As Black as Hell
"Alexander! Tessa! Wait!" Magnus desperately called out as he hurriedly pursued the echo of voices and the hints of movement around yet another dark corner. Even though he couldn't make out the words, he was sure it was them he had heard: Alec's unmistakable gentle voice, and Tessa's musical and old-fashioned accent. But as he took the last turn, he run almost head first into yet another dead end. Frantically, he searched for another path but all he saw were dark green hedges, closely intertwined creating an impenetrable barrier, reaching up so high that Magnus could not see where the green ended, and the black sky began.
As Magnus pondered for the thousandth time how long he had been trapped, wandering and lost in this endless maze, he run his hands through his hair, its ends standing in all directions, proof of his increasing despair. Hard as he had tried, he had a long time ago lost his sense of time and direction and could no longer tell whether it had been a thousand days or a thousand years since he had entered this field of punishment. If someone asked, he was not even sure he could remember how or why he had been trapped here.
Magnus had just wanted to take a break, to quiet his thoughts and his unruly feelings before making a decision about what to do with his relationship with Alec. He had wanted to stop hurting and yearning for the Shadowhunter long enough to sort out his feelings and contemplate his future. He had not intended to completely let go of his grasp on reality. Perhaps he had misjudged the depth of his sorrow. For as soon as he allowed the memories to embrace him, to shelter him in what he thought was their healing cocoon, they had overtaken him, invited other memories along, other loses, other absences, other sorrows. Before he could stop them, the memories and the sorrows had dragged him into a frigid world full of shadows.
That is how his torment had begun: with the sweet temptation of soothing memories, memories that lured him into this confusing labyrinth. Once he was trapped, the memories turned bitter and dark before being swallowed by a demonic and ever-advancing fog, a fog conjured up by his father as punishment for Magnus' rebelliousness. In his effort to protect that which he most cherished, Magnus had been forced to run farther and farther into the maze, escaping from a darkness that quickly consumed the world around him, looking for a way out or a way through. As the fog advanced taking more and more, relentlessly rewriting his past, his world became smaller and his memories less certain. A few times, he had taken a wrong turn and when he had tried to retrace his steps, he had found that the fog had already devoured the place he had just left. So, he was forced to keep pushing on, unable to turn back, lost, disoriented and at the mercy of unpredictable and ever-changing twists in his path.
However, disorientation, entrapment and the futile search for an exit were not the worse of the punishments his father had prepared for him. "You have finally come back to your creator, demon's son," his father, Asmodeus Prince of Hell, had said by way of greeting, when he first appeared to Magnus, a cold expression in his black pitiless eyes, contempt in the facade that masked his true face.
"I am not here by my own desire," Magnus had replied, trying his best to conceal his surprise when he took a turn in the maze and found himself unexpectedly in a large stone room illuminated with torches. His father, dressed in the French fashion of the 1700s – black coat, lavishly decorated wine-red silk waistcoat, knee length black breeches and a black lace jabot tied around his neck – sat on a large and intricately carved wooden chair, surrounded by some of his courtesans, demons wearing eerie masks. Asmodeus' attire or his presence should not have surprised Magnus. After all, it had been the early 18th century when a young Magnus had finally liberated himself from his father's chains and had vanished him to Edom. And, his father was probably the most vindictive of Lilith's princes. Magnus had known immediately both that his father was the reason for his troubles, and that things would get considerably worse before he could even hope for them to improve.
"Is this how Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, greets his father to whom he owes his powers, his immortality and all his achievements?" his father had asked with a smile that was half a sneer. "After all your offenses and betrayals, after you consort and engage in carnal sin with the Nephilim, our enemy, after you vanished us to this forsaken place, can you not even manage a modicum of humility when in the presence of your father and creator?" Some of his minions standing around the room had made noises of apparent outrage.
"Let's not attempt to deceive ourselves, father," Magnus had stated, the word father passing through his lips as if he was trying to spit out an unwittingly swallowed bitter poison. The reference to his relationship to Alec sent a shiver down Magnus' spine. He should have known that from his place of banishment Asmodeus would continue to keep taps on him. "First of all, if I ever owed you anything, I paid that debt dearly a long time ago, and, secondly, there is no love lost between us. Our last encounter is sufficient proof of that. What do you want from me?"
