Pandemonium: Chapter 33
Ownership: (n3, OED online) that which I do not have over pretty much anything/everything in this story; first used 2013, August by EarnestlyBunburying on
A/N: There are things that I have written in this chapter that I do not represent ideas that I agree with; however, as these ideas are fitting for the setting of my story and (unfortunately) common thought in a number of places, they have been placed here. Please don't get too mad.
A gale force wind blew through the mountains, as the storm continued to brew, preparing to throw his body about aimlessly. Yet, Alec continued to trudge. Up, up, and up he went, pushing the rock. At least it hadn't started raining fire...for now.
This was his life now. He had three sins on his name, and the punishment for both of these sins had been combined. As he pushed the boulder through a rather steep patch, he laughed dryly.
The winds took his laughter and bounced them around the great empty mountains. That laughter would come back to haunt him later. It would reverberate in the mountains as his skin melted in the fiery rain; it would reverberate through the ground as the boulder went tumbling down the mountain and crashed at the bottom of the mountain; it would reverberate in the very winds as they picked him up and tossed him through the air, needlessly and aimlessly.
And after it was all done, he would sleep. It would a cold, useless, unhelpful sleep. Instead of dying from the burned skin, overexertion, and trauma of being thrown about, he would awake again, with a fresh layer of skin and unstrained muscles.
He begins the day anew. Slowly he will push the boulder up the mountain. About half the way up, the storm clouds will arrive, and the wind will pick up. He and the boulder will be thrown about the mountain for a little, yet he will continue to climb. Finally he will reach the top of the mountain, his task complete.
But in that moment, "all the fountains of the great deep will burst forth, and the windows of the heavens will open again" as the fiery rain sets down on the mountain.
He will lose his grip. The boulder will slide down the steep mountain; all his work will be for naught. His skin will burn from the fire as he is tossed about by the gale force winds, bruising, cutting and scraping every part of his body.
He will reach the bottom, right next to his boulder.
He will sleep, only to have it start again the next day. And then again the next day. And again, again, again.
This was his punishment. For only a lying, lustful sodomite such as himself would gain such a horrid punishment. Only in his life would the great punishments of Ovid and Dante combine together, and they would only combine together for him.
This he thought as he laughed on the way up the mountain again.
As if there was a point to it anyway. There was no escape-no exit.
Even death wasn't an escape. He had tried that-multiple times. The first time it was simple, hurling himself down the mountain; he woke up the next morning alive and well, ready to push again. The second time it was slightly more elaborate, crushing himself with the boulder; he woke up the next morning alive and well, ready to push again. After the 700th try, he had given up.
The compulsion to push was too great.
And so he resumed, the mountain returned his laughter in half sounds and jangles, promising him of pain and suffering to come.
"Ha" it said. "Ha. Ha. Ha."
The door burst open and Izzy ran to Alec, who finally was awake in his bed again. His face and back were slick with a cold sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the horrors he had just seen, and his face paler than the moon.
"You screamed again," Izzy said hoarsely. Sleep was heavy in her eyes, though the bags underneath them told Alec a different story-a story of someone for whom sleep rarely came at all.
"It was the same nightmare. Again," Alec said softly. He was calm now. It was better this way. "Go back to sleep, it's early enough for me to start the day," he told his sister.
She left the room, giving him a pained, confused, and loving look.
This is how it was now. This is how it had been since they took Magnus. At first it was just a deep set guilt and raw emotional anger. Then the nightmares started. At first it was the prison cell of times before, but then his mind got creative. It took from Ovid and from Dante and punished him for his sins. For his transgressions against himself, against humanity, and against God.
He slept less now, much less. The last three weeks had essentially been devoid of sleep, because every time he slept, he returned to the nightmare.
But that didn't matter now. The nightmare of his sleep was over. The nightmare of his day had yet to begin, and it was always best to be prepared for that.
Magnus stared at the hole above him that was supposed to give him light. He couldn't tell what time of day it was anymore. Or what day it was for that matter. His food came relatively regularly, but it was impossible to discern what meal it was supposed to be. He hated having to ask Whitelaw what day and time it was every meeting, but that was the nature of his imprisonment.
