by Larry Niven
“I don’t know. Maybe he got put into another circle. Sylvia, I just don’t know.”
“Died. Gone. That’s what I wanted.”
“Sylvia!”
“It’s all right, Allen. It’s not what I want anymore. What I want now is to get out of here! Can you find one of those — one of the ones who explode? Lead him over here, taunt him into blowing me up? Write curses on my forehead? I bet I can think of things to say that would get him mad enough! I’m pretty good at that, even when I don’t want to be.”
“I don’t know where to find them.”
“Surely with the other violent people? Phlegethon. Tell me how you got across Phlegethon.”
Chapter 14
Seventh Circle, First Round
The Violent
* * *
But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near
The river of blood, within which boiling is
Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.
O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
That spurs us onward so in our short life,
And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!
I got to the mausoleum, still feeling lousy, still alone. I’d been right, the path down to Phlegethon was smooth. There was even some straggly grass growing there.
The river was below me, an evil red with steam rising from it. I would have no trouble getting to it.
I was scared. I can’t remember anything, life or death, that hurt more than swimming through that boiling blood. I knew I could do it, but I sure didn’t want to.
I was trying to get up the nerve, when I saw someone I recognized.
“Billy!”
He came up the slope toward me. “Allen. Hey, I heard you and Benito got out of this place. All the way down.”
“We did! Thanks to you, really. I don’t think we’d have made it without you.”
“So what are you doing back here?” Billy asked. “ ‘Course I’ve been expecting you.”
“Expecting me?”
“Sure, got a message you were coming. Good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too.” It was. “Billy, we got to the bottom. Benito climbed out. I thought —”
“You thought you hadn’t earned your way out,” Billy said.
“I didn’t put it that way, but yes. Now I know there’s a way out! I can help people get there. Come with me, we’ll get you out this time.”
“Well, maybe,” he said. “Right now, best I get back to work. You come with me.” He led me down toward the shore.
He wasn’t much to look at. Short, tough looking. His physical age was early twenties, but he was either very young or very old, depending on how you looked at him. He was dressed different from when I’d seen him last. Most of the guards around Phlegethon had uniforms, but Billy wore jeans and boots, and had a holstered pistol as well as a big Bowie knife. When I first met him he had a torn robe and nothing else. “I see they’ve given you an outfit.”
“That they did.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who gave you the stuff?”
“Supply clerks, in the city.” He pointed. I couldn’t see it very well in the steam, but about two city blocks away there was what looked like a canal leading into a tunnel mouth. “City is up that way.”
“You had to swim to the city?”
“Not me. There’s a path. But yeah, some can swim if they want to bad enough. There’s some do it. They always get caught.” He shrugged. “None of mine.”
“What do they do there?”
“Don’t know. They get brought back here. Heard there’s some do it a lot.”
I pictured Leonard Dowl swimming beneath the blood. It would hurt. Would he give it up someday?
The slope leading into the blood was quite gentle here. Just where we were standing the nearest prisoners in the blood were knee to thigh deep, about fifty feet away. There were others out beyond them, waist deep, chest deep, one woman with long dark hair floating around her head.
“Pardon me a moment.” Billy turned to a man carrying a longbow and dressed in a medieval leather jerkin. “Carlos there is supposed to be waist deep,” Billy said. “He’s creepin’ closer.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, my captain.” The archer reached over his shoulder to take an arrow from a quiver, and in one smooth motion nocked the arrow and released it. There was enough steam that I couldn’t see who it hit, but we heard a scream and cursing.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Dunno, really. He tells me some stories about the Black Prince.”
“I didn’t mean the archer. Billy, we’ve been in the blood. It’s horrible, do you think we deserved that?”
Billy shrugged. “Maybe I did. I used to say I never killed a man that didn’t have it coming ‘less he was trying to kill me. ‘Cept one. Maybe I could have got out of town without killin’ the other deputy. Couldn’t take a chance on that, so I put him down with a shotgun. So yeah, I think I had some time coming in there. Dunno about you. You never told me and I don’t ask.”
