If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 6

Mack was having a bit of a doze at the Hotel de Ville when someone shook him roughly by the shoulder.

"What is it?" He awoke with a start and peered into a small, bearded face.

"I'm Rognir, the dwarf." "Oh, yes." Mack sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I guess you are. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing at all. But I bring news. Ylith asked me to come by and tell you she wasn't successful in hurrying up the queen. Something about uncertainty as applied to time, but I can't remember that part." "Damn!" Mack said. "So the royal carriage has left late on its ill-fated run to Varennes!"

"If you say so," Rognir said. "No one bothered to fill me in on what's going on."

Mack said, "I'm trying to prevent the royal family from capture. But I don't know what to do now unless I can get a horse."

"A horse? What do you need a horse for?"

"So I can get to Saint-Menehould where I'll get my next chance to change the fate of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette."

"Why don't you get there by magic?" Rognir said, pouring out a mugful of wine for Mack.

"I don't know the right words," Mack confessed.

"That other fellow would."

"What other fellow?'

"The one I helped on the Styx."

"You mean Faust?"

"That's who they tell me he was."

"I'm also Faust."

"If you say so."

"But he's trying to get rid of me!"

"Tough on you, then," Rognir said. "Nothing personal. I figured that helping him would put out of joint the nose of a certain demon of my acquaintance. He shortchanged me on a recent work contract. Dwarves have long memories."

"And short, bristly beards," Mack said. "Damn! How am I to get to Saint-Menehould before the royal carriage?" "You need to get out there and get a horse," Rognir said. Mack stared at him. "You think it's as simple as that?' "It'd better be," Rognir said, "or you're really in a lot of trouble." Mack nodded. "You're right. All right, I'm going." Some time later, Mack was galloping through a dark forest upon a spirited black charger. He had seized it from a groom Rognir had located for him in front of the Tuileries, in the name of the Committee for Public Safety. No one had wanted to argue with him. And so he galloped along the dimly lit forest path congratulating himself on the fine mount he had chosen. Then he heard something behind him, turned and looked, then turned back and hunched over the horse's neck. Yes, he had a fast horse, but it wasn't fast enough to keep the rider behind him from gaining steadily.

There was nothing he could do about it. The pursuer drew up even with him, and he saw it was Faust, the black tails of his long coat flapping wildly, stovepipe hat pasted flat against his forehead by the wind, grinning maliciously.

"So, impostor, we meet again!" Faust cried.

They galloped side by side for a time. Mack was having a lot of trouble just hanging on to his horse, since galloping at top speed through a forest at night with another rider neck and neck and screaming insults was not his usual practice. Nor was it Faust's, presumably. But the magician of Wittenberg was doing fine, riding like a Magyar, as they say, and he was also managing to keep Helen on the back of his horse, too, her scrumptious arms wrapped around his waist. Mack of course was carrying Marguerite, who had been silent so far, entranced by the flickering play of moonlight and shadow. The horsemen were evenly matched as to weight. But Faust had by far the edge in aplomb.

Faust's words were garbled and his imitation of slang of the future was unfortunate, but the intent of his words was clear: Get out of my face, or else.

"I can't go away now!" Mack howled back. "This is my story!"

"Like hell it is. I am the only and the maximum Faust!" Faust cried, and the glow in his lambent werewolf's eyes was disquieting. Edging his horse closer to Mack's, he took from an inner pocket of his waistcoat an object about three feet long and studded with jewels, and with a glow about it that proclaimed it not just a mere scepter, as it might have appeared, but a magical one, stolen, in this case, from Kublai Khan by Mack. But the magical scepter was now in Faust's hands, and those hands knew no mercy. By the way Faust held this scepter, Mack could tell that the magician of Wittenberg had somehow divined its efficacy; viz., that when you pointed at a person and said, "Bang!" that person was annihilated in a manner that anticipated the deathbeams of a later age.

Faced with that much occult firepower, Mack almost gave up hope. Then he saw at hand a desperate expedient for avoiding the power-thrust of the magical scepter. The expedient was looming up in the form of a great oak. Mack timed his move carefully, then swung his horse into Faust's path. Faust checked to the other side, the instinctive move in such a circumstance, and Mack swung to the right, around the tree, while Faust crashed head-on into it with such force that the stars he saw became visible to Mack's eyes for a little while even though they were imaginary. From his rear, Mack heard Marguerite utter a small whimper of sympathy. The doctor crashed to the ground, dazed, while his maddened horse ran off in one direction and Mack galloped off in another, the way that led to Saint-Menehould. Helen, consort of warriors, leaped to the ground before the moment of impact, rolled several times, rose to her feet, and adjusted her coiffure. The launching of one sorcerer or a thousand ships—it was all the same to her. One should be at one's best whatever the occasion.