It had taken a long time, but time really had no meaning anywhere in the Dreamlands, so Andrew figured the same was true here. The first sign something had changed was when Redevere tilted one of her pointed ears to their right and told Andrew to shut up. She stayed in that position for a few minutes, and then she jerked her head at Andrew, changing direction and heading in the new direction. Having heard nothing but utter silence, Andrew mutely followed, since he had no other plan.
People were moving aside, some muttering and murmuring comments about inconsiderate dolts and premature torments and torture. With every bump and shove, the crowd pushed back with yet more muttering, until Redevere spun and punched someone, a be-suited middle-aged man with a hole in his chest, in the face, sending him crashing through half a dozen other people. Suddenly, fewer people had audible comments to offer.
“You should try it, mortal,” Redevere said, grinning wickedly at Andrew.
The pair pushed on before Andrew could reply, not that he had anything to say, anyway. Redevere was leading the way, using her elbows to shove people aside and clear a path. The grin on her face said it all. For demons like Redevere, Hell was a place filled with anticipation and promise.
As they made progress, Andrew started smelling the sulphur much more clearly. He looked around, and he noticed the people nearby had changed subtly. They were all bearing the marks of extremely violent deaths, and many were wearing different types of uniforms. Some were even wearing armour. All of them bore the marks of a life ended in anything but peace. One of them turned to reveal a knight’s pot helm caved in across his face, blood still oozing from the occularia and vents. A woman in leather breeches and a leather armour top was holding her own head under her right arm. She glared at Andrew as he passed.
The stench had reached nauseating potency when Andrew began walking a little faster in the middle of the slightly thinner crowd. Cries and shouts were coming from somewhere in the distance, which made Andrew start to slow down again. He heard a whistling sound from above him and looked up just in time to see someone flying through the air past him. The fleshy, wet thud of the person landing, followed by the chaotic slaps of their body parts, caught Andrew’s attention. A young man with no face had landed and was now surrounded by his limbs, organs and other bits and pieces. He just lay there, but Andrew was looking on with increasing horror. The fragments started to slip and slide across the rocky ground towards the torso and the shattered remains of the head. Andrew held his stomach with his hand as he swallowed hard at what he was seeing. When the parts reached the torso, they slid and slopped into place, the gaps rejoining and new skin sealing them in. Andrew shook his head.
“I can feel you staring, you knave!” the young man shouted through the gap which had once been a mouth.
Andrew quickly turned away and hastened after Redevere. There was no need to hurry, because Redevere was standing and watching a mountainous hulk of a man swinging a giant jade club at a human who happened to be shoved into range. A whooshing swing, a sickening crunch and thud, and the human was sailing through the air. The giant was turning this way and that, searching for someone else to clobber. Every now and then, someone would get fed up and push another person into the vacant circle. Whoosh. Crunch. Thud. Whistle.
“Azerath, what the hell’re you doing??” Redevere called out.
The giant stopped searching, saw Redevere, a tiny woman by comparison, and lumbered over to greet her with a hug.
“Red, long time! What’s going on?” Azerath roared, which was actually his normal speaking volume, as it turned out.
“We’re looking for someone. A sailor,” Redevere answered when Azerath had put her down.
“Sailor? You that desperate?” Azerath grinned.
“Shut up,” Redevere squinted her eyes and shook her head. “Gabriel Neilsson. Have you seen him around here?”
“Neilsson? Sailor?” Azerath mused, scratching his head with the club’s handle. “You mean the Prune?”
“Prune? What the he . . . Oh yeah, he drowned, I think,” Redevere smiled.
“He’s a few hundred yards that way,” Azerath pointed. “And it wasn’t just drowning that got him, either.”
Azerath suddenly spun about, extending his arm to full length, and collected three people with the club. While the three bodies sailed away, Andrew and Redevere left in the direction indicated. Seeing Redevere’s friendliness with Azerath convinced a lot of people to make way and stop grumbling about the intruders of their personal space. News travelled fast in the Place of Waiting.
The passage between the people jammed together like a mosh pit seemed to know where Andrew and Redevere needed to go. Before long, it had led them to a small opening around a hunched over, dripping man with long dark hair and porcelain white skin. As he straightened up a little and turned, Azerath’s nickname came back to Andrew: the Prune. Neilsson’s skin was wrinkled like a albino Carolina Reaper chilli, deep crevasses cutting through his bloated, swollen face from which dark orbs stared out, obscured by folds of flabby whiteness. Andrew gasped. Redevere grinned and snorted, her torso shaking as she made odd grunting sounds.
