Page 67 of Katabasis
If Peter had considered the same implications, he did not show it. He reached for his rucksack and pulled out his flask.
“Now the blood,” said Elspeth. “Knuckles are best, you won’t hit a tendon.”
Peter hesitated.
Alice drew her knife. “Here.” She dug the sharp end into the knuckle of her thumb, harder and harder, until blood beaded around the metal. “Is that enough?”
“Might be,” said Elspeth.
Alice held her hand out to Peter. He paused just a moment, then pressed his chalk against her thumb. The chalk soaked it up like a sponge; in seconds the entire stick was red.
Quickly Peter drew a circle around the flask, inscribed the paradox, and chanted it out loud. The Perpetual Flask shimmered. Peter reached in and drew it out. When he lifted it from the center its double remained, still in place. Alice, watching, could not help a little sigh. For no matter how many spells she had seen, no matter how long she’d studied magic, the act itself still astonished her. That you could fool the conservation of mass. That a thing could be one, and then two.
“Try it,” said Peter.
He was right to check. Banach-Tarski copies didn’t always work. For one thing they always seemed flimsier. If it was food, it never tasted as good; if wine, it lacked depth—as if it knew it owed its existence to a mathematical loophole. They had a bad habit of randomly vanishing on you—two decided to reunite as one—but Alice couldn’t do anything about that.
She untwisted the flask and tipped some water in. She drank. It tasted clean, fresh. “It worked.”
“Good.” Peter would not look at her. “Keep it.”
“Thank you.” Alice slid the doubled flask into her own rucksack. Her thumb was still bleeding. She twisted it into a corner of her shirt and held it tight.
“So the Kripkes.” Peter turned to Elspeth. “Whose blood...”
“Come on,” said Elspeth. “Why do you think they’ve got all those patrols?”
Peter blinked, speechless. Alice shuddered. Elspeth appraised them with grim satisfaction. “Think hard,” she said. “In all your research in Tartarology, have you found a shred of documentation from the last decade? Tell me. I’m really curious.”
Peter tilted his head. “Huh.”
“None.” Alice was certain about this. “Not even gossip.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Don’t tell me the Kripkes got to them all,” said Peter.
“The Kripkes ensure there are no survivors.” Elspeth nodded. “Any magician comes down here, the Kripkes hunt them. No one’s going to make their way back from Hell before the Kripkes do, you see. No one’s going to beat them to the scoop. They steal their chalk, steal their notes and textbooks. Sometimes they interrogate their prey for the latest in research developments—I’ve seen poor souls stretched out over the racks for days and days. And always, always, it ends with draining their blood. They fill up their bladder sacks, they drench their chalk sticks, and off they go.”
“That’s sick,” said Peter.
“That’s research,” said Elspeth. “Nothing matters to anyone in Hell, I told you. Dogs, squirrels, the stray lost child...” Her throat pulsed. “They’re all just fuel for them. Materials for the Great Quest.”
“You keep saying the Great Quest,” said Alice. “What’s that mean?”
“They’re not calling it the Great Quest anymore? Why are you here, then?”
Alice glanced quickly to Peter. It seemed obvious the last thing they should tell Elspeth was who they were here for. “I suppose we...”
“Might be an outdated term by now.” Elspeth rubbed her chin. “That’s what we were all calling it my year, anyways. To Hell and back was the goal. That was all the rage. It started with the Kripkes, and then everyone wanted to do it. Nothing like a spectacular failure to inspire a thousand followers. Houdini only ever freed himself from death’s jaws; he never came back from the other side.”
“But you weren’t going on the quest,” said Peter. “You—I mean, I thought—”
“Right, just a normal suicide,” Elspeth said sharply. “But then I discovered pretty quick I don’t want to stay here, do I?”
Peter bobbed his head. “No, that’s very reasonable.”
“So now I’m on the Great Quest, same as the Kripkes. And we’re all looking for the same thing to get out.”
