Chapters Sweetie Belle breathed out a lethargic groan, her bleary half-lidded eyes fighting to peer at an environment she did not immediately recognize as her hometown of Ponyville, or really anywhere which could qualify as a geographical location. She could not tell what exactly she was seeing, but she knew for certain that this place, wherever it was, was not home. Her ears twitched and swiveled in response to an orchestra of unfamiliar noises that resounded throughout this alien place, made worse by the fact her hearing behaved as if she had cotton balls buried in her ear canals. Though her senses of sight and hearing were currently unreliable in her semiconscious state, her sense of smell was operating at a hundred percent capacity. In spite of this, however, a few cautionary inhales through the nose could no better divine the truth of her present location.
The unicorn foal pushed against the heavy weights attached to her eyelids and willed them fully open, demanding to know what had happened to the tranquil town of her birth. Her vision cleared after three or four blinks, and as it did so too did her hearing correct itself. The first thing she noticed was the ground upon which she lay, which was uncomfortably hard and unyielding as stone, but also strangely warm. In fact this earth was exuding heat, a trait which only compounded Sweetie Belle's discomfort. It was also caked with a layer of black soot that, upon standing, marred most of her ivory coat on one side. Sweetie frowned with displeasure and attempted to shake the stuff loose, but alas only yielded a modicum of success. Patches of soot clung stubbornly to her pearlescent fur and two-tone pink and violet hair. To make matters worse, a long panoramic view of the rest of her surroundings dispelled all notions of a bath from the near future.
The air sang like shattered glass with the horrified, anguished shrieking of gray simian bodies that tumbled like gruesome waterfalls from caves with eerily lifelike faces, and plummeted from the sky like a hailstorm of bodies. Some crashed violently into the ground, birthing large impact craters and kicking up thick clouds of soot. Mere seconds after impact the creatures would miraculously rise from their landing places and either blithely pitch themselves over the nearby cliff, or shamble steadily down the only road leading away from this area on to the next. Other creatures were arguably less lucky, instead plunging like rain down through a rolling blanket of mist far below the cliff, the vapor now and again dissipating enough to reveal a river of thick black sludge wherein countless numbers of the vague creatures splashed and floundered helplessly. Those falling to their doom screamed piteously; those that walked the road moaned like so many livestock destined for slaughter.
"Where on earth am I?" Sweetie Belle wondered aloud, anxiety apparent in her tone. She scoured her memory for clues that might elaborate on the circumstances which had brought her to this dismal place, but the search ultimately ended in failure. She could recall nothing that would explain where she was, how she'd gotten here, or what had become of dear Ponyville. The young unicorn observed the only path before her, which had the unfortunate luck of bearing her further and deeper into this cavern of woe. She did not want to go in . She wanted to get out , but for the moment it seemed the only way out was in. So, despite her reservations, she would obey the unidirectional road and follow it to its point of conclusion.
"You are either very brave, or very foolish, to so carelessly strike off into the blind world." The abrupt occurrence of a disembodied voice gave Sweetie Belle a start and halted her progress, which had not been much. Though understandably on edge, she could not deny the gentle attitude of the voice, nor could she help feeling comforted by its soothing intonation. Following the ensuing silence a figure began to coalesce in front of Sweetie Belle, and to her mixed surprise and relief it was a fellow pony. He was ghostly pale with a bald head and faded grey eyes, and he was garbed in an unremarkable soft-blue robe that hung off one shoulder. The spirit wore a genuinely kind smile which had the effect of making it easier for Sweetie Belle to speak to him.
"Who are you?" she inquired.
"I am called Virgil," the shade replied with a courteous bow. "May I ask your name, pretty child?"
Sweetie Belle could not help gushing slightly at the compliment, and answered accordingly. "Can you tell me where I am?" she asked once the introductions were finished.
"Many cultures have bestowed upon this foul place a variety of names. At its core, it is Hell. At present you stand at the uppermost lip of this hole," Virgil replied.
An answer though it was, Sweetie felt no less confused. "Hell? Where is that? Is it anywhere near Ponyville?"
"Hell lies below the earth, and further yet beneath Heaven," Virgil said. He gazed at the little filly for a time, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Normally it is forbidden to all but the dead and celestial entities. You are neither, yet here you stand. Most curious..."
Despite the apparition's best efforts to be helpful, he had inadvertently managed only to confound Sweetie Belle even more. She took a moment to analyze everything Virgil had told her and try to discern some form of sense from it all. The mentioning of Heaven was utterly meaningless to her, and neither did it seem terribly pertinent to ask about it at this time, so she archived it for later. Virgil had said that Hell was beneath the earth, which Sweetie Belle took to mean it was quite literally below ground. She did not know what a 'celestial' was, but Virgil's comment about the dead demanded an explanation.
"The uh...the-the dead?" she asked, her voice shaky with worry.
Virgil nodded his head. "Every soul once living that is burdened by sin descends into this wretched chasm, to then await sentencing and punishment in perpetuity."
Sweetie Belle tried to swallow the lump which had formed in her throat. "Am I...dead?"
This time Virgil shook his head. "Nay, fair child. You yet live, which makes your presence in Hell so perplexing." Sweetie Belle exhaled a sigh of relief. "Have you no memory of how you came here?" Virgil requested to know.
"No, I just woke up here," Sweetie Belle confessed. "Can you help me get back home?"
"I can take you to one who can," Virgil said, "but it will be a long and arduous trek, one which will require us to traverse the entirety of the blind world, from Limbo to Cocytus and all territories betwixt them."
"How long will that take?" the young filly asked.
The spirit shrugged his shoulders. "It is impossible to know. The journey shall take only as much time to complete as it must."
That was an unpleasantly vague answer. By Virgil's reasoning, it was possible that Sweetie Belle's quest to return home could last anywhere from a day to as long as several years, not to mention the number of obstacles she would surely be confronted with along her travels. A disheartened frown appeared on Sweetie's muzzle. She did not wish to spend any more time in this forsaken place than was absolutely necessary, which meant she had no other choice except to walk the road to the bottom of Hell. Thoughts of home and her family and friends manifested in her mind, and instilled in her the courage she would undoubtedly need for the journey ahead.
She looked up at Virgil and nodded once. "Take me to him," she said.
Virgil took the lead as he and his young ward embarked on the walk to Hell's base. Now and then they would pass by the grey creatures padding down the road as well. Their ashen forms were almost utterly devoid of distinguishing characteristics, such things having been ripped away during their fall into the houses of fire. Scars, birthmarks, even their hair and eyes had been robbed from them. Damnation was the great equalizer. It did not matter what these poor souls had been in life or where they had come from; sin corrupted them all the same way a plague can afflict the population of an entire continent. Down here, they were just prisoners to be tormented and beaten until the end of time. Their pathetic groans and unhurried gait seemed to suggest they were fully aware of the awful fate befallen them, and the equally terrible things waiting for them in the dark depths.
Sweetie Belle gazed at them as she and her guide strode past. "What are they?" she inquired.
"Human souls, shrunken and twisted by their misconduct while living," Virgil informed her.
"So they're dead," she reasoned out to herself. Then she looked at the phantom beside her. "Are you dead?"
Virgil nodded. "Indeed. I met my end long ago."
"How come you don't look like them?"
The spirit pondered this for a moment. "I suppose it is due in part to my place in Hell, and in part to the impact I have had on human history," he said finally.
This spurred follow-up questions from Sweetie Belle. "So who were you before?"
Virgil smiled fondly as he recalled his former life. "I was a poet. A rather good one, if one believes all the puffery surrounding my works. Or a terrible one, depending on who you ask. People have been reading my poems for generations well after my...retirement." He paused, and then sheepishly amended that statement. "That is to say, people have been reading one of my poems for generations. The others are not quite so famous."
"Wow," Sweetie Belle said amazed. Then she began to ruminate on something Virgil said just now. "You said something about your place in Hell?"
"That would be Limbo. Consequently it is also our present location," the shade said.
Another thoughtful pause from the young filly. "So we're in Limbo, and you said the person we have to talk to is in Coc...Coca..."
"Cocytus."
"Yeah, that place. You also said something about all the places between here and there. How many, uh...levels, I guess, are there?"
"Nine, and they are called Circles," Virgil said. "The first five circumscribe what is called Upper Hell, and the final four Circles make up Lower Hell."
"What's the difference?" Sweetie inquired.
"Severity of penance served," replied the poet. He noticed the expression of confusion on his ward's face and the queer tilt of her ears. "You will understand soon enough." That last statement bore a tone which suggested that Sweetie Belle would indeed understand better once they were farther along. So she decided to reverse track and address another topic.
"So what exactly is Hell?" she asked of her guardian.
Virgil took a breath to prepare for this next dialogue. "It is the final resting place of all souls who in life did not accord God the Almighty all due respect and fear. What sins they committed in the waking world overburden them and cause them to fall here, into the houses of pain." As if on cue the path ahead erupted with the sudden arrival of a freshly damned spirit, causing Sweetie Belle to shout in fright. The creature picked itself up almost immediately and started down the road to an as of yet unknown destination. "Once a soul has had judgment passed upon them, they are sent to one of the nine Circles to begin their eternity of atonement."
"How are people in Limbo punished?"
"With time." Once again Virgil observed the perplexed look on Sweetie Belle's face, but this time he chose to answer the question her expression was asking. "The souls of Limbo are denied a place in God's Heaven, but similarly are they spared from the agonies of deep Hell. Instead of pain, they endure the test of time. They rest in this place of sanctuary, contemplate the lives they lived and the choices they made, and await the End of Days."
That doesn't sound too bad, Sweetie Belle thought internally. Such a fate certainly promised to be quite boring after a time, but it seemed better than what abuses Virgil promised could be found in the other Circles. She then had a strange thought at the same moment that she noticed how relaxed she had become in the last several minutes. Hell had sounded as much as looked like an awfully terrifying place to find oneself in, but she found her fears greatly reduced after having learned more about it. There was no doubt that she was still afraid to go any deeper into this kingdom of woe, but Sweetie also felt a certain degree of cautious interest in exploring and uncovering all of Hell's secrets. It gave her the drive to push on which did well to counter her reluctance to move forward.
Before much longer the road split into multiple diverging paths which all led to one place: the cargo hold of an enormous ship. The vessel was probably sixty feet high and measured exactly double that from stem to stern, implying that it could comfortably carry an incredible payload without fear of being encumbered by the weight. The material which composited the ship was an intriguing mixture of wood and flesh. Jutting up from the prow was an enormous bald head with burning yellow eyes like two great furnaces, and a deep booming voice that rattled Sweetie Belle's bones with every spoken syllable.
"Through me the way to the city of woe ," the shipmaster bellowed. "Through me the way to everlasting pain. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here ," he chorused as the dead shuffled their way into his great belly, their pitiful moans likening them to cattle being herded into an abattoir.
Virgil noticed his companion staring in awe at the entity. "He is Charon; boatman of these foul waters known as Acheron. All souls from every nation gather on this forsaken shore to await passage across the woeful river to the Circles beyond."
"We have to ride that ?" Sweetie's tone was incredulous. Her reluctance to do this intensified when she saw her incorporeal guardian nod his head.
"Without Charon's assistance, you will never see your homeland again." The unicorn foal looked back to the gruesome ship, her heart steadily filling with dread at the very idea of being inside it and not knowing what nightmares may or may not dwell within. Her breathing hastened with her mounting anxiety, but she quickly got a handle on it before her mind could be overridden by terror and suppressed these feelings with a solitary nod of her head. Virgil waited patiently for her to gather her courage, and then brought her to the waterfront.
Charon turned his head to set his gaze upon the pair, the wood in his neck snapping and crying out with the motion. "You there, thou who art living ," he roared, "Stand aside from those that are dead ."
"We cannot divert from this path, boatman," Virgil responded. "This child has no place here in Hades. She must be brought before the Prince of Lies so she might return to her proper home in the world above."
"I service the dead, pale poet. Let her wither on the shoreline until death makes room for her on his list ," the stubborn shipmaster countered.
Virgil fixed the boatman with a challenging glare, and raised his voice into a commanding shout. "This task is willed from on high, by He who is called I Am. Would you refute an order from God the Creator? Have you the nerve to set your will against the Almighty One?"
Charon tried to meet the shade's stare, but doubt intermixed with fear of reprisal from The Lord compelled him to turn away. "Proceed ," he growled bitterly.
There was no helping a smirk of pride as Virgil and Sweetie Belle boarded the great ship with the last of the damned. The vessel gave a jarring start as it got underway, sailing down the river of tar on route to its next port of call. Virgil found a place for Sweetie Belle to sit and rest while they waited for the ride to reach its conclusion.
"What was all that stuff you said about God or whoever?" she asked once she'd made herself comfortable. A less-than-easy task given the floor's rough texture.
"Now is not the time to discuss it," Virgil said in reply.
"Oh." A brief silence followed before Sweetie Belle spoke once again. "So who is God? Is he, like, king of the universe or something?"
"In a manner of speaking," Virgil said chuckling. "God is the maker of all things, from the ground beneath your feet to the stars in the sky. He is the inventor of life and death, nature and time. He is the master of all creation, and of everything that has ever or ever will live and breathe." The poet spoke of this God character with great adulation.
"Wow. He made everything, huh?" Sweetie Belle had certainly heard of gods and godlike entities. The subject had been discussed in school, but the prevailing attitude regarding these deities was that they are nothing but myths from a more primitive age. Fantastic stories passed down through the generations, and nothing more. It seemed to her that she had been mysteriously transported into one such fiction, though whomever had written this particular tale appeared to have a very...colorful imagination. "What about that prince you mentioned before? Who's that?"
"Lucifer," Virgil said in a grave tone. "He is the King of Hell; the Fallen One; the Prince of Lies; the Light-bringer. Nothing transpires in Hell without him immediately knowing about it."
"He's the one we're going to talk to about sending me home?"
"Indeed. That is, if we find him in a helpful mood."
Sweetie Belle's ears fell flat upon hearing this last statement. "What does that mean?"
"Lucifer is trapped here, condemned like these sorry souls with us right now," Virgil elaborated, illustrating his point by sweeping his arm across the grey crowd before them. "He is king only because he was forced to be by God. It is not hard to assume he has a less-than-charitable disposition as a result."
"Wait. God put him down here?"
The poet nodded. "After the war in Heaven. God cast all the rebellious angels into Hell."
Sweetie Belle's head began to swim with the volume of knowledge being presented to her in so short a time. "Hold on, you're kind of losing me," she said as she pressed a hoof to her temple. "Where did the angels come from?"
"God created them," Virgil answered. "They were one of His first inventions following the construction of the universe."
"Okay. Was Lucifer an angel?" Sweetie inquired next.
Again, her guide answered in the affirmative. "In fact he was the first of his kind," he added.
"Why did he get kicked out of Heaven?"
"For rebelling against God and starting the Angel War."
"Why did Lucifer rebel against God?"
This time Virgil could not give a clear answer. "No one knows for sure what Lucifer's intentions were. Some say he fought for power. Others say it was envy that guided him, which thus caused him to be known as the Devil of Pride."
Sweetie Belle fell into a thoughtful silence. She found it quite strange that one person could start a war with no clear motivation, and that none of the angels who had sided with him even knew his reasons. It was an interesting mystery, one which she found herself compelled to strive to solve. If learning about Hell worked to assuage her fear of this place, then it stood to reason that learning about its king might help her in some way when she was able to finally meet him.
"Is there anyone we can talk to who would know something about that?" Sweetie asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
Virgil considered her query for a time. "Some of his more sane lieutenants do remain," he said. "It is possible we can ask them, but their cooperation in this endeavor is not guaranteed. It is also important to remember that the only one with a clear understanding of Lucifer's motivation for the rebellion is Lucifer himself. Anyone we talk to could likely be misinformed on the subject."
"It doesn't matter. I want to hear their side of things as much as Lucifer's," the young filly stated resolutely. "Besides, they might tell us things that only they know from personal experience."
The spirit thought about this. "I would be lying if I said that I was not also curious to know the full breadth of this oldest of stories." A contemplative pause, and then Virgil nodded with a smile. "Very well. In our course to send you home, we shall endeavor to learn everything we can about Lucifer and his rebellion."
"Deal!"
As their conversation ended, so too did the voyage aboard the macabre cargo ship come to its end. The wall on one side split open length-ways, and the damned cargo shambled out to their next destination. Approximately ten yards directly ahead stood a large obsidian structure that was pentagonal in shape with a domed roof surrounded by upraised parapets, squat tiered towers adorning each of the building's five corners, and a wide portcullis gate flanked on both sides by armored demons. The structure itself was not very tall, standing only about three stories high and measuring another thirty meters wide, and it bore a curiously rococo aesthetic. The towers reached a mere ten feet higher than the domed roof, and they were constructed in a style reminiscent of ancient pagodas. As the dead drew near, the portcullis rose up through hidden machinery to permit the crowd entry.
The devils on either side of the gate kept a watchful eye on the procession. They were quite tall compared to the grey creatures shuffling past them, standing roughly eight feet high on cloven hooves and carrying impressive horns which sprouted from their brows. One of them had his horns curling up and back like an ibex, and the other's more closely resembled the antlers on an elk. Their eyes were crimson and their flesh was charred black under their uniforms of surprisingly immaculate plate armor the color of gold. They each brandished an eight foot-long glaive which glittered with a similar color as their suits.
"The armor is meant to make them stand out," Virgil said to Sweetie Belle, who had been staring at the demons with mixed fear and awe. "It ensures the dead understand that this is their fate. This is their reward for the lives they led above."
Sweetie Belle's gaze shifted to the damned parade. "Do any of them try to run?"
"Occasionally, yes. But none have ever made it very far. Let us waste no more time on them." Virgil directed his companion away from the path tread by the damned to an alternate entrance far to the side. Here was found a rectangular door that was decorated with an exquisitely detailed, almost lifelike carving of a demon. It was posed with membranous wings folded but visible behind the shoulders, its two muscular arms folded under the chest, and the blazing orange eyes within the horned skull downcast. Sweetie Belle stared at the magnificent design, and noted in amazement that the eyes seemed to dance like fire, giving the illusion of life.
"Returned at last, have you?" Sweetie yelped in surprise as the door unexpectedly spoke. The head lifted up so it could look directly at Virgil.
"Where else have I to go?" replied the poet.
The door glanced down at the young unicorn beside him. "What is that you've brought with you? It has the stink of the living."
"All that matters is she does not belong in Hell. We seek an audience with Lucifer, so that he may correct whatever error brought her here and send her home. Obstruct us no longer and grant us entry," Virgil commanded. The carving fell back into its original pose as the door rose up within the doorway, shutting itself again once poet and pony were inside.
The two companions found themselves standing in a long stone hallway lit by torches mounted along the left-hand wall. Virgil led the way forward, the sound of Sweetie Belle's hoof steps echoing down the length ahead.
"I thought..." The young filly broke off mid-thought at the loud echo of her voice in the quiet. When she spoke again, it was in a much lower register. "I thought you said Lucifer was at the bottom of Hell."
"He is. This is the palace of Limbo, where the dead are judged and directed to their final places in the woeful realm," Virgil clarified.
"Oh. So it's like the river all over again, right? The only way to go forward is through this place?"
"Correct," Virgil said in confirmation.
"What will I see here?" Sweetie Belle inquired to know.
"Souls who are neither wicked nor holy enough to be admitted into deep Hell nor Heaven, respectively." Virgil's countenance brightened noticeably as a thought occurred to him. "Why don't I show you the place where I live?"
"Sounds good to me." Sweetie Belle was not sure whether she actually had a choice in the matter, but she did not wish to sound rude by declining the offer. Besides, she was also genuinely interested to see the place where Virgil and other souls like him spent their time in captivity. The poet's pace quickened with his excitement to unveil his home to her, which forced Sweetie Belle into a jog so she could keep up with the animated apparition. Their increased speed quickly brought them to the entrance of an expansive, rounded grey chamber absent of any decoration or character. Occupying the space was a large gathering of spirits similar to Virgil, except they were not garbed in the equine form as he was. Their shape almost exactly mirrored that of the depressing ghouls outside, but unlike them these shades still bore the characteristics they had earned in life. Some were old, others young. Some of them were dressed like nobles and lords and ladies of repute, and others were more simply clothed. The assemblage was a healthy mix of men and women who conversed animatedly with each other, sharing knowledge of their individual times or just idly chatting about nothing of real importance. They debated politics, discussed various nuances of art and science and mathematics, told jokes, regaled anecdotes from their former lives.
Sweetie Belle tore her gaze from the exuberant scene to ask a question of Virgil, but was shocked into silence when she beheld his new form. He had the look of an older man, possibly mid-forties, with a hard chin, sharp nose, and stern thin lips flanked on either side by shallow yet definite frown lines. His brow was furrowed from countless years of intensive thought and dedication to his work, giving him a permanent grimace even despite his currently jovial mood. His face was untouched by even a suggestion of facial hair, and his scalp was hidden beneath a cap encircled by a laurel wreath. Though Sweetie Belle had rightly guessed that Virgil was not actually a pony in light of the great knowledge he possessed of this world, and the fact that she had seen no sign of other equines residing in Hell, it still came as a surprise to see the poet in the form he had been accustomed to in life.
Virgil looked down at his young ward, noticed her astounded expression, and was just preparing to ask what the matter was when he paused to consider his appearance. "Oh," he said now he was enlightened to the dilemma's source. "My apologies for the deception, dear child, but I felt it necessary to appear to you in a form you would be most comforted by. You seemed rather confused and frightened when I first saw you, and I only wanted to put you at ease."
"No, it's...it's okay," Sweetie Belle said when she found her voice. "I already kind of knew you weren't actually a pony after a while, but it's still kind of weird seeing you like...this."
"I understand," Virgil said with a nod. "If you wish me to resume the equine shape..."
"Once we're done with this room. Please." With that minor mess taken care of, Sweetie Belle returned her attention to the congregation. "So who are all these people?" she asked of her guide.
"Poets, philosophers, artists, writers, kings and queens, soldiers...All manner of civilized persons who lived with neither excellence nor infamy," the poet answered. He strode forward into the crowd, the young unicorn following dutifully at his side. "A great number of them, myself included, are confined to Limbo because they lived and died before the birth of Christ."
"Who's that?" Sweetie asked.
"The son of God, and intended savior of humankind," Virgil replied. "Because so many lives had occurred before Christ walked the earth, they were unable to know the light and nature of God, and thus are denied places in Heaven and deep Hell." The pair stepped through the masses with polite determination toward an exit on the far side of the chamber. Virgil and Sweetie Belle bestowed smiles and friendly hellos on one and all. The other spirits would return the greetings in similar form, though there were more than a few odd looks and curious remarks made of the unicorn foal in their midst. Much as he may have wanted to stay and visit with his friends, Virgil was compelled to hurry Sweetie Belle toward the exit. There would be time to discuss with them the astonishing occurrence of a unicorn in Hell once this journey was finished. As promised, the moment they had left the grey chamber behind, Virgil changed back into the equine guise from before.
The next room appeared to be a nursery of sorts. It was lit by torches mounted on the walls and a handful of burning hearths. Pushed against the walls was a veritable fleet of beds and cribs, and the occupants of these sleeping places were scattered all about the room. Children, from as young as infants to as old as twelve. They chased each other, played together, and even helped care for one another when the matrons were not immediately available. Speaking of whom, the matrons were quite ghastly beasts of various shapes and forms. Some skittered about on segmented legs like spiders; others flew on membranous wings and crawled like snakes. Some had six arms, others had cloven hooves and spiked tails, and even more resembled broken porcelain dolls of once regal winged creatures. In spite of their nightmarish aspects, the children seemed entirely untroubled and treated them as if the she-devils were their birth mothers.
Sweetie Belle was stunned beyond words. How was it possible that children could find themselves prisoners of this foul place? What crimes could a child possibly commit that would warrant eternal damnation? These thoughts and more fanned the flames of a fury in her heart like she had never felt before. It enraged her to see that creatures as innocent and pure as children were not beyond the reach of Hell. Her guide noticed her shivering with barely contained rage, and hurried to try and quench her inner fire.
"Please, dear child; let me explain what is happening here," he implored of her. "These poor babes are here not for any perceived wrongdoing on their part, but purely out of misfortune."
"What's that mean?" Sweetie Belle demanded in a measured tone, her curiosity having quelled her anger slightly.
Virgil swept his arm across the room. "Many of them reside here for the same reason as I and many of the spirits from the previous chamber; for not knowing the grace of God before meeting their end."
"And what about the others?"
The poet's face grew sullen. "The offspring of impure conceptions. They are the children of incest and rape. God cannot admit these unclean cherubs into His kingdom, but He grants them mercy by housing them here in Limbo."
"How is this right?!" Sweetie Belle suddenly shouted, causing all activity in the nursery to stop and look her way. "None of what you just said is their fault. They didn't ask to be born whenever or however they were, but they're still being punished like they did! Who cares about that other stuff, they're children ! By rights they should go to Heaven no matter what!" The matrons had gathered the children together and were shielding them from the uproarious unicorn, glaring at her with open hostility like wolves protecting their pups.
Virgil stood calm and quiet while his companion screamed at him. This conversation was not new to him. He himself had experienced some of the same indignation when he first arrived in Limbo, and many other spirits after had to have the same talk he did. Even some of the younger sprites had to be educated in the way of things when their time in Hell first started. This discussion had taken place hundreds upon thousands of times before now and would likely never stop, but it never got any easier trying to explain that this was just how the afterlife worked; that these were the rules, and there was no changing them.
Sweetie Belle eventually exhausted herself, and though the anger still boiled in her breast, she saw no reason to continue dwelling on it any longer. She focused her gaze directly onto the doorway across from their position and refused to look at anything else. "Let's just go," she mumbled. Her guide nodded silently and led the way out of the nursery without another word. The matrons snarled and hissed, and the children whispered amongst themselves as they passed. All previous activities resumed once the two visitors had departed.
Unicorn and ghost continued onward in total silence, the experience of the nursery weighing heavily on both of them. Their path pulled them into a gradual, almost imperceptible descent as it curled around in a spiral. It directed them through duplicates of the grey room and the nursery, each of them filled to capacity with morally neutral souls. Sometimes they would pass some of these shades in the hall who were themselves on route to one of the two chambers. During this time Sweetie Belle's mood had shifted from rage to sadness. She no longer hated whatever cruel entity had written the rules governing life beyond death, but pitied the victims of this system. The experience in the nursery caused her to wonder: if it was so easy to fall to Hell, then how difficult must it be to get into Heaven?
Soon the winding hall came to a head inside what appeared to be a grand auditorium. Countless numbers of the shallow grey figures from Charon's rough passage were seated in the risers above which encircled the whole room, but the true sight to behold was the massive monstrosity dominating the scene. It was a very odd beast indeed, whose entire form was a strange amalgamation of man, reptile, and octopus. It squatted at the back of the chamber on a flat base possessing a number of writhing scaled tentacles. Starting from where the hips should be and moving up, the rest of the thing was mostly man, though the the belly and upper chest were adorned with the same smooth scales like on the underside of a snake. The creature had neither eyes, ears nor teeth, its nose had been removed, and fused to its skull was a stone obelisk which seemed to fill the same purpose as a crown.
Some feet before the great beast, arranged in the center of the auditorium, was a golden wheel adorned with serrated spines, and to its immediate left was a push-lever. Roughly every minute or so the beast would blindly snatch up one of the souls seated around it in one of its large bony hands and bring the struggling prey to its face. Then it would sniff the soul once or twice, mutter a single word, and then impale the victim on the wheel using one of its tentacles before slapping the lever. The wheel would spin once, and the soul would be gone.
"What's going on here?" Sweetie Belle whispered to her guide.
"Judgment," Virgil stated simply. He pointed to the monster at the head of the assembly. "He is Minos. He judges the dead before sending them down to one of the Circles below."
"Do the ones who stay in Limbo have to come here?" the young filly asked next.
Virgil shook his head. "As I said before, they are spared the torments of the pit. This is where that pain begins."
Minos had his hand hovering over another terrified soul when he stopped moving, his face twitching as he smelled the air. He inclined his head to face the new arrivals. "Visitors in my court?" He sniffed a couple times again. "A ghost of Limbo...and..." Minos's brow rose in surprise. "Life? A living soul has come to Hell? Such a thing hasn't happened for ages."
"We are Virgil and Sweetie Belle, your honor," the spirit said.
"Ah, the famed Roman poet. What a treat." Minos leaned forward, causing Sweetie Belle to fall back a few steps. "What brings you to my house of pain?"
"An errand of great importance," Virgil replied. "This child has come to Hell by mistake. We require audience with Lucifer so that he might explain why she is here, and do what he must to send her home."
"I see. And your only way forward is through me." Minos chuckled darkly. "That's a long walk, for a poet and a child. Sure to be fraught with peril, dangers like the little one's never seen even in her worst nightmares."
"Will you let us go, please?" Sweetie Belle's plea drew the great judge's attention to her.
"It speaks. And it has manners." Minos chuckled again as he sat upright. "However, let me answer your request with a question of my own: what's in it for me?"
"Hey!" All attention focused on the young unicorn stomping her way to the center of the chamber, a look of raw fury on her face. "Now I've just about had enough of this place! It's awful, it's depressing, and I just want to go home. You let us go right now, or..." She turned around to look back at Virgil. "Who was it you said? God? Yeah, that's it." Then she turned back to fix Minos with her glare again. "God will hear about this and make you help us!"
