by Heide Goody
“Well, it’s very simple, sir. The water comes out this pipe, is channelled through the hottest parts of Hell where it absorbs heat and converts to steam which is then returned to the machine through this second pipe.”
Scabass nodded.
“Yes, but how does it work?”
“Hmmm, yes,” said Rutspud, his mind rifling through a thousand hours of internet videos and earthly movies for something convincing. “The water-steam conversion matrix works by, er, reversing the polarity of the neutron flow which then, um, directs the heat through the flux capacitor.”
“Flux what?”
Rutspud grimaced and let his brain go wild.
“It’s a narrow beam of gravitons which fold space-time, consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics, until the space curvature becomes infinitely large –”
“In layman’s terms,” said Scabass.
“The steam gets turned back into water and the heat goes away.”
Scabass nodded, as though he had successfully understood something deep and complex.
“Well, I am pleased to say that the areas of Hell fed by this machine have indeed shown a drop in temperature.”
“Have they?” said Rutspud.
“Mmm. Unfortunately, they represent less than a thousandth of Hell’s total area and, overall, Hell’s temperature is rising at an accelerating rate.”
“But at least I’m contributing to the solution,” said Rutspud hopefully.
“Giving false hope,” said Scabass. “And in a report that should have been titled Fuck Me, I Can’t Believe It Didn’t Work, I’m So Shocked My Tits Have Dropped Off, it has been revealed that praying for the heat to drop has not worked either.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Is it?”
Scabass stretched, finally relinquishing his painful grip on Rutspud’s shoulder. “So, I’ve been asked to lead a new initiative, one that will get real results.”
“Really, sir? What’s that?”
“I’ve been tasked with the heavy burden of apportioning blame.”
“And how will that get real results?”
“Because, when our eyeballs are melting and our feet fused to the ground by the inferno, it will be some small consolation that those responsible are suffering even more.”
“It’s a thought,” said Rutspud.
“Now, I have been compiling a list of those who are blameworthy and I think it’s only fair to tell you that your name appears on the list.”
“Me?” squeaked Rutspud. “Sir! What have I done?”
“Oh, Rutspud. Dear Rutspud. Be assured your name is at the very bottom of the list.”
“Okay,” said Rutspud, momentarily mollified. “And it’s a long list, isn’t it?”
Scabass blinked at him, tinny eyelids audibly clinking. “What?”
Rutspud shuffled uneasily but Potter, needle and thread and dead seabird in hand, held him in place.
“How many names are on the blame list, sir?” he asked.
Scabass looked up and, for a long time, counted silently on his fingers. Eventually, he looked down at Rutspud once more.
“One.”
In the middle of the afternoon, a deep quiet came over St Cadfan’s monastery. It was a dark, furtive quiet, as two dozen monks purposefully constructed a lie. Papier-mâché and clay models were inelegantly shaped and moulded. Wire devices were devised and tested and adjusted. And, on the hillside above the monastery, the gangly and optimistic Brother Terry sat alone with a small lasso and a pot of yellow paint.
But, in the monastery kitchen, there was noise. It was, for the most part, the gentle hiss and roar of the sea and the wind, played on a looped tape on an old reel-to-reel recorder. However, this was broken every hour or so by Brother Manfred screeching into the oven at the top of his lungs while attacking each orphaned stilt egg with a pair of wooden spoons. It was, he smiled, only what any good parent would do.
Satisfied, he returned to the kitchen table, where he had set up his sewing machine and his box of threads and buttons. He consulted the plan for his costume and continued to sew.
“Oi, you! I want a word!” shouted a red-haired man, stomping out of the stone labyrinth and up to the door of Rutspud’s cave.
“Really?” said Rutspud, looking up from his conversation with Lickspear. “How about ‘pitchfork’ or ‘scourging’ or ‘ten years with your goolies in a vice for forgetting your place, puny damned human’?”
“Ain’t that fifteen words?” said Lickspear.
