as thou wilt. You make a better disciple than you know."

"Thanks, I will. And by the way, you make a better teacher than icon. Perhaps someday I'll get to return the favor and teach you a few things."

"You already have, Faustus," he say, as I turn on my way again.

"It's Edgar now," I call back, but he's already gone in a burst of smoke.

Walking to the boat, the shade of Anna and I enter it. I pole us out of the meadow and back up to Erebus Cavern. Coming to the landing--stepping onto it.

My heart beats again.

I forgot to tell him the gem has a flaw in it. He should have known better, he taught me.

The shadow of my love gliding soundlessly behind me, we begin our ascent to approaching down. I and my beautiful Anna--Annabel Lee.

I wonder who she loves.