The Devil's Evidence

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

  “Maybe,” said Gordie and dropped the scale into the bag and then tied it around the rip so that the contents would stay safe. The bag was large enough to still have long strips of canvas loose after being tied shut, and Gordie used these to fashion a clumsy strap so that he could hang the bag over his shoulder. When Fool tried to take it from him, Gordie simply shook his head and looked at how Fool was standing, still twisted and hunched, pulled around by the badly healed scarring across his belly. Fool didn’t have the time to argue, so he simply nodded and turned, heading for the tunnel.

  The ground between the chapel and the tunnel’s entrance was now thick with blue flowers. It was as though, now that Heaven had allowed itself to see and acknowledge the intrusion, the flowers could bloom fully. Some were as high as Fool’s knees and left clinging oily streaks across his lower legs as he pushed through them, and the smell of them was horrible, thick and cloying and sick. He heard Summer choking as they made their way to the tunnel, with its flanks of guardian angels, and when he turned he saw her vomit across the flowers. What emerged from her mouth was little more than a thin gruel of bile and saliva, and he wondered if she and Gordie had eaten at all since their rebirth.

  When had he last eaten? He thought of food, of the clean water he had used to wash himself and the way his hair had felt after he had used the soap on it, the way it had squeaked as he ran his fingers through it, and then realized he had stopped walking. Summer and Gordie were looking at him, and it was their turn to have unanswered questions written in their expressions.

  “It’s nothing,” said Fool, thinking, Is this how it works? You get distracted, fall into a reverie that becomes a daydream that becomes a sleep? Forget? Is this how it is in Heaven, the grandest distraction there is?

  No. No, I have to focus, I have to avoid the distractions. I have a war to stop. He started walking again, one foot in front of the other, aching body finding as comfortable a rhythm as possible, concentrating on the angels ahead of them. None of them turned as they approached and they did not stop Fool as he reached the rear line of them and started to thread his way among them. They glowed, pale and low, in the gathering dark, their feathers ruffled by the wind, their hair blowing across the faces and lifting from their scalps in untidy halos. They were identical, statues carved by the same hand to the same beautiful design, their arms and chests muscled and their bellies taut with strength. They wore nothing and, like Benjamin, their groins were feathered, the overlapping lines of them sweeping down from just below their navels to the tops of their thighs. Their eyes gleamed, violet and bright, but none of them turned their gaze upon the humans in their midst.

  Fool made his way among them, careful not to touch any of them as he slipped between them, seeing that Summer and Gordie were taking the same precautions behind him. It took several delicate minutes to get through the ranks, but he eventually found himself at the tunnel’s edge; the closest angels were around three feet back from the lip and Fool was able to walk out into the space unchallenged.

  “Why aren’t they stopping us?” asked Summer, emerging from between two of the angels and joining Fool, Gordie behind her.

  “Because we’re not supposed to be here, so they don’t see us,” said Fool. “It’s the same as it was with the bodies, with Benjamin and Israfil.”

  “No,” said Benjamin from above them, “in this you are wrong, Thomas Fool. It is not that they do not see you, they do; it is that they were created for a single purpose, to stop anything emerging from this hole, and until you try to do that, you are of no concern to them.”

  The angel was hanging in the air above the hole, wings flapping slowly to keep him aloft. Against the clouds his body gleamed, his wings perfect arcs, his arms low and folded across his stomach, and his legs apart, the smaller wings at his ankles beating easily. Fool couldn’t help but notice that the wings on one leg did not beat in the same rhythm as the other leg; each pair worked independently of the other, correcting the angel’s position whenever the wind tried to turn him. Benjamin let himself drop so that, although still over the tunnel’s mouth, his head was at Fool’s level and said, “Thomas Fool, I have something to say.”

  Here it is, then, thought Fool. The end of it. They’ve watched us long enough, seen what they needed to see, and now Benjamin has been sent to gather us back up, to bring us back into the fold, little lost fools that we are. His hand dropped to his gun and then, realizing how hopeless it would be, he moved it away again. “Well then,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest and sighing, weary, “let’s get on with it.”