Rutspud stared at his badly-stitched friend.
“Since when could you count?”
“What can you mean by this thing ‘count’?” said Lickspear.
“I’ve been told that you’re the one responsible for this mess we’re in,” said the damned soul.
“And who are you when you’re at home?” said Rutspud.
“Me?” The man straightened up. “I’m Judas Iscariot, taker of blood money, betrayer of our Lord and my one true friend.”
“Ooh,” said Rutspud, genuinely impressed. “A star inmate. But, wait, aren’t you meant to be in the ninth circle of Hell, encased for all eternity in a solid block of ice along with the other great –” He stopped, already knowing the answer to his own question. “So, how is the ninth circle these days?”
“Empty,” said Judas. “The whole thing has melted and everyone else, Brutus, Cain, the lot of them, have gone off to the Lake of Fire for a refreshing swim and an ice-cream.”
“And that’s where you should be. Now, hop it.”
Judas wagged an angry finger at Rutspud.
“I was sent to Hell for a reason. I betrayed my brother, Jesus, and I deserve to be punished. I don’t expect to be thawed out ten minutes after arriving because of your error.”
“Ten minutes,” said Rutspud thoughtfully. “Do you know how long you’ve been here, Mr Iscariot?”
“What?”
Rutspud grimaced and looked at Lickspear.
“Makes you wonder if cryogenically freezing someone is punishment at all.”
“What are you talking about?” said Judas.
“Crying Jenny. The chick’s got him all busted up,” said Lickspear.
“Listen, I don’t have time for your whinging, Judas,” said Rutspud. “I’ve got some major arse-saving to do if I want to get off Scabass’s shit list, I’ve got to help a friend, and – you may have noticed – I currently have a bird for an arm, so either piss off or take a number and sit down.”
“I will not be spoken to like this,” spat Judas indignantly.
“It’s happening, carrot-top. Trust me.”
“Pray, what’s the story with your arm?” said Lickspear.
Rutspud raised up his new limb, which looked like the saddest hand puppet imaginable except that there was, of course, no hand within to operate it. Demon physiology being what it was, Rutspud could feel his new wings, his pathetic new feet, his new little beak, all plugged into his own nervous system. As his body adapted to the attachment, he was even beginning to gain fresh sensory input from his new tiny eyes, ears and nose. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
“Glad you noticed,” he said to Lickspear. “I need you to find a bird that looks just like this one.”
“This very one?”
“This one. A bird that looks just like it.”
“Needs a buddy, huh? That the deal?” asked Lickspear.
“Just do the job, okay?”
“Sir means perhaps to procure a matching arm on the other side? Lookin’ sharp boss.”
Rutspud clouted him round the ear with his good hand. Unfortunately, this caused the ear to drop off, although Lickspear seemed not to notice.
“Just find a bird for me, Lickspear,” said Rutspud. “A white bird, yellow feathery bits on the top. Looks like this. Get the gang to help you if you must.”
Rutspud angled the bird’s head round and clicked its beak.
“Sure thing,” said Lickspear, and then looked down. “Forsooth, an e
ar! Lay a spare on me. Mine keeps dropping off.”
Rutspud dashed into the Infernal Innovations department far below the Fortress of Nameless Dread and into the office of Particulars.
On the rack, Torquemada groaned. Rutspud gave him a wave of greeting.
“Looking good, Tomas,” said Rutspud. “Have you seen Bosch around?”
Torquemada groaned again.
Rutspud held up his bird-arm. “Long story, mate. Another time.”
He pressed on in.
Lewis was in one of his workshops, screwing brass hinges onto a pine door and humming as usual.
“What’re you up to?” said Rutspud conversationally.
“Narnia business,” said Lewis.
“No need to be rude. You know, there is more to life than wardrobes.”
Lewis looked at him.
“You laughed when I told you I was building a wardrobe gateway to the land of fairy.”
“Did it work?”
Lewis gave his screwdriver a vicious turn.
