Chapter CVIX: Malebolge Pt. 3 [Grafters and Hypocrites]
9 April 1610
Madeleine sucked in her breath as she grabbed onto Raul's shoulder and dragged his tunic backwards as they retreated past the bend. “We've got to circle back,” she hissed to the others as the oncoming voices started to increase in volume. All three turned and slid away from the encroaching lights around the corner running along the inner circle of the wall as stealthily as they could.
A dead stop as all three now looked at two pairs of a red glow eying them in the darkness ahead. A diffused light revealed shapes of metal and form: two men in armour suddenly aware of the three of them. Their weapons were now alerted and trained towards them maliciously. Raul was the first to try and move-- making to leap left but a sudden deafening roll of thunder and the stone next to him exploded in a cloud of debris halted his advance. “Don't make any further moves if you value your lives and the lives of your friends,” was a voice that greeted them from behind.
All three turned at the voice speaking to them, but only a grinning corpulent face rounded by round spectacles teased them with teeth shining in the dark expanse of the ditch like a miniature graveyard. “If you think--” Madeleine began to say when she was interrupted by someone else walking out from the shadow.
“Don't do it, dear, these men are extremely dangerous...” Renault spoke to her from the gap between the parties in their native French. “These men are armed more heavily than they appear as well,” it was simultaneously that the figure of Carmen and Father Valerio entered into the insufficient illumination of the deathly mouthed man's strange lamp.
“My name is Herr Gehirn,” the man addressed them, “and I'm assuming you, little girl, are Madeleine; my dear guest's niece and the two of you are her companions,” there was no response from the three. Madeleine herself was too distracted from seeing Carmen's concerned look to think of anything to say, “tie their hands,” Herr Gehirn ordered to the two soldiers who now approached the three and began to wrap some rope tightly around the pairs of wrists.
“You don't need them for of the rest of the journey,” Renault spoke aloud, “and you're going to have too many hostages to manage if you keep up at this pace. Leave them here and we can move forward--”
“Do you really think I'm that stupid, Dr. de Fronsac?” the German laughed while adjusting his gloves on his hands, “I'm not about to let loose your little delinquents. Furthermore... they may prove to be useful.”
“You only need me, Gehirn!” Renault reiterated as he raised his voice to the back of the German's head who did not bother turning around to look at him.
For a moment, there was a pause as if Gehirn was muddling over the question with some mirage of conscience. “I'm afraid you're wrong, Dr. de Fronsac,” Gehirn ceremoniously sighed as he turned around. His pistol touched Renault's chin. “Now that your genius little niece is here,” he whispered loud enough that the rest gasped at the dim shadow of the pistol pressing Renault's face to look up to Heaven, “I have no need for you. She can take us the rest of the way and I won't have to worry about carrying around someone as dangerous as you...”
Carmen let out a scream at the sight but Madeleine's voice rose above the others, “Stop!” she growled at him almost rushing forward if it weren't for the one soldier holding the rope on her wrists, “you can't make it down there without my uncle-- you--” she stopped her frantic cry and widened her eyes to the sight of a pistol now aimed at her face.
“I don't care which one I kill,” Gehirn giggled a hyena's chuckle, “one genius is enough for this journey...”
As Renault yelled his protest, a large rock flew from the surrounding darkness and smashed against the front of Gehirn's strange lamp blinding the gap in between him and the three captives. Before the move of a clock hand could follow, the implosive snuff of gunpowder snapped through the air and the ring of bullet on metal emanated from one of the soldier's uniform between his helmet and his cuirass. He screamed out a drowning sound as he reached for the gap leading to his neck and both of his arms letting go of his side of the box that he had carried.
“Gerhard's been hit!” the other man holding onto the box yelled before letting loose a spray of bullets and flashes against the far wall.
“Protect the box!” Gehirn screamed in German before another shot clanged against one of the guard's suits and disorienting him just enough for Raul to drop to the floor and swipe his leg underneath him.
Gehirn raised his pistol to fire into the scuffle ahead but Renault's shoulder made contact with the German's back and tackled him to the floor. In between the staccato and lightning flashes of random fire being sprayed in all directions, the soldiers retreated towards the box as stones began to spray at them from random directions. Carmen took this as her opportunity as she feigned to take cover on the floor but instead heaved one of the large rocks and smashed it against the crimson goggles of the nearest soldier. A rainbow of fire followed the trail of the man's weapon as he flew backward in the air.
Colonel Miguel unsheathed his machete and made way towards Carmen, but Father Valerio, now free from his ward, grappled from behind Miguel, tightening his grip around the man's waist and, with a loud growl lifted him off the ground, arched him above his body and landed him head first into the floor behind him. There was no time for Carmen to be amazed as she and the priest dodged another spray of bullets before finding Renault and the others.
