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Post by A. the Returned on Apr 30, 2005 4:37:40 GMT -5
Very Nice. I like this story a lot and am much anticipating their meetings with Cheney. Do continue.
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Post by Ennui on Apr 30, 2005 4:55:41 GMT -5
It gets better and better, Dante. Will we encounter Stalin further down?
What of the arrogant Shade? Will we ever know who he is? Does it matter?
I loved the summoning of Geryon..."I am guilty"...of course, only those who can own their guilt are free of sin, but it's far too late for that now...
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on Apr 30, 2005 4:58:20 GMT -5
Excellent chapter!
I liked the deranged Hitler-tree.
I was wondering if the two in the beginning, who couldn't get into the bunker, were Rumsfeld and Rice...
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Post by Dante on Apr 30, 2005 5:33:25 GMT -5
It gets better and better, Dante. Will we encounter Stalin further down? What of the arrogant Shade? Will we ever know who he is? Does it matter? 1. Yes, but he doesn't get much of a part. Another sinner steals that scene. 2. No. Well, maybe I'll put him in again. But mostly, I'm going for the idea that punishment is not restricted to the well-known. Even the most insignificant person will be punished, if they have sinned.
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Post by Celinra on Apr 30, 2005 15:05:25 GMT -5
Excellent chapter, I enjoyed it muchly.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2005 8:28:37 GMT -5
Geryon swooped left, and began to fly parallel to the steep sides of the pit, the two Shades clinging tightly to the fur on his back. The next Circle lay so deep down that even after Geryon had flown quite far down, the bottom could not be seen.
“The Malbowges are dangerous places,” Geryon informed the Shades who sat astride his back. “The Bowge-Devils are in open rebellion to the reforms enforced by Dis, and they’ll attack anything which enters their Circle on sight.”
“Malbowges?” cried the lesser Shade, as the wind rushed past him.
“The Eighth Circle has ten divisions – ten Malbowges,” Geryon answered, flapping his wings as they descended further. “Ten dank pits into which sinners are cast, with ten bridges across them – save one, which crumbled long ago.”
“Are the Bowge-Devils great in number?” asked the greater Shade, whilst peering down into the darkness.
“Oh, yes,” Geryon replied. “Many, many guards, with only a few devils restricted to a sole Circle. The first thing you must do, once I set you down, is run until you find a bridge, then keep running until there are no bridges – you’ll have to clamber down into that one Bowge, and up the other side, before continuing.”
“What sins are punished here?” asked the same Shade.
“Simple Fraud,” answered Geryon, “but fraud, still, is so terrible that it is placed far away from all other sins – hence this Great Barrier which I am leading you past. More specifically, in turn, the ditches contain seducers, flatterers, simoniacs, sorcerors, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, counsellors of fraud, sowers of discord, and finally the falsifiers. At the very end, you’ll see the Well of the Giants, and when you spot them, know that you are nearly out. Speaking of being spotted, it would be better if – ah…”
As the monster was speaking, a group of winged figures flew up from the darkness on their right, and began to make their way towards the descending Shades. The Eighth Circle was becoming clear now; a mountainous slope of stone, divided by ten ditches, and beyond those ditches… It was too far to see. Arching across these pits were stone bridges, almost natural in their shape and structure, as though the flow of sin beneath them had cut its way through the rock.
“I’ll hold these rebels off, whilst you take a different kind of flight,” Geryon advised, swooping towards the ground. “Run on ‘til you reach the next bridge, and then do not turn back.”
Geryon landed roughly between the wall of the Great Barrier and the first Bowge, his riders jerked in their seats by the sudden stop. The Shades slipped off Geryon’s back, and he instantly flew up again, towards the devils in the sky. Taking heed of the beast’s advice, both greater and lesser Shade turned and fled, their eyes fixed on a distant bridge. Glancing occasionally into the Bowge, they could see seducers running in the same direction as the Shades on the right side of the ditch, and running towards the Shades on the other, with devils standing at the sides of the ditches, lashing out at the sinners with many-tailed whips. These devils did not look like the others they had met thus far, though – they wore no uniform, and were bigger, more powerful, and their faces bore not even the faintest trace of humanity. Long horns protruded from their skull, some curving around the head to point straight upwards, others curling around and around as on a ram.
Eventually, a bridge loomed up ahead of the fleeing two, and they climbed over it. The next bridge was directly ahead, and they climbed over that too, before pausing for a moment to look back.
“Do you see anything?” asked the lesser Shade.
“Nothing,” answered his companion. “But I can hear things…”
Echoing from the darkness from which they had run came loud roars, and shouts of pain in a devilish tongue. A flicker of flame flashed up in the distance, heralding more cries, before vanishing.
“They must still be battling,” said the greater Shade.
“I can’t see any devils around here,” muttered the lesser. “Perhaps it’s safe to pause, and look about,”
After glancing once in every direction, his companion nodded in agreement. The two turned to the second Bowge behind them. It was filled with slop, muck, dung, like some ancient, decaying cess-pit, with a terrible stench. In it, many figures were crammed, struggling for air at the surface of the mud.
“I think I recognise his face from pictures,” said the lesser, pointing out a filthy Shade. “Joseph Goebbels. And them, over there… They’re journalists. I recognise their faces.”
“Isn’t that Rupert Murdoch?” asked the greater, pointing to a Shade some way off, who was glaring at him with no little force.
