Inferno 7002

3. THE COURT OF FILTH

Greg felt like he'd been wandering around in the dark for hours. It had probably only been a few minutes.

The corridor had turned out to be a single long passageway in some kind of labyrinth. Greg vaguely remembered some kind of trick about solving mazes that he'd learned from his little brother, but he couldn't seem to remember it now, especially since that indisctinct moaning sound kept drifting from everywhere at once. Greg was getting really sick of that moaning sound.

"Hey, Mr Walker in the Dark," he yelled. "How about how just come on over here and we can just, y'know, fight straight up?"

The Walker of the Dark declined to reply.

Greg kept wandering. After a while he started to hear a new sound. Like the moaning, it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once: a rustling sound, like wings brushing up against stones.

"Aw fuuuuck," said Greg. "C'mon, man! Let's just get it over with!"

The obsidian sword was starting to feel really heavy and Greg was starting to wish that – awesome as this adventure had been so far – he'd resisted Sofia's fluttering eyelashes and just stayed at home. He could be sitting back on his couch right now, maybe with a cold beer in one hand, a big bowl of Lays to his right, football on TV, the AC on, etc. He was not enjoying his time in the labyrinth at all. Being devoured by the Watcher of the Dark and then fed eternally to the Flaying Worms didn't sound particularly appealing either.

"Hey, Mr Duke!" Greg yelled. "Sorry about all this! Hey, how about you just kick me back to Earth-Land, buddy, we can call it square!"

Silence.

Moaning.

"Well, fuck you too," muttered Greg. Fine, he would rescue the princess. That would show the fucking bastard.

"For Princess Kitra," he said in a low voice, feeling the sword spring to life into his hand. It felt good now: light, quick, sharp. He started to jog. Walking wasn't getting him anywhere. What if I turn right at every intersection, he thought. That's bound to get me somewhere. Right? He'd never been that great at figuring out mazes.

He dashed around the corner. A tentacle wrapped itself around his leg and dragged him to the ground. He dropped the sword.

"Aaaack!" Greg yelled, moments before another tentacle wrapped around his mouth. "Frrr ktttraa," he tried to say, but it came out as an indisctinct mumble. The tentacles jerked him up into the air. The luminescent flowers illuminated a gaping round mouth, filled with rings of tiny teeth. Hundreds of tiny eyes bulged around its perimeter.

Shit, Greg thought, now I'm going to die. This fucking sucks.

He stabbed out wildly with his free leg and planted a foot into a cluster of eyes. The creature didn't appear to notice, or care. The tentacles dragged him closer to that grisly mouth. For an instant he was suspended, struggling, above it – and then the tentacles loosened and he plunged into the darkness. The awful mouth closed around him. He felt the teeth carve minute incisions into his flesh. The mouth began to tighten.

"Kittthhhrraaaa," he gasped.

He heard a faint tearing sound as the sword plunged through the monster's flesh to reach Greg's hand.

In his grasp, the sword thrust itself straight up and then cut, tearing a gaping incision in the creature's mouth. Black ooze gushed from the slash. Greg dug one foot into the side of the creature's mouth, felt the teeth piercing his shoe, and pushed off. He sprang out of the creature's mouth and rolled on the dungeon floor, choking on black bile.

Tentacles swarmed over him, but the sword slashed and cut, and the tentacles plastered the wall, severed and wriggling. He slashed and slashed and slashed, screaming incoherently, until he'd reached the creature's body, and was hacking it up into minute pieces. Gore sprayed into his face and soaked his clothes; the blade was coated in translucent bile.

Moments later, the Watcher in the Dark lay in pieces on the floor, oozing slime from its shattered carapace.

Greg stood there panting for a moment.

"IMPRESSIVE," boomed a voice. "YOU HAVE PROVEN YOURSELF WORTHY OF MY COURT. ENTER, GREG OF EARTH-LAND."

"Ugggggggh," said Greg, spitting out a mouthful of slime.

The wall beside him faded and was replaced by a faint mist. It looked suspiciously like another portal.

Greg was no longer terribly trusting of portals, but he figured anything had to be better than the labyrinth. He stepped into the mist.

*

He was standing in a courtyard of pale pink marble. Roman-esque columns surrounded a pool of crystalline water in its centre. In the distance, curious spires framed the horizon.

Greg dashed to the pool and had a sip. The water was clear and delicious. "Mmmm," he mumbled to himself. "Mmmmmmm."

