Valley of the Dead (The Truth Behind Dante's Inferno)

by Kim Paffenroth

  Adam looked to Radovan and Dante and nodded for them to put away their weapons. Dying to save Bogdana from the hungry dead was one thing; dying so that these brutes could get a hold of her was senseless as well as useless. So they sheathed their swords and followed the men.

  They were led past many more work gangs – some living, some dead, some striking at the ground out in the open, some being led into the mouths of mining tunnels that would take them further into the darkness to search for cold, sparkling stones. Whenever they passed the dead, the men with torches would shield the dead men’s view of the newcomers as much as possible and hurry them along. Finally they came to a huge pavilion. This one was closed all around and had two guards at the entrance. The men escorting them explained the situation to the guards then left. After waiting a few more moments, Dante and his friends were led inside.

  The interior of the tent was opulent, though the whole structure retained the feel of a military camp, ready to be broken down and moved to a new location at any time. It was not fit for an emperor, but Dante could imagine a Roman general on campaign lived in something like this. A fire roared in the middle of the area in a large, round brazier, the metalwork of which was quite intricate. The tapestries on the walls were colorful and skillfully done. Their subject matter was mostly battles, especially those including the burning of cities, the slaughtering of children and old men, and the raping of women. It could have been the sack of Troy reproduced a dozen times, so far as Dante could tell. The floor of the tent was covered with furs and rugs, many of the latter with scenes similar to the wall decorations. There were a couple tables and many chairs; all of these looked of high quality, very ornate in their design. The more surprising furnishings were two large bookcases, full to overflowing with ancient-looking tomes.

  They were taken before Lord Ahriman, who sat at the one end of the tent, flanked by four more guards. Behind a gauzy curtain nearby, Dante saw two voluptuous feminine forms reclining. The lord’s chair was a high-backed one that resembled a throne, though he had forgone any gilt or brocade. It was just a massive chair, as ornate as the others in the room, but not more so. The man himself looked a bit older than Dante, very handsome and well-groomed, especially considering the people Dante had been exposed to for the last few days. His hair and beard were black and closely trimmed, his eyes a cold and striking blue. He wore black pants and a white shirt, over which he’d pulled a voluminous red robe that hung open in the front. If the tent exuded the aura of a Roman general, the man and his garb looked more like a statesman or philosopher – elegant, but restrained, thoughtful, and in control.

  Lord Ahriman’s demeanor also seemed more civilized than those they had encountered elsewhere in the valley. He waved them over and smiled at them; his teeth were perfectly straight and dazzlingly white. “So, I am told you entered my part of the valley and caused some disturbance?” he asked in an affable tone. His voice seemed oddly welcoming in this place, the exact opposite of his violent servants outside.

  “Yes,” Adam replied. “We meant no harm. We were just passing through.”

  “I see,” the lord said. “You picked a most peculiar place to come. No one comes up here. There’s no way out, I’m afraid.”

  “There is a pass through the mountains,” Adam explained. “We will take it. We won’t cause you any trouble.”

  Ahriman looked thoughtful and a bit puzzled at this reply. “Oh, it’s no trouble, really. The men who run the mine were being overly dramatic. They can certainly keep the ‘special’ workers under control. Or they should be able to, if they’re doing their job. But I’m confused about this pass. I have heard of it before. You’re one of those monks from that strange monastery, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.” Adam bowed his head with this reply.

  Ahriman nodded. “A most unusual lot, to be sure, with most odd beliefs. Nothing I could ever see the value in. But perhaps you know some secret path that we don’t. I can’t see the harm in your traipsing about the mountains. But you’ll stay away from our workers, and be on your way?”

  “Absolutely. Without delay,” Adam said.

  “Good. Then I see no reason to keep you. You may go.”

  Before they were led out, Adam raised his hand. “My lord, if you please, I mean no disrespect, and don’t wish to take up any more of your valuable time, but I wanted to ask about this place. I was up here many years ago, and none of this was here. There were just a couple small mines, and a few miners – regular miners. Is all this new?”

