So he would go to the top—to Satan Himself if need be—and ask permission. This was, after all, a special situation.
You're crazy! a voice inside him cried. Was it his conscience—or his diabolic self? Satan will grab you and put YOU in Hell!
Um, yes. So he would have to be extremely careful. But still he had to make the attempt. He concentrated. "Lord of Hell! Prince of Darkness! I crave audience..."
And the Sphere of Fire manifested about him. There was light like a blazing river, coursing through its winding channel, throwing out bright sparks that glowed like rubies. If this were the River Styx—or, rather, the River Acheron—then Hell was a much prettier place than he had imagined.
Well, maybe his imagination had been fantasy! He had heeded the propaganda of the Angelic side and pictured Hell as ugly; no doubt the souls in Hell were told Heaven was ugly too. Black is white, white is black, doublespeak, mindthink, whatever. Which was beside the point. Now all he had to do was locate the Demonic headquarters—"
As he watched, the radiant river changed course and formed into a spiral, a vortex, whose center shone like the sun so brilliantly that he was unable to look directly at it. The outer loops became patterned, each swirl resembling a fresh flower—yet these flowers were winged creatures. Satan's host of demons? Strange; even though he knew them for what they were, they still looked beautiful!
One detached itself and flew to him. It was a female spirit, lovely beyond anything he had supposed possible for Hell, seeming absolutely chaste. "Paul," she called, as she came to rest beside him. He stood, he realized, on the top of a mountain, facing the glowing white rose of figures as though before a whirlpool in the sky, and she had come from that celestial image.
She was familiar. Amaranth, of course, the chronic temptress. Naturally she would turn up in Hell! Yet her face shone with its own pure radiance, and she was beautiful in a special way, more like an angel than—"
"Where is this?" he demanded abruptly. "Who are you?"
She smiled graciously. "This is the Emphyrean, the Tenth Heaven—and I am Mary."
"Tenth what?" he asked stupidly. "Mary who?"
"The Tenth Heaven of Paradiso," she replied with another gentle smile. "Mary, mother of Jesus."
Something had gone wrong. "I—thought I was in Hell."
She looked at him with tolerant wonder. "You gaze upon the Court of God—and confuse it with Hell?"
"Precession," he muttered. Then, trying to reorient: "I meant to seek out Satan to—to make a plea. I—have no business in Heaven. I—must have stumbled through the wrong door."
"Cannot the Lord of Heaven serve as well?" Mary inquired. She looked familiar in a hauntingly evocative way, not at all like the person who portrayed her. Maybe she had been patterned after a painting.
Brother Paul considered. "I, uh, had not intended to bother God, uh, at this time." He was here in Animation to judge whether the God of Tarot was genuine; why did he hesitate now that he had a chance for a direct interview? Was it because he was unprepared (and who was ever really prepared for that encounter?)—or because he feared that beyond that unearthly radiance in the center of the rose of light was an answer like that he had found within his glowing Grail? All he was sure of was that he did not want to interview God right now!
"Perhaps if you informed me of the nature of your quest...," Mary suggested compassionately.
He clutched at that with grateful speed. "Uh, yes. It—he—I—that is, your son Jesus—he meant to—" He could not continue. This was ludicrous!
"Jesus is absent at present," Mary said. "He has a mission with the living, and we have not had recent news of him. I am concerned, as a mother must be."
"He's in Hell," Brother Paul blurted. "He—I was slated to go there, but because of our friendship he went in my stead, and now I want to get him out."
She contemplated him with angelic solemnity. "You wish to exchange places with him?"
"No! I don't want either one of us in Hell! I feel his gesture was mistaken because I am not destined for Hell. Not for the reason he thought anyway. So I want to persuade him of that and take him out—if I can find him."
She considered. "This would be most irregular. Hell cannot hold him without his consent. Yet, as his mother, I am grieved to have him suffer. I know he is willful; I remember when he ran away as a child of twelve and picked an argument with Temple priests—he never was too keen on some of the activities of the Temple, the moneychangers, you know..." She trailed off, her eyes unfocused reminiscently.
