Their exchange was interrupted at this point by the audience, who was not interested in hearing the rude argument of a pair of jackanapes. "Shut up!"
"Stick a boot in it!"
"Stuff it!"
And similar exclamations.
Faust and Mack were forced to desist, for neither of them wanted the truth of the matter to be known. So they glared at each other out of the corners of their eyes while Marguerite and Helen, on either side of them, patted their hands and whispered to them to remain calm. On stage, the actors had gotten beyond Faustus' dialogue with the Seven Deadly Sins, who remained onstage with colored costumes and lugubrious faces, and proceeded to the entrance of several devils.
Mack's mind was working with lightning speed, both defining the game he was involved in and planning out his next move. It was obvious to him that he had more to gain here, and therefore more to lose, than he had thought at first, back in Cracow when he had broken into Faust's studio and accepted Mephistopheles' offer. It was true that the real Faust was here trying to claim his own; but what did that matter to Mack? Mack's reality was more important to him than Faust's, and his reality seemed to have led him to become Faust. Therefore this other Faust, whom he had taken over from, had no real claim to the Faust persona.
Still, it was going to be quite a problem. He needed a way to handle this, get Faust off his back, give him a chance to do his thing. If he let Faust oust him now, what would he be?
An advantage! He needed an advantage! Surely that was the point of all military strategy—to realize when you are in a spot and to seek—the Equalizer.
He realized that by peeking into Dee's magic mirror he might get a glimpse of the future, and thus he could know what to do in this encounter between him and Faust.
He slipped the mirror out of its case, disguising the noise by grinding his feet in the peanut shells on the floor, and remarking to Marguerite, "It's disgusting, how they keep these places." Now the mirror was in his lap.
Just as he was about to look into it there was an explosion on stage, and a bright flash as of hellish lightning. Mack had seen that light before. It was Mephistopheles, conjuring himself.
The tall and handsome demon stepped out of the smoke, adjusted his evening clothes, advanced to stage center, and, peering around at the audience, spotted Mack. "The mirror!" he shouted.
"Yes, I've got it!" Mack shouted back. "Don't worry, it's here!"
"You must destroy it!" Mephistopheles shouted.
"Beg pardon?"
"Get rid of it at once! They've just passed a ruling! By looking into it you'll invalidate the whole contest, since contestants must not be granted foreknowledge of events. It would skew the result, you see."
The audience was mumbling to themselves uncertainly at this point, and sniffing often at the perfume-sprayed nosegays that they held in their dirty, lace-gloved hands. Feet clad in various materials shuffled noisily in the peanut shells, and there was something ominous about the sound, some strange over-or undertone, or both, some unbelievable bass note of madness about to erupt that had an effect on the ear as a tremendous and perhaps bloody happening waiting in the figurative wings that is Everyman's heart from which it would soon be born.
Time to get out of this crowd. Mack got to his feet and edged his way out into the aisle, the better to get the hell out of the place if something happened—because the feeling that theaters are places where sinister things may happen is a notion that sprang into existence contemporaneous with the first theater itself, and it may be that this selfsame first performance of this play of Doctor Faustus gave rise to the legend that it is easy in the theater for something weird and frightening to happen. Marguerite followed along behind him, hanging on to his coattails so as not to get lost in the crowd that had begun to roil and tumble around them.
There was a reason for their panic. One member of the audience, not as simpleminded as he looked, had counted the number of actors onstage and seen that this was not the number given in the playbill. When he relayed this information to others—"There are supposed to be seven devils onstage, but I count eight"—a wave of uncertainty came over those watching. Wooden-framed spectacles were hastily clapped on the long noses that were prevalent in that day as all the spectators consulted their playbills. If there were too many devils on the stage, at least one of them had to be real. It didn't take any Thomas Aquinas to figure that out. Any rightminded person who viewed the matter without prejudice could see beyond a doubt that the tall, thin guy who had suddenly appeared bore more resemblance to the devil of their dreams than the other guy, the actor in the shabby red cotton suit and ill-fitting slippers. And seeing that, a sudden let's-get-the-hell-out-of-here mood swept over the audience, and they began to rise and scrape their feet in the peanut shells, prefactory to stampeding into the exits.
"Hang on to that mirror!" Azzie shouted to Mack. "You can never tell when an item like that will prove useful. Anyhow, you need it for the contest!"
"No, he doesn't!" Mephistopheles cried. "It's only one of his possible choices."
"Then who are you to tell him he can't make that choice?"
"I'm not saying anything of the kind," Mephistopheles said. "I'm merely advising him not to look into it himself, since foreknowledge would compromise the contest, to the mutual embarrassment of Dark and Light."
The audience, driven into a superstitious mania by the trip-hammer succession of downright weird events with sinister overtones, began to panic. Grown men flung ladies' hampers filled with the most delicate hams, roast beefs, sides of pork, and the like out of their way to get to the nearest exit. In vain the band struck up a galhard. The rest was triple time.
CHAPTER 6
While this was going on, Rognir the dwarf sat in a dwarf public area and planned mischief. He was trying to decide on the most mischief he could do to Azzie. This was only in part because he hated the fox-faced demon. It was also because Rognir took a keen intellectual pleasure in bringing any proud demon down a step or two. Rognir didn't like demons, and he especially disliked fox-faced demons, and he liked this one least of all.
To discomfit a demon! Rognir was merely doing what any ichor-blooded dwarf would have done once he saw the opportunity. Anything that would put a demon into disgrace was to be welcomed. If it could also turn a profit for the dwarf, so much the better.
Trouble was, he hadn't been too sure what the information he'd overheard meant. It was obvious to him that Azzie was working behind the back of another demon, Mephistopheles. But how? What was he doing? What were the two of them up to? What was this Millennial contest, anyway? (For dwarves rarely are informed on the great events of their day.) Rognir, having told Mephistopheles of what was going on, now came up with a new scheme. He was sitting on a toadstool when this thought came to him, a very large orange toadstool with bright yellow spots, the sort that only a dwarf can eat without instantly perishing. Rognir was not eating, however, even though his jaws were working continually. A witness leaning close could have noticed that the dwarfs back teeth were grinding and he was evidently in the throes of inspiration.
"Having told Faust about matters, and then Mephistopheles, I have been genuinely mischievous. But it seems to me that I can think of yet another contrivance. So I'll hie me away to those regions in or near the Empyrean where the spirits of light are said to dwell…"
But before he had finished his speech, his dwarvish conjure power kicked in and he was on his way.
PARIS
CHAPTER 1
Where are we now?" Mack asked.
"This is a tavern in the Latin Quarter of Paris," Mephistopheles said. "I feel at home with students. They have always had a lively regard for the devil. And Paris, of course, is the devil's own city. I thought it would be an appropriate place to begin the last act in our contest."