Page 110 of Katabasis
“I mean, what makes a good dissertation?”
“Bugger if I know. That’s the whole puzzle, isn’t it?”
She couldn’t tell if he was being flippant on purpose or if he truly did not know. “Is that how you’re being punished, then? You don’t get out until you’ve thoroughly understood your own crime?”
“Some think that.”
“Then how do you pass?”
This made Gradus hem and haw. After a pause he said, “The only thing anyone knows for sure is that they say you have to tell the truth. That’s all.”
“Is it very hard to tell the truth?”
“It must be. Never seen anyone get out.”
“It must drive them crazy,” Alice mused. She knew her fair share of dissertating students. At Cambridge it seemed the standard for a good dissertation was asymptotic. The closer you got, the more obvious it became that you would never hit the limit. Eventually what decided things were the restrictions of time—you turned work in on the deadline, perfect or not. But there were no deadlines in Hell. You had an eternity for mistakes. “I bet it’s agonizing.”
“Probably,” said Gradus. “I don’t try.”
“Why not?”
“No more questions,” he said. “Our deal is that you entertain me.”
“Oh, fine.”
“What about this man you’re looking for? What’s he dissertating on?”
“Oh—well, I don’t really know.” Alice paused a moment. Whatwasthe worst sin Professor Grimes had ever committed? When she put her mind to it, she couldn’t come up with anything but the vaguest descriptors, and none of them rang true. He stole (but for good reason). He was cruel (with good purpose, to those who deserved it). “We both had our theories, but I don’t think there’s any way to know.”
Gradus’s voice sharpened, a hook finding purchase. “You both?”
“Oh,” said Alice.
Gradus’s footsteps slowed. His essence billowed out like a pleased, squatting cat. “Now, this is interesting.”
Her pain delighted him. He kept rubbing his smoky hands together, like a child in glee over a bedtime story.Then what?He kept asking this.Then what?Then what?Like a child demanding more sweets, relishing all the droplets of living affect he could wring from her. She told him about the Weaver Girl but kept vague about Elspeth; she described the bog in Wrath, and the Escher trap, the cuckoo clock, Peter’s sacrifice. The screech of metal. The Kripkes’ delight.
“Hold on.” Gradus stopped walking then. His aura changed. The swishy, indifferent whirl of gray stilled to something human—a chill Alice recognized well. The clammy chill of fear. “The Kripkes are after you?”
“Why would you be afraid of the Kripkes?”
“They are fiends,” said Gradus. “They are the worst things to haunt this land.”
“But you’re already dead, you—” But then Alice remembered Elspeth’s words.I’ve seen the Kripkes murder a soul.“Well. I suppose we’d better walk faster.”
“But now this isexciting!” Gradus spread his hands, palms open. “A tragedy, a revenge story, a rescue, a race against time. Will you escape the Kripkes? Or will they hunt you down, before you can finish your fallen comrade’s quest?”
“I suppose.”
“What do you mean, yousuppose?”
“I mean, that sounds like a fine script.” Alice felt very tired. “I suppose I’ll follow it.”
“What do you mean, you’llfollowit?” Somehow she had agitated Gradus. His coat started whipping around both their heels, as if he could encircle her in a vortex of his irritation. “Aren’t you upset?” he demanded. “Aren’t youdevastated?”
“Sure, Gradus.”
“You sound as if you don’t even know what you’re doing here.”