  “You are wrong about the angels here, but about the bodies you are correct. About the help that you were given, or rather not given, you are correct. About me, and about Israfil, you are correct. Thomas Fool, I have come to apologize and to offer myself as your servant.”

  It wasn’t what Fool expected nor, judging by the surprised gasps that came from Summer and Gordie, what his companions expected either. Fool raised his head and looked at the angel, still bobbing gently in the air above the tunnel, the expression on his face one of contrite concern, a faint smile playing around his lips.

  “I was wrong,” said the angel, his voice calm yet clear against the still-rising wind. “We have become complacent, I think. I have become complacent, too confident in myself, and have committed the sins of pride and hubris. I would make amends, Thomas Fool, if you tell me what amends need making.”

  “I need to stop this war,” said Fool. It was getting colder, his breath misting before him as he spoke, “or at least, I need to try to stop this war. I need to get to Hell, to speak to Rhakshasas.”

  “And he will stop it?”

  “I don’t know. It depends how much they want it—Heaven and Hell, I mean. If the war is part of some bigger plan that we’re only small cogs within, then it won’t stop no matter what I do, but I have to try. People are already dying, and going to war over a mistake is going to mean more people die.”

  “They are already dead,” said Benjamin, “and those in Hell are sinners. Perhaps they deserve the punishment?”

  How could Fool explain? That no one in Hell knew their sin, only that they had sinned somewhen before, and Hell’s punishment was the one of injustice in the moment, of not knowing, and that this was fair in the long run because the atonement of sin could take any form? Fool had come to understand it over the past months, since the Fallen, that what made Hell Hell was precisely the sense that everyone there was being punished, knew that the punishment was just but felt its injustice because of the blank space in the center of themselves where memories should be. Death in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell would not be fair, it would be unjust. What he said, though, was simply, “I have no choice. It’s my job.”

  “Yes,” said Benjamin. “And I will help however I can because I have said I will and because amends must be made. Please, tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I need to get to Hell,” said Fool.

  “We cannot go to the Garden,” said Benjamin. “The link between the worlds has been, at least in part, closed while the conflict plays out. We can use the tunnel, however, although I don’t know where in Hell it comes out. I can take you as far as the border but won’t be able to enter Hell with you. Without the protection of the Estedea, I would burn the moment I emerged into its atmosphere.”

  “That’s fine. Thank you,” said Fool, and at that moment the clouds above Benjamin started to weep.

  It wasn’t rain. What dropped from the clouds were fat white flakes that plunged down in great swoops, looping around each other, thicker and thicker and thicker until the air was filled with them. Where they landed on Fool’s skin they burned with cold, melting slowly. He held a hand out, marveling as the flakes hit his exposed skin and collapsing, shifting from crystalline white shapes to tiny puddles that trickled away.

  “What is it?” asked Summer, her head back and her mouth open. She stuck a tongue out and a flake landed on it, melting to nothing.

&n
bsp; “It’s water!” she exclaimed. “Water! It’s so cold, but it’s water.”

  “It’s snow,” said Benjamin. “The sky is reflecting the moods around the tunnel. Do you not have snow in Hell?”

  “No,” said Gordie, head also back. Snow had gathered across his forehead, was crusting his eyebrows and catching in his hair, was decorating him with flickers of whiteness. Fool suspected he looked the same and brushed at the snow that had clung to his jacket. His hand came away streaked with pink as the snow melted and drew the dried blood in his skin back to liquid. He shivered, cold.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Summer and she was right, it was beautiful. “I wish I could draw it.”

  Gordie reached up and brushed snow from Summer’s hair. “You’re beautiful,” he said, so quietly that Fool thought only he and Summer had heard him. She didn’t reply but reached up and took his hand and drew it to her face, kissing his fingertips.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “We should go,” said Benjamin and flew to them, opening his arms. He took Gordie and Summer into his right arm and Fool in his left, shifting a few times to get the weight of them set to his satisfaction.

