Chapter 18

Pick one

"Really?" Arundel looked around with a scholar's dry interest. "Somehow, it's not like what I envisioned it to be. No screams, no fires, and the air's rather frigid."

"One of the planes, anyway," John corrected. "Hell is an infinitely large place with many facets – sort of a mirror of heaven." He paused. "God, I'm beginning to talk like a soddin' lecturer." He sat down suddenly and heavily, as his legs gave. "Damn."

"What?" Entreri glanced at him. "And how do we get out?"

"Damned if I know," John admitted. "There're many ways into Hell, but only a few ways out – and most of them you can't open up from the inside unless you happen to be a really powerful demon. As to why I can't even stand up now – you do remember what happened in Bodhi's crypt?"

"I've heard of… your display," Saemon looked around again, and shuddered. "We have to get out of here." Peregrine put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and it actually seemed to soothe the pirate.

"But how are we supposed to?" John asked no one in particular. "I don't know which bit of Hell this is… "

"Find the Tears," a voice growled behind them. Everyone whirled around to see that the skull seemed to have animated; though it was still firmly affixed to the doors. In the dark sockets were two pinpricks of red light. "They will open the door for you, damned one."

"Right. Which bit of Hell are we in?" John raised an eyebrow.

"In the Testing," the skull replied, and then began to laugh, maniacal, malevolent gurgles of laughter before falling silent again. Inside its sockets, the lights blinked out.

"I have no idea where we are," John sighed. "But this seems to be another stupid puzzle, so I think we should just try to do it. Now we have to be careful – keep in mind this is Hell, even if it doesn't look like it, and there are all sorts of traps – mental or physical." He tried to stand up, but his legs failed him. "Bloody hell!"

The rest of the party looked at each other, then Arundel muttered something to the golem. "Can you ride a horse, John Constantine?" he asked.

"What? Ride that thing?" John eyed the golem warily.

"The gait is smoother than a horse's," Arundel said. "And since you can't walk…"

It took Entreri and Arundel to get John onto the horse, and even then he was so tired he could barely concentrate on staying onto it. : Meri? :

: I can give you energy… but it's only for a short while. After that your body would send you into sleep immediately. I suggest I only give you the energy for the last fight… we can only hope that it's enough. In the meantime, we can still do spells – so long as they're not the difficult ones that need a lot of energy. :

John told the party as much, and transferred the gold sword to his right hand grimly. If he wasn't mistaken about this – soon one of the Princes of Hell would come a-calling… but this time he would be ready. He hoped.

"Which staircase first?" K'yanae asked cheerfully, refusing to let their surroundings curb her spirit. Hell was silent, without the normal screams of the damned that John was used to whenever he came wandering into it. He took this to mean that the place was waiting for them to drop their guard, and then hurt them where it hurt most.

John looked around. "Pick one," he shrugged. "It probably doesn't matter."

They went down the first staircase, which led to a huge rectangular box of a room, carved of red rock. Entreri opened the door, and they stepped inside – to see a djinni that rather resembled the one he'd seen in Irenicus' dungeon, in a small room.

"Welcome to the First Test," the djinni said pleasantly. In his left hand, he held a black sword with a strange edge that curled in around the center then arced out again into a hook before curving towards the hilt. "There is a dragon beyond this chamber, an evil one that has been shut in Hell to do its penance. Only this sword can kill it. You will have to kill it."

"Why do we always have to kill dragons?" Arundel complained. "What did this 'evil' dragon do, then? And what color is it?"

"It burned some villages," the djinni sounded a bit uncertain about this, as if he hadn't expected to be questioned. "Color? Green, I think… "

"You think?" K'yanae asked. "Curious, isn't it, if you can't even remember the color?"

"It's evil… it's a dragon!" the djinni went back to familiar ground with relief.

"Actually, not all dragons are evil," Saemon pointed out dryly.

"Well, if you kill it you'd get to keep the sword," the djinni tried another tack. "This is Blackrazor, a sword of potent power. Even if you just scratch your opponent with this, there is a chance that he'd drop dead immediately, and you'd be healed of some of your wounds."

"What if we kill you and take the sword?" Entreri asked bluntly.

The djinni looked at them, then it snarled, and brought up a ring of fire around it. "Die then, mortals!"

