Page 10 of Altar of Flesh

My mind’s eyes showed me all sorts of things: flesh that bubbled and bled off the bone. Death eternal, reliving the same agonising seconds over and over for however long I kept contact with the grass. A strange overtaking of my body, a force transforming it into a vessel, where the seeds of evil took root in my lungs and, bit by bit, destroyed the markers of my humanity, eating everything familiar away until I was a nameless demon myself.

Whether these thoughts were real or simply my fears, I did not test the theory. I knew already, based on Malphas’ assertion that I had eaten from the realm and would be more ‘settled’, thatmaintaining my humanity might have been a battle I could not win. Over time, I guessed, my mortal form would change. How could it not? I had no concept of time here, but undoubtedly, even a second in Hell would alter my body.

The thought unnerved me. I wanted to be as I remembered; I wanted to hold onto the old Alessandro as long as I could. In truth, I wanted to retain the identity I’d had most of my life. To be the priest corrupted by the demon—not a disgraced, ex-communicated layman turned demonic. What did that say about me? Perhaps I romanticised my old station. Or perhaps I wanted God to see me; I wanted to fear God as much as I wanted Him to know I was blaspheming against him.

I did not want to lose the thing that made my actions sacrilegious. I wanted this to be a sin.

I bit down on my tongue to ground my wandering mind. No matter the why—I knew what I had to do. With Asmodeus and all the demons I would have to pleasure to reach my new God spurring me on, I walked that dry path with my traitorous mind evoking Exodus; it echoed in my skull, again and again:

“. . .and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.”

This is how I came to the library.

7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ido not know if it was an actual place or something Hell itself conjured for me, but it sprang up from the ground the way the church had where the lesser demons had impaled me. The dry path stopped abruptly, and the red grass shivered and danced in an unnatural wind I could not feel. Then, emerging chthonic, a white dusty stone rumbled out of the earth. Layered stone slabs as tall as myself began to rise, packed upon one another in the way of towering cathedrals, and within several of my panicked breaths, the structure rose to great heights. It was a spiralling monstrosity of nonsensical architecture.

I craned back, trying to see the top of it, shielding my face from the sudden storm of rock dust that was dredged up by the movement. When it finally subsided, an open archway appeared in front of me.

If ever there was such a definitive answer to a prayer for guidance, this was it.

I walked inside without fear.

It was not a structure that could have ever existed on earth. I could describe it as a set of ruined cathedrals stacked precariously upon one another, a building that required nonatural laws to be in place. Gravity did not affect it, and nor did it seem structurally unsound, though there existed very little in the way of supporting beams. The arched doorway led into the lower level, a foyer-like expanse with cracked black and white tiles flecked with green. Scattered wooden desks lay about, suffering through various states of decay. It was only when I looked up and became confronted by the strange mishmash of levels, floating bookshelves, suspended rocky platforms and the like that I understood it to be a library.

Though, of course, like none I had ever encountered before.

The foyer had a staircase, one of those incredibly gaudy styles that split needlessly, both sets of stairs reaching the same landing. I climbed one side incautiously, drawn forward by an unnameable feeling. A familiar scent wafted to me. Books, aged leather, amber, the mildewed rot of tomes long left unattended. There was no sound save for the wind outside.

Level upon level of information spanned like this. Briefly, I was overcome by the sheer size of the place, and I could not comprehend what I was to learn in this collection of knowledge. I picked up the first book I came to, its red cover so worn the title had bled into the fabric, and when I opened it, I was confounded. I tried the next and the next, and only a few books had any sentences I could read fully.

Philosophy, astronomy, rhetoric, logic—there were sections dictated by signs in perfect Italian, but the books were hostage to an infernal language I could not comprehend. In fact, when I read, I felt the letters running from me, and if I was ever on the verge of understanding the words, they would shift and change to escape my comprehension.

I put down the tomes. I was only here for one thing—I had asked to understand the next rank I was to encounter on my journey to Asmodeus. So, as ever before, I kept that impetusin my mind’s eye and let my body settle until I felt the pull of direction.

I climbed. It was no easy task. The stairs that existed in the foyer did not exist on other levels, or at least in no helpful way. Some stairs floated aimlessly and led to nowhere. Others were upside down or placed along bookshelves, or shrunken as if for ants to use. It meant that, as my body felt called deeper and deeper into the chaotic structure, I was clambering up bookshelves and leaping to new platforms, and I was not by any stretch of the imagination a wildly athletic man. Coupled with my nudeness, I felt ashamed of how desperately I moved. But this was what I wanted, what I had committed to, and shame was God’s domain.

The structure somehow settled in the upper reaches. Clouds surrounded me, and I could no longer see the bottom, which had been swallowed up by a thick nacreous, fog. The ceiling of this place was vaulted and supported by multiple cross-beams, so it resembled a barn, though the roof and walls were made of the same white stone as the rest of the place. The floors appeared to be a deep mahogany and the bookshelves were scarce. Most of them were pressed against the walls, leaving the centre of the room exposed. It was there I saw a sigil, very similar to that in Malphas’ territory:

Cautiously, I walked to it. A plain-handled knife had been left in its centre. The blade appeared clean, and the sigil was dry of blood.

My understanding of seals and sigils was exceptionally limited, given their occult nature and the church’s fear of such teachings. I knew vaguely of the Lesser Key of Solomon but had always been too frightened to read it. Holy men who had encountered demons or were scholars of demonology often had their expertise called upon, but I was too lowly a don to ever encounter them. Seals, as I understood them, should have warded demons off. But my blood had mingled with Malphas’ and called it forth—a summoning, a covenant, a deal with a devil.

I stepped away from this seal. Was I in the Knight’s territory, standing in amongst all this knowledge? When I had thought I wanted to know it, had I been led directly to it instead?

I turned and let myself move to the bookshelves, dragging my hands over the tomes until my fingers paused. It wasn’t a naturaldecision. My whole body ceased moving over one particular tome. I pulled the book free, a thick thing inscribed with Latin,De Daemonibus In Circulo Asmodei.

On the demons in Asmodeus’ circle.

I tried to open it from the first page, but the tome refused. It was as if all the pages were a singular piece, a thick wad. I tried the back cover and was met with the same resistance. But when I pressed upon the middle, the tome split open like ripe fruit. Unseen air flicked through the pages and settled upon a spread.

I read:

Furcas, eques inferni, cujus statio ei singularis est, qui viginti legiones daemonum sub eius imperio habet.

Furcas, the Knight of Hell, whose station is unique to him, who has twenty legions of demons under his command.

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