1 – Crossroad
Gimlet staggered through the desolation of Xibalbá for hours on end. Her gait, which had been strong when they’d set out, was now sluggish and labored. Her hooves must’ve ached from the jagged terrain she traversed, and the blazing heat of the fiery sky above was wearying.
Above all, she had to bear the burden of both her and Cross’s weights as well as Cross’s miscellaneous articles collected along his odyssey; both were pushing her endurance to its limits. She deserved some reprieve, no matter how brief it might be.
Cross tugged on Gimlet’s reins, coaxing her to a stop. He scrutinized their surroundings, searching for a post to anchor the cornurus’s tether. Alas, there was nothing but desolation as far as the eye could see—an endless expanse of barren land with no sign of spiritual activity. No buildings, no structures—just the silent crossroad on the edge of an eerie emptiness.
The stillness was so persistent that Cross could hear Gimlet’s breath—a reminder of how alone they were.
He shuddered, shrugging off the unsettling feeling that threatened to envelop him completely. The last thing he needed was to become paranoid in this godforsaken place. So instead, he took a deep breath and focused on what lay ahead.
He stepped into the stirrups and descended from Gimlet’s saddle with practiced ease.
Gimlet reared her head, and like a magnet drawn to metal, her eyes locked with Cross’s.
“Stretch your legs.” Cross rested his palm atop the peak of Gimlet’s massive scalp, allowing his digits to drift over the ridges of her rugged hide. He caressed her, tracing the faint anatomy of her horns as he massaged her.
The brush of his hands against her rough hide elicited gentle grunts, which danced in the air like a mother’s soothing song. The dirt shifted beneath her hooves as she nuzzled against him; her pleasure was palpable in each beat of his nephesh. Heat pooled from her frame as he placated her with assurances that this was just an interim and they’d be jetting off once more in no time.
Gimlet’s spiked tail swished through the heavy air with a subdued tenderness. Despite her titanic size, she glided across the land like a winged creature, ever buoyant against the oppressive gravity that weighed down upon them.
“Don’t stray far,” Cross said. “This place looks empty, but don’t let that fool you.”
Though Gimlet couldn’t speak, she appeared to comprehend Cross—although not his words precisely. A mysterious connection bound them together in ways he could not have expressed or shown—somehow, it seemed, Gimlet knew his intentions and could even sense his moods. Despite their connection, her behavior was too often contrary to his orders; it was evident she would deliberately rebel against him for reasons he could not grasp. It became apparent quickly that Gimlet had her own thoughts, desires, and autonomy. This unique relationship reversed roles—Gimlet perhaps even considered Cross to be her pet rather than the opposite. Nevertheless, despite their differences, a strong, undeniable trust connected them.
Cross labored to assemble a makeshift holster from the rope bound through the macuahuitl’s handle, as it lacked its own sheath. He knotted the two ends of the rope and wound it around his leg. The flat side of the wooden paddle was snug against his thigh, its grip pointing upwards for quick access. He had fashioned an undignified yet effective contraption; however, its awkwardness hindered his steps slightly. But under the circumstances, it was the best his meager supply could offer.
Cross ambled into the crossroads.
Four majestic roads connected in a complex pattern of shimmering hues: obsidian, alabaster, vermilion, and citrine. Countless stones of varying sizes and shapes had been laid across the surface of each lane.
A deep, reverberating voice bellowed from the obsidian stones, like thunder rolling through a horizon of night. “I shall take thee Northward.”
The twisted surrealism of a talking road did not surprise Cross. Countless strange voices spoke in the depths of the Underworld, and a sentient road fit right in to the phantasmagoric landscape.
Yet, something else wasn’t right with the talking road; Cross had just traveled this path from the West, not the North, as the road promised. A rumble of unease thrummed through his ruach as a sinister realization settled over him: The obsidian road was lying.
“I shall take thee Eastward,” the glistening white road murmured with a tremor of its ethereal alabaster.
The obsidian road had attempted to betray him, so Cross also harbored deep suspicions about the white road’s story. He never trusted the voices that came from places they shouldn’t, so he chose a different route. Recollections of his old friend Sinuhe’s tales gave Cross solace—stories about how Paradise lay in the East and, encouragingly, how achieving it was possible.
