"Saint Peter," Iago immediately recognized the senior rooster that had suddenly appeared before him in the void.
"Ah, you do know me," the older bird said, reverting to his glowing, natural spiritual form. "I know at least that you are not just a cardinal, but a most hallowed Cardinal, if you do know the difference.
Iago knelt. "I have been anticipating meeting you, but not so soon," he explained. "And I am still baffled by the presence of the first Pope. Do you see how your office is defiled, now? By a scraggled cat?" he asked.
Peter frowned. "He is the Pope," he clarified. "He is worthy, I would have done something if he wasn't."
"Ah. Very well, then. But enough talk of that. I am devout, I am faithful, and I do believe I am a martyr," Iago chuckled, "with the circumstances I was so mercilessly executed in!"
The rooster smiled. "I don't doubt that, but let me read my reckoning of your deeds to try and see for certain what you do mean," he nodded. He pulled, from thin air, a short scroll, but detailed enough to contain every single action of Iago's, with the most concerning ones highlighted in large, red ink.
And, rest assured, there was a lot of red ink. Peter frowned slightly as he read.
Greed. Gluttony. Lust. Terror. Regicide. All highlighted, and grievously detailed.
"Do forgive me," Peter said, "but perhaps there was some sort of printing error. Let me see."
"Take your time, your Absolute Holiness," Iago chuckled, and sat down, patiently. "But there was something I was to ask you. Can you disclose the status of other souls, or is that private?"
"It is usually of utmost privacy," Peter said, temporarily rolling the scroll, "but I do believe you are holy enough to hear. Who are you concerned with?"
"Felix, King Felix of Valentia, firstly," Iago smiled. "Is he in heaven? I read Dante's description of how souls from deaths like his go to the Seventh Circle, to be turned to trees and ripped all apart by harpies," he too enthusiastically described, casting doubt on the seriousness of his initial question.
"That may be true for some, but only of the ones of spite and hate apply, or ones who came there to avoid punishment or justice," Peter very much assured. "Felix saw it as his only escape, and however right or wrong it might have been, God is the right and moral judge that decides that, and I do believe he chose justly. Felix is in Heaven, yes."
"But there is someone else. Cameron. His attendant," Iago smirked.
"You wish him to be in Paradise?" the Apostle asked, remembering the name of this weeping young collie.
"Not in the slightest. I wish he burns," Iago chuckled. "He should be crawling with the other sodomites in the eternal, fiery desert!" he now crazedly laughed.
"For a holy man, my, do you ever like your Inferno," Peter noted, then found that he could unwrap the scroll, finding much more sin than he could at first see. He had to take a closer look. "And I assume you know of the lowermost circle?"
"The one with all the traitors and treacheries? Where the high demons make home? Of ice and fire and, most of all, eternal suffering! Of course," Iago nodded, smiling wide. "He's there, isn't he! Cameron is there, with the lowest of the low! I knew it, thank you, thank you."
Peter smiled, and sighed, turning around the parchment, and showing the deep, rotten-green ink. TREACHERY. "You're wrong about Cameron, but it is good to know about a place before you go there, so that Dante of yours will come in handy, as much as it may. Say hello to those you see," he instructed. "It's been a long time since one in particular has heard from me."
"Wh—" Iago started to squawk.
—
"—at!?" he finished, appearing in an ornate hall. Peter was nowhere to be found. It was dark, with only a few torches. They burned purple... The hall itself seemed, upon closer inspection, to actually be made of ice.
This wasn't hell! Hell was hot. Its red earth burned beneath the black sky. This was but a small hall. Perhaps a pathway to redemption. He'd prove he did the exact thing he was set out to do! There was a solitary door, which, above it, read a few words. Iago turned his head, as they were in a language unfamiliar to him.
He opened the door, and felt his stomach sink. Before him was nothing but black. Complete darkness. A void darker than a tomb. He walked through it, cautiously.
Limbo. This was limbo, surely! He wouldn't be sent straight to the underworld, with his holy status, no matter what he did in the mortal life. He noticed that, just ten steps in, he could no longer see his hands before his face. Turning around, the entrance from which he came was now shrouded in this perpetual darkness, nowhere to be found. Either that, or it had disappeared.
