The morning breeze cooled Belial’s cheek; a joyful shiver ran down his spine. So this was the special project, chilly and bright, filled with color and life. Regret shook Belial and he was forced to rest beside the path. This fertile planet would soon be a bloody battleground, Belial knew, and he was sorry for it.

That’s why your mission is so important, Belial told himself again. Wiles must win so armies can rest. The screams of the last encounter still rang in Belial’s ears. Won’t try that a second time, Belial told himself, though he knew that was a lie. They’d try again and again, endless pain and woe.

Sheep hobbled up from a small vale just to the west. Braying protest, they were driven by a creature even stranger than the sheep, Belial thought: Man–a boy really–long legs, dark, curly hair–wrapped in a goat hide, prodding stick in hand and a pretty tune on his lips. Belial studied the upright gait, the casual swing of the stick, the obvious, stupid innocence of his face.

The angels failed on that score, Belial realized, touching his own face, feeling the visual equivalent of a countenance so vastly different from the boy’s before him. The rest was the same but older, as close to a man as any re-skinned angel could be.

They’ll never get it right, Belial lamented as the boy passed a hundred strides away.

“He’s more like the sheep than us!” Belial spat, the old cynicism returning to the unfamiliar human voice. He understood this place was worthless, a diversion, a canvas for God to paint his fear and desire. “That’ll be his downfall,” Belial muttered, even as he recognized the defeat in his own existence. “You’re vulnerable, Old One! You love something; you are vulnerable!”

Belial jumped to his feet and continued walking. It wasn’t far, they’d told him, but they’d lied, and on man-feet, in a man’s body, Belial already felt the challenge. He’d come a long way, through the nine gates, up the road Sin and Death built. There’d be others behind, just as Belial now followed Satan, who Chaos hurled to Earth. And there would be armies too, fighting men, to bleed and die again, though Belial dreaded it. After all, it was Belial himself who said they should stay put and not make trouble and bring destruction on them again. He said they’d get used to the stench, the heat, and the endless damned torture.

Okay, I was wrong about that, Belial was the first to admit. There was no getting accustomed to it; there was no pain that didn’t hurt just as much the second time.

“Hell, I’m tired,” Belial said and sat down again. “Let the others do the dirty work. I’ve had it.”

He dreamt of long-lost days: endless games, circle-dances, singing, floating, basking in bliss.

“There’ll be none of that!” a voice boomed as a stick struck Belial across the back, bringing him awake again, forcing him back to Earth, which the Old One loved and Satan despised.

“Why’d you do that?!” Belial screamed at a trio of young men running away laughing. Belial checked his disheveled tunic; there was nothing to take. He laughed. This’ll be easy; if a man can’t rest by the side of the road without being robbed–

Belial jumped up and skipped down the stone path, spirits lifted. The smell of the soil touched him; the yellow sun invited him to the horizon. This human form functions well,

Belial admitted as he lengthened his strides. There were other problems, though. Already the need for food and drink was gnawing at the center of Belial’s body. There was a second feeling too, lower, a certain unrest, which Belial recognized as lust, “which rhymes with disgust,” Satan was fond of saying.

Though he could feel his body wanting it, Belial’s mind couldn’t imagine touching one of these creatures, except to beat the three robbers now somewhere ahead.

“I’ll see you in Hell,” he yelled, hoping they heard, wishing their return so he could give them what they deserved, like the painful poundings he had endured.

The sun beat down on the endless desert. Certainly the journey was long and arduous–the path barely marked, the slopes long and steep–but Belial knew his fatigue was also something else: a part of man’s makeup, a flaw in the initial creation, for the angels slept only to dream.

He sat again and searched the long horizon for signs of humankind. Famous for false dealing, a master of the double-meaning, Belial wondered what good these skills were in a world of isolation. Things would be better in Sodom, where he was headed–commanded to, stationed–”a good soldier for once in your life,” Beelzebub had admonished.