So, with a growing sense of resolve, Cross spun around and situated the Westward obsidian road at his back. Now facing true Eastward, he stood before the burning brilliance of an ascended sky. He could vaguely make out the majestic wall that divided Paradise from the Underworld on the horizon, its glorious luminescence tantalizingly close yet impossibly far away. To his left, shrouded in wintery stillness, was Mount Mictlān in all its vaporous glory, a towering colossus in the frigid North, dwarfing the surrounding Metnal Mountain range below it.
The sickening smell of tortured souls lingered in the air, a miasma that wafted miles away and penetrated even Cross’s nose. That odor had greeted him countless times, but one he could never become accustomed to. Like a fog, it smothered his senses and made his wretchedness swell, beckoning visions of the great mountain of fire from which it originated—the Inferno. It stood in the hazy distance to his right, miles away to the South, burning brightly with an orange glimmer visible from within a maelstrom of ebony clouds filled with bellowing thunderclaps and flaring lightning strikes.
The East road made a fierce rumble, sending sharp red stones scattering everywhere. “Follow mine path Southward,” it bellowed with a voice as coarse as sand.
In contrast, the South road spoke in a friendly whisper, its yellow stones wobbling to and fro like cheerful little suns. “Follow mine path Westward,” it said with an inviting tone.
Confirmation had been given; all the roads were false, sowing discord among the unsuspecting. In Cross’s early days in the afterlife, he would have been dumbfounded why they sought to confound him, but he realized that he’d drive himself madder seeking a rationale for the Underworld’s lunacy than if he merely accepted its chaotic nature as it was.
The Underworld created inconsistency when one required order the most. It upended its rules on a whim. And whenever Cross thought he’d comprehended its countless secrets, something so outlandish would transpire that it would unsettle everything he believed he knew. He relinquished trying to penetrate its depths and made peace with its insidiousness, embracing it without reserve.
Cross disregarded the babbling highways and deliberated between evading the bounty hunters and heading to his holy destination. The Inferno was renowned as the very core of the Underworld—in the truest sense of mortality. Despite the mountain of fire being in its dormant state, no spirit, not even devils, demons, nor the divine, would willingly traverse there because of the peril of incurring multiple deaths or annihilation at the hands of the Master. Any of Cross’s bounty hunters would have predicted him to dart directly to Paradise and not venture towards the Inferno. But heading towards the Inferno would take him more than a few sleep cycles off target, elongating his quest, and risking increased danger.
2 – Black Rain
Gimlet scampered over to Cross, showing she was eager to move on again. Cross mounted the saddle, and they set off down the Southern road—the actual one that led straight to the abhorrent mountain of fire, home of the Master.
For miles, there remained nothing but barren wasteland stretching out before them, much like the untamed frontiers of the Wild West. Black glass cliffs towered around them, obstructing his glimpse of the Inferno and Paradise’s light. The road itself was inconsistent, with patched-up plates of citrine stones scattered in certain places. Eventually, the jerky ride ended as they arrived at a river with no water but a murky yellowish-brown muck.
Cross leaped from Gimlet’s saddle, the leather creaking under his weight. He reached for a nearby stone and sent it skimming across the yellow river with a flick of his wrist.
The rock traversed the silent muck, and not even a single ripple followed. The sluggish current thickened with sludge that looked like it could withstand even the rapid gallop of Gimlet’s hooves.
He swung atop Gimlet’s saddle. The bull-headed lizard quivered beneath him as he tugged at the reins and steered her away from the fetid riverbank, aiming to give her a broad enough gap to reach her peak velocity, affording them the optimum opportunity to traverse the river. Then, he kicked her flank to urge her into a run.
But Gimlet had other ideas. She stood firm and puffed in defiance. Her skittish hooves dug into the ground, refusing to budge an inch from her spot.
Cross leaned over the titanic head of his beloved cornurus and pressed his lips to her leathery ear, whispering against the chipped horn that protruded from her ear as if imparting a precious secret.
