Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

“Don’t compare yourself to that woman.” The man spat into the dust. He wasn’t intimidated by the General’s threats. “She’s gone to the Underworld and back to bring back the herbs for the ritual! She is from a very respected family and your barbaric tribe isn’t a match for it.”

“And why is that?” the General asked. “What is it about that family that makes them better than my tribesmen?”

“Because they were instructed with the secrets of the Underworld!” the man said. “Did your pitiful shamans even know about that place? You think it’s bad now? That place holds such things that you can’t even imagine! She’ll be going there again, and when she comes back she’ll wield such power that your guns will melt in your arms!”

“Interesting… Can you show me where that place is?” the General suddenly asked. The man looked away; he realized that he’d been played and had said too much.

“Listen… Here’s a deal for you,” the General said, stopping right in front of the man. “You tell us where it is, and in return we don’t kill every single person in your pathetic village. I’d rather take that offer; there aren’t many of you left as it is.”

The man was silent. Not satisfied, the General gave his soldiers a command: “Start rounding up the villagers. Children and women first.”

“I don’t know where it is!” the man exclaimed, looking up into the General’s eyes. The General shook his shoulders: “I see that you’re not lying. But then what use are you?” He flicked his wrist and the soldier hit the man with his gun, making him collapse to the ground. More hits and kicks followed. People screamed in panic. The General frowned: “Just don’t kill him. Round up the rest here.”

“Listen up!” the General shouted when the soldiers brought the villagers before him. “I have a new deal for you. Tell me where I can find that Underworld of yours and what herb from it I need for the ritual your priestess has performed and I’ll let you all live. Stay silent and I’ll start executing you all one by one, starting with that girl.” He pointed his finger at a girl who was hiding behind her mother’s skirt—no older than eight years old. “She won’t make a good devil, so don’t count on her coming back to hunt me.”

The girl squirmed, burrowing her face even deeper into her mother’s skirt, and the woman started nervously looking around.

“I wonder if I can make a shot from here.” The General pretended to hold a weapon in his arms, aiming and taking a shot at a girl. Some soldiers laughed. “One.”

“We have to tell him!” The woman started panicking. “Please, don’t let him take away my daughter! She’s all I have left!”

“Two.” The General waved for one of his goons to hand him his gun.

“Somebody, please? Anybody know? Aunt Fatuma, you have to know that!”

“Three?” the General wondered as he lined up the shot. “Do I take a shot or are you going to show me? What’s it gonna be?”

“Stop it.” An old man walked out from the back row of the crowd and stood in front of the women. Despite the fact that he was no older than fifty, his face and arms were incredibly wrinkly; compared to him a rhino would be as smooth as a baby. “That’s enough violence. I’ve been to that place before. If you want to go there so badly, then fine. I’ll take you there. Let the devils decide your fate.”

The General, however, was not convinced: “How do I know that you’re not lying?” he wondered, squinting his eyes. “None of these people seem to know where it is, and yet you do?”

The old man sighed. It was obvious that he did not want to remember any of that. “Twenty years ago, my brother fell ill to some disease. Nothing we tried helped to relieve his pain. So the previous priestess, the one you have killed”—he glared at the General—“agreed to help. But she warned us that there would be consequences, and she took my word that I would keep my mouth shut.” The man shifted around uneasily and turned around to take a look at the young girl. Her mother was glaring at him with pleading eyes full of tears. She did not care about his promise, but he could hardly blame her.

Sighing, the man continued his story: “I carried him with her to a nearby abandoned mine, and then she had me wait outside while she took him inside the mine. I waited for the entire night, hearing inhuman incantations and sounds of devil’s music coming from below.” He paused and looked into distance, his gaze obscured by the scenes from that night.

“And then?” the General impatiently asked.

“And then, when the sun rose… my brother walked out on his own two feet, along with the priestess. Whatever she had done to him returned him his powers.”

“Marvelous story.” The General slowly clapped. “So you’re saying that there’s an abandoned mine nearby that just happens to lead to some mystical land? Do you take me for a fool old man?”

“It’s—”

“Because if you are, I’m going to eat you raw.” The General suddenly leaned in, not letting the man finish his sentence. His bloodshot eyes were wide open, staring down into the man’s own, trying to sniff out any signs of deception. “I will do the same I did to your grandma witch, and I’m eating that little bitch for a dessert” He pointed at the little girl he had been aiming at a few moments ago, and she squirmed, trying to bury her face into her mother’s skirt.

“Are you finished?” the old man calmly wondered. The General’s speech left no impression on him, and the younger man, recognizing the old man’s resolve, smirked and stepped back, crossing his arms. The old man took it as an invitation to continue, and so he did: “Those caves had always been there. Out tribe had been guarding their secrets for thousands of years—some say even before men crossed the great desert to found the Ghana Empire. They have different names, but the one mentioned the most was ‘The Keep of the Giants,’ and it said to span the entire world… and even beyond.”

The General didn’t ask any questions or interrupt him so, clearing his throat, the man continued: “Over time, the true masters of those caves either left or fell asleep, and the entrance to the caves was thought to be lost in an avalanche. But then somebody found diamonds there, and so the excavation began.”

“Diamonds?” The General cocked his eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of any diamond mines in this area.”

“That’s why it’s called ‘abandoned,’” the old man commented.

“Don’t push your luck old man, all right? I don’t like your tone,” the General informed him, pointing at him with his knife. The old man ignored the threat and continued: “We tried to warn against mining there, but nobody listened. As a result, the gates to the lost kingdom were opened, and everyone who slept inside, waiting for their master’s return, started crawling out. Had the sun not posed such a threat to them they’d be crawling all over the continent by now. But, we got lucky. Although we still sometimes catch a few running around here in the night.” He nodded toward the burned down house of the priestess. The General didn’t understand what was he talking about, but Homewrecker did; he remembered the bizarre shape of the large skull that was hanging above the main door, and he shuddered at the thought of how monstrous its owner must’ve been during its life.

“All right then, I see.” The General rubbed his chin. “So that’s where that bitch got her powers from. An herb, was it? From that Underworld of yours?”

“The Blood of the Giants,” the old man said. “That’s what she called it. She said that it’s the herb that grows at the base of the sleeping giants’ feet,” the old man said, shaking his shoulders. “If it means what I think it means then she’s braver than I thought.”