Having done that, he glanced at himself and realized that he and his clothes were encrusted with gore and bile. Also that he smelled like a week-old rotten corpse. He had a look around.

"Anyone watching?" he said loudly.

Nope.

He peeled off his clothes and lowered himself into the pool. The water turned black instantly. It was pleasantly warm, though, and it felt good to scrub the filth from his body. Also he noticed that the water seemed to be lightly and deliciously perfumed.

"Phew," he said, and did the backstroke. When he opened his eyes he found himself staring up into a mass of tiny tentacles.

"AAAAAAAAAAACK," said Greg, sputtering.

The mass of tentacles parted to reveal and gaping mouth.

"I am Hoarg, emissary of the Duke of Filth," said the mouth. "Fear not, Greg. I come as a friend."

"AAAAAAAACK," said Greg. He groped for his sword and realized that he didn't have it, and then the words the tentacles had spoken actually entered his brain. "Oh wait," he said, "you're my friend?"

"Correct."

"Phew!"

Greg clambered out of the pool and surveyed the figure before him. It was about eight feet tall, with the body of an oddly-proportioned but otherwise ordinary man in a black business suit. And its head was a mass of wriggling tentacles with a single eyestalk protruding from the top.

"Boy," said Greg, "you're one ugly motherfucker."

"Yes," said Hoarg. "Your clothes."

He pointed. Lying on the cool marble was something black. Greg picked it up and found that it was a pair of loose black breeches and a leather jerkin, which fit perfectly. Beside the clothes were a pair of black boots, which he donned also. He was starting to feel like an actual cool warrior guy. Except for his sword, where was that?

"Dude, where's my sword?" said Greg.

"Safe," assured Hoarg. "The Duke allows no weapons in his Court of Pleasures. Follow me, please."

"Okay," said Greg. "I thought it was called the Court of Filth, though?"

"The Duke's works take many names."

Greg followed Hoarg out of the marble courtyard and onto a wide avenue that stretched into the distance. The ground was pink marble as far as the eye could see, dense with pristine temples and palaces, all apparently deserted. In the centre of the road was a carriage or chariot of some kind, and – this part captured Greg's attention immediately – instead of horses, two girls were hitched to it. Both wore bit gags in their mouths, leather harnesses to strap them to the chariot, and thigh-high leather boots. Apart from that they were completely naked.

Greg stared with his mouth gaping open.

With a grunt, Hoarg heaved himself into the chariot. "Get in," he said.

Greg climbed into the back, still in a touch of shock. Hoard produced a short whip and gave the girls a languid lash. Immediately they began to move, jerking up their knees in a parody of a horse's clop. The chariot rolled down the avenue. Greg sat still, staring at the two bare bums in front of him, trying to comprehend what was happening.

"So how does this Duke guy roll?" said Greg. "What's his deal?"

"It is not my place to discuss the politics of Hell with you," said Hoarg blandly, cracking the whip against the girls' bottoms.

"Um, but what's he want to meet me for?"

"The ways of the Duke are inscrutable," said Hoarg.

"Is he gonna be mad that I killed his monster-thingey?"

"The Walker of the Dark will regenerate. It is unkillable."

"Oh." This gave Greg some pause for thought.

The two girls pulled the chariot around a corner and paused at a huge marble building with grand columns in front and a towering spire atop it. The solid-oak door was closed.

Hoarg dismounted from the chariot and walked up to the door, his worm-face wriggling anxiously. Greg followed, with one last glance at the two babes on the chariot. Hoarg rapped at the door once.

"Open wide the Court of Filth," he grunted.

The doors opened.

Greg stepped into the Court of Filth.

It was a lot cleaner than he'd expected. The décor was pretty much the same as everywhere else: pink marble and still pools of crystal-clear water, hanging vines heavy with black flowers, ornate lanterns of black iron, petals strewn everywhere. The first person Greg saw was Sofia. He had not expected to see her here. He also hadn't expected to see her like this: draped with jewels, with a fluttering piece of pink silk around her hips, and naked otherwise. Her arms were bound behind her; there was a ballgag in her mouth; strapped around her waist, just below her perky tits, was a tray on which rested several glasses of champagne. Greg stared at her blankly.

"Sofia?" he said.

Sofia's eyes widened as she noticed him, and she said something that sounded like "mrrrrrggg." The ballgag made further communication difficult. Hoarg handed Greg a glass of champagne and waved him on. "Hurry," he said. "The Duke will be eager to see you."

