Trampling in the Land of Woe_Book One of Three

by William Galaini

  Joints finding their place again, Hephaestion rolled to his knees. He figured Yitz would have landed nearby somewhere. The wind hissed in his ears. His shield had bent at the bottom, fusing the two halves into a round whole.

  Through the grinding wind, he heard a singular, constant humming—a bright, vibrating note as if played by an instrument. Surrounding him with a tiny, alluring song, a flickering light, so small it was almost imperceptible, broke through the blackness. If he focused too hard, it winked out. Unfocusing his eyes and adjusting his disheveled armor, Hephaestion lumbered toward the tiny flame.

  The icy ground was smooth with long, flowing ripples that started at the cliff-face beside him. It was like the lake had been frozen as the water rippled from an impact at the center. The origin of Malebolge alleged that the place first formed when Lucifer had been cast down from Heaven. The impact of his fall created the entire pit of Hell. While its specific machinations remained a mystery, all sources agreed that at the very center of this frozen lake was Satan himself.

  And down the devil’s spine was the only exit—a crawl space leading to a cave right along the back of the beast himself. A path that led to the first two stars seen by man.

  As he neared the flickering light, he could make out a lone figure, sitting with legs crossed. The singing note came from his spear, lanced into the ice next to the man.

  Yitz.

  Yitz had fashioned the torch out of the bandoleer wrapped tightly into a cone, gunpowder and the documentation on Gil used as fuel.

  Hephaestion met Yitz’s gaze, his mouth open to speak.

  “You self-absorbed jackass,” Yitz snapped. “I could be with my son right now, but I had to wait for you.” While he felt sorry for his friend, his impatience to reach Gill sullied his temper.

  Hephaestion nodded. “I’m sorry. And thank you for waiting for me.”

  Yitz stood up, grunting. He glared at the spear, and Hephaestion tugged it free of the ice, ending the humming.

  Then they glanced down. Beneath their feet, the frozen damned were encased in ice. Some had been completely submerged, while others had been frozen from the nose down, their heads exposed to the gnawing wind. Occasionally, someone had an arm free, their body angled in the frozen prison. They would tear at the heads around them, pulling out hair and denying any measure of warmth to those who shared their misery.

  Beyond the torchlight, long shapes stalked, eyes shimmering and careful to keep their distance from Hephaestion and Yitz. Perhaps they feared the light, or perhaps they feared a soul with purpose.

  Rings spun around a center disk, the fine lines in the frozen lake indicating their boundaries. They held onto each other as they crossed, the unsteady ground challenging their numb focus. Occasionally they would have to be careful how they proceeded toward the center of the lowest point of the pit, thin lines in the lake’s surface indicating a new rotating ring. Whenever they traversed a change in rings, they held onto each other, just like in the queen’s throne room. Each spinning circle contained a different kind of betrayer; a false counselor toward a leader or perhaps a parent that betrayed a child. In the deepest part of the pit, the wastes they shivered through, the rings were getting smaller and smaller as the sins became greater and greater. Despite knowing that Gil was held in the next circle, Yitz was uncertain where he would be found.

  Yitz swallowed hard, eyes wide. His journey so far had been a parade of human misery, torment, and irreversible regret. He braced himself for the heartbreak of seeing his boy’s eyes among them, not knowing if he could tolerate the sight.

  Hephaestion knelt beside a random head and looked the trapped soul in the eyes.

  “Do you have the picture, still?” he asked.

  Numb, Yitz shook his head, pointing to his torch.

  Hephaestion nodded. “We’ll look one by one if we have to. Would anyone know his name? Maybe know where he is?”

  Yitz cleared his throat and bellowed, “I have come to see my son, Gil Isserles. Blink twice when we come by if you know him!”

  “I know him,” a smooth voice called from the darkness. Yitz nearly dropped the torch. Only a pair of black boots were visible in the torchlight. “Why do you seek him?”

  Yitz straightened as Hephaestion adjusted his shield and renewed his grip on his spear. The voice was hard to hear, prompting the men to walk closer.

