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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

Mrs. Abernathy had been patient: one could not exist for so long without learning the value of patience. She had endured the rejection of the Great Malevolence, continuing to make her regular pilgrimage to his mountain when others laughed at her, reminding them all that she would not be forgotten. When she was not traipsing back and forth between her palace and her master’s home, she had been waiting. She had waited for her Watcher to find traces of the vehicle that had entered the portal and caused it to collapse, dragging them all back to Hell. She had waited for those moments when Samuel Johnson might inadvertently glance in a mirror and find her staring back at him, relishing his fear. She had waited for her chance to avenge herself upon him. But, most of all, she had waited for the humans to do what she knew they most assuredly would do.

She had waited for them to turn on their great Collider once again.

VIII

In Which We Wonder Just How Smart Really Smart People Sometimes Are

SCIENTISTS ARE A FUNNY lot. Oh, they do many great and wonderful things, and without science we wouldn’t have all kinds of useful stuff like cures for diseases, and lightbulbs, and nuclear missiles, and deadly germ warfare, and …

Well, best not go there, perhaps. Let’s just say that science has, in general, been very beneficial to humanity, and many scientists have exhibited considerable bravery in the course of their work, although occasionally the more sensible among us might, if given the opportunity to witness some of their experiments, think to ourselves, “Ooh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,”19 which is why we’re not scientists and will never discover anything very interesting, although neither will we accidentally poison ourselves by ingesting the contents of a thermometer.

And so, deep in a tunnel near Geneva in Switzerland, a group of scientists was looking a bit anxiously at a switch, while around them the Large Hadron Collider, once again, went about its very important business. The Collider, for those of you who don’t know, was the largest particle accelerator ever built, designed to smash together beams of subatomic protons at enormous speeds—99.9999991 percent of the speed of light—and thereby make all kinds of discoveries about the nature of the universe by re-creating the conditions that occurred less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang that created it about 13.7 billion years ago. Unfortunately, when last turned on, the Collider’s energy had been harnessed by Mrs. Abernathy in order to open a portal between our world and Hell, which was when all of the trouble had started. Since then the Collider had remained resolutely switched off, and the scientists had done a great deal of work to ensure that the whole portal to Hell business would never, ever happen again. Promise. Pinkie promise. Pinkie promise with sugar on top.20