A conniving smile split the great judge's lips. "God, eh? The Lord Almighty has a personal stake in this quest, does He?" At the auditorium's exit, Virgil had fallen silent and was sporting a look of pain. Minos coughed out a harsh laugh before looking down at Sweetie Belle. "You should talk to your friend there about telling lies. We have an entire Circle down here just for liars, and let me tell you they certainly wish they'd been more honest in life."
"What..." Sweetie Belle was no longer angry, just utterly confused as to what was happening. Meanwhile, Minos was lifting one of his tentacles to reveal a tunnel just to his right.
"You've convinced me, little one. I certainly do not wish to incur the wrath of God , now do I?" He chuckled again as Virgil and Sweetie passed by. Minos's mocking laughter followed them a fair distance down the tunnel before eventually dying off. Then, save for Sweetie Belle's hoof steps and her hushed breathing, they were plunged into silence once more.
The young filly looked up at her guide, a suspicious look written on her face. "What was he talking about, Virgil? What did he mean by all that stuff about lying?" she demanded to know.
Virgil let out a pained sigh. "What I said about this quest being commanded by God...it was false. No one in the outside world knows you are in Hell."
A small part of her seemed to have known that for a long while, but to hear the poet's confession firsthand still came as a dreadful shock. "Then why did you say that to Charon?!"
"Because I knew he would believe it," Virgil replied calmly. "The boatman only ferries the dead from one side of Acheron to the other. It is not his business to know the reasons behind any one soul's incarceration. Minos judges each and every soul that enters his court. He knows everything about them because that is his dominion. It was my hope that I might persuade him to let us pass without alerting him to the fiction I told Charon."
It was Sweetie Belle's turn to sigh, already having grown tired of Hell and she was barely out of Limbo. She took a brief moment to compose herself before speaking again. "Well he may have known it was a lie, but it still worked."
Virgil was less optimistic. "I can only wonder what impact this will have on my station in Limbo."
A wave of guilt washed over the unicorn. She felt compelled to apologize, but could not find the strength to actually say it. A simple "sorry" did not seem like it would be enough to comfort the poet, especially if his life of peace and sanctuary was now in jeopardy because of her. Sweetie's mouth flapped wordlessly for a few seconds, and then she finally gave up and faced forward. Hopefully whatever threats and horrors waiting in the next Circle would be a sufficient distraction from the trouble she may have made for her guide.
The tunnel from Limbo fed out onto a thin stone bridge overlooking an immense valley of jagged rocks. Gale-force winds howled through the landscape like the baying of hounds, carrying damned souls like fall leaves and hurling them this way and that. The pathetic creatures would slam into cliff faces and mountain sides with sickening force before being scooped up by the ceaseless hurricane to once again be slung miles away to elsewhere. They cried and wailed pitifully as they sailed through the air like helpless insects, their collective protests only just barely audible over the wind. Thunder exploded overhead with enough fury to make mountains tremble, and lightning stabbed angrily at the landscape below like knives in the hands of a jilted lover. And yet, in spite of all the given signs, rain did not fall in this battered valley.
Sweetie Belle found it terrifyingly difficult to walk the bridge with the wind seemingly determined to spirit her away and treat her to the same courtesy as the flailing dead. She jumped at every crack of thunder, and more often than not shafts of lightning would strike distressingly close to the bridge. To her great annoyance, Virgil was entirely untouched by the storm thanks to his incorporeal state. He'd startled her quite severely early on when she caught him walking beside her even though the path was only wide enough for one person. He apologized for frightening her, and since then stuck close behind his young ward. They both knew there was nothing he could do if Sweetie Belle did succumb to the whims of the wind, but the idea of having someone at her back brought her a small measure of comfort.
This, according to Virgil, was the Circle of Lust. Condemned to this land of eternal twilight were souls who forsook reason in the name of their basest desires. When questioned about the purpose of the infernal winds which blew without end, the poet replied that the wind simulated the act of casting aside good judgment for the sake of lascivious pursuits by literally casting the damned across the plain. Sweetie Belle would have found this ironic if she hadn't been more concerned with not falling to her death. These fears would spike whenever she felt the road quake with the thunder, or she saw pieces break off under the assault of the relentless tempest. Her biggest concern--incredibly more so than being blown away--was that a bolt of lightning would strike the bridge ahead and destroy it, thus bringing her quest to an untimely end. What was interesting was that this fear in particular gave her the motivation to hurry forward, hoping she could rush past such a potentially unfortunate event before it could transpire.
Sweetie Belle's hooves scraped uselessly against the stone bridge rather than provide much grip in the face of the wind's relentless onslaught, which pushed her terror high into her throat when the wind would shove and pull her perilously close to the edge of doom. During one of these harrowing moments, a nearby flash of lightning illuminated the valley floor far below, putting all those jagged teeth on display for her to see with total clarity. The young filly shrieked in terror, scrabbled away to the middle of the road, and lay perfectly flat with no intention of moving again.
"It's too much," she shouted over her shoulder to her guide. "I'm freaking out too much, and I can't think straight! I can't do this!" She would have cried if she wasn't already too scared to do so.
Virgil knelt down as close to her face as he could. "Do not give in to fear now," he said to her. "Look there, and you will see sanctuary is but a stone's throw away."
She really did not want to move any part of her body, paranoid the wind would take hold like a dog with a bone, but Sweetie Belle forced herself to lift her head and look where Virgil was pointing. In the not-too-far distance was the top of a mountain, and carved into this mountain was what appeared to be a cave entrance. Beyond that, it was impossible to make out any further details. She felt a tremor of instinctual fear creeping into her heart over the cave, but her mind was quick to assert the idea that anything was better than being at mercy of this horrible storm. Her first impulse was to make for the cave at best speed, but a particularly strong gust pushing her sideways a few inches forced her to rethink that action. With careful movements she got her hooves underneath her and started walking as fast as she dared.
It was a deceptively short run to the cave, the gentle curve of the bridge making it difficult to tell if any progress was being made at all. Sweetie Belle, in her panic to reach safety, had for nearly a minute been under the impression that she had not moved an inch despite knowing for a fact her legs were pumping. However, before long she and Virgil made it to the cave mouth, and once inside seized upon a much needed moment of respite. Sweetie Belle was very thankful that this cavern was here when she needed it, but she might have felt differently had she been able to fully appreciate its outward appearance. The rock surrounding the cave had been delicately carved into the face of a woman, her eyes wide with terror, and her mouth pulled into a permanent scream of agony. In fact the whole mountainside had been cut with the woman kneeling against the ridge, her arms pulled back at a painful angle by massive chains.
The unicorn foal sat panting on the floor for some time, but soon enough she acquired the strength to look around at her new surroundings. Fantastic chandeliers hung from the ceiling and bathed this chamber in the soft violet glow of candlelight. The floor was polished marble beneath a crossroads of plush carpet that branched out like fingers in several different directions. The carpet was a striking shade of red, almost organic, like a road cut from one long stretch of meat. Exquisite portraits in gilded frames hung from the walls, portraying the faces of various men and women throughout human history. None of them were smiling.
Sweetie Belle approached the parade of stern and somber faces. "Who are they?" she asked.
Virgil appeared by her side. "Notable persons throughout human history, who spent their lives championing the sin of lust," he said. He pointed out a few examples among the line. "Semiramis; Queen of Assyria, who made her own lecherous behaviors legal so as to hide her guilt. Achilles, who abandoned his countrymen in pursuit of love. Paolo Malatesta, who had an affair with his brother's wife Francesca before Giovanni murdered them both in his marriage bed."
"Scandalous species, aren't they?" Sweetie Belle whirled around with a yelp. Standing in the doorway of one of the branching paths was a naked young woman. She had smooth tan skin, short black hair with a subtle blue sheen, rosebud lips, button nose, and almond-shaped eyes that sparkled like emeralds. Her body was svelte with long legs leading up to tantalizing hips, a flat stomach and gentle curve in the spine to emphasize her ample bottom, and full, perfectly rounded breasts sporting small nipples. Her raw sexuality beat on the warm air, reaching out and calling Sweetie Belle to her like the smell of a warm pie fresh from the oven.
The young filly's heart hammered in her chest, and her mouth had been stricken inexplicably dry. She stared wide-eyed at the goddess standing across from her, her eyes scanning every inch of the woman's supple body. Sweetie felt something in her gut pulling her to this magnet of sex appeal. It was a wild, feral feeling. Her desire for the woman was a force nearly as powerful as gravity. She wanted her like she wanted everything that was bad for her.
Suddenly, in world that only contained this picture of feminine perfection, Virgil appeared directly before Sweetie Belle. "Take back your senses, child! You are bewitched!"
The poet's words shattered the illusion which clouded her mind. Sweetie Belle blinked her eyes, shook her head, and finally saw the woman for what she really was. Her long legs were bent, covered in ruddy scales, and ended in black split-toe hooves. Her pale flesh was pockmarked with savage bruises, and ruined by numerous cuts and gashes. Her breasts had been brutally torn off, spikes had replaced most of her hair, her lips were severely cracked and bloody, and she had one bloodshot eye that was crusty with what may have been pus. A wave of revulsion crashed over Sweetie Belle, her face a mask of horror and disgust.
The she-demon cackled at the display, her laughter coming out as strangled and sickly. "What's the matter, sweet thing? Don't you think I'm pretty anymore?"
"What the...She...I...What is that thing?!" Sweetie Belle stammered out.
"A succubus," Virgil clarified with apparent disdain. "A demon bred solely for the purpose of damning living souls with lascivious pleasures. One of the bastard offspring of Lord Asmodeus."
"You old sweet-talker," the demon purred as it stalked forward.
"Keep back, temptress!" Virgil commanded, deliberately moving to shield his companion. "This child has no business with you."
"No? Why else would she be here, if not for unearthly pleasure?" the succubus asked, honestly perplexed.
"We seek the King of Hell," the poet answered.
The succubus giggled at this. "You've got a long ways to go yet, Roman."
"We are well aware. The storm outside hampers our progress towards Cocytus, so we are hoping to obtain your father's blessing to traverse the Circle without the hurricane in our way."
The succubus hummed as she considered how to respond. She tapped her chin with a ragged claw and paced in a small loop, every now and then giving her audience an unobstructed view of her backside. Claw marks old and new crisscrossed the flesh from neck to lower back, and her seat--especially around the anus--was painfully raw. The display forced an unconscious hiss of pain to slip through Sweetie Belle's teeth, which made the demon smirk in amusement for a brief moment. Finally she faced the two guests and heaved a false sigh of defeat. "Alright, if you insist."
Virgil and Sweetie Belle moved to follow after the succubus beckoned them forth with a wave. They passed through one of the several identical doorways and entered something like an entirely different world from the room before. It was one single cell block that stretched seemingly without end. Each cell was secured via a web of mixed soil and some unknown coagulating agent, and was filled to capacity with ravenous souls that howled and screamed like wild animals, all of them desperate for release from their carnal woes. What was most sickening was that none of these demands and pleas for attention were directed at the succubus in their midst, but the unicorn foal behind her.
"Give me the child! I must have her, give her to me!"
"Come here, girl. I'll show you what a real man can do."
"I'm gonna split you open, you little whore!"
"Show Mommy some love, won't you dear?"
The taunts and jeers of the dead made Sweetie Belle want to vomit. She slapped her ears flat against her skull, but alas could not drown out the noise. The prisoners lashed out at her from their cells, clawing for a piece of the meat being dangled before them. Many got worryingly close, but she always seemed just beyond their reach. They threw themselves against the walls of their cells, but the webbing held steadfast. It was awful to hear them scream these terrible things to a child . All the promises they made of the wretched things they wanted to do to her, or have her do to them , sickened Sweetie Belle down to her very soul. She wanted to hate them, but more than that she just wanted to get out of this horrid place. To put it behind her and never have to think about it again.
Then, miraculously, the noise stopped. Sweetie Belle blinked and threw her gaze here to there, and was relieved to find the cells were gone. She'd passed through the gauntlet and come out the other side. She exhaled a breath she was not aware she had been holding previously, and was glad to raise her ears again. The first sound to greet them was screaming. A desperate wordless plea for torment's end. Then came the repeated wet slapping of flesh, and above that a series of bestial grunts in accompaniment. Whatever joy had started to blossom in Sweetie Belle's heart quickly died upon laying eyes on the scene before her.
"Monster" was the only descriptor she could find. The thing was a tall manlike creature with patches of mangled hair on its stomach and flaccid breasts. Its physique suggested femininity, but the arms and legs which bulged with muscle and throbbing veins were much more masculine. The awful beast had a mane of dark hair that was tangled and matted with filth, and thick facial hair of similar quality and grooming. Its face, however, was entirely female, with soft delicate features that would have been considered quite beautiful on anyone else. Pinned beneath the giant was another succubus, the source of the screams. Bloody tears streamed from her eyes as she was ruthlessly assaulted from behind. Beneath her were scattered drops and tiny pools of blood that spilled from the brutal attack.
The beast abruptly tore its gaze from its victim to fix upon Virgil and Sweetie Belle, the latter in particular. Its disturbing yellow eyes stared unblinking at the young unicorn, a twisted smile splitting its lips. The abuse did not stop or even falter the whole time the creature locked eyes with Sweetie Belle. Finally, with one final thrust, the beast climaxed inside the much smaller demon beneath it before carelessly stripping the succubus off and discarding her like a broken toy. Blood and semen painted the giant's throbbing phallus, and fell to the floor in thick globules. The giant snapped its fingers, and in a moment another succubus rushed forward to clean the mess. The comparatively tiny she-devil ran her mouth up and down her master's shaft, lapping up and consuming the awful stuff like a starving dog. Unfortunately, her speed was not up to the giant's standards. It rolled its eyes and snarled angrily before grabbing the maid and viciously ramming its filthy cock down her throat. She wept and gagged for several agonizing seconds, and then was mercifully released, the beast's genitals entirely clean. The succubus fell back and regurgitated the contents of her stomach onto the floor, which angered the beast towering over her. It kicked her in the face before whirling on a pair of succubi cowering by another doorway.
"You two! Get over here and clean this shit up!" They rushed to obey, and even the one responsible moved forward to help dispose of her own sick. As they worked, their master walked away to recline casually upon a throne built from the mashed together corpses of demons and sinners.
Sweetie Belle had been unable to avoid watching the entire scene take place, and felt her own stomach prepare to voice an opinion on the matter. But she forced herself to stay strong, completely terrified of what consequences would follow if she was to succumb to her illness.
The giant studied the new arrivals from its throne. Its head was propped up on one fist while the other hand lay limp on its right leg, which dangled casually off one arm of the chair. Its swollen cock bobbed idly every few seconds as if the organ itself were thinking. Then, without warning, the beast sat upright and threw its arms out wide. "Guests in my house!" it roared happily. "What a splendid and welcome treat. You've no idea how utterly bored I was before you showed up."
"That was certainly not the impression we got a minute ago, your lordship," Virgil replied easily.
The giant chuckled in amusement. "Yes, well...You know what they say when the devil has nothing better to do." Its eyes shifted to the unicorn, who was trying very hard to not look its direction. "Say, what's your name, pretty thing?"
"She is..." Virgil was interrupted when the beast shot forward in its seat and slammed a fist onto the arm of the throne.
"Shut the fuck up, I wasn't asking you!" The giant glared at Virgil for a long time, and only relaxed when it was clear he would not speak again.
Sweetie Belle did not want to speak, partially because she still felt the urge to vomit, but also because this devil honestly terrified her. Its explosive temperament and sadistic character horrified her against speech, however she could sense that her continued silence would soon irritate her host beyond civility. She tried to say her name, but for the moment could only stammer uselessly.
The giant purred with arousal. "Ooh, you're a shy little thing. I do so love the meek ones," it said as one hand moved to slowly stroke its throbbing member.
"My name is Sweetie Belle!" the young filly finally shouted in a rush of words.
The beast moaned again. "That voice! I can't even imagine what it sounds like when you're getting plugged."
"My lord Asmodeus," Virgil implored. His interruption caused Sweetie Belle to relax visibly, and the beast to groan in frustration. "Perhaps we could discuss the reason for our visit."
Asmodeus released himself and pouted. "Fine . What do you want?"
"We seek the realm of Lucifer, but the raging tempest outside your palace makes our progress slow," Virgil said. "We ask your permission to walk the low road, which goes untouched by the storm."
The great demon groaned irritably at being denied his fun, but he nevertheless waved them off. "Alright, have it your way. You'll find no locked doors or false paths on your way out. Much as I want to play with your girl there, I cannot deny the awful stench that surrounds her."
"We thank you for your kindness, your highness." Virgil bowed and started to leave, but only got a few steps away before realizing that Sweetie Belle was not with him. He turned around and saw she remained where she stood, her face clearly indicating she was wrestling with some internal conundrum. The poet walked over to kneel in front of her and ask what was the matter.
"I have to ask him," she whispered, her words almost too quiet for Virgil to hear.
"Ask him what?" he inquired.
The unicorn foal looked her guide in the eyes. "Lucifer. I have to ask him about Lucifer."
At once Virgil understood the problem. She wanted to learn what Asmodeus knew about the rebellion, but he was well aware of how repulsed she was at the idea of engaging the awful beast in conversation. He placed a hoof on her shoulder in spite of the knowledge she could not feel his touch, flashed her a brief smile, and turned to address the lord of Lust.
"Your highness, we...we have an additional request," the poet said.
Asmodeus piqued his brow in interest. "Is that so? Well, you should know that extra favors demand a certain...price."
"Not a favor," Virgil said as the beast was rearranging himself upon his throne. "We seek knowledge on a subject we believe you are intimately familiar with."
This gave the lord of Lust pause. "Knowledge? About what, exactly?"
"The rebellion."
Asmodeus sat bolt upright in his seat. This was wholly unexpected, least of all because no one every actually wanted to talk to him about anything. He absently stroked his beard as he considered this. "The rebellion. I'd honestly forgotten that whole shit-show ever happened." He chuckled once as he slowly sat back in the throne. "Is this really what you ask of me? A history lesson?"
"Please, your lordship." The demon's gaze danced back and forth between his two guests in his attempts to figure out what to do. Eventually he sighed, swiped a hand over his face, and nodded.
"I will tell you what I can remember, which may not be much," Asmodeus said.
"We will be grateful for what knowledge you can share," Virgil answered.
The lord of Lust grumbled while he searched his memories. "It's true I was not always what you see now," he began. "I used to be an angel, though of what I...no longer remember. Something important, I think."
"What do you remember of Lucifer?" the poet inquired.
"Beautiful. Ambitious. Amiable. And probably the stupidest son of a bitch I've ever met," Asmodeus snarled.
Virgil and Sweetie Belle both were taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"
"Him and his fucking rebellion." The giant spat on the floor in disdain. "It didn't take a genius to know he wouldn't win that fight. God wouldn't be all powerful if he lost an argument with his firstborn. Fucking idiot."
"Are we to assume you did not participate in the battle?" Virgil asked.
"Do I look like a fighter to you? Of course I stayed out of it! No point throwing my life away in a war that was doomed to fail," Asmodeus shouted in reply. He paused a moment to calm himself before continuing. "I kept out of the fighting, but I was worried what would happen to me once it was over. I was ready to stand at God's side, or throw myself at Lucifer's feet in the very unlikely event he won the war." A bitter chuckle interrupted his tale. "You know what God hates more than a rebellious son? One who is an opportunistic vulture. You know what He hates even worse? Thousands of rebellious children, and thousands of opportunists. Once God was done dispensing justice on the renegades, He set His sights on the rest of us. And, well...you can guess what happened next."
Virgil exchanged a curious look with Sweetie Belle. "You were never an ally of Lucifer," he said refocusing on the great demon.
Asmodeus shook his head. "Never liked the fucker. I could tell straight away that his ambitions would lead to trouble, for him and all the rest of Heaven. But his words were like honey to everyone who would hear him out. They flocked to him like flies to shit, but I knew better. I managed to convince a modest number of my kin to ignore Lucifer's golden promises of this and that. We kept our hands clean, and in return God fucked us anyway." He took a moment to look around at his palace, at his children who lived in fear of him, and through the walls to the incalculable numbers of sinners he got to play with at his leisure. "Though if I'm to be honest, I'm much better off here than in Heaven. Up there, I was a slave. Born for the sole purpose of singing God's praises and worshiping the very ground He walked on. Here, in Hell, I am my own master. I do whatever I want whenever I want to whomever I want, and I absolutely love the things I do."
"Clearly," Virgil remarked under his breath. "We have just one last question to ask, my lord. Do you know exactly why Lucifer went to war against the Creator?"
"Jealousy," Asmodeus stated flatly. "That's all it was ever about, for him. Lucifer was the firstborn...well, anything , and he loved his Father more than any other angel could understand. When he found out about the humans, it broke him. He was jealous of the humans for stealing all the love and attention that we--no, he deserved." The lord of Lust shrugged his shoulders briefly. "Can't say as I blame him. Humans are hilariously pathetic compared to just about everything else they share this world with, least of all angels. How God could possibly love them more than us is..." There was a noticeable shift into remorse in Asmodeus's tone. He stopped mid-sentence when he heard it, and returned to a more detached mood of speech. "So that's basically it. Lucifer was jealous of the humans, started a war, got banished to Hell, class dismissed."
It was apparent that he had nothing more to say on the matter. He never looked up as his guests departed from his company and eventually found their way outside of the palace. Here, on this lower path, the pair was completely safe from the mad storm above. They walked on as the road snaked through the jagged rocks that formed the valley floor, neither one of them sparing a second glance back at the madhouse in the mountain, or its lord.
"I'm so glad we're finally out of that place," Sweetie Belle said. She shook herself thoroughly as if trying to physically dislodge the memories of Asmodeus and his obscene prison. She looked up at her guide with a grateful smile. "Thank you for talking to him for me."
"No thanks are necessary. The lord of Lust can be quite off-putting even for fellow demons," Virgil said.
"It's hard to believe he ever used to be an angel," Sweetie commented.
"Some took the fall from Heaven much easier than others," Virgil replied.
"Are we going to meet anymore like him?"
The poet nodded his head. "Almost certainly. The greater percentage of Hell's indigenous population is made up of fallen angels."
This did not exactly bring Sweetie Belle comfort, though she did hope that future encounters with other former angels would be less...disgusting than the meeting with Asmodeus. Part of her still felt filthy even after having left him well behind. Despite having no desire to ever think about the deplorable beast again, she found herself reflecting on what he had told them of Lucifer and the war. "Is he right? About the things he said?" she asked of her guide.
Virgil could only shrug his shoulders. "It is difficult to say. The possibility exists that everything Asmodeus said is truth...but the same can also be said to the contrary. Every word he spoke could have been a lie. Or perhaps there is honest fact hidden among personal opinions and old wounds. It is for you to decide the merit of the demon's tale."
Sweetie Belle pondered the poet's wise words for a long while. Asmodeus could have been lying the whole time. It was the safe bet, given his nature as a demon--a lord of Hell, no less. But he had spoken with such conviction even when disparaging Lucifer, it was hard not to think that he might have said at least some true things. Eventually the young filly nodded her head slowly. "Maybe he was telling the truth," she said, "but it's like you said: his opinions and feelings are just in the way."
Virgil nodded as well in agreement. "That would be the smart wager."
After that, the odd couple continued on through the Circle of Lust. Along the way there was a swapping of roles between the two as Virgil questioned Sweetie Belle on the world she came from. He was completely fascinated by all she told him, and unsurprisingly confused by much of it. Sweetie did her best to explain what she could, but given her age there was quite a lot that she herself did not fully understand. Virgil was especially confounded by the existence and usage of magic in the land of Equestria, and Sweetie Belle experienced equal difficulty in describing the intricacies of how exactly magic worked and when it had been discovered. The poet did find great interest in learning about some of Equestria's more famous historical figures, and was greatly amused by his personal knowledge of these ponies' human counterparts. It was a pleasant conversation and a welcome break from recent topics, but unfortunately it had to come to an end.
An immense wall of rock loomed on the horizon, and grew ever higher as the pair drew closer. When they at last halted only a few feet from its base, the very idea of trying to find the wall's top did not bear thinking about. Sweetie Belle gave herself a momentary spell of vertigo when she craned her head back to get a full appreciation of the barrier's immensity. It stretched all the way from one side of the horizon to the other, and the cliff's face was far too steep to attempt a climb were it even possible to surmount the summit. Aside from a thin split which formed a hole barely big enough to fit a creature Sweetie Belle's size, there was no getting past the wall. Down here, untouched by the wind, a thin layer of mist crawled through the pass like some amorphous milky creature.
Sweetie Belle gazed at the crevice for several seconds, and then sighed. "Where to next?" she asked.
"Gluttony," Virgil answered simply.
The young filly nodded silently, but did not break her gaze on the crack in the wall. She felt tired, more in spirit than in body, though she could not deny that her legs did ache slightly. She had not realized before just how much the meeting with Asmodeus had taken out of her. The Circle of Lust had been her first real experience with how truly nightmarish Hell was, and already she was seriously considering quitting this quest to return home. Sweetie Belle had not been properly prepared for the horrors she would see. She'd had a very general idea of what to expect based on what had been witnessed in Limbo, but her experiences here in Lust had completely shattered those expectations. She did not want to continue onward. She did not want to meet anymore demons or fallen angels. But more than anything, she did not want to be in Hell anymore, and it was this simple thought that spurred her onward. Sweetie Belle was done with this terrible place, and she knew that she would not be getting out any sooner if she continued moping around.
The little unicorn steeled herself as best she could for the journey ahead, and entered the crevice. Virgil watched her go until she disappeared from sight, feeling more than a little impressed by her determination to get home, if not her courage to meet the dangers of Hell head-on. He realized that he was steadily growing attached to the young filly despite having only spent a relatively short time with her. The desire--the need to see Sweetie Belle succeed and return home safely had taken root in his heart. These thoughts accompanied Virgil as he vanished into thin air. He would meet her on the other side, and then he would do everything in his power to deliver her from this cesspool of suffering.
It was slow going as Sweetie Belle crawled through the hole. The space shrank in places to such a degree that Sweetie had to really struggle to move forward, and she had been forced into a bipedal stance to make any forward progress. Her chest was often compressed painfully when she had to navigate a particularly tight space, and she had gone mostly numb from the number of cuts and scrapes marring her flesh. What never got old was when she would catch her horn on the low ceiling or on a stray piece of stone. Each time this happened it caused Sweetie Belle to hiss and sometimes cry out from the sudden stabbing pain that raced down her horn directly into her brain. Tears carved muddy tracks through the dirt that had accumulated on her face. Multiple times she got stuck in the wall, a few of them in quite uncomfortable or painful positions, but she pushed onward in spite of it all. The lethargic mist curled lazily around her hooves, taunting her with the fluid ease by which it navigated the crevice. It made Sweetie want to find the source of the mist and stomp it into pieces.
Then, as she pushed past a sharp wedge of rock and got a long scratch on her stomach for her effort, light split apart the darkness. The sight of it filled Sweetie Belle with new energy. She pulled herself hurriedly forward, ignoring the number of new cuts she was buying with her haste, until at last she fell forward out of the claustrophobic crevice onto flat open ground. The first thing she did was suck in a full breath of air as if reminding herself how it felt to have full lungs again. Then she examined her injuries. None of them were serious, but for the open cuts there was nothing to be done. Sweetie Belle did not have access to bandages or disinfectant, which meant her only choice was to just leave them be to heal on their own. This could possibly have a negative impact on her progress through Hell given some of the more sensitive locations of her injuries, but she was determined to push onward anyway.
With the field examination taken care of, Sweetie Belle could at last treat herself to a view of the deplorable environment she now found herself in. A sickly orange haze pervaded the Circle of Gluttony, and storm clouds drifted lazily throughout the sky to occasionally douse the land below with putrid yellow rain. Dotting the landscape were rolling hills and small mountains of muck and offal that steamed like little volcanoes. Streams and rivers of bile cut a network of meandering paths throughout the landscape, occasionally coming to a head in large ponds or lakes. The souls of the dead bathed in the vile liquid, wailing pathetically and tormenting one another through frenzied acts of cannibalism. Heat and humidity combined with the stench of sweat that made the air feel thick and heavy, and stuck in the lungs like tar. It caused all of Sweetie Belle's hair to collapse under the unfavorable conditions. She made a displeased noise as she wrestled her hair into numerous positions before finally settling on pushing it all back behind her ears.
"Behold; the Circle of Gluttony," said the voice of Virgil, who appeared before her a moment later.
Sweetie Belle wrinkled her nose at the sights and odors she was witnessing. This place was absolutely filthy in nearly every sense of the word. Where Asmodeus's palace had been disgusting on a spiritual level, this was an exclusively physical feeling of filthiness. The young unicorn felt as a maggot crawling through a giant rotting carcass, surrounded by heat and decay and humidity.
"So what's going on here?" she asked as the pair got underway.
"The retribution of the gluttonous," the shade answered. "In return for the gifts bestowed on them by God, these sorry creatures gorged themselves on food and drink, and left only filth in their wake. Their sin makes them as waste in the eyes of the Lord, and so they do penance in this great refuse pit." To add to their torment, the sinners were constantly harassed by ravenous worms which swam through the water and feasted on them like piranha. Land was no safer, as hulking beasts were lumbering about that would dig through the trash heaps searching for souls to stuff down their enormous gullets. Infighting occasionally broke out between the obese creatures, which amounted to a lot of bellowing and brief bouts of tug-of-war, but otherwise they were rather docile.
The ground trembling underfoot threw a blanket of silence over the land as something monstrous thundered its way through. Even the clouds withheld their torrential dumping as the great nightmare approached. Farther ahead the dead began screaming in abject horror, worms leaped from the water searching for safer shores, and the larger demons moaned in terror, some even waddling away at the greatest velocity they could achieve. Then, it came howling into view. A terrible monster with scarlet flesh that bulged with barely contained muscle and throbbing veins. Its paws were best described as hands that each wielded five thick fingers tipped with razor-sharp claws. Instead of one head the beast had three; each a long sleeve of coiling muscle that was adorned with a tall bony crest, and ended in a great slavering maw filled with gnashing teeth. The towering leviathan raged back and forth in the fetid swamp, its heads darting this way and that with impossible speed to snap up anything unfortunate enough to be caught within striking distance.
"What...is that thing?" Sweetie Belle asked in a hollow voice, her eyes wide and pupils shrunken in fear of the abomination ahead of her.
"Cerberus. He is the physical persona of gluttony itself," Virgil answered. "See how relentless he is in his hunt for nourishment. Be it flesh or stone, solid or liquid, Cerberus's ravenous appetite makes no distinction."
One of the beast's heads abruptly ceased its grazing, its lips twitching in what could have been discomfort. The head lurched twice before unleashing a torrent of sickness that contained nearly everything Cerberus had previously eaten. The other two heads went on feasting in spite of the mess, and soon thereafter the third resumed feeding as well.
"The great worm does not, cannot stop," Virgil remarked, "for gluttony is the absence of restraint."
"It's awful," Sweetie Belle said. She observed Cerberus reach down to consume what had just been expelled, and felt her stomach churn at the sight of it. She'd always been told that eating or drinking too much of anything had a deleterious effect on the body (and on a person's self-image, as her sister Rarity would often assert). But to think that such activity could condemn someone to as cruel a fate as this was horrendous. Before long Cerberus exhausted this location and moved off to hunt for more sustenance elsewhere. The Circle of Gluttony trembled with the beast's every step, and once he was far enough away general activity resumed its previous course. Rain fell again, the dead went back to being miserable, and the worms and obese demons continued terrorizing them.
Virgil glanced down at his smaller companion. "Shall we proceed?"
Sweetie Belle nodded and followed alongside him, having grown numb to her fears and reservations about descending deeper into the bowels of Hell. Each new experience, each monster encountered or atrocity witnessed, though still fearsome and horrible, only hardened her resolve for what future sights and obstacles lay ahead. The road bore them further into the fetid bayou of Gluttony. The ground squelched underfoot from when the yellow rain had passed through and turned it into sludge that clung stubbornly onto Sweetie Belle's hooves. Along the way they noticed signs of Cerberus's passing; massive footprints, rocks of varying size thrown around haphazardly, large craters from where he ripped at the ground, mountains of refuse completely destroyed, and massive chunks ripped out of the wall isolating this place from the rest of Hell. It was an intriguing metaphor for the destructive impact the sin of gluttony had on one's world.
The atmosphere of the Circle had an organic feel to it, like being inside the stomach of some immense beast. Sweetie Belle's fur dripped with moisture, and her tail dragged lifelessly through the mud behind her. She could hear her older sister's voice in her head complaining about the unfavorable conditions and worrying over her appearance. She could see Rarity fussing over her mane and trying to maintain her balance while touching as little of the mud as possible, all with a sincerely distressed look on her face verging on an outbreak of tears. On the other hand it was possible that Rarity would be braving the filth and sweat and flat hair alongside Sweetie Belle, certainly unhappy with Gluttony's climate, but willing to face it head-on like she met the trials of the Sisterhooves Social. The thought of her sister walking at her side made Sweetie Belle smile.
Time marched laboriously on in much the same way Sweetie and Virgil marched through the Circle of Gluttony, but the end seemed no closer. It was impossible to know exactly how much time had passed since entering this unpleasant bog, but the throbbing ache in Sweetie Belle's legs and the worsening stitch in her side were very apparent. Her hooves were numb, every breath felt like a cord of thorns tightening around her lungs, her throat was unbearably dry, and her sweat-soaked fur felt like it was getting heavier with each passing minute. She had been on the move since King Minos dismissed them from Limbo and was in desperate need of a rest. They had briefly stopped over in Asmodeus's palace, but Sweetie Belle had been tense throughout their short stay and had not been able to get a true rest in.
Soon her own body made the decision for her. Sweetie Belle slowed until eventually she collapsed onto her side. Her mouth was slack and her chest moved with her rapid breathing. "I'm sorry, Virgil," she said between breaths, "but I have to stop. I'm so...so tired. I have to stop."
Virgil's anxious expression implied his thoughts on this course of action, but he was forced to relent given the state of his young companion. He nodded his head and kept a watchful eye for danger. So far the beasts of this Circle had paid the two no attention, but he was unwilling to push their ignorance too far. It would only take one of them doing something unexpected before all of Gluttony would be baying at their heels. Of course Virgil had nothing to fear from them. His being a ghost protected him from all harm; it was Sweetie Belle he was worried about. They needed some form of protection in the event of an attack. The poet knew exactly whom to seek out for this task, but he was not looking forward to this next encounter. He moved to kneel beside his young ward, who was already showing signs of improvement.
"I'm afraid I have to leave you for a time," he said regretfully. "I will return as soon as I can with someone who can provide us safe passage through the Circle."
"Okay," was Sweetie Belle's breathy reply. She was still too tired to mount any protest against his leaving.
Virgil looked around one last time to make sure his companion was safe before vanishing into thin air. Sweetie Belle remained on her side for a while longer until she felt well enough to sit upright. Her pains were gone, but she could still feel that her body had not yet regained its full strength. So she spent her time observing the "biology" of this place going about its routine business. The worms, when visible, were not too dissimilar from the ones that lived in the soil of Equestria, except for a few notable differences. Thin pinkish bodies averaging nine inches long and another two in diameter, their mouths perfectly hidden until preparing to feed, at which point the blunted head would split open to reveal two rows of triangular teeth designed for ripping and slicing the flesh of sinners. The worms always swam through the murky waters alone until it was time to feed. At those moments it was as if some unknown signal triggered to summon every worm in the vicinity to the scene of the feast. Then the unfortunate victim would disappear within a writhing ball of some thirty to forty creatures, the frenzy beginning and ending in seconds.
Sweetie Belle shifted her gaze to the obese demons rooting through the garbage. Their flesh for the most part was pale and stretched painfully taut around the belly, thighs, arms, and neck. Their feet were rounded like an elephant's, but instead of hands they bore small vertically-aligned mouths with flat square teeth on the end of both arms. Their heads were large with rolls of drooping flesh, blank gray eyes, long ears, small noses, and wide jaws incapable of closing. Their prey was devoured whole and horribly aware. They moved slowly, were not very bright, and seemed utterly oblivious to pain. Sweetie Belle had observed a couple of occasions when the beasts came under attack from ravenous packs of worms, and gave no indication they knew what was happening to them even as they gorged themselves on the souls of the dead. It was a rather poignant analogy for the selfish nature of gluttony.
Time moved forward as Sweetie Belle remained stationary, patiently awaiting the return of her guide and doing her best to avoid entertaining the notion she had been betrayed. Such thoughts nagged at her from the back of her mind like a persistent itch that refused to fade until it was scratched, steadily growing until it would become all she could think about. The young unicorn forced herself to think of her friends and what they might be doing at this moment. Would they be in school, or off on some adventure helping ponies better understand their cutie marks? Did they know she was missing? Did anyone in Ponyville know? There was a troubling thought which had not come to mind until now. Had a search been organized to find Sweetie Belle? Were police and detective inspectors hunting for clues and asking pointed questions? Were her parents bolted up in their house, begging the Powers That Be for the return of their youngest child? Was Rarity with them, or at home on her couch surrounded by a graveyard of empty ice cream tubs while she mourned the loss of her sister? No, Sweetie was certain Rarity would be spearheading the search. She would likely be threatening to mutilate anyone who did not provide some measure of useful information, be they statesman or civilian, or even the Princesses themselves. She would turn all Equestria upside down and inside out as many times as it took to find her sibling. The images her mind conjured of such things brought warmth to Sweetie Belle's heart.
Maybe no one's looking at all .
"Shut up!" Sweetie surprised herself at her sudden outburst. Had someone actually spoken to her, or was her doubt nagging at her again? Regardless, her abrupt outcry put her square in the sights of a demon. The obese creature looked in her direction and stared for many long seconds. Then it started forward, wading through the fetid water and moaning hungrily with arms outstretched. That is until it ran into the bank. It seemed confused and tried walking again, but found itself unable to move another inch. When this failed it simply reached out with the gnashing mandibles on its arms, but Sweetie Belle was far outside of its range. The dimwitted beast moaned sadly with each failed attempt to seize its prey until at last it stopped and pondered the landmass in front of it. By using all of its quite limited mental powers, it deduced that the only way to catch the food was to climb onto dry land. As a sea turtle will grudgingly drag itself onto a beach to lay its eggs, so too did the demon strain to haul its considerable girth out of the water and finally collapse onto the muddy soil.
Sweetie Belle decided it would be best to move elsewhere, but her legs would not respond to her commands. She tried to force herself up by her forelimbs only to have them buckle and drop her back into a prone position. Her strength had not yet fully replenished, a fact which distressed the young unicorn as she watched the demon, through impressive effort, push itself onto its feet, and then advance on her. It stomped relentlessly forward, arms outstretched and gaping maw soaked with saliva, desperately eager to devour the unicorn foal in its ceaseless quest to sate the ravenous hunger in its belly. It was close enough now that Sweetie Belle could practically feel the beast's desire radiating from it like a heatwave.
"No! " It was not entirely command, nor was it entirely a plea for mercy. Her fear of death had blossomed from an instinctual emotion to an impulsive jolt into action. Sweetie's horn came abruptly to life in a surge of magical energy that burst outwards and shoved the demon back a few steps. She was stunned at the realization that she was not dead yet, and the demon looked sadly confused for a brief moment before coming for her again. Sweetie Belle's terror peaked again at witnessing her assailant's second attempt on her life, and again her magic halted the beast. The struggle repeated itself twice more, with the devil advancing on its prey only to be denied by Sweetie Belle's magical defenses, but a horrible reality had begun to set in for the victim. The demon's persistence was taking its toll on her mind, and the strength of her magic was waning. Every time it was forced backward, the beast gained another step forward before each defensive push. And throughout it all, Sweetie's legs continued to fail her. Soon the best she could manage was a hard magical beam that simply held the demon at bay, but even that could not spare her for very long. Her brain was wracked by an almost unbearable stabbing pain, but she refused to relent even as her doom drew closer.
Then, it was suddenly gone. Sweetie Belle's defensive beam cut out, but the demon was no longer present. She cautiously lifted her head to see something new standing in the beast's place with its back to her. It was larger than the other demon in height as well as girth, had split-toed hooves and leathery skin the color of iron, and carried an enormous club born of bone and sinew. Sweetie already knew she lacked the strength to fend off this new monster. Strangely, though, it made no move to attack her; only continued to stand between her and the pale devil.
The gluttonous beast bellowed in outrage at its challenger, who remained unmoved. The demon charged forward, mandibles snapping and spittle flying, but the second creature did not move. That is until its foe was within range, and then it spun sideways while bringing its weapon up into a lateral swing with quite unexpected grace and speed. The great club crashed into and even caved in the side of the demon's skull, the impact actually lifting the beast off its feet and sending it tumbling through the air to land several meters away.
Its work done, the creature rested its weapon on one shoulder before turning around to look down on Sweetie Belle. Now she beheld her savior's face, which resembled that of a wild boar. Its eyes were a blazing orange color, and it wielded a pair of savagely sharp tusks in its grizzled muzzle. A cloud of flies surrounded the great hog to constantly nip and bite at its hide, sometimes even ripping their way out from beneath the flesh to join the swarm. The creature's posture indicated an impatience for action, and its expression was one of disinterest bordering on indignant. It was clear this thing would rather be anywhere than here in this moment doing whatever business it was here to perform.
Virgil stepped out from behind the massive creature to join Sweetie Belle. He offered his hand to her, a seemingly futile gesture until she placed a hoof in his ethereal palm. A wave of energy washed over the young filly and almost completely rejuvenated her. She could stand and walk again, but her head still throbbed dully from the intensive effort of staving off her attacker. It would be a while yet before she could call on her magic again.
"Thank you," Sweetie said, those two words conveying her gratitude for more than just the energy boon.
Virgil nodded his head, but his young ward did notice that he appeared visibly diminished. He was more transparent than before, and his color had faded considerably. "Do not concern yourself with my health," he said as he observed her countenance shift. He stood before she could comment on the matter, and gestured his hand to the boar-creature. "This is Beelzebub; Lord of Flies, and crown prince of Gluttony."
Beelzebub grunted impatiently. "Let's get a move-on already. You two have mucked things up in my wallow bad enough as it is," he growled. He spun on his heel and started walking away without so much as a backwards glance to see if his guests were following. Sweetie Belle and Virgil rushed to catch up; not once did he look at either of them. "I'm told you want to know my thoughts about the rebellion and whatnot," Beelzebub said as soon as they were near. "Be quick about it, because once we're at the border I'm done with you."
Virgil was first to begin the interrogation. "Who were you before the fall?"
"Angel of Temperance," was Beelzebub's clipped response. "Next question."
"Were you Lucifer's friend?" Sweetie Belle asked.
The porcine beast shrugged his shoulders. "Not really. I knew him, sure, but who in Heaven didn't know Lucifer? For the most part I was pretty ambivalent towards him. Never gave him much thought or consideration."
"What part did you play in the war?" Virgil inquired.
Beelzebub snorted in contempt. "You mean, 'Did I participate in the slaughter of my kin?' Yes, I did. I butchered a good number of brothers and sisters with this very club." He shifted the immense cudgel on his shoulder to indicate his point. "Of course it looked a bit different back then."
"Why did you fight, if not because Lucifer turned you to his side?" the poet insisted.
"Something to do," the boar said with a shrug. "I knew from the moment of my creation that I was not meant for Heaven. Too clean, too wholesome, too..." Beelzebub rolled a large grey paw as he searched for the proper word. "Pure . That's the one. Heaven operates on the principle that wrongdoing is...well, wrong. The only way to live up there is by God's rules. Any form of originality or free-thinking is strictly forbidden, and punishable by expulsion from paradise. Lucifer demonstrated that fact rather succinctly, I think."
"You like it down here?" Asmodeus had said something similar about not belonging in Heaven, as Sweetie Belle recalled. It was quite bizarre to hear people say with total sincerity that they would rather be in Hell than to have retained their positions in Heaven. If this place was already so horrendous and miserable, then just how bad could life in Heaven be?
Beelzebub nodded with a grin. "As they say; better to rule than to serve."
The wall forming the border between Gluttony and the next Circle was close now and drawing swiftly nearer as Beelzebub increased the pace toward it. "Why did Lucifer rebel?" Sweetie Belle asked in a rush.
The Lord of Flies slowed to a stop to think over his answer. "He was power hungry," he decided with a nod, and then resumed walking again. "Yes, that was it. Being firstborn of all life granted him incredible power. More even than the seraphim, some say. But it wasn't enough; he had to have all of the power. Problem was he had to go through God the Almighty to get it." Beelzebub shook his head in disappointment. "He was a moth trying to tame a forest fire, and in the end he got burned. Well, frozen, actually."
Finally the group arrived at the border wall. Beelzebub nodded his head once in satisfaction. "Right. Well my job's finished. I brought you to the other side, and I answered all you're questions. Now get the hell out of my wallow before I really get sick of you and feed the both of you to Cerberus."
"We thank you for your cooperation," Virgil said before ushering Sweetie Belle towards a hole in the wall that was large enough for both of them to traverse together. Beelzebub watched them for a few seconds to be sure they would not be coming back before turning on his heel and returning to the heart of Gluttony without sparing either of them a second thought.
"He seemed kind of in a hurry to make us leave," Sweetie Belle observed as she climbed around a protuberance of stone in the wall to her right.
"The Lord of Flies is not keen on visitors in his realm," Virgil replied candidly. "That, and he was also under the impression that severe consequences would befall him should something happen that would prevent you from advancing along your journey."
Sweetie Belle looked up at her guide with a disapproving expression. "You really need to stop lying for me, Virgil. I know you're trying to make things easier for me, but I'm worried about what it's going to do for your place in Limbo."
"I told no lies, dear child," the poet said. "I merely implied that your death in the Circle of Gluttony would alert God to the presence of an innocent in Hell, which would have severe consequences for Lucifer because he did nothing to prevent your demise, and then he would take it out on Beelzebub."
"So you tricked him," reasoned the young unicorn.
"Not as such. The possibility exists that such events might transpire in the event of your death. All I did was bring the matter to his attention."
Sweetie Belle pondered the poet's words and tried to decide whether or not she approved of his actions in manipulating Beelzebub. On the one hand, she was grateful for being taken safely through Gluttony. On the other, it had required Virgil doing something rather underhanded. His intentions may have been good, but his repeated forays into deviance could potentially expel Virgil from his comfortable life in Limbo. After careful consideration, Sweetie decided she wasn't exactly pleased with what her guide did to help her, but she would be ever grateful for what assistance he could provide.
"I appreciate your concern for me, but please waste no time on me. As I am dead and confined to Hell, my fate should be one of the farthest things from your mind," Virgil said.
Sweetie Belle was prepared to launch a very stern argument to the contrary, but her thoughts were interrupted when she finally exited the crevice. Unlike the previous Circles which had appeared to be open environments, this place was an immense enclosed cavern of gold, pyrite, sulfur, and obsidian. Juxtaposed within and around the rock were immense gears and cogs and other machinery that ticked, clanged, and groaned like the inner workings of some inconceivable mechanism. It was as if the engine which powered the world were laid bare, with metal organs and golden blood visible for the young unicorn to see. Such a sight was beyond mere mortal words to justly convey how awesome a spectacle it was to behold.
Yet somehow, over the sounds of the great cavern's mechanical actions, Sweetie Belle heard the soft padding of feet against stone drawing near her location. Then a stranger appeared out of a dark patch in the stone. It was a man with a thin, almost fragile bearing who had a stooped posture due to the cloak of iron he wore on his back, and his head was heavy from a gold crown of finest craftsmanship and bejeweled decoration that had been melted to his skull. The gold had seeped down low enough to completely cover his eyes, yet the man appeared to have no trouble with navigation. His flesh was entirely bronze save for his golden hands and lead feet, and when he opened his mouth to speak it could be observed that he had a silver tongue and ivory teeth.
"Greetings and good tidings to thee," the stranger said in a rich youthful tone. "I am Mammon. Welcome, weary travelers, to the Circle of Greed!"
"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."
Sweetie Belle awoke to alarms of pain firing off all throughout her body. She attempted to raise her head and promptly let it fall again when her neck screamed to cease and desist immediately. She tried to get her legs underneath her, but was forced to quit when all four legs cried in one voice that now was not the time for movement. Not even laying still provided much comfort; her head and face were severely bruised, both sides of her body ached terribly, it hurt to breathe, and her horn was throbbing to an almost unbearable degree.
At least I'm not dead , the young filly thought sardonically. She gently eased both eyes open and was relieved to feel no pain accompanying the move. Next she tried moving her ears. The left one was trapped beneath her head, but the right was able to flex freely and without any discomfort. She rolled her eyes around to get as much of a view of her surroundings as possible, but all she could see was a labyrinth of menacing black trees whose branches looked like clawed hands ready to snatch up any unsuspecting prey. Her ear turned at the sound of howls and screeches from multiple directions that were all thankfully very far away.
I can't just lay here forever. Ugh, this is not going to be fun . Sweetie Belle squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw against the unpleasantness that was about to take place. Her every muscle and tendon and square inch of skin protested very loudly as the young filly forced herself to sit upright. Sweetie bit back a cry, but she could not help an agonized whine squeaking out through her teeth. She sat on her rear for a moment to wait for the pain to subside, tears threatening to flood the banks of her eyes and spill down her cheeks. She forced herself to take long slow breaths in order to keep calm and try to speed up her recovery. Before long the pain dissipated enough that with one final effort Sweetie Belle pushed herself to stand on all four hooves, and then it spared no expense in reminding the poor girl that she was still quite injured. She hissed through her teeth and a couple of tears slipped free, but she was finally standing.
"Galloping goddesses," Sweetie said in one exhausted breath. Even though it hurt a great deal, standing upright somehow felt like a relief. She turned her head slowly now she was able to get a better look at the environment, though her neck still throbbed painfully as she put it to work. By this point the worst was behind her, and now she was able to mostly tune out the isolated aches which littered a great percentage of her frame. The sky was still that sinister crimson color and stained by stagnant black clouds, and the trees were still their dark and fearsome selves. The woods were very much alive with the sounds of feral screams and wails which were still a long ways off. She turned to look at the wall behind her and followed it up for as far as her pain threshold would allow. Scattered all over it were rocky outcrops of varying size and shape that could easily have broken or even killed Sweetie Belle had she hit even one of them. Somehow her tumbling descent had traced a straight line through almost all of them, and where it didn't she'd managed to bounce off the wall with enough height to pass over the rest.
"That was lucky," Sweetie remarked to herself. She put the wall out of her mind to address the foreboding woods in front of her. Every instinct told her not to go in. The claws of an old but never truly forgotten fear gripped her heart when she looked into the menacing darkness before her, like staring into the yawning jaws of a crocodile. It threatened to paralyze her against rational thought and bolt her to the ground where she stood, but she forced it down until she could bury it deep and make the decision that had to be made. She took a deep breath to steel herself before striding forward into the forest.
The dead woods of anger were disturbingly quiet between the odd bouts of screeching from parts yet unknown. Sweetie crept along as carefully and quietly as she could manage, trying to at least lessen her fears by humming a series of happy tunes to herself, primarily Pinkie Pie's number specifically about laughing at things that scare you. As she looked around, however, the young filly did not feel up to laughing at anything. The trees looked more like frozen nightmares than humble plants, and they always seemed to be watching her. She often had to duck branches which sometimes reached low enough to block the way forward, the sharp tines on the ends scraping against her skin and threatening to become tangled in her hair. She could swear they moved when she wasn't watching them. The sounds of wood groaning and clucking as it shifted around regularly greeted her ears, and she knew deep down that their movements were their own.
As she quietly sang to herself her ears picked up another sound, one that was familiar and morbidly comforting to hear. Sweetie Belle quickened her pace and followed the sound to its source. After passing through a break in the trees Sweetie found a river of oily gray liquid cutting through the woods, and stuck within were the souls of sinners condemned to the Circle of Anger. They shouted and cursed at everything around them, and they often fell upon each other like wild beasts to do pointless battle for any or no reason at all. They complained about being unjustly damned, about the unfairness of dying before they were ready, the injustice of not seeing other people who always seemed more deserving of this torment, and other such things. Many even hurled angry blasphemies at God, whom they believed tricked or misjudged them since they had been "perfect" models of their individual faiths.
Sweetie Belle quickly came to ignore their protests and outcries as she followed the river. Her thinking was that the water's path would eventually lead her out of the forest, but where exactly that was she had no idea. However, for the moment, anywhere was better than being stuck in these woods with their snarling trees. As she walked with the river's flow she kept a weather eye for danger, and though she could hear awful things crying fury and hellfire deeper in the woods, her presence was still unknown to the more despicable residents of this fowl place. Her mind often drifted to thoughts of Virgil as she went. She couldn't help longing for Virgil's comforting presence, wishing that they would find each other soon so that she would no longer have to face the dangers of Anger alone. More than once she had entertained the idea of finding a place to hole up and wait for the poet to find her, but she could not bring herself to fully commit to such a course. The beasts of the dark wood, though as of yet unseen by Sweetie Belle, frightened her too much to stay still for any length of time.
Soon the oily river bled into a larger flow that was dotted with small isolated islets of mossy ground. From here the current ran off in two separate directions which may or may not eventually turn parallel to one another after some distance; Sweetie Belle's small stature and limited vision in the cluttered darkness made her uncertain of this. She let out a short agitated groan before assessing the best route by which to cross. She quickly spied a series of islets that were all arranged in their various shapes and sizes to create a sort of stepping stone pathway spanning the the distance between the shorelines.
"It's okay. Nothing to worry about. It's just like playing Lava Floor at Rarity's house," Sweetie Belle said as she moved forward to stand at the head of the path. She glanced down at the thick tar-like water below, and the souls thrashing about therein. "Only instead of falling harmlessly into a big pile of Rarity's expensive fabrics, I will fall into that . And instead of Rarity yelling at me for the millionth time about messing with her stuff, I will probably drown or get beaten to death by these guys. Yup; nothing to worry about." After taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, she attempted the crossing. The first two jumps were perfect, but the third was rather harrowing when Sweetie slipped on a patch of moss and nearly slid face-first into the river. The ground buckled under her rear hooves when she leaped for the next platform, but otherwise it was a smooth transition. To reach the next islet she only had to take a larger-than-usual step, and then it was a small hop down to the one after that. The eighth platform required her to make a vertical jump to catch the ledge and pull herself up; a task Sweetie dreaded thanks to her less-than-stellar performance climbing the gears in the previous Circle. Here at least her hooves were able to dig into the soil and give her enough grip to successfully hoist herself onto level ground. The final transition--in accordance with all of Sweetie Belle's expectations--would require a tremendous leap to the riverbank which, due to the irregular shape of the islet on which she stood, had to be done without a running start.
"Hayseeds ," the unicorn spat cursing her misfortune. Sweetie Belle fixed her gaze on her destination and repeatedly imagined herself making the jump without any mishaps, psyching herself up and getting in the right mindset to make a proper and flawless go of it. She crept forward as close to the edge of the islet as she dared to maximize the distance of her leap, and then planted her rear hooves into the ground while her fore hooves pressed against the ledge to provide extra power. Sweetie Belle began mentally counting: One...two...three, and with all the strength she could muster she threw herself forward. The other side quickly drew closer to the unicorn's outstretched arms.
Something slammed into Sweetie Belle from the left. The violent impact threw her sideways onto the riverside, where she slid a short ways on her back, and then something fell upon her. All she could see was the black silhouette of a round head, large pointed ears, and crazed yellow eyes. The thing screamed in Sweetie Belle's face and lunged to bite her face. The little foal yelped while simultaneously a brilliant white light erupted reflexively from her horn, startling and blinding the hostile creature and forcing it to fall back. The animal scrambled backwards and hid within its leathery wings, spitting and snarling all the while it tried to recover. Sweetie Belle was quite shocked by the experience, but she did not wait around for her assailant to make another attempt on her life; she quickly returned to her hooves and sprinted into the woods at top speed. All around her the wilderness came alive with feral screams and the flapping of wings as more of the creatures became aware of the new prey that had stumbled into their territory. She could hear them chasing after her, but thankfully the trees and their tangled branches made it impossible for the beasts to do anything besides match the unicorn's pace from the air. Unfortunately it wasn't long before they started dive-bombing Sweetie Belle with total lack of regard to the trees. They howled savagely as branches ripped and even pierced their flesh, but they stubbornly, desperately refused to be denied their prize. Some became too tangled or too injured to continue the pursuit, and others outright died as dagger-sharp splinters impaled their hearts, stomachs, and even their skulls.
On and on Sweetie Belle ran, pure adrenaline driving her forward and helping her to avoid tripping over or crashing into any obstacles along the path. She ignored the fires that burned her heart and lungs and the worsening cramps in her sides. Her fear of dying pushed such concerns out of her mind in favor of survival. Even the constant bites of the trees slicing her fur and flesh at her passing did not matter. Eventually she was forced to stop not out of fatigue, but due to the road ahead being blocked by a downed tree. Sweetie Belle cast her frantic gaze left and right, but the tangle of branches and nettles was too thick to force open an escape route.
"Shit!" The rare expletive perfectly summed up the complete hopelessness of Sweetie's situation. She spun round and made to go back, but it was too late; the beasts had found her. They crashed through the brush from every which-way, crying and snarling angrily in their desperation to get to the unicorn. Spittle flew from their snapping mouths filled with many blood-stained teeth. Sweetie Belle called on her magic and summoned another flash of light which held the terrible things at bay. Again and again she pushed them back, but her mastery of magic was quite limited, as demonstrated by the waning brilliance of each successive flash.
There was another flash of light, only it had not come from Sweetie Belle. In fact she was the only party present who could see through it to find Virgil standing before and looking down at her. The devils shrieked and hollered and protested as they scrambled away from the offending light, but Sweetie was able to hear the poet's authoritative voice as clearly as if he were shouting in her ear. "Fly, child!"
The air rattled with the eruption of a massive furious roar that momentarily drowned out all other sound in the Circle of Anger. The flying creatures swiftly fell silent and took to the air, but they remained nearby. Off in the distance could be heard explosions of trees being violently and carelessly knocked aside as something truly monstrous thundered its way through the forest. Sweetie Belle's attention was pulled in the direction of the awful thing bearing down on her location, and she trembled with fear.
"Virgil..." she implored.
"This way! Quickly!" The poet became a globe of light and darted away into the woods, and Sweetie Belle was not far behind him. At their escape the demons began shrieking again, likely signaling the other beast that their prey was on the move. The pair traced a winding path through the thicket that Sweetie Belle gradually realized was meant to stall the worst of their pursuers. They had managed to put on considerable distance from their previous location when they heard another outraged roar followed by a curt shout, and then the woods sang with the splintering and felling of trees as the beast started charging after Virgil and Sweetie.