  A man in a long black cloak, chewed threadbare by the wind, stood before them. He wore a jester’s cap, frozen bells on the conical tips making only a sad, tinny sound with each gust of wind. A black mask, carved like a skull, obscured his face, except for his lower jaw. Frosted covered his trim beard.

  “Why do you want to see this man?” he asked again, placing one of his gloved hands on the bladed metal whip coiled on his belt.

  “I am his father,” Yitz said.

  “You bring light here.”

  “I couldn’t see without it.”

  “You bring warmth, too.”

  Yitz didn’t know where this was going. “I can’t…not be warm,” Yitz finally offered.

  The man in black stepped forward, hand easing from the whip. It seemed as though he had once dressed for a costume party, everything on his person appearing to be playful and luxurious. Everything except the ferocious whip at his side.

  “If I take you to this man, you will tell him that you love him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  This question baffled Yitz, and he simply didn’t have the strength of mind anymore to deal with anything. “Because I do,” he cried, misery in his morbid laugh, his desolate voice echoing off of the heads of thousands watching from the dark.

  Hephaestion shifted beside Yitz, his stance dropping ever so slightly into a fighting pose.

  “This torch won’t last as long as I will,” Yitz added.

  “I’m Montressor. I am the guard of this place. I will lead you to this man, and you may speak to him. But if you try and free him or offer him any more light or warmth than that torch, I will teach you a new death.” Cloak snapping in the wind, the man turned, leading them deeper into Cocytus.

  With difficulty, Hephaestion and Yitz kept up; their guide deftly avoiding each head. Soon, not even a quarter league, the man stopped and pointed.

  “He is here. Gil Isserles.”

  Hephaestion nodded in thanks. The masked man backed up, but stayed within both hearing and striking distance. Yitz trembled as he approached, sinking lower with each step.

  Frozen hair molded by the wind, Gil was encased from his lips down. Snot had sealed his nose to the ice, and his eyes blinked furiously, the cold film over them melting away from the friction. Dropping to his knees and palms, Yitz examined the unfrozen upper half of Gil’s head. He had come through Hell hoping to be able to wrap his arms around his child. His body ached to hold his little boy on his lap again, Gil’s tiny head under his chin.

  “Gil? Is that you?” Yitz asked, voice quivering.

  Gil’s eyes glazed with moisture. Yitz gasped and delivered a flurry of kisses to his boy’s forehead. His impossibly frigid skin burned Yitz’s lips. Gil’s eyes welled up, his brow crinkling as ice muffled his sobs.

  Montressor reached for his whip, ready to attack, but before he could, Hephaestion’s spear tip pressed against his throat. “Don’t,” Hephaestion commanded. “I’m a Greek with a spear. Do not fuck with me.”

  Yitz’s sobs filled the silence between the two men.

  “It’s my fault, Gil. My fault,” Yitz croaked. “Too much of me in you, and not enough of your mama. She cries for you at night and says your name in her sleep. And it’s my fault.”

  Montressor’s hand eased from his whip. Hephaestion lowered his spear, but still kept his grip on the weapon firm.

  “You violated my terms. Let those that damned themselves suffer as they must. Offer no comfort!”

&nbs
p; Hephaestion sighed. “We’re not here for Gil,” he whispered. “Not really. We’re here for his parents’ sake.”

  “The damned are my concern. The ones who got away with it,” the masked man snarled.

  “Trust me,” Hephaestion said with weary humor. “I don’t think they did. Besides, you aren’t here for them so much as you are here for you.”

  Yitz’s sobs lessened. He pulled off his yarmulke, licked the underside furiously, and used the warm moisture to wipe his boy’s forehead as clean as he could. Then he snapped his kippah clips into Gil’s hair and fixed the yarmulke to his frigid head.

  With one last, solid, tender kiss to Gil’s forehead, Yitz held his boy’s head in his hands. “We love you, my Gil. Your Mama and I forgive and adore you, even now. Frozen and cold and sinful, we love you just as much as the day you were born.” He stood, maintaining eye contact. “We are on the rim above.” He pointed heavenward. “We wait for you and pray for the day we hold you again.”

