Free Commitment - Predatory Ethics: Book II by Athanasios Page B

it. The real fuel came from emotional and psychic torture. People who had the most to lose were the perfect fuel. Ideally they were to be sensitive souls who were just starting their adult lives with promise and expectations. All this promise and hope was slowly squandered not by neglect or inevitable apathy most developed for life but by inflicted pain from the keeper and master torturer of this chamber.
    “Balzeer?” a choked, bleary voice said; it was barely above a whisper. “Supreme Tribunal, I beg you I’ll be an asset to the church, please just let me show you, please!” The voice sobbed and cried inconsolably. At first Bernhardt was surprised that there was anyone alive in the summoning chamber, but the tome in which he found the chamber described had also detailed nobody died there. They were to fuel the chamber with whatever its user needed. Only its portal opener was allowed to give the eternal rest all that were imbedded or attached to walls prayed for. The sobbing increased, and the voice screamed in desperation.
    “Please! Balzeer let me add value to the company. Please give me another chance. Please! Please! I’ve been here forever!”
    Bernhardt paid no attention to the continuing pleading for release. He walked about and with little pity checked if every piece of fuel that hung or was crucified on the stone walls was capable of going on. The energy of their despair and capacity for torment and horrific pain would continue in them all.
    These unfortunates had lived lifetimes of pain: whole lives of the needed power for the chamber. Bernhardt knew that despite his own distaste, he wouldn’t stop it. He didn’t bring them there, but he knew that hardly mattered. He would do nothing about their lot because in no small way, he couldn’t bring himself to put somebody else in their place. He could if needed, but wouldn’t because he did not want to add misery to the world unless there was absolutely no other choice. He also wasted nothing but those few thoughts on the subject and moved on to his task.
    Half of these people would not live out the day. Bernhardt was intent on the Prince Himself. The timing and proper sacrifices of pain and terror needed to be exact. So few people had ever succeeded in calling Lucifer that nobody could remember the last time it was done. Bernhardt was duty bound to bring Him back and help in any way He needed. Though he chafed under the duty Bernhardt could find no way out of it.
    Balzeer had used a contrived beast, the land piranha, to get the proper power from the fuel that hung on the walls. Bernhardt needed more, something more than mere pain. He needed gut-wrenching emotional and psychic torment for his task.
    He went around again to each of the thirty-six people attached to the walls. At each he repeated an incantation to bring back suppressed and forgotten misery. Each had their own personal anguish and Bernhardt made these miseries real again. He brought their memory back to their terrible moment, and their awful pain was renewed and compounded.
    The past had to be so vividly felt they were only indistinguishable from the originals because they were many times worse. Loss of loved ones was the most common and betrayed love or friendship. Dashed hopes and defeats came close. Another common one was their first day in this same summoning chamber and Balzeer their first tormentor. The awful sights and sounds and every day since then were also highly common.
    Balzeer had never used the chamber in the task for which it was now being prepared. He had never summoned his God. Bernhardt held none of the cattle’s distant worship. He revered Lucifer out of tradition and family obligation. He and the Dark Nobility were acquainted with the Prince and His Hell because some of the Dark Nobility was born there. Those known as the Black Nobility knew Hell as their ancestral land, their motherland.
    He stepped into the pentagram and began his incantations. No cow could do this because