Eric (Discworld #9) 8

It also had a badge.

The badge said: “My name is Urglefloggah, Spawn of the Pit and Loathly Guardian of the Dread Portal: How May I Help You?”

It was not very happy about this.

“Yes?” it rasped.

Rincewind was still reading the badge.

“How may you help us?” he said, aghast.

Urglefloggah, who bore a certain resemblance to the late Quezovercoatl, ground some of its teeth. “`Hi... there`,” it intoned, in the manner of one who has had the script patiently explained to him by someone with a red-hot branding iron. “My name is Urglefloggah, Spawn of the Pit, and I am your host for today... May I be the first to welcome you to our luxuriously-appointed -`”

“Hang on a moment,” said Rincewind. “`-chosen for your convenience -- `,” Urglefloggah rumbled. “There's something not right here,” said Rincewind. “`- full regard for the wishes of YOU, the consumer -`,” the demon continued stoically. “Excuse me,” said Rincewind. “`- as pleasurable as possible`,” said Urglefloggah. It made a noise like a sigh of relief,

from somewhere deep in its mandibles. Now it appeared listening for the first time. “Yes? What?” it said. “Where are we?” said Rincewind. Various mouths beamed. “Quail, mortals!”

“What? We're in a bird?” “Grovel and cower, mortals!” the demon corrected itself, “for you are condemned to everlast - ” It paused, and gave a little whimper.

“There will be a brief period of corrective therapy,” it corrected itself again, spitting out each word, “which we hope to make as instructive and enjoyable as possible, with due regard to all the rights of YOU, the customer.”

It eyed Rincewind with several eyes. “Dreadful, isn't it?” it said, in a more normal voice. “Don't blame me. If it was up to me it would be the old burning thingys up the whatsit, toot sweet.”

“This is hell, isn't it,” said Eric. “I've seen pictures.”

“You're right there,” said the demon mournfully. It sat down, or at least folded itself in some complicated way. “Personal service, that's what it used to be. People used to feel that we were taking an interest, that they weren't just numbers but, well, victims. We had a tradition of service. Fat lot he cares. But what am I telling you my troubles for? It's not as if you haven't got plenty of your own, what with being dead and being here. You're not musicians, are you?”

“Actually we're not even dea - ” Rincewind began. The demon ignored him, but got up and began to plod ponderously down the dank corridor, beckoning them to follow.

“You'd really hate it here if you was musicians. Hate it more, I mean. The walls play music all day long, well, he calls it music, I've got nothing against a good tune, mark you, something to scream along with, but this isn't it, I mean, I heard where we're supposed to all the best tunes, so why've we got all this stuff that sounds like someone turned on the piano and then walked away and left it?”

“In point of fact -”

“And then there's the potted plants. Don't get me wrong, I like to see a bit of green around the place. Only some of the lads says these plants aren't real but what I say is, they must be, no-one in their right mind would make a plant that looks like dark green leather and smells like a dead sloth. He says it gives the place a friendly and open aspect. Friendly and open aspect! I've seen keen gardeners break down and cry. I'm telling you, they said it made everything we did to them afterwards seem like an improvement.”

“Dead is not what we -” said Rincewind, trying to hammer the words into a gap in the things endless monotone, but he was too late.

“The coffee machine, now, the coffee machine's a good one, I'll grant you. We only used to drown people in lakes of cat's pee, wee didn't make them buy it by the cup.”

“We're not dead!” Eric shouted.

Urglefloggah came to a quivering halt.

“Of course you're dead,” it said. "Else you wouldn't be here. They wouldn't last five minutes.“ It opened several of its mouths, showing a choice of fangs. ”Hur hur," it added. “If I was to catch any live people down here -” Not for nothing had Rincewind survived for years in the paranoid complexities of Unseen University. He felt almost at home. His reflexes operated with incredible precision.

“You mean you weren't told?” he said. It was hard to see if Urglefloggah's expression changed, if only because it was hard to know what part of it was expression, but it definitely projected a familiar air of sudden and resentful uncertainty. “Told what?” it said. Rincewind looked at Eric. “You'd think they'd tell people, wouldn't you?” “Tell them wh - argarg,” said Eric, clutching his ankle. “That's modern management for you,” said Rincewind, his face radiating angry concern.

“They go ahead and make all these changes, all these new arrangements, and do they consult the very people who form the backbone -” “- exoskeleton -” corrected the demon. “- or other calcareous or chitinous structure, of the organisation?” Rincewind finished smoothly. He waited for what he knew would have to come.

“Not them,” said Urglefloggah. “Too busy sticking up notices, they are.” “I think that's pretty disgusting,” said Rincewind. “D'you know, said Urglefloggah, ”they wouldn't let me on the Club 18,000 - 30,000 holiday? Said I was too old. Said I would spoil the fun.“ ”What's the netherworld coming to?“ said Rincewind sympathetically. ”They never come down here, you know,“ said the demon, sagging a bit. ”They never tell me anything. Oh yes, very important, only keeping the bloody gate, most important I don't think!"

