Satisfied, Rottomus the Bone-Handed turned back to God-Art and Drillbot. He waved a satisfied wave. His nether-regions flapped in the acrid breeze, looking as withered and sad as their owner. “Looks like it’s all here, so we’re good. Hey, I’ve got an idea. If you don’t want to take a pottery class since you already took one with Charon, maybe we can get together one day and do one of those art classes where you paint and drink wine. I’m much better company than Charon, you’ll see,” he called as he picked up the pole and began pushing off into the river to return to the other shore.
God-Art frowned. “Couldn’t think of anything that would excite me less, mate.” He turned and strode up a winding path in the dirt. Drillbot watched Rottomus the Bone-Handed’s face fall as he pushed farther out into the wide river.
Drillbot turned to follow God-Art. As he caught up with the god, loud screams filled his audio receptors. He glanced back over his shoulder toward Rottomus the Bone-Handed and saw that the gondola was aflame. Fire danced across Rottomus the Bone-Handed’s pale skin, crackling it and turning it black. As the flesh melted away, he dove into the water for respite, but the flames did not extinguish. The gondola sank next to him. He shrieked, “This is a lease! They’ll take away my ferry medallion now for sure!” He followed the gondola underwater, disappearing under the black current with it, neither ship nor ferryman becoming less aflame.
Drillbot began rolling toward the man, intending to help him, but God-Art put his hand on the robot’s shoulder and stopped him. God-Art said, “I don’t think so, chap. That foul creature attempted to swindle a mischief god for more than his fair share of pay. There’s no way I was letting him get away with it, so I boobytrapped the coins with my patented Infinite Flame Dust before handing them over. One drop of water, and the dust burns for eternity.”
Drillbot looked at God-Art, the god’s maniacal grin cutting across his pale white face. Drillbot said, “[whir] Seems – CLACK – Seems – CLACK – Seems too harsh a punishment. He didn’t need to die – CLACK – to die like that.”
God-Art laughed. “Oh, my compassionate friend, he won’t die, and it may be a good turn of events for him in the end. He is an immortal gondola-driver. He’ll merely experience flames burning his body for all eternity, which he will get used to eventually. And at that point, it won’t even hurt anymore. If he markets himself right, this new look could be the turning point to drive a few more customers to his damned gondola, once he fishes it from the depths. He’ll just need to change his name to something like Rottomus the Eternally-Flaming-Skeleton or something of that nature, which if you ask me is much better than Rottomus the Bone-Handed.”
God-Art continued walking, leading Drillbot up a winding path to reach the crest of a small hill. Atop the hill, Drillbot noted that the path wove its way back down the other side of the hill and toward the center of another wide cave, where it disappeared into a hole. Drillbot’s telescopic eyes measured the distance to the hole as two miles.
The pathway was lined with rickety huts that had been formed from black rocks stacked atop one another. Drillbot surmised that these rocks must have been collected from the cave’s floor, because similar rocks lay sporadically across it in craggy clusters. Small torches hung on sconces outside the huts and provided meager light to the area. Drillbot looked up at the ceiling of the cave, and it gave him the impression of looking up into the night sky. A species of glowing fungus grew in clumps on the cave ceiling, forming a sight that looked almost like stars and constellations hanging from the packed dirt. Drillbot was mesmerized, but God-Art pulled on the python and dragged him down the path.
Laughter and conversation wafted from the first hovel that lined the pathway. Drillbot glanced through the open windows and saw a bald man in a toga standing and gesticulating to a circle of other men, each of these also in togas and yelling back at the first man. A gigantic amphora stood in the middle of the circle from which the men filled their glasses with wine. They drank deep, and their smiles were stained red.
As the pair passed the door of this hovel, a man with a wolfish face emerged. He leaned toward the ground and promptly vomited on God-Art’s feet. When he looked up at Drillbot, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Th’ living they’re sending down here t’be scared straight look much diff’rent than when I’s leading them.” Hiccups punctuated each syllable.
Drillbot frowned his version of a frown. “[whir] Drillbot does not understand.”
