Infernus

A student expressed his doubts. “I don’t believe you.”

“I have fashioned this creature I merely call ‘The Tree’ after J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent creation ‘Treebeard.’ You will all love him very much.”

The class was really in for it now. The Legend loved doing this sort of thing, with no apologies whatsoever. He quoted, from memory, this entire story of untold beauty.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“A SINGULAR TABLEAU”

“My son, let me show you something so fierce that it is considered beautiful in my park of Infernus. The other ruling demons envy my collection of tableaus. I was blessed, because I rule well. Have I told you what the laws are that govern a few of the other parks?”

“No, and I was afraid to ask.”

“As well you should be. I provide (for you alone) all you need.”

“How much do you know?”

“As if you expected me to reply with any answer other than, ‘Everything.’ Now be silent while I entertain you. There is a silver demon that rules a park not many light years hence. Its roiling hideousness does not suit your training, so you were sent here. Souls there just roll around in a darkness that can be felt. They bite each other and scream and slice one another endlessly with their claws.

“Another ruling demon — his demonstrative, withering look would permanently liquefy you — is the black prince of The Kingdom of Burning Winds. His domain abuts mine on the eastern side.

“There are a million others to cover the more than ten billion hopeless souls inhabiting Infernus.”

“My father,” the son whimpered, “this knowledge boils my head further.”

“As was its purpose!” The demon laughed. “Are you ready to witness this fierce tableau that many envy? It will burn away more of what is left of your tiny soul.”

“Yes, my father.”

The son’s mouth was white with cancerous sores; pus freely flowed past his sizzling lips onto the frying stones at their feet.

“You have become quite the liar, my son.”

“Yes,” the son stated simply.

“We will pretend, for a moment, that the dream world was more than just that. As you can tell, we have entered the facsimile of a rich green forest. But only by the wildest stretch of the imagination could you believe it is a cool fall day, for we are toasting at a goodly rate. Now watch helplessly as the tableau plays out. You may laugh maniacally, but you can’t help them or interfere or join in to torment them further because it is in the past.”

“And nor would I want to interfere or help anyone, my father.”

“You are learning, son. Now hold tight and observe.”

Two teenage boys enter the emerald glade. A big boy, quickly packing muscle onto his yet childlike body, carried an axe; the other one looked frail and carried a pick. The grass splattered the boys’ boots with dew as they fearlessly walked into a clearing. The yellow shafts of sunlight glittered among the garden.

The skinny boy, dressed in simple peasant greens (that matched the other boy’s only in color) spoke up. His voice carried over the light breezes that played in the swaying tops of the trees. “I thought this was the place guarded by a hideous tree-demon. You told me-”

“Shut up!” the big boy said. “The witch said there was a living heart in the tree. If we could chop out the heart, we will have all the treasures hidden within it.”

“If that were true, then why hasn’t she done it?”

The big boy’s cheeks flushed with impatience. “She said the tree magically prevents her from approaching this area. She guaranteed me (using her mortality as her pledge) that if she came here, the tree would crush her heart without remorse.”

“Which tree do you think it is?”

* * *

Red said, “My son, this is the part I love watching o’er and o’er!”

“I can’t wait to rejoice with you, Father!”

* * *

“Look!” the big boy said, pointing. “I’ll bet this is it.”

They both, attracted to its differentness from the other trees, approached it deliberately, slowly. They tried to take in the foaming evil rolling out of its gray heart, tasting it in the crisp air. The bark jutted out from some of the gray branches; some limbs were starkly white, but large strips of cracked ancient bark were hanging loosely there as well. Many of its branches and smaller capillaries were littered around its trunk and base. Thick, green/gray veins of roots broke the ground, and a few looped back into the loam, anchoring the imprisoned tree to the earth.

“Let’s chop it!” the big boy said, leading them to stand directly beneath its mighty swaying branches.

“It almost seems like… ” The skinny boy chuckled anxiously. “… like it has a face.”

The big one shouldered his axe and prepared to swing at the base with all his might. He grunted with the effort.

Then everything changed.

A great roaring tumult of snapping branches and twigs arose to splatter the boys’ four eardrums. They both covered their ears — too little, too late. Blood trickled thinly between their fingers. The pain was mighty. Their ears rang.

When they looked up, they saw Doom staring in their faces; they shrieked while their sanity fled and hid. They stained the front of their pantaloons brown.

A stretched, splintered face hung above them. It quivered with unhinged evil and seared them with its gaze. What they now saw in its “eyes” was wrath, contempt, such unmitigated, shrieking, blood-soaked murder!

Its jaws, teeth and the wooden sinews of its visage cracked and threw splinters into their faces as it spoke. The voice thundered through the boys’ bodies like hot shockwaves in solid bass notes. They desperately tried to shriek until their brains exploded.

“We can’t have all this screaming,” said the tree. “You’ll bring the rest of those rat-bag villagers before I need them.”

Its groping branches shattered their teeth as it searched for something within their mouths. Both tongues were ripped out while they stood quivering in place.

A great branch in the form of a “Y” came coolly snaking from behind its trunk and lifted the skinny boy into the air. Cradled by his neck, he hung to the side of the tree.

It creaked its trunk to look at the skinny boy, but spoke to the fat one. “You will not believe the ease with which I shall dispose of your companion, fat boy. Know two things: one, the death of the skinny boy will only be sudden for my immediate pleasure and your amazement; two, the length of time I will torture your baby fat body will be legendary, even by my standards. When the villagers find what profanity I have accomplished — of course finding drying strips of you in my branches won’t hurt, either — they will run from this glade, filling their pantaloons, and will be too afraid to ever come here again.”

The tree spoke softly, almost maternally. “You have been told about the living heart that lives within me. The witch who told you this is my slave. She no doubt told you some nonsense about riches untold that I’m supposed to have somewhere here. It is her heart that I have imprisoned inside that keeps me alive, boys. To kill me would free her to die in an instant. She has lived many hundreds of years now, and that’s a long time, even for a witch. She’s tired and wants to rest.”

The tree turned its face to the big boy who still stood on the ground, quite insane. Within seconds, the tree had separated every part of the skinny boy from the rest. As the creaking and snapping subsided, little thumps could be heard when the parts thudded to the ground like soft drumbeats.

“Now,” the tree said, with an expression that resembled unbridled affection (but wasn’t quite), “do you have any idea what I am going to do with you, boy?” The tree lowered its face until it touched noses with him. The boy