A Heart's Crucible
Forfeit

The gloom of the seer’s lair revealed nix to Joq. She termed the dug-out a space, not a home. The inward-sloping walls snuffed slivers of light. Yet, even though occupied, a cursory assessment stated abandonment. If darkness required a name, thought Joq, the title belonged to Idalion. A black, composed of a blankness, hindered defining the lad clad in dull mourning cloth. He perched forward on a wide ebony chair.

Joq’s eyes stared at a black hole of hopelessness. The lad’s haunt for a thousand years!

Zel whispered, “Prickly eyes, reminding me of mercury poisoning.”

“No,” said Perdy, “Jambiya, dagger eyes. Pupils capable of cutting a soul. I once saw these double-edged curved silver blades in Yemen. A knife designed to stab and perpetrate the deepest of wounds. Dagger eyes!”

Joq reserved her thoughts whilst she discerned a bitter rage akin to plague contagion — a more profound hurt flashed within quicksilver orbs.

Peri eyes adjusted to a shape-shifting scene. A crypt composed of shades. And a dissolute crud who appeared to enjoy one-way conversations. Joq glimpsed his sneer as their Peri eyes sidled from his visage. She wondered at the ego deflation of a face never holding a gaze.

Joq knew the appalling story. She loved unrolling the scrolls in the library of Alexandria. Those ignored on the highest shelves. She recalled fables read. Beelzebub, Satan’s right-hand fiend, infected the sinless lad with leprosy in a jealous rage. His mother, Lilith, chose Moloch over the demon. Beelzebub’s malice extended to burdening the teenager with a seer’s blight. A bane imposed at the obliteration of Gomorrah.

“What do you want to know first? I understand your presence is no tryst call.”

Joq refocused on a terrible present. The boy’s cackle gurgled from a vertical slashed mouth. He snorted, and his nose hole widened as a moist sludge slit, an open sewer on the surface of his face.

“Where to start, where to end! The possible or impossible parts of the quest to save your Peri friends.”

He sculled from a tarnished silver goblet. Drips dribbled down his chin.

“Discard the entry trinkets, or I will think you wish a bacchanalia.”

He cracked his knobby fingers and shrieked as Joq remembered a Ban-He wail.

Beside her partners, she dropped the sensual, greedy items into the darkness. There must be walls, thought Joq as Zel’s fabric bundle thudded into softness, perhaps black drapes. Yet, Perdy’s juicy peach knocked a metallic stand as the ripe fruit released a splat, followed by a clang. Joq rolled her phial and torc backwards with a sandal kick.

The seer grunted.

“Oh, you could have taken them home.”

Snot dribbled on his upper lip.

“Mmm, you have no place; that’s why you’re here!”

Joq knew the seer’s role in the world. Odyssey directions no Peri ever needed. Only the desperate entered this lair. The Kazakh held her nerve even as her flickering folding wings told otherwise. She remembered the elements to ask from musty scrolls read in the library of Alexandria.

She said, “The quest, the cost, the forfeit, please.”

Joq hoped she spoke loud enough, though she barely heard herself. The lad’s ears appeared torn, hanging as half-shucked corn or old leather a dog chewed.

The Soothsayer ignored Joq’s plea. Instead, he sniped, irritating and glib.

“First, the trinkets; regardless of your choice, I let you enter. I fancied an insight into your whim predilections, your ripe partialities, the three of you. There is time for a quartet. I have the aeons.”

Towards the end, his voice sharpened. His fury mounted as his saliva flecked in sprayed droplets — a gross flickering spume in this black-veiled hellhole.

Joq appreciated the support as Zel attempted to refocus the seer.

“The forfeit first.”

The steppe Peri noticed her friend’s olive thighs quiver. She mulled; the penalty forecast a dire millstone. Scarification crisscrossed his face. The lesions resembled endless scimitar duelling cuts. Whilst his cheeks, covered in blistered skin, reminded her of branding. The question unasked, which had leprosy wreaked since his youth? And what occurred later, or were self-inflicted?

“Oh, bronze wings, I can’t wait to lick your flesh in a year and a day. Then feed you alive Jezebel style to my pit bulls.”

