Page 76 of Katabasis
“No, right, I’m sure.” Peter nodded. “But if you’re done with research, then what’s the—I mean, have you ever thought through what you might do when you get back up there?”
“Of course,” Elspeth said scathingly. “I’m going to sit outside. I’m going to have a cup of tea, Assam, with lots of milk and a swirl of honey. And a cinnamon bun. With raisins.”
They rounded the bend past Greedand, after a long stretch of empty beach, came upon the Court of Wrath.
Dante had described Wrath as the swamp of the Styx, populated with furious naked souls in the bog, striking at each other and at themselves. Souls simmering such that their rage made the surface bubble. Alice had quivered upon reading this description—“This hymn they gurgle in their gullets / For they cannot get a word out whole”—for it was the first time a poet seemed to understand that wrath was not merely external; was not just a screaming raving tornado of destruction. Sometimes you swallowed it down like a hot coal. Sometimes it only ever burned you, slowly, from the inside out, until you choked. She thought of nights she’d spent awake, tracing over the corners of memories and working herself up into a rage—but it never made her incandescent, righteous; she only stifled herself in her ineffectuality.All this has happened to me, she’d think,and the world is unfair, and still I can’t do a thing about it. I might as well drown.
“So what’s on Wrath?” Peter asked. “A rugby court?”
“Actually no,” said Elspeth. “The structured institutions start disintegrating after Greed, I think. Past Wrath, it all gets more classically infernal. Degeneration of the psyche, the flight from reason—something like that. We tread a bit more carefully here.”
Alice gazed at shore looking for her imagined bogs of souls, like fruit flies drowning in apple cider. But under the dim light of morning, she saw only dark and endless shore. The sand was pitch-black, though dotted with bright, glowing spots. Footprints, Alice realized; undeniably shaped by heel and ball. Though the being who’d created them must have been enormous, for as they drew closer she saw those footprints could span her entire height at least.
“Those will be left by Phlegyas,” said Elspeth. “A deity. Cast into the underworld for setting fire to Apollo’s temple after Apollo raped his daughter.”
“That seems reasonable,” said Alice. “I mean the fire, not the raping.”
“Well, Phlegyas thinks so too. Always howling about the injustice. Look—there he is, at the foot of those mountains. Can you spot him?”
Alice squinted over the plain. Far beneath the cliffs she saw a crimson pulsing light, moving ponderously through the rocks. And within, a dark silhouette—but what form it took, man or beast, she could not tell.
“Is he dangerous?”
“Oh, very. Could smite you with a mere glance. He does leave these wonderful little embers wherever he steps, though. Coals that don’t go out for weeks. That’s what I’m here for.” Elspeth nodded to her lamp—which, Alice noticed, burned a similar pulsing crimson. Grunting, she hauled a metal bucket out from beneath the pile of oars. “I’m off to collect. Can you two man the boat?”
“Oh—sure.” Alice perked up. She had been puzzling over how to trap Elspeth under her watch, and here the opportunity had just dropped into their laps. “What should we—”
“Just stay by the anchor.” Elspeth was already climbing atop the railing. “And if the bone things approach, spritz them away. I do hate when they come aboard.”
One graceful leap, and she was ashore. Alice watched her dancing nimbly over the coals, jumping from rock to rock until she faded from sight.
She felt something against her back. She turned, then flinched. Peter stood very close behind her, eyes fixed ahead on Elspeth.
“Now’s the time,” he murmured. “Do you want to distract her? Or draw the pentagram?”
Those were the first words he’d spoken to her all morning. She tried to hide her relief. “Um—either, I guess. What do you—”
“I’m faster with pentagrams. I’ll draw it.”
Alice was not sure this was true but felt now was not the time to push back. “That’s fine. Where ought—I mean, where do you think we can get her?”
She had been struggling with this all morning. Wrangling information out of Elspeth was one thing; the harder was getting her into a pentagram at all. The problem with a blood-soaked pentagram was that it was very difficult to hide. Theoretically the size of a pentagram did not affect its potency—and indeed, in Roman history the Celts had drawn great chalk structures around entire hills and forests to trap their enemies. But it would take time, and more blood than they had.
“Just get her by the stove,” said Peter. “There’s a mat—we can draw it now, have it there before she’s back. You think there’s time?”
Alice glanced back onto the beach, where Elspeth was shoveling embers into her bucket with gusto. “You’ll have to be quick.”
“Sure. Can I get a knife?”
“Why—oh.” She fished it out of her rucksack. “Here—be careful.”
“I’ll do my best,” muttered Peter, and headed for the stairs.
Alice took a shaky breath and turned back to the beach. Elspeth’s bucket was nearly full. She saw Alice looking at her, straightened up, and waved cheerily. Alice waved back, feeling rotten.
Have resolve, she thought. Professor Grimes had taught her this. The difference between greatness and mediocrity was only ever about following through. Anyhow, this was a good thing, the merciful thing. Elspeth had to be put out of her misery. One conversation—that was all it would take. And then they would be on their way, and Elspeth only ever an awkward memory.
“Hello! Take this.” Standing tiptoe onthe shore, Elspeth swung the bucket of embers forward using the far end of her spear. Alice grasped it and hauled it into the middle of the deck. From the corner of her eye she saw Peter disappear toward the stairs, his arm clamped against his side.
