"Wolverine, Lord Satan," Qawik said. "Wolverine."
"Ah, yes," he said. "The Arctic hyena. Eats dead dungs. Well, your name may be appropriate, little wolverine. Tell me, what are your sins?"
Qawik smiled. "I have no sins." The chair crackled with light. Pain shot up his spine and his back went straight. "Lord Satan," he added through clenched teeth.
"You have the sin of pride," Satan said. "You damned heathen, you are sinned for that"
"I am not a heathen," Qawik said. "I was baptized-"
"-baptized by Presbyterian missionaries on April 13, 1861," Satan said. "Had you never been baptized you might not have come here-might not have sinned under less rigorous rules. But you were baptized, Qawik, and so you are mine."
"What are my sins. Lord Satan?"
"Ah," said Satan. His thin lips spread back, showing the long yellow teeth.
"Ah, now we are getting somewhere. Your sins? Your sins are many.
"You are a murderer. You killed twenty-five men, two women, and one child in your life. You took four wives - I see the last one left her mark-" Satan pointed at the ulu stuck in Qawik's head
"--and had many other women. You stole. You took the Lord's name in vain. You honored other gods before Him. You lied. Shall I go on?"
"No," said Qawik. "I have sinned, I suppose. He smiled. "I killed twenty-six men."
"Twenty-six, twenty-seven, what the Hell difference does it make? Pride! That is your greatest sin. Pride." Satan reached up, petted the tungai on his shoulder; the familiar nuzzled against the thick far of the bear's head.
"Okay, I'm supposed to read you this passage down here at the bottom. It's from the Big Guy upstairs - God, Lord of the Universe. God says, 'For these sins, you-' and he has your real name here, but fuck if I'm going to say it,' - also known as Qawik, are forever damned to Hell.' There you go, buddy: that's your sentence. You're in."
"Welcome to Hell. Enjoy your stay."
And Satan vanished in a cloud of yellow smoke.
"It's not so bad."
Qawik got up-out of the chair, stood, and turned. The Welcome Woman was standing by a door that had not been there before. She had taken the parka off and was wearing a brightly colored dress that hung loosely around her porcine body. Images of some strange buildings were printed on the dress. Her hair was cut shorter and arranged in a style dot looked like ft loon's nest. She had purple eye shadow dot clashed with her green eyes.
"Don't let Lucifer scare you," she said. "Hell's a swell place." She held out a band. "You want the tour?"
"What the Hell," Qawik said. He took her hand and walked with her into the dark.
The door from the sentencing room led into a long hallway; the walls of the hall were whitewashed stucco. Screams and moans and sounds of general torment came from behind the walls. Once, a door materialized out of the hallway, and a tall blond man in black leather stepped out. He slapped the Welcome Woman on the ass with his swagger stick. Jumped as she swung a fist at him, then turned, whistling, down the hallway.
"Goddamn Goering," the Welcome Woman muttered.
"Who?" Qawik asked.
"After your time," she said. "You died in, urn, 1889? Goering was Just a pup then. You'll meet him soon enough. He's running the Fallen Angels while Hadrian is on sabbatical."
"Hadrian?"
"I guess you're weak on Roman history, huh? Hadrian built this wall in Britain about 125 A. D."
She slowed, leaned close to Qawik, and whispered into his ear. "Rumor has it that Hadrian has been captured by this gang of crazies, the Dissidents. The Dissidents say they grind Hadrian up into hamburger and cast his body to the end of Hell if Satan doesn't meet their demands."
"Can they do that?" Qawik asked.
The Welcome Woman nodded. "Hell, you can't kill anyone down here, but you can make it hard to put them back together again."
They turned a comer in the hallway, came to an alcove. In the middle of the alcove was a small kettle on a block of red marble. Steam rose from the kettle - steam that smelled like boiling shit Beyond the kettle was a door with two buttons beside it Loud banging came from the other side of ft.
"Help!" someone yelled from the other sole of the door. "We're shield Let us out!"
"Shit," said the Welcome Woman. "Elevator's broken."
"Elevator?" asked Qawik.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "This room you go inside and it gets lowered down and when you come out you're in a different place."
"Like a dancehouse?"
She laughed, sort of a snort. "No, no. We're in a building and there are lots of floors to it. We take the elevator to get to other floors."
"And the elevator is stuck?"
"Yeah. The guy who builds things around here - Mr. Hughes, you wouldn't know him - has a real hard time getting good help."
Qawik pointed at the kettle. "What's that?"
The Welcome Woman snapped her fingers. "Damn! I almost forgot Thanks for reminding me.
That's your torment You haven't received your torment." She waved down the hall. "The Hall of Torment. This is where you are assigned your punishment"
Qawik looked around the comer, beard more screams of anguish. A small bead of sweat was forming on his nose.
"Torment?"
She smiled. "It shouldn't be too bad. And you can always appeal. Stick your hand in the kettle."
"In the kettle?"
"The pain won't last long. Stick it in there. It's God's Grace, A part of God has consented to honor us with His Presence. Stick your hand in there."
"It smells like anak," he said.
"Shit? You've denied God. You think He's going to smell like roses? Stick your hand in there."
Qawik shuffled to the kettle, closed his eyes, and thrust his right hand into the burning Grace. A terrifying cold gripped his hand, froze it in His embrace.
Pain, pain like: blood that was molten metal, flowed up his arm, into his heart, through his body, through his brain, through his soul. He opened his eyes and saw a wisp of a demon, a white angel, a great inua floating before him, blue eyes blazing. The Grace hovered over the kettle, flowed in and out of it, a face that was neither man nor woman, human nor beast. The face bared its teeth, and spoke.
"Qawik, you are damned," the Grace said, "and this is your torment" The Grace waved an arm, and a whaling harpoon, a bomb gun, and a cloth bag appeared in the air. "You are to hunt whales in the Sea of Purgatory." Grace smiled. "And you will never catch one."
The wisp fell back into the kettle, and the harpoon, bag, and gun clattered to the floor. Qawik's hand began to bum. He pulled it from the kettle, shook it, watched drops of steam fall to the ground and bum their way through the floor.
He rubbed his hand. It was raw, red, but whole.
Behind the elevator doors there was a snap, and a great rushing sound as something fell past the doors. There was a long scream that went on for half a minute, dwindling until it became a low moan. The doors slid open, revealing an open shaft, and a frayed cable slapping against the side of the shaft.
Brilliant sunlight streamed down from above, and icy fog fell down the shaft.
"Ah," said the Welcome Women, "the elevator seems to be working now." She walked over to the open door, poked her head through the doors, ducked back quickly. Her red hair was rimmed with hoar frost, and little icicles hung from her drippy nose. "I think we're in the inner latitudes."
"The inner latitudes?"
" 'North,' you would call it. Hell's Arctic. It's like this big pit, only it's flat ... well, it's hard to explain. Anyway, there are cold places in Hell and this is one of them. You've arrived, pal. This is tt. Your new home for the next couple of eternities."
"But this room that goes up?"
"Oh, that. It, uh, seems to have descended a little fester than it should. A new system Mr. Hughes is trying out. 'Express Service', he calls it. Anyway, you climb." She picked up the harpoon, the bomb gun, the cloth bag. "You'll need these." She handed him the weapons.