If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 1

When Mack opened his eyes, he found he was on a busy street corner in what looked like a very large city. Mephistopheles and Marguerite were standing on either side of him. Mephistopheles was looking as dapper as always. He had a fresh red rosebud in the buttonhole of his dark lounge suit. His black shoes glittered with a new shine. And Marguerite was pretty as a picture. She'd found the time to repair her makeup since leaving Constantinople, and to change into a flowered gown with low-cut bodice.

Mack looked around, and saw at once that this city had many large and noble buildings of a peculiar design that had to be Chinese. This impression was further reinforced by the inhabitants, who, wearing silks and furs, and with their hands in their long sleeves, hurried back and forth holding high-pitched conversations. The air was crisp and cold and smelled of charcoal and five-spice powder. The sky overhead was a cold northern blue. Men in fur hats with flat orange faces passed by. These, Mack was pretty sure, were Mongols. There seemed to be a lot of them around, all armed to the teeth. They walked past Mack and the others as if they were not there.

"They can't see us," Mephistopheles said. "I have put us under a temporary Invisibility Spell. It's cheaper than hiring a conference room."

"If you say so," Mack said. "Now, what am I supposed to do here?"

"There in front of you," Mephistopheles said, "down at the end of the street, is the great palace of Kublai Khan. Within that palace live the great Khan, his nobles, relatives, concubines, and hangers-on. Also in that palace is Marco Polo."

"The famous Venetian explorer?" Mack asked.

"None other. His uncle and father would normally be there with him, but they've gone on a trading trip to Trebizond."

"Where's Trebizond?" Mack asked.

"Never mind. You don't need to know that. What you need to know is what you're supposed to do here."

"Yes, right," Mack said. "Better fill me in."

"The situation is like this. Marco is planning to leave Peking and return to Venice. Kublai Khan has reluctantly agreed to let him go because Marco is the only one who can provide safe escort for the Princess Irene, whom he has betrothed to one of his lords in Persia. There are plots 'gainst Marco's life, however. Some of the Mongol lords resent the favors Kublai has bestowed on him. There are people who want to kill him. One of your choices is to prevent Marco Polo from being killed before he leaves Peking."

"Now, wait a minute," Mack said. "He did leave Peking, didn't he?"

"Yes, but that was in the past. This is happening now. So it all must be done over again. And it could go a different way. Because even though it's happening over again, this is also the first time."

"But if it did go a different way," Mack said, "wouldn't that play hell with events in our own time?"

"You needn't worry about that," Mephistopheles said. "Think of it as a game within a game. You are brought here and given a moment in time. You will have three choices of what to do with that moment.

From your choices, we will see how you will affect the future, whether for good or for ill."

"No, it makes no sense at all," Mack said. "Why should I have to help Marco? He has already won out against any plot there might have been against him."

"You don't seem to understand," Mephistopheles said. "When we send you here, it's as if the story is happening for the first time. No outcomes are fixed. For that matter, who knows how many times the Marco Polo story has been replayed? The history of Earth is like the old morality plays one sees over and over again, but the outcomes are not fixed. It's like the commedia dell'arte. The basic cast assembles every evening, the situation is begun, but sometimes, quite unexpectedly, the outcome is different."

Marco Polo story has been replayed? The history of Earth is like the old morality plays one sees over and over again, but the outcomes are not fixed. It's like the commedia dell'arte. The basic cast assembles every evening, the situation is begun, but sometimes, quite unexpectedly, the outcome is different."

"

"How could you know what the main course of history is if you're immersed in its stream? And yet, although it is all deadly serious, it is all a game. At least, to us it is a game. But to you it had better stay serious or you'll suffer for it."

"What are my other choices?" Mack asked.

"There is the matter of the Princess Irene. She is from a far country and Kublai Khan has betrothed her to a lord of Persia. Yet if she were to marry someone else, that would change the course of history, too.

You can decide to change that by getting her to marry someone else."

"What happened with the one she did marry?" Mack asked. "History doesn't tell us," Mephistopheles replied.

"All right," Mack said. He saw he wasn't going to get anything much clearer out of this high-flown demon.

"And what is the third choice?" "Kublai Khan possesses a magic scepter that brings good luck to the Mongol forces, and hence bad luck on his enemies, which include the countries of the West that Kublai opposes. You could steal that scepter."

"I tried that last time with the magic icon."

"This time is completely different. Forget about the last time. Now, if you're quite ready, I'll take away the cloak of invisibility and you can begin."

"Wait a minute!" Mack said. "How do I explain my presence here?"

