Sweetie Hell

"It is good to see you well, your lordship," Virgil said with a courteous bow and genuine pleasure in his tone.

"Art thou that famous Roman, the poet known as Virgil?" Mammon clapped his hands excitedly. "What a splendid occasion this is, to be honored with a visit from such a prestigious mortal as thee!" His joyous gaze alighted upon the unicorn in their midst. "And what is this? A unicorn of all things! In Hell? My my, this is certainly an anomalous transpiration."

The devil's delightfully queer character caused Sweetie Belle to giggle.

Mammon gasped aloud at the sound. "It laughs? Dare I hope that such a demonstration of mirth correctly indicates an aptitude for elocution?"

Again the unicorn giggled, and with increased volume as well. "I'm Sweetie Belle," she said finally. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, that voice! 'Tis sweeter on the ears than honeysuckle is to the tongue." The demon bowed with a flourish of his hand. "The pleasure, if you will grant it, is entirely mine. Visitors have come and gone over the countless millennia that Hell has been operational...but none so special as you, dear child." He flashed a charming smile before standing mostly upright again. "Pray tell, what sort of business could warrant a unicorn to make pilgrimage to the unhappiest place on earth?"

"That is precisely why we are here," Virgil said.

"I'm afraid that I will be utterly useless to provide you what answers you seek," Mammon said, unsure of what was being asked of him.

Virgil shook his head. "You misunderstand. The child and I are on route to Cocytus in order to speak with Lucifer about unraveling the mystery of how she came to be in Hell."

Mammon's expression brightened in the light of fresh understanding. "Ah! And of course the only way to get there without dying a traitor is by walking. Thus, your presence in my Circle." He favored Sweetie Belle with a grin. "Clearly you have demonstrated yourself to be quite resourceful to have made it this far into the pit of woe."

The compliment made the unicorn foal blush. "It's actually Virgil who's gotten me this far," she said sheepishly. "If it wasn't for him, I never would have left Limbo."

"Such a modest little thing," Mammon said with a wave of his hand. Then he abruptly snapped his golden fingers as a thought occurred to him. "Ah ha! An idea hath struck me more square than William Tell's arrow did the apple upon his son's crown. Why don't I show you around the Circle? You would have a guide to take you on the safest path through, and I would have a much-needed respite from the dead and their incessant wailing."

Virgil exchanged a look with Sweetie Belle. "To be honest, we were just preparing to ask if you would join us. We've both become quite interested in learning the history of Lucifer and the rebellion, and have already engaged the lords Asmodeus and Beelzebub on the subject."

"Splendid! I would be delighted to share my knowledge with you. Come, friends!" Mammon gestured for his guests to join him at his side before taking the lead. It was hard to really tell, but the lord of Greed was walking with less of a slouch in his spine. He brought his companions to the edge of a short cliff, where beyond stood a series of enormous gears whose golden finish had been irreparably tarnished by the effects of use and time. Their intimidatingly large square teeth interlocked perfectly with every squealing rotation. Mammon mounted the first of the gears with a seamless transition that spoke of countless years of practice and waited patiently for Sweetie Belle to follow, his feet taking him in the opposite direction of the giant metal disc's rotation and thus keeping him roughly in one spot. The young unicorn waited for the opportune moment before making the jump. One of her rear hooves slipped off the edge of one of the gear's teeth, but otherwise it was a passable landing. Virgil followed after her, and then they followed Mammon onto the next gear.

The third transition to make would certainly prove a challenge for Sweetie Belle. This time she had to climb onto the teeth of a gear that was stood vertically perpendicular to the others. Mammon, of course, had no trouble at all surpassing this hurdle and taking his place on the next platform. Sweetie, however, had a much more difficult time of it. Her hooves provided no grip on the smooth metal teeth, and more than once she had either fallen or been forced to jump back to the previous gear. But, before too long, she conquered this first trial and joined Mammon on the cliff. From there the trio passed through a door and into the next room.

