The War Hound and the World's Pain (7 page)

I should merely trust that he would keep His word. I would let Him show me what He wished to show me of His Realm. And I would believe nothing to be wholly what it might seem to be.

“You are a pragmatist, captain,” said Lucifer casually, “in your very bones. To your very soul, one might say.”

My voice seemed fainter than was normal. There was a slight echo to it, I thought. “Do you see my soul, Your Majesty?”

He linked His arm in mine and we began to walk across the plain.

“I am familiar with it, captain.”

I knew no fear at this statement, whereas on Earth I should have shuddered at least a little. Although aware of Lucifer’s presence, my body was now neither corporeal nor ethereal, but somewhere between the two. Emotions which should have been strong in me were presently only hinted at; my brain seemed clearer, but that in itself could have been an illusion; my movements were slow and deliberate, yet they followed my thoughts well enough.

This state of being was not uncongenial, and I wondered if it might be the usual condition of angels and the more powerful orders of supernatural entities.

It did not strike me as strange, as I strolled through Hell, side by side with Lucifer, that I had begun to think in terms of spiritual creatures, of realms beyond my earthly world, when, for many years, I had refused to believe in anything but the most substantial and material of phenomena.

Flesh and blood—predominantly the preservation of my own—had been my only reality since my early days of soldiering. My mind and my senses had become blunted, almost certainly, but blunted sensibilities were the only kind one could safely have in the life I led. And the life I led was the only sane one in the world in which I had found myself.

Now, of a sudden, I was not only discovering a return of all my subtlest sensibilities, but exploring sensations—illusory or not—normally denied the bulk of humanity.

It was no wonder that my judgment was confused. Even though I allowed for this, I could not help but be affected. I fought to remember that I must make no pact with Lucifer, that I must agree to nothing, that no matter how tempting any offer He made I must play for time. For not only my life could be at stake, my fate for all Eternity could be the issue.

Lucifer seemed to be trying to console me. “I have given my word to you,” He reminded me, “and I shall keep it.”

An archway of silvery flames appeared immediately before us. Lucifer drew me towards it.

This time I did not hesitate, but entered the archway and found myself in a city.

The city was of black obsidian stone. Every surface, every wall, every canopy and every flag were black and gleamed. The folk of the city wore clothes of rich, dark colours—of scarlet and deep blue, of bloody orange and moss green—and their skins were the colour of old, polished oak.

“This city exists in Hell?” I asked.

“It is one of the chief cities of Hell,” replied Lucifer.

As we passed, the people knelt immediately to the ground and made obeisance to their Lord.

“They recognize you,” I said.

“Oh, indeed.”

The city seemed rich and the people seemed healthy.

“Hell is a punishment, surely?” I said. “Yet these people are not evidently suffering.”

“They are suffering,” said Lucifer. “It is their specific fate. You saw how swiftly they knelt to me.”

“Aye.”

“They are all my slaves. They are none of them free.”

“Doubtless they were not free on Earth.”

“True. But they know that they would be free in Heaven. Their chief misery is simply that they know they are in Hell for all Eternity. It is that knowledge, in itself, which is their punishment.”

“What is freedom in Heaven?” I asked.

“In Hell you become what you fear yourself to be. In Heaven you may become what you hope yourself to be,” said Lucifer.

I had expected a more profound reply, or at least a more complicated one.

“A mild enough punishment, compared to what Luther threatened,” I observed.

“Apparently. And far less interesting than Luther’s torments, as he would tell you himself. There is nothing very interesting in Hell.”

I found that I was amused. “Would that be an epigram to sum Hell up?” I asked.

“I doubt if such an epigram exists. Perhaps Luther would believe that it was. Do you wish to ask him?”

“He is here?”

“In this very city. It is called the City of Humbled Princes. It might have been built for him.”

I had no wish to encounter Martin Luther, either in Hell, in Heaven or on Earth. I must admit to a certain satisfaction at the knowledge that he had not gained his expected reward but doubtless shared territory in Hell with those churchmen he had most roundly condemned.