The man smiled, his teeth brown and jagged. He stared at God-Art now, jealousy filling his eyes. “Name’s Virgil. Yahweh used t’call on me t’lead sinners through Hell and Purgatory t’scare ‘em and put ‘em back on the righteous path. Ain’t asked me t’do it fer ‘bout five decades. Looks like that’s ‘cuz he gots somebody new fer the job. Whadjyoo take m’job fer? ‘Twas ‘bout the only thing I enjoyed ‘sides these damned drunken symposiums, so now all’s I have to do down in this pit is drink and argue with m’fellow Limbo-dwelling bastards.”
God-Art frowned. “This isn’t what you think. I’m a mischief god from another reality. We’re here to break somebody out of hell.”
The man poked God-Art in the chest. “You’re funny. Y’re a lying sack of ox testicles, but y’re funn-”
Before the man even finished his sentence, he slumped to the ground and passed out. Drillbot glanced over at God-Art and said, “[whir] Drillbot is confused.”
“We’re in the First Circle of this earth’s Hell—well, the Hell for this particular belief system—and it houses the souls of righteous sinners who either did not worship in a religion that contained an afterlife, or somehow ended up here rather than the afterlives of their own particular religions. Such an afterlife-mismatch is not an infrequent occurrence, especially when a particular religion is no longer practiced and its afterlife falls into ruin, or its gods decide to retire and the souls within its afterlife get disseminated to other still-existing religions.
God-Art continued, “Anyway, for whatever reason, the souls in this Circle were assigned here. But they’re not really punished like they would be in other Circles, because they were righteous according to their own laws and belief systems. They’re simply not allowed into this belief system’s heaven because they were not worshippers of its gods. They even have a sort of work-release program where they get to leave this place for a while in order to help convince people on the surface to follow this belief system’s religion more fervently. However, it appears that this Virgil character hasn’t been called on to perform this service in a while, which implies either he hadn’t been performing his job very well, or this religion is weakening and there aren’t as many people adhering to it, meaning the population of those who would be eligible for such intervention has fallen. H-”
Drillbot interrupted, “[whir] Drillbot understands. You can stop. You are – CLACK – You are not very efficient in your explanations.”
God-Art smiled and nudged the robot to continue down the path. “Well, that should come as no surprise. I am a god of both storytelling and unnecessary exposition, after all.”
Drillbot said nothing in return, and instead continued down the path in silence. As he neared the hole in the middle of the cave, he realized the scale of the hole was enormous. If he so desired and had the opportunity, he could have stuffed Ginny’s monstrous pink blob into the space with room to spare. The path continued over its edge and disappeared down into it, but before the robot could descend, he heard voices address him from the last hovel on the right.
“You there! Mechanical man!” called a man with a Serbian accent as he leaned out the hovel’s window. The man wore a dark suit with a wide tie. His hair was short and parted in the middle, his eyes were nearly black in color, and his nose was underlined by a wiry mustache the width of his lips. “Please, stop here but for a moment.”
Drillbot slowed. God-Art tapped his shoulder and motioned for him to continue, but curiosity got the better of Drillbot, since he was the one for whom the man had call
ed. Drillbot rolled toward the hovel. God-Art yanked on the python to pull him away, but Drillbot resisted, revving his engines as he pushed against the god’s tugging. After a few dozen seconds, God-Art sighed and stopped pulling, apparently acquiescing to Drillbot’s curiosity, at least for the moment.
The man who had called to Drillbot stepped outside. Four other men followed him. The first was a man with shaggy, unkempt gray hair and a bushy mustache, the second was a man with a wide face, wide ears, and dark hair that had been parted on his left and slicked tightly against his scalp, the third was a man with a bushy beard that dangled from his ruddy cheeks to fall upon his disheveled tunic, and the fourth was a man with a slightly hooked nose, stringy gray hair that seemed to be balding in the front, a long beard, and close-set eyes that gleamed with constant inquiry. He wore renaissance-era attire, including a green coat chased with blue and a small blue cap on his head. This man’s hair mingled with his long, gray beard so that it was hard to tell where the hair from atop his head ended and the beard began.
