Page 17 of Where Light Cannot Follow

The swamp shifts beside us. We've stopped where the path narrows to mostly mud that swallows our feet. His trousers and shoes are grime-stained. He hasn't yet realized that most of this is entirely perception—his and mine. It's why my shoes remain spotless.

Of course, he can feel his feet within the leather, stretch his toes until they press against the shoe's inner curve. This world feels real to him. I, conversely, feel nothing at all.

"You mistake understanding for pity," I finally say. "I only mean there's a difference between leaving the past behind and being pursued by it. One is a choice. The other is a chain."

His nostrils flare. I’ve said precisely the wrong thing, though I'm uncertain what might have been correct. His posture straightens, and it's like watching a volcano retreat back into its mountain. All heat and vapor reabsorbing, rocks sliding back into place, stony expressionless features returning to his handsome face.

"Do not speak of my life as though you know it. I am chained to nothing."

"There is no one in hell who isn't chained to something."

His chin lifts, weighing my merit. Then he gives a sharp nod. “Tell me then, what chains you?”

The question strikes an unexpected blow. I freeze mid-step, one foot suspended over murky water. In all my centuries guiding souls through this realm, perhaps a dozen have thought to ask. Even fewer have recognized that I, too, am trapped here.

"That," I say carefully, schooling my features back into gentle neutrality, "is not a productive line of inquiry for your journey."

"Convenient deflection." His dark eyes study me with the same intensity he likely brought to analyzing market reports. "You can excavate my childhood trauma, but your chains remain private?"

"My chains are not what will free you from this place."

"Perhaps not." He takes a step closer, and I resist the urge to retreat. "But it's interesting, isn't it? You speak of honesty and openness as though they're requirements for passage, yet you guard yourself as carefully as I do."

The observation lands with uncomfortable accuracy. I force a slight smile, an expression I've perfected over centuries, conveying warmth while revealing nothing. "The difference, Dante, is that I am not trying to escape."

"Everyone would want to escape hell."

"Not everyone can.” The words emerge quieter than intended. “Besides, some of us have reasons to remain."

His brow furrows slightly, genuine curiosity breaking through his usual armor. For a moment, I think he might press further, might be the fourth soul in all my existence here to truly see me rather than simply use me as a guide.

Then his expression shutters closed once more. "Fine. Keep your secrets, poet. But don't expect me to spill mine so readily if you're not willing to practice what you preach. I don't wish for you to explore my mind further. It's private. A man has a right to his privacy."

"Rights are the language of the living," I reply measuredly. I'm learning that this man cannot be soothed by compassion. He’s learned to interpret it as weakness. I spent my mortal years surrounded by senators; I know how to speak the dialect of false strength if that's what he respects. "Down here, there are only choices: open or closed."

His jaw tightens, but he doesn't respond immediately. Which constitutes something. He shatters my hope almost instantly.

“I choose closed. Stay out of my mind."

He turns and resumes walking, stirring such unexpected human emotion in me that I freeze momentarily. I've spent countless centuries accompanying the desperate, miserable, and downtrodden. I rarely allow them to offend me. Yet something about this man strikes like a poker stirring coals into flame.

"How am I to help you navigate this realm if I disconnect from your mind?"

I'm genuinely uncertain I can remove myself from him, at least not completely anymore. Once I enter a soul's mindscape, a bond forms between us. For a moment, I hear a woman's distant wails and shudder. It's a bond that never quite severs, despite my efforts.

He turns back with a smear of a smile, and I recognize this as the face much of the world must have witnessed. "Unable to walk on your own two feet, then?"

"Perfectly able," I reply as though bored, though my long-dormant heart begins simmering with feelings I'd nearly forgotten. If I walk this path disconnected from him, I'll traverse my own temptations, my own memories. I've mastered... most... of them. But it's not something I long to revisit.

"Well, then." Dante gestures forward toward the path. Ahead, a door stands wreathed in fog. We've already arrived. Somehow, he's forcing himself through these realms at a pace I've never witnessed.

I pull away from his mind. It’s nearly a viscous sensation, this disconnection. He lingers still, presence hovering at the edges, but no longer shaping how I perceive the swamp. Now it appears as I truly see it—less haunted, more melancholy. Trees droop toward water, leafless and parched despite being surrounded by the very sustenance they crave. Logs drift aimlessly, forever trapped in the moment after death.

I could turn back. Find another soul to guide. Or perhaps venture deeper into the swamp. I’ve carved exploratory paths when connection to humanity became unbearable. So far, I've discovered no end to this place. Or I could return to early loops where humans first arrive, observe their worlds from a safe distance, and catalog details of things I've never learned names for.

Dante's obsidian eyes haven't released their grip on me. And there's something about this man, this stubborn, arrogant, possibly heartless creature.

Something causes me to hesitate. I tell myself it isn't his beauty. I’m too far removed from fleshly pleasures for that. And this feeling bears no resemblance to what I shared with Musa in those brief, luminous years before my death. That was warmth and laughter and stolen moments between verses. This is something else entirely, sharper, more desperate.