Chapter 10: Virgil - Where Light Cannot Follow

When we step back onto the bog's path, I hesitate mid-stride. Something has changed—a barely perceptible shift in the quality of the bruised sky overhead, the texture of fog curling between half-drowned trees. I remain mostly disconnected from Dante's mind, which means this alteration belongs to my perception alone.

I do not know why.

Dante moves forward like the unstoppable force he believes himself to be, his coat carving through the mist as he strides ahead. I quicken my pace to match his, but the discomfort of my realization refuses to dissipate.

My perception of this realm has not shifted in... centuries of mortal time. Perhaps longer. I have become a constant, a thing that exists in a state approaching inertia. I observe the changes of the world around me as I stand motionless. An artifact that witnesses mortal reality but remains untouched by its currents. The swamp has always appeared precisely thus to me: mournful, stagnant, eternal in its decay.

Until now.

Dante tugs at his sleeves and attempts to smooth them. They changed in the previous chamber, absorbing the steam I could not feel, the heavy-hanging humidity that remained for me as nothing more than visual texture—a painting of discomfort rather than the sensation itself.

"It surprises me that lust was your first realm of temptation."

Dante tenses for a moment, missing a step in his careful navigation of the moss-riddled ground. "All men have temptations."

"Of course. But generally, the least challenging ones for each individual emerge earliest. For most, lust comes much farther along their journey.”

"Ah." He shrugs but keeps his gaze fixed forward. "Physical pleasure is a distraction from the more important things in life. It destroys lives, diverts people from pursuits of real value."

The sharp clip of his words warns me not to press further on that particular matter, though it surprises me. Most souls who arrive here have experienced some positive dimension of physical connection, even if merely a warm embrace or a steadying hand upon the shoulder. Many of them have also known some aspect of sensual pleasure. There exists a reason poets have spent so much ink describing the euphoria of carnal love through the ages.

"What holds real value, then?" I ask.

Dante releases a sigh, as though of all the foolish things I have uttered since our meeting, this question proves the most egregious. "Meaningful work. To be productive. To provide for one's self without feeding off the hard labor of another."

"Do you believe that logic applies equally to infants?"

He whirls toward me, but the scathing expression I expect to find etched into his brow, pulling his lips downward, is not there. Instead, he appears more curious than offended, his lips pursed in contemplation.

"Very well then, guide with millennia of accumulated experience." His voice carries an edge of challenge. "What is the meaning of life? Perhaps you possess some advantage that might help me navigate this realm more swiftly?"

I study him for a moment. His hair has softened in the residual steam, curling gently against the edges of his neck. His entire appearance has relaxed by the smallest degree—his piercing gaze a touch less cutting, his clothes a bit less armor-like, more simply cloth upon a man's shoulders.

"I am the wrong man to pose that question to," I say quietly. "I squandered my mortal life."

Vigor returns to him at my remark, and he thrusts his hands outward in an uncharacteristically expansive gesture. "How can you say such a thing?"

A howl breaks through the bog's eerie silence, something hunting, or perhaps being hunted, but Dante seems not to notice.

"I say it simply because it is true."

"You wrote an epic that defined Roman history and has withstood the test of time." Color rises in his cheeks, animation sparking in features usually held so deliberately still. "Did you not remind me that my own name shall soon be forgotten? My contributions negated? Yet you defied that—defied death itself—and you are dissatisfied with how you spent your years?"

This impassioned speech has brought brightness to his eyes, warmth to his complexion. It makes me wonder what he might look like laughing—a true laugh, the kind that originates in the belly and works its way upward until it unfurls the lips, crinkles the corners of the eyes. Somehow, I doubt he has exercised that expression often.

The chirping and croaking of the swamp stretches between us, filling the silence with its ancient, indifferent song. When I speak, I do not match his fervor. Instead, my words emerge as scarcely more than a whisper, offering bare truths stripped of passion. I accepted my choices long ago.

"I wrote a domesticated inversion of folklore, what people of your age might call a literary pastiche, based upon the truly great works of Homeric tradition. I did so in the service of crafting propaganda for an emperor who required legitimacy to gather even more power unto himself." I pause, watching the fog curl between us. "And unfortunately, the criticisms I wove into the text of that man were apparently too subtle, as they seem lost upon most readers."

Dante's mouth falls open during my speech, and it takes him a moment to recover himself.

"No," he protests. Then more firmly: "No. It has been some time since I read the Aeneid, but... the main character..." He searches for the name.

"Aeneas," I offer sympathetically, though with little personal investment.

"Aeneas!" The name emerges triumphant. "He was not domesticated. Did he not battle monsters and conquer kingdoms? Found a new civilization?"

I look out across the bog to where a snake coils beneath the cracked and desiccated limbs of a dying tree. The creature watches us with ancient, patient eyes. Or perhaps it watches nothing at all.

"I suppose that depends upon what one considers to be a monster, and whether one views conquest as strength or simply another form of destruction." My voice remains flat, distant. "Perhaps domesticated was the wrong word to describe my work. It was brutality penned in the service of an emperor, and it became the most effective weapon he ever wielded. Even when I begged for its destruction upon my deathbed, that final wish was not honored." I turn back to meet his gaze. "So you are correct. My deeds continue to echo throughout the ages, returning to me like waves against a shore that cannot erode. I never forget them."