Neillson opened his mouth, his face screwed up even more as he was trying to frown, but the watery, black liquid which flowed out over his chin and soaked into his shirt collapsed any meaning into a gargling cacophony. The old sailor was trying to repeat himself when he spewed more of the brackish water over himself and splashed Redevere. He held up a hand to the pair as he was hacking and wheezing to clear his throat. Andrew looked down at the ground and shifted from foot to foot as he was waiting.
“You shouldn’t be here, lass,” Neilsson stated, his voice sounded like it was filtered through water, bubbling and warped.
“Now why did you go and say . . . ,” Redevere started.
“The penitent is correct,” a massively loud voice roared from the not-to-far distance.
Andrew listened as heavy foot falls were coming even closer at a very fast pace. He turned and did not have to look for long. The glowing white of a huge body, standing at least twelve feet tall, made it impossible to miss. A pair of equally bright wings were extended a little, which exaggerated the size all the more. In the being’s right hand was a long, glowing sword made of metal that appeared to be made from flowing lava. Andrew backed up until he bumped into three people who were trying to make space for the new arrival. They were less than charitable about Andrew’s intrusion.
The giant with the sword stopped about ten feet away, poked Redevere with the tip of his sword, and growled at her.
“What are you doing here, infernal one?” it asked.
Andrew’s eyes shot wide at the choice of words, and it took him a moment to close his mouth again.
“Excuse me! What do you mean by ‘infernal’ here?” he raised his hand as he was asking.
The being turned to Andrew and, seeming to notice him for the first time, scowled at him.
“You are not a penitent,” the being grumbled.
“What did you mean when you called Redevere here,” Andrew jerked his chin at his companion, “’infernal’?”
“Your friend here is a spawn of the rebellion. An apostate from the light,” the being answered, which left Andrew a little more perplexed than he had been seconds before. Turning to Redevere, “Now, state your purpose here.”
“I need to ask the Prune a question or two,” Redevere replied. “It’s kind of personal.”
“One,” the giant said.
“Do you mind? Some space?” Redevere flicked her hands at the glowing giant, motioning for it to back up.
Andrew stepped closer to Redevere to hear what she was saying to Neillson, who had somehow stopped his coughing and hacking. Redevere was leaning right in close, an arm around Neilsson’s shoulder to hold him still and, Andrew guessed, to stop him from fleeing into the watching and odd crowd. Andrew was standing to Redevere’s left, opposite the Prune.
“You know where it is, don’t you? Where is the Key?” Redevere rasped in Neilsson’s left ear.
Neilsson shuddered when Redevere mentioned the Key, but Andrew had no clue about why the sailor would be nervous about it. As far as Andrew was concerned, it was just another ancient antique a rich collector had to have just so he could brag about it to his sycophants and rivals. Andrew shook his head at the thought of the sheer amounts of money being blown on this one antique. The fact a fallen thing, Andrew’s ex-spirit guide, was so driven to get her hands on it had Andrew as puzzled as everything else. He knew this realm was weird, but it was reaching new depths this time. Not even the Vale of Leng had anything on what Andrew had gone through this visit.
Andrew refocused on Neilsson as the sailor was finally getting some words out through the torrents of brine flowing from him.
“You? You think you’re getting it?” Neilsson’s body was wracked by a wheezing, hacking convulsion which Andrew figured was the sailor’s version of laughter. When Redevere said nothing, Neilsson managed to speak again. “No . . . never going to reach, slag.”
Redevere’s scowl deepened along with the redness of her skin, her eyes brightening. Andrew heard the cracks of her knuckles as she ground her hands into fists. Redevere’s shoulders twitched as she stepped towards Neilsson.
“No secret . . .,” the sailor puked up between bouts of dark water. “The . . . Vault.”
“Now, you leave,” the giant guard, glowing still, menaced Andrew and Redevere with his sword.
“How do we get out?” Andrew asked.
No sooner had he asked, the vaulted cavern vanished into a mist and Andrew found himself sitting next to Redevere in the belting heat of a sandy desert with vast plains punctuated by tall dunes. Andrew gazed around him in amazement. Redevere was glaring at everything, feeling anything by impressed.
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