Ink and Steel

Act III, scene xxi

His waxen wings did mount above his reach

And melting, heavens conspired his overthrow.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Faustus

Will, thin and shivering in the red light of Hell, leaned against the yawning, gateless mouth of a dark stone stair. Eye bright as if with fever and clutching his doublet tight around him as if Hell had left not heat but deep cold in his marrow, he reminded Kit of a bony old cat. He would not look up, would not look Kit in the face. He didn’t seem to notice the lack of scars or the missing eyepatch, but the light, in truth, was poor, and Kit could see Will shivering. Kit thought to lay a hand on Will’s sleeve. He was as helpless to bridge the gap between them as to thrust a hand through a brick wall.

Will touched him though, and Kit’s mouth filled with the taste of whiskey, his nostrils with the scent of smoke. He stepped away more rudely than he could have. Will. Don’t

“Kit. Sweet Christofer.”

Oh, strange, to hear the name said in a lover’s voice and feel no shiver of recognition in its cadences. Tis no longer thy name, who was Christofer Marley.

“You came for me.”

“I chose a side, Will. The side that would have me as God made me.” The tone that should have been light and playful fell on his own ears like pebbles in a pool. Plop, plop, plop. Kit wondered if the ripples of what Lucifer had done would ever stop shaking the stillness of his soul.

“You came for me.” Will said it again, and this time Kit heard the disbelief clearly.”

“I love thee.”

He led Will to the stair.

“You love Morgan.”

“Oh. No.”

“Dammit, Kit, I saw the two of you together. Robin said…” Will swallowed, audibly. “And all the years I’ve been gone, have you not spent at her side? And now she needs me for something. Else why would it have taken you so long to come.”

“Puck. Damn you, too. Ah, wait. I already did that.” Kit bit his lip on a hysterical laugh. “Years, Will?”

“How much time has passed in the mortal realm?” Will asked wearily. “Who is King?”

“It’s still Hallow’s eve or was when I rode out of Faerie. And Elizabeth reigns yet. Hours, not years.” Kit knew he needed to turn and put his hand on Will’s sleeve, to knot his fingers in Will’s hair and hold him close. He knew it from Will’s sidelong glances, and the careful, conscious way Will kept his hands at his sides. But all he could sense was the touch of Lucifer’s hands on his body, those bright wings fanning over him, the taste of the angel’s skin. “Damn. Faerie time. Time in Hell. How long was it, Will?”

Will would not return Kit’s steady regard. “I lost my calendar.”

“God. Will I’m sorry.” Inadequate, and untrue. Kit shuddered. He wasn’t sorry. He was angry. “God in Hell, Will, if you knew what you cost me.” Pish. Kit. And if thou hadst gone to the teind as Morgan willed, wouldst havechosen differently what thou didst to Satan sell?“Thou’rt safe now. My love.”

Will flinched. “Mine other love sold thee to Hell. Whom thou didst love also.”

“Tis not love, Kit said. Morgan’s Fae. Betrayal, tis … part of whatshe is. As for me I’m sorry. I am so sorry, Will.” And he was. And angry, still.

Will did not try to touch him again, but walked very near, without speaking, on Kit’s left hand. Kit let the silence hold them, and hoped there was forgiveness in it. It was good for thinking, that silence, and he bent his mind to Lucifer, and Christ, and God, and Will.

Will, who turned and looked at him straight, finally, and let his eyebrows rise. “There’s a revelation on your face.”

Kit smiled. “More a bemusement. My plays, your plays they can change the world. Hell, William. Here I am living the Orpheus I wrote, for Christ’s sake. And Morgan told me she has changed and changed again, reflecting what the poets sing. So if Christ came to preach God’s love and tolerance a thousand and a half years gone, and half the world is Christian, why is it that God himself has not become what Christ the Redeemer would have made him? The Morningstar told me…” Kit stopped, pierced by a vivid recollection of the circumstances of that conversation.

“You believe what the Devil says?”

“Thou needs must have spoken with him, in thy time in Hell. Did he ever lie to thee?” Will flinched; Kit leveled his voice. “Satan says that God loves not, nor forgives, as the New Testament would have it. God judges, Will. As fathers do.”

