The Devil's Evidence

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  A last, sharp bolt of pain, like the memory of his last few days, and then it was gone. Fool lay still for a second or two before risking opening his eyes, eyes that he found were not burst and dried to pits.

  Above him, a huge creature with myriad eyes and long, insectile legs was hanging in the sky, mouth full of fangs, biting at him.

  He didn’t have the energy to scream or move. He was too tired, his entire body ached, his head ached, his violated skin prickled against his clothes, and he could still taste Rhakshasas in his mouth, smell it in his nostrils. If this was it, if this was where he died, then so be it. Let it kill him.

  The thing, whatever it was, scuttled sideways, and the multi-jointed claws at the end of its legs scrabbled against a barrier between it and him, invisible yet apparently unbreakable. The more he looked at it, the more the creature looked wrong somehow. Not simply ugly or dangerous, Fool was used to that; he saw grotesqueries every day in Hell, demonic flesh twisted away from human and into shapes and functions that were terrifying and lethal. No, the creature looked insubstantial somehow, as though it was not so much real as a projection on the inside of some vast curved surface above him. And yet, it was solid, had weight and form. Fool could hear the sound of its feet as they skittered, hear the scrape of its claws on something he could not see. It was made of angles and shapes that his eye couldn’t quite hold, that seemed distorted and warped in the corner of his eye. For a moment, he’d almost have it, could hold the shape of it in his mind, and then it would flip away, be impossible to visualize, as though it was shifting between a shape and the imprint of the same shape, both coming toward him and retreating at the same time. It was like seeing a picture from one angle and then seeing it in reverse in a mirror.

  Fool closed his eyes, opened them again. He’d thought the thing was close at first, that it was a similar size to him and only a few feet above his head but he realized it wasn’t, it was distant. Huge. The space around the thing was filled with other creatures, some smaller versions of itself, some made of tentacles and beaks and claws, some feathered, some with scales, some with leathern skin, all of them shifting and testing the same invisible barrier. There were no gaps between the creatures, they fit to each other’s edges, moving in tight formations so that the sky above him was a tapestry of them with neither space nor hole between the creatures. They were the color of oil spilled on water, green and gray and blue, constantly mutating and flowing, and still his perspective on them would not hold, could not grip them. The creatures were there and then not there, solid and then flat, close to him and then vastly far away. They were all around him, dropping to the horizon on either side of him, before him, and behind him. They were the sky.

  Fool looked to his side, not liking the way that staring at the things was making him feel.

  “Ignore them,” said the demon of pieces and parts. “They don’t exist.”

  “Don’t exist?” asked Fool, climbing slowly to his feet.

  “No. They are the creatures that inhabit the places outside of worlds.”

  “They’re not real?”

  “They’re outside and therefore unimportant. Come. We have to go.”

  “I don’t understand. Where are we? What are they doing?”

  “How surprising, a human that doesn’t understand. Very well, seeing as you appear to be part of this Delegation, I will endeavor to explain. We are on the road between worlds and those are the things that inhabit the space outside of us, the places outside of everywhere. They are eternally trying to enter these worlds, this world and every other, and if they are successful, they will become real.”

  “And if that happens?”

  “We do not know, seeing as it has never happened. I don’t imagine it would be good, judging by the look of them. Now, we need to travel.”

  They were on a path, Fool realized, thin and snaking, heading toward a horizon that swirled and chomped and flexed. The demon of larvae and the scribe were already walking along it, and Fool and the tainted demon followed.

  “What do I call you?” asked Fool as they walked. He kept his eyes down to the ground, concentrating on his feet rather than the dizzying, disorienting sight of the creatures from outside.

  “You don’t,” said the demon. “You speak to me only if I speak to you first. My name is Catarinch, but I do not give you permission to use it.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Wambwark,” said Catarinch, “and you do not have permission to use its name either.”

  “And the third has no name?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “And now, Catarinch,” said Fool, raising his voice so that the other could hear him, “and Wambwark and the third of you, remember this, that I am the Commander of the Information Office of Hell, and I will use your name if I choose to. My name is Thomas Fool, and you may use that freely.”

