6 April 1610
“It must be some runoff from the river above,” Raul noted as he raised his voice above the lugubrious swash of the moat-like obstruction in their way.
“It’s too deep to wade into,” Riku noted the darkness of the moving current.
“We’re not supposed to wade through it,” Madeleine explained as she pointed to the medium sized ferry boat attached to a chain on their side of the bank. “We can use that.”
Raul helped to load the wounded Willem first into the vessel before allowing the rest to balance themselves on the craft. He next held his torch closer to the chain that kept them against the bank while Riku took man of the oar. “There doesn’t seem to be a way to unfasten this chain,” he complained mostly to himself but Madeleine already made her way over to the mechanism.
Indeed, the metal bolts held fast against the bark of the barque and the other end was imbedded into the earth. On the boat side of the chain, like sleepy half opened yes, two slits adorned what seemed like a face etched into the wood. “A key mechanism, perhaps?” Raul said out loud as he reached into his pocket for some of his tools.
“It’s simpler than it looks,” Madeleine interjected pushing Raul a bit aside before reaching into her pouch and procuring two coins. Pressing each into the slits, the width of the gold discs fit begrudgingly into the niches and snapped an internal lock open. The chain suddenly dislodged and the boat was set free upon the unruly push of the underground river. “You have to remember to pay the boatman to cross into the underworld, Raul,” Madeleine goaded energetically.
Riku steered them with the long oar until they reached the other side of the darkened bank. The Finn positioned the vessel where a chain on the opposite side of where they departed waited for them. Fastening the metal links onto the bow of the vessel, the rest made their way onto the ground. Scanning the immediate area, Madeleine could see the faint light that had guided their path earlier and motioned for the others to keep moving in that direction.
“Your uncle has too much free time to be making fortresses in the earth,” Willem joked as he kept a firm hand on his side. The bleeding had mostly stopped but every movement he made undid the clotting that was attempting to stop his wound. Fresh liquid slimed against his hand.
“An underground moat is an efficient idea,” Riku defended the architecture, “All you need is to excavate a small enough cavity and let the water erode the rest.”
“There it is,” Madeleine announced as the hallway they pressed down into now opened up into a spacious chamber with a lamp hanging above emitting the only light in the space. To the right was a sheer rock face with a doorway carved in the middle of it and windows—high up on the flat surface—watched over the cavity like condescending eyes.
“It’s locked,” Riku said while trying to manage the doorway, “I don’t suppose money’ll let us pass this one too?” he almost laughed.
“Iron bars on the windows,” Willem noted, “Like it was a prison—but even then we can’t get in that way.” Riku was already trying to force the heavy wooden doors with his shoulder as a battering ram.
“It’s supposed to be a prison,” Madeleine explained, “but also a refuge. The virtuous pagans who lived before Christ came to save the world were kept here outside of God’s presence but protected from the horrors of Hell.”
“There’s light in there,” Raul reported after scaling some of the wall and peeking into one of the barred windows, “But I can barely see anything inside.”
“It’s the light of reason,” Madeleine went on, “Without the light of revelation you cannot get the full picture, but reason has enough goodness to illuminate your way at least in this dark place.”
“That’s all well and good,” Riku complained as he heaved another strike against the door, “but if we can’t get into this castle-prison, Willem’ll probably bleed to death and we’ll all starve.”
Madeleine sparked out of her analytical stare at the solid wall ahead of them and turned towards her notes. “My uncle wrote that when we arrive here, the headmaster of the school should be able to unlock the garrison gate…”
“That’s not going to do any good now,” Raul chafed audibly as he scanned a window before scaling to the next one in line.
“No choice,” Riku said after trying another slam at the gateway, “I’ll try to burn the thing down.” He immediately pressed his torch against the side of the wood. No reaction gave way. “It’s too thick and damp down here,” he nearly cursed.
