“The angel’s vision showed Gregor’s sin as hatred,” I said.
“Of course!” Gregor slapped his forehead with a resounding crack. “Of course! Malice. Bigotry. Hatred.” His eyes grew round with awe. “Was all that—my great struggle—because of the demon in the Staff of Darkness?”
Titus threw back his head and laughed, a deep booming sound like the Titus of old. “Those are vices I can well bear, Brother, vices I can well bear.”
Smiling, my brothers exchanged their staffs.
* * *
“I WONDER what it would be like to be a body lying under the water,” Mephisto asked sleepily, as our feet finally stepped onto firmer ground. He yawned and stretched, raising his arms way above his head. “Oh well, some things we’ll just never know! Really helps to have friends, you know! Especially when in a tight spot.” He tapped his staff against his boot. “Pegasus.”
The winged steed appeared, but it stood with its head down, its white eyelids shut. Nothing Mephisto did would rouse it. The same was true of the gryphon and the roc. Mephisto sent them home again.
“No one is staying awake!” Mephisto stamped his foot. “I must have some flying friend who doesn’t sleep. One who’s not an angel, anyway. As I think I mentioned, angels have a funny effect on Hell. Oh! I know!” He tapped his staff again. “Svart Kara! She won’t fall asleep. She never sleeps.”
I rubbed my eyes, worried that I might be hallucinating from fatigue. The black waters were beginning to look like the black swan Astreus and I had ridden through the stars on Christmas night.
And then it was here. A huge black swan, the size of a sailboat, whose feathers shone with the silvery light of stars—the living embodiment of a constellation from an alien sky. The great swan bent her feathered head and rubbed it against Mephisto, who threw an arm around her thick neck and swung up onto her back.
I recalled how Astreus had offered to give me her name as his wager, claiming that, with it, I could call her from the sky to ride upon her. Who would have guessed that Mephisto already knew her? Perhaps Astreus had introduced them, too, long ago.
“Grab on, folks!” Mephisto cried. “No better place to sleep than the soft back of a swan. We’ll nip over and pick up Theo. I dare not keep her here too long. The infernal vapors are not good for her, but I’m sure she won’t mind taking us for a quick flight. Right, Svart Kara? Good swan!” He stroked the short silky feathers along her throat.
We helped each other onto the back of the swan, and the great black bird launched itself into the sky. High above the ground we soared, gazing down at the Styx, the bridge, and the vast bogs. Bodies floated among the peat, some faceup, some facedown, pale and eerie in the dark waters. The place we had just been stood out from the rest, a tiny island of red and white flowers amid the relentless brown.
Mephisto asked the ball to show him Theo and then showed the image within to Svart Kara.
We soared through lurid clouds and the strange steely gray light, which Mephisto claimed was the glow of perverted reason, emanating from sharp-minded souls who turned their intellects away from Heaven. The swan flew smoothly. Her feathers were soft and pillowlike, and the air about them smelled of stardust. I nestled into the place where the wing rose from the back and slumbered, dreaming of another ride in the arms of a stardust-covered elf.
CHAPTER
NINE
In the Bowels of Hell
I dreamt I flew through the midst of a swirling inferno and woke to the trumpeting of the great swan. Soot and molten sparks danced in the unpleasantly hot air. Smoke curled up around me, bringing the scent of hot metals and burning cartilage. The swan poked at us with her hard beak. Its eyes were wide and rimmed with white.
Her wings were on fire!
Mephisto, waking sleepily, put out a hand to soothe her, but the terrified bird would have none of it. She landed upon a black island separated from the islands around it by a river of lava and rose up on her legs, beating her burning wings and trumpeting again.
This fanned the flames, terrifying her more.
The sleeping Erasmus and Gregor were dumped unceremoniously onto the island. The thin skin of volcanic glass atop the hardened lava broke under the impact, cutting their skin where it was not protected by magical clothes, so they woke with shouts of pain. Mab jumped clear, landing heavily on his feet. Mephisto, Titus, and I still clung to the swan, Mephisto and Titus to her neck, and I to the base of one wing. Slowly, Titus and I slid down her body and landed beside my tumbled brothers. Mephisto made a soothing sound once more, then tapped his staff again. The great black swan vanished like a dream.
