The River of the Dead and the Paths of Choices. Last time.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “You’ve done some awful things, but, in the end, you’ve always had a good heart.”
Shaking, he began the ritual:
“O heart that is mine! Behold the things that I have done! Permit me not to be wronged in the presence of the Great God!”
Narrowed down both their beaks, the birds’ gaze delivered judgment even when it was not theirs to give, their eyes piercing through to the very soul.
But the Forcely ghost was all the more that remained of Benedict Eden – What more was there to see?
The Guttermage stepped forward and placed his heart upon the scale and watched as it would rise against the feather.
The River of the Dead and the Paths of Choices. Now.
The smell of blood, the taste of metal. The slimy, smothering caress of that Booma Slims smoke; the Trenchcoat Man’s cigarra of choice.
Business, per usual.
The night, the day, the whatever…the time…it was so dependent on a constantly shifting planetary location, it was so hard to maintain a
continuity anymore. Well, the fragment of timespace had been as many others had been: a jaunt to the vong-formed and suicidal Aldera, to the beaten and rotting out of Coruscant, then to the perpetual identity crisis of Emperess Teta/Cinnagar/Koros. All over the galaxy, the cries went out and the tears never dried, and while he may not have always understood enough to represent the dispossessed, the lost, the poor, and the mad…he had, more than anyone else, at least heard them. It kept him up at night. So much so, that it almost didn’t make a difference anymore.
He had only lowered his head to light a cigarette, but when he finally looked up, he was greeted by that all-too-familiar smoldering sky.
“Aw, bugger.”
Once again, he was in Hell.
The Jackal began to snarl, not content in watching what he thought to be a farce. He could smell a rat. But the Judge of All leaned forward in his throne with rare interest; his chin resting thoughtfully in his hand and his brow perked in curiosity.
Benedict spoke cleanly, purged of his guttertongue.
“Hail, unto thee, O thou great god, thou who art lord of truth!
Lo! I draw nigh to thee now, O my lord, and mine eyes behold thy beauty.
Thee I know, and I know also the two-and-forty gods assembled with thee in the Hall of justice;
They observe all the deeds of the wicked; They devour those who seek to do evil;
They drink the blood of those who are condemned before thee, O just and good king.
Hail! Lord of justice; Thee I know,
I come before thee even now to speak what is true,
I will not utter what is false, O Lord of All.”
The camel actually laughed.
This would be his third time, as he was, indeed, keeping score.
The first tour came in his early twenties. Fresh out of Ravenmoore Asylum, he had been helping the Eclipseclan; a postmodern, off-Dathomir Nightsister coven featuring his ex-girlfriend, Janey Hexam. They irked the wrong people, and before the night was done, they had all been perished by a grouchy @Anesia Jy Vun .
Benedict beat the rap that time in a card game against ancient and dead Sith Lords, betting AGAINST Hope and Compassion in a critical hand.
He has argued that it was the decision that resulted in the Sith conquering of Coruscant on the material plane nearly a decade later.
He swallowed hard, proceeding with the ritual despite the heckler.
“I have done no evil against any man,” he lied.
The heart lowered upon the scale.
“I have never caused my kinsfolk to be put to death,” he lied.
Avalore bit her bottom lip; they both knew this to be untrue.
Again, his heart lowered.
The second…well, it had cost too much. He couldn’t be back here. Not after the price he paid...
his name. His sister.
The price
she had paid.
He couldn’t let it be all for naught.
And there was no way it would work a third time.
Perhaps,
finally, there would be justice.
“I have not caused false witnesses to speak in the Hall of Justice,” he lied, mistakenly looking to his sister. She averted her eyes guiltily.
“I have not done that which is hated by the gods”
The camel laughed even harder, clapping his hands in amusement.
If he had been corporeal, a bead of sweat would have rolled down his forehead.
“I am not a worker of wickedness.”
His heart lowered in contrast to the feather.
But….did that mean...?
He looked around for the ghosts that tailed him – Janey, in particular. They were gone. They couldn’t have followed him here.
Could the brand have been lifted, at least temporarily? Would he dare provoke that horrible voice, declaring him a coward, a liar, a betrayer?
He hesitated for a moment, his tired eyes watering.
“B—B…”
It’s a psychological fact that everyone’s favorite word is their own name. It’s at least something people say, anyway.
The Trenchcoat Man hadn’t heard his in over 5 years.
Trembling, he took a deep breath.
Did he dare?
Always.
“Benedict. Benedict Eden.”
He laughed out loud, buckling in the center, nearly throwing his cigarette.
