For A Few Souls More (Heaven's Gate Book 3) Page 5

  “Good afternoon!” the man called, walking through the trees towards them. “A lovely day as always?”

  He was dressed well, his fine blond hair capturing the sunlight and glistening almost as much as the grass or the water of the stream.

  “This,” said Veronica to Arno, “is Alonzo.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Arno said, wondering on the etiquette with angels, did you shake one’s hand? Bow?

  Alonzo gave him a hug, solving the problem with admirable enthusiasm.

  “My dear Arno,” he said, “how lovely to finally meet you. I can’t apologise enough for ignoring you on your arrival. I’ve been hatefully slack on my duties of late. I find myself unreasonably consumed with other projects and allowed the business of meeting and greeting to pass me by.”

  “That’s alright,” said Arno. “Veronica has been taking good care of me.”

  “Wonderful! That’s what I like to hear. So good when souls meet, a paradise shared is a paradise doubled.”

  “I’m surprised we haven’t come across anyone else,” said Arno, circling around the question that plagued him.

  “Not that we need anyone else,” added Veronica, perhaps knowing, on some deep level, that the answer to Arno’s question would break the pleasure they had found.

  “Not that surprising, sadly,” said Arno. “You find Heaven in hard times, my friend. So few come here. It’s a sad reflection on the state of the human heart that most consider themselves worthy only of Hell. All would be welcome here if only they had the convictions to make the journey as you two did. That’s the ultimate truth, my dear Arno, we get the eternity we wish, and so few wish for—or feel deserving of—this...” He opened his arms crucifixion wide, gesturing around them.

  Arno tried to get his head around this. “You’re saying that everyone’s in Hell?”

  “Well,” Arno replied, pointing at the two of them, “not everyone, obviously. There are other souls here like you. But it’s a majority, yes.”

  “But they would be welcome here?”

  “Indeed. Our Father has always believed in second chances, though it’s a concept that has fallen out of favour in the mortal coil.”

  “Then why don’t you tell them?”

  “It’s not my place,” Alonzo admitted. “I could make the journey to the Dominion of Circles, certainly. It’s simple enough. But there are laws, even here. I can’t simply walk into Hell and hand out tickets. I’m afraid that would be a breach of protocol too far.” He took Arno’s arm. “I’m pleased to see the situation chimes with you though, my friend. It is a sorry state of affairs is it not? You can rest assured that I am, in my own way, attempting to turn the tide.”

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed. I won’t bore you with the details but I am hard at work on a solution.” He stepped back and, clapping his hands with enthusiasm, opened his arms as if to embrace them. “On the subject of which, you’re clearly in no need of my intrusion. I shall return to my endeavours and leave you to yours.”

  He turned and walked back into the trees, leaving Arno to think about what he had said.

  4.

  “YOU’RE STILL DWELLING on it aren’t you?” Veronica asked him that night.

  There were dancing lights like mobile candle flames, flittering about them. Earlier, Veronica had caught one between cupped palms, letting its glow light up her smiling face.

  “Thinking about what?” he replied.

  “What Alonzo said, about all the people trapped in Hell.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Who are we to question?”

  Arno shrugged, but it didn’t feel like an excuse he could live with.

  He tried to push the thoughts away, to focus on Veronica and their life together in Paradise. Some days he managed, some days he realised he was playing at the role, fixing a smile in place when really, deep down, his mood boiled. How could he enjoy what they had when he knew that others were suffering needlessly? Alonzo had said a paradise shared was a paradise doubled, how great an ecstasy would it be if he could bring those lost souls to the afterlife they deserved?

  One night, as they lay on the bank of the stream, their naked bodies crackling pleasantly against the grass, Veronica turned to him and he saw she had tears in her eyes.

  “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” she asked. “The spark’s gone, you’re only half here.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve tried to leave the thoughts alone. I just...” He felt a surge of anger, having to express himself, to justify these worries when surely she should share them. “You see it’s wrong, don’t you?”

  “I owe them nothing. Perhaps it’s right they’re trapped where they are. Who am I to say what their souls deserve? The people who watched me burn, who laughed as the flames turned my skin to crackling, should I want them here with me?”

  “You could forgive them.”

  “Why should I?”

  He sat up, frustrated and confused, miserable that he had lost his grip on contentment. “I don’t know, perhaps you shouldn’t, I just can’t enjoy all this anymore.”

  “Not even me?”

  “It’s not about you. I don’t want to lose you but I can’t stay here either. I have to try and do something. I have to make the effort.”

  “Even if you have to make it on your own?” No ‘we’ anymore, he noticed.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “if that’s the way it has to be.”

  “I don’t need you,” she said, “I was perfectly happy here on my own. I can always dream new lovers. Maybe that’s best, that way they cease to trouble you once you close the door on them.”

  “I’m sorry. But if we have all eternity here what does it matter if I go? One day we’ll be back on this grass, looking up at that sky.”

  “Such confidence.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s not like any of this is going anywhere, is it? Heaven’s not going to fall. The Junction will always be there to do our dreaming in, the stream will be there to cool our feet. The grass will be here as our bed. Why not make the journey? Why not try? You said yourself, you can only kill a person once. What do we have to lose?”

