Wielding a Red Sword (33 page)

“You seem to know a lot about demons,” Mym said ruefully.

“I have had recent experience.” Then she told him how she had come to Hell.

Ligeia had been a European princess. When she came of age and was versed in the things needful for her role, her father the King had begun shopping about for a suitable match for her. “These things are seldom left to individual choice, you know,” she said.

“I know,” Mym agreed.

Part of that shopping entailed showing the wares. Contemporary monarchs had become canny, as their sons acquired modernistic notions of independence, and facilitated cooperation by seeking brides who were not only advantageously connected, but who were personally attractive. In fact, it was often possible to use a young prince’s idealistic notions to keep him in line, because, once he was smitten by the beauty of the prospective bride, he paid little heed to anything else until it was too late. He was trapped by love.

“I know,” Mym repeated, remembering how well that ploy had worked with Rapture.

“Well, you don’t have to agree so readily!” she said.

“I am already blinded by your beauty,” he said. He intended it as humor, but realized as he spoke that it was not. Ligeia evidently had a similar realization, for she blushed. It was dark in the cave, but he knew she was blushing because her whole body seemed to radiate heat. The embarrassment of royalty was a more potent thing than that of ordinary folk.

So, she continued after a delicate pause, she was to be shipped to a Mid-East kingdom for a visit, nominally a routine courtesy, actually a demonstration of exactly what her kingdom had to offer. Her father knew there was no princess currently on the market to match her appearance. She was, of course, under strict orders to prevent her liability from being exposed.

But international terrorists had seen their chance to strike. They managed to skyjack the airplane she was on. They demanded a phenomenal ransom for her, even while the plane was still in flight—one billion Eurodollars, release of all political prisoners, a public apology for mis-government, that sort of thing. If the King paid, they
would land the plane in a neutral country and let her go; if not—

The King refused to acknowledge their demands. The money was easy, the release of prisoners problematical, and the apology impossible, of course.

“Of course,” Mym agreed, understanding perfectly.

The King approached the matter forthrightly. He put out notice that a reward would be given for the severed heads of the conspirators.

They arranged to show their determination by putting her image on a magic mirror. They set up the mirror, but Ligeia refused to perform; she would not demean herself by begging her father to buy her freedom.

Balked for the moment and running low on fuel, the hijackers decided on a more direct demonstration. They stripped her naked, and one of them prepared to rape her—on camera, as it were. It was evident that they had had some such notion in mind ever since seeing her, for they were men.

“Not all men are like that,” Mym protested.

“
You
don’t desire my body?” she inquired challengingly.

Mym sighed. There was no respectable answer he could give to that.

Seeing that practically all was lost, and with the fell pirate almost upon her, Ligeia had screamed. After all, submission to public rape was no more possible for a princess than a public apology was for a king. In private, a different standard obtained. After a princess got married, both rape and apology were likely, perhaps even necessary.

But not desirable, Mym remarked.

Every other person aboard the plane had lost consciousness. Ligeia, of course, did not know how to pilot it. So the plane crashed, and all aboard were killed, including her.

“And so I found myself in Hell,” she concluded.

“But you did nothing worthy of damnation!” Mym protested.

“That is my claim,” she agreed. “Technically I did commit suicide—but it was to protect my virtue. And I
was responsible for many deaths—but it was self-defense, and they were evil men. I feel that if I could only get a fair hearing, the powers who be should agree that I should go to Heaven. But it seems that my scroll was charged with both murder and suicide, and so I was damned. Of course I would have been damned had I submitted, too.”

“Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Mym agreed.

“And then Satan had the temerity to force me to—I tried to warn you away, but—”

“The thing to do,” Mym said firmly, “is to turn Satan’s trap against him. To get out of Hell. That would serve him right.”

“But I keep telling you, that can’t be done!” she protested. “Only you alone can win free, if you know how. I can only do it if I get my hearing, and Satan will never allow that.”

“How can he prevent it?” Mym asked, nettled. “Doesn’t God have anything to say about it?”

“God doesn’t interfere in the affairs of mortals or with the Incarnations,” she said despairingly.

“Well, I am under no such restriction,” Mym said. “I shall get you out.”

“That is exactly what Satan wants you to try,” she reminded him.

“I am disinclined to disappoint him.” Mym considered. “Do you think Satan is listening to us now?”

“Well, we’re hiding from him—”

“It is in my mind that Satan permitted us to reach this place,” he said. “He surely can tune in on us. This is, after all, his domain.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she confessed. “But Hell is a very big region. I’m sure he can’t devote his attention to every little detail all the time. Once he knew we were together, he probably went on to other business.”