Here was presented a cylindrical chamber roughly fifteen feet wide by another thirty tall. The arms and hands of the dead jutted from the walls to flail uselessly and grasp for a lifeline that would never come. Most were entirely encased in the rock save for their extremities, and others had their faces free to display their masks of misery and anguish. Mammon threw a nearby lever, and then the entire chamber rang with screams and screeching metal as an elevator platform scraped its way up the wall and ripped across exposed flesh and snapped bones along the way. The platform came to rest at the top of the chamber to allow Mammon and company to board, and then it slid back down the wall again. Sparks flew as metal moved against hard stone and often fell to scald the sinners trapped in the wall. There were other elevators here as well that ferried other demons to and from a number of doors cut into the wall at various levels. Sinners cried out over and over as their bodies were placed under relentless punishment by the constant up-and-down of the platforms. After a few seconds the elevator came to a stop at the ground floor; the party disembarked and headed for the nearest exit.

Now Mammon brought his companions to a conveyor system that traced a veritable spider's web of intersecting metal tracks throughout the Circle which guided a vast number of massive metal vats along a series of unknown errands. One of the buckets passed by close enough and at a slow enough velocity that the group was able to board safely and easily. All they could do from this point forward was wait to be delivered to wherever their ride was headed.

"At last we finally have an opportunity to talk a while," Mammon said as he reclined against the railing. "Ask whatever questions you have, and I shall answer to the best of my ability."

Sweetie Belle looked to Virgil, who defaulted the discussion to her with a gesture. She nodded with a smile, happy now to be comfortable enough to engage a minion of Hell herself. "Who were you before the war?" she asked of the bronze lord. "Were you an angel like the others?"

"Indeed I was," Mammon confirmed with a nod. "I was the Angel of Charity, during my time in Paradise. I am certain that I would have served the Father well, had I been given a chance. Sadly though, Lucifer's rebellion rather buggered all my plans and got me sent here."

"So you fought for him in the war? For Lucifer, I mean?"

The lord of Greed shook his head. "Goodness no; I was no warrior like my brothers Michael or Uriel. Back in those days, and even to now, I was a...a bean counter, you might say. A heavenly accountant. My skills lay in mathematics, detailed calculations, and discerning ratios and percentages. I could no more lift a sword than an ant can fell an elephant."

"Then you waited for the end," Sweetie Belle presumed, "like Asmodeus did."

"I most certainly did not," Mammon snapped defensively. "That lecherous pigeon and all those like him were cowards, and damnation has not changed them."

"But you just said..."

The bronze man held up a hand to interrupt Sweetie Belle. "I did not take part in the actual combat of the war because I saw no reason to," he explained in a softer tone of voice. "Only absolute fools believed Lucifer could win against God. I knew any contribution I made to the war effort, regardless of whose side I rallied to, would have been for naught. So I kept my hands clean and minded my own business. When it came time for judgment, I was lumped in with the cowards who had been waiting in the wings to see who would come out of the battle victorious. God gave me the chance to explain my refusal to answer the call to action, and He was less than satisfied with what I had to say. My reasons were not good enough to affirm my position in Heaven, and thus I was cast out with the rest of the riffraff."

Sweetie Belle studied Mammon and his words for several seconds. "You don't sound like the others," she stated bluntly.

"How do you mean?" inquired the lord of Greed.

"Both Asmodeus and Beelzebub said they didn't belong in Heaven, and that they're a lot happier here in Hell," she said. "But you talk like the opposite. Like you were happier in Heaven than in Hell."

Mammon dismissed his monstrous brothers with a wave of his hand. "Asmodeus certainly had no place in Heaven, this is true. He may have been clever enough to see through Lucifer's honeyed words, but he was still a coward to have behaved the way he did. Beelzebub...He simply had an appetite for something that just could not be found in Paradise. He had a hole in his belly that could never be filled, and that is why he is crown prince of Gluttony." The lord of Greed sighed with remorse. "In my case...I wish I had been allowed to keep my station. I do not care for being labeled the crown prince of Greed and walking around in this twisted form. I miss my wings and my books, and I miss my brothers and sisters. Especially Raphael; I miss our conversations most of all." He then let out a defeated breath. "But, it is by God's will that I am here now, and only God's will may set me free if He so chooses. Until then, I do my solemn work in Hell's fourth Circle."