I saw no sign of Mephisto. Had he vanished with her, as he had with the chimera back on St. Thomas, taking the crystal sphere and abandoning us in Hell without any means of finding our way?
Then, I caught sight of him, still in midair, where the swan’s neck had just been. He somersaulted as he fell and landed lightly, his arms spread, the crystal ball in one hand and his staff in the other.
“Ta-da! Poor Svart Kara! Turning back into a constellation should put out the fire, but I hope we haven’t hurt her. I’d feel really bad if catching on fire made one of her stars burn out or something! I’d hate to be the cause of a supernova. Too much karmic responsibility.”
“Please, Mephisto, it’s too early.” Erasmus dabbed at the scrape on his cheek. “Blood again? And our fair sister is fine, I see. Why must it always be me?”
I ignored him. We were surrounded by uneven, ropy black rock as far as the eye could see. Rivers of lava divided the vast flat expanse into islands. Here and there, geysers erupted out of the rivers, splashing against the ash-dark sky like red-orange fireworks. The heat was stifling, like a sauna where the temperature had been turned up well beyond the safety zone. It smelled of hot rock, reminding me of Shoeing Day, when we would bring our horses to the blacksmith’s forge.
In the distance burned the Wall of Flame. Apparently, we had passed through it on swan-back while we slept. I had a vague, dreamlike memory of Gregor tapping his new staff, and the fire parting harmlessly around us in absolute silence. The swan had been unscathed after we passed through. Her feathers must have been ignited by the smoldering cinders in the air.
“Look! We’re on the Burning Plains.” Mephisto pointed. “Eew!”
On the next island over lay two burnt hulks of what had once been human beings. One wore Theo’s helmet, goggles and breastplate; the other held a wooden club.
“Theo!” I cried, running forward.
The smooth obsidian-coated twists of the hardened lava flow underfoot made for poor footing. I fell, managing to twist as I did so, so my enchanted gown, rather than my exposed flesh, struck the ground. Landing, I slid on my side for a yard or two over bumpy ropes of rock before the next rise slowed my motion, the cloth of my enchanted dress my only protection against the sharp volcanic glass. I lay there, in shock, until Titus offered me a hand, pulling me slowly to my feet. Bruised and embarrassed, I resumed moving forward, though more gingerly.
Together, we picked our way across the pahoehoe lava. The hardened flow rose and fell unevenly. Its ropy texture resembled the folds and wrinkles of beaten batter—if the batter was the color of charcoal ash. This folded, twisted quality gave the landscape an eerie and forbidding quality, as if we were beholding the petrified innards of Earth.
“This really is the bowels of Hell.” Gregor brushed a molten cinder out of my hair. His own forehead was bleeding.
Mephisto opened his mouth cheerfully as if to offer a goofy rejoinder but then fell silent, his eyes resting on our charred brother. Sweat poured down his brow, and a burn mark marred his cheek. Mephisto wiped the perspiration from his eyes and said nothing.
Mab gazed at the surface beneath his feet, spooked. “This is lava, isn’t it? It looks uncomfortably like the petrified arm of a Nuckelavee or some other skinless monster.”
“Ugh! You’re right!” Erasmus lifted one foot and then the other, as if he could somehow put dista
nce between himself and the ground. “I really wish you hadn’t said that! Now, I can’t get that image out of my head.”
We rushed as best we could across the slick yet uneven ground, stumbling and catching our balance. It would have helped if I could have paid attention to my footing, but I could think of nothing but Theo. It was so terrible that he should be in pain. He did not deserve this!
My brother Theophrastus was our knight in shining armor, the most decent one among us. In family meetings, he was our conscience, the one who reminded the rest of us when our plans strayed beyond what a good man should do, who insisted we live up to a high standard. And, most of the time, we listened to him.
We knew that, of all of us, he was the closest to Heaven—which is why it had taken me so many years to consider seriously his threat to give up magic so as to avoid Hell.
How could Theo, of all people, be afraid of Hell?