  Ahead of them, Wambwark stopped. Catarinch turned to look at Fool, who met its gaze. Catarinch flexed its rotten arms, lips pulling back from doglike teeth. “I am a part of this Delegation,” said Fool, “with a function to fulfill and a role designated by Hell to play, do you think Mr. Tap won’t know if you harm me?”

  “Mr. Tap?”

  “You know who I mean,” said Fool, “but in case you’ve forgotten, I will endeavor to explain. Tall, lots of teeth, runs the Evidence. Even you’re frightened of them, Catarinch, and you, Wambwark. They’d disappear you and judge you if you got in their way as easily as they’d disappear me or any other human; you know this to be true.”

  Catarinch paused, caught between anger and the realization that Fool was right. Brave Fool, thought Fool, little brave Fool, taking another chance, another gamble.

  “Rhakshasas hates you,” said Catarinch finally, “as does Mr. Tap. Wambwark and I will leave you alone and do our jobs here, and you can do yours. You’re dead when we return to Hell anyway. Enjoy your last few days of existence, human Thomas Fool.”

  “I’ll try,” said Fool and then, looking down at his feet again, followed the now-moving Catarinch along the path.

  He didn’t know how long they walked for. It felt like hours, but it may have been less or it may have been more. On the few occasions that Fool risked lifting his view, the horizon seemed to be getting closer, as though it was a fixed point that they were approaching, the space around them shrinking, bearing down on them. The creatures on the outside became more frantic, moving ever faster across the surface of whatever it was that stopped them from entering, limbs constantly seeking and prying and testing, mouths biting, teeth grinding. There was still no space between the creatures, just a single vast movement that was all longing and fury and desperation. The sound of them was as fragmented and unnatural as the sight of them, a cacophony that came from everywhere and yet had no recognizable noises in it. Was that a breath? A roar? The sound of a scream? No, it was none of those things and yet all of them, sound turned on its side and torn inside out and made alien and distorted and grating. Fool walked on.

  An hour or a minute or a day later, they stopped.

  The Delegation had arrived at a doorway. It was tall, high enough for a demon the size of Rhakshasas to walk through without ducking, and its frame was on fire, the wood of the door blackened and smoking. Wambwark reached out and knocked once, hard. The door swung open slowly, bright white light falling through the entrance and onto the path; where it hit, the path steamed, the earth sizzling and contracting. Wambwark reached into the light, holding its arm there for a second and looking; the illumination dripped across the mass of maggots, doing no apparent harm. As though decided, Wambwark flapped its cape over one shoulder, pushed its hat back, and stood taller and stepped through, into the light.

  The demon grew brighter and then it was gone.

  Catarinch stepped to the doorway, paused, then walked into the light. After a few seconds, the scribe followed. Fool was glad to see that the small demon, a scruffy thing with loping arms that reached nearly to the floor and a ruff of torn and brok
en feathers around its neck, looked nervous before it went through.

  Fool took a deep breath, stood as straight as his aching body would allow, and went after the demons. The light glared, dazzling him, forcing him to close his eyes. He smelled something sweet and fresh, unlike anything he could remember. Something unspoiled that made him think of fields in which there were no demons and in which the grass grew green and strong, and then a huge, gentle voice spoke.

  “Thomas Fool,” it said, “welcome to Heaven.”

  6

  The field below them was filled with humans.

  Fool and the Delegation were standing at the top of a gentle slope whose grassed surface was a smooth, dark green. The doorway was behind them, a patch of wavering, shifting darkness through which Fool could still see the distant writhing of the creatures from outside. All around them were humans.

  There were more people in one place than Fool had seen before; even the great crowds of the Sorrowful, those poor bastards waiting in vain for Elevation from Hell to Heaven, couldn’t come close in number to the mass of people below him. They weren’t packed tightly; the field was vast, its edges distant lines marked by simple wooden fences. Beyond the fence was another field, also full of people.

