Escape From Hell (6 page)

“Well, yes, it is,” Lester said. He sounded thoughtful, and I knew why. The Allen Carpentier he’d known wouldn’t have come back.

“And of course it’s an easy journey.” This one wore a toga with no border. Stoic, I assumed, mostly because he looked like the pictures of Stoics in my high school history book.

I said, “Hah. No, it’s grueling, but it’s never dull!”

“Grueling? How?”

“There’s the desert. Flakes of fire fall from the skies. There were four of us, and we had to cross it.”

“Four?” This was a woman, attractive, in a wraparound rose–colored robe.

“At the time, four. After we left here, Benito and I built a glider.” I could see Lester grinning when I said that, but most had blank looks. “Glider. A flying machine. Like a big bird.”

“With what can you build such a machine?”

“We used robes. Robes, trees, and vines, and some stolen tools. But we flew into the winds and picked up a hitchhiker. He’d been a pilot. He was good, too, but we still crashed. That’s how we got Corbett. He decided to follow us out. We found Billy lower down. So that was four of us, and now we had to cross this desert of fire.”

It took me a while to tell the story, because the audience was so mixed. There were old Greek philosophers, and modern pagans like Lester. They were all Europeans or Americans, though. Rosemary and I had crossed above Aussie Abos, and Muslims. Dante showed a Muslim in with the Virtuous Pagans. He couldn’t have been the only Muslim not in deeper Hell! If I followed the bridges I’d find someone else. Chinese, maybe; African tribesmen; Inuit; East Indians. All the breeds of mankind, and all the religions.

So I told them how we crossed the desert in a demon car that tried to kill us, and how we drove it over a cliff and watched it burn.

Lester listened to every word. I haven’t told you about Lester. He was an atheist, sometimes militantly so, but he wrote about good and evil, and he had a pretty strict code of ethics. His wife was a Jew fascinated by Catholicism. I think Lester was raised Catholic once, but it didn’t stick. I was pretty sure I could talk him into coming with me.

“Allen, this is the most interesting place I have ever seen,” Lester said. “Let me show you the Universe!” He pointed toward the big building on the hill.

“I saw it,” I told him. “And yes, I’m tempted. I’ve seen miracles elsewhere, too.”

“Well, as to that, haven’t you ever thought of a miracle as a sign of something botched?”

Rosemary said, “Botched? Miracles?”

Lester turned to her. “Well, suppose Jesus didn’t order enough food for a banquet or something. Or — Think about this. Here’s God ready to run Paul of Tarsus to Damascus by noon tomorrow. He looks around and here’s Paul and his followers all in jail cells!” Lester’s voice deepened, echoed. “ ‘Oops! Now what? I’ll just open all these locks and hope nobody notices.’ ”

Rosemary was giggling.

“Or, say Jehovah has finally got the Jews out of Egypt. ‘And now it’s a clear shot to the Promised Land. I’ll have them there in five weeks. Have to feed them somehow, and — oops! I forgot about the Red Sea! What’ll I do now? The Pharoah’s army is coming right up their asses! This is going to be —’ ” Lester spread his arms theatrically, and his voice rolled. “ ‘Messy!’ ”

Rosemary was helpless with laughter. So was half our audience. I looked around me. They weren’t threatening. Just the opposite.

“All right, last time you threw me out. Now you look like you’re glad to see me. Why?”

“The last time it was clear that you did not belong here.” The spokesman was the chap in the purple–bordered robe. He looked vaguely familiar, and I thought I might have seen a statue of him. Augustus? “Now it is not so certain. You have been everywhere, and made your way back here. Who are we to determine where you belong?”

“Benito had been everywhere.”

“We did not expel Benito. He went with you.”

“Oh.” That made sense, though I hadn’t seen it that way.

“You may stay as long as you like,” Augustus said. “But your companion does not belong here. She has left her proper place in Hell.”

Rosemary had been quiet, trying not to draw attention. “I do belong here! I was a pagan, and I was virtuous,” she wailed. “Well, usually virtuous!”

“Clearly you were not judged to be so.”

Rosemary looked around and caught sight of the woman in the rose–colored robe. “Can’t you help me? I wasn’t judged at all! I never had a trial. I died and woke up in the Vestibule. You can’t convict me without a trial!”