"I can see that you remain ungrateful and unrepentant," replied Asmodeus, the smile gone, replaced by a look of profound hatred, a hatred that made his eyes turn a smoldering red that resembled lava. Magnus could clearly remember a time when those eyes had made him quiver in terror. While those eyes still unsettled him, especially in his current surroundings, they now provoked him more contempt than fear. "You will be disappointed to know that there is nothing I want from you. I already have what I want. After three centuries, I finally have you in my grasp."
"So, it is to you to whom I owe my unexpected trip to Edom," Magnus said, imbuing as much sarcasm as he could muster into his words. He was determined not to show weakness, not in front of his father. "I am always happy to take holiday, but I prefer sunny and warm places, you know, sand, beaches and, certainly, much better company," he added weaving a hand around the room.
"No, my son," replied Asmodeus, a disdainful smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "You owe your present predicament to your own self. Your weakness, your lovesickness for that deceitful Nephilim, and your inability to overcome your insufferable human tendency to grieve what you have lost is what has afforded us this rare opportunity for vengeance. They are also the key that will free us from this place. You see," he added rubbing his hands together in a gesture of anticipation, "my vengeance is also my salvation. The longer you suffer, the stronger I will become. When there is nothing left of you but a pile of dried bones and an empty mind, I will finally be free. We could not have asked for a sweeter vengeance."
Asmodeus' words caused another shiver to run down Magnus' spine, a shiver that reached the very marrow of his bones and caused the hair in the back of his neck to stand up. Magnus rarely felt terror. He got scared, like most people did, but very few things ever terrified him. Yet, his father's words were a bad omen, not just a threat, but rather the certain preamble to catastrophe. "Once again, you underestimate me, father," stated Magnus, his tone mirroring the hatred and disdain in his father's voice, his mind singularly focused on not showing his fear.
"Not this time," interjected Asmodeus, sinuously standing and taking two steps towards Magnus. "This time it is you who underestimates us. Not only are you not completely correct about your location; for you are not precisely in Edom. We also know exactly what your weakness is. We will take everything you hold most dear. One by one, we will take your most cherished memories and thoughts. We will pluck them one by one, as one plucks the wings from a butterfly, until there is nothing left of you, but an empty conduit leading us to the mundane realm, that realm you have tried so hard to protect from us. Now, run, Magnus Bane, run for your life and for the life of those whose safety and love you value so much. Run!" he repeated, his voice gaining in intensity and volume with each passing second. The courtesans standing around the room began to chant the word over and over and louder and louder.
As the word echoed in tens of voices around the room, Asmodeus gave Magnus an evil smile before lifting his arms and turning his face to the sky, his mouth agape. From it a black fog emerged, a fog that descended upon the room, obscuring his father, his minions and menacingly advancing towards Magnus. As the fog approached, Magnus saw that it was not just darkness trapped in it. Skeletal faces, their empty sockets fixedly looking at Magnus, and the horrific tentacles and leathery wings of unseen monsters floated in the black cloud. So, Magnus had no other choice but to run.
Since that first encounter, Magnus had been constantly on the move, trying to stay ahead of his father's vengeance, hoping against hope to find a way out. It had not taken long for
Magnus to grasp the meaning of his father's words. For they had not yet ceased to echo in his ears when Magnus took a turn and found himself in another room, the maze abruptly gone. He looked around momentarily disoriented, and saw that he was in a wooden, low ceiling edifice, not really a cottage, but more like a shack. A fire burned in the hearth, and a lighted candled on a rustic holder rested on a black wooden table surrounded by two chairs. The place was silent except for the call of cicadas outside the only window.
"Do you think this will do Mr. Bane?" came a deep-toned and nervous voice from behind Magnus. Startled, Magnus turned and came almost face to face with his old friend James. His black eyes, those eyes that always seemed to contain wisdom than exceeded his years reflected the light from the fire and accentuated his youthful beauty. James was adjusting a white cravat around his neck and smoothing the front of his linen shirt and black jacket. Magnus suddenly realized where he was and what night this was. He had not thought about this night in over a hundred years but now the memory was unexpectedly clear. This was the night that he had helped his friends Harriet and James escape South Carolina to the slavery-free states in the North.
James' hands trembled, and his eyes shifted from Magnus to the door, afraid, Magnus knew, that they would be caught before they even had the chance to begin their journey to freedom.
