Lawyers in Hell (57 page)

Satan raised a perfect eyebrow and said:  “Keep out of my realm, Erra.  And you Seven:  be warned. 
I
am supreme here in hell.  I have the most souls of all.  During only a single century on earth, one-hundred sixty million souls who died in new-dead wars have come to me.  I have power rivaling all of heaven:  my souls
believe
in damnation.  How many souls believe in salvation anymore?”

Erra puffed himself up, discarding his aspect of a man, and nearly scraped the snowy vault with his conical crown.  And he said, “Enough souls to fill heaven with joy and celebration from end to end, despised one, and all of them deplore you.  Get you back to your realm, and stay there, lest we decide that you and your horde of outcasts deserve more personal attention.” 
Oh, do defy me, lord of the latter-day hells.  Give me cause to eat your eyes and eat your forked tongue and eat your blackened heart.  Your stench repels me….

“So say you, Erra.  We shall see whose word reigns supreme.”  But Satan did not make himself great to meet Erra on the field of spirit battle.  Rather he shriveled back into his serpentine form and flapped his feathered wings wordlessly, taking flight.  And all his fallen angels rose and followed him into the snowy clouds above.

The snow clouds disappeared.  The cold retreated.  The fiery vault flared bright, then dimmed.  Distant howls split the air, receding.  Erra resumed his manly form and looked around.

The eyes of Erra’s weapons were streaming tears as the Seven scanned overhead for treachery from Satan’s retreating band of devils.  Almighty Kur held his Kigali youth tightly under one wing.

“Sheathe your swords, Sibitti,” said Erra.  His weapons obeyed his command.  “Turn loose your eromenos, Almighty Kur.  The danger now is past.”

Kur did not release the Kigali boy forthwith, but said, “Erra, we are here to serve.  But Eshi has had a long day and seen many wonders, your glory not least of those.  Will you return to Ki-gal with us now, you and your brave Sibitti, and leave the remaining nether regions unchastened till the morrow?”

“We shall, of course, Almighty Kur – but only because your Kigali boy is tired.”

Kur had given Erra a graceful exit, and Erra was pleased to take it.  Otherwise, he and the Seven might have felt the need to labor in the underworlds all night long – to prove to Satan that Erra and his weapons from on high were not afraid of any fallen angels, no matter how high in the heavens they once dwelt.

*

“I need to know something, godly Erra.  Who judges
you?”
  Eshi’s voice is bold and strong.

Kur almost shudders, wishing Eshi had not spoken, then chides himself:  Eshi is here to learn.  So Kur says nothing to forefend what must come next, but continues walking among the Seven with Eshi close beside him, lashing his spiky tail.

“My judge is God alone.”

“But
which
god?  God of
what?
”  Eshi’s black wings rustle; he rubs his arms with his hands as they march along, two by two, toward the crossroads at Erebos.  In front is Erra, god of pestilence and mayhem, with the first of his Seven by his side; then Kur and Eshi; then the second of the Sibitti and the rest of Erra’s champions, on the dusty road to yet another judgment.

“God of what?  God of all gods.  God the highest.”  Erra’s voice rumbles up from deep in his chest.  The first of the Seven, walking beside Erra, looks around at Kur and his Kigali boy, catches Kur’s eyes, and shakes his head.

Kur must intercede.  Eshi has seen so much, so fast, he is taut as a bowstring.  His downy black skin is blotched with red, aprickle with new quills sprouting – more every day.  This youth’s blood is quickening too fast.

“Quiet, Eshi.  Enough.  We fear neither gods nor men.  We assist godly Erra, but we do not pry into the affairs of the damned and their keepers.”

“But Almighty Kur, I need to understand what we’re doing here and why –”

Kur can still glimpse the shimmer of Eshi’s innocence out of the corner of his eye, but he knows it is fading.  And not just because the second of the Sibitti hunts red-tails with Eshi every evening in the glow of the mountain’s restive peak and gives him warm carcasses to rend and tear with his sharp white teeth.  “No, Eshi,” Kur says very softly, “you don’t need to understand the affairs of men and gods.  Whatever Erra and his Seven decree is what will be.”  He reaches for Eshi and once again takes the boy under his strong left wing.  He can feel Eshi’s body trembling:  the war of child against adult is raging inside him.  At this time, Eshi should be meditating, hunting, gaining surety about who and what he is; finding his place in Ki-gal, taking up the life that Kur has made for him.  Not wandering among dead souls struggling against their fates like lizards in traps.