“Don’t want to talk about it. But this one will be an utter success.”
“Yeah?”
“Wardrobe to Atlantis.”
“Of course,” said Rutspud. “How could it fail? Where’s Bosch?”
“The spares room,” said Lewis. “Looking for inspiration.”
“Excellent.”
Rutspud dashed through from the sawdust-strewn workshop to a warehousing area, which could have done with a spot of sawdust on the floor, to soak the blood up if nothing else. On wire shelves and iron chains hung body parts, carcasses and the miscellany of bones, organs and general unidentifiables that made up all living things.
Rutspud pushed through a dangling collection of legs, calling for the damned painter.
“In here,” came the reply.
Rutspud rounded a carousel stack of various eyes to find the Dutchman squatting on the floor, a hoof in one hand and a large talon in the other.
“Which scares you more?” asked Bosch.
Rutspud shrugged.
“Which would you least want inserted in you?” said Bosch.
Rutspud reflected that, in an existence as long as his, he had experienced almost all imaginable scenarios of torment himself and was well-placed to offer an opinion. In other circumstances, he would have related the ‘Satan’s slippers’ incident, but he was a demon on a mission.
“Forget that,” he said. “I need your help. I need you to construct a creature for me.”
The flabby painter’s face lit up.
“A commission? I’ve been left to my own devices for such a long time: you’ve got something specific in mind?”
“Very much so,” said Rutspud and held up his bird-arm. “I want you to make one of these.”
Bosch looked at the yellow-crested Merlin stilt. Rutspud, with newfound control, tilted its head left and right.
“So, a demon-creature inspired by this bird,” said Bosch.
“Absolutely.”
“I can see it now. I shall give it a lizard’s tail and the countenance of a plague doctor. Perhaps it will carry a spear. No, a trident.”
Rutspud shook his head.
“I want it to look just like this one.”
“Of course,” said Bosch. “You wish to keep its innate birdness. Totally understand. Sharp-eyed. Cruel. I will give it the arms of a prostitute and it shall feed the damned through a clothes-wringer. I think I’ve got some beetle carapaces somewhere that would really work with this.”
“No, no, no, no,” said Rutspud, trying to remain calm and patient. “I don’t want it to have beetle bits or prostitute arms or a trident. I want this bird.”
Bosch nodded slowly, trying to understand.
“A demon of feathers and beaks and, and webbed feet.”
“Exactly.”
“I see. I could mount its feet on its chest, like raptor talons and transform those wings into a vile headdress.”
“No,” said Rutspud firmly. “Don’t move any of it around. Everything where it should be. I want you to construct a demon that is the spitting image of this bird.”
“So,” said Bosch, slowly and with difficulty, “its head would be …”
“A bird’s head, like this one.”
“And its body …”
“A bird’s body, just like this. Exactly the same. Wings and all.”
“But the feet?”
Rutspud waggled the bird’s feet.
“A perfect replica of these.”
Bosch stared for a long time, nodding.
“I don’t understand,” he said, eventually.
Irritated by having his time wasted, Rutspud stomped back to his cave of tortures in the sixth circle. Tesla was belting out a few classic numbers on the scream-organ as he approached but, through the hideous heat haze that now permeated all of Hell, Rutspud could see that all was not as it should be.
Wilde and Cartland were remonstrating with that red-haired idiot, Judas.
“What’s going on here?” Rutspud demanded.
“He’s refusing to leave,” explained Wilde.
“My torture has been stolen from me and I am not leaving until I am properly punished.”
Rutspud punched him in the gob. “That should tide you over for now.”
Judas sat on the floor, clutching his jaw.
“He’s been absolutely intolerable,” said Wilde.
“Intolerable? Really?” said Rutspud. “Careful how you use words like that or I’ll have to re-evaluate how soft I’ve been on you over the years.”
“Frozen in ice!” mumbled Judas indignantly. “Pressed. Crushed. Immobile. That’s what I was promised.”