"Were...Were you ever Lucifer's friend?"

There was a long silence as Mammon pondered this. "I am...not certain I would say so. I bore him no animosity, but neither was I overly kind to him. I appreciated his intellect, and his inventive way of looking at things. We talked sometimes, both before and after his 'enlightenment' as he called it. His ideas were quite intriguing; I would be lying if I said he did not at least change how I viewed myself and the plight of the angels." He turned away to gaze out at the cavern around them. "He came to me on the eve of battle. He did not ask me to fight for him; he had more than enough allies to combat the faithful. He just...asked for counsel. He'd sought out Raphael first (who was infinitely more qualified than I to give advice), and then came to me. I still do not know why he was so insistent on speaking with me."

Sweetie Belle's eyes widened with very apparent interest. "What did he want?" she asked in a fascinated whisper.

There was another reflective pause for a few seconds. "He was unsure of something. For the first time since I'd known Lucifer his confidence was shaken, and it had deeply disturbed me. I think he was looking for validation for his actions leading up to what was about to happen, or perhaps a reason to stop the war altogether. He never asked for an answer to any specific problems...just that I talk to him. I was baffled and utterly lost for what exactly to say, and I told him as much. But Lucifer was insistent, so I recited the history of the angelic hierarchy and each choir's individual duties."

"Did...Did it help" Sweetie asked when she was at a loss for anything else to say.

"I'm not sure one way or the other," Mammon said with a shrug. "He seemed to draw comfort from something, but I haven't the foggiest notion of what."

"Perhaps he wanted to hear a friendly voice before he went to war," Virgil suggested from his side of the platform. He turned so he could look upon both his companions at once. "Maybe it wasn't something specific that Lucifer needed to hear. He had to have known the fate that awaited him by moving forward with the rebellion, so it is possible that he just wanted to make one last positive memory before he could cement his damnation."

This gave the lord of Greed pause for reflection, his right hand moving to rub his chin while he thought this theory over. "That...makes a great deal of sense, now that I think about it. It never crossed my mind that Lucifer may have been taking one last moment for himself to not think about the war. I always thought I had failed him in some way, that maybe I had said the wrong things, or not said the right ones." Mammon blessed the poet with a grateful smile. "In much the same way as Lucifer all those years ago, you've successfully changed my perception, my good man."

Soon the vat came near enough to another platform for the trio to disembark and continue on to the next chamber. The light in here was a shock to Sweetie Belle's sense of sight and forced her to take a moment to adjust. When her vision cleared at last, she was astounded beyond speech by what she saw. Towering peaks, rolling hills, and shimmering rivers gold coins and multi-hued gemstones. There was more wealth in this place than even a thousand men could spend in a thousand lifetimes. The sheer magnitude of the monetary value of these riches did not bear thinking about; there was no number which could aptly calculate it. Sweetie Belle's mouth flapped wordlessly, and her eyes were transfixed by the sight of it all.

Mammon chuckled at her reaction. "Here we find all the earth's treasure that ever was or will be. An everlasting monument to mankind's irrational need to feel superior to his neighbors."

"They fight so hard for so long for so much, only to find their wealth utterly worthless here in the blind world," Virgil remarked with a sad shake of his head.

Sweetie Belle blinked twice, her confusion breaking the spell that had thus far been smothering her. "Wait...This is all worthless?" she asked as she pointed with her hoof. "Then why is it here?"

"To remind the dead of the cost of their battle for material gain," Mammon said. He pointed out several isolated pockets of sinners who were suffering from one of two particular forms of torment. Half of them were being crushed beneath the weight of large cubes of solid gold that were etched with the crimes they committed to obtain and keep their riches. "See those sorry creatures? The selfish race for financial superiority came at the expense of their friends, family, colleagues, and even total strangers. For hoarding their wealth, they are crushed under the weight of the misery they caused their fellow man."

As for the others, their punishment was to have one leg nailed to the ground as gold coins trickled down the sides of nearby hillocks that never seemed to shrink. At their touch the coins turned to ashes, thus preventing them from so much as handling the money even as it came to them freely. "There lie the wasters. No matter how much they earned or stole or were given, they could not fill the burning hole in their hearts. Hell makes them feel the pain their excessive spending caused to their peers by denying them the chance to touch even a single pittance as it comes to them."

