Vergil in Averno

only new thoughts in the minds — the common mind, one might say — of the magnatery was that new holes be pierced for new fires to be used in the same old ways. Thus: one end, one purpose. First.

Second, for another (some rhetor, silent as in a mime-show, accounting on his fingers the points to be made, in classic mode, appeared in Vergil’s mind; whilst the most of the mind writhed in torment, this silent figure mimed and mowed, and moved its fingers as calmly and even as though the slightest bit bored to be demonstrating once again, Thus, Citizens and Conscript Fathers, we will recapitulate the reasons why study of the arts philosophical as well as martial be beneficial for the state: firstly. . secondly …). Second, that the good gods of hell be pleased to accept this plan and that it be hecatombs as should please them: not as Vergil — ignorant as a maiden before whom oblique talk is made of maidenheads — had assumed meant hecatombs of oxen; and Vergil had approved, thinking only that it could not hurt and the slaves would for more than once in an annum or in a lustrum have flesh-meat-roast to eat: nothing such like: It had been hecatombs of human sacrifices the hobgob magnates had meant; nothing else? Nothing more than Cadmus? Many more than Cadmus. Hecatombs. Plural. How many hundreds were to die, one after another, pierced, shattered, as the gret drill came down time after time to pierce the places within the rough ovoid that Vergil’s diligence had calculated and reported upon, that neat reticulated grid he had draw, Sisyphean, almost, time after time, upon his maps?

For this? Only for this?

In effect: yes.

Only for this.

Thirdly, magnates and master workmen of the Very Rich City of Averno, as such sacrifice, essential and profitable as we ourselves know it to be, be full illicit and damnably forbidden by the Empire’s Laws, and as it must be somehow excused and as it were “written off” on the accompt-books in which be listed all which pertains to the relations of the Very Rich City with the Very Rich Empire; therefore …

(Iohan’s therefore! And the lad knew as much, which is to say as little as, on this, his master….)

Fourthly, ah, what a good and slyly clever way to wipe clean the lists, wipe them free of many and many a score of aged sick and weak slaves and serfs and thralls whose fumbling labor does not earn their keep in moldy millet, spoiled spelt, and bad barley, with now and then some sop of broth boiled of rotten bones; as well, magnates, as well, as well! magnates, of all such whom we have known to be disaffected of our stern and meritorious rule, and all whom we suspect of interloping, too. We shall not only offer them like slaughtered oxen to the good gods of hell, Demogorgon and his devil-hosts, but we shall denounce them as criminals justly put to death for having committed sedition, treason, rebellion, lese-majeste, conspiracy against Emperor and Empery by reason that they had nominated, selected, elected, coronated, approbated, and cooperated with aforesaid Cadmus, a subject daring to hold a title royal and without royal Imperial assent….

Fifthly, may it please the Emperor, his Crown and Staff, the Senate, and the People of Rome to forgive the Very Rich City in its corporate entity, inasmuch as said Very Rich City has not alone escheated, confiscated, seized the estates of the rebels (on another list named by names), and does herewith assign, return, and pay unto the Treasury Imperial the proper halves and fourths and fifths and tenths, but also that the said Very Rich City does contritely fine itself for having taken even so short a time to contain and put down said rebellion; and said fines, richly appropriate to the Very Rich City, are also herewith produced and paid; may it please -

It must have been that final moment, the very final beat of the beat beat beat of the everlasting pulse-beats of that Very Rich and very damnable city; it must have been that final moment when the final drill was dropped, and much they must have sharpened it and likely more than once; it must have been but seconds after that final drill was dropped, weighted well, perhaps weighted more than the other times it had fallen, that Demogorgon, the chieftain of the good gods of hell, had shown at last the responsum to all the offerings, the (oft-repeated, often heard, never comprehended phrase!) hecatombs! hecatombs! Witnesses from below, there were none; witness from above, afar, more than a few.

The wily magnates had falsified the dates on their documents in more ways than one; there had been no time for any troops, legions, to reach the black gates in the black walls; even the three men with Casca’s message had had scarce time to make scarce way through the rugged roadways, when -

The concussion of the drill’s last drop had been faintly felt, yet that far away; first felt, then heard; then one immense lance of flame and fire was seen shooting skyward; then -

Had the walling mountains round about Averno not stood where they had been standing since before forever, what would have remained of all that part of the land? As it was, the mountains flung back what had been flung against them. Those who had seen the first flash and flush of flame from afar atop the hills had not seen the second, the force of the first explosion had flung them backward (as it had flung Vergil and Casca down from their chairs and against the walls and onto the floor), off their feet. Some had had the sense to lie where they had fallen. It was said that fragments of the torn and tortured earth had fallen as far away as Rome; certainly some had fallen into the Parthenopean Bay, great Bay of Naples, between the mainland and the Isle of Goats, hissing as they sank. How fortunate for Naples and all its suburbs and exurbs that these lapides had, as it were, overshot those cities. And all other cities.

Tremors continued for a while. Presently, as Casca — bruised a bit in body, but, oddly, seemingly much more his old and pre-Avernian self in spirit — and Vergil, and the Viceroy himself, climbed the now again-firm mountains. And dared look down.

Where Averno had stood (stood? say, rather, squatted), nothing stood now. No fragment of its black walls remained to view. Down the bed of the canal, propelled by a fierce and scouring flood, still rolled one great torrent of boiling mud, though slackening as they watched, and poured into the sea, hissing as it poured; and yet a second, smaller sea of it remained. . remained forever: Lake Averno, it came to be called, a lake of not-quite-lava, a vast bog of bubbling muck, a surrounding swamp of seething earth and slime and stinking gas, with here and there and there and now and then a spurt or jet of flame. And bubbles, like bubbles of black blood.

What “the good gods of hell” had given, and given to make the Very Rich City very rich, they had, it seemed, given ever grudgingly. And now they had claimed it all and taken back again.

They. And “Sissie and cruel Erichtho.”

“The revenues of the South will never recover,” the Viceroy had said, bleakly. Doubtless never. As for the Viceroy’s own revenues, the following year for the first time he was to decline his exemption from the pro-consular lots. Into the urn with the other names had his own name gone, as (he having been of course at least once a consul) go it otherwise must have gone long before. He had (it was said) not even bothered to see of which province he had drawn the governance — grain-great Sicily, Aspania deep with silver, Chaldea the Far with its femminate men and bearded women, or distant, misty Picti-Land — but had merely handed the summons to his secretary with the single word, “Prepare.”

Admirable.

No doubt.

But that was for the next year, and that was for the Viceroy. As for Vergil, and for now, what? For as for Averno: nothing.

Iohan had stood with them, so pale and drawn that Vergil would have been shocked, had not the greater, the unspeakably greater shock been spread out before them in what they had not yet learned to speak of as “Lake Averno.” Casca was long silent (Vergil, totally silent, though his mind screamed several names, and over and over again); then Casca said, “It is just as well that I find I do not remember the name of whatever philosopher it was who said that the truest happiness possible for a man was to stand safely on a cliff in a storm and, watching a ship being sunk beneath the cliff, thank his guardian genius he was not aboard. I. . somehow. . I do not feel such happiness. Or any happiness at all.” And at this Iohan had given a shuddering sob, then turned away his face and covered it with one hand.

On their way back to the small port city that was now, once again, home, Iohan — save for the few short questions and replies required by the performance of his usual work — had said nothing. It was not until (with no