Escape From Hell (32 page)

Eloise screamed, Sylvia hurled herself away, and I leaped for my — not life — shape.

The salamander dropped past me as I fell toward a pit full of huge candles. I saw it burst into flame, and then flames were around me, too, and I hit rock.

The heat — well, it was like your first experience of a sauna, when it feels like you’re going to die. I could still see through rippling yellow flame.

I heard a shout. “It’s Benito’s rescuer! He has companions topside. Implement Plan C immediately!”

A humming flame stood above me and said, “So God’s justice rears its ugly head yet again —”

“Shut it,” I told the stranger. “I gave a lot of advice, and some of it was just for fun, but some of it was for saving a reader’s sanity and some was for saving civilization.”

He kicked me, not hard, but he kicked a broken rib. He said, “If they’d followed my advice they’d have been fine. They went halfway, then they turned on me. Stupid swine.”

I’d fallen pretty hard. I didn’t feel like moving. I said, “I hear that a lot. Don’t you?”

He kicked me again in the same spot. Then he was silent for a bit. Then he asked, “Do we all think that?”

“I’m sure Benito did, for a while. And, yeah, so did I. If NASA had — hadn’t —”

“I know little of your NASA. You helped Benito escape.”

“How do you know that?”

“We all know that. Do you think that because many of us were on opposite sides in life, we cannot trade information? That we cannot cooperate?” He kicked me again, looked at me with what seemed to be a pensive expression, then whanged my broken rib once more.

I tried to get up. It wasn’t easy, and I got another kick for my troubles.

There seemed to be activity around me. Some of the flames were working together to drive others away. Two stood watching us, occasionally turning to shout orders to others.

“See there?” he said. “Reinhardt and Lord Cherwell are willing to work together. That should be sufficient demonstration.” He indicated two flames standing together. The others had cleared an area around us, and now stood watching, apparently content to allow my tormentor to deal with the situation.

“Who are they?”

“Come now, Carpenter, you were an educated man. Think for a moment.”

It took a moment. Lord Cherwell was the title Churchill gave to Frederick Lindemann, the boffin who urged night area bombing of Germany and firebombing cities. One raid wiped out the Baroque city of Dresden and killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. All told city firebombing killed a million civilians. I’d probably met him before when I came down here with Benito. But who was Reinhardt? Clearly German. “I don’t care. What do you want with me?”

“Information, of course. Once we leave this pit, what hazards do we face? How can we escape?”

“I don’t know.”

He kicked me again. This was beginning to be tiresome. I stood. It hurt a lot.

The group around me began talking excitedly. I heard half a dozen accents among them. A mixed group indeed.

“You can do better,” my tormentor said.

This time I listened to him. I still couldn’t place the accent. The gift of tongues isn’t an unmixed blessing if you’re trying to figure out what language you’re hearing.

“I’ll tell you the way out,” I told him.

He turned to his companions with a smirk.

“I told you he would break. It only requires persuasion,” Reinhardt said. The accent was German.

“Not because you’re stupid enough to try to torture me. I’ll tell anyone how to get out of here.”

His grin was cruel. “So tell us, then.”

“Down. You’re in the Eighth Bolgia of the Eighth Circle. There are two more. The Bolgia for Discord and the Schismatics, and then the Counterfeiters.”

“Heh. So they’re worse than we are,” one of the flames said.

“Worse, better, it is all the same,” Reinhardt said. “We all knew that the way out is down. What is beyond those places?”

“A plain. Nothing in it I know of. Then a wall. You have to get over that. There are giants guarding that wall. It’s easy enough to get one to lift you over it, or you can climb the chains. After that is the Ninth Circle. It’s a lake of ice. Traitors are frozen in the ice.”

“Allen!” I could hear someone up on the rim calling. A woman’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“Your friends call,” Reinhardt said. “They will help you. But first they must help us.”

“Stay to the point,” Lindemann said. “Once on the ice where do we go?”

“To Satan. You have to climb down his leg. It’s easier than it sounds. Go down to the grotto, and climb all the way out of Hell.”

“And beyond that?”

“I have no idea. Back to Earth? Dante said Purgatory. I don’t know, but you’re not in Hell any longer.”

