And what do you think is waiting for you farther on, buddy pal?
Table that discussion. Just play.
Aching blues scores the plain of Hell.
Franz’s eyes are bright as their motley group walks along the shuffling outside of the massive line. “I wonder how long would be this queue if one were to unfold it in a straight line?”
“Exactly as long as it is now, moron,” says Sinister. “Guess Mensa isn’t knocking down your door.”
They pass and pass the trudging dead.
For his part Niko has eyes mostly for what the demon called the Ledge. It appears to be a cliff edge that extends to his left and right as far as he can see. Faint glimmerings that might be water lead toward the false horizon of the Ledge. A river? To become a waterfall spilling off the edge and emptying into someplace worse? Who knows what lies beyond the precipice. The twin demon does but Niko is reluctant to ask what he will find below.
On the Ledge itself, the Battlements. Hewn into the cliffside they hunch in glowering light like an argus remnant of some fallen Troy. Running several miles along the Ledge’s stark cutoff the parapets and crenellations of the Battlements lend a faint medieval air to an architecture oddly streamlined and industrial.
A stubble of the flocking dead is thick upon the plain before the Battlements. Once in Buenos Aires Niko played a festival two hundred fifty thousand strong. It would have disappeared within that distant throng.
Franz walks ahead of him talking animatedly and gesturing often to the head of the line, which Niko now sees is a roped off section at a huge rock outcropping guarded by half a dozen demons. Niko frowns but keeps on playing.
Dexter/Sinister watches the line ahead and looks back the other way at Franz, nodding nodding at the man’s questions and comments. Franz is oblivious to the amused look on the demon’s lefthand face.
Niko catches up to Franz. He plays mean old twelvebar blues for a couple measures and even sings a few verses in his gravelly voice aged like whiskey by whiskey. The demon is watching him now and so is Franz. Niko fingers and chords and nods along.
“You do not really sound like a Negro I think, but there is much pain in your voice.”
“How many Negroes have you met?”
“Admittedly few. They are not so many in Prague and Vienna.”
Niko studies the neck of his guitar. “I’ve read your work.”
“You, you have?”
Niko nods. “You became very well-known after you… you know.”
“There is no need for delicacy, Mr…?”
And smiles down at his guitar. “Popoudopolos. Call me Niko.”
“Mr. Niko. You are Greek?”
“American. Greek descent.”
“Mr. Niko, I am living with my—I believe in English you say consumption—for many years. It is what finally took me from my home.” The thin man looks about the redlit plain, his ascetic face pained by distant memory. “I am here longer than I am alive on earth I think.”
“Yes.”
“So Max did not burn my work as he promised.” He laughs. “I think perhaps I knew he would not, you know.”
“You’re very famous now.”
“Really. Oh really.” He starts to say more, perhaps to ask about the other immortality he has gained through the redemption of his pen, but now the demon steps between them and glares and glares down at Niko.
“Don’t think we don’t know what you’re trying to do,” says Sinister. Niko isn’t quite sure which one to stare at and his gaze goes back and forth.
“It’s really kind of cruel when you think about it,” Dexter says. “We’re going to hand him over anyhow—”
“—and you jacking him up is only going to make him fall that much harder—”
“—and our deal’s off when we reach the front of the line anyway—”
“—so keep your damned mouth shut and in another hundred yards you’re out of here—”
“—capiche?”
“Si, prego.” Niko stares at the demon and realizes it is impossible to stare them down and so he looks away. Hurting minor chords carry on the bruised air. “He was a good man I think.”
Dexter spits while Sinister says, “If I fired a shotgun into that line I’d hit ten good men.”
“I’ve seen him do it.”
“We got good men like a barn’s got rats.”
“Place is crawling with em.”
“We oughta put up signs.”
“Do Not Feed the Rats.”
“Get it?”
“Got it.”
““Good.””
They turn away, and the three or four of them finish their small journey together.
A DEMON NEAR the head of the line holds a length of fanfold paper feeding from a tall cardboard box at his hooves. The dead call out their names and the demon, tigerstriped in black and red with an anteater snout and teeth splayed like a falling picket fence, searches through the fanfold stack until he finds each name and when he does he checks it off with a pencil and the damned soul is allowed to pass from the line in which he has spent years.
Dexter/Sinister halts before Tigerstripe. “Zeke,” says Dexter, “I’m passing one through. My authorization. He’s under K.”
The demon shrugs. “Your funeral.”
Franz steps eagerly away but Niko calls his name and points to the hardcase in Franz’s hand. “Oh yes of course,” Franz says. “It would not do for me to walk away with it, would it?” He returns the case to Niko. “Thank you so much for your music. It is so long since I hear anything of beauty even if that is perhaps an odd word to describe what it is you play. I mean no offense.”
“None taken. It was my pleasure.” Niko’s gaze meets Franz’s. “See you.”
“Yes, twentythree skidoo, as you Americans say.” Franz waves and turns away with his stamped and authorized papers, heading around the rock outcropping and out of sight.
Niko watches him go. He glances at Dexter/Sinister, then puts the Dobro in its case.
“Beautiful, Fonz said.”
“It sounded depressing to me.”
“How can it be beautiful and depressing?”
“I dunno. Ask the meat pie.”
“Hey meat pie.”
Niko doesn’t look up. “I thought our deal was finished.”
“We think you may have cheated.”
Niko shrugs. “I did what I said I’d do.” Behind him Tigerstripe has resumed calling out name after name from the fanfold list. “You both agreed it was depressing.”
“Yeah but it didn’t make me feel bad—”
“—In fact, it made me feel kind of good—”
“—Which is bad.”
Niko stands with the hardcase. “Well that’s your problem.” The demon looks at one another. “How can something depressing feel good?”
Niko smirks. “Ever read Russian literature?” Without waiting for reply he starts away.
“This can’t go unresolved—”
“—uncompensated—”
“—unrewarded.”
“Want to see what happens to Fritz?”
Niko stops. He knows better. Knows it will be terrible. Franz seemed a gentle and kind man with a keen mind and a wry sensibility. But Niko does want to see what happens to him.
He turns to face the demon. “Franz,” he says.
THE LANDSCAPE ON the other side of the enormous rock outcropping is completely different. Rounding the rock with the demon beside him Niko pulls up short as he sees an enormous dark lake that cannot possibly be here. It should have been readily visible to the shuffling line but it had not been. The Ledge and Battlements are nowhere in sight. In the murky distance rises a low mountain range that ought to be a flat and featureless plain. It’s disorienting. On the near shore of the placid lake is a low dais of black stone that overhangs the lake. A palmwide groove runs down its center. The ground around the dais is soaked with blood. The tiny waves that lap the shore leave dark red stains. The lake is a lake of blood. This then is the source of the dark river coursing toward the Battlements.