19. The Second Game
THE SECOND GAME
Seraphina
Silver’s hellgate spits us out at the top of a cliff. No, not a cliff, but the top level of some vast crater.
The sky is smeared with reds and charred oranges, and thick smoke and ash drift through the air, dulling the light to a constant, infernal glow.
The place smells of iron and sulfur, with a lingering rot beneath it all, not quite death but not alive either.
It’s an arena I realize, one that sinks into the earth like a wide, deep wound. Tier upon tier of stone terraces spiraling downward, carved not by care but by chaos, each ledge and path uneven.
I follow my allies to the edge of the first ledge that’s like a small, jagged cliff dropping down to the next level.
From here, it’s like looking down over a coiled labyrinth, no straight lines anywhere. The arena is circular and carved down into the earth like an amphitheater that’s been built to hold a small city's worth of people.
Its walls slope inward forming concentric terraces, like a stepped quarry or a giant spiral staircase descending into the ground. Like a basin but rather than being filled with water, it’s filled with rolling fog that moves all wrong, drifting uphill against gravity.
Welcome back to Hell.
Every terrace I can see has potential to be lethal. Part stone, part tree roots pushing the stone up, part rusted metal fused into the earth. Hard to cross, impossible to walk on, like the dark shadowy figures everywhere appear to be doing.
“What are they?” I ask the demonologist among us.
“Shades,” Diana confirms before covering her ears against the racket they are making.
Some endlessly haul massive blocks, others sharpen weapons that seem to dull instantly, and the rest… I frown as I watch them work relentlessly to rebuild walls that constantly crumble, knitting stone together only for it to collapse again.
I watch as sparks fly and sweat pours from the shades, but nothing ever finishes.
It’s like the land itself is pushing back against their hard work, the faster they move, the less their graft pays off.
“Each level of the basin represents a distorted extreme,” Diana says, almost like she is thinking aloud.
“Basin?” Az asks.
“Yes,” I answer for her. I can practically feel her mind whirring to make sense of it and don’t want to interrupt her. “The shape of the arena.”
“Oh yeah,” Reiva says. “Like when you pull the plug out of the washbasin and the water goes around and around.”
The sides of Khali’s lips tug down as she shrugs. “I thought it looked like the coliseum in Ira.”
I learned Khali originally came from Ira, Scelus’s front line in the war against virtue and where rage demons flock to feed off the aggression and violence, back when Silver called her up for the Triad and she revealed her wings.
She’d never looked so terrifying as when she lifted into the air above the ash and the red sun poured through her sharp crimson tinged wings of wrath.
But when she’d gone on to beat Lilliana’s best friend, Ivy, in the skies without any weapons but her fists and claws, I suddenly didn’t care how she looked, only glad that her enemy was also mine.
“Maybe it is based on Ira?” I suggest.
But Diana shakes her head. “Surely if this game is a test of wrath and patience, then the shades would be more, I don’t know, angry?”
Reiva nods. “They don’t look angry to me.”
“Mmhmm.” Khali agrees. “The crumbling terraces remind me of the seats where the crowd would place bets on the fighters in the oval below.”
Frowning, Khali turns to the rest of Ferrum and cups her hands around her mouth to be heard over the racket coming from all the Hell creatures hard at work.
“Does anyone recognize the arena?” she asks. “Think about where you’re from, about Scelus, and if there’s anything like this.”
Lilliana scoffs. “We worked that out before Silver even closed the hellgate—”
That’s when I see him. And it dawns on me, unlike the first game, Silver is here with us.
The other Overlords too.
And Ravi.
I smile at the hound before I can think better of it.
And then she takes off.
She darts from the opposite side of the basin, only to stop dead in her tracks just before reaching me.
Exactly opposite where Silver stands watching us, arms folded and jaw set.
“Leave her.”
Ravi looks up at him, ears flat, and she starts to whimper.
“Don’t give me those eyes,” he says, lifting his chin to make a show of looking away from her.
When Ravi yips, Silver nods toward me. “It’s for her own good.
There are about three hundred ways she could die in this arena,” he explains to the hellhound, whose tail tucks firmly between her legs when he says, ‘kill her.’ “Leave her to it.”
Ravi huffs, but seems to give in.
It’s Lilliana’s whining voice that cuts through the air. “No, seriously. She can go with the mutt. Go on Halo-rat.”
I roll my eyes. She can’t stand that the attention was taken away from her before she could get her chance to play the genius and tell us which region of Scelus the game is based on.
