“You will not die,” coaxed the serpent. “God knows well that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will become like gods, knowing good and evil.”
Lowering its forked tail along the opposite side of the trunk, it deposited the infamous fruit into its claw. The fruit seemed such a tiny thing, magicked to hover at the tip of a saber-like talon. It shimmered red-gold, ripe and faintly glowing with a soft halo of light. A nervous shudder ran through Eve as she accepted it in her palms.
And Corwin understood. Never before had he felt such an imposing presence. The dragon’s fangs were death, its armor despair. From those insidious eyes, there could be no escape. It weaved words with a silken tongue, but that curtain of silk sheathed a naked blade, a threat impossible to ignore. Corwin sensed it, and so did Adam. To defy this creature meant risking one’s life.
“If Adam had been braver,” he said, “if he had placed himself between the serpent and Eve, refused the offer, would the serpent have killed him?”
“Unless the Father intervened,” replied Ransom. “But Adam lacked the courage to make that stand. He bowed his head and took the fruit, then tried to shift the blame.”
“He was a coward.”
The angel cast his client a measured glance.
“Would you have fared better?”
Corwin had no answer. He certainly didn’t envy the choice that Adam had been faced with.
“You wanted to know why nature is a cruel mistress? Your answer lies here,” said Ransom. “Through Original Sin a rift was torn in reality, shattering the nascent harmony between God and man. Yours became a fallen race, condemned to a fallen world, in need of a redeemer.”
“So then we’re all born guilty? I can’t accept that! Christianity has always used guilt to control people, but I won’t play along!”
“It’s not a matter of personal guilt. Your ancestors lost your inheritance! And there are few things more obvious than the fracture left by Original Sin. You’ve felt the jagged edges of that rift every time that you thought to yourself: ‘The world isn’t supposed to be like this!’”
The words echoed in Corwin’s head. He had built a wall there, sealed away harsh memories from a time that was better left forgotten. But now that wall was cracking. He blacked out as a flood of visions surged to the surface. Corwin recalled his father’s last days, the details every bit as lucid as when he had memory-dived before, only this time the gift of clarity felt more like a curse.
One vision burned brighter than the rest. A twelve-year-old Corwin sat on the edge of his seat next to his father’s hospital bed. He hated it here. The sparse furnishings, the yellow glare of the lights and the smell of antiseptic solution made the room feel like a very sanitary prison cell. Yet somehow, despite being cooped up in this place, his father always managed to smile when Corwin rode his bike over for a visit.
There was a power inside him that was stronger than the cancer, or so Corwin believed, but he wasn’t smiling today.
“You’re going to make it, Dad. Don’t give up!”
Seeking to numb the pain, the elderly doctor injected something into the drip bag that hung above the bed. There wasn’t much else he could do.
Corwin could tell that his father was fading fast. He listened as the doctor conferred with the nurse.
“Did you manage to reach his wife?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean ‘I think so’?”
“She picked up when I was halfway through leaving a message,” said the nurse, and then added softly, “but she didn’t sound too sober.”
The whisper wasn’t meant for Corwin’s ears, but his keen hearing caught every word. None of it surprised him. As his father’s condition had worsened, his mother sank deeper into depression. She had taken it harder than anyone, but it wasn’t fair. Corwin was only a boy. He needed her to be there for him. Instead, it felt as if he had lost both of his parents in one cruel stroke of fate.
“Corwin?”
His father’s thin voice was little more than a croak, his eyes glazed over, seeing without recognition. Corwin leaned in close.
“I’m right here, Dad.”
“I love you, Corwin. I’ve always been proud of you.” He squeezed Corwin’s hand. “Tell your mother that it’s going . . . to be . . . okay.”
Okay? How could it possibly be okay?
He closed his eyes and his chest rose and fell for the last time.
With a child’s faith, Corwin prayed for a miracle, but there were no miracles. If God really existed, how could he let something like this happen? Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and he whispered, hurling a furious protest at the universe.
“It’s not supposed to be like this!”
A wave of darkness swept over him. Corwin wiped at his eyes, violently shaking off the memories. When he blinked again, he was back in Eden. Ransom stood by his side and Adam and Eve were gone.
A fierce wind howled, whipping up a maelstrom of leaves. Corwin raised a hand to shield himself, and then he noticed the serpent. No longer was it looking to the place where his ancestors had been. With eyes aflame, it turned its abyssal gaze upon the two intruders. Ransom thrust himself in front of Corwin.
The dark dragon’s myriad voices rumbled.
“Do not think to deny me what is mine!”
17
Dead on the Inside
Time stood still and color faded from the world. Corwin told his body to run, but his legs wouldn’t listen. The serpent’s paralyzing gaze stripped his soul bare. Even Ransom tensed under the pressure.
“Okay, so maybe coming here wasn’t one of my best ideas.”
The dragon’s jaws gaped and a scorching gout of fire erupted from its maw. Ransom’s hand shot out, his arm shaking as an invisible barrier held back the blast. But the inferno didn’t let up. The heat was rising, flames licking at Corwin’s sides. The angel’s shield wouldn’t last for long.
“Hang on!” shouted Ransom. “This might be a little rough.”
