A hand touched Samuel’s shoulder, and gently turned him from the void. And Boswell was carefully gathered up, and words of comfort were whispered into his ear.
“Good dog. Loyal dog. Brave Boswell.”
Samuel heard a name being called, over and over, and he understood that it was his own.
He looked up and saw four dwarfs, two policemen, and a man dressed in white offering him an ice cream. He saw Boswell being held by what looked like a bald rodent in overalls, and the little dog was licking the rodent’s face.
And he saw Nurd. Samuel buried his head against his friend’s chest, and for the first time since his arrival in that terrible place, he allowed himself to cry.
Old Ram left the forest behind, sulking and muttering his discontent all the way, his gaze focused inward, fixed upon his own sufferings. Sometimes a good turn is the worst that you can do for a certain type of individual, because he will hate you for putting him in your debt. Mrs. Abernathy had spared Old Ram any further misery, and had permitted him to leave the place of his banishment, but Old Ram had wanted more: he had wanted influence, and recognition. He had wanted power. Instead he had been left to wander in the wilderness. He began to think that he was now worse off than he had been before. After all, he used to have a roof over his head, and fuel for his fire, but what did he have now? No roof, no fuel, and the cold was seeping into his bones. For this, he blamed Mrs. Abernathy.
“She hates Old Ram,” he whispered to himself. “She thinks Old Ram is worthless, but Old Ram is not. Old Ram was great once, and Old Ram could be great again, but none will give Old Ram the chance that Old Ram deserves. Poor Old Ram! Poor forsaken Old Ram!”
So caught up was he in bitterness that he failed to notice the winged horse alight before him, and the flight of demons that quietly descended behind him. It was only when the horse blew a bad-tempered blast of air through its nostrils in warning that Old Ram looked up to find Duke Abigor staring down at him.
“You are far from home, Old Ram,” said Abigor. “Were you not banished, and forbidden to leave the precincts of the forest?”
“I was, my lord, but Mrs. Abernathy freed me.”
“Did she, now? And why would she do that?”
Old Ram, mindful of Mrs. Abernathy’s injunction to remain silent about the circumstances of his freedom, said nothing, but Duke Abigor was as clever as he was ruthless. He knew much about Old Ram, and was aware that, like so many who had found themselves damned to the Infernal Regions, his vanity was his weakness. Were Abigor to threaten him, or torture him, Old Ram might simply endure his sufferings with clenched teeth, if only to prove to Abigor that, humbled though he might be, Old Ram had his pride. No, there were easier ways to deal with Old Ram.
“Well, no matter,” said Abigor airily. “It strikes me only that you don’t sound very pleased, even though your long period of exile has come to an end. Surely such generosity of spirit, such magnanimity, on the part of Mrs. Abernathy merits a greater show of gratitude?”
He watched Old Ram twist and writhe, a pantomime of hurt, and envy, and loathing.
“Gratitude.” Old Ram spat the word. “For what? It cost her nothing, and left Old Ram with nothing. Old Ram tried to help her. It’s not Old Ram’s fault that—”
Old Ram stopped talking. Mrs. Abernathy had warned him not to speak of the boy, but she wasn’t here. Duke Abigor was here, though, and Old Ram wondered why that might be. Abigor’s presence, thought Old Ram, might be used to some advantage.
“Go on,” said Abigor. “I’m listening.”
“Old Ram has been alone for a long time, my lord,” said Old Ram carefully. “Old Ram seeks a master. Old Ram would be a good servant.”
“I already have more servants than I need. You would have to offer me something that no one else can.”
Old Ram’s yellow eyes narrowed with cunning.
“Mrs. Abernathy made Old Ram promise not to tell, but it may be that Old Ram was wrong to make that promise.”
“Promises are made to be broken,” said Abigor. “Particularly promises made in the face of a threat.”
“Old Ram has no duty of loyalty to Mrs. Abernathy.”
“No, he does not. After all, what fealty do you owe to the one who banished you? The greater fault is hers, not yours. So, what can you offer to prove your loyalty to me?”
“I can offer you news,” said Old Ram, “news of a human child.”
Mrs. Abernathy’s basilisk reached the edge of the Void just behind the Watcher, and she quickly turned her mount’s head away from the emptiness so that neither of them looked upon it for too long. Even the Watcher kept its head down as it examined the tracks upon the ground. Its words echoed in her head, for she could hear its thoughts.
It is the boy and his dog. They were here. Others came and took them away.
“Others?” demanded Mrs. Abernathy. “What others?”
The Watcher sniffed the ground.
Nurd. And humans. Seven humans.
“Can you track them?”
The Watcher stared out over the stony ground, finding the places in which the stones had been disturbed, distinguishing the marks of wheeled vehicles.
Yes, but they travel fast.
“Then we will travel faster.”
She moved on, not even checking to make sure that the Watcher was following, and so she did not see it pause, its red brow furrowing. All of this was wrong, thought the Watcher. It has all spiraled out of control. My master is mad, and my mistress may be madder still. Something must be done. The bells have been silent for too long. Perhaps the time is coming when they must peal again …
Old Ram’s tongue, once loosened, unburdened itself of all its secrets. He told Duke Abigor of the boy, and the attack by the Great Oak, and Mrs. Abernathy’s appearance in the forest. He told Abigor of how he had seen the boy hide, and the direction in which he must have walked. As he spoke, he saw Abigor’s face darken in anger.
