“Geryon,” Francesco said, “who was once a king in Spain but is now the monster of fraud. It’s the guardian of this waterfall, and is the one who must deliver us into the pit.”
When Geryon reached ground level, its six legs pushed against the stream and it catapulted towards us, making a perfect six-point landing.
It was a large thing (as most things in Hell seemed to be), its torso littered with shiny scales. Its three heads were about six feet above my single one. Each face had similar features: all were lumpy with great welts, large lips that held rotting teeth, and eyes like black pearls housed in half-opened shells. Still, despite their ugliness, the faces seemed to be without deceit. All three heads began to speak at once.
“WHAT DO YOU…”
“WHY ARE YOU…”
“HOW DARE YOU…”
“…WANT?”
“…HERE?”
“…DISTURB ME?”
“We wish to enter the next circle,” Francesco answered.
“NO, IT CANNOT…”
“WE WILL NOT…”
“THIS ONE…”
“…BE DONE!”
“…HELP YOU!”
“…IS NOT DEAD!”
“It is true that we ask a great deal, and it is true that this one is not dead,” Francesco admitted. “But he is a friend of Marianna Engel.”
The name seemed to mean something to Geryon and the three heads muttered amongst themselves. Eventually, they took a vote—“YES. NO. YES”—before deciding to take us. (Who would have guessed that the monster of fraud was a democracy?) It turned so that we might climb onto its broad back. Francesco ushered me up first, whispering, “I’ll ride between you and the tail. It’s poisonous.”
When we were settled, the beast took a robust leap from land’s edge towards the waterfall. When we hit the water, I saw Geryon’s hands plunge into the liquid and grasp the fluid that flowed through its fists like translucent snakes. While it was difficult to keep my grip, I noticed that my arms were stronger than they had been since my accident. At one point Geryon’s three heads said, “NOT…SO…TIGHT.”
As we neared the bottom, Francesco called out over the water’s roar, warning me to prepare for the next level. It would be, he said with a tone that forced me to take note, particularly unpleasant.
We dismounted and Geryon disappeared back into the waterfall. I took stock of exactly how far my healing had progressed. Most of my skin was smooth, and the pancreatitis scar that had adorned my stomach was gone. Nearly all of my hair had regrown. My lips were once again full. I bounced on my shattered knee and found it strong. My lost fingers were more than half recovered and I used them to rub, at the juncture of my legs, the small nub of my emerging cock.
“We are now in Maleboge, home of the Seducers. In this Circle,” Francesco advised, “I am useless to protect you.”
I could hear what sounded like gunshots and crying voices, coming ever closer. Soon they were upon us: men and women in an endless line being driven by horned demons. What I’d thought were shots were actually the cracks of the demons’ flaming whips, brought down repeatedly with merciless precision. The seducers were hunchbacked in fear, curling their bodies to stave off the thrashing for an extra half-second. Their arms hung limply, only jerking upwards in their sockets each time the whip connected. Perhaps the seducers had once been of great beauty, but they were no longer; now, they were little more than lumps of well-beaten flesh.
The woman closest to me was struck and blood jumped out of her mouth. When I gasped, she was alerted to our presence. She looked up and I saw that much of her face had been eaten away by maggots. Her right eye looked like a bulging egg and her left one dangled an inch out of the socket on the optical nerve. With her egg-eye, she winked at me lasciviously, and she licked her lips. For this she was whipped to the ground by a legion of demons that didn’t let up even as she lay writhing in agony. Her skin opened in crisscrossing patterns until she was practically spilling out of herself. Dozens of snakes emerged from holes in the ground, twisting up her like chains upon an escape artist.