He quivered, and turned around, trying to run back, his breathing speeding. "No... let me back. Let me back!"
Suddenly, two parallel lines of torches, all this same shade of purple, lit up gradually. At their end, thirty-odd figures stood. All were hooded, in purple, or so they looked within these purple torch's lights.
"Oh my God," Iago cawed.
"Speak not that word here!" one of these figures warned in a rasp.
"Who are you? Where am I? Send me back, I demand it," Iago commanded. "By the holy order of the Cardinal!" he resolutely added.
"Holiness hath no power here," another shrouded figure said. "Holiness has been absent here, from time's very dawn."
Iago stepped further, and knelt. "Please..." he crooned. "Have mercy."
"Where do you think you are, Iago?" one of the figures said, struggling to speak.
"Not Hell," Iago shivered. "It's cold here, for one thing, and Satan's company are cloaked in dark crimson, not this magenta, or whatever this might be."
The torches went out. Now out of the light, these cloaks were a deep crimson.
The cardinal raised his head, stupefied. "No!"
His head suddenly shook. He heard screaming, awful high pitched trills shake his head. They persisted for about a minute, no matter how much he himself screamed and resisted them. The noises only got higher, until he felt the sides of his head and realized that his ears were bleeding heavily. He couldn't think after it was done, but he was, at the most, able to comprehend these words, spoken to him in an inhumanly deep voice: "Rise, Iago. You must be introduced to your fellow servants."
After this, each hooded figure revealed their twisted faces, each so horribly ruined and contorted that only with their names could they be recognized.
"My name is Cain. I killed my brother."
"My name is Mordred. I killed my father."
"My name is Cassius. I killed my emperor."
One by one, these figures revealed themselves to be traitors of their kindred. The last, bearing a swirling black motif on his cloak, lowered his hood. His form was so unspeakably demented that no words could state further.
"My name is Judas. I killed not, but betrayed— I betrayed a person who cannot be named here," he spoke. "I summon my master, to welcome this new demon whose name be Iago."
Though it was audibly incomprehensible, Iago knew every word. And he realized that he was not only deeper than he thought, but the deepest one could go. The lowest of the low. "This is not right," Iago said, "I am a holy man—"
More ringing overcame his ears. He screamed, and pounded his talons against the floor, now feeling nauseously dizzy. AVE! a universal cry came out among the damned. A figureless being then appeared in a fiery flash. All was alight with deep orange flame as this monster roared. It was a flying mass, roughly vertical. Its mouth, with infinite teeth, laid at its side. Along its lips were countless eyes, all crying crimson, bloody tears. Uncountable arms protruded from its mass. The cardinal suddenly found that he couldn't see all too well.
"Iago. Betrayer of Valentia," this monster himself spoke. "Kneel."
The scarlet bird shook his head to refuse, but his legs were overcome with great pain. He felt them crack, and he yelped out in sheer pain. With this, he knelt, tears crawling down his eyes. "I am not— one of you!" he struggled to speak.
The high king of demons laughed.
"VADE RETRO! VADE RETRO!" Iago screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Fool! I am already home!" Satan further laughed, at a deafening volume. "You don't see?"
"...VADE RETRO, SA—" Iago tried again, in vain.
Crunch!
The demon had enough, and the bird suddenly felt his face implode, his skull crumbling like an aged piece of parchment. His thoughts became uniform, to serve only his master. His eyes felt like they would burst from their sockets in this extreme heat, and blisters soon overcame him, as he realized he was being scorched alive. Trying to scream, he gargled.
"There is your fate, worse than what you gave to that canine, foolish bird," Satan chortled, amused. "Pull your cloak, to vainly hide your soul's dark truth."
With nothing left to do, and all hope abandoned long behind, Iago accepted his fate. On his back, a pentagram was scorched, and the robes he donned featured this same shape above.
"Ave Satanas," they all started to struggle in chanting. "Ave! Domine inferni!"
Iago knelt, and repeated this in his new gurgle of a voice as he pulled the hood over his head. Each word pained him more than a dozen knives to the back, but he knew he had no will anymore. Satan was pleased in these pains, and floated as he further listened to his hooded followers' laudations.