Cerebus

[singindemonhq]

Cerebus

The way that Cathy's Guide said that we had to take widened out into a smelly compound with solid walls around both sides and a kind of long hut in the middle. I could see the exit on the other side of the hut, and a glimse of heat-baked plain, mountains, and what might have been an active volcano in the far distance.

At first the only danger seemed to be choking on the stink. Then there was a rumbling sound and a three-headed dog the size of a cow came out of the hut! The whole group backed away as it lumbered towards us, growling and barking at the same time. It stood slavering, blocking the doorway - the spittle skittered as it hit the ground and I realised that they were keeping the dog in there with a red-hot strip at the entrance, and it evidently didn't have sense enough to jump the barrier. That didn't bode well for the singing magic; it probably didn't have brains enough to understand a song.

Oh well, this was one of my gigs. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The brute's breath stank! I started the lullaby, trying to project a feeling of sleepy warmth, and puppies huddling in a basket.....

Down, good boy, your work is done,
time to lie there in the sun,
time to bask and time to laze,
idling through the endless days,
stomach full and sleeptime soon,
through the drowsy afternoon.

(The brute took two steps backwards and lay down. Two heads drowsed while the third nibbled at a foreleg, Apparently, Hell has fleas. The dog wasn't far enough away for us to get past safely even if it did sleep. The active head laid its cheek on the foreleg and closed its eyes, but the central head was stirring.)

Down, good boy, it's only us,
you've no need to make a fuss,
we're your friends, it's only me,
passing through your territory...

(the middle head came up, fangs showing, and the rumbling growl started again. Ooops!
Guard dogs are territorial sonsabitches by definition!)

Down, good boy, there's no-one here,
no-one you should fight or fear,
time to eat and and gnaw a bone,
go back to your little home,
curl and sleep and dreaming soon,
drowsing through the afternoon...

The head was down again and the breathing deepened, but I didn't trust it. One false move and it would be awake again, and then the bones it would be gnawing would be ours. Even if we all got through now, anything could happen when we came back. I suddenly remembered that Cerebus had been designed three-headed so that at least one head would always be awake. Even now the eyelids on the left were twitching. I decided to try something else, and cast a complex illusion.

Suddenly there was a leopard-sized housecat beside the huge dog. All three heads came up, snarling and barking. The cat squalled, spat and swung a paw full of claws at the middle nose as the dog lumbered to his feet - then the cat twisted around and raced towards a gap in the surrounding wall, with its tail floating bare inches from the baying jaws of the angry dog. The cat raced through the gap and was out on the endless plains, hesitating as it looked around for something to climb. Cerberus roared and leaped at it - and hit the wall with a thud so hard that I felt it through my shoes!

The huge dog dropped, stunned - finally completely unconscious and liable to stay that way for as long as we needed. The illusions of the cat and of the gap in the wall had snapped off as soon as I stopped projecting them, and the dog was piled against the solid wall that he had run into at full speed. Cerberus rolled on his side and started to snore as the group moved on through, but from his mind-glow he was was under for a good long time. I found I was whispering,
"Stay!" under my breath as I went past, so I backed the order with a good dose of thrall.

Then we were passing through a dread portal that stank of the dog-urine staining both sides of the doorway, and were out on the plains of Hell, waiting for Cathy and her mechanical oracle to tell us where to go next.

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*Waits with bated breath for the next installment.*