Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  Still, physical separation did not cut off the Sword's attachment to him. He should be able to do the magic of the office regardless, even here in Hell. All he had to do was will it.

  He rendered himself invisible. He hoped. He could still see himself and Ligeia, but-

  Several more demons charged out of the restaurant. "And tear her apart!" Satan's voice came after them. "Or you'll be torn in her stead!"

  The demons paused, peering about. They saw nothing, though Mym and Ligeia were standing near, she with the snake still wrapped about her head. The three of them man, woman and snake-could be perceived only by each other, for the moment.

  Except Satan himself. As another Incarnation, Satan would not be subject to the illusion. Mym knew he had to get Ligeia away before Satan emerged.

  He ran across the plain, carrying her, for she was not moving voluntarily. He knew why; she did not want to be either a drag or a corrupting influence on him. She was a decent girl who meant no harm, yet had been required to be the agent of much mischief. Probably she would have let the demons take her away to the torture, had one not threatened to rape her on the spot.

  Suddenly the plain ended. Mym stopped abruptly. This was not a plain, it was the level top of a mesa! The dropoff was sheer and seemed to extend a kilometer. It was awesome.

  The demons were spreading out, going over the entire area, searching. Satan had not yet emerged, but could do so at any moment.

  Mym hurried along the brink, searching for some way down. He didn't want to have to jump. He was a soul, and Ligeia was a soul, so they couldn't be killed, but he was sure the fall would incapacitate her for a time and be extremely painful. He might suffer himself; he wasn't sure whether his office protected him from acts of sheer folly in Hell.

  There was a path, a niche, a crevice leading down! Mym walked down it, getting them out of the line of sight to the restaurant. For the moment, Satan would not be able to spy them; that was all that counted.

  Ligeia struggled, still unable to speak. "Don't do that!" Mym warned. "Look where we are!"

  She craned her head to look, stiffened, and went slack. She didn't like that sort of height any better than he did.

  "They've got to be here somewhere!" Satan's voice came. "If not on the mesa, then on the slope. Did you check the slope?"

  Mym knew that in moments this scant path would be swarming with demons. They would not be able to see the fugitives-but would they be able to feel them? In life. Mars could make himself intangible, invisible, or both at once. But this was not life, and he feared that one spirit could not be made insubstantial to another spirit. After all, Ligeia had become tangible to him when he encountered her in spirit form in the capsule in the palace of ice. He could not afford to risk contact with a demon.

  Yet the invisibility ploy was working, so maybe-

  Now the silhouette of a demon showed at the rim of the mesa. The demon started down the path.

  Mym looked ahead. The path wended on down and around the mountain. He had to follow it; there was nowhere else to go. He would not risk contact with any demons unless he had no other alternative.

  "I'm setting you down; stay with me," he whispered to Ligeia.

  She shook her head in negation, still unable to speak because of the snake.

  Mym reached across and took hold of the snake. Quickly he caught its head, and squeezed it just hard enough to make the reptile realize that it was in his power. Then he unwound it, freeing the woman. "You have been very good about this, wanting to spare me further trouble," he whispered. "But now I'm in trouble, and so are you. Neither of us has anything to gain at this point by having the demons capture you. If you leave me now, all it could do would be to give away my location. Do you want that?"

  She shook her head no.

  "Then follow me," Mym said. "As long as you stay close, you will remain invisible." He turned, holding the snake with one hand, and proceeded down the path.

  A short distance down, the path widened, and an overhang developed. This was a relief, because any slip would send them tumbling off the mountain. Mym saw that there was a hole in the overhang; perhaps this was the remains of an ancient cave. But the path continued on down, and the demon had been joined by others behind, so Mym didn't pause.

  Then he heard something. Demons-ahead! They were coming up the path from below!

  "We're trapped!" Ligeia moaned. "But I can scream at them-"

  "And alert the whole of the rest of Hell to our location!" Mym returned. "Keep your mouth shut!" He considered momentarily. "We'll have to try that cave."