Mephistopheles pondered for a moment. "Tell them you're the ambassador from Ophir."

"And what is Ophir?"

"Ophir," Mephistopheles said, "is the city mentioned in the Old Testament from which King Solomon got his gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."

"And where is this Ophir located?"

"No one knows for sure. Various sites have been mentioned, among them East Africa, the Far East, Abyssinia, and Arabia. We can be sure Marco Polo has not been there, otherwise he would have mentioned it in the long and boastful list of travels he will leave behind. So you can safely claim your ambassadorship since there is no one to refute you."

"Well, all right," Mack said. "So I'm the Ophirian ambassador. Or is that Ophirese?"

"As you please," Mephistopheles said, showing signs of impatience. "Now, if you're quite ready?"

"Wait! One more thing," Mack said. "What about my clothing?"

"Look at yourself," Mephistopheles said.

Mack looked. Evidently, when redressing himself and Marguerite, Mephistopheles had found time to give Mack black-and-white tights, a wool-lined jacket, and a little cap with a feather in it. So that part was all right. But Mack felt there was something else, some other problem. Mephistopheles was beginning to make his disappearing gestures. Then Mack had it.

"What do you mean?" Mephistopheles said.

"Unless they know German and a little French, I'm going to be stuck."

"Oh." Mephistopheles frowned. "But, Dr. Faust, you are a renowned scholar and linguist."

"You know how it is," Mack said. "People exaggerate these things. Anyway, I've been a long time out of languages. They all need brushing up." "Very well," Mephistopheles said. "I'll give you a Language Spell that will enable you to understand everything anybody says. Be careful with it. It's not for general circulation."

"A magic Language Spell will help," Mack said.

Mephistopheles gestured. "It is done. You have to give it back when you are through with it."

"What about me?" Marguerite asked.

"You're just along as his friend," Mephistopheles said. "The Language Spell doesn't pertain to you. Ready, then?" Mack gulped and nodded. Mephistopheles disappeared, this time without a flash of fire and smoke, just a rather rapid fading out. At the same moment, a short, squat man with a long beard bumped into Mack.

"Ogrungi," the man said.

"No, no, it was my fault," Mack said. And then marveled at the fact that he had understood the fellow perfectly. The man moved on and Mack turned to Marguerite. "I wish Mephistopheles hadn't been so peremptory," Mack said. "He really doesn't set these things up very well. Let's see now. What is the first thing I'm supposed to do?"

At that moment a tall, fierce-looking warrior in fur hat and lacquered armor, with sword and shield and a lance on his back, said, "Hey, you!"

"This is familiar," Mack murmured to Marguerite. Turning to the warrior, he said, "Yes?"

"I haven't seen you around before. Who are you?"

"I," Mack said, "am the ambassador from Ophir. Take me to your khan. And by the way, this is my friend, Marguerite."

"Follow me," the warrior said.

Staying a few steps behind the warrior, out of whose way people scurried with much kow-towing, they walked through the teeming marketplace that lay on their way to Kublai's palace. There were smells aplenty here and they were Chinese smells for the most part, not European smells, though there were also curry smells from India, and hibiscus smells from the South Seas. Once they began walking among the stalls, the air became redolent with the odor of five-spice powder and Accent. Blocks of pressed seaweed, which people ate like knockwurst, exuded their characteristic odor both miasmic and iodinic.

Mack could detect the clean smells of bamboo and sandalwood above the more insistent odors of garlic, charcoal, rice-wine vinegar, and lichee nuts. There were baskets of barbecued pork and platters of General Khu's chicken. Duck Peking style could be seen everywhere, most of it doused in the ubiquitous Peking sauce. People with brownish yellow faces and straight black hair, of all sizes and shapes, gazed at them and passed comments. Because of the Language Spell that Mephistopheles had given him, Mack was able to understand all of the comments.

"What is it, Ben?"

"Sure looks like foreigners to me."

"What a funny skin color!"

"What ugly eyes!"

"And the way he's dressed! Nobody wears them velvet jackets around here."

"And look at her in them high heels! We don't even wear high heels around here, they're so tacky, so you can figure what they're like."

"Hell no, we don't!"

Noisy but cheerful, the crowd offered no violence. Mack, Marguerite, and the warrior left the market with its many smells and came to an altogether more neutral region in terms of odoriferousness, a great boulevard beyond which lay a noble palace.

They crossed the street and entered a long stone courtyard leading to a high gate. The gate was open and a captain of the guard stood before it in lacquered armor with sword and shield, and challenged them.