Corwin reached for his attorney’s coat, but before he could secure a grasp, the portal opened. Ransom had always made hopping between universes look easy—a simple matter of stepping through some mystical glow or a doorway—and so Corwin wasn’t prepared at all for the turbulent nexus of torn space that greeted him. He was separated from Ransom almost instantly. Ribbons of light and darkness spiraled, pulling him through a winding wormhole. He saw stars and galaxies beyond his own, realms where people sailed through space on Spanish Galleons and worlds where lizard witchdoctors whispered to the constellations and the constellations whispered back.
If there is a god, he’s definitely got too much time on his hands.
The light grew blinding, and, with a loud boosh, the wormhole spat Corwin out onto a slab of cement. When he came to, he was lying on his side by a street corner. Ransom was nowhere to be seen.
“Got somewhere you’re supposed to be?”
Following the voice, Corwin glanced up. A cab driver had pulled over beside the corner. He was a black man with a gray beard, neatly cropped.
“I wish I knew,” said Corwin as he climbed to his feet.
The cabby smiled. Despite the wrinkles that age and hard work had worn into him, there was an easiness to his grin, as if his face were tailor-made for smiling.
“They say life is a journey, and there’s a destination we’re all meant for, but some prefer to go their own way.”
“Isn’t that what life’s all about?” asked Corwin. “Taking charge of your destiny? Finding yourself?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s a reason why they call it falling in love, and why you’re said to lose yourself in a beautiful song or a good book. Folks try so hard to find themselves and to do their own thing, but aren’t the most blissful moments in life those times when you’re swept up in something beyond your control, when your self is the last thing on your mind?”
“You’ve got me there,” Corwin chuckled. “Still don’t know
where I’m supposed to be, though. I seem to have lost my lawyer.”
“If you’d rather sort things out someplace warmer, I could give you a ride.”
“A free ride?”
“Whoa now, I never said it’d be free,” replied the cabby. “It might cost you all you’ve got, but I never charge more than that.”
“Thanks for the offer,” said Corwin, “but I think I’ll stick around here a bit longer.”
“I hear you. When you get separated from somebody, staying put for a while can be the smartest thing to do.”
“I sure hope so.”
Popping open his glove box, the cabby fished out a glossy, wallet-sized card and handed it to Corwin.
“A little something to hold onto.”
On the front of the card, a dove flew forth from golden clouds, shedding drops of sacrificial blood upon the earth. Corwin knew without looking that a prayer would be printed on the rear side.
“Uh, thanks, but I–”
The cabby shifted gears and pulled out onto the road. “You can pay me back later!” he called, waving above the roof of his car.
Corwin stared after the yellow cab as it sped away.
You can pay me back later.
Not likely, he thought. He pocketed the holy card, but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to those parting words.
His mind was still puzzling over the encounter when he turned and nearly collided head-on with a middle-aged man. The man was walking with his wife, and neither of them seemed to have noticed Corwin at all.
“Watch–!” Corwin began, raising his hands reflexively.
But there was no collision. The man strode right through him and proceeded to cross the intersection without ever so much as glancing back.
From around the corner came the grind of skateboard wheels. Just as the tattooed teenager swerved past, Corwin swung out his arm in a clothesline.
I’ve always wanted to do this!
Fortunately for his intended victim, his arm proved no more solid than air. The teenager would never know of the undead atheist who sought to torment skateboarders from beyond the grave.
“I’m a shade! But then how did that cab driver . . ?”
A rickety crash interrupted his thoughts and Corwin spun towards the door of the nearby pawn shop. It had been kicked open by the boot of a tall, bizarrely dressed figure.
“Ransom?”
There stood his attorney, clad in a full suit of samurai armor.
“I’m not even going to ask.”
“So there you are!” exclaimed the angel, lifting off his helm. “I’ve been searching all over for you!”
“You couldn’t have been searching too hard,” said Corwin. “We’ve only been apart for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes for you maybe, but I emerged from that portal days ago. That’s what happens when you get separated in a trans-dimensional rift.”
Ransom’s helm clanged at his feet as he unbound the shoulder straps of his iron and bamboo plate mail. Ridiculous as it seemed, he still wore his perfectly tailored business suit underneath, though the fabric was showing some wear. Scuff marks, frayed threads and the blotches of soot on his cheeks gave the impression that he had just walked off a battlefield.
“Well it’s good to see that you’re still in one piece,” he said.
“The next time we eavesdrop on a dragon that happens to be the Father of All Evil, would you mind not cutting it so close?”
“Our scaly friend was expanding a field of closed space, trying to seal us there,” explained Ransom. “That’s why all the color in the world went dull. Another few seconds and we would have been trapped with that bastard.”
“Oh well,” sighed Corwin. “It was fun while it lasted.”
“That’s what Adam and Eve said.”
“Dragons aside, I much prefer your version of Eden to the stories I was told as a child.”
Ransom straightened his tie and marched for the crosswalk.
“Yet I still sense a lingering concern,” he noted.
“There was something you said about Original Sin,” mentioned Corwin. “You said that we were condemned to a fallen world, almost as if the world were already fallen before we got there.”
