Page 144 of Katabasis
“Oh, Alice.” He shook his head. “You’re always in such arush, that’s your problem. We have talked about this. You always want to be finished, you just want the end result—results, paper, fellowship, job. Stop barreling toward the end point, start lingering in the process. There’s so much that will reveal itself to you if you just pause and have a look around. Smell the roses!”
“But we’ve got to get back up—”
“No, we don’t,” said Professor Grimes.
“But what do you mean?” Alice felt so stupid then. She always felt so stupid in their advisee meetings, when her mind couldn’t keep up with his racing thoughts. Always she needed clarification; always she lagged three steps behind. He had all these visions that her mind was too dull to see; she had to beg him to show her. “I mean—where else would we go?”
“Wrong question, Law. The better question is this: what are that limits of that little tree? Oh, it’ll be difficult here in Hell—there’s precious little chalk, and dwindling materials to write on. But we’ll make do. We’ll memorize as much as we can. It’s a perfect research environment—no distractions, no bodily needs—”
“Youhave no bodily needs,” said Alice. “I will starve to death in short order.”
“Then starve to death and beg for your life back later,” Professor Grimes said impatiently. “We have theDialetheia, Alice, we can do anything.”
“But—that’s insane.” She blinked dully at him. Oh, why was this so difficult—why could she never keep up? “Why would we stay?”
“The scholar does not fear death. Have you learned nothing from Socrates?” Professor Grimes laughed. “The life of a scholar is mere training for dying, don’t you see? I never understood how right Socrates was until the moment of my death, when my soul was ripped free from my body, and I was cast violently from that mortal world of base appetites. The body is the enemy, is a hindrance in the soul’s quest for the truth. It is as the Zhuangzi claims: life is a swelling tumor, and death the bursting of a boil. We are slaves to the body! All it provides is distractions—fantasies, desires, illnesses, fears. We are bounded, and death is the ultimate freedom. I never saw it until now.” Professor Grimes’s hands grasped her face, and though she felt nothing solid, the chill took her breath away. “Come on, Law. This isn’t hard.”
Alice had been here before.
The Lethe had not washed this memory clean. Nothing could ever wash this memory clean. It was engraved in her skull, it constituted her very being, and she was doomed to repeat it, over and over; no matter where she ran, everything brought her right back to this moment. Details of that night rose to her mind’s eye, all superimposed over King Yama’s throne. They stood in the same positions—he too close, hands on her cheeks; her frozen in position, head tilted up, eyes wide. Now, this was a proper seduction, whispered that evil contrarian that lived always in Alice’s skull. This was how that moment in the office should have gone. Instead of offering up his body, that stinking solid thing, he should have offered to her the key to the hidden world, and an eternity to play around within it.
He seemed to recognize the resemblance, for his smile stretched, and he drew even closer. He knew what that night meant to her; he’d only ever been pretending it didn’t matter. Let us play it back, let us do this properly. Here is the world, Alice Law. Here is a chance to be like me, tobeme. You and I, spirits soaring, and rising close to meet the gods. Alice tried, but could not shake off the double vision. Suddenly she couldn’t be sure where she was. If she let her concentration slip for one second then she found herself back in his office, like no time had passed, like everything that had transpired in Hell had been a dream. She was a second-year at Cambridge, her future in the balance, and all she needed to do this time was give in.
“Join me,” said Professor Grimes. His cloak enveloped them both. Made them the unit Alice had always longed for; he their champion, she his shadow. “Join me in the realm of the gods, and we will dance through the hidden world. We will live and die and live again, until these concepts hold no meaning for us. We will go where no one has ever gone. We will return, and speak to dazzled crowds of all the wonderful things we saw.”
Alice could not speak so much as move her mouth into shapes and hope her breath gave them sound. “But I don’t want to die.”
“What do you want, then?”
“I just want to go home.”
Alice had seen what the sole pursuit of knowledge had done to the Kripkes. And she would not repeat that same mistake; to remain here, whittling away until all that mattered was puzzles and abstractions. She had outshone at puzzles and abstractions her entire life, and still she had not learned a single thing about how to live. She did not want to tilt into their world anymore, she only wanted to touch something solid.
Yes, this was right. Was that right?
She tried to conjure some of Elspeth’s resolve. She had been so sure of it on theNeurath.I want to be alive, she thought in Elspeth’s voice.I just want to sit on the banks of the Cam and kick my ankles over the water and eat a warm, sticky bun. I want to lick sugar off my fingers and feel the sun warm my skin. That is what I want.
“Focus, Law!” Professor Grimes snapped his fingers before her. He had done this a lot in Venice. He would snap and clap or flick her on the back of her head if he thought her tired or distracted. Somehow it had never occurred to her to be offended. “Don’t lose your nerve. It is frightening, I understand. But anything worth doing is frightening. The greatest mistake you will ever make is to back down now.”
“But I don’t want to stay down here.” It was so hard to speak up; every word out of her mouth sounded childish and stupid, and with every word she uttered, she could see his disappointment spread. “Not forever.”
“We won’t, sweetheart. Only until we’ve found out all we can, and our minds are satisfied—then we’ll go back to everything that’s familiar.”
“And then you’ll pass me?”
“Pass.” He laughed. “You will be richly rewarded, Alice Law. Jobs and prizes are handed out at my whim, you understand that. Everything else is water under the bridge. Let us forget about it.” He extended his hand. “I guarantee no doors will ever be closed to you again.”
He’d made these sorts of promises before. Professor Grimes so enjoyed making promises; he tossed them out without a thought. Of course you’ll get that grant. Of course we’ll coauthor that paper. And he never lied; she trusted he never meant to deceive, he was just so busy that he simply forgot.
This time, however, she thought he might be telling the truth. Sometimes he did mean it. He could be so generous when he got what he wanted.
But, Alice reminded herself, she had been through quite a lot in this past week. She had faced down the ends of time; had escaped from the Rebel Citadel; had vanquished the Kripkes; had ripped a cat open with her bare hands and eaten its heart and made its skull a shrine in the deserts of Dis. These sorts of experiences were very transformative. They gave her a bit more clarity on—well, everything.
“You know Peter’s dead.”
“One assumes. He came down, and here he’s not.”
“But don’t you care?”
