If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 11

Faust and Marguerite, somewhat windblown from their flight through the aether, arrived at the dank meadow outside of Rome where the great Witches' Sabbat was customarily held. The meadow lay between two mountains with heads like gargoyles. One rim of the great swollen red setting sun revealed that quite a celebration had been held here not very long ago. But now the party was definitely over.

Empty wine sacks and paper hats were strewn all over. The orchestra players were putting away their instruments and getting ready to return to Budapest. The huge raised altar at the center of the meadow was piled high with sacrifices. But the worshipers had left, and demon servitors were cutting up the meat to distribute to the evil poor, for the poor are always with us, on Earth, above, and below.

He approached one of the workers, a bearded dwarf with stumpy legs cross-gartered with strips of leather, wearing a horned steel cap of Norse design, and with a spade fastened to a little knapsack at his back.

"How is it going?" Faust asked.

"Quite poorly," the dwarf said. "This demon grabbed me and my friends to clean up after this Sabbat, but demons never pay enough, and they never leave anything to drink."

"Drink?" Faust raised the sack of Spanish wine that he had managed to cling to since leaving the Closed Chamber of the Jagiellonian. "I could perhaps offer you some drink."

"Very kind of you, sir! My name is Rognir and I am at your service." He reached for the wine sack, but Faust drew it back out of his grasp.

"Not so fast! There's something you can give me in exchange."

"I knew it was too good to be true," Rognir said. "What do you want?"

"Information," Faust said.

Rognir, whose heavy wrinkled face had been knotting into a scowl, now raised his brows and smiled.

"Information, sir? Aye, you can have all the information you want. I thought you wanted jewels. Whom do you want me to betray?"

"It's nothing so dramatic," Faust said. "I merely seek to find two individuals who were here at this Sabbat.

One was a tall, yellow-haired human, the other a black-haired devil named Mephistopheles."

"Yes indeed, they were here," Rognir said. "Laughing and carrying on they were. You'd think they'd never been to a Witches' Sabbat before."

"Where did they go?" Faust asked.

"That's the sort of thing no one tells a dwarf," Rognir said. "But look you, sir, I have a parchment that Mephistopheles wrote and gave to that red-haired demon over there."

The red-haired demon to whom he alluded was none other than Azzie Elbub, the dapper, fox-faced demon who had Set the previous Millennial contest on behalf of Darkness, but whose creation, Prince Charming, had come to such an equivocal ending that Necessity, who had judged the contest, declared it a push. This found no favor in the eyes of the Lords of Darkness, who had looked forward to victory and the right to rule mankind's destiny for the next thousand years. And so Azzie had not been consulted in the matter this time, the choices being left solely with Mephistopheles and the Archangel Michael.

Faust asked, "This demon, he just handed you the parchment?"

"Not exactly," Rognir said. "He crumpled it up and threw it away angrily as Mephistopheles and his rejuvenated friend vanished in a cloud of smoke and fire."

"Give me the paper!"

They glared at each other, then cautiously exchanged objects. While Rognir was drinking, Faust looked at the parchment and saw a list of places and dates. He knew some of the places: Paris, for example. But not London or the court of the Great Khan in Peking. And the times were all different, some of them in the past, some in the future. One thing stood out, however. The first place on the list was Constantinople, and the date was 1210. Faust remembered from his history that that was the time of the ill-fated Fourth Crusade. That, obviously, would be the first of the situations he had overheard Mephistopheles mention to Mack.

While he was puzzling over this list, a voice at his left shoulder said, "You were talking about me, I believe."

Faust looked up and saw Azzie, the demon to whom Rognir had been alluding, standing beside him.

"How could you overhear me?" Faust said. "I spoke in a whisper."

"Demons always know when someone is talking about them. You're wondering about that parchment? I'll tell you. Mephistopheles has been put in charge of the Millennial games that will decide the destiny of mankind for the next thousand years. They chose him rather than me. And me a two-time winner! He and Michael have agreed that Mephistopheles will put Faust into five situations, and the choices he makes will be judged as to Goodness or Badness, outcome, and motive, by Necessity, whom we know as Ananke."

"But I am Faust!" Faust cried. "Mephistopheles has gotten .the wrong man!"

Azzie eyed him. His bright fox eyes narrowed, and his ruddy demon's body took on a tension that a skilled observer, had one been present, might have found significant.

"You are the learned doctor?"

"Yes! I am! I am!" Marguerite tugged at his sleeve so insistently that Faust added, "And this is Marguerite, my friend."

Azzie acknowledged her with a nod, then turned to Faust. "This is a very interesting turn of events."

"Not for me," Faust said. "I just want to see justice done. It's me that Mephistopheles wanted in this contest. I want my rightful place! Will you help me?"

Azzie paced up and down the trodden grass of the meadow, thinking. He harnessed his usual impatience, because there were many angles to consider here, and he needed more information before he took any action at all. But unless he missed his guess, this could be a time of opportunity for him.

"I'll get back to you later on that," Azzie said.

"Give me a piece of advice, at least! Tell me where to go next to find them."

"All right," Azzie said. "My advice is that if you intend to pursue Mephistopheles and the impostor, you will need to travel in time, and to do that, you must visit Charon and make arrangements for passage on his boat." Thanks!" Faust cried. And picking up the chestnut-haired girl and invoking the second pan of the spell which he had concocted in the Closed Chamber of the Jagiellonian, Faust vanished into the air.