Louis turned to his wife. "What do you think?"
"Sounds too risky to me," Marie Antoinette said.
The king demurred, and Marie didn't think much of the scheme, but finally they agreed. Mack coaxed them out of the coach. They stood in the early morning light looking more than a little stupid, and as if unused to standing on their own feet on the ground. Mack hurried away and hired horses. He had calculated that they could still get out of this. After all, no one knew the king was here. No one except Drouet, and he had left him securely trussed back in Saint-Menehould.
The king approached the horse Mack had gotten for him, and somewhat hesitantly got up on it. Then Marie Antoinette climbed up on the other horse. At last, all was in readiness.
But then, just before they could ride off, a cloud of dust appeared down the road and grew larger and separated into separate riders. It was Drouet, and he was at the head of a thousand armed men.
Spotting the big yellow coach he cried, "The king and queen! Put them under arrest! They must return to Paris immediately!"
Guardsmen did as he bid. Drouet rode up to Mack.
"So, we meet again. You did me a poor service back there, citizen. I think I'll do the same for you."
Gesturing to two guards, he said, "This man is a counterrevolutionary. Seize him!"
Mack said, "Just tell me one thing. How did you get here so quickly?"
"Not through your help," Drouet said. "Luckily for me, this gentleman came along and rendered assistance."
Another rider trotted up and Mack saw that it was Faust.
"You again!" he breathed.
Faust smiled smugly. "I got away from the soldiers easily enough, and then I found this fellow and helped him, and so put paid to your scheme."
Then Mephistopheles appeared. "Let that man go," he said to Drouet.
Drouet was badly frightened by the demon, but he blustered, "We're holding this man for the tribunal."
Mephistopheles said, "Sorry. Supernatural matters take precedence. This is the end of the contest."
He reached out and put his hand on Mack's shoulder. They vanished together. A moment later, Marguerite vanished, too.
JUDGMENT
CHAPTER 1
After Mephistopheles conjured him away from Varennes, there was a break in the continuity of Mack's consciousness. He fell into dreams of a strange sort, but the details swam out of his grasp. Then there was a period of sleep, and finally, Mack awoke.
He found himself lying on a green couch in a hazy, indistinct sort of place. He tried to make out details, but they fuzzed before his eyes. Still, he knew of only one place that had this sort of green couch. He had to be in Mephistopheles' office in Limbo!
He got up and looked around. Through a low archway there was another room, and in it was the storage locker with the salvaged Botticelli.
There was the sound of a door opening and Mack turned, ready for trouble. Ylith came in. She was wearing a beige sheath dress that came down to midcalf on her fine legs. Her long dark hair was worn in a soft upsweep and pinned in place by imitation tortoiseshell combs. Her face was customarily pale, but a quick dab of rouge had put dots of color in her cheeks.
"It's all over," she said. "That was the last sequence where you needed to make a choice."
"I thought that's what Mephistopheles said! What happens now?"
"Now the judging begins. That's where I'm going. I just stopped by to see how you were."
"That was good of you. I don't suppose I was invited to the judging?"
"Not that I know of," Ylith said.
"That's very like them," Mack said with some bitterness. "Mephistopheles was all smiles and attention when there was something he wanted me to do, but now that it's over I don't even get asked to the celebration."
"Humans are rarely asked to these matters," Ylith said. "But of course I see what you mean." "And when do I get my reward?"
"I don't know anything about that," Ylith said. "You'll just have to wait. This is Limbo, and in Limbo, people wait." Ylith conjured herself away with an elegant move of her slim hands. Mack paced around for a while, then saw a pile of books on a little table and sat down in a chair beside them. He picked up The Road to Hell and How to Find It, a product of the Satanic Press. He read, "Do you really want to get into Hell?
Don't be surprised. A lot of people do! You're not alone. Hell is characterized by the importance of the appetites. Unlike the stories told, you can feed these appetites perfectly well in Hell. Trouble is, they never stay fed. But they never did when you were alive, either. Let us consider…"
Suddenly there was a flash of light and a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared away Faust was standing there. He was looking good, dressed in a fine scholar's gown with an ermine collar.
"Hi, there!" Mack said, happy to see a familiar face, even if it was Faust's, and even if it was frowning.
Faust said, "Look, I'm in a hurry. Did you see a tall, very skinny man with yellowish eyes and long, lank dark hair and a somewhat weird expression go by here?" Mack shook his head. "Nobody's passed this way since I've been here except for a female spirit named Ylith."
"No, she's not the one I'm looking for. The count of Saint-Germain said he'd meet me here. I hope he's not going to be late." "Who's he?" Faust gave him a superior look. "Only one of the world's greatest magicians, that's who. He came along after your time."
"But your time is also my time. How do you know about him?"
"Oh, well," Faust said, "I am a great magician myself, the greatest who ever lived, and it is to be expected that I would know the important men in my line of work past and future. Living or dead, or yet unborn, we magicians stay in touch."
"Why did you call up this Saint-Germain guy?"
"I'm afraid it would be premature for me to tell you," Faust said. "Let's just say I have a little surprise in store."
"The contest is indeed over, though it will be interesting to hear what Ananke will make of your clumsy and uninformed efforts to influence history. But despite this being the end, the last word has not yet been spoken. To put it to you succinctly, my dear Mack, Faust himself has not yet been heard from."
"Faust? You mean you?"
"Of course I mean me! I am Faust, am I not?"
"In a way. But in a way I'm Faust, too."
Faust looked at Mack long and hard, and then threw back his head and laughed.
"You, Faust? My dear fellow, you are the very opposite of the Faustian ideal, an abject sort of creature, mean-spirited, docile to your masters, treacherous to your friends, vulgar, uninformed as to history, philosophy, politics, chemistry, optics, alchemy, ethics, and, above all, the master science, magic." Faust smiled cruelly. "Now, Mack, you may have filled Faust's shoes for a time, as a child can step into an adult's boots, and perhaps even take a step or two. But now, thankfully, your clownlike moment on the stage of human history is over. My friend, there is nothing Faustian about you, or, indeed, anything even interesting about you. You are one of the lowest common denominators of humanity, and we don't need you here any longer."
"Oh, is that so?" Mack said, his mind boiling with incoherent retorts. But he spoke to the empty air because with a single intricate gesture of his left hand, Faust had conjured himself away.
"I wish I could do that," Mack said aloud, alone again in the Waiting Room in Limbo, rage leaking out of him and being replaced by self-pity. He said aloud, "It isn't fair, putting me up against all these famous people, to say nothing of spirits who can conjure themselves where they please in the twinkling of an eye, whereas I, a common, earthy sort of man, must proceed on foot, and make effort, and take every step that lies between here and there."