If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 6

Ylith had been doing good deeds in one of Earth's alternative and highly provisional alternate time-lines when Michael had paged her on the angel hot line. Ylith had come at once. She liked being an angel of the Good, even though she was still in training. The main difficulty with life in the Good was that there seemed nothing to do. She had gotten Hermes Trismegistus to put her into this other time-line so she could practice Good Works. It was nice, but of course it wasn't the real Earth so she was happy when Michael had paged her.

"Ah, there, Ylith," Michael said. "I've been wanting to see how you were getting on."

"Fine," Ylith said. "The only thing is, I'd like to be doing something."

"That's the spirit!" Michael said. "As it turns out, we have a job for you. You know our great contest between Light and Dark?"

"Of course," Ylith said. "Nobody in the spirit world talks of anything else."

"Well, both sides in the contest are allowed observers. That's to make sure no one takes advantage of the situation or coaches the contestant in what he is to do. I'd like you to go to Earth and check on what Mephistopheles and Mack are doing."

"You got it," Ylith said.

"Here, take this." He handed her an amulet. "Why, Michael!" Ylith said.

"It's not meant as a present," Michael said. "That is an amulet which confers invisibility on its holder. It will allow you to observe things unobserved." "Okay. See you later!" She vanished. She caught up with Mack just at the end of his time in Constantinople. Utilizing the charm of invisibility she saw Mack and Irene together on the couch, and came to her own conclusions.

Princess Irene, as stunned as anyone by the sudden appearance of the black-haired witch with the feathery haircut and the virginal yet somehow provocative angel costume, said, "Oh, my goodness! What is going to happen?"

"Nothing to you," Ylith said. "But I need to hold converse with this fellow." She indicated Mack, who edged away but didn't quite do what he wished to do, which was to run like crazy from this probably demented spirit. "However," Ylith said, "I will take him away, for what I have to say to him is not for innocent ears." She turned to Mack and said, "Come with me, young fellow," in tones that brooked no interference.

She led Mack into the hall and down the corridor to the next chamber, which was identical to Irene's but untenanted, awaiting the arrival of another monoglot princess from another tiny country. There Ylith took a chair, and, sitting with her back very straight, stared at Mack, who stood before her like an abashed schoolboy. She said, "Dr. Faust, I am very disappointed in you."

"Me?" Mack said. "What did I do?"

"Don't play the innocent with me. I was in the next room and I heard everything."

"Did you, indeed?" Mack said, trying vainly to remember what he and the princess had been talking about before Ylith made her entrance.

"I heard you trying to seduce that poor innocent young princess, taking advantage of the Language Spell that Mephistopheles gave you, the better to work your wiles."

"Then how do you explain the hanky-panky that was going on when I came into the room?"

"She was trying to seduce me, not the other way around!"

Ylith's beautiful wide lips curled in scorn. Ylith had once been a witch. But that had been back in the bad old days when she had served the forces of Darkness with all the passion of naive lusts. Her eyes had been opened to the spiritual aspects of love when she had met Babriel, the gelid-eyed, blond young angel with whom she had fallen in love back in the days of the last Millennial contest. That was the time when Azzie produced his updated Prince Charming story. Ylith had been Azzie's girlfriend up to then. But she forgot all about the fox-faced, red-haired young demon when she met the golden-haired Babriel. Love transformed her values. She turned fervently to Good, did this splendidly haunched and handsomely thewed young witch, since Good was his way, and she found it good, even kicky. Out of love for the handsome but extremely proper young angel, she had changed her ways and made new spiritual vows, embracing Good with a fervor that commended itself highly to those who like such things. From being a carefree, party-going sort of witch, she had changed into a bluestocking and prude of a sort not even seen much in Heaven in these days; but of course there is no greater zealot for the Good than the once-fallen. Ylith pursued Goodness and Proper Behavior (two qualities that she habitually conflated) as she had once pursued Badness and Impropriety, and with such energy that she was sometimes an embarrassment to the older representatives of Good, who had learned a little about how things really work during their long years of working for Light. "She'll learn," they said. But she hadn't, so far.

"You have misused your position," Ylith said to Mack. "You were not sent through space and time to seduce maidens with your devil-given gift of language. You are supposed to be working in a serious contest dealing with important matters, not flibberti-gibbeting around like an adolescent gazook. I am going to lodge a strong complaint with the Board of Governors about your behavior. And in-the meantime, I shall see to it that you don't repeat your unwarrantable actions."

"Lady, listen, you've got me wrong," Mack said, and was about to explain in detail what had actually happened. But Ylith wasn't interested in listening to the lies of a not-bad-looking young yellow-haired seducer with a spell for languages.

Ylith said, "I'm going to put you where you can do no further mischief until I get a definite ruling on this case. It's the Mirror Prison for you, my lad."

Mack raised his hands to remonstrate. But he wasn't quick enough. Nothing comes on faster than the spell of an irate witch. Between two blinks of an eye and a lightning-fast gesture of long, blood-red fingernails, Ylith was gone. Or so it seemed at first. But when Mack looked more closely, he saw that it was him self who was gone. Or, if not gone, at least somewhere else.

He was in a small room with mirrors. There were mirrors on all the walls, floor, and ceiling. There seemed to be more mirrors than the number of walls would accommodate. They formed reflecting quicksilver tunnels and precipices, a baroque topography of mirrors. He saw himself reflected and re-reflected in a hundred mirrors at a hundred angles. He turned, and saw himself turn in a myriad of surfaces. He took a tentative step forward and saw his doubles do the same, though some seemed to go backwards. Another step, and he bumped into a mirror. He recoiled, and his many likenesses did the same, except for a few who hadn't bumped into anything. Mack found it strange and somewhat sinister that some of his mirror images weren't doing what he was or what the others were doing. One of those aberrant images was sitting in an armchair reading a book; he looked up and winked at Mack. Another appeared to be sitting on a riverbank, fishing. He didn't look up. There was even one who was sitting backwards on a chair, legs stretched out, grinning into Mack's face. At least Mack assumed it was his face. Suddenly he was no longer sure what the front of his face was wearing.

Mack stared, disbelieving. A voice in his head said, "I'm going crazy!" And another voice said, "I wonder if they've left anything to read around here." Mack realized there was nothing he could do about any of it, and so he closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts.