I HAD NO doubt I was getting somewhere when the halls began to shift. Where the stonework had been roughly cut and streaked with dark stains, now I began to see walls of dressed stone. Careful, but ancient, brickwork ran in unpredictable patches, but slowly became more and more common. I couldn’t guess what hands had slaved to haul and stack those bricks, but it was a sign of something more than the madness I had awakened to; something more than the long, dark corridors, or the uncomfortably throat-like stairs. Those faded into the back of my mind as I padded down halls that might have lain in the keep of any king.

It looked, I realized, like a dungeon. This feeling was strengthened when I came across the first of the iron-barred cells. I stood there with the torch in one hand, peering into the darkness of the cell. I could not see a door or gate; it was as if the cell had been made to permanently seal in the occupants, whom I could hardly see through the gloom. Dark forms lay facing the far wall, their naked back turned to me. Faded, cold. Lifeless.

I clutched my chest, feeling a surge of crushing isolation. It was like a vast hand, crushing me down, squeezing the air and will out of me. If I were to give in, I would be no better than those faded souls in the cell. An awful place. One vast, singular engine of punishment, designed to render the unworthy and corrupt into what? Nothingness. The void beyond memory. Was this prison truly the work of the gods?

Or, I thought, pulling out a new thread of reason from the murk of my forgotten memories, was this place unknown to them? If hell lay so far below the heavens that even the starlight did not reach it… perhaps they could not see? Perhaps the gods were ignorant of the depravity that lay at the base of the world. Or perhaps they didn’t care.

Even as I stood there watching, my thoughts wandering closer toward bleak blasphemy, one of the forms shifted slightly. The skin was so dry it cracked and shed in great flakes, like rocks being crushed. A squarish head raised, and a blank face turned to face the light. Only for a moment. Then it covered its face with a flaking hand, and curled back up against the wall. The despair in its dark eyes stole my breath, and boiled my anger. But there was nothing I could do: helplessness was another of the cruel airs of hell, another implement used to scour our souls.

I left the gateless cells, but found more, passing slowly upwards. I climbed a set of sagging wooden stairs, holding the torch low to light the steps. I did not trust them, not with how they complained and popped. Even going carefully, one of the steps buckled under my weight, and I nearly crashed through them. With a shout and a curse, I caught myself at the last moment. Wood clattered down the stairwell.

No time to complain. I cleared the stairs then at a run, and stood on the stable stone above with one hand on my knees, panting. Alive I might be, or some semblance of it, but my body was still one foot in the grave. It could hardly handle the demands of walking, let alone charging up collapsing stairs.

What lay at the top gave me a new pause. The room was flooded with a baleful, bloody light that seemed to come from windows high above. It had the look of a church, or a place of worship: a wide corridor set at the end by a broad, circular space that stood far higher than the rest. A tower, or a steeple, or the like. Dark wooden joists thick as masts crossed the air above me, supporting all that settled stone. The floor was lined with black wooden benches that looked perfect for sitting cramped and uncomfortable through lengthy sermons. I passed along these, padding toward the circular tower. Toward the altar there.

It was squarish, cut of a brilliant white marble. Not since waking up had I seen anything that looked so bright, so luminous. It was almost as if it were carved of pure starlight, and amongst all the dingy, dirty stone, it shone like a beacon. Not even the crimson light streaming through the window could color the altar. A white knife lay on the altar, waiting for the hand that knew its ritual, and a golden bowl.

Beside the stone sat a body unlike any I’d seen before. Or, not entirely unfamiliar.

I thought of the winged horror that had nearly killed me when first I’d wakened by the edge of the pit. Where that one had been ugly, brutish, formed all of hard angles and beastly muscles, this one was elegant. Graceful. Four wings were folded behind her, just as her legs were folded up under her. She held a candle in her folded hands, but the light was out, and her face dark with shadow.

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She was unmoving. Stone. Something about that hurt, to see something so beautiful reduced like the others I had passed. To see her lost and frozen.

As I drew near, I realized there was a scrap of paper wrapped about the hilt of the knife. I circled around the winged woman, not wanting to disturb her, and picked up the knife. The bowl was empty, but the basin bore a dark stain at the bottom. I looked at the paper.

BLOOD IS RADIANT, read the note. BLOOD WILL LIGHT THE WAY. The runes were angular, almost as if they’d been cut into the paper. They reminded me of the symbols on the iron door deep below. Yet, I could read them. I wondered what that meant, but of course, I was missing most of my memory. Whatever else I did know, the note surely made no sense.

I looked around, half-hoping for another sign to make sense of the riddle, but the church was dark and cavernous. Whatever worship this place had seen was long gone. And it was probably as unholy as the rest of Hell.

But one part of the knife was right. Blood was radiant. I knew that already, didn’t I? Cut me, and I bled, and that blood let out light.

Instinct is a funny thing. Perhaps I had known rituals in my former life. Iron I knew; sword and spear, and the thrill of battle. But I also remembered blind Bior, king of the gods, and I remembered the thirst to serve him in battle. Perhaps I’d sealed an oath to him, or to my own king, once before. The knife and the bowl were faintly familiar, and that is where the instinct seized me.

I held out my hand over the bowl, and pulled the knife down across it, cutting open my palm. I hissed with the cold sharpness of it, and the sullen sting. Blood flowed in a glowing rope down into the bowl. I felt the light going with it, but I could not look away. The shrine seemed to glow even brighter, and the church grew less oppressive.

In the distance, I heard silver chimes. They grew closer the more blood I fed the bowl, but the colder I grew, and the harder it was to keep my eyes focused. The pull grew heavier, more light flowed out of me and filled the bowl, yet it never seemed to approach the brim. The bowl drank hungrily of my life, of my blood, and those chimes grew louder, as sweet as starlight, promising relief, comfort.

You’re going to die. It was the warrior in me; stern, somber. I snapped my hand shut, closing off the flow of blood with a whimper. The wound in my chest was dim now, a guttering, weak little thing. A stiff breeze might stifle it. What had I done?

I staggered back from the altar, throwing up a hand against the glaring white light. I cried out and tripped over the closest of the pews, and as I toppled back, I saw something that nearly crushed the will to live out of me: the stars. A million white motes danced in motes of a thousand colors, gleaming high above. I knew I could never reach them, could never reach the vaults where the gods honored the dead, and feasted forever. Where my wife would go, and my children. Forever separated by this vast, lightless chasm.

The scream ripped out of my throat, rage and accusation, animal fear and violence. It echoed off the high stone walls, even as that vision of the stars faded. I hated them, I realized. I hated the gods for casting me into this dead place, for abandoning me. The scream boiled up out of my very soul until I had no air left in my chest, til my throat burned and went bloody ragged.

I sank to my knees and pounded the floor with futile fists.

What had I ever done to them? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t understand why I was here. How was it fair?

“Why do you scream, child?”

I froze. The voice was soft, gentle, and entirely out of place. Slowly, hand reaching for the hilt of my sword, I sat back on my haunches. I touched the hilt, but did not draw the blade. Any will to fight curdled at what I beheld standing before me: a woman in shining whites robes, who seemed to be made of starlight herself, with the soft glow of the summer sun behind her head.

She smiled at me, but it was a sad, mournful thing. “You are not lost yet,” she said to me. And it was true. I felt the truth of it like a vast release of tension. Four white wings unfurled behind her, stretching upwards in pristine grace, filling the space like a benevolent promise.

I choked, trying to find my words. How could such a thing exist in Hell? Finally, I found them. I was ashamed of my own rasping, ugly voice. But I asked, because I had to: “Who are you?”