"If I could just talk to him," Brother Paul said.
Mary made a sudden decision. "I think God would not object if you made a little survey of the spirit regions. There is such a constant influx of personnel, we tend to lose track. Are you apt at counting?"
"I don't care how many spirits there are in—" He stopped, seeing her silent reproach. He brought out his calculator. "Yes, I can count," he said.
"But you would have to be circumspect," she cautioned. "God does not like to have disturbances. If anyone became suspicious—"
"That's the point! I don't want to sneak in, I just want to go and speak to—"
"You will go openly," she said. "If you wait for a pass from Satan you may wait forever. Bureaucratic delay is one of the specialties of Hell. But as a surveyor, you can begin immediately. God understands."
In short, this was a method of cutting red tape. He would have to do it. "Uh—is there a map? I wouldn't want to get lost—"
"You will need no map," she assured him. "There are ten Heavens in Paradise, each indicated by a planet or star, for the Angels, Saints, Righteous Rulers, Warrior Spirits, Theologians, Lovers, and such. You have merely to descend past them in order, making your notations. You will then be atop the mountain that is Purgatorio with its seven levels for the Lustful, Gluttonous, Avaricious, Slothful, Angry, Envious, and Proud. Then, inside the Earth, you must pass around Satan and enter the deepest ring of Hell: the icy realm of the traitors. After that you have merely to ascend to each of the other rings. There are nine in all, and in one of them you will find him." She looked at him with disturbing intensity. "Take care, Paul."
"I will," he agreed. What was there about her? Not that she was the mother of Christ; he had seen her weeping at the base of the Cross, there at the Place of Skulls, and there had been no magic. Something more personal—He cut off the speculation. He had a job to do. He looked about—and Mary was gone. She had rejoined the Heavenly Throng.
Very well: he would take a census of Dante's Paradise. Except—how could he count these sparkling myriads, let alone record them? All the souls of all the people who had ever existed! But as he looked at his calculator, he saw numbers appearing, changing. It was totaling them itself, filing them in its little memory. All he had to do was look.
He started down the slope. He seemed to be made of spirit stuff himself so that he more or less floated with no danger of falling. The great circles of the Heavenly Host receded, looking like the stars of the Milky Way, and now he became aware of their music: "Gloria in Excelsis..."
Rapidly he traversed the regions of the Fixed Stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon and arrived at the boundary of Purgatorio. He really would have liked to interview some of the souls in these Heavens, but feared that any delay would imperil his other mission. He did not want Jesus to burn in Hell any longer than necessary.
Purgatorio, however, was much more solid and somber. The atmosphere was gray, the shadows deep; gnarly trees reached high in nocturnal silhouette. He felt the weight of physical mass settle about his own being. No angelic choirs here!
This was the Seventh Level, the top of the grim mountain, the habitat of Lust. He had no need to tarry here any longer than needed to record the spirits. He already knew the mischief blind lust could lead to.
Then he saw a wagon or chariot, set by a tree. From the sky a great eagle swooped, diving to attack, once, twice, but it sheered off at the last moment, and feath
ers floated over the vehicle. A crack opened in the ground, and a dragon strove to climb out of its depths. The monster's tail swung up and smashed the chariot, stirring up the feathers and leaving the bottom knocked out.
But lo! the chariot regenerated. Each broken part of it sprouted animal flesh: grotesque monsters, winged, horned, serpentine bodied, ferocious. And upon this half-living platform appeared a woman, busty, brassy, bold-eyed, looking about acquisitively. Her eye caught Brother Paul's, and she gave him a wanton come-hither signal, patting the chariot beside her. A prostitute, surely, played by the one who played all such roles: for this was the Circle of Lust.
