That first night, as the city fell away behind us and we sailed into the dark, the great black snake of river soon became invisible. With only the distant beacons on the walls of Hell for light, we might have been traveling through a universe of flickering red stars. I felt suddenly lonely, lonelier than I’d ever been, even with Gob beside me, open-eyed and open-mouthed as he journeyed into what must have been a life he’d never dreamed of living. I was desperate for Caz and that unique moment of completeness she’d given me, I was badly in need of friends like Sam and Monica, and I missed my familiar haunts. You’ve been there, I’m sure, but it feels different in Hell. Chances were very small I’d ever see any of them again. Little Gob was company of a sort, but he wasn’t exactly chatty, and since I was planning to ditch him before things got really dangerous, I didn’t want to get too close, either.

Riprash thumped toward us and spread his massive arms. “This . . . this is freedom,” he said, conveniently ignoring the shrieks of the damned in their cages below. “No master but the winds and the tide. When I felt this, I was first lifted. But I did not even know it then.” He laid a huge paw on my shoulder; if he’d pushed down, I’m pretty sure he could have driven me into the deck like a finishing nail. “Perhaps you come to another fellowship with me, Snakestaff? When we reach Gravejaw, maybe?”

I mumbled something noncommittal. I’m not really a joiner, but out of curiosity I asked, “How many are in your fellowship?”

“Ah, it is not as small as it was back in that other day, when your master first spoke to me. More join every day. Still, we are few.” He nodded. “But we are lifted, in our thought if not in our bodies.”

I never found out where he picked up the Origen stuff, but he had a pretty good understanding. Origenes of Alexandria was a Christian scholar, back in the third century or so, who proposed that if free will and forgiveness were real, even Satan himself had a chance someday to make peace with the Highest and achieve forgiveness. Needless to say, the early church stomped all over this idea, because they thought a Hell that wasn’t forever was pretty toothless. Plainly, many of those early Christians had never spent centuries dogpaddling in molten lava, or they would have rethought that concept; even a mere decade of constant, agonizing burns might adjust attitudes, I’d guess.

I was impressed by Riprash’s belief, and I speak as a confirmed cynic. Gob was interested too, or at least I guessed that he was, because he listened carefully when the ogre spoke.

“But the lords of Hell . . . they can’t like that idea very much,” I said at last.