An expression I cannot name settles within the dark depths of his eyes. They are wider than I would expect, gleaming with some emotion, though whether it be fury or grief or disgust, I cannot determine. For whatever reason, it remains as untouchable to me in this moment as he himself is.

"You are not proud of your greatest work?"

"The Aeneid is not my greatest work." The scoff escapes before I can contain it, and I am surprised at how much of the old bitterness I can still dredge from depths I thought long emptied.

"What do you believe is, then?"

"The Georgics."

His brows draw together, and I am not surprised. Very few remember them now.

"They are poems about pastoral life," I explain. "About tending bees and growing crops. About the honest labor of hands in soil."

His frown deepens, then he shakes his head. "I am no great reader of poetry. I am certain there are people who still know them as well.”

"Certainly," I agree. "But the reason you recognized my name when you stepped into this realm was because of the glorified war chronicle I penned for a man consumed by avarice and ambition." I let the words settle between us. "He arrived here—in this very place—not long after me, actually.”

"Did he make it out?" Dante asks.

"Some men never do." I nod toward a shape materializing behind him in the mist. "We have reached the door. It is just beyond you there."

He hesitates, studying me with such intensity I feel flayed open, his gaze searching for the truth beneath my skin. He has already witnessed it, of course—or enough of it. He simply does not wish to accept that some hero of his own private mythology, his notion that a man can achieve greatness sufficient to endure, and that such endurance is what grants existence meaning, results in nothing more than a wisp of regret and accumulated disillusionment.

He turns and opens the door.

As we step through the threshold, I steady myself. It is not like me to give in to bouts of passion-driven frustration anymore, and certainly not with a soul I guide through this place. I have my periods of melancholy, and they drive me into the swamps, through the murk and chirping insects and gray-green waters, the sandy-mud paths, the endless mist-shrouded inlets. It has been such a length of time since I've revealed so many of my flaws and fits of temper to another that I can scarcely remember the last occasion.

But there is something about this man that is like the pressure of falling beneath water. Words escape me seemingly without my control. I cannot name what it is about him, but it is the same feeling I had when I first watched him walking his endless loops through the empty streets of his city. As though something about his very presence compelled me forward.

It is with the discomfort of that thought settled upon my shoulders that we step into the next realm. My unneeded breath comes sharp, and I quickly divert my eyes to the path, fighting the urge to look again.

I am grateful, for once, that I lack other senses to draw me in.

"Gluttony," Dante scoffs. "This should have been my first temptation. It tempts me not at all."

"Surely that cannot be true?" I lift my face to ask the question. A mistake.

Beyond, I see the feast. There is bread—crust dark and blistered from the oven, dusted faintly with ash. Someone rips a loaf apart, and steam escapes in a soft sigh. Another person pours olive oil into a shallow dish scattered with crushed herbs and a pinch of coarse salt.

I can nearly taste it. Nearly feel the tingle of the herbs upon my tongue, the bread's warm and golden softness in my mouth.

There is cheese—fresh and white, still cool at its center. A hand drizzles honey over it, amber and slow-moving, pooling in the grooves. The sweetness clings, thick and floral, and I imagine how its viscous warmth would coat my throat, sweeten my lips.

Steam rises from a clay dish at the table's center.

It holds a stew, dark and fragrant, the surface shimmering with glossy fat. A hand ladles it into bowls, and the lentils and chickpeas spill out, swollen and tender, stained reddish-brown from rich wine and crushed tomatoes. Chunks of lamb land with them, simmered until they surrender at the slightest pressure.

Musa's favorite meal.

I am frozen, unable to pull my attention away. I do not even notice the rest of the feast—the roasted vegetables and free-flowing wine and honey cakes.

My eyes linger on that stew.

I imagine how Musa would close his eyes as he took a mouthful. How he would taste it with his entire presence. How later he would kiss me and the sweetness on my lips would mingle with the warm earthiness of his. His bright smile and shaking shoulders as he laughed at some other's joke.

It was the happiest moment of my life. One of the few snatches of happiness I possessed. Sharing a wonderful meal with Musa, who found such great joy in so many little things. I always had my eyes set toward some distant sense of greatness. He found greatness in a bowl of stew.

"Virgil!" Dante's shout is so roaring, so commanding that it snaps the tether I have found myself bound to. I gasp—out of surprise, not any need for breath—and look to where he stands so near to me, his dark eyes gleaming like coals. "Virgil?" he asks again, more quietly.

"Yes?"

"You were..." He frowns and glances out at the scene I refuse to look toward again, for fear of becoming caught in the loop once more. "Stuck."

"I apologize." Shame glides through me, an emotion that would heat my flesh were such a thing still possible. "It is not often the loops enrapture me anymore."

"Food, though?" Dante asks in a way that makes it clear he finds such a temptation bizarre and perhaps beneath me. The way he says it makes me feel both ashamed and honored—a complicated mixture of emotions.

