Lost from Record: 000-00-000
Miranda King

After departing from the seventh Bolgia
filled with thieves, my instructor and I planned on
making advances toward the Bolgia of fraudulent counselors.

A collection of harsh sounds
issuing from a fissure in the in the ground
drew my attention away from the eight Bolgia.

Hidden before us was
the mouth of a long-forgotten passageway
unfamiliar even to my guide.

Upon closer examination I discovered
that it was no mere crevice
but a boulder-covered aperture leading into the depths.

My guide encouraged me to uncover it
and thereby discover the chamber within,
but he also reminded me to make haste.

I began to dislodge large boulders that
had lain as they were since
He came in the ancient days of yore.

I quickly cleared the rubble, revealing a
great passageway and a peculiar sound blending
with the screams and wails issued from beneath the ground.

We began our descent down the dark channel, though
neither of us knew where we were going;
my guide went first and I followed closely behind him.

Shortly the source of the strange sound
was revealed to me, for in the distance I could see
a dense cloud of winged beings hovering over a crater-marked plain.

I immediately paled with fear,
but my cautious guide pressed me onward,
this time perhaps out of his own curiosity.

As we drew closer I could see with greater detail
the nature of the multitude of winged beings,
but I could not yet decipher the objects of their aggressions.

They were in my eyes fearsome demons
with wings of iron and expressions of the same ilk.
They carried iron rods glowing still from great Vulcan’s furnace.

My guide urged me to be careful as I left him
to peer over the perimeter of one of the pits;
he too went to examine the content of a nearby crater.

The warning was heeded just as a great demon
swooped down, nearly striking me, imparting the wrath
of his brand upon the ill-fated inhabitant of the pit.

I was near enough to hear and smell the searing of flesh,
and to hear the belligerent bellows of the afflicted;
the assault on my senses caused me to grow faint with fear.

After the dreaded demon departed
I carefully made my way to the edge of the chasm
in hopes of persuading the inhabitant to divulge about himself.

I immediately recognized the inhabitant as
the fraudulent Florentine Julian Monteransono;
a crafty criminal who deceased nearly five years ago.

When he still lived above on the Earth,
Monteransono was a master of disguise
as well as the king of cunning tales.

He was never found out until after his death
in a letter he had written to posterity
revealing the details of his heinous acts.

Monteransono successfully slew the lord of a great house
who had been away from home for many years
attending to business matters in distant lands.

He disguised himself and assumed the very identity of lord
Antwan Mancini whom he had murdered and returned
to the man’s home to live with his wife as though she were his own.

All of these things came to public knowledge after
the death of Monteransono, and became a popular topic
of conversation among the common folk.

With all of these things in mind,
I yelled out to him in the middle of the crater
saying “Speak to me of thy condition, ye damned soul.”

Infuriated, he glared at me saying,
“Get thee gone man! Who among the living may enter here?
I will tell thee naught, for naught can I gain thereby.”

He continued saying, “I know not my own name.
What purpose would my tale serve me if you have no appellation
to carry with you to speak of me with.”

I persuaded him to speak by promising to tell him
who I was and his own name if he would
merely divulge to me his current condition.

Both conditions seemed to appeal to him,
so he told me “I burn in endless torment here.
Both my mind and body are under constant assault.”

“The demons above carry bright irons of shifting shape
with which they perpetually sear my skin with symbols,
names, and numbers unfamiliar to me.”

“I eagerly await even the torturous pain of the searing iron
for I know that they must be branding me
with some clue as to who I am.”

“It is an all-consuming thought that forces me
to draw the attention of the iron bearers
as soon as the previous wounds upon my brow are nearly healed.”

“It is an endless maddening cycle that will only
grow worse until the gates to this hell are forced shut
and then I will know nothing past, present, or future.”

“Hidden inside this pit within a pit,
we are forgotten by all, even by those in hell.
I have forgotten even myself.”

Having gotten the information I desired
I arose to seek my teacher,
but I was immediately stopped by Monteransono.

He shouted “You promised me that you would tell me
both my name and yours. I upheld my portion of the agreement.
Now I demand to know my name.”

Cunning spoke through me saying,
“My name is Julian Monteransono, and
you are lord Antwan Mancini.”

Having a name did not seem to please him,
for he forgot it instantaneously, but he remembered
and greatly feared the name I gave him for myself.

I turned from him to find my guide standing nearby.
He had been unable to gain insight in the same way that I had,
but he seemed to already know the significance of the conversation.

We proceeded out of that hidden chamber in complete silence
and never spoke of it between ourselves.
The place seemed to be lost from record.

<<< Return to Journal Contents