The Devil's Salvation

The seven day trek across the Yoru desert took eight days. It could’ve been that the flood of figures connected by an expansive black covering were lost for the majority of the journey, or because they hid inside their mobile fort to play games at the slightest hint of an approaching storm. Either way, this was quite a surprise to everyone involved and they made no effort to hide their displeasure.

The young complained that this was the worst planned pre-invasion march of their lives and the old complained about the young. Shouts such as: “I can’t believe the young ones complain so much. Back in my day, I would be thrilled to spend a week trekking through the Yoru to achieve glory,” and “I’m utterly shocked the Yoru hasn’t stormed their young asses more just to stop their whining” could be heard over the occasional breeze. Ironically, the young almost always made it while the old frequently decided they had had enough of marching and sat down to accept whatever the Yoru wanted to do with them. The cloaked army walked on all the same.

The General who designed this journey was very logical. The goal was to make their lives an absolute misery. To make these would-be soldiers feel the same hate, and powerless struggle of the citizens of the world they were coming for and then leave them at the foot of a graveyard for their fellow Living. They usually lost their empathy before stepping foot on the intended target’s land. Seven days of marching through sand up to their waists with no water, food or breaks usually did that. No begging citizen would earn a drop of sympathy from one of these soldiers.

The end of their trip wasn’t the other side of the Yoru, or some grand oasis, but a pile of humble stones. The mass of black cloaks stopped before the first stone and kneeled as one following the single order they were given besides ‘march’. A Guardian of the beings that called themselves the Living stepped forward. A simple, modest and accurate name that fit their species quite well.

The Guardian, a representative of the closest thing the Living had to a government, was dressed in less oppressive attire waited for them, “Who will step forward to lead such an army to bring down this injustice,” the Guardian’s dry voice echoed across the cloaked figures. A figure stood up. The cloak ripped and a member of the Living stepped out into the sun.

The figure who ripped through the shared cloak looked convincingly like a human as all Living do. It had hands, a nose, a growing bald spot and smelled, well rather stank, like a human who had walked through a desert for eight days without bathing. On the inside they were quite like humans, as well. Few differences like; relative loyalty to each other, technology that enabled them to cross the universe to wage war on their technologically challenged neighbors, and a lack of a divided measuring system were what really separated the two species.

Even if Living human experts, self-proclaimed and professionally recognized alike, were to scrutinize this being for days nine out of ten of them would declare it a potential human. The tenth would stubbornly refuse to answer out of a desire to advocate on behalf of the human’s king of Hell whose teachings were the most popular trend of the current philosophical season. The capitalization of Hell had troubled the greatest of Living minds for whole weeks. What was Hell? Was it a place? A person? A food? Subtle hacking into human chat rooms gave them a lot to work with. The prevailing narrative was that Hell was a level of “coolness” and it towered above all the other cool levels by a great degree.

The Devil was actually the reason for this march through the Yoru and the impending attack. The Living species as a whole quite liked what the prince of darkness was about — one could say they were picking up what he was putting down — and had decided to save him from the underground prison that the humans had trapped him in.

Did their historians know his whole story, the reason he was a prisoner, or his significance? Not to the extent that a different species would need to wage a war, but the Living were quite fond of his violent defense of sex, drugs and rock n roll as a way of life. They thought he would fit right in with their society and didn’t think the prudish humans would miss him, nor did they deserve him to begin with.

The Living volunteer stepped up to the Guardian who handed it a shovel. A stubby black spade on a worn stick and pointed to the space in front of the first gravestone, “Dig.” The Living being nodded and dug.

After the hole had been dug, the Living being dropped down into it so that only its head appeared above the sand. A fixture of Living culture, a celebratory hole being used to commemorate: birth, marriage, divorce, the rain, the sun rising in the morning, the changes in the stage of the moon, execution, and death, this was a well designed and thoroughly empty hole.

“Do you have your offering,” the Guardian asked. Its voice still boomed throughout the desert causing a few of the cloaked figures to search themselves for their own. A hand raised up from the hole carrying a long cylindrical mechanical device. It sat in the Living’s palm and did nothing. “Pierce the stone,” the Guardian said. The hand turned into a fist with only the tip of the device expose. It slammed into the grave stone with he sound of crackling flames then it opened and slid down the stone back into the hole. The device sticking in the surface.

“You must become the owner of this history teller. A gatekeeper of the human knowledge and the master of two feline guardians as dangerous as myself,” the Guardian hissed to make the point that the Living being would be well protected. “Few humans interact with their guardians out of fear,” the Guardian pauses.

“The perfect host,” the Living being in the grave responded.

“Agreed,” murmurs of jealousy arose from the army. “You will collect their weaknesses, solve their riddles and decipher the location of the prison where the Devil lives.” The Guardian picked up the shovel and filled the hole up to the Living being’s

neck. The Guardian dropped the shovel and approached the gravestone. It pulled it out of the sand and held it over its head casting a shadow down onto the Living. “Go on ahead of us. Though you won’t be alone for long. Your army follows you.”

“Your army follows you,” a chorus of voices rang up from the kneeled cloaked figures. Ripped cloaks covered the sands of the Yoru.

“The Devil awaits,” the Living in the hole murmured back.

The guardian nodded and then slammed the gravestone down onto the sand where the Living being’s head used to sit.

One by one the approaching army came to a stop. The guardian placed the grave stone back in place and waited for the next soldier. The invasion should have begun.

The guardian noticed the lack of soldiers digging a hole at its feet and turned to face the frozen soldiers. “Who’s next?”

No Living stepped forward. Could it be that watching a member of their species have their head smashed and knowing that they were next gave them some pause? Impossible to know.

From the stories they had heard, if the Devil really wanted to escape he was capable of doing it on his own. There was no need for their heads to be smashed.

The frozen soldiers thawed as one and in the most united state since they had started their march, turned together and marched back the way they’d come. The Living began the eight day trek across the Yoru Desert.