Sweetie Belle turned to Mammon with a confused expression. "So it's a bad thing to be rich?"

"Oh, dear me no. You misunderstand what is really happening in Hell," Mammon answered. "It is not the sin that condemns a sinner, but the misery their actions bring upon the heads of their peers."

"It is why souls condemned to Hell are made to suffer as they do," Virgil elaborated. "The pain they endure is symbolic of what their sinful behaviors wrought upon others."

"Precisely! You see, the act of being greedy, lustful, gluttonous, or angry is not, in itself, a sin. It is only when such acts harm persons beyond the initiating party that they don the quality of sin."

The expression on Sweetie Belle's face reflected the new breadth of her understanding on the topic at hand. "I get it now. So it's actually okay to be angry or greedy sometimes, but not when you end up hurting other people."

Both Virgil and Mammon nodded their heads, but the former appeared to have more to say. "This is true for the sins of upper Hell, mind. They are considered sins of incontinence; behaviors which harken back to the time before mankind knew God. These are feelings which every man and woman on Earth experiences at one time or another in their lives. The fact that these sins are born from instinct makes them less offensive to God. Those of lower Hell are..."

"Take it from me, dear girl," Mammon interjected before leaning in uncomfortably close to the unicorn's face, his voice deepening with ominous intent. "You will see just how offensive the sins of lower Hell are to the Lord." He lingered there for several seconds, his proximity making Sweetie Belle shift uneasily and try to avert her gaze, and then he retreated so abruptly that it made her gasp. "Now then! Let us crack on, shall we? The next Circle is but a hop, skip, and a jump from here." The lord of Greed spun about and struck off through the field of wealth, leaving Virgil and Sweetie Belle to hasten to catch up. The dead, of course, paid them no mind, being too caught up in their own misery to be concerned with what the trio was up to.

Mammon led his guests through a short series of doors and narrow passages until they came to a stop within a grand hall not unlike an ancient Gothic cathedral. In here, all was quiet; the cacophony which comprised Greed's soundtrack could not reach this strangely holy place. High arches supported on decorative stone pillars flanked both sides of the path ahead, and gilded candelabras shaped from frozen corpses illuminated the area via little flames burning on the ends of their fingers like candles. At the opposite end of the hall was an immense wheel which dominated the entire far wall. As the party drew close, it was possible to make out hundreds upon thousands of individual symbols carved into the wheel's face, their purpose unknown except by the one who would occasionally reach up a hand to touch them as the gigantic disc turned.

Virgil and Sweetie Belle stopped a respectable distance away from the figure, while Mammon continued forward until he stood beside the stranger and knelt before it. "I've brought you visitors," he said in a venerable whisper.

"I have no time for visitors, King of Coin," the figure replied in a hollow, feminine voice. "The Wheel pauses for no one, nor can I neglect the dispensation of my will upon the mortals. Be gone!" she commanded with an aggressive hand gesture. Her voice had the weight of tremendous age and power to it, enough to make all in attendance cringe reflexively upon hearing her speak. Sweetie could sense it as nearly all citizens of Equestria could sense the very same things in the Princesses Celestia and Luna.

Mammon swallowed a nervous lump in his throat before pushing the issue. "You will want to meet this one, my Lady. She is far from the usual fare Hell has seen in the past."

There was a tangible pause of exactly five seconds, and then the figure rose from her kneeling position before the wheel. Dust which had sat undisturbed for millennia fell from her in waves as she stood and turned on her heel. She had at first glance appeared to be garbed in a heavy cloak, but now, as she stood aglow in the candelabras' light, it was apparent that the cloak was in fact a pair of feathered wings. They were a sharp shade of brown which looked almost black against the backdrop of the golden wheel. The woman herself was entirely nude save for a red sash that covered her eyes, and she had a subtle crimson tone in her skin. She had small breasts and modest hips, and a round head with thin lips and a button nose. Her auburn hair fell over her shoulders in bouncy curls to halt midway between her upper chest and lower abdomen. Upon revealing her true self, the woman's power beat on the air like a heatwave with such force that it compelled Virgil and Sweetie Belle to kneel.

