With but a single decision we could dissolve the whole thing—the entire airy parliament of devils and angels who plague us with their cross talk and their endless arguments. Man will do his best, and needs no supernatural ism to exhort him to greater efforts. But if a go-between is needed, if a council of wise men is required, I have brought forth a group of people with more right to rule mankind than all these deities with their conniving qualities. I say, let the magicians rule us! They have always done so; we have just not admitted it to ourselves."
Faust clapped his hands. A line of men walked slowly out onto the stage.
Faust said, "Here are Cagliostro, Paracelsus, Saint-Germain, and many others. This is the council that should advise the world."
Michael stood up and said, "You can't do this, Faust."
"The hell you say. I'm here and I'm doing it. You have discounted man's ability to call up magic. I have here the greatest seers that ever lived. They have plumbed Nature's secrets. Their gifts belong to them as right of conquest, not the gift of some masquerading spirit. We humans can take care of ourselves, led by these geniuses, who are the precursors of the scientists who will come later."
"Exactly what I was going to say."
"I defy you!" Faust said. "We magicians repudiate devil and God! Get away from us with your incomprehensible rules! We will rule ourselves."
Both Michael and Mephistopheles bellowed, "Begone!"
Faust and his magicians stood firm.
Michael said, "Let Ananke decide, for Necessity rules us all."
Faust said, "Ananke, you can see that I am right."
Marguerite wavered. "Yes, Faust, you are right."
"Then you must decide in our favor."
"No, Faust, I cannot."
"Why?Why?"
"Because, in the conjectures of Necessity, being right is only one quality to select for. There are others, and they are equally important in the makeup of what will be."
"What are they?"
"There is warmth, Faust, and you have none. There is the ability to love, Faust, and you do not have it.
There is the ability to rule yourself, and you, Faust, do not have it. There is compassion, Faust, and you do not have that, either. What Odysseus proposed was nostalgic, but your ideas are anathema.
Therefore, Faust, despite a valiant effort, you have lost and the world will continue without you telling it what to do."
There were cries from the audience. "But who has won, Dark or Light?"
Ananke held the audience in her gaze. "Now, as to the results. Let's start from the top and work down.
But first, as to the ancient gods and the old religion, that is mere sentimentality, because the old never returns, never comes back into favor. The old gods are gone, and they will not return. As for Faust, he will put himself to be your new leader. But there are a few things to be said about Faust, too, notably, he is cold, indifferent, doesn't really care to lead you. These are the various claims, and we leave them where we found them.
"Now comes the judgment of what is and what will be. Each of the acts which Mack performed may of course be judged in a variety of ways, in terms of results, in terms of intent, in terms of the urban or rural influences—in short, they provide a dialectical mess which Good and Bad could argue about for another Millennium. Here are the results:
"First, Constantinople. The icon that Mack saved is later destroyed. The city gets sacked by those who came to preserve it. Bad wins a point here.
"Second, Kublai Khan loses his scepter. The loss of the scepter deprives the Mongol horde of part of its luck and driving energy. Threat to Western civilization eased. Good wins a point thereby.
"Fourth, Dr. Dee's mirror was not really important. But Marlowe was. Had he lived he would have written more edifying and, ultimately, morally beneficial works. A second point for Bad.
"Fifth, saving or not saving the French royal family wouldn't have made that much difference in the long run, in averting the democratic reforms of the nineteenth century. But evil was done to the king and queen. A tie here.
"Finally, there was cheating on both sides. This, too, cancels out. This contest is hereby declared no contest!"
CHAPTER 5
Mephistopheles didn't find out at this time. But later he got the news from an angel who had been traveling down from Heaven to Limbo to be present at the announcing of the contest winner. This angel had chosen to go by her own wing power, because she felt she needed the exercise and because it was a long time since she had seen the sights along the way. As she made her way down from the heavenly mansions, leaving behind one of the very desirable suburbs of Heaven, whom should she see but Mack, trudging along up the rocky road that led to the supernal heights of the divine palace above. He was moving slowly, the angel noted, but he was on his own two feet and he was moving. That was all the angel knew.
"But where can he be headed?" Mephistopheles asked.
"He looked like he was going to see You Know Who," the angel said.
"Not You Know Who!" cried Michael.
"That's how it looked. Of course, it's possible he was just sightseeing."
"But how can he presume to seek out God? How dare he? Without a pass? Without a recommendation?
Without an escort of spiritual dignitaries of proven piety? It is unheard-of."
"It's what's happening," the angel said.
"I wish I could see what's going on," Michael said, and Mephistopheles nodded in agreement.
CHAPTER 6
When Mack reached the topmost cloud mountain, he beheld, directly in front of him, the great pearly gates, which opened slowly on their valves of gold as he approached. He entered, and Found himself in a bounteous garden in which every tree and bush bore good things, and there was not a slug or weevil in sight. And then a man came hurrying up to Mack, a tall, bearded man in a white robe before whom Mack bowed low, saying, "Hello, God." The man hastened to help him to his feet, saying, "No, no, don't bow to me, I'm not God. I'm afraid He can't come talk with you right now, as He'd love to do, but He sent me, His servant, to tell you that He has decided to overrule Ananke and proclaim you the true victor in the contest."
"Me?" cried Mack. "But what have I done to deserve that?"
"I'm not clear on the details," the bearded man said. "And anyhow, it's nothing personal. It's just that a decision has been made to turn the workings of the world over to common rogues and people no better than they ought to be. The old gods have tried to lead mankind and failed, God and the devil have tried and failed, Law has tried and failed, Reason has been insufficient, and even Chaos has proven insufficient.
This is the era of the common man. Your simple, self-serving actions, Mack, done for your own good but with a vague hope that they would serve nobler purposes, must be declared the winner of this contest, for even that hint of idealism has in it more conviction than all those greater and more complicated ideas."
Mack was dumbfounded. "Me run things? No, it's impossible, I won't hear of it. Frankly, it sounds like blasphemy."
"God exists in the blasphemy, the devil in the piety."
"Look," Mack said, "I think I'd better discuss this with God Himself."
"If only that could be!" the man said sadly. "But the One God is not to be seen or talked to, not even here in Heaven. We have searched for Him and He simply isn't here. He seems to have absented Himself.
There are even those who say He never existed, and of course we have no photographs to prove that He did. But our legends say that at one time He did exist, and that the angels visited Him often and basked in His countenance. He used to tell them that Heaven and Hell were in the details. No one understood that.