Donny's Inferno

by P. W. Catanese

  Zig spoke for her. “Fire is everything in Sulfur, young mortal. You have seen how we use it to illuminate the skies, and you have seen the pit where the Flames of Torment once burned. But those are only two of the types of fire we employ.”

  “In Sulfur, all fire comes from below,” Zag continued. “We call that the Crude Fire. At the refinery, the Crude is separated into the many useful types.”

  It didn’t make sense to Donny. “Where I come from, fire is just fire. You can’t just break it down into other things.”

  Zig nodded, encouraging, and Zag shook his head, bemused. “So I have heard,” said Zig. “The natural laws of the infernal realm are not the same as the mortal realm. We are almost there—now you will see how it is done.”

  They drew close to the outer wall of Sulfur. Donny had started to orient himself to this strange world, using the river that ran through the center. He thought of the river’s origin as north, with the water flowing south past the great pit and beyond. And so the side that they now approached—which was within a mile of the river at this point, where Sulfur was still quite narrow—to him, that was west.

  A wagon rolled toward them along the road, and the chariot slowed and veered toward the side to let it pass. It was pulled by a lumbering beast that looked like a ­lizard-skinned rhinoceros walking on two legs. The wagon was loaded with barrel-size ceramic vessels, a few of which glowed red-hot.

  A small imp was perched on the seat at the front of the wagon, picking his nose with unusual vigor. He wiped his findings on his leg when he saw Angela, and tipped his floppy hat. “You here because of the theft?”

  Angela nodded.

  “Well,” the imp said as he plunged his finger into the other nostril. “Better get to the bottom of that.” The wagon rolled on.

  Zig and Zag glanced at each other with brows raised. “A theft, Angela?” Zig asked. “Has there ever been one before?”

  “Not that I remember,” Angela said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “See?” Zag said to Donny. “You break with tradition, and bad things follow.”

  Zig sighed heavily, and rolled his eyes.

  The refinery was inside a long curving wall that had been constructed near the side of the cavern. Bursts of fire billowed up from the other side, along with clouds of smoke and steam. Things rumbled, rattled, boomed, and hissed. Donny felt adrenaline course through his veins. Inside that wall, it sounded like two things he had always enjoyed: construction sites and the Fourth of July.

  The chariot halted outside, next to a basin filled with water. “Thank you, gentlemen,” Angela told the long-legged imps as they unharnessed themselves and headed to the basin for a drink. “Wait here if you don’t mind.”

  They stepped down from the chariot, and Angela walked up to a pair of huge black wooden doors. They were tall and wide, reinforced with iron bars, and shut tight. “We close the doors now?” she said quite loudly.

  A voice answered from above. “After the first theft in a thousand years, we do. Hold on, Obscura.” Donny looked up. He was getting the hang of not crying out when he saw something strange or awful. That skill came in handy just then, because the person, or thing, who had spoken was a terrifying sight: a gnarly, piggish face with charred, ragged ears, and a pair of goggles pushed high on the forehead.

  One of the doors screeched open a minute later. They stepped through, and Donny’s eyes opened wide when he saw the refinery inside.

  Dozens of smoldering cones of rock, like miniature volcanoes, jutted from the ground. Some looked extinct, while others had fire, smoke, or steam gushing from their tops. In other places, the imps had dug wide holes in the ground, with ramps that dove into the openings. Flames belched from the depths, and imps hustled wheelbarrows up and down the ramps, oblivious to the heat and fire.

  “The Crude,” Zig said. He pointed at one of the smaller cones nearby. It looked like a witch’s hat made of stone, as tall as a telephone pole. The fire that flowed from its top was like no fire Donny had ever seen. It glowed with neon intensity, bursting with yellows, oranges, and reds that bathed every surface with rippling multicolored light. The flames rolled and curled at an unnaturally slow pace, like a form of matter somewhere between liquid and gas. He could have stared at it for hours, but there was too much else to see.