“Probably,” Mym agreed. “So we can consider our conversation private.”

She shrugged. “I suppose so. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t get out and, as long as I prevent you from getting out, I am serving his purpose. I don’t like that, though I do like being with you.”

She was probably correct, Mym thought. She had served as the lure to bring him in, and now served as the chain to keep him here. Satan had no need to watch them.

Yet it was hardly unpleasant, being here with Ligeia. She was a nice girl, with compatible values, and extraordinarily pretty, and he had always been fascinated by that type.

He changed his position, as the stone was not really comfortable. His eye fell on the snake.

The snake was watching him.

Mym completed his adjustment as if he had not noticed, but his mind was suddenly awhirl. Surely it was true that Satan had worse things to do than watch two people get acquainted. But Mym was an Incarnation, and, though Satan could penetrate the veil of invisibility Mym had invoked, he probably couldn’t do it from any distance. One Incarnation could not interfere with another from a distance. So Satan probably wasn’t tuning in on them directly.

But Satan would not want to let an Incarnation move about Hell unsupervised. He would have to have some way to keep track. And what better way would there be than to assign a lesser minion?

The snake was that minion. It would report on Mym’s location at all times and on any important activity Mym indulged in. That would certainly be a convenient way to keep track.

He could touch the snake, phase in with it, and learn for sure. But that might alert Satan that he, Mym, had caught on. Better to seem not to have caught on.

But how could he tell Ligeia, without the snake hearing? And how could he get away from the snake, without alerting it and Satan?

Well, he could phase in to Ligeia and plant a thought in her mind. But at this point he preferred not to do that, because it would be an invasion of what little privacy she might have, and because she was, indeed, a young woman he was quite ready to like and perhaps love. Too great an intimacy could spoil such a relationship.

Or was he afraid that if he phased in to Ligeia he would discover that she was merely another agent of Satan’s?
It was a possibility he had to consider. If she was, not only would he be disappointed, but his verification of her could betray his suspicion to Satan himself. That would leave him with nothing.

He considered some more and decided that he would have to keep whatever escape plan he might have to himself.

For, abruptly, he realized that he did have a plan—a bold, wild one that only he had any chance of implementing. If he could implement it successfully, not only would he rescue Ligeia, he would be able to rescue many other unfairly damned souls. In addition, it would amply repay Satan for his audacity in trying to trap another Incarnation in Hell and force him to do Satan’s will.

It wasn’t the nice way and certainly it wasn’t the easy way. But Mym was Mars and he felt that the honor of his office was at stake. He wanted to teach Satan a lesson about interfering with Mars.

 
15
 
RIVER

When night fell in Hell, they were satisfied that the pursuit had ended. They had talked and slept and now were eager to get out of the cramped cave.

“I believe there is some way out of Hell,” Mym said. “I intend to find it. Do you have any idea where it might be?”

Ligeia considered. “For you, many ways. For me—”

“For us both. Maybe you could not use the exit by yourself, but I could enable you to use it.”

She brightened. “Maybe—oh, dare I hope?”

“It is better to hope than to have no hope.”

“I have hoped many times and always had my hope dashed.”

“There’s always hope that this time your hope won’t be dashed.”

She smiled. “For you, I will entertain that hope. But I really don’t know where an exit would be. The River Styx circles all of Hell, and only the ferryman Charon can take a soul across. That he will not do, except by the order of Satan.”

“But Hell is three dimensional!” Mym protested. “How can one river surround it all?”

“I don’t know,” she said, surprised.

“And we came down from above, so there must be a route there,” he persisted.

“Yes, there must be,” she agreed. “Funny that I never thought of that. But I still don’t know how to use such an exit.”

It occurred to Mym that if Hell were like Purgatory, its apparent three dimensionality could be an actual two dimensions, so that one river could indeed enclose it all. The descending capsule could have carried them right through the River Styx, charmed by Satan’s order. But he saw no point in bring up such morbid speculation. “What we need to do is inquire,” he said. “There is sure to be someone who knows and will tell us. But we can’t question the damned souls openly, or Satan will shut off any exit that we find.”

“We could use the back route,” she said. “The demons don’t go there, because—”

“Back route?”

“There are roads and things for the front route, but the demons use those, so anyone who doesn’t belong would be challenged and caught very soon. Of course, if we were invisible, it might work—but we’d have to become visible to talk with anyone, and then the demons might see. But the back route is through the wilderness—the marshes around the rivers, mainly. But though there aren’t demons, there are other things, like monsters and natural hazards. I don’t know whether—”

“What happens to a person caught by a monster or a natural hazard?”