  The crowd was not entirely still; people within it moved. Watching them was like watching the shadows of sunlight in water, a constant gentle swirl as they ambled along, slow and apparently without aim. It made streams in the crowd, flows and trickles that moved along then oxbowed back, curling on themselves. Some of the people turned as they walked, constantly revolving, arms out to their sides and heads bobbing; others didn’t move at all, or simply swayed as they stood, heads back and faces to the light of Heaven’s sun.

  Fool looked up, half expecting to see the burning darkness of Hell above them, a reflection of the view of Heaven that was available to Hell’s inhabitants, but the sky above him was a blue he had never seen before, light and deep and endless. It was broken here and there by clouds, white and puffed, unlike the black and swollen things that gathered above Hell and periodically burst in vicious downpours. Heaven smelled of flowers and clean earth and something fresh and subtly sharp, like the breath of healthy trees. It was warm, the air gentle on Fool’s skin, and he sighed, feeling himself relax, feeling clean, trying not to think of the foulness he accompanied and the ugliness painted and scored across his skin.

  “So this is Heaven,” said Catarinch, its voice contemptuous.

  “Of course,” said an angel, stepping alongside them and looking down on the crowd, smiling. “You have reached your destination after a journey that I have no doubt was hard and unpleasant.”

  “It was fine.” Catarinch again. “It was a simple journey, that’s all. Now, can we get on?”

  Catarinch’s voice made Fool look around, peer closely at the demons of the Delegation. He had been too busy watching the crowd, experiencing Heaven, to pay them any attention before. The scribe had hunched down, wrapping its long arms around its legs and making itself small, Wambwark was standing and dripping maggots onto the clean earth, and Catarinch was standing tall, shoulders back and chin jutting forward in a pose Fool recognized from all the humans in Hell: if you can’t be small, if you have to be seen, be seen as large as possible, be intimidatingly large.

  The demon was looking around, eyes leaping rapidly about it, taking in the movement and the people and the angel, and Fool suddenly understood: It’s never been to Heaven before, it’s never seen an angel before!

  It’s scared.

  It made Fool smile. The angel saw the smile and returned it, broadening his own. Catarinch saw it, too, and scowled, brows knitting low over eyes that glowed a dark, burning red. Trouble, he supposed; Catarinch would have noted his amusement, and would make him pay for it later. Foolish Fool, he thought, silly foolish Fool forgetting to keep low, keep unnoticed.

  “I’m Benjamin,” said the angel, “and you are all most welcome. Heaven is grateful for your presence and extends its hospitality. Thomas Fool, you are in particular a welcome guest. Heaven remembers the service you performed for it and the kindnesses you have shown.”

  Fool didn’t know how to respond, so said nothing. He had known two angels previously, Adam and Balthazar, and Benjamin was both like and unlike them. He was as pure and beautiful as they had been, his face handsome, his eyes smiling as much as his mouth. His hair was long, swept back from his unlined face, wings folded but stretching up above him, their upper edges curved in so that they formed a shade above his head. He was shorter than either of the other angels had been, and his only clothing was a tight loincloth. No, not a loincloth, Fool realized, feathers; the angel had a thick growth of white feathers around his groin covering his genitals. Did they have genitals? he wondered. Fool couldn’t remember, wasn’t sure he’d ever known. The skin of Benjamin’s chest and legs and arms was hairless, as smooth as planed wood or marble, his color a deep brown.

  When Benjamin moved, it was with a grace that made Fool feel clumsy and half formed, as though his angles were wrong and the angel’s were absolute, and absolutely perfect. There seemed to be no effort in his movement, just a flow from one place to another, and it made the angel alien in his beauty.

  “Excuse me,” Benjamin said, “I have to close the door and then I’ll take you to your quarters.”

