#hellgates

Moments after she had stepped forth into the darkness, Nivedita found herself on the pebbled shores of the black sea of Hellgates. In front of her the dark, frothy waters churned ceaselessly, lapping against the smooth-worn bellies of the dozens upon dozens of gargantuan obsidian boulders scattered across the broad beach like a seer’s divining implements. The pale sun of Hellgates had nearly completed its laborious trek across the sky; it hung suspended just above the expanse of the sea, casting its sickly light over the water’s agitated surface and bathing the area in varying shades of crimson. The obnoxious, salty stench of the surf ruthlessly assaulted the female rat’s nostrils as she gazed at the creature she had chosen to confront.

Framed by the eerie, bulbous sphere of the weary sun sinking into the sea, a polecat stood silently before her, the blood-red waves swirling about his unshod footpaws. Upon his face he wore a half mask of honed white marble, the jagged edge of the mask rearing up above the crown of his head. Nivedita could make out a series of curious patterns carved into it. In one paw he held the thonged whip with which he had threatened the Lady, and in the other was a long prodding spear, of the kind typically used by slavers to keep their wretched charges in line. A soft tinkling sounded when the wind surreptitiously moved the fringe of his chain mail tunic. The strange polecat regarded Nivedita without speaking, his lip curled in a gesture of derision beneath the bottom edge of the mask.

“I am deeply disappointed,” he said finally, the deepness of his voice carrying over the alternating crash and hiss of the surf. “Do you not remember me, concubine?”

Nivedita stiffened. Something dark and heavy stirred deep within her soul and she frowned, staring quizzically at the masked polecat.

“Forgive me, but I’m afraid I’m not sure I know you.” Nivedita offered him a polite curtsy. “Have you come to the Lady’s nightclub before?” she inquired.

Chuckling, the polecat shook his head. “Silly girl, I have never been within a league of the usurper’s indulgent nest. I knew you before, when you were just a frightened slave rat eagerly willing to do all within your power to keep everybeast around you out from under the harsh stroke of the whip.” He paused to study her closely. “What has happened to you? How fierce and terrible you appeared that night, your tortured soul dripping with infinite will and purpose! Whence has the fire fled? Has that vixen truly succeeded in transforming you into a shadow of yourself?” Taking a step forward, the polecat gestured with the point of his spear, indicating her entire body. “Did you forfeit the power I saw once, so long ago? Did the vixen wrest it from you, to claim it as her own? Where is the black knife that struck down the one who paved the way for my kingdom, whose blade scintillated joyfully in the light of the torches of the horde?”

Nivedita’s eyes grew wide, the realization of the meaning of his words dawning upon her. She regarded him with thinly veiled agitation, an uncharacteristic sharpness in her tone when she spoke, “I do not know how you came by this knowledge of me, but I would ask that you stop speaking of that night at once. I no longer wish to remember it.”

The masked polecat seemed to consider her request. Without warning he hurled himself forward, jabbing with the prodding spear. Thinking quickly, Nivedita turned to one side, the spearpoint whooshing harmlessly past her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes and raised her right arm, just in time to receive a lashing from the polecat’s whip as he pivoted on his footpaws, striking at her with the cruel weapon. Nivedita gritted her teeth at the pain, forcing her left footpaw to receive the brunt of her body weight as she retreated out of the polecat’s reach. He began to circle her, his eyes glittering from within the confines of his mask.

“I was there, concubine,” he rasped, the mask failing to muffle the reluctant awe in his voice. “I was there when, in the same breath, you both hailed and cursed our master. I was there when he knelt to receive you, and when he reeled from the murderous blow you dealt him. I was there, rat, when you clothed yourself in his blood and committed his foul corpse to the depths of the earth! Not a soul in the entire horde dared to stand against him, and yet—! You! You, an insignificant trull, struck down his mightiness even as he lounged casually on the proverbial throne of the height of his reign!”