“Benedict Eden! Benedict Eden! Benedict Eden!”
His name was his again,
if only for now.
“I have never oppressed a servant with too much work.”
He thought of all his friends who unwittingly went to their deaths in the name of a “favor.”
“I have not caused men to hunger nor to weep,” he lied, reflecting on The Subway.
“I have not been devoid of good works, nor have I acted weakly or with meanness.”
His heart, again, sank.
“I am not...,” he looked down from the god, doubting his ability to lie to his face on this one. “I am not a murderer.”
“I have not…,” Benedict began, returning his gaze to radiant Judge of All…
…and found instead a skeleton wrapped in rags sat upon his throne.
“Go on,” said the Death’s Head through his terrible grin.
“I have not conspired to have another put to death,” he lied.
And, as with every other dishonest statement, the feather rose a little more.
When the laughter stopped, Benedict Eden Benedict Eden Benedict Eden had noticed the festering in his veins had faded, replaced by a chill of the bones. Absently, he nursed his cigarette in a vain effort to apply an abstract warmth. In addition, there was that same, stirring noise in his soul, though quieter; halved.
His guttermagick was gone. Finally, a much-deserved vacation from the
Subway.
He almost wanted to lay down and take a nap.
“I have not plotted to make another grieve,” he lied
But still. As always.
“Save us.”
The shatterpoint in his chest, at last visible for even him to see, glowed, radiating light, seeping out in rivets of…
purple?
Blue?
“I have not taken away temple offerings,” he lied.
Overlooking the stretch of displaced ghosts, he nearly chuckled. A stray thought brought him the premise that [member="Darth Adekos"] and his Coruscant Rehabilitation Program had finally reached ridiculous, new heights.
“I have not despoiled the dead,” he lied.
“ I have never committed adultery.”[
The menagerie looked to the scale expectantly, waiting for the heart to fall. It didn’t. Curiously, it didn’t. The ibis shrugged his shoulders.
“I have not tampered with the balance.”
The heart lowered.
But it was punctuated by panic, a hurried check of his affects:
His lightsaber, his spraycan, loose pages of his “spellbook,” and…He closed his eyes tightly, dreading the worst. If the hold that branded his name had been dissolved, could the binding that…
…slowly, he withdrew
the severed head.
“Burning…,” it moaned through a dilapidated jaw.
“Aw, mate! You made it!”
By the grace of God, the
Mingus-Dingus Tech Submission had come up odd. Benedict need not be alone in Hell.
The gods leaned in for the final plea, these last utterances concerning them most of all. The hawk, the ibis, the jackal, the camel, and the skull, their faces smug as they watched him squirm.
“I have never kept from the gods what was their due,” he lied. “I have never obstructed a god when he came forth.”
The heart sank again, the scale fluctuating back and forth as the feather and the heart found themselves comparable in weight.
The Skull twirled his finger in the air, indicating to the accused that he ought wrap it up.
Benedict eyed the scale with dread, sputtering out the final precious declaration.
“I am sinless."
The Skull stared at him for a moment, allowing him additional confessions should he need it, but as they never came, he reclined back in his seat. He initially looked to the surrounding court for a verdict, before recognizing it was right there on the scales.
The heart and the feather were in perfect balance, and while his heart was not lighter than a feather, it was not heavier, either. The Guttermage was found Good by virtue of a technicality.
The camel grinned and the Judge of All motioned Benedict away.
Avalore fistpumped, “Yes! I knew it! I told you!”
He held Mingus-Dingus out toward the crowd by his hair.
“Best keep close, squre. We need stick togevver, like. We’ve both got a lot to answer for.”
Carefully, he returned the head to shadows of his trenchcoat.
But Benedict didn’t laugh in relief, he didn’t even smile. He simply moved away from the stand so that his sister could take it.
“I told you everything was going to be alright!”
The trenchcoated man walked on, not looking back as his sister praised the Judge of All, as she stood trial, as she walked up to the scale and placed her heart upon it…
…and the heart sank so hard and fast that it launched the feather from the balance and onto the lap of the God of Death.
“Oh, Benny…,” she reflected pitifully. She had trusted him with her heart, and he betrayed her.
And as he sank into the Duad, the river of excrement between life and death, surrounded in the material poodoo of his existence and others, he tried not to listen to the sounds of his sister’s soul being torn apart by the jaws of the sin-eater.
Par for the course.
“Another season in Hell,” he reflected, taking one final drag off his cigarette, before flicking it off to the side. He stepped off in the direction of the Chasm of Passing, following the river north.
"Here we karking go, then"
)