Suddenly, another face rose to the surface of the slop nearby. “You…” it moaned, at the greater, who recoiled for a moment, before putting his face closer. Recognition dawned upon him.
“Oh, you’re that associate of Blair’s,” the greater said. “Campbell, is it? Alastair Campbell? I sponsored you in a marathon.”
“So much for ‘Charity never faileth,’” coughed Campbell scornfully. “How’s it helped me now? At least my old enemies aren’t around to make a mockery of me, as I made a mockery of them.”
“Why are you here?” asked the greater Shade.
“That old king, between the First and Second Circles, put me here for flattery,” said Campbell. “I told him that perhaps they should find another name for it, as much of what I did was quite the opposite. Eight times he wrapped his tail around himself, and then twice more, and judged that I go here, for my lies, propaganda, and smears.”
“Was Minos right to put you here?” asked the greater. “Do you regret what you did?”
“Never!” yelled Campbell. “I’m proud to know I made a difference.”
With this last defiant remark, the foul creature sank down once again, as others pushed him aside in their battle for air. With a sigh, the greater turned away with his companion, and made to cross the third bridge. As they did so, they peered into the third of the Bowges, where dozens of pairs of feet stuck up out of the ground, with flames leaping from the soles. Not a soul spoke here, so the travelling Shades crept to the bank of the fourth Bowge, and looked down into that.
This Bowge looked the most free of all the four the wandering Shades had thus far encountered. There were no demons, no muck, no flames. The punished Shades within wandered this way and that, without compulsion – but as they drew nearer to where their two observers were, there could be heard the sound of weeping from them, and both watchers noticed that the Shades were moving their legs in a strange way, as though walking backwards. But then they noticed that the Shades were in fact walking backwards – but their heads had been twisted to face away from their front, and so they were obliged to walk contrary to usual.
“What did Geryon say this Bowge was for?” asked the lesser.
“Simony,” replied the greater. “No – that was the one we just passed. These are sorcerors.”
“I don’t believe in magic,” replied the lesser Shade.
“Neither do I,” replied the greater. “But these souls did.”
“Not only magic,” said a voice from below, and peering directly down, the watching Shades beheld a woman sorceror holding her tear-stained face up to them.
“Not only magic,” the Shade said again, “but merely looking to oneself for power, rather than to Him who sent us here. It seems a kind of magic, to be sure, but really it’s all trickery.”
“Was that your crime?” asked the greater.
“No, not mine,” replied the woman. “But others I’ve spoken to did just that – they found power only in themselves, and used their talents to manipulate others, and take control. See, describing it thus, it seems no different to magic – hence practicers of such find themselves in here. But enough of this Bowge – what of you two? What crimes have you committed, to be sent so far down?”
It suddenly struck the two Shades that though they new the names of their destinations, the crimes which were punished there were not known to them.
“I was told that I was being sent to Judecca in Cocytus, for treachery,” replied the lesser, “and my companion to Antenora, to the Gear Towers. But we’re not quite sure what crimes, specifically, are punished there.”
The woman looked vaguely interested, a gleam in her eye replacing the tears she had shed.
“Cocytus is the lake where betrayal is punished,” the woman informed them. “Those who committed crimes against their country are sent to Antenora, and those who did the same against their lord are placed in Judecca.”
The two Shades looked at each other, at once both puzzled, and comprehending.
“Aye, I see the looks on your faces,” the woman said. “You know your crimes in your heart, but did not realise until now that it was for those you were punished.”
“You, in opening the door of our bunker, condemned me to death, and Hell,” the greater spoke to the lesser.
“And you,” spoke the latter to the former, “exploited your power over your country for your own ends.”
“Quarrel not,” the woman said, “for the time for that is long past. Just give up. Give up, and move on. To be punished is peace, of a kind.”
And with this the woman walked away, leaving the two free Shades alone.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2005 8:29:49 GMT -5
---
Crossing the bridge over this fourth Bowge, the two travelling Shades peeked down into the fifth Bowge before approaching its bridge. The bottom of the Bowge was filled with boiling, burning pitch, into which men were plunged, screaming and shouting. Numerous demons stood inside this Bowge, at the edge of the pitch.
“The Bowge after this is where the bridge is broken,” whispered the greater Shade. “We’ll have to climb into that Bowge, to cross it, but first we have to cross the bridge of this Bowge without the demons noticing us.”
“We could walk around to the next brige, and see if less demons stand guard there,” suggested his companion.
“That’s probably the best hope we have,” replied the greater, and they set off, keeping closer to the edge of the fourth Bowge than the edge of the fifth. Glancing in from time to time, they saw the demons use sharp hooks to lift the barrators from the boiling liquid, and make sport of them, crying dull jests like, “I’ll pay you a bribe – I’ll jab you more than usual,” and “We’re old friends, aren’t we? Make me a lord, so I can boss this fool here about.” The latter comment earned the speaker a beating across the head from whichever fool he had spoken of, at which point that particular stretch turned into a brawl between the demons.
“They’re like drunks!” exclaimed the lesser Shade.
“Is this what all the demons were like, before the reforms?” wondered the greater. No reply came, so he walked on in silence.