“Run!” a voice called out from the darkness. The group did not need to be instructed again as all six raced in one of the free directions. Madeleine was the only one who looked back for a brief instance at the voice before being dragged forward by Raul avoiding the crossfire.
All six ran for nearly half the circuit of the bolge before Renault stopped them. “Here... this one is the hole to the next ditch-- don't ask why just--”
“Don't...” a voice from the darkness said with a pant, “leave without me this time...” the figure said. Madeleine's eyes perked into the direction of the voice. A lamp was brought against the curved wall. Standing there with a dark camouflage of dirt on his face and clothes and with two spent pistols still warm in his hands was Willem van Axel.
“Inside now before they catch up!” Renault called out to all of them.
---
When the seven of them slid through the tiny conduit that lead into the next ditch below them, Renault was the last to exit out of the portal that wound in the earth carefully to discourage any idea that that particular font was the correct one. The next ditch was a stark difference from the others. Brilliantly lit with small fires maintained by wicks and gallons of oil, the entire ditch was as a lot brighter than most of the other areas save the burning tombs of the heretics and the burning sands of the violent.
Carmen found Renault immediately after the older man made it through the port. “Thank God...” she kept on repeating as she clung to him and while he held her tightly in return. “They came a month ago and raided Little China... Amin was injured severely trying to protect me, but he's alright... They took some of your plan notes for this dungeon and me as a hostage...”
“It's alright now,” Renault reassured both her and himself as he felt his wife's warmth once more, “now, we're one step ahead and we'll make it...”
Madeleine was stunned to see the sight of her aunt-- still wearing her latest fashions despite the dirt that accumulated from the journey-- but it was the vision of the Dutch soldier casually wiping off the soot and dirt from his tunic and face to dig at the handsomeness underneath that caught her attention. She was still a bit speechless
“Willem... how---” Riku was the one who asked as that friend placed a hefty hand on Willem's shoulder. Raul looked on as if it was an expected turn of events; Raul even turned away so that no one could detect his accelerated breathing...
“It was by accident, I guess,” the Dutchman laughed, “I was so angry at that stupid dog machine-thing coming at me that I threw some of the gunky dirt into its gaping maw... to my surprise it stopped the mechanism inside of it. I had passed out after that for a while and that's probably why I hadn't seen Señor de Fronsac. When I came to, I was almost ecstatic about the whole thing until I heard the sound of soldiers and Colonel Miguel entering the circle. There was no place for me to run to and I was in no position to fight with my wound. The only place I could hide was... well... inside one of Cerberus's mouths. Since the whole thing was stopped, it didn't seem to be very dangerous and I waited for them to pass. I've been trailing them ever since.”
Madeleine was too surprised at the idea to mention that she should have remembered that portion of how Virgil and Dante avoided the threats of Cerberus by throwing dirt into its mouth. She wanted to speak but suddenly felt ashamed that she had forgotten to tell him that-- that he could have died because of her forgetfulness... “Willem...” she attempted to manage before a face hovered to her left.
“And you, young lady!” Carmen de Fronsac's voice rang in Madeleine's ear. Madeleine turned to her and opened her mouth and shrunk back but could not find any words. “How many times have I told you about the trouble you get yourself into?” the older woman scolded but always with a hidden smile underneath her grimace. “And look at this outfit! Do you think I go shopping for you at Los Angeles every few months just so that you can--”
“Save the fashion lectures later, darling,” Renault came to Madeleine's rescue, “Gehirn seems to know our traps well... we should get going before he catches up. You can see that this is the ditch for the Astrologers. I had this room intentionally lit up because I wanted it to represent the supposed knowledge that the astrologers possess in much the same way there was light from the burning tombs in the heretics circle. You can see that there are grooves on the far wall over there,” Renault pointing. It was true, there were circles cut into the wall as if portals the size of a person's head were being constructed but never finished creating little pockets in the earth. “The trick of his ditch is that you must look into those holes and block out the false-light of the astrologers in the room. Only then will it be dim enough for you to see the true light within.”
Raul was the first to demonstrate as he placed his head against the hole and using his arms around him to completely eclipse the light behind him. “I don't see anything...” he complained as he stared into the subtle darkness.
“Don't be impatient. Just with astrology attempting to gain knowledge immediately, so the opposite is to wait patiently for your eyes to adjust to the more hidden light...”
It was then that Raul could begin to see a message weave its way through the earth in a strange glow. He immediately pulled his head out after reading the lettering. “How...?”
“A kind of fungus that grows in the jungle. We found through the natives that they emit a glow in the dark so I used them embedded in the dirt to formulate a message... If you read them in sequence you'll get the wrong code... that's the final trick of this ditch. The astrologers were punished for attempting to read too much forward into the future so you have to read the message backwards in order to get the correct cipher.”