  "Oh, I hate caves!" she said.

  He ignored that. They moved back up the path, and to the cave. The demons above were getting close.

  "I'll boost you up," he said. "Then I'll follow." He wished he had the Red Sword; with that he could have flown right off the mountain.

  Well, maybe he could do that anyway. After all, if the invisibility worked-

  He tried it, willing himself into the air, while Ligeia made her way cautiously up the rock. Nothing happened. Evidently he could change his appearance by himself, but had to have the Sword right with him in order to travel. Perhaps it needed to see exactly where he was going in order to operate. Or maybe he simply didn't have the right mental key for remote control. Too bad.

  He boosted her by the pert bottom, and she scrambled up into the hole. "Very well-here's the snake," he said, handing up the reptile. Ligeia seemed less than eager to handle it again, but took it. Then he fitted his hands to

  the edges of the hole and heaved himself up. She was there to help him navigate the edge.

  It was a small cave, hardly more than an etching in the mountain, but large enough to hold them comfortably. The snake settled down to the side, seeming satisfied.

  The demons reached the overhang, talking gruffly among themselves. "Oh, I'm afraid!" Ligeia whispered.

  Mym put his arm about her shoulders. "Remember, they can not see us. Just be quiet, and they'll pass."

  She was quiet, though her body shivered. The demons tromped by from the upper path, grumbling; evidently they felt that this search was so much foolishness. Mym wondered how they could be so similar to mortals in their minor reactions, if they were soulless constructs of ether. They should have no personality, but that was obviously not the case. Perhaps demons were crafted in Satan's image, much the way man, according to the occidental mythos, was crafted in God's image. Of course that was illusory; how could such imperfection come from perfection? Man had a delusion of grandeur. Mym was glad that he did not share such confused thinking. Reincarnation made so much more sense that any sensible person should be able to understand it.

  The upper demons met the lower demons. There was an outcry, and the sound of a brief scuffle; then a descending wail as one of them fell or was thrown off the ledge. Irascible creatures, demons!

  Now the demons tromped back up the path. "Not on this ledge," one was muttering. "I don't care what His Foulness says! We'd have found them, if-"

  "The cave-did you check the cave, you moron?" another demanded.

  "What cave, imbecile?" the other asked.

  "That cave, idiot!" the other retorted. "The one we use to entertain that demoness in our slack time."

  "Oh, that cave," the first demon said. "Where is that demoness, now? I haven't seen her in a century."

  "She's on sunside duty," the second replied. "Seducing some mortal."

  "Some mortals have all the luck," the first muttered. His tusked face poked into the cave from below.

  Ligeia stiffened, for the demon was staring right at them. But the creature's gaze passed through them, and it saw nothing but the cave. They truly were invisible.

  Then the demon spotted the snake, which was separate from Mym, and just beyond the ambiance of his power. The demon reached for the snake, but the snake rose up hissingly and opened its jaws wide, and the demon thought the better of it. His head ducked down. "Nothing but wildlife here."

  "Well, let's
go back," the other demon said. "Either they fell off the mountain, or they never were on this path. I don't know why Satan's so hot to get them; they can't escape Hell anyway."

  "He wants to torture the woman, rotface," the first said. "She was supposed to corrupt the Incarnation, and she tried to bug out, so she's in for it."

  "Yeah, I hope Satan gives her to me to play with," the second said as they resumed their tromp up the path. "I'd bring her right back here to this cave and really work her over! Did you see those legs others when we held her?"

  "I was on one of those legs, snotpuss! I saw all the way up ..." The sound faded as they departed.

  "Oh, I hate those demons!" Ligeia whispered. "All they think about is lust and torture!"

  "Well, Hell is supposed to be an unpleasant place," Mym responded, "to make the damned souls regret their crimes in life."

  "But I don't belong in Hell!" she exclaimed.

  "I think we'd better wait here until the demons give up the search," Mym said. "That could be some time. Why don't you tell me how you came to be here? I came here to help you and I still hope to do so."