“I don’t want to go in that stinking river either,” he said. “But you know where I do want to go? Paradise. Don’t you want to go to Paradise, Gimlet? I hear they have all the hodders you could ever eat.”
He could only speculate, for his single foray into Paradise had concluded centuries ago—a fleeting visit of only an hour of confusion and stress before he was unceremoniously ejected. He didn’t remember seeing the slightest trace of hodders in those brief moments spent in that heavenly realm. And his memories were so perfect that spirits tried to steal them. But it seemed possible; tales of its splendor were surely exaggerated to some degree, but if Paradise contained all sorts of fantastical creatures and divine chattel, then why wouldn’t these mischievous rodents have found their way there, too? Infesting every corner of the Underworld as they did?
“I know this isn’t the way to Paradise,” he continued. “But if we’re going to get there, we have to go this way first. We have to cross this river. If you run your fastest, I think we can make it all the way across without falling in.”
He cupped his hands on the crown of Gimlet’s head, and the cornurus reared away, hurtling towards the river.
She veered to a stop as her hooves skidded across the pebbles up to the lip of the embankment.
They both plunged into the viscous mire in a split second, with minimal disruption to its placid surface.
Cross rose in the river, keeping his head above the yellow, infected sludge. He wiped the foul muck from his eyes but was met with a nauseous stench worse than Gimlet’s backside.
Gimlet snorted, a flurry of stinky silt billowing out from her enormous nostrils and broad lips.
Cross grasped the reins, providing gentle yet firm guidance as he led her out of the murky river.
The affront to their misery was compounded when inky rain poured down from the ebony clouds. The vile combination of black, oily rain, and yellow effluence from the river coalesced, forming two grotesquely shaped bumblebees out of Cross and Gimlet—particularly Gimlet with her bulbous hindquarters. The pungent aroma of a hundred outhouses billowed around them and clung to their bodies like a thick shroud.
Finding new clothes was daunting, but Cross needed something clean. His reek had become unbearable; months of grime and muck assaulted his nostrils and nearly made him retch. He shuddered at the thought of how much he stank. Mrs. Carson, the old matriarch of the family he used to serve while alive, would not have stood for this. The accumulated filth was enough to gag even the most seasoned demons.
3 – Trembling Canyons
The oppressive deluge of black rain intensified as Cross and Gimlet drew perilously near to the sinister, foreboding Inferno. Its impenetrable walls soared into the sky of flame, smoke, and ash, with crimson rivers spewing down its slopes like bloodied whips lashing its prisoners in the bottomless pits of Hell. The raging flames illuminated the gloom like countless pieces of fiendish jewelry against an onyx backdrop.
The black rain cascaded in violent sheets as if the Underworld itself sought to douse their virtue with wickedness. It lashed at them with such rage that Cross and Gimlet could not continue their arduous trek.
They sought refuge from the wailing storm in the fissures of the trembling canyons. As if repulsed by their presence, the looming mountains around them occasionally shuddered and sneezed out smothering dust.
Beneath the sheltering rocky overhangs, Cross unpacked his dirty rag and began the laborious task of wiping away the oily rain and yellow pus caked onto both himself and Gimlet’s bodies. He had stored that rag in her saddlebag since they first set off on their grand adventure with Cottontail.
He carefully scooped the gunk from her eyes, unbuckled her saddle with an attentive touch, and removed it. He scraped away at her scaly spine and sturdy legs with a flat slab of stone before the mucus could dry and harden, restricting her movements. Despite putting in meticulous care, some purplish crud lingered after he was finished, coating much of her body in an abrasive blanket. Yet at that point, he had done all he could sans water. The rest would eventually flake away.
4 – Jagged Terrain of Ephemeral Alabaster
The skies of the Underworld burned in an endless blaze, dimming and brightening in various colors, tangerine flames succumbing to indigo as if governed by the Master. The concept of day and night meant nothing here; each spirit kept their personal measure of time, tracking their own sleep cycles, blindly striving for a sense of normalcy in this diabolical realm.
And Cross remained in the quavering canyons for several sleep cycles with his loyal cornurus, Gimlet, for things to cool down. Cross’s pursuers were likely striding toward Paradise, which meant he was lagging them and no longer being trailed, chasing them instead of being hunted.