“Look,” said Rincewind. “You wouldn't like me to have a word, would you?” “Down here all hours, seeing 'em in -” “Perhaps if we spoke to someone?” said Rincewind. The demon sniffed, from several noses at once. “Would you?” it said. “Be happy to,” said Rincewind. Urglefloggah brightened a little, but not too much, just in case. "Can't do any harm, can it?“ it said. Rincewind steeled himself and patted the thing on what he hoped fervently was its back. ”Don't you worry about it,“ he said. ”That's very kind of you."

Rincewind looked across the shuddering heap at Eric.

“We'd better go,” he said. “So we're not late for our appointment.” He made frantic signals over the demon's head. Eric grinned. “Yeah, right, appointment,” he said. They walked up the wide passage. Eric started to giggle hysterically. “This is where we run, right?” he said. “This is where we walk,” said Rincewind. "Just walk. The important ting is to act nonchalant. The important thing is to get the timing right." He looked at Eric.

Eric looked at him.

Behind them, Urglefloggah made a kind of I've-just-worked-it-out noise.

“About now?” said Eric.

“About now I think would do it, yes.”

They ran.

Hell wasn't what Rincewind had been led to expect, although there were signs of what it might once have been - a few clinkers in a corner, a bad scorch mark on the ceiling. It was hot, though, with the kind of heat that you get by boiling air inside an oven for years -

Hell, it has been suggested, is other people.

This has always come as a bit of a surprise to many working demons, who had always thought hell was sticking sharp things into people and pushing them into lakes of blood and so on.

This is because demons, like most people, have failed to distinguish between the body and the soul.

The fact was that, as droves of demon kings had noticed, there was a limit to what you could do to a soul with, e.g., red-hot tweezers, because even fairly evil and corrupt souls were bright enough to realise that since they didn't have the concomitant body and nerve endings attached to them there was no real reason, other than force of habit, why they should suffer excruciating agony. So they didn't. Demons went on doing it anyway, because numb and mindless stupidity is part of what being a demon is all about, but since no-one was suffering they didn't enjoy it much either and the whole thing was pointless. Centuries and centuries of pointlessness.

Astfgl had adopted, without realising what he was doing, a radically new approach.

Demons can move interdimensionally, and so he'd found the basic ingredients for a very worthwhile lake of blood equivalent, as it were, for the soul. Learn from humans, he'd told the demon lords. Learn from humans. It's amazing what you can learn from humans.

You take, for example, a certain type of hotel. It is probably an English version of an

American hotel, but operated with that peculiarly English genius for taking something American and subtracting from it its one worthwhile aspect, so that you end up with slow fast food, West Country and Western music and, well, this hotel.

It's early closing day. The bar is really just a pastel-pink paneled table with a silly bucket on it, set in one corner, and it won't be open for hours yet. And then you add rain, and let the one channel available on the TV be, perhaps, Welsh Channel Four, showing its usual mobius Eisteddfod from Pant-y-gyrdl. And there is only one book in this hotel, left behind by a previous victim. It is one of those where the name of the author is on the front in raised gold letters much bigger than the tittle, and it probably has a rose and a bullet on there too. Half the pages are missing.

And the only cinema in the town is showing something with sub-titles and French umbrellas in it.

And then you stop time, but not experience, so that it seems as though the very fluff in the carpet is gradually rising up to fill the brain and your mouth starts to taste like an old denture.

And you make it last for ever and ever. That's even longer than from now to opening time.

And then you distil it.

Of course the Discworld lacks a number of the items listed above, but boredom is universal and Astfgl had achieved in Hell a particularly high brand of boredom which is like the boredom you get which is a) costing you money, and b) is taking place while you should be having a nice time.

The caverns that opened before Rincewind were full of mist and tasteful room dividers. Now and again screams of ennui rose from between the pot plants, but mainly there was the terrible numbing silence of the human brain being reduced to cream cheese from the inside out.

“I don't understand,” said Eric, “Where are the furnaces? Where are the flames? Where,” he added, hopefully, “are the succubi?”

Rincewind peered at the nearest exhibit.

A disconsolate demon, whose badge proclaimed it to be Azaremoth, the Stench of Dog

Breath, and moreover hoped the reader would have a nice day, was sitting on the edge of a shallow pit wherein lay a rock on which a man was chained and spread-eagled.

A very tired-looking bird was perched beside him. Rincewind thought that Eric's had it bad, but this bird had definitely been through the mangle of Life. It looked as though it had been plucked first and then had its feathers stuck back on.

Curiosity overcame Rincewind's usual cowardice

“What's going on?” he said. “What's happening to him?”

The demon stopped kicking his heels on the edge of the pit. It didn't occur to it to question Rincewind's presence. It assumed that he wouldn't be here unless he had a right to be. The alternative was unbelievable.