“I believe I understand what you mean,” I said.

“Oh, I think we both understand Pride, Captain von Bek,” said Lucifer almost cheerfully. “Shall I call Luther? He is very docile now.”

I shook my head.

Lucifer drew me on through the black streets. I looked at the faces of the citizens, and I knew that I would do almost anything to avoid becoming one of them. This damnation was surely a subtle one. It was their eyes which chiefly impressed me: hard and hopeless. Then it was their whispering voices: cold and without dignity. And then it was the city itself: without any saving humanity.

“This visit to Hell will be brief,” Lucifer reassured me. “But I believe it will convince you.”

We entered a huge, square building and passed into deeper blackness.

“Are there no flames here?” I asked Him. “No demons? No screaming sinners?”

“Few sinners receive that sort of satisfaction here,” said Lucifer.

We stood on the shores of a wide and shallow lake. The water was flat and livid. The light was grey and milky and there seemed no direct source for it. The sky was the same colour as the water.

Standing at intervals in the lake, for as far as I could see, naked men and women, waist-deep, were washing themselves.

The noise of the water was muffled and indistinct. The movements of the men and women were mechanical, as if they had been making the same gestures for eons. All were of similar height. All had the same dull flesh, the same lack of expression upon their faces. Their lips were silent. They gathered the water in their hands and poured it over their heads and bodies, moving like clockwork figures. But again it was their eyes which displayed their agony. They moved, it appeared to me, against their will, and yet could do nothing to stop themselves.

“Is this guilt?” I asked Lucifer. “Do they know themselves to be guilty of something?”

He smiled. He seemed particularly satisfied with this particular torment. “I think it is an imitation of guilt, captain. This is called the Lake of the False Penitents.”

“God is not tolerant,” I said. “Or so it would seem.”

“God is God,” said Lucifer. He shrugged. “It is for me to interpret His Will and to devise a variety of punishments for those who are refused Heaven.”

“So you continue to serve Him?”

“It could be.” Lucifer again seemed uncertain. “Yet of late I have begun to wonder if I have not misinterpreted Him. It is left to me, after all, to discover appropriate cruelties. But what if I am not supposed to punish them? What if I am supposed to show mercy?” I noted something very nearly pathetic in His voice.

“Are you given no instructions?” I asked somewhat weakly. “Tens of millions of souls might have suffered for nothing because of your failure!” I was incredulous.

“I am denied any communion with God, captain.” His tone sharpened. “Is that not obvious to you?”

“So you never know whether you please or displease Him? He sends you no sign?”

“For most of my time in Hell I never looked for one, captain. I am, as I have pointed out, forced to use human agents.”

“And you receive no word through such agents?”

“How can I trust them? I am excommunicate, Captain von Bek. The souls sent to me are at my mercy. I do with them as I wish, largely to relieve my own dreadful boredom.” He became gloomy. “And to take revenge on those who had the opportunity to seek God’s grace and rejected it or were too stupid or greedy to recognize what they had lost.” He gestured.

I saw a sweep of broad, pleasant fields, with green trees in them. An idyllic rural scene. Even the light was warmer and brighter here, although again there was no sense of that light emanating from any particular direction.

It could have been spring. Seated or standing in the fields, like small herds of cattle, dressed in shreds of fabric, were groups of people. Their skins were rough, scabrous, unclean. Their motion through the fields was sluggish, bovine. Yet these poor souls were by no means contented.

I realised that, although the shape of the bodies varied, every face was absolutely identical.

Every face was lined by the same in-turned madness and greed, the same pouched expression of utter selfishness. The creatures mumbled at one another, each monologue the same, as they wandered round and round the fields.

The whined complaints began very quickly to fill me with immense irritation. I could feel no charity for them.

“Every single one of those souls is a universe of self-involvement,” said Lucifer.

“And yet they are identical,” I said.

