GILT

The Devil You Don't Know

As it is known, the mortals are divided in their beliefs. When is the end...the end? Though most all them have faith.

Artūras had long forgotten what it was like to have faith to guide him, or a choice in what to believe for that matter. How lucky they all are. Unaffectionately naming the ignorant mortals the unburdened, his brother often mocked him for the bitterness lingering in his soul. Ludovic has lived long enough to naturally discard such useless emotions. For he knows just as well what is coming.

What has always been on the horizon. Once reborn as immortal, your notion of reality is augmented. You consume truth and premonition. One long history lesson condensed for your viewing pleasure, all to show you that they were there from the beginning. The Eternals of the world.

More importantly, to inform your poor soul that yes...

There is definitely an end.

What is seen and what isn't can be hard to decipher. Each face that has turned by your maker flits by in a blur. Their sires, their sires, and so on until your eyes bleed. Then flashes of a bright world bathed in light, devoid of dark. Devoid of shadow, of night, of all of them. Now imagine the instantaneous flow of all that information streaming into your contorted mind as your human life ends.

Sounds bearable, yes?

It leaves open wounds in the soul and scores the mind. Most don't have a fighting chance to retain the call, finding it difficult to hold onto water in a windstorm. Very few, like Artūras, are altered in the process out of the sheer ferocity of the struggle. It is said those with the strongest will are prized and therefore, rewarded.

Though the majority of immortals seem to relish in the abhorrent transformation, there are those alone who lament the knowledge and wicked existence. When it happened, his fight, his heart refused to darken. The flashes of light flowed through him. His lustrous chestnut locks leached out. The blue sky above him mirrored in his unblinking eyes. It all left him with a light step, a vanishing slight, and a silken halo of white hair.

Artūras sat at his desk, contemplating that old bitter feeling. And what his brother had just proposed. Faded maps gathered dust and relinquished no new information. They had all but given up.

Then Ludovic suggested it. Emphatically. He ignored the way his brother stared and fixed back his jet black hair with a light pull of the hand. The thick strands of it had a clever way of hiding his silver eyes, but he had nothing to hide here. The dim room rumbled as their collective energies sparked at the tension until it felt alive.

"How can you just expect me to stop searching? How can you stop?"

Artūras sat wide eyed and almost at a loss, he never thought his brother would fail. Not at this.

"Brother."

Ludovic chose his words with care. An unhinged Artūras can be quite the handful.

"The fact remains, we haven't had success with our current approach." Ludovic paused at the window, watching foot traffic pass by on the darkened streets below.

"Where have I heard something like this before, Ludo? Was it a quarter--no, a half century ago?"

"You have a terrible memory."

He knew that Artūras wouldn't remember his reasoning for wanting to change tactics a full century ago.

"I'm not saying we stop searching for him, Artūras. I wasn't saying it then either."

Tonight felt different. Like the old days. The cool night air breezed through the room and calmed the tightly wound eternals. They stood on opposite sides, letting time slip by. Time was one thing they had in abundance.

"I'm listening." Artūras turned to face his perplexing brother.

"One hundred years ago, I came across an excerpt. A ritual. It was scribed from a relic, the lost Tome of Deathlife."

Ludovic gauged the lackluster visage of his brother and continued, "If we had the full text, it could give us the means to coax the old crow out of hiding."

"Make him come to us?" Artūras had enough sense to know the feat would be next to impossible.

"In a way--"

"How in the hell do we pull that off?"

Ludovic smirked at the notably precise question that cut him off. That smirk set off all the alarms.

"No...Ludo, you can't possibly mean what I think you mean."

"Can't I?" He was drawn to staring out the window again. Eyes of beasts.

Artūras took a seat, letting out an anxious puff of air. The Tome of Deathlife? There's only one reason a text like that could be of use to his brother, and only one place it is rumored to reside. A razors edge traveled up his spine. For he realized, Ludovic is planning to visit Eternal Hell.

This is not to be confused with the humans perception of a damned souls journey to a fiery brimstone place of devils and deprivation. No, this hell is the end all for those like Artūras and Ludovic.

It is the only afterlife reserved for immortals.

"Do you really believe--"

"She will help us, Artūras."

Ludovic had to be steadfast in this belief for them both. Quite a difficulty given the circumstances. After centuries without her, seven, to be exact, she is still the only being that ever loved him. She is responsible for the light that remains in his half languished heart. She was also a fire that consumed him. And now...

She is the ruler of his appointed hell.

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