Page 35 of Katabasis

“Just assume we are one person. Your ends are my ends and vice versa. What hurts you hurts me. Our goals are staying together, and pursuing what is best for ourselves as a joint unit.”

Alice did not think this was how real relationships worked, at least not from the ones she’d witnessed, but it did sound nice in theory. “Where did you learn that?”

“Immanuel Kant.”

“Wasn’t Kant a virgin?”

“He was a great philosopher! He revolutionized metaphysics!”

“I believe it was Kant who thought it immoral to masturbate,” said Alice. “Something about treating yourself as a means to an end.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Alice’s head hurt. To begin with, she did not in fact have an alternate account of love; but second, even if Peter’s account of love made sense, she could not disentangle it from his possible ulterior motives for offering it.

Deep down she suspected being in love just was two people lying to each other, concealing their violence, and so Peter’s proposal was thus misaligned with her priority to look out for herself.

“Come on.” Peter nudged her arm. “Law. Is it so hard to pretend you’re in love with me?”

The way he said this—it made her chest hurt. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the worst part was that it was working. She wanted so badly to trust him, to be the object of his love, if only for pretend. Stop it , she wanted to scream. Stop, can’t you see what you’re doing to me?

“Well, my lovers,” called the Weaver Girl. “What will it be?”

“You’re on,” Peter announced. “We’ll play.”

“Wait—” Alice began. But the Weaver Girl seized both their arms and, with startling force, dragged them up a rock until they stood facing each other, atop some hellish parody of a wedding altar.

Swathes of silk shot up and made an opaque barrier between them.

Peter yelled something, but his voice was muffled by the silk.

“No coordinating.” The Weaver Girl shimmered, then split into two translucent doubles. Each stepped to either side of the silk wall, and they spoke in unison.

“My Cowherd met me on the seventh day of the seventh month for eighty years without fail.” The silks created silhouettes in the sky: two figures running toward each other and embracing, becoming one.

“Years passed when I did not see his face. His entire village begged him to forget me and marry—for I could not give him children, you see, nor fulfill any of the duties a wife should. And if ever he did not come, the bridge would break. If ever we were unfaithful, the bridge would break. We were never unfaithful. Always, we chose each other, until the end of his life. Until he chose differently, and condemned me.”

The silks spread to create a fork; one red, one green.

“I give you a choice, my lovers. The very same choice. You may choose to go on alone, or to go on together. If both of you choose to go together, I will build you a bridge of stars. If you both choose to go on alone, I will throw you both into the Lethe.”

“What if we choose differently?” asked Alice.

“Then the one who chooses to go on alone may walk this bridge as many times as they like. You will have safe passage throughout your sojourn. I will guard you against everything and everyone. Nothing will touch you.” The bridge danced, shimmered, split into a dozen forking paths.

“And the other—well, we might say merely that they will wish for oblivion.”

Alice blinked down. Suddenly before her stood a tray table, atop which sat two shiny, waxy apples. One was blood-red, the other deep green.

“What will it be?” asked the Weaver Girl. “Red to go on together. Green to go on alone.”

“He has the same choice?”

“The very same.”

Oh, Alice thought; then this was just the prisoner’s dilemma.

They’d all done prisoner’s dilemmas in their first year.

The obvious solution to the prisoner’s dilemma, if you trusted each other, was not to screw the other party over.

The problem of course was that one’s dominant strategy was always to screw the other party over, no matter what they did.

But if you cooperated beforehand, then you could both get out of jail free. And they had cooperated. Hadn’t they?

“Just to clarify,” she said. “What happens to him if I choose to go on alone?”

The Weaver Girl’s smile seemed to stretch over her entire face.

Any further, Alice feared, and her head would split in two.

“Hell gets so lonely. I enjoy companions.” Great white skeins of fabric emerged from her back and hung poised behind her.

A spider’s web. If she squinted, Alice could see human remnants in that web; the detritus of centuries of lovers leeched from and discarded.

Some of those victims had been alive once. Sojourners. Shades did not leave bones.

Alice shuddered.

This shouldn’t be difficult. Their dominant strategy was obvious. Peter had said to pretend they were in love, and if they were in love, they would both choose the red. If they cooperated, they got through, easy as that. She reached for the red apple—but then why wouldn’t her fingers close?

She could not help but wonder. Suppose Peter chose the green?

He couldn’t do that. It was not in his interest. Peter would not betray her here, Peter still needed her—at least, he needed her soul—

And what, would she simply give it to him? Serve it up on a platter, trot along like a lamb to the slaughter? What silly logic was this?