“But the man you forced to go deeper —”
“You mean Carlos? Allen, you don’t need to feel sorry for him. He liked to bugger little kids. Liked to tie them up and keep them until he could get it up. And he’s only waist deep. Allen, there’s nobody out there don’t deserve to be there.”
“And that one?” I pointed to a man up to his chin in boiling blood. He was screaming in agony so his face was distorted, but he looked Oriental.
“New one,” Billy said. “Seung, something like that. Went out and shot a bunch of people in the college he was at. Allen, it puzzles me that a man can shoot thirty–two full–grown men and women before the sheriff’s men gun him down. You’re more his time, maybe you can tell me. Why didn’t someone just shoot the son of a bitch?”
I scratched my head. Billy’s viewpoint seemed skewed, alien.
“Five of ‘em were teachers,” Billy said. “They had to protect their kids. How could they not be armed? It’s as if someone has been taking away their guns.” He saw my puzzlement. “Oh, well. I don’t know how long he’ll be out that deep, but he needs watchin’. Keeps trying to get ashore.”
“The depths change for people?”
“Sometimes,” Billy said. He laughed. “Look at me!”
Billy seemed friendly enough, but I’d known him long enough to know I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He’d once lain motionless while fire was falling on him just so he could surprise an enemy. And the first time he’d seen me, I had been in the blood, more than waist deep. “Billy, you said you had a message about me. What did it say?”
Billy grinned. “Worried?”
“Yes.”
“Never crossed a friend,” Billy said. “Don’t know what I’d do if they told me to. Message said I’d see you. Left the rest up to me.” He drew his pistol and fired almost without aiming. A burly man who’d been trying to run toward us suddenly buckled and fell face first into the blood. “Knee deep, Morris,” Billy said. “Morris, there, was a prison guard. Chained a kid to his bed and let him die of thirst. Wouldn’t listen when he screamed.”
“Do you know every one of these?”
“Yeah, I guess so, the ones I guard. None I knew before.” He grinned. “I’d sure like to have Pat Garrett here. They tell me he’s in Phlegethon, but I guess I haven’t earned having him to play with.”
“Earned. How do you earn?”
“Allen, by doin’ my job.”
“And you’d like to have Pat Garrett? You like your work?”
“Sure, Allen. Why shouldn’t I like it? It ain’t like I was robbing anyone, stealing, killing anyone didn’t deserve it. Not like that at all. These have it coming, Allen.”
“How do you know that?”
“ ‘Cause they tell me,” Billy said.
“Who?”
“The bosses.”
“Demons?”
“Naw, people. Important people, not like the ones out in the blood. Good people who keep their wo
rd.” He drew his pistol and fired, again without seeming to aim. There was another scream and Seung fell face forward into the blood. “Now, Allen, what can I do for you? You can see I’m busy here. Lost some of my best troops, haven’t got any replacements yet.”
• • •
“Sylvia, I didn’t want to know how he lost his best troops. I think I should have asked, but I didn’t want to know. It was clear to me. Billy wasn’t coming with me, he didn’t want out at all. He was enjoying his work.”
Sylvia was quiet for a long time. A dry wind rattled her branches. I broke off one of them. Blood flowed. “Oh! And that’s why you were in such a funk when you threw yourself under my tree,” she said. “Because the servants of God in Hell enjoy their work?”
“Yes. That doesn’t seem right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be right? Virgil encouraged Dante to taunt the damned.”
“Sure, and I’ve read in an old sermon that the saved get to enjoy seeing the damned in Hell!” I shouted. “I hate that!”
“Come on, Allen. I heard you when you described what Carlos had done. You believe he deserves to be out there. Deeper than waist deep, even. I heard the way you said it. Allen, if they gave you the job of keeping him out there, you’d take it. I don’t think you spent much time telling Billy’s prisoners they can escape!”