The next bridge across the fifth Bowge rose up ahead, and to the surprise of the Shades, neither soul nor guard stood near. Seizing their chance, the Shades dashed across it, and halted at the point where the bridge across the next ditch was broken, judging the best route to climb down.
“It looks steep,” said the lesser. “But if we jump, we’ll land on that rubble, and it doesn’t look unstable.”
“Is there any other way down that you can see?” asked the greater.
“Yes,” spoke a voice behind them. “We’ll push you.”
A half-dozen Bowge-Devils appeared behind them, some flying down above, some crawling up from the Bowge. Each looked even more terrible, up close – the horns on their heads splintered and diverged, ending in multiple prongs; their faces were twisted into terrible, snarling, animal faces; they were big and burly, and they carried various foreign weapons, which bore unlikely numbers of blades, hooks, and spikes.
The Shades jumped into the sixth Bowge, and the Bowge-Devils followed them.
---
It was indeed a curious sight – two Shades running through the middle of the Bowge, followed by a crowd of winged Bowge-Devils, brandishing their weapons and cackling loudly. The inhabitants of the sixth Bowge – hypocrites, each wearing a heavy lead cloak painted in garish colours – could not move out of the way in time, and were bowled over by the fleeing travellers and their pursuers. One Bowge-Devil collided directly with such a hypocrite, and stopped to torment it, beating at the sinner again and again with a hooked pole; two Devils began to quarrel in mid-flight over which of them would be permitted to tear which Shade apart, and began to duel. Thus the wicked crowd which pursued the former-president and his associate halved in number; but even one Bowge-Devil was dangerous enough. Soon the number of Devils was reduced to this number, though, as after chasing for no little time, one of their number flew too low and collided direct with the pile of rubble left by another broken bridge, and one of the two remaining stopped to laugh at its attempts to free itself from the debris.
By this point, the two fleeing Shades had judged that the chaotic nature of this Circle could work to their advantage, and they were right – a leaden cloak was dropped from above and onto the last Bowge-Devil, who struggled to pull it off, but could not; another appeared, bearing an armful of these cloaks, and, crying “What’s this? Attempting to intrude on my territory?” began to beat the same Bowge-Devil with the pile of cloaks as one might beat a towel. The Shades ran on a little more before stopping, exhausted.
“I think,” concluded the greater, gasping between each word for breath, “that we’ve escaped them.”
“We need to walk on until the next broken bridge,” planned his companion. “From there, I think we can climb up the rubble and return to our path.”
They walked on through the Bowge, then, but not slowly, for they feared that the Bowge-Devils may return to their pursuit. Along the way, they attempted to converse with some of the hypocrites, but the sinners turned away; their heavy cloaks dragging on the ground as they trod wearily the dirt – sullen, possibly, that the former-president was not fated to join their ranks, or perhaps because the smell of the Bowge-Devils was upon their questioners. Eventually, the two wandering Shades reached a pile of rubble where once a bridge over this Bowge had been; clambering up on their right, they returned to their chosen path, and then crossed half-way over the seventh bridge, before looking down to see what horrors that Bowge held.
This pit was filled with running Shades, dashing away from each other and anything. The ground was covered in a mass of dark, long, and terrible snakes, which bore fangs so sharp and long that they might be needles. Other, larger reptiles crawled about – a large, purple-ish, four-legged and scaly beast made its slow way across the Bowge as sinners fled from its very presence; something like a large toad could be seen, of a mottled colour, gulping its monstrous mouth and casting red eyes about to spy which sinner it might eat, fly-like.
These monstrous reptiles did far more than sting, or bite, however; for as the travelling Shades watched the creatures lashed out at the running Shades, who turned to dust in an instant, and then sprang up again transformed, their appearance a mixture of their compatriots in sin, and their horrendous tormentors. Some snakes bore the heads of Shades, some Shades bore the appearance half-way of one man and that of another man the rest of their body, Shades with reptilian appendages where human ones should be chased by, and crawling desperately along the pit-floor was a man who, down to the base of his spine was normal, but from there sprang up the torso of another man, and each was fighting to go in a direction different to the other. It was a truly grotesque and terrible sight to see, all these once-proud men now beasts themselves.
The watching Shades turned away, so many sickening things overwhelming their sight. Moving to the bridge over the eighth Bowge, they cast their gaze down there, and saw that the floor was a mass of flame, with tall tongues of this same force drifting along this way and that. Within these flames, the shapes of men could be seen; but they were vague, indistinct, concealed by the fire which burnt them.
“Down there!” cried the greater Shade. “Could you speak to us?”
One flame stopped moving, and seemed to spring up higher, like a man stretching to see something above him. The tip of the flame flickered and danced, and a voice came from it.
“If one bears,” the tongue spoke, “great gifts of intellect, one must never abuse them, in persuading others to do wickedness,”
“It’s too late for us to learn any moral lessons,” the lesser spoke. “For what crime are you flames punished here?”
“Too late?” the flame-tongue hissed, spitting sparks. “Then be gone from here, to your proper place!”
This said, that flame moved on, but another one came to take its place, the flame-tongue moving as a real tongue might.
“In the last Bowge, thieves of material goods have their material form stolen from them,” spoke this flame, “but we thieves of human goodness bear no form at all. I will not be modest – in life I had great wisdom, but I corrupted it in convincing others to join me in fraud. For that, the king near Limbo put me in the Thievish Fire, and my gift is little good now.”
