by Larry Niven
She was a tree. She couldn’t shudder.
Chapter 10
Fifth Circle
The Wrathful And The Sullen
* * *
And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
Saw people mud–besprent in that lagoon,
All of them naked and with angry look.
They smote each other not alone with hands,
But with the head and with the breast and feet,
Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.
The door at the end of the corridor led outside. There was a small landing, then an open steep wooden stairway that went down and down forever. Far down there was a forested slope leading to a marsh with steep banks. It looked a lot like the area where Benito and I had built our glider. Beyond the marshy area was what looked like a mangrove swamp that gave way to black open water. Far across the water were lights, and a dim red glow.
The air was murky and seemed to get thicker as we went down the stairs. I’d long ago stopped worrying about things like that. Laws of physics applied here, but they weren’t invariable. The exceptions had a logic, but I didn’t have the key to it.
There were landings every couple of hundred steps, but nothing else changed. We didn’t see anyone else when we got to the lowest landing.
It all looked familiar. There was scrub forest, young sassafras trees, saplings covered with kudzu vines, all lush and green and too thick to let me see more than thirty or forty feet ahead. Our last sighting of the marsh was from the stairs above the last landing. I’d estimated that open water was maybe half a mile ahead and a couple of hundred feet lower.
“Which way?” Rosemary asked.
“Downhill,” I said. “We have to find Phlegyas before someone pulls us into the mud.”
“Why would they do that?”
“The wrathful aren’t friendly,” I said. “Quarrelsome. They pull each other into the muck for sport. Or lie there and brood until they build up a rage. I tried to help one of them, last time I was down here. It wasn’t a good idea.”
We pushed our way through the brush. Progress was slow, and in five minutes we were lost. The stairway behind us was invisible, and we weren’t really leaving any kind of trail. The way got tougher as we went. There were laurel trees and kudzu vines everywhere, and the farther we went the thicker they got. The fog got thicker, too, and it stank. It was hard going, crashing through the laurel thicket and kudzu.
If I’d seen clean water … well, we were both still filthy from the Circle of Gluttons. We reeked. It bothered her more than me. She’d been fastidious about her appearance even back in the Vestibule. The ground was getting soggy. Soon enough we were wading, but it wasn’t water you’d use for washing.
A shape rose out of the swamp, a giant, all muscles and no neck. He growled, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Rosemary shied back. I stood my ground. “Out. Want to come along?”
“No. Tell me a story.”
“Say what?”
“No, I mean it. Nothing happens in this place, and I’m lonely. Everyone thinks I want to fight because I look like this.”
I started to laugh.
“When we were wrestling we had community. We were part of something bigger, a show for the marks. We’d work out the moves ahead of time. Once I was supposed to be thrown out of the ring, and that was the end of it, only I landed on a lit cigar butt. And I had to lie there … your turn.”
“I tried to fly out of here. There’s a wall around Hell, and we thought we could fly over it. Built a glider. It flew, but we never got high enough. We crashed in the red–hot tombs.”
“Sounds awful.”
“We got out, though. I can show you the way.”
“Too many angry people. They’ll never let us through,” he said, and sank into the mud. Not one of the Wrathful, I realized. Sullen, one of those who lived their lives refusing life.
“Are we going in circles?” Rosemary asked. “It seems like we’ve come an awfully long way.”
“We’ve been going downhill all the way,” I told her. “We can’t be going in circles — unless someone’s fiddling with the rules.”
“So you know where we are, then?”
“Fifth Circle of Hell. It’s a swamp. Hah!” We’d come to a clearing. Cliffs rose on both sides, and behind us was the laurel and kudzu thicket. “This looks familiar! It is, Rosemary! It’s where we built the Fudgesickle.” I pointed up to one of the bluffs above us. “We dragged it up there for launch.”
“Fudgesickle?”
“Silly name, but that’s what I called the glider Benito and I built out of robes and saplings and vines.”
It wasn’t a large clearing. Some of it looked different, but there wasn’t any doubt about where we were. Over where I’d lofted the glider there were saplings staked down in the form of a small airplane. Next to that was a store of saplings I’d cut and trimmed, and a neat pile of robes we hadn’t needed. I felt a twinge of nostalgia. I’d really thought I understood what was going on back when I built that glider with Benito’s help. I was sure, then, that we were in an alien amusement park, built for their unfathomable reasons. I’d solve it the way my characters had, in stories of the far future. There was nothing supernatural about Hell … It seemed about a million years ago.
There were improvements I hadn’t made. A hut, made out of saplings and woven kudzu vines, covered with fabric from my leftover robes. There was a fire pit, with fresh ashes.
Someone cursed downslope. Two voices, male and female, strident, blended with others. The voices rose to shouts, then there was the sound of blows. Someone screamed in pain. The scream was cut off by a splash.
Rosemary gasped. “Allen, what was that?”
Before I could answer, a big burly man came running into the clearing from down below. He was followed by a muscular long–boned woman. I’d seen both of them before.
“This is our place,” the man screamed. He stopped to stare at me. “You again.”
“Just passing through,” I said. I was watching the woman. The last time I’d seen her she was catatonic. She was moving all right now. “But you can come with us if you like. We’re getting out of here.”