After she was tightly serpentbound, more snakes—different snakes, with oversized fangs dripping with venom—appeared from the holes and began to roll merrily over her. Eventually a cobra took a position above the seductress’s face, pausing only a moment before it dove down to attack the mongoose of her neck. Spurts of blood cascaded into the air before showering down upon her body, each drop erupting into a tiny bead of fire. Flames quickly engulfed her, and her bulbous eye swelled until it burst like an overfilled balloon. She screamed until her vocal cords were incinerated; all the while, the serpents remained lashed around her body. Her flesh fell away, like tender meat, to expose the skeleton within. Her bones glowed yellow, then red, then black, before finally crumbling into the earth. She disappeared this way, into nothingness—except for what should have been her spine.
Her spine was not a spine; her spine was a snake that looked directly at me from its nest of ash. It flashed a dastardly, reptilian smile, and hissed: AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.
The snake continued joyfully leering at me even as it began to tremble and new ribs burst forth from its sides like fingers breaking through tightly stretched plastic. Next, arm and leg bones emerged. The ashes of the incinerated sinner began to reconstruct into human tissue, first sifting into intestines, and then weaving into a new circulatory system. Red liquid flowed up out of the ground to enter the new vessels. Muscles twisted around the bones like ivy growing over a fence, and skin pulled up out of the soil like a blanket which tensed itself over the sinewy form. Hair sprouted and new eyeballs gelled in the sockets. The seductress was rebuilt, not into the beaten form I’d first seen, but as she must have looked upon the Earth. She was as physically beautiful as any woman I had ever seen.
She rose from the ground and took a step towards me, her arms held out for an embrace. How alluring she was, with her soft skin and pleasing hips. The demons, who had been tending the other seducers and only now noticed that her rebirth was complete, set upon her again with their whips before she could reach me. She was shepherded back into the procession of sinners and the cycle was made clear to me: she would once again be beaten into pulp, she would once again be bound by the snakes, and she would once again be disintegrated by the fire. It would be repeated over and over, for eternity, just as it would for all the others in this pageant of seducers.
I understood now why Francesco had warned me against this Circle, because it was during the rebirth of the seductress that the healing of my body finalized. The lava flow that was my skin had fully receded and there was no longer any indication that I’d ever been burned. My body was as perfect as it had been on my best day before the accident; the only mark that remained was the scar that I had been born with on my chest. I, like the seductress, had been restored as fully, beautifully human.
Though I didn’t want to, I fell to my knees and started to cry. Once I started I could not stop.
To this day, I remain unsure of the true nature of my tears. Did I cry because the fate of the seductress so closely mirrored my own? Was it the cumulative effect of the horrors in the three Hells that I had experienced? Was it because I’d regained a human form that I had never dreamed would be mine again? Or was it because back in the real world, my body was deep within morphine withdrawal?
I don’t know the answer. But eventually I continued to cry simply from joy that my tear ducts worked again.
Francesco clasped a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Styx lies ahead.”
As disoriented as I was, I knew that something was amiss. After all, I’d heard the story of Inferno in two different lifetimes; I knew we were supposed to have encountered Styx earlier than this. Wiping dry my eyes, I told Francesco as much.
“But this is your journey,” Francesco said, “not Dante’s.”
We moved towards the river’s edge, where a boat was rapidly approaching, as if it knew we were coming. “The boatman is Phlegya
s, son of Ares. When his daughter Coronis was raped by Apollo, Phlegyas set fire to the temple of the god. Apollo killed him with arrows and condemned him to this punishment.”
The most striking thing about Phlegyas was the large, angular stone that floated above his fragile skull, looking as if it might drop at any moment. As a result, he constantly lifted his tormented eyes to appraise the situation. With every push of the pole in the water, the ship carried the boatman closer to us and the stone followed, never leaving its tenuous position. Phlegyas had become sallow from so long without sun; the veins of his face stood out like purple spiderwebs and his hair was falling out in stringy bunches. Spindly arms stuck out of his robes, which had long since been stained the color of sweat.
“Who is this, that dares bring an arrow to my shore?” Phlegyas’ attempts to menace were nullified by his preoccupation with the stone above his head. Even as he attempted to glower, his eyes twitched upward with the rock’s every little movement.