The greater Shade asked a question he had begun to favour: “Did you deserve this fate?”
“We all do,” answered the tongue. “Even you. Don’t think your face is not familiar to us here. Go down into the next Bowge, for somebody awaits you there.”
This flame, too, moved away, and, puzzled, the greater Shade moved on to the edge of the next Bowge, and stood, peering down.
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Post by Dante on May 1, 2005 8:30:07 GMT -5
“Who could be waiting for you here?” asked the lesser.
“I don’t know,” said the greater. “I forget what sin was punished here, now.”
The greater began to climb down the edge of this ninth Bowge. “Wait for me on the other side,” he spoke to his associate, who crossed by the bridge and watched his companion reach the bottom of the pit.
The greater Shade looked about him, for the punished Shades within – and then they came from the right of he, bearing terrible wounds upon them. Each has been cleft here and there, split in two by some terrible weapon. Some Shades had healed somewhat, for all that remained of their wounds was a thin red cut – but the pain still showed on their faces, as they wandered past the waiting Shade, who harried them for news of who he was meant to meet, but received none in return, for the sinners only shook their heads and continued to walk. When they had all vanished from sight, though, then from the same direction a fearsome monster appeared.
Twice the size of any other Bowge-Devil, this creature bore no wings, but the horns on its head arced above it like a crown; its chest arms were grotesquely wide, like those of some man who devoted his life to training those muscles. Its right arm was clad in metal armour, ending in a clawed, spiked gauntlet; and with this arm it held an enormous blade, sharp on both its two edges and reaching in length perhaps half the Bowge-Devil’s height. It advanced forward, stopping as far from one side of the Bowge-bridge as the Shade stood from the other.
“I’ve waited a long time for you,” it spoke, in a deep, deep voice.
The greater Shade took a step back.
“So long…” the creature ran a red-scaled finger down the sharp edge of the blade. “Who was more divisive than you, in their lives? You cared for nothing else. This sword could have been made to strike you in two.”
“No!” cried the other. “Minos sent me to a different place.”
The monster bellowed. “I care nothing for the fool judgement of that king, who sits high and mighty on his throne, thinking himself master of all Hell. What power does he have here, I ask you? What does his judgement matter in the Eighth Circle?”
Watching from the Bowge-bank, the lesser Shade was frozen to the spot, transfixed by the events before him.
“Who does rule this place, then?” cried back the greater Shade. “You, I suppose?”
“Not I,” the worst of all the Bowge-Devils replied. “I am faithful to the true lord of this realm, this entire Hell, all nine Circles. I care nothing for reforms from Dis – I obey only the one who gave that city its name. Now, halt your stalling, and I will punish your sins!”
Saying this, the monster raised its blade above its head, and began to advance threateningly towards the greater Shade, who sprang back and ran to the bank of the Bowge, desperately scrabbling to clamber back up.
“You cannot escape from me here!” roared the Sword-Devil. “There is no escape from sin!”
The greater Shade was desperately clawing at the ground, but he could not make his way up the bank. Then, from above, a helping hand appeared – the lesser Shade caught onto the greater Shade, and began to pull him up. The latter reached the top of the bank, and the sword of the great demon behind him crashed down into empty space, and stuck firmly in the ground.
“Don’t fly from me!” the demon roared. “As soon as I free my blade, then I will pursue you again!”
And it began to wrench and tug at its sword, which seemed firmly stuck.
“I think that we should put a distance between ourselves and that monster,” said the lesser Shade, leading his companion along the bank and away from the bridge. “Travelling along, we’ll get further away than travelling forwards.”
And so, fleeing again, the two Shades began to race for the next bridge along.
---
Reaching, finally, the next bridge, the Shades peered down into the tenth and last Bowge. It was deadly quiet, as though the punishment in this pit was death itself. In reality, the punishment was almost as bad, perhaps even worse – for the sinners here were each struck down terrible diseases – some sported open rashes all over their faces, others were covered every inch in boils, whilst others stared vainly about with black eyes. A sickly stench of rotting flesh hung over this valley, and not one Shade was not suffering in some way.
“I don’t think I really want to speak to them,” said the lesser Shade, feeling sick at the sight of the wasted people all around him.
“I concur,” said the greater. “Perhaps we should leave them in peace.”
But as they turned to cross the bridge, one soul, looking up, spotted them and cried, “Look, there! People whole!”
The diseased Shades rose as one, and looked up to the two Shades, who avoided the crowd’s gaze.
“They’re healthy,” said one Shade longingly.
“I don’t see any scars upon them – they must never have suffered as we have,” said another.
“What crimes did you Shades commit?” asked the greater Shade, seeing that some conversation was now unavoidable.
A cacophony of cries rose up towards the questioner, each different. “Forgery!” one cried, and “Alchemy!” another. “Impersonation!” “False labelling!” “Perjury!” some more.
“But what crime are all these?” asked the lesser, and the crowd answered as one.
“Falsification!” they bellowed, before lapsing into moaning, muttering, and wailing, some now scratching at their sores, or attempting to cover their infected skin with cloth rags. Confession reminded them, it seemed, of the crime, and they turned now to their diseased selves, mourning their mistakes. The two Shades took this opportunity to move on.