The man who called to Drillbot spoke once more, “My name is Nikola Tesla. Welcome to our home.”
Drillbot nodded and said, “[whir] Good to make your – CLACK – make your acquaintance, Nikola Tesla.”
The man and his fellows clapped with delight. The man with the wide face leaned over to the one with the bushy mustache and exclaimed, “It talks! It responds to cues! What a delight.”
Nikola said, “You are the first visitor not made from flesh and blood to pass this way. This is so exciting! As I said, I am Nikola. These are my colleagues, Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, Euclid, and Leonardo. We call ourselves collectively the Five Phalanges of Science.”
God-Art groaned in annoyance. He whispered to Drillbot, “OK, that’s enough. You made some new friends. Now, let’s go.”
Drillbot replied to Nikola, “[whir] Hello, Nikola and friends. Drillbot is – CLACK – is this robot’s name.”
Turing clapped. He sprinted back inside the hovel. “I can’t see any of you now. Quick, ask it another question and all of you reply. See if it would pass my test!”
Albert glanced over at the hovel and stuck his tongue out mockingly. Once it was back inside his mouth, he said, “Ve are not going to vaste our time doing zat. Ve are going to learn more about our guest.”
Albert turned to Drillbot. He studied the robot’s drills, the bottoms of which poked out from gaps in the python’s grip. “I take it you vere designed for digging?”
Drillbot nodded. “[whir] Affirmative. Drillbot’s primary purpose was originally – CLACK – was originally for drilling.”
Nikola stepped forward and rubbed the drill tips. “And now?” he asked.
Drillbot frowned. “[whir] Now, Drillbot is a warrior trying to save the Multiverse.”
Albert clapped and exclaimed, “You hear zat? Multiverse! I knew it!”
Nikola yelled, “This is delightful. You are such a treat!”
God-Art tugged on the snake. He whispered to Drillbot, “We need to go. Now!”
And it was then that Drillbot realized the trap. Euclid and Leonardo had quietly stalked around behind Drillbot and God-Art. Leonardo tossed a net over them and stomped on a button once they were sufficiently entangled. Electricity surged through the net. Drillbot’s vision winked out for a moment, and when it popped back into view, he was lying on his side. God-Art lay on top of him, pressed close because of the net, his face contorted in rage.
“I warned you, you fool!” the god yelled into Drillbot’s face.
Nikola tsked. “Oh, the mechanical man is no fool. And neither are we. We Five Phalanges of Science are here in Limbo because we worship one thing and one thing only: Science! And now we have the perfect sacrifice for our god: a genuine artificial intelligence!”
God-Art scowled and continued yelling into Drillbot’s face. “Where do you think we are? We are in a version of Hell! These places are never nice or relaxing, except on Earth 999,666. Even here in Limbo where the virtuous pagans go unpunished, they’re left in constant shadows. Even the best of them go insane when down here long enough!”
Drillbot frowned his version of a frown. He whispered back, “[whir] Sorry, Drillbot did not know. Drillbot was glad someone showed interest in him as – CLACK – as a sentient being instead of as a – CLACK – as a machine for killing or digging.”
God-Art’s scowl deepened. “Well, I hope you learned your lesson. And now I have to hurt these men—which doesn’t bother me at all, mind you—but such displays of violence are more likely to draw the attention of the god who oversees this version of the afterlife, into which we are undoubtedly trespassing in a way that would not result in any positive outcome if we are caught. I already took a bit of a risk in burning up our ferryman. I had hoped to refrain from too many others.”
Flaming daggers shot from God-Art’s hair, piercing each of the scientists in his heart. The flames grew so hot that they melted the Five Phalanges of Science from the inside. They each collapsed into a pile of melted goop. God-Art then transformed the tip of his tongue into a dagger and contorted it from his mouth to cut the net away. He pulled Drillbot upright, pointed toward the hole in the center of the valley, and said, “Rule number one about Hell, my metal friend: you may talk to the damned, but do not get too close to them and do not linger, for they will use you and trap you.”
Drillbot nodded and turned to the hole. He rolled toward it.
