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Chapters (59)
  1. Contents
  2. In Which We Find Ourselves in Hell, but Only Temporarily, So It’s Not All Bad News
  3. In Which We Learn a Little About How Hard It Is to Be in Love
  4. In Which We Delve Deeper into the Bowels of Hell, Which Is One of Those Chapter Headings That Make Parents Worry About the Kind of Books Their Children Are Reading
  5. In Which We Reacquaint Ourselves with Nurd, formerly “Nurd, The Scourge of Five Deities,” Which Was All Something of a Misunderstanding, Really
  6. In Which We Encounter Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarfs—or Elves—and Rather Wish We Hadn’t
  7. In Which Samuel Is Reunited with Boswell, and We Learn Why One Should Not Trust a Mirror
  8. In Which We Pay a Visit to Mrs. Abernathy’s House. Which Is Nice. Not.
  9. VIII
  10. In Which We Wonder Just How Smart Really Smart People Sometimes Are
  11. In Which Mr. Merryweather’s Elves Embark on a New Adventure
  12. In Which Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarfs Make an Unpleasant Discovery
  13. In Which Samuel Arrives, and Nurd Departs
  14. In Which Dozy Is the Bearer of Bad News
  15. XIII
  16. In Which We Meet a Ram, and Some Old Friends Are Reunited
  17. In Which the Forces of Law and Order Assert Themselves
  18. In Which Something of the Nature of this World Is Revealed Through Old Ram
  19. In Which Hell Gets Stranger, and the Scientists Grow More Curious
  20. XVII
  21. In Which the True Faces of the Conspirators Are Revealed, and an Ugly Bunch They Are Too
  22. XVIII
  23. In Which Those Who Will Be of Help to Samuel Begin to Come Together
  24. In Which We Encounter Some of the Other Unfortunate Residents of Hell
  25. In Which We Meet the Blacksmith
  26. In Which Nurd Considers Changing His Name to “Nurd, Unlucky in Numerous Dimensions”
  27. XXII
  28. In Which We Learn That There Is Always Hope, as Long as One Chooses Not to Abandon It
  29. XXIII
  30. In Which Mrs. Abernathy Loses Her Temper, and We Meet Up Again with an Unpleasant Personage from Earlier in Our Tale
  31. XXIV
  32. In Which We Speculate on What, If Anything, Might Be Worse Than Evil
  33. In Which a Familiar Odor Sends the Dwarfs’ Spirits Soaring
  34. XXVI
  35. In Which We Learn of the Difficulties in Re-creating the Taste of Something Truly Horrible
  36. XXVII
  37. In Which We Hear a Surprising Confession
  38. XXVIII
  39. In Which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong
  40. XXIX
  41. In Which Various August Personages Put Their Plans in Motion
  42. In Which the Watcher Is Torn
  43. XXXI
  44. In Which We Learn a Little of the Responsibilities of Command, and the Perils of Being Commanded
  45. XXXII
  46. In Which Samuel and Mrs. Abernathy Meet Again, Which Only Delights 50 Percent of Those Involved
  47. XXXIII
  48. In Which a Third Force Intervenes in the Conflict
  49. XXXIV
  50. In Which We Encounter Some Cunning Disguises
  51. XXXV
  52. In Which Battle Commences, and a Rescue Mission Is Mounted
  53. XXXVI
  54. In Which a Certain Someone Wakes Up with a Sore Head
  55. XXXVII
  56. In Which We Get to the “Happy Ever After” Part
  57. XXXVIII
  58. In Which We Discover the Limitations of the Term Happily Ever After
  59. Acknowledgments

But their brief visit to Earth had opened their eyes, and their taste buds, to a new world of possibilities, for Shan and Gath’s sole contribution to the invasion had been to spend the night in the Fig & Parrot pub in Biddlecombe sampling free pints of what was then merely the experimental version of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar. And while Spiggit’s was, as we have established, a bit strong, and somewhat harsh on the palate, even for those who had previously dipped rocks in Hell’s lava before sampling them, just to add a little taste, Shan and Gath still agreed that drinking it had been a life-altering experience, as well as briefly altering their sight and the proper working of their digestive systems. They had returned to Hell with only one purpose in mind: to find a way to replicate this wonderful brew and then do nothing else but drink it for eternity. They had therefore retired to a cave and set about their work, having absorbed a certain amount of brewing lore from some of the regulars at the Fig & Parrot, who had drunk so much beer in their time that their bodies were essentially kegs on legs.

Unfortunately, as Shan and Gath soon discovered, replicating the unique taste of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar was considerably more difficult than they had hoped: successive tastings of their early efforts had played havoc with their insides, and it usually took a while for their tongues and sinuses to recover from more than three glasses. They had therefore decided to recruit a taster to test their various brews. The taster’s name was Brock, a small, spherical, blue being with a good nature and two legs, two arms, one mouth, three eyes, and the useful ability to instantly reconstruct himself in the event of any unfortunate accidents.

As it happened, this latter quality had turned out to be particularly useful.

Inside Shan and Gath’s cave were tubes, bottles, vats of water, and stocks of weeds that closely resembled wheat, oats, and barley. In an effort to imitate as closely as possible Spiggit’s distinctive taste, Shan and Gath had also been forced to acquire a number of different acids; three types of mud; assorted dyes and corrosives; grit; oil; rancid fats; and various forms of wee.37 Each variation was duly fed to Brock by Shan and Gath, who, having encountered a couple of people dressed as mad scientists while drinking in the Fig & Parrot on that fateful Halloween night, had made themselves some white lab coats, and carried stone clipboards on which they carefully made notes of their experiments, as follows:

BREW 1: Subject hiccup, then vanish in puff of smoke.

BREW 2: Subject fall off chair. Appear to die.

BREW 3: One of subject’s eyes fall out.

BREW 4: Two of subject’s eyes fall out.

BREW 5: Subject claim that he can fly. Subject try. Subject wrong.