The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,122

I think you’ll find that isn’t what most people mean when they say ‘gift.’ ”

“Now, now. Welcome!” interrupted Sammael. His constant ebullient tone was starting to fray Alec’s nerves. “Welcome to Avici.”

Alec looked at Magnus. Magnus nodded slightly, as though this was what he’d expected.

It wasn’t what Alec had expected at all. What he knew of Avici was that it was Diyu’s lowest hell, the one reserved for only the worst offenders. Given what he knew of hell dimensions, he’d expected fire, molten lava, the screams of sinners burning in the purifying flames. Or ice, perhaps, an endless expanse, with souls frozen, unmoving, for all time.

Avici was just… empty. They were standing on something, surely, but that something was black and featureless, indistinguishable as any particular material. It was nothing: not rough, not smooth, not level, not undulating. In all directions around them it stretched on and on, forever. At the horizon only the faintest of blurry haze marked the change from land to sky, the same empty sky that surrounded all of Diyu.

Perhaps the punishment of Avici was just to be here, alone, with no sounds, no sights, no wind blowing, only bare floor and bare sky. Just you and your mind, until your mind inevitably fizzed and burned and melted.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sammael said. He threw out his arms and adopted a look of puzzlement. “Where’s all the stuff?”

Alec exchanged a glance with Magnus.

“When I got here, I thought that too,” Sammael went on. “I thought, ooh, very clever, very good, the worst punishment for the worst sinners isn’t”—he gestured upward, presumably indicating all the other hells—“having your tongue ripped out, or being run over with wagons or boiled in cauldrons. It’s just to be here with yourself and nothing else, right? But then,” he continued, “I got to talking to some of the locals, and I learned that that wasn’t it at all. This was Yanluo’s… workshop. This was his atelier. He made it empty so he could bring to it anything he wanted, because those who came here had earned customized tortures.”

He laughed, that grating, false laugh. “That’s right, for the VIP clients, Yanluo believed in getting in there and getting his hands dirty himself. Some of the demons say that he made it such a lightless black so that no matter what he did here, how much he dismantled human bodies, how much he maimed and lacerated and butchered, nothing would ever stain Avici.”

He threw his arms out again. “It’s all stain, you see,” he said with pleasure.

Alec said, “So it doesn’t… stay empty? You bring things in? Like… torture things.”

Sammael looked offended. “I don’t do anything,” he said. “Or at least I haven’t. I didn’t make this realm, you know. Blame Yanluo for how it works. Do I seem like I would make my deepest hell a big blank space? I’m really much more the waterfalls-of-blood, abstract-sculpture-of-viscera type. But to answer your question, yes, the excellent thing about Avici is that I can bring in whatever I want. For instance, I can stick this quisling in a cage, where he belongs.”

A theatrical wave of his hands, and spikes of wrought iron shot up around Ragnor. It was fast, but Alec was surprised that Ragnor didn’t even move as the cage closed around him.

“Ragnor!” Magnus said. “You’re still a warlock, come on. You don’t have to let him just… capture you.”

Ragnor tilted his eyes toward Magnus, and Alec was astonished by the depth of self-loathing he saw reflected there. “I can’t,” he said. “I deserve this, Magnus.”

“That’s not the way things work,” Magnus said, clearly frustrated. “You can make up for what you’ve done, but not like this. Not by letting yourself be trapped.”

“I told you,” said Ragnor. “I’ve betrayed myself too much now. Gone too far, done too many things that can’t be undone.”

Sammael looked back and forth between them, visibly entertained.

The iron bars closed over Ragnor’s head with a clanging sound. He barely seemed to even register their presence, looking purposelessly into the middle distance.

“All right,” said Sammael, as though he’d been waiting for the Ragnor situation to be dealt with. “The Book, if you please, Shinyun.”

Shinyun looked around as if unsure of herself. “Ragnor had it.”

Sammael rubbed his forehead with his hand. “In other words,” he said, “now Magnus has it.”

“Maybe not,” Magnus suggested. “Maybe it’s still back at Ragnor’s place.” Sammael gave him a withering look, and Magnus shrugged. “Worth a try.”

“Please,” Sammael said to Shinyun, “go get my Book