THE MORE WE walked now, the more repelled and nervous I became. A kind of aching restlessness filled me. I felt cramped and stifled as though the atmosphere were closing in around my body. The air in my lungs tasted vile, unclean, as thick as mucilage.
"Adjust your system again," Albert said.
Once again--I'd done it five times now; or had it been six?--I visualized myself as I would have to be to function under these new conditions. Not function in comfort, God knew; that concept had long since left my system. Survival was all that I could hope for now.
Once more, I felt my body clotting. So much so, now, that I might have been alive on earth again, my flesh congealed and weighted, my bones coagulated into hardness.
"Adjust your mind as well," Albert told me. "This will be the worst you've seen."
I drew a deep breath, grimacing at the taste and odor of the fetid air. "Is this really helping?" I asked. "If there were any other way to find her, rest assured we'd take it," Albert said.
"Are we any closer to her?"
"Yes," he said, "and no."
I turned to him in irritation. "What does that mean?" I demanded.
His urgent look reminded me to quell my anger. At first, I couldn't, then, realizing that I must, I strained to keep myself controlled. "Are we any closer?" I asked.
"We're moving in the right direction," he replied. "I just haven't been able to locate her yet."
He stopped and looked at me. "I'm sorry that I can't explain it any better," he said. "I can say that, yes, it's helping. Please believe me."
I nodded, returning his look.
"Tell me if you want to go back," he said.
"Let me look for her--"
"I want to find her, Albert. Now."
"Chris, you've got to--"
I turned away from him in fury, then looked back as quickly. He was only warning me. My new impatience with him was a sign that the environment was affecting me again.
I started to apologize, then felt myself begin to tense with anger once again. I almost lashed out at him. Then a beam of reason pierced the dark resentment in my mind and I knew, once more, that he was only trying to help. Who was I to argue with a man who had come to this awful place to help others? What in God's name was the matter with me?
My sentiments reversed themselves again. I was disconsolate once more, stricken by my inability to--
"Chris, you're hunching again," Albert said. "Concentrate on something positive." A burst of alarm. I willed my clouding mind to think of Summerland. Albert was my friend. He was taking me to find Ann, his only motivation, love.
"Better." Albert squeezed my arm. "Hold to that, whatever it is."
"I'll try," I said. "I'm sorry I slipped again."
"It isn't easy to remember here," he said. "And simple to forget."
Even those words, meant as explanation, like a shadowy magnetism, had a tendency to pull me down. Again, I thought of Summerland, then of Ann and of my love for her. That was better.
I would concentrate on Ann.
The light was getting dimmer as we walked now. Even with my concentration on an area of light around me, the nimbus seemed to shrink as though some outside pressure forced it in. Albert's light was stronger but even his illumination soon became no brighter than that of a dying candle flame. It seemed as though I felt a gathering thickness in the air. We might have been moving along the bottom of a deep and murky sea. There were no people anywhere in sight, no structures. All I saw ahead were rocks, a line of craggy boulders.
Moments later, we had reached the crater edge.
Leaning forward, I looked down into the blackness of it, then pulled back sharply at a rush of something from below--something toxic and malignant. "What?" I muttered.
"If there is any place I've been to that deserves the name of Hell, this is it," Albert told me. It was the first time I had ever heard the sound of misgiving in his voice and it made ray fear increase. The constant throughout all of this had been his strength. If this place frightened him ...
"We must go down there though," he said. I wasn't sure if he was telling me or steeling himself for the ordeal.
I drew in laboring breath. "Albert, she isn't down there," I said, I pleaded.
"I don't know," he answered. His expression was grave. "I only know we have to go there if we want to find her." Shuddering, I closed my eyes and tried to remember Summerland. To my dismay, I found myself unable to do it. I strained to conjure up a vision of the lake shore I had stood on, the exquisite scenery--
The thought was gone. I opened my eyes and stared out at the vast, dark crater.
It was miles in circumference with precipitous walls. All I could make out on its floor-- it was like trying to pick out details in a night-shrouded valley--were huge masses of rock as though some cataclysmic landslide had occurred in eons past. I thought I made out openings but wasn't certain. Were there tunnels in the rock? I shuddered again, trying not to let myself imagine what sort of beings might exist in those tunnels.
"We have to go this way?" I asked. I knew the answer in my mind but heard my voice speak nonetheless, my tone one of faltering dread.
"Chris, let's go back," he said. "Let me look on my own."
"No.'' I braced myself. I loved Ann and would help her. Nothing in the depths of Hell would keep me from it.
Albert looked at me and I returned his gaze. His appearance had changed. He was as I remembered him on earth. Nothing of perfection could survive in this place and his features bore the cast I recollected from my youth. He'd always looked a little pale, a little ill. He looked that way again--as I was sure I looked.
I could only pray that, underneath his pallor, the resolution of the man I'd met in Summerland was still intact.