---
Reading the cipher backward had led them to find the secret passageway out of the ditch of the Asrologers and into the next ditch. This circle had no light much like the others in the cavern. Holding a lamp over her head, Madeleine now could see the genre of this particular circle. Liquid as dark as the blackness around them frothed quietly like a wall of malleable silence resting on the floor hoping to quietly engulf someone into its folds like some monster of uncreated night. “A tar pit...” Riku said out loud. At first, the Finn looked towards Madeleine for one of her explanations, but the young lady seemed distracted. Her eyes shifted towards the soldier who was still holding onto the side of his abdomen where the initial wound was still bothering him.
“This is the circle of the grafters,” Renault was the one who began explaining, “Embezzlers, extortionists, blackmailers, corrupt merchants all of those kinds of individuals who abused their positions for money. Dante placed them in a pit of tar for the stickiness. They were so greedy about money to the point that it was sticking to their fingers that they are now damned to be stuck in the ultimate kind of stickiness forever. A horde of demons would also watch over them called the Malebranche who would tear apart any who tried to escape in much the same way as these men ruined the lives of others through their dealings by their unforgiving and inhumane grappling for others' money and possessions. In Hell, their bodies thus become the possessions of the demons who show no mercy to them. Immediately after this one will be the circle of the Hypocrites who are damned to walk for all of eternity with bright white cloaks that are actually lined on the inside with heavy lead; obviously you can understand the
contrapasso in that. The next ditch is important because that is where I put a dynamic roadsign.”
“A roadsign?” Raul asked.
“Yes, chief of the hypocrites that Dante cites is Caiphas, the High Priest of the Jews who condemned Our Lord. He is crucified on the floor of the hypocrites as his contrapasso and each hypocrite has to walk over him as they make their round. In essence, Caiphas must suffer the weight of all hypocrisy. I set up the entire thing so that depending on the positioning of the cross we see on the floor, it will tell us which route to take from there. I have the route change every few days through a mechanism in the earthwork. That way throughout a cycle of a few months, no one path will remain the correct one. I intentionally made that portion difficult because hypocrisy is something that must be combated by every person every single day. Dante recognized this and that's why although in the actual Poem, the Poets are able to pass each ditch by using a bridge over them, the bridge over the sixth ditch is broken, forcing them to descend into the bolge and walk amongst the hypocrites for a while signifying that it is the one fraud that is universal and shows how Dante is more than just a writer-- he is the symbol in his own story of the everyman... These next two circles are the end of the easiest of the bolge. Afterwards, it becomes harder-- more unpredictable. I should be able to guide you through these two rather easily but the next ones I will require your assistance to make sure we get through safely.”
“What makes the others harder?” Riku asked out of curiosity.
Renault couldn't help but chuckle a little bit, “It's because regardless of how well I designed the ditch, and no matter how hard I tried, those snakes down there are always a bit unpredictable...”
“That snake can be a bit unpredictable,” Carlos remembered some of Rodrigo's words to him before leaving Carlos in Japan to take care of the problem of Pablo. “If possible, capture him alive and find out all that he knows. Find out why he was able to pass through our nets and security checks,” were some more of Rodrigo's words that echoed in Carlos's brain as he secured the weapon in his grip.
“We've blocked all the entrances and exits to the complex and we've got the snipers on building C and D on stand by,” Lara told everyone over the communications frequency, “be careful in there, Carlos...” she added quietly just on his personal channel.
Even though Carlos understood that success was necessary for the mission, he was also slightly preoccupied in his thoughts. Rodrigo had now trusted him enough to give him his own command in this way although it was granted that Lara was there to supervise him. There was a strange sense of relief that he felt despite the danger of the immediate operation. Carlos leaned against the hallway wall as he eyed the door next to him that designated the threshold between his alpha team and the target within. Captain DeWitt was on the opposite side of the doorway looking at him awaiting the signal to commence.
“Sniper team C reporting a single heat signature inside of the apartment,” someone said over the frequency.
“Understood, we're--” Carlos halted before leaning in closer to the doorway. He made a hand signal to the others in the hall; there was talking going on, he conveyed. “Get me a laser feed on the glass,” he whispered.
There was a soft crackle of static before the audio broke through. “She's been stolen from us for years now, Raul,” the voice said.
“Is he talking on his mobile?” Carlos asked through the communications device in his helmet.
“No wireless activity is going on inside,” Lara replied.
“I know, Pablo... you poor dear,” the single voice said again silencing all, “but the promise will be fulfilled... those who stole
her away from us will pay for it all even though they think we've done them a great service.”
“Who is...?” Carlos attempted to ask himself.
“With your help, Raul,” the voice said again, “We'll get our revenge on those thieves... Yes, Pablo... and we won't even have to lift a finger... we'll just keep giving them 'good' advice until we can take everything back...”
Chapter CX: Malebolge Pt. 4 [Thieves and False Counselors] (coming soon)