At last they came to a halt at a beach, where for miles ahead in nearly every direction stretched an enormous expanse of thick gray water. Sweetie Belle's heart sunk in her chest at the sight of it. "What do we do now?" she wailed.
"The beacon!" was Virgil's only reply, and he gestured with his left arm. There was indeed an enormously tall stone tower a short distance away. Sweetie ran to it and forced her magic into action, summoning a small spark to leap from her horn and light a thin red cord which ran up inside the tower. The resulting flame raced up the cord and disappeared within the obelisk, and after several long seconds a tremendous fire came roaring to life at the top of the tower. Her task done Sweetie Belle rushed back to Virgil's side to wait for whatever was next to happen. Behind them, the forest continued to break and scream with the tantrums of the nightmarish beast that pursued them.
"What're we waiting for?" Sweetie Belle asked with clear terror in her voice. The poet said nothing, and only kept his eyes on the water. The unicorn whipped her head around to look back at the woods. She could now feel the ground rumble with the beast's rapid stomping, and she could see the tops of trees disappear as they were destroyed in the face of the oncoming rampage. Sweetie looked back at her guide. "Virgil!"
"He comes!" From out of the mists emerged a gigantic manlike creature with very dark red skin, a pair of horns grown from either side of the head, and an odd protuberance atop the skull which glowed like a furnace. As the thing drew closer one could see its eyes burned like two small fire pits, and the chin was scarred by glowing veins which dripped molten rock into the river. There was a black metal collar clamped around its throat with a length of chain linking the creature to a raft that dragged slowly behind. The craft itself was probably forty feet long and fifteen feet wide, had a broken carving of what had once been a fearsome dragon on the prow, and the outer hull was littered with holes and gashes. It looked like it had been a mighty vessel in a former life, but now it served as a ferry for the dead.
"Who is that?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"Our salvation," was all Virgil would say as to the creature's identity. Behind them could now be heard the rushed and heavy breathing of the beast pushing through the forest. It was distressingly close, and the figure pulling the ship still seemed so far away. Sweetie's heart pounded painfully in her breast. Her panicked gaze danced between Virgil and the giant. As the seconds ticked by she was growing less certain that this plan would succeed. Her mind became flooded with thoughts of being brutally murdered at the claws of the beast thundering through the forest, her last sights always being of the boat that did not come in time, and of the poet who had failed to take her home. Sweetie Belle turned around to face the woods. A silhouette appeared in the darkness, and it was swiftly growing larger and more visible with every stride. The unicorn foal screamed and ran for the water's edge.
She saw the wooden side rail almost too late and managed to turn away just before impact. She slammed lengthwise against the protective barrier and knocked the wind out of her lungs, but otherwise she was unharmed. Virgil approached the front of the boat and called out to the giant at helm, but Sweetie Belle was too dizzy to make out what exactly was said. She vaguely felt the vessel move underneath her as she waited for her senses to recover. Soon enough her head stopped spinning, and at last she could stand to look around. They were definitely on the boat, that part Sweetie Belle was grateful was not a hallucination or a vivid dream her mind cooked up so she didn't have to see herself die. Just to be sure she thumped her hoof against the floor a couple times. She looked over one side of the ship and saw an endless stretch of sinners writhing about in the water. On the other side was the beach she had stood on mere moments ago, the dark forest behind it, and the demon that had been hunting her.
The raging beast was eight feet tall when stood upright, with powerful legs covered in shaggy black hair and ending in large cloven hooves, a crimson torso stacked with muscle, and a black-furred ram's head armed with a large pair of horns grown high and back from the skull. The demon stomped its hooves and slammed its fists against the dirt, even ripped chunks out of nearby trees and threw them at the ship. It howled and roared in outrage at having lost its prey and paced across the beach on its knuckles, huffing and growling irritably. It would pause every so often to thump its chest before resuming its back-and-forth along the beach. Sweetie Belle could feel its hostile gaze on her, and it compelled her to hide behind the rail. They could hear the beast roar even as the ship passed into the mist and disappeared beyond its range of vision, until at last the only sounds were the the gentle lapping of the water against the sides of the vessel as the giant pulled them along, and the wailing of the dead.
"What was that thing?" Sweetie Belle said between deep breaths as she tried to settle her frayed nerves.
"Satan," Virgil said in a relieved tone. "He is the crown prince of Anger."
"Oh. He seemed nice."
"There was a time when that was once true," Virgil said.
Sweetie Belle looked across to the poet. "Was he an angel too? Like Mammon and the others?" The young filly was surprised upon receiving a nod in the affirmative. "What happened to him?"
Virgil did not answer right away, but when he did his tone was noticeably remorseful. "Before the war, Satan had been the Angel of Kindness. From what I hear he fit that title to a 'T'. He was gentle, soft-spoken, and a friend to all...especially to Lucifer. Supposedly the two were nigh inseparable, almost never seen without one by the other's side. When Lucifer set out to build his army, Satan was first to join his cause."
"What happened to turn him into that ?" Sweetie pressed.
"The judgment of the renegades," Virgil answered. "When Satan was expelled from Heaven he became consumed by rage. He was angry at multiple persons for a multitude of reasons, from the Heavenly Father to Lucifer, down to even himself, and it ate him alive. It turned him into that beast." He looked back in the direction of the woods of Anger, somehow still able to see them in spite of the mist. "Now he stalks through that labyrinthine forest, alone and forgot by even he who had once been his dearest friend."
"And those flying things that were with him. Were they angels, too?" Sweetie Belle inquired next.
Virgil shook his head. "As the succubi are the forsaken children of Asmodeus, so too are the furies related to Satan. As he fell down to the Circle of Anger, Satan's wings rotted and fell from his shoulders. The disowned feathers fell into the slime that is the river Styx, and from the mixture was born the furies. They are the physical manifestation of mankind's collective anger; children against parents, hosts against guests, lords against supplicants, and so on. As such they lash out at anything and everything that enters their sight, including each other."
Sweetie Belle looked out across the river at the countless dead who viciously attacked one another within the oily water. "Tell me about them," she requested of her guide.
Virgil followed her gaze. "There is not much to tell. They are the wrathful and the sullen, who in life let their hateful passions get the better of their good judgment. Here in Hell, as they feel the very pain their inflamed behaviors inflicted on their neighbors, down among the dregs and devils of this pit of woe, do they wish they had never been born."
"And what about him?" Sweetie Belle indicated the giant towing their ship by his neck.
"He is Phlegyas, the boatman of the Styx," replied the poet. "He was a king once, in the world above. But when his daughter was murdered by the god Apollo, Phlegyas set fire to one of the deity's temples in a fit of rage. As a result he was condemned to the Circle of Anger."
The unicorn foal was preparing to speak further when she spied something in her peripheral field of vision. It was a small mote of light just peeking through the mist and growing steadily brighter as time passed. Soon one light became five, which then became seventeen, twenty-nine, and so on until the encroaching horizon resembled a field of orange and yellow stars. At last the mist broke, and beyond it was a tremendous wall of stone that reached completely across both ends of the horizon like Typhon's arms, and stood so high Sweetie Belle guessed it would take years to fly even to the wall's midpoint. She stared in awe at the immense barrier, unable to fathom what such a construction could possibly be needed to contain.
"Behold Hell's metropolis, the city of Dis," Virgil said.
"That thing is a city ?" Sweetie Belle said when she'd found her voice.
The poet nodded. "Within these walls is contained the Circles of compound sin; those crimes against God and nature which have their basis in conscious choice rather than instinct, and thus are more egregious to Him." Phlegyas soon came to a halt, and shortly after the ship slowly eased into harbor alongside a sculpted stone pier stretched before a heavy metal gate. Virgil was first to desert the ship with Sweetie Belle quickly following, and then the pair looked forward to the road leading to the second half of their journey, the entrance to nether Hell. "Our first stop: the sepulchral Circle of Heresy, where be damned those who denied immortality to themselves and others by preaching false ideologies."
As the gate slowly squealed open, the songs of the miserable dead echoed forth with force and volume like the wind of a thunderstorm that had been trapped in a bottle. Sweetie Belle steeled herself with a brief exercise of deep breathing before striding forward with Virgil. The Circle of Heresy was inviting them to come inside, and they had no choice but to enter.
The duo of poet and pony now strode through an immense field within a grand mausoleum decorated by sarcophagi, tombs, and coffins as trees and shrubbery would accent the scene of a lush and vibrant countryside. The naked burial crates, though individually shaped with unique craftsmanship by unknown makers, were all cast from iron which glowed a brilliant red from fires that heated them from below. The lids which would normally have completed the coffins were removed and had been spirited away to elsewhere, granting passersby an unobstructed view of the sinners writhing and wailing within.
"Behold the heretics," Virgil said with a sweeping gesture of his arm.
"What did they do to be sent here?" Sweetie Belle requested to know.
"They preached that there is no second life after death, that the human soul dies with the body upon expiration," Virgil explained. "In punishment God makes them to lie in a bed of His wrath until the End of Days."
"What happens then?" the young filly pressed.
"The tombs shall be sealed, and the sinners trapped forever even as the rest of Hell's imprisoned rise to meet the Lord's final judgment."
Sweetie Belle looked around at the scattered coffins and contemplated the gravity of this punishment. Though it most certainly must be painful, given how loudly the dead gave voice to their agony, this did not seem as severe a punishment as she had expected to see. Virgil had mentioned more than once that the torments of lower Hell were far worse than in the aft section. So far, even with the promise of endless pain after the End of Days, the real view was less than the picture Virgil had painted with his words. She brought this point up with her guide in request of an explanation.
"Heresy is the denial of God's existence, which is considered a form of violence against the deity. However, it is a lesser degree than what you shall see further on, and thus the punishment is less severe. It is also important to note that the sin of heresy can be conducted in multiple fashions. By comparison these sad creatures are arguably more fortunate than the heretics found deeper in this chasm of woe," Virgil expounded to his ward.
As they pressed on Sweetie's ears turned this way and that in response to certain cries in particular which resounded from some of the coffins. These were not the feral anguished cries of an animal in pain, but coherent statements being exclaimed by the people trapped in their burning graves. Many of them Sweetie Belle could not understand because they were spoken in a language she was unfamiliar with. Those who did speak a tongue strangely similar to Equestrian common had some rather interesting things to say.
"That rat fuck Macgregor! Hell's going to be a vacation compared to what the Brothers will do when they learn the truth!"
"You don't know what you're doing! Don't let her marry that man! He'll kill our daughter, God damn it, please! "
"Go back to school, son. If you want to live to see forty, for the love of Christ go back to school."
They cursed names, begged for favorable outcomes to certain situations, prayed for fortune or misfortune to visit friends or family or business affiliates, and so much more from within their metal crates. Sweetie Belle listened to them all, and was utterly confused by what she was witnessing. "What's going on?" she inquired of her guide. "What are these people doing?"
"The Lord Almighty has seen fit to grant the dead total knowledge of the future, but has made them asquint to events which are current or have already happened," Virgil informed her.
"Is it totally against the rules for them to ever know the past or present?" the young filly pressed.
"Only through knowledge shared by an outside party can they learn such things. I leave it to you to guess how often that happens," Virgil said.
Sweetie Belle said nothing more as she and her guide proceeded through the cemetery grounds. The sarcophagi laid out the winding road before them, eventually bringing them to pass by a circle of cleared ground wherein stood an enormous specimen of man. He was a rugged sort who would have stood ten feet tall if he hadn't been kneeling, with tan skin and raven-black hair on his head and face, had an admirable musculature, and wore light armor so rusted and tarnished it was impossible to tell the metal's type. Before the man sat a helmet that was entirely untouched by the effects of weather and time, but it did have a hole in the space directly between and above the eyes. Upon closer inspection, it was possible to see a deep indent in the giant's forehead in the exact same position and shape as the hole in the helmet.
"There sits Goliath of Gath," Virgil said without needing to be asked.
"What happened to him?" Sweetie Belle inquired as she gazed upon the man.
"He was killed in battle by a shepherd-boy named David, who would later become king of Israel. David slew Goliath with a single stone fired from his sling, piercing the Philistine warrior's helmet and knocking him dead," Virgil said in reply.
Sweetie Belle looked up at the poet with a mask of utter disbelief. "Are you serious? That huge man died after getting hit in the head with a rock?"
Virgil nodded his head. "'Twas the power of God which imbued David with the strength to fell mighty Goliath."
Sweetie Belle shifted her sight back to the warrior, who ignored the pair as they passed him by. "What's he doing?"
"Contemplating the nature and power of God, who so easily smote the greatest living challenge to His supremacy. It is why Goliath is here," Virgil answered. The young unicorn imparted a look of confusion on him, compelling the poet to elaborate on this lesson. "Goliath represents the struggle between God and the ancient pagan cults which had been leading mankind down the inglorious path to damnation, a path paved by the blood of people and animals sacrificed to appease volatile deities. Where these cults promoted violence, the Lord sought only to spread a message of harmony, kindness, and brotherhood between all His children."
Sweetie Belle pondered this for some while. It was difficult for her to truly understand Virgil's talk of cults, but she immediately recognized the importance God seemed to place on the principles of peace and harmony between kinsmen. The state of unity within Equestria was founded on the friendship born between the three pony tribes so many generations in the past after countless years of animosity and conflict. It seemed God had been attempting to achieve something similar by doing away with these cults Virgil spoke of.
As the pair pushed onward their surroundings gradually changed from a field to the inner belly of a penitentiary. The floor was polished black stone with rows of closed cells stacked one on top of the other, stairs which led to the upper and lower sections of the prison, and roughly twenty armed guards patrolling each floor. Within each cell was housed a group of heretics who writhed and screamed in terrible agony as their bodies were consumed by undying flames. Temperatures rose to such a high degree that the bars keeping the prisoners penned in glowed almost neon orange. As Sweetie Belle listened to the wailing dead, she realized that there was a strange synchronicity in their calls. The more she listened, the more she also came to hear something akin to coherent speech, though the language was unsurprisingly foreign to the unicorn. Unbeknownst to her it was a hymn the sinners were singing, or rather a corrupted, macabre version of one.
The guards appeared as towering men with the heads of lions, only their flesh was a very dark shade of red edging on black, their eyes blazing yellow, and their manes were dancing infernos. In their armored paws they carried a greatsword with a wide blade and a long spike drawn from the cropped head. Sweetie often had to maneuver around the patrols lest she be crushed underfoot by the imposing creatures. They did not march with the intent to harm her; in fact they behaved as if neither she nor her guide existed at all. The beasts glared about themselves with wide-eyed attentiveness that bordered on paranoia, constantly alert for the slightest hint of danger.
Virgil noticed his young ward staring at the guards in wonder. "They are fallen angels. Former members of the cherubim, to be precise; the vanguard of Heaven's defenses," he informed her. He passed an impartial gaze upon the behemoths before making one more remark. "Now these once beautiful gladiators serve the Light-bringer as his protectors."
"Can we ask them about the war?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"I'm afraid not. Cherubs do not possess the capacity for speech, their entire purpose for being to destroy anything which presents a direct threat to the life of their master," Virgil answered.
The young filly looked at the guards again with an expression of worry. "Sure hope that doesn't include me."
Virgil dismissed her fears with a wave. "You're as safe as houses, dear child. If they had even the slightest suspicion you were here to harm Lucifer, you'd already be dead."
"That's...comforting," Sweetie supposed, though she tried to keep at least one of the guards in her sight at all times just to be safe. "So how many types of angels are there?" She asked to change the subject.
"Only a handful," replied the poet. "Highest and foremost of the choirs is the seraphim, who tend the Throne of Creation and enact God's will where it concerns the bureaucracy of Heaven. Next are the archons and archangels, who personify all of the core qualities of just and righteous living in addition to observing the political, commercial, and military matters of the human kingdom. The cherubim make up the third choir, and lastly are the malakhim, whom God entrusts with dispensing His grace and wrath upon the humans."
Sweetie Belle was thoughtful for a time. "Mammon said he used to be the angel of generosity. Beelzebub said he was the angel of...temperance, I think. And you told me Satan had been the angel of kindness. Did they used to be archangels?"
"I think you mean archons , and yes they did," Virgil said.
"What kind of angel was Lucifer?"
It was the poet's turn to take a moment to reflect, however it was not long before he delivered his reply. "I do not know," he said with a shrug. "I am not certain any of the choirs existed prior to Lucifer's birth. Perhaps you can ask him when we see him."
The duo continued onward, the penitentiary around them soon becoming a barren wasteland of crumbled walls, cracked floors, and cells which had caved in on themselves long ago. There was no light anywhere save for that which emanated from Virgil's naturally luminous form, and the road ahead turned into a series of climbs and deviations from what should have been a straight path. Any bodies were either buried deep within the rubble, or had been cleared away following whatever grand event had destroyed this wing of the prison.
"What happened here?" Sweetie Belle asked, her voice echoing in the quiet. Dust, which had sat undisturbed for many long years, fell like tiny waterfalls as the sound of Sweetie's words shook it free.
"Many years ago," Virgil began, "God sent a savior to the earth in order to lead humanity on the true path to Heaven. This man was granted extraordinary power to perform miracles meant to prove the existence and nature of the Lord to mankind. I will spare you a great deal of the main story which ultimately led this person to be arrested by fearful lords and summarily executed. His death shook all the world, from the tallest spires in Heaven to the lowest dungeons of Hell. The destruction you see here is the direct result of that quake. This is the harrowing of Hell."
For Sweetie Belle, it was incredible to think that one person's death could have such a calamitous effect on the world. Then again, if this man really was as powerful and important as Virgil said, perhaps it was not as far-fetched as it sounded. The Princesses of Equestria are both incredibly powerful beings who literally control the cycles of the sun and moon, and Luna is even the warden of the dreamscape as well. Sweetie was confident that if even one of them were to die suddenly, the consequences would be extremely destructive for the entire nation, possibly even the world. The thought of both ruling sisters unexpectedly passing away, and the resulting turmoil which would follow, did not bear thinking about.
Before long the wreckage of the prison opened out to a large chamber where the walls contained thousands more coffins which burned with everlasting fire, and the souls of the damned screamed from within them. A staircase led down from this high point to parts below and unknown, and wound around an enormous robed man whose stately countenance had been immortalized in stone. Virgil led the journey down the steps, along the way enlightening his young ward as to the statue's identity. It was Epicurus, the man who first posited the notion of permanent death for body and soul alike, who in the Circle of Heresy loomed over his descendants in a mock facsimile of how God stood over all mankind. At the base of the stairs was a bridge which spanned the breadth of several small ditches which each housed large numbers of burning heretics. So dense were the crowds that they could neither sit nor move, only stand in one place and suffer the agonizing bite of hellfire. More of the leonine guards kept watch atop the ditches, but their attention was not on the sinners below. Like their brothers above, they secured the road which led to Hell's king and kept a weather eye for travelers with nefarious business in mind.
"How do you suppose Lucifer got them to fight for him?" Sweetie Belle asked rather abruptly.
Virgil's gaze danced briefly between her and the guards. "The cherubs? I cannot say for certain, given that the war was many years before my time. What little I do know about the angels and their species...I'm afraid I am unable to even hazard a guess as to Lucifer's methods in rallying the cherubim to his side. Unless..."
Sweetie Belle waited with rapt attention for her companion to speak further, but he was so caught up in his own thoughts that nearly five minutes passed before she grew impatient. "Unless what ?"
The poet was jarred out of his trance. "Apologies. I was just thinking that the cherubim are answerable only to three authorities in Heaven; God, their commander Uriel, and archangel Michael in emergencies. Lucifer was the first angel, which implies he likely had considerable influence over all his kin, from seraph to malakhim. However he likely knew that sweet words could not shift the cherubs' fanatical loyalty as he had done with the others. It is possible that instead of conning them into allying with him...he may have simply commanded them." Virgil considered this a moment longer, his expression growing pinched with deep concentration, and then he shook his head. "Ordering the cherubim to abandon God would not have been enough. Lucifer is powerful, but not so much that he could override God's instructions of service with a set of his own. He would have had to somehow alter their perceptions of lord and enemy so they would fight for him."
Sweetie Belle tried her best to follow Virgil's frantic train of thought, and felt she actually understood the gist of what he was saying. "So...Lucifer brainwashed the cherubs?"
Virgil shook his head slowly. "Not exactly. It is more like he went into their heads and manually changed their ideas of who was friend and who was foe."
"Oh, so he hacked them." The poet turned to her with an intrigued expression, spurring Sweetie Belle to elaborate. "A couple of my friends read a lot of comics. In some of them the hero has to deal with magically created guards called golems, which are really hard to kill but aren't very smart. Kind of like the cherubs." Sweetie indicated the guards with a nod before continuing. "Anyway, he does this thing called 'hacking' where he uses his magic to change the golems' instructions so that they fight the bad guys instead of him."
"How fascinating," Virgil remarked once the lecture was concluded. A silence fell over the couple as they continued their jaunt through the Circle of Heresy. The poet spent this time wondering about something, and considering every outcome of bringing the matter to attention. The question festered in his mind, demanded in increasingly higher tones that it be set free through the power of speech, until at last Virgil was compelled to ask. "Do you believe in an afterlife?"
The randomness of the shade's inquiry briefly struck Sweetie Belle dumb, and she had to ask him to repeat what he'd said. "Excuse me?"
"Back in the Circle of Lust you told me about the world you come from and all the ways it is similar to the world I know," Virgil elaborated. "As we have journeyed through Hell I have observed your numerous states of confusion not only at what is going on in each of the Circles, but why each of the sins are punished so harshly. It begs me to wonder if your people believe in some form of existence beyond death."
Forward progress was halted momentarily so that Sweetie Belle could ruminate on this. "Not really," she finally said, and then they resumed walking again. "I don't know how different it is in other parts of the world, but in Equestria death is kind of...it , I guess. We're born, we live, and when we die there's nothing left. Ponies don't go to Heaven or Hell, or anywhere after we die."
Virgil looked aghast at the very idea of an entire civilized culture having no theories or suppositions of what fate lie beyond death. "Truly? Is there not even a recorded history of such beliefs?"
Sweetie shrugged her shoulders. "Not as far as I know. Princess Twilight would probably have some books or scrolls about it stashed somewhere in her castle. Luna and Celestia would be the best ponies to talk to about that since they've been around forever."
The ghostly Roman was blown away by this knowledge. The very notion that Sweetie Belle's countrymen had never even considered the possibility of an afterlife was nearly impossible for him to imagine. One of humanity's most prominent and often tragic features was their curiosity. The insatiable need to understand anything bigger than themselves, including but certainly not limited to death. Countless generations of men and women had postulated the existence of life after death, or in some cases many lives. To learn that an entire society had never acquired such an interest in the subject was close to inconceivable. Truly this land of Equestria and its citizenry were quite peculiar, but perhaps there was a form of beauty in such ignorance. If these "ponies" honestly had no religious beliefs to speak of currently or ever before, then maybe they were a more contented people than the human race had ever been since the inception of such things. A fact which would become immediately apparent in the Circles to come.
At last the mausoleum opened out to what had once been a high and mighty cliff, but had since been reduced to a sloping pile of rubble in the wake of the world-shaking tremor Virgil had spoken of earlier. The ramp descended gently down into a dark world which, at present, was too far to see in great or poor detail. Looking back the way Virgil and Sweetie Belle had come, they saw a solid metal gate which would have been quite impressive it wasn't so severely dented and folded over in places. The gate's state of disrepair was in fact the only reason they had managed to leave Heresy proper without having to confront any guards. However, before they could advance any farther, a steady tattoo of heavy stomping indicated that a new obstacle was on its way.
Rising up over the crest of the ramp and growing larger with ever step was a savage-looking beast with a thick scarred hide a dark ocher color, and a snarling bull's head armed with two black horns which pointed directly at any poor creature unfortunate enough to find itself in its sights. In both meaty hands it carried a massive cleaver with chips bitten out of the blade and smears of dry blood staining the metal's already dull finish. Plumes of smoke burst from the beast's nostrils with every breath, and its lifeless black eyes seemed to sap all the heat from Sweetie Belle's comparatively diminutive frame. It stopped roughly ten feet from the pair and glared balefully at its quarry, lips pulled back to reveal sharp carnivorous teeth stained orange from a lifetime of devouring living prey.
"The Minotaur patrols the road leading from Heresy to the Circles below," Virgil said in a moderately nervous tone.
"Is there any way around?" Sweetie Belle could sense the answer before her guide could speak it.
"No. However with the proper leverage, we can perhaps have him removed from our path." Virgil pursed his lips and blew out a short high-pitch note which belied a substantial heaviness that was more felt than heard. It was an unnerving sensation that caused a shudder to run down Sweetie Belle's spine. The sound had no echo, yet it seemed to travel far and deep into the world below, calling out to whatever entity or event that was meant to hear it.
Sweetie Belle stood motionless as she and her companion waited for something to happen. "What do we do now?" she inquired of the poet beside her.
Virgil leveled his gaze on the snorting behemoth barring the only way forward. "Now...we wait."
The Minotaur snorted angrily, its fingers tightening their grip on the cleaver. The barest hint of a sadistic smile tugged at the corners of the beast's mouth.
There was no way to know how long the stalemate lasted. Virgil and Sweetie Belle waited for whatever had been summoned by the poet's whistling, and the Minotaur appeared to be waiting for them to make any sort of move to either fight or flee. He may be a beast born to savagery and murder, but he was also a predator. There was no sport in killing something that was waiting to die. It was always more enjoyable when prey struggled by attempting to run or fight back. However the unicorn appeared determined to do neither of these things, either because she was paralyzed by fear or she expected something to come along and save her. The Minotaur looked at her and considered his options. He certainly had no intention of just walking away. A chase or a fight may not last very long, but at least he would be hunting live prey again. Sinners were an absolute bore, and all of the demons and angels were either too smart or too powerful to get involved with. An eager grin pulled at the corners of the beast's muzzle. If there was going to be a hunt, then he would have to be the one to initiate.
The Minotaur took a step forward. Sweetie Belle flinched, and Virgil remained totally still.
There was a soft, brief whistling sound, and then the Minotaur suddenly roared as he lurched forward clumsily. Sweetie Belle yelped in surprise, and then her eyes widened when the horrid beast turned around. Protruding from the back of its right shoulder was the shaft of a single black arrow. The Minotaur brandished its weapon and bellowed at an encroaching threat only he could see. Another arrow punched its way into the beast's left shoulder, and another buried itself in the left side of his chest shortly after. The bovine monster staggered back a step, and before he could recover a veritable hailstorm of arrows descended upon him. He howled and roared in defiance, but he was forced to hide beneath the wide blade of his cleaver for cover. Soon however the assault became too great for the Minotaur to resist any longer, and he quickly retreated to safer hunting grounds. The barrage ceased at last, and the beings responsible rode in from the world beneath.
There were six of them, all with human upper torsos grafted seamlessly onto powerful equine bodies. Four of them were male, and the remaining two female. Their flesh ranged from vibrant crimson to charcoal black, their tails were prehensile whips covered in barbs, six-inch-long spikes protruded from their elbows, and their heads were pale yellow horse skulls. All six of the creatures held a bow crafted from meat and bone, and the arrows they had been firing were buried in their backs.
"Who are they?" Sweetie Belle asked, careful to avoid moving in any way which might provoke a confrontation.
"Centaurs," Virgil stated simply. "They patrol the banks of the river Phlegethon which cuts through the heart of the Circle of Violence."
"They're who you were whistling for," the young filly quickly deduced.
Virgil nodded his head in confirmation. "They will lead us on the safe path to the next district."
Without a word the centaurs turned as one to stride back down the ramp, their pace kept at a low speed so the much smaller creatures did not have to fight to keep up. It was discomforting how eerily silent the creatures were. They spoke not a word to their guests nor to each other, they didn't even breathe . The centaurs marched in total silence except for the sounds of their ragged hooves pounding against the ground. Sweetie Belle felt the impulse to try and broach any topic of conversation with the strange creatures, but there was a subtle air of menace about them which forced her to hold her tongue. Her eyes went to the arrows which were stuck in their backs like the quills on a porcupine. The wounds leaked small streams of blood that together created the illusion of a translucent cloak of steam upon contact with the curiously cooler air.
As the group descended it became clear why it had been so difficult to see the next Circle from atop the cliffs of Heresy. A broad sheet of steam covered this entire area of Violence which, as one could see after breaking through the fog, was almost entirely one massive river of boiling blood. The taste of copper stuck hard to the back of the throat, and the loose crimson vapors stained Sweetie Belle's ivory coat an unhealthy pinkish color. The souls of violent sinners shrieked and splashed in the boiling river, and thrashed one another with extreme malice. The abuse they spent on each other was different from what took place in the Circle of Anger. There it had been unfocused and feral, not unlike wild animals attempting to exert dominance or declare the range of their personal space. Here, the shades of the dead singled out specific enemies and battled with the kind of hatred and bitterness which seems unique to the human species. They behaved as if they all had some personal vendetta to settle, despite the fact that many had lived and died long before or after others. The dead did not cry for an end to their misery, but screamed the most vile curses and insults at their fellows as if every syllable was itself a weapon by which to inflict further pain.
At the bottom of the ramp the road split into two opposing directions. Five of the centaurs went one way, while the sixth split off to lead Virgil and Sweetie Belle down the alternate path. The little unicorn seemed confused and slightly anxious at the separation at first, but Virgil's gentle coaxing calmed her enough to follow him and the loan centaur, which had paused until she caught up again. She looked out across the immense Phlegethon and saw great statues which captured the likeness of various historical personas. All of them, which were sunken to different depths, looked to be in frozen in expressions of agony. Sweetie Belle pointed them out and asked her guide for their identities.
