Page 118 of Katabasis
“We are here to discuss methodology,” said the chairman. “Not metaphysics.”
“Though it’s not like this piece could pass,” said the monocled Shade. “We haven’t even gotten to the shaky autobiography—”
“Watch who you’re calling shaky,” said Professor Bent.
“You really think it was worth twelve pages discussing how your wife’s family wouldn’t pay for the wedding?”
“It’s better than your effort last week,” said Professor Bent. “All grotesque and gore—”
“Detail matters.”
“Oh, sure, if you’re writingfiction—”
It escalated so quickly. One moment Professor Bent and the monocled Shade were shouting over the table; the next they were wrestling atop it. Half the Shades stood to join the fray. The other half sat back, arms folded and scowling. Alice watched, mouth agape. She felt such a profound pity. They cared so much, they argued so viciously, but couldn’t they see it didn’t matter, didn’t even remotely register in the cosmic span of things, and that this was the dumbest possible way to spend eternity?
“Are you happy?” Gradus looked pleased as a cat. “Is it what you’d hoped?”
But Alice couldn’t imagine what victory he thought he’d gained.
“Look!” someone cried. “Look!”
All faces turned to the window.
Lights appeared in the sky. To Alice’s eye they looked like stars—constellations of winking bursts that seemed so remote at first but then drew closer and closer, until they approached and she saw they were not stars at all but flakes of ember. Fires sprang to life everywhere they landed. The hawkers rushed about with mats, trying to smother the flames. But they were too late, and Alice heard howls as whole stacks of paper went up in smoke. She saw the woman who had been doing copyedits running around in circles shrieking with her head ablaze, the Strunk and White clutched against her chest.
Chairs screeched as the Shades stood up. They jostled past Alice in their hurry to get out the door. She watched them run, baffled. Several moments later, she saw them from the window, running with arms windmilling toward the flame.
“Oh!” Alice rushed forward several steps, then stopped herself, unsure of what, if anything, she could do. “Oh—someone stop them!”
But she had misinterpreted their cries as expressions of anguish. These Shades were delighted. They ran to the fire the way children would dash barefoot into an ocean. They raced toward the bazaar not to rescue their peers, or salvage the supplies, but to join in the fun.
They caught flame as quick as shriveled leaves. Alice could not tear her eyes off those burning faces. Ever since childhood she had been so afraid of fire. She used to imagine burning at the stake as the most horrible way one could go. Bubbling fat, the transmutation of flesh to charcoal—it frightened her so. But the souls in Dis did not wither. Their flesh did not slough off their cheeks, even as it sizzled. Beneath the flames their skin remained smooth, untouched. Burning here was not permanent. The only thing manifest was the pain.
“Stop screaming,” said Gradus.
Alice had not realized she was. She touched her neck; her throat was hoarse. Her hand trembled. “Oh,why—”
“We cannot produce fire for ourselves,” said Gradus. “No one knows why, but it is the one thing Hell denies us. So we’re very happy when it comes from the sky. Don’t worry, it can’t hurt them. It’s only a memory.”
A hubbub erupted near the shore. A great shape burst through the city walls, scattering its marble foundations. Some howling, rumbling thing, too huge to be comprehended all at once. Alice could only register its attributes in pieces. Heavy footsteps. A hulking gait. The beast had three heads. The Shades cried out as if one. “Cerberus!”
They surged forth. Alice could not understand why they were approaching the beast, and yet they stood with their hands outstretched, waving with abandon. She reached without thinking for Gradus, though her fingers met only cold air. “Aren’t they scared?”
“Scared? Cerberus is the most exciting thing to happen down here.” Gradus looked so pleased with himself. “We hope he will trample us. We beg him to maul us.”
“Why?”
“Because it’sinteresting,” said Gradus. “Pain is interesting, and you can bear anything as long as it’s interesting.”
“But how—”
“It’s all just sensations in the end, Alice Law. Pain or pleasure, mirror images of each other. And both preferable to dead time. Time crawls here. You do anything to feel.” He gave a start. “Oh! A direct hit!”
One of Cerberus’s heads shot down and grasped a Shade around the waist. The crowd along the shore cheered as Cerberus lifted the Shade into the air. Viscera splattered everywhere. Cerberus’s jaw moved, and dismembered pieces littered the sand. But he couldn’t have done that, thought Alice; the Shades had to bisect themselves, they had to want this. A great cheer went up around the courtyard, and Shades surged forth to volunteer their bodies.
“Me next!”
“Me, Cerberus!”