  “Wait,” said Fool, looking around. He raised his hands to his ears and reached inside them. His fingertips brushed against what he sought and he pulled out the two pieces of Benjamin’s dried spittle carefully. Closing his eyes, he heard that music again, the endless song of songs, the voices and timpani and lute and mandolin and piccolo and everything else as well. Like the snow, it was beautiful, filled the sky inside his head. It was, he suspected, the last time he would hear it.

  Finally, Fool opened his eyes. “I’m ready,” he said.

  Benjamin flapped his wings, once, gently. They lifted from the ground, rose, and then moved out over the hole. Its black maw opened to greet them, and Fool had to swallow a surprisingly large lump of sorrow as he looked around. His last view of Heaven was of a motionless rank of beautiful, somber angels surrounded by falling snow and, behind them, the chapel of all faiths standing alone and mute in the storm light.

  They descended.

  —

  Fool had expected the flight to be choppy, to feel the movement of Benjamin’s wings, but he did not. Although he could hear the wings’ beating and feel the slight ripple of air caused by their flapping, Benjamin held them close and they dropped smoothly and easily.

  Once they were below the opening of the tunnel with its fringe of exposed roots and dying grass, darkness crept after them. Away from the sky and the whiteness of the snow, the only light came from Benjamin himself and it illuminated only the walls around them, so that it began to feel to Fool as though they were traveling in a bubble of glimmering, pale glow. The tunnel’s walls were dark, rough earth that glinted slightly as though it had melted and then solidified into a glaze, and although Fool tried his best to look for them, he saw no sign of the things from outside. Once, he thought he saw the blackness of the wall bulge as they passed, but he couldn’t be sure, and soon the place above them was lost to view. The air warmed so that their breath no longer misted in front of them, and the silence that hung about them was thick and furred.

  “Won’t you get in trouble for helping us?” asked Summer.

  “No,” Benjamin replied. “Angels who get in trouble Fall, and that’s not something I’ll do. I’m no rebel or challenger. I have permission to do this.”

  “From whom?” asked Gordie, echoing the question that had been forming on Fool’s tongue.

  “Mayall and the Malakim,” said Benjamin. The tunnel kinked slightly and they spun as the angel corrected his drop to take them away from the wall. They were so deep now that it was no longer soil they moved through but rock, fissured and cracked and with tiny white roots growing in the cracks.

  “They know you’re here?”

  “Of course. I am a creature of permissions, Miss Summer. I cannot act without instruction. The Malakim told me that, if I felt it necessary, I could help Thomas, and Mayall concurred. I have to join the army when I return, and I shall do so gladly, knowing I have carried out my duty, that I have balanced things as far as I can.

  “Now, may I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” said Summer. Miss Summer, Fool thought and smiled in the darkness. He could no longer see the walls and had the sense that the space around them had opened up and that, at the same time, it had closed in, so that he could reach out and touch its edges if he wanted to.

  We’re not traveling through earth or rock anymore, he thought. We’re traveling through nothing, through the spaces between the worlds. He hoped Benjamin’s grip was firm.

  “Thomas Fool has two names yet you do not, neither you nor Master Gordie. Why is this?”

  “It’s always been this way,” said Summer. “We’re given our names when we’re fished from Limbo and given our roles. We have no choice.”

  “I wondered if it was a signifier of a person’s importance,” said Benjamin. “Given the role Thomas Fool played in the changing of Hell and the importance Mayall and the Malakim clearly place upon him and his skills, that would make sense.”

  “No,” said Fool, emphatically. “I have two names because I have two names, Summer and Gordie have one because they have one. That’s just how it is. I’m no more important than anyone else.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Benjamin, and then, with a dizzying shift in perspective, they were no longer dropping down but were upside down and rising feetfirst. Fool’s clothes flapped down, covering his face, and he heard Summer gasp. Gordie grunted and something swung hard into Fool’s chest. He slipped, slithering through Benjamin’s arm before tightening his grip and feeling the angel do the same. Once he was secure, he reached up and pulled the tail of his jacket away from his face as Gordie reached and took a better hold of the homemade bag, pulling it back across the angel and away from Fool.

