Chapter 19
“Fixed in the mire they say, ‘We sullen were
In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,
Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek…’”
Dante, Inferno, 7.121-123
Crossing an open area where various items were strewn, they arrived at the smaller gate. The wall itself was masonry, about fifteen feet high, the gate in it about nine. The doors across it were metal grates, hinged at the two sides and meeting in the middle. A chain with a padlock was looped around the metal bars. They dismounted to investigate it. It was locked.
“Damn,” Radovan muttered.
“I’m supposed to keep the gate closed,” a voice came down to them from above.
They looked up to see a man poking his head over the parapet at the top of the wall. He wore a helmet, but they couldn’t see any more of him. After the statement, he withdrew and they didn’t even see that anymore.
“We need to get out,” Adam explained. “The dead are already in the town. Most of the living seem to be gone already. Could you please open the gate? Do you have the key?”
“Of course I have the key,” the voice came from behind the parapet. “But I’m not supposed to. I could get in trouble.”
“I ought to climb up there and give you trouble,” Radovan said, clenching his fists.
“You’re welcome to try. The ladder’s in pieces down there. I made sure it was before I dropped it on the ground.”
They saw two long poles on the ground nearby. About half the rungs that connected them were broken, like someone had chopped through a few at one end, then yanked the two uprights apart to split it in two.
“Why can’t you just throw down the key?” Adam said. “You should get out too. It’s best.”
“Why? I don’t know you. I don’t owe you anything. I have orders. What good would come of it? If I came down and ran, I’d just die out in the woods tonight or tomorrow. I’m perfectly safe up here for now, and you have no more problems because of me than you’d have if I weren’t up here, so I’m not doing you any harm. Go away and leave me alone.”
Adam turned away from the futile conversation and back to the lock. “What strange people,” he said. “Can you break the lock?”
“The lock?” Radovan said. “No. The links of the chain are thinner. Find a metal bar or pole and we might be able to pry one open.”
They heard moaning and shuffling from nearby, and looked over to see two dead people approaching them. “You two – work on the chain,” Adam said, gesturing to Dante and Radovan. “We need to distract them.” He reached into his saddle bag and pulled a flat, black stone from it.
Bogdana had her hatchet out. She followed Adam to a wooden handcart full of hay that lay in the open area, between them and the two dead people. Dante looked around and saw two more dead people had also picked up the alarm, shuffling out of another door and heading toward them. Adam overturned the cart and knelt in the hay spilled on the ground. He struck a knife against the piece of flint he had gotten from his saddle bag, sending sparks on to the tinder, which he kept blowing on till it smoked and a small flame started to take hold of the dried grass.
“Get more wood to throw on,” he said to Bogdana as he took out his staff. “They’re afraid of fire, but only if it’s burning very intensely.”
Dante and Radovan, meanwhile, rummaged around among the things scattered on the ground, trying to find a piece of metal big enough to pry at the chain.
“Here,” Radovan came up with a chisel. “This probably isn’t long enough, but it’s thick enough.”
A second before, Dante had seen a wooden maul, its head covered with dried blood, but he’d ignored it since it wasn’t what they were looking for. Now he snatched it up and showed it to Radovan.
“Can you use it with this? To smash the link open?”
Radovan took the hammer and handed Dante the chisel. “All right, but you’ll have to hold the chisel in place. Unless you want to swing the hammer?”
Dante shook his head. He had felt how heavy the maul was and knew he couldn’t swing it effectively, even if the prospect of holding the chisel while the other man swung the bloody tool right at him didn’t sound appealing. Dante placed the tip of the chisel on a link of the chain, wedging the link between the chisel and the metal bars of the gate. He turned his head away.
His whole body shook as the hammer hit the chisel. He looked at where the chisel’s tip had dug into the metal of the link, and he placed the tip back on that exact spot. As he waited for the next blow, he looked to Bogdana, who was smashing the ladder into bits. She had already smashed an empty barrel into pieces and thrown it on the fire. She and Adam had a fairly large blaze burning in the middle of the open area, with a lot of smoke and bright flames. The four dead people stayed at some distance from the fire, cowering and moaning. Just before the second blow struck, Dante noticed their moans had attracted two more of the dead, who were further back, but shambling in their direction. Dante knew they’d be overwhelmed soon enough, even if the fire kept the dead away for a while.
The second blow slammed into the chisel. This time it cut almost all the way through the link. Radovan threw the maul on the ground and took the chisel from Dante. He forced it into the broken link.
“Hold the chain taut,” he said as he twisted the chisel back and forth, trying to widen the gap they’d broken in the link. Both were sweating and looking nervously at the growing crowd of the dead.
“I wish we had one of those giant, angry men to do this,” Dante panted as they struggled with the metal.
Radovan grunted. “I fear they’d be more interested in smashing in the heads of the dead, but they’d be helpful for that at least, unlike that lout up there.”
“Lout, shmout,” came the reply from above. “I’m safe. You’re not. That’s all I know.”
“All right, I’ve almost got it,” Radovan said. “Hold it in place one more second.” He strained with both hands, trying to torque the chisel around and wrench the gap open wider. “There!” He dropped the chisel as Dante let the chain go slack. Radovan slipped the adjacent link out of the broken one.
The two of them quickly unlaced the chains from the gate, as they looked over their shoulders at Adam, Bogdana, and the still-advancing dead. The chain clattered to the ground and the two men shoved the gate open.
“Now, come on!” Radovan shouted as he and Dante got back on their horses.
Adam and Bogdana retreated from the pyre and remounted. All four of them urged their horses forward and went through the gate, one at a time. Once outside, Radovan moved his horse in front of Bogdana’s, with Dante and Adam in the rear, next to each other. Dante looked back through the gate, to where he could now see the dark silhouettes of the dead, slowly working their way closer to the fire, even as they held their hands up to their bloody, disfigured faces, moaning louder, terrified of the flames.
“Their desire is stronger than their fear or pain,” he said softly.
Adam raised his eyebrows. “Stronger than their fear, surely. But their pain?”
Dante considered this. “Their desire is their pain.”
Adam nodded. “Yes. Now you have it right.”
“And it will last forever?”
“Yes. That is how horrible the cursed life is, and why we must pursue the blessed death.”
The sky remained the same grey. There was still no breeze. To Dante, it seemed to have gotten slightly warmer – the kind of heat that came not from the sun, or even from fire, but from diseased blood flowing too swiftly in channels too narrow for its overwhelming, animal vitality.