Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

Chapter 1

The bastards were shirking again. And Azzie had just gotten comfortable. He had found a place just the right distance between the fiery hole in the mid­dle of the Pit and the hoarfrost-covered iron walls which encircled it.

The walls were kept close to absolute zero by the devil's own air-conditioning system. The central Pit was hot enough to strip atoms of their electrons, and there were occasional gusts that could melt a proton.

Not that that much heat or cold was needed. It was over­kill; overharass, actually. Humans, even when dead and cast into the Pit, have very narrow ranges (speaking on a cosmic scale) of tolerance. Once past the comfort zone in either di­rection, humans soon lost the ability to discriminate bad from worse. What good was it subjecting a poor wretch to a million degrees Celsius if it felt the same as a mere five hundred de­grees? The extremes only tormented the demons and other supernatural creatures who tended the damned. Supernatural creatures have a far wider range of sensation than humans; mostly to their discomfort, but sometimes to their exceeding pleasure. But it is not seemly to talk about pleasure in the Pit.

Hell has more than one Pit, of course. Millions upon mil­lions of people are dead. More are dying every day. Most of them spend at least some time in the Pit. Obviously, there have to be arrangements to accommodate them all.

The Pit Azzie served in was called North Discomfort 405. It was one of the oldest, having been put into service in Bab­ylonian times, when people really knew how to sin. It still bore rusty bas-reliefs of winged lions on the walls and was listed in the Hell Register of Places of Historical Distinction. But Azzie cared nothing for serving in a well-known Pit. All he wanted was to get out.

Like all Pits, North Discomfort 405 consisted of a circle of iron walls enclosing an enormous garbage pit, in the center of which was a hole from which poured exceeding hot fire. Hot coals and burning lava spat from the hole. The glare was un­remitting. Only full-fledged demons like Azzie were permitted to wear sunglasses.

And the torments of the damned were accompanied and amplified by music of a sort. Menial imps had scraped clear a semicircle in the midst of the dense, matted, moldy, and rotten debris. The orchestra was seated in this semicircle on orange crates. It was composed of inept musicians who had died in the act of performing. Here in Hell they were forced to play the works of the worst composers ever known. Their names are not remembered on Earth, but in Hell, where their compositions are played without stop, and even broadcast on the Kazum circuit, they are famous.

The imps worked away, turning and adjusting the damned on their griddles. The imps, like the ghouls, liked their people well rotted, and served up marinated in an admixture of vinegar, garlic, anchovy, and maggoty sausage.

What had pulled Azzie from his repose was that in the sector directly ahead of him, the dead were stacked only about eight or ten high. Azzie gave up his comfortable (relatively) berth and scrambled down through rotting eggshells and squashy entrails and chicken heads to the level ground where he could trample comfortably over the bodies.

"When I said stack 'em high," he told the imps, "I meant a whole lot higher than that."

"But they topple over when we try to stack them any higher!" said the head imp.

"Then get some bracing material to hold them in! I want those piles at least twenty bodies high!"

"Difficult, sir."

Azzie stared. Dared an imp talk back to him? "Do it or join them," he said.

"Yes, sir! Bracing material going right up, sir!" The imp ran off, shouting orders to his work crew.

It had started out as another typical day in one of the Pits of Hell. But it was to change dramatically, unexpectedly, in another moment. So it is with change! We go about our ac­customed ways with lowered head and hangdog eye, tired of our accustomed round, sure it will go on forever. Why should it change when there is no change in sight, no letter, no Federal Express, not even a telephone call presaging a great event? So you despair, never realizing that your messenger has already been dispatched, and that hopes are sometimes realized, even in Hell. Indeed, some would say, hopes are especially realized in Hell, since hope itself is counted by some as one of the diabolic torments. But this may be an exaggeration of the churchmen who scribble about such things.

Azzie saw that the imps were beginning to perform sat­isfactorily. He only had another two hundred hours to work on his shift (days in the Pit are long) until he could get his three hours' sleep before beginning again. He was just about to return to that comfortable - relatively comfortable - spot he had just abandoned when a messenger came running up.

"Are you the demon in charge of this Pit?"

The questioner was a violet-winged Efreet, one of the old Baghdad crowd, now mainly working courier service since the Evil Powers of the Upper Council liked their gaily colored turbans.

"I am Azzie Elbub," our demon said. "And yes, I am in charge of this particular subpit."

"Then you're the one I'm looking for." The Efreet handed Azzie an asbestos document inscribed in letters of fire. Azzie drew on his gloves before handling it. Such documents were used only by the High Council of Infernal Justice.

