"Malambroso again!" Chalmers clenched his fists and glared at the fight going on near the coach. "Damn him!"
Fenwick's voice became irrepressibly and annoyingly cheerful, as he said, "OH, THAT WOULD BE REDUNDANT, REED CHALMERS. HE'S ALREADY AN ENCHANTER."
The deeper implications of that statement sunk in, and Chalmers shivered in spite of the heat, as full realization hit him. Heaven and Hell in Quixote's universe were not only real, but picked their teams according to profession—at least where his profession was concerned. He thought about what he had come to know from Fenwick's infusion of magical understanding. A corrupt knight would still fight under God's banner—while the most benign magician—himself, for example—would automatically be consigned to the ranks of Hell. Thus Harold Shea, who functioned well as a man-at-arms in these backwater universes, had been able to open a magical account with God—metaphorically speaking—while he, Chalmers, a superb theoretician and first water magician, was stuck banking with the Devil.
What he withdrew from the Devil's bank, he'd have to pay back. He had, thanks to Fenwick, a sudden and appallingly clear grasp of the mathematics involved. When he concentrated, he could see, on a glowing screen in his mind's eye, the tab he had run up with the Devil. He had acquired one giant chicken on his account, and one regular one—and the transformation of a knight into a lunatic. Quixote, in this universe, really was the mighty hero he appeared to be. Chagrined, Chalmers studied that part of his account with Hell and tried to figure out how he was going to apologize. Last but not least, of course, there was the replacement of the shurdono with a very good horse. He checked the price on that, and groaned. He had not realized how good pain had been for his soul.
Down the road, Quixote and Shea combined on final attack, and the two magicians and the coachman vanished in a puff of garish red smoke. Shea gave Chalmers a thumbs-up sign. Then he and Quixote rode to the abandoned coach and opened the doors.
It's a good thing Shea's proving adept at magic in this world, Chalmers thought, because now that I know what I have to pay to use magic, I don't think I'll dare. He tapped his horse lightly with his heels and trotted down the road toward the coach.
Harold Shea reached out to pull the coach door open, then stopped. The coach hulked over him, huge and menacing, exuding danger, and his nerves tingled at the slightest idea of looking inside. It was ridiculous, but he found the big black coach with its four stamping, snorting black horses more terrifying than the tiger had been.
"I like this not at all," Quixote said out of the blue. He stood beside Shea, looking at the door which still hung partway open. "This unseemly coach stinks with the taint of enchanters."
Shea would have felt better if he had been the only one experiencing a bout of nerves. "Florimel," he called. "Are you in there?" He noted a higher-than-usual pitch of his voice and winced. Piano-wire nerves—ugh!
Only silence answered from inside the coach.
"Perforce, we must enter," Quixote said. "I shall essay the first advance." He drew his sword and tapped the door open with the point of it. A carrion stink roiled out, laced with the faintest whiff of sulfur.
Shea's eyes tried to adjust to the darkness inside the carriage, and could not. The inside admitted no light at all. Almost unconsciously, he drew his saber.
Shea heard Chalmers ride up behind him and dismount. "I don't think Florimel is going to be in there," the older psychologist said. "Malambroso's deal with the Devil here has apparently given him legal rights to her in this universe."
Shea kept staring into the unremitting blackness of the coach's interior. It seemed impossible to him that he could make out no detail inside the coach, despite the light from the brilliant Mediterranean sun that blazed down on everything.
"Light, by God," Quixote demanded, and his sword glowed with pure silvery brilliance. He shoved the sword through the coach's doorway, and both he and Shea edged closer. Inside was still a featureless void— except for a narrow, crooked trail that began at the doorway and led downward, as far as the glow of the light could illuminate, and then, Shea thought gloomily, probably for an infinity or two further.
He sighed, and Don Quixote nodded. "Even so," the knight said softly. "Señor Geraldo, you have been a most brave and stalwart companion, yet I fear me this is a path only God's sworn knights dare take. Do you then pray for my soul whilst I descend—for I fear much that this is none other than the very road to Hell."
Shea's jaw jutted out in defiance of his screaming nerves and all common sense, and he heard himself saying, "Don Quixote, I was knighted once by Sir Campbell, and was a Companion of Gloriana's court in the land of Faerie"—common sense intruded, and he added, with a quick glance to his side—"as was Sir Chalmers here."
Quixote's eyes went round and his mouth fell open. "For two reasons, Geraldo, this cannot be. In the first instance, did you not tell me even after we fought those loathsome giants of Freston's that you were proof against the requirements of knights and gentlemen, because you were not one? I mind me you said it was for that reason you could strike the blackguards from behind."
Shea winced. "It was a technicality. I was knighted in Gloriana's universe, hut nobody in this universe had ever knighted me. I was just guessing that there wouldn't be reciprocity."
(Quixote frowned, and mouthed the word "reciprocity". "From what manner of world came you, Sir Geraldo, that you would think a knight in one world would not be such in any other?"
Shea sighed. "It's a long story—and you really couldn't understand unless you'd been to Cleveland."
"Perhaps not. These Clevelands are terrible things, no doubt, to make a brave knight such as yourself doubt his honor." Quixote's eyes narrowed, then, and he said, "But there is the second matter. How, if that one is a knight also"—and he pointed at Chalmers— "how can it be that he is in league with the Devil?"
"I'd hardly say he was in league with the Devil," Shea protested. "He's just having a little trouble getting his magic to work—"
"In fact, Harold—" Chalmers interrupted, "Don Quixote is quite correct. By the rules of this universe. I am indeed in league with the Devil—at least every time I utilize magic. You see," he added, turning to Quixote, "while I was knighted for my services to Gloriana's government, which consisted, coincidentally, of ridding the land of an enchanters' guild, I never served in the capacity of man-at-arms. I was and still am primarily an enchanter. Therefore, despite my good intentions, I find myself lumped in the same category as all other enchanters and most uncomfortably allied." Chalmers frowned and stared at the tops of his shoes.
"Thus the answer to the mystery of God's willingness to let one of his own serve a servant of the Devil. He was not such in his own world." Don Quixote steepled his fingers and stared over them at Chalmers.
"Well, then, fellow knights, let us to arms and assail the Devil in his summer home."
Chalmers started backing away, shaking his head, hands up. "I'm not going to Hell, Harold. My tab down there is too big right now—somebody might decide to collect."
"Florimel's down there. Doc," Shea said.
Chalmers stopped backing. "Why do you say that?"
"Malambroso, just before he vanished, said that whatever he had that wasn't his, he was going to hide in Hell. He told us to find it if we could. That had to mean Florimel." Shea magicked light onto his own blade and peeked back into the coach. The road to Hell did not look any better than it had a minute ago.