  "You can't help me," she retorted. "I can only hurt you. You should get away from me right now."

  "Why? You seem like a nice young woman, apart from your obvious virtue as a princess."

  "I am a nice young woman, apart from that virtue. You'd probably like me if you knew me, especially since you seem to be immune to my scream. That's why you need to get away."

  "Maybe I'm being dense. I don't follow the logic."

  "Because that's what Satan wants!" she exclaimed. "He wants you to-to-"

  "To treat you as the demons would? I wouldn't do that, Ligeia."

  "To fall in love with me," she blurted.

  Mym smiled. "I have been in love before and I can't say that that is a fate worse than death. They were good women, very good women. If you are a good woman-"

  "Because you're an Incarnation, Satan can not hold you any longer than he can fool you, which shouldn't be long. But I'm a damned soul, and he can hold me; if you fall in love with me, then you won't leave without me and so you won't be able to leave at all and you'll be trapped forever in Hell and Satan will have his way with the mortal realm!" she exploded.

  So that was Satan's plot! No wonder Lila had told him of the imprisoned Princess! And was it Lila that the demons had taken to this same cave? An interesting coincidence that they should happen to mention it just when he was here to hear.

  Coincidence? Deception, more likely! Wasn't it possible that Satan knew exactly where he was-and had instructed the demons to leave him here, because he was doing what Satan wanted-being with Ligeia? And Ligeia, by all the signals, was a genuinely loveable woman, no part of this plot. Had she been in on it, she should not have warned him of its nature.

  Yes, this was very interesting. The demons had gotten Ligeia away from Mym and could have removed her to some far reach of Hell so that he could never have found her. But they had paused, seemingly foolishly, and threatened to rape her. That had triggered her devastating scream, so that Mym had had a renewed chance to rescue her. It was possible that the demons had been stupid and had given away to their lusts prematurely-but Satan had merely stood and watched. Satan had not started organizing the pursuit until it was too late. Satan was no fool;

  therefore his lack of initiative must have been deliberate. He had wanted Ligeia to scream, so as to enable Mym to rejoin her.

  That scream-that was a most remarkable thing. Others might consider it an ugly thing. But Mym, who had a problem with his own voice, was in a position to understand a liability like that. He felt some empathy. He wasn't stuttering now, but he was in Hell, where Satan's power eliminated it; his consciousness of it remained. Ligeia was a fellow sufferer-and Satan had wanted him to see that. Naturally a man who had suffered because of a problem with his voice would be attracted to a woman with another type of voice problem. A cunning trap indeed!

  "You are silent," Ligeia said. "Now you understand. I thank you for being the man you are and now I shall do what I must do and leave you." She started to move toward the cave entrance.

  Mym held her back. "I am not leaving without you," he said.

  "But I told you why that can't be! You have a responsibility on Earth!"

  "I came to Hell to rescue you-and rescue you I shall," Mym said. "This has nothing to do with love, but with what is right. If I should fall in love with you in the process, perhaps you will agree to be with me after you have had your hearing and are free of Hell. If not-I still mean to do what I know to be right."

  "You're a fool!" she said.

  “I'm a man."

  “A prince," she said, more gently.

  “An Incarnation."

  “I could-get very pleased with that kind of a fool," she confessed: "But I can't let you do it. I am only one soul; your work affects millions. So-" She got up again

  He hauled her back, held her down, and kissed her.

  She sighed. "You know you really aren't being fair about this," she said. Then she kissed him back.

  "Let's get to know each other," he said.

  "You already know my curse. When I get excited-"

  "I know about curses. I'm a stutterer."

  She laughed. "Not that I've noticed!"

  "In life. Here in Hell I am spared it. I think it's Satan's way of subverting me. He offered me a demon concubine and free speech, but I prefer to make my own way."

  "But if your curse is gone in Hell, why does mine remain?" she asked plaintively.

  "Perhaps because Satan isn't trying to subvert you. He's trying to degrade you. He probably would not bother to abate my stuttering if I weren't an Incarnation."