  Ahriman smiled again. “We’ve been here a few years, but our operation has grown a great deal since you were here. Isn’t it impressive? And finally putting the dead to some use. That was a real boon.”

  “Yes, it is… fascinating what you’ve done here,” Adam said.

  Dante wondered why they didn’t just get moving. Although his arm still throbbed from when he had asked too many questions before, Dante had to admit his own overwhelming curiosity about this infernal place. Dante thought even Ahriman’s tone contributed to this longing for more information, as though his voice had a special seductiveness to it, a low softness that made one want to hear more.

  “But don’t you worry the army will come here and destroy it? They’re moving up the valley, you know. I don’t understand how you can stay here.”

  Ahriman’s smile had a note of condescension in it now, though it was still quite captivating. “Oh, I’m afraid you don’t know our arrangements with the army. The boyar, the ruler, is my brother. He would never let the army get above the valley floor, to climb up to either of the two plateaus. All the lands up here are mine. And the people as well, both living and dead.”

  “No!” Radovan exclaimed. “You can’t be! Lord Mihail killed his brother Ahriman years ago, after Ahriman killed their older brother!”

  Ahriman laughed, a sound so infectious it almost made Dante want to join in. “Oh, yes. I know he still tells that story!” the handsome lord said. “How many versions of it have all of you heard? That he killed me in single combat? In a huge battle? Threw me off the castle parapet? Lay siege to my castle and burned it to the ground, with me inside it? That we fought on a frozen lake far to the north, where I’d fled, and the ice cracked and I fell through?” He lowered his voice a little. “Did it ever strike you as rather convenient and surprising that all those stories included my body being completely lost? No evidence whatsoever? And did it ever occur to anyone that my brother Mihail, the second eldest of the family, stood to gain from our older brother’s death, and not I? Don’t all these things add up, and show that Mihail was behind it all the time? That I just did what we both wanted done, with his approval and support?” He gestured to the contents of the tent and smiled again. “And now, with his protection and reward for a good deed?”

  Dante could see that Radovan was crushed by this revelation. From his earlier description, this Mihail was some kind of local hero, someone whom boys were raised to admire, even idolize. To take that belief away from someone would freeze and kill a part inside him, much more than the snow and ice outside ever could.

  “Where I come from, these things would be noted, and people would figure out what had happened,” Dante said. He looked down at the floor, out of shame for what he now confessed of his homeland. “Many would even praise the ones who had done it and call them shrewd, intelligent men who deserve to rule.”

  Ahriman looked to Dante, raising his eyebrows and nodding. “Then you come from a land of very wise and enlightened people,” he said. “Where did you say you were from?”

  “I was born in Italy,” Dante said.

  The lord nodded. “Ah, yes, I have heard of this place. It must be glorious to be among so many people who are honest and direct about what they want, and what they’ll do to achieve it. I think I would like it there very much.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Dante said. He cursed himself for continuing the conversation, but his curiosity was now completely in control of him. “I understand why
your brother Mihail did this, but I don’t see exactly what you gained.”

  Ahriman gestured to the contents of the tent. “I understand my surroundings might seem humble,” he said. “But they suit me. I range up and down these two plateaus, and everyone I see is mine. You might think the fawning and groveling would get old eventually – but they don’t! And I know, even if I don’t always show my hand, how far my power extends. My brother’s reign depends on the wealth we provide him from these mountains. The occasional outbreaks of the living dead mean he can keep such a large army at all times, and keep the people cowed and fearful most of the time, or jubilant and grateful when the monsters are destroyed by Mihail’s soldiers. But they’re never really destroyed, of course. I just keep them here, busy, working away. They have a purpose now. I’ve even given them a sort of happiness, as meager as it might seem to some. And our youngest brother, Gabriel, wasn’t left out, either. He became the leader of the church in our land, and the pews and coffers are always packed. The poor, frightened people need to pray their knees raw and empty their pockets, always asking for protection from the terror of the living dead, or pouring out their gratitude when the plague’s been quelled. So my dead are always useful, whether they’re working hard or being killed! Just their existence gives me more power than anyone in this land! I rule over the dead. What other ruler can say that, anywhere in the world? It’s like in ancient Greece. The world is divided between three powerful rulers: one for the earth, one for the sea, and one for the underworld. I got the underworld. Many might think it dreary, but I find it intoxicating and thrilling.”