“How?” he demanded. Then he laughed. “Last time you tried to fly out. Did you make it?”
“Yes, but not in the glider. Benito was right, the way out is all the way to the bottom.”
“Sure it is. Just go across the Styx, bash your way through the city walls, and head down. Make sure the demons don’t catch you. Sure.”
Put that way it sounded impossible. I said, “So the question is, how tough are you?”
He laughed. “Well, you can start by trying to get out of the swamp!” He laughed again. “Come on, Else, they’re filthy! We can help them clean up!” He started toward me.
Else was laughing maniacally. “So you had Benito Mussolini as your personal bodyguard. But he is not here now.” She had a thick Germanic accent. “I recognized him, you know. I saw him when you pulled me out of the swamp. You fascists always stick together.”
“Whoa, I’m no fascist!”
“Of course you would protest that. Bart does also. But we know, we know.”
“Now you stop that.” Bart shrugged and gave me a look that invited sympathy. “She’s always doing that. You just come along with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I told him. “But you can get out of here if you come with me.”
“Sure we can. But if I go with you, Else here will be able to leave.”
“You’re staying here just to keep her from getting out?”
“Damn bitch thinks all men are fascists. Why should she be able to leave? She belongs here!”
“You see?” Else said. “Typical authoritarian behavior. He would rate very high on the F scale. He belongs here, indeed he belongs here.” There was a mad light in her eyes.
“Hey, stop!” I shouted. “Don’t you remember? I fished you out of that swamp!”
�
�Oh, I remember you well,” Else said. “I remember your male dominance, your demonstration of superiority over me. Why should I not remember? And you are proud of it, nein?”
“You were catatonic. Breathing water. I pulled you out. I was trying to help you.”
“Ja, ja, of course.” She looked over at Bart. “Him first, I think, ja?”
“Yeah. Sounds right. Watch out for his woman, though. That Benito was one strong bastard.” The two spread out and came toward me from opposite directions. “In you go,” Bart said.
Before they could get to me, half a dozen mud–covered people charged into the clearing.
Their leader was shouting. “There he is!” He pointed at Bart. “Now we have him!”
“Sieg Heil!” The followers ran toward Bart and Else.
Bart and Else turned as one. They exchanged glances, and then moved quickly. “So, Commander Rockwell,” Else said. She was laughing. Bart and Else moved in, one on either side of the leader, and before the others could interfere they had him in some kind of practiced grip and were frog–marching him down the hill. The followers stood dumbfounded.
“Help!” the leader yelled.
I grabbed Rosemary’s hand. “Time to get out of here!”
“You know it!”
We ran down to the water’s edge and turned left. As we ran off we heard shouts and splashes.
• • •
Sylvia was chortling.
She stopped abruptly so I broke off a twig. “I still don’t understand what happened,” I told her.
“You don’t remember Commander George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi Party?”
I shook my head. “No, should I?”
“Not really. They seem to be about as effective in Hell as they were in the United States.” Sylvia giggled. “Else, you said her name was.”
“Something like that. It wasn’t Elsie or Elsa, something in between.”
“And she was catatonic when you first saw her?”
“Yeah, lying there in the muck hating everyone. Why, do you know who she was?”
“Yes, I think I do,” Sylvia said. “Very appropriate antagonist for Mr. Rockwell. Else Frenckel. One of Freud’s disciples, from Vienna days. Came to America, married a Berkeley professor. There was a book about how American men are all authoritarian fascists. She was one of the authors, but a man got most of the credit for the book. Authoritarian Men, something like that. Required reading in college.”
“I must have missed it.”
“Actually, I wish I had. It set me brooding over how bad the world is. Of course, I brooded about everything else, too.”
“And the others?”
“Allen, you really don’t remember Commander George Lincoln Rockwell? The American Nazi Party?”
“No. I guess I knew something like that existed. But Sylvia, real Nazis? Wouldn’t they be deeper in Hell?”
“Real ones would,” Sylvia said.
• • •
Rosemary and I ran through the swamp until we were sure we’d lost Bart and Else. There was a trail, and it looked like the one I’d taken with Benito, but there weren’t any landmarks.
The trail wasn’t very wide. We came around a bush and found a man lying in the middle of the path. He was breathing hard. I got close but not close enough to let him grab me. “I know the way out. You can come with us if you like.”
“That’s nice of you. What’s the catch?”
“It will be hard going.”
“It’s hard going here. You sure you know the way?”
“Yes.”
“Great. I’ll be right with you, just let me find a stick.”
“You don’t need a stick.”
“Sure I do. With your help and a stick I can give that Arab shmegege what he’s got coming to him.”
“We can’t wait for that,” I told him.
“But he bit me! He and his friend, they held my head in the mud and he bit my ear. It’s only justice! You don’t care about justice?”
He was still looking for a weapon when we left him behind.
“There’s a building ahead,” Rosemary said.
“Yeah.” I recognized it. An old stone signal tower, right where Dante had said. The last time I’d been here, it flashed lights when I got close, signaling for the boatman, but this time there was nothing. I saw why when we got to the water’s edge.