  Benjamin left them and returned to the doorway. As Fool watched, the black space started to crumple in on itself, the edges rippling and blurring. The angel pushed and stroked the edges of the frame, narrowing the gap farther and diminishing Fool’s view of the creatures. The angel’s hands were swift and careful, his fingers pinching and pulling, describing intricate arcs and movements around the doorway, making it smaller and smaller until it was little more than a circle of black.

  It was almost gone when the angel spoke again, a note of surprise in his voice. “Hello,” he said, peering into the darkness. He reached through the gap, hand disappearing into the black, and took hold of something, pulling as though he was hauling on ropes despite the fact that Fool could see nothing.

  “Can we go?” said Catarinch. Wambwark made a low rumbling, a fissure opening in its face and a foul smell emerging with the noise. Bugs fell from the fissure, landing in its chest and tumbling to the ground, where they rolled and started back toward it. Its cape flapped, hat rippling, as it waited.

  “As my colleague says, we have work to do. We do not wish to be here any longer than we have to be,” said Catarinch. The scribe, hunched beside it, tucked itself tighter down, made itself something even smaller.

  “I apologize for the delay,” said Benjamin, “but I will be a moment longer.” He pulled in the invisible thing again, making hand-over-hand movements. Whatever it was, it took a few seconds longer to draw in through the opening, and then it was done and Benjamin stroked and moved and the doorway shrank to nothing and was gone.

  “Welcome to Heaven,” said Benjamin.

  “Your greetings have already been acknowledged,” said Catarinch. “Angel, we have no desire to exchange more pleasantries.”

  Benjamin stood, straight, still smiling, and said simply, “Of course. Let us go.”

  Benjamin led them down the slope, away from the crowd, toward a path upon which an open-topped transport was waiting. The five of them climbed into it, the seats thick and accommodating, and it moved off without sound and without an apparent driver. It did not move fast but meandered, the road they were on changing direction frequently, first this way and then that, doubling back and bending as though it had no real destination, was a thing created for travel rather than arrival.

  During the journey they passed some of what Fool assumed were Heaven’s equivalents to the boardinghouses, the Orphanages, the Houska—a huge fairground filled with carousels and rides, more fields, this time filled with crops as well as people, buildings that Fool couldn’t identify, and others that made him feel like he knew them even if he could not quite place them or their function. He had never seen them before, th
ey had no true equivalent in Hell, yet still he felt he should recognize them. He rubbed his head, closed his eyes, and tried to remember, but nothing came.

  In the darkness behind his eyelids, Fool heard music. It was distant, impossible to recognize, sounded like singing one moment and hundreds of instruments without voices the next, from the beating tattoo of drumming to the rising lilt of flutes to the throaty roar of trumpets and horns.

  I’ve never heard flutes, he thought, so how do I know they’re flutes? Or trumpets or horns? There was no music in Hell, except for the occasional songs that the workers sang, the rhythms providing a beat for the workers to carry out their tasks to. Fool didn’t know what flutes sounded like, yet he did, the information there in his head, growing like some tiny bud, opening, knowledge expanding. He groaned, unable to help himself, heard the music again, this time strings, guitars, and lutes, and then voices again. Thousands of them, thousands of voices, layered and singing different things yet somehow complementing each other, song after song after song, each voice carrying its own tune, creating its own themes, the sound of Heaven.

  It was beautiful.

  Fool opened his eyes and found Benjamin watching him. The angel smiled more broadly, but didn’t speak. The music stopped, or at least fell away to something that almost disappeared past the cusp of his hearing.

  Looking around, Fool found that the landscape had changed. Now the road was running alongside the edge of a gray and moving sea, waves rolling in and out against a sandy beach with a distant hissing. People were standing on the beach, not moving or swaying, heads back. Those closest to the water were getting wet but didn’t seem to care, simply standing as the water washed around their ankles and calves and thighs, not moving. No one touched each other or spoke to each other as far as Fool could see. The smell of the sea came to him, a salt tang that caught in his throat, made him think of cool waters and, for some reason, the feel of fresh wind in his face. He’d never felt fresh wind in his face, only ever been in waters in Hell that were filthy and dank.