Creating Gold

two

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The Toad of The Amaranthine Palace _________________________

Rain pelted the roof of the man's small balcony.

The man stretched out on his fraying polyester beach chair like it was the hottest day of summer. He gazed out at the rain from four stories up, and he watched as it created a mist between the buildings. Large droplets fell on his toes that dangled off the floor of the Juliet balcony in a pair of big red flip flops.

He heard as the glass door slid open beside him, "Behemoth get bored of me? Man, he would've loved this." The man muttered, motioning to the storm with a lazy flick of his hand.

"Your father is expecting you," the long man drawled as he stretched against the pink terracotta. "And Behemoth was relieved, got a better gig or something. 'Least that's what I'm told."

The man nodded.

The long man sighed, "Your father is expecting you, E"

"Yes Bel, I'm coming."

The two men made their way inside as the wind began directing the rain their way.

The man's soggy flip flops slapped against the tile of the kitchen floor as he made his way to Bel who stood lazily by a large portal the colour of amethyst, iridescent in the cold light of the man's apartment.

"Let's just get this over with." He said.

"I couldn't agree more."

As he stepped into the portal, the air around him became stagnant and warm, it felt like wading through swamp land as he and Bel trudged to the end of what appeared to him as a long amaranthine hallway that flickered and blazed like flames in the wind.

As they reached the end, the air only seemed to get hotter and thicker, but neither appeared to struggle with the change. They hear a man's voice, deep and dreadful. Like the croak of a toad in the dark.

.

The air sat warm and thick over the red sands, heat billowing from each exposed fragment of eroded crystal the ground lay rest to. This place was stifling, you were unable to breathe. It was almost as though any deeper a breath you take would be considered greedy; everything burned hot here.

This place was like no other; the sky a tapestry of blood, the atmosphere stuffy with ash, the air boiled with raging heat, it blistered the skin. However, in its rarity, the atmosphere lay calm over the sands. Perhaps it was eerie to the few, but to Eleutherius Kafziel Quade the silence was incandescent, and never to be taken for granted. There was beauty in the soft sizzle of the acid rain, and there was most certainly beauty in the endangered moments of absolute silence that sat between the long echoes of agonised screams. This place was comparable to a broken song. An unpredictable melody of endless pain: when it stops - however brief - you are relieved that you are granted even a moment of absolute calm.

I suppose in special cases, one is taught to love what rivals normality, or perhaps Eleutherius just knew the right times to make the most of what he saw. Even with his father being the man he is, in the high tower he sits on, Eleutherius Kafziel Quade had very few claims to his name.

Eleutherius was strong, even for his kind he was strong. Stronger than some, anyway. Eleutherius was tall, taller than most, but shorter than others. Eleutherius was supposedly handsome, desirable maybe to those who thought so, but whether it was behind his back or straight into his calculating lilac eyes, people called him soft; he was a little fuzzy and a little too nice for his kind.

Eleutherius was strong, but to him, Eleutherius Kafziel was nothing special, just a face with a name that had legs and arms, and a brain too. Eleutherius Quade was smart.

But, Eleutherius Quade was also the son of Lucifer.

"Boy..." croaked the toad. "I have been waiting a half-hour for you."

The slime of the man's baritone oozed into their ears like snakes, slithering its way into the deep part of their brains where fear waits like a static charge. It shattered Belphegor's confidence, leaving him glaring down at the hot marble of the palace throne room floors.

The very big man leered from his throne with a sultry look in his eyes. His hand softly grazing the stone as he moved towards the two men. Hungrily licking his lips.

"Oh Belphegor you took your sweet time." He breathed.

Belphegor flinched at the name, glancing up to his master before planting his gaze on the floor once more. "y- y- yes- yes sir, s- s- sorry- sorry sir."

The big man tutted, "Get out, Belphegor." He said through a clenched jaw.

"yes sir." He bowed his head before leaving the large room, his heels clacking against the black stone of the fortress.

That left the man's attention to attach onto the big bodied man that stood before his throne. His one son.

well, the one that mattered anyway.

.