Escape From Hell (33 page)

“I will help.” Harris came up behind me and grasped the handle. I flinched, but I could feel he was lifting the fork, not pushing me in. “Try letting go now.”

My hands were blistered but not cooked to the handle, and I could let go. I stepped away quickly as two bar–shaped blisters burst out on my palms. I tried to ignore the pain.

Lindemann came up over the edge. Harris stepped back, pulling Lindemann to him. The flame went out. I was afraid for a moment that Harris would throw the pitchfork back into the pit, but he set it down carefully and nursed his blistered hands.

“Well. It is accomplished,” Lindemann said. “Do you care for company the rest of the way, or shall we leave you?”

“I guess I don’t much care for your company,” I said.

“I hardly blame you. Again we apologize, but I could think of no other way to be certain of escape. Now let me urge haste in rescuing your companion. When you fell into the pit we drove others away from this area, but I cannot expect they will stay away for long.”

“Oh.” I picked up the pitchfork. It was hot and hurt like hell. I could hear shouting below. I dangled the pitchfork over the edge. “Sylvia! Quick!”

I felt her weight. “Coming! Thank you! Oh, thank you! Allen, I’m scared!”

She climbed slowly, slower than Benito had, and I was afraid I couldn’t hold on. I gritted my teeth. “Hurry!”

“I’m trying! Stop! Let me alone!”

The weight on the pitchfork increased. Someone was trying to climb up on Sylvia! I pulled frantically.

Then I felt Lindemann behind me. “I will assist,” he said. “General, if you please?”

General Harris joined us. We strained as we lifted. Sylvia’s body came up out of the pit. We pulled, hard, and as we did we could see that someone was clinging to her waist. I could feel the fork getting red hot.

“Too heavy!” I shouted.

“Hang on,” Lindemann grunted.

Eloise came over, and as a head appeared near the rim she did a graceful kick that caught the man full in the face. He flinched, and Eloise kicked again. The man fell.

Now the three of us were strong enough to lift Sylvia clear of the pit and bring her onto the ledge. Her flame died out, and she collapsed whimpering on the rocks.

Chapter 30

Eighth Circle, Ninth Bolgia

Sowers Of Discord

I sorrowed then; I sorrow now again,
Pondering the things I saw, and curb my hot
Spirit with an unwontedly strong rein.
For fear it run where virtue guide it not,
Lest, if kind star or greater grace have blest
me with good gifts, I mar not my own fair lot.

M
y hands were a ruin. I waited to heal, and as I did I thought about Lindemann and Harris. They seemed in no great hurry to get away from us, but Lindemann acted as if we were in a social situation. He had committed a faux pas, and was anxious to make amends.

Sylvia lay curled up in a near fetal position. Eloise knelt beside her making soothing noises. “You’ll be all right, now,” Eloise said.

“I don’t think so.” She looked over to me. “Allen, I wanted to die. To just curl up and turn to ash. I thought I was over all that. I thought I was beyond despair.”

“You are. Sylvia, you didn’t despair. You did what you had to do.”

She thought about that.

“Indeed. You were quite brave,” Lindemann said. He bowed to Eloise. “As were you. La Savate?”

Eloise nodded and cradled Sylvia’s head in her lap. “You were splendid,” she crooned.

I looked at my hands. They were nearly healed. Good enough, I thought. I got to my feet and grasped Lindemann by his robe. I lifted him above my head. It would be easy to throw him into the pit.

He was startled, but he made no protest beyond a squawk when I grabbed him.

General Harris ran over and tried to fight me. He pounded on me with his fists but that didn’t do any good at all. I hardly felt his blows. I looked at him. “Run or you’re next.”

“No. Damn you, put him down.”

“Allen,” Sylvia said. “They did help me get out.”

“They threw you in!”

Definitely justice, I thought. But was it? They could have run away. They chose to stay and help, even though I hadn’t trusted them. And who was I to make this decision? Was Eloise right, was I becoming a judge instead of a rescuer? The moment of rage passed. I set Lindemann down.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Thank Sylvia,” I said. “Now get away from me.”

“Of course. Again, young lady, my apologies. And my thanks.” They walked off together, clockwise.

We waited until they were out of sight. I gathered up our rope and pickaxe, and we followed.