“The castle housing the philosophers and poets of the past…” Madeleine said to herself analyzing the front. Her eyes dotted upwards towards where Raul was attached to the wall like a lizard. She watched his form attempt to find some passage through the windows as the dim light at the ceiling outlined his shape with unending shadows. “The light of reason…!” she said to herself suddenly. “Raul!” she called out, “can you reach the lamp at the ceiling?”
Raul grunted some confusion out before leaning backward from the wall with his one arm holding a bar and his feet keeping him steady on the surface. “Just barely,” he called out.
“Both the light inside and out here have to be supplied by something to keep them burning. They’re probably oil lamps and the oil is most likely being supplied from somewhere above us. Cut the lamp off carefully and we can use the oil to dowse the door and burn it down!”
Without hesitation, Raul swiped at the cord attaching the lamp mechanism to the ceiling with his rapier while simultaneously grabbing hold of the metallic containers with his other hand—he had inserted both of his feet through the bars of the windows in order to squat some leverage to hold himself and the lamp in a horizontal position.
Riku was quick enough to climb the face just below Raul and retrieve the ornament as Raul lowered his upper body to parallel the stone surface. Already, the supply of oil that had been feeding the flames from the cord began to drip to the floor. Riku spared no time and crashed the oil filled metal lamps into the door and let the fire engulf the portal. Making sure to keep the blaze from reaching the slowly pooling oil, the four let the bronzed door turn slowly red and then black.
Putting his cloak over his shoulder, Riku braved the flame and lunged at the entryway. It gave way and cinders of fiery wood splintered into the floor of the interior. “Don’t let it get out of control!” Riku called to them as he recovered off the ground. The others were already piling dust and dirt over the flames and smothering them.
The interior was not so dissimilar from that which the four had trekked through outside. The earthen structure mirrored that of the other corridors except for several crates and chests and shelves of bottled materials. It did not take the group long to stretch Willem out on some of these containers and for Riku to begin dressing the wound and stitching the gashed areas.
Willem distracted himself from the pain of the needle working through him by helping himself to whatever bottled spirits were kept in the hold and liberally applied the strongest of the beverages to his wounds every now and then. “Just have to rest here a bit, I think,” Riku reported with a smile to his patient.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Raul proposed merely guessing the time, “and in a few hours take whatever supplies we can and keep going down.”
“He should be fine by then,” Riku could not hold back a smile as he spoke. “I’ll go outside and make sure that oil spill isn’t going to be a problem.”
Madeleine placed some salted meats next to where Willem was laying down. “Might as well not go hungry while we’re here,” she said while finally allowing her weariness to melt into a restful stare at the young soldier.
“Thanks,” Willem said plainly before reaching up to take some of the food and nibble on it. Madeleine slid back from the makeshift table and found the nearest hanging lamp to sit below to review her papers.
Raul had been checking the stores before noticing Madeleine’s expression beginning to return to its previous anxiety. “What’s wrong?” he asked approaching the young woman.
“This is where the notes end,” Madeleine replied shifting through the parchment methodically and then repeating the process it as she reached the end. She even checked the reverse sides and held them up against the light thinking she might be missing something.
“What do you mean?” Raul asked crouching down next to her.
“This place was the last thing Uncle wrote about… there are no other notes.”
Raul contorted his face visibly. “What does it mean? I didn’t notice you lose any of the papers on the way…”
“And I’m sure this is how many I had when we came to the camp too,” Madeleine added while checking her pockets now.
“Could it be he was too weak to write out the rest? After all, there are a lot of levels as you mentioned,” Raul said to her while instinctively trying to check his own pack.
“Uncle was pretty explicit that this was all I needed…” Madeleine replied.
“Maybe this is all you needed,” Willem said with some salty piece of animal still in his mouth. It made both Raul and Madeleine look up to where he lay. “After all, you’ve got us through this far. I don’t know—maybe your uncle knows that you can figure out the rest of his riddles.”
