The Job Chapter Two

The Job

Chapter Two: The Smile

He tore the last piece of flesh holding his opponents head to his body and threw it into the air as a sign of triumph. The sound of the head hitting the cold hard earth could be heard for miles on end. This was not because of the lack of people around the bloody battle but the silence which had come from the brutal end to a brutal battle. Spitting into the crowd around him the winner raised his hands into the air and yelled barbaricly his followers joining him. The roars of success, the expansion of the tyrants reign.

Cypselus had grown his empire. His rise to power had been foretold by the Delphic Oracle of Corinth. He still remembered the night he ordered the slaughter of then the rulers of Corinth Arieus and Perantas. He still remembered the smell and taste of their blood. He still saw their beating hearts as if he had killed them yesterday but his rise to power had been a full thirty years ago.

He was called invincible ergo no opponent of his had ever been able to even lay a scratch on him. Even when he was just a baby, his life was spared by just a smile. Arieus and Perantas had sent two men to kill the infant after hearing the prophecy of his rise to power and their end but the men had not been able to kill him, they could not go through with it for the infant had smiled at them. Cypselus later disappeared only to be known again as the Archon in charge of the military during the wars Corinth had with Argos and Corcyra. The man had come from the shadows and rose quickly in ranks for his acute battle skills and his thirst for blood. By then both Arieus and Perantas had given him up as dead until Cypselus had forced his way into their chambers killing them both in their incestous bed.

The people of Corinth fear Cypselus for the satisfied smile he had after killing his opponents, the way he always cut out his opponents heart while it was still beating, smelling it, looking at it as if savoring his favorite meal. Like a black cloud he increased his ranks, and smashed through all boundaries and walls spreading panic and depression. The fear of everyman, woman and child was the sound of his name. Not being able to know if today was their last.

He walked back into his tent, washing his hands in the basin provided, his smile still upon his face. He had won again. He had conqured all of Greece, he had fulfilled what had been foretold. His mother Labda had hidden him the caves over looking the city of Corinth for most of his childhood. He was told of the dangers of ever going back but he did not fear anything. Not the cold of night, the eyes of the forests, not the heat of the deserts nor a life of limitless deaths.

After his usual fill of wine and sex Cypselus retired to his tent a content drunk smile on his evil face. His son Periander found him the next morning. The tyrant had died in his sleep, still with his smile. His funeral was one that never forgotten by any Greek for centuries to come. The stage they had made for his departure for the netherworld was made 1000 feet high in the air. And when lighted beams of its light had washed over all parts of Greece. The colonies breathed a sigh of relief upon his death but they did not know that Cypselus had passed on to his son his thirst for human blood. His thirst to spread fear. His thirst for the total humiliation and torture of man.

Cyplesus woke from his sleep in a cocoon whose walls were covered with bright red blood. And in the middle infront of him stood a young, pale and beautiful boy. Cypselus smiled.

"Have i died?" he asked the boy.

"Not for the last time" the boy replied.

"So why am i here? Where is this?" he asked, not amazed at the answer.

"You have been here before. As to why you are here, you are going to continue my work" said the boy smiling. The boys teeth were the last he saw as everything went black.