Her hand drew back.

What then? Should she choose the green?

She would not need him then. She would have free rein of Hell, easy access to every court, and Professor Grimes’s soul at her fingertips. She could find him in a day, she could be back home by tomorrow. She would have everything she had ever wanted, and all it would cost was leaving Peter behind.

But that was murder.

But then, to go with him, and speed along her own demise—how was that better? How was that smart?

You cannot do exchange on yourself. You cannot do exchange on yourself, we know this for a certainty, so where does that leave us? What can we possibly conclude except—

And all this assuming he needed her at all. He might have another plan, he might not even need exchange; he might decide that safe passage was worth it, he might condemn her ...

She felt a stabbing in her temples; twin forces, pressing in.

There was too much information, too many memories, and she didn’t know how to sort through it, she didn’t know what they meant .

She had gotten this far on a single-minded narrative etched into her brain— I am Alice Law I am going to Hell I will find Professor Grimes and everything will be all right —and now that catechism gave her no guidance, the way forth was not clear.

The entirety of the past rose vivid in her mind’s eye, a thousand television screens playing all at once, and none of them told her the truth, all they gave were snapshots, a useless deluge of detail.

An empty glass of beer, an empty chair. The Pick, quiet before closing, and a bitter taste in her mouth.

Belinda’s airy sighs. Have you met Peter Murdoch?

The shape of him; the length of his lashes; chalk on her fingertips, chalk on his shirt.

Look outside , said Professor Grimes; you see that kid?

Darjeeling tea, brewed too long, tasting like acid.

Dry scones like cement in her throat. She could not swallow it down.

Grimes at a blackboard, Grimes at a chessboard.

Fortune favors the bold, magick rewards the decisive.

The first mover wins; the losers play catch-up.

Are you a born loser? Do you have the guts?

Laughter in the lab. I would have found a new advisor after the Cooke.

A slapping sound, open palms against buttocks, and laughter reprised, louder and louder, footsteps fading away.

Eating right out of his hand. Big, bold handwriting—there was no hesitation in this writing, this was the scrawl of a mind made up, a mind moving faster than a hand could keep up with, this was not wondering, this was a declaration. IF ALICE—???

She felt a whooshing in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to assemble the staircase.

What is relevant here? What is strategic?

What evidence do I have to build premises, so that I may reason to a conclusion?

What would Grimes do? But this was so difficult.

All information was a scramble, she didn’t know where to start, she couldn’t even seize on foundational premises—

My name is Alice Law—

IF ALICE—?

I am a postgraduate at Cambridge—

IF ALICE—?

I study analytic magick—

If ALICE—?

The planks scattered. She could not latch on to building blocks, she could only cling to a feeling, a sharp panic, ringing in her ears like a dozen fire alarms. Her arm hurt; the pain was back, pinpricks again, but it spread all over.

Not again , she thought, though she could not even place what again meant; it was only a sensation.

A needle flashing down. Chalk beneath her skin.

Pigment blooming and pain blinding, so many bursts of white— Not again, please, I’ll give anything, but I don’t want to feel like this again—

Vertigo hit. She swayed. Where was this?

Where was she ? Was Hell the memory, was Hell the dream?

She raised her hands to her face and could not see them; where her fingers should have been stood figures in miniature, tiny copies of Peter and Grimes all dancing in a procession.

You see that kid? Green and red circles pulsed behind them, grew larger, drifted against each other until all she saw was a Venn diagram, and in the center, a needle and chalk, the thin blade bobbing, agony up her arm.

An imagined conversation from the future: Peter and Grimes, safely returned, sipping tea in the office— What happened to Alice?

Oh, you don’t want to know. And that handwriting again; massive, dancing letters.

If Alice—? She watched them laughing, watched them rolling their eyes, and felt such a stifling, shameful rage she almost screamed. Pathetic Alice. Everybody’s fool.

Peter glanced up, caught her gaze, and grinned.

I hate you , she thought; faintly at first, just testing out the idea. And found, to her surprise, that it latched. It fit. She had not dared to think it before, but it was right, it was just—she was not a dog, she would not be kicked. I hate you, I HATE YOU—

“Very good!” The Weaver Girl clapped. Her doubles merged back into one. The curtains shimmered, like a magician drumming up a crowd, and then lifted.

There stood Peter, grasping a red apple.

“Alice?” He glanced down at her hands. His brow furrowed. “What did you do?”