"It will do well enough," Magnus replied as he remembered doing all those decades ago. And, then, as in all those decades ago, Harriet came into the room, an equally nervous smile on her young face, her bonny and calloused hands – the result of a life of hard labour – holding up her skirts to avoid getting mud in them. Magnus stifled a sigh. He hadn't remembered just how young Harriet and James had been, not even twenty yet, but with the weight of centuries of violence and injustice on their shoulders.
"It is quiet outside," Harriet whispered, "everyone has retired for the night. We should go." Magnus remembered then that James' bravery and determination had only been equal to Harriet's. The young woman was fierce, and her mind was sharp like few others Magnus had met.
They had been planning this nights for weeks, ever since Magnus met James during a trip south and the young man spoke of his dreams of freedom. But the plan had acquired unexpected urgency in the last few hours. James had been sold this morning at the slave market in town and in the morning, he was to be shipped to a plantation hundreds of miles away. Harriet, whom James had secretly married, had been condemned to stay behind, carrying their yet unborn child. Faced with James' look of desperation and the certainty that the young man would do something unwise just to avoid his brutal fate, Magnus had agreed to help, to use his magic and risk being discovered by the warlocks that sold their services to slave owners and hunting parties. This night, he would use his powers to glamor James and Harriet, to conceal them under white faces: a father and daughter travelling with a Dutch merchant. They would make it all the way to New York and Harriet and James would live a long life, a life of hard work and sometimes hardship, a life of helping others escape similar fates, a life of freedom. Magnus would visit them often over the following decades and would see their children grow and become good men and women. Sometimes over the years, he would arrive at their home with other equally desperate people searching for escape from this brutal time in history.
At least that was how the events of this night were supposed to have happened. His father, with his unquenchable thirst for vengeance, had other plans, and the memory did not have the same ending. As soon as they got on their way, a hunting party descended on their tracks, a warlock with smoldering red eyes assisting in the hunt, and they were quickly captured. Magnus could not protect his friends. As hard as he tried to muster his magic, his powers didn't work. He felt, for the first time in his long life, completely powerless and defenseless.
That was not were his punishment ended. Asmodeus forced Magnus to witness James and Harriet being tied to the whipping post. The cracking sound of the whip as it came down on skin, the horrible screams and cries for mercy – screams and cries that soon turned into low moans and then into nothing – pierced Magnus' ears, and cut his heart to shreds. A memory that had been one of Magnus' warmest turned vicious and ugly. A child who was meant to grow up free never had the chance to be born. A couple who was destined to live in love and generosity left their lives and their dreams for freedom tied to that infernal post before the fog came and swallowed them. The last thing Magnus heard as he began to run again was his father's sarcastic and booming voice: "this is what happens when your creator takes away what he so generously bestowed on you."
That had been the first of countless blows, of countless memories recalled and destroyed, of moments of joy scratched and rewritten by his father's relentless pen. "This is not how it happened," Magnus kept repeating at first, but as time in the maze stretched without end, and as his father made him recall so many of the faces and events that had populated his long life, Magnus began to doubt his own mind. George, whom Magnus had loved with a love that had felt eternal, left for war promising to return. But instead of knocking at Magnus' door one unexpected sunny morning, all Magnus got was his inert body, his chest pierced by a bayonet. His friend Isabella, no longer held her newborn child, but instead looked at Magnus with hate in her lovely green eyes.
"You killed my baby, you demon spawn," she screamed holding the unmoving bundle against her chest.
"Isabella," Magnus pleaded, "I am sorry, I tried."
"Everything you touch dies, for you are the child of death. Leave my sight demon!"
Every time, with every savage mutilation of his memories, Magnus grew more and more helpless and hopeless, unable to change the outcome, unable to save those and that which he loved. That was his father's vengeance: to give the deceiving gifts of memories – of faces from long ego yet still remembered, of smiles long departed and yet much yearned for, of touches long faded yet still beloved – just to take them away. And as Magnus kept going father and father into the maze, trying to stay ahead of the fog, he began to fear and doubt his own capacity to recall.
Once in a while, Magnus heard Alec's voice, gentle and loving, calling him, and he thought he saw his silhouette just as it turned a corner. But every time Magnus called for Alec, every time he went after him, he received no answer and found only another twist in his path. In time, he realized this was also part of his father's punishment: to keep him hoping just to take that hope away. Asmodeus wanted him to experience what is was to get a glimpse, but never a touch of what Magnus loved the most.