“Those,” said Joachim shortly, “are the damned.”
“But I can’t see them,” I said, trying with sidelong glances to tell if any were people I had known. I really didn’t want to meet Zahlfast down here.
“We are still alive,” he said soberly. “I do not think the living can look on the faces of the dead.”
“But if the living knew the punishments the evil will have to suffer—” said Theodora in horror.
“That’s what we priests keep on trying to tell them,” said Joachim. “Until the devil himself is redeemed at the end of infinite time, the wicked must suffer for their deeds in unquenchable fire. Come. Let us find the path.”
We walked a short distance along the edge of the burning lake, Theodora and I clinging together and trying not to look at the dead. Then we came suddenly on two paths, both leading away from the lake: they ran next to each other for a short distance, then diverged.
The left one was smooth and wide, paved with flat white stones. The right-hand one was narrow and stony, leading between thorny bushes, marked by no more than a continuous row of pebbles.
“I choose left,” I said.
But Joachim shook his head. “From some of the accounts of visions of Hell, it is clear that if one keeps going, one
will eventually reach the gates of Heaven. But this is only if one has followed the right paths through Hell. It may be that our only way back to the lands of the living lies through Heaven, and if so we want to get there.”
I certainly had to agree. My stomach knotted at the realization of how even more dangerous Hell was than I had imagined. “But how do you know which road to choose?”
“The Bible tells us that strait and narrow is the road that leads to salvation. Let us take this one.”
The path was so narrow that we had to go single-file, and so rough that sometimes we had to go on all fours over the rocks that littered it. Above us, clouds gathered gray and angry, with rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning that threatened to ignite the sulphur in the air. But away to our left, I saw the wide paved path end abruptly at a monstrous set of jaws: jaws without more than a vestigial head or any body at all, but sharply toothed, gaping ready for anyone who had chosen the wide and easy path. Our narrow path turned a corner and reached—a flower garden. Colors were bright, and the air, rather than reeking with sulphur, was soft and perfumed. I stopped and looked around suspiciously. “Either this is a sign that we’ve taken the right path, or it’s another temptation to lead us astray.”
“I think it means we chose aright,” said Joachim, not sounding nearly as confident as I would have liked. “Perhaps we can rest here for a short time.”
But barely had we sat down amidst flowering bushes when an ear-numbing shout assaulted us: “Living flesh! What do you think you’re doing here?” The tone was light, though loud: but even surrounded as we were by unquenchable fire, it made me cold with raw terror. A yellow demon bounced into sight beyond the garden, so short and round he would have been comical if any of us had felt like laughing. His feet were cloven and his tail barbed. His enormous mouth had heavy yellow teeth that looked ready for crushing bone. The dead had been hazy and hard to see—this demon was remarkably vivid.
“We are pilgrims,” said Joachim, “wanderers in a strange land.”
“Yes, most people find Hell pretty strange!” yelled the demon with a grin that threatened to split his head in half. “Couldn’t wait for your deaths to have a look, eh? They do say people are just dying to get into Hell! Hah! Good joke, eh? How about a few pokes with my pitchfork, just to give you a preview of eternal torment?”
But Joachim held up his hand. “You cannot touch us, for we are not yet condemned.”
I wondered desperately if this were true. The demon, however, frowned in frustration, then laughed once more.
“Well, I’m friendly enough,” he said, waving his pitchfork, “but not everyone you meet will be! All I would have done was to have a little fun with you. Now get moving, before I forget how to treat pilgrims. And take this as a gesture of my esteem!” He bent over, giving us a good look at a naked and hairy rump, as, arms linked, we hurried away again.
There wasn’t much of a path anymore, only a rough track between thorn bushes, where burning pits appeared at every twist of the track. We saw demons standing hip-deep in some of the pits, whipping at hazy shapes that must be more of the damned. In other places huge cauldrons were set up, boiling, and demons stirred with their pitchforks, occasionally holding up a hazy skewered arm or leg as if to see if it were done. In still other places demons had wrenched the mouths of the damned open and were feeding them what looked, from a second’s horrified glance, like their own rotted flesh. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I should never have let you come with me.”
“We didn’t give you a lot of choice,” said Theodora, squeezing my hand. I winced; it was the hand I had cut on the bridge.
“But I realize now how foolish I was to think this could ever work,” I said, my eyes downcast. “We’ll wander through here for weeks, never come close to finding anything to help us against Elerius, get taunted by demons the whole way, finally starve to death, and then join the damned in the burning lake. That inscription at the entrance was right, in telling us to abandon all hope.”
Joachim pulled me around almost roughly. “Daimbert. Look at me. This is despair.”
“It’s just good sense,” I mumbled, flinching back from the intensity of his gaze.
“No. Hell is the source of despair. Even here we cannot be lost to God’s mercy—unless we throw away hope.”
“All right, all right,” I said, half under my breath. “In that case, I hope we get out out of here before we starve to death.”
“He’s still about to give way to despair,” said Joachim to Theodora. “We can’t let him.” She put her arms around me. “I love you,” she said firmly, though her lips trembled. “Where there is love there cannot be an end to hope.”