“You will have to forgive our foolish friend,” Francesco said, “for he is young and still alive.”
“That does explain much.” Phlegyas nervously bobbed his head to the left, before allowing it to settle back to the center of his shoulders.
“Will you carry us across the water, so that he may finish his journey?”
“Why would I do that? This one is not dead.”
Francesco began to speak. “He is a friend of—”
“Marianne Engel,” Phlegyas cut him off. “This matters not to me.”
The boatman pushed upon his pole to turn the boat around, but Francesco called out, “Much depends on your help, Phlegyas.”
Intrigued, perhaps, Phlegyas turned his face back to us. “And why is that?”
“If you know Marianna, then you know this is a journey of love.”
“What care I for love?”
“Was it not love for your daughter that brought you here? Would you doom another to likewise be trapped forever in Hell, where he does not belong?”
For the first time, Phlegyas seemed to pay more attention to me than to the rock. “Tell me about your love for this woman.”
I answered as sincerely as I could. “I cannot.”
Phlegyas furrowed his brow. “Then why should I honor your request?”
“Any man who believes he can describe love,” I answered, “understands nothing about it.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Phlegyas and he waved us aboard with no need of fare. As we crossed Styx, my eyes were fixed upon the three flaming red towers in the distance.
“Dis,” Francesco said. “The capital of Hell.”
We were let off at a set of enormous iron gates. These were guarded by the Rebellious Angels, whose dark and unsympathetic eyes looked as though they were judging everything. They were naked and sexless, and had glowing white skin beset by large boils; from their backs spanned molting wings and, instead of halos, they had flaming hair.
The leader of the Rebellious Angels stepped forward. “YOU CANNOT PASS. THIS ONE IS NOT DEAD.”
“I get that a lot,” I said.
Francesco shot me a dirty look before turning his attention back to the leader. “That he is living is not your concern. Those rules do not apply at this gate, because it is his fate to enter this door.”
“AND WHO IS HE?”
“The one,” Francesco answered, “who enters the Kingdom of Death in his life.”
It did not matter, however, what he claimed as my identity. With great howling and activity, the Angels refused all that Francesco requested. It was clear that my guide had finally met a barrier through which he could not sweet-talk us.
We stepped away from the Angels to consult with each other. I asked what we could do now, and Francesco looked at me as though my question were exceedingly foolish.
“We will pray,” he said.
When I answered that I did not pray, he sternly rebuked me. “You’re in Hell. You’d better start.”
Francesco took the burning arrow from my hand and plugged its tip into the ground, then laid out the Viking pelts for us to kneel on. Next, he took Sei’s robe from around my waist and promptly began to rip it apart. He wrapped a long, thin strand of fabric around my head until my vision was completely obscured. When I heard the sounds of more wrapping, I assumed that he was covering his own face.
“There will soon be things at which we cannot look,” he said. “Even under the mask, keep your eyes shut tightly.”
It was the first time in my life that I had ever prayed and it felt unnatural, but after all that Francesco had done for me, the least I could do was honor his request. I could hear Francesco’s words, whispered in Italian, as he praised God and asked for guidance. For my part, I prayed for my withdrawal to end. And for the safety of Marianne Engel, wherever she was.
I heard the approach of footsteps and a flickering of something in the air. It came closer, closer…
“Do not look,” Francesco commanded. “They have called upon Medusa.”
And then I realized the source of the flickering sounds: they were made by the tongues of the snakes of her hair. They were thrusting out to smell me, the first living meat to visit Hell in ages, and then a serpent’s tongue tentatively licked my cheek. Then another, and another, and another. My skin, now healed, was fully capable of experiencing sensations again, and what a cruel joke that among them were the kisses of a hundred snakes. They tried to push their triangle heads underneath my blindfold, to lift it up, to make me look at the gorgon, but I held it in place.
Medusa, her face but a few inches in front of mine, began to hiss. Her rancid breath was upon me and I could imagine her own serpentine tongue. “Look. Look at me. You know that you want to. Thiss iss but a fantassy. Will you leave without taking all your dream hass to offer? I will only ssssatisfy your curiosssity….”