“God help me, you’re right, and I’m ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t be.”
“But out there forever —”
“Allen, you don’t know anyone is there forever. You got out of Phlegethon. You and Benito and Billy and Corbett, you all got past it. Maybe you weren’t sentenced to be there, but Billy was, and he’s not in there now.”
“No. But he’s not out of Hell, either.”
“He can be, Allen. Wasn’t that what you asked for? A sign that everyone has a chance to get out of Hell? Well, haven’t you had that? Except for me. I’m here, but you’ll find a way to get me out. You’ll find a way.”
I had despaired. It was the worst sin. Could I crawl back from there? With help?
I rubbed my back against the rough bark. You work with what you’ve got.
“How did you get across the boiling blood?” Sylvia asked.
“Billy showed me a ford. It was ankle deep for a little ways, but that was nothing compared to what I’d expected. I ran across. The guards didn’t bother me. That was easy. Getting you out won’t be.”
“Maybe Billy lost his troops to exploders,” Sylvia said. “You should have asked him.”
“I guess I should, but I wasn’t thinking I wanted to meet one,” I told her. I shuddered. “And I don’t want to go back there, either!”
Sylvia said, “Maybe you won’t have to. We’re writers. Tell me a story.”
“You’re a tree. The basic problem is, you’re a tree.” Did I still remember how to let my mind play? “Okay, tree. I need a shovel and a wheel–barrow and some dirt. I could get a shovel and wheelbarrow in the Hoarders and Wasters, maybe. Dig you up and replant you. Wheel you down.”
“How far could you get?”
“Across the desert, maybe, just gutting it out. Then there’s a cliff. Push you over and jump. Rebuild the barrow … better steal some screws and stuff while I’m up there where the tools are. Then … the Sixth Bolgia doesn’t have any bridges. You can’t climb.”
“Not like this.”
“Ropes.”
“The desert. Doesn’t it have flakes of fire?”
“Yeah. Tree over my head … but you’d burn. I’d have to find a way to cover you.”
“Allen, I’m a tree. Burn me.”
My mouth went dry. This sounded a lot too real. I said, “Sylvia, you’re a recidivist.”
“Can you find fire?”
“Sure. The desert, the tombs, some of the Bolgias. Let’s keep thinking, though.”
“You’ll need something to carry the coals in. And maybe some tinder. Find some torn–up wood where the dogs have been through. Stack a lot of that around my, my trunk.”
“There’s got to be a better way.”
“Allen, it’s an elegant solution. Simple. Poetic. I burned while I was alive, and I died by my own hand.”
Think. What can you do with a tree? Demon termites? An axe from the Hoarders and Wasters? Would that be any better? Would it even work? But could she heal from fire? I started stacking scrap wood around her while I thought it through.
Chapter 15
Seventh Circle, Third Round
The Violent Against God, Nature, And Art
* * *
Then came we to the confine, where disparted
The second round is from the third, and where
A horrible form of Justice is beheld.
Clearly to manifest these novel things,
I say that we arrived upon a plain,
Which from its bed rejecteth every plant;
The dolorous forest is a garland to it
All round about, as the sad moat to that;
There close upon the edge we stayed our feet
The soil was of an arid and thick sand.
O’er all the sand–waste, with a gradual fall
Were raining down dilated flakes of fire
As of the snow on Alp without a wind.
Fireflakes fell like snow. Running felt natural enough, dodging flakes, but I stopped at a weird sight. Two men were holding a woman overhead like an umbrella. The woman on top writhed and flailed; her arms beat at the leader’s head. He laughed and dodged.
I thought of rescue … but now I’d noticed similar silhouettes, as if the Pi shapes of Stonehenge had gone scampering off on their own legs. Two shapes shielding themselves with a third, over and over.
I remembered reading about an ecological collapse in New Zealand. It wasn’t a mutation; it was just that some parrots had learned to perch on a sheep’s back and peck until they got to the liver, and all the other parrots were copying them. Evolution was still at work in Hell.
