BURN IN HADES Read Online Free Page B

finally tell me how you’ve come to be here in this place.” A branch reached down patted Cross on the head gingerly.
    Cross swatted the branch. “The same way everyone else got here. I was a good guy once. But bad things happened.”
    “What kind of bad things?”
    “It doesn’t matter. The past is dead. Or at least it should be.”
    “The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground. The plant reveals what is in the seed. There grows no wheat where there is no grain, soil, season, and sun. This explains why I bare no leaves, why the gardens are dead and why you will never move on if you kill your past.”
    “Move on to what?”
    “That is for you to find out.”
    “Knowing what I’ve done in life, if there’s anything after this, it’s probably worse. I never even wanted to be an outlaw. There a hundred other things I would have rather done with my life, but I had to do what I had to do to survive. Now I’m here. Makes me wonder what you ever did to get where you are.”
    The bark receded up the corners of Skullface’s mouth and peeled away from his glowing eye sockets. “I am so pleased that you’ve finally asked this of me!”
    Cross waved his hand. “Now hold on. I didn’t ask you anything. I just had a vague curiosity. That’s it.”
    “Take a look over at that wall.” Branches reached down like a hundred hands with a thousand fingers and pointed to one of the walls of the court.
    Of the many souls carved into the walls, depicting some sort of ancient ball game, a single man stood as the only soul decapitated. Streams of what appeared to be blood sprouted from his neck and formed a serpent.
    “That is Hun-Hunahpu,” said the skull. “He was the very first—”
    Dog-like cackles echoed from far away in the north. Cross leapt to his feet at the yelping.
    The unpleasant barking didn’t come from hellhounds however. The noise wasn’t even the howl of a dog, but something more unsettling. The sound was celebratory laughter from the only kind of creatures that lived in the Metnal Mountains, and they were coming for Cross’s head. If they were still in the mountains and not in the valley, he still had time to eat before he escaped.
    Bolon-Hunahpu swished its branches upward at the taunting noises. “Squals!” Each of the eyes, which still bloomed on the branches, scowled. “I despise those miserable creatures with all my bark and bone. I once offered them my calabash, and they attempted to carve me out of the trunk. Can you believe? I barely managed to fend them off, and not without suffering much abuse. I strongly suggest you try some calabash. It may be of some aid to you in case of confrontation. If you so desire the fruit of this tree, you shall speak it unto me.”
    The squal laughter grew louder. Cross still couldn’t pinpoint how close his hunters were, but the screeching noises of the squals were definitely coming from the north. They heckled him from their lair in the mountains of Metnal as if they wanted him to know they were on his heels. It could mean they were closer than he anticipated. Or it could mean that they were far away and were just trying to spook him. It worked.
    “Is this fruit not delicious in its appearance?” said Skullface.
    “Shut up you big, dumb tree! You’re gonna get me burned.”
    “I AM NO TREE! I am merely a skull! A round thing placed in the middle of branches.”
    “You’re gonna be firewood if you don’t shut your squirrel hole.”
    The tree bent upwards with a scraping wisp. “The walls of this court were designed to carry sound at great distances, so I believe it was your yelling earlier that has alerted them to your whereabouts. But if it is I you wish to quiet, I shall grant you an extended silence.” Skullface buried himself back inside the trunk and the tree stood lifeless.
    An apology nearly slipped from Cross’s tongue. He didn’t truly mean what he said about burning down the stupid tree.