Across the bridge, the land flattened out, and ahead, huge shapes towered above the Shades – mountains, perhaps, or huge statues. One shifted in its position, and the two Shades realised that the shapes which rose before them were no inanimate objects, but enormous people, with only their upper torsos visible, as though they were standing at a desk. The Well of the Giants was before them.
The Giants seemed a dangerous group, for one to their right had his hands bound by dozens of chains in front of him, and one to the left had chains wrapped all around his body, mummified not in cloth but metal. The giant straight before them, though, bore no chains, and stood free.
“I will not do it!” the voice of the Giant boomed, a deafening sound which must surely have echoed across the Circle. “Antaeus serves nobody but himself.”
“You won’t be serving,” said a smaller voice, echoing from some unseen place below. “You’ll be leading! King of all Giants, crushing your enemies underfoot.”
“Your tricks won’t work on me,” Antaeus replied. “I’ll do the bidding of no Devil, be it from Malbowge or Dis.”
“This must be the Dis-Devils, trying to convert the Giants,” whispered the lesser Shade to the greater.
“They’re not doing a very good job,” replied he. “How are we to get down?”
The lesser Shade looked to his left, spying the Giant chained all over. “Perhaps…”
The lesser approached the Giant, and put his hands to the chains. If the Giant noticed, it chose not to show it, remaining silent and unmoving while its companion argued with an unseen source.
“We can use the chains like a ladder,” the lesser Shade said. “Come down!”
And with that, the lesser Shade clambered down and out of sight. The greater Shade hesitated for a moment, thinking it perhaps wiser not to irritate creatures larger than oneself, but eventually clung to the chains as well, and began to make his way down.
The Giants stood on a ledge some way below the edge of the tenth Bowge. This ledge itself was on the edge of a slope, but it was not too steep a slope for the Shades to crawl down, once they had reached the Giant’s feet. Making their way to the end of the slope, and flat ground again, the two Shades looked out upon their destination – Cocytus, the Ninth Circle.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on May 1, 2005 9:33:46 GMT -5
This was an excellent chapter; the Malbowges is a very interesting section of Hell.
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Post by PJ on May 1, 2005 15:26:29 GMT -5
This was an excellent chapter; the Malbowges is a very interesting section of Hell. Amen to that. This chapter ruled. The Sword Demon was cool. I loved the bowge demons fightng each other. This was my favorite line: "as after chasing for no little time, one of their number flew too low and collided direct with the pile of rubble left by another broken bridge, and one of the two remaining stopped to laugh at its attempts to free itself from the debris." Please, do write more! This story is really good!
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Post by Celinra on May 1, 2005 16:39:19 GMT -5
Again, excellent chapter. I'm eager to see what you'll write next.
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Post by Dante on May 2, 2005 2:18:19 GMT -5
A voice some way to the right of the Shades said “Ah, look…”
Turning, the Shades saw two devils of the C.R.S., one standing at the feet of Antaeus, the other looking directly at them, bearing a quill and a piece of parchment. A large crow, sitting on its shoulder, cawed loudly.
“We’ll be along to deal with you later,” spoke the second devil. “For now, you can make your own way along.”
The devil returned to scribbling on the piece of parchment – although the crow continued to stare piercingly at the two Shades – and so the travellers turned to look out on the lake of Cocytus.
The lake was entirely frozen, and the ground beneath the Shades’ feet was white, bleak ice. Out in the distance, small rock-like shapes protruded from the ice. Through the mist, in the distance, a tall tower could be made out, and beyond even that, far away – a mountain.
Walking along the frozen water – surely what Phlegyas had meant, when he had stated that a boat would not be necessary to cross the fourth river of Hell – the Shades approached one of the strange rocks resting on the ice. The rock was roughly the size and shape of a man’s head – and then the wanderers realised that that was exactly what it was. A bearded, mustached head poked out from the ice, its body frozen beneath the surface. As the Shades approached, the head twisted slightly to look at them, and gave a long sigh.
“Who are you?” asked the greater Shade, to the head.
“George the Fifth, of England” sighed the head. “Although the days when my title meant anything are long gone.”
“What did you do to get here?” asked the lesser Shade. “And what is the nature of this lake?”
“In answer to your second question – this is Caïna, the first division of the four on this lake. How it can be frozen, I know not – the answer to that question lies deeper in, I suspect,” said the Shade in the ice, pausing to sigh wearily on occasion. “As to your first question – during the Great War, or the First World War as you know it now, my good cousin, the once-Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, wrote to me. Revolution had toppled the leadership of his country, and replaced it with the Bolsheviks. He asked for safety, asylum. I denied this request – my advisors told me that it was far too dangerous, and that Bolshevism might spread to Britain too. I abandoned my cousin in Russia, and not long after, he was murdered. For that betrayal to my kindred, I am frozen here.”
The Shade sighed once more, then said to his now-silent observers “You think me a spectacle! Make your way along, and you’ll see two far more a spectacle than I.”
And saying this, George V lapsed once more into silence, and the Shades walked on.
---
Across the ice, not too far from George V, they found the two he had spoken of. Two women-Shades, stuck in the ice facing each other, mere inches apart, were baring their teeth, and glaring furiously at one another. Each was growing old, the hair on their heads thin and their faces wasted by troubles.
“Who are you two Shades, frozen here in hate so?” asked the greater, as he approached.
One of the Shades, looking somewhat younger than the other, turned her neck slightly in the ice and glared up at the two who confronted her.