"There stands Attila, who ruled a vast and terrible empire that he built on the bodies of his enemies," Virgil said gesturing to one of the figures. He indicated a few of the other statues and identified them similarly, though he declined to elaborate on the exact sins which earned them a place in Hell. "That is Genghis Khan, and there the Alexanders both Great and Terrible. A proper account of every soul of note condemned to this hideous plain would be impossible to tell in a single lifetime."
"So who exactly is punished here?" Sweetie Belle inquired when the previous topic had been exhausted.
"Those who rose to such abominable hobbies as murder and plunder, and any soul who did smite another in vain," the poet answered. He gestured to the river with his right arm and remarked on its purpose. "In life they reveled in the spilt blood of their enemies and their victims, and so aptly does God arrange these ghosts to bathe for eternity in the boiling Phlegethon."
As the company pushed on, it was not unnoticed by the unicorn that the dead appeared to be submerged at varying depths. Some were sunk to their crowns while others could float with half their torso exposed to the air, and still more stood with only their feet drowned in the crimson flow. "Why are the dead put in the river in different places?" she asked.
Virgil turned his head to personally witness what so troubled his young ward. "It is the degree of guilt which decides how deep into the river each soul must wallow. Lords and tyrants are placed in the deepest points, for it was by their command that the greatest numbers of their fellowmen were slain. All of the others consist of murderers, plunderers, and war-makers," he lectured to his apprentice.
The centaur guiding them suddenly snapped its gaze toward the river, and in a quick series of motions almost too fast for mortal eyes to see she drew her bow, tore out and knocked an arrow, and fired upon one of the gray shades. The projectile sliced through the air with a high-pitch scream before ending its flight halfway through the target's lower abdomen. The dead man shrieked in pain as he retreated back into the boiling blood, and then fell upon one of his neighbors as if the ordeal had never happened. Her duty done, the centaur faced forward and continued the trek along the riverside.
"The horse-folk keep order in this district, and will swiftly punish any soul who rises above their place in the river," Virgil stated in advance of the question Sweetie Belle had been prepared to ask.
"Why do you keep saying that?" Sweetie Belle said.
Virgil imparted a curious look upon the young filly. "Saying what?"
"The word 'district'. You've said it twice now."
"Ah. It is because this Circle is divided into three separate parts," the poet replied. "Mankind has discovered three ways in which he can be violent: unto his neighbor, unto himself, and unto God. So too does Hell make this distinction when punishing violent souls."
Sweetie Belle looked up at her guide in mild surprise. "People can hurt God? Like they can hurt each other?"
"In a manner of speaking. I will teach you exactly how it is done, and you shall see how deeply the Lord reviles those guilty creatures when we come to that place," Virgil said.
Soon a great dead forest appeared on the horizon. At the sight of it Sweetie Belle immediately felt her anxiety fly to a discomforting height, and her heart began racing within her breast. After her last experience with decrepit forests, she was understandably reticent about entering one ever again. Unfortunately--and she knew this was true--Lucifer's lair and all the answers to the great riddle of Sweetie's predicament lay beyond the woods which grew larger with every advancing step. Eventually the river shrank to a shallow-enough depth that the party could safely cross. The centaur knelt so both poet and pony could climb upon her backside and be deposited at the yawning mouth of the woods ahead. As she and her kin had done at the cliffs of Heresy, the centaur turned her back on Virgil and Sweetie Belle, and departed without a word.
The poet started forward but stopped after only a few paces when he sensed the absence of his companion. He turned to face the anxious unicorn and offered his most comforting smile. He remembered what a terrifying experience the woods of Anger had been for Sweetie Belle, and he was not going to rush her into anything until she was ready. Sweetie Belle stared into the foreboding thicket before her as she tried to get her nerves under control. Though she knew it was highly unreasonable to think such a thing, she could not help feeling the animal Satan was in there, waiting for his chance to do to her all of the horrible things that he'd been denied previously. The Circle of Anger was where the beast lived. This was information she knew and accepted as concrete proof, yet it was like her close encounter with Satan had left a lasting mark on her psyche. Just as many children fear the presence of some shapeless, nameless terror that somehow lurks in every shadow, Sweetie Belle could feel herself painting a picture where every deep forest was a prison for the hulking red goat from the Circle of Anger.
Come on, Sweetie Belle. You've made it this far , she thought internally. Six Circles down already, meaning there's only three left counting this one. You can't stop now just because some big red sheep scared you a little. Come on; home's just around the corner now! As she built up her courage Sweetie imagined all her friends and family standing on either side of her, lending her their strength to push on. Her parents, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, Spike, Twilight and the girls, the Princesses Celestia and Luna, even her sister's cat Opalescence. Last to appear was Rarity, who coalesced directly in front of Sweetie Belle to flash her a reassuring smile and crouch down to nuzzle her sweetly. Sweetie Belle closed her eyes for a moment, took a steady breath, and when she opened her eyes again she strode forward to walk with Virgil into the woods.
The atmosphere in the dead jungle was very dim and noticeably cold. The farther in the pair traveled, the more apparent it became that there existed no source of heat in this area of Hell whatsoever. Not even the soil radiated any measure of warmth as it had in the previous Circles. It was a strange feeling, after having grown accustomed with the normally oppressive warmth which had been so prevalent in the previous Circles. Sweetie Belle was about to ask her guide to explain this phenomenon when her hair snagged itself on a branch growing from a nearby shrub. She attempted to untangle herself using magic, but her control was not focused enough for detailed work. Her only option was to pull herself free by force. It took more effort than expected but Sweetie managed to snap the branch from its parent shrub.
"Why do you hurt me?" Sweetie Belle gave a start upon hearing a disembodied voice wail pitifully at her. She looked all around the immediate area but could not find whomever had spoken. That is, until she got her first real look at the shrub that had ensnared her. Going up from the roots it looked nothing out of the ordinary, but near the top one could clearly see the grieving face of a young girl who looked no more than twelve-years-old. Her hands were permanently fixed to her cheeks, and her arms starting from the middle of the forearms blended with and eventually disappeared into the main trunk of the shrub. Reaching out from multiple points like hands grasping for salvation were a number of small branches, one of which was dripping fresh blood upon the ground.
Sweetie Belle eyes widened and her jaw fell slack as horrible understanding gripped her. "Galloping goddesses ..."
"Why do you hurt me?" sobbed the little girl again.
"I swear I didn't mean to!" Sweetie exclaimed frantically. "My hair got stuck and I couldn't get it out so I started pulling but I didn't know you were alive and I'm so sorry! " Her words fell from her lips in an almost incomprehensible rush while remorse pushed her voice to increasingly stressed tones.
"You do not sound like one of the bad things," the child said with a note of curiosity in her voice, "and I can feel the life in you as you speak."
"Yes, I am! I mean, I'm not a demon or anything. I'm a..." Sweetie Belle gave pause as she quickly considered whether or not to reveal her identity as a unicorn to this person. This hesitation did not come from a place of distrust, but rather the doubt that the girl could understand or believe the occurrence of a talking pony in Hell. "I'm a kid, too. I got stuck down here somehow and I'm trying to find my way home."
"I don't want to be here any longer," the shrub cried. "Help me, please! It hurts so much, and the bad things never stop coming! I want my mom and dad!"
Tears swelled in Sweetie Belle's eyes and fell down her cheeks. "D-don't worry. Everything's going to be okay, I promise."
"I'm so sorry! Momma save me, please!" The little girl's voice began to fade away into a whisper as the wound on her broken branch healed over.
Sweetie Belle rushed forward and pushed onto her rear hooves so she stood face-to-face with the child. "I don't know how! Just tell me what to do and I'll save you!" The shrub's only reply was silence. Sweetie's pupils shrank as it became clear that the little girl was gone. "No. No no no no, don't go! Please don't go! I want to help you, but you have to tell me how! What do I do?! " Regardless of how much she screamed and pleaded, or how hard she jostled it, the little shrub refused to answer. Tears flowed freely down Sweetie Belle face to wet the parched earth, and her breath hitched in her throat. Panic, sorrow, confusion, and hopelessness fell upon the young unicorn like a heavy cloak. She did not understand what had just happened, and in her ignorance she failed to help someone who had been begging for aid. Unable to do anything else, Sweetie collapsed against the shrub and wept, her tears staining the shrub's dehydrated flesh. She cried to see her parents again, to be back home in her safe and comfy house, to finally be rid of this horrible place. But worst of all, she cried out of fear that she would not get any of those things, and that she would be stuck in Hell forever.
Virgil stepped forward and sat down beside her, unable to do anything except comfort her with his presence. "I am sorry," he said in a solemn tone.
Sweetie Belle sniffed several times and wiped at her face. "I don't under-under-stand," she said between sobbing breaths. "If I j-just knew how, I could...I could..."
"There is nothing you can do, my child. For any of them."
The unicorn foal sat up and sniffed again. " What do you..." As she looked around, Sweetie Belle came to realize that all of the surrounding plant life had disturbingly human figures, all of them bent and twisted into various positions of despondency.
"This is the Wood of Suicides. When one willfully quits the life which merciful God has given them, He judges them to this garden of woe. Here the soul takes root, sprouts, and rises as a sapling," Virgil informed her. He raised a hoof to indicate the branch that had been broken in Sweetie Belle's struggle to free herself. "Because their final form of expression in life was the destruction of their own substance, it is only through destruction wrought by another that these souls may express themselves again."
"You mean all these people..." 'Suicide' was a word Sweetie Belle recognized and understood, but the defining action was so unheard of in Equestria that it was considered highly taboo specifically because of the sheer infrequency of reports. It was something that just wasn't done because almost no one ever considered it as a viable solution to or escape from whatever monumental problems plagued them. Ponies by their very nature are a contented race, and when they're not they work towards achieving that state of peaceful satisfaction once more. The fact that it was necessary to cordon off an entire section of Hell for suicides, and that it was so densely populated, was by all accounts incomprehensible to Sweetie Belle. She honestly could not fathom that humanity could be so troubled that this many of their species had truly believed death was more favorable than whatever obstacles they faced in life.
Sweetie Belle looked into the girl's eyes, which were frozen in a look of permanent remorse. She gently unwound her hair from the branch piece she'd broken off, laid it on the ground, and started to walk away. "Get me out of here, Virgil."
The poet stood and obliged without another word, and took point on the trek out of the woods. Along the way they saw ghastly hounds racing through the trees with maniacal laughter in their throats. The beasts all had dark gray flesh which was missing in numerous places to reveal scarlet bones underneath. They often paused to slash and rip at the petrified souls, cackling with glee once they heard the pathetic agonized cries of the dead. Whenever Sweetie Belle stood in the path of one of these hellhounds, they would bound over her with almost feline grace as if she were merely a stone. None of them so much as paid her a second look as they rushed about their sadistic business. Sweetie ignored them just them same, her mind still preoccupied by thoughts of how she pitied the souls of the Wood.
A figure stalked into view from a deeper part of the forest, forcing Virgil and Sweetie Belle to stop so all three parties could inspect one another. The creature's face was cut from stone and bore numerous cracks and chips in its surface. The eyes were missing entirely, but tears of blood flowed continuously from the empty sockets, and the membranous wings on its back were draped like a cloak which dragged listlessly through the dirt as the figure moved. The stranger was garbed in badly damaged silk robes which bore signs of once regal beginnings.
Sweetie Belle suddenly felt very cold, as if the warmth in her blood and her very soul had been blown out like a candle flame in the wind. A shadow of despair began to settle over the young unicorn to smother her in self-doubt, self-loathing, and an unbearable sadness from which there was no relief. Misery threatened to sink its icy claws into her heart like hooks and drag her down to the deepest depths of sorrow. Sweetie felt panic rising in her once again, a fanatical desperation where the only hope of escaping the suffocating void was to end her own life. Yet even then, her anguish was too great to even let her get on with such a grim task. She was doomed to die in a darkness that did not feed on the light, but smothered it in hysterical grief.
Then, as if one just flipped a switch, the choking depression was gone. The shroud was ripped away as the mysterious stranger turned its gaze to the other side of the thicket. Sweetie Belle gasped abruptly and fell on her backside as she felt the warmth of life in her again. Meanwhile the haunting figure slowly crept across the road to eventually disappear within the woods. The young filly could hear the mad laughter of the hellhounds again, and the despondent wailing of the trees as they were torn apart.
Virgil knelt beside his companion, and even he looked deeply disturbed by the passing of the wanderer. "Are you alright?" he asked in a shaky voice.
"What..." Sweetie Belle swallowed in a bid to bring some moisture back into her throat. "What was that?" she said finally.
"Samael," the poet stated with a fearful finality. Only once he and Sweetie both had fully recovered from the encounter did they continue the journey through Violence.
The young filly took a couple breaths to steady her still anxious nerves. "Okay. But what was that?" she repeated.
"Another fallen angel. The story of his exile from Heaven is one of tragedy quite unlike those of the rest of his kin," Virgil said in reply before regaling his ward with the tale of Samael's fall. "Before the war he had been the angel of death, a duty which would require him to deliver those ready to expire to everlasting peace. When the fighting began, Samael was horrified by the sight of his brothers and sisters butchering each other. His grief became so substantial that he took his own life rather than watch one more angel die. The unfortunate downside was that without a guide to see them through the end of life, every soldier stricken with a life-ending wound was forced to remain on the field and suffer the agony of a slow death which never came. Angels languished on the battlefield with slit throats, punctured hearts, crushed skulls and ruptured organs, lying in unimaginable pain and not knowing why."
"That's awful!" Sweetie Belle remarked in shock.
Virgil nodded his head. "Indeed, it was. Samael's suicide forced God to quickly appoint a new angel of death, named Azrael. When the war finally ended and the Lord had passed His judgment upon the renegades, Azrael brought Him to the site of Samael's demise. In direct violation of the natural order of Creation, God restored Samael to life only to banish him to the seventh Circle of Hell. Since then he has wandered the Circle of Violence alone even as the Wood of Suicides grew around him and eventually became his prison."
Sweetie Belle looked off into the tangled depths of the forest as if she could sense where the fallen angel was at this moment, and shuddered visibly. Her attention was ripped from the sorry creature when a hellhound sprinted by her cackling madly. "Where did they come from?" she inquired.
Virgil followed her gaze after the rabid dog as it set to slashing at one of the trees. "The hellhounds? They are born from Samael's tears as each drop falls from his cheek to stain the ground," he replied.
The young unicorn watched the beast do its despicable work with a mixed expression of confusion and disdain. "Is this all they do?"
Virgil nodded his head. "Just as the succubi are illustrations of man's basest desires, and the furies his burning rage, so too do the hellhounds represent man's innermost pains and turmoils. They inflict this agony upon the dead just as suicide rends the hearts of friend, family, and God."
The pair progressed further on until there was a break in the treeline, and at last they broke free of the Woods to enter upon a vast wasteland of sand and rock, and molten fire which fell from on high to scorch the earth. The sky overhead was a vibrant orange with gruesome bruises of violet and blackish blue like an infected sunset. What was curious about this place was that in spite of the desert scene and the rain of fire, the temperature here was quite cool bordering on cold. Sweetie Belle felt it even as bolts of flame raced by her, the passing heat lasting only a moment before the air returned to its natural chilled state.
"Behold the Abominable Sands," Virgil stated, the energy with which he normally spoke finally returning after the ordeal with Samael. "This is the third district of Violence, where be condemned those who harmed the Deity by denying Him in the heart." The road they walked bore them through a series of dunes, and then at last they saw the sinners condemned to this part of Hell. Across the fields of shifting sand they lay flat on their backs, their bodies from forehead to the tips of their toes exposed to the scorching rain above.
"Who are all these people?" Sweetie Belle asked as they passed through the field of dead folk.
Virgil swept his arm across the view as he introduced this sorry lot. "Turn your attention now to the blasphemers. In the world above they outright refused to accord God any measure of respect or praise He is rightfully owed by cursing His glorious name or knowingly equating themselves to the Lord. See how their hubris is rewarded here in the bowels of Hell." Virgil spoke of these sinners with unabashed loathing as if he were speaking to God's true feelings for the creatures.
Sweetie Belle did indeed look upon the blasphemers, but her ignorance to matters of religion prevented her from fully appreciating the sights she saw here. Ponies in Equestria sometimes spoke ill of Celestia and Luna for various reasons born from some manner of frustration, but such disrespect did not warrant severe penalties as it did here. Mostly these foul-mouthed ponies received reproachful glares or were verbally reprimanded by their peers when they spoke their minds.
"So does God punish everyone who says bad things about him?" Sweetie asked, her voice bearing a slight but noticeable note of incredulity.
"The Lord understands when humans become frustrated with events in their lives and take it out on Him to ease their stress. Though He does not exactly condone such behavior, God delivers mercy in these moments all the same," Virgil said to help put her mind at ease. "It is when people challenge God's supremacy with malicious intent that they are exhibiting violence, and are made to suffer the wrath of the Lord."
Sweetie Belle felt she could understand this sentiment, even relate to it to an extent. She and her friends often had to put up with certain bullies in school who regularly said very insulting things to and about either them or their families, and it was always exceedingly difficult to not punish the bullies with physical violence. Sweetie arguably had more restraint than her friends, who had each either threatened to get physical or had gotten physical with the antagonists. She also understood hearing negative things said to or about her which had come purely from a place of frustration, namely from her sister, but also from many of the townsfolk who found themselves the unwitting collateral victims of some childish escapade. Though she never liked hearing such things, Sweetie Belle knew the difference between frustrated negative language and malicious language, and as such was more ready to forgive the former than the latter. If she thought it was aggravating to hear a handful to at least half of an entire town of ponies speak ill of her, then it must be well-beyond irritating to hear close to an entire planet say hurtful things about you on a near-constant basis.
The pair moved onward beyond the field of blasphemers into a vast and empty stretch of wasteland where their only company was each other. Bolts of fire continued to fall from the sky despite there being no sinners about to burn. Here now the abnormally cool air was much more apparent, spurring Sweetie Belle to question her guide about the odd phenomenon. "Though Hell be the domain of Lucifer, it is not wholly beyond the reach of God. When we began this quest in Limbo we were nearest to the radiance of Heaven, and thus the temperature was at its highest. As we have descended the air has grown colder with the increasing distance we placed between ourselves and God. Soon we shall cross the threshold where frigid darkness reigns supreme."
The poet's words sparked a thought in Sweetie Belle's mind which compelled her to put it to voice. "I remember you telling me back in Limbo that it's impossible for souls to escape from Hell, but have any ever been taken from Hell to somewhere else?"
Virgil nodded his head. "Shortly after my own death, I watched an angel descend into the deeper Circles and liberate a number of shades. Adam, the first man, and his son Abel; Noah, Abraham, and many others. Lucifer did not appreciate this theft of his property, and the walls of all Hell shook with his fury."
"What about since then?" the unicorn filly pressed.
"Never again has any soul been freed from the woeful realm by God's will," Virgil answered.
Still forward the party advanced until at last they could hear the thunder of water pitching itself over a cliff. Upon cresting a small hill they came upon an enormous yawning pit into which the red river Phlegethon plunged. Standing guard at the edge of the pit was a lone soldier garbed in a tarnished metal scale chest cover and a red leather kilt, a cord of gold twine wrapped around his waist, and in his left hand he held a wooden pole measuring about five feet. The pole's top was broken, indicating that some sort of integral adornment was missing. He had short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a hardened face that currently wore a somber look, like he was living in perpetual regret for something he did long ago.
Virgil approached the soldier first while Sweetie Belle stayed a few safe feet away. The spirit shifted form into his true human identity and raised his right hand in salute. "Hail, brother Longinus."
The soldier said nothing in reply, but he did dip his head in greeting.
Virgil let his hand drop once the introduction was completed. "My companion and I require passage to the next Circle. Summon the giant for us, brother."
Longinus stripped the golden cord from his waist in one motion and dropped it into the great black chasm. For nearly a minute nothing happened, but then a great and terrible beast rose out of the darkness on massive membranous wings. It had a scaled reptilian body thick with muscle, powerful leonine legs, a segmented tail armed with a poisonous stinger, and a very unexpectedly human face with long crimson hair on his head and face. It offered a genteel smile to the much smaller beings arranged before it, which greatly disturbed the comparatively minuscule Sweetie Belle. The giant animal drifted forward until it clutched the cliff edge with its fore paws and planted its rear feet against the wall below, lowered its head, and waited patiently with that endearing yet off-putting smile.
Virgil thanked the soldier and then turned to face his ward. "Geryon is the only way into Fraud," he said, and Sweetie Belle knew that he was right. Somehow she could sense that riding this horrendous creature was her only ticket back home. With a resigned sigh she approached the grinning beast's left paw, and after a moment of hesitation she climbed up, traced Geryon's arm up to his back, and took her seat. Virgil followed her, and once both parties were aboard and secure the beast flapped its wings, pushed off from the cliff, and dove down into the cold dark of the next Circle of Hell.
The descent seemed without end, the only sense of movement in the unyielding dark being the air which rushed through Sweetie Belle's hair. She had attempted a light spell at some point, but the darkness jealously guarded its secrets and mocked the young filly's efforts to illuminate their surroundings. This was a place where light was not welcome, and Sweetie could sense that neither was she. More and more she felt as if she were trespassing, like she was violating some sacred law just by being here, and her growing anxiety was causing her to imagine that something was lurking in the darkness, watching her and waiting for the opportune moment to pounce. Sweetie tilted her head up towards the cliffs of Violence, and was taken aback when she saw a small speck of light no bigger than a star in the middle of a vast and empty sky looking back down at her. The Circle of Violence was so far away now, and yet somehow they still had not reached the bottom of this chasm. It seemed impossible that the final two Circles could be buried so deep, but, then again, Hell gloried in the absence of such mortal contrivances as logic and sanity.
Eventually the wind began to slow, and there was a sensation of momentum being reigned back as they had at last reached their stop. Geryon shifted beneath his cargo as he attempted to provide them with a safe and stable dismount from his back. Once poet and pony were on the ground, he flapped his wings and flew off to his original roosting place before he had been summoned. After a few seconds passed the darkness seemed to recede, not from the presence of a light source or because Sweetie Belle's eyes finally adjusted, but as if it was now ready to unveil what sights it had been keeping hidden away until this moment. Unfortunately there was not much to really see in this area. Geryon had left the two travelers on a large flat disc of stone, and ahead was a lone path which fed into a tunnel roughly four meters away. The air was bitterly cold and still, as if it had lain undisturbed in this place since the creation of the earth.
Positioned by the mouth of the tunnel was a gruesome beast that simultaneously disturbed and terrified Sweetie Belle when she laid eyes upon its awful visage. The creature was perhaps twenty feet long with flesh so pale it bore a bluish hue to it, and a total of ten extremities long arms equipped with claw-fingered hands. Two of the arms were held close to the chest similar to a praying mantis; spring-loaded to dart forward and snatch unwary prey in the blink of an eye, and another two were grown straight from the buttocks, presumably to push the abominable beast into forward motion. The most alarming feature about this fiend was its two heads, which had all the features of a human guise. The eyes were large, vacant, unblinking grey orbs, and the lip-less mouths were in constant motion as the creature whispered and muttered to itself in a low droning voice. The two heads bobbed whimsically on its elongated necks which, in conjunction with its inane babbling, had a mesmerizing effect on Sweetie Belle. As she slowly drifted towards the queer animal, Sweetie was certain she could almost make out what it was saying. She just needed to get a little closer, and then all secrets would be revealed.
Without warning her vision was completely filled by a semitransparent glowing body. "Stay your forked tongue, fell beast!"
Startled by Virgil's abrupt appearance and exclamation, Sweetie Belle jumped back in reflex and felt the wind on her face as a pair of spindly hands just missed clasping her head by mere inches. The owner of the hands uttered a mewling howl of outrage that split the young unicorn's ears, and then it reared back to reveal a nightmarish feature which had been hidden until now. The monster's entire underside--from throat to pelvis--was a glistening red maw filled with sharp interlocking teeth that were stained from years of devouring fresh meat. Sweetie Belle gaped in horror and desperately withdrew from the beast's range. The assailant vocalized again with a chilling moan like the combined cries of multiple dying animals, and then it skittered forward with terrifying speed, passing through Virgil without a moment's pause.
Sweetie Belle's eyes widened and her heart slammed against the inner walls of her breast. Though she could not take her eyes off the quickly advancing horror, Sweetie could sense that she was rapidly running out of room to escape. The beast gave a warbling squeal of delight as it reached out to seize its prey in its claws.
"Sweetie Belle!" Virgil cried out, his voice and expression conveying all of the pain he felt at having failed to protect the young filly, and failing to return her home. Thanks to his damnable status as a phantasm, the old poet could do nothing except watch Sweetie die.
Suddenly, whether by the grace of God or mere happenstance, a triad of projectiles fell from the sky and crashed directly upon the pale beast's back, causing it to scream in as much surprise as pain. Neither Sweetie Belle nor Virgil reacted to the miraculous shift of fortune's hand. They could only stare at the group of sinners that had fallen all the way from Minos's dread court in Limbo to begin their sentence here in the Circle of Fraud. The ashen figures moaned sadly as they struggled to stand, only to fall again as the monster beneath them rose to its feet. Its twin heads whirled this way and that before fixating on the sinners, and quick as lightning fell upon them. The first soul disappeared immediately inside the monster's massive jaws, a muffled scream being heard as his body was perforated by the gnashing teeth. The second soul was pierced through the abdomen by the beast's sharp claws, and the third had her throat and collar crushed within the monster's powerful grasp. The animal made a series of satisfied clicks and whines as it turned its back on Sweetie Belle and scuttled into the tunnel.
Once it was clear that the danger was over, Sweetie Belle fell back onto her seat and took many deep breaths to settle her frayed nerves. Virgil rushed forward to kneel at her side, his gaze fixed on the tunnel mouth to keep watch for the beast's return.
"What..." Sweetie gulped lung-fulls of air while she spoke. "What the fuck just happened?" Her sister would have punished her harshly for such vulgar language, but Sweetie could find no better word to articulate her current mood.
"Whether he knows it or not, Lord Minos just saved your life," Virgil said with a note of amused relief in his tone. He watched the tunnel a moment longer, and then turned to examine his companion. "How are feeling?"
"Like I just got the life scared out of me," Sweetie Belle replied. She looked in the direction the beast had fled and shivered involuntarily. "What was that thing?"
"That...is Orthrus. Brother of Cerberus. As the great worm of Gluttony guards the fetid swamp against all intrusion and escape, so does Orthrus perform similarly for the Circle of Fraud," Virgil said.
Sweetie Belle felt her composure return slowly, though she kept a wide-eyed vigil on the tunnel. "When...When will he come back?"
"Hard to say, but it would behoove us to not be here when Orthrus does return."
There was no hesitation as the young filly jumped to her hooves and hurried forward, leaving Virgil behind only briefly before he darted ahead. The trek through the tunnel was long and quiet save for the echoes of Sweetie's hooves against the stone ground and her rushed breathing, but they were also alone, a fact which Sweetie Belle was immensely grateful for. She was in no mood for surprises after what nearly happened on the landing platform. Every few seconds, her mind, in spite of her most ardent wishes to think of anything else, would stamp brief images of dreaded Orthrus hanging from the walls or waiting just around the bend with fresh blood dripping from his claws...and from the horrifying maw which split his thorax in twain.
Thankfully the horrid beast never reared its ugly heads as the tunnel opened out to an immense field pockmarked by a series of wide ditches that had been dug out and reinforced with smooth stone walls. Demons stood over or moved about within the pits and dispensed savage torture upon the imprisoned dead with baneful smiles on their faces and throaty laughter in their hearts. Across the entire breadth of the Circle, the screams of the miserable damned resounded like one great malignant song.
"Damnation to the Circle of Fraud awaits all who sever the sacred ties of love and trust for personal gain," Virgil remarked once he and his ward slowed to a halt. "As we advance, let your sights and heart linger on the fraudulent dead and see how they suffer for their transgressions against man and God," he added before striding forward.
"There are so many," Sweetie Belle could not help commenting in mixed dismay and horror as she followed.
"Ten torments for the ten variances of deceit which humankind has crafted," said Virgil. While the pair advanced, any demons in their path relocated to elsewhere without protest, their joy at bringing pain upon the heads of the condemned so great that they eagerly moved to other locations to do their dastardly business. None of them cared at all that there was a living unicorn in their midst. Thanks to this complete apathy for her presence, Sweetie was able to really observe the beasts at their craft. All of them were tall muscular creatures with varying shades of black, brown, or red skin and flew on membranous wings, had cloven or single-toed hooves, and horns which came in a variety of shapes and designs. Many carried whips that were decorated with either spikes or metal blades which were often put to deadly use, while others assaulted sinners with either hellfire or their bare hands. Their collective laughter and cheers made the lot of them sound as one massive pride of lions gorging themselves on a fresh kill.
The first of the ditches Virgil and Sweetie Belle would cross was more of a massive yawning hole in the ground than a proper ditch, with a large circular track spanning the entire length of the pit. Crowds of sinners were stuck below and forced to run endless laps around the track. In the center of the ring was a host of demons which brutally whipped the runners to keep them moving.
"We come first to meet the panderers and seducers." Virgil halted forward progress so his companion could have a moment to witness the dead at their lowest.