  The larger cones within the walls were surrounded by scaffolding, ladders, and old machinery, with tubes, stoppers, and spigots embedded at various heights. Imps of all sizes crawled up the wobbly scaffolding. They turned valves with fat wrenches, checked dials, and hoisted ­vessels with chains and pulleys. The vessels, which looked like they were made of black glass, were everywhere, in stacks against the wall and loaded onto carts.

  “Holy smokes,” was all Donny could say.

  The being who had spoken to them before came down along a staircase that hugged the inside of the wall.

  “Hello, Flint,” Angela said.

  Flint jabbed a thumb at Donny. “That a mortal?”

  “You can talk to him as if he’s standing right there,” Angela replied. “Which he is.”

  “Hmmph,” Flint said. “Didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “That’s okay, sir,” Donny said. Flint was amazing, if a little disturbing, to look at up close. He seemed to have spent his entire existence in the flames, because his whole scaly body was scorched, blasted, and scarred, except for where goggles protected his eyes. He wore a heavy leather apron, also blackened by soot and fire.

  “Show me what happened,” Angela said. “Donny, you seem enchanted by the refinery. Z, do you mind?”

  Zag sighed. “Yes. We will instruct him.”

  Angela and Flint walked away toward a smaller building within the walls. Donny heard the beginning of their conversation.

  “What type was it, Flint? Not annihilation, I hope.”

  “No, Obscura. Destruction, but a very specific type, heavily refined.”

  “How strange. What do you mean, specific type . . . ?” They wandered out of earshot.

  “Well, mortal, would you like to know about the refinery?” Zig asked.

  “Oh,” said Donny. “Sure. Please!”

  He soaked up what Zig-Zag told him. Apparently, the process was similar to what he’d learned once in school about oil refineries. When the cones were capped, the fire separated into layers. Then, by tapping into the cone at various levels, the engineer imps isolated the different types of fire.

  “Depending on where the holes are drilled,” Zag explained, “you can extract the Flames of Torment. As you know, those once filled the Pit of Fire. Or you can extract the Flames of Destruction, which can eat through flesh or stone. Or the Flames of Illumination, which bring light but not pain or heat. Or the Flames of Annihilation—the most deadly and powerful of all.”

  “How is that more deadly than destruction?” Donny asked.

  “Annihilation,” answered Zag, “is the end of all things. If I burn you away with the Flames of Destruction, your mortal form is gone, but your soul remains. But if I destroy you with the Flames of Annihilation, you are gone forever. No body. No soul.”

  “Yes, that would be worse,” Donny agreed quietly. “Um, does anyone ever actually get annihilated?”

  Zig and Zag looked at each other. “It has happened,” Zig said.

  “When the punishment deserves it,” said Zag.

  Zig frowned. “Annihilation is never deserved.”

  “Typical weak-spined drivel from you, brother,” Zag said. “When the crime is sufficient, the guilty should be removed from society so they can cause no further harm.”

  “And typical cruelty from you, brother,” said Zig. “Who are we to decide when annihilation is the solution?”

  “Criminy,” Angela said. “Are you two at it again?” Donny hadn’t noticed her return. She smirked at Zig-Zag and folded her arms. “Put your debate on ho
ld, boys. I need to think on the way back.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Angela asked the runners for speed, and they obliged. The chariot rumbled along so fast that Donny clutched the edge of the bench, afraid of bouncing out.

  Back at the pillar, Angela hopped out and walked a few paces ahead, muttering quietly to herself. Donny walked with Zig-Zag as the two heads traded angry looks, still inflamed from their debate. They didn’t look open to conversation, so with questions piled up in his brain, Donny trotted ahead to walk beside Angela. He hesitated to say anything, because she looked so deep in thought, but eventually she peered at him from the corner of her eye. “Strange doings, Cricket.”

  “What exactly was stolen? Do you mind if I ask?”

  She exhaled through her nose. “The Flames of Destruction. We use it to build things, because it cuts through stone. But it was also used in the war.”

