Chapter 12: Enter the Beast

The curtains opened on the bloodied players on solid stage once more. The two skeletons had vanished as Millech had carted them backstage to whatever giant coffin from which they'd risen.

"Such horrors," said Gorvio. "What next?"

"Hold true, old man," said Tarvi.

"Easy for you to say! Youth laughs at death as a stranger. As you grow older you come to know it well."

"So shall you all," said Ulvauno, striding downstage with a venomous smile. "Here follows the Trial in the Belly of the Beast, a gift to this court by Moloch, General of Hell. The Beast, infernal thing, makes its stomach the nest of acid-spewing serpents. It will swallow you whole and wash clean your bones."

"Where is the 'trial' in this?" Gorvio gaped.

"If you are innocent," said Calseinica, descending from the opposite corner, "then the Beast's belly will leave you unscathed."

"Hold fast, my dear friends," said Tarvi. "Have faith in Asmodeus."

"But I do not," Moris squeaked.

"Perhaps you shall learn to swim," said Ulvauno. "This next trial demands a great sacrifice."

Ulvauno flung his white-gloved finger at Calseinica.

"Ye, who speaks for the half-breed, the lone traitor on the council who defends Larazod, you must brave this trial alongside him."

"Gladly!" she laughed, "For he speaks the truth."

Calseinica threw down her jewelry and tore the fine dress from her shoulders. She wore a white prisoner's shift beneath. She shrugged defiantly at Ulvauno and embraced Tarvi with a fiery kiss.

The crowd clapped and cheered their approval.

"Know the gifts of Asmodeus, dear Larazod. But soft, what terror approaches?"

Millech, dressed in stage ninja black, wheeled a huge frame of iron and polished wood onto the stage. The trappings wrapped around an equally huge serpent sculpture of thick but transparent green glass. Its mouth gaped wide enough to swallow them whole, but the head stood ten feet off the ground. The belly, easily large enough to hold all five of them, sloshed with a clear liquid.

Millech cranked a handle on the serpent's backside. The neck lowered to the stage. Out from the maw wafted the nose-cauterizing fumes of cleaning fluid.

Calseinica tripped lightly toward the maw, but Mathal shouldered past her and climbed in first. Her feet slipped on the smooth, wet glass. She slid on her butt into the pool of burning acid. Mathal sprang up with a yelp distorted by the glass and acid to a tinny echo.

Calseinica slid down after her, laughter sloughing off into a scream on the way down. She tried to scramble back up the neck, but her hands couldn't find a hold. Moris crashed into her. They both went down into the acid and came up sputtering and screaming-eyes, noses, and mouths bright red and leaking.

Mathal hooked them both around the waists and yanked them away from the neck before incoming Tarvi knocked them down again. Gorvio followed with a yelp. Millech cranked the neck back up to its full ten feet, trapping the fumes inside with them. Everyone coughed.

"Get me out!" cried Calseinica, flailing in Mathal's grasp.

The swelling thickened her voice and kept her eyes from opening.

"I can't boost you that high," said Gorvio between coughs. "You'll literally have to stand on my shoulders. Then drop to the stage. Good luck not breaking a leg."

"Let's please just get the Hell out of here," said Tarvi.

Gorvio held his breath and squatted down into the acid. Tarvi sat on his shoulders, holding her arms out to either side of the throat for balance. She wobbled as he stood up but didn't fall. She braced one hand on his collarbone and pulled one foot up onto his shoulder. Then the other. She stood gingerly, keeping her guiding hand on the glass.

"I'm up! Gonna jump."

Gorvio nodded vigorously but said nothing.

Tarvi bent her knees and launched herself into the maw. Her belly smacked down on the tilted glass. She slid back.

"No, no, no, no!"

Gorvio caught her feet. He jumped up and pushed her back. Tarvi tumbled out of the mouth. She hit the ground rolling. She came up on all fours and gave the others a weary thumbs up from the other side of the glass.

Gorvio burst into a fit of coughing but beckoned at Mathal to let the next one go. She let go of Moris.

"Calseinica should go," said Moris, thickly.

Chelon agreed.

Mathal considered it. Calseinica's flailings had grown noticeably weaker, and she'd swapped the screaming for coughing. If she fainted and fell into the acid, that would be the end of her line and waste everyone else's air. But standing around also wasted air.