Arundel put a crossbow bolt between its eyes, and it faded into nothing. The crossbow bolt and the black sword clattered onto the ground.

"I wonder if that's safe to pick up," John looked the sword as Arundel picked up his bolt.

: It is, : Meri said. : And you'd need it for something. :

John told the party as much, and Entreri picked it up. Once he did so, a second door opened on the wall, leading to an inner room.

Inside that room was a dragon, smaller than the black they'd seen, with scales of a dark, rich bronze. It shot them a wary look, and swished its tail. "Who are you lot? Where is that djinni?"

"He told us to kill you with this," Entreri said mildly, gesturing at the dragon with the black sword.

"Ah! The Blackrazor," the bronze dragon said with relief. "Would you terribly mind giving it to me? A small experiment got me stuck in this place, and that's the only way I can key out of here."

"Key?" Arundel asked curiously.

"I put a few portal locations inside the sword – it's a bit complicated, but it allows me to portal over planes with ease. Unfortunately, when I got here the sword got confiscated by a large demon and given to that blasted djinni, who uses it to torment me." The dragon sighed. "I've been stuck here longer than I can remember – and considering how time passes in this place, it probably has been longer than I can remember."

"Can we trust this one?" John asked Arundel bluntly.

The dragon looked slightly offended. "I'm a bronze dragon! Of course."

"It's right," Arundel said, "Bronzes are okay, though it must be excruciating for it to be here. Bronzes like water."

"Exactly!" the dragon wailed. "Please, help me."

"Would you happen to know what the 'Tears' are which are needed to open the door outside?" K'yanae asked.

"Tears?" the dragon cocked its head. "Oh, wait." It twirled gracefully and rooted with a claw in the shadow of its lair. "Ah, here it is." It shoved them a fist-sized, light blue crystal shaped like a raindrop, or a tear. "It might have been talking about that. I found it here when I was first shut here, and tried to smash it in a fit of anger, but it can't be destroyed. Now the sword… please?"

"We don't need it anyway," John shrugged, and Entreri tossed it to the dragon with some effort. The dragon's neck snaked forward, and it caught the thing delicately in its mouth, then dropped it on the ground.

"What's in the other staircases?" Saemon asked suddenly.

"I don't know," the dragon shook its head. "I've never been in them… now I apologize, but I really wish to go. Good luck to you, whatever you wish to do! I wish I could take you with me, but the sword is only keyed to me… I believe I'd heard the way out is the large door you said you need the tears for."

"What did you hear?" John pressed.

The dragon sat down on its haunches as it thought. "I believe it was referred to as a 'Hellmouth'."

"A Hellmouth! Of course," John muttered, suddenly remembering a bit of information that he had read about years ago and had thought he had forgotten.

"Can I go now?" the dragon asked plaintively. John nodded, and it growled something at the sword. There was a bright flash of bronze light, and the creature disappeared.

"What is a Hellmouth?" Entreri asked.

"What it literally means – a mouth to Hell," John said, thinking quickly. "Apparently every world – or in your case, what you call a Prime Material Plane – has a Hellmouth, an entrance to hell. Each may connect to any of the Hellmouth exits in the Hell Planes, unless you fix it with some complicated spells. Apparently the Hellmouth exits in the Hell Planes are also entrances to the worlds… you'd come out of a Hellmouth into it. I have no idea how to fix it such that you go to a specific world."

"So this is a chance for you to get back to your world!" K'yanae smiled.

"Yeah, luv." John agreed wearily. "But it's obvious why I never considered it. Right now I'm just interested in getting the hell out of here. We can go back to your world – anywhere but here."

The next staircase led to yet another djinni. "Greetings, mortals," the djinni began, then blinked as he realized Entreri had pulled the stunt involving suddenly appearing with the vortex blade pointing at his throat. "Oh."

"What the hell do you want now?" Entreri growled.

"I'm not the same djinni as my esteemed colleague in the First Test," the djinni said quickly.

"Your esteemed colleague got a few inches of steel between his eyes," Arundel said, fingering his crossbow. "If you don't want to suffer the same fate… "

"All I was to do is to offer you this cloak," the djinni held out a cloak that, to everyone's disgust, seemed to have been sewn from human skin, or something close to it. "It would allow you to resist fear, and so fight the monsters in the room behind this more easily."

"What is the cloak made of?" K'yanae wrinkled her nose.

