Long ago (Hitherby said) I was given custody of a parcel. It was my duty to deliver it to a human named Stephen Jones. He was a Soldier of God, in the charge of Jordi, and I can only assume that the parcel contained a relic of some kind. A Master of the Creature Within gave it to me, so I took the assignment very seriously indeed.

Apparently, I was not unexpected. As I entered the city limits of the place where Stephen lived, I was set upon by a Calabite and two Habbalah. All three were bloody by the time I was beaten, but I was most definitely beaten. Then they took the package and descended into Hell.

This story is not about folly or pride, although they play a major role. Suffice it to say that something convinced me that it was a good idea to follow them. It may also be said that they were as surprised as I was by my decision, and I managed to yank the package away and run. If the halls of Andrealphus were less of a maze, then I would never have escaped. For some reason, most demons move faster than I do, in celestial form. If God was not with me, I would never have survived the next half hour.

Let me think about how to explain this.

It's not that I couldn't get out of Hell with a single thought. At one point, well -- I did. The problem was that nothing in my nature or experience prepared me to think that thought. And as I raced through Andrealphus' sanctuary, my celestial nature evident to any demon or damned soul that chose to look up at me and then sound the alarm, I had no time to figure it out.

Then I ducked into a room that I thought was empty. All that was in it was a coffin.

Someone inside the coffin lifted up her head. Her body was facing downwards, so she had to arch her back. Her eyes, when she turned to look at me, were hollow. Not dead. Just hollow, drained of all hope and all joy. The demons say that in Shal-Mari, the souls have a little bit of pleasure. She didn't look like she'd had a moment of anything but suffering for the past thousand years. And she said, "Come here." Her voice was scratchy, as if she hadn't spoken in all those years. "Safe. Inside."

I approached. I was afraid, wary, and nervous, but I was also in a desperate hurry. And when I came close, I saw that her arms and legs were chained so that she couldn't leave the coffin, and they had very little play. And when I came closer, I saw that she was locked in union with a corpse -- not a damned soul, just a corpse. And yet it moved. It would have been nice to think that she was a necrophiliac, but I don't think she was.

I don't think she had ever been.

But she was right. There was space in the coffin, as long as she kept her back arched, for me to squeeze in between the corpse and its lover. And there, I had time enough to figure out the thought that would take me back to Earth.

The point of this isn't that Andrealphus is a lot sicker than the demons tell people. I mean, he is, and God only knows how many centuries that woman's been stuck that way. The point is that, even in Hell, there are some people who will take action -- even a few whispered words -- to save a fellow being from their Fate. I asked the Great One once if she could be brought forth. He said "no," and I did not understand the emotions in his voice.

And he couldn't even tell me her name.