“Just so. They are alike in the smallest detail. Yet not one of those men or women there can allow himself to recognize the fact. The closer they get to the core of the self, the more they become like the others.” He turned to look sardonically down at me. “Is this more what you expected of Hell, captain?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Every one of these when on Earth spoke of Free Will, of loyalty to one’s own needs. Of the importance of controlling one’s own destiny. Every one believed himself to be master of his fate. And they had only one yardstick, of course: material well-being. It is all that is possible when one discounts one’s involvement with the rest of humanity.”

I looked hard at those identical faces. “Is this a specific warning to me?” I asked Lucifer. “I should have thought you would be attempting to make Hell seem more attractive to me.”

“And why is that?”

I did not reply. I was too afraid to answer.

“Would you enjoy the prospect of being in my charge, Captain von Bek?” Lucifer asked me.

“I would not,” I told him, “for on Earth, at least, one can pretend to Free Will. Here, of course, all choice is denied you,”

“And in Heaven one can actually possess Free Will,” said Lucifer.

“In spite of Heaven’s ruler?” I said. “It would seem to me that He demands a great deal of His creatures.”

“I am no priestly interpreter,” said Lucifer, “but it has been argued God demands only that men and women should demand much of themselves.”

The fields were behind us now. “I, on the other hand,” continued the Prince of Darkness, “expect nothing of humanity, save confirmation that it is worthless. I am disposed to despise it, to use it, to exploit its weakness. Or so it was in the beginning of my reign.”

“You speak as one who saw all humanity as His rival. I should not have believed an angel—albeit a fallen one—to admit to such pettiness.”

“That rage, I still recall it. That rage did not seem petty to me, Captain von Bek.”

“You have changed, Your Majesty?”

“I told you that I had, captain.”

“You are frustrated, then, that you have failed to convince God of this?”

“Just so. Because God cannot hear me.”

“Are you certain of that, Your Majesty?”

“I am certain of nothing. But I understand it to be the truth.”

I felt almost sorry for this great being, this most defiant of all creatures, having come to a point where He was willing to admit to His defeat, and there being no one to acknowledge or perhaps to believe His admission.

“I am weary of the Earth and still more weary of Hell, captain. I yearn for my position in Heaven.”

“But if Your Majesty is truly repentant …”

“It must be proved. I must make amends.”

Lucifer continued: “I placed high value on the power of the intellect to create a luxury of wonders upon the Earth. I sought to prove that my logic, my creativity, my mind, could all outshine anything which God made. Then I came to believe that Man was not worthy of me. Then I came to believe that perhaps I was not worthy, that what I had sought to make had no substance, no definition, no future. You have seen much of the world, captain.”

“More than most are permitted to see,” I agreed.

“Everything is in decay, is it not? Everything. The spirit decays as the flesh and the mind decay.” Lucifer uttered a sigh. “I have failed.”

His voice became hollow. I found that I was pitying Him, even more than I pitied the souls who were trapped in His domain.

“I wish to be taken back into the certainty, the tranquility, I once knew,” Lucifer continued.

We stood again upon the white plain.

“I sought to show that I could create a more beautiful world than anything God could create. I still do not know what I did wrong. I have been thinking on that for many a century, captain. And I know that only a human soul can discover the secret which eludes me. I must make amends. I must make amends …”

“Have you decided how you can do that?” I asked quietly.

“I must discover the Cure for the World’s Pain, Captain von Bek.” He turned his dark eyes upon me and I felt my whole being shiver at the intensity.

“A Cure? Human folly, surely, is the cause of that Pain. The answer seems simple enough to me.”

“No!” Lucifer’s voice was almost a groan. “It is complex. God has bestowed on the world one object, one means of healing humanity’s ills. If that object is discovered and the world set to rights again, then God will listen to me. Once God listens, I might be able to convince Him that I am truly repentant.”

“But what has this to do with me, Your Majesty? Surely you cannot think that I possess a Cure for human folly.”

Lucifer made an almost angry gesture with His right hand.

We were suddenly once more in the library of the castle. We faced one of the great windows. Through it I could see the green, silent forest and noted that very little time had passed. My body was now as solid as it had always been. I felt some relief. My ordinary senses were restored.