by Heide Goody
“We can’t have this,” he said, quietly.
“I know,” said Stephen. “It’s terrible. What do we do?”
Manfred swallowed hard.
“We have to cover it up.”
“What?” said Stephen.
“No one must know that he died here. We have to hide Brother Lionel.”
“Well, this is new,” said Rutspud, standing at the top of the ash dunes and gazing down at the Lake of Fire.
“Most disconcerting,” agreed Belphegor.
Four jars of Hellish river water sloshed in Belphegor’s lap. They had, finally, managed to get the needed samples from the River Lethe, although Rutspud couldn’t quite remember how they had ultimately achieved it.
“I think we can assume that Hell is getting hotter,” said Belphegor.
“Well, Hell is meant to be hot,” said Rutspud. “I don’t think you can be certain it’s getting any hotter.”
“I rather think the evidence is compelling.”
“Really?”
“Consider,” said the purple inventor demon, “the four watery rivers of Hell are drying up.”
“Well, yes …”
“The pool from which the fifty Danaides are forever doomed to carry water in their useless sieves –”
“Is empty, yes. I know, but still …”
“And now, this,” said Belphegor gesturing.
“This is evidence of nothing,” said Rutspud, convinced that if he accepted there was a problem, he would be dragged into fixing it.
“Then do please explain,” said Belphegor, “how might it be that half of Hell has apparently descended on the Lake of Fire to cool down!”
Rutspud watched the demons frolicking in the shallows.
“It’s always been a popular spot,” he said.
“And the floating pontoon and diving board?”
Rutspud watched demons gleefully propelling themselves off the springboard and into the depths. On the furthest shore, the thousands of human souls damned to burn in the lake squatted sullenly on the banks, evicted from their own corner of Hell.
“It’s a puzzler, true,” Rutspud agreed, “but I don’t think we should assume that this means Hell is –”
“Iiiice cream! Dig your righteous ice-cream!” cried Lickspear, strolling by with a tray on a strap around his neck.
“Oi!” Rutspud shouted.
Lickspear strolled over cheerfully.
“Might I procure a goodly ice-cream for you and the foxy lady?” he drawled.
“Lickspear, what in the blue blazes of Hell are you doing?”
“Selling ice-cream,” said the badly-stitched demon.
“Why?”
“Mammon told me to. He gave me this swell tray, said ‘make some money, my boy’ and entreated me to come down here.”
“But who’s in the cave? Who’s looking after the gang?”
Lickspear shook his head at Rutspud’s appalling lack of faith.
“Over there, handing out deckchairs. The joint’s jumpin’ my lord.”
Rutspud looked along the shore to see Mama-Na and Boudicca handing out folding chairs while Bernhardt and Cartland collected money.
“I can’t believe you did this without my permission,” said Rutspud.
Lickspear grinned unfazed.
“It surely is an agreeable frolic, pops. Showing my initiative, as ’twere? Now, good friends, can I lay an ice-cream on you?”
“No, you bloody can’t!”
“Is that a bile sorbet?” said Belphegor, pneumatically raising his seat to get a better look at Lickspear’s wares.
“Directly from the ninth circle of Hell, you dig that?”
“Ooh, and are those sulphur sprinkles?”
“Assuredly, man.”
“Sir,” said Rutspud reproachfully. “Do not encourage him.”
“What?” said Belphegor. “I like sorbet. Pay the fellow, Rutspud.”
Rutspud sighed. It was a heavy sigh that started in his knees and took an age to reach his mouth.
“Fine!” he snapped. “Make that two sorbets, Lickspear.”
“Sure thing, gentlemen,” Lickspear beamed.
“And no skimping on the sprinkles.”
In the end, more than a dozen monks from St Cadfan’s came down to the rocky beach to meet the boat from the mainland. The monks had been cut off for less than six months but, with their flag-waving, ecstatic hollering and ill-advised jigging, they acted as though they had been cut off from all civilisation for decades.