"Nymph skin," the djinni said.

"That's disgusting," K'yanae voiced her immediate opinion. "Entreri… "

The djinni gulped. "Look, I'm only supposed to offer you the cloak, okay? We don't have to get violent here. I'm not even the one who made it!"

"We don't need the cloak," Arundel said, "The phoenix in John Constantine probably has the Resist Fear spell… if we need that. The Tear is in the next room, isn't it?"

The djinni nodded slowly.

John shrugged. "Kill him anyway. It's safer." As Entreri proceeded to do so, John spoke to the presence in his mind. : A spell, Meri? :

: Coming… :

When the spell was cast, they proceeded to the next room, where they realized that the monsters were actually three rather pissed-off beholders that immediately began casting spells. Peregrine had to step in at times to heal people, and Meri had to occasionally cast dispel magic on some party members that got hit by the domination spells (always unnerving to watch as a friend turned on you), but they eventually managed to cut down the floating creatures and get around to looking for the tear. After finding it in a chest – along with other healing potions that were distributed – they wandered off for the last staircase.

The last chamber had a rather disgusting demon in it that resembled a massive toad crossbred with a human, with a wide mouth full of blunt teeth, and long spines down its back. It also stank, and John could see the werewolves trying to breathe shallowly. "Well, finally," it growled when they approached, remaining crouched on the ground. "I've supposed to ask you some riddles. If you answer correctly, then I'd give you the last Tear you need. If you answer wrongly, I get to eat all of you."

"Aren't you supposed to be a sphinx?" John couldn't resist asking.

The demon stared at him, and John mentally added one more demon to his list of demons that he'd pissed off recently. "Hah. Very funny, human. I like eating funny humans."

The riddle contest started quickly after that, John having landed the party on a wrong foot with the demon. As per normal, Arundel seemed to cheerfully know, instinctively, what the answers to the riddles were, and eventually the demon ran out of riddles and grudgingly gave up the Tear.

"That's some talent you have," Saemon grinned at Arundel as they ascended the stairs.

"Eh… most riddles have been recycled several times over the years," Arundel admitted. "Once you've heard one version, you'd roughly know the answer to all the other versions of it, and I've been around for a long time."

**

John's heart sank a little when he saw who was waiting for them on the platform – but as usual, whenever he met this being, he felt the hot wash of adrenaline – the same reaction he always got whenever he got ready to try and cheat Death one more time and wasn't sure if he'd succeed.

Dressed in a dark, old-style Ulster coat, a black silk shirt and leather pants, the First of the Fallen was in his favorite incarnation for meeting John – a rather wickedly handsome, tall human with black hair tied into a short ponytail. John had no idea why the First always liked to appear to him this way – except for one incident involving his lungs – and suspected that it was probably somewhat in the nature of a private irony. Dark eyes regarded John with a brooding intensity. "Welcome to Hell," he said, and his voice was, as always, strangely compelling.

"One part of it," John said, glad that his voice didn't tremble. "I guess Irenicus is working for you?" : Meri, I'd appreciate some strength right now. : Slowly, strength seeped back into his muscles, enough for him to get off the horse without falling over. His weariness also oozed away.

"He tried to sell me your half-soul," the First said contemptuously, "But that is no sport at all, so he ended up trading his own soul for power."

"It didn't matter anyway, did it?" John countered. "You already knew he was going to Hell if he died. You only needed him to bring me here."

"And in your amusing arrogance, you are correct," the First agreed. "You have escaped me several times, John Constantine – and now you are here in Hell and in my grasp."

"I'm not dead yet," John pointed out mildly.

"That can be arranged." The First smiled cruelly.

"You can't die in Hell," John said, desperately hoping he was correct, though there was a note of doubt here – those monsters had certainly died – or come to a state close to dying. He had heard about this somewhere. "It's a rule."

"This is the Testing," the First said, crossing his arms. "Sometimes used by the old Gods to test followers with all sorts of rubbish – and sometimes these followers are technically invulnerable on all other areas – so this place was created. It is on the outskirts of Hell proper. Death can come here… to all, as those monsters you encountered realized. And in your death – your soul will come to me, for eternal torment."

John smirked at this unbelievable, colossal piece of good luck. In the First's obsession to win John's soul, he had given John an extremely large advantage – and John intended to use it. He held the golden sword in both hands, and spoke a name, pouring into it all his considerable hatred and fear of the First of the Fallen. "Anarazel."