  Gil’s eyes clamped shut as if to contain his shame.

  “You are worth it, my boy. Your mama and I would have no other son than you.”

  Montressor crossed his arms, glowering at Hephaestion.

  “Is Lucifer that way? Farther out?” Hephaestion asked while pointing with his spear into the nothing ahead toward the center of Cocytus.

  “Will you forgive him too?”

  “I might as well, but along his spine is our way out.”

  “Then head in that direction, toward the center of the maelstrom.”

  Yitz hung on until they’d left Montressor’s dominion. Then he fell onto a rock, his face buried in his hands. Hephaestion sat beside him, his arm strong around Yitz’s back, and let him cry, and resolved to sit next to him for however long he sobbed, eternity or otherwise.

  It turned out to be no more than a minute.

  “All right.” Yitz snuffled. “Let’s go home.”

  They steadied each other’s steps as they walked among frozen limbs and splintered black ice. Chunks of frozen volcanic rock gradually became more common as they approached Cocytus’s center, and the cruel wind stung their faces.

  After stepping over several more circle partitions, some moving at greater speeds than others, the air shifted. Wind pounded their bodies and forced them to cling to each other for footing. Yitz’s torch flew out of his hand, the flame extinguishing, but faint lightning strikes on the horizon guided them.

  Gusts, filled with dust and pebbles, deafened them with their manic roar. Illuminated by the occasional flicker of discharged electricity, the Fallen One hovered above them. Like a massive windmill, Lucifer’s six wings batted at the ferocious air, while his lower half remained frozen under the lake. Legend said that Lucifer would forever be trying to break free of the ice, but his panicked flapping caused such wind that he froze himself into place, fulfilling his damnation.

  Yitz and Hephaestion reached a small crag. Yitz climbed down immediately, but Hephaestion was transfixed by the giant angel, his wings fluttering like a desperate moth trying to reach a distant lamp. Gazing up through the swirling, electrified gloom, Hephaestion could see the tiniest hint of light. Even here, at the bottom of the universe, Heaven could be found. Lucifer could see and feel his home, his desperation to return his true punishment.

  To return like a rogue planet missing its star.

  “Heph!” Yitz shouted from the rocks below. “Move.”

  Shaking free of his trance, Hephaestion followed his friend’s descent. Hephaestion used his shield to deflect the brunt of the wind upon them and they crouched low, weaving around and climbing over the jagged crags that drew them to the exit. After another quarter league, they were directly under Lucifer’s wings, the wind not as strong here despite the ear-bursting pressure.

  A minute flame flickered nearby. A burning flying machine, one of the troop transports that had chased them in Dis, had crashed down near the devil’s backbone. Someone had braved the winds to get here, smashing their vehicle into the ice, and several burned and broken bodies were strewn throughout the wreckage. Some were charred beyond recognition, but one stood out, sprawled out on red-soaked ice and gazing awestruck at the pounding wings above.

  Yitz knelt down next to the broken man, his chest quivering in struggled breath. “So good to see you again, Provost General. Was the wind disagreeable for flight? Did you want to plant yourself next to Satan as you deserve?”

  Blood spattered from the Provost General as he cursed Yitz. “Deniers of Christ!” he seethed. “I came to stop your escape. You will never know peace from me”

  Then you’ll never know Heaven,” Hephaestion pronounced, stepping over him. Yitz followed suit.

  Within a brief distance they stood peering down Satan’s spine, the dark muscles pulsing with each pound of wings. Hephaestion squinted to make out the shape of a wooden ladder, staked into the ice and unrolled.

  And so they left Hell.

  Chapter 43

  Hephaestion and Yitz descended, one after the other, down the icy shaft leaving the pounding wind howling above. The distant light dulled into nothing as they found their sense of gravity distorted.

  “I can’t… I feel like when I’m drunk and I don’t know where the floor is,” Yitz remarked.