"Who goes there?'

"Anonymous soldier," the Mongol warrior replied, "bringing with him the ambassador from Ophir and his girlfriend to present to the Khan."

"What good timing!" the guard said. "Kublai Khan and his whole court happen to be assembled now, they've finished talking business and it's not yet time for dinner, and so are hoping for something amusing to come up. Pass, anonymous soldier with honored guests."

The halls of the Khan's palace were rich beyond description. So none will be attempted. Down the corridors they marched, past scrolls covered with Chinese poetry extolling the virtues of water-watching.

The final doors before the audience chamber were tall, oval shaped, richly ornamented, and made of bronze. They swung open of their own accord.

"Who shall I say is calling?" a small, dark man asked.

"The ambassador from Ophir," Mack said. "And his girlfriend."

The great audience room was lit by flambeaux, which, being a newly imported French kind of torch, burned with a cold, pitiless intellectual light. By that light Mack saw, ahead of him, on a stage, a group of richly garmented people. In the center, elevated on a small plinth above the others, was a middle-sized, middle aged, middle-tempered sort of a man of medium coloring and average good looks, a small beard, and on his head a turban from whose summit blazed a diamond so great that Mack knew even without a program that this fellow had to be Kublai Khan.

"So, you're from Ophir?" Kublai Khan said. Remembering what Mephistopheles had told him, Mack noticed that Kublai Khan had a scepter. It didn't look especially magical, but Mephistopheles was presumably correct in his information.

The Khan said, "You're the first Ophirean we've had visit. Or do you say Ophirese?"

"Whichever Your Majesty prefers," Mack said.

"Look, Marco!" Kublai said. "A fellow European!"

The young man in the hawk-feather cap looked up and scowled. "He's nobody I know. What's your name, fellow, and where do you come from?"

"I am Dr. Johann Faust," Mack said. "I was born in Wittenberg in Germany, but of late I'm the acting ambassador from Ophir."

"We have not seen your like in Europe," Marco said.

"No. We Ophirese are pretty much content to stay home. We're not a great trading nation anymore like your Venice, Marco."

"Ah. You know me, then?"

"Certainly. Your fame has spread even as far as Ophir."

Marco tried to maintain his frown, but he was flattered. Tell me, what are your principal products?" he asked.

"We export a lot of stuff," Mack said, "but our main products are gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks."

"Apes! That's interesting," Marco said, "The great Khan has been looking for a good source of apes."

"We've got the best," Mack said. "We've got big apes and link apes, tiny apelets, huge gorillas, orange-furred orangutans, and so on. I guess we can fill about anything you might need in the ape department."

"Great, I'll get back to you on that," Marco said. "The great Khan might want some peacocks, too, if your prices are competitive."

Talk to me," Mack said, "I'll make you a price."

At that moment the court wizard spoke up. "Ophir, eh? The city that is near Sheba?"

"That's it," Mack said. "You got the right one."

"I shall check on this further," the wizard said.

"I'm sure you'll find our city is in order," Mack said. He chuckled, but no one else laughed at his little joke.

Kublai Khan said, "Welcome to my court, Dr. Faust, ambassador from Ophir. We shall wish to speak to you at some later time, because, let it be known, we love to hear stories of distant lands. Our dear son Marco regales us with many tales. But it is always good to get a new slant on these things."

"At Your Majesty's service," Mack said, and, noting that Marco's face had changed from a scowl into a rictus of annoyance, decided that he had made no friends here this day.

"And what of the woman?" Kublai Khan asked.

Mack hissed at Marguerite, "He's talking to you!"

"What's he saying?" Marguerite said. "I can't understand a word!"

"I'll speak for you," Mack said. To Kublai Khan he said, "This is Marguerite, a friend of mine, but she doesn't have a word of Mongol."

"No word at all? But we would fain hear her story!"

"I'll just have to translate it for you," Mack said, "which is a shame because she tells it so well herself."

"That won't be necessary," Kublai said. "Luckily, we have recently instituted a rapid-learning center for subjects and friends who don't understand Mongolian. You speak it perfectly, my dear Faust."

"Thank you," Mack said, bowing. "I've always had a bit of a knack for languages."

"But the woman is going to have to learn. Explain to her that she is to go to class now and come out when she can speak to us."

Mack said to Marguerite, "Look, I'm sorry about this, but they're taking you off to language class."

"Oh, no," Marguerite said. "Not school again!"

"Yes. I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about it."

"Darn it!" Marguerite said. "This is no fun at all!" But she let herself be led away by two serving maids.