With this much-desired respite, Cross and Gimlet, at long last, forsook the quivering canyons and their citrine trail for the shimmering white path eastward over the jagged terrain of ephemeral alabaster.
5 – The Rudimen
A dry maelstrom coated Cross’s tongue and sinuses with a chalky saltiness. He spat the harsh, briny flavor from his mouth as a mesmerizing tempest of yellow dust, lavender glows, orange sands, and many other hues fought each other in an unstructured eruption of potent sorcery.
The wind roared. It shook the ground beneath Gimlet, the tremors surging through her spirit and reaching Cross saddled on her back.
Ripples of sand cannoned around like bullets shot from a gun. Tendrils of gravel spiraled around in a massive, tightly knit, and all-encompassing sphere, masking everything in an oppressive blanket of dense debris clouds.
A heavy fragrance of lemons and vinegar, with hints of spices and mint, crashed against Cross’s nose.
Voices carried in the wind, screaming words from beyond, entrapped in the suffocating dust storm. Long-lost desert apparitions wailed in Cross’s ears; their dissonant cries pierced his skull like tiny daggers.
He clapped his hands to his ears, and Gimlet reared up, throwing Cross off her back and into a wall of black air.
The wind took Cross until he hit the sandy floor with a thud, rolling into the funnel’s center. The winding vortex trapped him inside. This was not an ordinary dust storm.
Fragments of rock and pebble shot from the funnel cloud in a frenetic display, bounding off one another and coalescing into three figures with hollow orbits and gaping maws.
As the rubble birthed these celestial beings, an ethereal chant resonated around Cross in the form of a shrill, dissonant ululation combined with the staccato thumps of rocks and stones.
The entities were composed of splintered wood and tiny stones that clinked and clattered. The apparitions’ eerie keening grew louder as the vortex encircled him. They remained motionless, only their skulls moving slightly, and their gazes fixed on him.
Thankfully, these rudimentary life forms never concerned themselves with the fleeting moments of nostalgia other spirits tried to steal from Cross’s memories. However, they were infamous for their penchant for devouring souls and amalgamating with them to become a unified being. With every successful annexation of another being, their existence only grew more powerful until they would one day become whole.
The tempest raged, and with it came an unforgettable sight. Thick dust clouds settled on their tattered remains, encasing their decrepit forms in a filthy embrace. Various objects rolled about their incomplete frames—a porcelain doll’s pigtail jutted from a crudely constructed cheek; a silver spur spun atop one shoulder; and a small kettle pumped rhythmically through a broad chest, like a grim substitute for a beating heart. The three ragtag creations stumbled onward, existing out of tune with all that was right in the world.
Cross had always relied on his own mettle to stand a fighting chance against the squals because they were killable, but this encounter was one that he could not hope to win.
Refusing to accept defeat, he removed his macuahuitl from its makeshift holster, strapped securely around his thigh.
The vortex plucked the obsidian blade from his hands and consumed it in the overwhelming shadows of the stygian cloud.
The rudimen glided towards him without flexing their legs as if sliding across a sheet of ice; grains of desert accumulated up their calves along the way. Unfeeling expressions stretched across their faces as they advanced closer to him. Their knotted fingers curled and clutched, intending to capture Cross in the desert.
“Dni mlu fitu aeb.” The hissing and crackling of their whispers blended together until it became a single song, like a wild forest fire burning in unison with a thousand rattling serpents.
“Suet elp moce sa elp.” The voices were hushed but sinister, like an archaic incantation in a language long forgotten by the rest of the world. The words were indecipherable yet still infiltrated Cross’s mind like a heavy mist that refused to clear, bouncing off the other rudimen and vibrating throughout his surroundings. It started as a low-frequency hum that gradually built in intensity. It reached a crescendo, pulsing through Cross’s head until it felt like his skull was about to shatter.
Ghastly mouths materialized on the faces of the apparitions, wide and yawning, forming circles of swirling abyssal portals as though each phantom were an entrance into a different realm entirely.