One rescue at a time.
I was carrying a handful of sticks. Any kind of bucket would be better, but if I could get coals glowing at one end, I’d have a torch.
I didn’t have to go far, I told myself. Just far enough to get fire. For that matter, my hair was burning. I scraped the ends of branches through my hair, and blew on them.
The wood burned. I turned back toward the forest. The branches burned fast. Burning my hand. I held on as long as I could, then flung them away, screaming in pain and anger.
That got attention. Two burly guys made eye contact. Diverged, moving to bracket me. I turned away from the forest. My hair was still alight, but it wasn’t as bad as the branches; maybe my sweat was insulating me.
The two thugs weren’t giving up. It was too much fun. Something about their motion told me they were both football players, linebackers.
I slowed. They moved to either side. I picked one and charged. He braced to catch me. I swung left–handed and hit him in the face as hard as I could, and he did a complete backflip. I picked him up by thigh and hair and swung him over my head.
“I know the way out,” I said.
He just bellowed, but his companion stopped. “You’re Benito? We’ve heard of you.”
“I’m Carpenter. Benito’s gone out of Hell.”
“Just put Hal down, okay? Put him down and we’re gone.”
“Follow me and we’re all gone, same as Benito.” I flung Hal away. If they attacked, maybe I could still outrun them.
Hal bounced, rolled, stood. Their eyes locked; they decided. They ran away, brushing fireflakes from their hair. And I stared at what was beyond them.
It was a tiny, distant mirage: a box with an even tinier ice–cream cone on its roof, all wavering in the heat.
I snorted. That was really cruel. I turned back to the forest and ran with fire in my hair.
I couldn’t find Sylvia! The woods were thick, gloomy with steam from Phlegethon. Suddenly a man dashed past, then a flood of women. They ignored me, bu
t they were shouting at him. “You killed her, you faithless bastard. Left her to die! Burned her best work.”
They were accompanied by dogs and harpies, but the women were the worst. They tore at him, clawed his back when they could catch him. Bright blood flowed. The pack ran past me and in a direction that might be the right way back to Sylvia’s tree.
“Poet laureate! Sylvia should have been poet laureate! You weren’t half the poet she was!”
Poet laureate. Sylvia. There were entirely too many coincidences in Hell. I followed the chase.
Long before I got there I knew where she was. “Ted!” She was screaming. “Ted!”
As I ran I grabbed a branch that had been broken off by the chase. It was green and I didn’t think my fire was hot enough to light it, so I found a dry twig and lit that in my hair. It burned fast, and I was able to light the branch before it got too hot to hold. Then I followed the trail of broken trees until I found Sylvia. My scalp hurt, but I had fire.
The mad hunt was gone when I got to her tree. She was crying. “That was Ted,” Sylvia said. There were branches torn from her.
I’d heard that Ted Hughes was hounded by women who resented his treatment of Sylvia, but I hadn’t told her about it. I didn’t know what to think about this. I was astonished to realize I wasn’t jealous. I’d thought I was falling in love with Sylvia, and I guess I was — I know I was — but it wasn’t any kind of love that made me jealous. If she wanted other friends, if she wanted her husband back, that was great if it would make her happy.
I was beginning to sound like a character from a book I didn’t much like.
“Allen! I saw Ted!”
“Yeah, I saw him, too. Being chased by harpies and critics.”
“He looked so damned unhappy.”
“He should be unhappy,” I said.
“Because of me? Yes, but Allen, I wasn’t very nice, either. I wasn’t always a good wife.”
“You didn’t go around banging his friends. Did you?” How would I know?
“No, no, I didn’t do that. I tried to be a good wife, to make him happy. I learned to cook! I took a cookbook on our honeymoon! And I made him write. I made us both write! But I couldn’t have been all that easy to live with. Allen, do they all blame him? Just him?”
