A day before the duel, Adone was blindfolded and carried to one of the many rooms of Mangiafuoco’s castle, leaving drops of blood on the floor. Every part of his body was aching as his heart wore a serene smile, unperturbed by the cries of the flesh. With dark irony, he now longed for the whispers of the viridescent snake which gave him a taste of immortality, wishing to perish completely in accordance with his pain’s prayers for peace. The frenzied drumming in his skull couldn’t seem to cease, so he tried to escape his mind by entertaining whatever gentle sensory input he could find. And in that moment, a hymn he only heard in his deepest dreams hummed from of the guardsman blue fay, to which he mimicked with horrific yet tender grace. When they arrived, small strands of Adone’s long black hair got caught between the guardsman’s rusty digits of his fingers as he ripped his blindfold off. Walls of gold blinded his bleary eyes which accentuated his headache even more.
There, a group of four people dressed in black with rabbit masks quickly dressed him up in a more extravagant but derisive version of the typical harlequin attire: A piece of baggy striped cloth over one bicep and another with horizontal stripes diagonally around his thigh, together with a mess of pieces of cloths with bells sewn to the edges. The chaotic asymmetry of textiles, colors, shapes and patterns still managed to participate in some abstract symmetry, reflecting the harlequin he was with disturbing perfection. Near the end, he looked around and noticed a mirror across the room. The form-fitted yet overly baggy digits of some parts of the costume aroused a wicked nausea in him, seeing his corpse in those same clothes. As he stared into himself, one of the black rabbits placed a mask over his eyes with the pattern of fairy wings.
Another one of the rabbit masked individuals escorted him to the dining hall which had an infinite row of seats that stretched into the horizon to the right and left of a table that had no end. Looking into the infinity of the hall was like staring into an inescapable nightmare that trapped his mind. Tremors of a primitive fear moved him to his seat like a puppet with strings. Across him, in the reflections of the endless glass, he heard noise bubbling from people chatting on the same long dinner tables he currently sat on. As mere traces of their shadows, he was able to recognize all of them in their particular nature. The closer he listened, the more he understood what they were saying and the closer he came to the realization that he was hearing all the people he ever knew in his life talking about things they have talked about to him. Thinking that his mind washed those memories in forgetfulness, a new tremor of fear rushed through his nerves when he remembered every interaction in his conscious mind. Life crashed over him in a deluge of dread, remembering the fights he had, the promises he broke, the slivers of goodness he could have maintained if he didn’t make mistakes of his own fault. Trembling, he stared at the empty plate in front of him, seeing how the infinite light in the endless stained glass windows turned into a bloody red, washing the infinity in the blood he spilled. Disgusted by all that he was, he let out a wretched roar as he held onto his face as if it was threatening to burst open, shattering the ocean of noise into utter stillness. The echo of his pain reverberated in the endless halls, becoming a low hum that provided him with both soothing and sorrow.
Silence strangled his ghost as it thrashed with agony, unable to find a place for its fullest expression other than in the divine rage of totality. When he recognized his body again, he freed his eyes from the mask of his eyes, noticing the tear-stains on his glove and the shimmer on his skin. Only then did he notice the tender warmth of sadness and the cold caress of tearfall across his chin as they traveled over the mask. In the overwhelming silence, the all-devouring existence of death hummed a lullaby for his soul in the song of his sorrow.
Loneliness began to gnaw at his hope and the ample warmth it gave him, and in the height of his despair, a golden light bathed the endless table, showing a myriad of memories come to life again. This time, there were moments in his life where he was happy, where all the malaise that he carried became nonexistent for a short while. Temporarily, he encountered a satisfaction that needed no further satisfaction and tasted the divine and absolute. But those were only small trickles of an intoxicating ambrosia, for when the serenity wore off, he would be greeted by the sickness of his own existence. The immortality of his indomitable spirit and the unbreakable nature of his fragile ghost would be cruelly played with in the chaotic sea of being once again. Torn and tattered ad infinitum, the only true eternity he wished to receive was that of one state instead of the war of modes he would go through in life.