There was a boat pulled up partway on the shore. It was much smaller than Charon’s ferryboat. This one was about twenty feet long, with room for a dozen passengers if they liked each other. A robed man was sitting on the edge of the boat staring out into space. He had a crown in his hand. He put it on when we came around the tower. I’d met him on my last trip through this circle.
“You again. Where’s Benito?” Then he saw my companion and stood. “Ms. Bennett? Welcome, welcome.”
“How do you know me?” She stared at him. An elderly but still fit bearded man with clean robes, elaborately stitched, and a polished gold crown. He was quite handsome now that he wasn’t scowling. “We have never met.”
“No, madam, we have not, but I know you. I am Phlegyas, king of this circle. I was once a king of men. Now I am the boatman. I was told to watch for you. They are expecting you in the City.”
“How can they possibly be expecting me in the City?” she demanded. “And what city?”
“Dis,” Phlegyas said. “The capital city of Hell. As to how they know, I suppose Minos sent word.” He turned to me. “You’re wanting passage, too?”
“Yes. This has been willed —”
“I know where it was willed. I don’t have to like it, I don’t even have to believe it, I just have to do it. You learned the formula from Benito. Where is he?” Phlegyas looked thoughtful. “Decided he’d had enough, I expect, and left you to carry on his work.”
“Something like that,” I told him. “How do you know this?”
“It has happened before. So get in, get in,” Phlegyas said. “No rest for an old man.”
“The boat looks new,” I said.
“It is new. Not the first new one, either.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “Madam, if you please. Carpentier, get in if you are going. I can’t wait all day.”
We got into the boat, and Rosemary sat down. “Majesty, why do you have a new boat?” she asked.
He spoke to her as if I weren’t there.
“Madam, for millennia I would not get a new boat in three centuries. I have had three in the last decade. This is the Kingdom of the Wrathful. When the authorities allowed inmates to explode, it is natural that many who can do that come here.”
“Exploding inmates? You mean the fanatics who blow themselves up?”
He ignored me.
“Majesty, who are these people? How can they explode?” Rosemary asked.
“I don’t know. Some shout about the greatness of God, then they explode. Others speak of centuries of oppression and demand isolation.”
“Isolation?”
“Something like that. To be left to themselves alone. It was in no language I have learned.”
“Gift of tongues,” I said. “It works in strange ways. Have you always had that gift?”
“Since I arrived,” Phlegyas said.
“So they disturb your peaceful kingdom,” I said.
“It has never been peaceful here,” Phlegyas said. “Nor is that the purpose of my domain. Hah!” He used his oar to smack some poor subject trying to climb into the boat. Others nearby roiled the waters. Phlegyas put his back into sculling, and the boat sped through the Styx. I think I could have water–skied behind it.
“They ever get you?” I asked. “If they blow up your boat it must blow you up, too.”
He didn’t answer.
“So where do you come back together?” I asked him.
He laughed. “At my boathouse.” He laughed again. “Are you wondering what will happen to you if one of them gets you? Good question. I don’t know. Were you alon
e I might find it amusing to learn.”
Rosemary shifted warily.
“Sit in the middle, my lady,” Phlegyas warned her. “And be careful. Some of my subjects resent people getting across the Styx without getting wet.” He slowed, then swung his oar to beat back an arm that had come over the side of the boat. A wave of attackers followed, and Phlegyas swung his oar vigorously to drive them back into the swamp. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Well done!” Rosemary said.
“Thank you. Of course there’s not much I can do if one of the new ones gets to us.”
“You’ll think of something,” she said. “How did you get this position?”
“You never heard of me?”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t have a very good education,” she said.
“I find that astonishing, given the official interest in you.”
“Should I be concerned?” Rosemary asked anxiously.
“Madam, I do not know.”
“Tell me of the rulers here.”
“The overlord is Lucifer, once an angel of God. His commands are given through the dark angels, and those humans who have been given domains of their own.”
“Such as yourself, Majesty?”
“Yes.”
“But if you are human, you can leave,” I said. “You can escape this place!”
“So I have been told.”
“Who told you?” I asked.
Phlegyas laughed. “Benito was but one of a great many who have tempted me to leave my assigned place.”
“And you always refuse. Why?”
“Escape to where?” he demanded. “Will it be to a place where I have worth? Where I will be respected? Where I have power? Here I reign as king.” He paused to kick a dark bearded face that appeared over the gunwale. “Will I reign where you would lead me?”
“I don’t think there’s much chance of that,” I said.
“How came you here, Majesty?” Rosemary prompted.
“I was a king,” Phlegyas said. “The priest of Apollo raped my daughter. I invaded Delphi and burned his temple down.”
“Okay.” It seemed a plausible reaction, if he couldn’t get to the priest. “But how can they blame you for that?” I demanded.
“Indeed, I thought so, too.” He used his oar to beat back a woman trying to climb into the boat. “My grandson was born of that union. He was a great physician, so great that many said Apollo himself must have been his father. I have been told that the rape was necessary to produce him, and I had no right to interfere with the will of Zeus and the gods by taking revenge for my daughter’s rape.”