“The Blacksmith lied,” said Abigor. “He must have seen the boy, but he would not speak of it.”
He turned to one of his demons, who had only just alighted, and ordered it to retrieve the remaining pieces of the Blacksmith, that he might punish him further. He asked first for the Blacksmith’s severed hands, that he might crush them so the Blacksmith could never use them again, but the sack containing the Blacksmith’s hands was empty. A second demon, who had recently been patrolling the skies for signs of the boy, approached warily and told Abigor that the Blacksmith had disappeared, for it had passed over the crater of weapons and detected no sign of him. Furthermore, it said that there had been a peculiar smell in the air: the smell of virtue, of decency, of humanity. The Blacksmith, in the demon’s opinion, was gone forever. His soul was no longer in Hell.
Abigor stifled his rage. He had always sensed a fault in the Blacksmith, some residue of hope and decency that should have been snuffed out long before, but he could never have imagined that it would be enough to redeem him. The Blacksmith had not merely been a soul filled with regret, he was a soul who had genuinely repented, even with no prospect that it might end his sufferings, for he must surely have believed that he was damned to Hell for eternity. But repentance would not have been enough: a sacrifice would have been required. The boy, Samuel Johnson, had saved the Blacksmith by allowing the maker of weapons to offer himself up on behalf of another, one worthy of the gesture. Samuel Johnson was a Good Soul, for only such a soul could survive in this place; survive, and provide sustenance to the soul of another. The boy was dangerous, more so than even Mrs. Abernathy realized. His presence in Hell was a pollutant. He had to be locked away, hidden from sight. He could not be killed: a mortal could not die in Hell. Nothing could. It was a place of endless torment, and endless torment required the absence of death.
A shadow passed over him, and another of his demons alighted by his side. It announced that it had followed two moving carts as they had passed into the stony place that led to the Void, and there it had watched as the
boy and his pet were gathered into safety. It had stayed with them until it was sure of the direction that they were taking, before returning to inform its master.
“Quickly!” cried Abigor. “Rise up, rise up! Apprehend the boy and bring him to me.”
The demons took flight like crows from the noise of a gun. Duke Abigor was about to follow them into the sky when Old Ram tugged at his horse’s reins.
“What about Old Ram?” he said. “Old Ram told you all. What about Old Ram’s reward?”
Duke Abigor’s horse reared up, and one of its hooves struck Old Ram a blow to the head, sending him sprawling to the ground.
“How can I trust a pitiful creature who would break a promise, and betray one master for another?” said Duke Abigor. “There is only one reward for a traitor.”
He raised a clawed finger, and Old Ram’s world went black for a time. When he awoke he was trapped in ice, with only his horned head above the surface of the great frozen Lake of Cocytus that extended as far as the eye could see, the icy whiteness of it broken only by others like himself: traitors all, betrayers of family and friends, of lords and masters.
Old Ram’s teeth began to chatter, for Old Ram hated the cold.
In Which a Familiar Odor Sends the Dwarfs’ Spirits Soaring
THERE WERE A GREAT many things that Wormwood had never expected to see in the course of his existence—a tree that didn’t want to tear him apart, for example, or a demon that just fancied a bit of a chat and a warm hug instead of inflicting misery and hurt and generally making a nuisance of itself—but high on that list, perhaps higher even than Someplace Other Than Hell, was Nurd showing a genuine, positive emotion. But as he watched Nurd and Samuel hug, and heard them begin to chatter at high speed about all that had happened since last they had met, and saw a big, sloppy tear drop from one of Nurd’s eyes, slide down his face, and perform a little jump into the air from the end of his chin, Wormwood thought that if such a thing as Nurd weeping for joy was possible, then anything might be.
“Got something in my eye,” said Jolly as the friends enjoyed their reunion. He gave a little sniff.
“Very moving,” said Angry, dabbing at his nose with a sleeve that had clearly been used for that same purpose a great many times in the past, and consequently resembled a racetrack for snails.
“Seeing people happy always makes me want an ice cream,” said Dozy. “Seriously.”
“Arfle,” said Mumbles, in what might have been agreement.
They looked hopefully at Dan, Dan the Ice-Cream Man, who brandished an empty cone at them.
“There isn’t any more ice cream,” said Dan. “You’ve eaten it all. I didn’t think it was possible, but you have. You’re monsters, all of you.”
“Oh well,” said Dozy, “I’ll just have to be happy without one, then, but it won’t be the same.”
He returned to watching Nurd and Samuel.
“Come along, you lot,” said Sergeant Rowan gently. “Let’s not make it a spectator sport.”
Somewhat reluctantly, because they were sentimental little men despite themselves, the dwarfs turned away.
Samuel and Nurd walked a short distance, Boswell trotting along happily beside them. They sat on a flat stone while each considered what the other had just told him.