Madeleine stared at the horizontal soldier for a moment and kept her eyes there. No words escaped her as she contemplated the possibility. Raul had given up on his search and kept his gaze on her as if Willem’s proposition might be confirmed any moment now by one of Madeleine’s haughty “of course!” Instead, the young woman closed her eyes and depressed herself against the crate behind her and sat against it slumping slightly forward. She stayed that way for perhaps a whole minute and Raul merely watched the dim figure of the young lady move only to breathe. When Raul turned to Willem, that was when Madeleine spoke out.
“The next four circles should be relatively simple,” she postulated with lids still closed. “These are the sins of Incontinence: Lust, Gluttony, Avarice, and Wrath. These are sins in Upper Hell and are farthest from the deep pit because they only involve a weakness of the will. Therefore… these levels will test our will to move forward.”
Raul watched Madeleine talk as if she was some oracle of old reciting some vision only she could see behind the veil of her eyelids. Even Willem had stopped chewing and turned his head to listen to the young lady recite her knowledge of the three hundred year old epic.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Willem attempted to make light of the situation.
“From then,” Madeleine continued undeterred, “Lower Hell means the sins where the will and intellect are involved. Active sins that will most likely involve traps that will try to outwit us and kill us with the violence or treachery akin to each category of evil…”
“We better get some rest for it then,” Raul said as he stood up from his crouch. Riku re-entered simultaneously.
“I’ve fixed the oil feed from the top. We should be fine tonight,” he said.
Raul nodded and turned to find his own place to rest that night. Madeleine opened her eyes to the now rapidly brightening dimness as her vision adjusted. If Uncle Renault really did intend for her to discern the rest, then she would not disappoint. They would reach the very bottom where in that lake the Fiend is imprisoned. It was there that the Timepiece waited for the one to decide its destiny and she would bring him to it.
“Don’t worry, Tom,” the voice had swirled in his ear just a few hours ago, “I’ll make sure to bring you to it… especially now that you’ve made the choice.”
The voice was a female one and, indeed, it even had that childish laugh that often the girls at his almost long forgotten high school would succumb to whenever they were chatting with their latest prospect of a boyfriend. Nonetheless, Tom curled up in his hospital bed with the sheets half covering him unable to get the ring of that voice out of his brain. The more ordinary and normal the voice sounded the more it reminded him that it represented completely the opposite.
“Now that I know where you are and that you’re willing to come with us, all you need to do is wait there and I’ll come for you—just like old times,” Tom remembered the voice. Again, there was that giggle.
He did not say much to Marcus Councilman when he was on the phone with her. Indeed, Marcus already knew it was him calling—although that was not so astounding considering the modern age of cellular technology. However, Marcus had also already guessed why Tom was calling. “So they’ve finally told you the truth?” the girl’s voice had teased him. The whole time, Tom felt there was a shadowy worm curling up in his ear as the young woman spoke to him.
“I just want things to be different,” Tom had gathered his strength to say that one justification to the other on the phone. There was a pause when he had said it. He wasn’t sure if perhaps Marcus was holding back a laugh or too giddy to respond immediately. The response did not tarry too long however.
“Thomas… I’ll do anything for you,” was the slippery response. Tom thought he could hear a hiss whenever Marcus called out his name.
“I… I know…” seemed like the only thing Tom could say at the time.
Marcus did not give him any definite answers; only vague promises that he’d be rescued soon. “Rescued,” Tom thought to himself, even that very term seemed like some kind of equivocation to him. Until then, he had to wait—something which felt like he had always been doing this whole time. It frustrated him enough that he half muffled himself against his pillow and his hands sandwiching his head against the softness.
Perhaps it was also this position that gave him a bit more comfort. He wanted his hands exactly where he could control them. Control: that was something that his will was somehow affected by ever since the voice entered into his ear again. The memories returned to him simultaneously even while his eyes were closed. It reminded him of the other times his telephone conversations carried on with the young woman. Marcus Councilman reminded him of exactly where it all began: Lust.
Chapter XCVIII: Lust (coming soon)