“But great Kur, you have taught me to question.  You have taught me this is how Kigali learn.  Now I must learn about Hades and about Erebos:  we will soon be there.  Will I see Lysicles the Athenian?  Erra sent him there.  Will we see him again?  Will we?”

Now Kur understands what Eshi wants to know:  the plight of this single soul, Lysicles, the first whom Eshi had seen judged, has touched his black Kigali boy.  Eshi had watched the second of the Seven cut out the soldier’s eyes and tongue and heart.

“We will see him, Eshi, if Erra allows.  And we will see that he has new eyes, a new tongue, a new heart.  When a red-tail molts and loses its old tail, a new tail grows to take its place.  Erra, will it be so?” Kur asks.  “Will Eshi see the Athenian soldier, Lysicles, in Erebos – and see how your judgment plays out?”

“If it pleases you, Almighty Kur, we will try to arrange it.  For your boy’s sake.  But these souls in Erebos have free will.  It may not be easy to find one damned soldier among so many.  His sentence stands.  What he does now is up to him.  We will see if he can be found.  You have asked for nothing else, in all this time.”

“We thank you, godly Erra,” Kur replies, wishing that he did not need this favor, but knowing that he does.  Erra was right:  for the boy’s sake; to quiet the uneasy heart that Kur can feel thumping against Eshi’s ribs.

Now the second of the Seven breaks formation and strides up beside Kur.  “Great Kur, if there’s something I can do, just ask me.  A weapon is only useful when it is wielded,” and falls back to his place again.

The second of the Sibitti knows exactly who he is, and what his role is, and what his limits are:  he is a weapon in a war he understands.  Kur wishes that the second of the Seven understood less well:  there was another war here, for Eshi’s heart and Eshi’s soul, that might go on for years.

Eshi has witnessed things that no child of Ki-gal could understand, and some things that Kur barely understands:  the hatred of these gods and men for one another – and themselves; the battles in their hearts and in their souls over who and what they are, and where their trust belongs.  Reckless, wild and dangerous, consumed only with destroying one another, they trust no one:  they expect the worst and the worst comes unto them, every time.

Kigali have more faith.  When Nature speaks, the children of Ki-gal listen, and learn.  It must be that Nature does not speak to gods and men, or that they have grown deaf to Nature’s voice.

Full of questions, full of doubts, Eshi hadn’t slept all night.  Consequently, Kur had not slept.  And now they trek into the realm of Hades, gods and weapons and Kigali altogether, to render yet another day of judgment on this ancient road to Erebos.

Eshi leans his head against Kur’s chest as they walk along and says, “Almighty Kur, the second of the Sibitti will help us.  He has never lied to me.  Together, we can find the Athenian.  It will be as you said:  we will see how Erra’s judgment plays out.  And then will you tell me, after we see?”

Kur brought the boy closer, and bent his head close:  “Tell you what, Eshi?”

“If this Erra and his Sibitti are good.  Or not.  If the second of the Seven is good, or not.  If they belong in Ki-gal.  If we should be helping them.  Or not.”

Kur shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was:  it had been so long since he was young.  Eshi’s blood was talking, hot whispers in his young head that were the whispers of a leader, coming to himself.  Kur had never been so relieved:  Eshi’s sharp, clear mind had seen through all, to the truth.  And to the hard questions whose answers no one knew.

So he said very quietly, bending even lower so his lips were close to Eshi’s ear, “Eshi, we have given our word.  How gods and men treat one another is not ours to judge.  Nor should it be.  You see the ugliness of vengeance.  You smell the stench of it when they punish one another.  When trust is gone.  When hatred reigns.  This is not our way.  This is their way.  And they are welcome to it.  They do not ask us to change.  We do not ask them to change.  We will do as we have promised, and help those sent here from Above to fulfill their mandate.  Kigali always keep their word.  Always.”

On the road to the realm of Hades, with Eshi safe under his wing, Kur felt proud.  This boy, this precious youth who would steer Ki-gal’s course someday, was learning more than words could say.  Eshi was learning how to be a true Kigali:  how to hold firm; how to find the proper path and keep to it.  As for the questions no one could answer, those would remain unanswered until the great mountain that succored their tribe was no more.