  Fool looked up at his feet, craning his neck against the newly inverted gravity to see that an opening had appeared below their feet through which he could see the roiling skies of Hell.

  Another shift, and they were rising, head up, to the hole.

  The skies above them were red, stained by fires he could not see but knew were there, and the clouds that scudded and churned in the sky were black and stained. Already, the smell of Hell was drifting down to them, the thick miasma of fires and mud and unwashed bodies and fear, so rich and dense, so unlike the delicate fragrance of Heaven. Fool breathed it in, remembering, and felt the lump in his throat once more for everything he had been allowed to see and then had taken away, suddenly mourning soap and clean water and air that tasted good and snow.

  “We are here,” Benjamin said and flapped his wings once, hard, so that they spun loosely about, coming to a new upright just below the opening’s edge. “I can go no farther. I am unable to fly past this point, as we would be in Hell and angels cannot fly in the place of no freedoms or joys.”

  Benjamin allowed himself to drift in close to the wall, now the glazed dirt again, and allowed Fool to use his arm as a step to reach up for the edge of the tunnel. He clambered up, back into Hell, and then turned back to help Summer first and then Gordie, hauling on the man’s arms to bring him and the load he carried up safely. Doing so made his belly ache, pulled at the skin, and made him wince. The smell was worse now that he was out of the tunnel, made him gag again, and he wondered how he had ever not noticed it, how they breathed every day. It burned at his throat, making him swallow repeatedly to try to moisten away the pain.

  “Thank you,” he managed to say to Benjamin. “I’ll try to find Israfil, if I can.”

  “Thank you, but Israfil is gone,” said Benjamin, beginning to drop away. “Without her wings, she is as good as dead. Remember, Thomas Fool, in the war that comes all the rules will change and the old accords will be dismantled. I cannot fly in Hell now, no angel can, but the Estedea will be able to when they arrive because in conflict all the old rules are unwritten. Take care, Thomas Fool, Miss Summer,
Master Gordie.”

  “You too,” said Fool and watched as Benjamin sank into the tunnel’s darkness. His last view of the angel was of his pale face as the shadows swallowed him, his eyes sad and his mouth no longer smiling.

  “We’re back,” said Summer.

  “We’re back,” said Gordie, as though confirming something he could not quite believe.

  “Yes,” said Fool, turning, wanting to know where in Hell they were, and then Gordie’s hand was on his shoulder and was dragging him so that he stumbled, and Gordie hissed, “Get up,” and they were running and then they were crashing into bushes and Gordie was pushing him to the ground and hissing at him to be quiet, be quiet, and Fool rolled, found himself peering back through the undergrowth at where the tunnel had emerged and realized that he was in a place of greater horrors than he had imagined possible.

  26

  Fool found himself lying in a damp patch of foul-smelling dirt surrounded by a clump of thin, straggling bushes. His ribs and shoulder ached from Gordie’s grip and subsequent crash to the ground and he could feel fresh earth smeared across his face. Gordie, panting, was by his side. Summer had landed on one of the bushes on the far side of him and was trying to move across so that the branches did not dig into her or scratch her face. Gordie put out a hand to still her.

  “Gordie, what—” said Fool, but Gordie interrupted him with a low, wordless hiss and pointed through the bushes back toward the tunnel entrance. Fool, following the line of his finger, squinted through the bushes and across the tunnel and saw what Gordie was gesturing toward.

  They had found the missing Joyful.

  The tunnel came up from Heaven into what looked like a small clearing hemmed by the bushes that Fool and the others were now hiding in. The plants formed a rough circle around a muddy space perhaps two or three hundred yards across at its widest point, and in the space were thousands of humans. There were more than Fool had ever guessed had been stolen from Heaven, and he wondered just how long the thefts, or kidnappings, or whatever the fuck the crimes were, had been going on for—certainly longer than he’d been in Heaven, far longer. Another lie by omission, another half-truth told to him so that they didn’t have to admit any kind of mistake or any kind of imperfection, and damn it all if he had known, he might have approached this differently, might have achieved something more.