I hugged her back and managed a smile. “I agree. I said I hoped we’d get out of here. Let’s keep going.”
It was hard to say how long we kept walking. Scenes of pain and torture kept repeating themselves. Some places demons ripped sinners apart with red-hot pincers; in other places wolves gnawed at their intestines. In one spot a demon hammered mightily at a glowing forge, and I could see the indistinct souls of the damned caught between hammer and anvil. In other spot demons tossed souls high with their pitchforks to be snatched by a monstrous many-headed beast, which caught them in its teeth, chewed them, and spat them out to be tossed again. The tormenting demons all seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely. Repeatedly I turned away, feeling sorry and sick, only to be able to see the damned and their tormentors even more clearly when they were just a movement at the edge of my vision. I wasn’t hungry, but I became progressively thirstier, as every stream here in Hell either burned with pitch or else was clotted thick with blood. I ached in every bone and sinew, but the general weariness became no worse no matter how far we walked. The stormy sky, made lurid by the flames between which we made our way, did not change; we were far from the sun and its circuit.
Every now and then a faint human shape appeared falling from the sky. Some were men and some women, some dressed in rags and some in silks—even some in priests’ vestments. Bat-winged demons flocked up to seize them and strip them of their clothes, before tumbling them straight into one of the burning pits to begin their tortures at once.
The only real change in the landscape was that we appeared to be slowly heading downward, which I thought did not bode well if there was any chance we were going to emerge at the gates of Heaven. We could have walked a hundred miles, but here time and space had no meaning.
Most of the demons ignored us, having better things to do in torturing sinners than in taunting us. But then we were abruptly brought up short by a booming voice. “Daimbert! How good it is to see you again!” Leaning over us was an enormous horned demon, dozens of shar
p teeth showing in a leer. Joachim had tried to tell me Hell was big. The first day here, I thought, giving way to despair after all, and I meet the one demon who knows me.
V
The demon bent down over his great belly, ignoring Theodora and the bishop. “You’re a long way from Yurt, Daimbert,” he said with an evil grin. “Too bad you didn’t bring your daughter with you—now she’s a tender little morsel. Twice I’ve almost had you for us, and now, behold! You’ve come here all by yourself!”
“Not to stay,” I said obstinately when I found my voice again.
“Of course not,” said the demon with a completely unconvincing attempt at good fellowship. “You just wanted to find out more about Hell, to see if all those torments the priests keep telling you about can possibly be as bad as they’ve led you to believe. Well, I’ve been watching you since you entered our gates, but I decided to wait to talk to you until I knew our little conversation could be the most effective. I know you, Daimbert. You’re cautious, and probably even now you’re rethinking the plan that brought you here—the plan to sell your soul in order to capture Elerius!”
I had been listening skeptically, knowing I was not going to get truth out of a demon, and trying to tell my wildly beating heart that, because I was already in Hell, his appearance here should not further terrify me. But at the mention of Elerius I blurted out, “Where is he? What do you know of him?”
“I know where he is, certainly,” said the demon airily, though his tone was belied by the miniature flames shooting from his eye-sockets. “Twice he’s started to summon a demon, but both times something has intervened.”
The saint and me, I thought but did not say.
“But Elerius is not so important now as you, Daimbert, and your desire to capture him. Well, I can reassure you about something I know is bothering you. All these sinners you see being punished—” with a wave of his clawed hand at the burning lakes “—are just your ordinary murderers and adulterers. We have a special place for those who sell their souls to their devil. It’s not like the rest of Hell, no, not a bit! Do you recall passing a pleasant flower-garden? Well, it’s like that, only even nicer. Those who sell their souls are the devil’s special friends, and get to sit beside him on miniature versions of his iron throne. So, now that you know this, what do you say? Will you swap a soul that’s pretty tattered already for defeating Elerius—and then eternity in triumph among us?”
“You’re lying,” I said between my teeth, trying desperately to keep them from chattering. Theodora was behind me, arms tight around my waist, her face pressed against my shoulder blades. “Now that I’ve seen Hell’s torments, I’m even less likely to sell my soul than I was before.”
The demon shook his massive head. “I’ve never seen such stubbornness.” He was right that I was stubborn, but I wasn’t going to grant him anything else. “Let me at least tell you what we’re offering for your soul, before you throw your chance away! After all, that school of yours is full of demonology experts, but you’ll be the only one among them who’s actually been to Hell!
And when you’re Master—”
“I’m not going to be Master,” I said, still between my teeth.
The demon shrugged. “Deny it all you like, but I know the secret ambitions of your soul. I’ve been watching you ever since you entered the gates of Hell, and I can tell you’ve become awfully discouraged. That means there are two separate things you most desire. First, you want assurance you’ll leave here alive, and I can certainly grant you that in return for your soul—I’ll even let your friends out too, for free! Secondly, you want to be the greatest wizard of all time, and with my help you will be. And after five hundred years as Master—or even a thousand, if you like—you can return here, to take up a special spot by Satan’s throne!”
“Don’t bother,” I said brusquely. “I don’t believe any of your lies. Any ‘special’ spot for those who sell their souls will be even worse than the rest of Hell.”