*
Drillbot and God-Art reached the outskirts of the giant hole. Drillbot telescoped his eyes and could see that the terrain sloped inward for a few hundred feet before ending at a sheer cliff. The pair descended the slope via a path carved in the rock, winding back and forth until they reached the drop at its end. Drillbot looked over the side of the cliff and could not see the bottom. God-Art pointed out a ladder carved into the cliffside. Drillbot, having no legs and wrapped in the python, shrugged. “[whir] Let Drillbot’s arms free to climb – CLACK – to climb down.”
God-Art laughed a mocking laugh. Instead, he climbed down a few rungs on the ladder and gave the python’s tail a sharp jerk. Drillbot fell over the side of the cliff and dangled in the python’s grasp like he was in a cocoon made of snakeskin. The mischief god held the snake’s tail firmly in his right hand and used his left to climb down the ladder, doing so in jerky motions that made Drillbot swing back and forth at the end of the line. With nothing better to do during the descent, Drillbot stared up at the glowing fungus high overhead on the ceiling of the cave. He occupied himself by assigning particular bright spots as impromptu constellations that he named after comrades from his decade-long war. He named half of them Art. The other half, Ginny. He sighed.
Drillbot’s internal chronometer indicated that they had descended the ladder for nearly a day before the top of Drillbot’s head touched down upon dry dirt. God-Art, realizing that this indicated that they had reached the bottom of the ladder and the drop to the ground was now only a few rungs, hopped down. He cursed as he twisted an ankle. He healed it within seconds, pulled Drillbot upright, and then cursed again as he looked at what lay ahead.
A short, wide tunnel stretched out before them and disappeared into the distance, twisting ever downward in sharper and sharper angles. The end of a long line of damned souls stood a mere few feet away. They were waiting in a queue that twisted back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to fill every spare inch of the tunnel. A sign near the blond woman’s head at the back of the line read, Estimated wait time from here: 11 months.
God-Art trudged forward and tugged on the snake’s tail, pulling Drillbot along. God-Art said, “This just won’t do. Such inefficiency. What is this place coming to?”
God-Art pushed people aside as he shoved his way up toward the front of the line. “Hey!” some people shouted. “No cutting, you jackass!” yelled some others.
As Drillbot followed behind in God-Art’s wake, many of the frustrated souls in the queue attempted to jostle back into their places in line
before he was able to pass them. He called out, “[whir] Please, stay back. You will only – CLACK – only hurt yourselves.”
Drillbot frowned, because the daggers that stood erect from his wheels were poking out between layers of the python that was wrapped around him. The blades ripped through the legs of over a dozen damned souls before the rest of them got the hint and stayed out of the way until he had rolled by. Drillbot called out apologies to the now-legless damned who were writhing upon the ground in pain, but they did not acknowledge his entreaties for forgiveness. The mischief god was rather bemused by the entire situation. He giggled. And then he called over the cries of the now-legless damned, “Mischief god and living being coming through. Make way! Make way!”
Another voice complained, “Why do the living get all the perks down here? It’s not fair! We’ve been waiting here patiently and they just get to cut up to the front? Ridiculous!”
The god and the robot ignored a myriad more complaints and finally made it to the exit of the tunnel—though not the end of the line of damned souls, which continued along the path. When God-Art and Drillbot emerged from the tunnel, they stood at the pointed peak of the biggest stalagmite Drillbot had ever seen. The stalagmite was as tall as many of the mountains that Drillbot had seen during his travels fighting against the pink bear’s army.
A path in the dark rock looped around the sides of the stalagmite. Drillbot peered over the edge of the stone outcrop to get an understanding of where the path led. Partway down the stalagmite, the path passed through an archway, and that was where the line of damned souls finally ended. Drillbot could see that the pathway then descended into a rocky valley that surrounded the stalagmite like some great ring around the finger of a titan. Drillbot estimated the valley to be about six miles in diameter. Black storm clouds blustered all throughout the valley, twisting and turning in a chaotic miasma. Drillbot watched as tornadoes sporadically swirled from the bottoms of the storm clouds and smashed into random spots across the floor of the valley.
The Endless War That Never Ends Page 28