“They’re all fools,” Belial muttered. That included Mammon, who had agreed with Belial in the big meeting, who wanted to fix up the place, make it Heaven in Hell. “A fool’s errand,” Belial believed now, though he admired Mammon’s independence and love of freedom, which no one else understood.

Belial stared at a glittering object a few steps away. He’d never had much use for shiny things; Heaven and Hell were equally replete with diamonds, rubies and gold. Belial knelt before the bright stone, took it in his hand and felt the sudden urge to keep it. He carried it onward, in search of other stones, which he found plentiful, none gems, “but they’re mine!” he announced to the world. Soon his hands were full and he dreaded dropping a single one. He needed a bag to carry them; he was equipped with nothing but the rough tunic and sandals.

Perhaps I can exchange these for food, Belial thought, then discarded the idea. These were his precious jewels; he wouldn’t part with them.

One single stray goat made its way down the ridge across from where Belial stood.

Thinking to follow it, perhaps to food, Belial angled in that direction. One eye on the proud possessions in hand, one on the goat, Belial stepped carefully down the intervening hollow. The rocks clanked in his hands and threatened to overflow his fingers. Suddenly fearful, remembering the men who had searched him in his sleep, Belial squatted low and scouted the area around him. He would bury his hoard and come back later; he’d collect more and hide them too, all over the countryside, and not worry about marauders. They could search him a thousand times–

“You are one clever man,” Belial told himself proudly, not bothering to correct himself, for he wasn’t really a man and a day earlier the idea would have appalled him. He marked the spot with three gnarled sticks and pursued the goat briskly up a hill.

The animal bleated and seemed to recognize Belial.

Laughing, Belial called to the beast, thinking this was one of Satan’s amusing disguises for which he was famous. The goat brayed again and Belial stopped short. Was he being spied upon; did the goat see him hide the shiny stones?

Anger surged up Belial’s chest; he charged the beast and seized it around the neck. Biting one horn, digging fingers into the animal’s throat, Belial wrestled it to the ground.

The goat squealed terror; its hooves thrashed against Belial’s ankles.

The strength of the animal surprised Belial; he wished for one of Gabriel’s swords. What a brave being you are, to come to this wild world unarmed! Belial kicked at the goat’s testicles and pounded his fist between the animal’s horns.

Blood dripped down Belial’s knuckles; his fingernails warmed inside flesh. The smell of it was overwhelming and suddenly Belial wished the goat was Satan, who put them in this mess, who’d defied Heaven and lost it, who now looked to this grotesque world as a stepping-stone back.

Belial’s left hand ripped an opening in the goat’s throat; his right hand crushed the animal’s spine with one angry blow.

Breathing heavily, frightened for his human heart, Belial released the beast and it staggered stupidly, four legs buckling ludicrously, blood staining its heaving chest.

It fell, but Belial didn’t wait for it to die. He leaped on the carcass and bit into the hot flesh in a frenzy, mind lost to need. He didn’t stop until it was gone, every piece of red, bleeding meat, teeth-marks in the bones, goat-grease soaking Belial’s tunic.

Belial collapsed and fell to his back, mutton-stench filling his nostrils, meat sour in his mouth. He stared at the blue sky and white clouds, shapes from his past floating through memory, and again he felt that disquietude in his flanks that needed satisfying, an ache so overwhelming that Belial again worried for his health.

Bad meat, Belial hoped, but he knew that wasn’t the reason. He wanted a woman, any woman–not a man, though he wondered what that would be like.

But Belial couldn’t move, the effect of his gluttony.

Buzzards circled overhead, waiting to satisfy their own hunger.

You are too good for their food, Belial vowed. You will move on and continue your mission. Easy, Belial, he giggled suddenly, his own pious absurdity overwhelming him. He rolled in onto his full stomach, aching from laughter and his first human meal. Still laughing, Belial pushed himself to his knees. He crawled at first, then made it to his feet. Once propelled forward, he managed to stumble down one descent, up
another hillock, letting gravity do the work.