“Well,” said the demon, “if you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask your friend the bishop? I’m sure he’ll reassure you that I’m telling the exact truth!”
I turned toward Joachim, and was horrified to see that he had turned his back on me, standing stiff and straight with crossed arms. I reached a hand toward him, but before I could speak a voice rolled through Hell’s skies.
“By Satan, by Beelzebub,” the voice said, “by Lucifer and Mephistopheles!” I recognized that voice. It was Elerius.
“Well, Daimbert,” said the demon regretfully, “it looks like we’ll have to postpone the rest of our little chat. Elerius is in Yurt, and I’m the one who answers summonses from there.”
“Elerius is in Yurt,” I repeated, and that thought was even more horrifying than the red and bloated demon himself.
“You may even have to think of something else you want in return for your soul,” he continued, shaking his horned head, “because I’m certain Elerius will ask for the school in trade for his soul, and I can’t very well sell it to both of you! I must say, I’m not sure why heading an institution that’s now a smoldering ruin should be so important to the two most powerful wizards now living, but we demons are only here to serve! Once Elerius has made the deal for his soul, I’ll hurry right back, and I can show you the special place reserved for him—and for you too, once we reach our agreement.”
I had been standing as if rooted to the spot, trying too hard to resist the demon’s blandishments to think beyond them. But as he gathered himself for a great leap, Joachim suddenly swung around. With one arm, that had now grown fantastically to twice its normal length, he seized Theodora and me, while the other arm, even longer, he wrapped around the demon’s bulging waist.
The demon leaped upward, sailing high over flames and chasms that stretched to the horizon in all directions. Dangling below the demon’s red and bulging belly, swinging back and forth in the foul air, I felt I had gone beyond terror. In the center of Hell, in the direction we had been heading, there were no more flames, only a surface that glinted like ice. Surrounded by ice fields sat a great dark something—or someone—at least a hundred feet high. I turned my head sharply away. If we were leaving Hell, I saw no reason at all to look upon the devil himself. The heavy clouds above rushed toward us.
The demon’s head thrust into the clouds—and broke through a stone floor into the center of a pentagram.
We materialized with him, back on earth. Joachim let go the second we were through, and the three of us tumbled out of the pentagram. I looked around wildly and recognized the place. I had only been here once before, and my memories, though highly unpleasant, were vivid. We were in a long-deserted castle on the borders of Yurt and Caelrhon, in one of the few rooms that still had a roof.
Of course. Elerius knew this ruined castle well, knew that we were unlikely to start our search for him here, and yet also knew that he would be conveniently placed for whatever attacks he planned against my family.
Except at the moment he fell back, eyes round. His incantation turned into a shriek. His horror, I saw, was not for the demon he had summoned, but for us. His face dead white, he collapsed against the room’s back wall, holding his arms up defensively in front of him. He made faint gibbering noises as I crawled toward him.
He had, I thought, broken at last. For a second I almost felt sorry for him. Three times he had tried to summon a demon, and three times something had gone wrong.
The corner of my eye caught a flash of white, and I turned to see a towering figure, burning with pure light, addressing the demon. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I order you back to Hell, never to enter this land again!” For a second I thought it was the Cranky Saint, making another opportune appearance. But it wasn’t the saint. It was Joachim.
The demon shrank before our eyes, whimpering and whining. “But I never even—”
“Tell him,” said Joachim to Elerius, great and terrible. “Tell him that you will not treat with him.”
“Back! Go back!” Elerius cried, almost sobbing. “I don’t want you!” And with a final burst of fire and brimstone and an almost overpowering stench, the demon reluctantly disappeared. I scrambled forward to rub out the pentagram.
Theodora snatched up the magical apparatus Elerius had brought with him from the City, while he was still stunned, and started rapid murmuring under her breath. I realized she was working one of her witch-spells, at least temporarily binding Elerius with magic that he would not immediately be able to counter. Magic, I thought. I could work magic again.
Still sitting on the floor, I shouted out King Solomon’s binding spell, the enormously powerful ancient spell that could keep even an Ifrit imprisoned in a bottle, the spell that had stopped the dread advance of a basilisk. Tightly wrapped in magic,
Elerius went rigid, his eyes still round. But at the same moment, the ceiling above us began to sway. A spell that powerful was too much for a ruined structure standing up primarily out of habit. Slates tumbled down, and the pillars tilted. Grabbing Theodora and Joachim with magic, I shot backwards just as a whole wall smashed down, where a second before we had been.
The dust settled after a few minutes, and no more parts of the old castle seemed likely to collapse immediately. We were in an overgrown courtyard, and a frosty, sunny day of late autumn was just breaking. It wasn’t Heaven, but it was close enough.
“Is he dead?” asked Theodora.
I sought his mind—an easy task now that he could not put up shields against me. “Still alive,” I said, “and I don’t believe even badly hurt, though I think he’s unconscious at the moment as well as unable to move. The stones fell in such a way that he’s in his own little shelter. Between the stones and Solomon’s binding spell, which may indeed have helped protect him, we don’t need to worry about him for a long time. But, Joachim—”
Is This Apocalypse Necessary? Page 43