The clamor and the hearty bond that the reflections exuded gave Adone a realization and then later a deeper hole in his heart. That the warmth he felt in his life as a vassal for a lord with a lover named Celeste would either never come back. Or that that life, that warmth never even existed in the first place. That the only warmth he ever felt was just a lie and that it only came from another one of life’s cruel tricks.
Tears slid down his lifeless cheeks as he lifted the bejeweled chalice in the air before taking a sip of the heavenly wine. He couldn’t help but study the goblet’s detailed design which was as ornate as an enchanted music box and as awesome as the architecture of a church. While Adone grew absorbed in the beauty of the chalice which was just like every other corner of the place he was in, a large plate full of hot and aromatic food appeared before him. His heart froze for a second when he saw that the guardsman delivered his food instead of the masked people he assumed were servants. The sight of such a haggard husk reminded Adone that he wasn’t in a dream or nightmare, but in the real world, full of gross imperfections which the guardsman wore like a badge of honor. When Adone was offered such elaborate food, he questioned why to the rusty guardsman.
“The people want to see a duel, not a slaughter.” the man said with what could be called a smirk, although his face had too much rust to form one.
Echoes of life from distant times reverberated through the infinity of the dining hall. Those sounds of life would usually fill one with a sense of unity and belonging, but it just highlighted the loneliness of the gorging Adone who ate with the intent of fueling himself up for victory rather than enjoying the rich flavors. As he ate the glazed chicken, merely hearing the ripping of the fibers and witnessing its severance from the bone reminded him of his duels with Durante and the unfiltered reality he witnessed there. The pure reality of violence, of one verdant lifeform being destroyed to support another one, simmered in the shadows of his heart as he ate at a more gentle pace. The once entity which needed no destruction nor creation was that of death, for it exists and carries the absence of existence. It lives without limit, without excess, without chains. In his dream with Durante, he found such an existence, and it is there that he finds the indomitable will not merely to live, but to fight with fury and fire in every fiber of his ghost.
After a few days of being subjected to wearing that attire, he realized that its design was laden with parts of his life and interwoven with memories. Disturbingly, he uncovered that some parts of it were also made of skin, hair and bones of unknown people. When he was in decent shape, yet still critically weak, he was finally sent to the arena. Finally coming to that stage, he felt the presence of another world with perplexing intimacy, unable to fully comprehend the sui generis universe he was about to step into. Yet, even in its ethereal aura, it felt as though he was about to enter a part of himself, a part he never wished to delve into and that which even his own design refused to acknowledge.
Before he entered the arena of shattered hope, the people adorning rabbit masks anointed his thin and sinewy body with small waves of muscle with aromatic oils that enriched his visions of victory and filled him with a similar bellicose spirit to that of his opponent. Their fingers and palms deeply rubbed into every fiber of muscle he possessed as if they were trying to smear the oil straight into his soul. A flame roared within his bosom that screamed retribution for himself and for Durante who gave him the will to prosper. Booming drums that pounded with a feverish rhythm made the earth beneath him tremble. Instead of fear and intimidation, it fueled him with passion and determination to shred what he could only see as wickedness incarnate to pieces.
With the extravagant clothes of an contradictory nature and a dueling saber by the hip, he marched on the stained sands with a lion’s ominous calm. A sea of fiery excitement surrounded him in a manner unnatural to him, but oddly welcoming. Familiar faces entered his vision, but he knew not to be too concerned with them for he would never need to see them again. Observing the other faces in the arena, each twisted with a vile excitement, created a visceral tapestry of terrible images sewn to one another. At the sight of such a dreamlike image, his heart became dipped in a prefiguration of horror. Everything from the roar of the crowd, the thunder in his heart to the clothes he wore; the entire atmosphere was drenched in a living dream woven from the wish to death in the chaos of life. Only this one harnessed the excess of life’s vivacity, so much so that death waited to receive what it couldn’t contain.
