Hatter's Cane Laser: From Nikki Little's "The Second Sword" Chapter 8
Chapter 8: "The Wrathful"
When Alice and Plutus had finished gabbing, she started down the walkway without a word, secure in the knowledge that no one would contemplate balking and staying behind. I found this most amusing, and it even occurred to me that Alice would have made a fine teacher. She knew how to exercise authority without speaking a single word. The trip to the entrance to the third circle took about half an hour, and during that time two senators dropped back from the main group and began to converse with Hatter in low whispers. I doubted if the senators up ahead would have heard the whisperings, but as I walked beside Hatter, I was privy to everything. The two senators who dropped back were Kennedy and Sanders.
The frustration in the two senators' voices was obvious as they discussed the morality of what Alice was doing and whether or not her obviously intended end justified her method. Hatter wisely listened without offering any viewpoints of his own. I suspected that he was entirely opposed to Alice's venture. When it came to the "uptop" world, Hatter was a pessimist. The two senators, who had both long been idealistic advocates of social change, felt that the situation in the United States was so dire and the need for some sort of jolt to the consciousness was so great that Alice's actions were justified. Needless to say, that was an opinion which they did not care to share with their compatriots ahead. Alice, in case anyone has forgotten, was the United States' second most wanted terrorist.
The entrance to the third circle loomed ahead, and Alice halted the parade. She informed me that because of the possibility of attack from the third circle's ruling Harpies, it would be necessary for me to take a place in the center of our column and to be prepared to use the ice wand which she promptly handed to me. She also handed me the jacks to put in my dress pocket. I had practiced with the jacks in Wonderland, but never expected to be asked to use them in a combat situation. Suddenly I felt very uneasy: Alice would not have given me the jacks unless she was expecting us to be attacked. I took my leave of Hatter.
Leaving us behind for a moment, Alice entered the doorway to the third circle to take a look ahead. She returned and walked down the side of our column in her now familiar ritual of counting our heads like a kindergarten teacher tending her charges. Some of the senators were visibly irritated at being counted, but no one said a word to Alice. The doorway to the third circle, like the doorway to the previous circle, led into a narrow, completely enclosed, stone corridor with tiny open windows in the stone far above our heads. The bright sunlight of the second circle streamed through and lit our way. It took about an hour of continuous walking to reach the actual entrance to the third circle.
Alice walked through first, and then stepped back in to the stone corridor to motion for the rest of us to follow. Our first glimpse of the third circle was a surprise that none of us could have anticipated. The abode of the feared Harpies appeared to be a mostly blacktopped elementary school playground with islands of tall trees here and there. Our walkway, as before, was a wide ledge about fifty feet above the circle itself. This was little comfort as the Harpies, of course, could fly.
I looked down and saw wall-to-wall child-sized shades being tormented by flocks of Harpies. Everywhere I looked I saw a group of Harpies surrounding, teasing, and torturing a child-sized shade. Each group of Harpies would push its victim back and forth for a minute or two and then twist the shade's arms and legs off as if removing the limbs from a doll. The Harpies would tear, munch, and chew at the limbs right in front of the victim and then toss the stripped bones on top of the now limbless victim who was always lying face-up. To finish the torment, the Harpies would carry the now limbless victim into the air and play a game of catch with the living slab. Eventually the Harpies would tire of their victim and toss the slab down onto the playground from hundreds of feet in the air. The slab would splatter on impact.
Our entire group watched the spectacles below and above for five minutes, or possibly it was ten, before moving forwards. The sense of foreboding and menace in this circle of Hell exceeded anything we had felt before. We all knew that eventually at least one Harpy, or possibly an entire flock of them, would land on our walkway to threaten us. I tightened my grip on my ice wand and felt in my dress pocket for the jacks weapon.
My fear did not take long to become reality. As our column marched forward, a flock of Harpies playing catch in the air with a limbless slab tossed the slab down onto the walkway directly in front of us. Of course, we could be neither seen nor heard by the damned souls of Hell. Alice walked right through the slab, and the rest of us did likewise. This seemed to irritate the group of Harpies who had been playing at catch with that particular slab, and the leader of the group landed directly in front of Alice, who did not flinch.
"Since when did you learn to step right through a soul, Medusa? And who are the rest of these interlopers? Are you on holiday from the seventh circle?"
"I am not Medusa," rasped Alice. She waited to see if the Harpy would realize the mistake from the certain difference in voice. I was thankful that the Harpy and Alice both spoke loudly enough so that I could hear. There were no background noises in this circle at all. Deafening silence was all that I could hear.
"Not Medusa?" The Harpy flapped its wings and hovered directly in front of Alice with the obvious intent of intimidation. "You sure look like her, but I admit the voice is off. Just who are you then? Are you a guide? That would explain all these interlopers who trail behind you. Would you be upset if I used any of them for a little game of catch? How about one of the women in your column? Perhaps that one in the blue, pleated dress?" There was only one woman in the entire group besides Alice in a blue, pleated dress. Me.
The Harpy did not know it, of course, but she had made the worst of all possible mistakes. She had threatened me. I knew Alice well enough to know that she would have blown the entire third circle to a pile of rubble to protect me. Nevertheless, I tossed the ice wand into my left hand and grabbed for the jacks. Before I could throw the jacks at the hovering Harpy, Alice had unsheathed her Bowie knife and had made a point-blank throw connect. The Harpy's head flew like a soccer ball on its way to a goal, and the rest of the Harpy's airborne troop came swooping down on us.
Alice grabbed her cards weapon and fired in a wide spread into the troop with several cards striking each Harpy. A few cards missed, but most hit their mark. The troop kept coming, and Alice threw her knife again the instant it returned to her upraised hand. Another Harpy head went flying. From the back of our column, I saw the beam of Hatter's cane laser criss-crossing the flying troop. I added a throw of the jacks, and the entire troop of Harpies exploded into a rain of reeking meat chunks.
Alice quickly blew a smoke portal to the most distant part of the walkway that we could see, and repeated the process a few times more until the exit was within view. She blew a smoke portal back to our waiting column and herded us through with an explicit urgency. As we stepped through the portal to a point on the ledge just yards from the exit to the third circle, Alice spoke for all of us with her only comment about the eternal home of the world's bullies: "Let's get the hell out of here."
End of Chapter 8
This story is based on the characters created by American McGee. Electronic Arts (EA) owns the copyright. The original "Inferno" was written, of course, by Dante.