“See here my executioner, my cousin Elizabeth,” hissed the woman. “Who shut me up for years in the dankest of prisons, before finally consenting to give me death,”
“See here my would-be-executioner, my cousin Mary,” interrupted the woman-Shade opposite. “She never recognised my right to rule, and plotted against me incessantly, ‘til only her death could ensure my safety.”
“What treachery, to lock me up when I came seeking help!” cried the Mary-Shade.
“What treachery, to plot against me whilst all the while I gave you hospitality, and defended you from your enemies!” cried the Elizabeth-Shade.
And at this the two began to snarl and bare their teeth at each other again, glaring at each other with a force that would melt the ice ‘round them, if it could. Seeing that these two were not to be reconciled, the traveller-Shades moved on.
The tower began to loom closer now, and the ice beneath the feet of the Shades transformed to a clear blue colour, rather than the impenetrable white of Caïna. Walking ever-forward, another head appeared from the ice, its neck frozen too so that it could stare only in one direction.
“Who are you?” asked the greater to this head in the ice, “and why does the ice change colour here?”
“The ice here, sir, is of a different hue as it is not the ice which binds the kin-traitors near the edge. Here, sir, are those who betrayed their country, for this is Antenora,” replied the Shade in the ice, to the latter question. “And I? Benedict Arnold’s my name, and it’s one you’ll have heard, I’ll wager.”
“It is indeed!” cried the greater, and, kneeling down, caught the Benedict-Shade by the hair and began to shake the head from side-to-side. “For what reason did you turn away from the greatest nation on Earth?”
“Resentment!” cried Arnold. “Mistrust! Debt! It’s reason enough, for others have committed crimes for worse reasons than me. Why not torment Pétain over there, or Quisling? Or why not go to the Gear Tower, and mock those within?”
The greater Shade stopped dead at these words, remembering the judgement of Minos. “‘Antenora’s Gear Towers…’” he spoke, his voice filled with dread.
“Too close to home for you?” asked Arnold mockingly, his hair still in the hands of the greater Shade. “You can’t run away, you know, from your problems. Face them! Don’t be a coward…”
The greater Shade, seeming dazed, released Benedict Arnold, who tried vainly to shake his head to put his hair back into place. Then, looking reluctant, the former began to make for the distant tower, the lesser Shade in his wake.
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Post by Dante on May 2, 2005 2:18:44 GMT -5
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The tower rose up out of the ice, a great iron chimney, or turret. A flight of stairs led leftward around the tower into an open door a single storey up.
“I suppose you can’t run away,” said the greater Shade, sadly, and began to ascend the stairs. The lesser Shade was silent now, his place being farther away. They entered the doorway, and looked about themselves in the tower.
The inside of the tower was entirely hollow, with no ceilings or floors. One made one’s way about by a series of spiral walkways and iron ladders, which twisted around towards the roof of the tower. Below their feet the ice laid, its clear blue more threatening than anything else the Shades had seen, somehow. Chains hung around the walls from the distant ceiling, and Shades were attached to these chains, their wrists and ankles bound. Each was being hoisted ever-higher up the tower, although some lay at the bottom still, entombed in ice to their necks. Then, with a terrible noise, the chains dragged one Shade free of the ice at the bottom, shattering it in that one space and causing the Shade in question to scream in agony. The travelling Shades looked at the mustached face, and saw Stalin staring back at them, looking not malevolent but weary. Across the ice, where other Shades had been torn free, the ice was melting in the pits they had occupied, leaving only cold water. There was another scream, and a Shade from the very top of the tower, where dozens of gears, cogs, pistons and machinery moved and clanked, dropped down, his chains loosened, and crashed into the water, only his head not submerged. The ice began to freeze around him again, and the watching Shades saw the endless cycle that these sinners were put through; torn out, dragged up, and then plunged back in again…
“George…” came a sinner’s voice, and, turning, the former-president saw somebody who he had not seen for a long time.
“Tony Blair!”
The Shade of the former-prime minister of Britain was suspended from the chains as much as any other here, on about the level of the two investigating Shades. His skin was torn and his limbs bruised and broken – he had clearly just been torn free by the chains. The former-president ran to him, the lesser Shade close behind.
“What has happened to you?” asked the greater.
“Fate,” said Blair, with a tired smile. “I should have known that this was to be my end for years… It could have been avoided, if only I hadn’t listened so much to you.”
Some machinery near the top of the tower clanked and whirred; Blair was hoisted up another level. The two wanderers dashed to a nearby ladder and climbed up to the next floor.
“Are you blaming me for this?” asked the greater, once he had reached Blair again.
“In part,” admitted Blair, the chains now tightening on him, stretching him, straightening out his limbs into less grotesque shapes. “I must bear some of the blame, for many of my crimes were on my own initiative – but my greatest sins were inspired, even prompted, by you.”
“What sins?” asked the greater.
“Betrayal of my country – though not of the usual sort,” Blair said. “I exploited Britain, did all I could to gain power and keep it, followed you in everything, not caring for my people, whose trust I betrayed. See these chains, this machinery? It’s a joke! Our political machinations tore our countries apart, and so now the machinery of this Gear Tower tears us apart.”
