FSF, August-September 2009

by Spilogale, Inc

  The heroic flesh of the titans was riddled through and through by writhing, hellish serpents. These serpents were wriggling exhaust pipes that cruelly pierced the sufferers from neck to kidneys, chaining them in place. Being necromancers, the auto executives had always derived their power from the flesh of the dead: from fossil fuels. In Hell, this hideous truth was made manifest.

  A hundred thousand people in Turin, weeping unashamedly, hats in hand, had filed their way past gorgeous heaps of flowers to pay the Signore their last respects. Yet, even down here in Hell, the brazen fact of death had not relieved this giant of his business worries.

  Here the Signore stood, gathered to his ancestors, who looked scarcely happier than he. The Signore's father blinked silently, forlorn. Bloody sludge dripped from his aquiline, titanic nose. The Signore's father had quaffed from the Grail with the Duce. He had died in his bed with a gentleman's timing—for his death had saved his company from the wrath of the vengeful Allies.

  The Signore's grandfather, the company's founder, was an even more impressive figure; great entrepreneur, primal industrial genius, his colossal flesh was caked all over with the blackened wreck of bucolic Italy: pretty vineyards paved over with cement, sweet little piping birds gone toes-up from the brazen gust of furnace blasts.... He was a Midas whose grip turned everything to asphalt.

  As for the Signore himself, he was the uncrowned Prince of Italy, a Senator-for-Life, a shining column of NATO's military-industrial complex. The Signore was dead and in Hell, and yet still grand—after his death, he was grander, even.

  "Eftsoons he will speak unto you,” warned the mummy formally; “stand ye behind me, and do not fear so."

  "This pallor on my face,” said Occhietti, “is my pity for him."

  In truth, Occhietti was terrified of the Signore. It was always wise to fear a wizard whose lips had touched the Holy Grail.

  The Signore opened his mighty jaws. Out came a great sooty gush of carbon monoxide, lung-wrecking particulates, brain-damaging lead, and the occult offgassings of industrial plastics. Earth-wracking fumes fit to blister Roman marble and tear the fine facades right off cathedrals.

  The Signore found his giant, truck-horn voice.

  "Hail friend, unto this dreadful day still true,

  Who harkens to your master's final geas!

  Most woeful this of many deeds performed

  In service to the checkered Lord of Turin."

  Ochietti felt a purer terror yet. “He's speaking in iambic pentameter!"

  "This is Hell,” the mummy pointed out. “And he's a Titan."

  "But I'm an engineer! I always hated poetry!"

  The mummy spread his hands. “Well, he was a lawyer, before he became like this: dead, historic, gigantic, and in the worst of all possible circumstances."

  The Signore awaited an answer, with eyes as huge and glassy as an eighteen-wheeler's headlamps.

  Occhietti drew himself up, as best he could within his scanty night-robe and flat bedroom slippers. “Hail unto thee, ye uncrowned Kings, masters of the many smokestacks, ye who coaxed Italians from their creaking, lousy haywains and into some serious high-performance vehicles.... Listen, ye, I can't possibly talk in this manner! Let's speak in the vernacular, capisce?"

  Occhietti stared up, pleading, into the mighty face that solemnly glared above him.

  "Listen to me, boss: Juventus! Your favorite football team: the Turin black-and-whites! They kicked the asses of the Florentines tonight! Wiped them flat out, three-zero!"

  This was welcome news to the giant. The titan unbent somewhat, his huge bronze limbs creaking like badly lined brakes.

  "'Wizard’ they call thee, counselor and fixer;

  Trusted with our sums that breed futurity;

  Loyal thou wert, but now the very Tempter

  Lurks a serpent in your homely Garden!"

  "Does he really have to speak like that?” Occhietti demanded of the mummy. “I can't understand a single damned thing he says!"

  Nobly, the mummy rose to the occasion. “He must speak in that poetic, divinatory fashion, for he is a dead giant. You are still alive and capable of moral action, so it is up to you to resolve his ghostly riddles for him.” The mummy straightened. “Luckily for you, I always loved the riddles of the afterlife. I was superb at those."

  "You were?"

  "Indeed I was! The Egyptian Book of the Dead: it's like one huge series of technical aptitude tests! At the end, they weigh your human heart against a feather. And if your guilty heart is any heavier than that feather, then they feed your entrails straight to the demonic hippopotamus."