  “How can you brag about this?” Radovan asked. “How can you tell us all this? What if someone found out?”

  Ahriman shrugged and smiled. “Who would believe you? And what would they do about it? Surely you’ve heard rumors before that I was alive, and you disbelieved them. Mothers tell such stories to their children to frighten them into behaving. I am the stuff of legend. I have accomplished the greatest trick of all: I’ve convinced people I don’t exist. They need for me to not exist. They need for me to have been killed by their just and noble ruler. And people always get what they need. Very seldom what they want, but always what they need. And I help them get that. So everyone’s happy.”

  They all fell silent for a moment, and there was just the crackling of the fire and some whispers from the women behind the curtain. Dante glanced over at his companions. They looked as mesmerized by this man as Dante felt. Bogdana was the first to tear her focus away and look toward the door.

  “May we still go?” Dante asked.

  Ahriman looked surprised. “Of course. I’m sorry if I went on a bit, but you asked. I don’t get many visitors from the outside world.”

  They were led back outside and continued their trek away from the mines, further up the slopes. For the first time in their journey, Radovan was not in the lead of their group, his strength and hope seemingly drained from him. The sun was nearly touching the mountaintops ahead of them. Dante had no idea how they could make it over these peaks. It seemed as though exhaustion and despair might finally defeat them, when violence and hate had not.

  Chapter 40

  We mounted up, he first and I the second,

  Till I beheld through a round aperture

  Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

  Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

  Dante, Inferno, 34.136-139

  Dante kept looking over his shoulder as they made their way further into the mountains. He could see, from the corner of his eye, the other three did so as well, clearly fearing treachery and pursuit as much as Dante did. Leaving the camp, they wended their way through piles of blackish slag as tall as two men. In addition to these, there were smaller piles, still as tall as a man, of all kinds of trash from the miners: broken tools and crockery, shattered barrels and other pieces of wood and metal, scraps of food with the burnt bones and flayed flesh of animals. There were even a great many frozen bodies of the miners themselves – naked, most of them tinged with blue and green, all of them used up, emaciated, broken, and randomly mixed in among the other trash with no concern for their previous existence as men.

  Perhaps it was because he kept looking back that Dante did not notice the dead lying in wait for them among the piles of rock and other debris. As Dante glanced backward, he heard Bogdana’s shriek, but before he could return his attention forward, he was hit from the side by a charging body that carried him down to the ground. All he could see, for an instant, was a bluish face pressed close to his. All he could hear was the rasping growl it made. All he could smell was stale air and rotted flesh, and all he could feel were its fingernails raking across his face. Its filthy claws bit into his flesh and ripped down from his forehead, across his left eye, and down his nose and cheek. Immediately Dante’s eye burned from the blood pouring into it. He tasted the bitter, copper tang in his mouth. He let out a scream of pain and outrage at this final attack, this last, grasping, tenacious obstacle.

  The thing had a hold of Dante’s sword arm. The claws of its right hand were now at his throat, but Dante had instinctively lashed out with his left arm and now had a hold of the monster’s throat as well. He might’ve frozen there long enough for the dead man to tear his neck open with his ragged nails, but Bogdana’s scream pierced Dante and lashed him into a fury. His fingers sunk deeper and faster into the dead meat than the claws digging into his own flesh, for his were spurred on by something more than just hunger. The dead man was not larger than Dante, and like all the dead, his balance and coordination were none too good. Dante wrenched his body to the side, rolling the two of them over. When Dante was on top, he pulled up on the dead neck and proceeded to slam the head attached to it into the rocky ground, over and over. Dante only stopped the assault when the fingers around his own neck slackened, the ruined head lolling back like a rag doll’s before he let go.