We were climbing down an angling, rocky fissure. It was far too dim to see clearly but I could feel slime on the surface of the rocks, a jellylike matter which exuded a smell of decay. Once in a while, some small thing crawled across my fingers, startling me. When I twitched my fingers, whatever they were darted swiftly into cracks. Teeth clenched, I forced myself to concentrate on Ann. I love her and was here to help her. Nothing else was stronger than that. Nothing.
As we descended gradually, the feeling of--how shall I describe it?--materiality began to crowd the air. It was as though we climbed down through some unseen, grumous fluid. Adjustments came by seconds now. We were part of the environment, our very flesh adapting to it automatically. The air--could it be called that?--was totally repulsive-- dense and sticky, foul of odor. I could feel it ooze around my body, crawling down into my lungs as we descended and descended.
"You've actually been here?" I asked. I was gasping for breath. We might as well have been alive, I thought, so complete was the sense of bodily function.
"Again and again," Albert said.
"I couldn't do it."
"Someone has to help," he replied. "They can't help themselves."
They, I thought. A convulsive shudder wracked my body. What did they look like, the denizens of this forbidding pit? I hoped I didn't have to find out. I prayed that Albert would--with a sudden burst of discovery--know exactly where Ann was and take me there, away from this hideous place. I couldn't stand much--
No. I stopped myself. I mustn't think that way. I could stand anything I had to in order to reach Ann.
The lower realm. Not an adequate description for this region. Not bad enough by half. No light; the blackness of unfathomable night No vegetation. Nothing but chilled stone. A foul, repugnant, never ceasing odor. An atmosphere to make the strongest man feel sick and helpless.
The blackness was enshrouding now. It took every bit of concentration I possessed to keep alive the weakest glimmer of illumination. I couldn't see my hands any more. Spelunking must be just like this, the thought occurred. The darkness pressed against my flesh as well as we descended, down and down. Would we be safer not to carry light at all? I wondered. So as not to be caught sight of by--?
I gasped as, with the thought, abysmal blackness covered me. "Albert!" I whispered.
"Conceive of light," he told me quickly.
I clung to the cold rock wall and strained to do as he had said, my brain laboring to create an image of illumination.
In thought, I struck a match that would not ignite. Again and again, I raked its head across the rocky surface but the best I could manage was the vision of a furtive, random spark in the distance.
I tried to imagine a torch in my hand, a lantern, a flashlight, a candle. Nothing worked. The darkness tightened its grip and I began to panic.
Abruptly, I felt Albert's hand clamp down across my shoulder. "Light,'' he said.
Relief washed over me as illumination came back like a pale corona around my head. I felt a glow of reassurance: at the light but, even more, at Albert's still intact ability to restore, in me, the strength to bring it back.
"Keep it strong in your mind," he said. "There is no darkness in the universe to match that of the lower realm. You do not want to be devoid of light here."
I reached out with my right hand to squeeze his arm in gratitude. At the same moment, something cold and many-legged scurried across my left hand and I almost jerked it from the wall, remembering only at the last instant to keep myself from doing so. I clutched back at the wall with my right hand and closed my eyes. After a few moments, I murmured, "Thank you."
"All right," Albert said.
As we continued down, I wondered what would have happened if I'd fallen. I couldn't die. Still, that was little comfort. In Hell, death has to be the least of threats.
The curdled air was getting colder now, clinging to my skin with a crawling dampness that felt alive. Conceive of warmth, I told myself. I struggled to envisage the air of Summerland, to feel its warmth on my skin.
It helped a little. But the smell was getting worse now. What did it remind me of? At first, I couldn't recall, climbing downward, ever downward; would we never reach the bottom?
Then it came to me. A summer afternoon. Marie returning from a ride on Kit. Just before she wiped Kit's lathered coat, I smelled it. I pressed my teeth together 'til they ached. The odor of Hell is the odor of a sweating horse, I thought. Was this the place that Dante had confronted in his awful visions? It came to me, at that moment--slowly, far too slowly, every thought an effort now--that, just as I was able to repress the dark and cold, I could, by logic, shut away the odor as well. How? I wondered. My brain turned over like a foundering ship. Think, I ordered myself--and managed to evoke a memory of the fresh aroma in Summerland. Not a perfect memory by any means but enough to ease the smell, to make my downward climb more bearable. Thinking to tell him what I'd done, I looked around for Albert and a sudden burst of terror struck me as I failed to see him.
I spoke his name aloud. No answer.
"Albert?"
Silence. "Albert!"
"Here." His voice just reached me and, by peering hard, I presently was able to see the faint glow of this presence moving toward me. "What happened?" I asked.
"You lost attention," he told me. "And, looking down, I did the same."
Breath shook inside me as I looked down. All I saw was total and immeasurable blackness. How could he see anything there?
I caught my breath then, listening. From the dark pit, I could hear a collection of nearly inaudible sounds--screams and cries of agony, mad, raucous laughter, bowlings of derangement. I tried not to shudder but I didn't have the strength. How could I go down to that? I closed my eyes and pleaded: God, please help me to survive. Whatever lay below me on me floor of Hell.