He read, "Know all demons by these presentiments that an Injustice has been done; namely, a human has been brought to the Pit before his time. The forces of Light have already made remonstrations on his behalf, since, if he were to live out his allotted days, he would still have time to repent. The betting against this taking place is on the order of two thousand to one, but the chance exists, albeit but mathematically. You are there­fore requested and ordered to take this man out of the Pit, sponge him off, and restore him to his wife and family on Earth, and there remain with him until he has adjusted sufficiently to get his own living, since otherwise we are responsible for his upkeep. After that, you will be released to normal demonic duties on Earth. Sincerely, Asmodeus, Head of North Pit Sec­tion of Hell. P.S. The man answers to the name of Thomas Scrivener."

Azzie was so elated that he embraced the Efreet, who stepped hastily back, adjusting his turban and saying, "Take it easy, buddy."

"I was just excited," Azzie said. "I'm going to get out of this place at last! I'm going back to Earth!"

"A disappointing place," the Efreet said. "But to each his, her, or its own."

Azzie hurried off to find Thomas Scrivener.

He located the man at last in row 1002WW. The Pits of Hell are laid out like amphitheaters. Every location can be traced. A master plan exists. In practice, however, what with the imps carelessly throwing people onto piles and the piles falling over onto other piles, people's locations in the Pits are known only approximately.

"Is there a Thomas Scrivener here?" Azzie asked.

The mound of sinners at location 1002WW turned away from their discussion and looked at him, those whose heads were faced in the right direction. Instead of repenting their sins, they considered Pit time a social occasion, a chance to get to know neighbors, exchange opinions, have a few laughs. Thus do the dead continue to deceive themselves, just as in life.

"Scrivener, Scrivener," an old man in a middle position said. He turned his head toward his armpit with difficulty. "Sure, he's here. Any of you fellows know where Scrivener is?"

The request was carried up and down the great mound.

Men turned from their preoccupation with sports (there are plenty of sports in Hell, but the home team always loses-until you bet against them) to say, "Scrivener, Scrivener, sort of a tall skinny loony fellow with a cast in one eye?"

"I don't know what he looks like," Azzie said. "I assumed he answered to his name."

The mound of people mumbled and coughed and discussed it among them, as humans, living or dead, are wont to do about anything. And if Azzie had not had a demon's preternatural hearing, he would not have heard the faint squeak that came from somewhere deep in the pile.

"Hi there! Scrivener here! Was somebody asking for me?"

Azzie directed his imps to pull Scrivener out of the pile, but gently, without tearing off any of his appendages. They could be replaced, of course, but the procedure was painful and apt to leave a psychic scar. Azzie knew he was supposed to bring the man back to Earth intact so that Scrivener wouldn't create trouble for the Dark Forces for reaping him prematurely.

Soon enough Scrivener scrambled out of the pile, brushing himself off. He was a small, balding, jaunty little man.

"I'm Scrivener!" he cried. "You found out it was a mistake, eh? I told them I wasn't dead when they first brought me here. That Grim Reaper of yours doesn't do much listening, does he? Just keeps grinning that great big idiotic grin. Plucked me away just like that. I've a good mind to complain to someone in authority."

"Listen to me," Azzie said. "You're lucky the mistake was found at all. If you begin litigation, they'll put you in a holding tank until your case can be heard. That could take a century or two. Do you know what our holding tanks are like?"

Scrivener shook his head, wide-eyed.

"They're so bad," Azzie said, "that they even contravene infernal law."

Scrivener seemed impressed. "I guess I'm lucky to be get­ting out at all. Thanks for the tip. Are you a lawyer?"

"Not by training," Azzie said. "But all of us down here have a little lawyer in us. Come on, let's get you back home."

"I've a feeling I have a few problems at home," Scrivener said hesitantly.

"That's what life is," Azzie continued. "Problems. Be glad you have problems to worry about. When you come down here to stay, you'll have nothing to worry about. Whatever's hap­pening to you just goes on and on."

"I won't be back," Scrivener said.

Azzie wanted to ask him if he wanted to bet on it, but decided that it wouldn't be appropriate under the circum­stances.

"We'll have to wipe your memory of this experience," he told Scrivener. 'You understand we can't have you fellows going back to Earth and telling a lot of stories."

"Fine with me," Scrivener said. "Nothing here I want to remember, anyhow. Although earlier, in Purgatory, I met this blond succubus - "

"Save it," Azzie growled, grabbing Scrivener by the arm and steering him to the gate in the wall that leads to other parts of Hell and, eventually, to everywhere else and vice versa.