Mathal let her go. She and Moris guided Calseinica to Gorvio and helped her onto his shoulders. They kept her legs braced when he stood up and it was her turn to stand. She could barely stay up with both hands out for balance on the glass, much less jump.

Moris coughed and nodded at Mathal. They shoved Calseinica up by the legs. She wheezed out a hoarse shriek and tumbled out of the mouth. Her ankle snapped under her. Her voice gave out halfway through her scream. Tarvi held her and pulled her out from under the mouth.

Moris tumbled out next. He stuck the landing. The audience roared with applause.

Gorvio and Mathal, both coughing and hacking, looked at each other. Gorvio fainted.

Chelon screamed with the pure, primal fear of being eaten alive. Mathal moved instinctively and caught Gorvio before he splashed into the acid. She threw him over her shoulder. Then screamed herself.

Black blurred in the corner of her eye. Ulvauno. He perched on the edge of the final setpiece with his chin in his hands. His smirk oozed a satisfaction more nauseating than anything inside the Beast's belly.

Her patience died with a snap of bone and stitch of flesh. Mathal hexed herself. She slammed the tip of her elbow into the glass. A shallow web of cracks splintered into the glass. She kept slamming, leaving bloody smears. On the other side, Moris drew his curved blade and swung it against the serpent with a bone-ringing bang.

Her elbow went numb. She roared and rammed her heel into the web of deepening cracks. The acrid fumes went straight to throat. Her vision blurred. She staggered back, choking.

"Kiyah!"

At the familiar scream, she turned her back to the cracks and dropped Gorvio down into her arms. She wrapped them around his head.

The glass exploded into the belly of the Beast. Shrapnel sunk and sliced into her wounded back. Mathal cried out into Gorvio's shoulder where the glass couldn't shoot down her throat. The air barely burned her raw throat. She came up gasping and blinking off tears.

Moris stood on the other side of the jagged glass ulcer beside Tarvi, Calseinica draped over her shoulder. He held his arms out for Gorvio. Mathal handed off her KOed cargo and clambered out onto the stage. He caught her, too. Tarvi squeezed her bloodied hand.

She never heard the audience until after the fallen curtain already muffled their crashing waves of ovation.

Millech dragged the acid-trailing serpent backstage. He returned with two folding chairs under one arm and the handle of the final setpiece in the other. Tarvi helped Calseinica into one chair and Moris arranged Gorvio into the other. Each stood beside their companion in front of the gleaming black judge's bench. Mathal took her place between Tarvi and Moris. As the curtain flowed upward, each of them took one of her hands.

Ulvauno rose up from behind the bench.

"The final trial is at hand! Your souls shall be quenched at long last."

"This trial has been yours, Magistrate Maleficarum," said Tarvi, "but Asmodeus is the only true judge here. Bow before him."

"Insolent dog! Asmodeus shall scour you with his flame until your bones turn to ash and your souls melt waxen under his taloned feet."

Flames burst up from the back of the stage. Ulvauno screamed with the audience and ran cowering out from the judge's bench. Delour, wreathed in glamoured flame, levitated up from behind it to stand atop it. She wore the Archfiend's face in a red-lacquered mask with her hair twisted and waxed into thick, red horns.

The devil bailiff walked out from the other side of the bench, his arms draped with curling contracts penned in crimson blood.

"Choose," boomed Delour. "A true heart shall beat strong for all eternity at my side. A false one burns to cinder in an instant."

The bailiff handed each of them a contract, tucking Gorvio's under the Chelaxian's arm. Ulvauno grasped his. It flashed with flame and crumbled to ash between his white-gloved fingers. He shrieked in blood-curdling fear.

Delour flung her flame-tipped finger at Ulvauno.

"O magistrate who lords false justice over true souls…," her mask's mouth curved into the ghastliest and uncanniest grin of them all. "Your soul shall burn for all eternity."

A trapdoor opened under Ulvauno's feet. He dropped without a sound, all sucked to oblivion. Glamoured flames roared up from the hole.

Delour levitated into the air above the bench with her final dirge of an aria. The flames only grew higher. They spread from the mouth of Hell to consume the entire stage. The four conscious players, unharmed, took a bow. Though Mathal couldn't be certain with Delour's booming dirge and the explosion of applause, she thought she caught the strain of tears coming from below the stage. Flowers rained at their feet. They'd piled up to their ankles by the time the curtains dropped.