“Why do you tell us all this?” my inquisitor demanded. I couldn’t quite place his accent. I wondered if it mattered.

“It’s my mission,” I said. “I want to show everyone how to get out of this awful place. No one deserves to be in here forever.” I said that, but I wasn’t sure I meant it. “Let me put it another way. Maybe there are some who deserve to be here. It’s not up to me to choose which ones!”

“Noble of you,” Lindemann said. Definitely an English accent. “Tell me, American, if Benito Mussolini does not deserve this pit, who does? You helped him escape. We saw you.”

“The man I helped didn’t deserve to be in Hell. And I never said I wouldn’t help you. I do warn you, not everyone gets all the way out.”

“We will take our chances. It is our understanding that the flames extinguish once we leave this pit. Is this correct?”

“That’s what happened with Benito,” I said. “I have no idea if that’s always true.”

“We will assume it is true,” Lindemann said. “Because we must. Very well. Call to your friends. We will tell you what to do.”

They had the pitchfork I’d used to help Benito get out of the pit. A total of eight flaming candles, evil counselors, stood around it. “Are we ready, then?” Lindemann asked.

They all answered at once. “Yes. Ja. Da. Ne. Yeah.”

“Then let us get to it.” Lindemann got down on all fours near the wall. Three others crouched alongside him. Two got atop those four, then one climbed to the top of the stack. “Joachim will go first. Carpenter, call your friends. Tell them to expect an escapee and to be ready to assist him.”

“And if I don’t?”

Lindemann’s voice sounded strained. “It is not comfortable here. If you expect to get out, you will do as we say. You will not be the last of us to leave.”

“How do I know that?”

“You must trust us that far.”

I didn’t like it much, but I didn’t see what else to do. I’d said often enough that everyone deserved a chance to get out of Hell. “Time to show I mean it,” I said to no one in particular. I called, “Sylvia, some–one’s coming up. Help him if he needs it.”

“All right!” she called.

“Go,” Lindemann said.

My tormentor climbed the human pyramid. When he stood atop the stack his head was above the ledge. He began to pull himself up. I could see Sylvia trying to help him. That couldn’t have been easy, and she was already afraid of fire. When Joachim’s feet were clear of the pit the brightness diminished.

“Did his fire go out?” I called up.

“Yes.” Sylvia’s voice held pain, and that hurt me.

“Hang on —”

“What are you doing?” Sylvia shouted. “Stop! Eloise, help! Eee!” She was falling. Flames puffed up around her.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

“Forgive us the deception,” Lindemann said. “Our insurance against each other. Allen, after two more go up you will be allowed to leave. We will pass the pitchfork to you. The rest of us will then leave this pit one at a time. Most of us will be able to get out without your assistance, but the last ones will require help. Your help. You will stay up there and assist us until we are all out of the pit. I shall be the last one. You will then be free to rescue your companion as you rescued Benito. Until then, she stays with us.”

“This is insane!” Devilish, I thought. Sylvia was trying to stand up.

“Hardly. It is the only rational solution. We none of us trust each other, nor do we trust your convictions. However, we have seen you rescue Benito, so we know that you can do that and have done so at considerable cost. We assume that you have at least as strong an urge to rescue your current companion. Herr Heydrich, you are next. Please be swift.”

One of the bottom four got up. The pyramid was now three at the base, then two, then one. Reinhard climbed rapidly, grasped the top of the ledge, and pulled himself up. “I am safely out. The flames are extinguished,” he shouted. “Next.”

Reinhard Heydrich. The butcher of Bohemia, and still arrogant. And I helped him escape.

The pyramid disintegrated to let them rest. “I am truly sorry to do things this way,” Lindemann said. Sylvia was crying hysterically. “It will not be long,” he told her. “Believe me, if I knew any other way I would have tried it. Young lady, we will need you at the top of the pyramid. David, you are next. Allen will follow you.”

Lindemann took his place at the bottom of the wall. The others silently took theirs. Sylvia looked at them, then at me, and still crying, still burning, climbed up to the top of the stack. The one they called David climbed up, and using Sylvia as a ladder climbed out of the pit.

“Allen, you are next,” Lindemann said. His voice was strained.