After smiling and waving to the crowd who’s all too eager to see his body torn apart, he noticed that the war drums that filled the arena came from one source; Martino’s gargantuan mallet. As soon as the oversized head of the mallet crashed on the sand, the music stopped and so did all of the peoples’ cheer. A suffocating tension of contained excitement gripped their throats. The eyes of the monster doused the flames of Adone’s resolve and washed his pride with a cold dread. The wooden hand slid off of the handle of the hammer which stood like a holy obelisk, gently approaching him, unarmed. Clicks from his insides filled the silence which sent spasms to his head that abandoned heaven’s tender touches and replaced it with hell’s design. Adone’s eyes were drowned in Martino’s cluster of crimson orbs that buried themselves in the nest of twisting horns on his head. As Martino’s and Mangiafuoco’s hearts were connected, so were his and Durante’s. In the marriage of their gaze, a kaleidoscope of existences beyond his invaded Adone’s mind, breathing an ethereal power into him.
Realms aligned with such precision that it was beginning to prove difficult for Adone to distinguish the physical for the spiritual. But that also only made his ability to draw out Durante’s power even more refined and fluid. One hand was placed on the sheath and the other was loosely but attentively wrapped around the saber’s handle. Martino stopped far enough for Adone to relax for a bit and slowly raised his four long arms in the air to summon four sabers in each hand at the sound of a guttural hymn that bellowed from deep within Martino. No one in the audience was able to understand the true depths of the melody, but they recognized the abyssal nature of such dark hymns within themselves. But instead of shrinking with guilt and pain, they embraced the vile with a hearty pride, filling them with a vivacity Adone couldn’t quite understand, but couldn’t help envy. For a moment, he understood exactly what the guardsman was talking about weeks ago, about the virtue of bellicosity and the glory of Martino’s rage. He, like the crowd, saw that same part of himself in him, the difference being that Adone did everything in his power to deal with it while Martino let it empower him.
Adone was far too familiar with the fullest of Martino’s melodies, which no human should be, because of Durante’s sufferings whose scars cast its shadows on his mortal heart. Equipped with four blades with the roars of bloodthirst around him, it gave Adone the impression of a cruel spirit in hell that proudly breathed his own sin. The audible barrage deafened all of the harlequin’s feelings of self-doubt and fear, unconsciously embracing the excitement and inviting horror into his fragile soul.
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A tempestuous surge of aggression and glee rushed through his limbs. Running towards Martino, he unsheathed and swung his sword at the imposing doll as if he was trying to light a fire with his blade. To the surprise of everyone, Adone carved a deep cut into his unpolished wooden frame. Martino stepped back and swung his arms wildly in front of him to gain some distance. A sliver of self preservation ordered Adone’s body to step back and rethink his approach.
Their eyes meet once again, realizing that they are one in their dual nature. Both carefully consider what the best possible approach would be as they follow each other's orbital movement. Although Martino favored action over thought, he wasn’t by all means a thoughtless brute; he knew that Adone had been starved, lacked adequate dueling experience and didn’t know how to control the overflowing power that ran through his soul and especially through his frail mortal body.
With his superior reach and options, he flicked the tip of his saber to knock Adone’s to the side and immediately swung the other saber in his other hand to cut Adone’s head. As expected by Martino, the blade only cut the fabric of his hat whose catbells clattered on the sands. When rationality finally re-emerged from its ashes, despair also began to come forth and perturb him. Adone felt like he was looking up at a cathedral from the perspective of the dust that sat at its entrance. Martino finally saw the opportunity he was looking for and ruthlessly seized it by closing the distance.
In the blink of an eye, the sand behind his feet flew into the air as he dashed to deliver a storm of cuts to overwhelm the already emotionally overwhelmed harlequin. Fortunately for Adone, his rationality was blessed by Durante’s presence and boundless wisdom to ease his internal sufferings and regain his equilibrium. The rejuvenation from his company made it feel more like a duel instead of a struggle for a prey’s survival against an impossible predator. Since Durante also resided in Mangiafuoco’s heart, and his heart moved Martino, the emerald fay was able to convey with decent accuracy when his next attack would come.
When Martino noticed how he suddenly was able to deflect and evade all of his strikes with ease, he created some distance again to think of another strategy. Despite the frustration that made his patience simmer, he couldn’t help but enjoy the thrill of dueling a challenging opponent and the crowd’s increased excitement that came with it. An ancient flame rekindled deep in his hellbound soul, sparking a new surge of brutality that ran through hell and earth.