“So you’ve been hiding away all this time?” said Samuel.
“Well, running and hiding,” said Nurd. “You see, I’m not sure that Mrs. Abernathy knows I was the one who collapsed the portal. She knows about the car, of course, but not about me, so Wormwood came up with the idea of disguising it as a rock.”
Samuel looked at the disguised Aston Martin; the rock exterior—actually a sheet of thin metal beaten and painted to resemble stone—was held in place by struts that sat upon the body of the car, with gauze replacing metal in front of the windows so that the driver had a clear view to the front, the sides, and behind him. There was actually a kind of brilliance to the idea, as long as nobody saw it moving. Then again, thought Samuel, this was Hell, and moving rocks might well exist somewhere in its depths, presumbly with teeth to help them munch on smaller rocks that couldn’t defend themselves.
“But how did you find me?” asked Samuel. “I mean, Hell is a big place, isn’t it?”
“I’ve heard it said that it’s infinite, or if it isn’t it’s as close to infinite as to make no difference. If it isn’t infinite, then nobody has been able to find the end yet.35 And if you include the Void, well…”
Samuel shuddered at the thought of how he had almost lost himself in that blackness. He could still feel a coldness deep inside him, and he wasn’t sure if that element of himself touched by the Void would ever fully recover.
“Anyway,” continued Nurd, “I sensed you as soon as you arrived. There’s always been a part of me that’s stayed connected to you. I don’t know how, or why, but I’m grateful for it.”
“You used to turn up in my dreams sometimes,” said Samuel. “We’d have conversations.”
“And you in mine,” said Nurd. “I wonder if we were talking about the same things.”
But before they could continue, an anxious-looking Wormwood approached, with Constable Peel close behind. Wormwood was about to say something, but Nurd stopped him with a raised hand.
“Samuel, I’d like to introduce you properly to someone. Samuel Johnson, this is my, well, this is my friend and colleague, Wormwood.”
And Wormwood, who had been called a lot of names by Nurd in his time, but never “friend,” stopped short as though he’d walked into an invisible wall. He blushed, then beamed.
“Hello, Wormwood,” said Samuel. “It’s good to meet you at last.”
“And you, Mr. Samuel.”
“Just ‘Samuel.’ I’m sorry if I was a bit quiet in the car. I wasn’t quite myself then.”
“No apologies necessary,” said Wormwood.
Samuel extended his hand and Wormwood shook it, noticing that, when Samuel took his hand away, he didn’t try to wipe it on his trousers, or on the ground, or on someone else. It really was a day of firsts for Wormwood.
A cough from Constable Peel, followed by a finger pointed at the sky, brought Wormwood back to reality with a vengeance.
“Oh yes. We need to get moving,” said Wormwood. “Constable Peel has seen things circling below the clouds. We’re being watched.”
They all looked up. The clouds had grown darker and heavier in the time that Samuel had been staring into nothingness, the thunder louder, and the lightning brighter.
“There’s a storm coming anyway,” said Nurd. “We have to get under cover.”
As they looked up, a winged figure broke through the clouds and hovered for a moment. To Samuel it looked at first like a bird with an elongated body, but then it dropped lower and he could pick out its forked tail, its bat wings, and the horns on its head. He thought that he could feel its interest in them before it twisted in the air and shot back into the clouds again.
“There,” said Constable Peel. “Last time there were two of them.”
Nurd frowned. If Constable Peel was correct, it meant that one was keeping a close watch on them while the other went off and informed of their presence. The question was: who was being informed?
Within sight of where they stood was a range of red-hued hills, the same hills that Samuel and Boswell had been making for when they encountered the Void. The hills were separated from them by what appeared to be marshland, over which hung a particularly noxious mist. Nurd knew that the hills were pitted with holes and caves. In any other part of Hell, they would probably have been turned into lairs for unspeakable creatures, but even the residents of Hell preferred to keep their distance from the Void, which was still visible from the higher points of the range.
“We can find a place to hide over there,” said Nurd. “After that, we can try to plan our next move.”
They all piled into their respective vehicles, and Nurd led them in the direction of the hills, carefully treading a path throu
gh the stinking marshes. He was forced to roll down the windows so that he could peer out and check their progress, which made the car smell awful. Samuel saw an eyeball protrude from the swamp, held up by a hand.
“What is it, Gertrude?” Samuel heard a voice say.
“Nigel, I do believe that there’s an oik driving two other oiks and a small thingy through our garden.”
A second eyeball popped out of the water.
“I say, you chaps, bit of a cheek, what?”
“Sorry,” said Samuel. “We didn’t know it was your garden. We’ll try not to make a mess of it.”
“It’s a swamp,” hissed Nurd. “If we did make a mess of it, it could only be an improvement.”
“Heard that!” said Nigel. Another hand emerged from the swamp and made itself into a fist, which it shook in the direction of Nurd’s car. “I’ll give you what-for, and no mistake. Taking liberties with another chap’s property, insulting his gardening skills. I mean, what’s Hell coming to, Gertrude? I’ll get me sticks.” Both hands duly disappeared beneath the swamp.