“Go on, play fetch with the flee-ridden mutt,” she taunts. “We don’t need you.”
Ivy, Nero and most of her other followers laugh.
Ravi growls, her fur standing on end. Whether it’s her own choice, or Silver’s influence over her, I don’t know, but she doesn’t move.
Still, Lilliana’s cronies flinch.
“Perhaps try not to trip and fall under one of the wraith's axes,” Lilliana adds, then shrugs. “Or don’t.”
“Wraith’s?” I mutter to Diana, eyes searching the arena.
Diana nods. “On the lower terraces.”
I swallow, then shiver.
Unlike the shadowy silhouettes of the shades, the wraiths are more humanoid. Only most of their features are blurred, all of them apart from their half-lidded eyes.
They climb into hammocks that the shades build, stretching threadbare and soiled fabric out between leafless trees. As the wraiths lie down, their unused axe hangs loosely in their grip.
The moment they fully close their eyes, falling asleep, the axe falls… upwards? Defying logic like the mist does, until it slices through the rope. The hammocks drop and they wake just in time to snatch their axe back.
Then they start over.
Where in the nine circles of Hell did Silver take us this time?
“What are you waiting for Ferrum,” the Overlord snaps. “Go.”
“Fancy telling us where?” I snap back, not brave enough right now to look over at him to see his reaction.
“Careful,” Diana says. “He’s probably killed cadets for chatting back.”
“I’m sorry, I know. I just… so many people died in the last game. I can’t stand the thought of more death when he could tell us how to complete it.”
My voice is low and the arena too loud for him to hear, but those in my alliance are close and don't miss a beat.
“If Silver tells us how to complete the games, how are we proving we have what it takes to join the Iron Choir?” Khali asks. “To protect the Sisters?”
“We couldn’t. We wouldn’t be fit to,” Az chimes in, backing her up.
“Exactly,” Khali says. “We’d be cheating our way there, learning nothing, and wouldn’t be fit for purpose.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, not realizing how passionate Khali or Az are about the recruitment process.
“I think I know where we need to go, anyway,” Diana says.
She points down to where the plug of the basin would be, at the lowest and smallest level. On the very bottom layer of the arena stands what looks like… I squint. “An old dead tree?”
Diana nods, then shakes her head. “It’s what’s hanging on it. The only thing in this entire place that’s not dead or damaged or on the verge of breaking.”
That’s when I see it for the first time. A bell hanging from a branch at the back. Dull, but only because the sun is blocked by the fog and low clouds. It’s facing Aes Company more than us, only visible if you crane your neck and squint.
“You think we need to ring it to complete the game?” I ask.
Diana nods, and the rest of our small alliance join her.
I glance toward Silver to see if his face gives anything away.
Are we onto something? Is that how we complete the game?
I don’t know the rules the Overlord’s need to follow where the games are concerned, but they definitely don’t seem to be allowed to tell us everything.
Sure, they give hints, and gear our training a certain way, but give us enough information that we breeze through it? No chance.
Where's the fun and gore in that?
Silver is staring right back at me as he crouches down, giving Ravi a fuss.
I quirk an eyebrow as though to ask, “Are we barking up the right tree?”
I fully expect him to look away, or worse, laugh in my face.
Except, his eyes meet mine, then move to the dead tree.
He nods once at the bell hanging from a crooked branch, then looks right back at me, scratching Ravi behind the ear the whole time.
I don’t hide from his gaze, instead I meet it and watch as those gray-gold eyes travel up and down my body. It’s not in a predatory or sexual way, more like he’s checking me for potential weaknesses, like injuries.
“What are you all whispering about?” Lilliana calls over, snapping my attention away from the Overlord and the odd moment I’m not sure whether I imagined we shared.
“We think we need to reach the bell at the bottom to complete the game,” Khali admits, surprising me.
“Come on then,” Nero says, “What are you waiting for?” He jumps down so he’s one layer lower in the bowl of chaos, closer to the bell.
“Wait!” Lilliana shouts, looking at Khali with clear suspicion.
But that's when the vines appear from the weeds between the cracked paving slabs beneath Nero’s feet. Fog forms, drifting up around his ankles as though to disguise the weeds assault.
The horror plants creep up his leathers and wind around his limbs. He doesn’t even notice until he can’t move at all. He tries to scream, but another root comes out of nowhere and wraps around his mouth, cutting off the sound and choking him.