One of the Greek philosophers chuckled. “You appeal to Aspasia for justice? But you are in Hell. Why should you find justice here?”

“Yet we do find justice,” Aspasia said.

Dante had said over and over that justice was this place’s reason for being. I asked, “Is it just that you be here?”

Aspasia shrugged. “No one here objects. It is a kinder place than Athens.”

“Do you have everything you want?” I asked.

Lester chuckled. “More than I ever expected. We have knowledge, good companions, good conversation with smart people. I like it well enough.”

“And you don’t want anything else?”

Lester shrugged. “I miss my wife.”

“She’s not here? Where?”

Lester shook his head. “They don’t tell us.”

“And you don’t regret not having a purpose? Some reason for being here? Some reason for being?”

“I’d have to think about that,” Lester said. “I’m surprised enough that I’m here at all! And Allen, there’s so much to learn! I have friends, mathematicians, scientists, and there are so many things we didn’t know! Come see!”

“But forever?”

“The universe won’t last forever,” Lester said.

“What?”

“That’s what the cosmologists say now. There’s more. Think about quantum physics and uncertainty. Think what that says about free will. Stay and learn with me.”

That was tempting. But they were herding Rosemary toward the gate. I could stay here and do nothing, or — “Lester, Benito said this might be the cruelest place in Hell because you aren’t being punished. Will you ever learn the truth by just thinking about it?” I ran to catch up to Rosemary. They’d already opened the gate.

“Please! Oh, please, don’t.” She saw me. “O Allen, make them stop! I want to stay here.”

“All of you! This is not Heaven! This is part of Hell! Don’t you know that?”

Silence.

“Haven’t you felt you wanted more? That this can’t be all there is?” I demanded. “I can show you the way out of Hell!”

That got some attention, but they weren’t moved. Rosemary was in the gateway now, still wailing, still asking my help.

“Is there anything I can say?” I asked. “Let her stay. I’ll go.”

Augustus looked stern. “Nobly said, but she does not belong here. I do not know your true status, Carpenter, but we know hers. This is our duty.”

“Who told you this was your duty?” I demanded.

They didn’t answer.

“Did you wish to accompany her?” Augustus asked.

“Yeah.” I pushed past two of them and joined Rosemary. The gate slammed shut behind us.

Chapter 6

First Circle

The Palace Of Minos

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
Examines the transgressors as they come
Judges and sends according as he girds them.
I say, that when the spirit evil–born
Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
And this discriminator of transgressions
Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it.

A
gain we were between walls too high to climb. The way stretched downhill toward palace walls supported by queerly etched pillars wider at the top than the bottom. But we were looking above the rim of the palace, and I saw what I’d never seen before.

The palace curved around to left and right. Smoky, dirty air rose through the middle of Hell’s bowl, blocking the far view; but as far around as I could see —

The Palace of Minos filled the entire bottom rim of Limbo. Structures rose above it: pyramids, igloo shapes on a glare–white background, tall buildings, wide deserts and jungles and plowed fields. The Virtuous Pagans was a great part of Hell. Not just those who hadn’t heard word of Christianity, I speculated; but those who had no reason to believe that word. Who were they waiting for?

Rosemary was blubbering. “Let’s go uphill,” she said. “Maybe we can sneak back in there! Allen, it was so nice there, why won’t they let us stay?”

So she thought I’d been thrown out, too. She must not have heard all of the conversation. Or didn’t understand it, because she didn’t have any gift of tongues. And she was acting a lot like I’d acted with Benito.

“It won’t do any good,” I told her. “You don’t belong there, and they know it. There’s only one way to go. Rosemary, I had no idea it went on so far.”

She was about to argue when another wave of people washed through. They carried us with them down into the palace.

•    •    •

“T
he Palace of Minos,” Sylvia said, when I broke off a twig. “I always wanted to see it. The real one, on Crete. Instead I got this one.”

“That’s right, of course you saw Minos and his palace,” I said. She was quiet so long that I reached up and snapped another branch.

“Thanks. I think.”

“You all right?”

“I’m in Hell, rooted as a tree, I can’t talk unless some kind soul breaks my branches and hurts me. I’m fine.”

“You knew what I meant.”

“Yes, Allen, I still want to get out of here, if that’s what you mean.”

“It is.”

