Okay! A little bit more of that psychomachia, please!
Do not touch! Well then. Update!
5.3 A Special Bed For You
But you saw through the guise; you would not be tempted by the works of the Malefactors, and the devils that serve them, that so often swarm around those not long for the world, to in their last assault throw them into damnation, for nothing saddens a demon as seeing a noble soul depart the body and enter the abode of the Saint, which is forever forbidden to them.
Seeing that he would not turn you with temptation and dark sorceries, the devil instead turned to another mean, and wielded against you…
…fire, crackling, burning. Stoked high. As hot as your fever, and hotter still. You screamed, and your lips split again; your blood was thick and malodorous. Your body turned to rot.
Fire surrounded you, and burned you, and your pain could not be described, so terrifying it was. And other devils, beckoned by their lord, beset you from all sides, and grabbed you and carried you through a crack in the ground, into cold depths, and they held you above a great lake of ice, where you could see others, and among them, you saw Notker, and he saw you – and he called at you from his prison.
"You will join us, sinners! Us oath-breakers! Us heathens! As our hearts were cold to the truth in life, now we freeze, freeze until the time…"
"…runs off. It is a miracle that she still clings to this life."
"She is ferocious. Such a shame she was born a woman."
Then the devils threw you down into the hyperborean depths, unwarmed by sun, untouched by light, the home of anguish, the antechamber of damnation. And there was no firm soil, only swamp beneath your feet, and it dragged you down, and you feared: feared that you would not be saved, and that damnation was at hand. For you were dying, and this was the pit of wickedness, the home of the Malefactors.
And they called to you:
"Are you not…"
"…one us. If not in life, then in death."
You lay on a shield, carried by four men, cold, motionless. They put the spear in your hand, and wrapped you in your cloak. It was not a burial for a woman, it was a burial for a Lief. They carried you out of the feast hall, and off into the swamp.
"You have sinned! You have rebelled! You disobeyed! You were vain! You belong among the Malefactors, in the house of the torment! Curse, curse with us the Eternal Judges that will pass on the sentence to you!"
There was mud in your mouth, and you were drowning in it; but you knew that there would be no death here, only sinking, and a brief respite of breath, only so that you could be punished further.
You were in…
…great pain. You floated, over water, on a shield that would not go down. And you were in great pain, trembling, shaking, bleeding, dying. But not yet over the threshold. The waters refused to take you.
The devils dragged you from the mud, and brought you up, and you beheld others that were damned, and you saw among them Ulrig, his traitorous hand cut, and the wound sealed with burning metal. And the wound turned into a hand, and it was cut again. And his cries of anguish were unlike anything you had heard before.
"We have made a special bed for you" the devils said. "It waits! But it will not wait long…"
You could not bear their words, and their claws; this was a temptation for a saint, not for a woman. And so, you…
[ ] Prayed.
[ ] Pleaded for mercy.
[ ] Reaffirmed your virtue.
[ ] Reaffirmed your oaths.
[ ] Succumbed to the devils.