  Occhietti considered this. “How did that trial work out for you, Djoser?"

  "Well, I failed,” said Djoser glumly. “Because I was guilty. Of course I was guilty. Do you think we built the Pyramids without any fixes and crooked backroom deals? It was all about the lazy priests ... the union gangs ... and the Pharaoh! Oh my God!” The mummy put his flaking head into his withered hands.

  Occhietti gazed from the three damned and towering industrial giants, slowly writhing in their smoky chains, and back to Djoser again. “Djoser: your Pharaoh was your God, am I right? He was your divine God-King."

  "Look, Achille, since we're both standing here stuck in Hell, we should at least be frank: my God-King was a scandal. Like all the Pharaohs, he was in bed with his sister. All right? He was an inbred, cross-eyed royal runt! You could have broken both his shins with a papyrus reed."

  The mummy gazed upward at the damned industrialists. “This gentleman's dynasty came to a sudden end after one mere century ... But at least he was in bed with some busty actresses, and was driving hot sports cars. As a leader of your civilization, he wasn't all that bad, especially considering your degraded, hectic, vilely commercial Iron Age!"

  The mighty specter seemed obscurely pleased by the mummy's outspoken assessment; at least, he thunderously resumed his awesome recitation.

  "He comes to ruin everything we built!

  The empire that we schemed, we planned, we made,

  In toil, sweat, tears, and lost integrity,

  Imperiled stands in your new century,

  When Turin's Black and White turns serpent Green!

  If ever you would call yourself ‘apostle’

  Your footsteps stay, and keep your heart steadfast!

  The Devil's blandishments are subtle,

  Reject them without pause all down the line!"

  "He's warning you that you will encounter Satan,” the mummy interpreted. “I take it that he means Lucifer, the Shining Prince of Darkness."

  "Meeting Lucifer is not in my job assignment,” said Occhietti.

  "Well, it is now. You will have to return to your mortal life to confront the Devil in person. That's clearly what this hellish summons is all about."

  Occhietti could no longer face the writhing torment of the doomed giants, so he turned on the mummy. “I admit that I'm a necromancer,” he said. “I draw my magic power from the dead—but Satan? I can't face Satan! Satan is the Black Angel! He's the second-ranked among the Great Seraphic Powers! I can't possibly defeat Satan! With what, my rosary?"

  "Your Lord of Turin can't speak any more plainly,” Djoser said. “Look how he folds his mighty arms and falls so silent now! As your spiritual guide and adviser, I would strongly suggest that you arm yourself against the Great Tempter."

  All three giants had gone as rigid and remote as public statuary. Occhietti was speechless at the desperate fate that confronted him.

  "Come now,” coaxed the mummy, “you must have some merits for a battle like this. Not every necromancer visits Hell while living."

  "I'm completely doomed! I might as well just stay here in Hell, properly damned.” Occhietti's shoulders slumped within his scanty robe. “Everyone who matters is here already anyway. There's no one up there in Heaven except children and nice old ladies."

  "Don't be smug about your own damnation,” counseled the mummy, taking his arm and leading him awa
y through acrid lines of whizzing traffic. “That is the sin of pride."

  It brought profound relief to flee the dire presence of the three agonized giants. The mummy and Occhietti flagged down a taxi. Suddenly they were roaming Turin's vast and anonymous mobilized suburbs, which were all tower blocks, freeways, assembly plants, and consumer box stores.

  "My employer just tasked me to face Satan.... Him, the finest man I ever knew....” Occhietti leaned his reeling head against the taxi's grime-stained window. “Why is he down here in Hell? He was truly the Great and the Good! All the ladies loved him! He even had a sense of humor."

  "It's because of simony,” pronounced the mummy. “He—and his father, and his grandfather—they are all in Hell for the mortal sin of simony."

  "I don't think I've ever heard of that one."

  "For ‘simony,’ Achille. That's the mortal sin named after the great necromancer, Simon Magus. Simon Magus sought to work divine miracles by paying money for them."

  "But I do that myself."

  "Indeed you do."

  "Because I'm in venture capital, I'm in research-and-development! I have to commit that so-called sin of ‘simony’ every damn day!"

