Casting a last look at the site of the Witches' Sabbat, and finding it up to standard, he rose into the air, spinning like a fiery whirligig, and then streaked off like a rocket, casting brilliant red and white spots. Let a mortal try that for an exit!
CHAPTER 13
His flight (conducted more soberly once he was in the aether) took him to the familiar regions of South Hell, where the Office of Infernal Records was located. These records were not open to the general hellish population, but Azzie knew a way by which he might get a look at them.
Avoiding the great gray Records Building with its ranks of damned souls tapping at computers, condemned to an eternity of mind-boggling boredom, but allowed an occasional cigarette break, since Dark is prepared to be lenient as long as you want to indulge in something harmful, he went to the little rustic tavern behind Records and slightly to its right. From here he telephoned Winifred Feyye, a pretty little imp of his acquaintance, who was a floor manager in the Protocols Division.
"Azzie! It's been ages since I've heard from you!"
"You know how it is, baby. If you really want to do bad in this universe, it's a full-time job."
Now they sat in a comfortable booth in the corner and the tavern keeper served drinks, a stinger for Winnie, a devil's stirrup cup for Azzie. In that relaxing atmosphere they chatted for a while about mutual acquaintances: old Foxworthy, who was now an iron maiden repairman in the Eternal Torture Division; Miss Muggles, who was still working as a private secretary for Asmodeus; young Silver Foxxe, who was now a junior caterer for the do-bad service that supplied Dinners for the Damned. A bright fire leaped and cavorted in the fireplace, and a blind gleeman in a corner, singing the tale of Troy to the pluckings of a harp, added a note both classical and romantic.
"Oh, Azzie," Winnie said, several drinks later, "this has been such fun! I really have to go back to work now. I wish we could do this more often!"
"Me too," Azzie said. "Who knows, maybe it'll become possible? Winnie, there's a little favor you could do for me, if you wouldn't mind. I'm doing an article for the Satanic Times on Protocols and Agreements between Dark and Light. There's a new one that hasn't been released to general circulation yet. It has to do with the current Millennial contest."
"I know just the one you mean," Winnie said. "I filed it away only two days ago."
"I'd much appreciate a look at it."
Winnie rose to go. She was small even for an imp, and her hair, cut in a stylish pixie cut, framed her heart-shaped face and accentuated her big, dark eyes.
"I'll bring it here on my next break."
"Winnie, you're a love. Hurry back!"
The pretty little imp departed in a swirl of short skirt and a flash of thigh. Azzie sat and waited in the tavern as the slow hours passed. From time to time a worker from the Office of Infernal Affairs would come in for a quick one. The lighting here was perfectly even: both day and night it was the color of a rainy winter afternoon. A few drops of rain fell from time to time, speckling the tavern's leaded windowpanes. Azzie found a two-week-old copy of the Infernal Internal Times, house organ of the Office of Infernal Affairs. He read without much interest about raffles, a picnic, and the new Infernal Affairs annex. And he sipped at a succession of cafes diaboliques, laced with cocaine, which is not only legal in Hell, but is required in the sacrament to dissolution that the law requires Infernal Office workers to observe daily. And after a while, Winnie came scurrying back, her miniskirt deliciously high on her strong little thighs.
"I've got it! But I have to bring it back soon." She handed him a thick manila envelope.
"I'll just need a moment," Azzie said. He took out the roll of parchments, and, with Winnie holding down their ends, looked through them. Quickly he found the agreement between Faust and Mephistopheles.
The basic terms were laid out with a fussy exactitude that paradoxically seemed to invite quibbling. It began, "Be it herein agreed that Johann Faust, of various cities of Earth but recently believed to be in Cracow…" And it spelled out the terms: "The aforesaid Faust, whether of himself or such that claims his name, shall perseverantly go forth…"
Azzie skipped down to where the contest rules were set forth: This Faust (which Faust? there was the ambiguity again!) will present himself for five situations, which are further set forth in the codicil. In each of these he will be given a choice of actions and, with no further coaching, will decide for himself what course to take. The judging of these events will be solely in the hands of Ananke, who will consider them from the viewpoint of Good and Bad, Light and Dark, or any other paired contraries as may express to the weighing of this contest. And it is furthermore stipulated that this Faust will act in this contest of his own free will as that term is commonly understood…"
Azzie put down the parchments and asked Winnie, "Who drafted this? Surely not the Archangel Michael?"
"That's exactly who," Winnie said.
"I didn't think he was capable of such quibbling. There are ambiguities here that would delight the professors at the Institute of Advanced Prevarication."
"In fact, Michael has been studying casuistry," Winnie said. "That is the report we've heard. He claims that the inability to dissemble convincingly is a disadvantage that Good need no longer labor under."
"That's quite a fine quibble all by itself. Hmm." Azzie looked over the document again. "All this talk in here about free will… Do you suppose it might be a red herring? And if so, what is it intended to direct attention away from?"
"I haven't a clue," Winnie said, batting her long lashes at him.
"Perhaps not, my dear." He rolled up the parchment and returned it to her. "But I know someone who might."
CHAPTER 14
The person Azzie had in mind who might know was Lachesis, eldest of the Three Fates, and some say the wisest. These are the ladies who spin, measure, and cut the thread of human destiny. It is Lachesis who does all the real work, however. Clotho, who spins the thread out of the flax of undifferentiated being, is a cheerful old lady whose fingers do the work all by themselves while she lives in daydreams of a former time. Atropos, who cuts the thread, works entirely under Lachesis' directions, snip, snip, cut it here, dearie, and that one there, another life predestined to go down the drain. This was not very demanding work and Clotho and Atropos had plenty of time left over for interminable card games and the serving of the tea and pound cake on which the Fates lived. Only Lachesis needed to use judgment, determining how long a man should live, and, some say, in what manner he was to die. She was a tall, grim-faced old lady, related to Necessity by Chaos out of Night, an early Great Mother whom she visited on important holidays, spending the rest of the time working away at the lengths of flax, examining their individual fibers with indefatigable zeal, giving to each man his moira, his portion of fate.
It was no small task to visit the three Weird Sisters, as they were called, though not to their faces, for they lived in a little region of their own beyond space and time, a place that was unconnected to anything else except through the iron thread of Inexplicable Causality. Still, Azzie felt he had to go, because Lachesis, through her connection with Necessity, was reputed to be wise in the ways of the creatures of Dark and Light and skilled at reading their motivations.
First he went shopping for a little gift, for Lachesis liked getting presents, and kept them in a great storeroom that was attached to the modest Greek temple in which she and the other Fates worked. The storeroom had been enlarged over and over again, since the presents sent to influence the Fates never stopped coming. Azzie found a tea strainer in sterling silver, crafted in ancient China, and with this under his arm, suitably gift wrapped, he made his way to the little red star on the rim of the region of space known as the Coalsack, and, taking a deep breath, plunged in.