Joq lay her hand between her friend’s feathers; the lad’s screeching reminded her of a deranged incubus.

She peered into the drapes as growls and eerie bays pitched to a crescendo. They ceased when the churlish knave snapped his fingers.

In a nasal snarl, he added, “the three of you.”

Joq rocked on her heels. Then, grabbing Zel and Perdy, she detected them wobble and teeter.

By locking their arms, they stalled a domino fall as she sucked dry breaths.

Joq steadied and projected her voice. The echo indicated a small chamber and a low ceiling, “the cost.”

The rebound sounded as though she repeated herself three times. Joq looked at the lad’s hands. They appeared broken and poorly set. She pondered; ugly has layers. In life, these included moments of unattractiveness. The one feature blotting a face. A hairy mole or a wine stain birthmark, small unfortunate scars or unsightly burns. In Idalion, this face demanded you scream and retreat. Joq faced no choice but to stand and look. Ask a question, then stare at her feet.

“The cost. What are nine-hundred and ninety-nine Peri worth?”

Rhetorical, hoped Joq. She couldn’t quantify the value of companionship.

“My Peri bride, one of you three, if you succeed. You can pluck straws or roll dice; I don’t care!”

Her mouth fell open, and Joq understood their easy entry. The seer refilled the goblet. Joq twigged to a Peri panic flutter times three as their wings sideswiped and wrapped as a treble shield — followed by a retreated step in unison.

“Well, I knew the answer,” a scumbag cackle, as his head spun in a possessed pivot, and his matted hair shook.

Zel and Perdy fell mute.

Joq broached, “can we talk as a group in a corner?”

“Too late,” as his crooked fingers drummed on the chair’s arms.

Fiercer growls appeared to circle the three. The drapes rippled; Joq pictured brutes crouched.

In a wide-eyed surprise, she admired Perdy stepping forward.

“The quest.”

Joq saw her friend’s eyes widen and her finger twitch. They confronted no exit without accepting the terms.

“Ah, the impossible bit for a redhead.”

A piercing tone, brutal and personal, thought Joq.

“Recover the silk of the seraph, Jeremiel. The piece fell on the day of your conception.”

Perdy’s hands firmed on her hips.

“I see your outward purport, Scottish bitch. See how you fare in the heat of the sea of desolation. Guarded by the giant scorpions?”

Perdy fainted. Joq winced as her sidekick’s head hit the floor.

As she knelt and fanned her buddy, she appreciated Zel planting her feet wide and asking, “and next.”

Behind the drapes, the gnars grew sharper, and the rustling approached a wave.

“The silk requires weaving into a pouch.”

The lad relished stretching words as if he tightened a torture rack. He wolfed his drink. Joq caught a sniff of white mead; she wished for a sip to revive Perdy.

“Woven by Arachne,” delivered with seer derision as Zel keeled.

She slumped and flaked atop Perdy’s folded, faded feathers.

A flustered Joq unfurled and wagged her wings but only pumped stale air on pale faces.

“Stand, I command,” and the unseen dogs woofed and gnashed.

Joq knelt to support a connected touch with her friends. But, as the pariah gripped his black chemise, she sensed he perceived only weakness in her stance.

“A pouch woven by Arachne, and since this won’t matter, you’ll never proceed that far. Keep the weave plain; she has a penchant for embroidery. She enjoys stitching succubi conquests at witches’ covens. In addition, she eats her guests for dinner!”

Joq tried to arouse her best friends with gentle rubs as she digested what confronted the Peri under Idalion. A mutilated identity, a living perversion. Yet, a visage of individual abandonment because, as the lad lived, the boy’s soul shrank each time anyone averted their eyes from his face.

Zel and Perdy emerged from their swoon. They clasped tight in a low huddle.

Joq rose and spread her wings. She searched in her heart for bravery, “And!”

“Impressive, the temporary guts.”

He clapped thrice, “you, too, will blackout after you hear the impossible!”