  "The Incarnation of War," she agreed. "You rate special treatment."

  "So if stuttering bothers you, you will not want to associate with me, once we get out of Hell."

  "When I saw you, there in the Palace of Ice, you looked so bold and handsome, really like a prince coming to rescue me," she said. "I knew it was a trap and I tried to warn you away. But you wouldn't go, and now the trap is sprung, and maybe the second one too, because you still won't go. I suppose it's academic, because I'll never get out of Hell, but if I were out, and you got me out, I'd always know that it was the stutterer who did it and I wouldn't care what you looked like or sounded like; I'd want to be with you. But you really didn't come to the Palace of Ice just to pick up a woman, did you? Not when you had a demoness at your beck?"

  So Mym told her about Orb, about Rapture, and his desire for a woman of that level, rather than a protean demoness whose ultimate loyalty was to Satan. "Though Lila did shed a tear," he said at the end. "I don't know why a demoness would do that."

  "Because it was her business to corrupt you or to send you to Hell; either way, she knew you would be doomed. Demons do have some little emotion, otherwise they couldn't enjoy the base desires. They can't animate the human form without picking up a bit of human nature, so as to act well enough to fool real people. She probably liked you a trifle, or maybe liked her assignment in Purgatory, which is a better place than Hell, so was sorry when she knew it was over. Her will is subservient to Satan, but, when it doesn't conflict with her assignment, she can afford some emotion. Especially if showing it might cause you to react in a manner helpful to her mission."

  "You seem to know a lot about demons," Mym said ruefully.

  "I have had recent experience." Then she told him how she had come to Hell.

  15 -

  Ligeia had been a European princess. When she came of age and was versed in the things needful for her role, her father the King had begun shopping about for a suitable match for her. "These things are seldom left to individual choice, you know," she said.

  "I know," Mym agreed.

  Part of that shopping entailed showing the wares. Contemporary monarchs had become canny, as their sons acquired modernistic notions of independence, and facilitated cooperation by seeking brides who were not only advant
ageously connected, but who were personally attractive. In fact, it was often possible to use a young prince's idealistic notions to keep him in line, because, once he was smitten by the beauty of the prospective bride, he paid little heed to anything else until it was too late. He was trapped by love.

  "I know," Mym repeated, remembering how well that ploy had worked with Rapture.

  "Well, you don't have to agree so readily!" she said.

  "I am already blinded by your beauty," he said. He intended it as humor, but realized as he spoke that it was not. Ligeia evidently had a similar realization, for she blushed. It was dark in the cave, but he knew she was blushing because her whole body seemed to radiate heat. The embarrassment of royalty was a more potent thing than that of ordinary folk.

  So, she continued after a delicate pause, she was to be shipped to a Mid-East kingdom for a visit, nominally a routine courtesy, actually a demonstration of exactly what her kingdom had to offer. Her father knew there was no princess currently on the market to match her appearance. She was, of course, under strict orders to prevent her liability from being exposed.

  But international terrorists had seen their chance to strike. They managed to skyjack the airplane she was on. They demanded a phenomenal ransom for her, even while the plane was still in flight-one billion Eurodollars, release of all political prisoners, a public apology for misgovernment, that sort of thing. If the King paid, they would land the plane in a neutral country and let her go; if not-

  The King refused to acknowledge their demands. The money was easy, the release of prisoners problematical, and the apology impossible, of course.

  "Of course," Mym agreed, understanding perfectly.

  The King approached the matter forthrightly. He put out notice that a reward would be given for the severed heads of the conspirators.

  They arranged to show their determination by putting her image on a magic mirror. They set up the mirror, but Ligeia refused to perform; she would not demean herself by begging her father to buy her freedom.

  Balked for the moment and running low on fuel, the hijackers decided on a more direct demonstration. They stripped her naked, and one of them prepared to rape her-on camera, as it were. It was evident that they had had some such notion in mind ever since seeing her, for they were men.