Pressure constricted Cross’s ears. His mind uncoiled like a stream of taffy. A titanic force seized his ruach before releasing with a loud pop—as if a champagne bottle had been uncorked—infusing his very being with an effervescence, unlike anything he’d experienced before…
Cross plunged into a sea of milk and drifted into a blissful void. The creamy ocean washed away any recollection of his past. Everything he had ever neglected, every dream hidden away, melted away. Three benevolent men embraced him with unconditional love, bestowing on him the peace and affection he yearned for and promising to care for him for eternity. Grateful for their kindness, he gave himself entirely to them, his nephesh a necessary component in bringing them closer to fulfilling their very purpose. He was content helping these newfound friends, but their serenity was shattered as the milky river evaporated and the lake’s bed caved in, leaving gaping fissures in its wake…
Pressure on Cross’s chest and head yanked him harshly back to the dismal reality of the Underworld. He lay face down in the dirt, ash blanketing his astral surface, as he found his slurring tongue almost involuntarily begging the rudimen to return.
Whip-like thunder snaps ripped through the maelstrom and scorched the air, a high-pitched shriek flapping through the sandstorm like a scythe. These sounds had chaotic energy as if the atmosphere itself had been imbibed with electricity that filled the air with each blast—electrifying and admonishing, warning of a new, unknown terror.
Cross heaved his chest off the dusty ground, yet just as soon as he felt strength come back into his limbs, utter exhaustion pounded through him. His arms gave way, and he sank back to the earth, eyes glazed over in disrepair, straining his neck upwards to glimpse whatever peril lurked beyond his veil of comprehension.
An ebony bird descended upon Cross like a writhing nightmare in the dead of night. It landed between Cross and the rudimen. Its talons gripped the hot, charred sand with a ferocity unmatched by mortals.
Streaks of white-hot lightning surged from its body and coursed through the air like serpents of light; each burst incinerated chunks of the earth around it.
As dust and dirt billowed around Cross in ragged waves, he squinted at the enigmatic figure before him. The flurry of black feathers gave way to cascades of lightning that rippled from its dark wings, driving back the pangs of dust and obscuring them in an ever-growing silhouette of terror, leaving only hellish laughter to be heard among the chaotic din of thunder and flame. Never had he so encountered such a creature: a nightmare made manifest; Cross envisioned its visage must have been twisted and abhorrent, like something spawned from the most bottomless chasms of the darkest dreams.
The rudimen retreated from the ebony bird. Then, one by one, the rudimen detonated in a spectacular burst of debris and disparate objects. The dust whirlpool subsided, and the sandstorm dissipated as if it had never been there.
A cold lump of dread swelled in Cross’s stomach as the macuahuitl clattered mere inches from where he lay, its dull rectangular blades glinting in the firelight.
The shadow of the winged beast crept ever closer, and rage boiled through him like a flood.
He would see justice done for all he had lost at this creature’s hands and take revenge for cruelly sending his three new friends away.
Summoning every ounce of strength he had left, he dragged himself closer to his obsidian blade. His hand clasped around the wooden handle, and he lifted it.
But before it could even clear the ground, an oppressive weight landed on it, keeping it firmly in place. A single heavy black boot prevented Cross from wielding his weapon.
He lifted his gaze up the length of the beastly ebony bird, who had initially appeared garbed in a pirate’s attire. Before him was not a malevolent bird but the captivating figure of a woman. As he squinted against the blazing sky, he could make out the contours of her face. Gone was his initial impression that she was repulsive, for now he saw with clarity that she was ruggedly beautiful—and that it had been she who had rescued him from the clutches of the rudimen, those wicked spirits who had planted illusions in his mind with their insidious enchantment.
The woman’s wings were an abysmal void of darkness that enveloped her from all orients. At certain angles, the firelight would catch the tips of her feathers, which scintillated like stars in a pitch-black sky. The woman tucked her massive ebony wings against her slender back, her feathers whispering sonorously as she altered her stance. She glowered down at Cross, and a chill coursed through him.
Her emotionless gaze was piercing, enigmatic, and unfathomably profound as if her onyx eyes could plumb the depths of his nephesh. She regarded him with neither warmth nor animosity, only an indefinite stillness that he could not read.