Today though, would be different. Today he would be allowed to leave the cell and move out. Today they would start his trial. He had seen the newspapers. It was the "Trial of the Century!" And why wouldn't it be? The former councillor of the Crown Prince charged with allegedly killing a daughter in the nobility. The press was out for blood, his and Alec's specifically.
But they hadn't got anything from Alec. Carstairs did an excellent job with that. Alec apparently had released some statement about his "confidence in the justice system" and that was it from him. They hadn't seen each other since that meeting. Alec had tried, relentlessly, to get a meeting, but Magnus refused. It would do him no good.
He heard a disgusting squeak from near him. His friend the rat had returned. This was all he had for company these days-a rat. Well sometimes it was two different rats. He had even bothered to name them. Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. In front of him was Deng. Deng probably wanted the scraps from his last meal. Magnus gladly gave him the scraps. It was food fit for a rat, not for a human. Though at this point the entire country thought of him as nothing more than a rat; they would be content with letting him rot, stink, and submerge in his own filth down there. At least they hadn't decided to exterminate him like a pest.
There was a knock at the door.
The ugly guard had come to collect him. At least now he was going to bathe and change. He was indelicately pushed and prodded up the winding, narrow staircase till he was at a reasonable location near the sky. Whitelaw was waiting for him.
The ugly guard left him with Whitelaw, who first took him back to his house.
The house must have been made into a crime scene since almost everything had been overturned. And nowhere did he find the grey furball that was his cat. Hopefully he had been taken somewhere nice, because the kitten didn't deserve any horrible treatment.
He took a warm bath. His first bath in three weeks.
After he was done, he looked back into the water and saw that it was black with grime and filth. Magnus chuckled slightly, thinking that he ought to get used to the grime and filth, because that was his future.
He sifted through his closet. It had been purposefully disorganized by the idiot inspectors trying to find evidence in his room. What had they been thinking? That he would hide a murder weapon with his socks?
He put on an outfit of golds and greens to bring out the colour in his eyes. After eventually finding his makeup, he put only a small delicate amount underneath his eyes to make them pop out subtlely. He put on no brilliantine. His hair was combed and set in what would be consider a "normal" fashion. Whitelaw had said something about looking "normal" so that the jury didn't have any automatic prejudices against him, being different as he was.
At first Magnus had laughed at the idea. But then Whitelaw explained just how dire their situation was. All the evidence was circumstantial, but they had nothing to go against it. Any other possible suspects had a viable, checkable alibi. He was the only suspicious character. There was doubt; there was more than a shadow of a doubt, and that doubt was very reasonable, but it didn't matter. Someone needed to be blamed; justice had to be met, and if he was the one to serve that justice than so be it. His life, short as it was, had been a good one. Even when he was old and beyond crazy in his timeless cell, even when Zhou and Deng had populated his cell with billions and billions of their progeny, he would remember a particular sparkling pair of blue eyes.
Finally he was ready. He left his house and was taken to the great Court of Laws. It was a magnificent building; the only building more beautiful than it was the Palace itself.
As he entered he faced hundreds of cold stares, each one pronouncing more and more guilt on him than the last. Finally he came to a set of great golden doors. They swung open to reveal a huge chamber. The audience was packed. They were the Romans, here to see a Christian be fed to the lions.
He scanned the audience for a familiar face. He found a frowning, concerned Carstairs sitting far, far away in the corner. That was it. Nobody else had come. Yet he kept on scanning the audience. Nothing. The eyes he was looking for, the eyes he wanted ingrained in his memory for all of eternity were missing.
Eventually he gave up. Instead he faced forward to see what his fate would give him.
Fate indeed seemed to have given him something, because Tessa was staring at him.
Green met Grey and Magnus saw everything.
The sadness, the guilt, the curiosity, the intelligence, the wit, the happiness, the love, the loyalty, and most of all the determination.
He pulled back from her eyes to see her face.
There it was. Grim determination.
Regardless of what her opinion of him may have been, Magnus was going to face something that was nigh on unstoppable. Tessa's grim determination had decided that he was guilty, and that the Lovelace's deserved justice.
And so those grey eyes would give them their justice, in all its perversion.