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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 feathers 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
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r r
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.
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r r
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& [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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