If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 12

Azzie watched Faust leave, noting how well the human did his vanishing. It was a crisp and definite disappearance, here one moment, gone the next, no sloppy edges or bleeding colors as less skilled enchanters were wont to leave. The fellow handled magic well for a mortal. Of course, he was Faust, and that made a difference. Even Azzie had heard of Faust.

It was just past midnight. The cleanup crews had finished with the meadow where the Sabbat had taken place. The sanitation team was just sterilizing the places where unclean beasts had burrowed. Spiritual ecologists were repairing the damage done to trees by lightning and hellfire, planting new grass on the trampled sward, and purifying the soil of the baleful elements that had been spilled on it during the night's merriment.

"That's the lot of it," the dwarf foreman, Rognir, said. "More swill than last year."

"Yes, it was pretty good," Azzie said, his eyes indicating distance and absorption.

"Can we go now?" asked Rognir. He was annoyed. He really hadn't wanted this job. Before running into Azzie, he had been walking along one of the dwarves' underground paths, humming to himself, intent on getting to the Uppsala Dwarveria Jamboree, which was being held under Montpellier this year. It was the greatest holiday of the dwarf year, a chance to show off minor variations in the ancient dances and sing new accompaniments to old songs, for the dwarves like their arts traditional. Dwarves didn't much like new things, because they figured they wouldn't last. They liked to revamp old things, adding a word here or a step there. Rognir had been practicing with some members of his klutch for several months on a variation on the tarantella. (A klutch of dwarves is a friendship group of between five and seventeen individuals. For dwarves, the klutch takes the place of family, and ensures that everyone takes a turn buying the drinks.) Rognir had planned to meet the rest of his klutch under Montpellier. He had been hurrying along, late as usual, when suddenly Azzie had come stamping through the tunnel and had spotted him.

"Hello!" Azzie had said. "I know you, don't I?"

"We met once before," Rognir said, recognizing the demon. "You were going to invest my treasure.

Where is my treasure, by the way?"

"Out earning money for you," Azzie said. "Don't worry about it, you've already gotten the profit, remember?" He put an arm around Rognir's shoulder in what passed for a friendly manner. "You aren't doing anything right now, are you?"

"I've got an appointment," Rognir had said.

"It can wait," Azzie said. "I need you to clean up after this Witches' Sabbat. It won't take you long."

"Why don't you do it yourself?"

"I've been appointed overseer, not laborer," Azzie said. "Come on now, be a good fellow."

Rognir was going to refuse, but it is difficult to refuse a demon in a race-to-race confrontation. Demons are far more fearsome than dwarves, who aren't fearsome at all, though they can scowl terribly.

"What about my pay?" Rognir said.

Azzie said, "Your payment in the usual form of bags of coined silver has been deposited to your account in the Hellgate Savings & Loan."

"But that's way down in Hell!" Rognir said. "We dwarves never go there!"

"You'll have to go there this time, if you want to get paid."

"When we do go there, they give us the runaround and ask for identification. They don't seem to realize that dwarves don't have driving licenses."

"Quit bellyaching," Azzie said in the bullying, threatening tone that was natural for him.

"And nobody gave us wine, or dinner," Rognir said in a whining voice.

"Buy your own! That's what currency is for!"

Rognir scurried away, and, assembling his fellow dwarves, all of whom were complaining to each other about the working conditions and the lack of wine, uncovered the burrow by which they had come to this place. Dwarves always traveled underground, cutting new tunnels when old ones didn't exist. It was a lot of work and sometimes it hardly seemed worth their trouble, since there were highways and byways on the surface of the world connecting everything to everything else. But dwarves are traditionalists, the old ways are best, and at least underground you know where you are. They disappeared into their hole and the last one to go set in place the grassy cover. Now the meadow had its usual mundane and somewhat bedraggled appearance and Azzie could leave as well.

Yet the fox-faced demon hesitated, still thinking about the two Fausts. What was going on? It seemed that Mephistopheles, on behalf of the Millennial Planning Committee, and with Michael's approval, had given Faust an itinerary of places where he was to influence human destiny at moments vital to the world's future history. Faust had accepted. Presumably he and Mephistopheles were going to the starting line now, so to speak, to begin the contest. But the person who would be doing all this wasn't Faust at all. He was an impostor, and Mephistopheles didn't seem to know anything about it. Curious.

Azzie was in an irritated mood. Although he had a reputation as a good-natured demon, recent events had soured his usually sunny nature. Being passed over for setting up the current Millennial contest hadn't done his disposition any good. It still irked him to think that the Lords of Darkness had picked Mephistopheles, a silly devil if there ever was one, to do what Azzie had done so well before. And Mephistopheles was already parading around with the wrong man!

What results would this imposture have on the contest? Whose side would benefit from getting the real Faust out of the game? And, most important of all, who was behind all this? For the more Azzie thought about it, the more it seemed certain that someone had to be planning this. Conspiracy theories are one of the foremost intellectual achievements of Hell, and Azzie was an orthodox believer in that respect, though on other matters he had his differences from received opinion.

Yes, somebody was planning something… deep! And he could find out what it was and use it to advance his own cause!

As soon as he realized this, Azzie's foul mood fell away and he became positively cheerful. Because if there is one thing that makes a demon feel good, it is exposing a conspiracy plot and proving himself smarter than anyone else.

Azzie welcomed the opportunity. He had been underemployed of late. Since he'd been expecting to be chosen to set up the contest he hadn't set up anything else for himself in the way of interesting work. This would do nicely. And he had a pretty shrewd idea where to begin.

Casting a last look at the site of the Witches' Sabbat, and finding it up to standard, he rose into the air, spinning like a fiery whirligig, and then streaked off like a rocket, casting brilliant red and white spots. Let a mortal try that for an exit!