And something else came clear to him: the changeless red of the sky darkwise wasn’t a setting sun, and wasn’t darkwise. There seemed to be no sun here. It was a vast fire burning inside a mountain, glowing out through caves and fissures, spitting flame like a blacksmith’s forge. He went, reluctantly, closer to this horror, toward which winged beasts flew like Rooks toward a night roost. They drew him along with them, seemed to think he was one of them—he was black, as they were, and winged, as they were.
Where you going?
That was a voice—he’d been spoken to by a black Boar with a Cock’s tail, flying beside him.
Don’t know, Dar Oakley replied. Looking for someone.
Oh, don’t be picky, the beast said. Plenty everywhere to work on.
No, no, Dar Oakley said. Just this one. A Brother.
Oho, said the flying Boar. Lots of them here.
One in particular, Dar Oakley said. Just come.
He couldn’t tell if the being was giving this thought, but then it said, Little, fat, peevish, whiny?
Well, Dar Oakley said. Yes.
I know that soul! he shrieked with glee, and showed tusks. I worked on him! Follow me, follow!
He descended, flapping his bat wings, and a few other beasts came after him, and Dar Oakley followed them.
Peck their eyes out! one cried to him, grinning, a beast with a thrashing snake’s tail. That’s your way, yes? Then peck their eyes out again!
Dar Oakley, beating through the heavy air, looked down on People—souls—in travails of every kind, inflicted by beasts like the ones he flew with. It was clear to him now that, whatever they said, the worst thing for People isn’t that they die, but that they never do.
How long will they be done to this way? he asked. When does it stop?
Stop? cried the snake-tailed one who had urged him to peck out eyes. Never! Never ever! Never, never, never!
One day in seven they can rest, said the Boar. Look there.
Dar Oakley perceived, amid a mass of sufferers, two wide dishes or bowls that held a number of large dark stones and one white one. A black beast like a strong People fighter picked up a black stone from the dish of the white stone, and dropped it into the other. At this the tormented souls seemed to weep and thrash with impatience.
Waiting for the White Stone day. But how do they know, Dar Oakley wondered, when one day ends here and another begins?
That’s him, isn’t it! said his guide, unrolling a jointless arm and pointing to a low promontory or ledge not far off.
The Brother was there, kneeling before a People-shaped beast, black and hairy and horned, with great yellow teeth—surely what the Brother called a demon. The Brother was naked, his body marked with bruises and cuts; he wrung his lifted hands in terror or supplication.
Judgment! cried the snake-tailed beast. Going to go hard for him!
Dar Oakley looked again, and as he looked the black demon and the black mountain and the smoky sky ceased to be there. Instead a person in white, female she seemed to be, pale and golden, stood before the Brother—it was she whom he appealed to—and beyond her were white towers, almost invisible, rising into a clear sky, and a shining bridge that led up to them, so long and pitched so high it vanished into white distance.
Dar Oakley banked to leave his crew of tormentors and descend, and at that the place of the black demon and the black mountain and the flames appeared again. When he banked the other way—right, he thought was the word that People used for this side of him—only the other, the light and white place, appeared. And yet (it was quite clear as he neared the ground) the two beings, angel and demon, were actually side by side, talking together. Arguing.
He settled among various beings large and small who were gathered there and listening. No one paid him mind.
Damned! he heard the black one cry, pointing a long-nailed finger at the Brother. A damned soul.
Can’t be, the other said with white hand raised. He’s not dead yet. There’s time to repent.
Not dead yet! the black one bellowed. Why, here he is before us!
His body still lives. It awaits his return.
Oho! One of those tricks, the demon said. Well, still.
No, said the other. No damnation. Not yet.
Dar Oakley, like the Brother, looked from one to the other as each being spoke; and when they looked toward the right-hand side, they saw the towers and the bridge and the sky, and when they looked the other way, they saw the black mountain and the fires.
But he’s a damned sinner, said the demon. He knows it too. Look at him sniveling. Shitface! Coward!
He is a priest of God, said the angel, her voice sounding like the voices of the Brothers’ choristers. He came willingly here to be judged, and he has suffered willingly. He will have mercy.
Gets to choose his own fate, does he? And here I thought such a judgment was God’s alone, and always just!
You! What can you know of God’s judgments? Does God share the secrets of his heart with you?
I know this, said the black one. This person did a murder. And he a priest! Does he get to forgive himself for that?
Done for cause, she said. To protect others. The People of that place, and his Abbey. Penance will cleanse him.
See how you are? said the demon indignantly. He did a murder! A murdered murderer is still a murder. Look!
He hauled out from nowhere a body, a shabby sooty grizzled person, still in the rags of his bird costume.
Tell what you know, he commanded.
The murdered Wolf tried to answer but couldn’t, only choked, black spittle coming from his mouth. The white being crossed her arms and shook her head in mild impatience. Then she pressed her hands together before her and looked upward. With a bell-like voice she spoke a word; and from the white clouds of her realm a ladder, a golden ladder, descended rung by rung.
Oh, thank God, the Brother whispered.
The martyred boy came down, bare feet feeling for each step. His ladder was now poised delicately above but not touching the filthy stones. Turning to them but looking at nothing or at everything with his wide golden eyes, he lifted a hand, the first two long fingers raised—Dar Oakley had seen the Abbot do the same.
He spoke, his sweet voice not always audible amid the rumblings of the earth and the shrieks of beasts and souls. He told how he had asked the Brother to take revenge on those who had murdered him, that it was a fault in him to demand that, a fault that because of his youth and his goodness had been forgiven and wiped away. The Brother had done in love and kindness only what the boy had asked.
He ceased speaking then, and ascended away.
There, said the angel. This man is free. He will have life enough to atone for his crime, if crime it was.
I refuse to consent! the demon roared, and fires flamed from the mountain beyond. If his body lives a hundred years, it can’t wipe out his crimes!
Seven times seventy times. If repentance is genuine. Don’t argue with the rules.
I call a witness! My own witness! the demon said, throwing out his hand. I call—the Crow!
Dar Oakley stared at the being’s indicating finger. Himself? He felt the eyes of the beasts around him turn his way.
The Crow! the winged things cried, pressing closer. The Crow!
He thought they’d eat him if he didn’t obey. The angel from her white realm summoned him with her baculus to come forward. In one reluctant wing beat he was next to the Brother, who wouldn’t look at him. He wondered if the Brother was wrong, and even though he was a Crow he was damnable after all, and what that might be like.
Give your evidence, the demon said, crossing his hairy arms before him just as the angel had crossed her slim white ones.