Blair was dragged further up the walls of the tower – a process which the observing Shades realised must be painful in itself, as the skin of the chained Shades stuck to the icy tower-walls. Another ladder was nearby, and the Shades climbed up again.
“What twisted justice!” exclaimed the greater. “What mockery!”
“All justice is twisted down here,” said Blair. “Haven’t you seen it yet? In this tower are dozens of tyrants, dictators, power-hungry madmen… At first I thought it an indignity to join them, but I realise now that it’s only my proper place. And now you, too, are here to join us, at last.”
“What?” cried the greater, who had forgotten the judgement of Minos out of shock at his friend’s condition – and then the machines at the top of the tower began to move again, making a terrible sound. A mechanical crane-arm descended from the roof, a mass of twisted metal and rusting gears, which grabbed the former-president around the middle and lifted him up.
“No!” the greater and lesser Shades cried simultaneously, the greater as he was pulled away from the walkway and the lesser as he watched. Chains, now, were being wrapped around the arms of the former-president, and down below, in the ice, there was an empty pool, above which no sinner yet hung…
The lesser Shade could bear no more of this. He fled, leaving behind the sight of his companion for so long, but the screams he could not run away from.
The lesser Shade reached the exterior of the tower, and dashing to the bottom of the steps, stumbled away from the tower, across the blue ice. He could not believe the horror which he had just seen, had never imagined, in all their travels, that the former-president would be taken… It had not seemed real. The lesser Shade looked about, realising that he did not know which direction to go in… And then above his head, he heard the sound of flapping wings, and the two Circle Rendition Service devils who had been in Caïna appeared from the sky, and dropped to the ground next to him.
“One down, eh?” cackled the devil who had been writing a letter last the Shade had seen him.
“Right, it’s not far now, for you,” said the other. “Let’s go.”
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The group of three walked for some time, and eventually the blue ice began to turn clearer, lost its blue hue – but as ice, empty ice, it retained a sort of darkness from its surroundings. Black ice.
“Ptolomaea,” said one of the devils. “Traitors to guests, hosts – in short, hospitality.”
“Let’s see who we can find for you to talk to, eh?” said the crow-devil. “Like him! He’ll do.”
A short way away, a Shade lay imprisoned in the ice – but he was frozen all the way up to his face, his head turned upwards, his eyes staring into the endless night above.
“Balyn. Balyn!” cried the first devil roughly. “Tell us a story, won’t you, Balyn? Tell us why you’re here.”
And with this, the devil trod on the face of the Balyn-Shade a few times, to ensure that he noticed. Balyn groaned, and began to speak.
“Long, long ago, I was a knight,” Balyn said, “and I came across a false and wicked knight, Garlon, who rode invisible by magic. Pursuing him to the castle Carbonek, I slew him mid-way through a feast, when he though himself safe.”
“See, that’s the kind of thing which they’re thrown down here for,” explained the crow-devil. “Slaying a man when he’s unarmed, and whilst both claim hospitality from another!”
“My tale is not over,” said Balyn.
“It isn’t?” exclaimed the first devil. “You’re a bad one, aren’t you?”
Balyn carried on. “The lord of that castle, King Pelles, who had granted me hospitality which I betrayed, pursued me, intent on destroying me for my dishonour. I ascended a staircase to the top of a great tower, and in a room there I heard a voice, which forbade me from coming near. I did not listen; I entered that room, and saw within a magnificent cup filled with light, and a strange spear. This too the voice forbade me from touching, but I took the spear for myself, and with it I lashed out at Pelles.”
One of the devils tutted. “Downright evil, that’s what you are,” it said thoughtfully.
“The instant I smote Pelles with that spear,” continued Balyn, ignoring the interruption, “the castle shook and collapsed. I was thrown down amid the ruins, wounded; King Pelles left with a wound unhealable; for the cup on that table was the Holy Grail, and the spear that one which pierced the side of the Christ -”
At this the crow-devil twitched, and lashed out at Balyn. “Speak not that name here!” it cried, stamping down on Balyn’s face again and again. Balyn, bleeding, cried out in pain; but neither the free Shade nor the first devil did anything to help.
“Right, let’s leave here,” said the crow-devil angrily, and stormed off; the first devil pushed the Shade in the same direction.
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They had not walked far when they came across another face in the ice, bearded and old. Just behind its eyes lay a magnificent crown, glittering and gleaming.
“What is this Shade here, with a crown almost upon him?” asked the free Shade, and the crow-devil replied, “Ask him.” So the free Shade knelt down to the face in the ice, and asked it “Who are you, Shade, with a crown so nearby?”
“Macbeth of Scotland,” it said, “and that crown is nearby as a mockery to me. Whilst in my company, I slew King Duncan, wanting his crown for myself. And there it is, you see… So close to me… If I raise my eyes up to my brow, I can see it gleaming…”
The Shade’s eyes rolled to the top of its head, and it strained and strained for a glimpse of the crown.
“I’m still not sure why he didn’t wind up in Judecca,” said the first devil. “Betrayed his lord, didn’t he?”
“True, but it was a crime against hospitality, too,” said the crow-devil. “And speaking of Judecca, we should hurry this one to it… Before you-know-who wakes up.”
The first devil nodded, and pulled the free Shade away from Macbeth, who strained and pulled in the ice for a glimpse of the crown, just out of his reach.