“Smart move, coming this close to the Inferno.” She picked up the macuahuitl, saturating the surrounding air with a sharp, musky smell. “You fooled that one-armed squal, but not me.”
Her voice resounded with a blend of smooth velvet and savage steel, a captivating combination that drew him in and held him at bay. It was gruff yet gentle, embodying both strength and compassion. Her pirate-like attire perfectly matched her scruffy tone; she wore filthy, sand-colored justacorps, yet she seemed unaffected by their thickness. The wool garment reached down to her knees, and there wasn’t even an ounce of moisture on her pale complexion—a sight that Cross found remarkable since he would have been drenched in sweat were he to be cooped up in such a heavy coat, even with it unbuttoned as she wore it.
With a soft thud, she emptied the remains of the sand from her battered top hat. She placed it atop her matted ebony hair and adjusted it atop her head with graceful ease. In its previous life, this hat had endured much in its crusade; its sides were frayed and stitched together with ugly patterns that could only be traced back to the hands of an amateur tailor. Each piece of her wardrobe had been salvaged from an odd concoction of eras, though with an eye for style. Each garment complimented the other, creating a patchwork quilt of a tapestry that was all her own. Skillfully weaving disparate identities into one, she embodied the very essence of uniqueness.
Cross had heard of this woman, renowned throughout the sordid Underworld as the Raven. He had never encountered her in person, yet their lawless circles overlapped. Fabled as a fallen angel and purveyor of divine chattel, some of which could help to enable Cross to breach the gates of Paradise, he was left with two choices: persuade her to lend them to him or risk stealing them.
But he remembered how his old friend Diamond Tooth, cruelest among the demons of pain and suffering, trembled at the mere mention of the Raven’s name. Diamond Tooth was the most menacing spirit he had ever come to know. He had only engaged in a tenuous alliance with the dominatrix inhibitorum for his own preservation, acting as her servus Inhibitus. Now, he was beginning to see how such a strategy could come in handy if he ever needed to broker a similar pact with the Raven, as Bolon-Hunahpu had suggested.
Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself from the dirt and filth, a soul-crushing mixture of terror and resolve coursing through him. His boots found the ground with precision and purpose, grasping hold of the earth beneath him. His ruach grew heavy as he stood there, his astral layers tight and restrained. But with a great deep breath, he composed himself and straightened his stance, determined to face whatever fate had in store for him. Standing tall and proud against whatever evil destiny might sling his way, he set off with unwavering conviction.
“I asked the Great Goddess to send me an angel.” Cross’s voice quavered, striving to remain even as his fear surged in his breast. He spoke with exultant clarity as if each word were an act of defiance, a valiant attempt to smother the dread that lurked deep within.
“Magna Mater has nothing to do with it,” she said. “You can thank the talking tree. He specifically wanted you to know that he pointed me in your direction.”
When the Raven spoke, her words were laden with sagacity and profundity—as if millennia and eons of life had gifted her a wealth of understanding. Each intonation carried a weight of command and perspicacity, a formidable yet kind admonition that she was not to be underestimated. It was as if each syllable was akin to the murmurs of an ancestral whisper, a sibilant melody that he could not resist and yet could not fully trust.
“Well, thanks for coming when you did,” he said.
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” she said, her face expressionless. “How much is that head of yours worth now?”
Cross stood still, every astral layer in his ruach coiled with trepidation.
Was this a test? If she’d come to pursue the payment promised for his capture, then surely she knew how much he was worth?
“Last I heard,” he said, “nine objects.”
A rope slithered around the Raven’s slender waist as if it were alive. The dart at its end lifted on its own accord, almost as if sensing Cross’s presence. The dart exploded from its inanimate prison and descended upon Cross, like a cobra rearing its head before striking.
This magical tether was a prime example of an artifact anointed with the potency of celestial beings. Something of this caliber could aid him in his quest to breach the gates of the heavenly realm of Paradise.
Acting with lightning quickness, the rope wound itself around Cross, crushing his arms close against his sides and clamping his legs so until he could no longer stand upright, and he collapsed into the sand below.
Son of a bitch. Here we go again.