Brother Paul was not tempted this time. But even as she gestured to him, a huge man appeared by her side, a veritable giant. He began to kiss the harlot, and she met him eagerly—yet simultaneously kept an eye on Brother Paul. The giant followed her gaze, saw Brother Paul, and scowled, now resembling the monster Apollyon. He seemed about to jump down from the chariot and attack his supposed rival, but Brother Paul quickly retreated. He was wasting time here anyway. Then the giant took a whip to the monster portion of the chariot and drove it some distance away. As soon as the animals were under way, he turned his whip on his paramour, scourging her savagely. Brother Paul moved on. Once he was done with this mission, he would have to read the Comedy and discover who these people were and what their little act meant.
He crossed the river Lethe, wading through the shallowest section he could find, careful not to drink even one drop. The last thing he needed now was to forget his mission! He passed on down through the gloomy wilderness, making sure his calculator was recording all the souls there. This was certainly a contrast to Paradise! There were not too many overt tortures, apart from a group of naked people walking through a fire, but there was a great deal of misery. The Gluttonous of the Sixth Circle were being starved; the Avaricious were without creature comforts; the Slothful stood perpetually idle—and bored. The Proud, down in the first Circle, were bearing heavy stones up a hill.
If this were only Purgatorio, what was Inferno like? He was about to find out!
Brother Paul came to the place where Satan's huge legs projected from the ground. But it was only a statue; the living Devil was evidently off duty at the moment. Or on business elsewhere; the Evil One was never off duty! Between those legs and the ground was a narrow space; this was the entry to Inferno: Hell as Dante conceived it.
Brother Paul made his climb. At first it was down, but soon his weight shifted, and he had to turn about and proceed headfirst. He was passing through the center of the world right at Satan's colossal genital! Now he was climbing up—into Hell.
It grew cold. When he emerged into an open chamber, he was about chest high on the Devil-statue and in a frozen lake. Dante's Inferno, ironically, was locked in ice.
Shivering from more than the cold, Brother Paul moved out across the lake. The ice was so frigid it was not slippery; it might as well have been rock. He paused to look back—and for the first time he saw Satan in perspective. Hugely spreading bat's wings—and three faces, one white, one crimson, one black. The black face was looking right at Brother Paul. One eye winked, deliberately.
This was no statue. This was Satan Himself!
All Brother Paul could think of at this moment was: suppose Satan had had flatulence at the time Brother Paul was traversing the nadir? He would have been blown to Kingdom come!
Brother Paul turned about and ran. There was no pursuit. And why should there be? The only escape from Hell was back the way he had come—and Satan would be there, corking the bottle.
Toward the edge of the lake, he discovered bodies. They were frozen in the ice, face up, staring—yet not quite unconscious. These were the Traitors to their Benefactors.
Brother Paul hurried on, letting the calculator make its own tally. It hardly seemed that Satan had been fooled, but so long as Brother Paul remained free, he would act. Maybe this would turn out to be his own Hell: the tabulations for each section would be fouled up so that he would have to do them over, and over, and over, touring Hell perpetually.
The edge of the pit that contained the lake was ringed by giants—not as huge as three-faced (not two-faced?) Satan, but six times the height of a normal man. Each had a beard some two meters long, covering his hairy chest, so that it was hard to tell where the beard left off and chest began.
Brother Paul approached the nearest. "I'm doing a survey," he called, showing his calculator. He was not sure the giant could either see it or hear him. "If you will assist me to the Eighth Circle..."
To his surprise, the giant bent and extended one hand. Brother Paul climbed aboard and was quickly lifted to the top of the cliff. "Thank you," he said—but the giant turned his back, ignoring him.
He moved on, passing people who had their arms, legs or even heads cut off—yet they remained conscious and in pain. Falsifiers of some sort. Would Lee be among these because he had acted the role of Jesus? What was the definition of falsification? Surely not this!
Where would Lee be? Apollyon had been right: there were so many categories of evil in Hell and so many souls in each that he might search of the rest of his natural (or even his immortal) life and not find his man. Maybe that was what Satan had in mind. Brother Paul had to get smart and narrow it down, drastically. Carnal Sin? No, not Lee! Miser? No, probably not. Wrath? Well, maybe...