“Why this way?” Eloise asked.

“It’s the way Dante went,” Sylvia said.

“Benito, too,” I told them. “But he said it didn’t really make any difference. Anyway, there ought to be a bridge not far ahead.”

“Reinhard Heydrich,” Eloise said. “And we helped him escape.”

“Has he escaped?” Sylvia asked.

We found the bridge. It arched high above the Eighth Bolgia. Flames burned like candles below us. I remembered the old drinking song, Fire and sleet and candlelight …

The ridge between the Eighth with its Evil Counselors and the next Bolgia wasn’t very wide, and was scattered with rocks of all sizes. It was a long way to the next bridge.

“There’s a demon at the next bridge,” I said. “Stay closer to the uphill side.” I shuddered, remembering the demon with the great sword.

“What about the demon?”

“He likes to talk,” I said. “And he’s dangerous.”

We were safe enough above the Eighth Bolgia but the flames kept calling to us for help. They all had stories, and nearly all the stories had the same theme. They meant well. Whatever horrors they had advocated, they meant well.

“We thought we could control Hitler! The Reich was in chaos, Hitler promised so much, and we were sure we could control him!”

“Saddam had to go! He was evil, we thought if the people rose up against him they could win! How could we know he would kill everyone in the Delta?”

“We thought he had weapons of mass destruction because Saddam damn well faked us out! He was using the money to build palaces!”

“Didn’t matter. We had to tell the Congress there were weapons of mass destruction! They would never have supported us without that story!”

“We didn’t know we would kill more people than Saddam ever did! We were patriots, how could we know so many would die? We believed Chalabi!”

“Kennedy needed a coward in that room! It might have been atomic war!”

“Leaks! There were leaks everywhere! The Pentagon was spying on the President! We had traitors in the White House! We had to do something, and do it fast!”

“We meant well! We didn’t know!”

There were thousands of others, from a thousand times and places. English who counseled wars against the French because the English king had rights. French who counseled war against the Germans. A French cardinal who urged the French to aid the Turks against the Germans. Self–serving counselors who shut down research programs so there would be more money to steal. French, German, American, Turkish. Two Bulgarians. An Albanian. They all had meant well.

It was easier for Sylvia and Eloise to ignore them. They couldn’t understand most of them in the first place. After a while I tuned them out. “I’ve
done
that demonstration,” I said.

Sylvia looked puzzled. “Allen?”

“I’ve pulled souls from the Eighth Bolgia, twice now,” I said.

“But Allen, why did we burst into flames when we were in there? Why were we trapped there?”

“I don’t know. We weren’t Evil Counselors.”

“Dante called them counselors of fraud,” Sylvia said. “But that’s no better. I never advised people to steal or do fraud. I don’t think I did.”

“Me, either. Dammit, if this place is run by justice —”

“Justice without mercy,” Eloise said.

“All right, justice without mercy. Then that says it was just for us to be in that pit.”

“You weren’t in it for long,” Eloise said. “Does that make a difference?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about it as we walked. Justice without mercy. Had I ever given evil advice? Well–meant evil advice? But of course I had. I’d written stories with that theme. Good ends justify evil means. “I didn’t try to convince anyone! They were just stories!” I shouted.

Someone in the pit bellowed, “Behind the hedge of the teeth!” Shut up, in Spanish.

“Of course they were. You weren’t condemned to that place,” Sylvia said.

“Neither were you.”

“That’s my point,” Sylvia said. “We weren’t sentenced there. You went past it twice already. You even helped Benito get out. So nothing compelled you to be in there, but once you were — is it really unjust that you had to find a way out?”

“Puzzles.” I wondered, “Could it be part of the game?”

“Game?” She shied back a little.

“Bridge ahead,” Eloise said.

“Some games are played for very high stakes. Be careful up here,” I told them. “There’s a demon under the bridge.”

“Allen —” Sylvia pointed.

There was a man lying in the path. No. Not a man. Half a man, the upper part of a body cut off above the waist. Entrails spilled out of the body cavity. There was blood everywhere.

“We’ve seen him before,” Eloise said. “We helped get him out! Lev, they called him.”

“Leon Trotsky,” Sylvia said. “What happened to you?”

He stared at her in incomprehension. Shock, I thought. “Demon.” His voice was strained. I wondered how he could talk at all.