The libertine paused and gulped from the goblet. He tossed the cup over his shoulder. Then, in a nimble jump, he managed an obscene handstand. His black shift covered his head, exposing his buttocks, scars, and desiccated flesh. Joq thought, though pity-tempered, hideous, had found a definition. The lad flopped and whistled. Two brutes with spiked collars bounced onto his lap.

“And!” Joq stayed firm.

She arched her wings outwards, yet grounded, unknown to her, a stance mirroring an angel.

The rake-hell let each dog chew his ears as he spat, “a teardrop.”

Joq scoped none in the boy’s eyes, devoid of eyelids. His pain threshold showed excruciating tolerance. She tensed rigid, comprehending their dangerous adversary. Quicksilver eyes, unable to cry. The lad pushed the dogs aside; they yelped and skulked behind the drapes.

Wiping dripping blood from his lobes, he ranted.

“A tear- no ordinary tear- a true teardrop of repentance. Where the fack you’ll replace one- you will need more than good luck.”

His grisly head rolled back.

“The silk, the pouch, for the tear, the tear to be delivered to God in Heaven.”

Joq’s wings folded. Her knees quaked, and she stumbled forward.

“Ah, what did you expect, nooky in a grove or a frilly tête-à-tête fete?”

Joq’s gut knotted; she sensed the sour lad tired of word games as his fingers drummed the chair. A veiled vassal appeared and gave him a full mead skin. Between swigs and slurps, she heard him mumble, “weak.”

She raised her opinion to bitter sod as he stabbed their hearts and striped their wings of purpose.

“The prophecy, impossible for the Peri to enter Heaven, bar none!”

His quicksilver eyes flickered, puzzled, making Joq suspect part of this utterance surprised even the boy.

After rapid blinking, his tongue twisted their pain with the precision of a slicing jambiya.

“D’oh, the Peri don’t believe in Heaven. So you forfeit because—you can’t enter Heaven unless you have faith in the celestial—unlike Hell and the Abandon realm- no need to believe in them to end up there; or here.”

He gullet-guzzled mead as Joq’s chest caved in as the truth of his words hit. Whatever lay ahead of the Peri team stunk worse than dead fish.

The seer dismissed them with a rude gesture.

“Choose the exit of your choice. The quick backdoor behind the drapes, out running, if you can, my dogs. Or take the long way out. Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

Perdy, tugging hands, started a fast-paced retreat before his crowing died. Joq became distracted by a pit bull’s head brushing aside a curtain. Her foot flattened the soft gold of the Celtic torc.

Out of breath, they retraced their entry to the final stairwell. Joq, in the rear, bumped into a stalled Zel and the leading Perdy. The shadow of a dagger limped three sets of wings.

Hands crossed their panting chests until a male voice said, “Fear not.”

Palms pressed in a chain, the Peri stepped into the forum light.

He must be a demigod, pondered Joq as she spied a muscled, lithe body and tousled blonde hair. He possessed features worthy of being set in a constellation. Joq saw Zel’s eyes glaze. Her own heart fluttered because resplendence had a form. Tall, chiselled and amber-eyed.

“Orion,” he stated as the Peri stood mute.

“Questing?” said Joq, noticing his ornate bow and full quiver.

“Yes, the seer awaits,” as his fingers paused above his sheathed knife and his feet tapped.

“Best of luck.”

Zel’s fawn eyes widened.

“I prefer planning,” as he sidestepped them and descended into the maze two steps at a time.

Over his shoulder, “Farewell maidens, unless hazard or fortune crosses our paths!”

“Mmm,” said Zel, “There’s a dude I hope is unattached and one to re-encounter.”

Perdy’s stomach growled.

“Breakfast first,” and she directed her friends to the village by the sea.

After dining over filched fresh baked bread and moreish goat’s cheese, they conversed.

“I’d much prefer to bed Orion than be forced to marry the seer,” said Zel.

“Oh precious, dismiss the seer’s cost. I already have. Use your Peri-sleight of heart and consign yesterday's words onto a passing breeze. Here, enjoy another chunk of tasty delight.”

The cheese swirled tart in Joq’s mouth while Perdy spoke. The Peri world of unhonoured promises faced a crucible test.