  “Did they steal a lot?”

  “It doesn’t take a lot. The stuff is potent. It goes through rock like scissors through paper. But yeah. A lot was stolen. A bunch of barrels.”

  “Didn’t anybody guard it?”

  “Three guards. All vanished. Either they were in on it, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  Angela shrugged. “They could have been burned away by the same fire that was stolen. There was plenty of scorching, that’s for sure. I think they’re goners.”

  Zig spoke up from behind. “It’s the Merciless. They’re coming back.”

  “You don’t know that,” groused Zag.

  “Who else?” replied Zig. “And can it be a coincidence that Havoc returned from his ‘expedition’ just in time for this?”

  “So quick to accuse,” said Zag.

  “Boys . . . ,” Angela began, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead she looked up, because the sky suddenly had brightened, as if stadium lights had been flipped on. She shielded her eyes with her hand. “What the Sulfur?”

  Great billowing clouds of illumination spread in every direction. All of Sulfur turned red and gold as the shadows sharpened.

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Donny.

  “It’s the end of the day, not the beginning,” said Zig.

  “Remember when you saw the clouds released this morning? They should never be released at night,” said Zag.

  Angela frowned and puckered her lips. “I can’t deal with one more issue right now. Z, can you go find out what happened?”

  “Of course,” said Zig and Zag together. They headed down the path toward the source of the cloud, bickering along the way.

  Donny stared up. The clouds pulsed with orange light as they engulfed the enormous stalactites and left only the points sticking out below. “Kind of pretty,” he said.

  “Hmmph,” Angela replied. Her brow was deeply furrowed. “I like the night.”

  They stood quietly for a while. Donny sneaked a sideways glance at Angela, who wasn’t even looking at the clouds anymore. She stood with her arms folded, tapping one toe, eyes focused on nothing. Finally she came out of it with a toss of her head. “I want you to know something. Come with me.” She walked off briskly and headed up the road that spiraled around Pillar Obscura. Once again Donny raced to catch up.

  CHAPTER 13

  They circled the pillar, far above Angela’s rooms, and gained altitude quickly. On Donny’s right, there was a low balcony carved out of the rock at the ramp’s edge. On his left, in the pillar itself, they passed the occasional doorway and window. Some openings had wooden or metal doors, or leather curtains. Some were completely open and revealed simple dwellings inside, mere niches in the stone.

  “Who lives in those?” Donny asked.

  “Imps,” she replied.

  Donny stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and looked again at the swollen clouds. They began to drip fire. Giant blobs formed at the bottoms, tethered by strands that thinned and snapped, and then the luminous bubble that broke away fell slowly, twinkling and withering to nothing before it touched the ground.

  “Are you all right to keep going?” Angela said. “Need a piggyback ride or something?” She tapped her back.

  That sounded kind of wonderful, but Donny would never admit it. He fought back the grin that wanted to creep over his face. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  The flying creatures that Donny had seen before were at eye level now. Dozens glided about, in and out of the fiery clouds, while more clung to the sides of the ­lower-hanging stalactites. One swooped by, close to where they stood, and Donny got his first good look. It was batlike, as big as an eagle, with a slender body and humanoid head with a pointed crest. The membranous wings were pointed and thin, with tiny hands at the tips. “What do you call those?” Donny asked, pointing.

  “Gargs,” Angela said. “They’re harmless.”

  His legs and lungs burned as they climbed beyond the last of the doors and windows, until the spiraling path ended at last on a simple flat lookout. Donny had not seen Sulfur from such a height before, and more of it was visible than ever, bathed by the harsh light.

  Angela seemed to appreciate the vantage point as well, because a minute passed before she spoke. “Zig-Zag told you about the war?” she said.

  “A little.”

  “Did he tell you why it happened?”

  Donny tried to remember what he’d heard. “There was a disagreement about the Pit of Fire. Reformers wanted to do something different with the dead people. But the other guys—you call them the Merciless?”