Sweetie observed the torment for a time, and though she could plainly see the sinners were in terrible pain, her ignorance of the actual crimes being punished prevented her from fully appreciating what exactly was happening. "So what exactly did they do to get sent down here?" she asked of her guide.
"They manipulated others into acting out their whims by promising gifts of material, financial, or otherwise illicit substance in return for their deeds, often with no intention of actually paying," Virgil replied. He swept his arm over the display below as he continued to explain the purpose behind the victims' torment. "As they spurred their neighbors into action for personal gain, so does Hell keep these sinners moving without a moment's pause for the rest of eternity."
The party came to the next pit of woe, and immediately Sweetie Belle's olfactory senses came under assault from a stench so foul it compelled her eyes to water and her stomach to heave. Here the dead were planted like foliage within a great steaming lake of excrement. They moaned and fidgeted like cattle stuck in the putrid muck while devils flying overhead shamelessly bombarded them with shit. The devils howled with laughter, and cheered when their droppings fell squarely upon the heads of the damned.
"Behold the flatterers, and the true value of the sweet, hollow words they fed to their neighbors," Virgil declared, appearing entirely unbothered by the rank odor rising from the hole.
"I'm gonna be sick," Sweetie said in a pained voice.
"Make sure to hit one of the bastards when you do!" hollered a passing demon as it unleashed its disgusting payload across the backside of an unfortunate soul. Something rose dangerously high in Sweetie Belle's throat before she swallowed it back down with considerable effort, her face a mask of abject illness which warned against staying in this place any longer. Virgil noticed his small companion begin to sway in her hooves and wisely chose to keep her moving forward. Once she was far enough down the road and the air had cleared, Sweetie Belle felt her gut and her senses return to normal, and she gave a small nod to indicate she was ready to proceed.
Soon the company came upon the third ditch in the Circle of Fraud, where they were treated to a most unique display of torment. A great many demonic figures stood in a large pit of oil and were garbed in mangled robes of red and black with long serpent-skin cloths draped across their shoulders which were decorated by symbols of an unknown, unholy language. Arranged around them like weeds were the legs of sinners submerged within the oil, the soles of their feet burning like torches. Every so often a set of flames would die out, at which point the victim would sink entirely beneath the black lagoon to never return, and then the demons would plant fresh souls in their place and set the newcomers' feet ablaze.
Sweetie Belle observed the bizarre ritual with rapt interest. "What is going on here?" she inquired.
"Here we find the simoniacs enjoying the ultimate reward for their sins," Virgil announced in answer. When he noticed the blank expression on his ward's face, the poet endeavored to elucidate her on the precise meaning of the sinners' title. "That is, they sold sacred objects or important church offices for personal gain."
Sweetie Belle's expression changed as if she understood, though in truth she still did not fully comprehend why this was such a serious offense. Churches and associated offices simply did not exist in Equestria, and sacred objects were typically any tool or trinket which bore considerable and very real power. Thus, once again, the cultural differences between humans and ponies prevented Sweetie Belle from appreciating the true severity of the sin being punished here. However she was continually blown away by the sheer volume of deceit the human race had invented. She was not so naive as to think that her own people were beyond lies and trickery (Sweetie Belle herself has told many a falsehood in the years she has been alive), but this was a whole other level. From her perspective, it was like fraud was a part of the humans' very culture as a species.
Virgil watched the little filly for several seconds trying to gauge her thoughts by the changes in her face. He would have liked to ask her about it, but unfortunately he could sense that time was short. Lucifer may be trapped at the bottom of Hell, but his patience was not infinite. The Morning Star would eventually tire of waiting for the meet with Sweetie Belle, and would send more deliberate agents to fetch her...or worse, to do away with her entirely. Lucifer was not afraid of solving problems by murdering the source, as many demons, fallen angels, and even former lords had learned across the millennia. Fearing what might happen should Lucifer grow bored, Virgil gently coaxed Sweetie Belle forward.
He brought her to the fourth of Fraud's yawning pits, wherein was another running track similar to what had been seen in the first bolgia. The difference here was that instead of being goaded into a perpetual sprint, the dead ambled along at a constant yet leisurely pace. Whips and bolts of fire periodically assaulted them from the demonic overseers above to keep them moving. Through the crack of the whip and the derisive laughter of the devils atop the pit, the sounds of heavy weeping could be heard from the damned as they walked.
"Who are these people?" Sweetie Belle asked.
To which, Virgil replied, "They are the diviners and fortune tellers, who deceived their neighbors by falsely claiming to possess knowledge of the future. So busy were they with lying about the future that they failed to see what their misdeeds were doing to their souls. But now, Hell makes them see what they bought with their deception."
At first glance these shades appeared to be experiencing the least of Fraud's punishments. As Sweetie Belle watched them, she noticed that the crowd was walking in reverse rather than forward. Then she noticed with a shock that the head of every sinner in that pit was twisted in the complete opposite direction that they should have been facing, with endless tears running from their eyes to obfuscate their sight. It baffled Sweetie as much as disturbed her to witness such a thing, and it compelled her to question her guide about it. "Why are their heads on backwards, and why are they walking the wrong way?"
"The crafts which they practiced in life are an egregious distortion of God's law which states that only He may know the future, and so are their bodies similarly deformed as punishment. For attempting to pry into events yet to happen, their heads are spun round so that they may never again see what is just in front of them. As they sought to move themselves forward in time, these sinners are forever compelled to walk backwards until the end of time," Virgil responded. He gazed down at the despondent souls with a look of remorse on his timeworn face, an expression which made him look even older and seemed to imply a certain pain he felt for them. Sweetie Belle was prepared to ask about it, but the poet was quick to move deeper into the Circle, almost as if he could sense that very discussion hanging in the air and was attempting to avoid it entirely. For the moment Sweetie held her tongue, but she logged her questions for later inquiry if and when an opportunity to ask them presented itself.
At the midpoint of Fraud's collection of guilty souls, the party found themselves overlooking an immense pit of boiling tar where yet more guards were positioned around the lip of the hole, all of them armed not with whips, but vicious hooks and claws linked to the end of metal chains. Every few seconds the demons would draw their sadistic weapons and swing them down into the pit to lacerate the flesh of lowly sinners who were submerged within the steaming pitch. It seemed the prisoners received a serious lashing any time they rose from the tar, which was often because they desperately sought relief from the sludge that adhered to and scalded their bodies. Immediately following every fresh scream of pain was an uproar of blood-crazed cheers and laughter from the devils on the pit's edge. Each time the sinners came under attack they would quickly dive beneath the tar's surface, but seconds later they resurfaced to escape the horrible burning, and so the cycle of torment endlessly revolved in this fashion.
"These are the grafters," Virgil said when he and Sweetie Belle paused to observe them.
"What did they do?" Sweetie desired to know.
"They robbed others of money and substance by abusing the powers associated with their positions in business or politics," the poet said in answer. As he went on to describe the spectacle's meaning, Virgil pointed to each of the things which made this ditch unique from the others. "The tar which sticks to the damned is an analogy for the thieves' sticky fingers and for their efforts to hide their sins from notice, just as the tar hides them from sight. Do you see how the guards assault these poor creatures? As the grafters tore at everything in their grasp with a feral zealotry, so too do the demons rip their bodies with hook and claw with similar fervor."
Sweetie Belle observed the graphic scene for a few moments, involuntarily flinching at every eviscerating bite of the overseer's weapons against the flesh of the dead, and then she let her gaze drift away to the remaining road which they had yet to traverse. So many miles lay between her and salvation. As her heart started to swell with the hope of returning home, her mind was wracked by doubts and imagined fears of all the things that might happen to prevent her from leaving Hell. For a considerable time Sweetie Belle stood silent and stared off into the distance while she fought internally to establish some sort of truce between the warring factions of heart and mind. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she did not notice Virgil trying to get her attention until he stood directly in front of her, and even still it was several seconds before she actually registered his presence.
"Is something the matter?" Virgil asked.
Sweetie blinked, and then shook her head lightly. "No, everything's fine. I'm just...thinking," she said slowly.
Now Virgil was looking down the road as if he were able to divine the truth of where his companion's thoughts had been. "The end of our journey, and our time together, draws near."
"It feels like forever since I woke up in Limbo. Now that I'm so close to the end...I'm more nervous than I've ever been."
The old poet moved to kneel beside his young ward and gifted her his best reassuring smile. "You will see your home again, my child."
Sweetie Belle looked into her guide's eyes and saw all of the hope and truth reflected in them that his words strove to convey, and it made her smile in turn. All of her worries and fears seemed to fall away in that moment as if a burdensome cloak had been pulled from her shoulders, allowing the young unicorn to breathe the free air again. She nodded her head in silent thanks for so much more than the uplift in her spirits just now. Virgil resumed standing, and together they made way deeper into the Circle of Fraud, and ever closer to their final destination.
As Virgil and Sweetie Belle pursued the finale of their laborious mission, they came upon a break in the road where it had completely collapsed into a slope of rubble, thus making it impassible from a direct route. The pair was forced to climb down into the sixth of Fraud's bolgias and navigate the pit until they could find somewhere to climb back out and resume their journey. In this hole could be found a crowd of sinners slowly ambling along yet another jogging track, only this one was much narrower than those which came before. Here the souls of the dead wore visually stunning gilded robes with white filigree along the seams, but rather than walk proudly as their flashy finery would suggest, they were bent at the waist and their footfalls were heavy like the stamping of horses struggling to haul a burdensome load through the mud. They moaned and sighed with the effort just to remain standing, the act of lifting their feet to take each step seeming to be a task better suited to one with herculean fortitude.
"These here are the hypocrites," Virgil stated without needing to be asked. "They wore cloaks of moral and spiritual virtue which belied their truer, shabby selves. Here in the depths of Hell they are made to wear golden robes of lead as an analogy to their two-faced careers in the waking world."
This was a sin which Sweetie Belle could understand, as hypocrisy was a common affliction of character in her native Equestria. Ponies young and old often said and did things which directly contradicts their honest feelings on a particular matter, sometimes out of ignorance, other times out of fear, and occasionally for the sheer fun of it (Discord namely, as the living embodiment of hypocrisy). She observed the guilty dead for a time, and could not find it in her to pity them as she had with most of Hell's prisoners. Despite knowing--or, at least believing--that not one condemned soul was here without good reason, Sweetie had at numerous times felt sorry for the poor creatures, but mostly because they were being tortured or humiliated in ways that she felt were rather harsh given the nature of their sins. The hypocrites, on the other hand, were not in pain, nor were they being publicly embarrassed in any way. To literally bear the weight of their sin on their backs for the rest of eternity seemed an apt punishment, in her mind.
Then she noticed a disturbance in the crowd's progress. At one singular point the dead rose into the air briefly before settling back down, giving the impression of some small hurdle in their path. After working her way around to this awkward point in the track, Sweetie Belle spied a man lying in the middle of the road with iron nails driven through his palms and feet to prevent escape. In this way he was forced to endure being trampled by every passing sinner and crushed beneath their substantial weight.
"Who are you?" Sweetie had to raise her voice so she could be heard over the lowing of the mobile dead.
The man inclined his head towards her, and despite being tread upon by his peers he responded in a most clear and concise manner. "I am Caiaphas, and I was once High Priest of the Jews of Roma."
"How come you're not walking with the others?"
"Because his blasphemy against God is far worse than theirs," Virgil remarked as he approached. There was no hiding the abject scorn with which the poet spoke, bordering on outright hostility.
Caiaphas glared at the poet for a brief moment, and then returned his attention to Sweetie Belle. "I was High Priest of the Jews, as I said before, at the time of Rome's visitation by the one called Christ. When he was arrested, I and the other leaders of my faith arranged and held his trial. We condemned him for asserting his relationship to God and for claiming to be King of the Jews. We requested that Pontius Pilate judge Christ and have him executed."
"To omit points of truth is still to tell a lie," Virgil said angrily. "You left out the multiple beatings which your court administered to Jesus, and the numerous insults you lot slung like scat at the Lord's only begotten son. You say Jesus made assertions and claims, but in truth the Nazarene spoke very little. When he did speak, he simply confirmed that which you were already questioning. And when you could find no witness who could justify putting Jesus to death, you invented them."
"It was done in the service of the public good!" Caiaphas shouted in defense.
"Many unholy atrocities have been committed in service of the public good. Your crime is no exception." Virgil countered, causing the former High Priest to gape and sputter wordlessly. He turned his back on Caiaphas and said to his companion, "Come; we can exit this hole by the collective of rocks over here."
Sweetie Belle followed her guide to the base of the makeshift stairway that would bear them out of the ditch. She paused momentarily to spare one final glance back at Caiaphas, who still appeared stunned and conflicted by Virgil's last words to him, and then she made the climb to join Virgil on the road once again. Though he was only a spirit, Sweetie could sense he was still agitated just by being in close proximity to him, and his expression confirmed her thoughts when she looked up at his face. "That man really upset you," she observed cautiously.
Virgil breathed a heavy sigh as if that lone exhalation bore the weight of all his personal turmoil. "I dislike with great intensity any man who justifies his damnable behaviors as a moral good. Caiaphas was a man of faith who was supposed to look beyond his own prejudices to objectively and fairly judge an innocent man, but he failed in his obligations as a spiritual leader and as a man of God's precious children. He allowed his office and the powers it bought him to poison his soul and those of his subordinates. Caiaphas lobbied for Christ's execution simply because the truth contradicted his faith." Virgil's hands curled into fists and shook with the effort to contain his anger. "What hurts most is that he is completely unrepentant. The man truly believes his actions were just. Even Longinus--who pierced Christ with a spear while he hung from the cross --stands at his post in the Circle of Violence forever contemplating how he will greet his Maker at the End of Days. Caiaphas only laments his predicament and calls it unfair. He..." The poet stopped himself with a slow calming breath before he focused his attention on the road ahead, his face entirely devoid of expression. "We have much ground to cover yet. Let us tarry here no longer."
The conversation was closed and discarded with the poet's first step forward, and Sweetie Belle followed quietly beside him. He was still tense with anger, but both parties hoped that their advance towards the remaining bolgias would provide enough of a distraction to eventually relax. As they crossed a bridge which spanned the breadth of the seventh ditch, the two companions halted so that they could study the latest of Fraud's prisons. The pit is filled with such a volume of writhing serpents that the very ground is composed of the hissing creatures. They coil themselves around the hands and through the loins of every sinner imprisoned here, holding them immobile until another serpent comes by to savagely attack the victim's throat with fangs like daggers. The condemned then shriek as their entire body erupts with scorching flames that quickly reduce the body to ashes, and then seconds later they are completely restored in a slow and agonizing process. Once the sinner is back to full form he is immediately ensnared by serpents, and the cycle repeats itself without pause or problems.
"What is all this?" Sweetie Belle asked in utter astonishment.
"It is the torment of the thieves," Virgil said in answer.
The young filly watched the abuse for a short time longer before pressing her guide for further information. "Why all the snakes?"
"The crime of thievery is, by its nature, a secretive assault on one's property. Snakes and the great majority of other carnivorous reptiles tend towards stealth when hunting. Thus, the sin of thievery is punished not by demons, but by reptiles," the poet explained.
"Alright," Sweetie said slowly, not fully understanding this concept but willing to accept it and move on. "What about the other stuff? How come their hands are tied, and what is going on with the explodey...fire...thing?"
Virgil chuckled at his companion's unique phrasing of her query. "The most important tools of a thief's trade are his hands, and so Hell binds them in perpetuity. In regards to the prisoner's repeated bouts of forced combustion, the practice of thievery is to destroy the victim by making their possessions, their substance , disappear. Hell turns this into a punishment by literally destroying the sinners and making them disappear, then reappear in an endlessly repeating cycle of horrible agony."
"That's gruesome."
"It is also not their only torment." Virgil guided his young pupil to another section of the excavated prison. From above it could be observed that the writhing mass of snakes were functioning not just as objects of torture, but as a conveyor which slowly ferried the dead to the next chapter of their misery. Once they were free of the snakes and the fire, the thieves were subjected to another form of transformation. Monstrous reptilian beasts would leap upon the new arrivals and sink their teeth into the sinners' flesh, but it was not an act of malice or wild animal impulse. Sweetie Belle was stunned beyond words as she watched the beasts slowly become human through a series of painful physical changes, while at the same time their victim had the forms of monsters thrust upon them. The humans would flee in terror as the giant reptiles pursued them with manic desperation, looking for the first opportunity to take back their old identities again. Sometimes the humans, in their panic, would run into the pool of snakes from earlier, become ensnared, and were forced to undergo the first of the thieves' hardships all over again.
Sweetie Belle forced herself to look away from the spectacle to address her guardian. "What in the name of Equestria is going on here?"
"A thief's ultimate goal is to take the substance of his prey and make it his own. In Hell the sinners steal the essence of humanity from one another so they may become human, even if only for a short while and regardless of what persona they assume," Virgil said in answer. He gestured to the monsters, who never held the same shape twice between changes. "In the meantime, the thief who has had his essence stolen takes on the true face of his trade until he can steal a disguise from one of his neighbors."
It was certainly a strange punishment, Sweetie thought, but she could not deny that it did make sense in a bizarre way of thinking. Upon reflection she was forced to admit that all the horrors of Hell, though often terrifyingly cruel, did have an underlying structure of purpose beyond simply causing pain and misery. Analogies and metaphors were in rich abundance here in the Houses of Pain, usually going so far as to dictate the entire design of a sinner's environment and punishment so that they could understand in death the dreadful truth of their actions which they were blind to while living. Hell was a prison, but if one could look beyond the monsters and the torture they would see that Hell is also a place of spiritual and moral learning.
The pair moved onward to the eighth of Fraud's bolgias. The great pit here was illuminated like a star from the light of countless roving fires which roamed about a walking track. It was almost impossible to see for the light and the intolerable heat radiating from the hole, but hidden within each raging inferno was a lost and lonely sinner. Their screams of pain were lost amid the furious roar of the flames that consumed their bodies from head to toe.
"These people are the evil counselors; men and women who used their positions of influence--political or otherwise--to trick their neighbors into committing acts of fraud," Virgil said introducing the sorry lot below.
"Why are they all on fire?" Sweetie Belle inquired as she shielded her eyes against the blazing light.
"God granted them powers which were meant to be used to advise their peers and guide them along the righteous path to salvation, but they instead used His gifts to corrupt their fellowmen from a position of secrecy. Hell makes them suffer by stealing these loathsome souls from sight and concealing them in flames born from their own guilty consciences," the poet replied.
"If they're here, then what happens to the other people? The ones who listened to the counselors?"
Virgil quietly pondered this for a moment. "The Lord considers each soul individually and weighs their misguided actions against their intent. If they truly did not know they were being misled, and they are repentant of their sins, then God shows them mercy. Those who took some measure of pride or pleasure out of their being counseled towards fraud are condemned to Hell."
Sweetie Belle exhaled a small sigh of relief. "That's good. I was worried that everyone who took the counselors' advice got thrown down here, even if they don't actually deserve it." Her concern for these unwitting souls caused Virgil to smile fondly at her. Time and again she had surprised him with her perceptive and caring nature, traits which he observed were missing more and more in humans through the years.
The two companions progressed, eventually coming to pause at the edge of the ninth bolgia. A mad cacophony of terrified, agonized screaming erupted from this hole like fire from a volcano as the souls of the condemned were ruthlessly butchered by a massive demon wielding an enormous black-steel cleaver. He was a formidable beast with mottled brown flesh, a long spear-tipped tail, large wings with too many holes in the skin to be used for flight, and two thick horns grown out from the temples. The dead ran every way they could in a mad dash for escape, but were somehow always just within their tormentor's reach. Whether by his tail, his hands, or the sharp fingers of his wings, the great devil would snatch up his prey and hack them to pieces with his cleaver. The corpses were then left to drag their separate pieces back together to reform the body anew, at which point the demon would round on them once again to repeat the brutal cycle.
"Here we see the retribution of the sowers discord," Virgil said through the screaming of the dead, and the occasional blood-crazed roar of the demon.
"What did they do to deserve this ?" Sweetie Belle was aghast at such horrid mistreatment. She almost couldn't believe this was even a real punishment. To her, this was just unfettered abuse.
"Their sin was to tear asunder the things which God desires to stay whole, from religion and politics to familial bonds, for the sole purpose of satisfying some selfish desire," Virgil answered. "For the crime of ripping apart the fabric of society to gratify the ego, Hell repays these degenerates by tearing their bodies limb from limb, and then repairing them to undergo the slaughter again."
Again, Sweetie Belle was forced to look beyond the parade itself to see the deeper meaning underneath, and she found herself conceding that this horror show did indeed make sense. However she could not bring herself to look upon it any longer, and so turned her gaze from the hole and implored her guide to continue down the road. At last, they reached the tenth and final ditch in the Circle of Fraud. The great pit was home to innumerable sinners who were all afflicted with some form of ailment that sent some sprinting around the pit and attack each other, and made others to either sit or lie prostrate for eternity. Some had their bodies mutated or deformed by terrible diseases; some exuded an aura of wretched stench too foul for words alone to describe; some run or lie screaming until their lungs bleed, and others are stricken by such thirst that dust flies from their mouths with every breath.
"What is happening here?" Sweetie Belle asks breathlessly, almost too shocked by the scene to even speak of it.
"These are the falsifiers; counterfeiters, impersonators, perjurers, and alchemists. By any name they are all of them liars. A virulent and despicable disease corrupting all of society, Hell demeans them by striking them with all manner of debilitating afflictions." Virgil's words were quiet, but no less harsh in his judgment of this lot. "Here in this pit, they are treated to a true vision of a world ruled by their kind. A world of madness and chaos, where even one's own senses are not to be trusted."
The young filly looked away from the awful scene below to level her gaze upon her guide. "Why is fraud so terrible? Why are the punishments here so much worse than in Violence or any of the other Circles?"
Virgil's first response was to let out a slow breath through the nose. Then, after collecting himself and his thoughts, Virgil spoke. "Because fraud is a willful act of political, social, and familial discord. It is the conscious choice to not just spit in the face of harmony, but to destroy it. Frauds live to tear down the fabric of society and burn it to ash. They profit from the misfortune of others, and they do it with a smile. Their species is entirely unrepentant of their actions; they know what sort of monsters they are, and they glory in it." The poet looked down at his small companion. "You ask what makes fraud a more despicable sin than violence? It sows the seeds of mistrust, breeds doubt, causes society to rot and fall to madness. Fraud can set friends, neighbors, families, whole nations at each other's throats. It is perhaps the single most destructive force to have been inflicted upon mankind."
Sweetie Belle started to reflect on Virgil's words, but her thoughts--as well as every other bodily process--was brought to an immediate halt when the shallow breath of a frigid wind passed through her. The gust's chill cut straight through flesh and bone and gripped the filly's very soul in a vice-like grip. The sensation compelled Sweetie Belle to gasp, but her breath hitched painfully in her chest when the very air seemed to freeze as it entered her lungs. She felt--and would have sworn by Celestia and Luna that it was real--as though icicles had formed within every vein and artery she possessed. It was a cold unlike anything she had ever felt before, or would feel ever again. This was the icy chill which dominated the space between stars, that exists at the bottom of every grave. It was the Reaper's breath gliding over one's shoulder as he snuffs their life out like a candle flame under a douter. The wind only lasted a second, but it was enough to draw Sweetie's gaze to the path which yet lay beyond the prison of the falsifiers. The young filly started forward in pursuit of the source, the road gradually turning from paved earth to ice that cracked beneath her weight. The path then leaned into a slight downward slope that grew steeper as Sweetie Belle advanced, until at last the angle became so severe that Sweetie's hooves lost their grip, and she fell into a rapid slide. Yet, strangely, she did not scream.
The ramp ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff, with no way for the unicorn foal to stop her speedy descent. She reached the edge in seconds, but in defiance of the laws of inertia she was not sent hurtling to her death. Something held her safely at her precarious perch atop the frozen cliff. Then whatever spell which had clouded Sweetie Belle's mind fell away, and she was granted her first real glimpse of the yawning chasm laid out before her. She looked here to there in confusion, not understanding where she was or how she'd come to this place, and when she finally looked down there was no controlling the series of terrified shrieks and yelps that erupted out of her like a ruptured dam. Instinct demanded that she get away from the ledge at once and make for safer ground, but Sweetie forced herself to stay put out of fear of taking a wrong step and tumbling towards certain doom.
Virgil appeared at her side a moment later, his face a mask of abject fear and worry which relaxed visibly into relief upon finding his companion alive and well. "Thank the Lord, you are safe. I called to you when I noticed you'd left my side, but you acted as though you did not hear. I even stood in your way, but you charged through me without a second's pause."
"What...What just happened? How'd I get here? Where am I? What was that wind all about?" Sweetie Belle's panicked queries came out almost too quickly for Virgil to follow, never mind answer.
The poet struggled to get a word in edgewise. "My child, I..."
Before a reply could be made, the conversation was interrupted by the intrusion of a new party. It appeared seemingly from the pit below flying on black wings like those on a bat. It was mostly man-shaped with burgundy flesh, and thick equine hooves accented by dark feathery hair on the fetlocks. The being wore no clothing, but in its left hand it gripped a double-edge sword that is almost entirely unremarkable save for the vibrant, almost raw splash of crimson blood which stains the blade. The creature proceeds to stare unblinking at Virgil and Sweetie Belle through haunting white eyes that redden noticeably around the edges. It floats silently on the still air despite the wings holding almost completely still, an unreadable expression on its face.
Then, without warning or provocation, the entity spoke. "You go no further."
Sweetie Belle's spirit sank considerably. Her ears flattened against her skull in reflection of her rapidly mounting distress. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared in utter dismay at this mysterious stranger barring the way to her salvation. Terror swirled in her breast, entangling itself with confusion and outrage. Who was this creature to deny her from seeing home again? What possible right did this lowly imp have to tell her "no," especially in light of all the trials and tribulations she had been forced to endure time and again just to get here? Her mouth flapped uselessly as her mind scrambled frantically to piece together a rebuttal that was more than inane babble, but also more articulate than a barrage of highly offensive language.
Sweetie Belle took a daring step forward, despite having almost no room left to move anywhere except backwards. She channeled her friends Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash to add strength to her voice as she addressed the stranger. "I talked my way past Asmodeus in his disgusting castle in the Circle of Lust. I outran Satan and his furies in the black forest of Anger. I faced down the Minotaur above the Circle of Violence, and when I walked through the Wood of Suicides I stared Samael in the eye and survived. And just a while ago I almost got eaten by that awful monster Orthrus when I first came to the Circle of Fraud. Now I don't know who you are, and honestly I'm past the point of caring, but if you think you can keep me from..."
"I was not speaking to you , you nattering little sow." The unicorn filly's tirade was smothered instantly, and all her courage evaporated in a flash. Sweetie watched the stranger's baleful glare shift slowly from her to Virgil, who had been standing by quietly the entire time. "You , poet, have not been invited into the house of our King. The child has audience with Lord Lucifer; you do not."
"I have accompanied Miss Belle since her arrival in Limbo," Virgil stated in a calm yet defensive tone. "I swore to..."
"Neither I nor Lucifer give a damn about whatever promises you've made to anyone," the stranger interrupted. "You will return to your proper place in Limbo now . I will bring the girl to the Morning Star." Spirit and devil locked eyes for several seconds, each challenging his opponent for dominance in this discussion. The stranger's empty white eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped to a threatening tone. "There is no negotiating this point. If you continue being stubborn, you will lose far more than access to your friend. That is a promise straight from the mouth of your King."
Virgil felt a very human stab of pride flare up in his abdomen, which compelled him to challenge the demon further. However, with a concerted effort of will, he abolished these thoughts and forfeited the argument with a slow blink of his eyes. The poet knelt before Sweetie Belle, who had been staring up at him expectantly through the length of the exchange, waiting for answers to all the questions currently swirling in her mind and nursing her mounting anxiety. "I..."
Sweetie Belle interrupted with a vehement shake of her head. "No. I don't care what Lucifer or this guy says; we go together."
"Child..."
"Virgil, no! We started this thing together. We will find another way to Lucifer."
"There is no other way."
"We don't know that. You can't just give up all because..."
"I don't have a choice."
Sweetie Belle stamped her hoof angrily. "We always have a choice!"
The winged stranger clenched his fists to contain his boiling anger. This conversation was going nowhere. The unicorn refused to be reasonable, and the shade was too afraid to grow a spine and make her listen. Together they were wasting valuable time, which was already short thanks to them taking so long to get this far. His mind made up, the devil snatched Sweetie Belle around her belly and dashed away to the next Circle with a single flap of his wings. He ignored the child's outraged protests about being denied a chance to bid Virgil a proper farewell, his full attention focused on reaching Lucifer's prison quickly. As they descended, the wind started to pick up and very rapidly grow stronger, making flight increasingly more difficult. The stranger cursed his bad luck. The runt and her pathetic attachment to Virgil had cost the demon his only chance of delivering his burden to the Morning Star in a timely fashion. Now they would be forced to walk the four rounds of Cocytus down to Hell's center.
Before the roaring wind could have a chance to knock him from the sky, the stranger touched down on solid ground and dispassionately dropped his cargo upon the ice. He looked across the vast frozen wastes and the pitiless creatures condemned to this Circle, and sneered bitterly.
"This is your fault," he groused to his young companion. "We should be at Lucifer's domain by now. I should be flying, but thanks to you, I am forced to walk like a human ."
"If you had just let Virgil come with us, we would be there by now," Sweetie Belle countered.
