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In Hell

Whatever titles and respect he&039;d enjoyed as overduke were entirely useless in the end, Anton decided The only things that counted with this de any aptitude for inflicting pain - were e Apparently little of either were to be had in this realic Botellothat awful moment when they&039;d traded places Bloody thief He&039;d not taken Anton&039;s inherent knowledge, though, so not all was lost, just in a very, very bad place Perhaps in tiies Only he didn&039;t want to spend that tiraphic way the consequences of lying to them, not on his own person, but upon some other hapless souls already in residence Anton, after suppressing a strong urge to voht it on themselves in some way He was not of their nuh he was htened, they&039;d not coes to keep hi to the conclusion that they honestly didn&039;t knohat to do with hione Otherside," he&039;d replied "He&039;s takenput me in this one"

"Get him back," they&039;d ordered

His life experience in politics and diploic Rather than unwisely adle clue as to how to acco out

Thus did they allow hiical tools and freedoot the impression that they had beento repeat the mistake

Even with thee to, once they told hi feature about this place, the way thoughts could beor terrified, else they could turn the Hell plane into a quite nice place for them

He&039;d hoped to find Botello with the ot that Burkus lackey The poor ht out of his depth Anton did not have er Suppose he was able to get to Velirl, but would she believe his story? Would she test things by speaking to Botello? Would he discover her out? And then what?

My gawd, if he hurts her, I&039;ll have his skin on a wall

The de battle against giving in to shrieking panic It&039;s one thing to be condemned to Hell when the Powers decree you deserve the punishment, but quite another to be thrust in by the machinations of a fellow human

I&039;m not even dead There must be some provision for that in the Law of the Powers He could not, offhand, recall any, having left the more esoteric matters of spiritual precepts to Lord Perdle, who quite enjoyed such canonistic convolutions Making contact with hiht provelike Botello - appearing in Perd&039;s shaving mirror didn&039;t send the fellow into a spasm It could take quite a lot of tiawd knohat Probably finding a way to bring all these bloody de true No Can&039;t allow that No, no, no, no, no

The demons had altered their appearance since his initial encounter with that first creature For some reason they now looked like warped versions of his courtiers He decided it had more to do with his perception than the actuality Whatever ht really be beneath their facades he was in no hurry to find out

Booooommmm

Oh, yes, then there was that damned Gate Literally Far overhead an a star, but uards Another soul, they said Another soul If there was any cause for joy in Hell, it was the arrival of fresh misery to feed upon Anton never cared for that sort of coossipy fe chant was more likely to be Do you knoho died today? followed by a detailed report of the whole dreadful process

Enough of that distraction Enough of waiting He had to accept that thingssmoothly on the Otherside With Botello there it was only to be expected Anton would have to find a path out of Hell on his own

Sue to move, hehione, but he still had a ift of his inner visions That was one aspect of his Talent Botello could not touch A player ht be without his lute, but he could still create enius for it

Anton found a place where he could look at the Gate alully The de down there

"Is there a problem?" he asked

"You are where the river flows," one of them replied

The Hell-river? Well, fancy that He wasn&039;t too worried about being swept away in any black flood His night in the murk, not Botello "Where is it now? On Otherside?"

The deht and return at dawn?"

It stared as though not understanding the question "The river cooes"

Not terribly endoith brains, are you? "When is it due to return?"

It shrugged again

H They didn&039;t havein a place of eternity His own tiht well be confused Hours in this place could be only ive that Burkus ive Botello longer to work

Anton stood in the reat black Gate For inward Beneath theap that would otherwise be filled up by the river It was open and looked so, but surely its hazy depths couldn&039;t be an escape route They&039;d have tried it by now That is, if they&039;d thought to try it In a Reality where thoughts could take on forht not even see the saht see acres of bear traps

He couldn&039;t quite ray and blurred as fog He hiked over Demons on either bank of the riverbed kept pace

He peered under the gap Still a blur, but he thought he heard so within

"Hallo? Is anyone there? Hallo?"

No reply, but the sound, a strange, soft whispering was definitely real

Bending to duck through, he stepped toward it

"You cannot go there," said one of the dereement

"Why not?"

"Not allowed You will stay on this side of the Gate"

"You want Botello back, don&039;t you?"

"Yes"

"Then I have to go get him"

"He isn&039;t there"

"How do you know that unless I look?"

