"What is this?" asked the judge, smiling (and betraying three additional rows of very sharp teeth in the process).
"My apologies, Excellency," said Wen, trying his best to look concerned. "This gift was supposed to appear a bit more... discreetly."
"I am compelled by the dignity of my office to condemn your indiscretion," the judge said. "But at the same time my duty to my name and family allows me to give friendly acknowledgment of your enthusiasm." He nodded a command to the guards, who began to gather up the hell-money, stuffing the bills into their helmets. "You were about to say?" the judge added, this time to the clerk.
"Excellency, the petition seems to be speaking the truth. There is no error in this office." The judge nodded his head, more in acknowledgment of incontestable fact than anything else. "The spirit in question, Wen Gang, was indeed misdirected here. The responsible party has very cleverly disguised his tracks, however, making the misdirection appear to be nothing more than a clumsy error by a reception clerk. The responsible party has been too sharp by half, however—if your Excellency will permit this humble servant to express an opinion—in that the error is so stupid and so obvious that it is immediately recognizable as a clever forgery."
But what have you done with him? Wen shouted in silence. His anxiousness must have been obvious, to some at least, because Yin Fengzi, looking at him, narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "And what," the judge asked, "has become of the subject?"
The clerk shifted on his feet, glanced briefly at the judge and, with a terrified squeak, buried his face in his documents. "I... am not sure," he said.
"That is not an option in this department," the judge said. Wen was impressed: the voice was quiet, but there was a rumble, as of thunder, that seemed to come from behind the calligraphy and embroidered hangings behind the dais. "He was sent here; this department will of course have dealt with him according to proper procedure. This hell," the judge said, "is the administrative center for The Sixteen Departments of Heart Gouging, representing over a hundred subsidiary hells and offering thousands of individual torments to meet the needs, karmic or otherwise, of all of the damned who are directed here. It may be that the subject has been redirected to one of the more obscure sub-hells—say, the Hell of Endless Reinforcement, in which those who prattle on boringly at parties and moon-viewing ceremonies are condemned to an eternal reading of the more obscure commentaries on Confucian orthodoxy—but he will be somewhere within this jurisdiction. The rules require it."
The clerk suddenly collapsed to the floor, sobbing. A blizzard of paper fluttered around him, one sheet impaling itself on a tusk in the mouth of one of the judge's beadles. "Forgive me!" the clerk wailed. "He is not here!"
"What," said the judge, slowly, "do you mean?"
I would guess, thought Wen, that he means my father is not in this hell either. But that would only be a guess.
"I have no record of him being assigned to any of our sub-hells," the clerk said. His voice was scarcely audible, because the creature had buried his enormous head in the sleeves of his robe. "He seems to have been sent back to the Hell of the Hungry Ghosts."
"That would be fine, if irregular," the judge said. "And not atypical of the responsible party," he added, with a grating chuckle.
"But I have a note here rejecting the transfer," the clerk said, between sobs. "The receiving official claims that the paperwork justifying his presence in that hell is incomplete, whereas the transfer to us was properly documented!"
"Is this possible?" the judge said in a roar.
"I—I do not know! Their documents appear to be in—in order! But they are using our own superior documentation processes against us! This is disaster!" The clerk was now completely prone, drumming hands and feet on the floor.
"I believe," the judge said, "that it is time for you to be reassigned." The floor under the clerk began to shimmer, and to glow. As Wen watched, fascinated, the floor went from dull red to orange to imperial yellow to blinding white. The clerk whimpered once, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. The smell, to Wen's surprise, was quite fragrant, like an especially expensive joss stick.
"Approach the bench," the judge said to Wen. The arm that gestured to Wen now ended in a long, sharp needle whose purpose Wen didn't want to think about; as the judge waved it the needle morphed into something that could possibly be described as being human, in that it had something of a palm and five digits at the end of a wrist. That the palm was squamous, and the digits ended in what appeared to be cloisonné talons, made the description irrelevant. The instruction, however, was irrefutable. Wen approached the bench.
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