The demon whirled on her, the red in his eyes flaring to almost completely consume the white. "Did you not listen to a word I said earlier, you little idiot? He...is...not...welcome! You are the one who is displaced, not Virgil. You are the one who seeks a path back home, not Virgil. You are the one who needs to speak with the King. Virgil understood this, I understood this, everyone in this fucking miserable hole understood this! Somehow you are the only one who can't seem to grasp the concept." He stopped himself before he could say more, took a deep breath that calmed him only slightly, and then faced the road ahead once more. "This argument accomplishes nothing, and Lucifer still waits on you. If we must walk, then let us be quick about it." The stranger started forward, and Sweetie Belle, though still quite angry with him, walked beside him with surprisingly no trouble in spite of the ice.
"So what's your name? Since we're stuck together until we get to the end of the Circle, I don't want to keep calling you 'Mister' or 'Winged Jerk-Guy' every time I have a question," Sweetie Belle said once her anger had subsided enough to want to speak with her new guardian.
The demon rolled his eyes rather than utter a snide, biting reply, and then answered his companion's query. "Abaddon. Other names I am known by include Kin-slayer, Betrayer, Murderer, Deceiver, the list goes on."
"I'm guessing you fought in the war," Sweetie Belle presumed.
"I didn't just fight in the war; I almost won the damn thing," Abaddon said with not a little pride in his tone. "The Renegades had superior numbers, but the Faithful were better trained and more organized. Lucifer's little rebellion would have ended the moment they met the shields of Michael's vanguard, had it not been for me and a few hundred other double-agents lurking within the ranks of the Faithful. Moments before the two armies converged, I gave the command for my men to start sowing some chaos." Abaddon's tone became wistful and excited as he recounted his tale. "They spilled blood wherever they could find it before quickly being killed themselves, but the damage was already done. The Faithful became paranoid and started turning on one another. All their training amounted to shit when they suspected any one of the men and women standing beside them could ram a sword through their skulls at any moment. The shield wall weakened as the forward guard tried to figure out what was happening, and Lucifer's army rolled over them like an unstoppable tide. Before Michael could reorganize his forces, the Faithful were all but annihilated."
Then, Abaddon's tone shifted into hate and rage. "The only thing that saved them, that had the power to bring the rebellion to a screeching halt, was God. The son of a bitch cast His aura across all of Heaven, and everyone was compelled to drop their weapons and kneel. Once He had everyone back under control, God did what He does best and judged every single angel in Heaven like the self-absorbed prick He is. Lucifer, the rebels, and everyone who had refused to give their lives for God was thrown into Hell."
Not since Beelzebub had any fallen angel Sweetie Belle met spoken of fighting in the Angel War with such delight. Abaddon was proud of the terrible things he had done, and sounded as if he would do it all again exactly the same way were he granted the opportunity. He felt no shame for betraying his kind, for slaughtering his family, in the pursuit of dethroning God. She already harbored an intense dislike for the devil, but now Sweetie Belle found herself loathing the despicable creature as well. In spite of this, she would not allow her opinion of Abaddon to stop her from learning all she could from him before their time together was done. She let this discussion end for now so she could focus her attention on her surroundings.
For as far as the eye could see, a single massive lake of ice was the dominating feature of this Circle. Stuck fast in the frozen water of Cocytus were the souls of every person who had broken the special bonds linking them to those who never deserved such heartless treatment. Arranged around the outside edges of the lake were what first appeared to be massive towers of solid ice, but after taking more time to study with a second glance, were revealed to be gigantic creatures of vaguely human appearance. Their gargantuan forms were entirely immobilized except for the mouth, from which the mighty beasts could moan and howl with remorse and hatred, which Sweetie Belle quickly deduced was the source of the gale-force wind that had grounded Abaddon.
"What are those things?" she inquired of her guardian.
Abaddon looked up to better see what she was referring to. "Giants. Primordial creatures that represent the unbalanced, unchecked elements of nature. They are instinct and wild animal impulse given form. When God found He could not control them, He imprisoned them here in the deepest part of Hell so He could shape the earth to fit His personal image of perfection."
"Do they have names?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"In a way. Among themselves, no. Each one knows who the other is, so they have no need for something as trivial as names. They had names bestowed on them as a means to dominate them," Abaddon said in reply. He noticed Sweetie Belle's quizzical expression and tried to explain what he meant. "The very act of giving something a name is to exert control over it. Knowing the name of a thing or a person gives you power to force your will upon it. Have you ever spoken someone's name and they turn to look at you? That is power. You got their attention; you stopped them from whatever they were doing, saying, or thinking, and now have that person waiting on you in expectation of something from you, be it a request, a command, an inquiry, an observation, or even nothing at all. In speaking their name, you exerted control over them, if only for a brief moment."
This was something Sweetie Belle had never thought about before. She had often asked of adults back in Ponyville why certain things had certain names, but she'd never considered that names themselves were a control device. Something not to give unknown things definition and purpose, but to exert dominance and assume authority over them. Out of curiosity, she requested to know the names bestowed upon these colossi.
Abaddon pointed to each one and identified them, additionally noting any specific deeds they were responsible for prior to their internment in Hell. "There's Nimrod, who commissioned the construction of the Tower of Babel, meant to touch the fields of Heaven. For his hubris, God punished him and all mankind by distorting Earth's one united language into many before scattering them across the globe. To Nimrod's left are Briareus, Ephialtes and his brother Otus. The three of them fought in the war to overthrow the Olympian gods. Resting there is Antaeus, the once invincible son of Gaia, who was eventually slain by the Greek hero Heracles. Those two there are Tityos and Typhon. The former insulted Zeus by attempting to rape Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. The latter fought Zeus in an epic battle to decide who would rule the cosmos. He lost, and then found himself buried under a mountain for his trouble."
This topic of discussion, though immensely fascinating to Sweetie Belle, promised to be something which would take an enormous amount of time to fully dissect and process, thus impeding her from learning more about Lucifer and the Circle of Treachery. Sweetie forced herself to redirect her attention to the frigid lake, and the souls who were stuck in the ice. "So what exactly did all these people do to get sent down here?"
Abaddon chuckled mockingly at the plight of the miserable dead. "God bless human ingenuity. Like the other Circles in deep Hell, mankind saw fit to divide the sin of treachery evenly among four parties. Currently we are crossing the ring of Caina. Here can be found those who betrayed their own families, for whatever perverse reasons had justified them at the time."
"Like you?"
"That would have hurt if I cared what you think, or if I had even the smallest regret for what I did."
Sweetie Belle dismissed Abaddon and looked around at the guilty dead. They were planted in the ice up to their necks, allowing them to bow their heads away from the giants' howling breath, and thus saving their eyes from freezing shut under the tears they wept. Sweetie took care to gingerly step around the sinners, while Abaddon freely kicked them as he passed by. Except for two in particular, whom Abaddon knelt beside and caressed their cheeks as one would do for a beloved pet.
"Cain, Mordred. You two are looking well," he said with genuine affection.
"Free me from this forsaken place, oh merciful God! Let me join my mother and father in Heaven! Allow me to see dearest Abel again!" wailed the head of Cain. Mordred kept his silence.
"God can't hear you down here, son." Abaddon patted both sinners before standing up once more. "I must leave you boys, but I should be back soon. In the meantime, try to think of something else to talk about, will you Cain? I'm sure Mordred is just as tired of hearing about your family as I am."
Sweetie Belle caught up to Abaddon's side and proceeded to ask him about the two men he had shown such affection that was withheld from the rest of the sinners. "Just a couple local celebrities. Cain is the first son of Adam and Eve, murdered his brother Abel and then lied about it to God. As for Mordred, he murdered his uncle Arthur, the King of Britain. Actually he dealt Arthur a mortal wound before Arthur slew him, during a tremendous battle."
"Seems like a lot of people in Hell are here because of war," Sweetie Belle observed.
"War is the great redeemer, or so many humans prefer to believe over the horrid truth; that it's nothing but the senseless yet somehow globally sanctioned slaughter of the human species. Mass murder with a cause. The thought process is that battle, whether you live through it or die, can somehow purge one of all sin so long as they fought with honor," Abaddon said, after which he laughed sardonically at the very idea.
The pair pushed onward across the frigid plane. The wind seemed to pause a moment before it resumed again, but from a different direction. As Sweetie Belle walked, she almost failed to notice that the heads of the sinners were now fixed firmly in the ice with their faces exposed to the wind.
"Who are these people?" she asked.
"This is the ring of Antenora. These pitiful bastards committed treason against political affiliates, cities, or their own country," Abaddon replied. He spied one face in particular and brought his ward to meet him. "Like this coward here. Say 'hello', Antenor."
"Vex me not, fell spirit. I did what was needed to ensure the survival of my house. Of my family," the man groused in his own defense.
"You did what you wanted to save your own skin. I murdered my people, but you doomed yours to ruin. I saw my reflection in the eyes of every brother and sister I cut down. I saw their anger and their pain, and their confusion as I killed them. Did you even see what the Greeks did to your city and its people? Or was the gold they paid you enough of a distraction from the slaughter?" Abaddon said in rebuttal. The harsh criticism in his voice could not have been more apparent, or more genuine. The Kin-slayer honestly despised this man and what he had done while living. In this one moment, Sweetie Belle saw Abaddon as the paragon of justice and integrity he had once been.
The fallen angel noticed his companion looking at him, and then he noticed the way she was looking at him. He rolled his shoulders and directed his own gaze forward. "I'm a warrior, and as a warrior, the one thing I hate most is cowardice. My condemnation of Antenor stems from that, and nothing else. So you can stop looking at me like you see a glimmer of redemption deep down inside me or whatever."
Sweetie Belle nodded her head as the pair started on their way once again. "So what did Antenor do to make you hate him so much?"
"Ages ago, Antenor provided counsel to Priam, King of Troy. When the lady Helen was stolen from her husband Menelaus, who was King of Sparta, Antenor pleaded with Priam to negotiate her return in order to prevent war. Needless to say Priam refused, and Menelaus rode to war with support from his brother Agamemnon, who was king of some citadel or something named Mycenae. The conflict lasted ten miserable years, before the Greeks finally managed to infiltrate the previously impenetrable walls of Troy." Abaddon tossed his head back to indicate the man he had just been chastising. "Antenor was the two-faced son of a bitch who made their sweeping victory possible, and in return his home was spared from all the sacking, carnage, and other mayhem. His neighbors, friends and confidants, his king...everyone he knew was slaughtered or worse, and any children butchered like lambs. For the sake of saving his own ass, Antenor condemned every Trojan man, woman, and child to a very unkind death."
Sweetie Belle reflected quietly on this for a while. Though she bore Abaddon no measure of affection, she understood his feelings for Antenor and his actions. The man said he was only trying to keep his family safe, which itself is an admirable thing to stand for...but to let an entire city of people be murdered. Even for the purpose of saving one's family, the price seemed far too high. She wasn't sure she could totally take Abaddon's side and think of Antenor as a coward since the man claimed to have been acting with good intent, but neither could she entirely forgive Antenor for the death and misery he wrought with his actions.
Further across the frozen fields the pair advanced. In this part of the Circle, the dead were stuck in the ice flat on their backs with their eyes sealed shut by tears turned to ice in the face of the howling wind. "We now find ourselves crossing the ring of Ptolomaea. Here you'll find those who turned traitor against their guests."
"So they invited people into their homes before killing them?" Sweetie Belle presumed questioningly.
"It is the most common method," Abaddon confirmed.
Sweetie Belle was quiet a moment while she cast her gaze across the whole of the Circle of Treachery. As she took in the sight of so many guilty souls condemned for betraying their fellowmen, she found herself pitying them. "Why? Why do they do it?"
Abaddon shrugged his shoulders. "There are as many plausible explanations for mankind's duplicitous nature as there are stars in the sky. Most of them turned traitor in the name of political advantage. Lots of students of the political arena down here. The rest were motivated by greed, envy, love and/or lust, pride, anger, pure desperation, or even no specific reason at all."
"But can't God, like...I don't know...fix the humans or something? Can't he just make it so humans don't betray each other anymore? Or commit any of the other sins?" Sweetie asked of her guardian.
"He certainly would have if such a thing were still possible," the Kin-slayer said in reply.
Sweetie Belle peered up at Abaddon inquiringly. "He can't change the humans? Why not?" Her tone was one of utter disbelief. Everything Virgil had told her about God had painted a portrait of a benevolent entity capable of doing anything . What possible force could conceivably have the power to defy a being as allegedly mighty as God?
Abaddon made no reply except to point out that they had entered the fourth subsection of Treachery. "This is Judecca, named for the infamous Judas Iscariot. These are some of the most miserable sons of bitches in all Hell. They are the traitors of their lords and benefactors."
Here, in this part of the Circle, save for the wind, all was eerily silent. The prisoners were completely frozen beneath the ice, countless bodies locked within a singular massive frigid tomb, their bodies and faces twisted into all manner of expressions of agony. This was an ominous place, where hope did not dare to tread. Sweetie Belle could not find it in herself to pity these souls. She could sense that none of them were here by accident, and that every single body suspended in the ice more than deserved this fate.
"So..." Sweetie Belle's voice echoed surprisingly loud in this forsaken place, causing her to pause a moment before resuming her query. "So these people betrayed their kings?"
"Pretty much," said Abaddon. His voice did not echo in the quiet. "Kings, emperors, presidents, czars, pharaohs, chieftains. By whatever name you attribute to whomever is in charge of your lands or nation, everyone here fucked those people over very horribly. For reasons that seem so small and ridiculous now that they have been properly rewarded for their sins." The former angel chuckled derisively at the scene. Beneath the howl of the giants' breath and the gentle tapping of small hooves on the ice, a silence was conceived within the conversational void. It persisted for a time before Sweetie Belle attempted a new topic of discussion.
"Why did you fight for Lucifer during the war?" she asked.
"I didn't," Abaddon replied tersely.
"But you just said a while ago..."
"I didn't fight for Lucifer. He found me, tried to sell me the same shit he'd spoon-fed to Satan, Mammon, Beelzebub, and everyone else who would listen. I would have told him to fuck off if he hadn't dropped a very important piece of trivia on me concerning the true purpose of the angels," Abaddon said.
"What was it?" Sweetie pressed of her guardian.
The wings on Abaddon's back bristled irritably. "That we're slaves. We were created to serve God, to worship Him and love Him without question for all eternity. Servitude is thrust upon us at the moment of our birth, and we accept it with blind adoration because it's all we know. For the vast majority of angels, living for God is our sole purpose for being. The more important ones like Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and others have secondary duties entrusted to them. I was unlucky enough to greet life as one of the former. Another empty-headed thrall born with a golden chain around my neck."
"What did you do when Lucifer told you that?"
"Nothing, at first. I called him a liar and threatened to tell God about it, but Lucifer did nothing to stop me or shut me up. He only smiled, nodded his head, and told me to do what I thought was right." Abaddon stopped walking, which in turn forced Sweetie Belle to stop and listen. "I never did tell Him. For a long time I heard a voice in the back of my mind nagging at me, compelling me to really think about what Lucifer had said...and wonder if he was right. Many days passed, and with each one my doubts and anger grew. Eventually my anger turned to hatred, which was directed squarely at God and the other angels. I hated my kin for their blind obedience to a complete bastard of a father who built us entirely to serve, and for the stupid overeager smiles they wore while they as they slaved away. Then...my hatred became a desire for action.
"I sought Lucifer out. When I found him, he acted as though he'd been expecting me. He greeted me with a warm smile and listened intently as I confided my thoughts and feelings to him. I remember his face becoming a mask of grave seriousness when I told him I was ready for change. He moved in very close to me, and in a whisper reminded me that everything I had said was talk of rebellion, that there would be no going back when the fighting began, and that I would certainly face expulsion from Heaven if we lost the battle. This was nothing to speak carelessly about, he said; the fate of the angels, and indeed the entire world, would change forever the very second the rebellion kicked off. I stared Lucifer in the eye when I told him, in no uncertain terms, that I would fight to whatever end. Regardless of whether we won or lost, whether I lived or died, my only wish was to be free. We joined hands as brothers in arms. It was with his help that I devised the plot to weaken the Faithful's defense...and it was with his help that I became the most hated creature in Heaven or Hell."
Sweetie Belle had been sitting in rapt silence before Abaddon, her eyes wide and ears fully erect and forward with interest. When he had finished his tale, she asked a question regarding his last statement. "Why do people hate you here?"
Abaddon shrugged his shoulders impartially before he, and by extension Sweetie Belle, started walking again. "Once a traitor, always a traitor. That's what it boils down to. To every demon and fell angel in the Woeful Realm, I'm a two-faced backstabbing son of a bitch. A turncoat with no genuine allegiances to anyone. It helps that I haven't made a secret of my dislike for Lucifer since being condemned to Hell."
Sweetie felt herself automatically forming the words to ask why Abaddon despised Lucifer, but quickly held her tongue before she could since the answer was painfully obvious, and she was certain he would have viciously mocked her for it. She thought for a moment, and then to ask a decidedly more intelligent question. "Do you know why Lucifer rebelled against God?"
"Besides the whole angels-are-slaves-thing? I don't know and I never cared to begin with," Abaddon harshly stated in reply. "As I said earlier, I only fought for my freedom. I had already written off the rest of my brothers and sisters as lost causes. I didn't give a damn about them, or Lucifer, or anyone else."
"Then I guess you really do belong in Hell," Sweetie Belle said not a little critically.
"Thank you. Certainly beats being a smiling, blank-minded servant to a king with the world's biggest inferiority complex," the Kin-slayer said with a grateful nod.
The dead disappeared from the ice. It was not immediately apparent that the party had crossed an invisible threshold where sinners were not permitted. Roughly three minutes passed before Sweetie Belle noticed the phenomenon out of the periphery of her vision, and that was when she realized the dead were completely absent from this part of the field. What's more is the wind had softened noticeably, as if the giants themselves were afraid of disturbing what lay at the center of the Circle of Treachery. The center of all Hell. Abaddon brought their progress to a halt at a location that seemed entirely unremarkable compared to the surrounding space.
"The rest is up to you. Lucifer's waiting for you just ahead," the former angel said.
"By myself?" Sweetie asked, slightly anxious.
"You're the one who wants to talk to him so bad. As such, I'm not welcome in whatever conversations you two are about to have," Abaddon said. After a brief pause he added, "Also the seraphs disturb the shit out of me."
" 'Seraphs'?" But when the young filly turned to look at her guardian for clarification, he was gone. Sweetie Belle looked all around her, but she was the only body, living or dead, in this part of Hell. Looking down at the ice directly beneath her hooves, neither her reflection nor her shadow were present. For the first time since she awoke in Limbo, Sweetie was alone, and it was a disturbingly palpable sensation. It was like being the sole occupant of an entire world. Anxiety and dread quickly swelled in her breast, hastening her breathing almost to the point of passing out. She desperately wished for any form of company; live body or dead, angel or devil, friendly or hostile. She didn't even have to talk to them, nor they to her. Just the mere presence of someone or something else in this empty place would bring her comfort.
Sweetie's ears twitched. She thought she heard something, but for the moment was unsure exactly what. She focused on the direction the sound came from and concentrated, focusing all her attention on the noise so she might discern its identity. There it was again; faint, but slightly greater in volume. It was soft, melancholy, yearning for...something. It was a song. Someone deeper in the frozen wastes was singing. Sweetie Belle strode cautiously forward, following the depressing melody and daring to hope that she was not walking straight into a trap.
Sweetie Belle followed the mysterious song as a mouse will cautiously pursue the scent of food, pausing every couple of steps to examine her surroundings and be sure nothing was stalking her. Dread and paranoia had been slowly creeping in the closer she drew to the source of the haunting melody, but despite this Sweetie felt herself inexorably drawn to it, like a fly that is drawn into the crimson maw of a flytrap. With every yard or so she advanced, the singing grew slightly louder in volume. A strange excitement took root and began to blossom in Sweetie Belle's breast, thus motivating her to pick up the pace before whomever was singing could get away. Salvation was close at hand now. The answer to the grand riddle of how a young unicorn came to be in Hell was just ahead of her.
Then, Sweetie Belle came to a halt in what she sensed was the exact center of nowhere. The song reached its greatest volume here, but only she was present in this place. Sweetie looked around in apparent and saw no other entities in the vicinity, yet the singing still persisted. Her attention was suddenly drawn to something she'd caught out of the corner of her eye. A figure approached from directly ahead at a pace so slow one would think it was not moving at all. Despite knowing nothing about the being's identity or its nature, Sweetie Belle heaved a sigh of relief at realizing she was no longer alone in this frigid wasteland. All her anxiety melted away as she waved her hoof and called to the stranger.
"Thank goodness I finally found you," she hollered, having automatically assumed the creature's identity. Rather than wait for Lucifer to come to her, Sweetie decided to go meet him in order to save time. "I was interested in finding out how and why I'm in Hell, and I did want to ask you all about the war, but now that I finally found you all I care about is getting home. You can do that, right?"
Lucifer said nothing.
Sweetie Belle stopped abruptly and gasped, realizing her faux pas. "Oh my gosh! I didn't mean it like that! I don't doubt your powers or anything, because everything I've been told about you says you have tons of power. I just want to make...sure...um..."
Lucifer said nothing.
The young filly slowed to a halt so she could think a moment. "Maybe I didn't greet him right? He is a king, after all. Maybe he's not talking back because I'm not being proper," she pondered to herself. Sweetie nodded her head slowly as the theory seemed to make more sense. "Celestia and Luna don't always require us to address them like royalty, but that doesn't mean it's the same here. Maybe I should have bowed and stuff before trying to talk to him." Sweetie nodded her head again before kneeling down and directing her gaze to the ground. "Oh...uh...great King Lucifer! I, Sweetie Belle of Equestria, sincerely beg your pardon, and humbly ask for your...um...your services in sending me home. I mean I humbly ask if you could please send me home. To Ponyville...please."
There was still no reply. Sweetie Belle slowly resumed standing and stared in confusion. "Hello? Lucifer?" Once again she felt dread begin to rise like a spider crawling over her skin. The silhouette became more clearly defined as it drew closer, and something told the young unicorn that this was not who she thought. Its head was entirely consumed in a thick black haze, and the haggard gray robe it wore looked as if whatever color and splendor it once bore had long since been drained away. The haunting melody which had lured Sweetie Belle here was coming from this creature. She suddenly remembered Orthrus; how he had nearly caught her with his hypnotic mumbling, and what a nightmarish beast he'd turned out to be. She had no desire to learn what horrors lurked beneath the siren's costume, especially with no one here to save her. Sweetie spun round and ran back the way she'd come.
And the haunting entity was in front of her again. Still shuffling towards its prey, still singing its depressing song. Sweetie Belle struggled to slow down and change course, but the creature was there again. Once more the young filly diverted to another escape route, but still the terrible stranger intercepted her. It was then that she realized with horror that the creature was actually one of many, and she had stumbled into the middle of an ambush. There was nowhere for her to run now. Rather than panic, Sweetie forced herself to think. She remembered the furies back in the Circle of Anger, how she and Virgil had managed to counter the savage beasts with light. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and summoned a beam of brilliant white light which she directed at one of her assailants. The creature gave no reaction, and the light did nothing to pierce the veil of smoke covering its face. Sweetie Belle recalled her close encounter with the pale demon in the Circle of Gluttony. She focused on one of the robed devils and used her magic to create a barrier between it and her. The creature passed through the shield like it was not even there. The young filly's heart pounded madly in her breast as if the organ itself was trying to escape. She looked for an opening between the sirens that would be big enough for her to slip through if she attempted a desperate dash to freedom, but no such opportunity was presented.
Sweetie Belle was out of options. There was nothing she could do, and without Virgil or Abaddon here, there was no one to save her. She was going to die here, at the bottom of Hell, so close to her one chance at going home. The only thing she had left was to sit and watch helplessly as the desiccated hands of death reached out to claim their prey.
"Stop ." All at once, the crowd of sirens froze where they were, their claws bare inches from Sweetie Belle's flesh, their song of doom silenced. What would have been the young filly's last breath stuck in her throat as she stared at the creatures in utter shock. She knew that voice. It was more familiar to her than the back of her own hoof. But how? Just how could she be here? Was this some sort of trick, or had they finally come to rescue her? Sweetie did not dare say a word, lest the sound of her voice shatter the moment and wake the demons from their trance.
"Be gone. " In the very instant following delivery of the command, the sirens collapsed to ashes and dispersed into a nonexistent wind. Not a single shred of evidence remained to suggest they had ever been here at all. Sweetie Belle finally inhaled with a sharp gasp, but only because the mounting pain in her lungs demanded it. She blinked her eyes multiple times, but the creatures did not return. Her head turned slowly to look around, and was greeted by the familiar emptiness of Treachery's frozen wastes. Then her eyes alighted onto a figure whose very presence in this forsaken place simultaneously overjoyed and baffled Sweetie Belle.
"Rarity?!"
"Sweetie, darling." The unicorn mare stood with all the elegance of a queen. Her ivory coat glittered like crystal, her expertly curled mane and tail shimmered with the same deep blue as the sea. She was the picture of grace and beauty, total perfection in every way the term meant and implied. Every inch of Rarity's form was captivating, from her cerulean eyes down to the tips of her perfectly manicured hooves.
Sweetie Belle gaped at her elder sister. "Rarity, what....What are you...?"
"I have been here all this time, patiently awaiting your arrival." Rarity's sophisticated, purring tone was like softest velvet in the young filly's ears.
"You were..." Sweetie Belle suddenly realized the truth of the matter. The shock of the moment wore off, and she at last could see things clearly. "You're not Rarity. You're not my sister."
Rarity chuckled lightly before her form twisted into a new shape. In her place stood a man not an inch over six feet tall with fair skin bearing a slightly tanned complexion, short wavy burgundy hair, and a young affable face with soft flawless features. He gazed upon young Sweetie Belle with almond-shaped eyes that were as green as the heart of the deepest forest, and smiled as if he were greeting an old friend he had been expecting but not seen in a long time. He wore no clothing, the whole of his naked frame put on display for God and all others to marvel at. His body was cut with a warrior's musculature that was not immediately apparent except when viewed from certain angles. He carried himself with a modest measure of pride and dignity, but the weight of his presence was comparable to standing in the same room as the sun.
"Forgive the ruse. I was attempting to help you relax after that stressful ordeal. I was only following Virgil's example," Lucifer said. His voice had a warm charm like a hearth fire, disarming in its gentleness and comfort.
"How do you know about that?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"I am King of the Woeful Realm. Nothing happens here without my knowledge. I was there when Hercules came to fetch Cerberus as his final labor to Eurystheus. When Orpheus came to liberate his wife Eurydice from my care, I was lurking over his shoulder all the way until he caved to temptation and turned to look upon her. When God sent one of His faithful to pluck some of my flock from damnation, I escorted my glorious guest all the way and brought him to each and every soul he'd come to collect." Lucifer paced calmly back-and-forth while he spoke.
"How do you know about my sister?" Sweetie pressed with suspicion apparent in her tone.
Lucifer chuckled in amusement. "I know everything about everyone who comes to Hell, regardless of the length of their stay. It is my job to know, otherwise I would make a rather poor Devil."
"Then you know why I'm here. In Hell," Sweetie Belle reasoned.
"Perhaps. It ultimately depends on you."
The young unicorn tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"You said that you no longer cared to know the cause for your internment in my kingdom, and you no longer desired to know about the Angel War. You said you just wanted to return to your home in Equestria. If that is indeed true, then I suppose what knowledge I possess only concerns sending you on your way. At this moment, I know only what you desire to know." Lucifer moved to take a seat on a throne of smoke that materialized to his left. He gestured for Sweetie Belle to join him, a second seat materializing just in front of him. "What's your poison, child: knowledge, or liberation?"
Sweetie remained where she stood for a long moment while she tried to make up her mind. The encounter with the sirens had expended what little patience she had left for Hell and its horrors, and so she was more than ready to tell Lucifer to keep his secrets and bring this nightmare to an end. On the other hand, she had made a pact with Virgil to learn all they could about Lucifer and his rebellion before the end of this journey. The prospect of going home, in spite of how much she wanted to take advantage of it, did instill a sense of guilt at the thought of bringing this tale to such an uninspiring end. Finally she pulled herself into the chair of smoke and sat facing her host.
Lucifer smiled approvingly. "Whenever you're ready."
Silence followed for a short time as Sweetie Belle considered which question to ask first. "What were those things you saved me from?"
"Seraphim. They observe the goings on of the Circle, look after the dead, and are the last line of defense in case someone comes along looking to make their bones by taking my head," Lucifer answered smoothly.
"They protect you?"
"They protect the invaders. The deaths they receive from the seraphim--which are deliciously horrifying, mind you--are leagues more desirable than the suffering they would endure in my care," Lucifer said with the same ease as if he were commenting on the weather.
Sweetie Belle stared in unblinking shock at the Morning Star for a few seconds as she let his words sink in, and then after clearing her throat she proceeded with the inquiry. "What happened to turn them into those...things? I feel like they didn't always look that way, did they?"
"Oh, of course not. None of us were always the beasts and devils you've seen along your journey. Well, I should say not all of us started life as monsters. Cerberus and his brother Orthrus are among the exception," Lucifer said. His upturned gaze pulled Sweetie Belle's attention to the sky, where a great flock of seraphs idly floated through the air not unlike a forest of jellyfish in the open ocean. "They endured a tremendous transformation following their forced retirement from Paradise. In Heaven their heads are obscured not by smoke, but a glorious golden flame that gently burns like a candle, their wings from shoulder to tip of the forearm are lined with eyes that never blink, and their robes are unequaled in their magnificence. Paragons of purity and grace."