I knew better. If ever I were to become a statue, it would be by the hand of Marianne Engel rather than the stare of the gorgon.
A quiver began underneath my feet, like a fledgling earthquake. I could feel the snakes of Medusa’s hair pull away from my face. The shuddering of the earth continued to grow and soon the very air was trembling, as if splitting open to admit something new. The iron gates around Dis clattered as if a wild beast were rattling to get out, and the Rebellious Angels yelped a series of excited bleats. I felt Medusa pull away, and heard her footsteps in a hasty retreat. I thought it might be a trick and asked Francesco if she was really gone.
“I think so, but remain vigilant. It’s best to keep your blindfold on.”
I could hear the branches breaking from the dead trees, and the dust being stirred up from the ground caused me to cough. “What’s happening?”
“I prayed that a Divine Messenger come,” Francesco answered, “but I hesitate to believe that the appeals of one as unworthy as I would be answered.”
Though Medusa might still be lurking, I could not help but remove my blindfold. After all, how often is one given the chance to see a Divine Messenger? The sky, which had been uniformly dark since our entry, now looked as though God had accidentally knocked over the palette of Heaven and every wondrous blush of Existence was plunging from above. On the forward cusp of the colors, with golden streaks trailing behind him, was the most beautiful Being that I’ve ever seen.
Apparently, and despite his own advice, neither could Francesco allow the opportunity to pass untaken. He had removed his mask and was trying not to look directly at the Messenger, as if he wanted to show respect, but found himself unable to not stare. In a voice filled with awe, he said, “Clearly you are blessed.”
I was too bedazzled to do anything more than repeat the word. “Blessed.”
“Michael,” Francesco whispered. “The Archangel.”
Michael was perhaps seven feet tall and his hair flowed behind him like a wild blond river. From his back reached two immaculate wings with a span of at least fifteen feet, and he glided as though the wind existed only to carry his perfect body. His skin
was as radiant as the brightest sunlight and his eyes were huge, flaming orbs. Although he shared this trait with Charon, the effect was exactly the opposite: while the boatman’s eyes gave him a sinister look, Michael’s eyes made his face too brilliant to gaze upon directly.
The Archangel landed softly in front of the gates of Dis. The Rebellious Angels, knowing better than to stand in the way, split to either side. The air danced in splendor everywhere around Michael, shimmering as if even it were too awed to touch him. I would describe the colors but there are no names for them; they do not exist within the spectrum of human vision. For the first time I understood how the world must look to the colorblind, because those colors made me feel as if I always had seen, until that moment, with but the tiniest fraction of my potential.
The ground upon which Michael stood was no longer the ashen muck of Hell, but more green than green. The charred trees that had loomed over us with barren limbs now bloomed with fresh leaves. Michael lifted his arm with impossible grace and the gate’s sickly rust was thrown off instantly. When his finger simply grazed the gate, it flew open.
The Archangel turned towards us. Francesco lowered his head and made the sign of the cross. I kept my head up, my eyes focused. Unlike Francesco, because I had never longed to see the divine, I was not burdened with the fear of what might happen if I did.
Michael smiled.
I realized then, for the first time, that I was not hallucinating. I was indeed in Hell, and I was indeed in the presence of the Divine. It was beyond all doubt: I am far too human to imagine anything like that smile. It was like a kiss upon all my worst secrets, absolving them straight away.
With a single sweep of his wings, Michael took flight again, twisting like an immediate tornado that sprang up from the ground. Behind him trailed the colors that he had brought, sucking upwards to disappear in his wake. The too-green of the grass was replaced once again with the dull gray of mud. The health of the trees was leached out. The gates rusted over instantly, but were left open. The colors disappeared like bathwater running to the drain, except that the drain was in the sky. Where Michael disappeared, the last of the colors followed him through a tiny hole in Hell’s awning.