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Post by Dante on May 2, 2005 2:19:10 GMT -5
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At the divide between Ptolomaea and Judecca, the ice changed once again. Once white, once blue, once black, the hue of the ice changed to a dull, misty red, as though ‘twas not just water frozen here, but blood. No Shades poked above the surface here; but many could be seen lying below the ice, no part of them free. The mountain which had been far away in the distance, from Caïna, was now very close, and the free Shade thought to himself that it looked, perhaps, more like a statue of some great sleeping beast… But through the darkness, nothing was discernible of the creature.
“Judecca…” murmured the crow-devil, looking apprehensive. “Traitors to their lord.”
“Right,” said the first devil, stopping suddenly, “we’ll bury you here.”
And the devil produced picks, axes, and shovels from nowhere, and passed one to his companion and one to the free Shade, and all began to hack away at the frozen ground, the free Shade not even sure why he was obeying.
Soon, a sizeable hole had been dug. Broken chunks of ice lay all about. The two devils stood back, and looked down proudly.
“Right,” said one, “that’ll do nicely for you, I think.”
At that moment, the mountain-statue seemed to move; a great roar echoed across the lake, and the two devils instantly looked petrified.
“Right, get in, now!” cried one, and shoved the free Shade into the pit. He lay there, feeling a dull ache inside, fear and guilt weighing upon him. Another roar echoed from the mountain.
“Forget burying him,” said the crow-devil. “Just fly, fly!”
The two devils leapt into the air, but they were too late – for the mountain-monster had awoken, and was reaching towards them.
It was a beast more terrible than anything else in the world – shaped like the top half of a man, if the bottom half were plunged deep into the ice. This monster was immense, towering over all Judecca, its skin a dull grey. Six wings erupted from the creature’s back, and they beat constantly, blowing icy gales across all the lake Cocytus. Three faces stared out from the head of the creature – one as red as blood, another of a yellowish hue, and another darker than charcoal, if ‘twere possible; and in the mouth of each terrible face the body of a man was gnawed upon. The creature was bald, although some hair hung at the far edges of its faces, and around the back of its head – and finally, realisation, and terrible, horrible recognition dawned upon the Shade in the ice. The monster that was trapped in the ice, like all other sinners there, was the greatest traitor to the greatest lord – Belial, Iblis, Mephistopheles, Lucifer – Satan was here. But it was far more than Satan, for the three faces were familiar to the Shade. No matter which way he looked at those horrendous visages, the Shade saw only the face of the vice-president, who he had not seen since the bunker opened.
“Traitors!” bellowed Satan, in a voice indescribably terrible. “Traitors all of you, and to me! Freeze down here!”
And with that Satan swiped out at the two devils, who were flying away as fast as they could. He missed the crow-devil, who swooped down and then vanished into the darkness, but he caught the other devil in his hand and brought him down to the ice of Judecca with a sickening crunch, breaking its body as though it were nothing. Then, Satan turned his six awful eyes upon the free Shade, who was paralysed with fear.
“It seems,” whispered Satan, hissing like a snake, “that my absence has been taken advantage of. Whilst I played my games in your world, condemning as many as I could, those ingrates who once joined me against He above have betrayed yet again.”
The free Shade said nothing; it could say nothing; it did not know how to say anything but nothing.
“Their arrogance is astounding,” spat Satan. “Whilst I am trapped here in this lake, they are free to flit and dart about, making petty plans and changing how things are run. I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN CHANGE HOW THINGS ARE RUN HERE!”
The Shade was almost deafened by this roar; the rage and hatred in it were overwhelming.
“Without me, this place would not exist,” growled Satan. “Without me, they would be bound in service to a Lord who does not understand them. To think, that he would have us bow down to your filthy kind!”
The Shade felt suddenly tired, as though there was no point in doing anything anymore…
“Why do fallen angels do work that pleases Him above?” asked Satan. “Because it does not please Him at all! We punish you because we hate you, and Him, and everything He created save ourselves. He wants you to see your sin for what it is, but we go further, ever further, and He cannot stop us because to do so would mean freeing me as well as you – and that He will never do, as long as He can avoid it, for my power and my empire rivals even His!”
Satan’s ranting grew increasingly maddened… His face, the vice-president’s face, twisted and snarled like that of an animal.
“See these sinners here in my mouths?” asked Satan. “Here Judas, who betrayed the Lord for silver; here Brutus and Cassius, who destroyed the leader of a great empire; and there’s you down there, who, in your last living second, condemned to death your lord the president and me. Flung me back down here, to this empty body; down here in the ice, where even those who followed me now rule differently behind my back; sent me back down here to a place which even I hate!”
And with this, tears began to flow from Satan’s six eyes; huge tears, which fell from his huge eyes like a waterfall. They flowed down his body and over the surface of the lake, and the Shade found his small pit becoming filled with tears. Freezing winds blew from Satan’s wings; the water grew colder, froze to ice; the Shade was trapped there forevermore, his journey over. But Satan did not stop weeping. He continued to sob, down in the icy heart of the world, for all that he had lost, and his tears shone in what little like there was as though, in the endless night of Hell, they were stars.
LAY DOWN ALL HOPE, YOU THAT GO IN BY ME.
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Post by A. the Returned on May 2, 2005 2:50:41 GMT -5
*Applauds.* I loved it, what a great story. I especially liked the reference to Mary and Elizabeth. That made my day.
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