“Ha! Carpenter, you have returned!”

The voice was deep and inhuman and came from under the bridge. I recognized the voice. “Did you do this?” I called.

“Why, yes, Carpenter. He was a schismatic, a sower of discord. Doubly so. Communism divided humanity and he divided Communism. Much like Mohammed and his son–in–law, wouldn’t you say? I have had them since they died. Come, Carpenter, you are an educated man. Surely this is justice?”

“I’m not looking for justice,” I said.

“Mercy? Never here. There is teaching, but not mercy.”

“Not that, either.” I pulled Trotsky’s torso away from the edge of the pit. “You’ll heal,” I told him. “At least I think you will.”

“My legs,” he groaned. He pointed to the edge of the pit. “Down there. I need my legs!”

“Is there any other kind of justice, Carpenter?” the demon called. “Come closer and see my justice.”

“Fat chance!”

“Come now, Carpenter, you have nothing to fear from me. If you belonged in my pit you would be here. I even let you win the game.”

“My companions —”

“They are not mine,” he said. “Now come, I will show you marvels.”

“The devil lies,” Sylvia reminded me.

I was dithering. It was possible to dash past the demon. I’d done it. I’d also fallen into the Tenth Bolgia for my pains. But when I needed to get back uphill to rescue Benito, he’d let me pass. For a price.

“What’s your price for safe passage down?” I shouted.

“Come and watch. See my justice.” There was a pause. “I let you go through with Benito.”

That was true enough. At least I hadn’t seen him after I rescued Benito and we went back across.

“Can we trust him?” Sylvia asked. She looked at Trotsky and shuddered.

“Yes,” Eloise said.

“You’re sure?”

“Allen, I am never sure. But I think yes.”

“You ladies stay where it’s safe. I’ll go talk to him.”

“No,” Sylvia said firmly. She took my arm. “We stay together.” She came forward with me. Eloise held back a few steps. She seemed preoccupied.

The demon stood like a black tower beneath the bridge, with a sword sprouting from the middle finger of his right hand.

I looked back to Eloise. “Premonitions?” I asked.

“Not about him.” She pointed at the demon. “I fear a man with no future, but I don’t know where he is.”

“A man with no future? In this place?” Sylvia asked.

“I see two men. One has no future. The other may have a future, but does not now.”

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “Sounds like fortune teller babble.”

“I know,” Eloise said. “But I can’t say it any better.”

“She’s trying,” Sylvia said. “Haven’t you ever had that kind of problem?”

“I guess so.” Poets had word problems. I was a storyteller. But this wasn’t the time for literary criticism.

“It doesn’t make any more sense to me,” Eloise said. “Just that I am afraid of a man with no future, and you will find a man who has no future now, but may have after you find him.”

Sylvia, Eloise, and I walked to the rim of the pit.

It was definitely the same demon I’d seen before.

He stood in a pool of blood, and the bright copper odor of blood filled the air. A long line of sinners waited to be mutilated. They stood with understandable patience as he spoke to me. I recognized some of them. Henry the Eighth seemed calmer and less arrogant than the last time I’d seen him.

“Welcome back, Carpenter! And welcome to you, ladies. I do not think you belong to me, but you may learn something here.”

Eloise asked, “You’re an educator?” He nodded enthusiastically.

“You can’t be the only staff in this Bolgia,” I said.

His laugh was deep. “Hardly. But I do get many of the more interesting cases. Take this next group for example. Lawyers. Most lawyers never make it this far down, but these were specialists in divisiveness. Anything that caused civic cohesion, anything that made people feel a sense of worth, or of mutual identity, they wanted closed down. Menorah in the public square? Never! No menorah, no manger, and after people started converting to paganism, no Kris Kringle and reindeer, either! Isn’t that right, Horace?”

“The constitution built that wall between church and state! Not me, I was just enforcing it!”

“Sure you were. That’s why the constitution allowed the original states to have established churches. Come here, Horace.”

The lawyer cringed his way forward. The sword swung, and Horace staggered away, cleft from his crown to his chin. “See you later, Horace!” the demon shouted cheerfully.

“That must hurt,” I said.

“I hope so. Stick around, Madelyn will be coming around soon. I get artistic with Madelyn.”