But plans change. I burst into a clearing and a momentary thinning of the mist, and was startled to find myself only a few steps from a deep ravine. I swayed for a moment on the edge, windmilling my arms to keep from falling in, then began to track sideways along the lip of the canyon looking for a way across. I could see farther here than I had for hours, clear to the other side of the canyon, and I could even make out a deeper shadow beyond the ravine. I tried not to let hope distract me at this crucial instant, but I prayed that farther shadow might turn out to be the outer wall of this level of Hell.

The ruins of an old bridge or causeway lay tumbled on the slope on the far side of the canyon. The near end of the bridge must have rested in the place where I had almost fallen. I started to make my way down the damp, crumbling cliff. Great chunks of earth and stone had fallen when the bridge went, and they provided the handholds I needed. I let myself slide to the ground at the bottom, and lay there in a heap like a sock monkey leaking stuffing. I might even have fallen into helpless, exhausted sleep for a few moments, but the howls of the hellhounds startled me awake again. Worse, either the howls or my sudden movement woke up Eligor’s intracubus too, and the little cancer started moving restlessly in the back of my skull, each twitch shooting a bolt of fiery pain right through me. I had been trying to stand but could only drop to my hands and knees and sag there, facedown, hoping it would stop. But it didn’t. The intracubus was fidgeting like a frog on a hot stone, and each time it moved it made me want to puke my insides out.

I had to get up. I could hear my pursuers very close now, perhaps moving along the top of the rise just above me. Everything sensible in me was urging me to get up and run to keep that from happening. By now, the nature of Hell was clear to me. Run and run and run or be punished forever. Sanity demanded I get with the program.

But I didn’t.