  Hephaestion discovered that the ladder was no longer leading them down, but instead the rungs lay flaccid on the ground. “I think we climbed down past a curve of some sort. It’s steep, but you can stand, Yitz.”

  They did so, balancing themselves by putting their hands on the ceiling of the cave. Hephaestion teetered as he unfastened his spear from his back and held the weapon forward.

  “You go first. I’ll provide emotional support,” Yitz suggested.

  An earnest guffaw escaped Hephaestion.

  “What?”

  “No, it’s just…very welcoming that you’d make a joke. While we’re literally climbing down along the spine of Lucifer.”

  “I wasn’t kidding. You’re doing a great job leading the way. I’m impressed with how well you’re holding that spear.”

  Both men enjoyed a snicker as Yitz shoved Hephaestion. He dug his heels in and turned.

  “Welcoming. That’s the word for you. And Adina, but especially you. You welcomed me,” Hephaestion said, looking his friend in the face.

  “Hey, that’s what Hell’s for.”

  “I’m serious, Yitzhak.”

  “Don’t you try and talk to me like my mother. And I’m serious, too. In a place like Hell, it’s vital to welcome each other. Many a Jew has survived by welcoming each other into their lives. Gentile or not, you’re one of us. A person. Lost, and a bit thick, but still a person.”

  “You’ve been very patient with me,” Hephaestion confessed.

  “Lord knows.” Yitz rolled his eyes.

  “Adina would be very proud of you.” Hephaestion grinned.

  “She raised me right. Now, is there any chance you’re willing to move forward so we can get out of the lowest and darkest part of Hell? I mean, if you aren’t busy?”

  Hephaestion tapped the spear tip to guide his way. The cave soon became perfectly round and their sense of up or down fled leaving only the idea of “forward.”

  Hephaestion wondered what would there be for him, now? Since he was a child, he knew Alexander. He sat next to him while learning from Aristotle. They bloodied and pleasured each other as they grew into men, and there was no corner of Hephaestion’s existence without Alexander having stood witness.

  His entire life, he’d known exactly what he wanted and where he was headed and what he waited for. Every moment had been dictated by the existence and light of his love. And now…what?

  Green eyes. The hurt those eyes held would haunt him.

  Two tiny spots, like distant eyes, appeared before them. The cave was wider now—Hephaestion’s spear unable to find
the walls with only the two spots of light to guide them. So dim and far away that if he tried looking directly at their halo, they’d vanish.

  “I see them, too,” Yitz whispered, unnerved. “They look like eyes.”

  Hephaestion had to unfocus his vision and continue toward them. Step after step.

  The lights brightened, becoming stars in a distant sky that gradually yielded to violet. Their gentle shush soothed his angst and guilt. As the song of the surf rolled in and out, the cave’s floor gave way to wet sand, marking their entrance into Purgatory.

  As fresh sea air caressed him, Hephaestion was once again grateful for Yitz at his side.

  “You saw me through,” he said, looking in his friend’s eyes.

  “You led the way.”

  Foamy water splashed his boots as the flickering delight of stars adorned the sky. Vines hung on the nearby rocks, and tufts of long grass jutted from bulging patches of sand.

  “You look like hell, Hepher! And is this your friend?” Ulfric sat by a large brass optical scope aimed at the sky.

  As always, the very sight of this man renewed Hephaestion. “W-what… how did you…”

  Yitz bent down, scooping up water with his cupped hands and washing his face.

  “This one’s wife can be persuasive. She sent a message for me to come here so I took some time to enjoy the stars while waiting for you. I knew you’d make it.” Ulfric jumped down, arms open, and scooped up Hephaestion with a flurry of pats on the back. “We missed you. It’s been a while. A second war even came and went on the living world. Earth’s gone crazy, and a lot of busted people are flopping onto the rocks every day. We could use your help guiding them.” Ulfric beamed a smile towards Yitz and Hephaestion.

  “I’d just as soon return to my wife, good sir,” Yitz said, straightening.

  “Fair enough. I’ll see to getting you transit. And you, Hepher? Are you game? Want to come back with me and see to the throngs of people pouring onto the rocks?”