moving in opposite directions.
Busy as ants on a scent trail, he mused, touching the window glass with his finger, as if tracing their movements. But it is I who must find the trail now—-I who am the seeker. The Shepherd must be found and quickly! All my labors depend on it.
4
ITS TIME HAD COME
The spirit slept. But its sleep brought no repose, only darkness and pain. In Hell, sleep offers no rest. No peace is found there. No comfort. No relief. No escape. Waking or sleeping, the spirit knew only its hellish cage, hanging like a dark cocoon in a sunless cavern filled with unbearable stench, smothering despair, and screams—-the lullaby of the damned.
Still mannish in shape, even after its long absence from a body of flesh, bone, and blood, the spirit’s body was ethereal as smoke; little more than a shadow of the splendid physical being it had once been in mortality. Hell is, after all, a spiritual realm where things of corporal nature exist only in memory. Even the web-like shackles that held the spirit bound for centuries were of no mortal make. They were forged not of iron, nor steel, but of something far stronger—-a total domination of will. In Hell, all is relinquished at the Gates. There are no choices, only submission to the One True Lord.
Other than the mad wailing of fellow inmates, the spirit had no sense of anything or anyone outside of itself. It never spoke to nor saw any other being. Regret was its only food, misery its only companion. It did not eat, nor see, nor even breathe. While asleep, its mind sought out its own dark paths, wandering in twisted imaginings. While awake, its thoughts invariably fixated on events producing the most pain, memories of a previous mortality it could relive over and over a thousand, thousand times but never amend. Stripped of all other belongings, the spirit clung passionately to its hatred and fury, but was given no way to wield them, no way to remold the clay of its torment.
“I, Qeoc-neh-qiti, once greatest of prophets, the icon of power, am powerless,” it would moan, gnashing at its bonds without hope. And in this despair centuries passed by.
Then, into this bleak eternity, at the eve of one more endless day, a summons came. The spirit heard a voice, distant yet distinct, cold as night, hot as a falling star.
The voice said simply, “Come to me.”
Its cage fell to the ground like a drop of blood and burst open. The spirit lay dazed, but as air slowly filled its lungs, a resurgence of all its physical senses came rushing back in one electrifying surge. At first the spirit could not, dared not move; but the impossible reality of its new situation became more definite, and it began clawing frantically to free itself from the black, spidery webbings that bound its legs and wrists. Astonishingly, for the first time in reply to all its railings against them, they had broken, crackling like paper, falling away as ash; and the spirit felt an overpowering sense of liberation as the stranglehold on its will was released. The bonds of endless ages were broken.
With a hiss, it slowly, warily uncoiled until it could stand erect. Lifting its head, it opened two flint-like eyes and blinked once or twice. There was no sight in the impenetrable darkness. No matter, it thought. It did not need to see. The One True Master had called and that was enough. Why this was, the spirit did not know nor question. In Hell, one simply obeyed. It was enough to accept that the Master knew all that needed knowing. When it suited Him, the spirit would be told the reason for his summons. Until then, unthinking acquiescence would show the way.
The spirit immediately sensed where to go and began on its way, fear guiding it like a scent trail through a pitch-black labyrinth. It stumbled at first. After a near-millennium of disuse its limbs were annoyingly dysfunctional and movement was incredibly slow. It took some time to coordinate movement, to contemplate the motion of walking then figure out how the appropriate action was to be brought about. Only after some humiliating but progressive trial and error could it make any real progress on its journey, fighting with each movement to gain control over its gangly shufflings. Pausing frequently on its journey, leaning against anything it could find for support, it took time to catch its breath; for, indeed, the simple act of breathing was also a skill it needed to relearn.
As strength gradually returned, its excitement also grew. It was being called to duty! This was a good thing, it thought, a very good thing; perhaps the only good thing to be found in all of Hell. The spirit knew the Great One could be generous if He was pleased. There would be a reward for success surely and perhaps, just perhaps, a chance for redemption.
In its black heart, the spirit knew its time had come at last.
The spirit groped its way blindly through dark tunnels and up stairways where it sensed both sides falling away to bottomless depths. Despite these terrors, it pressed on, sometimes erect, sometimes scrambling on all fours; urged ever onward by the call of its master. The labyrinth it followed echoed with the same sort of shrieks and angry cursings it had heard in its previous quarters; they rang through the depths, anguished hymns of Hell’s cathedrals.
From shadowed grottos, the merciless laughter of tormentors mixed with the cries of the tortured. It made the spirit quail to hear them. All too well it remembered what went on in those unholy pits. Mere physical torment was no match for the cruelty inflicted there—-Hell’s fires burned hottest when stoked by grief, regret, jealousy, and wounded pride. The Master’s fiends were given control over the minds of their captives and took delight in forcing them to relive their most tragic moments of mortality again and again, only to be laughed at and mocked for their pain. Well the tormentors knew their victim’s sorest wounds and picked at them like ravens. There was no mercy. They inflamed the mind, never letting an injury heal, never letting a memory, ripe with the juices of misery, be forgotten. Anguish was their food and hate, the sweetest honey. Pressing through darkness, the spirit cringed, recalling all too keenly the bitter taste of its own sordid recollections, and hurried on its way.
At last, from out of the pervasive blackness, a glow came in the distance, as if radiating from a bed of living coals. The spirit paused, stretching its neck and sniffing the air, toxic with despair. Fear was strong here, very strong. It meant the Master, himself, was up there somewhere, near to that glow. This, then, was where it must go.
Gingerly, it moved forward, testing one step at a time just in case its freedom was all a cruel jest, just in case the floor were to give way and it were to find itself back in that hellish cage with a ring of tormentors bent double in laughter. But surely not, it reassured itself. Its bonds had been loosed. It had been called for, had it not? This could be no joke. But then, in hell, one never knew. There was nothing to do but go on.
The spirit shuffled to the end of a tunnel and found itself standing at the mouth of a cavern, hot and red as a kiln. For some time, the spirit could barely look inside the chamber due to the intense brightness and heat emanating from it. But it was able to gradually lower its arm from its eyes and squint to take in the sight of the massive room. It was shaped like the inside of an immense, hollow tower. There seemed to be no ceiling. This, then, was the very place it had heard of for so long. The throat to the upper world and the throne room of Satan! With a paralyzing sense of dread, the spirit forced itself to enter.
“Ah, my newly-awakened servant,” a voice came from above.
At once the spirit dropped to its knees, completely overcome, then fell prostrate to the ground. “The Master calls and I obey,” the spirit croaked.
“Look at me,” a voice smooth as liquid ore commanded.
Ever so slowly the spirit lifted its head. The face it beheld was impassive but exquisitely handsome with eyes sharp and penetrating, like black stars.
“How long has it been since your judgment, Spirit?” the Great Master asked.
The spirit paused, uncertain. “I forget, Lord.”
“Some seven hundred years, I believe.”
“Yes, Lord.”
The Master nodded. “And after all this time, do the fires