Barrels, bags and boxes were stacked at the aft of Owen’s sturdy boat but, apart from Owen himself, there was only one passenger. Bastian furrowed his brow and stared at the tiny blonde woman who, he was convinced, was specifically waving at him.
In their haste and joy, the monks made a well-meaning and inadvertent hash of helping the boat moor up. Ropes tangled, monks stumbled in the surf, and Brother Vernon was very lucky not to have been crushed between the hull and the shore. A cheer went up when Owen finally lowered the gangplank and stepped down.
“It’s like the bloody arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem,” muttered Brother Henry.
“Blasphemy,” said Brother Clement.
Bastian shrugged. Actually, it was fairly apt. Give them a few palm leaves and a few ‘Hosanna’s and maybe a donkey for Owen, and it would have been a reasonable recreation of Palm Sunday.
“Bread, he’s brought bread!” cried Brother Desmond. “Real bread!”
“And toothpaste!” exclaimed Brother Terry.
“I’m happy as long as he’s got my back issues of Monks, Monks, Monks, the journal for the modern monk,” said Brother Clement.
The tiny distant blonde woman resolved into a tiny up-close blonde woman, and one Bastian was surprised to recognise at that.
“Ms Well-Dunn!” he said.
“Carol,” she smiled. “Brother Sebastian, I’m so pleased to see you.”
Bastian, who had not had a woman of any age particularly pleased to see him in a long time, could not help but smile in return.
“I can’t say we were expecting you,” he said.
“I phoned and e-mailed.”
“No electricity for at least four weeks,” he said, gesturing generally at the monastery on the hill behind him.
“And I wrote.”
Bastian pointed at the tub of undelivered letters and packages that Owen was now bringing down the gangplank.
“I’m surprised that you would want to return at all after the … incident.”
“I must admit,” she said wryly, “that I had to answer some difficult questions from the school governors, but the children loved it. I am often asked if we can go back to the island with ‘the Jedis and skeletons’.”
“Well, due to some overactive imaginations and unfortunate mentions of plague pits, we’ve pretty much been in an informal quarantine ever since. Owen said that one of the mainlanders had taken up post on the pub roof and threatened to shoot any plague-infested monk who dared to cross over. Joking, of course.”
Owen gave Bastian a blank stare and a raised eyebrow.
“Still, you are our only visitor in months, and we’re all delighted to see you,” said Bastian, despite the fact that no other monks had even noticed Carol’s appearance, so engrossed in the forgotten delights of crisps, shampoo, monk-themed periodicals and the like were they.
“Not your only visitor,” said Owen and nodded along the beach.
A spritely black and white border collie dog was gambolling at the sea’s edge.
“You brought Jessie?” said Bastian.
“I didn’t bring her deliberately and you know that,” scowled Owen.
“Jessie?” said Carol.
“She lives on the mainland,” explained Bastian. “Ridiculously precocious creature. Oi, Jessie!”
The dog looked up.
“Clear off and go bother someone else!” he shouted.
The dog bobbed its head and sprinted off up the hill.
“Did tha
t dog just nod?” asked Carol.
“Best not to think about it,” said Bastian.
“I am unhappy,” said Lord Peter with a smile.
The dissonance between his words and that smile made the quill-like hairs stand up on the back of Rutspud’s neck.
“Deeply unhappy,” said Lord Peter, his smile widening.
He looked around the table, at Mulciber, Hell’s architect, at Hodshift, the ear-covered maintenance demon, at Belphegor, and at Rutspud himself. The only person who didn’t get treated to a penetrating stare was Nero, who was taking the minutes.
“Hell is getting hotter,” said Lord Peter. “It’s an undeniable and thoroughly inconvenient truth. The question I have called you together to answer is why it’s happening and what’s to be done about it.”
“Tha’s two questions, boss,” said Hodshift.
Rutspud attempted to surreptitiously move his chair further away from Hodshift’s.