Mammon shuffled forward, his hunched stance making the the lord of Greed appear laughably small beside the mysterious woman. "Honored guests, it is my privilege to introduce you to Fortuna; the Lady Luck, Mother of Fate, and Queen of Chance." The demon then addressed Fortuna herself. "My Lady, I present Virgil of Rome, and Sweetie Belle the..."

"Unicorn." Lady Fortuna stepped forward, her every move as deliberate and graceful as a tiger. She advanced until she was close enough to kneel before the young filly, her face awash with wonder. "How are you here?" she asked slowly.

Sweetie Belle at last lifted her head so she could look up at the goddess. "That's what I'm hoping to find out," she said in reply.

"I'm sorry?"

"Permit me to explain, your Grace." Virgil stood up straight, and then almost immediately knelt down again under Lady Fortuna's gaze. "She is here quite by accident, my Lady. As I'm sure you can tell, she is still alive."

"That was immediately apparent," the deity snapped, causing Virgil to wilt noticeably.

"Ah, yes well..." Virgil cleared his throat unnecessarily before speaking again. "I am taking her to speak with Lucifer under the assumption that he may have the answer to this riddle."

Lady Fortuna briefly looked down at the unicorn foal, and then back to Virgil, her expression unreadable. "You expect the Lord of Lies to be of any help?" she said in a heavily skeptical tone.

"He is our only option...her only option," the poet replied.

The goddess returned her gaze to Sweetie Belle. "I do not think you fully understand the character of Hell's king. He is the crown prince of deception. He glories in misdirection and confusion, takes pride in confounding a person's judgment by telling them what they want to hear so that they may do his bidding."

"I understand," Sweetie said, but her interruption was overridden.

"He is a master of manipulating others, especially when they are vulnerable," Fortuna continued saying. "Lucifer speaks in riddles and falsehoods except when the truth can hurt worse. He will play you like he played all of his weak-minded kin, and look what he did to them!"

"I know!"

"The man is a snake who will talk circles around you until he has you right where he wants you: dimwitted, uncertain of all you know, and susceptible to suggestion."

"What else can I do?!" Virgil, Mammon, and Fortuna were stunned silent by the little unicorn's outcry. Sweetie continued in a lower but still distressed register. "I have nowhere else to go and no one else I can talk to. You say Lucifer is a liar and is only going to want to hurt me, and I believe you. But I also believe Virgil when he says that Lucifer's the only person who can help me. Now unless you have a better idea, I'm going to get to the bottom of this awful place and try my hardest to convince him to send me home."

All attention now shifted to Lady Fortuna as everyone waited to see what she had to do or say in rebuttal. She ignored Virgil and Mammon to gaze squarely at the young lady who had dared to raise her voice to a goddess. She had to admire Sweetie Belle's courage, which clearly gave her the drive to pursue this farce to its doubtlessly heartbreaking conclusion. The odds of a positive outcome were woefully, almost negligibly low. Lucifer was a trickster at heart, and he would not think twice about breaking this child in every way she fears most. Fortuna might have tried harder to change the unicorn's mind if an alternative course of action existed, which, as Sweetie Belle had so aptly pointed out, there was not. In the end she sighed in defeat and shook her head.

"I hope you truly are as prepared to face the King of Hell as you say." With that, she stood and approached the great golden wheel and pressed her hand against its polished surface. The hall quaked and dust fell from the walls as the wheel slowly pulled away like a gigantic door, opening the way forward to the next Circle. Mammon gestured for his companions to follow him to the exit, but he did not accompany them once they were through.

"My part in this tale is ended; I can go no further," he said, his voice touched by remorse. He looked down at Sweetie Belle and smiled. "I feel blessed to have met you, lady Belle. I will...pray for you." His gaze shifted to Virgil, to whom he treated a respectful bow of the head. "And it was a pleasure to have finally met you, master poet."

"We are forever grateful for the assistance you have granted us," Virgil said with a bow of his own.