Proud of himself, warm from the sun and the meal, Belial closed his eyes, felt the stones beneath his sandals and smelled the clean desert air. The buzzards cackled behind him; in the darkness behind his eyes he could almost see Heaven again. But memory failed him, as though he’d drunk of the fifth river of Hell.

“They remember!” Belial shouted out loud, eyes popping open, lungs filled with envy for the angels still there, obediently bedding in the Old One’s benevolence. Belial shook with anger and marched forward. They’d make this place ugly in the Old One’s eyes and crush his spirit. Then…

A plume of smoke in the distance stopped Belial short. More men; perhaps he neared his destination. Belial hurried on, up a long rise, and at the top he spied a stone dwelling in the distance, smoke rising in a thin plume from its humble chimney.

Belial hurried down the slope, almost running, as fast as his large frame could carry him. The sandals hurt his feet and his breath came in sharp gasps.

Why the rush? Belial caught himself and stopped. You need the company of other men, he realized. And women. Other people. The idea frightened as well as thrilled him. He walked on, more slowly now, suddenly recalling that the three would-be robbers had come this way. This could be their hideaway, so obviously away from civilization, free from local authority.

Anger again rose in Belial’s chest. He picked up a heavy stick and tested it as a weapon. He would thrash them well, even kill them as he had the goat. Eat them and leave them for the vultures. Belial shivered in horror.

What have you become? Belial wondered.

The Most Lewd, the prophecies said, but Belial didn’t believe in prophecies. Myth perpetuated by the Old Ones to confirm their power, Belial declared and Mannon agreed. If all is written, what does it matter what we do?

Belial marched on. There’d be plenty of time for philosophy after blood was spilled.

The poverty of the place appalled Belial: stones poorly chinked, thatch balding, front door unhinged. Have they no pride? An elderly man hobbled out, small stone ax in hand. He scouted the area, squinted, half-blind eyes on the lookout for firewood.

“Hey there!” Belial called.

“Who are you?! Where are you?!” the old man shouted.

“Don’t come near me!”

He held the hatchet for battle. Belial had to laugh.

“I’ll kill you dead, I will!”

“Kill me with laughter,” Belial chuckled, nearing the man.

“I’m merely a traveler.”

“Run, Mennina, run!” the old man screamed.

“He seems harmless enough,” a voice came from the door of the stone hut.

She was as beautiful a creature as Belial had ever seen–tall, young, black hair over her shoulders, down to her slim waist, hope and charity in her eyes.

“Sneak up on a man like that!” the old man said, nevertheless lowering his weapon.

“I am Belial,” the visitor introduced himself, to the girl really.

“I am Mennina,” she said, “and this is my father, Netter-the-Fishman, though we’ve seen no fish for forty suns!”

“Shut up, woman!” Netter spat at his daughter.

Belial laughed.

“We have no food or money,” the old man announced.

“Not much water either,” Mennina agreed, “but you’re welcome to a swallow.”

“Quiet, child!” Netter admonished, but Mennina had disappeared into the hut, returning with a small gourd. Belial drank gratefully; he couldn’t remember anything so sweet, in

Heaven or Hell, as his gaze lingered across Mennina’s fine bosom.

“That’s enough,” she smiled, took the gourd and returned it inside.

“I suppose you’ll want food next,” the old man spat.

“Not hungry,” Belial told the truth. “Just ate.”

Mennina returned and sat on a flat boulder. Her sovereign throne, it seemed to Belial. He accepted the young woman’s offer to rest on another rock nearby.

The old man sputtered disgust and resumed his search for miserable sticks to stoke his fire. Belial smelled that same goat-smell, but cooking now, and to his surprise, he was hungry again.

“What brings you here, traveler?” Mennina asked.

“I’m headed to Sodom.”

“We used to live there,” Mennina said bitterly, directed at her father.

“Lot of good it did us!” the old man shot back.

“I was to be married to Hemel-the-Scholar,” Mennina groaned.

“Old and ugly and not a fit husband. Carves words all day and forgets to bathe in the stream.”

“He’s a good husband!” the old man declared.