Vesta ran out to them with healing in her fingers. She tended to Calseinica and Gorvio first, casting from both hands. Calseinica burst into tears and clung to Tarvi, nearly pulling her into her lap. Tarvi took the seat and reassuringly rubbed her back.

Gorvio woke from his chair with a jerk.

"Is it over or are we in Hell?" he asked, eyes on the still-flaming Delour.

Moris patted his shoulder and slumped down the backside of his chair.

"It's over, thank the Dark."

Vesta saved Mathal for last. She held up both hands and waggled her fingers.

"Hey Survivor, do you want a kiss with this?"

"I-yeah, go for it," she said, linking fingers.

Vesta stepped into her. Her magic closed Mathal's wounds and dulled her aches, but her cinnamon chapstick left Mathal's mouth tingling.

Nonon came backstage flanked by three Taldan-descended nobles, blinged out, furred, and feathered from head to toe. Vesta bowed. Delour dropped into a curtsy. Calseinica tore herself away from Tarvi long enough to do the same.

"Players assemble!" said Nonon. "We're in the company of true patrons of the arts."

"No, no," said the tall, heavy-set blond, making a portrait frame with thick fingers in front of one blue eye. "What a great scene here. Beautiful!"

Their finger-frame zeroed in on Moris. The other two, slim, auburn-haired, and amber-eyed twins, tittered politely.

"Players, this is our very own Lord-Mayor of Westcrown, Aberian Arvanxi himself."

Nonon introduced the players before any of them could say a word. The mayor bent down to extend a hand to Moris.

"Yeah, good to meet you. Moris."

He shook Moris's arm with both hands yet somehow managed to work a hug in with the pumping. It took all of Chelon's reason to keep Mathal from kicking his lord-mayor-liness in the face.

"And this-"

"My name is Chammady, she/her," said the twin with the feathered ruff. "It's an honor to meet you. This is my brother, Eccardian."

The twin with the furred ruff gave them a winking salute.

"I was certain I'd regret coming to see a murderplay, but you've made it worth my while and spared my conscience while you were at it. For that, you have my thanks."

"You're welcome," said Moris.

He scooted back and stood closer to Mathal and Vesta.

Arvanxi dusted off his gold-plated kneepads and lumbered up to his full six feet and change.

"I'd like to formally invite you all to a celebratory week of feasting at my place, the lord-mayor's manor."

"I'm pretty sure some of us have nothing to wear," said Tarvi.

"Perfect!" laughed Arvanxi.

Everyone cringed. The lord-mayor laughed several more times before lamely assuring everyone that he was joking.

"Just come in your costumes. You can be real, authentic actors."

"A great honor," said Gorvio with more than a little dryness.

"We'll give it some serious consideration," said Tarvi.

"You do that. Welp, I've got an orgy waiting for me. See you fine players tomorrow evening at six."

He sleazed out a wink and sauntered off. Chammady and Eccardian shared another cringe behind his back. They left with a finger-waggling wave and resignedly followed after their lord-mayor. Everyone breathed easier.

"Yeah, no, that's not happening," said Mathal. "I'm just gonna take my cut and get back to our chickens."

"Maybe we could grab something off the buffet for Yako," said Tarvi.

Nonon held up her hands. Mathal, Tarvi, Moris, and Gorvio froze.

"What?"

"It's going to take me about a week to do all of the accounting. I'm a director, not a secretary, and all of our expenses-"

Mathal stalked right up into Nonon's face.

"We need that money."

Tarvi pulled her back.

"Nonon, tonight is our last paid night at the tavern. We'll be out on the street if we can't pay up tomorrow morning."

"I apologize for the inconvenience, but-"

"I'm not going back to the poorhouse!"

Nonon yelped and nearly fell into Ulvauno, having finally come up from below the stage. One side of his mouth curved into a weak smirk at the sight of Moris and Tarvi restraining Mathal.

"You don't have to," said Moris. "None of us do."

"That's right," said Tarvi. "We can just wait out the week at Arvanxi's."

"What?" said Ulvauno.

Tarvi smirked back at him as she explained.

Just the thought of going to his place made Mathal nauseasus. Chelon shared the sentiment, but no amount of threatening could speed up Nonon's accounting. She allowed herself a single, violent shudder of unadulterated disgust.