It is easy to go down into Hell;
night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide;
but to climb back up again, to retrace one's steps
to the upper air—there's the rub, the task.—Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
Walter Slovotsky's huge hand shook him, while the damp night grass pressed against his shirt and bare feet.
"Karl, we're back." The big man wept almost silently. "We're back."
Bare feet? That made sense; they had left their sandals behind. But why did his back hurt so? As if he'd been sunburned. Worse.
"Easy, now." Her hand at the back of his neck, Andy-Andy propped him up to a sitting position.
Karl opened his eyes, moonlight off the water in front of him hitting him like a slap. Moonlight? "We did it."
Lou Riccetti knelt in front of him, barefoot in now-tattered workshirt and jeans. "Not quite." His voice was somber, his round cheeks were wet. "We don't even have Jason's body with us, and . . ."
"And what, dammit?" Karl peeled back the right leg of his jeans. No wonder the leg ached so; it was covered with blisters.
"Look over there." Riccetti pointed. Doria lay curled on the grass, her eyes wide and unblinking, her chest barely moving. "She's gone, Karl. Catatonic."
Karl shook himself. And it was himself; smaller, skinnier. Barak?
Help me?
Nothing. No answer, not even the feeling of the presence of his other persona. Then I'll do without. "Where's Ahi—James?"
"Later," Andy-Andy breathed. "Just take a moment. You need—"
"Show him." Riccetti's voice was firm.
She caught a breath, and held it for longer than Karl would have thought possible. "Look to your right."
Walter Slovotsky knelt weeping over the dead body of James Michael Finnegan. The third-degree burns that had killed James Michael still smoldered, sending up light traces of mist and smoke.
Ohgod. "He didn't change enough."
Walter wept unashamedly, his huge hands reaching out as though to shake little James Michael Finnegan awake, then drawing back.
Just think for a minute. Mirror Lake spread out in front of him in the moonlight, the Commons all around. "We're on campus." A chill wind blew across the lake, sending a rush of leaves tumbling around him. "How long?"
Riccetti shook his head. "Deighton didn't lie about the different time rates. I snuck into a dorm; we've been gone just about eight hours—it's four in the morning. Jase is . . . gone, James Michael is dead, Doria is—"
Karl backhanded him across the face. "Shut up." Shaking off Andy-Andy's helping hands, he got to his feet, ignoring the shooting pains from the blisters on his soles. "We've got to get moving."
"And do what?" Andy-Andy shrilled.
"Shut up, I said." He hobbled over to where Walter knelt weeping over the burned body that had been James Michael Finnegan. "And you, stand up and clear your head. Now. We don't have time for this shit."
Walter bared his teeth and growled, "You leave me alone. You—"
"No time for that. Where do you keep your car?"
"Car?"
"Yes, car. Automobile—where do you keep it parked?"
The big man's forehead crinkled. "Over in B-Lot. What are you—"
"Not close enough. Lou?"
Riccetti trotted over, a faint smile peeking through the grim-ness of his wet face. "Yes? Are you thinking what I think—"
"You've got it. S-Lot's closest—get there, find a big car, and steal it. Spare key under the front fender, cross some wires, do whatever you have to, but get a big car, and get it here. Fast."
"Got it." Riccetti nodded and ran off.
"Karl?" Walter looked up at him. "What's going on?"
"Lou worked it out. You should have listened more closely to Ahira. The Matriarch of the Healing Hand may be able to raise the dead. Now, we don't have Jason's body, but we do have James Michael's. And we have Doria." He took a deep breath. "So we're going back. You know where that bastard Deighton lives?"
"Faculty Row—third house from the—"
"Fine. Run up there—act like you're out for a jog, or something—and cut the phone lines. Don't go in, but if he notices you and tries to get out, stop him."
Slovotsky stood. "Are you sure we should handle it this way?"
Karl grabbed him by the front of the shirt. "Ahira's out of it, and I'm in charge. Understood?"
Slovotsky smiled and nodded. "You really think we'll be able to get away with all this?"
"No. But we're going to try. Get moving." Karl released his grip.
Slovotsky turned and jogged away, not looking back.
"Karl?" His feet aching hideously, he turned to face Andy-Andy. "What have you got for me?"
"Diversion." He jerked his thumb toward the road. "If anybody comes this way, you distract them. Particularly if it's Security. If we get stuck on this side, James'll get buried, Doria gets committed to some nice funny farm, and that's it. So make it good."
She nodded. "But if it's Security, and I get busted?"
"Then you stay here. So make sure you don't. If we lose you, meet us up at Faculty Row. Third house from the west end." He forced a grin. "It'll be the one with the big stolen car in front of it. Now get up to the road, and keep watch."
She nodded and started to walk away, then turned back to face him. "But what if Deighton won't send us back? Or can't?"