“I ran away. Three times, and every time brought back. They whipped me, him and my stinking brothers, but my spirit was not touched.”

“She is no daughter!”

“He brought me here in chains. ‘You’re not fit to live with people,’ he said.”

“That is a fact!”

“The boredom is the worst,” Mennina admitted, looking wistfully over the desert. “How about you? Why do you journey to Sodom.”

“A few matters to attend to,” Belial told the woman.

“Oh?”

“I cannot speak of them now,” Belial whispered, eyes darting to the old man as though sharing an intimacy fathers shouldn’t share.

“I see,” Mennina whispered back.

“What are you two talking about?!” Netter-the-Fishman screamed, ax poised, face red with anger.

“Nothing, father,” Mennina replied, the respectful daughter.

“This man was just offering to help us out.”

The old man looked hopeful; Belial looked confused.

“Come back tonight, after the second star sets behind that hill,” Mennina whispered. “Bring me something to entertain me, or make my life better, or to take me from this tyrant, and you shall have what you will of me.”

Shocked and delighted, Belial nodded.

“But beware,” the young woman warned, “my three brothers–they’re worse than him.”

Mennina’s eyes flicked in the old man’s direction and Belial gaped at their beauty and promise.

“I must be off,” Belial stated loudly, standing, moving away from the hut as though going for a stroll.

“Where are you going?” the old man demanded. To his daughter: “I thought he was going to help us! Where’s he going?”

“Oh, shut up, old man!” Mennina screamed and marched back inside.

Belial made his way to the west, not toward Sodom, not back the way he came, but down to a small stream where he filled himself on more of that same sweet water he’d tasted from Mennina’s hand.

What would entertain a young woman? he wondered as the sun went down. Or make her life better? Or take her from this place?

An overachiever in his own mind, Belial vowed to accomplish all three. Mennina would be so grateful–

A beast howled. Night-hunter, Belial decided, which Moloch had warned of. Belial again found a stick for protection.

“Come on!” Belial shouted, building his courage. “I am Belial! I have crossed the river of hate, the river of sorrow, the river of wailing and the river of burning! I am not afraid! Just this day I have killed and eaten a horned beast!”

No reply in the growing darkness. Belial swung his stick at empty air, invisibility being a possibility as far as he knew.

“There then!” Belial blustered. “Long as we understand each other!”

Belial marched southeast with an idea that had come to him in his sweaty fear. He hurried now, afraid he’d change his mind, keeping the image of Mennina’s kind face and cruel body just hovering ahead, to propel him forward.

The moon rose, illuminating the sticks that marked his hoard. Still with nothing to carry the stones, Belial removed his tunic, spread it on the ground and loaded his treasure onto the cloth. He folded the garment into a makeshift bag, picked it up and marched naked toward Mennina’s house, desire pointing the way.

Beasts growled, night insects stung his flesh, but still Belial scurried on, the promise of Mennina pulling him, fear pushing from behind. Several times Belial fell and bloodied his knees and elbows. Each time he screamed.

This pain is worse that Hell, he had to admit, because it’s your own doing.

He knew that if he forgot the girl, hid the stones and dressed again, he could sleep the night away in warm, wealthy comfort.

Did you forget why you came? he asked himself. Corrupt, destroy, make ugly. Mennina?

Belial whimpered misery, his body ached with a strange agony. Is this what Satan had meant and no one had
understood? When he’d openly recounted his doubts before the Legion of Angels? Had the Old One populated this Earth to punish them further? Was it all a trick? To attract his wayward angels to this place? To make them love Man, only to disappoint? Who was fooling whom here?

Belial wept, tears dripping down naked goose-flesh, freezing his desire.

Mennina’s arms will warm you; her skin will sizzle.

The moon disappeared; Belial worried he’d lost his way.

“Where are you?” he whimpered.

Then it appeared–the hut–small, broken and fragile–and Belial cried out in joy. He stumbled up one rise and down another, approaching the hovel cautiously. Peering past the ragged wool covering nailed across the one window, Belial spotted the old man snoring in the darkness and Mennina sleeping just beneath the opening.