The sword began to pulse, and the dead air of the Testing sprang into screaming wind that roared around all of them, tearing ineffectually at their hair and clothes. The First seemed rooted to the spot as John slowly approached, the sword inexorably tugging him forward.

"You cannot!" the First roared, realizing what the sword was. "Stop!"

A barrier of gibbering, gelatinous, barely human-like creatures appeared in front of him, but the sword sang out a note, and they disappeared. The First shot intense bolts of energy at John, but they turned into doves and flew away at the last moment. Women of great beauty called to him, but the sword sang again, and the voices faded. A simulacrum of himself blurred into existence, sword raised to kill, but a note of from the sword and it vanished. The next simulacrum – that of Kit – nearly made John stop, but the sword tugged him insistently forward, singing away the magic. The horrors called up grew thicker, multiplying with each step he took, until each step seemed to be an eternity as the sword fought first to get rid of the dangers before pulling him to continue.

Finally John was in sword's range of the First – Anarazel – and he saw, for the first time, fear, pure fear, in the face of the Devil, so much fear and something else – defeat, perhaps? – that seemed to have stunned him. And John enjoyed the raw taste of power that surged in him as he saw this fear – and the sword shrilled joyfully as it pulled itself into the heart of the First.

Anarazel screamed, a sound of such deafening intensity that Meri shielded John's ears to hear nothing for a moment, and then began to laugh, hysterical, choked laughter as he stared at John. "You may have escaped me forever… but can you take up my mantle, Constantine?"

John smile was cold as he twisted the blade. "I haven't heard your confession, you bloody bastard – but I think I'd settle for your destruction."

Slowly, the First crumpled to the ground, gurgling as he clutched ineffectually at the sword, and then his body seemed to be sucked into the sword, which was suddenly and abruptly colored black – rather, an intense lack of color, as though someone had taken out a piece of deep space and forged it into a blade.

At the same time, John felt with a sickening feeling that the blade seemed to be trying to seep into his skin. He tried to let it go, but it stuck to his hand, hissing in pleasure. "Meri!"

: If you don't want the power, you have to give it to someone… someone who can handle the power play involved in being a Demon Prince. : Meri spoke quickly and decisively. : I suggest… : she placed an image in his head.

"He's not here!" John said desperately, trying to pull the blade off his hand. He realized the others were approaching, and he whirled to face them, eyes wild. "Don't come any closer!"

: Will him here! This way… : Meri aided John in using some of the power emanating from the sword, opening a gateway of black.

The others let out various exclamations of shock as the gateway pulled in none other than Jarlaxle.

The mercenary leader blinked at his surroundings, obviously disoriented, then stared at John warily. "What am I here for?"

As an answer, John thrust the blade, tip pointed at the ground, at him. "Take it!" Instinctively, Jarlaxle backed away, but Meri shot several psionic images of what taking up the blade would entail at him, and the leader paused, his expression calculating again, though he refused to take up the blade.

"Why would you not be a Price of Hell, John Constantine?" the mercenary finally asked. The sword had, at least, stopped trying to crawl into his skin.

"Power doesn't interest me," John replied. "Only… life."

"You would have life eternal."

"It wouldn't be a life," John shook his head. "I have enough on my hands with my current enemies without gaining a few million others. No patience and no idea how to organize and run entire Planes of Hell, thank you. I'd prefer to be just – John Constantine." It was true – the power that the sword represented actually repulsed him – for if he accepted, he would have chosen a side in the struggle between Heaven and Hell, betraying all his years of balancing on the knife-edge between good and evil, living his life as he knew it. True, sometimes it was a fucked-up life, but it was his… and life in Hell, forever, definitely had its setbacks. If the blue phoenix hadn't been forced onto him, and if he had a choice on whether or not to accept the power – it may have been that he would have refused.

Power invited corruption and enemies. It turned people against you, even those whom you would have never met – because of jealousy, envy or a host of other reasons. John much preferred to use his magic to lead a life that was relatively normal and vaguely obscure – certainly the magic hotshots in the world seldom bothered him, since they looked down on him – even some of his so-called friends. There were days where this irritated him, but he had decided it was somewhat for the best.