“You’ve got good ears,” said Ransom. “Man’s original sin was not the original sin. That dubious honor belongs to my kind. It is not for nothing that Satan is called the prince of your world.”
“But then the cost of Adam’s sin, all this suffering and death, doesn’t it seem disproportionate?”
“Why do you think man was banished from the garden?”
“Because Adam and Eve failed god’s test. It was a punishment.”
“Not just a punishment. There were two elder trees in Eden. The other was the Tree of Life. To eat of its fruit and live forever in sin—the Father meant to spare you that fate. Because you were cast out, because of the Redeemer, you gained the hope of a paradise far greater than the one that you lost.”
“So when god closes one door, he opens another,” Corwin surmised. “The problem with that, of course, is my fourth paradox.”
“The Paradox of Hell.”
“God doesn’t open any doors for the damned.”
“If we’re going to discuss Hell, I’d say that a change of scenery is in order.”
At the suggestion, Corwin’s steps ceased, his spine going rigid.
“On second thought, let’s just skip my fourth paradox.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re getting cold feet?”
“As it happens, I’d very much like to keep my feet cold. You know, rather than on fire. As much fun as I’m sure it would be to tag along with Dante and Virgil, something tells me that the Hell you and I would be visiting isn’t the sort of place one goes for an afternoon stroll. And in case you haven’t noticed, your angelic ass is a magnet for unforeseen circumstances.”
“Who said anything about going to Hell?” Ransom replied with an innocent gesture. “There’s a bar just down the road. I don’t know about you, but I could use a cold beer.”
“Oh.” Corwin’s stiff shoulders relaxed. “Well, in that case . . .”
They didn’t have far to walk. Nestled in a rundown stack of bricks with security bars crisscrossing the windows, The End wasn’t the sort of establishment that catered to the young and successful. The door hinges squeaked as Ransom let himself in.
“This place is a real dive,” mumbled Corwin.
“You might want to watch your voice. We’re not shades anymore.”
Several patrons glanced up from their drinks in the dim, smoky room. Corwin got the distinct feeling that he didn’t belong, but Ransom, with his soot stains and disheveled suit, apparently fit right in. He slid up to the bar.
“Rough day?” asked the bartender.
Her face was older than her years, though not unattractive. Wavy black hair framed the thin white slash of her smile.
“It’s like the apocalypse out there,” grumbled Ransom. “I think I need a new line of work.”
With a shrewd eye, the bartender sized him up.
“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
“How could you tell?”
“I’ve seen your type. You guys are always miserable.”
“Not always!” Ransom objected.
“If you want a new career, what’s stopping you?”
“It’s not that simple. If I want to get my old job back, first I have to finish this one, and that means putting up with pains in the ass like this guy.”
He tilted his head towards Corwin, who had pulled up a stool.
“Hi,” Corwin said jovially.
“What was your old job?” inquired the bartender.
“Suffice it to say that it was something a bit more visceral.”
“Sounds complicated,” she remarked. “In the meantime, what are you two drinking? The End may not look like much, but we’ve got a dozen local beers on tap.”
“I’ll take a pint of the
Oatmeal Nut Stout,” said Ransom. “And a menu, if you would be so kind.”
Her gaze shifted to Corwin, who rubbed his eyes, uncertain of what he was seeing.
“Is that beer really called Darwin’s Christmas Ale?”
An ichthys with two L-shaped legs and a Santa hat topped the oaken beer tap handle.
“It’s always a favorite around this time of the year.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to go with that.”
“You got it.”
She handed Ransom a laminated, one-page menu and grabbed a pair of steins.
“You didn’t bring us here just because you were thirsty,” murmured Corwin to his attorney.
“Take a look around,” Ransom said, casting a subtle glance over his shoulder. “This place is a gallery of humans wallowing in their self-pity. Where better than here to discuss your fourth paradox?”
Farther down the bar, a greasy-haired man stubbed out his cigarette in an ash tray. His sullen stare drifted often to the bartender, wishing for companionship, not caring whether it was real. At a table behind him, two salesmen exchanged boasts and banter in a desperate plea for attention. They talked because they feared the silence, laughed with the hollow humor of those who cracked jokes at the Holocaust Museum. A wizened fellow with a face like a prune cast occasional glances their way, his eyes dark with disgust, or was it jealousy? They still had time to change, time to make things right, time he didn’t have anymore. He had squandered his years, and the world spared little love for old men without money.
“Here you boys go.” The bartender set down two foaming mugs, then eyed Ransom. “Know what you want?”
“Give me a few more minutes.”
“Take your time,” she said and strolled away.
“As I was saying, Hell is probably the most unpopular concept in all of Christian theology. Well, aside from chastity, anyway. Even many Christians would rather brush it under the rug.”
“Because that sort of medieval thinking is embarrassing in this day and age,” said Corwin. “Hell is a tale told to frighten naughty children. As a theological teaching, it’s blatantly flawed. You can’t expect educated people to believe that a god who is pure love keeps a fiery dungeon where he tosses anyone who breaks his rules. How could a merciful father condemn his children to an eternity of unspeakable torture, with no hope of forgiveness or reprieve?”
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