Hani debated opening the next topic. It was dangerous to let anyone else in on his secret, dangerous and unpredictable. But something was compelling him to share it, to bring others the message that had been brought to him.
"Do you remember me mentioning the visions I've been having?"
"It's hard not to remember. Everyone knows when you're having them. And they're becoming more frequent, aren't they?"
That disturbed him. If it was so apparent to the souls, was it equally obvious to the Overseers?
"Maybe." He paused. "I think I know what is causing them."
Hani brushed the ash off his hands as best he could, reached into a slit in his right side just under his ribs where a small pocket of flesh had formed. He looked nervously at the Overseer and back at Div. Revealing anything to either had its risks. The soul was not the brightest individual, nor the stupidest. In Hell, intelligence was a rare and true curse. It served as a lens to focus all of the pain and loss and misery upon its bearer in a way that the more mindless souls could not begin to understand. Most souls, Hani had long ago concluded, seemed in a trance, their minds skinned over by a veil of dullness. It was his mixed fortune not to be among them. Or maybe he simply was not as lucky as he thought.
He withdrew his hand from the cleft and he stared at the small, precious object for a moment, remembering how he had come by it. He and the work-gang had been walking up the congested Avenue of Fiery Tears, trying to stay together as they marched through the shuffling crowds. She had been walking toward him, alone, clad in unusually pale and hairless traveling skins, and, as he walked toward her, they had made eye contact. This had not been broken, even when she intentionally bumped into him, placing the object in his hand. His first reaction had been shock, followed nearly immediately by fear. He looked furtively around, making sure that no one had seen the transfer.
Hani walked on for some distance without daring to look at what was in his clenched hand. When he finally had a moment to study it he had sworn under his breath. It was beautiful in every way: an exquisitely carved bone statue of a voluptuous woman with clawed feet. The finely chiseled features, the perfect, polished breasts, and even the tiny scales on its feet were depicted with incredible attention. But who was it? And why did he now possess it?
Those questions were only heightened by the onset of strange waking visions—he thought of them as the mysteries—that began to wisp through his mind while he labored. They started as brief image-skeins of her bone-white face, beautiful and placid in repose, the slightest hint of a smile traced upon her lips. These momentary glimpses had blossomed into longer day-visions, dangerous in their distracting duration. Hani saw, through a miasma, the woman he had named the White Mistress, seated in a strange, vast room, flanked by two fierce eyeless creatures and surrounded by countless kneeling souls. Where was she and what were those beasts? And all those souls, why were they prostrating themselves before her? And why was he merely standing amidst them, not kneeling as they were? He wanted to kneel; the ineffable adoration he felt for her was nearly overwhelming. But something kept him from genuflecting, from giving himself over to her completely. That disturbed him so he had taken to secretly moistening his fingertips with his tears and rubbing them into the figurine, his silent libation.
And there was something else about the visions that he could not explain, something beyond their obvious message of hopefulness. After he experienced them he felt inexplicably ... self-assured. He wondered if it was possible to have a more inappropriate emotion in Hell. All of these gnawing emotions he traced directly to the acquisition of the tiny figure. After so many centuries of mind-numbing sameness, the new feelings excited him.
That had been weeks ago, and the visions had, if anything, grown in potency. Now, squatting in the ash storm, figurine in hand, Hani wondered if he was doing the right thing bringing the others into his private world. They were an intolerant, self-absorbed group, steeped in their own miseries, and the chance that they would try to curry some small favor from the Overseer by revealing Hani's secret was high. And yet there seemed some purpose to showing them.
Div was looking at him. "Well?"
He handed the figurine over to the soul.
Div took it in his rough, spatulate fingers, rolling it, examining it. He looked up at Hani and back at the statuette.
"You're telling me that this is what gave you your visions—this thing?"
"Yes, they started when I got it." Hani was already defensive.
Div's face looked blank for a moment. He shuddered and then pushed the object back at Hani.
"It has power; I saw ... something. A woman ... a white woman for just a second."
"It's her," said Hani, "the White Mistress! She is out there somewhere; I know it." And then he took the next step, the step he was not sure that he should take. "I think ... I think we are meant to worship her."
Div looked away, obviously thinking. A cargo barge, only half-filled with stone, caught his attention as it slid slowly up the Acheron. Sargatanas' large, fiery sigil hung low over the square bow, and surrounding it, obeying a time-worn invocation, shifting navigational glyphs steered the craft.
By now, La and Chaw had edged in to hear the exchange.
La reached out and Div, first looking to Hani for permission, handed the figurine to her. She looked at it with disdain, weighing it in her twisted hand, and then passed it right to Chaw. The obese soul smiled lasciviously when he saw it, rubbing his finger over its breasts stupidly. Hani had expected that.
"Where did you get that?" La said stiffly. She thought of herself as the workers' leader, but Hani suspected he knew how the others regarded her.
"It was given to me."
"More likely you found it. Probably belonged to one of them," she said, nodding in the Overseer's direction. "It will have us all turned to brick if they find it on you. Get rid of it!"
"No, La, I won't," Hani said evenly. "No one's found it yet and no one will. Unless one of you tell them. And, as you said, we all know the repercussions of that."
The small group was staring at him.
"Tell La and Chaw what you told me," Div said seriously.
Hani hesitated. There was ash in his mouth and he took the moment to spit it out. The others took it as a sign of disrespect.
"I've been seeing her," he said, pointing at the figure, "in my mind. Ever since I was given it, these visions have been growing clearer, stronger. I don't know who she is but I think that she has given that little idol the ability to speak for her. And I think she wants me—us—to pray to her."
Hani could not believe what he had just said.
La snatched the figurine away from Chaw's gross attentions and flung it to the ground. It disappeared into the ash.
"Souls are not meant to own anything!" La spat. "Except their pain!"
Hani rose, shaking with rage. "Pick it up!"
"Turn to brick!"
He struck her sharply, and though she was larger and more powerful than him, she reeled and fell, sending up a dense cloud of ash. She rose again, eyes blazing, but Hani was ready for her. He was about to strike her again when he saw the Overseer rise and turn toward them, whip in hand. Hani sat down quickly trying to conceal his anger. The demon flicked his whip ominously and approached, trying, Hani thought, to analyze the situation.
"Get up! Work again!" the demon barked in their language, and the souls slowly scrabbled to their feet. The storm was abating and Hani, still in a rage, looked down at the ground frantically. He could not leave the little idol; it was all he had. Everything. When the demon prodded them forward Hani lifted his gaze and focused on the back of La's head. He would never forgive her. He would find a way to have her turned.
As they marched back toward the work area, Div sidled up and cautiously held his hand out, and, to Hani's utter relief, he saw the little white figure in the soul's calloused palm.