"Food is not merely food,” I whisper, fighting myself against looking at the scene. How I wish we could hold this discussion outside this realm. "No temptation is the same for any one person."

"Is that how you can walk with others as their guide and not face temptation?" he asks, his head cocked slightly. "By seeing their thoughts instead of your own?"

"It helps, yes."

He seems to consider this, then looks ahead. "I don't see the door yet, so I suppose we keep walking."

I nod again but do not look up. I fear that I will be lost again if my mind even scrapes against the edges of the domestic feast before me. A feast I am certain I shared with Musa at my side. With him exclaiming over the floral notes of the honey and the perfection of the blistered roasted carrots. The joy in a perfectly ripe fig…

I release a slow breath, trying to ground myself. The loop has already tried to snag me again, and it is a struggle not to think of it.

"Would you tell me of a meal you enjoyed in life?" I ask. Dante looks back at me with a furrowed brow, and though it shames me, I continue, "It has been eons since I have experienced any sensual pleasure. Some are easier for me to avoid." Lust, for one. I have never found much pleasure in carnal love outside of intimacy with someone I cared for deeply. "But some are quite difficult. If you would talk, it would help distract me from the loop."

Dante slows to walk alongside me, almost as if positioning himself to block my view of the oil-fed wicks of the lamps and the laughter of those feasting just beyond. "I'm no poet, Virgil."

"It does not matter. You can simply speak."

"On food?"

"I find things I have never experienced interesting."

Dante's lips thin. He presses his hands behind his back. There is nearly a pained expression on his face. "You now know I starved as a child. I vowed to never be ruled by a desire for food as anything more than basal nourishment again."

A haunted expression has entered his eyes, softening them, making them drift far ahead of us into the nothingness beyond.

"You never had a single meal in your life you truly enjoyed?" I ask.

He sighs. "I suppose I can think of a few."

"Would you describe one?"

The way his body stiffens and tenses, the hesitation, the lack of command in his posture, tells me how much he yields, even considering honoring my request. His jaw tightens, loosens, tightens again. Perhaps studying him wrestling with himself alone will be enough to usher me out of this space.

"I had a bowl of pasta once that was remarkable." He grits this offering between his teeth, like he is giving up legacy and funds to gift it.

"Pasta?" I ask quietly.

"Yes, it's a wheat-based⁠—"

I laugh, unable to help interrupting him. "I do know what pasta is. Even in my mortal walk upon the earth, we had thin sheets of dough formed of flour and water and cooked in boiling water. I am simply curious, what kind of pasta? Where? What made it special?"

Dante's scowl only continues to lift my spirit, and I find myself smiling despite myself.

His strides pick up pace. "The location doesn't matter. It was some foolish little restaurant near a subway stop uptown. I don't even remember which line."

"Yet this meal lingers in your memory for some reason?"

This is working. I have nearly forgotten the clatter and sights just beyond him. I am so enraptured by the way he avoids meeting my eyes, the slightest uptick of the corner of his lip, the way a certain heaviness has quietly left his body.

"It was perhaps influenced by who I shared the meal with," he whispers. I do not press. I can hear the sacredness in his words. That this person was special, and he now carries regrets.

"And you ate pasta there?"

"I certainly didn't choose it. A platter of carbs is neither beneficial for optimal health nor day-to-day function, in my experience. It leaves you sluggish and exhausted. But—" A beat of silence. "The person I ate with ordered for us."

He falls quiet again, and I do not press. There is something sacred here, and I have never been one to trample upon holy ground.

"Do you know what pappardelle is?" Dante asks.

"I do not," I whisper, not wishing to break whatever trance his memory has taken him to. His shoes clip softly against the tile beneath our feet. His watch ticks faintly.

"It's... wider than most," he says at last. "The pasta, I mean. They're long ribbons of dough. They're not elegant. Not uniform, even. They're cut broadly, almost carelessly." He pauses. "Yet this is the meal that M—“ He clears his throat. "Someone wished to share with me."

"Was the pasta served plain?”

"No." His voice has changed and lost its edge. It is quieter now, less certain, as though he is no longer dictating facts but uncovering them. "It was served in a heavy sauce, wine-reduced, tomatoes cooked down for hours, probably. There was meat that fell apart and slipped from your fork when you tried to eat it. It was a messy meal."

"Yet you loved it?" I ask, whisper-quiet.

"Yes," he replies just as softly. "We ate it hunched over the bowl, letting the pieces slip from our mouths. It tasted rich and indulgent, warm and wine-dark and fragrant with spices. The waiter grated a heap of cheese on top and poured us overfull glasses of wine to go with it. You couldn't rush through that meal if you wanted."

He is staring off into space, his steps slowed to an almost stop.

"Dante," I say quietly.

"Yes?"

"We have made it to the door."

This startles him, and he straightens again, steps back into himself.

"Thank you," I say as his hand lands on the knob. "For sharing that with me."

"Don't mention it." His voice sounds more like the certain and unyielding man I first met, but when I look at him, I cannot help but imagine his lips smeared with red sauce, eyes reflecting candlelight, fingers twisting to capture the messy, indulgent meal... smiling at whoever the someone was that led him to that table.