*

“Laelaps?  Can it be you, hound of Zeus?”  Lysicles looked at the brown dog in the woods of Erebos and the hound looked at him, and bayed.  “Here, boy.”  The soldier squatted down.  The dog trotted over to Lysicles and sniffed his extended palm.  “So, Zeus didn’t turn you to stone after all.”  This could be no other hound:  there were no unmagical dogs in Hell.  Zeus had given Laelaps, a dog who always caught his quarry, to a woman whose husband used the hound to hunt the Teumessian fox, who could never be caught.  Their fates fought, and neither hound nor fox returned from that hunt.  “Better here than nowhere, pup.  Will you help me?  Track my enemies?  Find my loved ones?”  The lop-eared hound dog reached out and pawed Lysicles’ chest.

After so much ill fortune, perhaps the Fates were being kind.  Lysicles thought he spied a woman’s shape between the light-dappled trees; then it was gone.  He rubbed his tender eyes and looked again:  no woman, just ash trees and the wine-dark sea and, in the distance, Elysion.  His love was there.  His life was there.  Eternity was there.

And he was here, on the far shore at Erebos, where the Styx and Oceanus met, hoping for strength to swim across.  At the water’s edge, a boatman waited.  Lysicles couldn’t chance it:  that ferry took too many to dooms he knew too well.  He had a second chance now, at everything he’d thought he’d lost:  he wouldn’t trust his future to any hands but his own.  Win or lose, the result would be of his own making.

Carefully, slowly, Lysicles rubbed Laelaps behind his ears, and scratched those ears until the hound’s tongue lolled.  If it wasn’t Zeus’s Laelaps, it was certainly a dog who hadn’t bitten out his throat yet (though it could) or torn at his hamstrings (though it could) or run off into the woods or the brackish water (though it could).  And he was lonely.

Then he heard wailing, behind him and not so far off, and buried his face in the dog’s loose-skinned neck. 
Not again.
  Not here, in Erebos.  But his blood chilled and his gut twisted and he knew what lay behind those cries:  the terrible auditor and his weapons of destruction.  Nothing less could raise such lamentation from the throats of the forgetful dead and the wistful dead of Erebos.

Laelaps bayed and bayed and bayed again, singing in chorus with the keening souls.

Then Erra and the Seven came for him.  Lysicles stood up straight, and Laelaps was so tall he could put his hand on the hound’s big head as he faced his tormentors.

Monsters walked with Erra and his Seven:  a great red monster, with its bloody wings high and its quills raised all along its tail; a smaller, black-winged monster with eyes aglow and sharp white teeth.  Lysicles could feel his heart race, frightened of being ripped from his chest again.  But he stood his ground.  He was still that much of a soldier.

On they came, mighty and fearsome, straight for him.  The seven sons of heaven and earth were masterfully deployed around the pitiless Erra; the two monsters strode behind Erra, among his terrifying Seven.  Any general who’d ever seen heroes fight would have killed to command such as these.  The big red monster’s eyes glowed like the moon; the smaller monster lashed its spiky tail and pointed at him, then screeched.

Lysicles recalled the glowing eyes that had watched him from the shadowed gallery in the Hall of Injustice where he’d stood trial.

He was naked and suddenly that mattered.  He was cold and he was weak.  He leaned against Laelaps and the hound bayed as if the world would end.  Or as if the hound knew what happened the last time Lysicles faced this god of pestilence and mayhem and his bloodthirsty Sibitti.

Then a woman emerged from the shadowy grove of ash trees, calling, “Laelaps, good hound.  Laelaps, here.”  She was as strong and tall as an oak, and mystic-eyed.  He remembered her at once.  She had brought him the water of Memory to drink.  She was Hecate, goddess of the crossroads; today she wore her rayed crown.

She stepped between Lysicles and Erra’s party and the hound ran to her, tail wagging, and sat, whimpering softly, brown eyes fixed on Lysicles.  “Erra,” she said.  “My hound has found your quarry.  Be swift, now, with this soul of mine who suffers here.  He could have sought my comfort, but he didn’t.  He broods here.  He recollects all – who you are and what you did and what he did.  I will not hold him, or hold you from him.  Or hold him for you.”  At that, the goddess and the whimpering hound were gone in a         clap of thunder.

Please, O Blessed Hecate, don’t let them take me.
  But the prayer in his heart came too late:  a memory stirred, of lithe Hecate in a fragrant bed of myrtle, of her magic spells in the dark of night and the smell of a goddess.  But he had been too consumed with rage to accept her offered comfort….  Absurdly, he mourned the loss of the hound, the company of the dog, the soft tongue upon his palm:  Hecate’s hound had tracked him down for these avengers, nothing more.  Were they here to take yet another pound of his flesh?