“It’s me, Belial, as we planned,” Belial whispered. The young woman stirred and pulled the sheepskin more closely around her. “Please.” The eyes opened in terror; Belial’s spirit bled for her. “It’s me,” he repeated.

The girl looked to be sure her father was asleep before she snuck to the door.

“You…you’re naked,” Mennina declared as she came out of the house. “Have you no shame?”

“No, I have no shame,” Belial admitted.

“Put something on,” Mennina commanded, anger shattering Belial’s hope.

“I have nothing.”

“Stand behind there then. Please.”

Belial knelt behind the rock and held out his tunic, heavily loaded with his precious stones.

“What’s this?” Mennina asked, friendliness returning.

“For you. All of them. And many, many more. We will find them on the way to Sodom.”

Mennina laid the bundle on the ground and opened it hopefully. She peered at the contents in the darkness.

“What are these?” she said, holding up the rocks, studying them carefully, touching them with long, slender fingers.

“They’re my precious jewels,” Belial told her. “They’re for you. Gifts. To make your life better. And entertain you. And buy things in Sodom, where I’ll take you.”

Ugly disappointment distorted Mennina’s face and wrenched Belial’s heart.

“These are just rocks!” she declared, throwing a handful at Belial.

“They’re precious jewels,” Belial protested, scrambling to recover them.

“They’re rocks. Worthless. Like you.”

“Please,” Belial begged, crawling out from behind the rock, knees bleeding against the hard earth.

“Stay away from me!”

“I want you.”

She flung the tunic at him, slapping his tear-stained cheek, stopping him cold.

“What a waste you are,” she said, crying herself. “You are nothing but a useless waste.”

“I am sorry,” Belial cried, and he meant it.

“Like those stupid rocks. Everywhere there are rocks. And men like you.”

Mennina rose and Belial feared she would kill him now–hoped for it, actually.

“Put your clothes on and get out of here,” she demanded. “Before my brothers come and beat us both. You can’t help me. Nobody can help me.”

With that she turned and marched back to the hut. Belial obeyed for once in his life, putting on the tunic again, leaving the stones he couldn’t stand to touch again.

He stumbled north through the rest of the night, eyes on the stars, feet against the parched earth, mind on what he had done.

“Become human!” he wailed, falling to the ground. “You’re vulnerable, old man. You love something; you are vulnerable.”

And Belial cried.

He dreamt of bleeding trees, screaming stones and great, loveless orgies. He tripped back through the gates of Hell and eagerly drank of its fifth river, erasing all memory, becoming a stupid snake who forgot why he slithered. Then he rose on snake-legs and declared to the universe that he would want nothing again and fear no thing.

Footsteps woke Belial at dawn; a line of travelers marched the path several paces off. They led sheep and asses and oxen, some loaded with earthen pots, others carrying baskets, vegetables and cheese.

Belial slumped back to the ground. People, headed for town, to buy or sell or both, or to worship one of their creepy gods.

Belial chuckled, then laughed at himself, then at them and the whole almighty mess.

“Big joke!” he shouted to the morning sun.

“What’s that?” one of the travelers called.

“Nothing,” Belial told a young man leading a gray donkey ridden by a pretty, pregnant wife. “Where are you going?”

“Sodom,” the young man said.

“Show me the way!” Belial bellowed, jumping up, marching ahead, joining the stream.

The young husband gave his wife a look; she shrugged.

“Come on, come on,” Belial turned back. “Time’s a-wasting.”

They walked. The morning sun felt warm; Belial’s stomach longed for food and his genitals twitched with desire.

“It’s good,” he said, turning back to the couple. “It’s really good!”

“What?” the young man wanted to know.

“The whole damned thing,” Belial told him, knowing suddenly why the Old Man loved this place.

copyright 2007 Brenda H all rights reserved

[tags]Brenda H, story, fiction, fantasy, Bible, Biblical[/tags]