“Oh, God, I want to get out of here! If the point of this place is to get my attention, it’s working! I wish I’d never stuck my head in that oven! God, do you hear me? I’m sorry! I was sorry while I was doing it! Allen, I was acting like a jerk, I knew it then, and God knows I know it now!”

“Sylvia —”

“It’s all right. I’m all right. Really, I am, this time. Go on with your story. I want to know how you lost Rosemary.”

•    •    •

T
he palace was marble, and enormous. The only furnishings other than Minos’s throne were some stone benches. The walls were decorated with frescoes. A royal court of beautiful women in flounced skirts, jackets open to show bare breasts, watched more pretty girls dancing with tame bulls. The palace was lit with torches in bronze holders along the walls.

“It’s beautiful,” Rosemary said. Then she saw Minos at the end of the chamber. Very large, vaguely bovine, imposing on his white alabaster throne. He seemed to be staring at us. A faint smile flickered across his wide lips.

We hung back. I wanted to give Rosemary a chance to get used to the situation.

“I shortchanged everyone,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m bad luck, Allen.”

The room was big and crowded, but they all ignored each other. People edged back from the huge bestial shape of Minos, leaving an arc. A middle–aged woman edged into the vacant space leading an older boy.

“Do you seek judgment?” Minos demanded. “The winds, I think, but tell me first.” He listened as they spoke of a teacher–student relationship gone too far. “Winds,” he said, and looked up from them to me. “Hail again, Allen Carpenter. You refused my judgment before. Do you seek it now?”

“No. I know my way out, now.”

“And you, Rosemary Bennett? My judgment is fair. You have left your assigned place, and your guide cannot protect you once you leave this palace. Do you want judgment?”

“Careful what you say,” I urged her.

“I do not seek your judgment, Your Honor.”

Minos laughed. The first time I’d seen Minos I thought he was an alien evolved from a bovine species, but that was when I believed this was an entertainment complex built on horror fiction. Now I knew better, and I examined him again.

He was real enough. What possible reason could God have for staffing Hell with mythical creatures? Just who was Minos? A mythical king/emperor, the son of Europa and Zeus, but when Zeus carried her away he was in the form of a bull. Not even Dante could have believed that story.

•    •    •

S
ylvia interrupted my story. “It’s part of your education,” she said.

“Eh?”

“Allen, you didn’t believe in Hell. You thought this whole place was constructed by — by what? Alien engineers? Deviants from the future?”

“Either. Both. But it couldn’t be. I mean, maybe it could. Clarke’s Law says that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but Sylvia, it doesn’t feel like magic! And it’s not a dream, it’s a lot too real, and —”

“Education,” Sylvia said. “Shock treatment. You needed all this to convince you that it is all real.”

“And you didn’t?”

A tree can’t shrug, but I could hear a shrug in her voice. “Not really. You were a thoroughgoing atheist. Rationalist. Believed in science and engineering and nothing else.”

“Yes?”

“I was a poet, Allen. I said I was an atheist, or agnostic, or just didn’t care, and most of the time that was probably true, but I wasn’t really. I believed in truth and justice, and that virtues were real even if I didn’t have them. Allen, I didn’t need to be shocked out of my rationalism. You did. Tell me more.”

•    •    •

“M
inos is staring at me,” Rosemary said. “I’m scared. Let’s get out of here.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room.

The next room looked a lot like the last one, but there were differences. It was larger. Friezes on the marble walls showed different scenes. This time the theme was viniculture, growing and trimming and harvesting grapes.

Minos sat across the room. He didn’t look different at all. Approaching him was a group of five robed men. Not my followers, but they’d been part of the crowd around me when I found my shape again in the Vestibule. Rosemary waved to them. They ignored us and pushed past, going up to Minos in a group.

Minos looked me in the eye and grinned. “Why do you not seek my judgment, Rosemary Bennett?”

“Oh, God,” Rosemary said.

Minos turned to the men in front of him. “Speak.”

“I’m Armand Letrois!” He was tall, dark hair silver at the temples, distinguished. Like all of us he was wearing a shapeless robe, but it would have been easy to imagine him in a frock coat and string tie. “From New Orleans! I was a politician, I had connections, I got appointed to the Levee Board. It was my job to oversee inspections of the levees, be sure that the engineers were doing their jobs, that no one was taking bribes to do shoddy work. Without the levees the city would be underwater. Most of it, anyway. Not my house. But most of it.”