All right, I thought. I climbed. The heat was notably greater when I was atop the crouchers on the bottom. I climbed to where I could grasp Sylvia’s knees, then up to stand beside her. She was trying not to cry. I thought of assisting her up, but one of the men below her held her ankle. They had thought this out well.

With Sylvia’s help I was able to grasp the top of the ledge and begin pulling myself up. I figured that when I got up I’d reach down for Sylvia. Maybe I was strong enough to pull her up even with someone clinging to her. Of course they’d thought of that. As soon as I had pulled myself up so that my torso was on the ledge, all the support below me was gone. The pyramid had collapsed.

I wriggled my way up to the top. Eloise came over to help. As I got clear and my flames vanished I thought I heard Sylvia screaming.

Eloise helped me to my feet.

“What happened to the others?” I asked.

“Gone.”

“Did they say anything to you?”

She shook her head. “Just the first one, Joachim. Sylvia helped him out of the pit. When his fire snuffed out he grabbed her and said ‘Die Schuld ist zahlend,’ and threw her into the pit. Then he ran off.” She pointed in the widdershins direction. “That way.”

The debt is paid. I wondered what debt, and to whom, but I wasn’t likely to find out.

“And the others just ran off without a word?”

“Yes. I knew one of them.”

Before I could ask, another flame appeared at the ledge top. He seemed unable to pull himself the rest of the way, so I reached into the flames to grasp his hair and pulled him out. When his flames extinguished he nodded to me briefly.

I nodded back. “I know you. Jesse Unruh.” When I met him he’d been Assembly Speaker in California, but then he ran for mayor of Los Angeles and lost, and had to settle for some lesser position. A politician all his life. I couldn’t think of any special scandals associated with him other than the general corruption of that era.

“Why?” I asked. “Are all the politicians in there?”

“No. I was condemned for good intentions. I thought to help the schools.” He stood for a moment longer, then ran off clockwise.

“Pitchfork coming. Be prepared,” Lindemann’s voice called up from the pit. Moments later the handle of Frightbeard’s twelve–foot pitchfork appeared. I grabbed it. It was hot, but holding it wasn’t as painful as reaching into the flames had been. I laid it on the ledge to cool, and blew on my hands.

“We will rest for a moment,” Lindemann’s voice called.

“Justice,” Eloise said.

I looked the question to her.

“Big Daddy Unruh. Before he began meddling, California had the best public school system in the country. It wasn’t the most expensive, either. Then he forced districts to consolidate. They got far too big for any local control. Unions and bureaucrats took over.”

“California had pretty good schools when I died —”

“We’re near rock–bottom last now,” Eloise said. “And damned near the most expensive. Thanks to Big Daddy. You should have thrown him back in.”

“I should have thrown Heydrich back in,” I said.

“Have you become a judge?” Eloise asked.

I was trying to think of an answer. “Another coming out now,” Lindemann shouted. “Lev, you are next.”

A small bearded man with a triangular face appeared. He needed assistance so I grasped his wrist and pulled him up. He stood blinking at the edge. “Do you need assistance?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want him behind me. “Thank you, no. You may go now.”

“Very well.” He went clockwise.

“Coming out,” Lindemann shouted.

They had chosen the order of their escape with some care, because the next two came out by themselves. Each left without speaking. That left Lindemann and one other, and Sylvia.

“We will need assistance,” Lindemann shouted. “Sylvia and I will lift the general. You must pull him the rest of the way.”

I dreaded this part. My hands had burned to char while Benito climbed that iron pitchfork. I got a grip on the iron handle and lowered the pitchfork into the pit at the place where the last one had emerged. He must have been standing on Sylvia’s shoulders, because he appeared immediately. Eloise came over to help and we had him out of the pit before the handle was more than uncomfortably hot.

“Can I help?” he asked.

I looked at him.

He stood erect, and I would have known he was military if he hadn’t told me. “Air Marshal Harris. Lindemann is my friend. I can help you get him out of there.”

“Ready,” I called.

I could hear arguing below. Sylvia protested loudly. I dangled the pitchfork over the edge, and there was Lindemann. Sylvia must have lifted him. Lindemann continued to climb. The pitchfork heated, became hotter, too hot to hold.