  “They came up with that themselves. No mercy for the dead.”

  “Okay. They didn’t want anything to change. So there was a war, and the reformers won.”

  “There’s more to it than that, obviously. Do you know who started the reform?”

  “No.”

  Angela raised her hand over her head. “That’s who.”

  Donny stared. A strange feeling swept over him and left him weak in the arms and legs. He had gotten the sense that Angela was an important figure in Sulfur, but he never imagined just how important. It made him wonder why she wasted her time with a nobody like him.

  “Really?” he said. “Why . . . I mean, how? What did you do?”

  There was a low stone railing at the edge of the lookout. Angela sat and slid her legs through the space below the rail and let them dangle. Donny sat the same way beside her.

  “You know how the Pit of Fire used to be,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. Zig-Zag told me.”

  “This was about sixty years ago. Lucifer had already been gone for decades, leaving the council in charge. That pit—what a horror show. So many bodies. We would constantly have to expand it because the souls piled up and spilled over. Crazy stuff went on down there. Every once in a while, a soul would get tossed right out of the pit. You know, off the end of a swinging pitchfork or something.

  “Normally, I didn’t like to go near the pit—it made me sick, honestly. But that one day, there I was, and a soul landed right at my feet. I looked down at that poor sucker, who I would guess was a peasant from maybe the seventeenth century. All of a sudden the guy got a weird smile on his face. A fire imp ran up, ready to spear him and toss him back into the flames, but when he got there—there was nothing to spear. Nothing but a glob of twinkling lights.”

  “Like I saw on the river,” Donny said.

  “You saw the souls before they take shape? Good. Yes. It was exactly like that. The soul of that peasant returned to its immaterial form. It floated for a moment, and then it drifted like it was a feather caught in a breeze. I followed it because I had to see where it would end up. It floated to the river and then downstream. All the way to the end, where the river disappears into another hole filled with mist.” She turned and looked Donny in the eye. “And that was when I realized: we might be doing something wrong. That soul was ready to move on to whatever came ne
xt. But we had kept it here for who knows how long. You understand what I mean? The flames weren’t just tormenting souls. They were trapping souls.”

  “What did you do?”

  “First? I ordered the imps to throw more of the dead out of the pit. Before long it happened again—poof! Another soul went on its merry way! Not all of them, of course, but enough of them to convince me that I was right.

  “Of course, what I wanted was completely radical. I was proposing that we extinguish the pit and use another means to punish the souls that allowed them to move on when their time had come. I wanted to put a stop to the endless, mindless torment, and I had a pretty good idea how. I knew there would be resistance. Was it even worth it to try? So, I went topside for a while, just to clear my head and think about it. And when I traveled the world and took a good look around, I realized that something amazing was happening.”

  She paused, and the moment of silence begged the question from Donny. “What was happening?”

  She pushed her hand through her hair and smiled. “Humanity was getting better.”

  “We were?”

  “Absolutely. Are you a history buff?”

  “Sort of,” Donny said. He wondered if watching ­Gladiator counted.

  “Well, then you should know. For as long as you knuckleheads have been around, you’ve been murdering, mutilating, terrorizing, persecuting, and enslaving one another.”

  “Speaking of enslaving,” Donny said. He raised his hand to display Angela’s mark on his palm.

  “Oh please,” she replied. She waved him off. “That’s for your protection. See how long you last in Sulfur without it. What was I saying? Oh yes. You people. Somewhere along the sad trajectory of your rotten history, you started improving. Don’t get me wrong—loads of horrible things still happen around the globe on a daily basis. But as bad as you are today, you’re a bunch of pussycats compared to your ancestors. Genghis Khan murdered tens of millions. Alexander was mostly great at slaughter. Caesar was a homicidal thug. Show me an empire, and I’ll show you a bloodbath. And do you know what they all did it for? The loot, mostly. And personal glory, as if butchering and plundering is something to be glorified.