PART NINE. THE QUEEN OF HELL

ONE

The ground opened up as though it was going to bring forth some fantastic spring: red shoots, as fine as needles, appeared in their tens of thousands, pierced the ground. A V-shaped crack, each side perhaps twenty feet in length, then erupted into the burgeoning ground, the apex no more than a yard from the spot where had goat-boy's crate sat.

The steady reverberation of immense machinery increased, and it now became apparent what purpose this machine had, for an opening appeared in the earth, resembling the upper part of some vast reptilian snout. The red needles continued to grow, both in size and number, especially around the lip; and at a certain point, when they were perhaps a foot tall, or taller, they produced hosts of tiny purple-black flowers, which gave off a scent no one in the vicinity (except, of course, Qwaftzefoni) was familiar with. It was pungent, like a spice, but there was nothing about it which would ever have persuaded a cook to use it: the smell, and thus presumably the taste, was so powerful that it would have overwhelmed even the most robust dish. It made everyone feel faintly nauseated by its forcefulness. Eppstadt, who had the weakest stomach, actually threw up.

By the time he'd done with his retching the extraordinary growth-cycle of the plant had carried it past its peak, however. The small black blossoms were in sudden decay, their petals losing their colour. And now, in its autumnal mode, the odor of the plant changed. What had been an almost unbearable stench a minute before became transformed by the process of corruption, its foulness entirely evaporated.

What remained was a scent that somehow conspired with the souls of everyone present to put them in mind of some sweet memory: something lost; something sacrificed; something taken by time or circumstance. Nor, though their bodies were held in the embrace of these feelings, could they have named them. The scent was too subtle in its workings to be pinned to any one memory. All that mattered was the state of utter vulnerability in which it left everyone. By the time the Hell's Mouth had opened, and Lilith herself had stepped out of its long, sharp shadows, her flora had enraptured the souls of everyone who stood before her. Whatever they saw from now on, whatever they said and did, was colored by the way the scent of her strange garden had touched them.

Was she beautiful? Well, perhaps. The scent was beautiful, so it seemed she -- who was shaped by the scent, as if her body were carved from perfumed smoke -- was surely beautiful too, though a more logical assessment might have pointed out how curiously made her face was, close in colour and texture to the blossoms in their corrupted phase.

Her voice, that same less dreamy assessor might have said, was unmusical, and her dress, despite its great size and elaboration (tiny, incomprehensible motifs hand-sewn in neat rows, millions of times) more proof of obsession, even of madness, than of beauty.

Even allowing that there can be not one good and reliable report of Lilith, the Devil's wife, some things may still be clearly said of her. She was happy, for one. She laughed with almost indecent glee at the sight of her caged child, though she plainly saw that he was missing a hand. And her manner, when dealing with the Duke, was nothing short of exquisite.

"You've suffered much for your crime against my household," she said, speaking in cultured English, which -- by some little miracle of her making -- he understood. "Do you have any idea how many years have passed since you first began to hunt for that idiot child of mine?" She stabbed a finger at the creature in the crate, who started to moan and complain, until she shushed him by slapping the bars.

The Duke replied that no, he did not know.

"Well, perhaps it's best you don't," Lilith told him. "But what you should know, because it will shape what happens when I have taken this imp of mine back, is that your natural life-span-your three score years and ten-was over centuries ago."

The Duke looked puzzled at this; and then aghast, as he realized the consequences of what she was telling him: that he and his men had hidden their lives away in this fruitless Hunt; around and around and around, chasing a baby who'd put on perhaps two years in the period of the pursuit.

"My father?" he said. "My brother?"

"All dead," Lilith said, with some little show of sympathy. "All that you knew and remembered has gone."

The Duke's face remained unchanged, but tears filled up his eyes and then spilled down his cheeks.

"Men and your hunts," Lilith went on, addressing, it seemed, some larger error in the Duke's sex. "If you hadn't been out killing healthy stags and boars in the first place, you could have married and lived and loved. But," she shrugged, "we do as our instincts dictate, yes? And yours brought you here. To the very edge of your own grave."

She was telling him, it seemed, that he'd run out of life and now, after all the sacrifices of his Hunt, his reward would be death: pure, simple and comfortless.

"Let me have my child then," she said. "Then we'll have this wretched business over and done with."

It was at this point that Eppstadt spoke up once more. He'd had a twitching little smile on his face for a while, the reason for which was simple enough: this latest spectacle (the earth opening up, the flowers, the scent that toyed with memory) had finally convinced him that one of his earlier explanations for all of this was most likely the correct one. He was lying unconscious somewhere in the house (probably having been struck by a falling object during the earthquake) and was fantasizing this whole absurd scene. He very seldom felt as self-willed in dreams as he felt in this one; indeed, he seldom dreamed at all; or at least remembered his dreams. But now that he had this nonsense in his grasp, he wasn't ready to let it go just yet. Ever the negotiator, he stepped forward and put out his hand, to prevent the Duke passing over the child.

"I don't suggest you do that just yet," he said, not sure whether the man understood him or not, though the gesture was clear enough. "The moment you hand over the brat, you're dead. You understand?"

"Don't do this, Eppstadt," Todd advised.

"Why the hell not? It's just a dream -- "

"It's not a dream," Jerry said. "It's real. Everything down here is as -- "

"Oh Christ, Brahms, shut up. You know what I'm going to do when I'm finished sorting this out? I'm going to kick your faggot ass." He grinned, obviously hugely satisfied to be so politically incorrect.

"You're going to regret this," Todd said. "Jerry's right."

"How can he be right?" Eppstadt said, his voice dripping contempt. "Look at this place! How can any of this fucking idiocy be real? It's all going on in my head! And I bet you thought I had the dull little mind of a business school executive!"

"Eppstadt," Todd said. "This is not going on in your mind."

Eppstadt made the donkey-bray buzz that accompanied the wrong answer on a quiz show. He was riding high on his newfound, comprehension of his situation, "Wrong, baby. Fuck! So very, very wrong. Can I say something, while we've got this moment, and it's my dream so I'll fucking say it anyway? You are a terrible actor. I mean, we would get the dailies in at Paramount and we would howl, I mean we would fucking howl, at some of the takes. Tears pouring down our faces while you attempted to emote."

"You are such a cunt."

"That I am. And you're a millionaire many times over because I persuaded a bunch of losers who wouldn't know a crass commercial decision from a hole in their asses to pay you an obscene amount of money to parade your God-given attributes." He turned to Lilith, who had been watching this outburst as though amused by the cavorting of an antic dog. "Sorry. There I go mentioning the G-word. Probably doesn't sit well with you?"