"I'll come back," Greg mouthed, and hurried after Hoarg.

Now that Sofia was behind him Greg began to notice the other inhabitants of the Court. Some were similar to Hoarg in appearance; others looked like large trolls or exceptionally hairy monkeys. There were one or two quite normal-looking men, except that they had tentacles instead of arms and legs. At least one of the spider-men from the ruins was lurking over everyone. Countless other beasts and demons in incomprehensible forms of horror were gathered around.

Walking among them was the greatest variety of nubile girls that Greg had ever seen. All wore jewels and inconsequential scraps of silk that did nothing to conceal their slender figures. All wore gags, and most were also in chains to inhibit their freedom of movement. They went from demon to demon, bearing trays of what Greg assumed were delicacies.

Hoarg led Greg through this bizarre wonderland, weaving around pools of water in which mollusk-men reclined, past a row of extraordinarily fat men who were receiving oral pleasure from a row of nude girls, up a flight of stairs and then down another, along a series of balconies miles below which the empty city sprawled, up a winding ramp with flowing vines down its centre, past a series of nude girls standing perfectly still and holding up torches, and finally to a sprawling throne, on which sat the Duke of Filth.

The Duke of Filth looked like a man who'd been stretched out to about ten feet tall, his limbs bizarrely elongated. He wore a long toga of some kind of writhing black material which, Greg realized, was made entirely of worms. His arms and legs were deathly pale and mottled with sickly grey. His head, also elongated, had three mouths stacked vertically, all toothy and grinning. The top half of his head was concealed by wrapped bandages; no eyes were visible at all.

"Greg of Earth-Land," said all three mouths.

"Um, hello, Your Majesty," said Greg, gaping.

The Duke raised one gruesomely slender finger.

"It's just Duke," he said. "You have passed my First Test, Greg of Earth-Land, and thus proved yourself worthy of my further service. Succeed at my next task, and I will grant you the object of your quest. Fail, and you shall suffer eternally. Understood?"

"Gee whiz," said Greg. "Can I have a drink or something?"

"You already have a drink," said the Duke. Greg had forgotten that he was holding a glass of champagne. He drained it rapidly.

"To be honest, Mr Duke Sir," said Greg, "I just want to go home, kinda, as much as I appreciate your offer and so on. Maybe Sofia and I could -"

"Quiet," said the Duke. "Perhaps, if you distinguish yourself in my service, Greg of Earth-Land, I will allow you to return to your homeland. Until then, you will serve me without question – or you will learn of the penalties that await those who betray me. Do you understand, Greg?"

Greg wiped his forehead. Getting hot in here, Greg, old boy, he told himself. Better go along with the very tall man. Wait for your chance. "Yes sir!"

"Good. Your next task is to retrieve an errant servant of mine, Corvel the Burnt. He fled with into the Blighted Forest with one of my slaves. Slay him and his prize, and their spirits will return to my dungeons, to be tortured eternally in recompense for their betrayal. Fail me, and you will suffer their instead. Hoarg, show him to the Gateway and explain his Path."

"Ummmmm-mm-mm," Greg stammered, but Hoarg had siezed his arm and was dragging him away. A moment later they were descending a spiral staircase that (defying everything Greg thought he knew about spatial relationships) led them back to the main avenue, where the chariot and the two harnessed girls were waiting.

"Allow me to explain," said Hoarg drily as they boarded the chariot. He lashed the girls lightly and the chariot began to move again. "The only way out of this dimension is via the transdimensional Gates. To get to the Gates, you must pass through the Labyrinth in which you did battle with the Walker of the Dark. The Labyrinth is vast – perhaps ten thousand times the size of the Earth from which you come. But fear not, I will summon you a Guide. Ah. Here we are."

Hoarg stopped the chariot in the middle of a huge courtyard. It was empty except for a portal in the centre. Beside the portal was a small silver bell hanging from a chain.

"Prepare thyself," said Hoarg, tapping the bell. A clear, bright tone rang out for a moment, and then a strange being rose from the marble floor. It appeared to be a headless woman, naked, blue, and mostly transparent. She was also headless.

"This will be your Guide," said Hoarg. "Remain near her, or you will be lost eternally in the Labyrinth. Guide, bear this walker to the Blighted Forest, safeguarding him from the perils of your maze. This we plead, in the name of the Spirit of the Maze."

The ghost-woman rippled slightly.

"Go," said Hoarg.

Greg stepped into the portal. "This better not go horribly wrong," he said.