In the Gaping Maw of Satan

Gottfried and Christian were friends from their early days in the church.

They were also scholars of the occult.

Having come up through the seminary in Leipzig the two young men eschewed the allure of the cloth and instead found adequate employ in the city's thriving merchant quarter, after which they could further their real passion.

The pursuit of evil's very source.

Their grounding in theology as young students had laid a solid foundation upon which to delve deeper into the wellspring of devilry and, despite all but modest salaries at the bank, they acquired a formidable and comprehensive library of books pertaining to Satan and his insidious works.

This fascination for the deeds of darkness likely stemmed from their love of fairy tales, the Märchen, of their childhoods, as told so vividly by their respective Grandmothers. As children their heads were brimming with the sobering tales of lost maidens meeting lone wolves and of dreadful witches' curses.

The tales were terrifying and the two boys were mesmerized by the kernel of evil at their heart, the dark seed from which the awful stories sprang.

Playing together in the Leipziger gardens they relived their Grandmothers' Märchen and enacted the foul industry of the malevolence within. It was all they could ever think about -

From whence did such devilishness spring?

To counter their growing obsession with such deep shadows their concerned parents sent them to the esteemed city school where priests were made of youngsters and it was there whilst buried in theosophy within those tranquil cloisters that the two closest of friends vowed to verify the very birthplace of evil itself.

This ill-advised compulsion was for a while hidden well within the long symposia of the  aspiring clerics, the subject of the Fallen One and his grasp on humanity a natural matter for discussion at the seminary. But their focus on such darkness grew ever stronger over the years and the Fathers were not blind to this dangerous diversion these older boys were taking.

Despite sound council from elder tutors the now two young men seemed immune to reason and remained hell-bent on their frivolous but potentially harmful whim to locate the springhead of malice in the world.

They were asked to leave the seminary.

That was ten years prior and Gottfried and Christian were now learned occultists, their infamy known among the fell flock the world over and their definitive satanic library the envy of them all. 

Donations from wealthy admirers poured in to bolster their shadowy ambitions and the table was set for truly uncovering the Fiend once and for all.

The friends had also amassed many totems of sorcery in their library, such as goats' skulls, demonic amulets, witches vials, arch robes and blood goblets. These were displayed for study throughout the rooms.

The latest technological advances also, such as the camera and phonograph, were purchased in the hope of one day recording the nature of the Beast and proving to the world it's physical existence.

But for all the thousand spells and hexes known to them, it was not the lure of the black mass and it's nefarious rites which drove the two men. 

No. 

Their interest lay, as it had always done, in the discovery of a single source of satanism, a physical cache of demonic cruelty situated somewhere within the structures of the Earth and from whence all goodness gifted to humanity was forever tainted with hatred and malice.

As the years rolled by and dark tomes studied and re-studied, the two zealots began to glimpse a shadowy vein consistent within the ancient tracts, a whisper of a frightful geography, an echo of a real source.

Yes!

Further frenzied reading, sifting and verifying over the winter of 1869 brought them to an irrefutable truth, that there was indeed a material terminus of hate, an actual provenance for Lucifer and his jettison of baleful seed. It was there. On a map of Europe.

"Mein Gott Christian! We've found it!"

"Javol mein Freund! it's hard to fathom after all these years of searching! We may just yet get positive proof and photograph the Fallen Angel himself!"

Preparations were made for travel. It would be a long and dangerous expedition but the two men were fired by the glory of their quest and the seductive reduction of Beelzebub to the strictures of physics.

Supplies were readied, pistols stowed, the new-fangled cameras and phonograph packed and modes of travel organised; namely the overnight Eastern to Carpathia, a chartered skiff across the stormy Pest and finally a local horse and carriage to their final dark destination in the foothills.

Böse.

The village of evil.

The journey proceeded well over the next two days and no ill-winds hindered neither their transport nor their spirits, which remained as keen as ever, their resolve to see the matter through steadfast and true.

At the last they entered the village of Böse, where an interested benefactor provided shelter and food in her comfortable lodgings.

"Might I enquire young Sirs as to the exact spot you seek in these environs?"

"We seek a mine shaft in the lower hills on the edge of Böse. Do you know if it Madame Nister?"

"I do Herr Gottfried, indeed I do. I myself have a fascination for the peculiarities of man's industry and the caress of the Fallen One on this Earth. I will gladly escort you to the shaft in the morning"

After a hearty breakfast of bread, boiled eggs, pickles and coffee, the trio, provisions and equipment packed in copious rucksacks, embarked on the two hour hike to the mine along rock-strewn upland tracks.