Whirling, the polecat dealt Nivedita a series of swift blows with his spear and whip. She did her best to dodge, ducking and weaving as fast as the mangled side of her body would allow. He watched her struggle to avoid his attacks, frustration and confusion evident in the sloppy nature of his movements. Panting with exertion, the polecat skipped backwards, surveying the new injuries he had inflicted upon her with obvious annoyance.

“Why?!” he snarled, jabbing in her direction with the spear. “Why do you not fight back? Return the pain and suffering to me, blow for blow, gash for gash! Where is your ferocity? Your hatred? Your bitterness and loathing? Where are the indelible emotions that gave you the strength to slay our master?”

Nivedita rubbed the sweat off her nosetip with the back of a paw, wincing as her whiskers brushed against the angry, glowing gashes on her arm. She stared levelly at the polecat, a faraway look in her glimmering eyes.

“You must understand, I let them go when I…” her thoughtful voice faltered. Nivedita’s gaze strayed out over the black sea, taking in the raw beauty of the hellish sunset. “You’re right,” she continued softly. “That anger and hatred once had power over me, but no more. I released them when I forgave him for what he did to the ones I loved… and for what he did to me.”

The polecat’s mouth was agape. “You… you foolish girl!” he snarled. “You willfully gave up the source of your power just to feel better about your miserable past? All that righteous fury you bore was for nothing? Nothing?!”

Furious, the polecat struck out at her with his whip, the stinging barbs catching and tearing off bits of her fur and flesh. Again and again he beat her, bringing the whip down upon her upraised arm with increasing ferocity. Nivedita bore the onslaught without moving, her eyes burning into his as he unleashed a rage born of incredulity.

“How?! How could you just throw away an awesome wellspring of power? Not even our master could stand in your way… and you gave it up! Fool! You could have found immense favor in the eyes of the Great Vulpuz, but instead you grovel at the footpaws of that ragged vixen, playing the games of babes with the rest of the rabble of Hellgates and that traitor mink! How can you stand to linger amongst such rubbish and filth? Don’t you understand you are only titivating their feckless souls, adorning worthless baubles with value they do not deserve? They are nothing to you, and yet you leave your strength in the dust to be with them! Rash! You have wasted your—”

Nivedita had heard enough. She had been monitoring the progress of his assault, biding her time as each wild blow brought him ever closer to her. Finally, the opportune moment arrived. She swung her arm in a wide circle as he brought the whip down for another stroke, and the thongs of the whip entangled themselves in her claws. She tugged fiercely on the weapon, causing him to lose his balance and stumble forwards.  With their faces nearly touching, Nivedita smiled wistfully up into the polecat’s shocked eyes.

“I am sorry you think my greatest strength was born from my hatred and anger,” she murmured, odd hints of lingering gratitude in her voice. “You are wrong. I learned of my own strength through forgiveness. Everything I am I owe to those who helped re-shape my heart, bringing me to a place where I could forgive. It is because of love that I fight you now, and it is because of love that I am more powerful than you.”

The sound of a mighty exhale interrupted her. An enormous paw descended from the air above Nivedita, its gargantuan bulk momentarily hovering around the polecat’s head. A barely audible squeak escaped between his lips as the paw gripped his torso and squeezed none too gently. The whip and prodding spear fell forgotten upon the strand as the polecat was lifted bodily off the ground, forced to come face to face with a nightmarish beast. Its features wreathed in shadow, all he could see was a pair of fiery red eyes, twin pools of unquenchable flame. The shape of the monster seemed to pulse and fluctuate, the darkness beneath its eyes parting to reveal a gaping maw lined with saw-like fangs. A globule of foul-smelling phlegm dripped from between the beast’s teeth, splattering across the polecat’s mask. The unfortunate vermin’s nerve completely deserted him.

“N-no… how can… how can this be? I understand, I understand! You are still strong!” he cried, his voice hollow with desperation. “P-please! Don’t let the slavemaster devour me!”

