him. Throughout the ages of screaming agony in the river there had been no emotion associated with his sufferings. How did it feel to have his skin seared from his body, his eyes boiled in their sockets, his genitals burned away? He could never grasp these; such memories danced just out of reach.
That was the rub. If he could remember what it felt, perhaps he wouldn't fear the demons so much. But in the heat of the moment, any kind of mental preparation he had made vanished into a cloud of palpating terror and pain. He always begged not to be thrown back into the river, a simpering weakling, utterly without shame or pity. He screamed the same pathetic, high-pitched scream that he let out every time his body hit the flaming lava, the kind of blameless, ringing screech that only mortal injury and mortal fear can evoke.
Except it wasn't mortal in this place; each time he escaped from the river, Aeanas was made whole again. Somehow. He really didn't have time to think about it, because the respites between tortures seemed fleeting and ephemeral at best. Sometimes he saw others tormented as he, but that really didn't matter.
He was dead.
This was Hell.
And this was how he was going to spend eternity. Each soul-rending abuse seared him but did not destroy him. The memories were not his to cherish. He would never know the wondrous oblivion of insanity. He was instead doomed to repeat every torment as though it was his first, though he knew this wasn't the case.
So, as Aeanas sprawled on the bank, writhing from his burns but never dying, he was in the full grip of panic. His eyesight was only coming back and he would have screamed if he could, if his lungs had not been seared to uselessness. Breathed if he could. Instead, the hard earth of Hell smashed into Aeanas' flailing form. He nevertheless attempted to scramble away. From what, he couldn't say, because he couldn't see more than a few feet. And he couldn't get very far, because he still couldn't breathe. Then, at once, the choking fume and heat were gone. Reflexively, he gulped in air. The sulfur-laden fumes did nothing good for his lungs, but breath was breath. Based on his fuzzy past, he expected perhaps a barrel of molten rock to be poured over him it didn’t happen. He opened his eyes, and he saw a hand. But this hand wasn't scaled. It had no claws. It was a human hand, as his own. Following it up, he saw its owner: a man, naked, stood before him. In his far hand was a spear-no, a trident, but beyond that, the visage of Hell faded to a blurry, ruddy nihility.
Aeanas reeled and tried to scrabble away. What new torment was this? But the figure snatched Aeanas and hauled him to his feet.
'It's alright!' he said in a language that wasn't Aeanas'. But yet, he understood it. How could that be? 'What's your name, soldier?'
Aeanas gulped. His throat, long charred by the heat and flames, was already feeling better. 'Aeanas,' he replied finally.
'Anus?!' another voice shouted. A similarly-naked figure, also carrying a trident, stepped under the tree, into the range where Aeanas could see clearly. 'Your name is Anus?!' The man roared with laughter.
'Cool it, DeVanzo,' the first man snapped. Again, Aeanas was forced to marvel at the fact that the two were speaking an entirely different language than his own. The first man continued: 'He said, 'Aeanas.' That's Greek, right?'
Aeanas nodded, then asked with some timidity: 'Who are you?'
The first man started. 'Oh, right! Name's Tucker McElroy, from Tennessee originally, though most recently I found myself in the molten river a ways that way. This uncouth gentleman's name is Artie DeVanzo, from New Jersey.'
Aeanas nodded blankly. New Jersey? What was that? Where was Old Jersey?
McElroy regarded Aeanas for a moment, then said, 'Say, you ain't a new arrival, are you? How long you been here, son?'
Aeanas shrugged. 'I…could not tell you. A long time, I am sure.'
'Well,' DeVanzo said, stepping in, 'how did you die?'
'I was struck in the heart with an arrow,' Aeanas said. 'Then, I believe my throat was cut.'
McElroy whistled. 'Ain't that a way to go. What was you doin'? Hunting? I didn't know they did that over in Greece.'
Aeanas shook his head, his puzzlement now building into a frustration. 'Of course not. I was in battle!'