As they neared the old structure the trees became stunted and gnarled and the previously lush green meadow grass turned an insipid pale yellow, upon which grazed a herd of enormous and hideous mountain goats, betwixt whose legs flopped a gaggle of loathsome pot-bellied newts, their warnings burping like rifles as they spilled out of the shaft.

But it was the sight of the rams' massive curled horns, universal in the black heraldry of Satan, that sent a cold frisson of both fear and excitement up the spines of the two young men, who now looked at each other and nodded.

This was it!

If ever they should turn back, now was that moment.

"I have decided on account of my local expertise to accompany you into the mine. I hope that meets with your approval young Sirs?"

"Indeed Frau Nister, local knowledge will prove invaluable in the shaft, but by all means stop before we reach the end of our quest if you so wish"

"Thank you. I shall bear that in mind. Shall we proceed?"

Lighting their Tillies and deploying the still-functioning old miners' lift, the party descended into the ink of the earth forever falling downwards towards its eerie nadir.

Upon reaching the base the threesome set off walking along a horizontal passageway festooned with gangrenous natrine, as if some watery addit, which, invisible to them, see was close by.

After an hour had passed with the dangling colloids wetting their faces, a colossal flock of bats flew straight at them, to which they had the foresight to get face down on the wet coal floor and protect themselves. 

On standing and staring at one another, a querulous howl was heard from deep within the bowels of the ground and the distinct padding of running paws behind them in the lightless tract. 

Naturally alarmed, they sprinted away until they found themselves at an abrupt halt in the passage, whereupon they stopped dead.

From there, looking down, a seeming river flowed, a subterranean viscous stream hidden from the world, heading without pause into the unknowable blackness beyond.

"Gott in Himmel!" Whispered Christian.

To their left was a dishevelled jetty, where a small rowing boat was moored.

"Hurry!" Warned Frau Nister.

The company pushed away with the oars and headed downstream in the constant beck, upon which they were floating, the current easily enough to pull them along it's course without any further need of rowing. 

Christian lowered his Tilly towards the strange waters and leapt back instantly, a look of abject horror upon his face.

"What is it Christian? What did you see?"

"I saw faces. Hundreds of agonised faces spinning in bubbles! They were spirits!"

He grabbed his friend's shoulders firmly.

"Mein Gott, Gottfried, don't you see! This is a river of tormented souls!"

"Souls?"

"Yes! The souls of sinners flowing straight to what we seek!"

"Hell?"

"Yes, of course! Hell itself Gottfried, the birthplace of evil here on Earth and we are close my friend, so very close. I can feel it!"

"Then we must ready the camera and prepare the phonograph if anyone is to believe it!"

"Yes!"

As they fumbled in the boat with tripods, flash guns and wax rolls, they were unaware of the approaching river's rim, a brink in the tunnel's night over which the stream cascaded, the very waterfall of sin feeding whatever dwelt below.

Suddenly as the thrum of the water grew louder, the waters turned as black as coal, the souls within it shrieking as they began to stretch over the hateful force.

With the camera and phonograph readied at the fore of the boat, it was only then that the two hapless men saw the impending and perilous lip where the river vanished.

It was too late.

The tiny vessel was being dragged towards its end.

"It is of your own doing young Sirs! I cannot allow anyone to record the imperious image of the Master and certainly not capture his glorious voice on some piffling toy! I am afraid you are in the wrong place entirely, Seminarians, but I wager the Dark One will be pleased with me for bringing such genteel if misguided souls!"

Christian and Gottfried stared at Frau Nister, who, smiling, transformed into a huge and terrible scarlet gargoyle and hovered above the boat, clinging to the tunnel's roof, as the vessel fell over the river's edge.

Turning, the two friends instinctively triggered their devices and for the briefest of hateful seconds in the flash of the doomed camera they saw what they had for so long sought.

Therein, in those titanic depths below, the waterfall descended, a tumult of murderous spirits, pouring down down straight into the gaping maw of a colossal iron toad sat astride the Earth's still cast core. 

The hellish creature's open mouth never wavered, but it's hadean pupils lowered as Christian and Gottfried fell screaming to their terrible deaths in its throat and the eternal damnation beyond.

"Noooooooooooo!"

The iron Beast blinked, the evil hunger pleasantly sated. Closing it's massive gape, Christian's flashing camera lodged in it's teeth, it showered it's bulbous face in the dank souls of sinners before alighting from it's ferrous throne and ascending the dark heights to the surface of a helpless and waiting world once more.