Jarlaxle stared at him, then suddenly smiled. "I admire you, John Constantine. Very well – I'd accept." He reached forward, and took the sword from him. The sword let out a roar of victory and assent, then seemed to melt into Jarlaxle, twisting up and out into hundreds of needle-like tentacles that forced themselves into the mercenary's skin. John looked on with fascination, unable to avert his eyes.

Finally it stopped, and Jarlaxle staggered back for a moment, staring at his hands, then back up at John, with completely black eyes. However, when he spoke, the drawl was unmistakable and unchanged. "I suppose you want your half-soul back and the contract you had with my predecessor broken."

"That for starters," John said cautiously. "And then… you could put all of them back on their world, in the correct dimension and place – Suldanesselar, for preference – then put me back on mine. I think the Hellmouth on my world is somewhere in California."

Jarlaxle nodded, and from somewhere John heard Irenicus scream once, an anguished cry, then his soul rushed back in, displacing Meri who vacated the space hastily, muttering about the lack of prior warning.

It felt good to be whole again. "Thanks," John told Jarlaxle.

"I'm the one who should thank you," Jarlaxle flexed his fingers. "This is going to be highly enjoyable."

**

"He what!?" Zaknafein demanded.

K'yanae, Entreri, Saemon, Peregrine, Arundel and his golem, some of the elven council, Queen Ellesime and Zaknafein were gathered in the council room of Suldanesselar, where K'yanae was giving an account of what had happened. The rest of the group still seemed rather dazed by the events that had happened.

"He gave Jarlaxle the sword," K'yanae repeated mildly, "Now Jarlaxle is a Demon Prince. I think it's a very good choice, actually – considering Bregan D'aerthe is mostly gone, and Jarlaxle was obviously itching for a new toy - and I have a suspicion John, or his phoenix Meridian didn't come up with the choice by themselves." She shot the white cat that Zaknafein was absently stroking on his lap a hard look. The cat had simply appeared when they had emerged on the Tree of Life, and led them to the council room where it had jumped onto Zaknafein's lap, to her father's intense annoyance.

It had black eyes with specks of white light in them, resembling a night speckled with stars… at this moment, it purred at her, neither confirming or denying her allegations.

"Considering how Constantine didn't even know Jarlaxle that well," K'yanae voiced the rest of her suspicions. "Not to mention the entire transfer and the way he got rid of the First of the Fallen seemed remarkably simple. He got the sword conveniently before he got to the Trees of Life, and conveniently, we end up in the Plane of Hell where you can get killed in, and even more conveniently, the First of the Fallen appears in it. There are probably logical reasons, but frankly I hate coincidences." The cat ignored her and began to wash its paws industriously. K'yanae sighed.

"True," Zaknafein leant back in his chair. "Jarlaxle, of all the mortals I've met so far, probably has the best idea of how to actually survive in a hostile and devious environment." He smiled suddenly. "If he were to conquer all the planes of hell… now that would be truly amusing."

"So where is John Constantine now?" Ellesime asked.

"He went through the Hellmouth before us after a few short good-byes, headed for his world," K'yanae recalled thoughtfully. "Said he was dying for a real smoke – whatever that meant."

--

Little Notes and References:

On the Puzzles: I thought the BG II version of Hell was surprisingly benign. Most of the puzzles would probably be changed here, because I know what this version of John's reaction to the save-your-friends-or-lose-some-of-your-stats test would be, and I don't want to lose any of the party members, let alone two. Technically there are five staircases, but well… the object of each puzzle at the end is basically the same anyway.

As to the bronze dragon – actually in the game it looks green, but I took a belated look in the Monster Manual, and apparently greens attack with little or no provocation, instead of protesting like the dragon in the game.

Charm spells: I hate charm spells.

The Devil's Confession: John once professed an urge to listen to the Devil's Confession. This was in one issue – I can't remember which – where there was a mad pastor who went insane after listening to the confession of the Devil – i.e. the First of the Fallen, not Lucifer – one day.

White cat: If you're one of those people who read the extremely long-winded Rewritten series, you'd know that the white cat is the manifestation of Morikan on this version of the world. He likes to irritate Zaknafein.

Endings: I was tired of the normal plot line: See evil mage. Let Evil mage chase you around, then chase evil mage around, meet him for final big battle, and kill evil mage sort of plot.