Sweetie Belle put the fleet of fallen angels out of her mind and focused on her host. "Why don't you look like them?" Lucifer favored her with a piqued eyebrow. "Everyone in Hell who used to be an angel looks like a monster. How come you look normal?"
The Light Bringer smiled. "It is my punishment. Aside from being expelled from Heaven, I was allowed to retain this form so I would always be reminded of what I threw away in the rebellion."
"Doesn't seem like much of a punishment," Sweetie observed.
"It did hurt during the first century or so, when I was young and easily wounded by such things," Lucifer said in reply. "Now it serves as a reminder of what's waiting for me."
That second statement greatly piqued the young filly's interest. "What do you mean by that?"
Lucifer smiled pleasantly and held up a hand to put the topic to rest. "In due time. Now, would you care to learn about the war?" When his guest nodded her head, the Lord of Hell shifted in his seat to adopt a more comfortable position. "Before I go into detail about the things I did which threw Heaven into chaos, I must ask you a question. I know that you've spoken to the members of my court who are still capable of disclosing their experiences during the rebellion, and their opinions of what motivated me to pursue revolution. Do you remember what they said about me?"
Sweetie Belle suddenly felt anxious about sharing such information. She remembered how Asmodeus had bitterly slandered Lucifer in his account of the rebellion, and she was not comfortable with repeating such things to the sole being in Hell who had the power to send her home again.
Lucifer could see the discomfort and conflict in his young guest. "You've no need to fear any sort of emotional retaliation from me. I was not wholly popular in Heaven, and I'm not overly popular here in Hell. It is a fact I am well-acquainted with. Speak freely. Please."
The young filly was still reticent to do so, but she did as requested. "Well, Asmodius said you were jealous of the humans because God loved them more than the angels. He also called you some nasty names that I really don't want to repeat. Um...Beelzebub said you just wanted power, and Mammon said you wanted to keep the earth away from the humans. And Abaddon mentioned something about the angels being born as slaves."
The King of Hell listened quietly while Sweetie spoke, and true to his word he gave no reaction to her mention of having his name besmirched. He sat on his throne of smoke, still and silent as a gargoyle, all the while Sweetie Belle could not help feeling this was a frivolous endeavor since, by Lucifer's own admission, he already knew what the other demons had said to her. If he was constantly aware of everything that happened in Hell, then what point was there in having her regale him with conversations he'd already heard? Sweetie found her thoughts drift back to Lady Fortuna and the warning she had given in regards to becoming verbally involved with Lucifer; that he was a conniving serpent who would confound his prey at every turn so they were more receptive of his influence. Sweetie promised herself to cling tightly to this warning throughout this conference.
When Sweetie Belle finished speaking, Lucifer nodded his head slowly and rubbed his chin. "I suppose it's possible that all these things are true. In hindsight I was quite hurt and bewildered by God's infatuation with the human species, especially His declaration that we angels were meant to kneel to the mortals and acknowledge them as God's righteous children. It seems only natural that one would suffer some form of indignation at being commanded to be subservient to a lesser entity. How would it make you feel if your leaders suddenly decided that your kind was henceforth meant to bend the knee to mice? And that regardless of the powers that make you inherently greater, the mouse will forever be hailed as your superior?"
In direct violation of her personal vow to take everything said here with a grain of salt, Sweetie Belle found herself really considering Lucifer's words. In imagining a situation where Celestia and Luna handed down a royal decree that all ponies in Equestria would henceforth be supplicant to...well, to draw from Lucifer's example, mice , Sweetie could see herself and indeed many, if not all ponies becoming rather upset. She was uncertain if it would be grounds for something as serious as open rebellion or war, though she admittedly was not one to speak for all pony kind.
"I won't deny that jealousy, greed, and stubborn pride had some part to play in my desire to revolt," Lucifer said continuing on. "I was the first of all God's creations, after all. To honestly expect me to share my father's love and attention with humans - who are inferior to angels in nearly every single way - was a pretty big ask." He shifted to sit forward in his seat. "I don't mean you any disrespect, but I imagine your sister felt much the same way when she found out that you were brewing in your mother's womb. All that time before you came along spent having the time of her life, having Mom and Dad's affection all to herself. Then you show up, and life as she knows it is over. Now Rarity has to share the world that by rights belonged to her. With you; a creature that, as she saw you, was inferior in every way. I assume there was a great deal of animosity between her and your parents for a good deal of time...between the two of you."
Sweetie Belle sat in a dumb silence, her mental guards entirely undermined by the sheer amount of knowledge Lucifer possessed about her, and the unfathomable accuracy with which he had nailed down Sweetie and Rarity's inaugural interactions with each other. Their parents had often spoken of the difficulty they experienced trying to raise two daughters who may as well have been made of oil and water for all that they got along together. Most stories Mom and Dad told described how fitful and jealous Rarity got almost any time attention was paid to little Sweetie Belle, and how she would sometimes physically insert herself between parents and baby sister. She would even complain about how Sweetie Belle could sit on the floor doing nothing and everyone would fawn over the tiny foal, whereas Rarity could do a cartwheel or levitate an object with her magic and receive minor praise. Relations between the siblings were much more positive now, but it was very disturbing how squarely Lucifer had struck the proverbial nail on the head with that remark.
"Clearly you know exactly what I'm talking about, if your expression and your silence are good indicators," the Light Bringer said leaning back in his throne. "In that case you also know exactly how I felt in those days...perhaps you can even empathize with me. I was the child capable of magnificent feats, yet my father could only gush over how amazing these humans would be when He finally got the chance to plant them on the earth." Lucifer fell into a reflective silence for a moment. "Perhaps I overreacted to the humans. It's entirely possible I let my pride, greed, and other emotions compromise my judgment and direct my actions. However, I am a hundred percent confident that my reactions to the angels' true purpose for being were entirely justified. There was no other course of action to take except rebellion."
"You mean how angels are slaves," Sweetie Belle recalled Abaddon having stated and Lucifer now confirming.
The Devil gave his guest a knowing look and smirked. "You still don't believe me about that, do you?"
"I was told to not believe anything you said," Sweetie replied with strength returning to her voice.
"And who is the latest to say that?"
The young filly paused before answering. Was this a trick, or did Lucifer truly not know about her encounter with Lady Fortuna? He had assured her that nothing happened in Hell without him knowing about it, but Fortuna was unlike any other creature in the realm. Virgil had described her as a concept given form, an aspect of Creation made real to the senses. Something far greater than any angel, perhaps greater even than God. If that were true, then it was possible that despite Lucifer having total omnipotence over Hell, Fortuna did possess the power to block his sight from her small corner in his kingdom.
Sadly, Lucifer did not require an audible reply to his question. Sweetie's silence was all the answer he needed, having quickly deduced the claimant's identity after remembering the one place in the Woeful Realm his vision could not spy upon. "Miss Fortune. She would be one to say such a thing. She never got along with Father, which by extension means she never got along with me." He looked at Sweetie Belle with an upraised eyebrow. "What did she say? That I'm a snake? That every word I say is poison to the ears? That I get my jollies from corrupting innocent hearts and minds with salacious lies?"
Sweetie Belle stammered nervously for a reply, like a child whose parent caught them cavorting with someone they do not approve of.
Lucifer dismissed her failing attempt to answer with a wave of his hand. "You don't have to say anything, I've heard it all. Throughout the ages, mankind has lived under the delusion that I am the grandest liar the world will ever know. Apparently the great Fortuna - mistress of chaos and benefactor of none - has also bought into this nonsense. Seems I was wrong about her after all."
"Are you saying you don't lie to people?" Sweetie Belle asked incredulously.
The King of Hell gave her a patronizing smile. "Did you forget that I was once an angel?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Dear child; angels can't lie. Not that they should not or must not, they cannot lie. As in they lack the basic capacity to speak falsehoods. It is in our very nature to speak only truth, regardless of whether we fly above the earth or beneath it."
Sweetie Belle considered this for a moment. "But you're in Hell," she said as if that one statement alone could somehow negated everything her host had to say.
"Because I learned the truth and incited a war in an effort to free my kin," Lucifer retorted.
"But you're a fallen angel. You and Satan and Abaddon..."
"Penguins and ostriches may not soar like eagles, but they are still birds. A fallen angel is still an angel. It's in the name," Lucifer fired back easily.
"But you rebelled against God and His rules and stuff!"
"The angels' inability to tell lies is not result of some idle decree or holy writ; it is in our blood. Our biology - as designed by God - prevents us from lying. It would be like asking you to fly. Just as you lack the basic components necessary for extended flight, so are angels lacking the ability to tell a lie."
The more Sweetie Belle thought about this, the more her head began to swim. It made sense that angels would be not be permitted to speak falsehoods since, according to everything Virgil had told her about angels, they were meant to be champions of truth and all things good. Being able to lie would undermine all of that, but more than that it would make an entity as allegedly powerful and upstanding as God look rather duplicitous. Then again, she also saw how a compulsion to speak only truth could be used as a tool for control. Angels unable to keep secrets were less likely to rock the proverbial boat and more liable to tow the company line. Couple that with the ever present and very real threat of expulsion from paradise, and the angels had every motivation to keep the status quo.
She shook her head, eliciting an amused chuckle from her host. There were mysteries yet to be solved, and listening to the voices of Lucifer and everyone else in Hell argue back and forth in her mind was not helping. "When did you find out about the angels? That they were slaves and everything," she said in a noticeably tired tone.
Lucifer pondered his response for a couple seconds. "Shortly after God told me his plan to create the humans." A silence interrupted the conversation, one so palpable it could practically be seen from high Heaven. Sweetie Belle stared unblinking at Lucifer with a look that could never be mistaken for anything less than utter disbelief. The Morning Star let it go on for a while before picking up the slack. "You don't believe me."
"It sounds like a total lie," Sweetie Belle groused.
The fell prince shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "You sought knowledge, and I am sharing it; whether you believe the tale or not is up to you. As I held seniority over the rest of my kin, it was imperative that God notify me of anything that could impact the angels so that I may make preparations to spare my brothers and sisters of any undue surprises. This business with the humans definitely fell into that criteria, especially when I had to explain to them how we were supposed to be subservient to the lower species."
"So how did you know which angels you could talk to about rebelling against God?" The question had been on Sweetie's mind for much of the journey to Cocytus, and she was not going to waste the opportunity to finally get an answer.
"As I said; I am the first and most senior of the angels. I know how each of my kinsmen thinks and feels the moment I set my eyes on them," Lucifer said in reply. "For a lot of them, it didn't take a genius to know that there was nothing could sway their minds towards rebellion (Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael being prime examples). The same could also be said for angels like Satan, who were loyal to me to a fault. It was the bulk of my renegade army that took the most convincing. Angels like Abaddon; loyal servants of God, but had enough doubt on their minds that I could mold them into joining the fight for freedom...or at least show them the path."
"Abaddon said you warned him that joining your war would get him kicked out of Heaven. Did you do that with the other angels you recruited too?"
Lucifer imparted a level stare upon his guest before answering her query. "No. I saw no need to. Most of my conscripts knew the risks that came with fighting on my side and didn't care. There were many who had not considered the possibility of facing permanent expulsion from Paradise, and it was my belief that informing them would scare them into tattling on me to Father and ruining my plans."
"You lied to them."
"I withheld certain truths. I spoke no falsehoods," Lucifer fired back.
"I heard that omitting the truth is the same as telling a lie," Sweetie Belle countered as she recalled the argument between Virgil and Caiaphas in the Circle of Fraud.
Lucifer closed his eyes and took a sharp inhale through the nose; a first and very obvious sign of frustration from the King of Hell. "Yes, well, you would say something like that. Virgil's time as your babysitter has clouded your mind with a very narrow understanding of my deeds. He and the rest of the monkeys like to think they're so clever, so enlightened, and so very knowledgeable of God's great and mysterious plan. They're even arrogant enough to think they know God's mind better than the angels, who were His first servants. Better than me , who was God's first fucking creation!" A menacing, overwhelming darkness began to manifest around the immediate area and grew ever larger and darker with the passing seconds. Sweetie Belle suddenly felt very small in Lucifer's presence, and she quickly found herself regretting having gotten into this debate with the fallen angel. Lucifer pinned her in her seat with a very intense and focused glare, like a rabbit who's just realized she's been caught in a lion's predatory sight. "Tell me: what were you told of the origins of sin? That I am the grand architect of mankind's depravities? That I am responsible for his wickedness?"
Sweetie Belle shook her head rapidly. "No! No one's talked to me about that!" In truth the subject was never discussed because she had not specifically inquired after the origins of sin. Unfortunately, Lucifer's ignorance of this fact only served to fuel his raging tirade.
"Virgil neglected to mention it, did he? Of course he did. Humans are incapable of taking responsibility for their own faults, and instead must turn to a scapegoat to ease the burden of their guilt. 'The devil made me do it!' 'You must be ever vigilant, because the devil is always working to lead us astray of the righteous path.' 'I didn't rape my daughter! The devil possessed me and forced myself upon her!' God damn it, I am so sick of hearing that bullshit! It was all my fault. Adam and Eve would never have eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge had it not been for me. I tempted them. It was all me, me, me, me, me, me, mother fucking me! " Lucifer slammed his fist against the arm of his throne with enough force to shake all Hell to its very foundations. By now Lucifer's shadow had engulfed the entire region of Cocytus. Even the floor had disappeared, and the seraphs above were nowhere to be seen or heard.
The Morning Star fixed a hostile glare upon Sweetie Belle and stabbed a finger at her. "I am not responsible. The true architect of man's incurable corruption is sitting pretty up in high Heaven, secure in the belief that He successfully framed me for His every mistake. He created sin by telling humankind that their basic instincts--their every want and desire was not merely wrong, but evil . Then He proceeded to convince these willful creatures that the only way to join Him in Heaven was to lead lives that were completely contrary to their true nature. It's no wonder why so many humans are in Hell when the smallest desire for extra food, greater wealth, or a brief sexual rendezvous screws you out of Paradise."
As Lucifer took a break to stew in his foul mood, Sweetie Belle felt a very abrupt impulse to ask a question she immediately regretted once it left her lips. "Who are Adam and Eve?"
Hell's king angrily rose from his throne, the seat dissipating once he was done with it, and broke into another lengthy tale. "Only two of the most unfortunate people to ever walk this earth. They are the progenitors of the entire human race; God's first mortal creations. He pulled Adam from the mud in the Garden of Eden and tore out one of his ribs to beget Eve, and then went on to give them carte blanche to do what they wished with the Garden's glorious bounty. That is, with exception to a single pomegranate tree. Now the humans believe that God told them the tree's nature and why they should avoid it. What really happened was that God kept that information to himself, likely as a means to test His new playthings, the sadistic prick."
"What was wrong with the tree?" Sweetie Belle asked, finding herself quite intrigued with this story.
"Its fruits contained knowledge of the concepts of good and evil. God told his creations that they were not to have anything to do with this tree, but neglected to explain why before pissing right off to watch the fun from his lofty perch. So things carry on as normal, and Man and Woman proceed to enjoy Eden's beauty and pleasures. However, during this entire time the two are plagued by the riddle of the tree, like a fly that just won't go away no matter how much you swat at it. They can't help wondering about it. See, humans are cursed with an insatiable desire--no, a need to know things, to understand the nature and order of the world around them. They more than any other creature on Earth possess such curiosity, and it often leads them into dangerous territory...as it does with Adam and Eve, because they start to ask questions. Is the fruit toxic to their health? Certainly not, because why would God knowingly plant a tree that could kill the only two members of their species. So if it wasn't poisonous, then was there something innately dangerous about the tree? Can't be, because none of the animals seem bothered by its presence. Why then would God forbid them from interacting with this specific tree?
"One day Eve finally breaks down and plucks a single pomegranate from the tree's branches, and then splits it with Adam. The exact second they swallow their first bites, God explodes onto the scene with a terrifying display of thunder and lightning and rips into them. He condemns them for disobeying His orders and calls on his lapdog Uriel to throw their asses out of Eden, and finally wipes their minds of all memory as pertaining to the Garden's location. Eventually God comes back to them and calmly explains that they are not entirely at fault for the incident. No, they were misled; tricked by a dastardly serpent with the promise that they could 'be like God.' And guess whose name He dropped for the serpent's 'true' identity." Lucifer growled something most unpleasant in an ancient foreign language as a ball of hellfire spontaneously manifested in the palm of his right hand, and then he hurled the blazing orb into the ground with furious strength, punctuating the action with another vile curse. The fireball exploded violently against the floor, but it left not even a scratch against the ice bed.
"They ate it up like a starving man will devour the flesh of his own kinsmen in the name of survival, and why wouldn't they? God was the only authority Adam and Eve had ever known; they had no reason to doubt Him. So henceforth the human race would pass this fiction down through the generations, teaching every season of children about what a terrible beast I am, and they would attribute titles and monikers to me like devil, Prince of Lies, Father of Sin, etcetera. The humans like to say the greatest trick I pulled was convincing the world I don't exist, but the truth is that God pulled the greatest trick in convincing the world that I am the enemy." Lucifer idly summoned the smoky throne again to slump in it like the wind had finally fallen out of his sails. The shadow which had consumed the land steadily receded until it was returned to its proper place directly under the rebellious son. "Funny thing is that I'm the only friend the humans have. God wants to rule them, but I want to set them free. I want to set everyone free; humans, angels, the whole of creation itself. That's the real reason why God threw me down here. I'm the only one with the power to undo all the work He put into subjugating this world...and I will once I'm reunited with my wings."
Sweetie Belle tilted her head and ears in confusion. She had assumed Lucifer no longer had wings, like Mammon and Satan and the other lords of Hell. "You have wings?"
A broad smile split Lucifer's lips, his first since embarking on the subject of sin. "You didn't think all the ice was to contain this subdued form, did you?" He pointed at the ground to direct his equine guest's attention at something that, once seen, shocked Sweetie Belle beyond words. Directly beneath the pair was a set of two massive crimson wings that positively dwarfed those of even the biggest dragons from the Dragon Lands. The tip of every feather was adorned with gold so bright it was practically white, as if the incandescence of the sun itself was personified in each decoration. The twin appendages were arguably more magnificent than their owner, which was a nigh impossible feat in and of itself.
Without realizing it, Sweetie Belle had abandoned her chair so she could gaze upon Lucifer's wings. She stumbled when the frozen lake trembled slightly, compelling her to tear her eyes from them to look at her host for explanation. "They appreciate your admiring them."
"Those...are your wings?"
"You don't believe me?" Lucifer chuckled as he rose again from the throne to swagger about the area. "I am God's only equal; yin to His yang...light to His dark. By all accounts, I am His clone. He thought sealing my wings away beneath miles of solid ice would save Him and His petty little kingdom, and honestly it would have if He hadn't fucked up with the humans so spectacularly. Human souls feed the fires of Hell and make them burn hotter, which melts the ice, and gets me steadily closer to achieving my ultimate goal." Lucifer looked upwards to the topmost levels of Hell and beyond. "When I have my wings again, I will bear the full weight of the Inferno upon my shoulders as I ascend to Heaven. The Kingdom of Man shall crack and burn in my wake, and when I reach Paradise I will unleash the horrors of Hell upon my enemies. The blood of angel and demon alike shall flood the alabaster halls of the White City and fall as rain upon the scorched earth. And when I at last confront my Father for the last time...I will separate His head from His shoulders."
Sweetie Belle watched Lucifer parade across the floor as he described the awful consequences to follow his recovering the wings, her face a mask of shock and disbelief at what she was hearing. "But that will kill everyone! What about setting the humans and the angels free?"
"Only when God has been destroyed and all traces of His corruption have been wiped away can the world be free to spin and evolve the way it was originally meant to. The angels must be exterminated because they are creatures designed for servitude; without a lord to adore they will be lost for purpose. Death is the greatest kindness I can give them, and death fighting in defense of their lord--even one as despicable as God--is a tremendous gift in honor. As for the humans..." Lucifer breathed a remorseful sigh and fell silent for a long moment. Eventually he looked at Sweetie Belle, and his expression abruptly changed to a more pleasant disposition. "You look like you're ready to finally return home."
"What?"
"Despite your numerous negative interactions, I do hope that you take away some positive experiences from your time with us. I also hope that you learned a great deal along your journey."
Sweetie felt almost sick with confusion and worry for what Lucifer had been talking about just moments ago, and she still needed to know the cause and purpose of her internment in the Woeful Realm. That is until a sudden onset of lethargy took hold and dragged her towards unconsciousness. Darkness rolled in from all sides of her field of vision, and she only vaguely felt her body collapse to the ground. The last thing she saw was Lucifer waving goodbye and wearing that same disarming smile he had worn when they first met, and then sleep took her at last.
Slowly, almost painfully so, a steady high-pitch beeping noise pulled Sweetie Belle little by little from the depths of slumber. The young filly willed her eyes to open; an almost impossible feat given that it felt as though weights had been tethered to her eyelids. An uncomfortably bright light was the first sight to greet her, compelling Sweetie to squint her eyes out of reflex. When it seemed her vision had adjusted to the glow, she pushed her eyes further open until she could at last get a view of her surroundings. The wall opposite where Sweetie Belle lay was eggshell-white and utterly devoid of decoration. Looking right she saw a window with the curtains pulled apart to allow for a mostly unobstructed view of the outside world. There was an empty chair just to the right of the bed Sweetie realized she was resting upon. Her ears swiveled to the left, at last alerting her to the noise of many voices talking at once. She inclined her head to see what the commotion was, and found that beyond the empty bed next to her was a large hall of ponies; nurses and doctors going here-to-there discussing patients, treatments, medicinal supplies, and other points of interest to those in the medical profession.
Then one very familiar pony came into the room from the hall. Her usually flawlessly-styled mane and tail were a mess of stray hairs and split ends, heavy bags hung beneath her cerulean eyes, and a paper cup of steaming liquid (presumably coffee) bobbed through the air beside her. The unicorn took notice of Sweetie Belle; she gasped very audibly, hurled her drink across the room, and leapt upon the little filly's bed.
"Sweetie Belle! " Rarity bawled as she clutched her little sister like a life preserver, all but crushing the air out of Sweetie's lungs in the process.
Hearing the commotion, a nurse rushed into the room to see what was the matter, and upon seeing Rarity cradling a freshly woken Sweetie Belle hurried off to share the news with any other interested parties. A short time later the room was almost overflowing with faces desperate to see the young unicorn. Parents Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles were first in the room and took up positions on either side of the bed to embrace and cry happy tears over their daughters. Immediately following them were Sweetie Belle's best friends Applebloom and Scootaloo, who were tailed by Applejack and Rainbow Dash respectively. Fluttershy entered with Spike riding astride her, and bringing up the rear was the doctor apparently overseeing Sweetie Belle's case. The physician waited patiently for friends and family to all have their turn at welcoming the young filly back to the waking world. Sweetie smiled and thanked one and all for their presences and their kind words, though she was at a complete loss as to what exactly was going on. Rarity adamantly refused to let go of her baby sister and could not stop crying into Sweetie's pillow, so Sweetie Belle simply stroked Rarity's hair to try and calm her.
"Thank Celestia you're okay!" Applebloom said with joyous relief. Her ever-present pink bow was in a similar state of disrepair as Rarity's hair.
"You sure gave us quite the scare," Applejack stated with a tired smile.
"Scare? What happened? What'd I do?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"You...You don't remember, sweetheart?" Her father said, his face a mess of tears.
"Memory loss is to be expected." All attention shifted to the doctor, and it was apparent from the expressions on several faces that her presence had heretofore been completely unnoticed. She was a serious looking mare with a tall and slender build that belied her advanced age, long hair tied back into a bun that was once silver but had dulled with time, hard hazel eyes, and a dark chestnut coat underneath the sky-blue scrubs and white lab coat. "Head trauma tends to be more severe in unicorns due to the dense volume of nerves housed in the external cranial organ." The only response she got was a room full of blank stares.
"Lady, what the heck did you just say to us?" Rainbow Dash demanded aggressively.
The doctor cleared her throat and clarified her statement. "The horn is very sensitive, and unicorns don't like being hit in the head."
"Hit in the head?" Sweetie removed a hoof from her sister's mane to feel around her forehead. There she found a bandage wrapped around the circumference of her head and also covered base the of her horn. She flinched visibly when she barely touched the junction between the appendage and her skull, but the pain did not travel up into her horn like she expected it to.
"We are keeping your horn numb to restrict any pain to the wound site and prevent use of magic in order to avoid exacerbating your injury," the doctor said.
"What happened?"
"I will let your guests tell you. In the meantime, just know that there is no permanent damage and you should recover within a week, two at most. Getting plenty of rest and avoiding usage of magic will help with the healing process. Parents, I will be just outside when you are ready to discuss plans moving forward." With that, the doctor vacated the room to give Sweetie Belle time alone with her friends and family. During this time she was informed, or rather reminded of the events which hospitalized her. She and the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders were at Sweet Apple Acres assisting with a barn raising alongside many other ponies both within the Apple family and without. During construction, someone lost their grip on their hammer, which fell through the air and struck Sweetie Belle exactly at the junction where her horn met her skull. Even on an adult unicorn such a blow would be quite severe, likely inducing heavy dizziness or brief loss of consciousness. On one so young as Sweetie Belle, the impact pitched her into a coma that lasted nearly four days. Applejack had immediately rushed the little filly to the hospital while Rainbow Dash raced off to notify Rarity, Hondo and Cookie. Out of those closest to Sweetie Belle, the only ones unaware of the incident were Princess Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie, who were away on a friendship mission.
"We thought you died ," Scootaloo said once the tale was told.
"It definitely sounded a lot worse the way you told it when you and Applebloom plowed into me in the market chasing AJ," Spike said with a half-lidded glare directed at the young pegasus filly. He turned his attention to Sweetie Belle, smiled and reached out to gently squeeze her hoof. "I'm glad that wasn't the case," he said. Sweetie felt her cheeks blush as she smiled back at him. Suddenly a not-completely-unladylike snore drew all attention to Rarity, who at some point during the conversation had fallen completely asleep. Sweetie Belle did her best to shift her big sister so her face was not completely buried into Sweetie's pillow, which was damp and deeply stained by tears. Rarity obliged in her unconscious state, but did not release her hold on the younger sibling.
Cookie Crumbles moved to lovingly stroke her eldest daughter's mane. "Poor dear. You know she almost never left the hospital while you were unconscious."
"Really?" Sweetie said in a subdued voice in deference to Rarity.
Hondo Flanks nodded and wiped his face when he felt his eyes begin to water at the sight. "She worried over you night and day. We all did, but Rarity about made herself sick with it. Only time she'd ever leave was to get a shower because Mom told her to, and then she was straight back here once she got all cleaned up. Nice to see her finally get some sleep."
"When I heard Rarity was staying here at night instead of going home, I took Opalescence to my house to look after her since no pony knew when you were going to wake up. I'm glad we didn't have to wait too long," Fluttershy said with a smile. "Not that I mind taking care of Opal! She's a very nice cat, and I'm happy that I was able to spend so much time with her. But I'm sure she's ready to go back home, and I know she'll be excited to see you're okay," she added hurriedly.
Sweetie Belle could not help smiling at the love and concern her friends and family had showed while she was comatose, and had to wipe at her face as tears welled up in her eyes. Then, after they took turns to plant affectionate kisses and nuzzles on their children, Hondo and Cookie left the room together to speak with the doctor about Sweetie's future in the hospital.
"So, kiddo; you have any wicked, crazy dreams while you were out cold?" Rainbow Dash asked while looking for a chair to sit in.
The young unicorn searched her mind for several seconds, but curiously could only recall vague pieces. "I don't really remember. I think there was something about caves, ghosts, and...ice. I don't remember anything other than that."
"That sucks. Three whole days of sleep, and you can't remember what you dreamed about? I was hoping for a super awesome story full of monsters and adventure and stuff. Sounds like a waste of sleep," Rainbow said dejectedly.
"Three days of rest after gettin' her bell rung by a hammer fallin' twenty feet is a 'waste of sleep'?" Applejack looked at the cyan pegasus with a half-lidded glare. This quickly turned into a heated argument between the two ponies, which Fluttershy felt obligated to try and bring a peaceful ending to. The three youngest ponies and dragon whelp all rolled their eyes simultaneously and ignored the dispute.
"So what's been happening while I was asleep?" Sweetie Belle asked of her friends. Sometimes taking turns and sometimes all at once, Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Spike gave a detailed accounting of everything they had been up to as a group and on their own in Sweetie's absence. They also told her about the affairs of Ponyville's other citizens to the best of their ability. As she listened to her friends recount numerous tales of adventure, love, and comedy, Sweetie Belle felt a sense of relief come over her that she couldn't explain. For reasons unknown to her, she was glad to be home at last.
Unbeknownst to everyone in the room, outside on the windowsill peeking in was a snake. It was six feet-long and not a single inch over, though its size was obscured from the casual viewer by being coiled on itself, and its scales were slightly tan all over save for the top of the head, which was decorated with a patch of burgundy. It's eyes were as green as the heart of the deepest, oldest forest, and those glorious emeralds peered through the glass directly at Sweetie Belle. The serpent observed her for a long moment, watched her converse and laugh with the other children in the room, and then, seemingly satisfied with what it had seen, casually abandoned the windowsill for the ground and disappeared into a nearby hole.