Rutspud sighed wearily.
“Hasn’t Lickspear done anything about it?”
“You sent him on that errand to find a bird.”
“Oh, yeah. Where’s he got to?”
There was a shift in air pressure, a sudden gale as thousands of cubic feet of air were displaced and a foot larger than a castle came down on the ground outside the cave. The impact drove a crater into the ground and knocked Rutspud and the members of his gang to the ground. The scream-organ was abruptly silent.
Rutspud sat up, wide-eyed.
“What the …?”
Cartland helped Wilde to his feet. There was no sign of Judas, the vast scaly claw covering the spot where he had previously stood.
“How you likin’ my groovy ride?” came a tiny voice from on high.
Rutspud stepped back and tried to see past legs higher than the tallest towers of Hell, past a body that was as distant, white and wide as a skyful of cloud. A beak beyond scale swung back and forth across the red ceiling of Hell. A barely visible figure, more dot than anything else, waved vigorously at Rutspud.
“Lickspear?”
“Mellow, wouldst thou say?” shouted Lickspear from atop the bird’s head.
“You’ve brought the Ziz!” yelled Rutspud.
“I brought the Ziz!” said Lickspear.
“You’re an idiot!” bellowed Rutspud.
“Sweet match, ain’t it?” replied Lickspear.
The largest bird in all creation flapped its wings, briefly pinning Rutspud to the ground with its hurricane force.
“It’s too big!” yelled Rutspud.
“Get outta here,” shouted Lickspear. “I thought it might be too big!”
Rutspud swore to himself.
“It’s not even got the yellow feathers!” he shouted.
The almost imperceptible figure waved something about.
“Dig this, I got some paint!”
Rutspud looked at his bird-arm. The yellow-crested Merlin stilt looked back at him.
“I sometimes think I’ve only got myself to blame.”
The bird-arm gave an involuntary honk and blinked. Rutspud couldn’t tell if his arm was agreeing with him or not.
Chapter 9 – The day the birdwatchers came
Brother Sebastian stood on the slipway, letting the ice-cold surf wash
over his sandals.
“This is going to fail utterly,” said Manfred, next to him.
“Trifle …” said Father Eustace.
“It’s going to go brilliantly,” said Bastian.
“… and macaroons …” said Father Eustace.
“It’s going to be a PR disaster,” said Manfred.
“… and lesbians,” said Father Eustace.
Owen’s boat rocked over the swells of the Irish Sea, navigating the waters with well-practised caution.
“We’re going to offer our visitors the experience of a lifetime,” said Bastian. “Isn’t that right, Father Abbot?”
“All mixed together with a big spoon,” agreed Father Eustace.
One of the figures on the boat, blonde haired and almost swamped by her orange life vest, waved at the monks.
“I don’t think a PR disaster is possible,” said Stephen.
“There speaks the voice of confidence.” Bastian waved back at Carol Well-Dunn.
“I mean,” said Stephen, “after the near drowning of the school children, the dead monks, and the plague rumours, our PR stock is at rock bottom. I don’t think it can go any lower.”
“See?” said Bastian. “Confidence.”
“No,” Manfred concluded. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m not getting cold feet,” said Bastian. “You shouldn’t either.”
Manfred nodded.
“I am familiar with this idiom,” he said, contemplating Bastian’s feet in the sea. “It is an apt play on words. Well done.”
“I’m just saying you need to relax.”
Manfred patted his friend on the back.
“I will leave our guests with you. I have chicks to attend to. One of them pipped its shell last night and I must get dressed before they hatch.”
“Dressed. Of course” Bastian watched the prior walk back up to the monastery. He gave Stephen a sideways glance. “This is going to work, isn’t it?”
“It’s worth a shot,” said Stephen. “Seriously, the phrase ‘nothing to lose’ pretty much describes us.”
“And your part in the deception?”
“Mmm,” said Stephen thoughtfully. “Not what I expected, but I can assure you it’s a most lifelike display.”