The great beast bowed, bringing its forehead to rest against the polecat’s mask. For one breathless moment, only the sound of the wind and waves could be heard. A low rumbling noise heralded the slavemaster’s stirring, and a terrible roar ripped from its throat, splintering the marble mask into a thousand jagged shards. Drawing its arm back, the monster cloaked in darkness hefted the polecat as though he was naught but a stone unearthed by the tide. With a powerful heave, the slavemaster hurled the polecat far out into the sea, echoes of the vermin’s scream ricocheting off the boulders on the beach even after he had disappeared from sight. Nivedita sighed, turning to glance at her protector with brows upraised.

“You are getting very good at that, but I wish you wouldn’t throw them quite so far,” she admonished gently.

The beast moaned, a guttural cry that culminated in a gurgling trill of contentment somewhat akin to laughter. Gradually, he bent down to Nivedita’s level, nuzzling her with the rough affection of one who is unsure how to mindfully handle his own bulk. She embraced and rubbed his proffered head with infinite tenderness even as his body began to shrink, his immense form merging with the contours of her shadow.

“You’d think it’d be a mite warmer here, what with these veins of fire running through all these rocks,” Gonff’s voice broke into the silence. “It’s as if somebeast used the stones to ring their cooking fire, but the blaze that once licked at their insides never went out.”

“Burr, only ee foire burns lioke ee frost, zurr mouseythief,” Grumm observed, giving the rocks on either side of him a wide berth. “Oi’d loike to make ee proper foire for summ zoup, but there’m baint no sticks yurrabouts!”

Rose tentatively ran the back of her paw across the surface of one of the massive brimstone boulders. “I agree, Grumm. These stones look like they’d burn you if you touched one, but it actually feels like ice.” She paused as they reached the top of a small rise, thoughtfully surveying the terrain ahead of them. “Everything looks the same here, Martin. How do we know if we’re heading in the right direction?”

The warrior mouse reached the crest of the hill, coming to a standstill alongside her. “I don’t think there’s a way to tell for sure, Rose. This is a strange place. Still, we must continue on. The message the Lady conveyed to me was one of utmost urgency.”

Felldoh flicked his tail in a gesture of mild annoyance. “And I suppose it was so urgent she forgot to include directions?”

Martin shrugged, adjusting the shoulder strap of his sword belt. “I do not think the Lady of Hellgates would invite us to run a fool’s errand. There must be a way for us to figure out where we are going.”

“I’ve got it mates!” Gonff clapped his paws together, a look of mock seriousness upon his face. “I say we spin Dinny around in a circle, and wherever his nose points when he stops has got to be the right way to go.”

“You’m gurtly wrong thurr, zurr. Oi say we spin ee, more loike. This yurr moler culd sloice ee roipe cheese with yore snout as moi knoife, hurr!”

As Dinny and Gonff continued to banter back and forth, Laterose noticed that Grumm had been quietly staring off into the distance with curious intensity. She shimmied atop one of the brimstone boulders next to him and peered in the direction he was looking. “What is it, Grumm? Do you see anything out there?”

The spellbound mole shook his head slowly. “Burr no, miz Roser. Oi’m… oi thought oi heard ee voice callen from thataways. Twas most bootiful, loike ee soft velvet o’er glass.”

Martin stepped between Gonff and Dinny, effectively cutting short their conversation. “Is that true, Grumm? What did the voice say to you?”

Grumm’s deep molevoice was solemn as he intoned the cryptic message, “’Cumm, yore friend awaits for ee.’” He raised a hefty digging claw, indicating a line of low, jagged cliffs on the horizon off to one side. “Oi felt moi snout gettin’ tugged towards ee stoney ridge o’er yonder.”

“It may be that the Lady is trying to get our attention,” Rose offered. “Should we head in that direction?”

Felldoh observed the distant formation, voicing his thoughts aloud. “It could also be a trap. As of right now, we have no idea where we are in relation to our ultimate destination, and we have no way of knowing if the voice Grumm has heard isn’t some nasty trick meant to lead us astray.” He turned to the group, his tone edged with skepticism. “Have you noticed how we have yet to encounter anybeast here? Something can’t be right.”

