Page 74 of Katabasis

But this reasoning didn’t stand up to intuition.

Alice knew also that in criminal defense, there was a type of argument called “but for.” But for your actions, would this car have crashed?

Would this child have drowned? But for Alice Law, would Peter Murdoch be dead?

The answer was obviously no. Alice could draw a straight line from her own stupidity and selfishness to Peter’s sacrifice.

And she knew, if she ever died properly in the world above, if she ever escaped back to the world above, she would end up right back here atoning for the murder of Peter Murdoch’s immortal soul.

But if she was ready to admit this, if she laid it all down on paper, would that be sufficient?

Was it enough to declare what she’d done and admit full responsibility for it?

Certainly that was too easy, for if so there would not be so many frustrated souls in Dis.

Certainly not all of these souls were deceiving themselves.

Certainly, after decades in this pathetic din, one would prefer to tell the truth.

But that meant Hell demanded something more than a guilty plea.

That the Furies, or whoever that mysterious they was, if they existed at all, expected a more profound acknowledgment of guilt.

And whatever this was—whether because her mind would not admit it, or because it was out of the grasp of her understanding—Alice was not certain she could ever put it down on paper, or set it to words at all.

Gradus led her out of the bazaar and into another series of hallways until he stopped before a plain, unmarked door.

“The workshop,” he said, and pushed it open.

Inside was an unadorned room containing one long, oval table, at which sat a dozen or so Shades perched on metal folding chairs—very specifically, the kind of folding chairs with a gap just large enough to frustrate any hope of back support, and rusted metal bolts that threatened to splice you open whenever you tried to fold them up.

The room was badly lit. The air smelled of cat piss.

A meeting was in progress. The Shades were hunched over a smattering of papers, debating something that had to do with “domestic violence” and “moral culpability.”

Alice scanned their faces. All dour, focused expressions.

Thick scowling brows; mouths pressed in thin lines of concentration.

Half wore spectacles. The other details of their garb had faded, leaving plain dark robes, and this gave them a vaguely Victorian air.

These Shades looked ready to expound on the phrenological markers of intelligence across races.

If ever there was a room in Hell where Grimes belonged, thought Alice, it was here. But none of the faces matched.

“He’s not here,” she whispered to Gradus. “We should—”

The door slammed shut behind them. The meeting fell silent. The Shades looked up and stared.

“Ah, Professor Gradus.” The Shade at the head of the table rose to his feet. A brass placard before him read, Chairman . “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Went on a retreat,” said Gradus. “Needed to clear my head.”

“Well, we are not giving you comments,” pouted a Shade to the chairman’s left. “You know the rules. You give critique to get critique, you can’t just disappear for years and then expect us all to help—”

“That’s fine,” said Gradus. “I’m only here to observe.”

“ Gradus ,” Alice whispered again. But he ignored her.

“Who’s she?” asked the chairman.

All eyes turned to Alice.

“New blood,” said Gradus. “Only just arrived.”

“I thought we said no newcomers,” said the Shade to the chairman’s left.

“She’s still getting oriented,” said Gradus. “Hasn’t started writing yet. I thought you lot could share a bit of your wisdom. Show her how it’s done.”

“But this is a serious writing group,” said the Shade. “We don’t take novices, they’re a waste of time.”

“The rule was ten years at least,” the chairman agreed.

“She’s a Cambridge postgrad,” said Gradus. “Analytic magick.”

The word Cambridge was like a spell. Even here, prestige opened doors. The Shades looked round at each other. A few shrugged. The chairman grunted. “I suppose she can audit. On a trial basis. You may take a chair in the corner.”

“Go on,” Gradus told Alice. “Sit.”

Alice did not understand what they were still doing here. “But he’s not—”

Gradus nudged her forth. “The chairman invites you to sit.”

Alice realized then she was not in control here.

She’d been a fool to trust Gradus. She could not fathom what he wanted; she should not have played along.

She didn’t understand what was happening now, but she did not like her chances in Dis alone, so she sat gingerly at the edge of her assigned chair and tried not to look too afraid.

Gradus remained standing beside her, his essence billowing around her like a cage.

“Might we get back to Professor Bent’s dissertation?” asked a monocled Shade. “If we’re quite done with interruptions?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The chairman sat down. “Let us continue. Professor Brown, you were saying...?”