  Rising to his feet, he took in a ragged, wet breath through clenched teeth, his head swimming. He turned like a drunk toward Bogdana’s screams, and saw her struggling under a dead woman much larger than she. For the only time he’d ever seen, she looked to him frail and overpowered, weaponless and pinned down, thrashing about wildly and furiously, but with the woman’s cracked, yellow teeth closing in on her neck. Perhaps it would’ve made more sense to draw his sword, but Dante was not thinking clearly or logically. Scooping up a jagged, black rock the size of an infant’s head, he only thought how they were far too close to let this stop them; how they had been through too much for it to end like this. With an animal roar he charged, swinging the rock upward, smashing it right into the dead woman’s hideous maw. The blow threw her a little to the side and made her tilt her head backwards. Dante slammed the rock right down on her forehead, driving it into her skull in an explosion of brain and bone. Then he crouched and launched himself at her, catching her around the neck with his left arm and knocking her off Bogdana.

  Dante landed on top of the dead woman. Though she no longer struggled or moved, he straddled her and continued to bring the rock down into the mangled flesh of her head, over and over, till the muscles in his arm burned from the exertion and each blow came more and more slowly. He could feel the blood from the cuts on his face mingling with tears and drool, as he tilted his head back and sputtered in frustration and sorrow, no longer able to look at his grisly work. But still the rock rose and fell, making sad, wet noises in the frozen, dead air.

  Finally Dante felt Bogdana touch his shoulder, while her other hand cupped gently around his hand, easing his motions to a halt. “It’s done,” she said softly. She squeezed, and his hand relaxed. He let the bloody stone drop to the rocky ground with a clack. She pulled him to his feet, turned him around, and led him a few feet from the corpse he had made. He looked down at the ground. She pulled the sleeve of her blouse out a little, past the edge of the jacket sleeve, and wiped the blood from his mouth with it. “We’re done here.”

  The four of them
stood there for a moment, panting in the thin air, just staring at each other. Dante could see two corpses on the ground by Radovan, and another near Adam.

  “We must make haste,” Adam finally said.

  They moved again. The further they got from the mining operation, the more familiar Adam seemed with the land around them, guiding them quickly into the bare mountains behind and above Lord Ahriman’s camp. Though the rocky landscape looked utterly featureless from a distance, as they moved along Dante could see they were following the barest of tracks -- little more than the kind of line scratched on a mountain by the nimble goats living there. It was still freezing cold around them, but at least they no longer had to contend with the savage wind that had attacked them on the frozen lake, and there were no more creatures, living or dead, to assail them. The ground they walked on was frozen and there were patches of snow all around. Higher up the snow was much deeper. Poised on the slopes above them, Dante saw huge piles of dirty, grey snow remaining from the previous winter. Though it was cold this day, the spring time temperatures on other days seemed to have undermined these snow banks, carving them out into strange, undulating shapes, jutting out from the mountain face like claws or wings that defied gravity to pull them down to the valley below. Adam turned back several times and put his finger to his lips, to show they should be quiet, lest they start an avalanche.

  The air was thin. They were all breathing hard when they stopped to rest under a rock outcropping. Adam looked around them as dusk crept up toward them. He pointed to another outcropping a few hundred feet ahead of them as he put his hand on Dante’s shoulder.

  “There, you see that rock?” he said.

  “Yes,” Dante said.

  “The pass is just beyond that, and you’ll be on the other side of the mountain, out of this valley of death. Go to that outcropping, to protect yourself when the snow comes crashing down. Just press yourselves up against the rock and you’ll be safe.”