“The banner’s Niloch’s, and that place with the black towers is his,” Riprash said. “Don’t go near it, that’s my advice. I’ll tell you how to get across the city from here. See that?” He pointed to the great pillar, which, as we grew closer, I could see was made from some kind of mud brick but loomed higher than any skyscraper. Even now that the second set of beacons had been lit on the walls of Gravejaw—the closest thing to full daylight—it was impossible to see where the great cylinder ended, since it stretched up into the blackness of the monstrous cavern’s invisible roof. “You just get there, and the lifter’ll take you where you want to go.” I could ride it all the way up to Pandaemonium, apparently, many, many levels above us. That part was heartening, but I was still a bit confused by it all.
See, our river trip had taken us up at least a dozen levels, which didn’t make any sense at all. I certainly hadn’t noticed us sailing uphill, and the Cocytus, black and sticky and noxious as it was, seemed in all other ways to obey the laws of gravity and physics I knew. But this was Hell, after all, and although it was more realistic (for lack of a better word) than Heaven, it wasn’t any more real. As an angel I was used to the slippery distances and untellable time of Heaven, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to accept that some things in Hell, no matter how illogical, just were.
I scrubbed myself with bits of sail-mending canvas to get the worst muck off me, since the river was way too dangerous for swimming. In fact, ordinary souls didn’t use water to bathe in Helclass="underline" it was too rare. Then Gob and I waited for Riprash to give us the sign that it was safe to disembark. We sat for what seemed like hours, the boy pacing back and forth across the tiny cabin until I wanted to clout him. I was already wondering what I was going to do with Gob. I didn’t want to take him with me any farther, because I might have to make a hasty retreat from some very bad place, and it was going to be hard enough to figure out how to smuggle Caz out without adding Gob to the equation. On the other hand, I’d dragged him far away from the places he knew, I didn’t have a single iron spit to pay him off with, and leaving him on his own here in Gravejaw might put him in even greater danger.
Then a sudden idea hit me. I left Gob pacing and went to find Riprash. I should have stayed in the cabin like he told me, but I was suddenly fired up with the idea of doing someone a good turn (I am, or used to be, an angel, remember?) and I blundered up the ladder to the main deck.
The first thing I ran into was one of Riprash’s minions, the catlike, bug-eyed one who had gaped at me back at the slave stall in Cocytus Landing like I was some long-lost relative. I couldn’t imagine any reason why this grubby little thing should be looking at me with such insolent familiarity (you can see that Hell was starting to get to me) so before he could work up his nerve to say something, I demanded to know where Riprash was.
“On the d-d-dock,” said Krazy Kat in a high, stuttering voice, “but I th-think, I think . . .”
I probably just looked like his old Uncle Pitchfork or something. Worse, despite Temuel’s promises, maybe the little creature had recognized the demon body the archangel and Lameh had given me. Either way, I didn’t want that conversation, so I brushed past him. I was a few steps down the gangplank when I realized something about the busy dock looked wrong. Not the weird, insectlike beasts of burden being loaded with cargo, nor the other ghastly, half-naked creatures sweating beneath the whips of the overseers, some of them so deformed it was a wonder they could work at all, let alone carry such huge loads, but something far more disturbing.
Riprash stood on the dock, but he was completely surrounded by armed demon soldiers, a dozen of them or more, all wearing Niloch’s white bird claw insignia. What was worse, Niloch himself sat mounted on the back of a tall and only slightly horselike insect creature, and Riprash was talking to him.
Niloch saw me so quickly it seemed like he had been looking for me. For a moment I was convinced Riprash had sold me out, and I cursed myself for ever trusting a demon. After all, that was what had landed me here in Hell in the first place.
“And here he is, dear, dear me! How charming!” His bony tendrils wavering in the sea breeze like the fronds of a sea anemone, Niloch spurred his weird insect-horse toward the base of the gangplank. “Riprash has just told me of your bad fortune, Lord Snakestaff! It is a credit to you that you have climbed so far back after such a nasty little trick.”
I was frozen on the top of the gangplank. “Trick. Of course . . .”
Riprash turned and gave me a look of what I assume was mute pleading: It’s hard to tell when so much of a person’s face has been ruined. “Yes, I told him how you were betrayed and abandoned in the lower levels by your enemies.” He turned back to Niloch. “Snakestaff needs only to reach the lifter, Lord Commissar, and then he’ll be right as rot.”
Niloch let out one of his whistling laughs. “Of course, of course, but first he must come and take his ease with me in Gravejaw House and tell me about all the adventures he has had!” He almost sounded sincere, but even if I’d trusted him I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere with that fluting, inhuman thing. “Surely you must be longing for a proper meal, Snakestaff, hmmm? Delicacies, yes? And I shall see you have some proper clothes, too. Going naked as the crawling damned will not smooth your passage back to Pandaemonium. They are dreadfully judgemental up at the capital.”
“That’s very kind,” I said, croaking a little in my effort to sound casual. “But there’s no need for you to trouble yourself over a creature like me, Lord Commissar.” Whatever else Niloch was, he clearly outranked me, so there was no way I could just refuse.
“Nonsense. Where in the Red City do you live?”
“Blister Row. It’s near Dis Pater Square.” I was glad Lameh had given me a response. I couldn’t help wondering if the place actually existed. Perhaps I could use it as a sanctuary when I made it to Pandaemonium. If I made it to Pandaemonium.
“A delightful little neighborhood! I’ll be pleased to let you repay my own insignificant hospitality when I next journey to the great metropolis. Now come, Snakestaff, brave traveler! You shall enjoy a night with me after so long on shipboard and so many tiresome experiences in the depths.”
I only had time for a quick whispered conference with Riprash. I begged him to take care of Gob, and he said he would, at least until he could deliver him back to me, which wasn’t really what I’d hoped for. “We’ll meet again, Snakestaff,” the giant rumbled. “That you can rest yourself on.”
I wasn’t as confident as Riprash. I said goodbye, keeping it formal because Niloch’s beady little scarlet eyes were watching us. “You’ve been kind to me,” I told him quietly. The giant frowned, and I realized it was an unfamiliar term. “You’ve done me no harm, you’ve even done me a good turn. I’ll remember that.”
Then, my heart in my mouth, where it was the only thing keeping my meager yet repulsive breakfast from being forcibly ejected, I followed the rattling commissar across the dock. He directed me to a pallet, already loaded down with the cage of slaves and carried by more slaves who moaned in quiet hopelessness as I added my weight. Then the whole procession followed Niloch up the winding road through the vast slum of Gravejaw, bound for the needle-towered citadel at the top of the hill.