Professor Brown tapped the pages before him. “I do find this a bit revisionary. The tone is—well, it’s very combative , isn’t it? And the rebuttals to women’s liberation. Aren’t they a bit extreme?”

“I object,” said a Shade several seats down from Professor Brown.

Alice presumed this was Professor Bent, author of said dissertation.

He had a very long face, and a mouth startlingly far down from his nose, which seemed the natural result of a lifetime of stroking one’s chin as Professor Bent did now.

“It’s—a bit contrarian, certainly, but it’s all telling the truth. ”

“The truth is that all women are evil nags?”

“I’m sure some women are virtuous angels.” Professor Bent sniffed. “I won’t make sloppy generalizations. I only mean to say this woman, in her specific case, exemplified all the foibles of her sex. Not all women are jealous and aggravating and empty-headed. But this woman—”

“Yes, blah, blah, the Eve to your Adam, the source of all evil,” another Shade interjected. “It’s a boring interpretation, don’t you think? You minimize your own agency and demonize your wife—”

“What am I supposed to do?” demanded Professor Bent. “All I’ve written is the truth, no more, no less. I cannot fabricate arguments just to please an audience who is interested only in feminist interpretations. I refuse. It would be bad scholarship.”

“But this isn’t at all a confession,” said the monocled Shade. “This is just a manifesto.”

“Well, I’ve nothing to confess.”

“Oh, why do you think you’re in Hell then, you idiot?”

“Now, now,” said the chairman. “Let us remain professional.”

“The concept of the confession is so Victorian,” said Professor Bent.

“Have you not read Foucault? Science sexualis. The confession is a repressive discursive form, through which no true knowledge can be produced. The confession is about hidden shame, guilt, extraction. But I will not be a prisoner on the rack, do you understand? I will not lie for freedom.”

“I’m not sure the Furies have read Foucault,” said the chairman. “You must consider your audience.”

Professor Bent sniffed. “Well, if the gods are perfect and all-knowing, then they should be amenable to reason. The gods should understand this mode of dissertation is antiquated, and that we gain nothing from self-flagellation. The gods should wish us to break free of our repression—”

“Why do we speak of the gods at all?”

A woman Shade sat at the opposite end of the table, her chair pulled slightly back so that she was half-hidden behind her peers.

She wore her dark hair tied tightly in a bun, and when she leaned forward, Alice saw she had a severe, foxlike face.

She had put much more effort into distinguishing her clothes than her peers.

She wore a high-necked black dress, her white collar starched very clean, each pleat of her skirt pressed with precision.

“Ah, Gertrude,” said the chairman. “You wish to contribute? Speak up.”

Gertrude scraped her chair back and stood. “My question is, who wants reincarnation anyhow?”

“Not this again,” said Professor Brown. “Everyone wants rebirth, that’s why we’re here.”

“Have you not read The Republic ?” Gertrude demanded. “Know you not the myth of Er? Ajax becomes a lion. Odysseus becomes an ordinary citizen. But the wicked have no right to choose. The wicked suffer in the next life.”

“We’ve been over this,” said the chairman. “We have no evidence that karma affects rebirth—”

“Yes, you’re right, all we have is a priori reason. But do you think our little punishments are enough? Do you really think, once our papers are polished and turned in, that the powers that be will see fit to reincarnate us as lords and ladies?”

“Now, we know there’s no guarantee—” began the chairman.

“Who wants to be an earthworm?” Gertrude demanded.

“Who wants to be a dung beetle? Or worse—to be born with human cognition but have no opportunity to exercise it. On balance human suffering vastly outweighs the pleasures of human life, and we were all just lucky enough to end up where we did in our past lives. But who among you could go from college housing to the streets?”

“It makes no difference to the reincarnated,” said Professor Bent. “You would forget, you’d have no basis of comparison—”

“Not to mention forgetting!” Gertrude cried in triumph. “Why should we want our memories stripped clean? How is the Lethe different from death? Better to exist as we are, here , and now . We follow the example of the Morning Star. We make our own paradise in Hell—”

“All right, Milton,” said Professor Mansfield.

“God has no hold on us,” said Gertrude. “Morality is for the weak.”

“All right, Raskolnikov,” said Professor Bent.