“What makes me particularly unhappy,” said Lord Peter, speaking to all, but keeping his eyes utterly fixed on Hodshift, “is that the Celestial City has got wind of our little problem and has declared that it is ‘interested’. When Heaven’s delegation come to speak to us about this, I want to have answers and a solution already in place. Perhaps, Hodshift, you should begin by explaining exactly what problem we are facing.”
“Right-o, boss,” said Hodshift chummily. “Yer see, Hell is like a delicate ecosystem. It’s almost entirely cut off from the rest of the metaphysical universe and what ’appens in one place impacts on everyfing else. We’ve always had a problem wiv the heating. You add more and more souls to a closed system then the pressure an’ heat is bound to go up. It’s a size slash pressure thing, yer basic Boyle’s Law, so-called because if we don’t do nuffing about it, we’re boiled to buggery. That’s the law.”
“But why has it suddenly worsened now?” said Belphegor.
“Simple. Like I said, it’s a delicate ecosystem. Like if a butterfly flaps its wings, there’s a hurricane on the other side of the world.”
“What’s a butterfly?” said Rutspud.
“No idea,” said Hodshift. “Anyway, the fing is, we have some pretty complicated heat regulators in the furnaces. Cut a long story short, someone shut one of them down by removing an electrical fuse.”
Rutspud’s innards lurched. The furnace room. A faint whimper escaped his lips.
“Problem, Rutspud?” said Lord Peter.
Rutspud forced his face to adopt a less panicked expression.
“I don’t think it is much of problem,” he said. “Surely, all we need to do is put the fuse back and everything will be hunky-dory.”
Hodshift sucked through his teeth.
“S’not that simple, mate. Yer dealin’ wiv a positive feedback system. The whole fing’s running out of control now. Putting a fuse back in would be like shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted.”
“What’s a horse?”
“No idea.”
“And, meanwhile, Hell is falling apart around us,” said Mulciber. “The ninth circle of Hell is melting. The Frozen Hell of Traitors is now the Slightly Slushy Hell of Traitors.”
“Well, hang on,” said Rutspud. “Isn’t that part of the answer? Hell has hot bits and cold bits. Let’s just shut down the hot bits and let the cold bits chill everything else off. Turn off the furnaces.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Belphegor.
“No?”
“It’s a dynamic system, you see,” said Hodshift. “We have fuel-burning furnaces at one end and carbon-capture centres for fuel reclamation and heat sinks at the other. Round an’ round it goes. It’s like a flowing river and we’re the fishes. We shut it down and Hell stagnates and dies.”
“So, to summarise,” said Belphegor, “because of the foolish actions of an individual or individuals, our world is going to get hotter and hotter until it is utterly destroyed.”
“Yep,” said Hodshift.
“And we need to fix it.”
“Yep.”
“You know,” said Mulciber, “if the humans had this problem in their world, they’d have it sorted out in no time. Resourceful bunch.”
“Then maybe we’d better get some of our best damned working on it,” said Belphegor.
“Very well,” said Lord Peter. “Of course, there is another matter that we must also address here.”
“Yes, my lord?” said Belphegor.
“Yes. The matter of blame. I always think it’s important for each of us to acknowledge when we have erred and to face the consequences.”
Rutspud quivered with fear.
“I have heard,” said Mulciber, “that the demon responsible for the section from where the fuse was taken was seen to be consuming proscribed substances at the time.”
“Proscribed substances?” said Lord Peter.
“Monk’s piss.”
Rutspud let out another involuntary whimper.
“Rutspud, you have something to say?” asked the ruler of all Hell.
“I was just thinking,” Rutspud said, “I ought to go talk to this demon at once and see what can be learned.”
“Excellent,” said Lord Peter. “Most excellent. Please see to it immediately.”
Stephen and Bastian clumsily carried Brother Lionel between them, Manfred with his hand hooked under the old monk’s armpits, Stephen with Lionel’s knees around his waist.
“This is wrong,” said Stephen.