The demons had no answer He&039;d stuot more forceful with their objections He went sloell aware that souls don&039;t just escape from Hell It simply wasn&039;t done Nor should it be this easy

He poked his head under the Gate "Hallo Anyone hoood He eased into the gray blur, straining to see A light or a shape, anything solid He raised one hand to touch the bottoes to reach an ending to it - unless he alking lengthwise instead of across No ht and did so He went dizzy for a moment, for there was no reference to up or down here, only the disorientating liibberish in a thousand tiain

"My name is Anton I was thrown into Hell by e to who, sounding none too pleased He hoped this wasn&039;t one of those ardless

"I&039;m not actually dead," he explained "This isn&039;t my body I was dispossessed, you see, and I&039;d really like to clear the proble abruptly ceased

Tre to focus on It was als were far too visible To offset another bout of dizziness he shut his eyes

That&039;s when things sprang into being for him Oh, yes, his vision worked perfectly here

Darirls took off pretty fast to Filiical junk Just like hirab the babes for his they&039;d be talking shop, even Vel up to do with her friend It would be all eeks &039;Puter chat I could relate to, but this world was a few centuries short of developing microchips Double ditto for potato chips, even

That left uys to take care of the threat of the false overduke, if and when he decided to show up

Shankey stressed the ihts away from the s The house had to look asleep as normal He led us back to the kitchen and rooted around in what looked like Dr Jekyll&039;s pantry, finding a bottle covered with pasted-on cautionary labels He squinted at the curly lettering

" &039;Three drops per glass of water for a sound night&039;s rest,&039; " he read He put it back on a high shelf "Not strong enough What&039;s this one? &039;One drop per gallon of water to soothe a panicked bull&039; Yeah, that should do it Okay, I&039;ll go check on the guys by the front gate Back in a minute"

He slipped out the kitchen door I was curious to see what he planned and followed quietly Debreban and Cad fro wizards

Shankey opted for a casual approach, going up to several arb who stood just outside the Dar theh of their exchange to deter off invaders Not for the ave hi around his lady&039;s driveway entry in the ht His friendly offer of liquid refresh beer flagons out on the table when he returned "How fast will that stuff work?" I asked as he brought the bottle of knock-out juice over

He didn&039;t know "I saw it used once at a horse-racing meet One of the runners went into a fit, tried to kick its stall down along with a few stable lads The anied to shove a drop of this into itsafter the horse keeled over to sleep for a few hours So did the apothecary, only he woke up a couple days later"

"Must be absorbed through the skin You got an eye-dropper? We don&039;t wanna risk touching this"

He found a thin glass tube like a delicate straw and used it to transfer a drop of the juice into each flagon I filled six of theain to play waiter, returning soon after with empties

"They&039;re in no pain," he announced, satisfied

"Sure it won&039;t kill theuys should, too"

I hoped none of the sickness

He and Debreban went to work hauling snoring bodies off to a gardener&039;s hut After the first trip they returned with theelbarrows, and that o faster Shankey took over-tunics, weapons, helmets, and cloaks from two of the men, then he and Debreban put thenize you?" After all, Shankey had worked for the guy for years, and Debreban was likely to be a fresh uard?" Shankey pulled the hel metalwork around the eyes and over the cheeks His iht work "Besides, it&039;s really dark out, and if his lordship co to be in a hurry" He and Debreban quick-ate

"He&039;ll co at the table, looking morose I offered him so to his stomach "He&039;ll know that I&039;ve talked to Fili"

"He won&039;t know for sure," I said "If you keep out of sight, it keeps hi and buys Filima some time"

"You as well He&039;s assureat power Wants to strip you of your ical"

I shrugged "Just not in the cards and I a run" Terrin was more than welcome to mess with the whammy tech; there ay too etting fried Speaking of fried, as Hell gonna be like? "You talked to this Botello dude a lot? After he was dead? Is that what I heard?"

Cadhto see - well, never ot his face instead Not ashahtened ht I&039;d somehow tripped and fallen into a bit of necro around here First he pleaded with otin Hell did that to hian attitude "Couldn&039;t you have just not used the mirror?"

"The situation had turned too co to help him escape By the time I realized what a mistake it was I was too psychically linked to hier, too I couldn&039;t block hiot tossed into Hell?"

"Not really Just said it was a mistake Do you know?"

I didn&039;t think Filiht need the inforht, then it wouldn&039;t matter

When I finished Cadmus was suitably i, and I&039;ve been such a swine pestering her I&039;ll have to apologize right away" He began to scoot his chair back

"Uh-uh" I waved hi up so to Botello did you see anything of Hell?

"Only his face and soreen Why do you want to know?"

"Just wanna be prepared" I suggested ait in the front hall where we&039;d have a better chance of bushwhacking Botello in case Debreban and Shankey missed theirJust as we entered the foyer, Vel downstairs, candle in hand

"Terrin said it&039;s ti soleave one terrific lurch Oh, gawd, I was scared Then my brain twitched and unexpectedly kicked out an idea A wonderful idea Why couldn&039;t I have been this brilliant half an hour ago and saved ? "Great!" I said and bounded past her

Terrin had set up shop in the fancy blue roo in a sloppy heap next to a pillar along with the table and shards fro mirror I&039;d broken earlier Four chairs were now in the center of the floor, arranged according to the compass points My initial ihts about a seance

Within their space was a big circle drawn in white chalk on the blue mosaic floor, about six feet across He&039;d inscribed its peri several different alphabets It was enclosed in a second, er circle where the chairs stood Each of them was in its own smaller circle like sohted a ton of incense - a nice-sativity He had soic radiating fro a ruo," I announced

Terrin and Filima paused their conversation He shot me a look "You better be sure, they don&039;t have bathrooms on that side"