  "You might consult your Scripture on that subject. Nice letters of black and white, very easy to read.” Djoser was something of a snob about his hieroglyphics.

  Occhietti banged his fist against the rattling taxi door.

  "Everybody in the modern world is an industrial capitalist! We all raise cash to work our technical miracles! That's our very way of life!"

  "You won't find any words of praise for that in your Bible."

  Occhietti knew this was true. As a wizard, he had the Bible, that most occult of publications, poised always at his bedside.

  There was scarcely one word inside the Bible that you'd find in any modern Masters of Business Administration course. Not much comfort there for the money-changers in the temple. Plagues, curses, merciless wars of annihilation—the sky splitting open apocalyptically: the Bible brimmed over with that.

  Occhietti lowered his voice. “Djoser, my entire modern world is beyond salvation, isn't it? The truth is, we're comprehensively damned! For our mortal sins against man and nature, we're going to collapse! That apocalypse could happen to us any day now, plagues of frogs, rivers of blood...."

  All alert sympathy, the ancient mummy nodded his dry, flaking head. “Yes, they're very harsh on us ancient Egyptians inside that Bible of yours. The press coverage that our regime got in there, I wouldn't give that to a dog."

  Occhietti blinked. “Did you read the Bible, Djoser?"

  "I don't have to read it, stupid! I was there! I was alive back then! We were the Good People and the Jews were our working class! You should have seen their cheap, lousy bricks!"

  Occhietti was numb with despair. Then he read a passing sign and was galvanized into frenetic action. “Driver, pull over!"

  Occhietti and the mummy entered a men's suburban clothing store. The damned soul manning the cheap plastic counter was a genuine Italian tailor. As a punishment for his sins, which must have been many, he was being forced to retail prêt-à-porter off-the-rack.

  Occhietti examined the goods with a swift and practiced eye. This being Hell, this store-of-the-damned featured only the clothing that his wife Ofelia wanted him to wear. Thrifty, respectable suits that lacked male flair of any kind. Suits that were rigidly conventional and baggily cut, thirty years out of date. Suits that were shrouds for his burial.

  Given the circumstances, though, this sepulchral gear was perfect, and far better than his nigh -robe. “Don't stand there,” he told the mummy. “Get yourself dressed. We have to attend a garden party."

  The mummy was startled. “What, now?"

  "I don't always forget to watch the calendar,” Occhietti told him. “Today is my wife's birthday."

  The mummy pawed with reluctance through a rack of white linen suits. “How exactly do you plan to pay for this?"

  With a wizardly flick of the fingers, Occhietti produced a platinum American Express card. It belonged to the company, so it never appeared on his taxes.

  Their exit from Hell was sudden and muddled: one harsh, aching lurch, a tumbling, nightmarish segue, and suddenly the two of them were riding inside a taxi, in downtown Turin, alive and in broad daylight.

  They might have been two businessmen in bad new suits who'd spent their night carousing. Shaken survivors of tenebrous hours involving whores, and casinos, and mafia secrets, and sulfurous reeking cigars. But they were alive.

  Djoser wiped sentimentally at his dry, red-rimmed eyes. “Shall I tell you the sweetest thing about being raised from the dead? It's the sunlight.” Clothed in modern machine-made linens, the undead mummy closely resembled an aging Libyan terrorist. “The beautiful, simple, honest sunlight! Blue skies with golden sun: that is the greatest privilege that the living have."

  Released from the morbid, ever-clutching shadows of guilt, remorse, and death—for the time being, anyway—Occhietti felt keenly what a privilege it was to live, and to live in Turin. A native, he had never left his beloved Esoteric City, because there was no other town half so fit for him. This Turin so beloved by Nietzsche, this cool, logical, organized city, brilliantly formal and rational, beyond Good or Evil.... How splendid it was, and how dear to him. One living day strolling under glorious Turinese porticos was worth a post-mortem eternity.

  The taxi's driver was a semi-literate Somali refugee, so Occhietti felt quite free in talking openly. “We'll make one small detour on our way to my wife's garden party. For I must seize the Holy Grail."

  "That's daring, Achille."