"Wait! I just remembered!" Sweetie Belle trotted up to the lord of Greed, who knelt on one knee to better hear what she had to say. "I never asked you: Why did Lucifer rebel against God? Asmodeus said it was out of jealousy, and Beelzebub said he just wanted power."

Mammon tapped his chin thoughtfully for nearly a minute before arriving at a satisfactory reply. "He wanted to keep the earth out of human hands. He believed that humanity, with all its faults and vulnerabilities, was unworthy of the perfect world that God had worked so hard to build. Lucifer's plan was to depose God and seat himself upon the Throne of Creation, which would give him the authority to deny Earth from mankind for as long as it pleased him." Mammon paused a moment before adding one final remark. "At least, that is my impression. I was never terribly close to Lucifer, so my understanding of his motives mostly comes from secondhand information I heard from other angels."

"It's still really helpful. Thank you, Mammon," Sweetie Belle said with a kind smile, the full scope of her gratitude reflected in those two simple words. She and the lord of Greed said their final goodbyes before parting ways at last. The wheel slowly groaned its way back into its resting position, and Virgil led his young ward down the road which was steadily bringing them both closer to their ultimate goal. Even after parting from Mammon's company, Sweetie Belle could not stop smiling. "I really liked him," she said after a time.

"Lord Mammon stands as testament to the fact that not all who are damned to Hell are made for it," Virgil agreed.

Silence filled the conversational gap until Sweetie Belle spoke again. "So what is Fortuna exactly? Is she a demon too?"

Virgil shook his head. "She is oft considered an angel, but the powers she commands makes her very near to godhood."

"Then what is she doing in Hell?"

"Her presence here is due not to any wrongdoing, but to what she represents," Virgil replied. "God is all-powerful, meaning He controls every facet of life's grand design. This is why humans are so fond of citing that God has a 'plan' for them, because they believe that God has preordained the fate of every individual life on Earth. Lady Fortuna, however, is fate incarnate. She represents the one thing that God cannot control, which is life's innate unpredictability. She is the personification of that most perfectly flawed trait of the human race called 'free will'. It is through her that humans have the ability of choice, to decide their own futures one step at a time, and often in direct defiance of God's will or even His very existence. Because of these powers, Lady Fortuna is barred from ever entering Heaven, but as you saw she is not punished or tormented in any way. She resides in peace whilst keeping an eternal vigil on the Wheel of Fate."

"Oh," Sweetie said, not quite sure if she fully understood. "Are there other angels...or whatever...like Fortuna down here?"

Virgil nodded his head. "They are primarily located in the lower Circles. We may encounter some of them as we progress."

The pair eventually found their way out of the cavern of Greed and were standing at the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast stretch of dense forest. The trees were varying shades of black and completely devoid of leaves, and the sky overhead was a sinister blood-red with black clouds that appeared totally static. The land gave off an aura of malice and foreboding, threatening passersby to keep a very respectful distance. It was a primal place long forgotten by the rest of the world, and it was quite displeased by this revelation.

"The Circle of Anger," Virgil said in a low tone as if afraid of being overheard by the jungle below. "We will need to move quickly and silently to have any hope of navigating it unnoticed."

"What's down there?" Sweetie Belle inquired.

"Rage."

The ground beneath Sweetie Belle's hooves cracked, shifted, and before she could react it collapsed. She fell a short ways before landing on a steep incline that pitched her down into the Circle of Anger. She bounced and rolled down the incline and showed no signs of stopping or slowing. Her body was beaten mercilessly against the unforgiving ground by the immutable will of gravity for what felt like an eternity, until at last the incline deposited her unceremoniously onto level ground. Sweetie Belle lay still, battered, and unconscious in a viciously hostile world.

Virgil had watched her fall, his eyes wide and mouth agape in horror. She hadn't made a sound during the fall and still yet she remained distressingly silent, but Virgil could still sense life down in the baleful forest. Sweetie Belle's life. From the heart of the woods came a resonating howl that carried a message of hate and violence for all to hear.

"Dear God," the poet whispered in abject terror. "Please...do not let him find her."