Short but swift arcs blocked Adone’s vision just enough for Martino to deliver powerful strikes from unorthodox angles that the harlequin wouldn’t even consider to be possible. The infernal melody of the music box within his giant hammer played its notes to strengthen the doll’s bellicose way of being. From the wisdom of dreams, the harlequin ducked and lept through the air in a way that would make one of Martino’s sabers cut his cape. The bells that were attached to the ends of the cape rattled when Adone snatched the cape whilst still in the air. When his feet eventually touched the sand, he sunk the heels of them into it and used the momentum of the landing to spin around and turn the jingling cape into an ethereal silhouette of Durante’s weapon which turned into a blazing sword for him. Due to the intensity of the aria in his melody, its flames formed pillars of vermillion glass on the bloodstained sands as they erupted from Adone’s raging strikes which humbled Martino into a defensive state.
Because it was a mere silhouette and not the real relic, he could easily swing it around despite it having the length of a two-handed sword. While the odds were still in Martino’s favor, Adone gained the upper hand with the help of Durante guiding his strong and precise strikes with calculated efficiency that Martino did not possess. The sounds of clashing metal roared like a raging boil until the blades of Martino’s sabers started melting from the heat of Durante’s sword. Overcome with pride after seeing Martino retreat for reprieve, Adone whooped to ignite the cheer and excitement of the crowd to further humiliate Martino. An abyssal chuckle bubbled out of the doll’s mechanism, turning all his blood cold and freezing the fire he possessed into piercingly painful ice. In one motion, Martino ripped the hammer from the ground and charged towards the unsuspecting Adone, sending him to the edge of the arena walls with a violent impact.
Cracks formed on the walls instead of his bones due to Durante’s powers. Durante, too, was fighting his own battle with the dragon, Mangiafuoco’s true form, but he did his best to ensure Adone’s survival. No mortal eyes in mortal realms would have comprehended the planetary proportions of their battle; ripping mountains with blows and boiling oceans with the heart’s darkest flames. Feverish joy from the battle rushed through realms to make Adone’s body numb to the pain humans would feel from such forces.With that joy came blindness to his humility, carelessly rushing back into the fray with the two swords in hand. The howling of the crowd became nothing more than the crackling of fire to his ears; everything lost its significance and melted into the meaningful meaninglessness of dreams. In the dream rife with so much vivacity, he felt godlike, all-powerful and all-empty. And with the touch of infinity upon his ghost, all that made him who he was and all the components comprising his being boiled with ecstatic intensity, becoming the screaming prayer of aria’s totality.
Aflame with life, Adone rushed to Martino, who swung his hammer horizontally which the harlequin evaded with perfect accuracy by leaping into the air and cleaving Martino’s head horizontally. Even with the burning side sword, the cut didn’t go through and Adone lost his grip on the sword, forcing him to let go of it and take a few steps back behind Martino. Akin to a beast, he dashed the large hammer onto the sands which sent tremors to the whole stage. His roars of agony also sent tremors to the whole stage and even the ears of all who were there. Through the groans and screeching, he pulled the blade out of his head with animal fury, burning his hand and ripping a part of his head like a fruit, finally letting it go the moment it exited his skull. Molten metals, viscera and blood spilled out of the large gash in his head that split the right side of his long head, cutting his right eye and down to his mouth which revealed a row of bloodied humanoid teeth attached to maggot infested gums. It held a closer resemblance to a horse rather than that of a cricket, like the other parts of his body would suggest. To all who watched, they saw a true demon stripped of its costume.
To Adone’s surprise, the audience quickly adjusted to the demonic appearance and continued to shout Martino and Adone’s name. The dualistic nature of the audience’s desires all melted into an amalgam of brutal expressions of eagerness, filling Adone with a pang of pity and sadness for the spectators. But sympathy had no room on the battlefield. Martino quickly reminded him of that sad truth when he saw the doll leap into the air with his hammer over his broken head. He dashed away from the place of impact and jumped into the air like a cat to avoid the rupturing tremors it can cause. Durante warned Adone to keep a humble and understanding heart during any occasions, to understand the irrationality of things and to remain pure with your intentions.