“Left turn,” said Manfred. “To the refectory. It’s not wrong. It’s about the greater good.”
“Since when were you a utilitarian?” said Stephen.
“I’m a pragmatist. One, we’ve only just had the first quarantine lifted. The physical and mental health of some of our brethren can’t cope much longer. Two, another death could irreparably damage the monastery’s reputation.”
“Oh, and the fact that we’re concealing deaths won’t?”
“And, three, who’s to say Lionel didn’t leave the island alive and well and go find a quiet corner of Wales to die in?”
“But he’s here.”
“Who’s to know? He has no family on the mainland. Not a single person. No friends, apart from us.”
“Makes you wonder why he wanted to leave.”
“We hide him for now and then – in here. Here! – we quietly bury him and, if anyone asks, tell them he took the boat back.”
Manfred lifted the lid of the chest freezer in the kitchen larder with his elbow.
“In.”
Stephen helped him lower the little man into the empty freezer. Manfred closed the freezer lid slowly.
“It’s like that film,” he said, with a weary shake of his head. “You know, the one with Sean Connery.”
“Goldfinger?”
“No. The one where everyone’s dying and he has to solve the mystery.”
“Murder on the Orient Express?”
“No,” said Manfred irritably. “The one where he’s a monk. You must know the one. He visits a monastery and all the monks start dying and everyone thinks it’s a sign of the end times. But it’s actually a conspiracy involving a special book and a secret maze in the monastery library. You must know it. The thingy of the something, it’s called.”
“Hunt for Red October?”
Manfred sighed.
“I can’t believe you haven’t seen it. And there’s that bit where the young monk meets a beautiful wild girl. Not that we get much monk/woman romance round here, thank God.”
Carol closed the locutory door behind her, shutting out the noise and bustle of a monastery come back to life.
“I just had to come and see you,” said Carol.
“You did?” said Bastian.
“It’s been the only thing on my mind for weeks.”
“Oh?”
She removed her waterproof coat and backpack and draped them over one of the few tables not taken up with Bastian’s computers and IT equipment.
“I have somethi
ng to show you,” she said, unzipping her fleece jacket.
“Really, Carol?”
“I think you’ll be surprised but very pleased.”
She reached inside her jacket and whipped out a USB memory stick.
Bastian blinked.
“Let me show you,” she said and, ramming the stick into one of the PCs, opened a window on the screen.
“This is footage from the children’s camcorders, taken on our visit to you a few months back,” she said. “I think you’re going to see something quite amazing.”
Bastian watched the jerky camerawork, accompanied by a soundtrack of static hisses, wind howls and two dozen students who could no more stop talking than they could stop breathing. The desolate landscape, the bedraggled figures and the atmosphere of misery and futility put Bastian in mind of that Blair Witch film Brother Vernon had suggested they watch a few years back.
“Oh, that is interesting,” said Bastian.
“You don’t think I came all this way to show you video of Peroni Picken pole-dancing with an umbrella, did you? No, wait. Now.”
Carol clicked the pause icon.
“What?” said Bastian, seeing nothing.
Carol pointed at the screen.
“There.”
Bastian squinted at the white blur.
“It’s a bit of paper blowing across the hillside.”
Carol shook her head.
“It’s mostly wings but you can make out its legs trailing behind it. And that, that bit there, that’s its comb.”
Bastian wrinkled his nose and sniffed.
“It’s a bird. So what?”
Carol grinned. Her eyes lit up when she smiled. There was a child-like expression on wonder on her face, a Christmas morning kind of face.
“It’s not just any bird.”
She opened her backpack and took out several printed sheets, each in a polythene pocket. One was an enlargement of the frozen image on the screen. Another was an illustration from an ornithological reference book.
“’The yellow-crested Merlin stilt,’” Bastian read. “Funny looking thing. I don’t think I’ve seen one of them before.”
“No,” said Carol excitedly. “No one has. Not for at least half a century.”
“Oh, it’s rare, is it?”