Brother Paul paused, struck by the obvious that had not been obvious until this moment. It was not Lee and not Jesus he should be orienting on, but the combination. What part of Hell would this pair be in? Surely not among the Heretics, though after what he had seen of the Church Jesus' name had spawned—"
Suddenly he had it. "The Schismatics!" he exclaimed. "Those who separated from the Mother Church." That would fit both Lee and Jesus—for Lee was a Mormon, certainly a schismatic sect, and Jesus himself could no longer accept without reservation the church that had tortured and even killed in his name.
The Schismatics were right here in the Eighth Circle along with the Seducers, Sorcerors, Thieves, Hypocrites, Liars, Evil Counselors, and other Frauds. Brother Paul did not agree with Dante's classifications, but had to work within the framework that obtained here. After all, the Romans had crucified Jesus between two thieves. When in Rome, when in Hell...
He closed in on the Schismatic region, searching for Jesus/Lee's face. It seemed to be morning here—time varied magically in Hell—and a number of souls were rising from their uncomfortable slumbers on the rocks and ground. They seemed to be queuing up to pass around a certain big rock. Breakfast, maybe?
Why should anyone need to sleep or eat in Hell? They were all spirits! Well, neither literature nor religion had ever felt the need to make sense!
Brother Paul walked parallel to the line, his calculator tabulating merrily. The men were naked, so he could not tell from observation what schism they were associated with. He wondered where the women were; didn't any females belong to the sects Dante frowned on? Dante had been fairly open-minded for his times, but circa 1300 was not a liberal period in Europe, as they had seen.
He circled the rock in the other direction from that taken by the line of souls. He came upon activity at the far side—"
God, no! he cried internally. But it was so: a demon was wielding a great sword, striking at the people coming through. Not randomly, but with malicious precision. On one subject he lopped off the ears and nose; on another he laid open the chest; the next he disemboweled with a terrible vertical slash from neck to crotch.
The souls suffered these injuries without resistance, evasion, or even complaint. Gasping with agony, they clutched themselves and staggered on, bleeding. One had his entrails looping out through the wound in his stomach, dangling almost to the ground—yet he continued moving.
Brother Paul stepped out to intercept him, for the man looked familiar. "Sir, let me help you!" Yet he was not sure what he could do in the face of this horror.
"There is no help," the man responded. "This puni
shment is eternal for me. Help he who follows me; he is new here, not yet injured."
"Who are you?" Brother Paul asked, recognizing the actor now: Therion.
"I am Mahomet, founder of the Moslem Schism."
"Mohammed! But you're not even a Christian! You have no business in a Christian Hell!"
The man made a wry smile, forgetting his agony for an instant. "You may know that, I may know it. But Allah seems to have another opinion." He paused to suck in some of his gut. "Of course, Dante is in Muslim Hell, as befits an Infidel. So perhaps—"
"Paul!"
Brother Paul whirled around at the sound of his name. "Jesus!"
Jesus was a horrible sight. The demon had slashed him in the pattern of a cross, exposing his pulsating lungs, heart, liver, spleen, and part of a kidney. Yet he lived and moved. "What are you doing here, Paul? I thought I had exonerated you."
Brother Paul's shock at the sight of these gruesome wounds translated into baseless anger. "Nobody can exonerate me but me! I don't consider myself a sinner in the way you suppose—and if I did, I'd damn well suffer the punishment myself! No one else can be my surrogate!"
Jesus was silent. "Perhaps I can mediate," Mahomet suggested. "I have no direct interest in your quarrel."
"Who are you?" Jesus inquired.
"I am Mahomet, Prophet of Allah."
"I don't believe I know of you."
Mahomet smiled—a somewhat grisly effort since he was still holding in his guts. "Naturally not, Prophet. I came six hundred years after your time."
" 'Prophet'? I don't understand—"
"I call you that because that is how I regard you. There have been many prophets in the history of men, and you were—are—a great one. But the final prophecy to date is mine."
"Uh, perhaps a change of subject—" Brother Paul interjected.
"No, this man interests me," Jesus said. "There is nothing like a good philosophical discussion to take a man's mind from his physical problems. Please tell me about yourself, Prophet Mahomet."