Adone abandoned that notion the longer he fought the disheveled husk.
The more blood that spilled out of the cracks of the doll, the more the harlequin delved deeper and deeper into darkness until his head was clouded with desperation and disgust. The idea that his freedom was ensnared by such a grotesquely evil creature sickened him to his core. And what made him even more aghast was that such a creature was a part of him, sleeping in the same place he placed his love, care, loyalty and tenderness.
Martino held out his arm to make Adone’s saber get stuck in the wooden exterior of it. Another surge of icy blood rushed through Adone as he saw the blood oozing from the wooden doll’s arm, inflating from the muscle beneath the cracking shell. Reading the slight error of Adone’s flow, he grabbed Adone’s arm with his other hand tightly. With rage and shame, he swung Adone around like a piece of wet cloth and slammed his body to the walls and floor with groans of frustration. Throughout the horrific treatment, a part of Adone wished that Durante didn’t make his body so sturdy so as to receive the fullness of pain he was experiencing. After his tantrum, Martino planted his foot on his broken ribs and pulled his bloody face closer to Adone’s, letting blood trickle down and splatter on his scarred skin. Squelches and ticking of cogs whispered out of his ghoulish mouth that produced a damp breath with the stench of death.
“You and I are one and the same, Adone: you would much rather follow the way of blood than the way of virtue. Hate me, Adone. Loathe me. Do whatever you like, because whatever you do, I’ll always be there. I am endless. I am the truth everyone wants to hide. No one can run away from what’ll always be and neither can you. Witness me and accept it!”
Sinking his splintery fingers into Adone’s sinewy forearm with unimaginable pressure, he tugged at and twisted it before ripping it off. The sound of muscle and bone ripping accompanied the burst of pain exploding from Adone’s lungs, producing a sound he couldn’t recognize as coming from himself. Using Adone’s guttural scream for mercy as a sound of triumph, Martino raised the limp forearm zenith and made the crowd’s excitement reach unseen heights. A moment of spiritual clarity struck him amidst the pain engulfing his whole network of senses. The scene playing out before him was indistinguishable from hell and Durante’s battle against the grotesque dragon. The difference being that Durante can heal himself and battle infinitely; only ending until he sees an opportunity to grab the pendant with his beloved Osanna which is through the dragon’s death. Adone didn’t have that luxury; once it was over, it was the end. Forever.
Despite the terror, hatred, fury, disgust, anguish and soul crushing despair, all would dissipate in the stillness of death which he craved more than the painful energy of life. It all seemed like the universe performing a comedic play about him, humbling his ignorance and self centered attitude. Through observing his surroundings with another, larger perspective outside of himself, a large grin folded itself on the corners of his mouth and a laugh blossomed from his broken bosom. It was a grating, shallow laugh but a laugh with a fire that transcended the broken state he was in. Silence swallowed the frenzy of the people and even Martino, who stepped away from the laughing harlequin. The bleeding doll held onto his ornate hammer tightly, which now looked infinitely more beautiful when put next to such a hideous nightmare given flesh and form. Durante’s indomitable love for Osanna mixed with Adone’s unrelenting will to unveil the secrets of the world ordered whatever functioning limbs he had to rise from the sands and shakily point the bent tip of his saber towards Martino, whose mangled face expressed confusion by emitting a primal aura that only Adone felt in their united spirit. Blood sputtered from his lips as he tried to speak.
“I will accept you, but I won’t hate you, for acceptance comes from understanding. When something is understood, it cannot truly be hated, but only be embraced with compassion and empathy.”
Like a tree caught in a typhoon that miraculously stood amidst the raging elements, Adone held himself upright and basked in the twisted faith of the people who had bet fortunes on him. Even though their urge for him to win came from a dark and selfish place, he still let it elevate his mind to come out of this bloodbath as the victor. A broken victor, but still a victor nonetheless. HIs cracked and bloody smile, far too familiar to regular visitors of the arena, had a hope that stood far above that of the others.