A memory came back to me: Theo insisting we take food to the poor on the Feast of St. Steven, even during the winter when we ourselves were starving. I recalled following him through a heavy snow, a cold wind cutting my face, my arms full of the last of our provisions. The two of us were singing “Good King Wenceslas” and we both dissolved into laughter when we got to a stanza that neither of us knew. But we reached those who were in need, and Theo saw to it that they were fed and given warm blankets against the cold. He carried a cord of firewood the whole way on his back.
Other memories came tumbling after: Theo charging into battle, fearless, sunlight gleaming off his visor; Theo at the tiller, the wind blowing his hair, bleached blond in front from the blast of his staff; Theo, in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, building a new barn for a tenant; Theo thrashing husbands who beat their wives. He got in a great deal of trouble for this once, when he made an example of a man who turned out to be of higher rank. But it did not stop him. A few years later, he was back at it again. There were at least a few women I had met who gave him credit for saving their lives.
Erasmus might love humanity, but he seldom cared for individual people. Theo loved people. He was friendly and outgoing. He always knew our neighbors and what they were up to: who was expecting a baby, whose cow had calved, who needed a new drain. Sometimes, he would spontaneously go over and fix a pipe or build a new shed, performing tasks that were needed without ever having been asked. He just saw that it was needed and did it—without asking or expecting anything in return.
The others occasionally mocked me, claiming that I liked Theo best merely because he admired me so. That was just nonsense.
I loved Theo because he was the best of us.
* * *
A TEN-FOOT gap separated us from the island where Theo lay. As we approached it, we began to hear screams. They were high and faint, nearly inaudible over the noise of bubbling lava. Reaching the edge, we discovered the hard surface we stood upon was only three feet thick. Beneath it, the rock wall glowed like a live ember. A river of lava flowed in the space between the two walls.
Gregor grunted. “We’ll have to leap the gap between this island and the next.”
I moved closer to the gap, which looked awfully broad for leaping over, and peered down. A shiver went through me despite the heat, which was causing sweat to drip down the back of my neck. People, blistered and burning, swam in the molten river. Some had facial bones as black as cinders, the tissue and muscle having long ago burnt away; others had a melted liquid dripping from where their eyeballs had been. Yet, no matter how they screamed and burned, they were not entirely consumed.
“I don’t get it,” said Mab. “How come they don’t just climb out? It’s only about a yard to the surface. Any two or three of them working together should be able to escape.”
“Ah…” Erasmus’s smile had little to do with humor. “Working together … now there’s the rub. Isn’t it?”
Whenever the souls struggling in the molten river drifted near one another, they fought. Burning and suffering though they were, they ignored their own peril to get one last swipe in at their neighbor. They ripped, punched, and clawed at each other. Yet, none of them seemed to notice that the blows they struck, with their thin, weak, skeletal arms, devoid of muscle or flesh, did no lasting damage. Nor did they care that no matter how much harm they inflicted, they never killed their opponent.
The harder they fought, the more heated their wrath, the hotter the air and lava around them became. A brawl sent a spray of lava flying through the air. Where two combatants wrestled, grabbing each other around the neck in an attempt to strangle each other, the river became so hot that the lava bubbled.
“I wonder if they know they are dead,” mused Titus.
“Nope, most of them don’t,” Mephisto replied cheerfully. “Sad, isn’t it? I feel for them, the poor dopes. Guess that’s why Theo and Caliban are here. They’re angry fellows.”
Anger, of course. This was the Burning Plains, where the Wrathful suffered for their lives of anger and rage. Theo’s weakness had always been his hot head.
“How do we cross?” I concentrated on the supine form that was Theo, willing him to move, so I would know he was not …
“Like this,” said Titus. He picked me up and threw me across the gap.
I flew through the air, limbs flailing. Plummeting down on the other side, I covered my face with my arms and rolled across the uneven ground. The obsidian crunched beneath my weight.
I stood up gingerly and brushed myself off. Erasmus and Mab flew through the air and crashed to a landing. They also rose, looking a bit worse for the trip. Mephisto, on the other hand, did a triple flip as he soared and landed lightly on his feet. Gregor shook his head, refusing Titus’s attempt to lift him. There was not even a chance that Gregor could throw Titus.
