Vergil in Averno

I, how over the course of the past few decades there has been both a shifting of the active fire-holes all round about, as well as a general waning of the full force of fire….”

He said Omega. He could not remember how long he had been speaking. “This final diagram, Magnates, shows that, however much the areas in which the fires spring from the earth have changed and shifted, there is nevertheless what I shall term an overlap: In longer words, there is one area, limited in comparison with the others, in which the fires have never, ever, during the periods which — ”

“The father-fire!”

Who had burst forth with this interruption? — cried out three words, and struck the table three times as though hammering an ingot on a forge? Vergil did not know, thought best to get on “… in which the fires have never, ever, during the periods which my studies cover, either shifted, changed, or waned. In this one area — which a magnate has just suggested may be called that of the Father Fire — ” But he had already lost the attention of his audience.

Were these ponderous grandees a-drunk again? — So suddenly? Why were they rolling from side to side, facing first one fellow, then another? Whence this sudden upburst of babblement? What reason for the intensely odd faces he now saw them pull? A tiny bell sounded; none attended. It grew louder, sweeter, was joined by another, by another; here and there an iron-forger or a wool-puller brushed absently or even (with some slight aware vexation) pulled at his own thick and shaggy ear: vain. The bells grew louder, they sounded from every corner of the room, and yet, still, they sounded sweet. Perhaps after all they were not bells but rare exotic birds. Perhaps after all they were not birds, birds notoriously did not live long in Averno; if a capon lived long enough to become fat enough for the spit or the pot, that was the long of it. But be they what they were, ringing and singing, eventually they overcame the sound of the magnates bellowing — a bellowing in which Vergil was able only to make out some references to the father-fire, to hecatombs, hec-a-tombs, and some few other words which, rather like the common converse of Cadmus, might be intelligible as single words but made no sensible connection to communication.

Not, at least, to Vergil.

And so at length the magnates became silent.

And so did the ringing and the singing.

“I would point out, Magnates,” Vergil went on, calmly as before, and as though these singular tintinnabulations had never occurred and as though he had had no part in them; “I would point out that the area of the overlap, that area of, if you wish, the Father Fire, is not large enough to contain all the present manufacturies of your city. But I would also wish to point out that there is one thing, which, although you know it well, perhaps do not well appreciate. And those are the malodorous breaths which escape from the clefts of your rocks, there, deep in your valley. It is well known to you, I have seen, that these stinking airs are sometimes inflammable. And I have been drawing up a scheme, one which is indeed not yet finished, whereby these bad vapors may be put to good uses. Each crack and cleft and pit from which they issue may be covered with a sort of iron helmet, and the fumes conveyed thence through pipes, much as the aqueducts for which our Empire is famous conduct water through pipes to public fountains and even sometimes to private homes. I am certain, Magnates, that it is possible for the hot waters which bubble up here and there around us to be thus conveyed as well. It should certainly be possible, Magnates, by such methods to have a source of fire at any point desired, for one need only touch a burning brand or a glowing coal to the end of the pipe from which those airs would issue — and furthermore I have the means of making devices which will extinguish such fires when desired and without the use of wet hides or anything so cumbersome — thus it would never again be necessary, that immense labor of moving forges and bloomeries, workshops and dye-shops, boiling-vats and all the rest of it, for — ”

Again the babble, the tumult, the tumultuous talk broke out; this time he made no attempt to interrupt or draw away attention from their discordant discourse to his own (he thought) well-ordered address. He merely waited. He might as well not have been there. Presently he said, in that Greek whose roughness had been first smoothed in Athens and then polished at Cumae, “Put the maps down, then.” The words must have been heard over and through the rumble-rumble-mumble, for the chart marked Omega vanished from the wall, and only there remained within the bordering of Attic fretwork a spread-out light, which, no longer even slightly dimmed by having passed through membrane, gauze, and thin-scraped parchment or that odd new papyrus from behind the far Pamir, shone just that much more brightly as perhaps to quicken at least one pair of eyes, and at least one magnate’s thoughts, for from the mass of murmuring magnates there now sounded a voice that Vergil had heard before, and saying words that Vergil had also before heard.

“All right to go now, Wizard,” it said.

With this videlicet he had gone. The vessel through which, via its long neck, the sun rays had played, indeed he did not take; it was not his; but he had once again placed his hands round about the stoppered part and with his mouth up close had murmured words: The stopple came cleanly and clean out, a moment it dazzled (as perhaps it had dazzled long ago from amidst the golden fleece), then it was back again in his pouch. The blank wall now went dimmer, though — not yet — dim. None else noticed. Once again the silent servitor was by his side, showed him down the stone stairs and was showing him through the courtyard — the “garden” one could scarcely call it, no plants grew therein. “What is your name, then? You have done me well, up there. Whose man, are you, then? …” Meanwhile he reached into his purse for a coin.

Now for the first time he heard the fellow’s voice; soft it was, as — however unusual for this roughshod hole in hell — as befit a house-servitor’s. . for surely one would find it hard to picture him shoveling slag or beating bronze, even. . perhaps, (though he hoped not), plucking the clumps of stinking wool from the blue-putrefying sheep-fells before they were dipped to pickle in the tan-tubs; and the voice said (softly), “Master Mage, it is Magnate Torto’s freedman, Aymon Blandus [“Blandus, we must talk — ”], and here, ser master, is ser master’s horse.” Saying this, he so gently guided the hand in which Vergil held the coin over to the mucky palm of the hobgoblin doorkeeper that, almost, Vergil could have believed it had been his own intent to reward the latter, instead. The troll bowed and scraped, rolling his eyes, seemed undisposed to linger, and, bowing some more, backed and was gone, hiding behind the already opened gate. Up came Vergil’s boy, holding the mare.

“Have they taken care of you well, Iohan?”

“Yes, ser. Gave me some good thick wine and thick victuals, too. And offered me the kitchenmaid, but she was so stinking damnable dirty that almost I heaved the grub up; still, I says to meself, ser, ‘Food is food and I ben’t no dog to gobble up me own vomit.’ Therefore.”

Vergil nodded at this sound philosophy, was nuzzled by the mare, absently stroked her muzzle; began to turn his head, saying the while, “Now, Blandus, we must …” His words faded away.

As had Blandus.

Iohan joined palms and stooped for Vergil’s mounting, neither yielding nor grunting as his master went up into the saddle. In Thrace, it was said (Who had said it? Thrax. O Apollo! Thrax!), the horses were trained to kneel, as he had seen the camels kneel, afar off in Sevilla, for ease of riders’ mounting. But. . But enough of “but.” Out they stepped. “Uncommon dark it be, master, even for this dim-pit, o’ the time o’day,” the boy observed.

And indeed it was. Even after leaving the extremely frustrating termination of the session behind, still Vergil felt strained; now and suddenly he knew why. He looked up. Brighter was the window of the great Magnates’ chamber than anywhere else in sight. He relaxed, dismissed control. Flung outward the fingers of his upraised arm.

“There!” exclaimed Iohan. “Speak of Phoebus, he may soon appear!”

The street was now not so dun and dim; from above, a sudden silence, then a sudden outcry. “Lights! Lamps! Torches!” Whatever they were up to, up there, they would have to be up to it in the dark for yet a small while. What were they up to, up there? Suddenly he felt too tired to care.

“The mare seems to require no further much attention,” said Vergil. “Just take her tackle off, wipe her just a bit with hay, and give her a little of grain. . and then. . and then. . if we have four groats between us, shall we go to the baths?”

Iohan said, “Therefore.”

In the warehouse of Rano.