Thanks to Durante’s aid, the blood coming out of his left arm solidified to prevent it from exiting his wounds any further. Crackling sparks stoked his motivation and moved him to land another strike. Using the same strategy as before, Martino put his arm out to let the saber get stuck into the wood. Little did he know that the dulled and bent saber carried hell’s unadulterated wrath and cleaved through his left forearm and the other left hand below that arm like a hot knife through butter. Blood gushed out of Martino’s arm and flowed through the stained sands as the large doll stepped back in mortified fright. Death’s presence washed over Martino’s ghost to remind him of his fate that crept uncomfortably close. Without the function of his two arms, he used the two other ones to summon two sabers once again and to let the hammer fade into shimmering dust while its music empowered him to not admit defeat.
Enlightened by the wisdom of existence’s perfections and flaws that Durante generously bequeathed him with, the frail man parried and slashed with the grace and fervor only a primeval passion can provide. Their blades made love with each other through intervals of sinking into flesh and kissing blood. The dark fay began to laugh at the teetering strength of the mighty dragon that reigned in hell for so long. Their tiny laughter, like a cacophony of cat bells, invigorated his spirit to keep fighting and flow with the intensity of his heart. The song that their blades sang infused hell with a fury unbeknownst to its wicked inhabitants to the point where even they grew fearful of such power. It was like being in the presence of war-incarnate that knew how to execute the purest form of vehement wrath. Through the blood, roars and tears, a piercing silence that transcended realms came into being when Adone and Durante simultaneously lobbed the heads of Martino and Mangiafuoco.
Reality and unreality became one in their shared silence before erupting in vibrant screams of joy and regret. When bloodstained cogs sprung out of Martino’s open neck, Adone turned and saw a mortified Mangiafuoco leaning over the elevated balcony and staring piercingly at him to the point where his eyes looked like they were on the verge of bursting. The large man began to lean over the edge and spit copious amounts of blood until his entire face began to leak. Durante began to rip the flesh and bones off of the dragon to retrieve the pendant with such ferocity that the Mangiafuoco in the physical realm twisted and shivered from pains that hurted beyond human comprehension. Adone’s face, bloody, scarred and decorated with a beatific smile and eyes resplendent with madness was the last thing he saw before his body became nothing more than a pile of ash, flesh and blood.
Five golden coins appeared swimming in the sludge. They appeared to whisper to Pinocchio with the voice of the fox and without any cognitive resistance he seized the coins and carried them in his pants pocket. Pinocchio climbed up a crate to see a weakened but overjoyed Adone stand proudly over the corpse of the demon that knelt before him. The wooden boy was shocked to see him without an arm but was so happy to see him alive that it made the shock fade as quickly as it appeared. Tears escaped Adone’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks with haste at the sight of Pinocchio’s wellbeing. They trickled down on the pools of blood around his feet which began to dance with the vehemence of the audience.
Adone slowly walked away from the arena, from the cheers, the rebukes, the dungeons, the building that it lay under. Freed from the prison Mangiafuoco constructed in Adone’s ghost, he had an intuitive sense of the halls after years of walking them and was finally able to remember it in its entirety instead of endlessly forgetting. The Durante that was within him did whatever he could to relieve him of the bodily pain, for his soul couldn’t be touched and its pain was too profound to be treated. With an almost sweet nostalgia, Adone observed the dreadful halls of the dungeon and the majestic halls above, parting ways with the horrors of both. To Adone’s astonishment, the arena and dungeons was under an abandoned cathedral in the vicinity of the city he performed in so often.
His aching and burning feet kissed the cool surface of the floor with each step. Dirtying the interior of the holy place was the last thing on his mind as he walked toward the imposing doors. With the jubilant echoes of Pinocchio’s wooden feet pounding on the porcelain tiles, Adone lowered himself to embrace him, wrapping his one arm tightly around him. The warm sensation of incoming tears washed over his face as he tightened his embrace so much that the cuts on his arm began to reopen. Relief numbed that pain which seemed insignificant compared to the pain of a broken promise. Hand in hand, they walked out of the cathedral with intrepid hearts ablaze.
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