“It seems my reputation as the Prince of Mousethieves precedes me.”

“Gonff.”

“Haha, sorry mates. Ah, I say we go see what Grumm’s velvety-voiced friend has in store for us.”

Martin shook his head at his friend’s joke and exhaled slowly, his keen gaze sizing up the distance between the group and the faraway cliffs. “Felldoh does have a point, but we have nothing else to go on but Grumm’s lead. If we head to the rocks, I think it would be wise to proceed with caution. Our only other option is to continue wandering aimlessly.” The warrior mouse held out an open paw. “All those in favor of investigating Grumm’s message, say ‘aye’.”

Four hearty voices rang out into the muted stillness. Martin glanced over at Felldoh, who shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Whatever it is, I think we can take it on. I’m in.”  

The six friends travelled swiftly, Felldoh acting as rear guard while Gonff scouted ahead. The gently rolling flatlands they had previously been navigating dipped to morph with a low-lying, mazelike area of stone canyons. Coarse, black sand shifted unsteadily beneath their footpaws as the sheer monoliths of stone hemmed them in on either side. The canyon walls were eerily reflective, the glow from their fiery light veins casting roguish shadows betwixt every unfamiliar twist and turn. Even the slightest sound came ricocheting back at the group with deafening intensity. It was enough to put everybeast’s nerves on edge.

Gonff had adjusted his tactics somewhat, skillfully forging on to inspect the passageways of each new change of direction dictated by the structure of the canyon. He would creep forward, peering into every crevasse in the walls, checking every shadow, keenly alert for anything out of the ordinary. He had just reached the mouth of a wide, curving tunnel when he froze, his ears turning this way and that. When the rest of the group had caught up with him, he posed them a question.

“Do you mateys hear that?”

Everybeast was silent for a moment. Not a sound could be heard.

“What should we be listening for, Gonff?” Rose whispered, whiskers twitching curiously.

“It sounds like ocean waves lapping against a pebbled shore… and so close. But how?” The mousethief’s voice was almost hollow with bewilderment. “Can there be a sea in Hellgates?”

The squeal of a gannet abruptly cut through the air, closely followed by the sudden rushing hiss and resounding crash of an unseen wave upon sand. The six friends stood stock still, exchanging looks of surprise and confusion.

Grumm and Dinny were the first to move again, their footpaws sifting uneasily through the dark sand. Dinny elected to voice their joint observation aloud. “Marthen, if thurr be ee gurt sea yurrabouts, ee soil beneath us’n’s baint roight. If’n ee ground could speak, et would say no water bees here, zurrs! Naught for moiles aroun’!”

“What?” Felldoh was flabbergasted. “Are you saying there can’t be any body of water around here, even though we can all hear it?”

“And smell it, too,” Gonff added. He paused as everybeast caught a whiff of the salty coastal air. “We’d be blunderin’ ninnyheads to ignore what a mole knows to be true about the earth ‘n’ terrain, though.” One of his paws began to stray to the knives hanging from his belt. “Mayhaps Felldoh was right, eh? Could be some trick lies ahead, waiting for us.”

Martin glanced up at the strip of sky above them. Not a cloud was in sight. He sized up the canyon walls either side of them. “Do you think you could scale these walls to try to get a view of our surroundings, Felldoh?”

The warrior squirrel stepped closer to the nearest canyon face and ran his paws over it experimentally. “I don’t think so mate,” he admitted with obvious disappointment. “The surface is too smooth… no pawholds. Good idea, though.”

“Perhaps the only thing we can do is forge ahead.”

The five turned to see Rose unwinding her sling from about her waist, her eyes alight with determination. “I just heard the voice that spoke to you earlier, Grumm. It urged us to hurry. Why, I’m not sure.” She turned to her molefriend, her voice softening. “I understand why you were so thoughtful earlier, though. I feel as though somebeast just warmly embraced me… but, in my soul, if that makes sense.”