Karl crossed his arms over his chest. "He will. Believe me, he will."
* * *
They huddled in the bushes next to Deighton's back porch. A light shone through the drawn curtains, casting their faces into yellow shadow.
"Last chance," Karl said quietly. "We've all got family and friends on this side. Our lives are here. I promise I'll do my best to bring anybody back who wants to come back . . . ." He shrugged.
Walter smiled. Not amiably. "But there's no guarantee we can slip by The Dragon again." The big man shrugged, not noticing how that split the shoulders of his shirt. "I'll take the chance. For James."
Riccetti rubbed at his face. "I've got no problem. I've always wanted out, wanted to make some miracles." He spread his hands. "And what am I here? A ninth-semester engineering major with maybe enough money for another semester. Haven't spoken to my parents in—" He shook himself. "I just want to know how we're going to do it."
"In a minute. Andy?"
She laid a hand on his arm. "We'll talk about it later. Right now, I'm more worried about Doria and Ahira. You said that they can help them on the other side?"
I don't have time for explanations. No, that wasn't true. It wasn't a matter of time, but of nerve. If we don't do this quickly, I don't know if I can do it at all. "Somewhere in the Waste is the home tabernacle of the Healing Hand Society. Doria's sect."
She nodded. "And she's one of their own, so they're likely to help her. Probably." She paused for a moment, fingering the bend in her nose. "But only probably—what if their . . . records don't show her? I mean, on this side there's institutions—maybe Doria would be best here?"
"No." Karl forced a smile. "I'm an ex-psych major, remember? The prognosis for catatonia is bad. Insulin therapy, shock treatments—none of it has decent odds. That's one.
"Two. If she could be brought out of it here, what do you think her chances are of ever getting out of the rubber-room set? Even a good shrink will diagnose her as having heavy delusions—and the rest of us won't be around to back her up, not if we're going to try to get James brought back. I can't see a chance that she could persuade anyone that what happened, well, happened. As far as I can see it, we're her only chance." He turned to Riccetti. "You crack a window in the car?"
"As per instructions. The . . . bag is still in the trunk, Doria's safely under a blanket in the back seat, and after I dropped you two off, I parked it well away from a streetlight."
"Fine," Karl said. "Go back to it, start it up, and pull it into the driveway when you see the light on the front porch blink three times. If that doesn't happen within, say, fifteen minutes, get going. Take care of them, and make another try when you think it's right. Got it?"
"Got it." Riccetti walked away, stooping low as he passed under Deighton's kitchen window.
Walter straightened himself. "What have you got for me?"
"Free safety. If the bastard gets past Andy and me, stop him. Don't kill him, don't give him a concussion—but stop him. On the three blinks, you come in, too. And if we blow it, you get back to your dorm and play Football Hero until you hear from Riccetti—Andy and I will keep our mouths shut. You weren't at the Student Union tonight, you didn't know anybody was missing or dead—understood?"
"Understood. We could just ask Deighton, you know." Walter held up a hand. "I know—but if he tells us to go to hell and starts screaming for the cops, we're in trouble."
Karl turned back to Andy-Andy. "You still haven't said whether you're in or out."
She gripped his shoulder. "In. Idiot."
He took a deep breath. It wasn't all that bad, not here. If something had gone wrong on the other side, he would have ended up as the main feature at a Coliseum torture session; here, the worst possibility was being arrested for kidnapping, assault, and first-degree murder.
No, make that second-degree. No way any prosecutor is ever going to prove my motive, show that I premeditated it.
Karl exhaled, forcing himself to relax. "Anybody got anything else to bring up? Then let's do it, people." He stood. "Now."
* * *
Ten minutes later, Arthur Simpson Deighton sat bound to a kitchen chair, glaring at Karl with his left eye. He couldn't quite glare with the right one; it was swollen shut.
Karl finished the last knot on the ropes that bound the old man's left ankle to the chair, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. Deighton was secure: His wrists were tied tightly with two of his own neckties, and the gag was letting little else besides muffled groans through.
He walked over to the sink where Andy-Andy stood, her right hand under the cold running water. "Nice shot," he said.
"Thanks." She winced. "I wish you could have taken him down a bit faster; I think I broke my thumb."
"You shouldn't make a fist with the thumb inside. Besides, that looks like a sprain to me. You want to go down to the infirmary, have it X-rayed?"
"And miss all the fun? No thanks. And no thanks for the sympathy, either."
He shrugged, then turned as the kitchen door swung open. No problem; just Walter.
"Everything okay in here?"
Karl nodded. "Just fine. You two go out and sit in the living room with the rest. Doc and I have a couple of things to talk over."
He checked three of the kitchen drawers before he found the one with the knives. Selecting a long, thin skinning knife, he looked around for a whetstone. No luck.