“You believe what the Devil says?”

“No lie could have cut me so.”

“Kit Marley.” Climbing, Will favored him with a glance. “I’ve heard you dismiss Moses as a, what was the word?”

“Juggler.”

“Juggler, aye. And Christ as a sodomite and fornicator.”

“Is fornication such a sin? Can not a man’s words be holy though a man be but earth?” Their footsteps up the stair carried them from Stygian gloom to something like pale earthly moonlight. Kit ran fingers along the rough stone of the wall and did not look back. Never look back. Never step off the path. Never trust the guardian. Oh, indeed.

“And now thou tellst me thou art shattered because the Devil says God does not love thee.” Will turned dark blue eyes on him in a glare, and blinked.

“Your face.”

“Satan,” Kit said dryly, “healed me. When he agreed to release thee.”

“What didst thou…”

“Don’t,” Kit said, shaking his head, feeling the movement of scrubbed curls against his neck, knowing no soap or simple could make him clean again.

“Don’t ever ask me. Just accept that what I did, I did in love for thee.”

“Oh, Kit.” But Will fell silent, and it was enough, and they ascended side by side for a time until Kit found his courage again.

“Tis the Church,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“The reason God can’t love us. The Church. All churches.” He paused, hearing his own radical words. True heresy, this. “They speak to power and to money, and they teach a jealous and a wrathful God. Christ’s God was not that. Christ’s God is a God who can forgive. Who can love his creations. Mayhap there are two Gods, I don’t know or three. The Catholic God, the Protestant God, and the Promethean God. Three that are one. And the Puritan God.”

“Ah. Kit? How long do you suppose it takes to climb outof Hell?”

“Three days, Kit guessed, and smiled to himself when Will’s laugh forgot to be broken-edged. Kit stole a look: Will leaned on the wall, lifting each foot with painful concentration, but he kept up. I’ll carry him on my back if I have to.

A calm voice, then, and one with a purpose in it. “Your Latin. I suppose you’ve forgotten it all. And your Greek.”

“No, I’ve kept it,” Kit answered. “And learned some of the Hebrew, some Arabic and some Russian, too.”

“Hebrew,” Will said. “That will be useful.”

“Useful to what purpose?”

“Well,” he answered, as they came around a corner in the stair and the source of the pale reflected light revealed itself a shaft in the ceiling, unguessably high, with a patch of blue at the top of it that Kit could have covered complete with his pinky nail, for perspective. “If I’m going to write a Bible, I need someone to translate it for me. And someone to push the pen. My hands are not what they were.”

“You re serious.”

Will sighed, filling his lungs with the sweeter air that fell down the shaft. He squared his shoulders and recommenced to climb. “I’ve had time to think on it. If you can suggest a simpler and preferably shorter plan for convincing people God loves them and forgives them, I would be overjoyed to hear it. I’m going back to England. Let’s do something useful with Prometheus, shall we? It’s there; it’s got to be for something better than shoring up Princes and clothing upstart Earls in glory.”

“If that’s your plan,” Kit answered, “it will have to be something on the order of a liberal translation. The world is not kindly to those who seek wisdom, Will. Look at the example of one Jesus of Nazareth.”

“You’re the one who believes our circumstances would be improved if God took a personal interest,” Will answered, and Kit was certain this time that he did not imagine the bitterness. “Personally, I think we’d be better off if we accepted some responsibility for our choices. But you’re our translator. You’ll be responsible for that.”

“An atheistical warlock and a humanist conspiring on a Bible to free good Englishmen from the suzerainty of the Church.”

“A warlock, eh?”

“So they assure me.” Kit opened his palm at face level as they climbed. His right eye showed a spiral of possibilities hovering over it. He focused on them, and called forth light. A thin blue flicker of Saint Elmo’s Fire curled about his fingers. “Call me Faustus and I’ll hit you. Although there’s a degree of dramatic irony in this.”

“Well,” Will answered, toiling upward. We’re both somewhat prone to irony. I suppose it’s appropriate. Ironic, but appropriate. Although I can’t answer for mine actions should you summon up the shade of Helen.”

“The furthest thing from my mind,” Kit assured him, permitting the light to fail.