McElroy did a double take. 'Battle? Just how old are you, anyway? Shit, no one's used bows and arrows in battle for five or six hundred years!'
DeVanzo then interjected. 'What battle were you in? Where was it?'
'It was in Greece, at Thermopylae,' Aeanas said warily. Were these demons, trying to trick him into revealing something? What could they be after?
McElroy's eyes went wide, as did DeVanzo's. 'Holeeeeee shit,' McElroy said. 'You died at Thermopylae? The Thermopylae? King Leonidas? Xerxes? The Persians? The Spartans?'
Aeanas nodded. 'Yes. Do you know of it?'
McElroy snorted. 'It's only one of the most famous battles in history!'
Aeanas shifted his weight. He fear was actually abating. Were they trying to lull him into sedation? 'Why?' he asked McElroy in typical laconic bluntness. 'It was a simple delaying action. What makes that so famous?'
DeVanzo sputtered, 'You faced a million Persians! And there were only three hundred of you!'
'Wrong,' Aeanas corrected immediately. 'Thespians more than double our number stayed, and we had the Thebans.'
McElroy shook his head. 'That don't matter none! We got ourselves a genuine Spartiate!' McElroy was now speaking to the other man, DeVanzo. 'Man, I can't wait to bring him back to base! A Spartan hoplite from Thermopylae! One of the three hundred!'
'Yeah, and the oldest member of the resistance!' DeVanzo chimed in. 'I bet that'll give Ori a thing or two to chew on!'
'Ori's another old revival,' McElroy said to Aeanas by way of explanation. 'He's a warrior called a Samurai, from a place called Japan, that…well, shoot, it'd be outside what you'd know as the world!' The two men laughed easily together.
'Stop!' Aeanas roared. They would get no more from him; they would confuse him no longer. From this moment forward, they paid for information in blood.
He surged at McElroy and wrapped his arms around him. With fluidity that came with years of practice, he wrenched the man bodily into the air and slammed him to the ground. Most importantly, as he rose, he snatched up the trident and advanced on DeVanzo. DeVanzo was obviously some kind of fool; he wasn't even holding his weapon properly. With three swift motions, Aeanas swatted the trident aside, forced it from his grasp, and had a point at DeVanzo's throat.
The man instantly raised his hands, and Aeanas jammed it in hard enough to draw blood. He then rotated around DeVanzo so that he was standing side by side with still-dazed McElroy. Through clenched teeth, he hissed: 'Explain yourselves, else I will destroy you both!'
And much to his surprise, both men smiled broadly.
'You know, we could actually use you!' McElroy shouted, brushing the reddish dust from his body. A cut on his knee bled feebly. 'Alright, here are your answers: as you've probably figured out, you're in Hell. You've been dead for over 25 centuries. That's 2,500 years. The world as you knew it does not exist anymore! You understand? Everyone you ever knew is dead, and probably here, being tortured. You have a wife? Kids? They're somewhere out here!' McElroy gestured wildly at the Hellscape surrounding them. 'And they've suffered exactly as you have for that last 2,500 years! Do you hear me?'
Aeanas lowered the trident. McElroy went on, 'But things have changed. The situation has changed. We're fighting back, both here in Hell, and on Earth. We're gonna free as many soldiers as we can, and we'll all fight against Hell. Most times, it's modern soldiers, but hey, I can't wait for the guys back on Earth to hear that we got Spartan warrior and a Samurai fightin' with us. Won't that be a trip?
'Anyway, Aeanas, we are the Hell's People's Liberation Front, and we want you to join us.' McElroy held his hand out.
Aeanas paused, but just for a moment, then passed the trident back to him. 'Good,' McElroy continued. 'We could probably use some more people proficient in your type of fighting. Word is that our cell won't be getting supplied with modern weapons for a while, so for the time being, we're stuck with more… primitive means of defending ourselves and killing ba-demons. Plus a trick or two we've learned over the centuries.'