The kindly mole smiled and nodded, “Burr aye. Twere just loike ee say, miz Roser.”

“You’re sure?” Felldoh pressed.

Rose came to stand beside Martin. “Yes,” she answered, her tone resolute. “No matter what lies before us, I know we must go forth to meet it.”

Martin took a deep breath, straining to see down the darkened passageway before them. A solitary point of pale light hovered at the far end of the tunnel, its presence both chilling and intimidating. Suddenly, he realized that Rose had taken his paw. Their eyes met, and she offered him a warm smile. “All right, Rose,” Martin began, giving her paw a tender squeeze before he reluctantly released his grip. With business-like efficiency he turned to address the group. “Everybeast, stay together. Keep within a few paces of one another if you can. Felldoh, come up here with me. You and I will go in first. Gonff, you take the rear. Shout if you notice anything worth shouting about. Slings out, mates, in case we have to move fast.”

Everybeast shifted to follow Martin’s orders with stern precision. In moments the company was ready to move, each pair of paws loosely grasping a lithe sling, tongues of finely woven twine eager and ready to deliver a salvo of deadly missiles. After he had silently checked in with each of them, Martin gave the signal, and the friends moved forward as one. As they drew closer to the end of the tunnel, the sounds of the ocean became louder, filling the silence with a cacophony of screeching sea birds and undulating waves. Wafts of salty ocean air assaulted their nostrils, carrying hints of sunbaked sand and half-dried seaweed. Without a moment’s hesitation, the party emerged from the dark tunnel, everybeast blinking furiously in the harsh light.

The tunnel’s end opened upon a scene ripped from the very fabric of time. A long pathway led out before them, lazily curling around a mess of fallen chunks of rock until it split to go in two directions. Its left arm began to slope gently downwards, the uneven, sandy surface descending into a deep recess carved into the clifftop. The right fork of the path levelled off, running parallel to the beach far below them before it made a sharp turn and disappeared, presumably weaving its way down to the ocean. A brilliant sun shone down on them from a cloudless, periwinkle blue sky, its rays glinting off the surface of the distant sea as if it were a flawless, multifaceted jewel. A group of gannets soared playfully above the waves, chasing each other to and fro as the race to catch a meal was on. At first, the friends seemed to relax, but the idyllic nature of the scene was instantly shattered the moment they each laid eyes on the walls of a massive fortress, its oppressive bulk seeming to rise from amidst the sands above the tideline roughly a league to the north of their position. A tattered, solitary flag peeked over one end of the battlements, its patchwork form waving jauntily in the sea breeze.

It took Rose a moment for her to sift through her mind, recalling distant memories. There had been a missing presence from her home, a desperate mission to find her beloved younger brother, a long trek across miles of forest and scrubland, culminating in the appearance of a towering fort erected along a rugged coastline… and like a thunderbolt the realization struck her. On instinct she reached for Martin’s forearm. He was as tense as a tightly wound rope, and she also felt a distinct pressure as Felldoh stiffened alongside her, his bushy tail bristling. The eyes of both warriors were locked on the figure seated upon a throne carved into the rock before them, the very seat from whence Badrang had once surveyed his slaves at work in the stone quarry south of the stronghold of Marshank. Rose felt the fur on the back of her neck slowly rising as her gaze met a pair of dark eyes twinkling with malicious intent.

The figure lounging casually on the chiseled throne was a fox of indescribable beauty, his white fur almost glowing in the light from the brazen sun. He was dressed simply in a cloak of cobalt blue silk, a delicate silver chain fastening the garment over his breastbone. His eyes, sparkling like two flawless sapphires, took in the small group with an eager intensity, as a miserly vermin would count the treasures in his hoard. A mocking sneer wreathed his unfathomably proud features, the gentle sea breeze ruffling through his headfur. Once he had drawn the attention of every individual in the company, the fox showed his fangs in a cruel smile.