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Back The Infernals Save as PDF
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

Evil has been in existence for a very long time, long enough to be part of the birth of everything billions and billions of years ago following the Big Bang that brought this universe into being. Unfortunately, for a while after the Big Bang there wasn’t much for Evil to do because there wasn’t a great deal of life about, and what life there was consisted of little single-celled organisms which had quite enough to be getting along with just trying to become multicelled organisms, thank you very much, without having to worry about being unkind to one another for no good reason as well. Even when these multicelled organisms grew incredibly complex, and became sharks, and spiders, and carnivorous dinosaurs, they still didn’t provide much amusement for Evil. These beasts operated on instinct alone, and their instinct was simply to eat, and thus to survive.

But then man came along, and Evil perked up a bit, because here was a creature that could choose, which made it very interesting indeed. Being good or bad is not a passive state: you have to decide to be one or the other. Evil did everything it could to encourage people to do bad instead of good, and because it was clever it disguised itself well, so that people who did bad things found ways to convince themselves that they weren’t really bad at all. They needed more money to be happy, and hence they stole, or they cheated on their taxes; and then they told lies to hide what they’d done, because they were kind of sorry for it, but not sorry enough to admit what they’d done, or to stop doing it. In the end, most of it came down to selfishness, but Evil didn’t mind. You could call it what you wanted, as far as Evil was concerned, just as long as you kept on being bad.

And Evil wasn’t just busy in this universe, but in a lot of others too, for ours was but one in a great froth of universes known as the Multiverse, each one its own expanding bubble of planets and stars. You might think that this would require Evil to spread itself a little thinly, because there can only be so much Evil to go around, but you’d be surprised what Evil can do when it puts its mind to it. On the other hand, no matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ultimately self-destructive. Evil may set out to corrupt others, but in the process it corrupts itself. That’s just the way Evil is. All things considered, it’s better to be on the side of Good, even if Evil occasionally has nicer uniforms.

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