  "I must make the attempt. The Grail has baffled Satan before. Salvation was its purpose. That's right, isn't it? I mean ... I may be right or wrong, but I'm taking action, I will get results."

  The mummy accepted this reasoning. “So—do you know where it is?"

  "I do. It must be where the Signore's son-and-heir abandoned it—before he jumped off the bridge and drowned himself in the River Po."

  The mummy nodded knowingly. “He wouldn't drink."

  "No. He was much too good to drink. He was a hippie kid. A big mystic. He didn't want any innocent blood on his conscience. Whitest necromancer I ever met, that boy. Very noble and pure of heart.” Occhietti sighed. “He was insufferable."

  The taxi backfired as it rattled across Napoleon's stone bridge. Occhietti ordered a stop at the swelling dome of the Church of the Great Mother. He paid the doubtful cabbie with his AmEx card, then climbed out into sunlight.

  The mummy stared and scowled. “Don't tell me the Holy Grail is hidden in that place."

  The Grail was inside Turin's ancient Temple of Isis. “I know it's somewhat ecumenical.... We Turinese do tend to dissolve our oppositions into ambiguities ... that's how we are here, we can't help that."

  This news visibly hurt the mummy's feelings. The mummy had once worshipped Isis. Furthermore, it clearly offended him that the Grail's hiding place was so obvious.

  The ancient Temple of Isis—currently known as the Church of the Great Mother of God—featured a paganized statue in classical robes. She casually brandished a Holy Grail in her left hand, as she sat on the Temple's stoop and faced the sacred River Po. A neon sign couldn't have been more blatant.

  However, the crypt below her Church was a death trap for the carelessly ambitious. The basement of the Great Mother was Turin's mortuary for the Bones of the Fallen. The men interred within had sacrificed their lives in the Sacred Cause of Italy. It was they—the bony, the fleshless, the bloodless—who surrounded and guarded the bleeding Grail.

  "I can't go in there with you,” said the mummy, tapping his hollow ribcage, “for my body has risen through an act of black necromancy, and that is a hallowed ground."

  Occhietti sensed the implied reproach in this remark, but he overlooked it. To seek the Grail was a quest best taken alone.

  A veteran necromancer, Occhietti had once boldly ransacked the Egyptia
n Museum—(which was itself a makeshift tomb, and already made from ransacked tombs). Still, Occhetti would never have perturbed the holy shades of the Italian fallen. His respect for them was great. Furthermore, they were notoriously violent.

  Yet, in this great crisis, he deliberately made that choice.

  Occhietti enchanted his way through the sacred portal that guarded the slumbering dead. As a willful, impious intrusion, he forced himself among their company.

  As furious as trampled ants, the ghosts of the battlefield dead rose and came at him, a battalion's charging wave.

  Bones: the soldierly dead were a torrent of clattering bones. Bones heaped over centuries of Italian struggle. Their living flesh was long gone, but the skeletons themselves were cruelly hacked and splintered: with the slashing of cavalry sabers, careening cast-iron cannonballs, point-blank musketry blasts. These were fighting men who'd bled and perished for Italy, combating the Austrians, the French, the Germans, Hungarian hussars, elite Swiss mercenary guards, and, especially and always, fiercely combating other Italians.

  With a snare-drum clashing of the teeth in their naked skulls, the noisome skeletons clawed at his civilian clothes and mocked his manhood. A lesser magician would have been torn to shreds. Occhietti stoutly persisted in his quest. If Hell itself couldn't hold him, it could not be his fate to fall here.

  At length, pale, sweating, stumbling, with fresh stains on his soul, Occhietti emerged under the blue Italian sky, a sky which, just as Djoser had said, was truly a blessing, a privilege, and a precious thing.

  Occhietti clutched a humble string-tied bundle wrapped in crumbling, yellowed newspapers.

  The mummy cringed away at once.

  "This hurts, eh?” said Occhietti with satisfaction. He brushed bone-dust from his trousers. Despite the horror of his necrotic crime—or even because of it—he was proud.

  "Your mere modern Christian magic can't hurt an Egyptian priest, but....” The mummy lunged backward, stumbling. “All right, yes, it hurts me! It hurts, don't do that."

  The string-tied package was unwieldy, but it weighed no more than a beer-mug. The old newspaper ink darkly stained Occhietti's hands.