Surface Detail

Sometimes you didn’t want to re-engage quickly and seamlessly; sometimes you wanted the student, post-grad, colleague or official to know that they had been boring you. He gazed expression lessly at Errun for a moment too long to be entirely polite before saying, “Hmm. I see. Anyway, representative; I assume you’re here to offer a deal. Why don’t you just make your offer?”

Errun looked annoyed, but – with an obvious effort – controlled himself. “She’s still alive in there, Prin. Chay; she’s still in there. She hasn’t suffered, and she’s proved stronger than people in there thought she was, so you can still save her. But their patience is running out, both with her and you.”

“I see,” Prin said, nodding. “Go on.”

“Do you want to see?”

“See what?”

“See what has happened to her since you left her there.”

Prin felt the words like a blow, but tried not to show it. “I’m not sure that I do.”

“It’s not… it’s not that unpleasant, Prin. The first, longest part isn’t even Hell at all.”

“No? Where, then?”

“In a place they sent her to recover,” Errun said.

“To recover?” Prin was not especially surprised. “Because she’d lost her mind, and the mad don’t suffer properly?”

“Something like that, I suppose. Though they didn’t punish her after she seemed to get it back, either. Let me show you.”

“I don’t-”

But they showed him anyway. It was like being strapped into a chair in front of a wrap-around screen, unable to move your eyes or even blink.

He watched her arrive at a place called the Refuge, in some medieval place and time, copying manuscripts in an era before moveable type and printing. He heard her voice, saw her threatened with punishment for voicing doubts about religion and faith, saw her acquiesce and conform, saw her work diligently through the following years and watched her work her way up the shallow, arthritic hierarchy of the place, always keeping a journal, until she became its chief. He saw her sing their chants and take comfort in the rituals of their faith, saw her admonish a noviciate for lack of faith, just as she had been admonished years earlier, and thought he could see where this was going.

But then on her death bed she revealed she had not changed, had not let the behaviour of piety become the reality of internalised faith. He wept a little, and was proud of her, even though he knew such vicarious pride was mere sentimentality, arguably just a typically male attempt to appropriate some of her achievement for himself. But still.

Then he watched her become an angel in Hell. One who delivered sufferers from their suffering, ending their torment – one per day, no more – and taking on a fraction of their pain with every merciful snuffing-out, so that to the extent that she suffered, she did so of her own volition, and meanwhile became an object of veneration, the centre of a death cult within Hell, the miracle-working messiah of a new faith. So she was being used to bring a little extra hope to Hell, removing one lucky winner per day as though in some fatal state lottery of release, to increase the suffering of the vast majority left behind.

Prin was moderately impressed. What an inspired, diabolical way to use one who had lost their mind, to stop others losing theirs, the better to torment them more efficiently.

A blink, and he was back in Errun’s study.

“Taking that all at face value,” Prin said, “it provides a fascinating insight into the thought processes of those concerned. And so; this deal?”

The old male stared at him for a moment, as though nonplussed, before he seemed to gather himself. “Don’t go humiliating your own society at that hearing, Prin,” he said. “Don’t presume to know better than so many generations of your ancestors; don’t give in to that desire to posture. Don’t testify, that’s all we ask… and she will be released.”

“Released? In what sense?”

“She can come back, Prin. Back to the Real.”

“There already is a Chayeleze Hifornsdaughter here in the Real, representative.”

“I know.” Errun nodded. “And I understand there is probably no way of re-integrating the two. However, there would be nothing to stop her from living on in an entirely pleasant Afterlife. I understand there are hundreds of different Heavens, enough to suit every taste. There is, however, another possibility. A new body could be found for her. Grown for her, indeed; created specially just for Chay.”

“I thought we had laws about that sort of thing.” Prin said, smiling.

“We do, Prin. But laws can be amended.” It was Errun’s turn to smile. “That’s what those of us lucky enough to serve as representatives do.” He looked serious again. “I can assure you there will be no obstacle to Chay being re-embodied. Absolutely none.”