And that was too bad. Sharpening the knife in front of Deighton would have been good theater.
Still, Deighton's unbruised eye widened as Karl, knife in hand, pulled up a chair, spun it around, and seated himself ass-backward, his arms resting on the chair's back, the knife held lightly between thumb and forefinger.
"Deighton," Karl said, in his best Charles Bronson monotone, "I'm going to make this short." And as frightening as possible; I don't want you thinking about anything except that you're terrified of me. "You used us as a bunch of guinea pigs; everything that happened on the other side was your fault. Agreed?" And what does he know about what happened on the other side? He said in his letter that his visions were erratic, that the time differential makes it hard for him to follow what happens—does he know that Jason is dead?
Deighton shook his head violently.
Karl smiled. "Relax. You may just have a way out of it. As I was saying, when you shoot craps with people's lives, you're responsible for the result. It's a sound legal principle—take my word for it. Say, if you torch a building for the insurance, and someone dies in the fire, you don't just spend a year or two in jail for the arson. It's murder one." Karl raised a palm. "I'll give you this: You tried to see that we were well enough equipped. You didn't know that Ari—that Riccetti was going to blast the treasure chest." He set the point of the knife under Deighton's chin, sliding the blade through the gray goatee until it touched flesh. "But that doesn't make any difference, professor. Agreed? I said, agreed?" He drew the knife back, just enough for Deighton to move his head.
Slowly, Deighton nodded.
"And how many times a murderer does that make you, Art? Blink once for each."
Deighton's left eye closed, then opened. He looked toward the door from the kitchen to the living room, then back at Karl.
Good. He's not sure if I want him to count Doria, but he doesn't know about Jason. Karl forced himself not to breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn't know that Jason is dead.
"Now," Karl went on, "it's your fault that James Michael is dead, and Doria's . . . in bad shape. If killing you would bring them back, I'd do it here and now." He touched the blade to Deighton's neck, just over the jugular. "A little push, and it would be all over." He dropped the point of the blade. "But that wouldn't bring them back, would it? It's too bad that the only way I can see to fix things requires that you stay alive."
Hope brightened Deighton's lined face. Karl went on: "So, you're sending us back. Can you do that? I mean, because it worked once with us, can you be sure that it'll work again?"
Deighton nodded.
"Good. Next question—and in case you haven't guessed, the answer had better be yes—can you transfer us from here to that green spot in the Waste of Elrood, the home tabernacle of the Society of the Healing Hand? Better nod, Art. Otherwise"—Karl touched the knifepoint to the center of Deighton's forehead—"we go to Plan B."
Deighton drew his head back.
"You don't want to know what Plan B is, do you?"
Deighton shook his head as though he were trying to shake his ears loose.
Good. Because I don't know what Plan B is, either. That was the trouble with threatening Deighton; what if he called Karl's bluff? There was no way to get back to the other side that didn't require Deighton's cooperation, and Karl wasn't sure that he had either the stomach or the knowledge to cause Deighton enough pain to make him cooperate—without killing the bastard.
So we keep him too scared to think of calling my bluff. "One more thing: Only six of us are going back; Parker is staying behind. I've got him safely away from campus, holed up in a motel. If we don't get back in a reasonable time . . ." He let his voice trail off; Deighton's imagination would work better than an explicit threat.
Karl shrugged. "Are we agreed? Good—I'm going to free your mouth now." He slipped the knife between Deighton's cheek and the cloth strips that held a balled-up dishtowel in Deighton's mouth. "Go ahead and yell. Once." Karl sliced the strips.
Deighton spat out the dishtowel. "You . . . misunderstood me." His voice quavered only a little. "I didn't mean for any of this—"
"Shut up. What equipment do you need?"
"I haven't said that I'd do it."
Karl shrugged. "Got a pair of pliers around here? I bet you'll do it after I've pulled a few teeth." He started to rise.
"Wait. There's a wood box in the living room. Oak, approximately two feet by one, six inches deep. I'll need that, and I'll have to have my hands free."
Karl reached out and patted the old man's cheek. "No problem. But if you try to free your legs before we're gone, I'll break them. At the kneecaps." He couldn't resist adding, "Shweetheart."
* * *
"You are lying in the short grasses of the well-kept lawn surrounding the tabernacle of the Society of the Healing Hand, a group of six adventurers, seeking the revivification of one of your number, the healing of the soul of another, and fleeing the shame of a distant wizard, who regrets with all his heart that you were hurt. That any of you were hurt.
"The tabernacle towers above you, several hundred yards to the west, blocking the setting sun. In the harsh glare, it is difficult to make out the details, but you see that it is of the same general shape as the Aztec pyramids, although easily twice their height.
"The wind is hot and dry; blowing across the Waste of Elrood, it has lost almost all of its moisture. . . ."