  She thought about that for awhile. Gazing up at the stars.

  “To Hell,” she said after a few minutes, “back to the flames.” She looked at him and smiled; it wasn’t a good smile, hesitant and uncertain, but it would do for now. “I survived it once, I suppose I’ll survive it again.”

  “Do you know the way?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “But I know how to find out.”

  She closed her eyes and between them a point of light appeared, slowly expanding until it hung between them, a small glowing orb.

  “Take me to Arno James,” Veronica said.

  The orb bobbed the couple of feet between them and hovered over Arno’s head. He looked up at it and it slowly dissipated and vanished.

  “That’s a trick you didn’t teach me,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Alonzo showed me when I first got here. But what did you need to find? I was here all along.”

  He smiled at her and they lay down to sleep, his mind the clearest it had been for some time.

  5.

  IN THE MORNING, Arno was relieved to see that Veronica hadn’t changed her mind. Part of him had expected to wake alone, abandoned to his folly. If anything, she was more cheerful than ever.

  “You seem happy,” he said, partly worried that drawing attention to it might break the magic.

  “I was thinking about it before I fell asleep,” she said, “and I decided you were right. What’s the point of living forever if you can’t occasionally change your horizon? Wherever we go we can always come back, so let’s see some fresh sights.”

  He kissed her. “Thank you,” he said.

  He looked towards The Junction and realised part of him was tempted to abandon the journey before they had even begun. Did he really want to leave all this behind? To seek out its very
opposite? Why not just return to their dreaming and their life of pleasure?

  Because, he thought, pleasure, like anything, palls if you have nothing to compare it to. And guilt will always be the vinegar that sours any meal.

  They would come back here soon enough. When they did it would be in the company of other lost souls. A paradise shared.

  He looked to Veronica who had conjured an orb out of the air. “All you have to do is imagine it,” she explained, “just like the rooms in The Junction. You dream it and it’s here.”

  The orb hovered in front of them and he took her hand. He looked at her and she nodded, giving him her permission to change their lives.

  “Take us to Hell,” he said.

  6.

  ARNO AND VERONICA followed the glowing orb until it led them into land that seemed as indistinct as a dream. If much of the Dominion of Clouds was a place that built itself on the human imagination, this was the hinterland, a place where thoughts became vague and details blurred.

  There was a thin, white fog that curled around them as they walked, the sand beneath their feet just as nondescript.

  “I don’t like it here,” Veronica announced, hugging herself though it wasn’t cold, the air around them as ambivalent as everything else. “It feels like everything’s fading. A few more steps and there’ll be nothing around us at all.”

  “It seems to know the way,” said Arno, pointing at the orb as it slowly hovered a few feet ahead of them.

  “Well, I wish it would take us somewhere worthwhile. Hell can’t be worse than this.”

  The orb drew to a halt, dropped to a foot or so above the ground and began moving back and forth.

  “It’s gone mad with the boredom of the place,” said Veronica. “We should tell it to take us back while it still has some semblance of life.”

  “It’s not that,” said Arno, squatting down and looking ahead. “The ground stops here.”

  Ahead of them was a chasm vanishing down into the white fog.

  “How deep is it?” Veronica asked.

  “No idea,” Arno replied. “Can’t tell how wide it is either, not with all this fog.”

  “How are we supposed to get across then?”

  The orb continued to move backwards and forwards and then shot directly at Veronica. On instinct, she caught it in her hands as it pressed against her belly, pushing her back several feet.

  “I told you!” she said, “it’s gone mad!”

  “No,” said Arno, “I think it’s trying to help.”

  “Help? It’s going to help wind me that’s all.”

  “Hold onto it, grip it hard.”

  She did so and then gave a shocked cry as it lifted her from the ground.

  “That’s how we get across!” he said. “It carries us.”

  Veronica let go, dropping a foot or so before the chasm. “You’re joking,” she said. “Who knows how far it is? What if we can’t hold on that long?”

  Arno thought about this for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll go first. Just in case. You can follow when we know it’s safe.” He waved at the orb. “Come here.”

  It floated over to him and he walked around it, trying to think of the best way to ride on it. Eventually he pressed it to his lower belly, grabbing it with both hands and trying to find his point of balance.

  “I don’t like this,” said Veronica.

  “I’m not that enthusiastic myself,” admitted Arno, “but what’s the worst thing that can happen? You can only die once.”

  The orb lifted slowly and he fought to shift his balance, trying to find the most secure grip as it floated out over the chasm. The skin of it felt soft under his fingers, like a well-stuffed leather cushion.

  “I’m fine!” he shouted, thinking he should reassure Veronica as he went. His voice echoed back up at him from below, and he had to shake the impression that the chasm was mocking him with his own words. There were other sounds, some like voices, some musical, always at the very edge of his hearing, unable to be pinned down, ghost noises. He tried to see what might be making them but the fog continued to obscure his view and he didn’t want to move around too much in case it robbed him of his precarious hold.