“We will wait here,” Titus called. “Save our brother.”
“Wait there?” muttered Erasmus, as we started forward. Sweat ran down his brow. “What makes him think we’re capable of making it back across?”
“Don’t be a sourpuss,” Mephisto replied cheerfully. He held up his staff. “Svart Kara won’t return, I bet, but I still have other friends. Maybe we can crawl across the gap on the back of Kaa.”
“Oh, that sounds just dandy,” growled Mab.
“Thank the stars! You’ve come!” croaked the second burnt figure in a hoarse mockery of Caliban’s voice. He rose shakily to a kneeling position, propping himself up with his club. Beside him, a charred skinless form with an Urim helmet and breastplate embedded in his burnt flesh, gasped for air.
“Theo…” I whispered.
Pelting across the uneven landscape, I fell to my knees beside him. My brother still wore his goggles, which appeared unharmed, so his unscathed eyes looked out from his blackened and blistered skinless face. Bile rose in my throat, and I feared I would vomit. The smell of charred flesh and burnt hair was nearly unbearable.
Could this mass of smoldering flesh be my beloved brother? My mind balked when equating this charred monstrosity with the handsome youth he had been: the fierce courageous young man that Mephisto had portrayed in the white marble statue that had stood for centuries in the Great Hall of Prospero’s Mansion.
Belatedly, I recalled that Seir’s attack had damaged Theo’s statue. That face, too, had been lost.
It would take more than a drop or two of Water of Life to fix this damage. Five drops, at least, likely even more. But if I did not heal him quickly, if his body were allowed to remain like this, then even Water would not wash away such scars.
The world could not spare that much Water.
Was this to be my brother, then? A smoldering husk. Would he remain like this forever, a ghastly horror to make children shriek?
Unbidden, the image of little Theo, the solid small boy with lithe brown limbs and a head of black curls, rose in my mind, and I recalled the first words he ever spoke to me, the night when, at the age of four, he had followed me up the stairs of the Filarete tower: Sistah, Mephto told me we can see whole world from up here. Is it true?
I yanked out the precious crystal vial and splashed nine or ten drops of Water of Life into Theo’s mouth. A scent, more beautiful than blooming lilacs after a morning rain filled the air, driving away all other odors. The fist of fear that clenched my heart opened. I found I could breathe again. I had not even been aware I had been holding my breath.
There was no outward change, but immediately, the pain went from his eyes. His skinless mouth opened as if he were trying to smile.
“Theo,” I cried. “Thank God!”
Charred muscles along his face and legs regained their reddish meaty look. A bit of skin spread over his cheeks.
But that was all.
All that Water—ten to forty more years more that one of us could have lived on to continue the fight against the denizens of Hell—and it had not been enough.
Behind me, Erasmus’s staff whirled. He said calmly, “Out of the way, Sister. It’s my turn now.”
Kneeling beside Theo, he yanked the helmet and breastplate from Theo’s chest with an awful thwak. Something was stuck to the inside of the breastplate. Amid the flesh and grime, I caught a glimmer of gold. Too worried about my brother to investigate further, I moved to the side to make room for Erasmus.
Erasmus’s staff hummed in his dull white gauntlet. He knelt and passed it over our brother’s body. The air around Theo grew reddish and warm. New flesh grew before our eyes as Erasmus’s staff sped up the regeneration process. Slowly, it spread until it covered his whole body. His nose returned; his lips grew back. His arms and legs became as firm and smooth as baby’s skin.
Theo stood up, naked, but young and whole again. Rushing forward, I embraced him, tears running down my cheeks. He hugged me back fiercely, laughing and spinning me about. Setting me gently on my feet, he kissed my cheek. Then, he gave Mephisto and Erasmus a bear hug and shook Mab’s hand vigorously.
Pulling off his goggles, Theo wiped his eyes. Then, realizing his state of undress, he held his breastplate sheepishly before his groin. Mab shrugged off his trench coat and held it out. Theo quickly donned it, thanking him.
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