  The orb moved slowly, maintaining a straight line, clearly trying to make it as safe for him as possible. A soft wind blew up from below and, for a moment, the fog swirled around him, the orb bobbing slightly in the current. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him unsteady, rocking to and fro, his balance lost for the moment. He gave a shout as he toppled backwards, his hands digging into the surface of the orb, trying to find some form of purchase.

  He heard Veronica calling to him but he didn’t respond, concentrating on trying to maintain his grip. The orb suddenly dropped and for a brief moment he thought it was abandoning him to his fate. Then it pushed up against him once more, letting him get a stronger hold. It had consciously acted to help him. This thought reassured him as he shouted back to Veronica.

  “I’m fine! My hand slipped but the orb kept me safe.” He hoped that would give her a little more confidence when it was her turn to make the journey.

  The orb began to descend, and the fog cleared ahead of him to reveal a set of jagged mountains, their stone black and volcanic. They looked sharp enough to cut you just by walking on them.

  He was lowered gently to the ground, which crunched beneath his feet.

  “I’m over!” he shouted, as the orb retreated back over the chasm. “You’ll be fine!”

  There was no response, maybe she hadn’t heard him.

  He wondered if she would make the journey. He knew she had been reluctant to leave the Dominion of Clouds and this was the first moment their journey had represented genuine danger. This was the lost point at which it would be easy to simply turn around and return. If she was willing to do this, he knew, she would stay with him whatever the future held.

  He paced up and down at the edge of the chasm, staring towards the fog and waiting.

  After a few minutes he began calling her name, convinced that she had decided against making the crossing.

  Another couple of minutes and he had decided that she had tried to make the journey but had fallen. If that was the case, his common sense argued, surely he would have heard her fall? Wouldn’t the orb have continued its journey and reappeared by now?

  Just as he was convinced he would never see Veronica again, the orb appeared through the mist. She was clutching it to her so tightly he could see the cords rising up in her neck, her teeth clenched.

  “I was worried,” he said as she came to rest on solid ground.

  “I wasn’t exactly relaxed,” she replied, her legs shaking as the tension finally left her body. “Oh boy.” She sat down. “So stupid. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. And I’m not even alive. Oh Lord...” She put her hands over her face. “I hate heights so much.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to console her. “I didn’t realise.”

  “Just don’t ask me to do it again.” Then a thought occurred to her. “We’ll have to go back the same way!” She gave a moan and shook her head. “Should have stayed in the garden.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that so he just sat next to her and held her.

  After a few minutes she got her breathing back under control and got to her feet. “I nearly left you,” she said, “you know that? I stood on the edge of that thing and tried to think of all the sensible reasons why I should turn around and walk back the way we had come.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Because I’m as stupid as you are.”

  He smiled and kissed her on the head. “I’m glad.”

  She looked around at the volcanic landscape. “I’m not. This place is grim.”

  Arno was about to say something reassuring, to tell her it could have been worse (though maybe it soon would be) when there was a blinding flash of light and the sound of a gunshot.

  They both turned back towards th
e chasm they had just crossed, sure, despite the fact that the light and sound had seemed to wash over everywhere, that it had come from the Dominion of Clouds.

  “What just happened?” Arno wondered. His face was wet and he wiped at it with his dusty hands. He was crying and he had no idea why.

  “Something awful,” said Veronica. “Something really, really awful.”

  They stared out into the mist for a few minutes, neither of them saying another word.

  Then they turned their back on paradise and began their walk into Hell.

  WHAT AM I DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REVOLUTION?

  (An excerpt from the book by Patrick Irish)

  I MIGHT HAVE expected that the finding of Alonzo’s Observation Lounge would be an act beyond us. To explain why I must clarify a number of natural assumptions you must have with regards to the geography of the Dominion of Clouds. Put simply, it was a preternaturally large building that housed a massive courtyard garden. Yet that is, in itself, a reductive description. By physicalising it, rendering it as a place of bricks and mortar, I steal away some of its scope. This is, again, where our language, designed to pin things down, simplify them into descriptions and natures we can understand, is a hindrance rather than a help. The geography of the place was not a simple matter of feet and inches. The place shifted, altered, adapting itself around you as you walked. I have mentioned already the seeming absence of population but there can be no doubt the Dominion of Clouds had been designed for inhabitation. It was a place designed to hold every soul there ever had been or ever would be. The idea that a place on that scale can be summed up as a ‘large building that housed a massive courtyard garden’ is patently absurd. It must have had the capacity for our entire globe multiple times over. It was a place beyond description. That is why I think it presented itself as something far simpler.

  Yet the briefest of investigations broke down the lie. Corridors appeared where they hadn’t been before, sometimes running at an angle that contradicted the sense of location you had already developed. An example: we had walked through a set of cloisters, the beginnings of the garden to our right. After ascending a set of steps we found ourselves faced with a large hallway that was extending out to where we knew there should be nothing but fresh air. There had been no sign of such a construction from the floor below, the perfect line of the cloister unbroken, but there the hallway was. I believe the entire building was far more a place of the mind than it was an actual, physical object. I suggested as much to my companions, moreover, I wondered whether the best way of finding the Observation Lounge was simply to expect it—to wish it, if you like—and let the building respond accordingly.